I have a confession; I'm addicted to shopping.

I mean, not that girly type shopping, where you just spend 5-7 hours in a mall, going from KappAhl to Nike to FCUK to KappAhl again, and spending $700 on clothes and $8 for half a cup of iced latte.

I mean just the plain take-the-thing-and-go-to-the-checkout type shopping.

I for example have a Canon EOS 400D (starting at $1,079 back then) just collecting dust in the closet; I wanted to become a stock photography marveller. After 2 pictures winter came, and afraid that I'd destroy the camera in the Finnish winter breeze, I gave up. Now I'm eagerly waiting for the summer holidays so I can go out and take some serious photographs, only to find out that I don't have time for it because of my summer job.

I have currently 117 DVDs. I have watched each once or twice, and now they're also collecting dust, stacked in two layers on two shelves, forming a sweet, tight cube of digital entertainment. Too bad the DVD drive in my laptop broke, so I can't watch them. But a sweet wall decoration they are.

I have almost every single The Sims 2 expansion pack ever. Only one I'm missing is H&M, and that's just because I refuse to pay 26 dollars just for an advertisement. Maybe I'll buy it when it gets cheaper after The Sims 3 comes out.

I'm dreaming about buying a cajon. I used to play drums, but my "talents" have faded since. I wouldn't even do anything with one, but I still go regularly drool over at the Schlagwerk website.

I can't help it, but when I have money, I just have to go spend it immediately.

I'm still alive.

I haven't visited Newgrounds for a long time because of my other commitments of upkeeping several wikis at Wikia, playing iSketch and practising my writing.

I haven't posted an animation for a long time. I haven't touched Flash for a century; I have loads of ideas for animations (3), but they are either crappy and boring or beyond my skills of drawing / animating / scripting.

The limitations of Flash MX (which I, yes, still use) also deter me from doing anything; I have 1,001 ways to use the blur effects of Flash C3, and everytime I realize I can't, it makes me want to do less flashes. I wish a millionaire would descend from the clouds and give me Flash C3 Professional. Then I'd be happy for a day or two.

Also, most of my Flash work is purely experimental - to see whether I can pull off that animation or drawing or script. They are not meant for Newgrounds as-is, but maybe later in a further, bigger production.

I haven't posted a music track for a long time. This is because I suck at music and have decided to not poison the Audio Portal anymore than what I have already done before someone gets me Reason 3.0 or similiar: another program I want but don't have the spare money to buy them.

I have decided to instead enjoy the greatness of other people's music. There are certain Audio Portal artists I regularly check for updates - I think you know who you are. Outside of Newgrounds, I mainly listen to Ugress, Shadow Of The Beat, Justice, etc.

But I'm now cooking something that I can probably even finish (it's already 30 hours since I started it and I'm still enthusiastic to do it - this is amazing). It won't be über-great, but hopefully it'll do well. At least it'd be something.

Weird. Audio. You know, the thing from the speakers? Haven't done this in a while.

This was a mix of everything. I made the beats and percussion over them in Reason 3.0 because I try to learn it and it has a superb sample library. Unfortunately, as I'm just a poor student, I don't have money to buy Reason. So I'll have to do with the demo, which only works 20 minutes at a time and without a saving function. Thus, my beatz madness was super-quick.

To get the beats out, I played the beats in Reason, while recording wave output in Audacity. I Audacity, I also spruced up the quality, chopped them into loopable parts and saved in 42 different wav formats in order to accompany the next step.

Fruity Loops Pro vintage 2000 is my holy grail. Not because it would make great music (it doesn't), but mainly because it's easy to use and works forever. This too is a demo version. I can't save editable files on it either, but at least I can save mp3s! Belgium: 1 - Sweden monopoly: 0.

So I added some crazy totally random bleeping and booping samples from the SS instruments folder. Open playlist, and some soft pastel colors all over. Voila.

For the last step, I used Newgrounds Audio Portal. It's free and works perfectly. Kudos for being the only non-demo step on this (except Audacity of course, but it's so de facto it doesn't count).

For final touches, I Googled a random carrots background image, squared it, hued it and scaled it in Photoshop (another not-a-demo, gladly but unknowingly sponsored by my former job).

And now you can listen to this madness right here.

Finally. Something new out.

This took me about 7 hours to make. It's weird, since I usually take about five hours.

I got the idea for it, when I once saw these little numbermen in a book. It churned in the back of my mind for years. I even once tried to start to make it, but my Flash aptitude back then could not allow it.

Then, I saw Jim Carrey's "Number 23", and while I enjoyed the movie, the opening sequence is what clicked. And some similarities can be found between that and Math.

I was very surprised that for all the years Newgrounds has existed in the Internet, there hasn't been a submission called "Math".

Combined all these three up, and I began making Math. 8:35 PM I started out a new flash file, and now (3:29 AM), I'm writing this news post after submitting it. I can't wait to see what people think about it!

...I really have nothing to tell you. Not that anybody really reads this in the first place.

Ah well.

Generally, I relax at vacations. This time I'm more stressed after the vacation than I was before. The hotel was a complete shithole.

1. The Toilet
1.1. The toilet didn't flush at all that well, and it was blocked like thrice a week
1.2. You had to keep the flushing handle down while it flushed, which is a bitch
1.3. The toilet leaked from both ends, so there would always be a concoction of pee and fresh water on the floor
1.4. You need to be quite a rocket scientist to figure out how the shower works
1.5. Lock was broken
1.6. No electric socket

2. The Living room + Kitchen corner
2.1. The sink tap leaked. Brown water.
2.2. There was next to nothing kitchenware, and I needed to buy extra plates and glasses to manage and I would've died if I hadn't brought my pan with me
2.3. Most kitchen functions were under a cupboard
2.3.1. This cupboard was ridiculously low, and I hit my head there twice
2.3.2. It cracked under the heat and superheated the contents
2.4. The fridge melt twice
2.5. The fan made a terrible noise and guess whether I had to sleep underneath it
2.5.1. You couldn't turn it off because of the heat
2.5.2. Getting air conditioning didn't make a difference - AC was only on the other room
2.6. You can bend the bed in half, which is not so convenient while someone like me is sleeping in it

3. The Bedroom
3.1. The beds moved, so you couldn't really leans or even sit on them
3.2. There was a redundant built-in radio and phone - neither worked
3.3. No electric socket too near the mirror.

4. Balcony
4.1. AC outlet made it unbearable - as if it wasn't hot enough there already

Really, I can't keep on shitlisting this hotel anymore - my blood pressure is rising.

I'm leaving tomorrow at inexplicable hours for a vacation at the Mediterranean. They say there's a wireless connection at the rooms and an Internet corner, but I guess I know for sure when I get there. They also say that ISDN is the fastest thing there (which is pretty much the slowest available in Finland), so I'll most likely be playing Dawn Of War there much more than trying to survive slow connections.

I'll have my laptop there, but as it doesn't have Flash on it, no animation progress'll be made. Besides, I'm there to relax. My blood pressure usually rises for various reasons when I'm trying to do stuff with my laptop and with my Flash - I don't want to imagine what's it like when I combine them.

I mentioned Dawn Of War. It's a great game and besides, it's pretty much the only RTS that works on my crappy laptop on some rate. I also totally own the dumb AI players with any race, which is a hell of an ego boost for me. BUT, me liking Dawn Of War does not mean I like Warhammer figurines. I have a few friends who like to collect and play with their Warhammer stuff, and I hold no grudge against them. But I personally couldn't give less about Warhammer or generally any other figurine sets. A big waste of money, time and space, in order to have a few hours of fun while playing with them.

Reminds me of the times when I thought Legos were cool. Except that I could pretty much do anything I wanted with my Lego stuff - Warhammers are just more expensive, you must make them yourself from little tiny pieces (my patience and resistance for frustration ends here), paint them, and only then you can play with them. Nah, not for me. I don't really care if someone else wants to spend money and time on them, but I won't.

Dawn Of War doesn't require me to learn a rule book. Dawn Of War doesn't require math skills to calculate damage. Dawn Of War isn't boring or based on turns (=boring). Dawn Of War doesn't require me to create the 3D models or texture them before using them in my game. Conclusion: Dawn Of War is cool.

Anyways. If there isn't a wireless connection at the hotel (of which I'll make a reclamation, should the case be like that), this'll be my last news post for the following 2 weeks. If there is a wireless, the previous is most likely also true, as I'll be playing Dawn Of War instead. Adios!

Do I listen to grunge music? No. Do I wear grunge clothes? No. Can I still like a grunge-stylished logo on my userpage? Yes!

STFU.

This really came as a shock. There's definately a lot of improvement done, and I really, really love this new outlay. But still, there is stuff to do.

Firstly, why the heck does the "Watch this movie" link flicker on the submission page? It's sinfully annoying! Makes me want to do everything else except click it. Reminds me of an ad of some sort. And I never click ads.

Secondly, why is the audio description still just 90 characters? It's still a big damn joke. It's only fit to put a tinyurl link to a blog post somewhere else where there is a longer description, where the artist can excrete his hurt, artistic soul to his heart's content. Music artists make 60% of what Newgrounds is, why can't Tom let them blather how much they damn well please? 90 characters - that's a disgrace.

Who noticed the changed footer? "newgrounds.com - Your #1 online entertainment community". This starts to taste like conglomerate-to-be. Next you know, "Your #1 online entertainment community(TM)" will be pasted all over the place and there's a neat $99 per year price tag within the registering. I generally hate all "Your number one this and that" advertising schemes. It's mine? Wow, really? Newgrounds is MINE? But... just how many number ones, or favorite assets can I have? If I also own BlackBerry Forums, Oh-hilary.com, Freesoothingmusic.com, Dailymotionepisodes.com, Macwarehouse.co.uk, and what else, how can they all be my favorites, my number ones?

Lastly, the "feature" I don't really like but what I know isn't going to be changed is the variating background color for viewing the flashes. If you use the javascripty miniwindow, it's black, and if you use the pop-up window, it's the Newgrounds teal, only a little darker. I have a couple of flashes that used the illusion of the background color of the window (Round Flash, DIY TV Repair...), and I have nothing against changing them afterwards. But I'm not going to invent some script out of my ass to check whether the viewer is using javascript or pop-ups to figure out the background color. And whatever it is, it should not be black, as the javascript is.

That's all I think so far. Sue me.