Last week when was lying in bed with the cold, so I made a big cup of tea, buried myself on the couch and went to see what Piippola villagers in  have been up to.

I’m talking about Animal Crossing, City Folk, the computer game that has a never ending storyline, days and seasons passing in real time. A character moves to a town and begins to live like a villager: house mortgage need to get paid, harvest gathered and friends visited. Activities and events take place same time they happen in real life and there is not an ultimate goal. Life is what one makes of it.

Season had changed, but the villagers are still adorable nutters. Here is a selection of screenshots of what happened.

Baabara was standing outside her house – way past her bedtime. She told me her key fell in the river (even though I am sure they throw it there on purpose).  I fished for over an an hour. When I finally found it and rushed it back to her, she thanked me:

Next I bumped to Merry, a new cat in town. She was wearing a pink daisy shirt and carrying a watering can, so  I expected her to talk about furry things. But the looks are deceiving in Piippola. Her first words to me:

Derwin is my favourite character, an insecure nerd house full of fossils and junk. He approached me sweating the huge drops of anxiety. Big boys had been bullying him again:

It is absolutely ok to talk about vulcans, I told him. Relieved, he went back home  and I continued to look for Harry, the bully. I put on a hockey mask and bun wig to look more intimidating. Finally I found him, an old hippo with  no fashion sense and who mostly comes out at night:

Hmm, seems like he has adapted the word himself. Great, no problem there.

I was happy to see that Buck was sporting DS9 Julian Bashir uniform I had designed. And boy, was he feeling frisky in it:

I have to admit the shirt looks great on him.

Next one out and about was Twiggy, who seemed to have a great night. The canary bird chick seems to have lost all his marbles. Note that it’s not even full moon yet:

Before I finished the game for the night, I bumped to Baabara again, who commented my new style:

Six mad villagers. Piippola nights out, of course I am excited

Oh dear, Five months of blog abstinence is a direct result of the northern summer: Finnish winter is long, cold and pitch black best spent playing MMOs or hibernating, but summertime is for fun and outdoors. To prove that I didn’t just build a time machine in May and set it to October, here are couple of ‘photos or it did not happen‘:

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

I was awarded in Bobba release party’s Draw-an-eggplant contest:

Receiving a eggplant from Leena, a representative of the jury.

My kitchen has been under construction since Christmas and only consists of microwave, toaster and kettle. Being a lousy chef, I had no idea what to do with my prize, so I asked my workmates for cooking tips.

Afterwards I found myself suppressing the eggplant in Kaltsu’s comic blog. Gordon Ramsay beware!

Venla Cooking

Venla: Bad eggplant! Bad eggplant!

…

Venla: I have been adviced that one has to make eggplant cry before cooking it.

Kaltsu: I understand.

Turns out my method wasn’t quite what they had in mind. (Tip for other noobs: I now know that making eggplant cry means salting, drawing out the moisture, so that the end cooked product is denser.)

This evening I took part in an interesting virtual meetup. I have been very frustrated with the recent Finnish political decisions considering digital media and laws. Jyrki Kasvi, member of Green League in the Finnish Parliament, is a candidate in the oncoming elections to become one of the representants of Finland in the Europe’s Union. I was keen to hear what he has to say a month before the voting.

The meetup was taking place in Second Life, the grandmother of all the virtual worlds. I have tried the service several times, but due to its clumsiness, dreadful lag, difficult user experience and generally annoying control system, I never got far. But this meeting sounded so interesting, I was willing to give it another go.

I created a default style female avatar, activated my account and the brand new me was ready to hit the road and the skies:

Hello Venlala Petrolhead, Welcome to Second Life! Now, get ready for some fun. A whole new world awaits you where the talk is free and there’s no limit on what you might discover alongside millions of other Residents from across the globe.

Traveling should be easy in virtual worlds, but it never is. I have spend hours on the backs of griffons, bats, raptors, wolves… Name it, I have done it. The instructions say I can simply type “EduFinland I” to the search box and hit teleport button. Brilliant. I do that, but nothing happens. I am still standing in the noob landing platform and there is no error message of any kind. The help guide suggests that I press ‘Detach All’ option before the jump. I obey, but only succeed in losing my character’s helmet (Nice terminator style cloth disappearing effect

Now I am bald and still stuck.

Next the help guide suggests is to fly up to 200 metres height and try to teleport from there. I fly up and press the button. Nothing. The first first fifteen minutes of the meetup is already over. However, I am getting more determined to continue to solve this problem and find out if anyone else has succeeded to turn up.

Five more minutes of scanning the help guide and pressing teleport button repeatedly and then I receive an error message: too many people in the other end prevents me from teleporting. I double-check to find out how big the crowd is. 62 people in the area of 1,000 square metres! There are more people in Orgrimmar AH on all the time on an average Tuesday afternoon. Sigh.

I go make a cup of coffee and wait. Half an hour after the meeting began, I finally manage to teleport to the green Island of Finnish Education. Almost there: the instructions advice me to walk to the signpost and press a red dot labelled ‘meeting point’ . Pressing that would get me to the right place, but none of the meeting points have red dots. Sigh.

I fly around the island, it all looks empty. I manage to find couple of ducks. I give up and sit down in front of the signpost and wait. Another character approaches from the horizon. He comes to me and says that he is lost. Together we explore the terrain until we finally arrive to the meeting. We manage to catch the two last sentences before it is all over.

I managed to get a screen grab and looks like some people had really made it in time. I am the bald one in the front right corner.

I wonder how Second Life can still be as clumsy, difficult and flaky after all these years in development. I was so frustrated after missing this virtual meeting that I did not continue to the virtual beers with the other participants.

I decide to customise my helmetless bald avatar instead. After a good half hour I still haven’t found any decent tools or textures to create anything but solid ugly flat coloured surfaces that would not even qualify for clothing. So, I ask Google for help. How to create skins in Second Life has been queried 14 million times. After scanning through the first tutorial, I don’t even really care anymore. It is amazing how difficult everything is. One has to be good in Photoshop to create anything decent, and even though I work with Photoshop on a daily basis, I just do not have the patience for it.

I hope the next virtual meetup will be held in Habbo, Azeroth, Norrath, Middle-Earth or Eve Online – I might even make it there in time to participate in the debate

In the latest South Park episode Pinewood Derby, the world leaders are concerned Finland is going to squeal and nuke it off the map.

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.

This made my day. I feel for Nemi ^^

Couple of photos from Grand One digital media awards last Thursday in Apollo:

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.

First the serious and the most important part: I have just signed this petition by Avaaz, which will be delivered to the Vatican asking the Pope to stop speaking out against condoms:

Last week, on his first visit to Africa, Pope Benedict said that “[AIDS] cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems”. The Pope’s statement is at odds with the research on AIDS prevention, and a setback to decades of hard work on AIDS education and awareness. With powerful moral influence over more than 1.1 billion Catholics in the world, and 22 million HIV positive Africans, these words could dramatically affect the AIDS pandemic and put millions of lives at risk. Worldwide concern is starting to show results and a willingness by the Vatican to revise the statement – sign our urgent petition asking the Pope to take care not to undermine proven AIDS prevention strategies: http://bit.ly/11fFHK

Like his predecessor, Benedict XVI maintains the all-so-traditional Catholic doctrines on artificial birth control, abortion and homosexuality. There are 1.1 billion Catholics and this man would have the power to make people to listen – I simply wish he would use his advocacy to talk about tolerance, human rights and freedom of choice! Claiming that condom distribution is not an effective AIDS prevention mechanism is UNTRUE, and if it diminishes condom use, it will also be deadly. Please, sign the petition.

Last week Kokkola, a town in Western Finland decided to block people from using Facebook both at work and in schools. The official reason given was the added security risk from Facebook applications. Ooh, scary, so they wanted to prevent bad things from happening? The tone suddenly changes when the IT Manager Jan-Erik Widjeskog continues:

Ei kiellolla ole tarkoitus kiusata ihmisiä. Mutta se päätös hallinnon verkosta ottaa pois, niin sehän oli aika selvää, että ei ihmisillä ole aikaa käyttää tämmöstä työaikana.

(= We don’t mean to do harm to people with this restriction. But the decision to not allow the council-manager government and civil servants and to use it, it was pretty clear that they do not have time to use such things at work.)

So what is going on? Why has everything employees do at work suddenly turned to such a big problem for employers? Why is there this new trend of changing the rules towards monitoring and restricting people’s rights? And why aren’t people making bigger fuzz about it? The following poll was held in one of the biggest Finnish tabloid newspapers last week asking Should Facebook be blocked at schools and workplaces?

66% say yes… WTF? In recent blog entries I have ranted about the recently validated Lex Nokia snooping law. So, I guess MPs are only as stupid as the people that voted for them at the first place. And I am not ranting about Facebook here, I personally hate Facebook, but I am asking, who decides what is good for me and when is good and where is good. Why would banning sites make workplaces better? What motivational value adds the policy of “We know you are visiting sites that do not maximise your productivity, so we make sure you can and will only do what you are paid to do.”

I wish companies would instead value their most important asset, the people who spend one third of their day at work and provide them with trust and assets instead. I always do my best and the deal should be of mutual benefit where both parts win. That is the thing that should really matter.

I had been given a massage voucher as birthday present, but only got around of having it last week. The masseuse immediately informed me that she can see angels flying and energy flowing around me. She also informed that when I first walked in to her house, I didn’t arrive alone, but with my grandmother. That sounds cool, she was one hard lady, mean and tough, but she’s also been dead more than ten years now. Nice icebreaker for a cynic/atheist. Things got even more interesting, when she told me that in at least one previous life of mine I was killed violently, because I was believed to be a witch.

I have been witch even in this life and here’s the photographic proof of Seppo, me and my bro Kalle – two wizards and one witch.

Later when I informed my mum that her mother Agnes still likes hanging out with me, she replied: “Your grandma was an evil person.” Guess apples don’t fall far from the tree. About my violent death as a misunderstood healer she said that in one of her previous lives she had been a fisher, in another one she was living up in mountains and she went on and on… So even my mum believes in rebirth! o.O

For me all those previous lives sound silly – if we all have practiced beforehand, humankind should be doing much better. Frankly, I plan to live, die and not come back haunting you. Unless you deserve it. But if I turn out to be wrong and get to choose my next form, I choose an otter. Did you know that a bunch of otters is called a romp? Sounds like fun, romping with mates. I still love the classic Otters holding hands video:

After the massage I was given my personal zodiac star chart.

URSA Astronomical Association summarises the problem of horoscopes well (I apologise that everything seems to be in Finnish today):

2000 vuotta sitten aurinkomerkeillä eli ihmisten pääasiallisilla horoskooppimerkeillä oli vielä pitkälti niiden alkuperäinen merkitys. Jos synnyit sinä aikana vuodesta, kun Aurinko oli Leijonan tähtikuviossa, olit horoskooppimerkiltäsi Leijona. Jos taas astuit maailmaan niinä päivinä, jolloin Aurinko oli Oinaassa, sinustakin tuli Oinas.

Sittemmin yötaivaan asento on muuttunut. Maapallon akseli tekee vaivihkaa hienoista kieppuvaa liikettä, jota kutsutaan prekessioksi. Prekession vuoksi eläinradan tähdistöt ovat siirtyneet taivaalla lähes kokonaisen tähdistön verran ajanlaskun alkuun verrattuna.

My astronomical vocabulary is so limited that I don’t even try to translate that word to word. Basically, it says that 2000 years ago the zodiac was actually linked to the stars. However, their position has since radically changed due to earth’s precession – (Wikipedia provides a long, fascinating and difficult article to read, if precession is your thing). Nowadays the original positioning of stars is so different that the original calculation makes no sense. So, I wouldn’t recommend marrying someone based on their star sign.

From my own star chart I learned that the rising signs – “the sign of the zodiac that was rising in the point on the ecliptic that is furthest above the plane of the horizonare” – are the ones that people become in their 30’s. So, I was born September 11th and my star sign is a Virgo. But now I have transformed to my rising sign, which is a Cancer. Therefore I am no longer an anal & annoying organiser, who like things in good order thus annoying everyone around her. Good start, but what am I now?

Cancer

This sign has active emotions in that they are constantly shifting, changing from one mood to another. At their worst, they may be cranky, touchy, sometimes even aggressive. It can sometimes be difficult to understand, being highly influenced (positively or negatively) by emotional patterns. As such, it can be rather whimsical and quite unpredictable at times. It’s not uncommon for Cancer individuals to have a change of heart half-way into things, however loyalties are also strong and they may stick to things on this precept.

Cancer sounds like an idiot as well. My mum simply commented my rising sign stating that if someone asked her, she would simpy define me as “yleisesti vittumainen ihminen” – (=Generally annoying/difficult/obnoxious person).

Sounds about right, I’ll toast to that. Amen.

Stormtroopers + Prince Charles + Companion Cube + Admiral Ackbar = a motivated designer

I have been really looking forward to the film adaptation of Alan Moore’s and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen. I first read the graphic novel masterpiece back in 1998 when visiting Chema’s home in Villamartin, Spain, and it immediately rocked my socks off. Chema has had a massive influence in my life; he also introduced me to Preacher and Sandman and I ended up doing my MA thesis about the narrative personas of Sandman comics. I remember sitting on Chema’s couch in Sevilla reading the complete Sandman saga in one go. This took several days, which he spent programming (the bizarre preference of old-skool green text on black screen) and listening to Pi soundtrack. I won’t ever forget crying uncontrollably, when I realised Morpheus was going to die. I also transferred from graphic design course to multimedia design in Uni after meeting Chema’s mate Syncro, who showed me how fun making computer graphics can be. Shortly put, Chema has changed my life in more than one occasion.
All this leads to recent fantastic news: Congratulations to Chema & Laura for their first child! Lovely baby girl Angela was born 18th of February 2009. I hope to come and visit you soon!

Back to Watchmen. The film was finally out in Finland last week. After a marathon of changes and delays in production, it was directed by Zack Snyder, previously known for directing Frank Miller’s 300. I was expecting the film to be done in similar style slow motion with limited colour palette, but was I wrong, the film felt nothing like 300 at all!

In the comic book Rorschach had been my favourite character, partly because the story narrative is told through his diary. However, in the film I really enjoyed the love story between the Nite Owl II (Dan) and Silk Spectre II (Laurie). They both had had predecessors they felt inferior to (Hollis Mason being the first Nite Owl and Laurie’s mum Sally Juspeczyk being the first Silk Spectre). In the comic book I merely saw them as weak dorks and sidekicks everyone was bossing around, but my favourite part in the film turned out to be them fighting their way together skillfully into the prison to free Rorschach (in the comic book they didn’t fight to get in, but I am glad they did that in the film).

A big reason why I didn’t relate as deeply to Rorschach in the film was that much of his character development had been left out of the story. Hopefully the extended version shows how Walter Kovacs really became Rorschach. In the film he felt harsh and a bit too much of a sociopath; the comic actually shows his reasons to get a new face – as he calls the mask – and the reader sympatises and understands why he left his old character behind. Another reason for me to look forward to the extended version is that it also contains the animated storyline The Black Freighter. And this is not all: the dvd will also include a documentary-style film called Under the Hood, which will reveal more of the character back stories. I am definately getting the extended dvd the first minute when it is out.

The film succeeded in changing my thinking without giving the feeling that the changes were wrong; the costumes had been upgraded and modernised to look sexy and that made the characters feel more cool. I wonder if Alan Moore would like this feature, since in his comic the characters were deliberately broken and faulty and very human. But then, Moore has said numerous times that he is not going to watch the film anyway, so doubt he will lose any sleep over the matter.

The squidless ending has seriously disturbed some people (see this hilarious video), but I can live with it. I will buy a pint for Zack for a job damn well done, if I ever meet him in person.

Another film I am looking forward to is the new Star Trek, which will be released in May. This new trailer was played before Watchmen and looked great on big screen!

More spice to my forthcoming Star Trek experience was added today by Chicago Tribune – this spring will be all about Pon Farr for me: three Star Trek-themed scents will be released on April 24. Two fragrances are for men, but the third one is where it gets good:

…it’s the Pon Farr perfume that may require a double take. That’s right, it’s for the ladies. Perhaps a great gift for mom for letting you crash in the basement for 50-some-odd years? Maybe not. It actually refers to the Vulcan mating ritual that occurs every seven years. So maybe this one’s only for special occasions?

Yay! I am definately up for some Pon Farr! I don’t even care what it smells like – I will order three bottles of it immediately when it is out. That should be enough for both special and not-so-special occasions to come.

What the hell were the Finnish MPs thinking today???

The bill passed in today’s parliament voting (96-56) and the result just another proof to the well known fact that Conservatives are idiots. With them having a majority in the Finnish Parliament, it was expected/feared that the law would pass. 47 MPs were busy knitting at home today and did not bother showing up.

Lex Nokia (as I have already ranted before) basically makes it legal to organisations that provide Internet services to search the metadata of any IP-based online activity, such as emails and web-surfing. How liberate and forward-looking indeed. Yawn!

The Centre Party and the National Coalition have been supportive of the bill all the way, while the opposition Social Democratic Party and the Left Alliance have opposed the law.

^^ Respect ^^ to Jyrki J.J. Kasvi from Green Party, who held the speech against the law today before the voting.

During the preparation process of the law, there were threats made that Nokia would leave Finland if the law didn’t pass under-Secretary to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Markku Wallin, told the daily Helsingin Sanomat.

Guess they can stay in here now. Currently I feel like leaving the country myself.

However, it is not over yet. A final vote on the bill is expected next week. So there is still at least some hope left…

This positive and hopeful artwork was drawn by my niece (6yrs) to remind me that somewhere out there the good guys are protecting us:

Tarvos & friends

Translation: Once upon a time there was Tarvos (=Starwars), who was Joda (=Yoda) and he fought against the evil and he had friends. Colour this picture.

I coloured Tarvos and his jolly mates as requested

I was also told that my five-year-old nephew asks in his evening prayers God to protect all the aliens and Star Wars characters both in our galaxy AND in outer space. Sounds like he got it all covered, so Tarvos and his mates should be safe wherever they may roam. Amen.