Soo… What happened now, you may wonder…
Well… some idiots thought it funny to hack into my blog, and that it was – with its whopping average of 20-30 visitors a day – a good source for traffic to get to all kinds of viagra and other medicinal crap.

Things got outdated on this blog already anyway, so what time is a better time to update than this time?

So here you have it.
From a different angle from a different angle. If you get my drift.
Enjoy!

… based on real life facts…

[exterior: the outside of the ladies bathroom on a near-deserted camping in the middle of nowhere]
The camera slowly zooms in. First the whole building, slowly up towards the sign hanging above the entrance. It reads “WC – Senoras”.

Bad C-movie, movie still

The camera pans down and zooms in further, now into the building.

[interior: toilet building with red matte tiles on the floor and impersonal, cold and bright fluorescent lights]
The camera pans to the right and shows four white ceramic sinks in kitsch marble stone. The taps look old and used. When the camera pans to the left we see four rooms on the far side of the wall and four opposite. The camera zooms in on the third room, the second last room in the building. It’s a toilet. The camera changes angle and pans down and zooms in further. First we see red tiles. Then we see a pair of flip-flops with feet, partly covered by pants.
The camera moves past the pants and shows a dark scene.

[interior: close up of the pants, the toilet seat is out of focus, but visible in the background]
We see two black hairy legs appear on the pants. Nothing more than the big black hairy legs. Apparently from a large insect.
Ominous music starts playing (think Jaws, dum dum dum dum dumdumdumdumdum).
The camera pans away for a second, only to quickly return so we can see two big black hairy legs (the hind legs this time) disappear in the pants.

[exterior: forest, dark and quiet...]
… only the muffled sound of footsteps on a thick bed of pine needles. The happy camper is returning to her tent after a little toilet break in the middle of the night.
Some stumbling and then the harsh sounds of a zipper breaks through the forest. The happy camper has closed the tent and has gone back to sleep.

Bad C-movie, movie still

[interior: inside the tent]
Our happy camper has taken off her shorts and has crawled back in her sleeping bag. Next to her, sound asleep, her happy camper partner. He’s sleeping on the floor, uncovered. The bed of pine needles under the tent is soft enough, and he found it too warm to use a sleeping bag.
The camera zooms in on the shorts lying next to the sleeping back.
Ominous music, briefly, but ominously, starts playing again. Dum dum dum dumdumdumdumdum.
We only just see two big black hairy legs crawl away from the shorts.

[interior: inside the tent]
The camera shows the happy camper partner sound asleep. He’s wearing only his boxers, because it’s so warm. He doesn’t seem to be dreaming, if he is, it’s not showing.
He turns around and grunts a bit. It’s not really a snore, but there’s something uncomfortable about it.
He kicks a bit with his leg, as if he has an itch.
It seems to be helping, because a faint smile appears on his face and he turns back around.
The camera zooms in on his face.
In his sleep he’s frowning. Maybe he is having a dream after all. He kicks with his leg again. More violently now. This time it isn’t enough.
The camera zooms out, pans towards the (maybe no longer so) happy camper’s leg and zooms in again. We see two big black hairy legs appear on top of the legs of our (maybe no longer so) happy camper’s legs.
Very ominous music starts playing. Dum dum dum dumdumdumdumdum.
The (maybe no longer so) happy camper wakes up with a start.
The camera zooms out quickly and shows the (maybe no longer so) happy camper grab the flash light. The flash light clicks on and suddenly the tent is bathing in light.
The camera pans and zooms in on the (maybe no longer so) happy camper’s leg.
On the (maybe no longer so) happy camper’s leg clumsily crawls a cute black beetle, trying desperately to find its balance and getting a hold, because the hairy legs of the (probably now again) happy camper don’t really give it much foot hold.

The other happy camper in the mean time has woken up in the consternation and sees her happy camper partner put the black beetle outside the tent.

Bad C-movie, movie still

[exterior: outside the tent]
The camera zooms out, showing the tent.
It zooms out further, showing more of the camping site. Then it pans, follows the path and shows the camping site’s entrance.

Bad C-movie, movie still

THE END

We flew with Spanair to and from the Canaries.

Cheap flights, but good service, be it you have to pay for pretty much everything and nothing’s included except for some really colorful candies that taste of artificial sweeteners.

But anyway…
They have a menu from which you can order stuff and on our way back, since I had read all five books and two magazines, a news paper and all the other readable stuff I could find, I turned to that piece of literary magnitude to ease my boredom.
When you have time, you start to really read things, and don’t just let your brain connect all the missing links.
So with all that time on my hands, I scrolled down the options (I was actually getting hungry too, so that might’ve helped), and came to the bottom of the menu where sandwiches were offered.
In the three weeks on the Canary Islands, where surprisingly little people speak English, my Spanish took a good boost. But having both English and Spanish at my disposal I didn’t feel like wrecking my brain and try to figure out the Spanish. I went straight for the English.

You can imagine my surprise when I read through this:

Spanair's menu on-board

I nearly soiled myself, and I had to go to the toilet, seriously, after that. Maybe it was so terribly funny, because I was so tired and so bored, but really…
These kind of mistakes have NO place in a menu anywhere.

(I still fall in a laughing fit when I see this, and I’m not even tired anymore )

We’re back from our holidays in the Canary Islands. It was awesome, in many ways.
The coming month (probably ) you’ll be reading all about it.

We’re starting here (for the small text you’ll have to check the big size of the image):

The Babelfish screw-up

(the copyright of this -horrid, I’m sorry- design lies with the one who made it, and it wasn’t me)
So as a design/marketing guy I always assumed that when you promote your company or activities, you make sure that everything is perfect. If you need multiple languages, you have the original text professionally translated, or at least have it double-checked by someone who knows a few words in both or all languages you have the text translated into.
Clearly this wasn’t the case when they made this little flyer and it made me laugh out loud when I read it.

This is a buggy:

Image courtesy http://www.imcaonline.es

And buggy in Spanish is buggy in English (that’s easy!). But if you do your homework right, buggy in English is not only this sporty extreme little vehicle, but it’s also these sporty little vehicles below (pram, stroller, coming in a variety of versions, with 3 wheels, 4 wheels, sun hood, etc. etc.):

Image courtesy of http://www.babyuniverse.com.au

So when you translate buggy from Spanish to English to German, it might just turn out as “Kinderwagen”, which means pram, stroller.
And here this company is sporting a colorful flyer promoting with a big German header “Excursions guided in prams”. Not only are there some really weird translations in the headers, but if you check the small text, they claim to have “Routes long and half”. The excursion includes “assurance” (assurance for what, really? Is it THAT unsafe?) and there’s something weird with 7-year-old major children.

And the above example was only one of many, many translation comedies I found.
Saving money is good, but save it from the correct places, I say.

I don’t typically fancy an assured excursion guided in prams with 7-year-old major children…

Not my own post, but something rather hilarious everyone should read:

http://www.shapelessmass.com/index.html/?p=578#comment-104

One of the pictures apparently has been doing the round already for quite awhile, but I bumped into this blog post only now.
And after reading and after I had recovered from my initial surprise I giggled myself silly.

It’s about an artist who had put up some pictures on his website. Another guy had made a website for his business and bluntly hotlinked -not even copied- the images to his own website and also used it in other things.
Then after awhile the artist took down the website or the images from the website and prompt got a mail from the other guy who threatened to sue the artist with legal actions if he didn’t put back the pictures, because he had used them in all his business material and had no longer access to them and this would damage his business.

I know… hard to believe, but geesh, did it crack me up

This is something that’s been bugging me already for a looooong time.
You hear it all the time, in every bar, with every party. And it’s all screwed up.
Wikipedia writes this:

Going Dutch is a slang term indicating that each person participating in a shared activity pays for himself or herself, rather than any one person paying for anyone else. It is also called Dutch date and Dutch Treat.

I’m not quite sure where they got that, or where this whole impression comes from, but it’s seriously lopsided.
It would make a lot more sense if they would call it “Going Finnish”.
One of the first times I came to visit my better half – when we were still living in separate countries – we went out to a bar with her friends. I stepped up to get a drink and asked everyone what they wanted to drink, wallet at the ready. All of them, not one single exception save for my better half, looked at me like I had too much space cake.
“Hmm, well… ummm… we’ll come along to the counter and see” was the reply, as everyone stood up and took out their own wallet.

Is it because I’m from the east of Holland? Do they do things different there?
I don’t think so. My friends back in Holland live all over the country and every time it’s the same. I buy a round and the rest of the night it’s everyone else’s turn.

What do you mean “Going Dutch”?
It’s screwed up. Dutch people are one of the most generous people on the face of the earth!

ARGHH!
Someone needs to rewrite the dictionaries!

Awhile ago I wrote something about this expecting it to be a lot more frequent that I’d update this. Maybe people have gotten more my taste, or then I haven’t really been paying attention enough

Anyway…
The other day I was walking with my better half through Helsinki city when I ran into this sad piece of work.
Like many of these kind of things I couldn’t help but giggle myself silly again.

I don’t think I need to elaborate on this
Not to completely discard the owner’s privacy I didn’t take any images of the inside, which was as sadly over-done as the outside with a fluffy, hairy steering-wheel cover and a wooden butt and back massage “carpet” (among others).

Lada

Lada

Lada

Again: tastes differ…

Simply Red is said to quit after they finished this tour.

We went to see them in Helsinki.
It was great. I can’t say anything else. The guy sings live like he’s in a studio recording an album.

And we witnessed a premier: for the first time in his career he dropped his microphone on stage
For that one of the lucky people on the front row got an autograph.

Go see them if you get the chance. It’s SO worth it.

(PS Apologize for the pictures. Taken with a point-’n'-shoot, from the other side of the arena, and I have NO clue how those work)

Simply Red on stage

Simply Red on stage

The after math of Finnish Labour Day, May 1st, Vappu, Vappen… It’s probably Finland’s most important and most looked forward to national holiday.
Also, it confirms Finland as the land of alcohol. To me at least. It’s not a statement that I got out of official channels, even though it’s globally known that Finnish people do like their share.

Although I try not to judge people, I sometimes frown upon people who are trying to make money the easy way (this generally involves all types of criminal efforts, and occasionally things related to social events).
But this one is just too easy to pass.
I remember from my childhood I would go to big events like motocross competitions or open-air concerts and stroll around the premises to find empty bottles and return them to the store for some extra cash.

Vappu in Helsinki is -seriously- THE best time and place to do such a thing.
I’ve been telling my better half already for a few years that I’m going to dress up as a bum one year and just stroll around Helsinki with big trash bags and a shopping trolley to collect empty bottles and cans.
And seriously… After today’s article in the Helsingin Sanomat (one of Finland’s biggest news papers) where it’s stated that there were about 29,000 empty champagne/sparkling wine bottles lying around Helsinki it’s all the more enticing.

Kaisaniemi Park, Vappu 2009

Bottles and cans all over the place

Imagine… Here’s what you get from stores in Finland if you return them empty:
Wine bottles and champagne bottles: € 0,10
Beer cans and beer bottles: € 0,10 or € 0,15
1 and 2 liter Coke (or other soda bottles): € 0,40
0,5 liter soda bottles: € 0,20

According to the newspaper:
29,000 champagne bottles @ € 0,10 = € 2.900,-

I dare to say that for every champagne bottle there’s 3 beer cans or bottles (I wouldn’t at all be surprised if that’s way too little), but let’s round that down for reality’s sake anyway:

65,000 cans/bottles @ € 0,10 = € 6.500,-

Not quite sure what the ratio of soda bottles would be in relation to the alcohol, but let’s be generously negative about that and put it to 5,000. And let’s assume that those are only the 0,5 liter bottles.

5,000 @ € 0,20 = € 1,000,-

That makes together: € 10,400.
Not bad for two days of picking up bottles.
And it cleans up the streets, too!

I wouldn’t think I would get ALL of it, but even if I’d pick up 5% of that I’d still have about € 500.
I’m sure I can buy a bum suit for € 500.
And the 50 cents for the shopping trolley I get back when I return the trolley together with all the empty bottles and cans

As a side note…
That same Helsingin Sanomat article (see link above) states that cleaning the city after Vappu costs the city around € 100.000,- each year.
Imagine if people weren’t too drunk or too lazy to clean up after themselves. Maybe the taxes would go down, too

Glada Vappen!

But important nonetheless

http://www.childrensbookstoreonline.com

One of my good friends from the US set this up just recently and I think he deserves some exposure.
Trustworthy resource so not like one of the posts I wrote before here.
Go have a look.