The Fuke-Meister's Back!

Okay, nobody calls him that, but I'm just manic in my elation. You can see my elation in the picture at right. That's Minnesota Joy. [Those crazy vikings all moved to France, leaving us sane people in Scandinavia. I've said that the Swedes oppressed the Finns for 700 years, the fact is that the Finns probably didn't notice. Everybody's so damn polite up there. Continuing this wildly careening digression, the Swedes did us a favor: Finnish was never written until the 19th century, so there's a one to one correspondence between letters and sounds--every letter is pronounced, if it's doubled, it's the same sound only longer; basic Germanic-type vowels; accent always on the first syllable, descending accents thereafter. So, now you can handle phrases like, "Voisitteko puhua hitaammin?"--"Could you speak more slowly?"]

Actually, I have, as usual, been remiss in making my announcement punctually. I'll have to send him a card.