dribble drabble

Two weeks zoomed by and what happend? I haven't got the faintest idea since I haven't been keeping this blog up to date! Well, one thing that's turned around; final exams. One down, two to go. Pretty easy going it seems, but I still want to do these properly, if not for anything else, then for the fact that I haven't been doing anything else schoolwise! Would suck to blow those grades since I've not exactly been busy doing other stuff for the last couple of months. Tomorrow: work. Followed by Theater.

Thought of the day

Tolerance should not tolerate intolerance.

Arr

Re-exam today, went well. After that I went to the gym - damn place was packed, so I did a quick workout & tried on the running mat for size. I ran 3 kilometers in 30 minutes, then walked one km to ease down. It was fairly painless - I was surprised. Jogging's always been a pain in the ass for me... But of course, my pace was slow enough so it wasn't really straining... But I sweating like a pig! After having a shower, I went to the local Pizza place & got a badass superpizza of 8 fillings, ate it, staggered home & opened a big can of beer. That's living healthy for you. Over & Out.

Abacab

Saw Maisa's first gig a couple of days ago, go girl! 2 songs played acousticly @ the Velvet club in Semifinal.

Finished the Roman lectures. Now I'm doing the American history bit. It seems informative, even though a tad bit colored :( Oh yes, Civilization 4 it out - that game is taking whatever time I can give it (I'm trying to limit it! damn it's good). Right now burning a bunch of DVDs while updating my CV's and applying to various companies... Let's hope some of them catch the bait.

Sony service called a while ago, the finally have my Silver-coloured mp3 player. I just need to find the time to go get it... Bastards! Their products are still good, but they're really cutting down on all their personnel costs by outsourcing etc.. this can be seen in the shitty level of their support! This evening we're gonna see our upstair's neighbour's debut, a monologue he's directed. Looking forward to it.

It's that time again

So I've been lazy again. It's rather pathetic isn't it. Anyway let's get down to business. I am still on the lookout for a proper job, let's see what comes my way. The bitch of the matter is, I can't do full-time, really, knowing that I'll be swamped come springtime... And I want to get out of school. I recently got a good invitation, that I should apply & get into the IT business again, but after some comtemplation, I had to turn it down. It's better to finish what I've started in the International Business scene first.

Other news: I've started on a healthier path. Haven't smoked much at all since July (didn't mark the day into my calendar or anything like that). Smoking is all right by me though, not condemning anyone. Anyway, I'm taking a break at the very least... Haven't bought a pack since summer, and only taken a few drags since. It's going steady.

Been going through my gym program again. I managed to get one through doing a favor to a personal trainer back in 2002. Mananged to go to the gym a few times then, but dropped it due to being lazy... Anyway, I went twice last week, and this week it's gonna be the same. Met Martti on the field of glory (squash) today, he won 2-1, bastard! Next week's gonna be more intense, since we're gonna go twice, and I'm still gonna hold on to my 'twice a week' motto for the gym bit, too. It's great if I manage to get this gym thing to be a part of my life, I'll be so much the better for it. All the extra energy is welcome. It's that time of the year again, sun is rising around 7-8am, and going down around 6. Too much darkness around, it'll get to you if you don't start doing something...

Throughout & after the summer, I've been listening to audiobooks, mostly lectures on history. Roman times, baby. I'm not talking about any shitty 1-2 hour lessons. Each topic has been ~ 40 lectures -over a thousand minutes. Listening to music is all fine and good. But lately audiobooks have had more appeal. I've gone through many topics, here's a brief list of them:

Isaac Asimov's Foundation, books 1-2 (I have all 7, but got bored)
Hellenism
Famous Greeks
History of Rome
Rome and the Barbarians
Famous Romans
Early middle ages
High middle ages
The long 19th century, European history from 1789 to 1917
Churchill's biography

That's what I remember and what I still have. I've been deleting most of what I've listened to.
I'm looking forward to getting into the History of the United States, The Rise and Fall of Soviet Communism, The history of Hitler's Empire... there's tons of listening to be done! "When does he have have the time to listen to all that crap?", you may ask? While walking, @work, doing dishes, eating (note: only if alone), in a bus/train.. you get the picture. It has sort of become a part of my life, frankly. It's cool, because it's been increasingly difficult to find the time to get down and read a proper book. The current piece (btw) is, Albert Speer - his battle with truth. It seems promising.

Squash was good, but now I must attend to my sports gear, and eat something: Minna's been cooking and it's almost ready now, woohoo :)

Ave atque vale - Hail and farewell

Stress

Must finish a goddamn paper today. I remembered I had to do it only yesterday. Couldn't do much about it since I had re-exams today. School blues, even though I'm only taking like 3 courses now!

Btw, the fall came today. We were out @ a pizzeria & saw dark clouds approach. It got pitch black & cold - it also began to rain. Summer is over, RIP. I can feel the light running out, and my spirits following. Time to put some Anathema on Winamp.

Link of the day: Audioscrobbler & lastfm. Install it & start discovering new music.

Tomorrow - work.

Commercials

Interests elsewhere, update pending

Bd frenzy

"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons", said Dostoyevski. What do you think? I'm sure he didn't think much of the level Imperial russian civilization after having been to Siberia! Whatever... anyway, I've been slacking. I need to find a new job, preferably one where I can do the rest of my work-practice & final theses - and get paid. Picking up a few free-electives & a 4th language would not hurt.

The Sony mp3 player is supposed to be fixed by this week. What a bunch of shit, only took them 4 weeks. Breakfast waits. Today's my dad's 59th birthday. Yesterday was my mom's 58th. We're going there with Minna later on today, to take part in the celebrations! On the topic, explore the wonders of the birthday paradox! And oh yes, do find out your half-birthday. Always good to have more excuses to be cheerful.

Good times.

There isn't that much school. And I'm starting to get used to it. Scary. Been a good few last days, mates. Been to Tallinn. Been Go-Karting. That's a lot of fun! Ali left us, he's pretty close to old London town by now. Cheers mate, see you soon :)

I bought a new toy: an HP DVD burner. Seems pretty nice. I got got rid of my old Pioneer DVD drive & an even older Plextor cd-burner. I wonder if they're worth selling even? Maybe one day I'll build a second computer... you never know! I'm due to go to town shortly, to catch up with Minna. She'll be coming from a job interview. We are to go shoe-shopping. Yee-haw! :P

Well

Tennis, Tallinn, tennishh.... and so on. Bloggin is not as easy as it used to be. I hope I haven't run out of things to say. That would be bad.. Stay tuned for better days. Btw. that Finnish history through books project (if I've even mentioned it), I'm in the years 1920-1940 now. Going strong. :) It's not so bad you know, knowing why some of the streets in your hometown are named after certain persons - even if that is not directly implied in the text...

The Dire Straits' song "Planet of the New Orleans" has just gotten a whole other meaning.

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.

Screw Stahanovism

Hello, the weekend was a blast. Had an impromptu party later on friday, after shopping, going to Kiasma, and drinking cider outdoors.. Saturday we had 3 graduation parties to go to, with little sleep & both of us hangover. We pulled it off like heroes, though we left the last place before midnight. Sunday we slept late & went to my brother's place for some coffee & delicacies - it was his 29th birthday on saturday (but we missed it because of the grad parties). Our presents to him were a t-shirt & poster made by by M.C. Escher. We walked to Minna's parents later, and picked up my birthday presents, and something they got us from hungary.

I've been working for two days now, and let me tell you, there wont be much to write home about.

I

Work ethics

Nasty, I begin work in 5 days. Arbeit macht frei.

Bicycle

It's time to whip out the bicycle and go pay a visit to my parents. Minna's working, so I have all the time in the world to do whatever suits my fancy. I picked up a new memory stick today, the little bugger cost me 70€. My parents are thinking of buying a new digicam, so I'll have to go and talk some sense into them - so that they won't buy "the one on sale at Gigantti" or whatever. A good place to start www.dpreview.com... Anyway, I better get on the road, I promised to show for coffee between 2-3pm. I'll get a good 15km worth of cycling today, yay! One-way shouldn't take longer than 20 minutes. Adios.

Last week

If I nothing proper happens this week, I'll be doomed to go back to the warehouse on monday... that's when I'm supposed to start my 11-week grind there. Fucking hell, and I've tried to _hard_ to look for a job. I need to get out of this country. Where the grass is greener, and proper jobs plenty! Who am I kidding? Ahh... Maybe when I graduate, I'll be finally able to get a decent job. Not a proper job, but a decent one. This is my last week of freedom for the whole summer, unless of course I end the Odyssey short. I might be happy with working just 2 months, or just 1 month... to scrape together enough to survive the summer. Though how much fun is it just to 'survive'. Need skills to pay the bills, and preferably then some. Weekend went by fast, didn't even notice it. Picked up a few books from the library today. One is on war prisoners, it'll set the mood for going back the warehouse :X

Computers suck

Great day today. It's been sunny outside. But guess what I've been up to? Last night, one of my 512Mb DDR sticks decided to go nuts. To make a long story short, it totally fucked up my Windows partition with all the weird errors it was causing. Of course I didn't immediately figure out just what the hell was causing all the weird errors. Luckily, I had two sticks, so it was fairly easy to test which one was the evil bastard, by using memtest. Now all I had to do was just revert back to a backup copy of the partition. But guess what? My backup was almost 6 months old! But have no fear - I always knew I was a louse backup-cloner, so I had a backup batch file running nightly, which copies all the important documents, files, settings, etc.. that I have one the windows partition. Now I just have to do the grievous task of putting everything back in it's right place.

I could have been outside enjoying the sun if it was not for two things: 1) I managed to burn myself pretty damn bad already on sunday, when I went to the local cliffs to do some reading, for about 3 hours worth. With no sunlotion, or t-shirt. The night towards monday was spent in agony. Yesterday I stayed indoors for the most of time, except for going to play squash. I still resemble an indian with my torso, though it's starting to get better.

Tomorrow I'll have a job interview for a fund-assistant job. Let's hope all goes well. This friday I have a re-exam in swedish, have to find the motivation to study for it from somewhere. It's a 5 credit-unit course, which ran a bit over half a year. I do not want to re-take the course. There! That's my motivation. It's 22.5'c outdoors.. terrace time, big time. But alas, poor me has to study, pooey pooey. Might as well get to it. Adios!