Tuesday, November 14, 2006
You tell me why there's daylight savings in Finland. Who the hell thought this was needed? What are they saving for anyway? Is it something they do to themselves to sell more booze? Why, when you have the choice, would you consciously choose to have sunset at 2:30 instead of 3:30? It doesn't make one bit of sense to me. Not one.
Perhaps it's obvious...it's the middle of November. The month when a morning blizzard turns into an evening icy death. When, at the same moment it is raining, freezing rain, sleet, snow and regular old rain. When I can walk down the street, directly into the freezing and wet winds and then turn and walk the complete opposite direction, only to have the wind shift along with me just so it can continue blowing that freezing wet crap into my face.
And the funny thing is, no matter how bad November is it's still not worse than March. March really really sucks.
So I've been pretty busy these past few weeks. School, work and life. But this weekend I had a chance to get back to J-town, Joensuu for the Rokumentti film festival - Documentaries & Movies with Rock & other music as a central theme. My job? In a word? Party.
They flew me out there, paid for my hotel, paid for 4 of my meals - at the local haunt, Amarillo, which is not a perk, even though they paid for it. They asked me to host a couple of American filmmakers who made a documentary on the Hardcore punk scene in America in the early 80's, "American Hardcore". It was a well-made and entertaining film. I introduced the guys and after the second showing on Saturday I led an 11 minute Q&A. Other than that, my role was to make sure that the guys enjoyed their stay in my old home town. I think I did a half-decent job. Although in retrospect, I could have done a pretty good job with 50% of the alcohol. But like I said, it was Joensuu, during a festival.
I mentioned to the guys that you can order absinthe at Jokela. I had no intention of drinking it, even though they were both excited to do so, with the sugar burning and everything. So what happens? I have one. Well, let's just say that was an hour into our stay in Joensuu, and let's also just say that I am glad to be back home, to go to the gym, to eat some good food and to only have juice and water for the next several days.
Perhaps it's obvious...it's the middle of November. The month when a morning blizzard turns into an evening icy death. When, at the same moment it is raining, freezing rain, sleet, snow and regular old rain. When I can walk down the street, directly into the freezing and wet winds and then turn and walk the complete opposite direction, only to have the wind shift along with me just so it can continue blowing that freezing wet crap into my face.
And the funny thing is, no matter how bad November is it's still not worse than March. March really really sucks.
So I've been pretty busy these past few weeks. School, work and life. But this weekend I had a chance to get back to J-town, Joensuu for the Rokumentti film festival - Documentaries & Movies with Rock & other music as a central theme. My job? In a word? Party.
They flew me out there, paid for my hotel, paid for 4 of my meals - at the local haunt, Amarillo, which is not a perk, even though they paid for it. They asked me to host a couple of American filmmakers who made a documentary on the Hardcore punk scene in America in the early 80's, "American Hardcore". It was a well-made and entertaining film. I introduced the guys and after the second showing on Saturday I led an 11 minute Q&A. Other than that, my role was to make sure that the guys enjoyed their stay in my old home town. I think I did a half-decent job. Although in retrospect, I could have done a pretty good job with 50% of the alcohol. But like I said, it was Joensuu, during a festival.
I mentioned to the guys that you can order absinthe at Jokela. I had no intention of drinking it, even though they were both excited to do so, with the sugar burning and everything. So what happens? I have one. Well, let's just say that was an hour into our stay in Joensuu, and let's also just say that I am glad to be back home, to go to the gym, to eat some good food and to only have juice and water for the next several days.
// posted by Howard @ 7:51 PM 
