December Mafia Report

There was definite holiday cheer on the bus to the pub meeting today. It was full of young people carrying loads of booze and a real-honest ghetto blaster with them, so the bus trip was one big party. (I was later told that they probably were chemistry students from the Uni, back from a cruise.) What better way to start an evening? Even if they would have deserved some kind of a cruel (and hopefully unusual) punishment for their criminally poor taste in music. But I digress…

Despite the non-traditional date, a dozen or so people found their way to the mafia today. This was the second time we gathered at “the new place,” and I think it is definitely more comfortable and versatile for our purposes (and the others seemed to agree), so you’ll probably find us there from now on.

The day’s smoffing concerned mainly the Christmas party (that seems to have progressed on its own while we were at the pub)—it’s next Saturday. There was also speculation about a possible Finncon in Turku in 2011—a thought that doesn’t sound as completely impossible now as I would have said only a month ago. We’ll see. Ben and Pasi discussed their sekrit project, very sekritly, but it’s a sekrit, so no more about that for now.

Before the topics went into politics and religion (as they not uncommonly do), we discussed some sf stuff also. Really, we did! Although more about tv than books, but anyway. Torchwood began on Finnish tv yesterday. Based on the comments of those who had seen it, it didn’t gather any new fans (at least not yet), but on the other hand wasn’t as reviled as in the British discussions I saw when the series originally debuted. The ‘comment of the day’ honorable mention goes to Ben (wondering about the new Bionic Woman), “Why on Earth would anybody be interested in watching a new version of a crappy 80s sf show… oh, wait: Galactica… I’ll shut up now.”

Here’s a photo of today’s gathering (with most of the people present):

Let’s have a competition: I’ll buy a beer at the next mafia for the first person who correctly identifies all the zines on the table. (Those who were present are naturally not eligible to participate.) Any takers?