People Use Stairs

Liisa is sneaky. For a really long time she was very calm and relaxed. She could spend a long time playing on her own and I only had to talk with her from distance so she would let me cook or drink my coffee or do what I usually do around here. Now it turns out she was just preparing me for her real plans. Less than two weeks ago, during two consecutive days, she learned to both crawl forward and to sit on the floor unaided. Now her movement patterns have changed a lot. When I put her down, she pulls herself up to a sitting position, I turn my back to walk toward the kitchen and off she goes, straight toward the corner of the carpet  ("Tasty-looking. Must chew, must have a taste!"). I run and catch her before she takes a bite and pick her up and put her back in the middle of the floor. She sits up to find a good next target. I turn around and she's already speeding toward the glass table to play with a table wheel ("Oh, I bet I could jam my little fingers right here..."). I go and put her back in the middle of the room and a moment later she darts off toward the music system wires so I rush to put her back in the middle of the floor. After about 10 times she finally starts crying and pouting as if to say, "You never let me do anyyyythiiing fun!".

I'm such a masochist sometimes: I went back to school to get my driver's licence. We went with Erkki and we'll try to do it at the same time, so we'll both be newbie drivers together. I'm really anxious about it all. OH MY GOD, THEY WILL MAKE ME DRIVE A CAR!!!!   I'm trying not to over-think it and I shouldn't have to worry that much because this time I picked the school much more carefully. I have only had one theory lesson so far and most of the time I was trying not to think about actually driving because otherwise my heart skipped a beat. I'm pretty sure that when I'm actually driving, my body will have to find a way to get over the fear, otherwise my head would explode. Faced with a choice between relaxing and my head exploding, my brain will probably choose the first option.

I think I'm too sensitive to adrenaline. I get really shaky when I'm startled, like some easily-scared old lady. Differently from old ladies, I appear to be an adrenaline junkie at the same time. Why else would I go back to driving school. I get shaky when I'm in a high place (e.g. glass elevator on a high floor) and I find it exhilarating and fun.  Most people love roller coasters for the same reason, and for me it takes much less stimulus to become very shaken. Giving a university lecture was truly scary, to be honest, but I never seriously considered declining the opportunity. Most of the time it's exhausting to be shaken very easily and to have so much adrenaline, but I wouldn't want it to keep me from living a full life. Perhaps that's why I often do things that I find really scary*. I find driving REALLY scary and I'm going back without anyone forcing my hand. I mean scary in the sense that even thinking about it threatens to give me a slight headache. Perhaps the sane thing to do would be to never drive again, but sanity is over-rated. Being able to achieve something that seems impossible when you start has much more value for me.

*Except getting friendly with spiders! NEVER! Keep 'em away from me.  Nasty horrible icky eight-legged monsters.

Everyday things keep me so busy that I barely notice that I get out so rarely. I usually use Erkki's help to go to the dentist or to the doctor with only one kid but that doesn't count. Going out with the kids doesn't count either because it offers me no sense of freedom.  I do go out with them when the weather is nice. All that "fresh air" (urban slang for pollution, dust and allergens) is great for children - prepares their immune system for life. Even going to a grocery store is like an event. It's usually not worth the effort to go to the store myself so I regularly just tell Erkki what I need. It's also not worth the stress to go to a restaurant with two small kids so I look up recipes to get some variety. Erkki has managed to make the perfect steak for us recently. As we found out, all the cooking websites that discuss it, say that a well done steak is inedible and a complete waste of perfectly good meat. We put it to the test and left the meat much more pink and it was incredible! Absolutely deliciously amazing, dark pink, almost red on the inside. I hadn't had a decent steak in a restaurant so it was the best steak in my life. But I was talking about not going out so often anymore. Erkki told me that restaurants in Tartu don't offer steak that good and I totally believe him. So I don't mind staying in. I feel comfortable here and I'm definitely too busy to get bored.

Siiri is mastering long sentences. I hadn't really thought about it, but each sentence type has to be learned individually. "Mommy doesn't know, whether she wants it or not.". "This looks orange, but actually is pink". There is no logic behind such specific sentence structure. There's only experience and lots and lots of practice. It's been a while since she started saying simple long sentences "Apple is red and pear is green". Recognizing the second part of the sentence as the opposite is trickier. "It's almost bed-time, but Siiri doesn't want to go to sleep". Now that Siiri is becoming much better at expressing herself, she is more able to explain her thoughts.

Siiri really makes little difference between reality and fiction. She has a vivid imagination and when she explains events or plans, sometimes her plans turn into obvious wishful thinking. Like a couple of days ago - we were having a wonderful discussion about wings. I explained to her that wings are essential for flying "...Butterflies have wings and that's how why they are able to fly. Birds also have wings and are able fly. But people - do people have wings?". She said, "Yes, we do".  I said, " No, people don't have wings. Angels and faeries look like people, but they have wings. They can fly. People don't have wings. But can people fly?". Siiri said, "Yes, we can!". I said, "No, people can't really fly without a plane, or a helicopter, at least not outside the dreams. See that sewing machine on a really high shelf, barely below the ceiling. If I wanted to reach it, could I fly there?". She said, "Yes!". I said, "No, I would have to get a chair and climb higher to reach it." She said, "Mommy will get a chair and Siiri will climb higher and higher and higher (pointing at her planned route) and I will reach and get the sewing machine." Although I never brought her the chair and even I couldn't climb there like that, it was very clear that she was convinced that she could. I said, "It's too high. You'd need a stairway to get up there.". She said (while gesticulating and pointing), "Lets go to the playground and lets get the stairs off of the slide and then put the stairs here and then I can climb up-up-up and then get the sewing machine!". Nice plan!

Liisa is just as gadget-crazy as the rest of her family and she likes anything that she can chew. I try my best to make sure that she doesn't combine her two interests. Her biggest wish in life (besides her mommy close by) is to taste my phone. Whenever I set my HTC Desire (big colorful screen) down anywhere near her she goes ecstatic, trying to get her hands on it without any delay. Siiri's favourite toy is still iPad and she often uses it when we're not in the same room. In the morning Siiri wakes up long before we do and then plays with iPad. She does tend to watch too many cartoons early in the morning, so I tell her to do "something else" after I have woken up. She sometimes draws or plays toddler games. It's oddly pleasant to notice when girls like boyish things. Siiri loves big machinery like tractors and other heavy farm machinery and heavy construction machinery. She knows all the cranes that were used on one construction site nearby ("And then they took the small blue-and-red crane away and then there was big yellow crane again"). One time we stood on a sidewalk (holding hands) for 10-15 minutes just so Siiri could stare at a crane. At that moment I felt really proud that she was so obviously girly with her bright pink winter jacket and so obviously happy just staring at a small yellow crane across the street. 

Greedy Dictatorship

I'm bothered by ACTA. It is ridiculous that there can be any law (or international treaty) that can be forced on people against their will. It would make sense if we had a dictator. Or maybe it shows that democracy is just an illusion. Democracy should motivate politicians to always pick the most popular option, so they could get re-elected. In reality it's not like that at all. I'm starting to think that a democratic country is not ruled by the people - it's ruled by money! Money and the rich people. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against rich people. They earn their money with an unusual skill set or personality and there is nothing wrong with that. The dream of being rich is a great motivator for people and often people who don't need to worry about paying their pills are the ones who have time to see the bigger picture and help improve the society.

But some rich people are greedy and evil.  There are greedy and evil people among people of all social backgrounds but people with very limited resources can do less harm. For example, I feel very uncomfortable with banks making ridiculous amounts of profit while poverty becomes more and more widespread. Some of that money should have been invested back in the society. I also hate monopoly and how it influences prices. Similar to monopoly, I hate it when all the biggest companies make an agreement to sell some product type for an outrageous price. It basically what Hollywood movie companies have done. They have decided that it costs about $10 to see a movie and about $20-$30 to own a copy. It's way too much, considering the low level of quality they offer. And now people have no say in this. Sure we can watch an indie movie in stead... Wait a minute, those cost about as much money. How about local movies? Those cost EVEN MORE! I haven't seen any Estonian movies from the last 10 years because I'm not willing to pay $30 for an obscure low-budget movie.

Actually I'm being silly. I don't even KNOW most of the Estonian movies because it's irrelevant knowledge. I don't have access to the movies anyway and there's no point in simply checking up what different Estonian actors do to earn their wages. If I can't see the movie, I couldn't care less.  The few times I've seen new Estonian films being sold in the movie store, they cost at least as much as the newest most expensive multi-million dollar Hollywood movies.

As far as Hollywood companies care, I don't have access to their movies either. I can't go the the cinema because it's not worth leaving the 6-month-old exclusively breastfeeding Liisa to someone else to look after. Liisa is great when she's when me, but she's difficult with everyone else. When I get home, she giggles non-stop for at least 5 minutes. It's especially remarkable because of the contrast: Liisa giggles joyfully while Erkki is so exhausted from carrying her around the apartment for the entire time that I was gone. I know Liisa gives other people a hard time when I'm not at home so I wouldn't want to leave home for 3-4 hours just to see a movie that probably sucks anyway.

Movies are shown for only a couple of weeks in the cinema and that's only if the movie even reaches my home town. A few years ago there were only a handful (2-4 at a time) of movies being shown. Now it's actually 11 different movies in the big cinema! That's actually pretty good. At least it's a good start for people who can go to the cinema (unlike me). It doesn't help anyone who wants to see "Groundhog Day (1993)" or "Shawshank Redemption (1994)", but it's a good start. I'm sure there are millions of people worldwide who would love to see those old movies. Some of those people would even pay to see those movies. Physical real-life movie stores are limited with actual space (rooms, heating and shelves), so it would be impossible to sell all the movies ever made in a real store. Too bad it isn't possible to make a virtual shop where the space is unlimited   ... Oh wait. It IS possible. Just some people never bothered to do it. At least not here.

Some people are just so damn greedy, they are willing to turn away money!  There is no legal way to see most movies. Hollywood knows that old movies aren't really worth much so there's not much profit in selling them. Thus the only option for people to see old movies is to download them illegally. I have no problem with piracy as such. (OH MY GOD, Lock up the door, Lawyers are coming to get me!!!)  There aren't even any "lost profits" to calculate if the product wasn't being sold anyway. It's not morally wrong to WATCH A MOVIE! In my opinion, it's borderline immoral to watch a downloaded movie while it's still being shown in the cinema, even if you think it will probably suck. I mean, if you're in such a hurry to see it, consider supporting the makers of the movie by seeing it in the cinema. The problem is that only the most popular old movies are available even for pirates and even those often have bad file quality.

Why it's even an issue is that a lot of excellent culture is being lost and forgotten forever. Hollywood companies have decided that they never want anyone to see their movies ever again. Not only do they make their old movies unavailable for viewing, they actually go around prosecuting anyone who makes them available. The analogy would be when a writer grows tired of his earlier works and tells his manager to stop selling his earlier books.  And then goes insane and starts going around burning down book stores that might still have a copy of his book.

And the sad part is that there is nothing we can do. Downloading movies and music is a bigger crime than killing someone because it's not people who influence politicians and laws. Laws are being written and lobbied by rich people who are too greedy to see the big picture.

Pirate Party, if you're ever created in Estonia as well, you have my vote.

Other news: I found Mickey!  I actually found the mysteriously hidden stuffed toy! It was well hidden in Siiri's room, in a cupboard where we keep leftover diapers. I had looked there, but obviously not well enough. Siiri was overjoyed, as was I. Several days later she still sometimes happily announces, "Mommy found Mickey!". It's her favorite toy again and she often sleeps with Mickey by her side.

Siiri has gotten even better at that sleep thing. Usually the final step is for me to lie by her side until she dozes off. A year ago I would have sworn I would never do that, "Nearly 3 year old has to be old enough to fall asleep by herself!". Now I know that it's simply the fastest way to get her asleep and as such, it's well worth the effort. I only lie there about 10-15 minutes, browsing the Internet (I love my HTC!  ), and shush Siiri when she does or says anything that would make her less sleepy. Really, counting sheep or even just counting numbers doesn't help anyone fall asleep if they count out loud!

Liisa is growing fast. She's now 6 months old and 7,8 kg and 68 cm. She's very social and very calm. The best part: she lets me sleep! Liisa goes to sleep about the same time as Siiri, then wakes up when I go to sleep and want to eat and then falls asleep and sleeps until the morning. Her morning can sometimes begin at 7 a.m., but usually it's around 8:30, which I can live with. I haven't written much about Liisa, but the truth is, she's perfect.  I don't have any problems with her crying or breastfeeding. She is doing well and she's really cute. She has now learned to stretch her toes to her mouth and her socks are often damp from being chewed on. She's showing signs of teething, but no teeth are visible and she it doesn't wake her up at night. She had two vaccine shots a couple of days ago and now has a slight fever. Once it's gone down, I'll start with solids. Then Siiri will have a problem: she's afraid of noisy machines. Over all, life is good.

The Mystery of Mickey

Kids are nice. Their world is completely different from the grown-up world. Liisa (now 5.5 months) shows it by being obsessed with things to taste. When I put her down, she quickly turns to her stomach, looks around and goes for the closest thing that she could put in her mouth. Usually it's one of her chew-toys but it can be anything from a pillow corner to a paper tissue. Siiri is still very much amused when she tells me, "Liisa tried to eat my pajama pants.", even though it happened a couple of weeks ago.

Liisa has grown a lot. A couple of days ago she learned how to crawl!  She crawls backwards and doesn't quite realize she's doing it but she moved half a meter or even more in minutes. That means I have to be careful with letting her sleep in the large bed while I'm not there to notice her wake up and crawl towards the edge. Liisa is a delightful baby. She's very cheerful and smiles a lot. She lights up whenever Siiri pays attention to her and she loves seeing Erkki after a long workday. It's odd - I didn't think she would perceive the time Erkki is away but she is especially happy to see Erkki when she hasn't seen him all day. I'm not jealous of the smiles Siiri and Erkki get because Liisa is the cutest when we're alone. She tells me long stories (gooo-gaaaaaaa..brrrrr...ghhhhh) and I repeat what she says and she is so happy that we're communicating. I don't remember if I used as much baby-talk with Siiri. I know I sometimes mirrored her sounds because she always had a positive reaction to it, but I think I enjoy it even more with Liisa. With Siiri I felt silly making odd sounds and I was afraid it would lead to me being a silly baby-talking mother. ("awww looky at cuuute doggy woof"  ). There will be a time when we forbid dumb baby-talk around Liisa as well, but it will be months before she actually starts learning words so I can baby-talk all I want.

Around 4 months of age, babies start noticing the world around them. I suspect their eyesight improves a lot very quickly, but they also learn to analyze their surroundings better. That's the time when many babies have trouble breastfeeding or sleeping because they're just too distracted. Fortunately Liisa is a very easy baby to breastfeed. She eats quickly and fusses very little. Unfortunately, falling asleep got a lot more difficult in the last month. I really wanted to avoid one major mistake that we did with Siiri - cradling the baby to sleep. It was okay when Siiri was very tiny but it was horrible for my back when she weighed 9+ kg and had several naps each day. I refused to cradle Liisa (except when she was already over-tired and very sad) because I know where it will lead. I was so sure I don't want to cradle and sent Erkki to Google for alternatives while I was with the sleepy baby. He returned looking quite grim. "Internet proposes two solutions: either cradle them to sleep or let them cry until they fall asleep". That's very bad!  I tried to intuitively find a third solutions and I did: when I lie next to Liisa, she is very vivacious and playful and tries to engage me in a conversation... and then falls asleep. I don't know how it works because she doesn't seem to get any sleepier but right now it seems like a good solution. I get to browse the Internet on my HTC Desire while I wait for Liisa to suddenly magically fall asleep.

Siiri's world is quite different. A couple of days ago I woke up to the sound of Siiri running around the apartment saying, "Mickey, Mickey,Mickey, where are you? I'm going to find you. Where are you hiding?". It would be great if she found Mickey because Mickey is completely lost! We live in an apartment so it can't be that easy to make a 10-15 cm stuffed toy disappear without a trace. Siiri looked for it, Erkki looked for it, I looked for it. I checked under every closet, I took a flashlight to check behind the closets, under the beds, in all the drawers, behind the curtains, etc. I looked everywhere! It wasn't even such a big deal - Siiri has other toys that are also her favorites - but I was sure I would find it if I looked in the right place. Usually Siiri hides everything under her bed. She hoards hair clips and small toys beside her pillow and some of them  fall under the bed. Once every two weeks a cleaning lady comes and helps us (I absolutely hate washing the floors). The last time she found 8 hair clips, 3 hair bands, 4 tiny dinosaurs and a tiny angel figurine under Siiri's bed. No Mickey: of course I knew that because I had checked already. I have no idea where Mickey is. Siiri sometimes plays hide and seek with Mickey even though the game is quite one-sided.

Siiri is very smart. She loves to learn new things and absorbs information from anywhere. At her age (2.9 years), she's supposed to be able to count to three. She counts to twenty! And she counts to 12 in English. She can also translate the numbers directly, "There are six pens, "six" (in English)" so it's not just a sequence of words that she memorized. She knows all the colors, and some of them also in English. She can read all the letters and some symbols (e.g. +, ?, !) and can write some of them although she doesn't yet understand how letters make words. She's supposed to be able to draw a simple circle. She knows most shapes and can draw circles, triangles, squares, sphere (identical to the circle, so I have to ask which one she drew) and today she made a (slightly crooked) parallelogram (Estonian rööpkülik). "Mommy, look, I made a parallelogram".    I can't help but think that her fondness for numbers and geometrical shapes will lead to good mathematical skills. She just really loves numbers. If she ever gets an imaginative friend, it will probably be "three".

I didn't really tutor her to know all that stuff. We played with letter cards a long time ago, and she learned English while watching videos on YouTube. There are some rather harmless "educational" videos targeted to English-speaking toddlers that she watches while I'm asleep or busy with Liisa. Siiri also has an amazing memory and a really vivid imagination. Just last week she was telling me how when it is summer, we will go to the beach: Mommy, Daddy, Liisa, Siiri together, we'll apply sunscreen, play by the water with lots of toys, Siiri will have a bikini, etc. Her story was full of details that she remembered from the summer but it also included Liisa, which is nice.

Siiri has been falling asleep a bit better now.  Lately I expect her to fall asleep in 30-90 minutes. It sometimes takes longer but overall we have so much more time during the day, she's better rested, wakes up less during the night and is more enjoyable to be around. I'm supposed to be better rested as well, but both me and Erkki have been really sleepy lately. It's a comfortable kind of sleepiness. Lately all soft surfaces just seem so much softer and exercising feels like too much effort.

During the global ACTA protest day, I went to the protest in Tartu town hall square. It was freezing but well worth it. Estonians just suck at protesting. I was hoping to yell protest slogans with the people (over 1000 people were there) but the most activity was when we bounced up and down. I also gave a signature against ACTA on the Estonian petition (~7400 people) and the Avaaz letter to EU Parliament (~2.5 million people). I've done all I could do. Now I can just sit back and wait for either the next wave of protests in the summer or for the treaty to crumble and disappear.

By the way, recipe recommendation. I forgot to tell Erkki to bring more fresh yeast and eggs so I can't bake anything with a yeast dough. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to. So I found a recipe that used up most of the almost-too-ripe bananas and the last egg in the refrigerator and was easy enough to have Siiri join me in the baking process.

Banana bread (simplyrecipes.com)

Ingredients with European units (and sugar amount adjusted to European normal sweetness, 50% of original)

3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
80 g butter, melted
100 g sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda (I used 1.5 tsp of baking powder in stead)
Pinch of salt
190 g of all-purpose flour (I used 9,8% protein flour, no. 405)

Smashed bananas, added melted butter, then beat the egg and added sugar and vanilla, then in third bowl mixed flour and baking powder and salt. Combined ingredients, poured in a buttered bread pan and baked at 175 C for 1 hour.

Really little effort and super delicious. Next time I'll add chocolate chips and a shot of espresso/Kahlua like the comments suggest.

Time Wasted

Today it has taken nearly 5 hours (and counting) to get Siiri to fall asleep. Two and a half hours before her nap and nearly the same time before her night sleep. It is so annoying. Like truly annoying to the point that I'm ready to lock her in her room and just ignore her when she's supposed to sleep and then unlock the door when she's supposed to be awake. We can't do that but I'm allowed to dream, aren't I? 

Siiri's nap kept happening later and later until it was usual for her to still be awake at 3 p.m. That's the time when most kids her age have already woken up from their nap. It didn't make sense to even start putting her to sleep before 1:30 p.m. and the one and a half hours waste was all in the daily plan. Then sometimes she kept resisting sleep until 4 or even 4:30, so for a while we didn't even try anything until 2 p.m. Then she fell asleep even later and woke up a couple of hours before her evening bed time. That didn't work either so we put her to sleep earlier again. It seemed that no matter what we do, it takes 1.5-2.5 hours for her to fall asleep. Now we're trying something different - for a couple of days now, we have set her sleeping times to the recommended 12 a.m. and 7 p.m.. That's 3-4 hours earlier than she's used to.

The bed-time routine is great and I really don't see why it doesn't work. I start by getting into pajamas. Then I wash her teeth. Then she gets to select two stories or fairy tales from her books. If she selects really short stories, I usually read a third short story. That takes about 20-30 minutes. Every other day Erkki does that, but it's deliberately identical. Sometimes she wants to play with a snow globe while I'm reading, but usually she tends to wander around the room and comment what I'm reading. Sometimes I get her to stay put and lie in bed, but that doesn't make any difference so I don't enforce it much. When stories have been read, she lies down, I tuck her in and we wave good-night. The routine is the same for both nap and night time sleep. And then 3 minutes later Siiri is jumping on her bed. I order her to lie down. 2 minutes later she wanders away from her room, I order her back in her room.   Then she spends 10 minutes talking and playing with her stuffed toys.  I treat this as "at least she's in bed", but then she gets bored with that and walks out again. And that goes on for a couple of hours until I get irritated and short-tempered and whenever she even makes a beep, I don't even bother going to her, but I just yell from another room, "Siiri, back to bed, right now!". And then eventually she is so sleepy that she just crashes in her bed, because that's where she happens to be.

So why is it so bad if she spends such a long time falling asleep. I could just, you know, get used to it and not have a problem with it. Well, it's not that simple.  When it's sleeping time, we don't play or eat. I don't teach her anything, she doesn't practice drawing or play with Play-Doh. It's pointless wasted time. It's my life (or Erkki's) and Siiri's just ticking away completely uselessly. I don't get to concentrate on anything because every 5-10 minutes I get to order Siiri back to bed. (I guess now you see the potential usefulness of getting a lock for her door, except there's no bathroom there.). When I'm in the other room putting Liisa to sleep, Siiri takes advantage of the situation and wanders around and then starts playing with the volume of her voice: shrieking softer and louder. When I was cutting Liisa's hair while Liisa was asleep, Siiri came out and casually woke up Liisa with pointless talk. That was one time I was really pissed off and didn't want to talk with Siiri for a couple of hours. I totally see the enjoyment I would get from physical punishment. I really have a cruel streak in me.   Some parts of my childhood have taught me to be cruel because to me it seemed that everyone else is cruel too. That's not completely true but I do still have to work on my temper. Physical punishment would be a bitter sweet revenge for not going to sleep at the right time: but that sounds way too mean for any good parent, so I won't do that.

I don't have any plan. Currently it seems that Siiri falls asleep when I am already cranky and on the verge of losing my temper, so perhaps I should start this way.  Brillint idea, eh? So when I read her the fairy tales and say good night, I can add, "and don't you dare getting out of bed, or I will hide all your toys and you won't see them until you wake up. And if you get out of bed again, I start throwing them out the window. One. By. One." Or I could take a devil's mask that I could buy in some carnival store and put it on and not take it off until after she falls asleep, so that she could be too scared to come out of her room, and while I wear it I could be really mean and angry. Or I could do it easier and "accidentally" start watching horror movies after her bedtime, so that when she wanders out of her room, she happens to see them and won't ever dare to come out of her room at bedtime ever again. (Except when she starts having nightmares and runs out of her room screaming...  ) I don't know. All of it sounds like a good idea at the moment. Anything sounds better than 5 and a half hours (yes, that's how long it finally took) wasted during an otherwise perfect Sunday. Half of that time Erkki was the active party, the other half I was the active party, not none of that time we could spend together, just watching something together or having a meaningful conversation. Today Liisa was in a foul mood as well, so even browsing the net was not easy. I didn't find any useful information how to improve nap times. It seems like we've already tried everything.

Any ideas?

PS! Liisa is doing really well. She learned to turn to her stomach before she was 4 months old and now she turns on her stomach whenever possible. She does't interfere with Siiri's daily schedule much and sometimes she's even helpful in getting Siiri to fall asleep. Siiri is still much more likely to wake up Liisa than the other way around (ratio about 4:1).

Even Greedier Bastards

After my last post about Internet piracy I discussed the topic with Erkki and I also kept reading about it. I found out some things worth sharing.

It is possible to buy games online through Steam. Well, actually I knew that before but I don't use it myself (I only play games on Xbox lately) and I forgot all about it. With all the criticism I have about how the world works and how piracy is caused by the lack of fast, simple and affordable supply, I should have mentioned Steam so I will correct it right now.

Steam is an online game platform. You log in as a user and you can download and play a very wide variety of games. What they get right: Their wide selection of old games easily completes with what pirates have to offer and, even better, they sell all the well-marketed new games. This allows even the people living in nearly abandoned countryside to legally purchase games that would definitely be found in the local store. Now piracy is no longer the only option for them (aside from not playing at all or ordering a physical copy and praying it gets delivered intact). There is one thing that they do perfectly: they let people pre-download games and when it's finally the release date of the downloaded game, people get the codes to start playing it. Excellent. Ingenious!    they have understood that people can't wait so and that their servers would be overloaded during the release day of major games if everyone started downloading at the same time. But... (of course there is a 'but') ...they might be the greediest bastards of all. 

Steam sells the new games for the full price. They do occasionally sell games with huge discounts but the normal prices are just what you'd expect from a new game: €30-€60. "What's wrong with that?  ", you might wonder. Sure you don't get a physical disc or a manual, but that affects the price very little and who needs those anyway. What's wrong is that you buy the game only after you sign a contract that the games will only be for PERSONAL use. That does not include a wife and a couple of kids. If you let your wife/husband play with your account, you're actually breaking the agreement.  I don't know how that is even possible because such user agreements just can't be above marital law. What's mine is Erkki's and vice versa. Sure, it doesn't apply to all things, for example I have no right to modify or delete Erkki's Facebook account or to even view his e-mail accounts but the games he buys on Steam are just as much bought with my money. If it's really possible to sign an agreement that makes those games belong to only him, then why do people even bother signing prenuptial agreement before they get married. One of the partners could just sign separate agreements so that all the best things he buys only belong to him/her.

Actually, I realized there are things like membership fees which only belong to the person who signs the contract. If the husband joins a country club that has huge membership fees, it still doesn't make the wife a half-member. Same with gym membership cards. I have no idea what would happen to a World of Warcraft account during a divorce if the non-player spouse wanted half of it. There was some case where a woman deleted her husband's WoW account and was fined, so I guess the account is worth something. But maybe Steam is selling something completely obscure, like the right to play a game. However I think about it, I'm sure Steam found a legal loophole which justifies the "personal only" agreement, but never in a million years would I believe that they actually thought couples will buy two copies of each game that they both like. Or 4 copies if their kids also like the game. So basically they set up a system that guarantees that there will be people all over the world violating the Steam agreement.  That means Steam sows as much morally bad Internet behavior as the overpriced game industry in general. Or in other words, they re-define what to consider immoral: is it immoral to break a end user agreement? What if it's a stupid and unfair agreement?

Also, Steam games or accounts can't be sold (agreement violation), which makes the games relatively even more expensive. In Europe that's not such a big issue but in USA there are stores that actually buy back the used games and sell used games for (I would guess) a reasonable price.

Another beef I have with Steam is the regional pricing and availability of games. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, for example, costs €49.99 in Europe, €46.14 in USA, and €41.92 in UK. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is even worse, costing €49.99, €23.06, or €35.93, respectively. The EXACT SAME GAME. Just as much data is moved across the Internet, except some people have the privileged to pay more for a game they can't re-sell or let their spouse play. And it gets even worse. Erkki bought and pre-loaded Skyrim  on Steam. When it was the release date, he came home, eager to start playing, except there was a surprise. At the last moment, after his purchase, the game had been changed to "unavailable" in some parts of Europle, including Estonia and several other countries. And presumably it was all fair because Estonia is some weird country anyway, where people live in mud huts and walk around in waist-deep mud in extreme poverty.   Why would they want to play games anyway...

I'm not against Steam as such. I think it's a great start. If they enable family accounts and combine the regions, then it would all be great. And if they keep experimenting with game pricing (cool information about pricing experiments), maybe games will end up being affordable to average people and gaming piracy will become something that only poor people do.

Damn I took so many words to describe all the subtle ways how Steam secretly sucks. But there is another thing I wanted to discuss: Estonian Authors' Society, EAS (Eesti Autorite ühing, EAÜ). Most countries have similar organizations that work towards ensuring that artists get the profit they deserve and people don't break copyright laws. The idea behind it is very noble and I give them my respect for making sure that people who sing professionally actually get paid for what they produce. As you can guess, I wouldn't mention them only to praise their cause. In stead, I'm mentioning to bash their means. EAS collects money from all the digital songs (8-12%, with a set minimum fee for a song), they collect money from TV-channels and TV broadcasters (for showing channels with copyright material, they collect money from all the empty CDs sold in the store because they COULD end up having copyrighted material on them (8%), they collect 5% every time a painting is sold, they collect money from concert organizers, night clubs, restaurants with background music, etc. Basically, they get their dirty little nails behind every cent they can hoard to themselves. In the year 2008, they collected over 70 000 000 EEK.

And now it gets tricky - they only pay out  fees to registered members for registered works of art and only for the member's contribution in that work of art. A song is 50% music and 50% words, so if the singer didn't write the ENTIRE song, they won't get the entire money for it. And even if he did, he still had to pay 25% that was already removed  "for representing the author's rights". EAS has some partner organizations abroad as well, so they pay some money to them as well, for the authors that are registered with them, but there is still a lot of authors who are "being represented" but don't receive the money that EAS has collected on their behalf. Even the artists who are supposed to be paid, often have to contact the organization to get the money, otherwise it will go unnoticed. For that reason, in 2008, EAS distributed only 26 000 000 EEK to it's members. 

I would call that robbery - they take from everyone and only make it seem like they are giving it to the people who deserve it. Their website has listed several people who owe them money, including for Anne Veski's solo concerts and a child protection day event in a park. I wish I was making it up. They're like the ultimate bad guy, taxing a person's own solo concert and robbing money from child protection day events. They should just rename their organization Musical Artists For Indulgence Association. 

This "helpful" organization sets a minimum price for all songs sold online, increasing the price and thus encouraging piracy. One online music store in Estonia just went bankrupt because they couldn't pay those fees. EAS started asking for 12% which was too much for the store. It would be less tragic if Microsoft music store Zune were being distributed to Estonia, but they're not. EAS is also famous for having videos removed from Youtube. That includes any video that looks slightly dubious and they don't check if any copyright laws really were broken. One guy found that his own video of him singing his own song was removed by EAS "just in case". It was in the news recently. EAS also inhibits any fringe cultural events that don't make much profit but have to pay to EAS. If you've been to a place called Genialistide klubi in Tartu, you might not have noticed that it's a "night club".  At least that's how it's being taxed by EAS.

I hope it gave you something new to think about.

Also, almost forgot. There are no movie rentals in the 100 000 people town I live in. I guess everyone buys the movies in the mall (selection is mostly made up of 3-10 year old movies that no one ever wanted to buy) or rents one of the 77 movies in Elion digital rental (if they're Elion clients). Or they just watch movies on TV, because they know that commercial breaks are for their own good, so they can be up to date with products sold in stores.

Greedy Bastards

I live in a mythical country. We have ancient forests and beautiful maidens. We have medieval city walls and castles. And most importantly, sometimes our country exists and sometimes it doesn't.  The ignorant people involved with entertainment industry usually can't see us but the modern all-knowing oracle, the Internet, knows we're here in need of entertainment. Thus our fairy tale features a lot of pirates.

I read Cracked.com very often. It has humorous articles about everything from women clothing to zombie apocalypse. One of the writers there (can't remember which one) condemned Internet piracy, saying it only made sense when he was young and entertainment cost too much and wasn't even always available for all people. I was confused - how is that different from our current situation? Music records are ridiculously expensive and a nuisance to buy. I would literally have to WALK TO THE STORE  to buy an expensive music record with only a couple of songs that I actually like and if the CD gets scratched, I get to throw it away. That is so ridiculous. I would really have to hate money and have no respect for my time to do that. Buying CDs is so damn ridiculous that downloading a few songs or even playlists full of thousands of songs with a few easy clicks doesn't even count as piracy in our society anymore. So when I talk about piracy, why even mention music at all, right? Besides, I could just legally listen to free random music on Pandora.

Or not. Pandora website:

Dear Pandora Visitor,

We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.

We believe that you are in Estonia (your IP address appears to be 80.235.58.120). If you believe we have made a mistake, we apologize and ask that you please email us.

Oh go to hell. Licencing is like the evil spell that makes us not exist.  Come on! Estonia has real people who might want to listen to music too. Ah, to hell with it. I'll just download something later.* (*added later: Just kidding! I'm too lazy to even download music because I'd have to actually know the artists that are worth downloading. I might find them on Pandora, except... Never mind. Music is overrated anyway)

The situation is worse with movies. It's not really possible to stay up to date with the movie industry by only watching movies after buying them. Movies are really expensive and it takes so long for movies to be released in mythical countries. Me and Erkki are really fond of watching movies and for a while we had a weird delusion that we want to support the movie industry by actually buying movies every once in a while. About 10% of movies (that we watched) we saw in the cinema, 30-40% we bought and the rest of them we saw by other means. After a few of years we had possibly over a hundred movie DVDs. We had nothing to do with them because it's tedious to watch something old when we barely have the time to watch all the cool new things. We eventually gave most of the movies away and the rest of them are collecting dust and taking up space. It's stupid really - we have all those movies what could fit on a regular hard drive. And we can't even use a "search button" to find the right movie. We have to BROWSE AND FIND the right DVD and actually OPEN THE BOX and INSERT THE DISC.  Are you kidding me? What year is it - 1992?! 

Besides, the price. Oh my god, what price they ask for it. Most people have really crappy TV-sets and even worse sound systems (if any at all). And even with good quality technology, most people live in apartment buildings so they can't turn up the sound. Now can you imagine that the DVD version of Inception costs 13 euros? For such a price you can buy one movie that everyone has already seen, and are already forgetting. For a standard family of 4, that would be a good deal because going to the cinema once would cost about as much money and then you couldn't watch it over and over again. Except it would be on your crappy TV set with that crappy sound system in that thin-walled apartment. Another aspect of entertainment prices: what's your entertainment budget for a month? For most people 35 euros for a month of gym membership is too much. How would they ever manage to watch more than 2 movies in a month if they also want to listen to legal music of their own choice.

And the stupidest thing of all - the reason why the movie industry should just do a huge face palm at their own horrible idea - DVD regions!  Some of the movies sold in Estonia aren't even meant for our region. One Estonian guy told a story how he used to be completely legal in terms of Internet piracy (sucker!). One day he bought a cartoon DVD for his kid but when he got home and tried to play it, he found out it was meant for Australian region instead or somewhere similarly far away. He hadn't cracked open his DVD player regions, and I think that would have been illegal anyway, even though everyone does that. He was furious and called some official line to complain and ask for advice. As it turns out, the store did nothing wrong, there are no grounds for getting a refund, it would still be illegal for him to download the same movie and he should have bought an Australian disc only if he had a plan on traveling to Australia to watch it. That was the day he turned to piracy for justice. 

Movie industry just doesn't get it. The entire world is paying for those blockbusters so it's just horribly unfair to treat some countries worse and give us the movies much later. Also, if there is any statistics out there saying that movies make more money in US than in the rest of the worlds then DUH! That's because the rest of the world decided they won't take that crap and just went and saw the movie for free. The movie Inception premiered in UK, was released in USA on 13 July 2010, already on 23 of July in Estonia and then finally on 1st of September in China and 24th September in Italy. So, they they expect Italians to just wait around for all that time to actually see the movie? And people who enjoy watching films in their own home had to wait until 7th of September for the DVD to be released. In the modern age, that translates to AN ETERNITY! Enjoy your regional favoritism, movie industry and don't worry about the common people - the Internet offers an alternative.

The movie industry bitches and moans about lost profit while they still think its possible to screw people over with regions and delayed release of movies. If you're assholes enough to say: "you have to wait three weeks to see the movie just because you live in Estonia and you have to wait even longer if you want to watch it in your living room" then people in the world will simply find an alternative. People can't wait. The proof is the existence of screener copies of movies. There are plenty of people out there who would watch a low quality version that has been filmed with a hand camera by someone with shaky hands in stead of waiting a couple of months for a good copy of the film. The world is too fast paced and global for the current system of movie release dates.

Don't even get me started on programs that cost more for the European market than they do for the USA market and come with a price tag close to minimum wage or much more. Between the choices of not using the ridiculously expensive programs at all or using freeware crap, the market found a third option, which unfortunately isn't legal. I once tried to find out how much I would have to pay to use Photoshop at home.

From Adobe forums:

Hi,

could someone from Adobe give me a real answer to this question?

Photoshop CS5 is 999$ in the US but....1434Euros in France!

If I use the current change rate, it should be something like 735 euros!!!

So, why do you simply multiply the price by 2?

(And please, don't tell me that the shipping in France and the translation of the manual cost 700 euros)

Thanks

JM

Good going Adobe.  Nice of you to make sure no one actually buys your program for their home computer and to guarantee that there will always be pirated copies available online. I don't use photoshop very often so I would pay 10 euros for Adobe Photoshop if I could download it in from a fast server and get some extra benefits (like removing ads that could be included on the FREE version that you yourself upload - so, what do you think?  ). I would not pay the ridiculous money it costs now. It costs so much that piracy seems to be the assumed way of using the program at home. Besides, it's truly inconvenient to actually download and install the official Adobe program, as I know from workplace experience. As long as the legal option is infinitely more tedious, piracy isn't going anywhere.

E-books.  That's possibly the issue that justifies piracy more than anything else. The translated, hardcover copy of Dan Brown's "Digital Fortress" costs 14.19 €. That makes sense. The original language hardcover copy is 12.11 € (calculated with Google currency conversion). Translating and transporting books is very expensive. Paying only 2 extra euros for translation and transportation is a bargain. Printing a hardcover book is also expensive, especially a book with 408 pages. One online printing company says that the price of printing hardcover books is $8.50 per unit + $0.02 per page, which is 16.66 € for a 408 page book. I guess Chinese sweatshops do it for much less, but nothing can explain why the e-book of translated Digital fortress costs 12.14€!!! Absolutely nothing except for evil greedy manages who are laughing their evil greedy laughter in their Bad Guy castles that are surrounded by moats full of hungry piranhas. 

So basically what I'm saying is that piracy is so mainstream only because the entertainment industry (and some greedy companies) have made so many bad choices and now there is no turning back. There would have been some piracy no matter what they did, but in their attempt to squeeze more and more money out of regular people, they have made piracy the widespread norm that it is today. Those regular people actually like to eat and pay electricity pills and can't seem to find leprechauns  to give them pots full of gold. There is one way to stop piracy - no it's not ACTA or PIPA or SOPA. The solution is for the entertainment industry to stop living in fairy tales and realize that they live in the real world where all countries have access to the Internet and people do not have unlimited money and time that they are dying to give away to support greedy bastards. 

PS! I have officially lost 18 kg (4 months and 1 week) and I'm now back in the pre-pregnancy weight. For a long time it was 18ish kg (0,3-0,6 over the goal) but today the scale was my friend. I am very happy about it!