The Other World

This is exactly how I see the world being: first you compete to get to the wheel, then you manage to get rid of your competitors, and then the wheel just keeps going faster and faster until...

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Positive news, for a change! During my -hopefully- final depressional season starting during summer 2007, I managed to kill my last surviving cactus. I think it died of draught... Anyway, now that I'm feeling better, I decided to give it another go. I have now a nice plate full of new spiky friends, of all sizes, all shapes and many colours (many of them have flowers: orange, red, pink, green, yellow... only blue ones are missing from the lot). I tried to put a picture of them with this post but I encountered technical problems with my cell phone's Bluetooth. I'll try again later.

Yay, I have cacti to take care of!

That is so clever! And cute, too. :)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8408233.stm

Tieteentekijöiden liiton ja Professoriliiton yhteinen lausunto hallituksen suunnittelemasta tekijänoikeuslain muutoksesta:

"Tieteentekijöiden liitto on antanut 7.12. opetusministeriölle lausuntonsa hallituksen esityksestä tekijänoikeuslain muuttamiseksi. Liitto vastustaa esitystä ja pitää ehdotusta hyvin ongelmallisena ja epätasapuolisena. Ehdotus ei ole omiaan selkeyttämään oikeustilaa tai parantamaan oikeusvarmuutta, kuten ehdotuksen tavoitteena on ollut. Liitto katsoo, että lainsäädännössä tulee ottaa riittävästi huomioon yliopistoissa tapahtuva tieteellinen tutkimustyö ja siihen kuuluvat erityispiirteet. Tekijänoikeuksien siirtyminen kokonaisuudessaan yliopistoille ei voi missään tapauksessa olla pääsääntö, mikäli tieteen vapaus halutaan turvata. Liitto antoi yhdessä Professoriliiton kanssa asiasta tiedotteen jo tuoreeltaan samana päivänä kuin OPM:n ehdotus tuli julkisuuteen 4.11. Tekijänoikeuslain muutosta vastustava adressi löytyy sivustolta: www.adressit.com/allekirjoitukset/tekijanoikeus"

Eli ensiksi kokkareiden pitää pönkittää keskiluokan lompakkoa entisestään verovähennyksillä pienituloisten kustannuksella, sitten heikennetään väliin vähän työttömien ja pienituloisten sairausturvaa, ja koska yliopistolain muutos pakottaa tieteentekijät EK:n perseennuolijoiksi ei vielä riitä, otetaan kaikilta luovan työn tekijöiltä pois vielä tekijänoikeudet.

MITÄ VITTUA NÄMÄ PELLET TEKEVÄT?! KUKA SAATANA NIITÄ SINNE ÄÄNESTI?!

tuschman168 said it: "OMFG. It finally happened. I finally lost my ability to distinguish a parody from the real thing. Please someone tell me what this is. I can't tell anymore."

This is one of the comments on this YouTube video called "Just Say No to Sex":

. The organisation is called College Students Against Sex. The name alone is hilarious. How can you be against sex? It's like saying I'm against gravity! There are things in this world you can get rid of and things you can't and every single person on the video is a living proof of that (though I suspect they try very hard to forget that...). But I seriously think all these people were paid A LOT of money to do this, because "Angela" most certainly is either implicitly against the idea or she's just a bad actor.. or a real college student against sex who just REALLY likes to be in front of the camera. Not to mention that party guy.. if you're reading this, for your edification, let it be noted that your heart is on the other side, kiddo.

Those of you who were adults when 9/11 took place: do you remember any censorship in radio playlists during the time following the event? I'm currently reading a book on music censorship at the present time and there is a chapter on censoring certain songs/bands from radio playlists. Lots of Beatles and AC/DC, also Metallica, System of a Down, Elton John, the whole Rage against the Machine opus censored... I was just wondering if any songs, that are usually played on air, were taken off. I tried to find playlists from September 2001 but, for instance, Radiomafia's playlists from that month were not there; August was there, October was there, but not September. I'll continue looking other stations' playlist archives.

Saw the documentary (why named 'documentary'?) last night by accident. What a nice idea! Good that they actually have death in the title, not some euphemism. Of course, that would be weird considering that the whole programme revolves around death. Minus points for the soundtrach: seriously, the only more stereotypical music choices would have been 'Gloomy Sunday' or Albinoni's 'Adagio'. If you missed the programme, go see it at Ruutu.fi (http://www.ruutu.fi/default.asp?videoID=791&vd=11&cc=1).

Anyway, ended up writing two lists last night. One for people I should apologise to and another for people I want to thank. The latter was substantially longer than the former. Now I just need to find the courage to say the things to the people on the lists. Perhaps I should begin with the least frightening person on the Thanks list: my eight and ninth grade maths teacher. At least I could do that via e-mail. :)

A good day, for once. Got a real compliment from my teacher today on a literature course; she asked me to explain the plot of a book she hasn't read because "you seem to have read everything". Well, as it turned out, I've never even heard of the book so the plot remained unknown but eventhough she was partly ironic concerning my enthusiasm on literature and thus my being one of the few students to comment things and theories and catogorisations every time during the lectures, I was very much pleased. I do think I'd have a Hemulen Syndrome had I read all books: in the Moomin book Hemulen had a severe identity crisis when he had collected all possible stamps, i.e. he was no longer a collector but an owner (he cheered up as soon as Mamma suggested he start collecting plants).

Another positive thing that happened today was at the insurance company. A guy there had asked me to visit there to discuss the pension savings programme. I already knew I won't be doing any saving to boost my pension because I'm not planning to stick arounf that long. Now even less after he calculated my estimated pension (after all the taxes AND the procentage of the pension that goes to the state according to our birth year - can you believe it, we are punished for not being born before!): around 800 euros a month. I have only one thing to say about that: FUCK THAT!

It so happened that they invest the savings on four main funds. No hedge funds among those, though, but still, funds. Some of them are of more high risk (and higher profit chances), some less, some are combination funds. Anyway, as a result of the bank course I know quite much on this now (and all the extra information I've seeked on the matter). Turned out my questions were too difficult for the guy to answer. I smiled a little self-righteously when he went to find a collegue who could answer me. I was sniggering inside when he came back with a woman. xD We conversed for a while about the fund types and their investment expectations and possibilities to choose other funds (though they already had one for China, props for that). I did it half on purpose: to make him an outsider, a pariah of the conversation. But seriously, he should know at least the basics of the funds since he sells insurances based on those funds.

Anyway, I achieved my goal: I now know even more reasons why not to live that long. Not to mention that being employed till 63 is pretty much impossible for most people nowadays, especially women. Of course I can understand that starting the savings as early as possible is the best course of action to most people: ten years delay in the saving can make a huge difference. The only positive thing (possibly, I still have to check; I never trust a straight person to be able to *know* this) is that should I die before pension all my savings could be given to my wife/partner; the trust issue is caused by straight persons insistence to regard civil unions equivalent to marriages when they most certainly are not. Not to mention the (un)likelihood of my finding anyone, anyway. Even I won't be naming A girlfriend (capital to indicate non-commitment) as my benefactor.

And I still don't have pension savings plans. :)

Oh, so cute! This is a nice way to start a day, I think. :)

24 and counting. Had the final meeting with the humanist group and as the mentor asked my age, I announced I'll be 24 in two hours. The rest of the group started signing "Happy Birthday" :) I think I haven't been sung that since fifth grade! It was really nice; cat lifting its own tail but it was worth it.

We all had to wite down one positive thing about each other on their "plates". I got to "honest" markings but I was very perplexed with the four "funny" markings. I've never really considered myself very funny. Sarcastic, yes, but that's mainly meanness towards something or someone. Irony is more neutral and I don't really do that much.. although I did once get an essay back (no grammatical mistakes in three pages!) in which the teacher commented it being ironic; I ended up reading the whole thing through and once finished, wonder where the irony is. I guess I do irony accidentally.

Another thing I got from today's humanist group meeting was something I have to wonder how come I never thought of it myself. The mentor suggested I study advanced mathematics at the local adult high school (not the official name, I think, but the page isn't translated into English so don't know what the "real" name is)! What a fantastic idea! I already know where the school is and have passed it many times, and besides, it would be so much fun. I know her motivation was to give me a boost to pursue my interest in physics (to study physics at higher education, one needs to have marticulated at advanced mathematics, which I didn't do because of the teacher), but I would like it even without that as a motivation. It would be out of pure interest. I just browsed through their website and that's what I'll probably be doing next year! The only remaining question is how long it'll take. I won't take any other subjects so technically I'd have time but would it be allowed to study different courses simultaneously, when in high school these courses would be taught in different years? Have to find out.

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Saw Her today, first time in a very long time. She's still as gorgeous as I remembered if not even more so.. but even though I could admire Her beauty and be aware of the fact that some lucky ones were in the classroom next to me hearing Her provide Her knowledge, that was pretty much all. It would appear I'm finally getting over Her. Almost, though. If She showed up behind my door right now saying She wants to have wild lesbian sex with me right here right now, I wouldn't even consider saying no but I'm happy enough without this happening. As long as She's happy, I don't get to complain.