Finnish meet (few photos included)

Oberleutnant · Post by **Oberleutnant** » 2006-07-01 05:18am

First of all, sorry for taking so long with this. The reason for the delay was a shitty ISP, who despite its promises failed to deliver the connection to my parents' new apartment on the ordered date. After the date got delayed by three weeks from what was agreed, my folks finally bought a cable modem and I got back net access. The photos and tiny story tidbits are related to the Finnish meet, which took place on June 17th.

Once upon a time, there was a bunch of SD.netters from a northern country between ABBA and Stalin. To be exact, one of them was originally an Aussie, but according to his own words he had "been here too long", so long in fact that he had lost most of his accent. These five forumers decided to meet on a sunny Saturday.

After eating at an Italian restaurant, we proceeded to a nearby park to consume few alcoholic beverages - except one traitor, who opted for ice cream.

Edi, Tiriol and The Jester hit the streets of Helsinki after the restaurant.

Tiriol and ice cream. When we waited for him to show up at the meet place, we spotted him first from a distance and wondered if this guy in a hat Tiriol. Of course, none of us spotted his t-shirt underneath, which should've been an obvious sign enough.

We sat on the grass around in a circle and began socializing. A plethora of topics was discussed during the day, including stuff such as the location and availability of free public toilets in the city center, trolls of SD.net (Stewart and his "Stratigic Defense Instatute" anyone?) and the differing personal space in various countries. For some reasons, the guys who had seen undoubtedly the most twisted pic ever posted online (NSFW and I'm not taking responsibility for any mental damage!), didn't like when I began to describe it to those two who hadn't seen it.

"There's this bed, on top of which is a photo of a member of Yoda's species. Between the mattress..." I was promptly silenced at this point.

Unlike in most SD.net meets of which I have seen photos of, no board games or movie watching took place. Only moderate alcohol drinking. Which was appropriate given the location - save for the "moderate" part, as the concept of "moderate drinking" is rare in the Finnish society.

The Jester, our Australian reinforcement, emptying his bottle of cider ... and the realization he's being photographed

Edi and empty bottles (not all of them were his, though)

Tiriol and ice cream - Part Deux

Lord Revan, me, Tiriol, The Jester and Edi

Thanks guys. It was fun.

- Toni

Post by **Edi** » 2006-07-01 06:35am

Yeah, it was. But did you have to post that picture of me where I look almost falling down drunk because of the massive migraine that started making itself known at about that time? Bloody sunstroke...

Edi

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2006-07-01 07:19am

Edi wrote:Yeah, it was. But did you have to post that picture of me where I look almost falling down drunk because of the massive migraine that started making itself known at about that time? Bloody sunstroke...

Edi

Sunstroke? What did it reach 20 degrees or something?

Dartzap · Post by **Dartzap** » 2006-07-01 07:21am

Revan looks like he'd kick the hells out of all four of you

And, i'm now going to have to go and get some mint-choc-chip for myself...

Post by **Edi** » 2006-07-01 10:01am

Crown wrote:
Edi wrote:Yeah, it was. But did you have to post that picture of me where I look almost falling down drunk because of the massive migraine that started making itself known at about that time? Bloody sunstroke...

Edi
Sunstroke? What did it reach 20 degrees or something?

*stabs Crown*

Maybe 23 or even 25. Laugh all you want, we don't get more than two weeks' worth of weather that hot in an average year, or maybe a bit more. Thing is that we spent several hours outside, most of it in the sun. I don't know why, but I actually get sunstroke pretty easily even though the actual heat doesn't bother me all that much. I just forgot my hat home that day. Didn't help that all of the time we sat outside, I didn't move around so it was coming from the same direction all the time. Not much of a surprise that the killer migraine was restricted to the side of my head that got the heavy dose of sun.

Edi

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2006-07-01 10:04am

Edi, you look like a whiter, younger, stouter Wong (Or at least like the pics on the main site), has anyone ever told you of tyhe resemblance

.

Looks like you lot had fun, and Revan is indeed rather more physically more intimidating than all of you put together

(Though Vader would still kick his ass).

Maybe 23 or even 25.

Lucky bastards.

.
It's 41c here with god knows how much humidity, and the summer hasn't even really started yet. (Today is after the temperature broke)

Post by **Edi** » 2006-07-01 01:55pm

DEATH wrote:Edi, you look like a whiter, younger, stouter Wong (Or at least like the pics on the main site), has anyone ever told you of tyhe resemblance .

There aren't all that many photos of me around. I think I posted something in one of the member pic threads three years ago, but that has been it. I don't think there is all that much resemblance, except we might have the same kind of body structure. I do need to shed the extra weight, because I do have too much of that.

Edi

The Jester · Post by **The Jester** » 2006-07-01 06:35pm

DEATH wrote: Looks like you lot had fun, and Revan is indeed rather more physically more intimidating than all of you put together (Though Vader would still kick his ass).

To give a sense of scale, I'm about 183 cm (6 foot) tall and weigh around 80 kg.

Lord Revan · Post by **Lord Revan** » 2006-07-01 07:06pm

I'm about 10 cm taller then The Jester (about 192 cm (little under 6ft 4)), I never though I would look this huge in the pics though.

and yes it was fun and I hope there will be more meeting in the future.

Post by **Edi** » 2006-07-02 07:46am

Lord Revan wrote:I'm about 10 cm taller then The Jester (about 192 cm (little under 6ft 4)), I never though I would look this huge in the pics though.

and yes it was fun and I hope there will be more meeting in the future.

It's not just that you're tall, but that you have a relatively huge frame (bone structure). I've got a friend who is 1 cm taller than you, but he's built like a beanpole, so he doesn't convey the same sense of hugeness. For example, your shoulders are half again as wide as his.

You actually reminded me of a story my dad told me about visiting Kenya in the 1970s, they had one guy in the group who was basically twice the size of any normal person or looked like he was, with shoulders wide as barn doors (the Finnish saying "Hartiat kuin ladon ovet). Dad said that it was no trouble at all moving about even after dark, because all of the locals were scared of this guy. Their comment on him was "Too big man!

"

Edi

Mrs Kendall · Post by **Mrs Kendall** » 2006-07-02 09:50am

Lord Revan looks like he should be a country singer

Oberleutnant · Post by **Oberleutnant** » 2006-07-02 05:08pm

Edi wrote:Yeah, it was. But did you have to post that picture of me where I look almost falling down drunk because of the massive migraine that started making itself known at about that time? Bloody sunstroke...

Edi

Sorry! Didn't quite realize it when I was making the post, but you do indeed look a bit drunkish in that one.

Maybe 23 or even 25. Laugh all you want, we don't get more than two weeks' worth of weather that hot in an average year

True, although with the exception of the spectacularly awful winter, this year's been pretty warm, though. The total number of days when the temperature has been between 20-30 C must be around thirty by now. Forecasts promise some 25 C for tomorrow.

I had included individual photos of each participant from the meet, except Lord Revan. Sorry for forgetting, man.

I, too, hope that there'll be more local meets in the future.

Lord Revan · Post by **Lord Revan** » 2006-07-02 06:29pm

Lord Revan looks like he should be a country singer

too bad that I can't sing

I got to say my outfit was poorly chosen for that day.

Tiriol · Post by **Tiriol** » 2006-07-03 05:15am

They have come.

Funnily enough, the looks on my face don't look so twisted as they normally do when someone takes pictures of me (my mother tends to succeed in taking the creepiest pictures ever of me).

I'm a bad one at changing a winning combination of clothes, so I wore the same ones last weekend when I went on a road trip with my friends (worry not, they were all washed and tidied up between the Finnish meet and the trip

).

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2006-07-03 06:22am

Edi wrote:Maybe 23 or even 25. Laugh all you want, we don't get more than two weeks' worth of weather that hot in an average year, or maybe a bit more.

77F? You only get two weeks of 77F weather? Here, we get nearly three months of 32C weather in the summer.

Post by **Edi** » 2006-07-03 08:42am

MKSheppard wrote:
Edi wrote:Maybe 23 or even 25. Laugh all you want, we don't get more than two weeks' worth of weather that hot in an average year, or maybe a bit more.
77F? You only get two weeks of 77F weather? Here, we get nearly three months of 32C weather in the summer.

Yes. Two weeks or less of 25+ centigrade. The 20-24 stretches that out to maybe a month or even two if it's a very warm summer. Remember, Helsinki is at the same latitude as southern Alaska, which is roughly 2000 kilometers further north than e.g. New York. Short summers and long winters here, with the sea to mediate the extremes so we don't have as big a temperature bracket as e.g. inland Russia does.

Edi