14:46
Yesterday the little cats were scratching frantically near my door, so I went to let them in. I did wonder why they were so insistent, but the door had been open the day before so maybe it was because of that. I went back to my room and after a while felt something touch my foot. It felt like a spider and I sure have a lot of those around here. I couldn't find anything, but that happens too.
Next, I noticed that there was a field vole in my trash can. :D
Okay, I take the trash can out and after a while the vole comes out and skitters off. A few seconds later, one cat came and promptly caught the vole in its mouth.

01:15
The Elftown Prose Contest started today and I decided that by damn, there's finally a prose contest and I'd enter it, period. Okay, theme is horror and I don't really care for horror. But I can make this fantasy thing kind of horrific, right? So I sat down, wrote four hours and the result was EPC: For Love, Sky-Chaser (the original story is at The Sky-Chaser).

18:45
Have a wall!

Last Wednesday, I took the car for maintenance since my mom thought it would be a great idea to do that while 60 % of the family was on vacation. Well, I took it there and they said that the car should've been inspected as well! I said they can do the inspection while at it, then. After that I just sat around waiting for it to be done.
A bit after half the reserved time, they called me and said that some obscure part whose name I have no hope of translating had fractures and should be replaced. Replacing the part would need to wait until tomorrow but I needed the car back that day, so I said no. Then they said the car might not pass inspection if the part was not replaced, argh. I still decided to not have the part replaced.
Luckily, they got it done and the car even passed inspection. I reserved a new time to replace that odd part. They gave me the bill and I went to their cashier to pay. Oops, the bank card to my parents' account is being declined for some unknown reason. Well, fine, I can use my other card, even if it means paying from my own account. But no, that doesn't work either! They're the same bank's cards, so apparently that bank had a problem or something.
Okay, I still had one card I could try, because I have two accounts and the other one is in a different bank. But wait, that account doesn't have enough money! The reason is that just one day earlier I had to pay my parents' electricity bill because they'd forgotten to do that when they left!
The cashier tried to call the bank whose cards weren't working, but they didn't respond. The nearest ATM was a little too far away by foot (I couldn't get there and back before closing time) and I really didn't want to start playing lottery with the buses whose schedules and routes I still can't read or understand. The cashier told me that there was a store I could get money from, since the bank card was of the same company as the store.
I walked to the store but they couldn't give me enough money since it was such a small store. I wondered for a while what to do and decided to go back to the car place, just in case the cards started working again.
The cashier then told me that I could pay in parts and I was relieved. Only after fussing with the cards and me forgetting the code to it since I rarely used that card and was stressed, the cashier specified that paying in parts didn't mean time but cash and pay by card. Then we had to fuss some more to cancel the payment.
I walked back to the store, got the cash and walked back to the car place again. Awesome, now I had enough money! I nearly forgot that I didn't remember the code to the card and the next wrong code would freeze it, but luckily I remembered that in time and the payment could be done another way.
Finally, I managed to pay! The cashier gave me a small box of candy and I left.

I went to pick up the vacationers from Helsinki on Saturday night. I thought that it would be a great time to see two movies whose showing time was starting to be over, so I reserved time for that. Route planners told me that the trip to the movie theater would take two hours. I reserved 45 extra minutes to find the movie theater and buy the tickets.
Of course the trip took longer since it was winter and winter speed limits were in effect. However, that was only maybe 10 minutes. The bigger problem was that there were no free parking spaces on the streets. Even before I left, I thought that I would take the car to a parking house if I didn't find an easy street spot.
For some reason, driving around the streets looking at the streets and finding a parking house took a whole lot of time. I went into a parking house whose location I roughly remembered on the map. The trip down was unnervingly long. I chose to park the car near the entrance because I thought it would be easier that way. I was late for the movie and there seemed to be two ways out of the parking hall. It said they would open with the card I'd gotten when I drove in. Well, of course they didn't. After a bit of agonizing I pressed the alarm button on the machine, expecting that I'd need to speak to someone. Well, the door just opened, which was really surprising, but at least I got out – into a new, stranger tunnel.
I walked on and hoped that the foreign-looking squatters weren't going to rob me. After a while of walking it occurred to me that I didn't remember to note where I had left my car, so I started writing notes of the tunnels and elevators.
Eventually I made it outside and started walking to a direction I thought was right, since I had no clue where I was. Surprisingly, I got the direction right, and then I had to look for the entrance to the dang movie hall, which was surprisingly unapparent.
There was some kind of restaurant in the building when I got in and I wondered where I could get tickets. I wandered around for a while and just couldn't find any place to buy tickets. I eventually asked a ticket-checking person where I could get them and was told it was on the first floor, right by the main entrance. As I walked away, I figured that I'd probably entered through some other entrance. Why can't they have clearer directions?
Finding the way down was complex and I eventually had to go out again, but this time I ended up right next to the main entrance, so now I could finally buy the ticket.
I got to the movie a little late, but due to the ads, I managed to come in the exact moment before the movie started. That was a rather impeccable timing, though I worried about finding the car.
When the movie ended, I hurried my way back to buy a ticket for the other movie. I didn't buy them both at the same time because even though I calculated that I would have time to watch both of the movies, I couldn't know for sure if the timing was good enough. I got the ticket and went to watch the second movie. I agonized half of it how I was going to find my car and whether I'd have enough money to pay for the parking.
When the movie ended, I hurried out and walked my way back to where I had come out of the parking complex. I went in and figured that it was the wrong door. I went back outside and found the original door which of course was locked. After a bit of walking around, I decided to go back in the first door I tried, since it was apparently the same complex.
It was some metro station and I wondered where to go. I found a map and stared at it without really understanding it, since it was a strange map and I was still stressed. I walked around a bit, looked at the map again and found a way that should take me to the correct parking house.
I went into an elevator that surprisingly opened with my parking card. I walked a rather long way along the tunnels and found a pay machine. I decided I'd find the car in time even if I paid now. Of course the payment was more than I had cash. However, the machine accepted cards too – except mine of course. Two invalid cards and one strange error.
I walked that long distance back out again. I'd have taken cash before I went in if I'd seen an ATM before, but I hadn't. I decided to walk around and search for one but once I saw guards walking on the street, I just asked them. Of course one machine was right on the other side of the market square thingy.
I walked there and there seemed to be foreign-looking kids around the ATM waiting for someone to come get money so they could rob them. Luckily they left right before I got to the spot. Or maybe they were just positioned oddly around the ATM for some other reason, who knows. Either way, I got the money and walked back to the parking house.
I managed to pay and could finally leave. I set up the car navigator so I could follow its directions once I got out. I drove to the post where I was supposed to put the parking card in the machine, but the bar raised and door opened before I'd managed to do anything with the card. Great, so apparently I would've gotten out even without paying. Geez!
Of course, the navigator just wouldn't find a GPS signal. I decided to drive on and wait since that's how the previous navigator had gotten its signal eventually. This one just didn't seem to get one. However, I recalled that it could plan a rout even without the signal, but for that I'd have to give it the starting point address. I drove on, looking for a good place to stop and where I could see the current address. I found one eventually and put in the address.
The danged navigator took me to an obscure route through the city instead of directing me to the main road where I could've driven without watching out for every danged crossroad. I thought that if I could just find a direction sign, I'd follow it and not the navigator, but I'd follow the navigator until I did since it probably was still directing me to the right direction at least. Of course, as soon as I saw a direction sign, the navigator agreed with me and directed into the main road.
After that, I decided to only follow the road signs. The navigator would actually have taken me through some other route, even if its directions would have eventually taken me to the right destination.
Finally I was at the airport. Only two or more hours late. Sigh. If I ever plan on going on such a trip to Helsinki again, kick me hard. Going there requires hours of extra time and maps at the least, and a local guide would be really useful. Ideally, any cars should be left far from the city.

The two movies I watched were "The Way Back" and "Tron: Legacy".
I went to watch "The Way Back" for its sceneries, but the plot and such was okay too. It had refreshingly little romance and stressful character conflict, which I liked. I would've wanted to see even more landscapes. I felt that the rather nondescript desert got a little too much screentime.
"Tron: Legacy" was okay and pretty much what I expected. The sound effects went a little overboard at times and I could've gone without the programs with personalities trying to imitate humans. The music was pretty nice.

22:15
I finally managed to finish Neverwinter Nights 2. I'd left it hanging near the end for one reason or another. I also think I didn't kill that one dragon because it was too tough and immune to sneak attacks, oh woe. Nevertheless, it is finished now! I think I shall play it again some day. I wonder if I could kill some party members...

01:39
Today/yesterday I felt for the first time that I might actually be ready to face whatever adolescence would bring. Yes, I'm aware that I'm a day short of being 25 at the moment. Why, oh why can't adolescence be postponed to a time when one actually is ready? Then again, the fact that I think I'm ready now could be influenced by my knowing of what would happen.

In other news, I drew a rather successful picture:

22:06
The editorial of this comic: http://egscomics.com/egsnp/?date=2010-02-16 brings up a point about criticism that I've been wanting to write about.

Also, the webcomic in general is great. :D

01:05
I finished my 30 characters! You can check them out here if you want to: Veltzeh's 30 characters 2010.

In other news, our house is having a small cold-related crisis. During the Monday-Tuesday night, a bunch of the power network inside the house stopped working. It worked fine when I went to bed, but now neither my nor my parents' room has any heat or light, though miraculously the one socket where my computer is is powered. Also the socket in the warehouse stopped working, so the freezers are on an extension cord. Some heating elements aren't working in the living room, plus one socket is dead there too. Also the dishwasher didn't seem to work, and only a part of the oven works. Interesting, isn't it?

17:43
http://www.transgenderdor.org/ Yep.

23:09
As some may know, it is NaNoWriMo time. This year, I'm not doing an actual novel, but an alternative: 30 characters in 30 days (<URL:http://www.30characters.com/>). I've gathered my characters at Veltzeh's 30 characters 2010 if anyone wants to see.
In other news, I finally got the photos of the new cat out of the camera, but now my network hard drive is being an ass and not letting me access the photos.

However, the point of this post is not the fact that I'm not filling out the character sheets I made. The point is that I've realized something about swearing and can put it in words now.
This past year, I've started noticing how swearing just gradually got more inconvenient, extraneous and juvenile. I can't say what kind of swearer I've been and while I've let out my share of profanities, I do know that I've almost never used the strongest swearwords Finnish has. I definitely used to think that swearing was cool and totally acceptable in certain situations even though I didn't actually swear quite that much myself.
Of course I don't think swearing should be banned, but I've come to notice that when people swear, most often it just isn't doing anything for them except making them seem less amicable, approachable, trustworthy and mature. When I see or hear someone swearing, these questions pop into my mind:
1) What's that supposed to signify?
2) Is that really the only way to express feelings, and what warrants such feelings anyway?
3) Is anyone going to get offended? (Well, the purpose of swearwords and profanity IS to offend or express pain or surprise.)
4) Why does the swearer want to offend?
I suppose there are more questions to be asked but those were the most consice and clear ones of which I thought.
I've gotten pretty tired of swearing and wish other people would give it a rest too. It still has its place, but ideally people would think about what their swearing signifies and save it for the hopefully not-that-frequent situations that can somehow benefit from swearing. Nowadays too many swearing situations just invoke the aforementioned feelings of immaturity and unapproachcability in me.

00:21
I have a role-playing game idea! I'm not entirely sure where to go with it, mostly because I want to actually offer a good starting point for the players, but the starting point is changeable. So yeah. Kyerrion game.

00:24
I also finally saw Inception yesterday, after only two months of planning to go see it. It was pretty good and visually awesome, but not remarkably memorable. The varying gravity and weightless fighting part was really cool.

15:46
I've taken photos of the cat. Maybe some day I'll also take them out of the camera. In other news, winter tire season has begun. I also had a massive headache on Thursday, though usually I don't really have headaches even when I'm ill. Luckily it didn't develop into a flu.

23:28
The new cat seems to have gotten over its pee-y phase. It was excessively friendly on Saturday or Friday night, and has kept on being friendly. Savu doesn't approve, of course. The new one also seems to have gotten the name of Plushenko or Pljuštšenko, however one would like to transliterate. The reason behind that one is that whenever the cat tries to run on the parquet floor, it slides and slips because it has fluffy hair on its paws.
I need to take some photos of it some day. It is very cute. :3

23:01
Key picked up a new cat on Monday. It had very stinky pee and felt alienated from the cat toilet, so now the whole house stinks. It was neutered today, so I shall hope it will be less pee-y from now on! It got dubbed Mörkö for reasons of which I'm not quite sure yet. X)

10:34
I thought I'd write something more about the cat.

We called the cat Lymy because it was shy and could hide extremely well. We couldn't find it if it didn't want to be found. Another name suggestion that I liked was Tuhka (Ash), from a phrase "tuhkana tuuleen" ("ash into the wind"), as opposed to "savuna ilmaan" ("smoke into the air") since the other cat is called Savu. There are probably better English equivalents for those phrases, but I don't remember them.
Lymy was very thin, would have fought fiercely for ham and lifted its backside high if one petted the root of its tail. Sometimes it rolled around during the petting and pushed the floor with its head. Lymy actually liked to be petted against the direction of growth of its fur. (I really couldn't find a translation for "vastakarvaan".) Lymy's tail was epic.

Here's one of the first photos of Lymy after it dared to venture out of its hiding place. I think I'll upload more once I get them out of my camera.


2010-09-18 21:24
I uploaded more photos. As you can see, Lymy was very good at curling up.


This is the last spot Lymy slept in, the night before its final trip to the vet.

17:02
Our third cat had to be euthanized because of a bad kidney failure. (For the record, the first cat is still around and the second has a new home at my granny's because it was such an efficient hunter.) I didn't even remember how incredibly sad a pet's death is. This is probably why I decided to never get another pet.

I watched Silent Running a while ago, and it was pretty good. Especially the songs were nice.

23:01
What do you get when you combine the oldest topic of discussion (weather) and toilet humor? Something AWESOMELY funny. Cough. Yeah. Apparently one is never too old for toilet humor. Then again, we were pretty tired at that point, so that might've been a very important factor. Poop lightning and salami raining down are synonymous.

00:50
YLE Teema has been showing old sci-fi movies during the summer, and I've been watching them. The movies this far that I've seen were Tulevia aikoja (Things to Come), Metropolis, Kielletty planeetta (Forbidden Planet), Mies joka kutistui (The Incredible Shrinking Man), Varastetut ihmiset (Invasion of the Body Snatchers) and Alphaville. I've still yet to see some of them.
They're very old as movies, but they are good, watchable and not necessarily even headbangingly wrong. Except Alphaville, that is. It was awful and just didn't make sense at all. I did manage to get what the big point of the movie was, though.

In addition, Teema showed the movie "Det Sjunde Inseglet" (Seventh Seal) some time ago. I was surprised at how awesome the chant by the cultists was. If you want to hear, it starts here at 6:58: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN7bow0TeGQ and apparently it's Dies Irae. I tried to look for other, more high quality versions of it, mostly on Youtube, but all the other versions feel incredibly soulless. Seriously, it's "Day of Wrath" and the singing sounds like they're talking about dreamy pillows in heaven or something. How did the Swedes make it so awesome in the film?

23:44
I heard some family members laughing at a sports interview (apparently it's time for the olympics). My dad said that it's weird that Brits are usually said to be the masters of understatement, when in fact it should be the Finns. Here's the interview that inspired it:
Reporter: "Miltä tuntui tulla seitsemänneksi?" ("How did it feel to come out as seventh?")
Long jumper: "No ei se aivan perseestä ollu." ("Well, it didn't completely suck ass.")

The interview is pretty great, isn't it?

01:00
The horror! THE HORROR! DX

12:44
Plugging this game is popular, so I might as well. X-Men RP needs new active (1 post per day is enough) players! I dare say that new players don't need to even know anything about X-Men. The only noteworthy things are that the characters we play are mostly teens who are mutants and have manifested superhuman powers, and now they're going to a school for such people. And they're discriminated and hunted by regular humans.

In other news, today's weather has been refreshingly cool! I hope it won't get any warmer.

I watched a movie called "Willow" a few days back. I also read a comic adaptation of "The Hobbit" in the city library a week or so ago. I thought I had something to say about them, but apparently I don't. Oh well. Either way, they were fairly good, and Gandalf was quite a jerk.

00:56
And now for something awesome again: a one-man a cappella Pokemon theme! http://music.todaysbigthing.com/2010/06/25