Grey Gardens.

I know I am going to sound so preachy today, but quite frankly, I do not care.

There are places where people should keep their mouths shut. Church is one of those places. I am not a religious person, but do want to respect those who are and not yell at the places they find important. To me, the place where you just shut the fuck up is a library. But at least here it seems to be so hard to understand.

I made a visit to our local library yesterday and when leaving they building I was ready to strangle a person or two. There were these two teen groups. The other ones were keeping really weird noises and I can tell, when you are trying to concetrate on a magazine you´re reading and there isn´t a moment of silence, it starts to bug. But they weren´t the ones I was ready to hurt.

It was a teen boy and two girls sitting and reading an imaginatively named sports magazine Urheilulehti (Sportsmagazine would be the literal translation. See what I mean...?). They kept talking about what to do in the weekend and every second word was fuck. I do use the word sometimes, but when there are less other words than that one particular curse word, well, it annoys a lot. And no, they couldn´t keep their voices low like everyone else there would have done, they kept talking like they would have been at some loud event. Maybe it is just me, but I was raised with some kind of manners and not talking loudly at the library was one of those things I learned when I was old enough to understand.

But the thing that really made me see red, was a comment one of the girls did. I don´t know which athlete it was at the mag, but all of a sudden the girl says (loudly, of course):"Fuck, that man is disgusting. I can´t stand those and the girls that like those sweaty black guys." I was like, it is the year 2008 and there this girl sits, saying a horrible racists comment on a pro athlete. Seriously, how can anyone say something like that? So prejudiced, so racist. I think no one should be treated badly, to thought they are inferior to us just because of their colour, that when you are white you are somehow a better person. Because you are not. No matter what. I mean, some of the greatest people on sports, popular culture, politics aren´t white. I should have asked that girl what she thinks of Barack Obama... I could never be so prejudiced that girl was. I don´t say I don´t have biases againts people I don´t know. But I am willing to get over them. Any day. I mean, for god´s sake, I would lose heaps of things that are important to me if I suddenly started to think some people are better than others. Haven´t people learned anything from the 19th and 20th century? Then again, these teens seemed the kind of people who don´t pay much attention at the history class... Remember, no matter how you are ranked you are never better or worse than other people unless you think so yourself. Drop the racism and maybe the world will be a little better place. Right honeys?

This is just like the thing with religion. Everyone seems to think muslims are bad, but I happened to take a look at a document at FST5 yesterday where three completely normal Finns were talking about how thay had converted to islam. Emphasis on the word normal. Maybe it´s the media...

The last thing I heard from the girl in the library was when she said she´ll travel to another town for the weekend to get drunk, because everyone here is a teetotaller. And here I was, thinking it was only me and two or three others. Seems like I was wrong. Pardon, you annoying loud racist girl at the library, my bad.

And something a bit less preachy. I happened to see the video of Another Way To Die today. It´s fine, I´m actually starting to like the song. But why on Earth is Alicia Keys credited before Jack White when it is obvious White has done most of the work on the song? It is unfair if you ask me. The song is catchy, I´ve had it playing in my head for a while now.

I picked up one of the best books I´ve come across this year so far. The novel is The Road by Cormac McCarthy and it is amazing. I´ve read half of it and I´m totally hooked. It is a story about a man and his son in a post-apocalyptic world, trying so survive while making their way to the southren states of US. The world has met some kind of disaster and most of the life is gone, everthing is covered in ash and people are desperate. The story is great and the way McCarthy writes has really impressed me. His languege is so plain and and he descibes things in a laconic way. I had heard so much good about this novel around ETS and nin.com that when I saw it in the shelf I had to pick it. And I´m not disappointed. I really like it. The movie adaption is premiering in US in late November and I can´t wait to get to see it here. It will be so depressing and agonizing, but no doubt good. Viggo Mortensen is playing the main character.

And as it is the last international match day until next year, I´m going to torture you guys with football a bit. Finland lost to Russia 3-0, two of those goals were own goals, which is shamefull. Russia was good, just as good as I expected and Arshavin is just as great everyone say he is. And the goalkeeper of Russia is pure gold. He is what, 22 and absolutely faboulous. The Russian really deserved the win, Finland was doing awful job. But there are great things about Finnish football.

Those of us who were watching the u21-team play last night witnessed history being made. Finland u21 beat the unbeaten Austria making their way to the European Championship played in Sweden next summer. It was a thrilling match. I didn´t watch all of it, but the extra time made me so nervous and the penalties. Well, Finland ruled and Maanoja was a real hero saving two of Austrias penalties. Great times indeed, I admit I had tears in my eyes when I saw the jubilant team. And I loved the sight of an Austrian player being hugged and supported by some of the crew because the young man was so disappointed he was crying. For a moment I thought of freezing the picture, it is so lovely to see a man cry.

I´m going to spend the rest of the evening with Seleccion Espanola and update the results when the matches are over.

//Fine, all the matches aren´t over yet, but I ain´t staying up for the result of Portugal-Albania...
Greece was beaten by the Swiss and Northern Ireland won San Marino 4-0. Darling Czech Republic managed to score once against Slovenia, enough for a win. Poland lost against Slovakia, something I didn´t see coming. And German-Wales 1-0, apparently not a very good match, heard Löw was having a constructive talk with the fourth official, again...

A non-goal draw between Estonia and Turkey is quite a shock, as our southern neighbour has been without points this far. Croatia and England beat Andorra and Belarus respectively and Italy seems to have found the way to win again, Montenegro went 2-1 down. The Netherlands and poor Island both scored once and thus beat Norway and Macedonia. Austria-Serbia ended with the result 1-3.

And the Belgium-Spain. Seleccion Espanola leaves Brussels with three points, the result being 1-2. The conditions went from bad to worse to worst as it was raining extremely heavy in the end. The men just kept falling down because the grass was so slippery. The match started bad as Belgium scored at the 6th minute. Bad news for every El Nino fan too, Torres was injured and left the pitch straight to the dressing room at the 12th minute, he didn´t even wait to see the substitution being made. He had tears in his eyes as he pulled a muscle on his leg. Right now Marca is saying he´ll be off at least ten days, so he´ll miss the UCL game againts Atletico Madrid. I´d be crying too if I were him.

But there was a lot of good too. At one point Puyol had one of the greatest saves in a long time. I still think Villa was having a bit off day, eventhough he put the winner in. Spain was showing some truly great passes and Fabregas (the substitution for Torres) gave Iniesta a dream cross to score the first goal. I know I´ll sound partial, but Fab was having a fine match, he played truly well and seemed to enjoy. Oh, in case you are bored tomorrow, try to find a video of San Iker Casillas dancing after the goals. It looks hilarious.

This is all for now. I´ll get to bed and hopefully sleep without odd dreams. The "I´ll write just a little and end uo with a Russian novel" -saga will continue later this week, provided that I have something to say. Until that, have fun and take care!

IWFT