Feb 02, 10 : Please sign
They said, “pleez, pleez” and gave Peltonen some small flags, posters, and a pen. He said, “sure,” and signed a half a dozen autographs, and posed for a few photos.
(Some of my colleagues thought it was such a no-no that the KHL should be fined, but my story’s not going there).

Jan 31, 10 : Out of the box
In fact, I would go as far as to say that modern traveling makes us dumber. We’re not using our brains the way we used to, back in the, oh, 1980s.
Because we’re not forced to.

Jan 25, 10 : Mr Brown goes to Oxford
What a joy it was for a little pre-teen Finnish hockey guy to find a Zamboni on the pages of Peanuts, let alone strips abut Snoopy playing hockey. “Here’s the world famous hockey player winding up for one of his spectacular slap shots…”

Jan 18, 10 : Keeping up with the Ristos

Jan 14, 10 : Sign here

Jan 10, 10 : Sink or swim
“Risto!”

Jan 06, 10 : Don't sock'em
“Who’s going to like a guy who’s just being funny and doesn’t even want to wear socks?”Your mother, Son, your mother. And I’m not talking about your mother as your mother, if you know what I mean. If you don’t, let me explain. Your mother, my wife, the smiling little chickity that takes care of business in and around the house, once fell in love with a guy who was just being funny, and never, ever, wore socks in his shoes.
– Son, a week before Christmas, 2009
(He did wear shoes).
Yes, that would be me.

Dec 31, 09 : All new
Dec 30, 09 : The Best of the Decade: The best

Dec 29, 09 : The Best of the Decade: Two
Oh, oh, one more thing: remember, these are the stories that will assume the duties of Best Story of the Decade if the titleholders for some reason cannot fulfill their responsibilities.

Dec 28, 09 : The Best of the Decade: Three

Ladies and Gentlemen, in the third place:
Dec 27, 09 : The Best of the Decade: Four
Ladies and Gentlemen, only 4 you:

Dec 26, 09 : The Best of the Decade: Five
Ladies and Gentlemen, mambo number five:

Dec 25, 09 : The Best of the Decade: Six
Ladies and Gentlemen, the sixth best stories of the past decade.

Dec 24, 09 : The Best of the Decade: Seven
Ladies and Gentlemen, the seventh best stories of the decade:

Dec 23, 09 : The Best of the Decade: Eight

Dec 22, 09 : The Best of the Decade: Nine

Dec 21, 09 : The Best of the Decade: Ten
None of those things made the Best of the Decade list here at ristopakarinen.com. Instead, I will count down my Top Ten stories in the last ten years, in five different categories, between today and New Year’s Eve. Get the RSS feed, or check back every day. Now, you can search the archives for your own favorites if you want to, but the Official List is here.

Dec 15, 09 : Scotch on the rocks
Specialists from New Zealand plan to recover two crates of Scotch whisky left more than 100 years ago by the polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and trapped deep in Antarctic ice.Ladies and gentlemen,
– New York Times, November 17, 2009
Well, who am I kidding? “Ladies”? Good one. Gentlemen, welcome to the New Zealand Explorers’ Club. It is that time of the month again, and I am happy to see so many of our distinguished members here tonight. And even happier to see all the rest of you! HAA!

Dec 14, 09 : Checks and mates
Last night after you’d fallen asleep, I had one of my hockey games again. We lost, which is never fun, but I scored a goal which is always fun, so all in all, it was more fun than not.
Skating is so much fun. When I was eight or nine, a little older than you now, I used to dream that it’d get so cold in Helsinki that all the streets would freeze over and I could skate to school. Skating was so much more fun that walking, or running. (For some reason, inlines don't do it for me).
But I did have to to walk to school and back. If I didn't walk with my best friend, I was always kicking pieces of snow and ice, and after school I’d play ball.

Dec 08, 09 : How I kneed her
We were there, a group of us, and at some point, late that night, I rested my hand on J’s knee, a gesture that - I have been told later - sent shock waves through her body. At the time, I was unaware of this.

Dec 06, 09 : Fine land
I have never been as Finnish as during my first two years living in Sweden. I moved to Sweden in April, and by Christmas, I was an ultrafennomaniac. I read only Finnish classics, I listened to Finnish music, and I basically spent my weekends on those ferries, going back to the old country, to the old hood and the old buddies.

Dec 03, 09 : The News
I can now tell you that the reverse is also true. The more something stays the same, the more it changes.

Nov 29, 09 : Yes, we can
So, the more you eat, the cheaper it gets.
(Or, as with my old company which arranged a ‘bonus lunch’, the more I ate, the bigger my bonus).

Nov 27, 09 : Benchmarks
Yeah, the other day I went for a walk and thought about how I said that, and how right I was. I think I may have even said it out loud, “that thing you wrote about the benches last summer, on July 14, that was so right on, it was so true.” The thing that made me remind myself of that piece was a bench that I saw on my way to the mall.
This one:

Nov 24, 09 : Writers block traffic

Nov 13, 09 : You are my destiny
At the same time, he was still rooted in a tradition that was different from the one that the Beatles and the Stones and the rest came from.

Nov 09, 09 : See you in the future
On the advertising posters that you can see in the Stockholm subway cars, they run a few quotes from papers to add creditibility to the event.
One of them is by an evening paper columnist and it goes like this: “… this is the future.”
Oct 31, 09 : Get a move on

Oct 27, 09 : Six degrees to me
And when you think about it, the interview person is holding all the cards, really, unless you happen to know something that he doesn’t know you know, but that’s never happened to me.
Straightforward postgame interviews can be frustrating and exciting at the same time.

Oct 23, 09 : Pinko
Sometimes, Son and I play a game called, “Tell Me What Didn’t Exist When You Were Little, Dad”.

Oct 21, 09 : Bandits
You'll still get the texts to your client, but the rascals at the fake sites won't.
Thanks, amigos.
- Webmaster
Webmaster has been fired, for incompetence. His trick didn't work. Still, grab the feed here.
Oct 19, 09 : Being cool

Oct 18, 09 : Fit for flight
“What do you get when you throw a mobile phone in a bathtub?Pretty good, right? Before you scroll down and start ripping the joke apart - as is the custom on the Internet - let me add this tiny bit of information: The joke was written by my son, six years old.
Answer: Speech bubbles."

Oct 15, 09 : Poor brain
People who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information do not pay attention, control their memory or switch from one job to another as well as those who prefer to complete one task at a time, a group of Stanford researchers has found.I suppose that would be you, dear reader, at the receiving end of my emails, blog entries, tweets, and text messages. Please don't try to read them all at the same time, and at least please don't try to listen to my puckcasts while reading this.
All kidding aside - but still, don't do it - I found that study fascinating. Today, I finally listened to (while driving a car) the On Point podcast with the professor behind the study trying to convince a couple of twenty-somethings that those who try to multitask actually are worse at focusing than those that don't multitask. The high multitaskers also had worse memory and were slower to switch from one task to another than those who didn't multitask as much.
"They couldn't help thinking about the task they weren't doing," Ophir said. "The high multitaskers are always drawing from all the information in front of them. They can't keep things separate in their minds."The brain is not made for multitasking, the captain said. And well, I think I've known that all along, even though I can chew gum and walk, even run, at the same time. But I cannot listen to CNN and read the ticker at the same time.
Can you?

Oct 12, 09 : On speed
One day on third grade, each of us had to leave the classroom at some point, sit down with the teacher, and read as much of a book as we could in 60 seconds, out loud. I can't remember how many words I read, or even what the book was.

Oct 03, 09 : A legend
Oct 01, 09 : Sudden end
Some 15 kilometers north of Grand Hotel, there is Edsbacka krog, one of two restaurants with two Michelin stars in Sweden. The inn is in the heart of Sollentuna, next to the Edsbergs castle, which in turn overlooks Edsviken, the Baltic Sea bay, a beautiful public park where Swedes go for picnics, and walks and runs, and, on the other side of the water, a hockey arena.

Sep 30, 09 : Echo, echo, echo...cho...cho-o-o?
This is why:
Sean Simpson channels Herb Brooks?
Sulander gets belated respect
"No love for Hallenstadion"
"We underestimated them"
"ZSC on top of the world"
For Sulander, it's now or never
And now I'm in Finland, my old country.
Sep 25, 09 : Puckarinen
Sep 24, 09 : Cheeks in the mail
I’m sure it was the latter.

Sep 23, 09 : The legend of the blue pants
Gloves are so padded that when the players do the now-ubiquitous gloved hand-clap to thank the fans after a game, it looks bizarre, unnatural. Same goes for the helmet, the socks (yeah, right), and the pants.
When I was four years old, following my father to hockey games in Helsinki, I was fascinated by goalies who, to me, looked like freaks of nature. I mean, where did these people live? I had never seen such creatures - with their wide legs, their chubby upper bodies, and their big, blocky hands - out on the streets.

Sep 22, 09 : Honk if you like honking
That’s why honking is often interpreted as something hostile, like a rude gesture, or a shove in the back. An elbow to the ribs in a crowded elevator.

Sep 11, 09 : When in Rome (or Italy in general)
WIFE, SON, and DAUGHTER lift a lot of groceries from a basket onto the conveyer.
WIFE
Put that pasta on there, please, Daughter. Thanks, good job. And Son, don't pile all the stuff in one spot, OK?
WIFE, SON, and DAUGHTER keep adding groceries onto the belt.
WIFE
I wonder ... I wonder which side the bar codes should be. Oh, see, over here they have the bar code reader installed facing up, in the same place where we at home have the scale, so we should probably turn the groceries so that the bar codes are facing down, OK, Son?
Husband, can you give me that divider bar so that that lovely and picturesque Italian couple - don't look now, but he looks just like Rocky's brother-in-law - behind us can put their stuff on the belt.
HUSBAND
Here.
WIFE
No, wait, the bar code reader is where it is at home, so everybody, turn the groceries over so the bar code faces us.
INT. ITALIAN GROCERY STORE - DAY. CHECK-OUT LINE 6:

Sep 10, 09 : A piece of meat

Sep 01, 09 : Sleep less in Stockholm

Aug 30, 09 : The end
Aug 28, 09 : Speechless
It was very subtle, actually, but the signal was there. Something about the man was a little off. Not the hat, it was fine. It was an old NHL hat, last season's design, but OK. It wasn't the windbreaker - we were on a boat, after all - and it wasn't the pants, although they were kind of big, and baggy, and not in the cool way. But I didn't notice that until afterwards.
After I had seen the subtle signal.
He smiled at me which was a nice enough gesture for me to forgive him for cutting in front of me in the line. Besides, I could tell he was traveling with friends who were already standing in front of me.
But. What made me do a double take was this:
The man had his shoes on the wrong feet.
Aug 24, 09 : Two hearts
He was lying on his side, supporting his head with his hand, stroking Wife’s hair gently. She was lying on her back, reading a magazine.
Aug 22, 09 : From A to Z


