my internet is fixed, my phone is broken, a hard drive may be about to die, my camera lens cap was lost last night whilst drunk (around the same time the phone broke), spring is here complete with a week of amazing weather and sunsets and this and that. long days in work and college are making me tired and despair at my diet (if that makes sense). thats it. oh - babies are being born or about to be born, and a holiday is being planned. hmm. thats about everything.

yesterday i went to the zoo and to the via crucis.

i always seem to forget that shops close over easter… this is a reminder for myself:

on thursday, april 13, shops are allowed to be open between 7 am and 9 pm, and on holysaturday between 7 am and 6 pm as usual. virtually all stores are closed on good friday and easter sunday. on monday, known in finland as “the second day of easter”, shops with floor space of less than 400 square metres may open for four hours between 8 am and 6 pm.

thanks yle news!

i always thought my favourite colour was blue, but i think it may be changing to brown. let see what happens.

my current unwritten todo list is several years long: places to go, books to read, courses to complete, things to tell, files to encode, names to change, clothes to be folded or hung, new jeans to be bought, decisions to be made, emails to be sent, dvds to watch and so on. the future is boundless. but for now i go to bed.

a small figurine plays guitar. an exhibition in the window across from mbar in lasipalatsi in helsinki.

living in an epicentre of mobile telecommunications i am expected (by some of my friends in ireland) to have a super fancy nokia phone (the company is finnish - ergo they must be really cheap here - the same logic that had me on my school tour to holland/amsterdam when i was 13 hoping to buy dozens of blank c90 tapes as philips were a dutch company. flawed logic it turned out to be).

phones arent subsidised here in the same way as back in ireland - something that costs 50euros (phone + contract inclusive) would cost 600€ here (phone). so when i came back last week from a few days away i noticed all these ads full of old bulky brick phones “suomessa on melkeinpä euroopaan vanhimmat puhlimet - siirry nykyaikaan” (in finland, the phones are almost the oldest in europe - come into the present). so the anti subsidising law was withdrawn for (3g) phones from april the 1st. so now there is at last some way of getting a cheap phone.

my current operator, saunalahti (a virtual operator), has these amazing deals - in most cases you get a 3g phone for free - but pay 20euros a month (including 3000minutes a month!!!!). a great offer - but a bit overkill for my needs (i make on average 8 minutes of phone calls a month) - it was tempting though!.

in conclusion, the fizzy cola sweet i got in k citymarket yesterday wasnt too nice. fingers crossed some new packages come onto the market soon that give me a free cool phone and free smses or something.

darren goes to london and takes lots of pictures. here are some

the finnish design year book goes on sale in a few weeks - presale has started here. (its in english apparently)

i finally got around to updating our tour diary with news of last weeks concerts - i added the concert pics to the sigur rós flickr site..