Gluttony

Ah, there are a few good things in having a birthday. I haven't celebrated my birthday in years, but since we hit round numbers this time, I decided to invite some friends over and enjoy life. So friday went nicely, watching curling and ice hockey and getting wasted.

Saturday we decided to have a gluttony day, since this was my real birthday. Went on a shopping spree and got pretty much everything I could lay my hands on, I had several revelations when paying and noticing that "oh, I didn't remember taking donuts". Anyway, yesterday was a day full of pizzas, chicken wings, bratwurst & sauerkraut, carelian pies, horse sausage, candy, nachos, salsa, guacamole, cheddar sauce, pickled gherkin and a lot of other stuff downed with good drinkies of course. Didn't eat very much in quantity, but it was real nice to just let go while shopping and get all the crap you usually don't get because it would be just pointless.

What was worrying, was the fact that the teller didn't even flinch at the mountain of fat, salt and sugar standing across his counter. Well, Finland is the good number two on the fattest country on the list, so I guess some people might do that more than often. Yuck.

Man I'd like to get this darn blog to rock, rock, rockety rock and get the new stuff online.

np: Ain't Sayin' Nothin' New from the album "Things Fall Apart" by The Roots

Born as Ghosts

Sunday. Olympic fever is surrounding, encompassing and overwhelming the world. Well, the western world at least.

Working hard to get Mind Itch properly set up so we can have our full range of writers coming up and showing their love for the world, now trying to find a good deal on a hosting partner where we could put ourselves, hopefully I'll have something concrete next week.

np: Distance from the album "Stabbing The Drama (Digipak)" by Soilwork

A Trashed Rose

Mental imagery. While working in the advertisement and marketing industry, I've had the opportunity to see great ads and beautiful messages, strong messages - powerful messages. But still, there are a few things that are just so elemental and iconic. Think of a single rose in a trash can. Just a single rose. Why is it there? Is it dead? Have there been any holidays that usually deserve roses? Are there any places that would have roses close by? Was it left by a man or a woman? Was it left in anger or in love? The best image doesn't only answer questions, but gives more of them.

Still sick, I was driven home from work - understandably. I sound like Lance Henriksen (You know, Frank Black from Millennium or the android from Alien). Now I'm lying in the bed, listening to the Engadget podcast and doing a presentation about marketing. My brain is having big difficulties multitasking stuff at the moment. Which is why I'll not babble any further, but will continue doing something that does not require thinking.

Cheers.

I'm just a man

Currently my head has only room for one word: phlegm.

Sure, the stress of things undone has lifted and thus my body has been able to rest and lower its resistance of the elements. Friday held a farewell party for a colleague, the tab was open and the bar was aplenty. Had to wake up early to present my thesis' first draft via Skype - which worked out just nicely, but that resulted in the fact that I didn't have as many hours to sleep as I would've wanted. Same thing on saturday, there always seems to be something more interesting to do than sleeping.

People are funny. Everybody seems to have such strong opinions about a lot of things, and most of them contradict with each other, not even starting to compare them with interpersonal relationships and opinions.

Still, it's so nice to be back in Finland, it's been like three weeks and yes - it's time for the first strike. Again something to do with drivers and their union being pissed about something because of somebody tries to be mean and help these guys work less overtime. But yeah, that would be too easy. The parliament decided to not continue the worker movement restrictions - meaning that in the near future these guys can be replaced with immigrants who would even work for smaller pay.

Eh, I think I'll take a nap and try to gather some strength for tomorrow's labor at the office.

np: Prisoner from the album "Transistor" by 311

Remember March 11th will be 311 day!

Standard of living

Saturday morning, a long time since I've had the opportunity to wake up later than single digits. Lovely. Although the fridge did its best to keep us up all night, gurgling and making noises, I think it's about to die or something. Funny thing about the fridge is that it was the second time it did that, but it only makes the sound during the night.. maybe it's a were-fridge or something. I need to check it out but it just feels like there's no point since we're _just_ moving out. Only thing we need to do is find the place to live in. Trust me, that has proven out to be the most difficult part.

When you get to a certain age, you know what kind of place you want to live in. Simple, sure, but when the demand for those kinds of places is higher than the supply it results in two things - higher prices and low availability. Now, thinking myself of being some sort of a business man, thinking about investments and all that - going with the flow of a pricing anomaly seems very foolish of me, if we would be talking about stocks or bonds I wouldn't touch them, even with any other investment property - I wouldn't bother looking to that general direction - but we're talking about my (our) future home. Which we will live in for the next five years at least.

We know what we want. We want three rooms, so we can have some peace of mind when we're both home at the same time. We need an office room, since we don't want to bring work to the rest of the apartment, and we also need the arts room, so that should justify the need for a third room. One room is for the bedroom and one for the living room. We need a lot of space for clothes, so a place with a wardrobe would be high on our list. We want high ceilings, because they're just sexy. We want to have enough space in the bathroom for a proper washing machine and I need a good kitchen, including a dish washer, since I'm used to it and I cook a lot. We also need a place were there's good enough public transportation around, so that means we want to be in the downtown area, since we need to travel a lot and there wouldn't be any sense in living far away from the places we need to be constantly in. We also want to have a balcony, because you can spend nice summer days there or just dry laundry, also very handy when you have a party and friends who smoke. I would also like to have a sauna either in the apartment or at least in the house, I've lived too long without a sauna and I'm sorely missing having one around so I can go there when I want to. Of course, it can't be too expensive, since I'm not a millionaire (yet).

So far we've browsed through hundreds upon hundreds of ads, finding 5 interesting options - three we've had time to see - and one of those three is interesting - but it's in the street level. I'd really like to get this thing done and start planning the next phase of my life. Hopefully next week we'll have time to go see the two other apartments and make the decision to buy our future home.

Respect to the east coast mind itch homies, you've been a plenty! ;)

Kiss and make up

Rock and Roll! Finally got the first draft of my thesis done, meaning that I will have a few weeks time to breathe and concentrate in working and creating some good karma all around. Been having quite long days lately and that's why it's been a bit quiet with Mind Itch lately, but the wagon is rolling and hopefully we will be able to move to a new server soon and set up the real Mind Itch we want to get started with.

Now the latest Family Guy episode and catching some ZzzzzZZzzzz's.



Peace out.

np: Kiss And Make Up from the album "Babylon" by Skindred