Tickets released before time

A good way to obtain tickets to venues, concerts and happenings has been the Ticket office.

The good thing is, that you can either shop on line or call them direct and get the tickets you want for just what you want. Or so it at least has been.

Since I moved to Finland more and more of the big world famous artist have found their way here playing concerts, making the supply more varied and better available to the commoner, as you do not have to travel abroad to neighbouring countries.

Now the tickets to the most wanted concerts are sold out in a short time, like in the case of a famous, or rather infamous, rock band, with a number one hit on the Finnish top-ten list with an x-rated video. They are coming to Finland next year, and the tickets to their concert were sold out in only 6 minutes. Here I must sadly add, that the tickets seem to have obtainable at the Ticket office before the time they were supposedly to be released, at least according to the rumours.

Anyway, this band will only consider this as good press, as they are very good at bending the media in their purposes. Guess their motto might, perhaps, be: "Any press is good press".

Who knows, maybe we are lucky enough to look forward to a second concert.

Finnish Grammy

The Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen was awarded the Grammy the other day.

He shared it with the best classical solo performer, the American Hilary Hahn. This is the third time a Finn has been awarded with a Grammy, the two previous ones went to the Finnish opera singer Karita Mattila in 1997 and 2003.

But this all of course depends on your point fo view, the music pieces in question on this album were composed by the Finn Sibelius and the Austrian Schönberg who emigrated to the US in the 30's. So in a way it is also an Austrian Grammy, is it not? And the orchestra conducted was the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, so in a way it is a Swedish Grammy as well?

This all depends on your point of view, and the reason I just love statistics, you can twist the same number5s over and over again without telling any lies.

Punk rocks

Some prejudices seem to become mellower by time.

Finally, the cult punk band the Sex Pistols got to hold their concert in Helsinki last Saturday. Last time they were scheduled in Helsinki for a concert in 1978, but it got postponed by three decades as the band was forbidden entry to the country. This as a result of protests from child protection and youth agencies as the Sex Pistols back then was considered as bad influence to the Finnish youth together with the band splitting up for a period of time.

This was the Sex Pistol’s third appearance in the country, and maybe there are not as many fans dressed up in the proper punk manner as in the good old days, as most of them must be at least my age, and many things change in time, and three decades is a loong time.

Ah, sweet youth of mine, brings back memories.

Culture and arts

The knowledge about Finland and Finnish culture will be boosted in France during the coming weeks with cultural change.

Currently the French cultural week in gong on here in Finland with different activities especially in the capital area and in the Helsinki.

Finland is sending some 200 performing and creating artist to exhibit and perform in around France in order to make Finland better known and to introduce some Finnish culture as it is quite unknown at present in France. The Nordic countries seem to be more known in a bunch rather than as unique countries. Thrilling would be to hear what the French really think of Finnish culture as for example the choir Huutajat, the shouters, are normally experienced a bit frightening.

In the mean time the Finnish National Opera of Helsinki has been ruled to pay fines of 10.000 Euros for without authorization having renewed the choreography of the French ballet Giselle. The original choreography is still unknown as it has been lost during the years and there is no one alive to tell anyway.

Singing in the snow

Finland had it’s final in the out take for their representative to the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday.

The winners by far were the heavy metal band called Teräsbetoni, which in English would be “steel concrete” and they will be representing Finland in the contest in Belgrade, Serbia this May.

This means that Finland will give heavy rock music another shot this year, with the hosting of the contest last year after Lordi’s victory and having the first Finnish Idol winner representing in between with something not quite as heavy. Maybe the song contest is too lame, but hey it is called song contest and traditionally the songs have been quite boring and mellow, at least to my own personal taste. Maybe the future of this competition lies with in rock instead of folk music, ballads and songs.

I have been wondering about how the song contest will work out in reality in Serbia as the neighbouring country Kosovo just recently declared its’ independence as former part of the country and Serbia has not acknowledged it as they consider Kosovo as a part of their country, as one of their counties. Many of the countries partaking in the Eurovision song contest have already acknowledged the independence of Serbia and I wonder how this will affect the general atmosphere on site. But there still is some time for things to either calm down, or flame up fully.

Anyway, the southern part of this beautiful country of Finland is today experiencing yet another day of snow chaos, the record for snow set this winter this morning by 10 cms, the former being just 8 cms. The snow fall has meant a lot of snow shuffling on car parks and brushing off cars early this morning for all using them to get to work. On the 22^nd of February it was the warmest day with a record high 8,5 degrees Celsius measured in the month of February over a ten year period. So the winter really doesn’t know which way to go this year as the temperature is falling once again.

Horror movies

The hard rock band Lordi, that also won the Eurovision contest in the year 2006, has now moved on to making horror movies. A Finnish horror movie, unique in its’ kind as there is a fairly small market for horror movies here in Finland, the movie is ready made in English for a more international market had its’ premiere yesterday.

The monster rockers of Lordi are fitted into the story just as they are, monsters that are just there to scare you.

The bands promotion videos have already been in that genre and the identities of the band members are still not publicly known. Strangely enough the general idea seems to be that the band was formed just before the Eurovision contest which is absolutely not true as the band apparently has been kicking and alive for a decade already.

Finally the water situation is getting back to normal in the city of Nokia as the municipal water now has been tested negative for any further contamination and the city council is to discuss when and how to get back to normal tap water usage by next week.

In the same small town of Nokia also alleged serial killings were discovered last year. A nurse was been accused of inducing deaths of three with insulin and attempted to kill two more people in the same way. Now as it seems to be impossible to prove the origin of the insulin in the dead bodies, as there is no laboratory in the world that can determine whether the insulin was natural or where it originated from so there might be a miss trial in the case.

I have been quite curious about the reason why she has killed these people, if she wanted to help and they were mercy killings or what. Guess we’ll never know.

It’s a secret

I was having lunch with one of my girl friends the other day and all of a sudden her mobile phone rang, which is not that unusual in itself but her answering it while we were having a nice lunch and an even better discussion of our respective spouses not to mention all about our offspring’s’ latest explorations into real life and relationships.

As the sounds on her mobile had been turned up loud enough for me to hear the caller’s voice and as I thought I recognized the voice on the phone I made a joke about it being Brad Pitt as she put her phone down on the table. And my funny remark fell limply on the table to continue straight for the floor as my friend me that it really was him and I was totally flabbergasted. I could not believe my ears; she had been on the phone with one of the most recognized men in the whole world!

My friend told me that she had known Brad Pitt since their early childhood and as such had forgotten to mention about it to me, as he is just Brad for her and always has been. Well, I am no big fan of Brad Pitt anyway, I would much have preferred it to have been Sean Connery for whom I have had a soft spot since my early teenage, and anyway, to tell you the truth it was not really Brad Pitt, but it was someone just as famous as Brad Pitt, and he is not a film star but a world famous rock star instead and as I am not at liberty to tell you who it really was it will have to stay a secret.

At least until the day I run into him which was the reason for the call in the first place, that this childhood friend of my friend’s is coming here to Finland, and of course incognito to everyone’s great disappointment so no one will know except the few chosen ones to meet him in real life.

Anyway, Cow & chicken, my favourite cartoon is back for me to enjoy and I am very lucky to be the only one in the household to like the show so I am always left alone at 2 PM to watch it which is a nice change now with the Xmas vacations on and full house with offspring to my daily nuisance. I have for a long time been wondering about the minds of these people who come up with these ideas for various cartoons such as Cow & chicken or even South Park which I am not that great a fan for. Making the cartoons for years and years and always coming up with fresh, new ideas for the shows, the crazier the merrier.

And talking about TV, I always thought MTV was a music channel but to my big surprise there was a movie on one of the Xmas holidays, My Sweet sixteen. I have never understood why there are the reality shows on MTV either, but then I do not understand reality TV anyway. At least in my youth there was music, even though they tended to be the same songs over and over again, the times played determined by how much the artist in question apparently had paid to get on air, it all resulting in the same unequal distribution of good music and great artists or bad performers and hideous songs.

Even the personal choice lists of songs on MTV made by viewers themselves must have been chosen in the same manner, keeping in mind that is paying the big bucks, the record companies of course. And to let you in on a big secret, you have certainly been seeing this rock star; that I am about to meet some day in the near future, many, many times lately, both on MTV and the Finnish channels as his band has just released a new album.

Nightwish blazing

It now seems like a good time changing subjects from water to fire.

Nightwish is one of the brighter stars on the Finnish musical sky, and yesterday they made a sparkling if not blazing performance having had time to perform only three of their songs in Jyväskylä Paviljonki before the concert place was on fire.

The place had caught a smaller fire in the roof constructions and the whole audience of 6000 people had to be evacuated to take precautions against anyone getting hurt in the incident. The evacuation took place all quietly with no panic struck among the audience, and after the fire brigade had secured and put out the fire the concert continued.

Anyway, the whole family now has been bit to small little tincy wincy tooth bites be our newest family member, our little precious baby girl with still no proper name. Getting a bit weary at being a biting toy for a kitten I went to the pet shop for some advice, as it is over a decade ago our older gentleman was in the same age being all over the place and I have forgotten about how to go on about it all.

The advice for our tooth marks was to get some reindeer bones for our little baby to chew on and advice fell in good earth, that is the biting has not ceased all completely, odd bites on your toes when hurrying past you jumping over the furniture in order to get into the book shelf still occur, but they happen more seldom as earlier yesterday. Jumping up and down the bookshelf was taken care of also by tucking the lower shelves full with books leaving no room for her to push herself through behind the books.

I at least do recall some of the tricks our mister did when young running wild, but the offspring and dear spouse of mine has more difficulties into realizing that this little cute kitten has sharp teeth and they are tired on you just given the chance. Thank God for the cats to grow up a bit faster than the offspring otherwise I would also be going bonkers soon. She’ll be in her teens by spring and after that it will be easing down, at it least it should do it.

As it is now, our potty training has been a bit difficult, that is to get her to sit still in the potty long enough for me to take a photo of her.

Mildewy Opera Festival

Olavinlinna castle in the town of Savonlinna in eastern Finland near the Russian border, holds the Savonlinna Opera festival every summer but next summer the festival might be at stake.

The Finnish Board of Antiques has detected a mildew problem in the castle, which would be hazardous to professional singers’ voices, and the wall behind the main stage is at risk of crumbling down. The castle is estimated to need repairs for at least half a million euros in order to be able to host the next festival and the works need to begin earliest possible in the beginning of next year. The half a million euros is half the cost of what annually is reserved to maintain 400 most important historical buildings in all of Finland so it still remains to be revealed who will finance the needed restoration works. The Savonlinna Opera festival has been held on and off since 1912 and concurrently in the month of July since 1967 almost as long as I am old.

Anyway, the weather has been lovely even though it has been a bit colder than before but that is winter arriving. They still have not been able to go ice fishing yet, my dear husband and his colleague, but they have been handy shopping some Xmas presents in advance to my great relief and satisfaction.

First snow

I have been following the career of the rock band Nightwish with great interest as they were among the first Finnish rock bands to become world famous. With MTV it has been made easy and I an especially fond of their latest promotion video for their song Amaranth. In the video there is a living replica of one well known Finnish painting, the wounded angel and I think this is a nice way to honour your own heritage.

The Wounded angel painting was first painted 1903 by artist Hugo Simberg and is today to be seen at the Ateneum Art museum, the Finnish national Gallery in Helsinki. The painting has also been repainted as a mural in the Tampere Cathedral with small variations in order to replace the painting to the vicinity of the city.

Anyway, two not so fun events took place today. And that is never fun in one single day.

I do not consider visiting the dentist as fun, at least not when having cavities to fill and even worse is when you have to remove and old filling in order to replace it with a new one and having to tell your optician you need new glasses to replace the ones you were given last week is not an easy thing to do. Well this time it all went with less difficulties than I had anticipated, the optician was just amazed at the ability of my eyes to lie, to adjust to their uttermost resulting in a renewed prescription. But the dental work done was then harder to cope with, the work was done swiftly enough but the after pains have been agonizing despite heavy painkillers and have kept me up all night.

And today the first snow for this winter is expected to fall upon southern Finland, which is much earlier than it has used to be during my years here. At least it will only be a swift encounter as the ground still is fairly warm and the weather is expected to turn a bit warmer again.

And strikes are expected in many industrial areas, the food workers union is planning an action around the country to protest against something, and the nurses in the university hospitals around the country are considering whether to hand in their resignation en masse or what they will do and I am beginning to review my thoughts about the Finns not being as strike prone as in some other European countries.

Finland rocks!

Finnish rock music is doing well at the moment on the rock-singles list in the UK this week.

The band HIM is on 1st place with their song “The Kiss of Dawn” from their album “Sire” closely followed by Nightwish on 2^nd place with their song “Amaranth” from their album Nuclear Blast. Nightwish also has a placement further down on the same list on 18^th place with their song “Nemo” from the same album. I wonder if that ever had happened before, two Finnish rock bands on the top of the rocks.

I can’t say either of them is a favourite of mine, they are as good as I listen to their songs when played on the radio but it is nice to see that Nightwish is doing so well as they just got a new lead vocalist and that always changes the sound of a band.

Also Finnish film is doing well, they might be a bit off stream compared to Hollywood but the Finnish film director Aleksi Salmenperä has just been nominated for the Academy Award, an Oscar nomination for next year in the 79^th Academy Awards for the his film, “Miehen työ”, A mans work. Guess this is not the first time a Finnish film has been nominated, nor a Finnish film director getting nominated and at least one Finnish producer has actually won an Oscar, but according to my knowledge some Finnish film directors have refused to take part in the Academy Awards out different political issues during the years and then gone on winning awards at other Film festivals like the annual Cannes Film Festival that has been around almost as long as the Oscars.

World record in karaoke

World record in continuously singing karaoke was on Tuesday night done karaoke singer in a bar in Kouvola Finland. They broke the previous record from China of 145 hours late Tuesday night and The Karaoke Club of Kouvola is still going strong keeping on going until Sunday if only possible having clocked 240 hours singing!

I sure hope they sing better than some contenders in song contests but guess here it is a mere question of voicing out words aloud and not the quality or standards of the singing that counts, as it is the length of the performance that is at stake here.

What more can I say, this is definitively the country of odd world records and world championships.

Anyway, most of today has been spent once again choosing the photos that have turned out well and discarding the bad ones from my harddrive, quite convenient to do that when you have the time, just chuck them in your PC and leaving them be until time and not having to develop anything right away before the film gets bad or something. Weather has been nice so it is a bit shame to waste the good weather but you can not stand more sun than you can support and I think I have had my share for the time being.

What is Goth?!?

Patriotism and nationalism are two different things and I always thought they were the same thing.

According to Wikipedia; Patriotism denotes positive and supportive attitudes to a 'fatherland' (Latin patria < Greek patris), by individuals and groups. Nationalism is a term that refers to a doctrine or political movement that holds that a nation—usually defined in terms of ethnicity or culture—has the right to constitute an independent or autonomous political community based on a shared history and common destiny. So how does this work with adopted children from other countries and cultures, having got the culture but not the ethnicity, you can still be a patriot and fight for the country you live in, but can you be nationalistic then?

Another thing I have been busy thinking about lately is this Goth thing. All these whitish, pale people dressed with dyed black hair dressing only black. Okay, so here it goes, my question, has anyone ever seen any coloured Goths?!?

As Goths seem to be about a way of living, and is not necessarily about listening to the same music. It is not a political idea as the punks were in their days, is Goth only all about looks or what makes you a Goth?

Can you be a Goth if you do not have the right colour of skin?

It is strange how people are stuck ion their daily routines. Like when waking up in the morning before going to work, you just have your autopilot on, do the same things every morning in the same order and changing the order always makes you forget something. I always blog in the morning, best done before midday but when out of some stupid reason I have to be elsewhere before I have blogged for the day, well then I run out of ideas as my routines are disturbed and blogging at some other time during the day instead of the morning makes me feel awkward.

7-7-7

Today is the most popular date to get married this summer in Finland.

In Tampere alone all churches are fully booked and about 50 more couples today are getting married than any other day this year with the Midsummer being traditionally the most popular day for weddings. The numbers 7-7-7 seems to be the reason. I just wonder why, the only thing I come to think of is that it might be an easy date for the future anniversaries for the spouses to remember.

Also the Live Earth concert is today, 7-7-7 the movement for a climate in crisis to improve people’s awareness about environmental issues all over the world. To make people more aware of what can be done to slow down the global warming and maybe the concert will help in making a change. The Live Earth concerts are held in 9 different cities in different parts of the world beginning in Australia early this morning Finnish time and the only free concert is in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. The concerts will be make an awful lot of carbon oxide and other waste so I just hope it will be worth it in the end.

The former vice-president of the United States Mr Al Gore is patron of the concerts and he seems to have become a huge cult figure after the release of his film, An Inconvenient Truth. I found the film quite shocking to watch as it made sense. Well, guess someone’s has to tell the truth even if it an inconvenient one or one you do not wish to hear.

Aerosmith is performing a concert in Helsinki today; it is 10 years now since their previous visit here in Finland. Having a concert 7-7-7 the show should have begun at 7 too, well guess you can’t have it all.

Those guys have been going strong for so many years now, how old does it make you feel if a band that has been around since the stone ages and that happens to be for almost as many years as you are old yourself?!?

Nice change

From now on you have to declare your money if you are taking more than 10.000 Euros outside the EU. This is done to prevent the laundering of money and you are to declare sums over the allowed amount at the customs and taking a sum bigger than the allowed one may result in fines.

Well I guess that will not be my case, point me to the nearest book shop with a sale on and I will happily spend all money left, and stay home all summer reading a book and having a nice glass of wine and maybe some cheese. And it is a nice change from yesterday’s turmoil, nice and quiet and no off-spring or spouse in sight. Just me, home alone with the cats and my new books in a stack waiting to be read.

Shouting out loud

Nightwish has got themselves a new vocalist, Swedish Anette Olzon, and if I am not completely wrong they have already recorded a new single which is to be released shortly. Well, a band is never the same after any members are replaced but it will be interesting to hear their new sound, if they have completely changed it or tried to get a singer with a similar voice. Apparently the new Nigthwish singer was chosen among 2000 applicants.

Anyway, they say sisterhood and brotherhood is a fine thing, well I wonder about that. I think having siblings is over-evaluated. When you were growing up you competed of the attention of your parents, you fought with your siblings about trivialities every single day, at least it now seems you did. Growing up to adolescents you had all the boyfriends and girlfriends and being adults the thing gets even more complicated with husbands and wives, their respective in-laws, your own nephews and nieces who are the cousins of your own off-spring involved in it.

The thing is, the day need your relatives they never seem to be there for you, maybe I am the culprit here but I do honestly not always get what it was I should have done, or what I did do I should have not done. I always get the feeling I have done something wrong, and at hard times you are supposed to be there for each other.

There is a Finnish male choir, “Huutajat”, which would be translated into “Shouters” and they act according to their name, they shout. The choir has made quite a big name for themselves, both in Finland and abroad as being an exotic addition to traditional singing choirs. Last summer they had these workshops with women also being able to join for sessions and just shout out aloud. I just feel like joining them now and then.

By the way, which shrink originally invented the term the primordial scream?

Life in a nut shell

The Finnish Supreme court asked the Finnish customs authorities to adjust the taxes they impose on imported used cars The taxes have so far been valued too high according the ruling form the Supreme court and new guidelines will be needed. This will be good for anyone purchasing their car from abroad from now on, as cars are quite expensive here in Finland, but also for them who have already done so as they get an opportunity to appeal to the customs authorities about the taxes they have had to pay.

The weekend was busy at the Senate’s square in Helsinki with big audiences of tens of thousands watching the Eurovision song contest on Saturday and the ice-hockey world championships final between Canada and Finland on Sunday from giant TV-screens. Must be one reason why Mother’s day was so subdued for many.

I did get some flowers in the end yesterday but we all the missed eating out at a restaurant as off-spring did not arrive at home at time agreed but 2 ½ hours later instead.

Well that is life for the moment in a nut shell. People talk about how difficult babies are as, well wait until they are adolescents and want to keep their own mind no matter what the consequences may be. And having a couple of teenagers at the same time really is a strain as you have to keep up with whom has done what and when. I mean, it is not fair to accuse the wrong one of what the other is to be blamed about. So disobedience and disagreements are the daily routine for the moment. The parents who have survived and stayed sane after their adolescents grew up to be proper people say they are quite nice now, especially the ones who have had children.

Being a grandparent must be grand, just lending the baby for some time and when it begins screaming handing it over to the parent at hand. Well, I have to survive teenage hell first. So I have something to look forward to, one day, eventually and it might be just what is needed to keep me sane and going.

Mother’s Day again

Serbia won the European songcontest yesterday. Once again there was no way to foresay the future but Serbia was one of the favourites to win.

Quite funny actually, I happened to watch TV when the Serbian contestant Marija was interviewed one morning and she told that she had been told to bring the Eurovision there next year. Must be quite an experience to do it whenyou were told to win. Guess the song will not be a good song to sing along to as some other previous winners but it sounds like a typical Eurovision song as they used to be years ago.

There were more estern European countries than ever participating this year with most of them seemed to be in the finals yesterday. The Eurovision final was broadcasted all over Europe and Finland's biggest media event ever so far and this probably is good advertising for Finland.

And today is Mother’s day. Husband went off fishing early in the morning and no off-spring in sight. No breakfast in bed, no flowers to mummy so it must be just an ordinary day. I was thinking of going to a restaurant to eat dinner today, but as no one in sight or has shown any signs of life yet…maybe I’ll just treat myself to a nice sandwich.

Salmiakki-chocolate

The pre-shows of the semi-finals with audience of the Eurovision were held yesterday and the real semi-finals will be held between 28 countries competing to get to the finals on to be held on Saturday.

As always you never can tell who will win, it had always been impossible to predict the winner. But I can understand that Lordi won last year, they were the only ones with their clothes on and doing “Kiss”, disguising themselves to keep their privacy. Which I think is brilliant!

Well this year, according to the glimpses I have seen of the contestants, a lot of them are wearing clothes but I guess the most different and standing out number is the Ukrainian one. Maybe they will win?

The Finnish entrant is played too much on the radio and TV commercials so I am getting pretty bored with it, I am sorry to say. And talking about music, first Robbie Williams did his “Bee-Gees” and now Justin Timberlake is also sounding as he has got his b*lls in a vice. Just wonder why?!? Both have got real nice voices, why howl?

And now to something completely different; in the last two years or so various strange concoctions with chocolate apart from fruit and nuts have appeared in the supermarkets here in Finland.

There is one variety of chocolate with the mint-chocolate candies called “Marianne” crushed in it, and you can now also get McFlurry at McDonalds with Marianne crushed in it. Then there came the chocolate with Daim, or Dime as it sometimes is spelled in some countries, crushed in it and you could also get a McFlurry with it crushed in it. I am not sure if this still applies, about the McFlurry I mean.

I guess almost everybody knows what liquorice is but maybe you are not familiar with Salmiakki if you have not visited the Nordic countries and tasted it.

I am not sure how to explain it to you but I guess salty liquorice is the closest I can get describing how it tastes. So now they mixed Salmiakki with chocolate. I have not yet tasted it, have not dared to but my off-spring has, the one who has been experimenting with what goes in porridge in the morning, even though my kitchen has been left in peace from porridge cooking for a while. Anyway, the whole chocolate bars was eaten but not with pleasure and the comments were not favourable for it so I guess it must have been more the off-spring’s sweet-tooth that was aching.

That there are more than one ice-cream with Salmiakki and it is not as bad a combination I think, as long as the ice-cream is not too sweet. I kind of like it, but tasting this Salmiakki chocolate needs to be considered carefully. Hey, I’ve tasted stranger things than that and the Vodka spiced with Salmiakki is not bad at all! Actually it is dangerous stuff as you loose count of how much you drink as it does not taste Vodka at all.

And as it nowadays is completely okay for celebrities to publicly confess certain forms of addictions in the tabloids such as being a chocoholic for instance I am sure there must be Salmiakkiholics too!

Who will be the first celebrity to confess to this addiction?

Or has someone already done that ?

Demeaning or not?

According to the statistics the treatment of obese people in Finland cost hundreds of millions of euros.

Well in the rest of Europe the Germans are the most obese according to the facts presented with the British on the second place, maybe a couple of hundred euros is not so bad compared as there are more people and thus more obese in both countries.

I wonder about the new programme featured in the mornings, the Eurovision morning comb or whatever it was called. A Finnish guy talking in fake broken english many words inbetween in Finnish. If you are not fluent in Finnish you do not get it at all. As a foreigner I do not get the fun of it, maybe my sense of humour is wrong .

But do really the Finns themselves see the fun in it?!?

Is this how the general public in Finland want to make themselves known to the rest of the world, in this case most of Europe as this is to enhance the knowledge of foreigners visiting Finland for the Eurovision songcontest?

I think that is demeaning, but hey, that’s only my opinion.

Anyway, the weather is beautiful and the sun is shining so maybe there are better things to do today than to blog.