A smoke test trying to submit a blog post from my mobile. Featuring summer, sauna and a butt print.

One of the photos a drunken photographer took in Espa in June.

Eppu Normaali live ^^ first time ever for me. Jannen Jamit, Järvenpää, Aug 2009.

My mum takes awesome photos, it was just a really blurry day A rabbit holding a candle, a gigantic balloon and me. Taidehalli, Aug 2009.

Fingerboard park, Kasarmintori, Helsinki.

Pipilotti Rist‘s video installation in Kiasma. Or a red-haired Finnish fairy. You decide.

Far too soon the evenings have been getting darker and weather colder. Only last week it was hailing when I cycled home from work and I froze half of my remaining brain cells in one go. A bonus pic from Torni‘s ladies’ room; this is what Helsinki is going to look like from now on – but much darker.

From the random photos to Great News: my dear friend Roi is now a married man (Hooray!), the bun is in the oven (Hooray!)  and in April Roi will start a new hobby changing diapers (Hooray!). Gratz to Sonja too, well done! ^^

With Roi in Tuska metal festival, June 2009

Roi has been a great friend of mine all the way from our studies in Southampton Institute. Together we have been to more gigs than an average kid sees in a whole lifetime and now Roi gets to pass his great taste of music to the kid. How lucky is this baby going to be: falling asleep listening to the sweet Gothenburg sound. And naturally, Roi told me these great news in Raised Fist gig. All this will naturally mean less gigs for us together, but it sure happens for a good cause! From metal babies to last weekend’s CLUES TO HUMAN BEHAVIOR: Planet Fun Fun exhibition in Keravan Taidemuseo, where a workmate of mine is one of the displaying artists. Check out the piece below by Petri Ala-Maunus called There is a Place in Heaven for Me and My Kind. I am happy to live  longer knowing I will eventually get to this Jehovan style paradise with added lambs and flames:

In September I turned 35 and am now officially old enough to fit into the cougar age group (aka hunt, prowl, corner, pounce):

A cougar, by my definition, refers to a woman over the age of 35 (or 40 depending on who you ask) that goes out looking for younger dudes to prey on to fulfill their mature urges. While cougars have been around for a long time, they have become increasingly popular over the past few years thanks to the antics of high-profile cougars like Demi Moore, Linda Hogan and Debbie Rowe.

Glad that aging women are trendy now. However, does this mean I will need to start checking ID’s now? Somehow, those hot calculating, man-eating huntresses couldn’t be further from me – I feel more like MacGyver instead. Anyone else old enough to remember the following dialogue in the first ever MacGyver episode:

Colson: “You know, it’s gonna take alot more than you can carry in that knapsack to get you through all this.”

MacGyver: “Well, the bag’s not for what I take Colson, it’s for what I find along the way.”

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Here’s a spoiler:

This species failed. No s**t, Sherlock.

Viacom is currently taking all-too-familiar action removing all the clips from Youtube quoting their usual copyright issues. And more cold water to the Finns – I tried link to the full episode in South Park website, but got this message instead:

Fingers crossed South Park manages to get rid of those pre-existing contractual oblication jerks asap.

The recent promise about the full movies and TV shows to be made available in Youtube sounded great, but don’t believe it, wrote Mark Hachman yesterday in PCMag:

Partners like Crackle, CBS, MGM, Lionsgate and Starz made thousands of TV episodes and hundreds of movies available on Youtube for consumers to watch for free beginning on Thursday, in a bid to challenge Hulu for dominance in the online video space.

Don’t believe it. Google has amassed a TV lineup only a sick old retiree could love, with movies that belong in the dollar VHS bin. At this point, the shocking lack of content only highlights how competitors like Hulu can and will succeed in a cutthroat market where content is king. Quite frankly, it’s a little embarrassing.

The full episode isn’t available in Hulu either, so it looks like Viacom is simply trying to prevent earthlings from watching online how Finland gets nuked. Luckily, all Scandinavians are taught in elementary school where to search for the full South Park episodes.

Antti & me – guess which one the photographer liked more… Or perhaps I am just blurring out from the photo Back to the Future style, eventually disappearing for good.

Our contest entry, the Habbo Xmas Campaign didn’t win, but we still had great time in the jacuzzi where you can leave your hat on…

The last photo of the evening taken from the dance floor shows how nice guys finish last AND in style. Natsku and Jaffa are in the zone, Mario & me in the back are admiring the mysterious hand Jaffa is carrying on his shoulder.

Afterwards we conquered Redrum dance floor. And yes, Friday morning sucked big time.

Outside temperature: +2°C

Me, Juha, Antti & Sami

Joy to the world!

Botta in flames

Right next to Botta is a pub called St. Urho’s. A couple weeks ago my dear UK friends Cath and Nath came to see what Helsinki looks like. In their few days stay they already successfully chose their favourite local pub. St. Urho was watching over the three musketeers.

Cath, Nath and me in St Urho's

More photos from their visit can be seen in their Flickr accounts: Cath and Nath. Andrew C is arriving on Thursday for four days and gets to witness the Finnish independence day on the 6th of December. More photos will be coming up.

After being employed by Sulake I have learned a great deal more about pixel graphics and isometric design. It feels damn good to do something different from the web design for a change. Here’s a picture of how I feel these evenings after my Director lessons:

Venlala in her Habbo world

Last week the snow suddenly turned Helsinki to a winter wonderland. I immediately ran to the store and bought a cheapish Canon Ixus 85 to capture the snow madness. The results are in Flicker, go check them out.

Bikes under snow

There have been several really nice metal gigs in November. The Unholy Alliance featuring Slayer, Trivium, Mastodon and Amon Amarth was playing in Jäähalli couple of days ago. Slipknot, Machine Head and Children of Bodom played in the same venue couple of weeks back. Slipknot show was such a good fun; when you put nine Iowan nutters on the same stage, it sure doesn’t get boring for a second.

Slayer, Helsingin Jäähalli

Today the day just never showed up – it was dark throughout the day. People invent different motivational things to stay sane during the Nordic winter. My next door neighbours simply stayed in bed having sex all day long.

The Times suggests that the following five steps to happiness and better life:

Connect
Developing relationships with family, friends, colleagues and neighbours will enrich your life and bring you support.

Be active
Sports, hobbies such as gardening or dancing, or just a daily stroll will make you feel good and maintain mobility and fitness.

Be curious
Noting the beauty of everyday moments as well as the unusual and reflecting on them helps you to appreciate what matters to you.

Learn
Fixing a bike, learning an instrument, cooking – the challenge and satisfaction brings fun and confidence.

Give
Helping friends and strangers links your happiness to a wider community and is very rewarding.

Good effort from Times. However, I think that life’s small pleasures; a big cup of tea and an episode of Supernatural before a new working week will definately work for me now. Over and out.

Scarlett Johansson will co-host the 2008 Nobel Peace Concert on Dec 11 in honor of this year’s laureate, Finnish peace mediator and former President Martti Ahtisaari, organizers said Monday, Oct 20, 2008.

I know many people who would choose hanging out with Scarlett over winning a Nobel Peace Prize any time. Dear Mr. Ahtisaari – make the best out of these two fab things coming up this December!

Last week saw the release of Max Payne film. It is based on the film-noir style third-person shooter computer game developed by the Finnish company Remedy Entertainment back in 2001. It was the first big major hit for a Finnish computer game industry, so I went to see how Mark Wahlberg passes as Max.

Max Payne computer game cover

Even though I am not a massive fan of action films, the film wasn’t actually that bad. I had completely forgotten about the game’s bullet time feature, which was used several times in the film. After The Matrix introduced the style it was the cool thing in special effects for several years. I very much enjoyed the visuals that are kept faithful to the game: rain, snow, shadows, darkness, corruption and dirt. The ambient pumping soundtrack rocked, too. It felt funny to step out from the cinema to a darkness and rain very typical for Helsinki in October. Extended film experience indeed.

Finally, Micosoft wishes all you little pirates and ninjas out there a Happy Anti-Piracy Day!

REDMOND, Wash., Oct 21, 2008: Microsoft Corp. today announced Global Anti-Piracy Day, a simultaneous launch of education initiatives and enforcement actions in 49 countries on six continents to combat the sophisticated, illegal trade of pirated and counterfeit software.

Piratebay, the largest BitTorrent tracker on the Internet also celebrated the event in their homepage:

Bill Gates made me do it.

Information overload.

A view to the young pine forest

Kalle opts for a brand new Stihl 1D10 bush saw for maximum damage.

Everything but the pines must go.

A machete with the power of an ax (…) 21″ FiberComp™ fiberglass handle lets you swing this monster baseball bat style for serious wind-up power.“

Time is money has lately meant to me having money but no time to use it This autumn I have finally had plenty of time instead of money and can do things I haven’t done before. Picking mushrooms is great fun – no joke. Whilst Chef Kalle prepares our daily 1000+ kcal lunch in his Trangia, I run around looking for mushrooms Mario style.

Chef Kalle

Look at the size of that thing!

The evenings I have burned a vainovalkea by the lake. Remember the scene in Return of the King, where Pippin lights up the Minas Tirith beacon? Similar signal fire system used to exist in Finland / Scandinavia warning people about the approaching invader fleets. Those were the times, my signal fire only burns for enjoyment.

The beacons of Amon Din are lit!

Let me stand next to your fire.

Kuusisto, Pornainen

In his time Waltari was not much of a party animal and did not like being famous and celebrated. Some signaling systems (beacons? ) were familiar to him, too: According to the locals, he had a secret signal system warning him about approaching reporters that gave him enough time to sneak out to the nearby forest before they were able to get to his house.

Kieku & Kaiku comics colored by kids in Pornainen

Tässä maailmassa on paljon loistavia näyteikkunoita ja vaaditaan huomattavaa kasvamista yksinäisyyteen ennen kun voi kohtalaisen vilpittömästi huokaista itselleen: Noin paljon on sellaista mitä en tarvitse. Tällä en tietenkään tarkoita vain esineitä. On olemassa muunkinlaisia turhuuden markkinoita. Itse annan suuren arvon kauniille turhuudelle. Se helpottaa ja tekee elämän siedettäväksi. Mutta se ei koskaan saa kädä itse tarkoituksekseen. Tällaisenkin kiusauksen voittaminen, jos sen pystyy voittamaan, on suojelevan yksinäisyyden ansiota.

This world has plenty of bright display windows and it takes a lot of personal growth to loneliness, before one can say without any hesitation: There are so many things I do not need. With this I do not mean only objects. There are also other kind of markets for unnecessities. Personally, I give credit to the beautiful unnecessity that releases the pressure and makes life bearable. But it must never become the reason. Winning the temptation, if one can do it, happens through protective loneliness.

Laukkoski and Jokimäki schools combine forces

Brelo performed several pieces for four kanteles. Kantele is the national instrument of Finland, but bands like this are more of a curiosity. Kids still play metal more often

Brelo live.

Bit more about Kantele: in the Finnish national epic Kalevala, the Finnish superhero Väinämöinen – and Gandalf-lookalike – owns a kantele made of huge pike’s jaw. He has got a handy special skill being able to kill people by singing and playing his kantele. Death metal dirge?

Wikipedia: There can be found some similarities between Väinämöinen and wizards in fantasy literature, first and foremost among them Gandalf in J. R. R. Tolkien‘s The Lord of the Rings. Both are unearthly sages of divine origins, both in possession of unearthly knowledge. Another wizard of Tolkien’s, Saruman the White, possessed a great power of voice and persuasion, which also somewhat mirrors Väinämöinen’s (who was able to charm all manner of woodland creatures with his song and kantele). Tolkien indicated that his stories of Túrin Turambar were a retelling of the Kullervo myth from Kalevala so it is possible that similarities between Gandalf and Väinämöinen were intentional or unconscious rather than coincidental.

A view to my room

The fire is crackling in the fireplace. I will go and enjoy it for as long as it lasts.