Time for an update.
It's been a while since I've written an entry. A lot of stuff has happened between the two entries, so I'll just write a more condensed version of what's been going on (but then again, when have my condensed versions been short? xD). Anyway, on to my ramblings...
A couple of weeks ago my friend Niklas called me and asked if I'd like to go to Kinnula with him and Jarkko. I checked my schedule, and as I saw that I didn't have any extensive homework for that weekend, I decided to join them. It'd been a while since I'd seen Jarkko, because both of us had been busy, so it was nice to drive to Kinnula with close friends.
So, on Saturday morning Jarkko came to pick me up, and we went to get Niklas as well. Once everything was settled, we headed for Kinnula. Although the trip there was rather lengthy, the trip actually went quite quickly because we talked about a lot of stuff. Before we knew it, we were already in front of Esa's house. Esa immediately began joking as he always does, and we talked about a bunch of stuff which I can't remember that clearly anymore. Anyway, we went to see his ambulances which were under repair (or at least one of them were). We also tried to start up a small terrain vehicle (mönkijä, but I can't bother to check the proper English term for that right now xD) but it was in vain.
We headed back to Esa's place, and his girlfriend showed up. She was nice enough to make some nice pepperoni pizza. This was my first time actually eating pepperoni pizza, and it turned out to be surprisingly good. After spending some time at the house (and watching Esa and Niklas have an epic chess match), we headed to nearby summerhouses which looked rather neat. Once we got there, we made ourselves comfortable (people ate sausages and drank beer, cider etc.), and Esa's girlfriend was so exhausted that she fell asleep.
We guys decided to play Risk, and this Risk matched turned out to be the lengthiest and the most epic ones yet. If I counted right, it went on for about EIGHT freaking hours, but it was worth it. I did the big mistake of fighting at two fronts at the same time (beating Niklas's army back to South America and Esa's army in the East (Russia, China etc.). Eventually I grew too powerful so my friends turned on me and beat the crap out of my nation, although I managed to form a Mannerheim line to Egypt and killed a dozens of my enemies' soldiers with lucky rolls of dice. The resulting match, then, was between Esa, Jarkko and Niklas. Usually two decided to form a tentative alliance against the third who was the most powerful, and this alliance changed every once in a while.
Eventually we realized that by this rate the game would never end, so we sped the game up, and eventually Jarkko ended up as the winner (he'd been very frustrated throughout the entire evening). Esa and his girlfriend left, and me and my friends and I went to bed (not on the same bed! xD). They fell asleep quickly, but I spent some time using my cell phone's Internet functions and read some of the tGA posts.
Morning came, and I slept really late. I probably would've slept longer, but Esa decided to wake me up by dropping snow onto my bed (he does crazy stuff like that at times xP). We ate a "good breakfast" (xD), and then we went to Esa's place again. Esa and Niklas decided to see what was wrong with Esa's computer, and Jarkko used his laptop. Meanwhile I tried to play Killzone with Esa's PSP, and the game was surprisingly cool and addictive. I managed to get all the way to the first "boss" which was a tank that appears after you've driven around the area with your acquired tank.
Time went by quickly, and we went to a local shop and sat outside in the sun and talked about a bunch of things. Eventually it was time for us to leave, and so Niklas, Jarkko and I said farewells to Esa and his girlfriend and headed back home to Vaasa. The trip went by quickly although the sun was being annoying. I was glad to be back home, but the trip had been very nice as well, and it's always nice to spend some quality time with friends, after all. ^^
After I got home, I realized I'd forgotten one important thing: I had to return my post-colonial essay about Amos Tutuola and his use of time and space in The Palm-Wine Drinkard novel. I wrote it quickly and returned it, and then it was time to concentrate on some of the courses. Pekka, Timo and I finished our presentation on ethnographies on Tuesday, and I think it turned out fine. The lectures in our post-colonial literature class were interesting as well.
Wednesday was absolute torment as we had to practice with the other choir and the orchestra for the concert that would take place on Thursday. The rehearsal lasted for over three hours, and my voice was totally down by that time. I thought that I wouldn't be able to sing the next day, but surprisingly enough my voice seemed to be fine as I went to rehearse the songs a couple of hours before the concert.
The concert itself went fine apart from a few stage-directional screwups as well as some confusion among some of the orchestra players and choristers. The dreaded Matrai Gepek song went surprisingly well, and I could almost sing it all through without looking at my notes. I think the best bit was the final portion of the concert, though, when both choirs and the orchestra joined in and performed Kuula's "Aamulaulu" (Morning Song) and "Joululaulu" (Christmas Song). Shivers went down my spine during the performance, and we absolutely nailed it. Heck, Petri Judin himself (who had arranged Kuula's compositions) came to the stage to thank us personally, and that was quite an honour.
After the concert, some of us went to Fondis, a restaurant, to eat some delicious supper. I chose the one with three different steaks and French fries (or should I say Freedom fries? xDDD). It was very good. We had a lot of interesting conversations, but I was somewhat sad that I couldn't talk with Emma at all during the evening, because we ended up at different tables. A shame, but I guess it was for the better, because I need to clear my mind of her, and sitting next to her wouldn't have helped one bit. She looked gorgeous that night, though, but at least I didn't make a fool out of myself when I said a couple of things to her. =/
After the supper, most of us went our separate ways (including Emma), but I followed Liisa and two other people to Domi, a local bar, and we sat there for about an hour or two and talked about a bunch of things. As the clock was nearing 1 a.m., we decided to head back home.
The next day I started working on the sonar translation, and it was very annoying. After I'd finished it in some ways, I went to the shop and bought 101 Dalmatians Platinum Edition and Ratatouille Special Edition (in your face, Americans: Europeans got a 2-disc version of that film unlike you!). I realized that Ratatouille was just as good as it'd been when I'd seen it at my sis's place, and it was interesting to compare the Finnish and English dubs. To my surprise some of the lipsync in the Finnish dub didn't work properly, but it didn't detract from the overall quality of the dub. As for 101 Dalmatians, it was nice to see it restored. I also liked the supplements ("Sincerely Yours, Walt Disney" was a nice inclusion), and I liked how they managed to dedicate some time to the score and songs of the film. As I watched the film after all these years, though, I realized that I'd held it in too high esteem. Sure, it has some nice animation (particularly Cruella) and some nice music moments, but overall it lacks something which made the epic Disney films so good. I'm not saying that 101 Dalmatians is trash, but its carefree nature just can't compare to the likes of The Lion King and Bambi. It's a worthy title to add to a Disney geek's collection, though, and I'm sure a lot of people love it. ^^
I also went to chat after my absence, and I managed to talk with a bunch of people, including smittenkitten, LN and starseeker. I updated MyAnimeList and watched the newest Bleach episodes (which were alright, and I also liked the fact that the English dub had returned!). Too bad that they censor a lot of the Szayel stuff out, but that's to be expected, and at least it doesn't hurt the story that much. Ulquiorra vs. Ichigo was badass, and I'm expessing as epic animation for Grimmjow vs. Ichigo. Also, the recent dubbed Bleach episode (when Ichigo saves Rukia from death and single-handedly defeats three lieutenants in a row) is still just as epic as it was back when I first saw it. Bleach has never been better, but I hope that with the recent developments the new arc will become just as epic and heart-wrenching. We'll see.
I was glad to see that tGA managed to stay afloat for about a month until it finally vained as expected. Still, people post there every once in a while, and if we get members back and/or new members, things should proceed smoothly. I'm trying to avoid posting in the RP from this point on in order to give some breathing space to others, and I'm sure they'll appreciate it as well. I wouldn't want to write monologues, after all. =P
The story became quite complex from the simple setting, though, and that's one of the gifts and curses of collaborative writing. I hope everyone's had as good a time as I did (I think at least Nic and DocFrance had with their antics in the story xD). It'll be interesting to see where tGA goes from here and how long it actually stays active. We can only wait and see.
I had a conversation on AIM that turned into a conversation about sex scenes. I showed my tGA sex post, and I talked with my friend about how some scene can be considered a good or a bad example of writing about sex. We tried to find good examples of sex scenes, but to my amazement neither of us could find any. I wonder if there even exists a good, heart-wrenching sex scene. But then again, sex scenes are definitely the hardest things to write for obvious reasons (and this is what many authors have told their fans), because it's very easy to make it go all melodramatic in an instance. I'm certainly of the melodramatic variety but with a Hobbian touch of interpersonal relationships, and I hope this mix has brought in something unique: not that any of tGA's sex posts have been literary masterpieces, but still... xD
At least I can be happy that my sex scene, with its strange mix of campy and Gothic elements, managed to move the plot and also initiated two important plot points which a few RPers decided to use in this current RP (Refan's son, Ferron's involvement, Greenlight's frustration, Theron's plotting). It was rather funny seeing people freak out after they'd read the old sex scene, though; although part of it was a sincere attempt to try writing something that is very hard to write (a writing exercise, if you will), one of the purposes was also for a emphasized, "campy?" (I can't think of a better word, so help me out here) effect just to see how many people would actually notice and how they'd react. At least in the latter way the scene succeeded beyond my expectations, but despite all the silly stuff in it I do feel that the scene didn't turn out as abysmal as I'd feared. After all, I've read worse scenes (including the out-of-the-blue sex scene in Dawnthief). =P
As a sidenote, I told my friend that people never reached to the more grisly sex scene(s) I wrote in my fanfic as opposed to how they reacted to the one in the actual RP. I suppose it was because very few people read the fanfic, but maybe they just blocked their memories of those scenes. Speaking of the fanfic itself, I hope I can continue writing it at some point although it's kind of become outdated by now. I hate leaving stories unfinished, but writing the fanfic requires a lot of time and motivation which I don't have as much as I used to. In any case the fanfic has been a good writing exercise where I've managed to test different kinds of writing styles and see how they work, and the results have been interesting.
I'll try to limit the characters I use, because I've already established the ones I'm going to use (apart from Xerathas, but I don't think he needs to make an entrance aside form some minor scenes later on). There'll be plenty of work to be done with working out Belial's family, Waldheim and Unithien. Keeping things concentrated and condensed will also help to focus the story, and I'm sure others will appreciate it as well. ^^
Oh, Spatvark gave me a link to an interesting Silmarillion concept album by Blind Guardian. Most of the tracks were rather 'meh', but I really liked the tones of "Blood Tears" and "When Sorrow Sang". It's nice to find these kinds of gems every once in a while, so thanks to Spat for that. =)
Yours,
Mikko
A couple of weeks ago my friend Niklas called me and asked if I'd like to go to Kinnula with him and Jarkko. I checked my schedule, and as I saw that I didn't have any extensive homework for that weekend, I decided to join them. It'd been a while since I'd seen Jarkko, because both of us had been busy, so it was nice to drive to Kinnula with close friends.
So, on Saturday morning Jarkko came to pick me up, and we went to get Niklas as well. Once everything was settled, we headed for Kinnula. Although the trip there was rather lengthy, the trip actually went quite quickly because we talked about a lot of stuff. Before we knew it, we were already in front of Esa's house. Esa immediately began joking as he always does, and we talked about a bunch of stuff which I can't remember that clearly anymore. Anyway, we went to see his ambulances which were under repair (or at least one of them were). We also tried to start up a small terrain vehicle (mönkijä, but I can't bother to check the proper English term for that right now xD) but it was in vain.
We headed back to Esa's place, and his girlfriend showed up. She was nice enough to make some nice pepperoni pizza. This was my first time actually eating pepperoni pizza, and it turned out to be surprisingly good. After spending some time at the house (and watching Esa and Niklas have an epic chess match), we headed to nearby summerhouses which looked rather neat. Once we got there, we made ourselves comfortable (people ate sausages and drank beer, cider etc.), and Esa's girlfriend was so exhausted that she fell asleep.
We guys decided to play Risk, and this Risk matched turned out to be the lengthiest and the most epic ones yet. If I counted right, it went on for about EIGHT freaking hours, but it was worth it. I did the big mistake of fighting at two fronts at the same time (beating Niklas's army back to South America and Esa's army in the East (Russia, China etc.). Eventually I grew too powerful so my friends turned on me and beat the crap out of my nation, although I managed to form a Mannerheim line to Egypt and killed a dozens of my enemies' soldiers with lucky rolls of dice. The resulting match, then, was between Esa, Jarkko and Niklas. Usually two decided to form a tentative alliance against the third who was the most powerful, and this alliance changed every once in a while.
Eventually we realized that by this rate the game would never end, so we sped the game up, and eventually Jarkko ended up as the winner (he'd been very frustrated throughout the entire evening). Esa and his girlfriend left, and me and my friends and I went to bed (not on the same bed! xD). They fell asleep quickly, but I spent some time using my cell phone's Internet functions and read some of the tGA posts.
Morning came, and I slept really late. I probably would've slept longer, but Esa decided to wake me up by dropping snow onto my bed (he does crazy stuff like that at times xP). We ate a "good breakfast" (xD), and then we went to Esa's place again. Esa and Niklas decided to see what was wrong with Esa's computer, and Jarkko used his laptop. Meanwhile I tried to play Killzone with Esa's PSP, and the game was surprisingly cool and addictive. I managed to get all the way to the first "boss" which was a tank that appears after you've driven around the area with your acquired tank.
Time went by quickly, and we went to a local shop and sat outside in the sun and talked about a bunch of things. Eventually it was time for us to leave, and so Niklas, Jarkko and I said farewells to Esa and his girlfriend and headed back home to Vaasa. The trip went by quickly although the sun was being annoying. I was glad to be back home, but the trip had been very nice as well, and it's always nice to spend some quality time with friends, after all. ^^
After I got home, I realized I'd forgotten one important thing: I had to return my post-colonial essay about Amos Tutuola and his use of time and space in The Palm-Wine Drinkard novel. I wrote it quickly and returned it, and then it was time to concentrate on some of the courses. Pekka, Timo and I finished our presentation on ethnographies on Tuesday, and I think it turned out fine. The lectures in our post-colonial literature class were interesting as well.
Wednesday was absolute torment as we had to practice with the other choir and the orchestra for the concert that would take place on Thursday. The rehearsal lasted for over three hours, and my voice was totally down by that time. I thought that I wouldn't be able to sing the next day, but surprisingly enough my voice seemed to be fine as I went to rehearse the songs a couple of hours before the concert.
The concert itself went fine apart from a few stage-directional screwups as well as some confusion among some of the orchestra players and choristers. The dreaded Matrai Gepek song went surprisingly well, and I could almost sing it all through without looking at my notes. I think the best bit was the final portion of the concert, though, when both choirs and the orchestra joined in and performed Kuula's "Aamulaulu" (Morning Song) and "Joululaulu" (Christmas Song). Shivers went down my spine during the performance, and we absolutely nailed it. Heck, Petri Judin himself (who had arranged Kuula's compositions) came to the stage to thank us personally, and that was quite an honour.
After the concert, some of us went to Fondis, a restaurant, to eat some delicious supper. I chose the one with three different steaks and French fries (or should I say Freedom fries? xDDD). It was very good. We had a lot of interesting conversations, but I was somewhat sad that I couldn't talk with Emma at all during the evening, because we ended up at different tables. A shame, but I guess it was for the better, because I need to clear my mind of her, and sitting next to her wouldn't have helped one bit. She looked gorgeous that night, though, but at least I didn't make a fool out of myself when I said a couple of things to her. =/
After the supper, most of us went our separate ways (including Emma), but I followed Liisa and two other people to Domi, a local bar, and we sat there for about an hour or two and talked about a bunch of things. As the clock was nearing 1 a.m., we decided to head back home.
The next day I started working on the sonar translation, and it was very annoying. After I'd finished it in some ways, I went to the shop and bought 101 Dalmatians Platinum Edition and Ratatouille Special Edition (in your face, Americans: Europeans got a 2-disc version of that film unlike you!). I realized that Ratatouille was just as good as it'd been when I'd seen it at my sis's place, and it was interesting to compare the Finnish and English dubs. To my surprise some of the lipsync in the Finnish dub didn't work properly, but it didn't detract from the overall quality of the dub. As for 101 Dalmatians, it was nice to see it restored. I also liked the supplements ("Sincerely Yours, Walt Disney" was a nice inclusion), and I liked how they managed to dedicate some time to the score and songs of the film. As I watched the film after all these years, though, I realized that I'd held it in too high esteem. Sure, it has some nice animation (particularly Cruella) and some nice music moments, but overall it lacks something which made the epic Disney films so good. I'm not saying that 101 Dalmatians is trash, but its carefree nature just can't compare to the likes of The Lion King and Bambi. It's a worthy title to add to a Disney geek's collection, though, and I'm sure a lot of people love it. ^^
I also went to chat after my absence, and I managed to talk with a bunch of people, including smittenkitten, LN and starseeker. I updated MyAnimeList and watched the newest Bleach episodes (which were alright, and I also liked the fact that the English dub had returned!). Too bad that they censor a lot of the Szayel stuff out, but that's to be expected, and at least it doesn't hurt the story that much. Ulquiorra vs. Ichigo was badass, and I'm expessing as epic animation for Grimmjow vs. Ichigo. Also, the recent dubbed Bleach episode (when Ichigo saves Rukia from death and single-handedly defeats three lieutenants in a row) is still just as epic as it was back when I first saw it. Bleach has never been better, but I hope that with the recent developments the new arc will become just as epic and heart-wrenching. We'll see.
I was glad to see that tGA managed to stay afloat for about a month until it finally vained as expected. Still, people post there every once in a while, and if we get members back and/or new members, things should proceed smoothly. I'm trying to avoid posting in the RP from this point on in order to give some breathing space to others, and I'm sure they'll appreciate it as well. I wouldn't want to write monologues, after all. =P
The story became quite complex from the simple setting, though, and that's one of the gifts and curses of collaborative writing. I hope everyone's had as good a time as I did (I think at least Nic and DocFrance had with their antics in the story xD). It'll be interesting to see where tGA goes from here and how long it actually stays active. We can only wait and see.
I had a conversation on AIM that turned into a conversation about sex scenes. I showed my tGA sex post, and I talked with my friend about how some scene can be considered a good or a bad example of writing about sex. We tried to find good examples of sex scenes, but to my amazement neither of us could find any. I wonder if there even exists a good, heart-wrenching sex scene. But then again, sex scenes are definitely the hardest things to write for obvious reasons (and this is what many authors have told their fans), because it's very easy to make it go all melodramatic in an instance. I'm certainly of the melodramatic variety but with a Hobbian touch of interpersonal relationships, and I hope this mix has brought in something unique: not that any of tGA's sex posts have been literary masterpieces, but still... xD
At least I can be happy that my sex scene, with its strange mix of campy and Gothic elements, managed to move the plot and also initiated two important plot points which a few RPers decided to use in this current RP (Refan's son, Ferron's involvement, Greenlight's frustration, Theron's plotting). It was rather funny seeing people freak out after they'd read the old sex scene, though; although part of it was a sincere attempt to try writing something that is very hard to write (a writing exercise, if you will), one of the purposes was also for a emphasized, "campy?" (I can't think of a better word, so help me out here) effect just to see how many people would actually notice and how they'd react. At least in the latter way the scene succeeded beyond my expectations, but despite all the silly stuff in it I do feel that the scene didn't turn out as abysmal as I'd feared. After all, I've read worse scenes (including the out-of-the-blue sex scene in Dawnthief). =P
As a sidenote, I told my friend that people never reached to the more grisly sex scene(s) I wrote in my fanfic as opposed to how they reacted to the one in the actual RP. I suppose it was because very few people read the fanfic, but maybe they just blocked their memories of those scenes. Speaking of the fanfic itself, I hope I can continue writing it at some point although it's kind of become outdated by now. I hate leaving stories unfinished, but writing the fanfic requires a lot of time and motivation which I don't have as much as I used to. In any case the fanfic has been a good writing exercise where I've managed to test different kinds of writing styles and see how they work, and the results have been interesting.
I'll try to limit the characters I use, because I've already established the ones I'm going to use (apart from Xerathas, but I don't think he needs to make an entrance aside form some minor scenes later on). There'll be plenty of work to be done with working out Belial's family, Waldheim and Unithien. Keeping things concentrated and condensed will also help to focus the story, and I'm sure others will appreciate it as well. ^^
Oh, Spatvark gave me a link to an interesting Silmarillion concept album by Blind Guardian. Most of the tracks were rather 'meh', but I really liked the tones of "Blood Tears" and "When Sorrow Sang". It's nice to find these kinds of gems every once in a while, so thanks to Spat for that. =)
Yours,
Mikko