Sure signs of the approaching winter

Winter is really coming. Not that you'd believe it if you looked out of the window right now. One more beautiful day of fall, sun shining from a bright sky. But the weather forecasts are claiming that it'll be snowing tonight. At least in Lapland. I hope that doesn't happen here, I'm going to go to Suvi and Pasi's party by bike and snow doesn't fit into that picture.

And the other signs? Well, first of all, the small ice cream stand in the corner of the park I live next to, has been taken away. The owner will haul it back sometime in April, usually, which naturally is a sure sign of summer for me. But during the winter months ice cream has to be bought from the grocery store. How dull.

Second sign is, if possible, even clearer. I just found out that one my favourite ciders is being sold again. Whee! Someone in the marketing department of the brewery has had the bright idea of naming it Winter Cider (or something like that) and naturally it's only sold in the winter. And what makes it a wintery taste? Vanilla, apparently. I'm sorry, but I just don't get it. How is vanilla any less a summer taste than it is a winter taste? Am I supposed to quit liking vanilla for the summer? Not going to happen, you hear? I want to buy vanilla cider also in the summer, because I like it the year around.

Watched an interesting movie last night. I tried to find Wilde or Great Expectations to see more of Ioan Gruffudd (yes, Tytti, I was about to go on with the theme of the day...), but the video rental place didn't have either of them. Or at least I couldn't find them. So I ended up renting a movie called Shattered Glass. It came out last year, I think, and was about a young reporter who falsified most of the articles he wrote for the respected magazine The New Republic.

Quite a story, I have to say. What was even more interesting was the short interview of the real people who were working with mr. Glass when all the events actually took place in 1998. I felt kind of sorry for the young man (Stephen Glass), he's got a permanent reputation of a pathological liar now and it wasn't even sure whether he'd be allowed to practice law in New York due to this questionable trait in his character. Poor guy. He made some seriously stupid decisions in his youth and sure will pay for them for the rest of his life. Not to mention the bills he's sure to receive from his therapist. But I think he gets those covered by selling his novel, written about a young reporter who makes his stories up... Way to recover, mr. Glass.