It sucks to be a Finnish hockey fan right now, the Olympic team players are dropping like flies. Goalies Miikka Kiprusoff (possibly the best goalie in the world, and their biggest chance for a medal), Hannu Toivonen, and now Kari Lehtonen are all (probably) out of the tournament. And it's not just goalies: Tuomo Ruutu, Sami Kapanen, and Joni Pitkanen are also probably going to stay home.
Now I'm a big geek about Finnish goaltenders, and there are quite a few really, really good ones, but with three of the best out with injuries, I'm just not sure about their chances for a medal now. Nittymaki and Norrena are the best of the rest, but they were both going to be third string for the team, now one of them is going have to be #1. And I had just started becoming a serious Lehtonen fan. He won't make me a Thrashers fan (like Kipper made me a Flames fan), but if he's playing and there's nothing else on, I'll watch just to see him. He's impressed me in the few games I've seen, and was making me think he could be almost (but not quite) as good for the Finnish team as Kipper would have been.
A Finnish Flames fan taught me a Finnish swear word, and I'll have to use it here: perkele. I hope that means what I think it means.
What's with that adage that celebrity deaths occur in threes? First Shelley Winters, then Wilson Pickett, now Anthony Franciosa. Ironically, he was even married to Shelley Winters in the '50s.
Probably known to many as "that intense Itallian guy, not Tony LoBianco, not John Saxon, the other one." Recommended tribute viewing: "Tenebre", "Across 110th Street." I watched "Zombie Death House" so you don't have to.
Well, the city's auditor decided to count the ways. I was happy to participate in this survey (why do I love filling out surveys?), and it was interesting to see what everyone else had to say about our wonderful city, and what my fellow Brooklynites think of our little slice of it.
We love: Our parks (duh), our transit system (duh), our recycling program (but hate how much it costs), and our fire department (that was a little bit of a surprise).
We hate: Our sewer system (which will be getting better, they're spending billions on an update), traffic (duh), city planning (sorry Stevie), and we don't trust our police.
The biggest surprise for me was how unsafe people feel walking around at night in Portland. I've never (well, very rarely) felt uncomfortable in my neighborhood, downtown, or pretty much anywhere in Portland at night. And I'm a petite woman with no martial arts training. Granted, I didn't want to go downtown during our recent spate of "gang-related" shootings in the nightclub district, but that was short-lived, and I'm over it.
The survey also higlights the biggest problem spot in Portland, the Powellhurst-Gilbert neighborhood, aka "Felony Flats." Those residents pretty consistently rated everything lower than the rest of the city. I guess if I lived out there, I'd be pretty bitter about the city, too. No sidewalks, ugly run-down houses, cheap shoddy apartments, tweakers and their residue. Maybe the audit will stimulate some interest in solving some of those problems.
Anyway, I'm seriously considering nominating myself for the Brooklyn Action Corps board. I've lived here for almost 12 years, and I know the history and issues of the neighborhood pretty well. And I care. It's a nice neighborhood, and we don't get much attention. Plus, I can run on a platform of starting a rumble with Sellwood, our antique-loving, island annexing (long story) neighbors to the south, which is a long-time dream of mine. I'm not much of an organizer, but I can get things done myself, and I'm not afraid of bureaucracy, so maybe I could be a good board member. Never thought of myself as really going into politics, but BAC is pretty low-key, and I might just come away with a feeling of having accomplished something positive.