"What a feelin'!"

Ihan mieletön kokemus.

Last fall I had the chance to be one of the few to be the back vocals for Helmut Lotti in a Unicef charity concert, perfoming on TV to a full Finlandia-house.

But now I've bested even that, at least on a personal level. As well last fall we were recording back vocals for a new Martti Servo & Napander album, "Sydämen amiraali". Tonight was the album release concert, and we got to be on stage at the legendary and sold out Tavastia klubi. I have no idea how to describe the feelings right now.

We performed "Ufo tarjosi kaakaon" a cappella, and then the new "Luottavaisin mielin" back vocals, and in the end joined Martti and the band for the last Encore, "Viikonloppu".

I wonder if I'm ever going to have a chance to do this again. If you need a bass singer, get in touch! :-P

tavastialla keikalla

Harvoja ovat ne hetket, jolloin olen ollut tavastialla keikalla. Siis esiintyjänä :-)
encorejen vuoro on käsillä, pitää rientää.

Neat gadget

TomTom Go 700

Another departure is the inclusion of a 2.5gb hard disk within the device, previously all maps were held on external SD cards placed in the go's memory slot, now the 700 will ship with full street level maps for the whole of Europe ready to go removing the need to change cards and load maps as you drive between countries.

Sounds nice, and it also functions as a BT handsfree device. I wonder how much it will end up costing, and what the availability really is. There's a nice spot about the right size on my car, and this would be a pretty decent and definitely a welcome gadget. The 500 -model has a more limited map, bound to a region, plus major European roads, and doesn't come with the remote control as standard. But then again, I don't drive too much outside Finland, and the remote might not be really necessary, so the 500 could be good enough if I could afford even that one.

It's a shame that cool gadgets don't cost >5000€ so I wouldn't even have a remote chance, but stuff in the sub-500€ range are too close to be actually affordable, and therefore they are too tempting, but still a bit much most of the time.

Morning Latte routine

My morning lattes are starting to reach consistency, except I'm out of the beans I've been using. Today I made a 50:50 mix with last of the Italian wood roasted beans and reasonably fresh Robert's Coffee Caffe Brutal. I've had some problems tamping the Brutal, it is a much darker roast than the Italian, and I think it needs a finer grind. The only problem is that the Paros grinder is at the current minimum setting, so I guess it's time for maintenance anyways and tightening the grinder a notch. I've ordered a Reg Barber tamper last week, and now I'm thinking of ordering the Silvia steam wand and then try to fit that on Paros, as the built-in turbofrother makes a lot of foam, but no chance of microfoam, and without the turbofrother nozzle sleeve the wand is just too short to reach into the milk.

Above is a photo of today's latte. Please try to ignore the horrible attempt at latte art, the milk was nowhere near microfoam, and the pitcher I have lacks a defined spout for precision pouring anyways. But the taste was pretty good, and the mouth feel was slightly velvety, so must be doing something right. Even I can't expect consistent perfection within 2 weeks of first homemade espresso :-)