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Pretending to work

No, I just can't get it into my fat little head that it would be nicer to work first and to it for real and then rest - not do the both at the same time.

Trying to learn Barenaked Ladies - One week by heart... well what can I say, I'm ambitious at something?

Going to Helsinki for the weekend. Tell me in case you're there, too.

Thu 2002-11-28 16:24 in diary No comments #link

Satisfaction factory

I seem to get sick satisfaction of the fact that IMHO, I have it better than most of the people around me, in general.

I'm afraid of getting too satisfied with my life, since that usually means stopping development.

I'm afraid that after the youth in which I, as anyone, questioned everything, I'm entering adulthood, where I'll just be content about the values I have happened to adopt and forget about all that matters.

Isn't that what usually happens? Or is it just another stereotype?

Tue 2002-11-26 22:35 in diary No comments #link

Humanity climax

An outrageous quote theft from the Dilbert Newsletter:

An air-conditioning manufacturer recently introduced a new line of diffusers (the thing in the ceiling that air comes out of), specifically for prisons, that has "anti-suicidal" features. In the write-up, they state the reasons why this is a good thing:

"Suicide takes a toll on facility administration by wasting time and money combating negligence claims. Suicide also increases facility staff stress and decreases morale."

And you know what? I actually found the original source for that piece of text. Oh the wonnderrrful world of Google.

I'm sorry, I just had to.

Tue 2002-11-26 01:47 in diary No comments #link

More or less useful

Just translated w.bloggar 3.0 to Finnish. I'm writing this post using it through MovableType's XML-RPC API, and it even seems to work =).

Mon 2002-11-25 19:31 in diary No comments #link

School of Life

Found this, somewhere on my hard drive...

Here it is, son. We've come to the point, after which you will no longer be aware of my existence. After this short while you will live in a world there will be nothing actual to cling on to; you will simply not know anything for sure. You will no longer remember that I've guided you through all these years, instead you will think you've been, as you will be from now on, the one who decides about your life. There will be people trying to convince you of their own truths, and it will be up to you and you only to decide whether you follow their advice or not. You've been working hard for this, son, so please make use of it. Welcome to the School of Life (tm).

The file is dated 14. June 2001.
Oh yeah, forgot to mention - written by me.

Sun 2002-11-24 23:37 in poetry No comments #link

Flying low

Spent Jennitys' birthday on Thursday, Friday and just a little bit on Saturday. On Friday Anni and Jennitys dressed me as a transvestite. We all agreed that I'd make a cute girl. I immediately noticed in myself a great urge to look at myself in the mirror every now and then. Later on we went to town in our "normal" clothing. Visited Ale-pub, Nonstop and Melody in the centrum of Tampere. In Nonstop we danced quite a bit, and I, too, enjoyed myself and the fact that I didn't need to care about what others thought about my dancing.

On Saturday evening visited a Christian student theme evening at the Luther building.

Today woke up really late and been trying to study data structures.

Sun 2002-11-24 18:14 in diary No comments #link

So called relevance

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention a couple of functions for this site in the previous posting. I use this blog as a cheap shrink, as mentioned (and its well worth the price I pay for it) and there's a bookmarks-section, which I can access from anywhere. Oh yeah and I guess I'm keeping up my English skills.

Imagining me in a large, empty hall. Asking myself: "What do I want? What do I really want?" and hearing only an echo. One thing I can think of is that I want to become less egoistic. The sentence is a paradox in itself... I'd like to become wise in a certain way, but I have no idea how to advance on that path anymore. I'd like to become an IT professional, but that's pretty much just because of I need to make a living and computers are exciting little things ... but obviously I don't want it enough to really work hard, really hard for it. No, money doesn't motivate me because I've obviously gotten it all too easily so far (Soon enough I won't have a choice, though, but to work for a living, in some way).

I walk into a hallway and there are young, smart, beautiful people, girls and boys. Some of them take a glance, filled with hope or indifference, at me. I look at them, at their bodies. I have a quick guess: "What's going on in their minds?"

No obvious result on that one. What are people good for?

Everyone wants to be loved. Do I want to find someone to make a commitment to? That would allow for physical love. I'm mocking myself: "Don't I really have any other reason to want someone special near me? Then I might as well forget about it anyway". Perhaps it's just because I cannot imagine the situation that I cannot think of other reasons.

And where the heck is God?

Thu 2002-11-21 15:45 in diary No comments #link

Watching Music TV

Talking to people about what an absurdity this site is as a project, when one considers the objectives. There are not many of them.

• Providing content someone might actually get something out of (most of the content has been here for ages, though so I cannot justify obsessing with making this site with content)
• Promoting my enormous ego
• Creating a playfield on which I can explore new phenomenons/technologies of the web
• Show potential employers I'm good for something

Perhaps I should just destroy all this and make pilpi.net a place to store my contact info in?

Thu 2002-11-21 13:55 in diary No comments #link

done

It's done, I can't believe it.

For a couple of months from now on, my primary goal is to do nothing whatsoever about this site.

It's snowing outside, or at least it was.

If someone wants to see the four photos I got from the Maata Näkyvissä festival, please contact me (they're not much good, tho').

I'm tired, so I guess I'll sleep.

Thu 2002-11-21 00:14 in diary No comments #link

Party weekend

The Maata Näkyvissä (Finnish for "land ahead" or "land in sight") festival in Turku, Finland is over. I met some really interesting people, like Malla and Eetu and Kaisa and Tommy and Samuel and Toukka and Elias and Juha and Juice and Heini and Eepa and Leija and Kimmo (I don't remember many of the names, sorry) and got reminded of what my Faith is all about. At times there also was a real market atmosphere, when some of the people decided to put up their own acrobatic & music shows around the festival area.

It was fun although I was very sorrow at times. The music was mostly very good. I thought a lot about everything and got an invitation to a congregation in Tampere I've never been to.
I feel really good about the weekend, and this entry doesn't seem to reflect my joy at all and I've probably forgotten to mention some of the most important things =/.

Sun 2002-11-17 23:44 in diary 3 comments #link

Responsible consumerism?

Elämänlaatua kulutusta vähentämällä

Reading Salla's blog again, I got reminded about the Buy Nothing Day. Especially the part about having to stress less about Christmas touched me.

Go, immaterialism, go.

Washing dishes, doing some small work tasks.

Just a thought.. do you think your life would change if, every day, you were forced to watch a video clip summarizing a day of the life of someone who lives (in poverty and despair) in the third world?

Thu 2002-11-14 14:32 in diary No comments #link

a plain old thank you Jesus

I was there again. In the place where there are many people who believe in Christ and want to hear more, live more. They were somehow so beautiful people, shining in the light of the Holy Spirit (I guess ... I don't want to put up these parentheses but I never can be sure about people).

I just want to thank the Lord for all this.

Soile sent me this.

Wed 2002-11-13 21:53 in diary No comments #link

Fruity loops and politics

I've discovered that the greatest single concept that is limiting the way I see my life, is the following: people are divided in two groups; the ones who fulfil their dreams and the ones that just 'go along', follow the path of life that their "life happens to give them", doing whatever seems the easiest. Today I again and finally realized how stupid this all is... Somehow then, because I didn't go for arts studies but instead for technical ones, I had thought I hadn't actually done what I had really wanted, but what my parents wanted instead.

Part true. Especially my dad seems content about the fact that I'm studying computer science, since his job is in the field as well. Sure, I could have chosen to (attempt to) get in some fancy arts/multimedia school. But then, I'm not sure whether I'd be doing that just because I have this mental model in my head, which tells me that unless I'm studying arts I can in no way be following my dreams. In the end I don't know whether I'd be much happier studying arts, since the education I'm getting _is_ a good one, it's just quite technical.

So what I'm saying is that as of now, I'm forgetting all about thinking in this fashion. I've chosen the way I'm walking for the next couple of years, studying computer sciences with Jesus *g*. And studying computers doesn't mean I can't leave space in my life for writing, thinking creatively (in also other contexts than that of programming) and creating the artsy-fartsy art I like. I should have realized by now that I usually don't know what I want and so, instead of focusing on something, I'm focusing on everything I have the capacity for, the only requisite being my level of interest. Of course there have to be priorities, but the switches are frequent.

Currently I'm studying data structures, which means things like sequences, binary trees, graphs, forests, and algorithms to deal with all of the above.

Yesterday I published my first commercial website built for a client. Been working on it for a couple of months now. If you experience any problems using the site with your browser, I'd appreciate it if you sent me a message of some kind about the issue.

Also this week I'm probably going to publish the long-awaited new generation of pilpi.net =).

There are two IRC channels on which I think I can call myself a regular, #pulloilu and #vapaapullo (on IRCnet). Yesterday the people on both of those channels decided that it might be a good idea to unite the forces of the channels (which once used to be one), and form a new channel, on which would every soul be welcomed, and on which the government would be democratic and fair in spirit. I never could see why was it as serious a matter as it seemed to be to some of the negotiators.

Last night, after leaving all those people to negotiate about the new name of the new channel, I designed a new layout proposition for the upcoming channel website layout. I haven't yet actually presented it to the other citizens of the channel(s), though. Hopefully we will also see a somewhat objective settlement of the phases, which this often even a bit warlike channel has gone through over the years.

Tue 2002-11-12 15:32 in diary No comments #link

aarrenbii, well bored

Wrestling with myself, confused about everything, but in a fresh way. Or perhaps I just think the way is fresh since I've forgotten all about the old ones.

The weekend wasn't fun but I learned some things about my relatives. I learned that it's probably hopeless of learning to socially interact with them, and still, it's not their fault. They seemed to want to know things about me but I just didn't find any questions to ask from them. So I just stayed silent and felt uncomfortable.

Beginning to realize that plenty of people actually don't understand the fundamentals of my relationship with Christ. For me it's a matter of fact that I cannot know that Christ is with me at all times any more than I know that I'm sitting on a chair. The same thought reversed - as it's absurd to doubt everything in the world that surrounds me, I believe in the fact that the chair indeed exists much like the way I believe that Christ is my saviour.

I just "scared" the heck out of myself by clicking 'play' on winamp. I had set the sound to come just out of my tv speakers and forgotten about it. Obviously I had expected it to come from an entirely different direction, so. Strange.

Another one of those days.

Mon 2002-11-11 16:07 in diary No comments #link

Jump to the joy

Excited1211!!111!!!!!!!

I found a church. A congregation. Whatever you want to call it - what I mean is I found a group of people I hope I'll be capable of sharing my faith with.

Also found this thread of conversation about religions (in Finnish).

Again, I had so much to say but it seems most is temporarily lost.

Note to self: todo: a list of the pros (and perhaps the cons) of turning sites standards-compliant and css-styled (or if one exists already, as I expect, find it).

Wed 2002-11-06 22:40 in diary 2 comments #link

Pathologic webdesign

Reading blogs and realizing again and again how much I love simple web sites. Simplicity is to be a primary goal.... nothing like my sites usually. My excuse: "I have so much content, so much to say". As if I really had anything to say. And as if, if I was any good, I wasn't capable of putting these shitloads of "content" in a simple, shiny little mask.

(Sure I'm begging for sympathy - all the better reason to just stay silent.
This is a cynical one. People who are sad never want pity. Who cares if my life is in too good a shape to have anything to be miserable about? The usual answer: "You don't need to have a reason to be sad". Yeaah. Right.)

Tue 2002-11-05 19:24 in visual 2 comments #link

Det är Bo Kasper som ... rocks?

Since yesterday I've been trying to learn "Svårt att säga nej" by heart. It's a prettypretty song.

Before that, a couple of months ago, I tried to learn "Tu vuo fa l'Americano" after seeing the movie The Talented Mr. Ripley. That didn't completely succeed since I didn't actually understand the words of the song which was in Italian (it's pretty hard to remember words the meaning of which is unknown).

Worrying about the fact that Movable Type doesn't convert the Finnish alphabet letters å,ö and ä to character entities. I'd be in more trouble if I actually wrote this thing in Finnish... if I tell Movable type to convert special characters to character entities, that would mean that also all HTML I write would be printed in my entries. That is, if I wrote <br /> in mt, that would be exactly what I would see on my blog pages, since mt would convert that to &lt;br /&gt;. I don't yet know a way of converting just the special characters.

So every time I want to write an ä in my blog I just write &auml; - if I want the page of the entry to validate as HTML (xHTML 1.0 Strict), that is.

I just tried to enter the channel #stockholm@IRCnet, in order to ask them what would "It's Bo Kasper who rocks" be in Swedish - or more precisely, what is "to rock" in Swedish. Unfortunately I didn't have the time to say a word before I was kickbanned.... curious. (Below is the log of all the 30 seconds of my life I've ever spent on that channel =)

{ There's more! See full article }

Tue 2002-11-05 15:33 in diary 4 comments #link

Understanding lectures

I have just listened a bit over an hour of a data structures lecture, and my sympathy towards the lecturer grew dramatically. Somehow, after not having visited the lectures of that course in two weeks, I feel like now I am beginning to understand what the course is really about.

Again, I'm confronting a situation where I would really like to tell you something, but just before I begin to write I realize that 'you' actually means pretty much anybody - excluding friends and family who I know find it tiring to a) use a computer b) read anything that's written in English.

Got's to go eat now.

Tue 2002-11-05 11:47 in diary No comments #link

Desc.

I keep getting this spam with the title "Re: Best online opportunity".

It's been a rather quiet day. All the sounds have grown a distance and I'm left alone with my huge ego. Not much use having a huge ego if you're left alone, is it?

A small insect is running on my table. it was >1mm wide and perhaps 3 mm long. It had a shining, bluish shell.

Jennitys left this morning. At two in the afternoon I left home. Wandered around the technical university which is nearby my flat. Had lunch there, since they accept the lunchcards of my university so I can get student-priced meals.

Dreaming once in a while. Again and again reminding myself how I wouldn't have room in my life for anyone. Or would I?

NP: Bo Kaspes Orkester & Lisa Ekdahl: Svårt att säga nej

Mon 2002-11-04 18:36 in diary No comments #link

I am Dina

Funny that I forgot to mention that I saw the movie 'I am Dina' in the Hervanta movie theatre, Cinola, on Saturday.

I liked it. Mostly me liking a movie is only due to the fact that I get an inspiretion of the movie. 'I am Dina' is a story of a girl, as the narrator suggests in the very beginning of the movie. The movie has been partly shot in Denmark and there are many really beautiful shots.

I oughta say something more profound. Like that the main character was one of the strongest people I've ever seen. Insolence.

Mon 2002-11-04 11:52 in diary No comments #link

Life too focused

Zap. My mind's empty. I'm sure I have things to tell but feel like... zap.

I did get my two-machine intranet working on Friday. The problem was that I didn't have a crosswired ethernet cable. I didn't know that you can't use the "regular" ethernet cable (the one I use for connecting this thing to the interweb) for that.

The next thing I'm going to do is to copy all of the most important data from my main computer to the other one. Then the main computer is going for repairs to the shop I bought it from. The guarantee will die in the beginning of the year.

Jennitys has been here since yesterday evening. We've talked a lot, eaten and gotten some schoolwork done as well. So I didn't need to spend the weekend on my own after all.

The publishing of my new site is approaching. Some key features are still missing, though. I'd just like to get it out and forget the whole site for a while.

Sun 2002-11-03 22:18 in diary 2 comments #link