Lorindól

That was pretty wild development, yes. But still, we will not make any territorial claims. Doing so would effectively render the protection provided by NATO’s Article 5 null. We would once again be alone against a nuclear power with much larger resources than we could ever have.

So we won’t be doing that.

Finland won’t make any claims. This much is certain.

The only way we would even consider restoring the stolen lands would be IF the Russian Federation falls and IF the initiative for reunification would come from the Karelian Republic.

In Finland it’s called “driving shit rings”.

All hail the Gerbil King!

There is some truth in this. Many of us have slavic ancestry, especially those in the southeast regions. Myself included, due to my Karelian heritage. In western Finland it’s much more rare.

Nevertheless, call us Slavs and there will be blood.

One would assume that Sony Pictures’ vast catalog of flops would have taught the mother corporation to license the money machine IP’s to a more capable studio, but no.

The inescapable corporate interference will prevent any singular vision to prevail and these will be messes with lightning fast cuts to serve the Tiktok generation.

I wish I am wrong.

My last brew was a pale ale-weißbeer - hybrid and it turned out fantastic. I used Magnum and Hallertau Mittelfrüh hops and weißbeer yeast, the resulting flavour has a tinge of aniseed/licorice root in it. The IBU is somewhere near 30.

I made a 23 litre batch for Christmas and New Year’s celebrations, I should have made 2 batches. Guests shared my opinion of the quality and yearned for more ;)

Playstations 3, 4 and 5 are capable of playing Blu-Rays and DVD’s. I guess the same goes with the later Xbox-models, assuming they have an optical drive.

I cannot fathom why one would purchase any console without one.

The intranet at my work is a near-useless dumpster fire. Everything is disorganized, all the important documents and instructions are hidden behind completely chaotic branches and layers of creatively named folders.

I have used the wretched thing only once. I instantly downloaded everything I thought I would ever need to an encrypted USB stick, so I would never have to use it again. This was 7-8 years ago. Everything important is always delivered by email and apparently stored to the intranet afterwards. The intranet has been hacked at least twice, but the real number is most likely much higher. For “reasons”, all the personnel info has also been kept stored on the intranet, despite the successful hacks.

HIM’s demo-version of “Wicked Game” is even better than the album version. I remember how disappointed I was when the original cover wasn’t on their debut album.

I was 12 when T2 came out. I remember all my friends talking about how young John was the coolest kid ever, which I never understood. But I have always had a quite different mindset than most men of my generation.

I am fully aware I’m pretty much alone with my opinion, but I find Terminator 1 far superior to T2.

Even with the limited budget T1 manages to create a far more horrifying vision of an unstoppable killer coming after you. The lo-fi’ish synth soundtrack sets a perfect oppressive feeling. The casting is perfect, Michael Biehn’ s scarred and wiry Reese with Hamilton’s young and scared next door girl going against metal-Arnold in his prime is the epitome of underdog scenarios.

And the pacing is very good, the plot flows.

T2 is a good film, but like many sequels, it suffers from the “let’s do the same thing from a different angle, but bigger and louder!” - syndrome. It doesn’t really get to be it’s own kind of beast. I was very surprised that Cameron fell for the trap, after he avoided that mistake with “Aliens”. Switching genre from space horror to space action made that film stand firmly on it’s own feet and the result was good.

Lastly, T2 has the young John Connor doing the “badass kid” - role, which so many seem to love. I just find the character annoying.

Yep.

I just read an article about a blind trial between a present day ~3000$ hifi-set and an equally expensive (value adjusted, of course ) and perfectly restored late 70’s hifi-set. Among the listeners were a couple of audiophiles, musicians, journalists and one pro audio engineer.

They listened to 5 pre-selected songs in FLAC via a top-of-the-line DAC plus one song of their own choosing.

Everyone else gave 7 or 8 points to either set, but the audio engineer gave just 4 to each. Most of the time the audiophiles were unable to recognize which set was playing.

Afterwards they did an audio labratory sweep on the sets and found them basically equal in terms of sound quality, the only major difference was a drop in the 70’s set mid-hi frequencies, which was theorized to be the result of reversed polarity in one of the tweeter elements. None of the participants mentioned noticing this directly, but the audio engineer did talk about “unclear higher frequencies” in some songs.

Andrew Robinson’s vision of the Garak’s character was that he was sexually attractred to Bashir right from the start. Playing this openly would have been way too much for 90’s TV, so he stuck to the idea but downplayed it. Which most likely is the reason why the interaction between these two characters was so great.

Perfumes or scented products are not a problem for me at all, unless of course someone uses way too much. Like I said, I kind of block all the unpleasant stuff unconsciously and focus on the good ones.

It’s kind of like listening to radio, all the channels are broadcasting all the time, simultaneously, but you still tune in to listen only one at a time.

And when I’m intoxicated, theyre all blaring at the same time and cannot be silenced :(

I don’t usually bring this “gift” of mine up in real life, it tends to create pretty awkward and unpleasant situations.

“Oh, if you have such sharp sense of smell, then tell me what deodorant/lotion/perfume I’m using?” How the hell could I know the names of every hygienic/cosmetic product, especially when the reek of detergent, fabric softener and sweat is mixed with the scent I’m supposed to recognize?

Or people just laugh at me and call me a liar.

But my friends are aware of my talent, when someone is considering to buy an apartment they often ask me to accompany them for a presentation. I can tell almost instantly if there’s water damage or mold. When I was buying my own apartment I found one spot under the stairs that had a very faint but odd smell, like wet cement mixed with the smell of a wet dog. There were no water pipes or sewers even near that wall, nor were there any signs of leaks from above. I called the seller to ask about this and he started laughing. The spot was their old dog’s favourite place to curl up for a sleep after a walk in the rain. And it was years since the dog had passed away, they had even painted the wall once and renewed the floor laminate after that. So no worries, I bought the place.

Yeah, Covid was a freaky experience. I got off easy, no fever or other symptoms, I just realized one day that I was unable to smell freshly cut grass. Then I realized that I did not smell anything at all.

My sense of smell started coming slowly back after a few days and I can’t tell if it’s diminished or not. But after Covid every brand of whiskey smells and tastes like vomit to me, so there was a price to pay. Also the smell of someone eating rice cakes became utterly disgusting, as well as yogurt. Before Covid I barely registered these two.

I do not know. I have never actively tried to smell ants nor had them inside any apartments I’ve lived in. I shall test this when summer returns one day. But I do remember that the ant guy wrote about having some genetic quirk that ables him to register some compound that’s out normal human range of smell.

I have a hyper sensitive sense of smell. Sometimes useful, most often a nuisance.

At work the roof had small leak few years ago, I could smell the wet concrete several days before the water reached the ceiling of the upper floor office and became visible. I told my boss about the leak as soon as I had first smelled it and located the correct room. “There is no leak here, you’re just imagining things” was the response after I showed the room to my boss. “There is and we shall see in a few days.” After 4 or 5 days the ceiling started dripping water and I received an apology.

I’ve been able to mentally bypass most of the awful smells of the world and people around me as long as I can remember, so it isn’t so bad. But after a few drinks the mental filter turns off and I can smell everything, including my own metabolized alcohol infused sweat. That is not fun at all.

Right.

Along the years I have managed to scrounge together almost all the gear I always dreamed of when I was young. Nothing really expensive or fancy, but good quality second hand stuff that would get things done right.

But there just isn’t any time to use them. And if by some miracle a bit of time appears, it’s guaranteed that I’m dead tired and choose sleep.

Maybe one day.