Step Right Up for Your X-Mas Black Hole Pill!

I just ate way too much. It is christmas, and well, my friend had a dinner for few friends, yours truly included.

And exactly the thing happened as for so many people in western countries during this time of the year.

It came to me. Why not some scientist make a pill. One with a black hole inside. It would eat all your extra food you gathered during the holidays and would come out through natural ways.

You could keep eating the whole night and it would just eat up your extra stuf. Would get rid of that feeling of overfeeding...

The real people's politician

I had an idea today. If lots of the politicians are puppets nowadays, they are puppets of companies, industries, political parties and such. What a politician should be a slave of?

A politician should be a slave of the people. People elect him, because they want him to serve them; to do their bidding. Now, we need a young, independent politician who takes this literally. More and more people are using the internet. A lot of them are not interested in politics. This young, YIP (just figured out a cool abbreviation too!) creates a web page, an on the page two sides. Public and members. Public is free for all, the normal self promotion, as usual. Of course what the idea is, is quite rebel-like so the YIP should be independent, so the pressure inside the party don't grow too high. (Besides, YP doesn't sound as groovy.)

But the member side. To be a member, you should have few options. This is still a thought I had today, so bare with me. One, definite option should be a member who's on his electioral district, enough age to vote and preferrably his supporter. You can sign up as a supporter, no problem. No check-up there, if not necessary. Who knows if it's going to be misused. But in any case, a possible vote should be given the membership if (s)he so requested.

Another should be a junior vote, with, obviously, less authority or voting possiblities. But still, their opinion should be at least noted, if not taken in account. Not yet old enough to vote, but still a possible candidate in few years.

Then perhaps also those who don't live in the same electoral district, but show their interest - and have possibility to move to the district and vote, even if they don't have plans to. With their ideas.

Create a forum where people can post their ideas, requests and concerns. Make polls. When there's a question on the forum. "Please ask about the problems in my neighbourhood, and how they are going to be solved." - You make a poll out of it. "Should I ask in the next meeting, when I'm having my stand at the podium, about this problem in this neighbourhood?" - And if there's enough votes, you ask that. If there's a lot of questions, and you think you can handle 5 questions in the next meeting, make a poll out of those ideas. "Which of these I should as about?" - And just pick the five that have the most votes.

Also, when there's voting in the Parliament, or where ever you are elected to, ask before on the pages. "There's this vote. What should I vote, A or B, Yes or No?" - Again, most votes win.

How to count the votes? I don't have experience of politics - not even a YIP, so I don't know which you should count to the voting with those who are possible votes for you: The underaged, but possible future candidates (there may be some legal issues here...) or the people who live outside of your electoral district. And how to count? And how much should their opinion weight? You decide.

This would get the young people to take interest in the politics. This would rise the overall interest in the politics. There would be publicity and media would be really interested in the YIP who first promises to do and then does exactly what the people want, while using a new medium to communicate with the people. This would also force the other politicians to ask their voters' opinions every now and then. As far as I know, no politician has ever done that.

If you like the idea, and you are a YIP or YIP-to-be, please contact me for open discussion about the idea. And should you use this idea, please, at least mention my site (on-line really soon) or this blog. I'm planning to go to space, and I want more people to come to my site (to-be) and this blog so they can make my dream come true. Here's the link to the Send Sami To Space -Project. Maybe even score a donation or two...

Happy Birthday Finland!

Today is Finland's 89th birthday. Happy birthday Finland!

Open letter to creators of Charlotte's Web (2006)

Dear Gary Winick, Paramount Pictures and other art haters.

I know you like money. But please, pretty please, do not crush my childhood memories like this. It may seem to you that it is a good idea to make a live-action movie of Charlotte's Web, but it just doesn't work. It was so heart warming movie as a cartoon. From my childhood I can remember few good movies. Charlotte's Web, The Snowman, Ronja Rövarsdottir, Pelle Svanslös, to name but few. Ronja I can imagine as a remake, but those other movies you just can't do remakes of.

Who would like to se The Snowman as a live-action movie? What, put John Goodman as the Snowman, Haley Osment as the kid and expect a good movie out of it? (This is not a tip for you guys, I'm serious!)

The younger generation might not know Charlotte's Web, but there's already Babe, Babe II and what have you. The kids are gonna watch this blasphemy of a movie and compaire it to the Babe movies. They already saw the talking pig movies, so it's nothing new in that, but then you have a spider as the other main character. Babe with spiders? They are not going to give the respect the original movie deserves. Like the Garfield movie... Only saw a trailer of that one and that was enough.

Some things you just can't transfer to other format. Who would like to see a tubby kid play Charlie Brown? Danny DeVito as Winnie The Pooh? Wind In The Willow I can forgive, since I know Monty Python guys won't do such a vulgar thing to a masterpiece like Gary Winick is doing. (Pee Wee Herman could be funny Bugs Bunny... Naw, kidding...)

Not to sound too much like raving "don't touch the old stuff" -freak, I have to admit, lots of my childhood comic books have been transferred to big screen succesfully. Spider-Man is one of my all-time favourites and those movies were brilliant. Can't wait for the next one. (Like, Venom's gonna be there: Spidey lost his powers about the same time as John Jameson came from his space mission... He's infected! And Harry's gonna be the new Green Goblin.. And maybe, if we're lucky, even Dr. Curt Connors (Peter's teacher in SM2) as The Lizzard!) And I just can't wait for the Transformers movie to come out! X-Men were brilliant, Batman Begins I can understand. But please, please, please, no more live-action films of Charlotte's Web, The Snowman, Pelle Svanslös, Charlie Brown, Winnie The Pooh or such. They don't do anyone else any good, except the wallets of those who make them. Let something be sacred.

Re-issue the old Charlotte's Web on DVD, and you guys can be sure that people who were kids in the '70s and '80s will buy that film "for their kids". Pay your villa and your Ferrari with some other stuff, say, like with an original idea. Have you tried that?


May the ticket sales be slow,

Sami Rautiainen

Cure for hickups?

This friday we had a huge farewell party for a friend. Another friend got quite drunk and had the alcohol induced hickups bothering him. Well, there's a cure for it. Had to show it to my friend.

It only works when you have drank too much alcohol, not for the normal kind of hickup.

Sugar.

When you rise your bloodsugar quickly, it resets your diaphragm and eases the hickups. So take a cube of sugar, or two. Put it in your mouth and just little bit of water. Or any other non-alcoholic drink. Important: Non-alcoholic. Let the sugar dissolve in your mouth with the tiny bit of sugar and the sugar goes quicker into your bloodstream.

This'll help a bit.

I don't think there's a cure for the normal hickup. The scaring, drinking water upside down, breathing into a paperbag... none of it seems to work. But for alcohol induced hickup, sugar helps.

Nightshopping

Amsterdam is a really weird place. I was just coming home, it's now 20 past 1 in the night. I saw few CD's on a stand on the street. A record shop was open.

Found couple CD's I just couldn't leave there. Found Digweed's Los Angeles (GU019) and Marlene Dietrich's Her Greatest Hits. Funny thing about the shop is the owner was sitting inside, sipping red wine with his spanish friend. They have been open for more than 24-hours in a row already.

...only in Amsterdam...

Didn't have wine with me and didn't want to ask for a glass, but it seemed like a nice place. Could've just sat there chatting about blues and jazz with the guy. (Seemed to be quite blues and jazz oriented place, although there was also like all Led Zeppelin's albums, lots of AC/DC, Rainbow and such.) Maybe some other night I'll bring a bottle of red and sit there for a while.

My Mouth Is On Fire!

Excellent day!

Had a day off from work and just when I planned to go and grab something to eat, my doorbell rang. It was a delivery guy. Now I got nice chili sauces. I've been tasting them, but now my mouth is so numb that I can't taste the difference anymore.

I guess I'll stick to the mildest I ordered for today. Still hotter than my last sambal... Finally, sauces I don't have to complain about being too mild.

Check it out. Hot Sauce World.

(Oops... wrote this thing too long. My mouth got it's taste back. Got to fix that. Bye.)

DJ Mag's top 20 VJ's: #10 - Alex & Jeremy

Just found out that a friend of mine, Jeremy got to DJ Mag's top 20 VJ list 2006, in position 10.

Nice one Jeremy! Next year #1!

Kerry's frog leaped out of the throat

CNN tells us Kerry apologizes the troops in Iraq for saying if students don't study proper, they might get stuck in Iraq.

Also BBC has an article about it.

It's all around the newspapers.

President Bush: Show us Kerry was wrong. Send all of the congressmen's children to Iraq and prove once and for all that it is not only the poor and low-educated that go to Iraq. You have no need to exploit nor debate the remark any longer, after you've done this. It's an easy win to Republicans if you do so.

I want to see an army recruiting van in front of Yale and Harward. Bush, just do that, and I'll believe everything you said about Kerry being wrong!

The new-untouchables

I'm worried about the decline of general discipline in youth. With all this fuzz about children's rights and protection is working against the children. Protecting children against paedophiles is only a good thing. But protecting children against parent's upbringing does not serve the public interest. They outlawed all forms of corporal punishment towards children in Finland. This means parents are no longer allowed to take misbehaving kid to their knees and spank them.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm against violence. I'm against corporal punishment in schools. Kid's discipline through corporal punishment is in my opinion on parent's responsibility, and theirs only. There is a difference between smacking a kid's tooth out with a fist and spanking misbehaving kid on the bottom. Using a fist or a leather belt is violence and should stay outlawed, regardless of the situation and age.

When I was a kid, I didn't even think about saying bad words to elder people. I had respect. When there was a group of us, say, 10 teenagers, and if we were misbehaving as teenagers sometimes do, any eldery person could just come to us and adjust us verbally. We didn't even think about stabbing that guy with a knife. What I read from the newspapers nowadays? 16-year old stabbed 20-year old in a subway with a kitchen knife. What in the World was the teenager doing with a kitchen knife in the subway anyways? This goes on and on. Kids don't have the proper discipline nowadays. I wish I could say it's the fault of the parents, but it's the fault of the society that prevents parents raising their children as well.

You need to raise the children with discipline, so they can survive in the corporate world. I would not hire, little alone give a raise or promote a young professional who uses the f-word towards me. We have an old saying in Finland. "Joka vitsaa säästää, se lastaan vihaa." - Roughly translated: "Who saves the cane, hates the child." And this is true. Now if I see 13-year old kids beating up a granny, I don't dear to go in between. I get shanked. Better to call the police. But the police can't do anything to correct those kids either. They can just stop the beating that time. If a kid is under 15 there's very little police and authorities can do.

Father Erkki Auranen from Kouvola's lutherian church was talking about the same thing. He also is against fists and leather belts, but also says you should punish a child out of love, not hate. You should explain the child why he/she recieved the punishment. It doesn't work anymore if on the confirmation in church you are told about 10 commandments. "Respect your mother and your father." Those are just words to the kids in the sunday school. You need to raise the children to be good. But even the church elders disagree with this. Bishop Voitto Huotari told this is incorrect and was worried that a man of God is talking about this kind of things. Maybe Bishop Huotari is an anarchist and don't believe in discipline anymore?

They even cut the authority of the army in my country. When I was in the army the sergeants were complaining that their training was much rougher and they are not allowed to give same kind of discipline they recieved. Not that I thought about it that much, but when the next group came in and I heard about the new rules that came summer '99 to the army. For example: You are not allowed to shout to a person, only a group. You are not allowed to make soldiers run as a punishment. You are not allowed to shout wake up call in the mornings, but have to go to each room separately and with normal voice tell them to wake up. Basically sergeants were not allowed to adjust soldiers in any other way except writing a letter to the company leader. It fights against the principle of the army when you hear a sergeant commanding a soldier to clean up a mess in the soldier's own room and you hear him reply: "F*** you, I'm going to the café!" What can the sergeant do? Write a letter to the company leader? So much for respect...

And this fights agains the meaning of the training. If there would be a war, and a squad leader needs something to be done, it is unsafe for the whole squad if one starts to say: "Wait a second... Go over that fence and shoot that window... They might see me. Let's talk about this order one more time..." or even worse: "Me run there? You mad? No way! Run yerself."

And if we have some people who take practical measures in action, we'll put them down too. Aftenposten writes Principal Anne Lise Gjul at Dvergsnes School has some issues with pee around the walls and toilet seats. I understand the frustration. I'm a guy and I'm ashamed to go to public toilets. Men just don't know how to pee in the toilet while standing. Maybe I have inferior and weaker specimen, but I can aim to the water at the bottom of the bowl and it doesn't spread around the toilet seat. (Which should be in upward position if you choose to stand while doing your business.) Most of the time I sit down on the seat, since I don't like to have sprinkles on my legs. Test it out your self. Go to pee without pants on and you'll feel little sprinkles on your legs, no matter how you pee - if you're standing.

Bringing children's rights to pee while standing and commenting on that decision on a nationwide level is absurd. What Anne Lise was doing is practical, not trying to bring any male/female thing into it. It saves the cleaner a lot of work. Also, the men's toilets in general are in horrible condition. If the school has urinariums, no problem. But the toilets are not really ment for that. Would anyone object if your office wouldn't have smoking facilities and you are a smoker? No. There just isn't smoking facilities. If the school don't have urinariums, don't stand while you pee.

Rocks are not good for humans. They help ducks to digest, but they provide very little help to humans. If a teacher sees a kid eating small rocks, is the teacher not allowed to tell the kid to stop that? During the school time I think the teacher should stop the kid from harming himself, either directly or indirectly. Regardless if the kid has the "human right" to do so.

It's not about human rights, it's not about opressing children. It's about saving the cleaner a lot of work and also about this thing called hygiene. Please, I beg of you Anne Lise, teach Vidar Kleppe about hygiene.

Please, love your children, teach them respect, discipline, hygiene and if nothing else, to save themselves from themselves.

To ban or not to ban?

Liquid ban on European airports?

But not a complete ban.

History:
CNN writes about new Terror Alert™ Aug. 28.
Washington Post has news about lifting the ban on liquids in U.S on 26th of Sep. And British newspaper The Telegraph writes about it two days later.

But wait! BBC wrote about banning liquids in Europe the same way it was in the U.S. a day earlier than Telegraph knew about lifting the ban. So what's gonna happen to UK? They lift the ban and put it back? They just lift the ban? The ban is not lifted? I'm confused. Do they follow Europe or not? They are a part of EU, right? Or apart?

Why is it I'm getting a little funny feeling that it can't be coincidence that most of the airlines stop serving food and drinks on the house just recently? It's convenient for airlines; people can't bring their own cans of beer and bottles of water to the plain so they have to buy their drinks from the plane?

That can't be right, if you trust Scotsman. They say airlines and EU oppose total liquid ban. ...wait a second. Total liquid ban? Not partial ban... Oh, that's Sep. 6. ...couple of weeks before Washington Post and Telegraph writes about it.

Should ask Reuters about that anyways.

But what really confuses me is you can still bring 1dl of liquids that must fit into 1 litre transparent plastic bag. What's the purpose of this?

You still can bring your toothpaste, but you can't bring a can of soda?

What are you more afraid of?
100ml of Nitroglyserine or a can of beer?
100ml sodium cyanide or shaving gel?

Besides, these baggy pants kids wear nowadays. How do you prevent some hooligan smugglin' sum water in his pants? Train water dogs? Maybe they oughta bring some camels over. They sniff water better than dogs. I can't wait for the news headlines.

Thanks to customs' new water-camels, customs officers managed to capture 17 thirsty teenage water-smugglers today at Heatrow international airport.

I just don't get the point.

Sami's Specially Sweet Sambal

I just made some nice sambal. Here's how:

20ish Red Pepper (I think it was Capsicum Frutescens - around 8-10cm long ones.)
10ish Yellow Peppers (Might've been Capsicum Chinese - Looks like Sweet Pepper/Paprika, but it's 4cm long.)
1/4 to 1/3 Mango
1/2 Banana
1tsp Honey
Pinch of Parsley
Black Pepper
5 gloves of Garlic
Juice from 2 Oranges
Twist of lemon

Take the seeds out from the peppers. (They are bitter, rather than hot... Although they are hot too.) Keep 2 gloves of garlic, 1 yellow pepper and 4ish red ones on the side. Blend the rest in to a smush. Boil the orange juice away, until it's sauce-like. Not too much, otherwise you kill the hotness. Blend and add the rest of the peppers and garlic at the end, don't boil more than a minute.

The idea is to bring the edge back when adding them at the end. Boiling chilli makes it milder.

One might want to put salt in it. I don't. Also red wine or red vinegar might go fine. Instead of vinegar I used just a bit of lemon.

It's very sweet, but with a nice afterkick.

Use with barbeque, might go nice with chicken, on bread, oriental food - well... anywhere.

a skwish illustrator/designer

Found nice illustrations from skwish. Check them out. I like the LP section especially.

Carambole, not only a fruit

I think I found my new hobby.

I like to play pool, just normal 8-ball or 9-ball usually. Whatever localized rules. But yesterday the place where I was going was closed. I ended up to a place just down the road. There was a pool table, but it looked quite weird. It didn't have any pockets!

Me and my friend were asking what's going on with the table and they told us it's a french pool -table. French pool is also called Carambole - like the fruit. Apparently you have 3 balls, white, yellow and red. The idea is to shoot the white one and to hit the other two balls with the white one.

Got stuck to that table for over 4 hours. The first half an hour was pathetic. You'd think that since I play pool, this should be easy enough. Only two balls to hit. No, way more difficult. You need to really think where the white is going.

Lucky me, the place is just around the corner where I live. So most likely easiest way to find me over the next couple of weeks is to find Carambole tables in Amsterdam. I'm sure after couple of months you'll learn precise accuracy and exact soft shots this way. Also, half of the shoots you seem to need curve on the ball, so it's good practise on my curves too!

I recommend to all who want to practice their curves and to count where the white will lay.

Game Boy Around the World

Haha... Found a funny collection.

You ever seen Amelie? the garden gnome thing was pretty funny. And this is a collection of a kid who plays Game Boy around the world... Game Boy Around the World

I guess that kid plays a lot of games and his dad thought this is a funny joke.

T-Shirts!

T-Shirts are available now!

Only in CafePress at the moment, but it's a start!

http://www.cafepress.com/sami2space

Boxer design...

I checked the account yesterday. After two days I already got plenty of donations! Only $199 975 to go! Thank you all so very much!

A new boxed design is on its way. Also, planning to create a certificate on PDF format for all those who donate and send me their e-mail addresses!

A draft of the boxer design:




Keep posted. The shirts and boxers should be available soon!

First T-Shirt idea and backup charity idea

The first T-Shirt sketch is on its way...

For US it's most likely going to be in CafePress.com
European customers can get theirs possibly from SpreadShirt.net

Also, if all fails or exceeds expectations, the charity organization to recieve the donations is most likely going to be Finland's Mental health association.

Here's a draft of the shirt-to-be:


P.S. First donations are in! Thanks Arimo.

PayPal activated

Ok... PayPal is now created for Send Sami To Space -Project. You can now make donations and help me to go into space!

Thank you all in advance.

I have to think few other things as well. Website has to be created, T-Shirts have to be designed...

Well, maybe soon.

Send Sami To Space -Project

Finally found a reason for blogging...

I want to go to space!

Virgin Galactic is starting it's first commercial flights on 2009. And I want to be the first finnish astronaut!

My name is Sami Rautiainen, born 1979 in Finland. Currently living in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and working for an IT-company. When these flights start, it is most likely that only upper-class people have enough money to go to space. That's why I'm asking for all of you to join in the Send Sami To Space -Project. I am relatively young and chronicly broke, so there's no way I can afford to go there all by meself.

The goal is to get the $200 000 + travel expenses to US. I am going to check PayPal and possibly my bank's IBAN and SWIFT codes, so all deposits are welcome. I think I need to first open a new account, since I don't want to mix the money with my own.

If I don't get to space or if the project gathers more money than required, I am going to give it away to charity. So possible charities are welcome. Just post them and what is being posted most often is most likely to be the reciever of the money.

I think I'm going to start writing about myself and my values here, so people get bigger idea who I am. And maybe write this same thing in finnish... and possibly some other languages that I barely know...

Keep posted for more updates.

Logging in.

After a huge pressure from my friends I agreed to start a blog... I guess this is going to have the normal stuff I blabber about normally. What is normal anyways? And what do I blabber about now?

Anyways... Gonna write something then tomorrow ... ... or soon...