| 26.10.2006 Rain. All day, just rain rain rain. And wind, of course. Plenty of wind. With plenty more to come, with the first decent Autumn storm promised for tomorrow. Although I can't say that I really mind. It makes staying inside all the more pleasant, as well as easier to justify to yourself. Not to say that I haven't been out at all, since I did go to school. Good boy me, eh? But frankly, the last couple of days have been a bit weird, to say the least. Where to start... Ok, so I met this couple at a bar about a week or so ago. She's working the counter, he just sort of hangs about, bumming fags and joints. A fun bunch, by all standards. Make music together, a rather out-dated (read: mid 90's style amateur techno) sort, but kinda tolerable. But. Turns out that they're not really a couple, just "very friendly". The actual boyfriend is away for a month, and the new guy lives at the girl's place, eats her food, sleeps in her bed. The works. So what happens in the end? You've got it. One gray October morning the door suddenly opens, "Honey, I'm home!"... The real boyfriend finds them sleeping in bed together, nicely intertwined, so a lot of noisy drama ensues, castration threats for the boy, death threats for the girl, ending with the girl and her new "special friend" being expelled from the house. Her own house. Plus, to add insult to injury, her real boyfriend was a big slob and didn't even pay his share of the rent. Ever. So they've been on the street for a few days now, the poor stupid bastards. Oh, and to make matters a little bit worse, the chick's got fired from her bartendering job! Yeah, on the same day, cos she failed to show up. Cool, huh? Anyway, I had them over on Tuesday the 24th. I was feeling kinda sorry for them, so hey, why not let them spend a night... We had a good time, but a bit too much was drunk and unlike them I had things to do the following day. The same day I receive a phone call from Imatra. My old buddy, Daimer, has broken up with his girlfriend and, on a whim, decided to skip town and head south to Helsinki. I was a bit surprised at this turn of events, but hey, what the heck. I haven't eaten anything in over a day, so I only asked him to bring a McDonalds meal when he did show up. So her came over with this one other guy, Eugene, and we were then bored together. I passed out at about midnight already, despite waking up at 4pm on the same day. And thank goodness, cos waking up at 7am for school the following morning wasn't that much of a problem. Today was pretty much the same. After the stint I pulled at school I went back home, and we collectively thought of things to do, but failed miserably. Eventually Daimer went to the gym, and I went to bed. Hey, an hour of sleep can burn up to 50 calories... Later this evening we still failed to call anybody up, and they failed to score any illegal mind-altering substances. So I had a brilliant idea to go to the boat and evacuate the cushions, something I've been putting off for a while now. Any day now I'll finally lift the boat out of the water. Any bloody day now... So now, after a trip to a gas station to get something to munch on, we're bored again. Anyway, fuck this. I'll just post the links and go now. Like, read or something. I've loaned a book by Irshad Manji from the library, "The trouble with Islam". I wanted to read it for a long time now, and even though it was a Finnish translation I still took it. It was very good... I thoroughly recommend it. Ahem. Ok, the links now. Mainly videos today, first being Jerry Seinfeld's "appearance" in OZ. Then a cool, if a bit spooky, 3D animation, "Fallen Art". And then a video guide to traditional shaving. Lastly, a Futurama timeline for all you fans out there... Anyway, I'm off to... Well, bed maybe. |
 My kitty's prey. The bird lived.  What art now? |
21.10.2006 Why the hell do I have Roxette on my iTunes play list, tell me, please? I just started up the party shuffle, innocently enough, and then it gives me "The Center of The Heart". Sheesh. Anyway, where was I. Yes. So here I am at home, completely broke. Only 8€ on my account, and I think that's now down to 4€ after I got up and took a long (for me) hike to the nearest gas station (about 1 - 1.5Km away) and bought a pack of blue Smarts. That was the workout for the day. Prior to that I ate a bowl of macaroni with sugar, salt and butter. Yum. Not... I've been sitting at home all day now, not answering the phone and generally feeling a tad meh. Been browsing through abandonware sites, downloading ancient games that I used to play back when I was 14 or so. Ah, sweet nostalgy. I even added a few games and apps to the Abandonware section of my site, something I haven't done for a long time. Yesterday, though, was somewhat different. I actually crawled out of the flat, and instead of heading straight to some bum-infested drinking hole went over to a friends place for a game of Settlers of Catan and some (very little, actually) beer. There were quite a few others present as well, all people that I haven't seen for a while and all of them the kind of people that I guess I'd call old friends. I'm glad that I got out, even though it did take an incredible effort of will to drag my ass out from under the cozy blanket. See, thing is that my couch can swallow people. I'm pretty sure that there are some that have been trapped in its bowels for ages, locked in stasis, their bodily functions dormant, just dreaming the eternity away... Man, that sounds awesome. Maybe someday I, too, will just dissolve into my couch. But before that actually happens, I guess I should get back to the subject of the board game evening, though. The game is pretty interesting, but I couldn't be bothered to properly concentrate on it, plus there weren't enough reference pads for everyone, so I completely ignored one of the crucial aspects of the game play, since I would have had to mark things down on a piece of paper, with a pencil. Ych! So, like, last century. The game was over at about midnight, and it was time to decide how to get home. One of my buds decided to head to town, to join a bunch of merry drunks and the Helsinki Club, so I decided to take the same bus but get off at Kallio, since the Helsinki Club was a tad too pricey for my pocket. My genius plan was that my mother was out as well, entertaining some important customers at Studio 51, and I would have a few quiet pints at Kallio until she'd depart and pick me up on her way home. The problem was that the pubs in Kallio close already at 2am, and throw their customers out at 1:30. I barely had time to down a pint when it was time to get out. So I had a chilly walk, and remembered that there was a place a kilometer away that was open till 3am, so I went there and had another pint, reading my City newspaper till the last call came. Eventually mum did pick me up, but in retrospect I should have just headed straight home after the game was over. Guess I just really didn't want to go home. I guess I'll just go play/download/read/watch something now. And maybe get that one beer that's been hiding in the fridge for a day now. Oh shit, almost forgot! Some real-world news from the most real place of all, Russia. My cousin, Anya, just had her first child today at around 3am! It's a girl... Cool, huh? Yeah. So. Links, then. Check out some awesome accidents on the high seas. With pictures! Hell yeah. Oh, and this is a trailer for Team Fortress 2. Gotta get that game whenever it comes out. And last, but not least, a gallery of one very hot, hot, hot chick. Ta, y'all. |
 The game field. |
19.10.2006 I'm so bored... SO bored. The rain has been falling for an eternity, it seems, and shows no sign of letting up. The lightning and thunder are spectacular though. I wonder if one can be electrocuted while listening to music on headphones connected to a PC..? New headphones by Phillips (model SHP805), btw. 49,90€. I was feeling cheap though, so I just nicked them. Hey, the opportunity was there... Why not save some very precious cash?Much nicer than my old Sony headphones that always annoyed me with their wobbly plastic construction and an alarmingly thin, extremely long wire that kept tying up my computer chair's wheels. Amazing how the wire never broke. It did, eventually, but only due to a temper tantrum I suffered when I lost a round in Battlefield 2 and just threw the headphones across the room. They broke apart with a satisfying snap. Hey, I was having a really bad day, so I am entitled to my little outbursts. Especially since nobody was watching. Yeah, about the blog... I will renew my pledge to update more often, but don't know if it'll really happen. It's not that I've been horribly busy or anything, I've been plain lazy. Sure, I study. I go to school (far from every day), do homework (very little) and then I work (a few days a month). I am not happy, but nor am I horribly depressed. Thank gods I don't have the nightmarish panic attacks anymore either. I do attend group therapy every Wednesday morning, but I really don't like it (nothing wrong with it, just boring and too early) and am having a hard time making myself go, so I'm afraid I won't last the 3 years I'm supposed to attend it for. I even started to look for an evening job to escape my constant poverty, and managed to find and land one in airport security, but their training schedule interfered too much with my school, so I decided to drop it... So I'm still broke, and will be for the foreseeable future. As for my personal life... Well, I don't really have any. Not when it comes to the fairer sex, anyway. The opportunities are there, but I'm just too afraid/disinterested/bored to use them. As for friends, I have a few. A few more than I deserve, even, what with my neglect when it comes to keeping up contact. So I drink. Not so much anymore, compared to the previous summer or the late spring, but probably too much anyway. Yeah, and as you might have noticed by now, I've posted some of the pics I took in Russia during my stay there, from August 3rd to August 21st. I first traveled to Moscow for about 4 days, and then took a train down south to stay at my Grandparents village for about 10 days. Something like 5 days were eaten up by the train rides, but I'd always rather waste time on the rails than fly, especially on board Russian airlines. The trip was really nice. I met some people I haven't seen for ages, like my cousin (thrice removed) who lives in Moscow. The bugger knocked up his girlfriend some time ago, and was none too cheerful about it, but they decided to keep the kid. As I now write this the girl already gave birth to a healthy baby boy, and named him in my honor. I was, and still am, horribly embarrassed. What can one say or do when a kid gets named in your honor? But I digress. I spent some time ambling around Moscow, then met up with Sasha, the guy I've known since first grade back in the time when Soviet Union was still around. Yes, that same fellow who sailed with me during the epic sail to Estonia described in a post below this one. He showed me a few nice places I've never been to, including some moderately cheap places to eat (not easy to find in Moscow). At 02:30am on the 6th of August I boarded the train down south. A horrible train, with no air conditioning or a restaurant wagon. It was the slowest south-bound train I've ever been on. The bugger stopped everywhere, sometimes for over an hour, and it took a detour via Volgograd, perhaps better known as the legendary city of Stalingrad. Got to see the famous "Rodina!" statue, too... Even though it was only from a train. Temperatures rose to +50c in the day time, but our wagon was mostly populated with young people, and there was plenty of warm beer to be bought during the frequent stops, so much fun was had by all... In underwear only, of course. The only drawback was that I left my brand new shoes on the train. 80€ well spent, dammit! I don't want to make this post as long as the previous one, so I will just say that I had a great deal of fun down south. Met all of my relatives, and spent some very pleasant time in Gelendzhik and Kabardinka sea-side resort towns. 10 days was not enough, though. Afterwards I took a fast train to St.Petersburg, with a restaurant wagon and air conditioning. But it was boring. Oh so boring. Young people couldn't afford it, see. It was as expensive as taking a plane. So next time I go south I'd rather take the slow but fun train, I think... And perhaps a few friends as well. Anyway, sorry about the quality of the thumbnails on the right. I am still figuring out this new photo archiving/editing app I am using now, FastStone (what's with the name, anyway? Not very descriptive, I'd say...) instead of ThumbsPlus, since FastStone is freeware and I just can't be arsed to look for cracks and keygens every time I reinstall Windows just so that I could install ThumbsPlus again... This post still took me about 20 days to write. Man, I just can't be bothered with the blog anymore, even though there would be plenty to write. So I won't make any promises anymore. Watch this space... And now, the links. Hmm, these are all fairly old, so don't stone me if you've already seen them somewhere else. Here's something that fits with the main topic of the post: all manner of strange people on Moscow subway. Then there's this one. Might have been on before, I'm not sure, but check it out, larger than life sculptures. Awesome... And then for something completely different: a bad storm. |
 The Moscow metro...  Slow train to Novorossiysk.  An awesome Black Sea sunset.  More awesome Black sea scenery. |
