I don't know if you are aware or I've told you before, but Coventry (where I live in England) is a city that is keen on peace and reconciliation (mainly because it was bombed flat in WWII). Something I said in a conversation in a wiki reminded me to tell you the following. In the 60s, John Lennon and Yoko Ono did a bunch of art projects where they planted acorns of peace, that would grow into oaks and people could find solace and comfort in the oaks, etc... Long term project, right? They did that outside the Coventry cathedral. And what did Coventry do? Dig out the acorns and steal them >.<;;;; And today I was thinking that the following statement applies: it would be cooler to have an acorn from an oak planted by John and Yoko, than an acorn planted by John and Yoko. >.< It would be great if people that come to Coventry could actually get an acorn that grew in the tree that the Ono-Lennons planted as a token of peace.

End of line.

Bold if you've done it
Italics if you want to do it

1. Started your own blog (lasted about three days)
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity (I cancelled the direct debit three months later :C)
7. Been to Disneyland (Disneyworld)
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo (and botched it up XD)
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch (pretty much, even though I went to art school too)
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning (twice - it was a roommate on both times)
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables (my family does, that counts because you can be singular or plural)
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort (sounds cooler than is, probably. This is just something you do in Finland)
25. Held a lamb (I hae held a piggy, though. Stinkier and not as soft)
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice (oddly enough, we didn't do this bit when we went to Venice...)
29. Seen a total eclipse (vague recollection)
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run (I used to be darn good at Finnish baseball)
32. Been on a cruise (again, just something you do in Finland)
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors (This is actually quite high on my want-to-do -list, as I'm doing my family history)
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language (tried several times - does that count? :P)
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo's David (I've seen a replica...)
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant (I'd also want to be a stranger... :3)
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling (I think I need to want to do this, because someone I like is a diver...)
52. Kissed in the rain (lets not talk about it)
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater (So far, this is the thing I want most on this list)
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class (Tai chi - was great for the back)
59. Visited Russia (As slightly as possible, just a wee bit over the border... Didn't do it justice, didn't like it. I'll have to retry this some day)
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got/gave flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma (Speaking of whih, where's my blood donor card? It should have arrived by now... Damn...)
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi concentration camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy (saved from what?)
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten caviar (My grandma really liked it, so I'll have to gie it a try some day)
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone (Technically, the doctor broke it, now me...)
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem (I want Jerusalem syndrome :P)
84. Had your picture in the newspaper (Something pointless and school related, nothing exciting like "local woman saves drowning idiot")
85. Read the entire Bible (Grr, second time I'e been asked this and forced to say no. I really need to get that done)
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating (Hmm, we once prepared half a slaughtered pig for eating - but we didn't kill it ourselves...)
88. Had chickenpox (I thought everyone has o.O)
89. Saved someone’s life (Possibly, how can you know?)
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous (I'm not saying I want to meet anyone who is famous, but I would like to meet certain famous people)
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake (Well I should do a trip to Utah at some point probably...)
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone (...what? Who hasn't?)
99. Been stung by a bee (a wasp counts because the bastards are worse than bees: they don't even die from stinging you, so you don't even get that little bit of satisfaction >.<)
100. Read an entire book in one day (Harry Potter always took too long a wait...)

Sharing time. If you care, this is for you. If you don't, sorry. There will be a YouTube video at the end.

More excuses for online absence: I start on Monday. :) I has job. That pays real money. That requires me to commute. I'm silly like that, I've always wanted a job or school or something that would require me to sit in a bus for a long time every day. I think bus-routine sounds cool, traveling on a bus... head-space... Y'know. I'll probably learn to not like it after a while, but hey ho. I like it now. The job is computer-ey (data entry) and not arty, but that's ok. It comes with lots of very good (or bad, depending on your point of view) personal reasons why I want to work there *coughcoughRaycoughcoughcough* - sorry, I have a cold (which I'm self-medicating with Lovehearts :p)



Sorry, no YouTube video. You were conned.

I'm ill. Therefore I have the right to be a bit absent lately - right?

Also, what the hack is up with this redirect?! -> Rule 34

Heh.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/eamon-mccann/eamonn-mccann-what-if-mormons-are-right-and-catholics-and-protestants-wrong-13955402.html

The thing that really surprised me about this article is that the author isn't a member of the church. And that it's actually on a real newspaper (or at least its website). And that it's not totally bashing the mormons. o.O Huh.

He's surprisingly well-informed about the basics of the idea (I didn't know baptism for the dead was argued over and rejected in Synods), though he does skip the bit about freedom to choose: we believe that even those who are dead still get to choose whether they want the baptism to have aneffect or not (we're not forcing anyone to heaven, here o.O) and that the performance of the baptism - whether the person is alive or dead - alone is not enough to get you anywhere, we think it's a far more active thing, you actually need to want salvation and show that willingness in the stuff you do. But baptism is the necessary first step, and we want all people, living and dead, to be given that choice in the first place. We want everyone to be in a position where they can say "no thank you" or "yes please". And that's why we are baptised for the dead, that's why we serve missions and knock on people's doors.

There is one thing that the work makes me worry about though (besides the fact that there are mind-bogglingly many dead people and therefore this is a hugenormous undertaking), and that is the people we don't find. As it suggests in the article, we find the dead people from parish records etc... (the ideal situation is that everyone does the work for their own ancestors - that way you get to know a bit about them before you all meet up again in there - but there is also work straight from parish records through 'extractions of names'). But what about people who lived before such records were kept? :/ Censuses go back only so far (there's a reason they call the Medieval times 'the Dark Ages' - and it's not because the sun didn't rise as much). The only answer for myself that I have at the moment is that Jesus will somehow sort it out when he gets back (apparently there will be a lot of baptisms for the dead and other temple work in the Millenium). But I still sometimes worry about that.

* * *

Top 10 Places Thar I Think Would Be Awesomest To Go On My Mission

10. Alaska.
I keep mentioning it jokingly when people ask where I reckon I'll be sent... It'll freak me out a little if it actually happens.
9. Finland.
Home... I'd be a wee bit gutted, but it'd be kinda awesome since it's the country, it's the land, my roots and all that jazz. They often send missionaries to where their ancesters are from, plus I already know the language.
8. England.
My other home. Would also be a bit meh to miss the travel opportunity, but then again loads of people I love live here...
7. A place I can't even begin to imagine.
It'd be sorta awesome to be sent somewhere that I can't even imagine ever going to. Like... heck, I can't even think of an example! :P
6. Georgia, US.
Home of [Aradon Templar] and my awesome singer-friend who is convinced I'll be sent there to her. If I was sent there, I'd insist Tempie to come meet me (though sadly I wouldn't be able to hug him :/)
5. Indiana, US.
Home of [Viking]. I like the sound of Indy a bit better than Georgia (temperature-wise) but I wouldn't be allowed to hug him either. :/
4. Argentina.
Home of [All_Most PUNK] - also, they are building a new temple there, so that's always exciting. Temperature and no-huggage-of-PUNK don't appeal, but it would require the learning of a new language, which would be awesome.
3. Belgium.
Home of [ally]. New language, and I would be able to hug her, yay!
2. Brazil.
The home of my best friend evar, Tibo. Bit too tropical for me, but would include a new language. But it's also a scary place from what I've heard her say...

1. Scotland.
My best church-friend evar is serving her mission in Scotland right now. I can't begin to imagine how totally awesome it would be to serve in the same area. We'd be a nightmare if we were a comapnionship! XD Amg, I just imagined what'd be ike if she were my trainer! XD XD Sadly, couldn't write to her while in different areas, though, we're not allowed to write to missionaries within the same mission... But still. Would be the awesomest place evar, so funny. Like, I'd follow in her footstepas, literally. :P

I'm randoming in XKCD, because, you see the thing is, yeah that's why.

And I want to live in xkcd world:

http://xkcd.com/150/
http://xkcd.com/462/
http://xkcd.com/96/
http://xkcd.com/249/
http://xkcd.com/227/ (the hover to this one makes me cry tears of joy :P)
http://xkcd.com/171/
http://xkcd.com/340/
http://xkcd.com/343/
http://xkcd.com/45/ (hover r00ls again)
http://xkcd.com/144/
http://xkcd.com/140/ (amg, life... explained...)
http://xkcd.com/162/
http://xkcd.com/165/

Ok I'll stop now. *sigh*

Ever so often I check Post Secret (I forget a lot - someone help me remember!)
But I did today. And this one had serious aww-factor:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_a7jkcMVp5Vg/SRY6sc4rlaI/AAAAAAAAHRI/z5R082-cANw/s1600-h/laughlines.jpg

Interestingly, today before my job interview I was waiting and I was given a newspaper to read, the Guardian. And there was a little article/comment by Joan Bakewell who writes the column Just 70, and has recently been appointed the Voice of the Older People by the government, and I think she is assum. Oldness. I can't wait for it.
Actually, here is the text: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/10/ageism-joan-bakewell-voice-of-older-people-pensions

One day I thought of a really good secret to send, but I can't remember it anymore. It may have been the "I don't like it when people like me, but I like it when people just sort of tolerate me" -thing (I worded it much better) but I'm not sure. But yes, if you didn't know that about me, then now you do.

As a result of last Sunday, when exciting things happened, and I got to spend a fair bit of time with someone I'd like to spend quite a bit more time with, I had an inspiration of sorts - which in turn led to this:

http://writersco.com/207.Human-People.15%20Minutes%20Early

Now because everything happened so suddenly, I haven't yet read that thing enough many times to think that it sucks and therefore shall never see the light of day - and therefore it sees the light of day and people are welcome to read it. Feel free to take advantage of this rare occasion of new iippo-writing being presented to the public (and feel free to be as harsh as you want in critiquing it. After all I'm an adult and can handle it).

This concludes the business.

Punk 'N Roll
I have this compilation CD of classic Finnish punk, and I finally got off my arse and ripped it in order to share it with Viking and Punk (rest of yous are welcome to it too).
My favourites are 10 (Apulanta: Aurinkoon) and 16 (Lehtivihreät: Tunne Tietää). And 3 (Ne Luumäet: Onnellinen Perhe), 5 (James Puhto-Ren: Helsinkiin vai Helvettiin), and 13 (Luonteri Surf: 30 Vuotta) are awesome too. Rest of it isn't bad either, there's a couple really HC ones that I'm not so keen on, Klamydia's songs are mostly funny (so that doesn't work for me at all times either, sometimes it's good), and one particularly depressing one where the lyrics are very good - just very very depressing :P Oh, and Pelle Miljoona is from my home town, woot. Not that I was even alive when he was around (he's not dead yet, just famous), but still.
If you want translations, says so.


Oh, RapidShare said it can be downloaded 10 times only. So if it doesn't work, you might try to be number 11. I dunno, should be fine, I can't imagine most of you being interested in Finnish punk. I'm only sharing it with Viking and Punk as a curio.
http://rapidshare.com/files/161508191/Punk_n_Roll.zip.html

Samuel Beckett's Not I
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=otjKETciw2c
What a powerful... thing. o.O Watch it.

http://marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/newsmap.cfm
The newsmap. What a fantastic thing. I hope all news in the future will be delivered in this format.

NumberPedia is still relevant to my interests.


Thank you.

24 Hour Psycho review. I'd waited for this for yonks, and it came and it went - slowly. This was probably the highlight of my year so far (but then again both my birthday and Christmas are still to come, and I can't remember anything beyond three weeks ago...) So yeah, it was awesome!

and yes, I'm trying out this review thingie. It's nifty, and I think so because I have lots of opinions I want to impose on share with other people :3

But, as my diary is kinda more private than a review, I'll tell you all how that went:
I got the bus to Brum (and someone I know from uni happened to be on the same bus so I sat with him and chatted til he got off - and I never get to just sit down and chat with him <3), I got lost on the way to the gallery (not a wholesome activity in Birmingham city centre on a Friday night after dark on Halloween!) but got there in the end half an hour late (standard mormon time). My teacher George was there and one of the new MA students, talked with them for a while, checked the work, and George bought me soup, because I am that broke. They left, I stayed. And stayed and stayed. I saw a lot of really slow driving, a lot of really slow conversations (without sound), a car sinking into a swamp (slowly, but I think that might have actually been real time swamp-sinkage; I'd imagine they'd fast forward it a bit for the real movie), and one really slow murder. For a lot of the time there was no other visitors there, and the gallery staff were chatting to me because they were a bit bored. They also gave me free soup and hot chocolate :9 I was really freezing there. And I fell asleep a few times <_< At around 1pm the next day I said "ok, I have now experienced enough of the 24 Hour Psycho, and will now go home." I got out of the gallery, and the gallery assistant asked for my contact details because I had stayed for such a long time :P And she told me that the Bullring in town had been evacuated (in case that'd affect my traveling). I thought it wouldn't but it did - the bus was really late, I waited for about an hour and a half for a bus that goes every half an hour >.< Cold. And no familiar faces on the bus either.
I am very tired, but happy.

If I did some of the things I want to do (art-wise), I'd be in fact abandoning and selling my ideals and principles. Other people make work that I wish I'd made, but I can't make stuff like it, because of the expectations of artistic integrity in me (whether I expect it of myself or others do is not relevant).

* * *

Conceptual artists shunned the art object because it was a mere pawn in the art market (Picasso realised this also, so he wished that after his death all the work still in his possession would be released to the market, causing the demand and supply of his work to crash, making it possible to buy a Picasso for a fiver - his family didn't fulfil this last wish -_- It would have been the greatest blow on the art market). But I sort of agree with the conceptual artists (I am, after all, somewhat kind of almost one with the exception that I do actually make work too :P), but I agree in the principle: I don't want to make stuff that can be bought and sold. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the art object is always in that position (although that guy selling the wall that Banksy graffitied on... was a pretty bad blow on the whole non-selling-non-buying art thing >.<) What I mean is that I don't mind the art object so much. I do, after all, love treasure (I'm related to pirates). And while I am mostly obsessed with the replication, reproduction, no-original, infinite copies -thing, at the same time I yearn for tactility, especially tactility over the internet (cyber tactility, digital tactility). It does exist, I have experiences it before. And objects are good at tactility (tactility is key to treasure, y'see). Because treasure is more than just objects or expensive stuff. There is importance in how the treasure is acquired and where it is kept (three months' wages on your bank account is not treasure, no matter how well-paid your job is). This isn't to say that treasure comes easy, nor that money can't be treasure (your first ever pay slip might be treasure etc). Treasure can come easy or you can work hard for it, and money can be treasure - but it's not treasure because of its monetary value. Treasure has other value: emotional (tactile) value. Not just the usual sort of emotional value that someone gave it to you, or it belonged to someone you love (although that is one kind of tactile value), but there's also other emotions than love that make value for treasure: adventure, excitement, fear, faith... Anything can be imbued with emotional value from any emotion.

I fixed this thing, so it finally works (I hope):
<URL:stuff/Steadily-Constantly-Always.swf>

My final MA exhibited thingie.

Reading an Oscar Wilde play on the internets, and it made me lol:

MRS. ALLONBY. Don't find yourself longing for a London dinner-party?

HESTER. I dislike London dinner-parties.

MRS. ALLONBY. I adore them. The clever people never listen, and the stupid people never talk.

HESTER. I think the stupid people talk a great deal.

MRS. ALLONBY. Ah, I never listen!



Continued, the secret of life defined by English upper class prats:

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I do not, Lady Hunstanton. I think there are many things women should never forgive.

LADY HUNSTANTON. What sort of things?

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. The ruin of another woman's life.

[Moves slowly away to back of stage.]

LADY HUNSTANTON. Ah! those things are very sad, no doubt, but I believe there are admirable homes where people of that kind are looked after and reformed, and I think on the whole that the secret of life is to take things very, very easily.

MRS. ALLONBY. The secret of life is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming.

LADY STUTFIELD. The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.

KELVIL. The secret of life is to resist temptation, Lady Stutfield.

LORD ILLINGWORTH. There is no secret of life. Life's aim, if it has one, is simply to be always looking for temptations. There are not nearly enough. I sometimes pass a whole day without coming across a single one. It is quite dreadful. It makes one so nervous about the future.

Note dumpage again.
Last thursday I went to Hereford and back on the train, because my lecturer George needed me to do that (had o take some kind of parcel to the art college there -- no, the place didn't blow up shortly afterwards). Anyhoo, it's pretty far away (hour and forty minutes on the train) so I had a lot of headspace during the train journey, and here's the results:

The train is the only thing you can travel backwards in.

Great Malvern has a mountain. A real one. Outside the train. And the station is gorgeous. The place has the pull of adventure. I was really close ditching George's parcel-quest and going to meet the mountain, and only because I love him dearly did I not do that. So the adventure will happen another time. And it'll only cost £15. I could take the earliest possible train there, go explore, then take the latest possible train back... It'd be a nice day of trains, old places and mountains (and some more trains). That place has the pull.
I can't comprehend the mountain. It's such a strange thing to me. But I want to comprehend it.
The town is next to the mountain.
Then the town is on the mountain.
And then the train went inside the mountain.

***

Waiting for the train back in Hereford. The trainstation becomes the central hub for a tribe of feral teenagers living in a post-apocalyptic dystopian future world. They worship the faulty PA-system, where the gentle female voice erratically (but with perfect iming) repeats words from its pre-recorded phrases: "please do not leave any luggage unattended or it might be confiscated, damaged or destroyed by the security team"; or "please note that skateboards, roller blades or bicycles are not permitted on this train station" (and therefore the tribe all use those things, because the PA frequently reminds them of skateboards, roller blades or bicycles.
And one day, it'll start repeating "please" over and over again.

***

This Girl I Saw On The Train

She looks like that mouth never smiles.
She looks like that hair never comes out of that ponytail.
She looks like those earphones only play music that hates, violates the ears, and fills the mind with a bitter poison.
She looks like those boots would march over anything and anyone without regard.
She looks like those nails, those claws, those talons would get her through any material if she just scratched long enough.

She looks a lot like me.

Joker Fanart.
Another unfinished drawing embarkment.

One more totally awesome thing.

Cult Of Color: Call to Color a ballet in the Ballet Austin.
http://www.balletaustin.org/email/flash/season07-08/CultOfColor/index.html

Seriously, you want to click that link. Check out the "pictures and music" and "meet the characters" -sections in particular. It's one of those incredibly delightfully weird, bizarre, surreal things. It makes me sad not to be a Texan, that's how awesome it is.

http://www.balletaustin.org/cultofcolor/music/A%20Black%20&%20White%20World.mp3
http://www.balletaustin.org/cultofcolor/music/Building%20the%20Miracle%20Machine.mp3
http://www.balletaustin.org/cultofcolor/music/Sesom's%20Dream.mp3

One more diary.

This guy is made out of money



Mark Wagner. Currency Collages.
http://www.smokeinmydreams.com/

Note dumpage
^{I write notes. A lot. Obsessively. When I read. When I watch stuff. When I think. All the time basically. And soemtimes I have a piece of paper with all these notes on that I need to get rid of. So I type them up.}

From the book Myth of the Machine by Lewis Mumford.

197
Machine work can be done only by machines. These workers {who built the pyramids} during their period of service were, stripped down to their reflexes, in order to ensure a mechanically perfect performance.

It was king who alone had the godlike power of turning men into mechanical objects and assembling these objects in a machine.

230
The human parts that composed the megamachine were by nature mechanically imperfect: never wholly reliable. Until real machines of wood and metal could be manufactured in sufficient quantity to take the place of most of the human components, the megamachine would remain vulnerable.

234
Those who designed the {mega}machine were of course unconscious that it was a machine: how could they identify it as such when... {there were} no clues? ... Because the motive power of this machine required a great assembly of human prime movers, it could flourish only in... urban civilisation...

238
Wherever tools and muscle power were freely used, at the command of the workers themselves, their labors were varied, rhythmic, and often deeply satisfying, in the way that any purposeful ritual is satisfying. Increase of skill brought immediate subjective satisfaction, and this sense of mastery was confirmed by the created product. The main reward of the craftsman's working day ws not wages but the work itself, performed in a social setting. ... In identifying himself with his work and seeking to make it perfect, the worker remolded his own character.

The maker and the object reacted one upon the other...

Every part of work was life-work. Archaic attitude to work...

Metal carries with it the dangers of its origin: the mine. The heavy labour as a curse, and war that consumes the mined metal.

253
Aesthetic invention played fully as large a part as practical needs in man's effort to build a meaningful world; and because of the demans it made it was also a major stimulus for technics.

{an indecipherable word} technical audacity, brought into play not by satisfaction of physical needs or the desire for material wealth, but by the more fundamental pursuit of significance.

253
This mass of aesthetic invention compares favorably with the total mass of mechanical inventions during the last few centuries. But so far from suppressing technics, as our current economy suppresses art, these two modes of invention interacted.

254
The reciprocal relation between art and technics was maintained, to their common advantages, through all the ages of small-scale handicraft production.

In short, it was in the decorative, the symbolic, and the expressive arts that progress was maintained, even in ages that, in retrospect, otherwise seem stagnant.

255
...there was no enmity between handicraft and the machine itself. Just the cntrary; under personal control, the machine or the machine tool was a boon to the free worker.
...the advantage of an advanced technology... for restoring the intimate human scale and with it the communal cooperations of the face-to-face community.

256
...the handicraftsman's freedom could not survive an authoritarian economic system, based on the organisation of complex machinery that no single worker could buy or control, and promising 'security' and 'abundance' only in return of submission.