Suburbia

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There's nothing like starting your week by watching the DVD of Team America with drunk friends, where puppets get away with a few sexcapades that I'm not sure would even make it into hardcore porn (I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in the censor's initial viewing.), and then riding the bus out into the suburban wasteland of apartment houses and graffiti that is Espoo for two days of class on the new features of Solaris 10. The class was given in Finnish though, thankfully, all of the class materials were in English. One bit of comic relief came when I was surfing the net in the back of the class and asked a colleague next to me how to say/spell mölkky and I heard 'mulkku' instead. :) Hilarity ensued when suddenly a number of pop-up windows started clogging my workstation and he told everyone else in the class how the funny foreigner can't hear ö/u/y properly and got porn instead of a lawn game from google. :)

Jarkko has gotten the 'let's move to the burbs' itch after seeing one too many friends' homes lately. I'm not altogether enthused by the idea as I disliked suburbia intensely in the US and it's even less appealing in Finland since the city centre is alive and well. I'm trying to remain open to the idea since there are certain possibilities, like a proper darkroom/studio, that come with a bigger home with a yard, so I'm waiting to see what comes up on the block that might convince me to move. When looking at real estate in Helsinki it blows my mind that 100sqm apartments in Vuosaari are selling for about 700k euro when a similarly sized apartment in a Jugend building in Katajanokka sells for only a little more money. What could possibly make an apartment on the edge of town worth that kind of cash? Suburbia is about getting a house and a yard, not an apartment in an inconveniently located remote location. You also hear quite a bit of crowing in the newspapers and the fashion rags about Finnish/Nordic design, etc. but looking through the interior photos of the homes for sale I'm getting the distinct impression that such design exists only in magazine photos and possibly homes of the young with wads of disposable cash.

I'm dead tired lately and haven't answered most of the email that requires something more than a simple one-sentence reply. When I'm tired, the ability to write or communicate well is the first to go. I only just noticed the page on Flickr that allows you to see the 'recent activity' on your photos which is how you can see who is commenting and adding tags and such. It only took, what, five months? I need a holiday now that everyone I work with has returned from five or more consecutive weeks away from the office. *yaaaawwwwnnn*

I'm so tired that last night when I went out for a smoke at about 1am I didn't notice that Jarkko had removed my house key from my keyring to replace the key I keep on Otava's leash as the old one had gone missing a while back. So, when I went to open the door I had no key. Joy. I rang the bell. Nothing. I rang it again, nothing. Jarkko is upstairs playing World of Warcraft so I figure maybe he doesn't hear the buzzer that could wake the dead...in Kaivopuisto. Finally, I notice that the tiny red power light isn't on. More joy. So I walk into the street and gaze up at the windows and think about what I could throw at the window to get Jarkko's attention. It must have been amusing for the taxi drivers passing by to see someone trying to throw a packet of cigs at an apartment window...and missing by a mile. They make this shit look so easy in the movies. I didn't want to throw the keyring at the window as with my luck I'd likely break the glass. Finally, after 10 minutes in which I had begun to contemplate my options of sleeping out on the front steps, Jarkko came to the window and noticed that I was locked out. :) The door intercom was back on this morning so I'm still wondering if it was broken or if the silence obsessed old farts in the building have decided that there will be no door buzzer service in the building after 11pm or something.