Too perfect...

Finally I have something worth blogging about. This day has just been one wonderful experience.

First of all, as you probably already read in the morning, I decided to take advantage of the school rules and stay home just because I could. OK, there was a storm out there, people lost electricity and there was car accidents and all so I really had a reason. Right? Anyway, because of this I got a few pages more to a report I'm supposed to turn in on Monday, it only misses about 5 or 6 pages worth of text.

Then Amazon.de informed me that the limited edition of Rosenrot I've preordered is now shipped and on its way to mama's tender care. It won't be traveling alone, though, there's a Weissglut CD in the package as well.

And now we get to the best part. I got invited to a live chat with Paul Landers. Yes, you read that right, THE Paul Landers, Rammstein's other guitarist. There was an announcement on the official site about this chat being organized, and that people could participate by submitting questions and voting for the best of them. The 100 most voted got an invite to the chat, and I was one of them.

I mean, me. Plain old me.

Anyway, after some technical difficulties which eventually turned out to be just me being computer impaired, I finally got my question asked, and answered. So here it is, the epic conversation which will no doubt go down to the pages of history:

[20:44] MsBehaviour: Greetings from Finland and good evening! My question is, you have been playing together as a band for quite a many years now, and there is a big difference in the sound of Herzeleid and the sound of Reise Reise. Does this "evolution" come naturally to you, or do you make conscious decisions as to where to direct your sound? How do you feel about the change?
[20:44]Paul: There are some of us who want to stay the same.
[20:44]Paul: There's some of us who want to always change.
[20:45]Paul: These parties fight each other and the result is a new album or a black eye.+++

I submitted some other questions as well, but the time ran out before they could have been answered.

Next Wednesday the chat is with Dr. Christian "Flake" Lorenz, the world's most weird keyboardist. There'll probably be the same most popular questions - competition, so if you want to hang around with the stars, think of a good question and go for it.

The transcript of the chat is here.

That Landers fellow seems to be the witty and intelligent person he's told by people who've met him to be. Though not always the one to ask anything if you want the answers to be truthful. ;)

And not 15 minutes ago, H, who nowadays works for a catering company, brought me a cartload of Russian delicacies. I'm in vorschmack heaven.

The rain has turned into snow. It's beautiful outside. Cold and wet, yes, but seen from behind a window, really beautiful.

Oh, boy, tomorrow's better be just as good.

Horrible weather

Like hell I'm going outside today. It's raining cats and dogs and little grannies. I should be braving the elements, yes, I should go to school and listen to a nerdish young mand drone on and on about marketing research and fight falling asleep, but since we're allowed one day of absence during this course, I'm so going to take advantage of it.

Besides, the wind is so hard that I'd end up on the sky with my umbrella like Mary Poppins and probably end up mangled by a passing helicopter. Never fool around with safety guidelines, that's my motto. Indoors it is. I never thought I'd be happy not owning a dog, but this is the one moment.

On that note, this town is run over by puppies. There are little baby dogs everywhere I look, making me go "awww" and embarrassing myself in public.

Gah. I want a dog. I just have to get a new apartment and a new life to be able to take care of one.

Anyway, since I'm already up this early I might do something useful, especially seeing as I got a writer's block as soon as I logged on to the blogspot. There's, like, a ton of schoolwork to be done and other stuff as well.

Currently playing: Radio Yle X morning show. Top 4 of "The good aspects of having your luggage stolen from your car on your trip to Tallin."

Vamos, mi amor!

Rosenrot samples.

An Itchy Nose Must Be Scratched

What are you saying? You haven't seen Star Wreck: In The Pirkinning yet? Well, what are you waiting for, go and download it!

It's a really, really good Star Trek/Babylon 5 parody, made by a couple of Finnish dudes in their living room over the course of 7 years. If there ever was a time for patriotic feelings, it's now.

Sometimes having too much free time on your hands produce bad home videos of young men jumping from rooftops, sometimes feature-length films of young men conquering a galaxy. And producing headline-worthy quotes as they go along.

But onwards to the important stuff. I think I may have had a heart attack today. I went to the hair dresser (funny how every time I come home from Asta's tender care I swear my hair has never been this short. Now I mean it. It's shorter than ever before) and for one horrible moment, after she had blow dried my hair and before she got her hands on a jar of gel I swear I looked exactly like princess Diana on her wedding photo. Except that I'm not a stylish, tall blonde. But all's well that ends well as they say, I'm back to being a redhead and the conservative enough for customer service but easily made suitable for heavy metal gigs-look is still there.

She has a way with hair, I must say. She puts her fingers on people's heads and feels the shape of their minds or something, but I've never (despite that 5-second Di moment) walked out of there wanting to wear a paper bag on my head.

Speaking of minds, remember many a post back I complained how studying yield management was boring? How, according to the book, managers in charge of the company's pricing decisions had to work in a chaos vacuum, hopefully wearing protective clothing, or something just as sensible? Anyways, I have just discovered that something of that course actually stuck to my head.

The basic idea of yield management is that the product sold cannot be stored. If a hotel room is empty for a night or a plane seat remains unreserved, it cannot be sold the next day. It still shows on the company's balance sheet, however; despite the product being unused it nevertheless has created costs - the hotel room must be heated, it needs electricity and so forth. The empty plane seat means no compensation for the gasoline (I so want to use the word Benzin here) used.

Ergo, the product must be sold. This is where it gets complicated. The mangers need to have exact and reliable statistics of low and high seasons, customer base, competition and so forth. Also, they need one helluva good event calendar.

Come the high season, there's no point in offering cut prices, you charge the customers rack prices or higher. Come low season, drop the prices and throw in some interesting extra offer to lure the unwary into your hotel/plane. What I found interesting was how you can control the customers with pricing. You see, the high and low seasons can happen during one week. If you've seen any "Book three nights - get 15% off. Valid only Mon-Thu" offers, you've seen yield management in practice. If the hotel is full booked only 2 or 3 nights a week, that's how they can try to even out the highest peaks to the slower nights - and not risk losing customers as they seek out other options. The airline companies are even more insane with their pricing decisions, the prices can change many times during one day.

So, basically, even if it seems that the evil big corporations use us as they please, with some forward planning and few thoughts put into it, you can get some pretty goddamn good deals out there.

And now that I've got you all numb and bored, here's what got me into thinking all this: Ratestogo hotel booking service I bumped into while looking for what Berlin has to offer in the hotel department. Hotel manager sees that there'll be an x amount of unoccupied rooms and that it looks like they won't fetch the full price, and updates this info to the hotel service site (I don't know how they do it, I'm making this up as I go along just for the suspense and to appear clever) and a tourist seeking accommodation sees the offer, and lo! An understanding is reached and everybody are happy.

Soundtrack while blogging:
Laibach: Tanz mit Laibach
Itä-Saksa: Guten Tag
Peer Günt: Southbound Drivin' Man

Crazy Days

Oh what a busy little human being I have been. Somehow there doesn't seem to be enough hours in a day to do everything I'm supposed to do. There's more than enough school assignments up to and including a couple of reports and the upcoming exams the next week - I'm still missing 2 books which seem to have disappeared from the face of the earth completely as per usual when they are really needed.

I have also had to cut back on working hours (to make more time for school and also because I exceeded the income limits last spring and really do not want to have to pay back my student allowances) and even with the student loan I took it'll be a financially interesting month and a half I'm looking at.

I'm dangerously losing energy and motivation to do basically anything, simply because there is no time to do anything properly and whatever I'm doing I'm constantly feeling guilty for not doing all the other things I should be doing.

On a lighter note, in case you haven't noticed the invasion of yellow plastic bags, Stockmann's semi-annual sale is on again. Yes, the four famous days of extreme shopping are here again. I spent an interesting four hours there this morning, trying to avoid all the temptations and focusing on the things I had planned to buy.

I'm now a proud owner of

- A printer. No more going to work/school/parent's house whenever I need to print out stuff, which seems to be surprisingly often, for some reason my teachers are not big on returning assignments via email.

- 6 tiny fish, harlequin raspboras I think they are called:












They are really active little creatures and have spent the day making mad dashes around the fish tank getting to know their new surroundings. 2 or 3 more and there'll be a suitable amount of them - they like the company and I like the view.

- The latest Terry Pratchett novel, Thud! Guilty feelings or not, I'm so going to immerse myself into that book for a couple of nights.

- Last but not least, a return ticket to Berlin. I had originally planned on getting a ticket to London to attend the already fabulous-sounding Rammimages party but as they offered tickets to basically anyplace else than London I decided to visit Berlin instead. If anyone has any good advice about accommodation, please tell me.

I did not buy candy, or ridiculous amounts of cheese, or, in fact, anything unnecessary (if you don't take the plane ticket into account, but it'll be good for my mental health) so go me! There is hope, after all.


If I told you that today I've been listening to Rammstein's Benzin and Apocalyptica's remix of same, would you be surprised? No? Thought so.

The Cosmic Balance

is in equilibrium again.

Monday was an exceptionally good day, so today I have

1. Not waken up early enough, so I had time only to check out that the clothes I was wearing were not inside out;
2. Because of point N:o 1, I had to sit through the first lesson at school without one drop of coffee in me. I was strong. I made it;
3. Stepped on a pile of dog shit and consequently fell down on my knees - thankfully missing the shit and only getting my shoes dirty and injuring my pride and bruising my right knee. I love dogs but there has to be a special hell designed for irresponsible dog owners;
4. Survived the hordes of mad shoppers driven to near insanity by a big sale in one of the major warehouses.

I'm afraid to go outside again lest I get hit by a falling meteorite...

Now playing:

Marilyn Manson: The Beautiful People

Herring Market

I'm going to shamelessly take this opportunity to enthuse about Helsinki. What a wonderful city it is.

Take yesterday, for example. A perfect autumn weather with brisk air, sunshine, trees all aglow with yellow and red leaves.

As if that wouldn't be enough, the annual herring market began again and the whole market square and the harbour is filled with small fishing boats, insane seagulls, people playing the accordion despite the public health regulations, people selling herring in all its forms to other people, and the odd slightly bewildered tourist. I went there with my mother, we had a splendid time wondering all the things mentioned above (and had one unreal moment when the accordion player finished his set with Light My Fire by, you guessed it, the Doors), ate some wonderful salmon soup, discussed the merits of all the differently prepared herring preserves and even as far as to have one pint of beer listening to a small brass band playing a fine selection of the cheesiest schlagers known to mankind.

Funny how everything sounds so much better when played with a trombone, a tuba, a trumpet and a small set of drums.

I can't help but wonder why oh why did I leave my camera at home. Stupid me.

Oh well. At least I have a decent chunk of cold smoked salmon in my fridge and a loaf of the traditional archipelago bread waiting to be eaten. Life is good, so good, in fact, that I am not going to think about the student loan I was forced to take. I'll start worrying about it after two years when I have to start paying it back.


Soundtrack: V on background. The most horrible sci fi series ever made, yet I liked it a lot when I was a child. Shows how times have changed, really.

A Brief Note

When it's 1.30 a.m you do not want to read all about Jack the Ripper. Trust me on this one.

I can't believe I did the same mistake again.



Top of the pops:

Suomen Talvisota: Kasvoton kuolema