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

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.

Home sweet home

Whilst unpacking my bags I find both my mobile phone and laptop mouse missing. The phone was hidden deep in the structure of the rucksack, so someone has spent loads of time and effort going through the bag. Right next to the phone was my external hard drive, which contains all my commercial work files over the past four years… and no, the thief didn’t take it. Hahaha.  Had I lost that hard drive, that would have been a nightmare, and I would have cried for weeks. Besides, I never really liked that phone anyway (I always wonder why people praise Nokia so much), so the thief actually did me a favour.

I find a replacement phone from my mum’s drawers; her old phone is a proper old-skool Nokia with no mp3 player, camera or 3G. Perfect.

Baby, call me on my new mobile

The thief also took my old, no longer valid passport. The only reason why I hadn’t thrown it away is that my Australian visa was registered to it. Wonder if this mysterious thief will get to Australia using an out-of-date passport and my not-quite-Asian mugshot.

Altogether, the travels went remarkably well and it is time to get organised again. First thing is to set up a room for myself. Every nerd needs a private nest with a wi-fi. After being away from Finland for so long time I do not have any permanent presence here. Now it is time to  introduce you My New Room:

A peek to my peräkammari

I am now a proud peräkammarin tyttö, adapted from Finnish expression peräkammarin poika, describing those hopeless mums’ boys who have never moved out from home and instead choose to live in a room in their parent’s houses.  A very good start…

The room is not just any kind of space – check out these amazing views over Kotojärvi (Homelake). Yes, that is its real name. Someone once was in a very creative mood.

A room with a view

It is now time expand my territory to Helsinki. According to all-knowing Wikipedia:

The population of the city of Helsinki is 569,892 (31 March 2008)], making it the most populous municipality in Finland by a wide margin. Foreign-born population stands at around 10%.

First thing is to go and say hello to the popular but unwelcomed new inhabitants, who breed so fast that the city’s population is rising rapidly. Citykanit, the abandoned pet rabbits have learned to survive through the harsh Finnish winters. They love sex and their new freedom and successfully have taken over all the Helsinki central parks.  They are currently migrating north towards the suburbs. They prefer living around the main train lines – smart rabbits wanting good connections to the city.

I was expecting that the rabbits to come in all colours and fur lenghts, dotted, striped, limp eared and so on, but I only see these plain brown ones. Plenty of them, though.

Citykani huntress watches its prey and prepares for the final attack

For their credit, the dull brown fur matches the Finnish landscape most of the year, so I guess it makes sense to wear brown and modest oufit. Blending in and modesty are two main traits for surviving in Finland.

A walk around Töölönlahti was nice. Everything feels smaller than the last time I was here. During the past few months I’ve travelled through dozens of big cities in South-East Asia and have realised before, how small the buildings in Helsinki are. The city also feels quiet: the Asian never ending streams of scooters and constant noise were overwhelming and never made me relaxed.

A view over Töölönlahti towards Helsinki Railway station

I am staying in Museokatu, Töölö, a neighbourhood most known for its challenging inhabitants, Töölön mummot. I liked this definition I found:

Töölön mummo on ikänäköinen rouva hyvältä asuinalueelta Helsingistä. Hän tietää useimmat asiat muita paremmin ja mieluummin, ainakin kun tieto on kerättävissä kotisohvalta käsin.

Töölö granny is a mature old lady from a good neighbourhood of Helsinki. She knows most of the things better and more eagerly than the others, at least when the information can be gathered sitting on the couch at home.

‘My town, my street, give me peace of mind that can’t be beat, yeah’ (Buck-O-Nine)

Room in the countryside is sorted, room in Helsinki is sorted – the next thing I need is a vehicle. Aunt-Paula’s old faithful Jopo has been gathering dust in the basement all these years. Its tires need air, the chains some oil and I also need to buy a new heavy lock (who could resist trying to steal that beauty), but the bike is solid and its orange colour makes me smile. Helsinki is a compact city and has very little traffic. Good bicycle roads are everywhere so a bike is an ideal mode of transportation… at least now, when it is summertime and living is easy. When the autumn rains begin and later snow covers the streets, it will get more extreme sport. But there is nothing like a bit of challenge. Bring it on!

Paula-tädin Jopo

Now it is the time for the last and the biggest challenge; getting my website and CV up to date and start looking for a job. Helsinki has a good reputation in the digital media and it is going to be interesting to see, how work compares to Australia and England. My design style is a grungy and not quite the soft and round Web2.0 – even though I have learned to design in that style fluently as well.  Finnishness brings out the raw metal and edginess to my designs.

Talking about metal and edges, last week we went to a Indie-iltamat in Tavastia, the most famous live music venue in Helsinki. The line-up was Propagandhi from Canada and three Finnish bands No Shame, Anal Thunder and Deathbed. My mate Jere spent Propagandhi’s gig in the mosh pit, but I really enjoyed Deathbed, where my brother’s friend from recently-split Endstand is playing guitar. Of course, the name sucks, but their sound doesn’t. Their Myspace page states:

We gave back to hardcore what it gave us – heart, sincerity and a chance to be heard.

It was a really good night and this autumn I plan to see loads more gigs that have heart and sincerity.