Good Things Come From Finland

Well, Finland and surrounding area. I know Jeremy Hotz was traumatized by his last trip to IKEA, but I would be quite content to be trapped in the showroom for an extended period of time. And, yes, it's OK to admit we all love ABBA. Nobody needs to know what's loaded on our MP3 players.

I guess it has to do with the patterns of conquest in the Middle Ages that has resulted in modern age trends, but I do find it odd that while you can easily find a Qiang, or a Hamid or a Benoit around, rarely do you come across someone with a purely Scandinavian name outside of the NHL. Yet within Finland, it seems that 48% of them are named Juha, and another 48% Ville. Common enough monikers, that don't seem to cross the border. Is it that these people don't want to leave home? It must be very nice there. Thank goodness they export things.

Here are some of my favourite Finnish items, in no particular order:

1) Linux. It's open source. It's high quality. It's amazing. Anything you could possibly want to do, all shared freely with the entire planet. It's very fitting that the name of a recent, and very popular distro is Ubuntu, which translates from an African language as "we are one" or "humanity towards others". It also is *not* a memory hog, as it can run the OS and a full featured office suite and graphics editing program (the GIMP, my favourite) off a single CD (*not* DVD, CD). It's become so popular that Dell is starting to offer it on their machines.

2) Nokian Tyres. (They spell it that way.) @&#&^#% awesome! @&#&^#% expensive, but worth every penny. I got the WR's, which are "all conditions" tires. Not all seasons, but all conditions. And they're not kidding. Sure you slide around a bit on ice and you still have to be careful, but it's way less than with the crappy Continentals that came with my Toyota. And hydroplaning? Doesn't happen. I renamed my car "Tank" after I bought these things. I no longer have nightmares of snow storms in July. I no longer consider staying home on the first snow of the year.

3) Nokia Cell Phones. One of my earliest cell phones was a Nokia and I thought all of them were that good. Then I had a Motorola. Maybe it was a lemon, but if I had it in my pocket, I couldn’t hear it ring. I now have another Nokia, since my last one could pick up a signal in the lowest level of a concrete parkade, no problem.

4) Jari Kurri. Ever wonder why Wayne Gretzky never won a Stanley Cup after leaving the Oilers? It's because he split from Kurri. Foolish mortal.

5) Music. Charon, Nightwish, Apocalyptica, Reflexion, Morian, HIM. These guys are all amazing musicians. Metal from elsewhere just seems to be noise, but these groups could compose for symphonies, and I think Tuomas from Nightwish actually does. Unfortunately, not all groups from Finland are good, so some discernment is required when buying CD's. I once watched a Children of Bodom video which featured a girl running away from some smacktard . . . OK. I tolerated it to the end, expecting girly to whip out a BFG and make herself a meat pie, but it never happened. I mean, come on! At least have her respawn and *then* get the BFG. It was so negative. (ChubbChubbs for you, bad guy!) Life has joy in it—be happy people!

6) Enviro-Housing. Finland seems to enthusiastically pursue ways of making things more energy efficient and finding ways to reduce pollution. I hope this attitude spreads world-wide before the ice caps melt.

Is Finland the only extremely cool country on the planet? Gosh, don't even get me started on Japan!