Chains

I'm writing this post only to keep my "write to blog" Chain unbreakable. Not really. I've been planning to write about Chains for a while. So here it is. Chains is a simple little motivational tool to keep you motivated on doing daily stuff. My best kept chains are "come to work" and "drink beer". Hmmm. My friend Sauli who invented it became an independent entrepreneur few months ago. His company Siirre Transplants will be the next big thing, I assume. At least we have so many consulting meetings during this autumn. Usually in a bar. Their other innovation is Stems, is a tool with which music makers can make new versions of each others' songs and those in turn can be remixed by others. And since I'm the unofficial CFO of Siirre, you can consider this as a paid commercial. Just kidding.

Utö

Utö is the furthest crowded island at the Finnish archipelago. There are 40-50 inhabitants living in Utö all year round. Area of the island is about 1km2 and it's totally surrounded by sea. anywhere you look you see the sea. I visited Utö last weekend and heard amazing stories what had happened around there and how the people of the island with so little natural resources have lived the past decades. Amazing place and amazing people.

I wear my sunglasses at night

Yeah, it's November and I bought sunglasses.

Virtual Sistine Chapel

Cool site to show Sistine Chapel in Vatican virtually. No need to go and queue there anymore. Nice job with the paintings Michelangelo!

When I am bored I bake

Näh I was just hungry and didn't have any food. I'm trying the blogger app for the first time, let's see how this works.

String on the wall

After a long long waiting my new String shelve arrived. And it took only a week until I got it at the wall. Beautiful.

Woollen pants by KaksiTvå

This winter to keep the stupid coldness away I got woollen pants. Designer duet KaksiTvå had these amazing pants in their collection "Friends". Test report from yesterday: Walking to work: great, At work: a little warm but really good, At a restaurant: super hot, At bar: good. Next I'm going to test these pants at Utö.

5 second films

Ahahahahahahahahahahha!




Hohohohohohohohohoh!

CSS – La Liberacíon

I don't know what it is with this band but it has impressed me yet again. Few years back I saw them at Flow Festival in Helsinki and thought that the gig was great even though I was under a yellow raincoat and about 100 metres from the stage. Anyway, I somehow managed to listen their albums through so many time I couldn't stand it anymore. Then i forgot them.

Until last thursday when they came back to Helsinki to play at Tavastia klubi. I was first ready to up to the balcony to see the gig from there, but my friend convinced me to go straight to the front of the stage. And yes, that was the best place to have, because CSS had such and energetic and danceable gig  I fell in love with the band again. Especially the synth player Ana Rezende was ultimately cool with her glass of red in the other hand while playing keyboards with the other. After that we went to bar Nolla and the band arrived there too. First time in my life I went to say to Ana and Carol that they were super super great there at the stage. So thanks CSS, you made me a groupie too.






One thing is that they also have great videos and other stuff. I especially like this video Move. The graphic idea, story and the feeling. Just love it.

15 minutes of privacy

Last week I read from Facebook that in the future people will have 15 minutes of privacy in their life. I found this funny and somewhat true, but it also made me think. Then I googled myself – once again. On the first result page only 3/10 hits are not about me. About a year ago the results were the other way round. What does this tell about me then? at least that I'm probably quite good with my digital footprint. Also I seem to have joined quite few social media communities.

I think the first community was legendary Irc-Galleria where were some pics and people commented on them. I resigned from that when the age median was about ten years younger than me. Then I think I joined MySpace. It was just boring, because I don't do music and I hated that you had to thank everyone who added you as a friend. At some point I also joined Klubitus.org, and I might even have my profile still there. When studying in England I joined a German version of Facebook Studiverzeichnis in which all exchange student (of which majority were Germans) arranged meeting and put embarrassing photos from parties. After that I joined Facebook, which was basically just easier than StudiVZ mainly because of the language, and Twitter which isn't yet that big in Finland. And also LinkedIn. The ones I have skipped have been Google Wave (I just didn't get it) and Google+ (I was on holidays and didn't bother even give it a try) and Foursquare (I still keep this as a possible option, so far I haven't found it useful for me).

What I really like about this FB and Google stuff dominating era is, that you can basically log in almost everywhere with those accounts. Creating a new account and waiting for all the friends join it is just too difficult and boring these days. I realize that I've become a spoiled prat who want everything as easy as possible. But since the are so many options, I can already demand on good service that gives me something more than the ones I'm already in. Why would I join another Facebook when the existing one works well for me.

Now I'm waiting for my friend's new application Chains to be published as an iPhone app, and start using it to motivate myself with things.

Bye Bye Goggles!

I got my first glasses when I was eight years old. They were big, light blue and the most important there was a picture of a horse on the side of them. One day I was riding with our horse who went mad and caused me to fell from it's back. After that I found my horse glasses somewhere few meters away in two pieces. Mom took me to optometrist again, and I got my next glasses which were also big, but this time white and had colorful letters on them. Those glasses I broke at school while doing some gymnastic stuff and had put the glasses on my pocket. I think I was about 11 that time.

The next glasses were golden metal ones, almost rounded as only the fashion in mid 90's could be. The day I got those glasses I went to play with my friend and somehow I managed to make a huge scratch on them. Some how my parents were convinced that I won't need another pair of glasses that soon, and I lived happily with my golden ones until I was 13. Then the glasses just broke, and I got the next ones; brown oval shaped metal glasses. At the upper secondary I also got first contact lenses, and because glasses were super embarrassing, I wore contacts almost all the time until in London 2001 I bought my first cool glasses. Brown plastic French Connection goggles. There began the era of big glasses and the brown ones were followed with all the time bigger and bigger plastic goggles.

My last specs I bought less than a year ago, but by that time I had decided to go to laser surgery to correct the eyes. To celebrate the last glasses I got the biggest ones possible and with weirdest color combination ever; red and violet.

And then I went to the surgery. It went perfectly. And I'm happy. But sometimes I miss my goggles. A little.

Bonjour Paris!

For some reason I had never before been in Paris. Never had reason. Now I did. Well not really, but just decided it's time to visit one of the most famous cities in the world.

Summary: It wasn't that romantic. It was really crowded. The Eiffel tower was cool. I also liked the Versailles. It was quite dirty. Champs-Élysées wasn't as fancy as I expected. The district I liked the most was Latin Quarters. I didn't kiss anyone at the Pont Neuf.

New year – new fears

At the end of the year it's often time to sum up the previous year. I already did it once, but forgot to publish. So here it is, with some new year's resolutions:

In the year 2010 I:
1) bought my first own flat
2) got my first promotion
3) started two new hobbies
4) performed at Tavastia for the first time
5) travelled to US for the first tme

In the year 2011 I will:
1) move into that flat (DONE!)
2) develop my programming skills
3) keep those hobbies instead of starting new ones
4) Perform at some greater stage than Tavastia
5) Travel to another continent never visited before