So much for xmas eve dinner....

[Crazeyal]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

NO!!

NOT STAR WRECK!!!


(2 years ago they had a glitch at Dragoncon's in-house tv channel. They played that movie just about 5 times a day!!!)

*hides*

[wagegoth]

I studied German in high school. I'm surprised sometimes when I suddenly remember phrases and words. I also studied Japanese.

[Chromatix]

If you know some German, then you probably do have a couple of advantages:

- Swedish signs and labels will be slightly more familiar to you than if you only spoke English. Finland is officially bilingual (except for Åland), so almost every official sign has a Swedish equivalent.

- Finns who don't speak English *might* speak German instead. On the other hand, they might speak Russian instead. However, most are helpful enough to find someone who can speak English if they don't themselves.

I find that a very few Finnish words are familiar from colloquial British English - but that is because they have come from Old Norse by two different routes.

Finland was part of Sweden before about 1808, and part of Russia between then and 1917. The history, if short, is fascinating. Read about it - you'll learn things you never knew about WW2 if nothing else.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Why are retail workers not entitled to time off too? Why do shops need to be opened until late Xmas Eve and Boxing Day? It's corporate greed which has got us into the current economic situation!

Because of all the people (let's reach deep into our bag of descriptive words and call them "idiots") who have to wait until the last minute to shop, and thus corporate sees a need for the store to be open.

For my company, Christmas Eve is one of the busier days of the year, even though the store closes early, and Thanksgiving is rising up the list too.

Me, I blame the people who just have to run out on holidays to buy that one last thing. If there wouldn't be so many of them, it wouldn't be worthwhile to keep the store open.

[wagegoth]

Finland was part of Sweden before about 1808, and part of Russia between then and 1917. The history, if short, is fascinating. Read about it - you'll learn things you never knew about WW2 if nothing else.

I remember reading about the Finns fighting in WWII. The picture of one unit in white suits on skis has stayed with me since I was a child (WWII was not that far back in history when I was a child; I'm old). Isn't this sort of military training the basis for the Biathlon in the Olympics?

I have a great respect for the Finns. They took a country that was basically living in the Middle Ages and grew it into one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world. They also made a point of establishing excellent social programs and governmental systems.

[Cia]

OMG the movie was hilariously bad...gotta tell my brother about it. Now I know what Finnish sounds like.

[Chromatix]

The same people are doing a new film, Iron Sky, which promises to be just as good. This one will probably be in English, mind.

Apparently the Biathlon originated from Norwegian military (well, Home Guard) training. Finland is, however, credited with inventing Nordic Walking, as a replacement for skiing when there isn't any snow.

And here's a brief rundown on Finnish achievements during WW2:

They fought the Red Army to a standstill in Winter 1940/1 (the Winter War). As later in the rest of Europe, the USSR wanted "breathing room" around their major cities, and the Finnish border was at that time too close to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). So they invaded while everyone else was occupied with the Axis.

At this time, Finland received limited aid from Sweden (neutral) and Britain (a few Hurricanes, which arrived too late to be useful) and the US (who offloaded a pile of Brewster Buffaloes, which nobody else could find a use for).

The Soviets were mostly relying on tanks to invade Finland - a perfectly good tactic at that time. The Finns didn't have anything to directly counter them with. So the local bottling plants started making Molotov Cocktails instead of drinks, and the soldiers dropped them down the exhaust pipes, after lying in ambush. A dangerous tactic, but it worked far better than anything else.

The subsequent truce cut off about 10% of Finland's land area, including the city of Viipuri which Finland had successfully defended, with great effort, from the Soviet advance.

Later in 1941, Finland started receiving military aid from Germany instead, and fought back all the way to their original border. And stayed there for pretty much the rest of the war. They could have advanced further, but simply didn't bother. The Germans were slightly annoyed that the Finns would not help with the siege of Leningrad, despite being not all that far away.

The Finnish Navy did blockade Leningrad pretty much completely, mostly with a single submarine of German design. This submarine is now on display as part of the island fortress of Suomenlinna.

The Finnish Air Force, flying a combination of the "useless" Brewster Buffaloes, German Bf-109s and a mismatch of other aircraft, obtained the highest kill-to-loss ratio over the entire war. This is attributed to having more pilots than aircraft, and who were highly trained and motivated. It was also helped somewhat by the Soviets concentrating their best forces on the Fascist threat rather than on their "puny" former territory.

At the end of the war, Finland managed to persuade Hitler to send more military aid to hold off the Russians, even as Germany itself was under threat from the Allies. As soon as it arrived, Finland pulled off a brilliant tactic to sever political ties with Hitler. The Finns had never supported Fascism; they simply played for resources.

Thus Finland was among only two European countries who survived attack without occupation at the time. The other was Britain.

And yet Finland was required to pay huge and crippling reparations to the USSR afterwards, and was not permitted to retain the 10% of it's land which had been ceded after the Winter War. Finns still believe this to be a huge injustice.

Even today, Finland's artillery force is the biggest in the world.

[Pagan]

Star Wreck - a film

Watched it a couple of times and I still don't get why the Enterprise is firing on Babylon 5?????

[Chromatix]

It's a parody of the Star Trek universe. In The Pirkinning is actually the *seventh* film in the series, though the early ones were hand-drawn animation rather than live action. Star Wrecks 4.5 and 5 are the previous live-action films, which properly set the scene for the latest one.

Captain Pirk is arrogant and aggressive like Kirk, but he is also stupid and incompetent, as are most of his crew. (Except that Dwarf can actually aim, and Info has literally all the common sense on the ship.)

Star Wreck 5 Lost Contact is a fairly direct parody of Star Trek: First Contact, where the Potkustart is roped into helping stop the Korg attacking Earth, the Korg go back in time, the Potkustart follows them... and the crew gets stuck there after bungling everything, as usual. This is where In The Pirkinning takes over.

Where does Babylon 5 - or rather Baabel 13 - come in? That's the "alternate universe" that the maggot-hole leads to. Captain Sherrypie is just as arrogant, stupid and incompetent as Pirk...