Hervanta Christmas

Gray clouds are hanging over gray sky. Melting ice looks black on gravel sidewalk. Slight moisten breeze gets through my bones right in to my gray heart. It's midday but random street lights are still shining their white cool light to greyness. Gray mist covers black appearing spruces.
Grey concrete against gray sky. Torn piece of beer case is lying in black icy water.
It's Christmas time in Hervanta.

The Made in China thingie

Thing's I've bought recently: a CD-player that can play MP3's, a digital pocket camera, a digital SLR-camera.
What's common with all them? They are made in China. I've payed the premium of mainstrean quality brands: Harman & Kardon, Canon, Pentax.
So what do I get? Stuff that's made in China. There it says in small print in some non constantly visible part of the machine so that you wouldn't notice.
My Canon Powershot A540. Bought it January last year. First camera lasted over weekend. Then the automatic lens cover refused to open every time I switched the power on. So I went to a dealer to complain. The man behind the counter looked amazed and said "Oh no! Can't be. People rarely return Canon cameras." Since the camera was only three days old, they exchanged it to a new one.
I had my memory card and batteries in my old camera. So I removed them and decided to test the new camera on a counter before taking it home. I tucked in the batteries and memory card and switched it on. The automatic lens cover opened halfway and stayed there.
The man behind the counter said "This has never happened before. I'll get you a new camera."
The second camera worked fine, so I took it.
It lasted about a month. I was on a work trip to Brazil when I noticed that my photos had peculiar black shade on the top right and lower left corners: the lens cover refused to open again.
So, I ones again went to the camera shop.
I explained my business and this time a woman behind the counter said:
"Did you have a camera bag?"
No, I did not have a camera bag.
"These cameras should be kept in camera bags. They shouldn't be carried around without one". So I asked "What's the use of pocket camera? Isn't it normal usage to carry a pocket camera in a pocket?"
We argued some time. Womans opinion was that it was my fault that the camera is broken and is not covered with warranty. I felt enraged. After a bitter argument, woman agreed to send my camera to service.
It came back in about two weeks time. It said in the receipt that they had changed the lens cover mechanism under warranty. After the repair, the camera has worked fine (sigh).
Then my CD-player.
I got fed up trying to play music with a DVD-player. Why is it that if you want to play MP3's on a DVD player, it lacks two buttons: "Folder +" and "Folder -"?
I watch my movies through a projector, so I don't want turn that thing on when I play music just to see menus. If the song I'm after is in the middle of the disc, I have to press "track forward" button 200...300 times when I'm playing an MP3 disc.
I bought a portable CD-player from the UK in 2003. It was one of the first ones that was capable of playing MP3's. It cost me about £60. It had only "folder up"button, but it made going through records very easy. In an MP3 disc, songs are usually organizes in folders that one folder contains songs that belong to certain record.
I searched for a DVD player that had these magik buttons but in vain. All of them are capable of MP3's but you cannot use them if you dont turn on the tele.
Then I realized that it was wrong item I'm searching for: CD-players have this feature, but not DVD-players. So I went to a Hi-Fi store and bought myself a Harman&Kardon HD950 cd-player that is capable of playing MP3's. Now it was easy to listen to music.
The salesman said that sound quality is upgraded with a CD-player against DVD-player. I've lived in a believe that CD-player is such a simple thingie that it has no impact on sound quality. Probably because of improvements in signal prosessing, the new CD-player sounded pretty much better than any of my previous players.
I used the player for about a week. Then it started to refuse my records. First the MP3's. I opened and closed the CD-hatch for a few times and then it recognized the record. I thought that it's my discs. But the same discs have been playing in my car properly. If the disc was recognized, it played just fine. So I didn't complain.
Then it kept going worse. It started to refuse even my normal CD's. I had the thing about a month before I decided to complain. I took it to the store that sold it. I told the salesman what it did or didn't do. And said that even if I've paid the premium of Harman&Kardon this thingie is made in China. It says that in the back of the device.
Salesman told me to take to their service shop. So I did. Service man told me that they'll probably have to change the whole disc reading mechanism. I should get it back next week. The thing is still in service so I don't know if it helped.
Then is this Pentax SLR, K10D to be exact, which I bought about the same time as the CD-player. It worked fine for a while but then started to refuse to zoom recorded images. Then it started to give memory card error messages. I took the camera to the store. They decided to give me a new one and send my to the service shop . New camera has worked fine. It probably was just a monday sample...

Is it just me being too precise, am I just having bad luck with me getting all the Monday samples or has the general quality of goods gone down?

Pink Coffin

Today I was out with my wife and daughter. A was a sunny autumn day. Sun was shining. It was quite warm for this time of year. We walked to an outside marketplace. My daughter had cathed a cold and was sleeping in a stroller. I felt hungry and wanted to have something to eat. My wife agreed and said that it would be nice time to eat since baby was asleep. So we chose a trailer that was selling coffee and sandwiches. I bought a small coffee in a paper cup and a cheese sandwich. I chose a table that was out of shadows. I took a newspaper and read it while I sipped my coffee. Sandwich tasted good. It was made of halved white bread, halves coated with butter. It had sliced tomatoes, sliced egg, sliced cucumber and cheese. I took my first bite carelessly and dropped a slice of cheese to the ground. I placed the bread on a paperdish and took the droppings to trashbin.
I was reading a newspaper and my wife read some ladies magazine. We didn't talk much.
The marketplace was located near lake.
I finished reading the paper. I watched seagulls and pigeons making their turns and competing of leftovers. Sun reflexed from old white steel boat that was nowadays used as a restaurant. My wife finished eating. We looked each other. Where to now? It was saturday and we had all the time in the world. We slowly took our trashed to trashbin and prepared to move on. We decided to go to a nearby shopping mall.
My wife was walking a strolled and I walked alongside. We crossed a red bridge. We walked to the shopping mall entrance. I looked around saw a man in pink suite and a hat. To me it looked quite unusual. So we went in the lobby. The man in pink was talking to some younsgsters. And there it was. The pink coffin. Lying peacefully in a middle of saturday full shopping mall. Man was giving leaflets.
My curious rose. I had to find out what is going on.
I approached the man. He had just finished speaking to group of girls in their 20's.
I asked what is the name of the game. He looked at me like "Haven't you seen a man dressed in pink suite standing next to a pink coffin before?"
Now I noticed that the man had a camera in his hands. The man started to speak.
"So we're doing a campaign against smoking. People are asked to lay down in the coffin. I take a photo. We then publish these pictures in the internet."
So that was it? A non-smoking campaign. I had quitted two years ago. It felt an absurd but good idea to lay down in the coffin. I had my own camera with me. So my wife took a picture of me laying peacefully in a pink coffin. It kind of suited me. When I die I want to be placed in a pink coffin. Priest should be dressed in pink. Church should be decorated in pink. Dresscode for guests should be pink. I would be driven in a pink body wagon. Elvis's "Pink Cadillac" would be the song that would be sung when people would lay me down in ground.
Wouldn't that be pink?