How much is that doggie in the window...?

I may have OD'd on cute today. I went to a dog show, specifically to a puppy show - it has been a while since I saw that many wagging tails and over-enthusiastic loving of basically everything that moves in one place (except for the pugs, who all were fast asleep when they weren't performing). Aww. I want a dog.

Did any of you catch the sports new today, by the way? They have actually built a huge stage smack in the middle of the market square, where they showed the hockey final on a equally huge screen - so that people would have had a place to party had we won the gold medal. Fine, I guess, shame about losing the game though, but then the young man reporting from the scene said that even if Sweden won, the stage had not been built in vain, as the hockey team is flying back to Finland this evening, and they are all shoved on the stage as soon as they arrive so that, I don't know, people can have a good ogle at them or something.

Like, what? Where are all the other medalists? I didn't hear anyone mentioning the curling team being paraded through the cheering masses, for example. What on earth makes hockey so special, that it automatically shadows all other sports? Are the hockey players the only ones who have worked hard for four years to get there? 'S not fair, is all I'm saying.

In any case, I'm glad the Finnish team didn't win the gold medal, though I'm aware I might be facing high treason charges after a confession like this. Think about it. Do you remember what happened back in 1995 when the bastards went and won the world championship? The endless reruns on telly, the incessant playing of Den glider in and Me ollaan sankareita kaikki, songs for which the composers should be tortured by smearing them with honey and making them sit on an ant-hill. It was absolutely horrible.

And after 11 years - eleven years, goddamnit - you still can see people wearing the commemorative t-shirts and caps. Why, just because I'm a Finn, I'm supposed to go apeshit over whether the Finnish hockey team wins or loses?

Anyway, if you feel like it, there's probably some die-hard party people down by the market square doing their best to get the par-tay started.

/ rant.

There was a very interesting literary questionnaire in morgalou's blog which I was planning on answering until I realized that what I've been reading mostly during the past couple of years are either Terry Pratchett novels or the captivating stories about the fascinating worlds of accounting and personnel management. I've read so little lately it's almost criminal. I'll have to give the questions some serious thought before jumping on the bandwagon.

Today's soundtrack:
Kotiteollisuus: Routa ei lopu
The Scaramangas: Eight And A Half
Subway to Sally: Die Schlacht



EDIT: I missed my bloggiversary! I's been a year since I started this. Wow. Thankies, morgalou, for pointing it out! I completely forgot about it.


And thank you, all who have read my little contributions to the wonder which is the internet.

Where does an 8-tentacled octopus sleep?

Do you know the feeling when there's a ton of things to do, but something goes snap in your brain and all you can do for a few hours is to fill in a multitude of useless internet personality tests?

And the feeling when one of said tests tells you that you'll quite probably reincarnate as an octopus and that 45 % of people will reincarnate as higher life forms than you? An octopus? I beg your pardon! I'm not quite that bad, now am I? I ought to send them an email and tell them where to shove some tentacles...

Anyway, octopus is a noble creature if you ask my opinion.

I've also been wasting my time on drooling at some nifty two-room apartments that are currently for sale in the greater Helsinki area. Yes, I've been getting the nagging feeling that maybe, while renting is all fine and dandy, just maybe a home I could call my own would not be such a bad idea after all. I like my current abode, humble though it may be, but it's really, really small. And the landlord is not a young man any more so the supercheap rent I'm paying now will quite probably stop to be supercheap in a few years.

Does this mean that (before I end up as seafood) I'm actually, finally becoming an adult? Boggles the mind, doesn't it?


Today's soundtrack:
Verjnuarmu: Laalavat jouset, Kärähtänyny kylä
(woo! metal in Savo dialect, which I spoke fluently until we moved out of Kuopio when I was 5. There are some samples in the Mussiikki-section)
Rammstein: Feuerräder
Madonna: Skin

It's Been A While,

hasn't it?

From my latest entry, I mean. For the past couple of weeks my days have almost without exception followed the routine of wake up - go to work - leave work and have errands to run / friends to meet - come home and go to sleep. Once again I wonder why I pay rent, I feel I've forgotten what my home looks like. For someone with officially no life I seem to have plenty of it right now. The few hours I've had to myself I've been too tired to even think about typing anything longer than Gosh, I'm tired.

Valentine's Day is here again. A day dedicated to celebrate love and friendship by buying said loved ones some over-priced useless items or at least send them a Winnie the Pooh-related chain text message, and then forget about them for the next 364 days. Friends are there every day, and it's pretty horrible if you need to be specially reminded to tell them you like them around you. Then again, the whole commercial aspect of Valentine's Day serves a good purpose if it really makes people think about friendship by showing them the shallow and superficial side.

There might be some good things about Valentine's Day, but what I associate it with is the awesomely stupid idea someone in my school had some 15 years ago. All of us students (all of us between 13 and 15) were given one red heart cut out of cheap cardboard, and we were supposed to give it to the one we fancied. Nice enough thought, yes, but the girl and the boy who'd collected the most hearts were given a prize which kind of lost the innocence of the day, sorry for the bad pun. A bunch of us unpopular girls, since we also were realists, gave our cardboard hearts to the most popular girl in our class in hope of gaining some glory by association in case she won. We spent the rest of the day just hanging around and chatting and staying away from the bloodbath the heart-hunt was turning into. I still shudder at the memory.

Despite the rant above, here's something I'd like to tell you, courtesy of Anti-Valentine (the link shamelessly picked from Lou's blog):