This post will always have my latest video in it.
Category: Personal
This year, and in fact, every year I have Christmas with the family. Every year 10-12 people are there.
This leads me to question the meaning of Christmas. It’s been long since the days of celebrating the birth of a religious figure during Christmas. These days it’s Santa and presents and all that bullsh*t. Why do we give each other gifts during Christmas? I mean, we could instead buy ourselves whatever we wanted, couldn’t we save others and save ourselves from that Christmas stress. Every year, millions of people are stressed out around the world thinking what they should buy each other for Christmas. Why? Buy yourself whatever you f*cking want and save yourself and others from the stress…
I may sound like a pessimist, but this is really getting annoying. Every year we have that gift giving conundrum. Every f*cking year.
And in the shopping centres, Christmas starts way too early. It used to be three days long, now it is three (or more) months. They start in September (sometimes October) and end in late December (sometimes January).
For crying out loud, does this holiday have to be so damn long?
And what’s worse, there’s the way we celebrate it in this f*cking country of ours: A guy comes to your house, dressed as f*cking Santa, and to receive a present from your parents you have to perform a poem or a song to him by heart and if he doesn’t like it he can just not give you the damn present…
Last night, on Christmas Eve, I almost went mental as other people in the room didn’t like the poem I performed. I admit, it was a bit… vulgar, but for f*ck’s sake. Due to that, I was almost going to say something in the lines of “Up yours you red c*nt” to the guy, when I remembered that my relatives think of me as a polite person… Well, I am. But I can’t stand bullsh*t.
I mean it’s all way too much. It creates way too much stress – as if you didn’t have enough of it with the purchase of presents.
Merry Christmas!
I woke up at 9 o’clock this morning.
Not because I wanted to, not because I needed to, but because someone called me.
It’s Saturday morning. If you knew me, you’d know I have really hard and long days during the work week, and prefer to sleep on Saturdays till, at least, two o’clock in the afternoon.
But no, it wasn’t because they had something urgent to tell me. Nothing is that urgent that it would wake me up 5 hours before I need to.
It was the usual broken PC thing. They had disconnected it and moved it into another room, but were unable to put it back together again. C’mon, how hard can it be to plug things back into where they were before? It’s not like all ports look the same and everything fits together. It’s not like you can mix up the monitor port and the USB…
And then they wanted me to do something completely new and surprising – send an e-mail from their behalf. I’m not kidding. They actually wanted me to send someone an e-mail from their behalf…
What the hell happened to phones?
Couldn’t they just call them if it was so urgent?
It’s not like most people read their e-mail on Saturdays, anyway. I know I don’t.
And then, after 10 minutes of the sleepiest tech support ever I thought this was it. The call ended, and I thought it was over so I could go back to sleep.
5 minutes later I got another call… The same people asking me to send another e-mail.
For f**ks sake. Couldn’t they have just told me the contents of both e-mails at once…
And, to make matters worse, I actually had to look the e-mail address up.
What the hell?
After all that headache, I couldn’t sleep any longer, so I decided to treat myself to a new router. I went to a really nice and new shopping centre in the city centre and bought myself a new router – an Airport Extreme. And I went to a Latvian restaurant and had, what probably was, the best thing I’ve ever eaten…
Then I headed home to set up my new network. And then I satisfied my OCD by cleaning my whole office, including every single key on every single keyboard.
Have you ever heard of a concept called “free promotion”? Basically, the product you sell gets advertised, without you paying for the advertising… Well, how does it work?
Let’s take an example – youtube. A user posts a video containing your music. Or a music video by an artist that’s signed under your label.
You think to yourself – “oh my god they are stealing our music.” First of all, why do you assume that they are stealing, and why do you assume it will create a loss in profit?
In fact, common sense tells us that if a song is advertised *anywhere* and people like it, people will probably buy it. But if the song isn’t available on, for example, youtube, then your song will be unheard, and probably bought a lot less.
I agree on one point, though. If the author of the song isn’t credited or any mention of the song’s name and performer isn’t there, then it should count as copyright infringement. But if the author and/or performer is credited and the song’s title given and (preferably) a link to the song on, let’s say, umm, iTunes is given, then what’s the f**king problem?
Have you heard of these things, called, err, common sense and independent thought?
Because if you had any of either, you’d realise disabling audio on infringing promoting videos is clearly… retarded.
WARNING! The following post contains “profane” words in a reported manner. If you are deeply religious or otherwise can not stand anything closely related to reproduction, please, do not read this post for the sake of your mental health. Otherwise, carry on reading.
If you’ve read some of my posts, you probably know I sometimes use profanity. Sometimes I use the word “b*tch,” sometimes I use the word “f*ck.” Sometimes I use the word “sh*t.”
But, what’s so bad about those words, actually? As hard as I’m thinking, I can’t think of anything wrong with those words. The society tells us these words are profane and inappropriate. But what makes these words inappropriate?
Why can we use the word excrement or stool, but not sh*t? Why can we use the phrase “have sex” instead of “f*ck”? Wouldn’t it be easier to just say “to f*ck each other” instead of “to have sex with each other” or even “to have sexual intercourse with each other”?
What’s so bad about the word “f*ck”, anyways?
Wikipedia defines profanity as following:
“As a result, “profane” and “profanity” has therefore come to describe a word, expression, gesture, or other social behaviour which is socially constructed or interpreted as insulting, rudeness, vulgarism, desecrating, or showing disrespect.”
Is the word “f*ck” insulting, rude, vulgar, desecrating or disrespectful? There’s nothing insulting in it. And what does “rude” even mean? As in “disrespectful”? Why is “f*ck” disrespectful? It’s just a word, a synonym to sexual intercourse. Desecrating? Seriously? Yes, sex is not allowed outside marriage by the christian “law…”. But inside the marriage, there seems to be no problem with it. So why is referring to it such a desecration?
Is the word sh*t insulting, rude, vulgar, desecrating or disrespectful? No. None of those things. “Sh*t” is a synonym to stool, excrement. Both are things our bodies produce. Therefore, are our bodies rude, insulting, vulgar, desecrating or disrespectful? Why would they be? We are a part of nature. Why does our body insult anyone? (does it?) Why is our body rude? (is it?) Why is it vulgar? (is it?)
And why would our body be desecrating, as, according to the Christians, man was made by god. Therefore god’s work isn’t sacred?
Is the word b*tch insulting, rude, vulgar, desecrating or disrespectful? Why would it be? It’s literal meaning, up to this day, is female dog. Yes, I can see how being called a dog can be insulting. But if it’s used not in the context of calling someone it and used as “b*tching about something” then how come it’s wrong to use it in that context?
How come has our society learned to avoid these words? How come do we avoid people who use these words?
They are just words… Words alone do no harm. It’s what you can do with those words is the problem.
I sometimes listen to pirated music. I (almost daily) watch television shows that I have illegally downloaded. I rarely watch any films and I usually buy them.
Why?
The content JUST ISN’T AVAILABLE.
If you live in the United States or the United Kingdom, or, in some cases, even in Australia, you are most likely fine. But, if you don’t, then there’s ABSOLUTELY no way of getting the content. Well, not instantly, at least.
I’d have to wait a YEAR until the latest episode of House gets here. I’d have to wait TWO THREE YEARS until the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy gets here. I’d have to wait at least 6 months until the latest episode of Top Gear would be here.
And when it gets here, it is spoiled by the narrowscreen (4:3) format and hardcoded subtitles and the annoying red-and-white “3″ logo in the top-right corner. It’s JUST NOT A PLEASURABLE EXPERIENCE.
It’s the same thing with CDs and DVDs. When a CD finally reaches here (and I can’t buy it online since there ISN’T A STORE), it’s always some sort of local re-release with worse audio and ads inside the jewel case. Or sometimes there isn’t a jewel case at all and the disc is in a paper box.
With DVDs there are the ads and, again, the narrowscreen format. I wrote a blog post about DVDs some time ago.
The only legal way for me to obtain music is Spotify. And… oh wait, f**k, I have to be in the UK or some other countries to get the full experience. Oh, f**k. I do use Spotify with a UK proxy. It’s the same way I use the BBC iPlayer.
I don’t use P2P, well, only when it’s the last resort: For example, I downloaded an episode of Grey’s Anatomy via torrent yesterday. I generally don’t like torrenting and prefer HTTP(S) servers and direct downloads.
I would honestly love to buy content, and now, for some time, I can. How? I bought a £15 iTunes Store gift card when I visited the UK. I wish I had bought more than just one though…
I haven’t had the time to write during the last few days. I’ve been really busy and when I did have time, I preferred sleep to writing.
I’ll start at the beginning… well, actually, the middle part.
On the third day of our trip, we went to the Tower of London. The tower was old, but filled with new technology, including 3D demonstrations (requiring 3D glasses), interactive touchscreen computers and other similar technology. Even though I’m a huge technology enthusiast I don’t find that appropriate. Oh, and did I mention my feet were f*cking killing me again…
We then moved on to Greenwich, which was one of the most awesome places I have ever been to. We got a tour of the Maritime Museum, which kind of sucked, but the rest was simply amazing: We went to the Prime Meridian, which is basically a line across the whole earth, dividing the Earth into two halves, kind of like the equator, but without any geographical significance, other than the fact that it runs through the Greenwich Observatory. Well, actually, it didn’t just happen to run through there. The line was drawn through the observatory on purpose…
Oh, and I’m happy to tell you that the time on my iPhone is exactly 3 seconds off…
We then saw an amazing film called “We are astronomers,” narrated by my favourite actor of all time, David Tennant. I then proceeded to buy a Doctor Who poster from the shop there. I hope the poster makes it to Tallinn without any damage to it due to ultra-rough handling. Oh, and I sat next to a very gross transvestite on the Tube… who smiled at me. (Kill me now)
Later, we went bowling… Well, when I say we, I mean everyone but me. I went to a bar instead and had a Virgin Cuba Libre, which is Rum & Coke… without the rum.
On the fourth day of our trip, we first went to Westminster Abbey. Westminster Abbey was, quite frankly, f*cking boring. No, seriously. Other than the fact that there were a few very important/famous people buried there, it wasn’t interesting at all. We then caught a train to Oxford. It took us an hour to get there. I listened to my iPhone’s iPod the whole time and occasionally checked Offmaps with GPS, how far we were. I enjoyed every single minute of the trip to Oxford. The English countryside is amazingly beautiful.
I bought a camera there. A Kodak ZX1, which is a small and cheap HD camera. It is an amazing little thing, review coming soon after I’m done editing my videos of the trips, but I can tell you this: the video and audio it captures looks amazing. AND, it only cost me £130 (well, £150 if I include the memory card).
We then returned from Oxford to London, to see Phantom of the Opera in Her Majesty’s Theatre. I loved every single bit of it besides the fact that I had such a crappy seat, I could not see anything. Not even with the f**king binoculars I paid 50p for.
On the fifth day of our trip, I went on the London Eye. It had a view only comparable to the one I got from St Paul’s Cathedral (read 1st post about London).
The Kensington Gardens / Hyde Park was amazingly beautiful…
I then went shopping with a friend onto Oxford Street. I bought an iTunes UK Store gift card for myself and countless souvenirs for others… In between the shopping we went to Starbucks and had a nice coffee. That was my third time ever at Starbucks, you know. I loved the coffee… Well, it was nice and cold… No, it wasn’t cold by accident. And yes, I also had a sandwich there. It was, probably, the best sandwich I’ve ever had in the entire world… *Scratch that.* – it WAS the best thing I’ve ever had in the whole world, ever. Including meals at really fancy restaurants. No, seriously. That sandwich topped everything. And I don’t get the people who complain about the prices there – with that kind of quality of product the price doesn’t matter. I don’t care if it cost £4+ or not. I really don’t care. Hey, I was in London… It’s not like I am there every day, you know.
We then took the Tube back to our crummy hostel. Navigating the Underground is actually quite easy, to be honest.
After that, we decided to go to Starbucks again… But seeing as the local Starbucks at King’s Cross was full, we decided on going to KFC. Which was tiny AND full… We ended up going to the f**king so-called Golden Arches, aka. McDonalds. The food there was horrible, but we didn’t care at the moment as this was the last day of the trip. I returned to the Hostel. On the way there, I went to a small store at the side of the road, which was run by a couple of Hindus. I bought two cokes and an Alcohol-based, yet legal for under-18s soft drink. When I returned to the Hostel, I found out, to my horror, that the Cokes were made in Ukraine. Look, I live in North-Eastern Europe, but Ukraine is scary. First of all, it’s not a part of the EU. Second of all, Chernobyl. Enough said…
I still drank the Cokes, wondering if I was alive the next day… Well, here I am, alive and well. And the Cokes tasted quite well, actually. Better than the local or Estonian ones.
Wow.
Later that evening, some girls came to our room’s door. Nothing really happened, except we went wandering around the hostel, which was once an old courthouse. We found some really creepy places and decided to go back and get a few hours of sleep before leaving at the morning.
Right now, I am sitting on a plane moving away from London, towards Tallinn.
I’m drinking a pepsi and writing this. When I finish writing this, I will start reading Jeremy Clarkson’s “The World According To Clarkson: For Crying Out Loud (Volume 3)”.
11:57 (GMT), Wednesday, 28th of October 2009.
Today, we visited central London. We took the tube there. Firstly, we visited the Globe Theatre. It was amazingly pretty! (Photos & Video coming soon)
We then walked to St Paul’s Cathedral, but didn’t enter the place. Instead, we had dinner a snack. I went to Starbucks. I’ve been to Starbucks once in my life, this time was my second time EVER. I had some small sandwich type of thing to eat and a cream-based Frappuccino coffee, which might have been a mistake.
Soon after, we entered St Paul’s Cathedral. We walked through the whole building. Then, as a shock, I was let known that I had to climb up, to the top of the building. The way there was f*cking long. It was absolutely and completely awful. It was kind of worth it though, because the view was one of a kind. You don’t see that every day. But it was ruined by the weakness in my knees as I am absolutely terrified of heights.
After I returned from there, my legs were so weak, they were shaking and I couldn’t stand up properly. By the time I was down, my feet were killing me! Honestly, I’ve had to walk long distances. But this was a bit too much for me today.
But this wasn’t it! THIS was just the beginning.
We then visited the Tate museum, that’s name reminded me of Catherine Tate, the actress. But the art inside there was sh*t. There was a video-installation which had video from 5 different sources pointed to the screen at once and one had a naked guy beating himself with a plastic bag in a bath. Also, there was a painting, which was mostly red, but had a white stripe at one side, but the work’s title amazed me most: “Adam and Eve.” What the?
Contemporary art? No. Can’t be. If that’s art in today’s world, then today’s world is not a world I would like to live in.
Mona Lisa’s art. Picasso’s creations were art. Those were blobs of ink with no meaning whatsoever with a somewhat meaningful title, sexually explicit and retarded videos projected onto a wall or just plain weird stuff…
We then took the tubes to the Sainsbury’s store closest to our hostel. We bought a pizza for two people, of which half is left to this moment. We walked to our hostel, but got lost. Thanks to my iPhone and it’s built in GPS and OffMaps (offline maps, no internet needed), we soon found our way.
We had an hour to rest, eat and change till we went for a walk in Central London. By the time we were done, I was in such Agony I had to take painkillers. I took two ibuprofens and a paracetamol to stop my stupid feet from hurting way too much. My feet felt fine then… For about 10 minutes or so. Then I returned to agony. And past agony. And way past agony. Until I started shouting at my friends, who were being annoying pricks at the time. We took the tube to Central London, where we walked, walked and walked. It was late in the evening already. Now, everybody’s feet were hurting. We saw buckingham palace, in the dark. F*cking pointless. Hyde park and other parks in the area were creepy.
We took the tube back to the hostel. The ride took long, but at least we could sit down during it. When we got out, half of us were limping and everyone except a few people were walking very slowly.
Now, we are back at our hostel, and soon, probably, getting some sleep.
I wish tomorrow didn’t have this much walking. But I have a feeling my wishes won’t be fulfilled.
I’m in London right now.
I am in a room with two other people. I’m in a cheap hostel. It has wi-fi, but I had to pay for it. £15. The sheets are clean, the bed is somewhat comfortable.
London is f**king huge! No, seriously. HUGE!
When I arrived at Stansted Airport, which was f*cking huge, we went on a bus, which took us right to our hostel.
At the hostel, we immediately went grocery shopping to Sainsbury’s. It was a smaller store, but MY *~love~* was it expensive! £2.50 (~$4.50) for two 2Litre (1/2Gallon) Coca Colas… that’s robbing people! But we really didn’t have an alternative as it was the only thing available in the neighbourhood.
Then we returned, with two minipizzas, four croissants, two 2L cokes and a bread. I cooked one of the mini-pizzas in the small oven… for a minute: it was insanely hot afterwards.
We then returned to our rooms. I went to buy the Wi-Fi access while my mates were taking a shower or something…
First impressions:
London:
Huge, Pretty, Expensive, Glamurous
The Hostel (Clink):
Small rooms, Okay service, Cheap, Nice bed sheets, etc.
The WiFi:
Expensive (£15/week), Average Speed (1Mbit/s up/down), Fast browsing…
Stay tuned for more…
