Dear friends,

A few years ago, world’s leading scientists realized that due to some cosmic changes, our astrological signs weren’t valid anymore. At least one sign was missing completely and there was some confusion about the Sun’s place in the house.

We at IKEA, as you know, can’t stand any confusion in any house. According to our new strategy, we will become the “Google of the analog world”, and will help you organize, systemize, and simplify your life.

That’s why we’re proud to introduce to you the new, improved horoscopes, or IKEALOGY. No longer will you have to figure out the cutoff dates between two signs, because for simplicity - one of our key values - we kept the number of Ikealogical signs at twelve, but the new signs will align with the calendar system we’re so used to anyway.

Simple.

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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit! Duis elementum neque in sem scelerisque quis dapibus diam adipiscing - very adipiscing. Pellentesque mollis arcu ac enim tincidunt volutpat. Sed facilisis dapibus convallis.

Romanes eunt domus.

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Here's a quick recap of the year 2012 - a collection of first lines of stories published in the New Yorker throughout the year (not including fiction).

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I’ve known you all my life, and I’ve always been very fond of you. Well, mostly always. I’m not very happy with you now and that’s why it’s time we have a little chat. Quite frankly, I’ve been putting this off long enough, and I do appreciate everything you’ve done for me in the past, so don’t think I’m going to enjoy this.

Ahem. You need to shape up. You’re a little too loose these days. I liked you better when you were wound up tighter. It’s like you used to care but now you just let it all hang out in the wind. I think you’re not even trying anymore.

I’m looking at you, face.

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In the name of full disclosure, I am not a Swede. I’ve retained my Finnish passport, citizenship, and most of the values in my 12 years in Stockholm but I have also added many new ones. Values, not citizenships. One of the things that hasn’t changed, though, is my appreciation for the Swedish Chef, which is why I was so surprised to see this story about Swedes being tired of getting asked about him. Or that, gasp, he wouldn’t be funny!

This past summer, my two kids, my beautiful Swedish wife, and I have watched a half a dozen movies together: Ice Age 4, Madagascar 3, Mary Poppins, Wizard of Oz, The Muppets, and Alvin and the Chipmunks 3. And which ones are the kids talking about afterwards? Mary Poppins, the Oz, and the Muppets. Which songs have been in heavy rotation all summer? The ones from the Oz and the Muppets.

And whose picture is on my son’s wall?

The Swedish Chef’s.

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In just a few months, on September 19, the character combination known as “smiley face” will turn 30. I’m sure it’s going to be a wild and crazy party full of interesting characters. Maybe even & and * will turn up, even though it was exactly those two that Smiley pushed aside thirty years ago.

Of course, it’s not just Smiley that has its birthday because Smiley’s sad twin brother, Frownie, was born just seconds later, making its first appearance a mere two lines later in that email message Scott E. Fahlman sent his Carnegie Mellon college colleagues.

Smiley’s come a long way from being a pain in the neck - or at least causing pain in the neck when people were told to look at it sideways - to being our best friend, the trusty sidekick that knows exactly how to convey our feelings, when words aren’t simply enough.

Seeing the original Smiley still makes me smile, but these days mostly because it’s like seeing an old friend. I don’t really use his services anymore, because I often use the more streamlined and faster version of the Smiley. The Noseless Smiley: :)

In fact, you can tell a lot about the person you’re interacting with just by looking at the smileys they use. Here’s a quick guide to the most common ones:

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Summer: GÖK

Life was perfect. Our home had become exactly the kind of haven of peace and tranquility in the world of stress and chaos we had wished for. Agnes was going to take a sabbatical from work, she wanted to go back to school and study something. IT, I think. And I loved my job, to be honest. In other words, everything was so great that I started to worry about the future. Something was going to happen.

This just couldn’t last, that much was obvious. And if things couldn’t get better, they’d have to get worse.

Nothing ever stays the same.

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Fall: MÖRKEDAL

Our next trip to Ikea was a true case of hit and run. We had already decided on which bed we wanted. Agnes was supposed to just walk in and buy it, and since she already was going to be in there, maybe grab a pack of napkins and candles. There couldn’t have been many left at home anyway.

I was driving the getaway car. My job was to sit in in our rented van at the gas station across the street and I would only get involved if they did have the couch in the warehouse and some muscles were needed.

Who were we kidding anyway? We didn’t really need me in the purchase process.

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Winter: TOMELILLA

Our first visit to IKEA hadn’t gone unnoticed by our friends. Agnes’s friends almost fainted when she told them. After all, we had gone to the fantastical furniture house after just three months of dating. And not only that, we had also bought something together. Something big. Something real.

As far as the Swedes I knew were concerned, we were practically engaged. Agnes would have the right to half of everything we had ever bought from Ikea. In our case, that meant 50 percent of everything in our apartment.

That’s right. Our apartment. We had just moved in together.

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Hey, I found an old story in the archives, and I thought it'd make a nice summer story. I'm on vacation with Wife, probably riding our bikes around town, stopping for cups of coffee, reading good books, and hanging out. Below you'll find Part I of the story that will be published in four parts in the next four days, but automatically - at 9 am CET - so I can, you know, stay on vacation.

Summer: FAKTUM

“At IKEA with the missus. He he he”. That’s the message that marks the public start of our relationship. While my Swedish, pigtailed girlfriend was checking out a blue kitchen cupboard, and measuring it with her eyes to see how it would fit in my apartment, I was leaning on a wall some 10 meters away, sending text messages to my friends.

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I know that people laugh at me these days. They call me “Old Hat” behind my back. But I don’t care, I know who I am.

The hat and 200 dollars in my pocket were all I had when I first came to this town. I am the hat.

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Dear world,

Jimmy didn’t do it. He didn’t steal those billions of dollars. Trust me, I know. I am his grandmother and he was with me that whole week a couple of years ago because I had a sore throat and I needed love and attention. That and Jimmy’s special tea with honey. That usually cures any sore throat in just 24 hours. That time, however, it took me a whole week to get better.

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NEW YORK – It was worth the hype. Just two days after its launch, “2012”, the latest version of Year, a life experience interface, has collected over seven billion users, making it the most popular Year in history.

Year has managed to add new users in most of its existing markets, a feat not many analysts thought was going to be possible. Also, while Year has dominated the global marketplace, it hasn’t always been embraced by the Chinese, leaving one of the biggest markets untapped, but “2012” seems to have broken that barrier.

The new Year is built on the same platform as the previous version, the “2011”, but users now can make slight modifications, such as opt for better nutritional and workout habits, a feature that the 2011 also initially had, but that disappeared mysteriously in early February in what is suspected to be an attack by the Anonymous.

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Number one!



July 9, 2010 » Interlude


Click here for full story

A little linguistical joke there with the headline. See, "seis" is number six in Spanish, but it also means "stop" in Finnish. And, so, I thought ... well, you get it.

Counting down to Christmas here, peeking behind number 6.


March 23, 2010 » Open Letter to the Renovation Guys
Gentlemen,
Welcome back to our humble home. It’s not always this humble, but ever since the tiny water damage in the upstairs bathroom, we’ve had to make some adjustments.

Click here for full story.

“Great athletes never have lousy names. If your name is Frederico Trepalano, you are not going to be a great ballplayer. Michael Jordan is a great name. Easy to remember. Seven letters and six letters. Usually, if they combine to thirteen, they're good names. I'm into numbers.”
– Larry King, Esquire, August 2010

Easy for Larry to say, isn’t it? Larry King is the perfect name, nine letters and all. The “L” kicks it off nicely, then there’s wide, American “arr” that makes your face really work, the “y” ties the “arr” to the hard “K” perfectly, with the ringing “ing” as a radio stinger, leaving audio ripples in the air, a pause that you don’t want to break when you hear the name so you just sit there, in awe.

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So, what's going on here? Write your suggestion in the comments section.

The 117-year-old star in character, Vanity Fair style:

Matti Vanhanen sits in his kitchen and makes coffee. It’s early, the clock’s not yet six, but Vanhanen has already been up for a good half hour. He’s showered, and fed the few animals he keeps on his farm. Four cows, a few pigs, and a camel.

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Happy New Year ... and remember these words: A new law »

Where I live, honking is a lost art. I’m not going to tell you where I live, out of paranoia, but I will tell you that it’s getting pretty dark pretty early around here these days. And that people are polite and fairly quiet, and don’t wave their arms and hands when talking.

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.

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Beatles’ lost tweets uncovered

LIVERPOOL – Jimmy Sutton, Chief Support Engineer at Clean-IT Ltd in Liverpool, England, recently made a discovery that changed his life. Called in to repair damage after a networking company’s server crash, Mr. Sutton discovered a compressed file, apparently not accessed in decades, and containing hundreds – maybe thousands – of Twitter messages.

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Oh, to have the power of the sports execs.

Lost and found:

Relax. Take it easy. Put your feet up and enjoy. NHL Bloopers.

Here's the link. The embedded version was annoying some very important people.

Here's another one from nhl.com. I'll file it under "lighter side".

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My son is working on a magazine of his own, and you know what? I made the cover! We had the photo shoot last night. Here's the cover shot:


Having seen that, I must say that I am a little curious to see what he did with the interview.

My name is Risto Pakarinen, and I'm a freelance journalist. A mid-evil mercenary. Judging from all the emails I get every day, many of you dream of being freelancers, too. "How did you get your very own blog?" people ask me. Well, let me tell you.

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A local businessman was stunned to realize the meeting he attended at lunchtime required no input from him whatsoever.

"I think this proves one of the oldest economic theories wrong. There is such a thing as free lunch," Kenneth Adam, CFO, said. "I just had one."

The meeting with a local tax consultant was arranged by Mr. Adam's PA.

"I did nothing but eat: my PA fixed it all, I didn't buy anything, and I was totally texting with my buddies all through the lunch, like I always do. I'll even bill somebody for my time," he said.

"Frankly, when my business school professor said there was no such thing as free lunch, I believed him. This is mind-boggling."

AC Milan defender Paolo Maldini misses the next Champions League match, a quarterfinal game against Bayern München, for disciplinary reasons, the club announced today.

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David Beckham, former England captain, announced today the acquisition of the English national team. “There’ll be some changes,” Mr. Beckham said at the press conference.

The terms of the contract were not disclosed, but according to our sources, Beckham is said to have paid 200 billion pounds for exclusive control of the national team for three years.

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I'm in Finland for the Finnish Custom Publishing Day, and staying at a hotel. Every time I eat alone in a restaurant - and that happens regularly on my numerous visits to the old country - I think about this movie: Steve Martin, The Lonely Guy.


No spotlights on me tonight, though.

Weird Al gone bad. Well, no, he did "Bad" a long time ago. Here he is, white and nerdy.



Lyrics after the jump.

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This hilarious silent movie version of Star Wars off of BoingBoing:

This is a blog entry I wrote for the NHL Blog Central, but, well, I know that not everybody visits nhl.com every day like I do. So, here it is.

A Swedish newspaper reported that the NHL is in talks with Jerry Bruckheimer about having the Hollywood blockbuster producer bring some marketing spark to the league operations. Bruckheimer’s movies have grossed over 10 billion dollars, so the man sure knows how to get some butts in the (movie) seats.

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circa 1985



Yes, I file this under "humor." Spede, the star of the video, was a comic genius, but in English, this is funny on yet another level.