Top of the Pops
I am a slave of the pop culture, at least up to a point. On this section you can find out what I like.
TOP 65 films ever (updated 1.9.2006)
1. Star wars (IV-VI)
2. Before Sunrise & Before Sunset
3. Out of Africa
4. Dead poets society
5. Brokeback Mountain
6. Romeo & Juliet (Baz Luhrman)
7. Thing called love
8. Winterguest
9. Magnolia
10. Will Hunting
11. How to make an American quilt
12. Lord of the Rings: (FotR, tTT, RotK)
13. Legends of fall
14. Robin Hood-Prince of thieves
15. Gone with the wind
16. Amelié
17. High fidelity
18. Wonder boys
19. Reality bites
20. American beauty
21. Forest Gump
22. Orlando
23. Circle of friends
24. Little women
25. Wag the dog
26. Trainspotting
27. Two Towers
28. Being John Malkovich
29. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
30. Notting hill
31. Heavenly Creatures
32. Piano
33. The Ice storm
34. Great expectations
35. Moulin Rourge
36. Shawshanks redemption
37. Sabrina
38. 10 things I hate about you
39. Dances with the wolves
40. Holy smoke
41. Much ado about nothing
42. Billy Elliott
43. Dogma
44. Masters of the Universe
45. Miekka kivessä
46. Lion king
47. Prinsessan murha
48. Neitsyt Maria ja ilmestyskirjan pupu
49. The cider house rules
50. Interview with a vampire
51. Hamlet
52. Jar head
53. Virgin Suicides
54. Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants
55. Lancelot
56. Pleasantville
57. Pulp fiction
58. Spaceballs
59. History of Violence
60. American Histoy X
61. Hyvät, pahat ja rumat
62. Looking for Richard
63. Sleepers
64. X-men
65. Go
66. Cruel Intentions
Top 30 TV-series
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Favourite character: Spike
Natural choise. I am a Buffy fan. I find the buffyverse to be something I really
enjoyed for a long time. Must be ten year or more now. I doubt that's going to
change. I've been an active Buffy fan as well, being at the board of two FinBuffy
events in 2003 and 2004.
Angels in America
Favourite character: Harper
Gays, Angels, Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson, Not to mention fab dialogue, amazing
Mary-Louise Parker...What more could a girl want. Oh, hunks! ""
Battlestar Galactica
Favourite character: Starbuck
Just found it this spring of 2006 and love it. In how many series do you have a
girl lead bunching the man she loves and him hitting her back? Oh, right, in
Buffy... loves Starbuck, wants to be starbuck.
My So Called Life
Favourite character: Rayanne
Oh how I adored this series. I grew up with it, it was exciting, all that my own
life in High School wasn't. Thank you for those times and all the quotes in my
bathroom wall. "There's something about Sunday night that REALLY makes you want to
kill yourself"
Homefront
Favourite character: Ginger
"You got to Ac-cen-ctu-ate the Positive!" I saw this series in the nineties and it
was always my favourite one. My favourite character was Jeff's fiancé, Ginger. She
was sassy.
Babylon 5
Favourite character: Marcus Cole
Also a classic. My B5 obsession did go to the CCG level. I watched the series 2,3
and 4 because I didn't realise it was good until the first episode of season 2. Then
I stopped after they killed of my favourite character Marcus Cole! I am still so
upset about that.
West Wing
Favourite character: Donna
I only started watching West Wing in the autumn of 2005 when Jo and I watched all
the seasons in a row. I think it's really good though. My favourite character is Amy
Gardner, (obviously) but also Donna and Josh.
Northern Exposure
Favourite character: Fleishman
I loved it from the start and watched it in the nineties. Sassy women, always good.
Plus you get the factor of living in a middle of a forest in the snow. I always
wanted to move to Alaska when I was watching it. O'Connel, obviously my fav, but
also Chris, because you know, who doesn't fancy him. And that was way way before Sex
and the city, girls! I saw him first! It's out on video and Jo and I who both love
it, have started to watch it again. This is quite awkward for him because he's
realised that it's just like his life in Finland: Cold, lakes, trees, snow, crazy
people, grannies and my family turning up to the door without warning. The good
life.
Oz
Favourite character: Keller
Oh come on, do I really need to explain why I love this series, I mean, really...
Don't you know me better: Gays and naked-man action. And real love, oh Beecher, oh
Keller.
Pony Express
Favourite character: Kid
One of my favourite shows ever. They have not run this in finn telly again and I
don't know if there's dvds, so I don't remember too much about it. I do remember
that I loved it. Cowboys are somewhere in my heart I suppose.
Will & Grace
Favourite character: Rosario
Needless to explain? I recently bought seasons 1 to 7 on video and I have been
watching this series from the beginning now. There's often many connections with my
friends and myself, so good comedy all together. I think my favourite character is
Rosario by far.
Xena
Favourite character: Xena
Now I haven't seen an episode of Xena for a very long time. So long in fact that I
can't remember why I liked it so much. I do know that this is a series that I would
like to watch again from the beginning to its end. Better make a mark on my list.
Oh, obviously, Xena, the Warrior Princess, come on, how come I wouldn't love that
series? Is there any possible way that you can include a woman and a warrior into a
character and not make me want to watch that series?
Queer as Folk
Favourite character: David in the American one, Vince in the English
I loved the original series, but I also think that the American Bryan is the reason
I kept on watching it through. The seasons 3 to 5 are a bit underneath the level,
even though there are peak episodes, but good series all together anyways.
Alló, Alló
Favourite character: De Clerk
There's so little I remember about this as well. I remember that I loved it. Must be
about 10 years ago when I last saw it. Shame. It is I, De Clerk
Gilmore girls
Favourite character: No one, because they all speak the same voice.
How come a girl has got a name like 'Rory'? This is a question that I would like to
have answered. And how come everyone think it's so cool as a name now? Or Buffy for
that matter...? I liked the first seasons. And I suppose I quite like the seasons
when Rory starts going seriously wrong with her boyfriends. It's quite a Buffy
syndrome really. But it's not my no1 favourite series. I did not *have to* see every
episode or anything.
Firefly
Favourite character: Kaylee
Joss rules. Needless to explain. I feel like no one really got to know these
characters and there would have been so much to know... But as we didn't, it just
means that the series was undone, a lovely start that echoed in the space. My
favourite character obviously is a Kaylee, the horny mechanical girl. She's a little
cucu like me...
Farscape
Favourite character: D'Argo
I lost the tracks on what has happened in this series on its third season I guess. I
liked the characters, but never got to know them very well. My favourite was
probably D'Argo/Chianna, but she didn't quite deserve him, so I suppose it was
doomed at the start. "If you can be an idiot, I can be too"
Wilhelm Tell
Favourite character: Tell?
I remember watching this series with a great joyment. It was about the same time as
Robin Hood came on the morning television. i am not sure if all I wanted to see was
damsels in distress and gorgeous crossbows.
Everwood
Favourite character: Ephram
I may not have started watching this series at all, if there wasn't for the fact
that they live in a city that has SNOW! in it. Plus it's about teenagers growing up.
I feel like I missed all the stuff that they talk about in Everwood, My So Called
life, Buffy and Gilmore Girls. I think that's why I'm still as an adoult, quite
hooked on teenage girl drama series. I was never popular enough. I never had the
selfesteem. So I'm still mending that little girl's heart by watching this stuff,
even if she grew up a long time ago and got that selfesteem and with it, what ever
she wanted out of the world.
Angel
Favourite character: Lorne
Obviously watched because of Buffy. My favorite character is Lorne. He's
magnificent. Need to say more?
Survivor-Australian Outback
Favourite character: Tina
Ever since I read Tom Neale's An island for oneself, I have had an obsession about
deserted islands. Survivors was a psychological game on an island like that with
human relationships involved. My favourite real-time-tv ever. I think Tina, the
winner was very clever and deserved to win.
Survivor-Amazon
Favourite character: No one in particular
Amazon has always intriqued me as well. Also this time, on season 5, they had the
male-female division, which meant that the males thought they were going to win and
then the females did a lot better, which I loved about this season. I also liked the
fact that a woman won it.
Survivor-Africa
Favourite character: Lindsay "I just started my periods - No wonder I have cramps!"
I also always wanted to travel to Africa, so this was a good series for me. I did
not think that the tribe stuff were very interesting though and I thought that you
could have realised the winner at the very start. I'm also very happy that Kim, the
old woman got to the second place. It was cool to see her winning two immunities
when the males didn't.
Survivor-All Stars
Favourite character: Amber
I think I became an Amber/Rob fan at this point. We haven't see the amazing race
where they are in Finland yet. Also Amber was from Season 2, my favourite season.
ER
Favourite character: Abby
Well, it still makes me cry, even though it's been so many years. I love Abby and I
would have liked to have had her with Carter (instead of the sleezy woman that he
ended up with), but I guess Luka is more of a hunk anyways and cute and all that, so
he's good enough for my Abby=) I don't think I would still be watching it if there
wasn't for the baby they are having. Also I've started to like Ray for some reason.
He's a good jerk. Never enough of those in series.
The Amazing Race
Favourite character: Amber / Rob
After Survivor, this is good, because you get to see the world. Sometimes also old
people do very well, which is what I like to see. It would be nice to have two girls
winning it at some point though.
Blossom
Favourite character: Blossom
Don't remember much about this, but it goes to the teenage growing up stuff, just
like Gilmore girls and so on...
Mighty Boosh
Favourite character: Vince
Have you ever watched this series? Have you ever watched inside my head? It's quite
remarkable, how big the resembleance is. It's also scary. And that was before they
had scruffy special effects or the man who only ate cheese and turned into one... or
the ninja delivery boy...or...
Keeping Up appearances
Favourite character: The Vicar "It's the Bucket woman!"
Since I have a family connection with it, I find it funny. Well, I found it funny
always. My mother's trying to learn English from it. I remember watching it when I
was supposed to study for my Matriculations Examination on religion in this weird
place where we spent our skiing holiday, not Ylläs!
Nowhere man
Favourite character: Don't remember
Goes to the category: I liked it, don't remember much about it. I used to watch it
all the time though.
Murder One
Favourite character: The lead layer
Season 1 of course. After that it turned worse.
Brisco County Jr.
Favourite character: Dixie
Includes one of my favourite female actresses, at the role of Dixie. She's also in
Homefront=) Yeah, I suppose I am a Western succer as well.
Knightrider
Favourite character: Kit?
I admit, I watched it. And even played with toy cars and legos with my friend's
brother. Yes, I know it's a lame thing to confess, but we need our demons.
L.A. Law
Favourite character: the woman that Sheila Kelley played
This was a good series back in when. The reruns looked bad though. My favourite
character was played by Sheila Kelley, who had long dark hair. I probably liked her
just for that as well. Who cares, it was the eighties.
---
New:
Doctor Who the new series
As much as I've heard about this, I will want to start watching it. It looks fabulous and I don't mind that it's London with a british accent as well. Blimey! Fantastic!
Rome
Favourite character: Titus Pullo
It's a bit too money made one, but still quite entertaining.
Band of Brothers
Yes a stranger told me it was good, so it has to be. Jonathan and I have this on going dilemma that he says when ever he tells me something is good, I never believe him. If a stranger tells me its good, then it must be good and I'll believe them... I don't know, maybe there' some truth to it. The Jarhead syndrome.
Weeds
Favourite character: Nancy
Needless to say who I adore here. I don't necessarily want to watch people getting stoned, but I'll do what I can to see Mary-Louise every week
Top 50 songs
1. Hard Life, Queen
2. Hotel California, Eagles
3. Winter, Tori Amos
4. Africa, Toto
5. (Everything I do) I do it for you, Bryan Adams
6. Think of me, Sarah Brightman
7. Please forgive me, Bryan Adams
8. Big Dream, Samantha Mathis
9. Always, Bon Jovi
10. These are the days of our lifes, Queen
11. Tuulen värit, Arja Koriseva
12. Someone saved my life tonight, Elton John
13. Mother love, Queen
14. Full of grace, Sarah McLachlan
15. Wise up, Aimee Mann
16. Queen and the soldier, Susanne Vega
17. The point of no return, Phantom of the opera cast
18. River, Bruce Springsteen
19. The show must go on, Queen
20. 1492 Conquest of Paradise
21. Who wants to live forever, Queen
22. Your song, Elton John
23. Radio Ga Ga, Queen
24. Sleeping Beauty
25. Can you feel the love tonight, Elton John
26. Olenko minä sinulle rakas?, Levy & Grammari
27. Lelukaupanhäät, Miljoonasade
28. Stay, Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories
29. Never say good bye, Bon Jovi
30. Bittersweet symphony, The Verve
31. Memory, Andrew Lloyd Webber
32. Unforgivable sinner, Lene Marlin
33. Liar, Bryan Adams
34. One, Aimee Mann
35. Northern Star, Melanie C
36. To the moon and back, Savage Garden
37. Santa Monica, Savage Garden
38. Thorn, Natalie Imbrulia
39. Separate lives, Phil Collins
40. I don't know you anymore, Savage Garden
41. Marraskuu, Miljoonasade
42. Marlene on the wall, Susanne Vega
43. Side, Travis
44. Hunter, Dido
45. Hold me now, Johnny Logan
46. Nothing but you, Kim Ferron
47. She's in love with the boy, Trisha Yearwood
48. You oughta know, Alanis Morisette
49. Private Emotion, Robbie Williams & Meja
50. It's the way you make me feel, Steps
My favourite books
Tom Neale: An island to oneself
Donna Tart: A secret history
Tania Kindersley: Don't ask me why
Salman Rushdie: Saatanalliset säkeet
Virginia Wolf: Orlando
Anna Cavalda: Je voudrais que quel'un m'attandre a quelque part
J.R.R Tolkien: Lord of the rings
Caryl Chessman: Ihmisiä kuolemankujalla
Jaqueline Briskin: California Generation
Dogulas Adams: Dirk Gently's holistic agengy
William Shakespeare: Hamlet
/ Romeo & Juliet
/ Richard III
Esa Saarinen: Filosofia
Musicals and plays
1. Phantom of the Opera
2. Cats
3. We will Rock you
4. Fame
5. Eight immortals cross the sea
I like theatre very much. I prefer musicals, but I go to see plays as well. My taste has not really evolved very much over the years, but I still love Shakespeare and since my fiance's family are involved in the Southend Shakespeare Company, I get to see plays regularly. I also get to go to rehersals while I'm visiting, which is always nice. Shakespearean acting is something I always thought I would like to do, but of course here in Finland, it's pretty much just me on my own wanting to do that.
I've seen a couple of Ballets as well, but I prefer musicals and plays. Like with Opera, the ballet rarely has a functional plot. I have to say though, that Chinese Opera is something worth experiensing if ever in China. It's a combination of acrobatics, throat singing and martial arts movements. Just the sort of inspiration you'd want for a production of your own.
Role Playing games
Role playing games
Star Wars CCG
This is on of those hobbies which I wouldn't have started without Mikko Ohtonen. He had bought one starter and got Grand moff Tarkin and I looked at it and thought that: "Hey, that's the main guy from the best movie ever. How can I not start buying those." After that we kind of had this circle of players around Sormustie, where the family Ohtonen lives. My first real main card that I draw from a booster was Millenium Falcon and it soon became my treasure. I never gave it up. I started collecting and now have both the original expansions from Star Wars movies: Premiere and A New hope. Ok, I'm missing 4 cards from them. If you know someone who'd want to sell these few cards (in BB of course) please contact me. The cards are: 5D6-RA-7 and Our most desperate hour from Premiere and Hypo & Sandcrawler: Droid junkleap from New hope. I have a lot of Hoth too, but not enough for a collection. I've bought Dagobah and Cloud city as well but not more than one or two boosters of Jabba's palace and practically nothing after it. I still have my two decks, one light, one dark listed below, but I quit playing very actively, mainly because there weren't much people to play with (I thought my cousin Kirsi to play, but we both switched to Magic cause magic players exist). Now days I sometimes play with Villeon who's kept up playing Star Wars with his brother.
As they were and are:
My light side deck
My dark side deck
Some links to Star Wars CCG sites:
Decipher
Mythos
My first real Role play was Mythos adventure to the Lovecraft world. We've played with a same group more adventures in the same time and characters. My character is called Freesia Unkennel. She's very rich and speaks many languages and is mostly known by her fantastic fighting techniques with her 5-string banjo. She lives in New York with Tero's character, . Our first game controller was Kalle and he also had a character, a male mechanic or something, but he went crazy and has been in sanatorium for a quite while now. The second was Vaakka and he has also his own character who is a professor … Vaakka quit in the controlling business when we were a bit unplayers, me and Tero. We've also had a visitor, my cousin Kirsi whose character Linda Broccoli still lives in one little village that we played in when she was in the adventure. We haven't played for a while, mostly because I live in Jyväskylä and Tero in Helsinki and Vaakka's been in the army, but I have no doubt that some day… again.
Tero, Vaakka and I also bought some Mythos playing cards back then when we were all still in Kajaani. I fell into the cats and made a cat deck as my first Mythos deck. It's still my best deck. If you want to see what's in it:
Magic the gathering
I could say a lot about magic. It's the one of these games that I still play kind of regularly. I've been to the last three Finnish Nationals and still going next year. When I first saw Magic cards trade into some Ice hockey cards my thought was that the Ice Hockey fan made a great deal and that I'll never start playing Magic. Wrong was I. We made kind of a deal with Tero when I was accidently dropped to his life and home. He'd teach me Magic and I'd teach him Star Wars CCG. And so I got my first deck out of Tero's commons mostly. It was built on one card that I liked more than the others because it was cute: The Hyalopterous Lemure. You can't disagree: It's the most adorable looking creature in all of Magic. My first deck was obviously part black and the other colour I choosed to be white. I can remember there been some Keepers of the faith and some bog wraiths in the sideboard. White has been my favourite colour in Magic ever since but I have gave up on black, as now blue takes the second place and green follows. I play Red and Black very little these days. Although next year I might take red to support blue cause I draw some fine red cards in the Nationals this year 2001. You can see the development of my deck colours from the three decks I used in the Nationals listed below. I've only collected one set of Magic: Urza's destiny, but I think it's near to the best set ever released in Magic. Right now I have a project to collect all the cards that have Weatherlight in their picture. I also collect the ship's crew.
1999 White weenie
2000 Squirrel prison
2001 UW control
Apart from playing I have to say something about the reasons why I've kept playing. Magic really is more of a social thing for me. Apart from the opinions of some of my friends, I think Magic is a way to meet interesting people. I'm a bit proud about the fact that I'm a girl playing cause there are too few of us out there. Most girls start because their boyfriends play. I'm even more proud that I don't belong to them. My playing has very little to do with the fact that my bf plays. But ok, I have to admit that I partly owe meeting him to Magic (rest I owe to Kirsi). As the chances of finding love in Magic circumstances are almost none to the male population they are massive to us. So why don't you play girls? Is it out of your image or something? Maybe. I just never had that line.
Link to a friend's site that have some pictures on some tournaments I've taken part in:Antin kotisivut
Redemption
What can I say about redemption? Me and Tero were ordering some Mythos and Magic and thought of trying this religious card game about well the Bible mostly. We both bought a starter (they game in pairs) and a booster. I can't remember the prises but it was cheap. I think they had actually even lowered the prises because nobody bought them. Well we got the nice cards and the rule book, not so big but we never actually learned how to play. The rules are a bit hard to get and it's not like you can find someone to teach you how to play. Last fall I heard that Tero had met someone who actually has been to a Redemption tournament and I had to sit back. I have the most respect to this person who ever he/she is.
Babylon 5
Babylon 5 the card game we started about the same time as Mythos, a bit later I think. I bought the Minbari package and Tero bought the Humans. Delenn's been my favourite character from the start (after Marcus Cole) so my choice was obvious. Later I bought the Centauri and Tero bought the Narns. Actually I can't remember if Tero bought the Narn before Human, well anyway. But the Centauri deck has never had as much success as my minbari. The minbari one is probably the best anyway, but it's all very relative because we haven't bought that much and the decks are about the same as they were from the start. Babylon 5 card game is also kind of a telepathic link between me and Tero because some summers ago when we spent practically the whole summer just playing Tennis outside there were always some possibility that it would rain. Back then none of us had a driving license so we'd ride our bikes to Vimpeli courts and when ever there was a rain in the middle of our practise (and that happened a lot) we'd have to go under this cover by a house and we both had Babylon 5 cards to keep us company. We never made any deals and we could have taken any cards, Magic, Mythos, Star Wars but no, we both took B5 without knowing.
My Minbari deck
My Centauri deck
Semolina Madsick
If you want to know how Semolina got started you better ask Tero. It's a card game created by him and some persons around him. Anybody can draw Semolinas even I've done plenty. There aren't any rules (well at least not much), and you can draw and write anything with any language (or usually a made up one) you want. I draw my first Semolina card right after my first and and the legendary visit in Tero's house in Kajaani it was called Monday morning and I've made a second copy out of it. Nearly all Semolinas are legendary in some way but you have to say some are super legendary like Sini levähti made by Kalle. Some (most) of the cards have a connection to the real life and that's what makes them so special. All that twisting words and images around is nice and you never have to worry about doing any spelling mistakes because they are actually expected even required.