Where to put your money

I'm not a huge fan of blindly donating money for any cause. Not because I don't think you should, but because there are a lot, and I do mean A LOT, of organizations of all different shapes and sizes for causes great and small which can make it downright confusing to both find information on how legitimate an organization is far as actually doing any charity and spending the money you give them AND because on occasion, the need to help overrides planning the means to help. That is, you would want to help, but you're not sure how and a bunch of other people also had that same want and lack of how, so they came up with a charity that sounded like it was addressing an issue, but instead ends up creating a situation where the help actually holds back improvement on the problem it's supposed to be helping with.
It happens. Mostly by accident.
And we're easily attracted by methods of helping that involve NOT donating our time directly. I'm not pointing any fingers but let's just say that there are a whole lot of companies that make a big profit out of selling pink consumer goods.

However, sometimes there are organizations that do benefit mostly out of people donating money to them AND wearing lil bracelets to make the cause more known. I got my lil bracelet in the mail today. I've felt unreasonably proud wearing it all day.
Why do I like This Star Wont Go Out foundation? Mostly because it acknowledges how connected we are on a different level to most any other organization I've come across. Our lives are not singularly our own. Our mere existence affects SO many other people on a daily basis without any particular effort and TSWGO foundation was created just for that. You can read more about the organization here and in case you want to donate by getting a bracelet yourself, you can get one here. 100% of the proceeds (minus shipping costs) go directly to the foundation.

And now that you're on a roll doing good with your moneys, you should also check out KIVA. I might have linked to them before, but I'll link here again because they're just the sort of thing that actually helps build a healthy infrastructure without neverending monetary dependency to "wealthy, donating countries". KIVA provides small businesses with community funded microloans. What that means is if you're a person in a poor country and you'd want to set up a business or expand on an existing on, you can apply for a loan through KIVA. The loans are always comparatively small. The loan application goes up on the KIVA website where you, the person who wants to support equal distribution of wealth across the globe, can contribute towards funding their loan. That is, you can lend them money. The operative word being "lend". 98% of all loans made to small businesses and individuals through KIVA are paid back in full. To find out more about KIVA and/or contribute, click here.

And now I have to get back to doodling. Amma write about the Helsinki Night of Arts later.
Oh and apparently we're going to have one more Restaurant Day this year. It might just turn out to be a very good year. :)

This thing is happening here right now. Acorns. Damn trees.

You break it, you will reuse it

I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but I kind of broke our electric kettle. Totally not a big deal in a household of 3 people who all exist on coffee/tea.
Ok, it was a slightly big deal.
But in my defence, the kettle did smell of burning rubber (or "hot fudge" depending on which one of us you're asking) before I actually "broke it" and I broke it trying to wash the insides clean.

I was not aware that the method of cleaning the insides of electric kettles these days involves not touching the inside. My bad.
So instead of just smelling like burnt crude oil products (or hot fudge), it stopped blinking lights and boiling water alltogether.
Today we put the ex-kettle to use.
Behold the Kettle-Vase!




On an unrelated note, today was yet another Helsinki Restaurant Day: a public event sort of thing that anyone can participate in by setting up a booth/small shop on the street and selling food in it. This is at least the second time they've had this event this year. Maybe one more before the weather starts to suck wet testicles? I was instructed to go visit Mesa Criolla-tent for some Latin American foods. So I did.
And it was pretty awesome.

Boys serving goods.


Kidney beans!


Plate of rice, veggies, chicken and beans. And some tamarind juice. Tamarinade?


More of this sort of thing, me thinks.

Cats and hipster lambs

This is my toiletpaper. For real. This is my actual toiletpaper: it has an eyeware sporting hipster lamb on the package and bunch of "ironic" (or inspirational, I haven't yet wiped my behind with it, so I don't really know the full context) text written on the sheets.
I'm at a loss.

And obviously this stupidest marketing ploy of all time is incredibly effective, because I bought the damn toiletpaper.
Woe is me.

On a slightly unrelated note, I wanted to introduce a few hep cats from the shelter I've been volunteering at, to the world.
Afrodita:



Eetu The Big Boned



Kittens 1 through 5



Yes, the kittens are adorable. Unlike the 2 little geographically confused butthole ones I was working with today. They'd managed to unscrew a vent in the wall of their coop and take a dump in it.
How does one do that without opposable thumbs - the screwing, obviously not the dumping - is beyond me.
Pets rawk.

But then I got distracted

I didn't really. Frankly, dealing with the benefits office and their endless cycle of people-I've-never-talked-to-before-but-must-now-explain-my-situation-yet-again-because-nothing-is-moving-in-any-direction has sort of sapped me.
However, that's done now. I'm finally officially getting the benefits I should've been recieving for the past, oh... 5 months? Yeah. That didn't take long. So that's a load off my shoulders.
Alas, once one can of worms closes, another opens.
It's not nearly as bad as that sounds though.
The thing is that after having talked to my student counseling person (who is filled with awesome and a very lovely lady to boot) it seems that I can't study in the schedule I originally planned and I also can't take an open uni route to get a degree in this particular field because it happens to be one of the few degree programs where you can't do that.
I didn't know this. It's not information available in online resources.
What that means is that my original schedule for studying and moving is sort of kaput and I honestly don't know what sort of a schedule I can put together now. The absolute worst case here would be having to live in Finland for an extra year. As pitiful a consequence as that sounds, it might still be over my tolerance. Or it might not. We're pretty much into Autumn here right now and I'm having many mixed feels.
So the word of the day is "confusion".

There aren't many days when I didn't wish there was a button I could push to get to the point where things are happy and functional and stop being irritating and lame and filled with confusion.

On the upside, I do have some Captain America covers all sketched up, as you can see here, the bigger book project I'm setting up with my friend is moving along slowly and it's making me seriously consider if it wouldn't be best to set up my own publishing house to get what I need out of it, and I'm looking at options on how to get the smaller project published. Though to be honest, I haven't done nearly enough reading on any front. Not as far as research goes and not as far as maintaining my brain goes.
READ MORE BOOKS! TURN OFF THE INTERNET! THE INTERNET IS FILLED WITH LAMENESS!! I should know, I put it there.



Oh, couple of things that are pretty awesome: my skin is very much liking switching to mineral products and I've been very busy hanging out with friends, who manage to prove every single time that I just have the best ones in the world. And we visited the Wintergarden. I've never been there. It was puuuurdy. And had this statue.

Captain America and feminine hygiene products

The Redraw Captain America Covers From 1996 project is on it's way and the first redraw is posted at that other blog. Not going to lie; I did run into bit of trouble with an idea I had for using classical paintings as reference simply on account of not being skilled enough and trying to draw with a broken mouse. Oh well... you hit a bump, you reroute. All of the covers I'll be redrawing can be seen here.
Yes, most of them are originally by Rob Liefeld. No, that's not a coincidence.

Besides that, this is what I found out today: you can purchase feminine hygiene products with green tea in them.



I don't even know.
Green tea is awesome, but I'm still thinking that I don't want to rub it on my privates all day long.  Maybe it's those magical rejuvinating properties? Your vagina can be as smooth as a baby's after just a month of regular use!
Ok, that's sort of ick.
I don't think I want to think about this any further.

Though I do have to say that the panic most female hygiene product manufacturers want to create over our vaginas and the things that happen to them and in them, is sort of endearingly entertaining.
Srsly, you don't need to rub green tea or vitamin E on your vag, it's not going to make it more magical or less bleedy. Not unles you have a fungal infection. And I'd really recommend using an actual medicine for those as opposed to menstrual pads. Just saying.