It has begun

School. I have 3 courses this period. What a joke. I'll have all the time in the world to figure something out for the final thesis, or get a better temp job. When you've gotten used to keeping busy, this going to school for only mondays and tuesdays is really fucked up. I'm not used to sitting around doing nothing. Though I tried pretty hard today. Didn't get out of the house for anything else than to buy some food across the road. I'm glad I managed to do something else yesterday. Ali asked me out to play tennis a few days ago, and so we finally went. Could have done it sooner if it was not for the weather. Anyway, I've improved my shots quite a bit in the last (and only) 3 times I've done it this summer. Too bad the season is starting to draw to a close. Indoor courts are too expensive imo. Soon it'll be possible to start playing Squash again. The two courts that me & Martti have been using were closed for the summer because of renovation. Let us hope they've fixed them & that they open them up soon!

Wow

My name is so and so, and I am an alcoholic. Not really, but that came to mind when I woke up today, around 10am. We celebrated Minna's moms birthday up till almost 6am. Doh. But nevermind that, I INSIST that you go right now, and download Google Earth, I'm absolutely blown away by it. I've been playing with it for a while, and it seems to be quite frankly the best possible Atlas ever made. If I were rich, I would buy Google stock :)

Reelin' and Rockin'

Well, we did not make it to the theatre, or to the movie. From around 6 to 11, we were with Emmu, making tortillas, eating, drinking & watching some DeviantArt her friend has shot (she knows everyone on those picture galleries, and is in some of them herself). Later on, At midnight - we went to Manala, a nice joint downtown. There was a show with "The Manala Allstars band" (Marzi Nyman, Pirjo Bergström, Mariko ja Olavi Uusivirta & others). They had selected 17 different lovesongs, preferably with lewd or suggesting lyrics, and turned them around & made new and cool renditions of them. I personally really liked "Sukkula Veenuksen" (Shuttle to Venus) and "Fiilaten ja höyläten" (different, finnish lyrics to the tune of "Reeling and rocking" by Chuck Berry).

After the show, we met Maisa & went downstairs to eat. Manala is an excellent place to eat while on a night on the town. They're making food all the way untill 4am. Saw Sauli Niinistö in the restaurant, and later on also in the mens room. He was not too impressed with the drunking urinal-users who wished to engage in conversation with him while releasing their bladders (I was almost expecting someone to be stupid enough to try to offer him their hand while doing the deed with the other hand - they would have later been able to exclaim that they had shaken the hands of two 'chiefs' at the same time! :P) Anyway, for those of you not in the know, Niinistö is running for president. I think he just might be the strongest competition the current president, Tarja Halonen has.

Today is Minna's moms 47th birthday. I expect that we will go over to pay our respects around 6pm for dinner. It feels just like Sunday today. Maybe it's because we are free from all work & study related engagements today. Quite often Sunday has been the only whole day we have together.

Run around

Yesterday we went to see Astrid Swan perform. She was good, let's hope she makes it. I bought her autographed cd for 15€. Sort of like Aimee Mann, if you've heard her. Helsinki is having a party week, celebrating, well, err.. Helsinki. There is a lot of free arts, music & theatrical happenings all over the town. Today we'll go out to see some play & a movie, the details for both of which are unsure to me. I'll comment about them later.

Now it is time to take my Sony Mp3 player to an official after sales service joint. The poor thing's menu button is stuck down. So whenever I try to change a song, it just pops to the menu. Great. First I called the company that sold it to me. They told me to talk to the importer. The importer told me to refer to the official Sony after sales service. (I really enjoyed the run-around, thanks guys. Goddamn incompetent, responsibility-dodging bastards!) Just look at that site. They haven't responded to my emails, but I got through to some clerk there, who just told me to ship it in. I'll deliver it personally and see to that they take a quick glance at it/fix it before I leave. I feel really comfortable giving them my baby to tweak/fuck around with! I guess Sony is running out of funds, or they just don't give a shit.

It would be nice to open the player and fix the spring that's bent myself (that's my SWAG, anyway) but the chances that it'll blow up in my face & ruin the guarantee are too high!

-- update 16:46

My impressions of the place were quite accurate. The clerk receiving my player & typing out the documentation refused to yield any relevant information. Nor did anyone take a look at it. They took it and gave me a receipt and said "don't call us, we'll call you". Haha, right on.. bastards!

Dear diary...

I will make no excuses, or apologies for lack of updates!

Summer is almost over, and I'm done with work, at least for a week. It was a nice couple of months, the weekends full of fun & enjoyment. I'll try to resume active updates from now on. During the course of this summer, I've read tons, and gotten hooked to audiobooks. Expecially ones made by The Teaching Company. History mostly.

It would feel shallow to me to start typing in detail about how my summer went, suffice to say, there was the Pori Jazz, many great weekends @ different summercottages, lots of barbecuing and a couple of trips to Tallinn. Not the greatest summer ever, but way better than the last one.

School & studies will resume at the beginning of September. Minna started in a private art school today, let's hope she likes it.