Yay, tomorrow (or, well, today actually – it’s after midnight), it’s my moms birthday. I’ll be kind to her and not reveal her age here, but let’s just say she’s not 45 any longer 😉

Today we celebrated a bit early, by going to a restaurant… with a Lapland theme. And to be honest, it was great! 322€ for something that lasted only a couple of hours, but boy was it good. Reindeer meet, bear meatballs, whitefish, salmon, to mention a few things they had to offer.

The best part of any meal, besides the social bit, is of course the desert, though. And how heavenly isn’t caramel sauce with honey on a slice of pie, a little pancake or simply icecream? Mmm. I ended up eating just the sauce on a spoon, because it was so good 😛

Great food, good company and a funny waitress. A perfect evening and money well spent. And the actual celebration hasn’t even begun…

Påsken är här! Vad betyder det? Godis, mat och mycket kommersiell underhållning! Vad mer kan man önska sig? Ett per röda bananer kanske? Detta är sagan om Påsken & De Röda Bananerna (sanningsbaserad):

Det var en gång tre glada men kommersiellt påverkade påskfirare. Det var den stora pappa-påskfirare, den mellersta mamma-påskfirare, och den lilla men ändå lika glada farmor-påskfirare.

Detta muntra gäng bestämde sig för att åka till storstaden (Helsingfors) för att påskshoppa och besöka diverse turistattraktioner. De besökte köpcenter, tempelkyrkan och den allsmäktiga – hör och häpna – mataffären.

Den sistnämnda var chokladkaninen i påskägget! Här köptes god påskmat, godis till äggen och en nyhet hos den väl etablerade matkedjan: röda bananer.

Över 3€ kostade inte allt för många bananer. ”Men oj så dyrt,” sa mamman, men pappan argumenterade med att det ju inte fanns allt för många kommersiellt påfrestade högtider på ett år. Och där med var bananerna sålda.

”På påsken ska det vara gult,” muttrade farmordern, men ingen brydde sig om hennes kommentar.

På hemvägen i bilen blev pappan hungrig. ”Jag tar mig en banan,” sa han. ”Vilken tur att vi köpte de här nya röda.”

Godtroget skalade han bananen med en hand; den andra höll han på ratten. Han tog sig en stor munsbit av bananen, i tron att det bara var färgen som skiljde den märkvärdigt från de traditionella gula.

Host, fräs, spott! Rutan vevades ner och tuggan spottades snabbt ut genom fönstret. Vilken vidrig smak!

Mamman, som inte trodde att det kunde vara så hemskt, ville också smaka. Vidrigheterna upprepade sig.

”Men så ni jämrar er,” suckade farmodern smått irriterad. ”Ge mig en bit.”

Den halvätna bananen skickades vidare till farmodern, medan de andra febrilt försökte bli kvitt smaken ur munnen. Hon tog en tugga.

”Fy!” Biten spottades ut i ett papper.

De tre, den stora pappa-påskfirare, den mellersta mamma-påskfirare, och den lilla men ändå lika äcklade farmor-påskfirare, började plötsligt gapskratta, samtidigt som de försökte få smaken av tungan.

”Det ska nog vara gult till påsken trots allt,” pustade pappan.

Glad påsk!

I found this cool website where you can list all the things that you are consuming, intend to consume, or have consumed already. Main tags include books, albums, movies and food & drink. It’s called AllConsuming.net.

Personally, I plan to use this to force myself into reading more, by listing all my current books in the list of what I intend to read. Unfortunately, I don’t feel motivated enough to even go get those books to learn their titles 😛 We’ll see how this goes.

I’ve also found another wonderful website: 43 Things (dot) com. Here you can list up to 43 things you want to do. A few samples among my own 13 (currently) things:

• Read more books
• Stop procrastinating
• Be more confident
• Yell at a stranger
• Travel without destination

Some are obviously easier to achieve than others. I currently have no order of priority, although a feature on the site is to challenge yourself. Simply, you set a date for when you need to have completed a goal, and a punishment if you fail.

You can only have one challenge at a time. Mine is to read more books until a week from now. A short term goal in other words, but unless I read more than I usually do, at least once a day other than just in the evening (which is when I usually read), the punishment is that I will give away one of my books that I haven’t yet read – before I have a second chance to read it!

I better get going! In the mean time, why don’t you go check out the previously mentioned websites? They’re both really cool 😉

I’m doing a school project with that title. For this, I’ve created an online survey. I’d be d-lighted if you could take the time to fill it out 😀

(No, Christa, that does not apply to you!)

It’s located here!

I’ve always had a certain interest for contests. Not participating in them, but organizing them. I remember, years ago back in Mantorp, I used to do this in various forms, from bicycle races to snail marathons. The excitement has continued throughout the years, although today, I’m conquering the online fields.

For about four or five years now, I’ve been an eager host of online contests. A sort of hobby of mine, one that I’ve always been a bit embarrassed to talk about. – ”So do you have any hobbies?” – ”Yeah, I host various contests and events online.”

So what kind of stuff are we talking about here? Well, anything from less successful writing contests on writing-related websites (it’s so much fun seeing what different people can do with the same basic material/idea), to forum contests at various communities and even contests on my own TMU Blog (being a major porject of mine in itself).

However, the greatest area of success is without doubt TMX! I don’t expect you to understand it all, but basically it’s a fansite to a racing game (PC). On that website, I’ve hosted racing contests, contests for building tracks, etc. Some of my greatest success stories are the MTC (Monthly Track Contest) and the XSTC (Extreme Short Track Contest). The first I hosted for every month for over a year. A tremendously popular event among the community, and even though I stepped down as the host months ago (you have no idea how time-consuming such an event is, and doing the same thing every month soon gets boring), eager fans of the game are still carrying on the tradition of the MTC by hosting their own versions. A joy to see how my idea has developed to such a huge thing!

The latter, the XSTC, being a contest in which you had to build extremely short (duh!) tracks (less than 15 seconds to drive), only lasted for a few rounds, but was still extremely popular. In fact, TMX, being a site to which you upload your own in-game creations, was flooded with XSTC tracks, and at one point 8/10 of the most popular tracks on the site were 15-second tracks from the event.

The past few months I’ve been rather quiet when it comes to hosting events. However, not too long ago I was made a moderator on TMX and put in charge of hosting official events for the website. Today my first such event has appeared – a screenshot making contest, in which participant must beautify a given screenshot from within the game, using any photo-editing tool they want.

To be honest, it doesn’t feel much different hosting an ”official” event as part of the staff on a website, compared to hosting one as an eager player. The process is the same. But I can’t really put my finger on what exactly it is that’s so fascinating. For writing contests, it’s definitely the joy of reading what others have created based on my given set of rules. Creativity at its best. But for these other events, all I get is complaints about the rules (those who don’t dislike the rules, the majority, tend to be quiet at the start) followed by thanks for a great contest. Perhaps it’s the thanks that do it, or perhaps it’s seeing all the tracks or whatever it’s about pouring in during the contest. Or, perhaps I even like the arguing with stupid people complaining that the rules are not to their excitement. Or a mix of everything.

Whatever it is, hosting contests, events and other projects is something I’ll continue in the future. It’s fun and a good way of passing time. I get to meet people in the process, see the joy of people who have liked a just finished event, and get to do a lot of organizing, rule-writing and arguing. What better hobby could I possibly ask for?

But, it’s still a subject I’m not likely to bring up the first time I meet someone, when being asked if I have any hobbies. It would still sound too weird.

PS. I’d love to host a new writing contest, as those provide the most interesting results. However, getting the audience/participation rate required for a contest to be successful can prove challenging, and I’ve yet to find a suitable place for this. Any suggestions on websites?

Start blogging!

Just showing myself, letting that one user who keeps visiting the blog, keeping the stats updated, know that I’m still around 😛

Haven’t posted much recently, simply because I haven’t felt like it. I keep telling myself that I don’t have the time, but as always I’m a big fat liar. I’ll improve. No, really, I will. Promise.

So what’s been going on the past month? Nothing much, really. Went on a holiday, got myself a girlfriend, was told the meaning of life – that sort of everyday stuff.

Next time something like that happens, I’ll make sure to let you know. I can’t promise you that it will be through this blog, though, although I will try. Sometimes you feel like writing, sometimes you don’t. The only problem is that readers always seem to be around complaining whenever you’re not in the mood. Perhaps we all need to shape up?