Aaaaargh! (And shameless praising of self, yet again)

Internet just ate itself. Firefox went into seizure and destroyed all my bookmarks. All of them. Bloody hell. Thank goodness most of them are still saved in the IE browser settings but I'm still looking at a nice afternoon spent getting those links I need back to the Firefox's bookmarks section - unless of course someone knows how to turn back time and make things better again. All help is gratefully received. A decidedly annoying turn of events, nevertheless.

The thing is, that I can't use the school's virtual education program on IE, it crashes immediately I open the Edulink page. And since I'm not in favour of using one browser to do school stuff and another for just surfing (as I usually can't concentrate on the serious thinking for a long period of time without doing something brainless every 15 minutes) I want all my precious bookmarks back on one folder.

Speaking of school, and the end which is truly beginning to be nigh - I'll have finished all my courses by December, only one German course will continue to February and all that is really there to be done is the bachelor's thesis - I was a Good Student (tm) the other night and actually made a contribution.

Me and A, my associate and partner in crime in the bachelor's thesis business, had noticed how bloody difficult it is to actually graduate from our dear polytechnic. The idea is good, but much like communism ruined by the people. We are supposed to go to a thesis seminar before starting to write the damn thing to learn all the technical details about it, which is all good and proper. The problem is, that if you don't have a crystal clear idea about what you're going to write about, there's absolutely no help available.

A came up with the idea that there should be a couple of meetings arrnged before the actual seminar begins, where teachers and students would discuss different ideas and points of views and whatnot. Me, already spending far too much time on the internet, expanded on this and since people are having trouble
a) figuring out what to do
b) after this, finding the focusing point
c) getting quick and accurate feedback in all stages of the writing process
and
d) keeping up motivation,
I thought that an internet forum might come in handy. Our school consists of three different units, or four, there are 2 business schools, the hospitality management school I attend, and a sports and leisure management school up in Vierumäki. We have a mutual Extranet system which serves all the units, through which we enroll to courses, it includes the abovementioned Edulink and so forth and so forth. You get the idea. So I thought why not make the most of it and start a common forum for both teachers and students of all units to discuss the thesis and all the problems thereof.

Yesterday I got a response saying that my idea "has potential." Whoah! That's got to be the highest form of praise one can get from the administrative staff.

Though knowing our school little will come out of it. If they ever manage to put up a forum, it'll surely be the most user-unfriendly version they can find. Oh well, at least I've tried.

And the bachelor's thesis me and A are starting to work on, what about it, I hear you cry. It'll deal with the contradiction between restaurants claiming how customer service and complete customer satisfaction are their most important business values and nevertheless outsourcing said customer service, their core function. We haven't quite decided yet whether we'll study this through the strategic or process management (focusing on the traditional good business sense of outsourcing the unnecessary functions vs. outsourcing the core functions), or through accounting (finding options to the most obvious methods of cutting back expensess).

In any case I fear it'll turn out to be a manifesto.



(Sorry about the self promotion :P)

STURM & DRANG

Okay, close your eyes.

No, read the instructions first, then close your eyes, though you'll have to remember to open them again some time later.

Imagine an arse. Got it? Good. A big arse. An arse so big that it makes Obi-Wan Kenobi go "OMG that's not a moon, that's an arse!" and promptly turn into Dark Side.

Now imagine said body part being kicked.

Congratulations, you have just experienced a KMFDM gig.

So yeah, that's where I was yesterday, at the Tavastia club, right in the front line staring in awe at the very person who has helped to create the music genre I happen to enjoy immensely. I also, by coincidence, managed to score a place right in front of Jules Hodgson, who is one of those annoyingly good-looking and cool guitarists, and got offered a year's worth of eye candy in one go. I got *this* close to shaking hands with Sascha Konietzko, the founder and the vocalist of KMFDM but got shoved aside by a squealing fanboy. There should be restrictions in admitting fanboys in public venues in my opinion. Fangirls, on the other hand, are a completely different matter, otherwise I'd never get anywhere.

Some shaky and blurred pictures can be found here, my camera is unfortunately a crappy one and I'm no master photographer anyway.

In case you're wondering what I'm doing posting here on this early on a Saturday is due tot he fact that this is, in fact, the first free weekend I've had since August. I've worked on every single Saturday throughout the autumn. What do people do when they have 2 whole days off? Seriously, I've forgotten how it feels like to sleep late and not worry about getting all the housework done right now because Monday is just one night away. I could learn to like this.

I think I'll just hang around in my brand new KMFDM (I'll stop soon, I promise) shirt and every 5 minutes check out the antics of the baby fish, which admittetly consist mainly of swimming around in jerky fashion and finding things to eat.

Soundtrack:
The coffee maker. I went to bed early. At 4.50 a.m., to be precise.

This is it.

This marks the first official winter day.

No snow yet, but boy was the air crisp today! Add bright sunshine, degrees below zero, or at least very close to zero, and a gorgeous full moon both before and after the sun was up. And judging by the weather forecast the status quo will last at least a few more days.

Lovely, just lovely. The less gray days and constant rain, the happier I am.

And then some happy family news. My fish have gone and reproduced behind my back. There is this teeny tiny transparent, vaguely fish-shaped little thing swimming in the tank, and apparently has already been a few days - it doesn't have the nutrition bag-thingy anymore young fish usually have. I hope it's now too big for the adults to view it as a light evening snack and that it'll find enough food for itself as I am a completely unprepared surrogate mother. Good luck for the little feller! It seems to be the sole survivor of a batch of eggs, the rest being probably eaten before anything came out of them. Hopefully it makes it to adulthood.


Soundtrack: Conan O'Brien interviewing the skinniest blonde woman ever. How she doesn't just break in two is beyond me.

Father's Day

W00t for my daddy!

I went to my parents today for a father's day lunch and while we were there we, that is to say me, my little sister and our mother went through some old photographs in desperate need of organizing.

The one on the right is one of them. Me and my little sister, trendsetters since the late Seventies. That gigantic furry hat I doubt I could pull off nowadays with that amount of confidence and flair was brought from Moscow where my dad lived for a while back then. S, my sister, has since learned to wear pants.

A very enjoyable afternoon, all in all, we ate well, reminisced over said photos, pampered the household cat and had some quality family time.

Yesterday, however, was spent in whole different manner. Me, St and E had our weekly Fab 3 gathering during which, since it was Saturday and all, we consumed a fair amount of alcohol and ended up having this extremely interesting conversation about young men, women and the relationship market issues concerning them.

Item I: Where are the young men?

Really, where are they? Statistically, more boys are being born than girl. Also, statistically, this difference is evened out by the fact that more boys die before their twenties than girls. Conclusion: There should be almost as many young men as there are young women.

But, and this is a pretty major but, after the elementary school where boys avoid girls because of cooties and girls think that boys are all rather icky, the boys disappear. In high school there are more girls than boys. In universities, generally speaking, there are more women than men. What on Earth is going on?

The statistics also show that in cities majority of the young population are of the female persuasion, as opposed to the countryside and smaller towns where the situation in quite the opposite.

So, speaking as a single young (no need to comment, thank you) woman, should I start to worry? I mean, I have no urgent need to find Mr Right, I'm quite happy with my freedom at the moment, thank you very much, but should the need to commit myself into a meaningful relationship rise it's head, where on Earth do I find any eligible bachelors?

a) I like living in Helsinki. Yes, I would survive in a smaller town, but I like the little comforts the relatively big city offers I'm used to.

b) I don't exceptionally fancy sports (or sport bars) where some empiric research has found young males of the species. There are exhibits of said specimens in rock bars and gigs but, um, yeah. Ahem. In search of a politically correct term for a lifestyle loser, that is, in fact, what most of them are. That is, of course, an extreme generalisation, but that's the first impression they give of themselves and that leads us conveniently to the

Item II: Should you finally locate a suitable young male in a bar (because that is the only place they exist), they are invariably dead drunk.

Like, what? The supply and demand are clearly not in balance here.

Experience and urban legends tell us that bar tenders are the ones who get it on more often than the average fellers. Listen to me, young men, that is because they are sober. The theory oes that should a young man show up in a bar and not drink at all, he'll radiate desperation and therefore attract no women. Like, what?

I refer you to the Mastercard ad and the Rakastaa/Ei rakasta (to love or not to love) video by Kotiteollisuus about the correct amount of alcohol consumation.

Still, despite all this, people do find each other and end up happily committed. Power to them, but I'm nevertheless confused about how it all happens.

For the next gathering I think I'll have to purchase a sixpack of beer to get to the bottom of all this.



Soundtrack:

Weissglut: Weiss glüht die Sonne, Etwas kommt in deine Welt
Depeche Mode: Walking In My Shoes

Tired But Happy

The Feast of St Homobonus is now finally over. Amazing how much hard work it takes to feed and accomodate a few dozen people. Well, not exactly amazing, as we've done it before and I actually work in the business. The really awe-inspiring thing about organizing events is the amount of free time and volunteer work people are willing to sacrifice in order to make sure that everyone are enjoying themselves.

So once more, thank you to all those who helped in any way.

Yes. I really am that good in photoshopping and also never repeat myself.

Anyway, after 14 hours in the kitchen I might have been a tad hysterical, tired and not necessarily entirely the usual euphoric sunshine people know me as, an expression I learned today while surfing the forums, but nevertheless happy and somewhat blissful.

One must truly be insane to actually enjoy cooking whole feasts in tiny kitchens but hey, I've never claimed that I'd be normal.

Sadly my left arm is consequently now on strike and has been numb since Saturday. So no heavy lifting or repetitive motions for the next couple of days and I'll have to limit cooking in events to the minimum in the future if a solution is not found. I'll have an appointment with a surgeon in a couple of weeks so hopefully things will solve themselves.

It's not nice when your body gangs up on you.

On a lighter note, Helsinki dwellers, have you been to the Corner Bar recently? You know, the stickiest, one of the oldest heavy metal bars in town? It's gone through a complete makeover. It's a heavy metal lounge these days. The ancient posters are gone, there furniture is very fashionable and they have a separate corner for the heavy metal karaoke so that the ladie's loo is no longer blocked every Sunday. It was such a culture shock to go there, for a moment I thought I had walked in a wrong bar. If they have removed the "those who smoke in the non-smoking area are dickless wankers" signs I'll shed some tears, I swear. Thank goodness the clientele's still the same bunch of no-nonsense metalheads and the service just as unfriendly as before so the atmosphere has not changed that much.

The truth be told, Corner really needed that makeover. What with the invasion of rock/heavy metal bars to every nook and corner of this town they must have been struggling to yield any kind of profit lately. I hope they'll pull through, I like having a good bar with excellent music and cheap beer within a crawling distance from home. That bar has history and it would be shame to see it gone. Fun has been had in there many memorable times.

On a second, even more lighter note, my trip to Berlin is now made more complete as I have booked myself in a four-star hotel for a ridiculously low price. The confirmation letter mentioned a double or a twin room so I doubt that despite the price I'll be sleeping in a broom closet. I went to the library to check out what they had to offer in the department of travel guides but either Germany in general is too boring or overly exciting travel destination because all they had there was Olavi Paavolainen's Kolmannen valtakunnan vieraana. Which no doubt is an interesting description of one man's visit to Germany and how he got to know its citizens, and a valuable source of information - the only downside being that it was written in the early thirties. Things are nowadays somewhat different, I'd say. And I'm glad that they are.

I need to find out places to shop, eat and see. I'm sorry, morgalou, but I am planning on packing both the camera and a bow tie ;)



Today's soundtrack:
Godsplague: Diesel Burning, Lake Of Fire
Rammstein: Ein Lied, Wo bist du?

Another Late Night Post

Ooh, this is just too cruel. How can something like this be put on the Internet? Does the police know? Sick and twisted, I say. Pure exploitation.

In other words, live webcam footage, starring a Border Collie mother and her litter of 8 tiny puppies.

Click it and be hooked. A warning, though, if you happen to be suffering from the lack of anything dog-shaped in your immediate vicinity, this site is probably not good for you.

I may not be looking at things with a certain canine-ness about them, but nevertheless there is a familiar square shape on my table - the nice postal worker finally brought me the copy of Rosenrot I've been waiting for. Gotta hand it to the German fellows, they never cease to surprise me. Even if in interviews they have stated that Rosenrot is their romance album, and while there isn't anything wrong with romantic music as such, it's just not my cup of tea, this is the one album I could eat candlelight suppers with.

Soft, but with a definite edge if you catch my drift. Provided, of course, that you don't actually listen to the lyrics.

And a good cure to the almost blinding headache I've had all day. It was such a nice surprise to wake up with my back and head aching, and despite the copious amounts of Rammstein and painkillers I've consumed in several meanings of the word, it's still gracing me with its presence. I think I'll move on to stronger medicine, grab a muscle relaxant and head off to bed.

Today's random quotes for entertainment and education (the lesson being, that it's not easy being a rock star) come from the live chat with Flake, Rammstein's keyboardist:

[20:53] Nuffe90: Dear Flake: Why arent't you in the rubber boat anymore? Don't you trust us fans?
[20:53] <> I injured myself too often.
[20:54] <> People during open air gigs tore off my clothes.
[20:54] <> Then I had no costume any more.
[20:54] <> I wrapped a towel around my waist.
[20:55] <> Who wants to play in an industrial band with a towel around their waist?
[20:55] We're not in the sauna.

And:

TdK: what is that brown stuff that u have all over you on concerts.
[20:58] <> That'S a secret that will be revealed now!
[20:58] <> We smear instant coffee all over ourselves.
[20:58] <> No makeup holds as long.
[20:59] <> And no makeup smells as good.
[20:59] <> In the beginning, we used normal coffee.
[20:59] <> But I went crazy on stage because I had a caffeine shock.
[20:59] <> That'S the reason why I shake so often on stage.
[21:00] <> Later we used caffeine-free coffee.
[21:00] <> Since then, our music has gone soft.
[21:00] <> As you can hear now.+++