FADE IN.

GROCERY STORE – INT. – DAY
A man is standing at the sausage counter, trying to choose which one to have as a younger man appears behind him, with two children in tow.

Continue reading →

To You Pakarinen
I am DUANE COKER, the Personal Attorney to a Foreign Contractor, who
worked with a Multinational Oil Firm here in Cotonou Benin republic.
On the December 25, 2003 , my client,Engr. B. J Pakarinen ,a national of your country,an oil Merchant /Contractor with the Federal Government of
Benin,He died along with his entire family of a wife and two children in
airplane Boeing 727 ghastly Air-Crash.
For more about the Air Crash you can visit the CNN web news.
Until his death few years ago on one have call me or ask me anything as his Brother or Sister,
Before his death, he had an account with the bank valued at five Million Five hundred thousand dollars ( 5.5 M USD) at his Bank in Benin here.

Continue reading →

Walking back from Tallinn, Estonia downtown to the ferry that would take me back to Helsinki, I stopped at a … shopping place. Too shabby to be called a mall, but enough of a building not to be called a square, it was simply a place where entrepreneurial Estonias sell everything under the sun.

Continue reading →

Somebody sent me a message on Facebook this morning.

Hi, Risto,

I read somewhere that you own a book about Valeri Kharlamov. I’d like to buy it, if you’re willing to sell it. You can name your price…

Hockey greetings,
M

PS. You are the hockey writer, right?”

Continue reading →

You may want to check out Hunch.com. Just a gut feeling I have.

But I’m the opposite of a cat person. And I definitely don’t have a thing for redheads.

But sure, blue pens are cool. And it did recommend these professions for me:

An interesting read.

The end is nigh. The end of summer vacation, that is. Tomorrow morning, at about 8 am, I will be left alone in this home office of mine. No more bicycle trips to the pool house, no more making pancakes for lunch, no more football matches or games of petanque in the park, no more lazy days in my lazy chair outside while the kids run around with their friends.

Continue reading →

Let’s say you’re in charge of a big science park, a place that introduces science to kids and families. Let’s say you want to have a unique attraction, something to keep people buzzing about your fine establishment for years and years.

Because you know that what you have is pretty darn good. You have all the cool things that people love to try out; the Indian fakir spike mats, the mirrors, the car with the square wheels, and dozens and dozens of other cool tests that explain gravity, light, mathematics, and laws of physics in an entertaining way.

But, like I said, let’s say you also want to spice it up a bit. Would you go with dancing bears, or an Einstein lookalike walking around, solving math problems with the visitors, fireworks in a bottle, or a full-blown particle accelerator?

Or would you instead train rats to play basketball with a ball that – in its former life – used to be in a deodorant roll-on stick? And would you then stop there, or would you create a pro league for the rats?

You know how “they” always say that 80 percent of human communication is body language. Some of them actually throw the numbers around a bit, based on “new studies” – this is where Son would ask me if I meant that ironically, and I kind of do – or whatever happens to suit their message so who knows which number is right. Maybe it’s 55 percent, or maybe 93.

Let’s just agree that it’s very important, muy importante.

Continue reading →

FADE IN.

INT. CAFETERIA – DAY.

Two men standing in line to a buffet table. They work in the same office, but don’t usually eat lunch together.

Man in a suit and a red tie steps aside, and lets the man in a blue tie reach for the turkey.