Sunset on Sunset
Category: Travel and Places

Haven't written in a few days because I'm staying at a hostel now and I actually have to pay for the internet.

I've had a hoot! Does ANYONE use that word anymore? Who cares! A hoot is what I've had.

Went to Chinatown to check out Manslaughter (Check them out, I'm sure they have a MySpace.) Went to Whiskey a Go Go to see Katatonia, Scar Symmetry and Insomnium. And of course, being a Finn and the coolest dude you'll ever meet, I got the see the backstage of this legendary venue as well. Went to the Valley for an afterparty and got absolutely shit-faced. Went to the Pig and Whistle again, on karaoke night of all nights, and turns out Jeremy's a fucki*g fantastic singer.

I've met some great people, I've met some complete assholes, some people who I thought were great have turned out to be assholes and some people I thought were assholes have turned out great people. That's life, isn't it?

I have so many options for tonight I don't know what I'll do... A friend of mine invited me to a strip club she works at... This huge smiling black guy invited me to his beach house for the party he's having tonight (ok, that sounds dodgy when I say it like that, but it's really not)... A big bunch of my friends are going to the Rainbow, of course... The Viper Room doorman practically ordered me to go there tonight, and well, it IS the last of the real legends I still want to visit...

So, any suggestions? :D

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Pigs and Whistles
Category: Travel and Places

Spent the day at Hollywood Boulevard. I just walked up there and took my time, because yesterday we kinda just made a quick visit there. Found a cool little magic shop, made friends with the owner, even though I didn't spend a lot of money. Had a couple of ciders and a sandwich at the Pig'n'Whistle. Gotta love that name.

They were still shooting the movie, and I found out it's not MIB3 after all, it's tentatively named John Hancock. I do want to see that movie when it eventually comes out, I want to know what was going on in the glimpses of scenes I saw in the making.

Oh, and I got the coolest cigarette box! The one I had before fits 16 cigs for some strange reason. So, basically, when you open a pack, you're left with three cigarettes still in the box. Doesn't add up? I smoke one right away, dummy! :D But this one fits 20, and has a bad ass spade pip on it. Now I just need a lighter as cool, because I couldn't bring a cigar lighter with me with the airline regulations and shit. I only have a basic Colt lighter with me, and it just doesn't look good next to the dazzling cigarette box.

Last night I went to Rainbow, but it was pretty quiet and I wasn't really feeling it anyway. They told me Lemmy Kilmister is always there, but yesterday he wasn't, and turns out he was at this strip club my friend works at. Busted! As if he gives a shit.

That's all for now. I'm trying to decide if I should go out tonight or not. Keep on keepin' on.

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Stars on the Street
Category: Travel and Places

So, yesterday we went to Hollywood Boulevard to exchange some money. Saw the Walk of Fame, some cool shops... Nothing as cool as on Melrose, really, as far as clothes go, but you gotta do some touristy stuff too, don't you?

In front of that Chinese theater Will Smith was shooting what we're guessing must be Men in Black 3. They had made the street look like it had been torn open with a huge truck sticking out and Will was jumping up and down. There was a big crowd but I got some pics. Too bad I still don't have the cable to start getting my photos online. Maybe I'll come across a Radio Shack today, so I can get one.

Last night I took a walk to Sunset Strip and had a couple of beers in Rainbow. It was a boring night, actually, but I wasn't really feeling it anyway.

Ok... That's that. I'm off to change my MySpace marital status back to single. So, if you're a horny bisexual brunette, now's the time to send that friend request. :D

And after that I'll head toward Hollywood Bouleward again to check out some of the shops with no hurry.

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Meanwhile in LA
Category: Travel and Places

So far I've been to a Machine Head gig in San Diego, which involved lots of alcohol in the Arch Enemy tour bus and some rather pathetic attempts at speaking Swedish with the boys. That's ok, they speak English.

Monday was dedicated to hangover, but we did manage a drive around Hollywood for just sightseeing. I wasn't even hungover, but everyone else was so dead I didn't have the heart to force them to go out.

Yesterday we did some more sightseeing and I went for a walk on Melrose ending up spending wa-aay too much money, but at least I'm going home with some damn cool garments! Yesterday night we checked out some band in the legendary Troubadour and had a midnight snack at the even more legendary Rainbow. And of course, some beers.

It was a quiet night so the only celebrities who were there were the ones who are always there, Lemmy and B*Real. :D The owner is this old white haired cigar-smoking dude, really nice and says he liked Finland when he visited years ago.

Today I'm planning another walk on Hollywood Boulevard and maybe today I'll find the sunglasses I was looking for yesterday when I ended up buying just about everything else.

It's been fun, there's been some drama, but it's been fun. And every things!

4:08 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Judgment Day
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Some people believe in God. They also, if they even think that far ahead, believe there will eventually be a Judgment Day. Sounds cool, eh? Dramatic. Judgment Day. You can almost hear the drumroll.

So, one day, for some reason, this God decides to stop this project he spent seven (7) days building and then he's going to decide if you get to Heaven or if you have to go to Hell, a nasty place ruled by an ex-angel (created proud and kicked out of the job for being proud). Ok, so, you've been good, you're thinking God's a fair guy (I mean, look around! Read a newspaper!) and you'll have a nice cozy cloud and a nice shiny harp to play with waiting behind the Pearly Gates.

How many people have died since, ahem, Adam and Eve? The universe was created for our viewing pleasure about ten thousand years ago (and all the fossils and all the tangible proof stuff is older are just a God's joke on the anthropologists...) in seven days and only humans have souls and all the ones before Jesus get thrown to Hell because their sins weren't redeemed, so I should ask how many people have died since Jesus? Still quite a few. And they're all going to be judged in a single day? Doesn't sound like your changes for a fair trial are too high.

Of course, that all is no biggie for the guy who created the whole universe in a single day. All the planets, suns, stars, galaxies. And the best part is, he did all that in the dark, because he waited until afterwards to turn the light on.

You know, I was just going to point out one silly thing about the details of Christianity, but as I went on, more and more kept pointing themselves out and it was so tempting to go into them, to get sidetracked...

If you're one of those people who take The Bible to be literal facts, I hope you're full of holy rage by now. Listen, that book was written by people. Read a news paper account on something you were present at, and notice how people get things wrong. And please read this Simple English article on conceptual metaphor. That's at least a start...

If you're one of the more sane believers, who understands the concept of metaphors, I hope you had a good time reading.

If your imaginary friend is one of the other ones, I promise, I'll try to make fun of your religion some time, so you don't feel left out.

If you're an Atheist... High five.

You might've noticed I refused to write the word "he" with a capital letter. I did that on purpose. "He" should be written with a capital letter if it's in the beginning of a sentence.

Keep on keeping on!

5:36 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Rip-Off!
Category: Art and Photography

Modern Love is featuring a "rip-off" from The Wooden Leg today!

There are similar "rip-offs" from Dinosaur Comics and A Softer World so far. And the one from TWL is based on this comic!

I think it's a great idea using cartoons to create new cartoons. And yes, he, of course, asked first.

4:25 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Death, and her brother Sleep
Current mood: sad
Category: Friends

Why is it that every time a friend of mine bites it, it makes the front page?

Why is it that every time I hear about it, it's way too early in the morning to deal with something like that?

A text message just woke me. Sebastian who's been missing since the 9th, was found dead in Töölönlahti bay. Apparently, no crime is involved. I don't know much about the details yet. Just heard. And of course, it's hard to go back to sleep after reading something like that.

It's not like time is of the essence when someone's dead. Hard to do anything about it at this point. I know this sounds cold, but it wouldn't have made a difference to let me sleep for a few more hours before dropping the bad news on me. Ok, now I'm just lashing out. Sorry about that, too.

Anyway. Dear friends, acquaintances, relatives, co-workers, old shags and boyfriends of old shags: Keep passing the open windows.

1:38 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Going Places
Current mood: sleepy

I'm going to Stockholm for a few days.

The Wooden Leg cartoon will update normally on Monday and Thursday while I'm gone. I'll probably even get to send the mailing list updates, because I've heard they have the internet in Sweden too.

Keep on keeping on!

-Harri-

1:03 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Captain Obvious
Current mood: grumpy
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

They always have thoroughly enlightening articles in the biggest gossip magazine in Finland, 7 Päivää. Shining exaples of investigative journalism, I should say.

This week's issue's cover is almost entirely dedicated to the formula driver Kimi Räikkönen with the shocking news: He enjoys a good party.

6:51 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Crawfish
Category: Food and Restaurants

You know, I was thinking about crawfish, which is not fish at all.

Some guy caught a weird creature in the river. So he figured, "What the heck, I'm hungry, I'll break its neck and throw it in the kettle. Now which part is neck?"

And considering modern medicine didn't exist back then, he died.

So, next week, his neighbor caught one of those too. And he and his brother were thinking, "Ok, Elmer next door died when he ate one of these. It must've been because he killed it before cooking it. Let's torture it by boiling alive and maybe then we won't die!"

Whoa! They didn't and that's why we have drunken Finnish-Swedish people singing at the top of their lungs at expensive restaurants.

It's crawfish season. In some restaurants the staff has to work their asses off setting the tables with all kinds of ridiculous extra items, like the apron type of thing, usually decorated with bad drawings of crawfish.

All this, so that people who want to pay eight euros for each crawfish can come, get drunk and sing traditional crawfish songs. In Swedish. Helan går, sjung hoppfaderallanlallanlej. Agh.

I'm so glad I don't work at any of those restaurants.

Eight euros for a thing a bit bigger than one of those giant shrimps you get at Asian restaurants. But with less meat. And the meat tastes like nothing but seawater.

And the mess! About eighty per cent of what you get in front of you is inedible. Shells and whatnots. You have to really work to get to the meat. Of which there is about a piece the size of a marble. And when you're done, the staff will have to take all that shit to the trash and re-set the table in a hurry, because there's more people coming right after you. Because it's very traditional and fine-diningy to eat crawfish.

Who was it that originally decided this is posh and cool and something we're going to do every year? What a tit. Who believed him?

There was an item on the program 45 Minuuttia about Voss water. It's Norvegian design water that costs 9.90 for eight desiliters. That's ingenious! You put some, well, H2O in a cool bottle and charge ten euros for it.

There are always people who are willing to pay. They may say they can tell the difference. They may even think they can. But basically it's just cool to have expensive things on your table so people will see.

Same with crawfish, kinda. Someone said it's cool at the right moment and now it's cool. Traditional. Tradition is the word people use when they're tired of thinking.

Post scriptum: "Cancer"? "Crabs"? Coincidence? I think not... I don't eat crawfish, by the way.

7:00 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment