Monday, December 10, 2007

Thwarted in Helsinki...

Santa Claus is Finnish... I never heard that side of the story before, but apparently according to the Finland literature, its true. Its a bit thin in terms of claims, the Dutch and Coca Cola can equally protest this quite convincingly, but at any rate I was in Finland this past week to go find Santa... (and do some work on the side on my way back to Russia again).

Was pissed about how this trip turned out because of 3 reasons though. 1st Reason: Heathrow lost my bags. Again. (third time this stupid airport did it this year!! Ive got to stop flying through London. Its a shambles).

2nd Reason: it Rained the last few days. Not impressed. When you go to Russia and Finland in December, you expect snow. Its like white on rice... I dont want no other rice. And fair enough, it was snowing when we arrived... and it was the good crunchy fluffy stuff, too, that really I miss so much so. Expectations were set Yao Ming height, and there was delivery. But the last two days it rained. Rain... the exact same stuff I get plenty of in Ireland... I didnt come to Nordic Europe for rain.. Ireland has plenty of that already, and especially since Rain mixed with Snow equals slush, which in my books, is just a few steps up from the sky raining feces. See? Global warming y'all, so I blame all you SUV V6 - V8 motherfuckers... (My future Infinity FX45 wont count.. cuz I recycle my canning jars, brush and pee in the shower and use energy saving light bulbs)


Finland in December is suppose be white, and not look like this.

3rd Reason: On Thursday, because of a late return flight to Dublin, we pretty much had all day in Helsinki to see the sights and *ahem* shop. Helsinki is absolutely brilliant for shopping, because of all the funky cool fashion here that I like the best. Not only that, but the scandinavian gadgets and trinkets are bloody deadly. If I had my way, all my house wares, furniture, appliances and whatnot would be from here. So Thursday was my day. Was staying at a modern boutique hotel too right in the middle of the city, with a room that looked like this..

So it was all lined up perfectly... all ducks were in their proverbial rows. No one told us though, that the only free day we had was actually Finish Independence day, a day where apparently nothing goes on and everything closes. EVERYTHING. Made no sense, like it was a waste of a valuable day in Christmas Shopping season. The big event for the day is some gala that everyone in Finland goes home to watch on TV. So rain, and no shopping It felt like a kick in the balls, with steel toe boots.

For revenge I decided to eat some Rudolph for the first time ever, Filet cut, medium rare, with mash potatoes and a funky spicy gravy. Rudolph tasted real good that day, let me tell you.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

The List

So its Amerricun Thanksgiving week, which means the Oprah My Favorite things show is out, which marks again another year of the female audience jumping / screaming / crying insanely, displaying unreal "overacting" levels of spasm, like a baby who just spat out a pacifier, all really for something stupid like oprah gifting a panini press (you know the story, because all women are lunatics). And to be honest, this years list was pretty shit too. High Fashion Mu-mu fat people clothes? Uggs? A fridge with a LCD screen? Well let me backtrack, that actually is cool. but.. Josh Groban CD? Comeon... I truly was expecting more quality. Its sounds to me like a injury plagued off year for Oprah, must be the South African school scandal that has her not on her 'A' game.

What it means then is that its a good time to publish my annual Christmas wish list. And mine is better than Oprahs. Even though I wont be in Vancouver this xmas, just buy these things for me anyways, and Ill manage to pick it up sometime when Im over next... not to worry...

Also this is an active growing list. Things might add to it as I think of them.. like for example when I decide which next pair of shoes I want...

-Bodum Bora Bora Tea Press . Ive been living in Ireland for almost 4 years now, where they have tea 4 times a day. So I need a cool ass tea pot. And this one is double wall.

-Adagios Tea, Rooibos Cinnamon Apple. I need tea for that pot too. Gourmet South African Tea.. its the only way I roll.

- Banana Republic Cashmere Earmuffs. If you are going to get earmuffs... might as well get cashmere ones. I could rock these.

-- Paul Smith Dog Cuff Links. Actually what i really want is a Pimp "Spinners" cuff links, but I dont think they exists, or at least google says so.

-30" Apple Cinema Display. Ill even accept a 20" one, so I can marry it with a wall mount and a track ball, and install it beside the toilet, for safe internet use, while dropping a deuce.

-Kryptonite.

-Bose Quiet Comfort 3. I already have pretty good noise cancellation Sennheiser ones, but I cant let Jill have a pair and me not have them. No way...

- Luggage. By Tumi.

- Tee Shirt. A sweet ass t shirt that hopefully wont be dated anytime soon.

- The newest Lady Killer.

- The best Stand up arcade game of all time

- Karate Kid Special Edition DVD

- New Camera. I want this so bad. Along with a Canon 24-105mm f4/L IS USM Lens.

............

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Eventually...

A bit late but below I have posted some of the pictures from the Greece Italy trip 6 weeks back. Remember how I explained how my computer was missing for 2 weeks? So thats why its late. And as for the 4 weeks preceding that, lets just say I was lazy as expected and well known for welching on blog promises, yet somehow, to my credit, made up for it by posting quite prolifically during that month. Temporarily I refound that elusive writing passion, a passion which during that period was almost as strong as my super-crush on Alicia Keyes (Im attracted to geniuses, and isnt she just lovely with straight hair and red lipsticks?). Lets try to keep it up...

So here we go.. and if you wish, again click to enlarge.


This is one of the greatest and one of my most favorite things about Italia.. Italian Cafes. Even better scene at night.


Rome shopping.


Spanish steps at midnight.


Mykonos Mill


Mykonos Locals candid


Positano Italy


Three years ago i posted Santorini photos. This time I went a little new, and took pictures in a different light.


Thursday, November 15, 2007

Im back mac..

-No one knew this, but Ive been without my trusty macbook pro laptop for the last 2 weeks almost. I pulled a cheeky move, by sending the mac in for repair, only for the sole reason that my year warranty was about to expire and it was my last chance to get some thing repaired for free, even though there was nothing really wrong with the computer. I called em up, I made some trumped up complaint about the hard drive sounding "funny". The auth. mac repair crowd in dublin picked up it via courier, ran a few diagnostic tests, and actually found that the hard drive ran a tad slow on a few "sectors" and although only a minor concern,decided to replace it. Class... Por Pree.. dats por pree.. I had to suffer for it little bit though, regulated to the work laptop extended use at home... small sacrifices but Im back

-I have been a big fan of www.ngtv.com this past year... one of the better more entertaining things to come from the internet since all those secret websites that organize streaming tv and movie links. Its like Entertainment tonight / Extra, but except totally fucking cool instead... its unique its raw and fun, has a hot bimbo blonde host Carrie Keagan, she asks celebrities funky stupid questions that are the complete opposite of banal, and its unedited uncensored nature has done for entertainment coverage what south park has done for cartoons. And seriously, nothing is funner than listening to your A list celebrities like Robin Williams and Topher Grace repeatedly say "cock" and "motherfucker". "No Good TV", Good times. So Im glad its back, cuz I couldnt check that shit on my sterile work computer.

-One of my biggest pet peeves is when you find a toilet seat thats kinda like, you know, loose and wiggly. The seat moves around on you as you sit down, I hate that, cuz theres always the potential for the disaster situation of butt skin touching ceramic bowl (arghhh). My favorite toilet stall at work was like this though and I always had to be extra careful (my favorite because hardly anyone uses this one, low traffic and quiet). I filled in a few maintenance facility complaints to get it repaired, all the way back to January and have been frustrated because if it just got fixed, itd be the best work toilet Ive ever experienced. Its warm, clean, and it even smells good in there, like a 5 star hotel bathroom with potpourri. This week though, to my surprise it not only got fixed, but it got replaced by a new Gucci toilet seat... all shiny n blinging. Yep, these are the type of things that excite me ...

Saturday, November 03, 2007

Destroyed..

Disaster. Ive destroyed my day. Ive never woken up to start my day at 830PM before...

Neww first, 6am Drunk..

Hav yo ever started drinking 5:45am in the morning? Like not in Denmarkk time when you are actually in North America, but woken up that early and ocompled to drinkg?

Tadgh did it too me... he woke me up at five and a bit, and forced drink into me... friggin irish.. and now its 9:15am and |Im loaded... whaththe hel ?

Im going back to bed... the irish are trying to kill me... Bushmills too... whisckey. Why would you call a whiskey after a mill with bushes... and its protestant whiskeys.. goooods times... ohhff to bed... have to stpp now..

Friday, October 26, 2007

Missed Connections

Life is overly complicated as it is, but states of mind when it comes to your social life is very cut n dry, to me anyways: theres single people, attached people, and the lovely children who dont give a shit (yet). Most will say there are more types, with permutations in between, but I definitely disagree. For example, to give a point of reference and add scale, if there is a girlfriend that flirts with other boys and partakes in extracuricular majumbo... then state of mind is not attached, even if offically serious with partner, engaged, or married for 35 years. Titles and reality are never always one in the same. It goes the other way as well; if one is officially not seeing anyone, but completely crushing on or in love yet unrequited; thats attached. You see to me it really is a state of mind. Plutonic friends of the opposite sex but still do everything together; attached. My personal favorite though is the 8 year old boy down the street whose clothes were always dirty, had constantly messy and matted hair like he just woke up, had dried up crusty snot beneath his nose, didnt want to do anything else except roll around in the bush, and plainly and innocently equated girls with the bubonic plague. Life at its simpliest. The point is everyone, or at least almost everyone, has intimate experience of being in each of the three states, even though one of the states is impossible to acheive again after the ages of 10-12. We know how they all feel. #2 and #3 are the lucky ones. Blinders are on, nothing else exists. #1 though, even though some say to prefer it because of the liberal aspects, is the hardest one... you can sometimes do the craziest shit to either get out of it (find a meaningful relationship) or stay in it while maintaining sanity (get your rocks off with attempts at meaningless intimacy, usually involving great game skills or the lowering of standards.) Its either or, no inbetweens.

Yeah, so somebody being single can be a great thing and suck completely at the same exact time. And like I said, it can drive people to completely insane levels of delusion, but funny enough, still justifible somehow. This is why I love the Missed Connections phenomenon in classified Ads. Absolutely brilliant. No one, and usually I talk shit alot like as if I know some thing about something even though I dont really, just like in the paragraph above for example, but this time I insist that there is not a single person who has looked up Missed connections section in the classified without having at least the faint *hope* that one of the ads is a call out for them. And if someone denies it, I call complete bullshit on them. One might say its romantic, in a completely ass-backwards way lets be honest, but endearing nonetheless. And entertaining as hell... like how can you read this and not smile?

Heading: Gorgeous blonde with pink top was doing her hair on the northenline yesterday btw 6-7
-hi you was on northenline, a beautiful blonde girl with pink top and white jumper, you was doing your hair on the tube, we only had eye contact, and shared a smile, i wasnt brave enuf to ask for drink we both get off at camden town, i was wearing grey coat, i felt something strange inside when i first saw you, mail me plz


LOL... "something strange inside", its a called a rush of blood to the penis.

or this one:

Heading: Man with brown teddy bear.
-I was walking along Hornby and you were driving in your hot red car with your cutums brown bear in the passenger seat. I waved, you waved..now I want you
...and the bear.
Please take me home. *paw*


This is all good stuff. Im not innocent at all in this either. Twice in my life I was a frequent subscriber to the weekly Missed Connections classifieds, but with real vested interest. During my first engineering workterm, i was commuting to Ballard in North Vancouver (at the time) using the Sea bus from Downtown. On the sea bus was this blushingly cute girl (she had short hair, just as I like, and looked like Natalie Imbrulia) that seemed to sit near me every time we ended up on the same trip. We'd catch each other looking every once in a while, and every time I made quick eye contact, I would freeze, my heart would stop and Id go clamy, all mostly because Im a verified pussy. And also remember, this was the year when the high socks, plaid skirt fashion was in, and she wore that about twice a week. Im Jello against those powers(and why doesnt this fashion trend come back, why? Did sexual assault go up as a result or something? Unfortunately this combo has been relegated to strippers only). That whole term, I checked for the Georgia Straight missed connections like clockwork. No luck. Thats what you get for being shy. (and no I didnt put an ad up, cuz thats embarassing; I was hoping she would, how more passive could you get..)

Second time was when I first started working for ABB and was taking the bus from Kits to North Vancouver. On the first bus, from Kits to downtown, there was another girl, equally lovely and show stoppingly pretty. I was so bad that sometimes I would let busses go by until I spotted her inside one of them. For a couple months, every day would be the same, get off at Granville and West Pender, and wed both go to the starbucks for morning double tall cappucino. Following each other in silence, mind you. One day, she smiled at me and said hi, and I subsequently had a mild heart attack. Dont remember much after that point. Never saw her again after that though, and my hopes were dashed when nothing appeared in the missing connections ads calling me out, i was expecting something like this "funny lookin dude that didnt speak to me while lining up at starbucks after getting off the Seymour bus". Again, Im a complete verifiable pussy.

And to conclude, and Im not going to take credit for this, but heres something cut and paste, an entertaining read:

I love reading missed connections just for the entertainment value. It's good to see how seriously deluded some of these people are. As far as i can tell there's four types of advert.

1) The Ali G

It's always written by some guy who uses textspeak and wants to pretend he's some cool brotha who's so chilled he couldn't even be bothered to talk to the girl. Truth is he works in Phones 4 U, lives at home with his mum and gets the bus to work.

The advert

Yo sista I waz on the numba 44 bus rollin thru ma crib wen I spies u out da corna of ma eye, u was boom bangin in my neighbourhood but I waz 2 bizee chillin listenin to some phat tunes to come and chek u out. So holla back if u wants to hook up and get ya crunk on.
Laters
Kaz

2) The sex crazed Borat

My personal favourite. In reality some sad IT worker who lives at home by himself and harrasses any women on the tube who accidentally looks at him.

The advert

Hey babies, I have never seens such beauties before I have sawn you on the London Undertube the Piccalili Blue line. You have many beautiful long black hairs and goldens smiles that makes my groins moist. I was the cute guy with moustache in the maroon dungarees wearing a green beret, I am official number one love man machine in Londons Town. Maybe we can meet up for a cup of beer and some sexy bedlove times.
Ciao Armando

3) The Executive

The high flyer who was on his way to work in the city. He has it all the looks, the great job and the charm, so why he's posting on Gumtree??!. In reality he's a HSBC bank clerk who lives in a bedsit in Hackney and spends his evenings looking through mail order bride catalogues.

The advert

Yah hey babe I would never dream of posing on Gumtree as I have lots of girls who want to date me but I had to say you were really cute. I saw you on the Jubilee line when I was off to work in my highly paid banking job in the city and you just blew my mind. I was the pasty faced guy in the Primark suit emailing my mum on my Blackberry GZ400 with built in GPS. Things is I have two tickets for the rugger at Twickers next week so if you would care to join me just drop me a line on my Blackberry (did I mention I own one)
Au Revoir Tristan


4) The good old fashioned stalker

Finally the old classic. Bad dress sense, bad attitude and bad breath and unlike the others what you see is what you get.

The Advert

Remember me the guy who eyeballed you in the park and then accidentally bumped into you and groped your lovely body. I felt there was a connection I knew you enjoyed it as much as me. I know you didn't mean to scream out for a policeman. Anyway we should meet up, maybe I'll come round and pick you up, after all I already know where you live.

your secret admirer
XXX