Latenight links

Hello. Work's been ok. Friday went by with ease, though I was working much harder than on thursday, when I was just learning the ropes. Saturday was the worst though. People queuein for 20 meters before the store opened. Crazy bastards, thinking that if they're early they'll avoid the crowd & lines. Fools! Anyway. Here's a quick link before I got to bed. I thought it was mildy amusing, not having heard the song before. Let's make it clear that I am not a WoW player/fan either! Did you know that it's 20 years since the Challenger disaster? Anyway, time to go to bed. I'll finish up with a quote from one of the investigators of the case, a special friend of mine: Richard 'dick' Feynman: "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." Amen.

First impressions

Hello there. How can I help you? First day at work. The work of a IT-equipment & supplies salesman is not too shabby. But do not get me wrong. It's not glamorous either.

The good sides:

1. I can buy hardware & software for my own use, slicing through the margins.
2. The customers are humble - for the most part.
3. You're constantly selling different things - from 42" lcd tv's to laptops to 10-packs of dvds & the odd cables & connectors.
4. The co-workers are easy-going, smart, and helpful.
5. It's a hell of a lot closer to home than my last place.

The bad sides:

1. I can't buy that much hardware because the salary isn't SIZZLING. It's OK. I get a whopping two thousandths of whatever I sell as commission. Well suppose I sell stuff worth 30k per day, that's 60€ bonus. Wee. May all the fucking yuppies come my way.
2. Some of the customers are annoying PERIOD.
3. Few breaks, you cannot relax much. People are watching.
4. It's taking away my evenings and saturdays. Well I get compensated for that!
5. Still not quite what my schooling should get me.

You do the math and tell me. At least I am moving on.

New template

To celebrate my 50th post, I opted to change my template to something a little more, err, green. 50 posts in what, 55 weeks is not much, hey? Perhaps a little more discipline is needed of me. Anyway, here's a link for all you sickos who want to learn of the evils of this world: The Crime Library!

Arbeit macht frei

A twist of good luck. I got a job as a sales rep in the IT field. I went and quit my old & dreaded warehouse job! Good bye, good riddance, & farewell. As my old workfriend with whom I've been through 3 different jobs noted: arbeit macht frei! It's quite possible to get rid of a shitty job through getting a better one :) Awesome. In another fantastic strike of good news, we will get a free accomodation in Copenhagen come April. We are going there to attend my cousin Anne's wedding & she's promised to let us stay at their flat during the weekend. The married couple will be staying at a hotel. This is excellent and most welcome news.

I checked yesterday, and my work practice credits have been approved in full. Superb! I was a bit worried if my old POS work could be approved, but damned if it didn't. This day has been full of good news. Things are on the up & up! I just hope everything goes well tomorrow, as I start work at the new place.

Freezing!

This morning had to be the worst in a long time. Waking up - fine. Quick and hasty (and tasty) breakfast, ok. But the weather. -20'c with 8m/s winds. I walk to school regularily, regardless of weather. That principle may have to change. For reference, go here and click on the link to see an interactive graph that depicts how much 'bite' the weather has. It shows how cold the weather feels on your skin by taking into account the wind speeds. So this morning, I was exposed for 15 minutes to approximately -32,5C. When it is cold and windy, quite often my eyes start to leak. Today, in that weather, the tips of my eyelashes developed small round bits of ice. I kid you not. The worst part of the walk was while I was crossing an approx 170m long bridge at an elevation of... hmm say 15 meters. The wind on that bridge is viciously penetrating. There was a couple of times last fall when I almost fell into the ground because of a vicious whirl! Well this time it blowing that hard, but felt cold enough. Ouch! The wind was head on. Breathing was difficult. I couldn't keep my eyes open for long periods. Suppose the breeze was 15m/s. That would be -36 in the 'bite' index. At that level, you get frostbite if exposed for ~10 minutes or longer. I believe it :P

Tomorrow morning is going to be another struggle. But have no fear - I shall be better prepared. Sidenote: as I was walking back from school (the weather relatively cozy now with the suns warming effect) I got to thinking about all the poor bastards throughout history who have had march or wage war in freezing conditions. Poor bastards indeed. Well, enough about the weather - I apologise (even though I am excused by my geographical area with 4 seasons!)

It'll be a busy spring. My final thesis is starting to take form. Did some initial research at the school library today. Apparently there has been some interest in the topic in the last couple of years. I found two somewhat similar thesises made. I'm wondering whether I should take a peek? Perhaps get some ideas for references. I have had to sign a nondisclosure agreement with the company I'm making the final thesis for. The good thing with this is that the firm will be providing me with information, guidance, and ultimately - money. Not bad. Too many of my colleague students past & present have had to do their thesises without getting financially compensated for their efforts. Anyway, as far as secrecy goes, any & all information about the topic, as far as details to the company in itself is conserned - shall be beyond the scope of this Blog. However! The final thesis after all is a public document. It will be reviewed by senior staff at my polytechnic. I will present it to public in an 'open to all' seminar. And finally, there will be a copy of it available at the school's library. It'll be a fine day indeed when I am done with this project. Cash and glory. Well, at least cash and a sense of relief.

Work front news: email frenzy back and forth. I may become a freelance technical writer. An ISO certified translation agency contacted me regarding my open application. We have exchanged several emails and it looks good. If they find something that would fit my experience and talents, they'll send me a small sample. I will process it (translate most likely) and send it back. The company will then decide if I'm up for the project or not. Naturally, I have no idea when such projects will come my way. Maybe never. But the fact that a senior staff member of the company has been willing to exchange emails with me so freely has led me to believe that perhaps there is hope. Today, around noon I got a phonecall from another company. About a position in an IT sales. I'll go to the job interview on monday 12.00. It would be part-time. Decent pay. Nice benefits (though I really shouldn't be buying hardware right now). Just what I need. Let's hope it works out! I'm also expecting a couple of responses to my summerjob applications. These would be accounting firms. The topic does not _really_ interest me, but hey - anything is better than what I've been doing for the last two summers. Well maybe it's not that bad - but still. I'd rather have a real job.


Interesting times indeed.

Frenzy

Hello there! School's kicked off. So has the ever annoying search for summerjobs! Maybe this summer I will finally get something good going. I should be done with 95% of my studies by the middle of april. It's going to be a rough ride untill then. The topic for my final thesis is pretty much set now. Gotta start doing the research for it. It'll be about how to economically internationalize an new-media company. Around 40 pages will do it. Back to studying Accounting, out of all things. Sigh!

Happy New Year

Hello. Still alive! Time flies by fast, and blogging is difficult without discipline. I'll just start on the theater bit. It was surprisingly good: Shakespeare done in a modern adaption with sexy undertones. My grades for school were rather good, 4's and 5's (out of 5). I had a few nice evenings between friends, cousins and family. Wintertime is perfect for sitting together with a few good people, eating snacks, drinking Glögg and maybe playing a bit of Carcassonne.

Christmas was rather nice and cozy, except that I had to go to work on boxing day, d'oh.
The eve we spent at Minna's parents, and xmas day at my parents. Nice set of presents we got, yessir. Not a single CD or DVD this time though, which may strike most people as weird! What with the days of burning dvd's & fast connections, perhaps people don't see the point anymore. Unless you really like & enjoy something - then you prolly want 'the real deal' - given you've got the money for it.

New year was a strange affair. Minna had work from 10pm-4.30am, while I had work on new year's day from 8am to 4pm. Not much of a party. But we did try - we went to one party at around 7pm - but naturally Minna had to leave pretty soon. I followed suite an hour after that with Martti, Emmu & Heljä. Got to see the fireworks, and drank a few beers. Even thought I showed considerable restraint as far as drinking went, it still wasn't easy to go to work the next morning. Most likely it's just because of lack of sleep.

With the days being so short, you've got to have something relaxing to do in the evenings, or you'll go crazy. Sitting in front of the telly, or watching movies nonstop will get you fucked. At least it gets me very edgy. Which is why I've been try to get some exercise in... I actually borrowed my brother's ice-skates and went skating with Ali last week. What a disappointment that was. Maybe it was the skates, or the fact that I was last on ice in the 90s - but man, I was crap. Back in my early & later teens, I was pretty good. In the A-team in school. But damn. I think it's at least partially due to the equipment. The skates blunt & loose from the ankles, hockeystick was too long, and the ice sucked.. Excuses? - I really need to find a saw from somewhere. And buy some skates. The old ones I own are a few sizes too small. Besides the slight discomfort and disbelief of noticing the degradation of my skills, I really enjoyed exercising outdoors for a change. Squash & gym are both cool, but you don't get the same feeling afterwards. Being outdoors for a couple of hours in mild frost temperature is something else. I plan hitting the ice again this week, either today or tomorrow.

Let's hope 2006 is a good year. Some of the future highlights: we are getting married, I will graduate, and (possibly) get a decent job. Cheers!

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.