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.