It's been a while (Part "I-don't-even-remember-when-I-made-my-last-post")

...And the excuse is not the usual "There's nothing that has happened in my life worth noting". Which is surprising, knowing me.

The past six months have been somewhat of a rollercoaster, considering how boring I usually make my life appear. Since I can't figure a place to start, beginning seems like the logical choice. Since I can't remember the beginning, I'll pick up where my memory left itself.

In the long lost past this blog filled itself mostly with angsty posts about how life sucks and whatnot, but I've been happier than I usually am this year. I've been travelling a lot, I have spent approximately eight days in trains or cars, of which 27 hours waiting at train stations. The number seems big, but considering that just about on every trip back home I've had to wait two hours for a train change. I am still not entirely sure do I love or hate train travelling, but at least I have learned to sleep in trains*.

 In April, my body from below my waist broke into a bank:

You can see the edge of the hole I made in the foreground where the snow is disturbed.

I was shoveling snow down from the roof of a local bank and nobody had it in their mind to inform the guy shoveling the snow from the roof that there was a balcony skylight. Naturally covered by snow so I had no idea what hit me when gravity decided to remind about it's existence. If anything good came out of the ordeal, I took some cool photos from the roof:

In May I graduated from artschool. My diploma piece was pretty handy:

I got full points for it!


Somewhere in there (precisely 12.-18.) I was watching a bunch of sixthgraders on their fieldtrip and on the way we stopped at a non-distinctive gas station in mid-Finland where I met Rime, whom I met in February. I'd been trying for a few months at that point to convince her that I was worth dating, to no avail. Here was a girl who happened to be a geek, con-dweller, an IB-student and my age. She also has a wicked sense of humour and happened to be damn good-looking. Clearly mine was a lost cause.

 The fieldtrip turned up being a very rewarding trip. Going there I was a single guy without a care in the world. On the way home I was officially a guy with a girlfriend. She's hot too, so I win:

You're allowed to be jealous.



Then came summer, and I propped my window open with a katana:






















 By mid-July I had visited her a couple times in Jyväskylä. I'd never really been to Jyväskylä before, but by now I'm beginning to like the place.

I have been working for all of summer. All in this case meas short of the cumulative two weeks that I spent in cons or otherwise away from home, but that was spreadt all across the summer. All also contains weekends because mine was literally a shit job. Luckily for me, shit jobs and shitty hours pay relatively well even for a student or a summer worker, and I was able to make it to some cons I have been wanting to go to for a figurative eternity. Unfortunately I hemorrhage cash pretty fast, so almost all the money I made was spent during the summer, but I call it worth it.

At this point** the ice cubes in my drink had melted so I got more.

 I've been removed from my natural habitat(the workshop) for nearly three months now, and that takes it's toll. I have approx. a googoplex of ideas and things I want to make, but haven't been able to. The unwillingly freed time was utilized mostly by catering an another expensive hobby, video games. Late July I invested in a PS3 and haven't regretted, for I got it really cheap(120€!). The PS3 yielded the required presets to find out whether video games and cuddling work as well together as I had given the impression of. Turns out they do.

In August I started the fourth (or the "½" in "3½") year in upper secondary, and unlike I hoped, it didn't change anything much (if not taking care of the extra time I had prior used for sleeping). Ever since I've mostly been sitting here in front of my computer because I have so little school, yet am still a student and hence can't work full days without losing all monetary support I get as one. Luckily I'm off south again soon, otherwise I'd probably lose my mind even further.


*Even if for precisely 72 minutes at a time.
**Of writing, not the summer.

Looper

The first time I heard from Looper, it was when I saw pictures of the iconic weapon of the movie, the blunderbuss. I fell in love with the aesthetics of the prop, and decided to check the movie out sometime, and it kinda fell off to the pile of things I should do at some time.
Today, I decided to watch it, and boy, did I like it. It was awesome. Of course it did have it's little quirks that bothered me a bit, but I was able to ignore them(A thing I am rarely capable of).

  Looper is situated in the near-future, where time travel is not yet invented, but soon it will, and it would be outlawed almost instantly. Mobs utilize time travelling by sending people they want dead into the past, because in the present it's supposedly next to impossible to dispose of a body. The story is set around Joe, who is a Looper, ie. a guy who kills people sent from the future. They are called Loopers, because when the cops in the future get too close to sniffing out the mobs' operation, the mobs will send the old looper from the future to be killed by the young looper, to "close the loop". As a compensation, Lopers are extremely well paid, but I think anyone can already see where this movie's plot is going. Which is surprisingly not a bad thing.

  I love how the time travel effects are not told, but shown, sometimes very graphicly, with a person literally losing limbs as his young version is being mutilated. The movie also brings out a new view about the moral questions concerning time travel, and made me look at it from a whole new angle.

  The first thing that bugs me about the movie is the way it starts. There's a short opening scene(nothing wrong with that) followed by monologue. There's pretty much nothing that separates the viewer from the movie better than monologue. Although I do admit that the movie's premise wouldn't have worked without the monologuing, so it's more or less a lesser evil. Things flow logically, with the "Old Joe" knowing things, well, because he's old, and the dynamics of the old and young Joe work very believeably. Both the old and young Joe moved and behaved in similar fashion, the young Joe even has Bruce Willis' (old Joe) grin!
  The plot, although overall good, did have a few almost Chekov's gun characters, like the stripper girl with her son. Giving her a name and a story was redundant in my opinion, and only served in confusing the viewer(me), as I initially though that Sara was the working girl.

  The story was pretty straightforward with almost nothing surprising about it. What surprises me most is th love story it's not, and how there's no definitive main character or villain, actually. The plot plays very nicely with the time travel elemnt, and for once I can actually say that they got it right. The continuity is there. The biggest story-wise question for me is the "TK-powers", which are not explained it at all, just handwaved along. There could have been so much potential to toy with with it. There's basically nothing explained about the future, or "The rainmaker", which leaves holes in the timeline.(Possibility for a sequel? Although I don't see this movie as a series, not sure if I would want a sequel)

  In short, Looper was a good action movie, which I can recommend, ad I propably will watch again some day. And I definitely will be building myself that blunderbuss. I want it.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

I'll just blurt it out right here; I can't speak bad of this movie. This is the exact kind of an adventure/action movie I like. Myth&fact mixed in _JUST_ the exact amount. I have warned you, it's going to be a positive ride.

 Now, to properely start, I was anticipating this movie for a long time, and then it passed me before I even realized. For a long time, I completely forgot about it's existence, until a fateful RPG session via Skype, and the ~10 minutes of greetings in the beginning. Fast forward two weeks, and it's watched and loved.

 I'll begin by telling some crazy shit about Abramah Lincoln right here (the real person, but spoilers will follow in an case). Among other things, the Axe-gun is real. Yep. It's a thing. It currently resides in the US presidential archives, with, among others, a hardwood stake with a silver tip, and long correspondency of battle tactics and techniques with Henry Sturges. Also, the historical Abe was known to be an expert with his axe, capable of downing timber faster than anyone else (it was said that he worked as if there were three men working in his stead). So, if you consider is acrobatics unrealistic, you'd be wrong.

 I could end this here and just say that it was awesome. go buy and/or download it, but I guess my pride forces me to tell why it was awesome.

1. Because Abraham Lincoln.
Seriously, reason enough, the man was so damn cool. But, I think he was perfectly cast, perfectly acted, Benjamin Walker really nails the unique speaking Lincoln has said to have had. And looks.

2. Because HISTORICAL ACCURACY IN A (PULP?) MONSTER MOVIE!
This movie had so many things right where it could have gone wrong, that I don't feel like listing the wrongs (Even though this movie bases itself on the fact that Abe's life was rather shady at some parts). Only thing that I feel like pointing out is that there weren't enough references about how tall he was. Fair enough, it was referred to, even in somewhat comical/sweet manner, but IRL, Lincoln was a frigging giant(6,4').

3. Because vampires are always cool.
(For the record, there's no vampires in Twilight for me, just (gay) emo kids. With mental problems.)
Lately, vampires have been having a renaissance, mostly for the bad, but thank gods, popular culture is recovering. We need to see more of this.

4. They got the looks right
I found nothing to complain about how this movie portrayed the early-mid 1800's. The overall composition of places, which buildings were there and which weren't, clothing, equipment, architecture, all right. For once. Yay.

5. Nice-looking CG.
For most part, it was indistinquishable. At least I didn't pay attention to it, save from in the horse chase scene, where it was admittably a little too much. But the battle scenes, vampires turning invisible and back visible again, looking sweet.

In short, this movie avoided so many mistakes that movies like this usually have,that I just can't not like it. I I would have to compare it to a similar movie, it would be Van Helsing. except with more historical accuracy, which is always good.

Hear me? Go watch it! Do it! Away ith you already!