10 months in the making....

Well as you guess from the title tonight I am celebrating the completion of The Unity Project. Dunno what that is? Well it's a project the website has done for Tuomas's 35th. Took us 10 months to complete it but huzzah! It was stressful at one point and didn't think we would finish on time. But with 1 week till I go give it to Tuomas we got there. There is a few little bits to finish, but next to nothing.

So far great feedback but apart from Pip Williams no one else will get to take a look at it until Tuomas does. Decided not even to show Troy in case of drunkenness in Helsinki and giving the game away, also decided not to email Kirsti it either. Plamen was originally going to show her but got too busy, perhaps I speak to her when return or I leave Tuomas to go visit with it.

Anthony has worked like a trooper on this, we expected it to have been a bit less work on his shoulders but nope! All of the other participants have been amazing. We did get let down by original drummer but the guy we found to record had it all done and too us in a fortnight, so big thanks to him! We have scrapped the making on DVD for it though as not all us were able to get footage, so doing a little booklet instead with some pictures and writings from some of the people involved. Just a small thing for Tuomas to keep with it. Now we just have to hope he likes it, I'm sure he will. Feel free to pop to the forum for a sample of it though and the full booklet here :)

I'm so glad I finished buying my own personal Xmas and Birthday gift for Tuomas. Just have 2 more to get for other people there, ordered 1 today for someone else. For privacy I won't give names but fingers crossed likes what we bought.

Tomorrow/Today (as its 01:13) is my last day off work before I go to Finland, I have to work 6 nights in a row to get the time off as work would not give me holidays. So I finish work at 8am on Thursday, then I come home for about 8:30. I'll have to watch Ethan a few hours till Mother is free, then I'll have a nap. Once I wake it will be action stations make sure everything is done and I have not left anything behind. I need to be at Durham station for midnight then the long drive to London then onto Gatwick. So my travel to Finland will be shit and will take the whole Friday but I guess it's worth it.

So now I sit here listening to the orchestral version of our song while typing the email to Pip. Lets hope he likes it too :)

Next update after meeting Tuomas!

Peace!

Travel fun

I finally have my trip to Helsinki sorted after about 4 months of trying to confirm a date with Tuomas. So I fly 2nd December and return on the 5th, so just a long weekend. Though I had fun organising it! Cheapest flight was from Gatwick and I had a free UK coach travel ticket with National Express. I read my email which said to redeem voucher call this 24 hour number. So I called about 07:00 and got the reply "can you call back at 08:00 as they don't start work yet", already a good start huh? I called back at 8 and told the girl I had a complimentary ticket and I wanted to go to Gatwick airport. I confirmed all my details and she put me on hold to confirm and 'use' the complimentary ticket code then came back to me for journey details. She told me coach I wanted wouldn't give me enough 'just in case' time to check in if there were delays, and persuaded me to get the morning coach instead however this means a huge 10 hour wait in the airport. She ended saying I'll have my ticket by email within the hour and that was it. About 6 hours later I still had no email do decided to call them to check she wrote my email address correctly. I got through to some miserable idiot called Keith, who I explained my problem too. The conversation went like this:


K: "okay to help I need your ticket number"
C: I don't have my ticket to give you the number.
K: the booking agent should of give you one.
C: sorry, nope.
K: okay, can I have the card details you made the booking with?
C: it was complimentary, I did not use a card.
K: then there is no way to find your booking.
C: you're joking? Not by name and postcode?
K: I will check with our other department and call you back. This may be classed as a lost ticket and you may need to pay again.
C: I didnt pay.


So he hung up and I waited for the call back. 10 minutes later he called and got me to confirm all the details over again.


K: what bus were you traveling with?
C: think it was the 00:15
K: think or was it?
C; it was!
K: ok the complimentary code was used but we can't find any booking. As the code was used you will have to class it as a lost ticket
C: erm don't think so, the girl made an error can't you tell the complimentary code was used today?
K: yes
C: so I obviously have not used it yet or I would of been on the coach or have used in the few hours between calls
K: one moment please....okay we can go ahead and make another booking.


Grr Im seriously considering complaining about him, get them to listen to the recording as he was plain rude in tone.


Bah at least it's all sorted, though the 24 hour start to finish will kill me. Bus 00:15 arrive Finland 23:45.


I actually had more in my head to talk about but after this vent it's all gone hah.

Progress and Celebrations

Well I think it's time for a random update, so where to start?
Lets start with 'celebration' in the sense of the website celebration we had last week. TH.com reached 1 year of official status, woo. Really weird considering I didn't build it with the aim to go for official when I started all those 3 years ago....wow time flies! From a simple promo/fan site aimed at UK fans to over a million visitors, what can I say? It's genuinely unexpected and a bit strange to be honest. How can 1 band member site be bigger and more popular than official full band sites? It just makes no logical sense to me.
But hey am I complaining? Hell no! Is Tuomas complaining? Hell no! He's the same as me, he cannot get his head around it all and so fast too. So what better way to celebrate than have this celebration week for the fans which went so well. I think we were all a bit nervous about the chat room raffle for the Tuomas chat, but bloody hell we were shocked. Pretty much everyone out of the 157 people online behaved. The OP's barely did a thing. Very proud of our community!
Tuomas will be online on the 2nd to come chat with the winners and I'll throw the poster competition at him (he doesn't know he's picking the winner yet hehe).

So where does that leave us? Oh yes the "progress" part of our title.
Well this refers the birthday project the site is doing. We now have the draft fully complete and Anthony has started to orchestrate it using the nice expensive sample program now he has this super computer. We have the bass completed by Plamen and Joonas, I'm just waiting for the CD to arrive to take a listen and get it to Anthony to mix with the orchestrations. Niklas has completed the guitars and Anthony is pretty much happy with them, just a couple of changes and they will be recorded next week. Clare started doing her vocals eventually. Now I don't type eventually in the sense I've been waiting for her, it's just we had some funny technical difficulties. She recorded and tried sending us the sample and it was distorted and we couldn't figure out why. I was about ready to somehow find the money to send her to a studio to record, but as a desperate last attempt she got her engineer friend round who realised the issue..her voice was causing the distortion, not the hardware as it was doing the same to his ears! So some matresses and acoustic screens later...tada! It worked. So now we are just waiting for the rest of Clares recordings.
We sent Nico to the studio last week to sing his sections and I got them a few days ago and I'm well pleased with the result, and they are not mixed yet and they sound cool!

 

(Nico and Anthony at work- Images borrowed from Seventh Dimension who Nico was signing for day after ours)

So we decided to also do a "making of" kind of DVD. Most of us are recording us working or taking images and with a slight interview. I have some questions to answer on camera which I think I'll film tomorrow.

Feel a bit stupid talking to a camera alone in the house but once we get all the footage edited together with vocal recordings and interviews from Anthony etc I think it will be a cool little addition.

The draft to the song can be heard here

Of course this is the demo and not the super cool samples, I've heard the verses Anthony has done so far and they are sounding awesome. No way Tuomas will keep dry eyes when he hears this in December.

Though at the moment I have no idea how to afford the flight. Anyone want to give me a loan till January? Hah I'm serious :)

I should be getting more shifts at work from next month which will be too late for flight to Helsinki, but in time for my currently plan of Paris, Helsinki and Tampere Nightwish shows.

I'll update again soon.

Life's full of obstacles

I don't have a huge amount to update, most of this will be random rambling. Well the last couple of weeks have been a mixture of ups and downs, yet mostly downs. The main 'down' which looms over my head at the moment like a dark gloomy storm cloud is kinda private so it's only a need to know basis. Although I will say I have an operation on Friday and will be out of action for an unknown period of time. However to switch it around, finally getting closer to organising visiting Tuomas. We are slowly narrowing on a date... Now it's a concern of money for the flight with only 1 pay in between now and booking flights. But it will be fun to go over with the gifts and just see his face. He was excited and curious in London so I'll have to make sure I have plenty tissues with me. Just need to find guitarist to help with the song which is stressing me out to no end. We did/do have one, but I'm not convinced of their dedication to it and if we will actually get some material which will leave us with yet less time. It sucks how much composers let us down on this project not informing us till the last minute...hello stressed enough here! You know we do a lot for fans on the site etc and we just asked for something quite small in return yet now I've had to throw more and more work onto Anthony's shoulders and he is already snowed under with his degree course. But fingers crossed it all comes together. So I'm sat here at work hoping all the residents behave while having a cup of tea. Pretty bored hence the blog update. I'm sure I had more to say when I contemplated writing this. Oh well I guess if it comes back to me I can always edit this :)

London take 2! and pics

To be honest I forgot to do part 2... But I got bullied off a few people in the TH chat to get on with it.. so.. part 2!

I set off for my second NW related trip to London on Monday 12th September however this time by train as the bus nearly killed me last time. The journey was much better and a hell of a lot quicker, and I remembered to wear comfortable shoes this time also!
I got into the city about 3pm and I started the tiny journey to the Uni campus I was staying at. Pretty much as cheap as a hostel but a hell of a lot better :) No dust for starts and free wifi! So I unpacked what needed unpacking and left the rest of the stuff to rot on the floor as I was in a lazy mood and I toddled off to Covernt Garden to pick up my theatre tickets.
Did the wise thing and used an Oyster card this time too so travel was even easier (thanks Alex). I went to see We Will Rock You (yes alone) and it was really cool. The computer generated images they used in the show were showing their age but that was my only gripe with it to be honest and even got emotional at the casts performance of No-One But You.... I still remember when Freddie died so was weird watching this musical.
Wondered back to the room about 11pm and ended up online talking crap till God knows what time before finally admitting defeat and sleeping.

Tuesday morning was a waiting game, I found out late that I really could of came to London Tuesday and saved some money as I was not meeting people till 4 o'clock.. oh well. So I decided to go down Oxford Street and have a little adventure to pass the time, jumping on the underground over to Angel to walk to the studios around 3-30 ish. I couldn't find the building, walking past it about 3 times as it's unmarked. Finally admitting defeat and calling Pip to confirm I wasn't about to ring some strange persons doorbell.
Upon entering I was met by some big bloke who asked who was I with.. first answer came out my mouth was Nightwish, so he had a look and the guest list... guess who's name wasn't on? So some other dude came to me, convo went like this:

Guy "So what relationship do you have to the band?"
Me " I run Tuomas's website"
Guy "That's okay then, go ahead in"

For all this guy knew I could of been bullshitting, he didn't check with anyone I was who I said I was. So after giving my phone into the security type guy I went into the studio. I glanced around the room and noticed I only recognised about 5/6 people max so head to the people you know so not to look like a billy no mates was the plan. First guy who stopped me was Pip whom I met up with just a week before, then Ewo came and gave a hug and muttered the words "I have something big for you to drink later".. Laughing my head off I manage to squeeze out "as long as it has a %" which got me an approving nod and 'kumbayah' from the big guy.
Next I turned and saw someone with their back to me, not too tall, long dark hair and thought... I know who this is. So wrapped arms round her and gave a squeeze. Don't know if I scared her or not hehe but was not expecting to see Cyntia there so was fun. Shook hands with Christian who is the webmaster of NW.com and finally said Hi and gave a hug to Tuomas... then hit him and told him off for missing me from the guest list. He promises he did it but I don't believe him.
We had a bit of a natter as he spoke about nerves and how in the morning he only dared look up at the media once and the first thing he saw was someone yawning and looking at their watch, poor Tuomas haha.
He wondered to do his bits of networking, leaving me, Cyntia and Christian talking. We got to see Troy do one of his fantastic magic tricks of turning magazine clippings into £20 notes which was so cool I can't explain.
Pip introduced the album as Tuomas's masterpiece and we all sat to listen. The silence before the first notes were agonising for me, god knows what Tuomas felt first time he heard after mastering. The listening itself seemed to be over in minutes though it was closer to 75 minutes. I wont go on here about the album as I have the review on the site about it, but I was really impressed. I was a bit pathetic and felt that I wanted to clap to congratulate Tuomas but everyone was so silent at the end, it was like a funeral.
Tuomas was then stuck in the control room for another 3 hours or so doing interviews, to be honest if I prepared we could of done one for TH as he had time at the end. Myself and Cyntia stole some promo stuff from their to use in future competition plans and I got my 'big drink' off Ewo. Then Tuomas was done and he came out, bit 'larrupted' (or however spelt- Cumbrian slang for drunk) so we had a bit of a laugh. Told him our two hockey teams played each other in November which his first words were "then we need another bet!" and so it was done, hands shook and agreed upon. Also wound him up about his xmas gift etc which he asked 10 million questions about trying to get me to tell him what we had planned.
Then he went for a smoke after saying he was quitting, made him smile and he said he has "quit quitting". We all followed outside and got taxis back to their hotel, where the plan was food but Tuomas was a bit too drunk and the lightweight announced he was going to sleep. So after a kiss and a hug goodbye and he wondered off leaving me Cyntia, Christian, Pip's daughter Sam, Ewo and this other guy I can't remember his name Yap or something (I'm sure I'll be reminded soon).
Went to Ewo's room for drinks and then to this really nice restaurant called Kitchin for food. Ewo became obsessed by chicken there and dubbed himself  Mr Chicken. Was a good end to a fun night, same we couldn't get any pictures with Tuomas etc in the studio and when we came outside I totally forgot.
Looking forward to the tour and I'm sure will have some good behind the scenes gossip and photos.

Not much more to tell about London really, here are a few pictures of the time down there. Wish I took more myself and got some with T etc but nevermind

Me and Pip

Me and 2 of my minions/Tuomas's ghouls

Me and Alex (admin of Islanders)

The Islanders gathering

Me and Cyntia in Ewo's hotel room

London take 1!

So here I am on the bus heading from London back home. A journey of 7 hours in length and I'm halfway through it and my behind is numb already.

I went down on the Friday morning and waited to meet Alex who is the admin of The Islanders at kings cross. Typically he was delayed due to some fire near the train lines. So about an hour(ish) later than planned, we met up and headed to the place we were staying at.
I stupidly wore my boots which were not broken in and they rubbed away at my heels making 2 very sore blisters. So getting to hostel was priority for me.

We got to where we were staying and I know it was cheap but wow what a dump. There was about a cm of dust on furniture, the tv had no aerial, the bed mattresses were too big for the bed frames. Also the springs in the mattress were so prominent and stabbed you. It was a hole basically.

After sorting our all the Islander member packs we headed into the city to meet up with Liz and her mates. We just wondered the city and Alex decided he wanted to climb a lion which he did. I got a photo of it just hope it was not too dark to see. Liz and her friends left and we went for more a wonder and sat infront of the palace for a while before heading back to the hostel.

Sleeping was tricky with single glazed windows and lot of traffic etc but managed to get a few hours. Next day we were on a mission to get something to put membership packs in and go to the Nordic bakery. Bought a couple of Karellian pies from there which were gorgeous and then wondered to go meet Pip Williams.

It was a long journey to Ealing Broadway to meet him but we found the location okay. We went to a quiet pub to sit and do the interview and have a couple of drinks. I made a total balls up of some of the questions but was all good humour and Pip was lovely and talked forever. We have about 1 hour and 40 minutes if interview audio to go through and edit etc, although I cannot upload it till after the 9th due to discussing track names.
He was a dream to interview and look forward to meeting with him again soon.

We were late leaving the interview with Pip so I did not have time to go get "pirated up" for the Islander meeting. Felt bad as Sari made such an effort as well. The meet up went great, we had a quiz with few prizes and talked about various things. Next time we will probably have more activities although drinking was a good enough one it seemed.
Roz made an Islander cake which was fab! Total surprise to everyone so a huge thanks to her it was such a nice thing to do. Then Liz presented me with this card of appreciation letters from the TH team/Tuomas/and fans. Tricky recorded the whole thing and I was so close to tears. It was such a sweet gift and something i will cherish. I'll write a bigger thank you on the TH site later.
Night ended with me, Alex, Roz, Sean,Sarah and Andrew heading to The Crobar for drinks. Again was a laugh but last underground was not long away so had to cut it short.

In all the weekend was loads of fun with some great friends. So huge thanks to them all.

Stay tuned for the very special "London take 2" which will be Sept 14th/15th

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Long nights

So finally I found a paid job. As much as I love working for Tuomas, it just doesn't pay the bills. So after few month of searching I now work in a care centre.
It's completely different to how I expected, it's not an ordinary elderly persons home as there is also a dementia and metal health unit attached to it.
So I started a week ago and was told I had to stay on the metal disorder unit as I have no training in safe moving and handling of people. At first I thought 'oh great, mental on first days..' but it was actually not bad. Then I got moved to night shift which is 20:00 - 08:00 and worked 60 hours on my first week....crazy.
So I'm writing this on the last night on my first week and in exhausted. I'm also on the demetia unit which is horrible, especially after the silent and well behaved mental unit. Here you are shouted at, slapped, pinched etc if I had to work day shift while these people were awake the 12 hours of work...no way could I think I could keep it up. I suppose I'll get use to the ways but it's very daunting and actually a bit scary, I hope I get used to it anyway.
It's only been a week but in sitting looking at schedules and think to myself just how the hell can I keep up the PR for Tuomas with the increasing lack of spare time with the amount of hours these guys want me to work. So I'll be honest, during these long nights while the residents slept, I have been sitting thinking about if it's worth pushing on and working the amount of hours at the care centre and the Nightwish stuff...or did I think I'd drive myself insane with constantly working. Result: I'd never quit working with Tuomas, regardless of the amount of hours I work in the care centre. Simply worked too hard to get our site to where it is today. Besides I know I have a kick-ass team that I can rely on to look after the community while I'm not at the pc.
Next week I'm only working 4 nights instead of the 6 shifts I did this week....yeah 1 day off on my first week. So hopefully it will stay at 4 in future.

So apart from all that going on I have two trips to London. One for the Pip Williams interview and Nightwish UK (The Islanders) launch party. Bit disappointed at the lack of enthusiasm from some UK fans about the event, takes a lot of planning and organising. The TH gathering was fantastic in Feb, over 20 people which is great as we were no where near our size and popularity that we are now. Also it was a weekday and not weekend so fingers crossed we get a good turnout for this one.
Then I'm back up for a week and back down again for more good stuff and to pin Sarah down for her tattoo :)
So its all going on atm, things I can't yet disclose but keep an eye on the site news over next few weeks :D



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

What is the strangest place you've blogged from?

...answer: my bath- right now

That's right this blog update comes live from my bathtub. Chilling out with a glass (large one) of whisky, some good tunes and my blog. But what could I possibly want to write about while bathing? Well nothing bathroom related so don't worry.

But what I will talk about is how T-H.com reached 2000 registered members today, which is a great milestone to pass... With a new goal insight of course. Its took 10 months to get these sign ups, all this with
*no official forum link
*a 1 band member page
*quite a news quiet band (ie no releases)
So impressive. I think the last time I gave an update to Tuomas we were sitting on 1500 and that wasn't long ago.
Of course it's a lot of hard work keeping the promotion and activity ongoing to draw in more interest. It sounds easy, post news as and when and throw a competion up bi-annually. Erm no. If you ignore basic promotion, even if media silence, then you get bored members who wonder away and don't attract new ones. After all, without a community a site like this will be dead in no time. I know. The first attempt to publish this site failed miserably, non existent community and no prospects. But I didn't give up, got a rebuild (4th gen now) and changed my methods. By pure accident I fell in with Ewo which helped phase 2 of relaunch. The rest is history.
So what's next? Lots!!! I have loads of ideas to discuss with the boss in December and a few little things in-between. 1 you have to wait and see, and the other is the Summer games; which is just a bit of fun for members...but that's what this is all about, fun!

But could I do this alone? Hell no. Without the TH Team (dubbed by Tuomas as "mindless ghouls") I would never sleep and never be able to keep it running so smoothly. We anticipate an increase in activity when we have a single release, so I'm glad to have a team I can trust. I could wonder away on vacation for a week and not have to worry. But that's a dream although I could use one.

So it's time to stop soaking here and turning into a prune.

:)


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Random updates are best

Not much to discuss but I'm sitting a little bored. I do have work to do but I am trying to have at least 1 day off a week- and today was once I said I won't work today. Besides I'm not feeling creative so I will start on a few things tomorrow.
However I've had a productive last few weeks, The Islanders is now finished and launched and all we need now are a few more sign ups so we can order the rest of the merchandise. The official launch will be in London on September 3rd, should be a good laugh, we have a few people confirmed coming so far. It was good fun when we had the TH gathering in the same place.
While in London I'll also have a catch up with Pip Williams. Lot of people know him for being the orchestrator on the last 3 NW albums. Going to do bit of an interview too which to my knowledge has never been done by a NW website before. I was lucky enough to meet him when I went to London to meet up with T.
Tuomas sent over the Kiteen Pallo theme, it doesn't give much insight into Imaginarium's sound but its something which has fans excited about. Funny thing is everyone is still "omg is 6 months away".. I think they forget there is a single in Oct/Nov so its more closer to 3 months.
Speaking of Tuomas, I'm a little disappointed in the lack of usable art work we have for the birthday project at present. I think people think his birthday is not till December so we have plenty time, only thing is they fail to realise that the amount of time to design the overall booklet and get it sent for printing will also take some time. Hopefully the mass mail/messages to the pro quality artists will bring some results. Times like this, I wish I was good at art myself.

Well I can't think of any other things to write about so I'll leave it there for now,

Peace!

Thanks to all.... Tuomas - Kersantti - Anette

Well I guess I should update and start with a big thanks for all the support towards the new Tuomas site.
It's taking a lot of work and still have the translations to add to the site but it's not too far from being 100% finished (as long as the translators are fast with what I throw at them hah).
Few people have asked why I decided to make a new site. Well I have reasons I won't go into and I have other reasons: I got comments from people that it did not look official, it looked like a fan site. Ok "technically" it is a fan site, as it's run by "fans" (some of us don't like that term).. however it ceased being a fan site once we were made official. Also since it used to be a fansite, it never lost that feel to me, looking at the same layout (ok it was changed a little) and basic look.
Another change was to distance Tuomas from Nightwish. Okay some people will scream at me here with "he IS Nightwish!"...yes I know this only too well. I did intend to mirror Nightwish.coms look (kind of did by adding the Imaginarium background on the 'blue site: mk 3') but the more I thought about it the more I thought "why have 'another' Nightwish.com?" So I thought a bit more about what I can do, what is the best action to take with it. Of course a thing that keeps coming to me is Tuomas does have his own projects, and one day Nightwish will be a past project of his. But Tuomas quitting music completley won't happen, and because of that I hope we will still be around. So I decided to go for a general look, something simple yet dynamic. So with design changes thrown at Mojo for criticism (trust me you cannot get a better person to be critical about your work) I worked on a basic structure and then added the design elements on top.
The banner was the hardest to think up. The "logo" started as an idea of a wolf silhouette with a TH or Tuomas over it... this idea lasted about 2-3 hours then binned. Then the banner had Tuomas' image in... this was binned after 10 mins of being on the site. Mojo was the one who mentioned Tuomas' autograph, so I went through some promo's I have and picked the easiest to see and scanned it in. For around 2 hours I sat and cut it out practically pixel by pixel..can anyone say hand cramp?! However I think the final look came out cool, so kudos to Mojo for thinking of that one.

The best part is only the TH Team knew this rebuild was happening, and I didn't inform them until about 60% through construction. I decided to keep it a secret from the members as I didn't know how long it would take me to put live.. or even if I would at all. It's a scary thing to have to replace a successful website, I especially did not want to damage the forum in anyway and for us to lose all those member and posts. I also was not going to launch the site till all languages were 100% complete. But typical thing would be that it would put me into August, which is when Imaginiarium gets mastered and the film shootings not far away. Meaning there is a chance for updates, so I would be constantly playing catch up with news and translations of. I also wanted to wait and get the thumbs up from the boss (Tuomas) since the site bares his name, however his vacation time is tearing him away from his macbook. So it was Mojo who suggested a earlier launch time and just add the translations etc as we go, and I think it worked well. The big worry of so many hours work and the database transfer failing would of annoyed me anyway.
So we went live and apart from a few little bugs, it was pretty smooth. A couple of people have mentioned 1 issue with colour on an area of the forum.. so far investigations have shown this to be a browser problem and not one with the site. Both myself, Mojo and others on the Team went through and checked everything on every browser. So people with issues, try emptying your cache and check if there is a browser update: last one especially for internet explorer users.
But here we are going strong and getting 90% positive messages, which is a larger percent than I ever expected. So big thanks to everyone for that. Of course we are plotting more things for the future with the site.

At the time I was updating TH, I was also working on my PR and promotion company: Kersantti presence management. So I have the site pretty much done for there and I've started on heavier promotion of the existence of it. Anette Olzon gave permission to promote her new fabulous solo demos, which has gave a big boost so thanks to her. The company has a long way to go, lets just hope it's journey is fruitful.

Talking about Anette's demos, both sound so different to a lot of what we have heard Anette sing before. You can hear the keys in Dark Passion Play were probably not the strongest keys for her to sing in. Although DPP was great, these solos really show the true emotion and ability of her voice.

Floating: A gentle song which actually makes you feel like you are floating if you close your eyes and listen to it.
Very beautiful, light and gave me goosebumps.

Invincible: My personal favourite of the two. I believe her voice in this has such a great timbre, very elegant sounding.

Both tracks show her true potential as a singer although only demos we can see this, the main music is the only thing that lets them down.. but that's demo's for you. The quality of the recording/mixing etc is not what you would use on a final mix. This defiantly wets the appetite for the amazing Imaginarium once more, but also has people excited for Anette's eventual solo album.
Good luck to her, TH.com and Kersantti will be giving her support.


I have a lot on and a lot of responsibility coming up, but as long as the attitude of myself and the team currently have continues, I think our future will be bright.

So lets all have a laugh together in this journey
...Carol

Work pays off...

Well after months of plotting the idea, then weeks of organising... the chat is finally over. Now don't get me wrong 'finally' is not meant in a way to express I've been waiting for it to finish, far from it. It just took up a lot of time and checking and re-checking. To organise a relatively small number of members (when look at our overall member count) was quite a challenge. Getting 40 people from different timezones all online at the correct time and in the correct place definitely took more work than expected. I'm just glad Steff was on hand helping out with the IRC members.
The idea for using the chat room for fan interaction was brought up in London back in February, Tuomas expressed an interest then but was a little skeptical of it. Few month later I managed to persuade him to come to the chat room, pretty much everyone who was online the night he came were people who were part of the team. This helped his first visit as but him more at ease I think, but he still really enjoyed it and vowed to return again.
In a discussion with Steff about what things can be done in the future, the idea to pursue the online fan interaction came back up. We planned out how it could be done and discussed it between the two of us until we decided it could work and be successful. I then took the idea to Tuomas, who without any persuasion agreed. We discussed with him the best way to go about it, and that rewarding our community was a way to reduce the 1000's of people who would want to participate. Tuomas agreed that this special first should be shared with his community.
This decision did however come with criticism, however only from 1 nation. We had pretty much no complaints or problems from anyone else. These people believed we should have had the chat open for everybody or do something so any Nightwish fan had the chance to be involved. Of course we totally understood  why his nation was upset but some refused to also see it from our point of view.
If we had an 'open chat room' (or the tinychat/cam whatever it was they suggested) arrangement there is no physically way the chat server would of supported the amount of people, also there is no way Tuomas could of accommodated questions from that many. There is also no way it would of been possible to police that many members at once, it would not of worked smoothly.
If we did the lottery that someone there suggested to pick fans, again this was too hard to do for many factors. The dates Tuomas gave me for the chat meant we did not have a lot of time to get the participants organised to attend. If we released a NW community wide invitation, I would have 1000's of emails in my inbox to sort through, get rid of people sending more than 1 entry etc. There is just noway we would have the time to do such a thing.
In the end we stood our ground and kept it for TH.com, of course people were welcome to join the chat room and be active there for a chance to be involved too. A few people did and a couple made it into the event. End of the day Tuomas agreed with the arrangement we had set-up and he understood the reasoning behind it, therefore he supported us so there was no need to change.
Something people needed to understand too is this was going to be Tuomas 3rd ever time in a chat room, the first being what I mentioned earlier, the second was a quick meeting with myself and Steff to discuss the event details. He had never done anything like this, it was a Nightwish first also. We had to make sure it ran as smooth as possible so Tuomas would agree to return and do more events in the future. If we risked failure, he may not of been so keen to return.
However in the end it went swimmingly, all but 2 members showed up; no one needed to be removed from the chat for rule breaking. Tuomas was very impressed with the organisation and the behaviour of the fans there, once again the community at TH.com makes us proud. It's no wonder Tuomas is so gracious to work with me and do things for the fans there.
We tried to discuss some more future ideas after the chat ended, but due to time he had to leave. So he got a nice email last night outlining plans and plots for the future. So fans have no need to worry, these events are not a one off. We will continue to work closely with Tuomas to bring the best we can to all at TH.com.

So just a huge thank you to everyone for the continued support towards this website and Tuomas' work

-Carol & Tuomas

To read the transcript of the 4 hour chat, visit the website.

Brazilian invasion and Holopainen styled teasing.

Well it's been quite a busy week. Last Friday Cyntia came to visit, which was a good laugh. She arrived around 5:30am after an overnight bus trip from London, which is crazy if you ask me but then again I can't travel on buses without being sick. Her first day in the grand North East was the obvious tour around my small home (took all of about about 5 mins) and then we decided to go shopping. I took her to what is suppose to be the largest indoor mall in Europe.
We were there a few hours, bought some new shoes and some much needed coffee and food. Returning home to the "office" and nosing through my Nightwish things. Of course she constantly reminded me of how the hat is hers and not to put it in the competition :)
Next day we ventured to the local city, Durham. We walked around and up to the Castle and the Cathedral, she took loads of pictures. We than walked around the river where she took this picture of me and Ethan:

Went for food at Nandos.. well I say food, Cyntia just had chocolate cake :)
Sunday we didn't do much although we did go and see Troy at the cinema. I swear I must of drooled bucket loads over the guy in that movie, very nice. Heh. All in all it was a good weekend, sure will do something again soon :)

Rest of my week has been preparing the competition for the website. Everything is pretty much done now and it's all getting exciting. Although it does mean my Nightwish collection will soon be shrinking again when I sent the prizes to the winners. It gets announced on Sunday but if you want more info you have to go look on the forum :P
Forum hit 700 members this week which is awesome, but if all goes to plan that number will be jumping up very soon. We also have had over 160,000 visitors, which in our short life on this domain is damn good.

I have wrote up some more promotion and PR ideas to go through with Tuomas, but getting that man's attention even for 5 minutes is damn hard at the moment. Trust me though, if I get the green light for some of these.. you guys are in for a right treat.

Well I'll leave it there until next time............

Ruse revealed

Well lets start with what I said about keeping quiet till after the staff meeting weekend gone. I kind of lied about having new ideas to share with the team this weekend, it was all a ruse. I had organised with Tuomas around 3 weeks prior to come onto the chat room to meet the team etc, so I wanted to keep it a surprise. We had a lovely night, he joined us for around 2 hours and steadily getting more and more tipsy. He made us laugh a lot, taking his "boss" role seriously and ordering people to misbehave...something I will wind him up about at a later date. He really enjoyed it and thought it was a really cool experience, and he did really well for a chat room first timer. I'll get him back on in the future.

I went for the job interview today- it was ok but I don't think I'll get the job. By the way they described the role I don't think I have enough experience for it. Also the fact they have 32 people going for the job. So we will see hopefully next week. But I may have another thing coming up soon so time will tell.

Should have some nice website updates soon, have something with Tuomas' mother in the pipeline so we will see if we can sort something out. I'm also working on some new promotion ideas, nothing concrete to share yet but as soon as I do and I speak to the boss; I'll share.

When I thought I would do another blog update, I expected to write more.. but now that I have started it seems I don't have a much to say as I originally thought.

Oh well- until next time

Job interview goodness and other random stuff

Well normal service is now resumed after my bit of venting in my last update.
Beginning of last week was a bit crappy. Had some suspicions confirmed over things concerning a team member working on the site, and it took a while to get proof and sort it out. Things got better towards the end of the week and into the weekend though. I dealt with the issue and employed a new staff member to replace the recently departed. I wasn't going to replace, but Liz is already on good terms we the rest of the team and she's just as crazy as us all too. She also bothers to come on IRC.. so that's a good start :)
So we have some good things happening with the site, but I'm not going to write about it yet- You will have to wait till after the staff meeting on Saturday :) It's all exciting stuff...and I like to tease :))

Another good thing that happened was the disappearance of that 'hate' blog I mentioned last time. It was updated 2 more times until it was taken offline. It was funny at first, but towards the end it was just becoming annoying. I have suspicions who was behind it, but as long as nothing else surfaces I'll leave it alone.

I hopefully will be having a TH team member come visit me for a few days back end of next week, our resident loony Cyntia. It should be a good laugh, although there is not a huge amount to do around here. I'm sure we will find something to do, although I will have to make sure she doesn't drool too much on Tuomas' hat while she is here :)
Speaking of Tuomas, I had a good chat with him a week and a half ago. First time that I remember he was sending emails in real time so didn't have to wait the usual week or two for a reply. Again more plotting and more ideas, but have to wait till June for that when he goes home ...again more teasing :)

I applied for a great job recently and I've been waiting to hear from it, I got a phone call today that I have an interview which is a big relief. The job isn't perfect, I mean it's working in a petrol station. However the hours and pay would be perfect, as well as practically on my doorstep.

So at present I'm enjoying my time at home with my toddler as hopefully I'll get a job soon. If I want to have the chance to be able to book and afford Kitee at the end of the year followed quickly by the Nightwish tour, I'm going to have to start and put some money away.

So until next time :)

Open "letter" to the critics

Okay I thought about this for a bit, and recently events I wont go into made me decide to write this as a blog people can read.

Well lot of people I know are aware we get some great site support, but there are people on the internet still spreading false rumours about me and even a "hate" blog. (For the record this blog actually made me laugh more than offend.)

To the critics etc
Yes I do read all your emails, and yes I do not answer them for a reason. I see no need to take precious time out of my day to reply, hence this blog post.
First of all lets address the "fangirl" and "only doing this site to get close to the band/get things" comments.
  Number 1: I had the idea for some kind of dedication site etc, long before I knew who Tuomas truly was. I really only knew his musical creations should have more support. This was around 2000-2002
  Number 2: When I first created the site it was never intended to seek official status or get "close" to a band member or gain access to any perks that would of came with the position.
  Number 3: Do you really think I would of been given this opportunity if Tuomas/Ewo even slightly suspected me as a "fangirl" etc.
  Number 4: I do not demand Tuomas does things or gives things to the site. Anything he has done for us has been from his own wishes or out of casual discussion of ideas.

I won't go into some of the stupid rumours people are talking on the net, but seriously.. how old are you guys? Spreading false rumour why? Jealousy? Immaturity? You really need to just grow up a bit and just be happy that there is a dedicated team supporting Tuomas and doing promotion for him.
To those criticising me supporting various Nightwish sites.. why? I heard that it was stupid for me to support sites/communities that speak languages etc I don't speak. I fail to see the issue here. I have the TH site in other languages, and if other communities are doing a good job or aiming for a goal I think is a benefit to fans, of course I will promote this to the best of my ability. End of the day, yes I run the TH site but I also try my best to provide support to Nightwish fans across the net; no language/country restrictions.

To those who still think that I am some obsessed fan, come talk to me. We have a chat room on the site and I am regularly online. I'm an open person to any questions and I have had people come to me as sceptics who now are regulars online and support the website themselves in various ways.
Also to those people who 1) keep telling me to prove Tuomas supports us by getting him to email/write/call 2) those who ask for his contact details endlessly over and over... Please don't waste your time with these requests. To contact Tuomas write to his management in letter form, all emails I get are appreciated and are lovely and I do tell Tuomas this, but please understand I cannot forward 50+ emails to him a day and I will never share any of his contact details.

I hope this has cleared some things up for some people.

Normal service to the blog will resume next post

Carol

Plotting, back-pain and others

Well since my "Pillow" kindly reminded me my blog needed updating, guess what I'm doing?

Last few weeks have been a mixture of good and bad. The development of a bad back and now flu like symptoms make me think yet again I'm burning the candle at both ends, coupled with some misunderstandings; things got pretty low recently.

Things quickly picked back up after everything was cleared up, my staff gave me a whipping. Also Plamen's DVD of Tuomas playing the sax helped too, nice of him to send it for us to put on the website.
Also some good proactive plotting with Tuomas always makes me smile, but I was also involved in getting a Brazilian Nightwish forum online.

We were talking about the idea for this forum for a while for various reasons I won't go into except Brazil had no official forum. A chat to Ewo got the status sorted and then we got it all together. Of course my non existant multi-lingual skills means I'll promote only for Luis and Cyntia, but if it helps.. great. http://nightwishforum.com.br/ is the address you need to check it out. 70 members in 2 days though, amazing!

Another cool thing that happened was Alex from The Islanders visit to Durham. He came down here and hung out at my place, tried on Tuomas' hat hehe and next day I showed him around the city and we sat in the hotel a few hours planning the fanclub. Made some good progress and ideas, including getting contact with Troy Donockley.

Bit of a mess this blog but while typing this I also have 8 open conversations going on hehe. Will have some cool reports in a few weeks, so until then...Ciao

Amazing friends

After having a very crappy fortnight with an ill son, website issues etc I needed a pick me up. Now the common joke in the NW circle is Fazer chocolate.. which I have now run out of *Hint to Cyntia!* However one of my friends sent me something in the mail which I got yesterday which is so nice and thoughtful.

Funny-ish sorry how I came to know him:

I met this guy called Alex via Nightwish UK, starting talking to him and offered my services if he needed any help in the future. It was around this time the first Escapist draft hit the net and as publicity I contacted John Two Hawks for an interview. Being the kind of person I am, I opened the questions to the members of Nightwish UK. Now Alex fully supported the idea while another admin did not, the mods were told to keep an eye on me and "this Tuomas fansite". I think she thought I was a bit of a crackpot (maybe I am...who knows).
Fortunatly Alex gave me the benefit of the doubt of not being some crazy fangirl and got to know me. Who would of thought those 2 or so years ago I would now be Tuomas' administrator of his official website and working alongside Alex in the Nightwish UK rebuild: The Islanders :) Funny how things work out. Lesson to be learned here, not everyone is some crazy "fangirl//nutter" give them the benefit of the doubt and talk to them before judging... you just never know who they really are or what they can achieve.

Anyway moving on to what I got in the mail. Alex is aware my Nightwish collection is a little lacking due to an ex and my giving nature to donate cd's etc to fans rather than keep myself. He knows I recently acquired Tuomas' lyrics to his first song "Nightwish", and that I no longer had Angels Fall First in my collection. Binding the two together he bought and sent me the collectors edition which contains the song "Nightwish" on it. Thank you Alex, such a thoughtful gift. He's coming down to where I live next week also so that will be fun, we call it a coffee and a brewski... other may call it Islanders Admin meeting :P

It was very kind of Tuomas to give me these lyrics and dare I say I had never listened to the song prior to owning these. So it was only a few weeks ago I heard the song for the first time and it was even more emotional for me to listen to it, since I could read through Tuomas' lyrics and see how he writes and his lyrics come to life on the page; rather than text on a screen or lyrics in a booklet.

I've started my Finnish studies again, I have acquired a little extra time and been practising what little Finnish I know on Plamen over the bast few days of chatting. Which leads me nicely into his interview, which is now on the website :) Some very beautiful words about our Ocean Soul on there.

And speaking of Tuomas, make sure you get to/register on our forums to see our plans for him for his birthday and Christmas.. it's going to be really special. But of course huge thanks to Kirsti Nortia-Holopainen (Tuomas' Mother) for helping me out big style with his Christmas gift, I was struggling with this but it would of spoiled the surprise for me to have asked him myself.

Well I have a free day today, no child as my Mother has him today. I do have a few translations to add to the website but nothing that will take too many hours. So I think a relaxing day in in order.
Until next time

As some people asked: Here is my current update of my office. Some people ask why since Tuomas is a friend, do I have him as my pc desktop wallpaper.. Actually I'll talk about this since some have went back to the fangirl thing.
It's not on there because its Tuomas... if you look closely you can see he's holding the websites book we made. That image sits on my desktop as inspiration to work hard and continue to strive to build the very best Nightwish community. It's an emotional image of Tuomas, I like to be reminded that he appreciates all we do and just how well that fans pull together.
Ignore the bad quality

"CC" :)

It's Thursday!! (yes would of been better if it was Friday here)

Since my last blog was my little video blog thing, this one will be back to basics text.

I don't have a great deal to report that's why it's been a while.

Well keeping the details out of it I left work so I'm currently job hunting. This has gave me plenty time to be a mum again and have plenty time to work on the site.

I've finished all the details for the competition and we will be announcing it once Anette has returned from recording in Finland.

We have a new Spanish translator working on the site due to popular demand.

I got a message from Plamen Dimov who was Tuomas' music teacher in school, and he want's to talk about him a little so we will be conducting an interview in the next few days.

Not much more really, see I told you I did not have much to report :)

Just keep smiling
C

Back to normality

Well it's been nearly a week since we made our first video blog about the night before meeting Tuomas. It's quite sad to think the event came and went so quickly.
Myself and Sarah were pretty 'sad' and started counting down the days to meeting since we got the date from Tuomas in December and we booked our hotel.
The days counted down fast and before I knew it I was working pretty much through the night organising things for London. We decided to have a website get together while we were down there also. So I called around several places and booked us an area in a rock bar: The Pipeline, this ended up being a really nice venue.
The biggest project we did was create a book for Tuomas. It was full of messages to him from fans.

We had a total of 76 fans take part (funny number when you think also Tuomas' year of birth) and it totalled close to 220 pages if I remember correctly.

Other things I arranged were some promotional pictures being made for Tuomas to sign for those attending the London gathering, as a small way of saying thank you for all the support I get for doing this.
                              
The day came and I headed to London. I live at the other end of England so a flight ended up the cheapest and quickest mode of transport to get there. I met up with my partner in crime Sarah and we headed off the our hotel together. We booked into the same one Tuomas was in as it made sense if schedule needed to be changed, of course it's an expensive choice but we both had the mentality of 'what the hell.'
The Sunday night consisted of me and Sarah making our first video blog after returning from some much needed food and drink, then afterwards we sat down and watched a few Nightwish DVDs, as the nerves were causing us not to be able to sleep.

Monday morning consisted again of another video blog and then we headed down to the bar to set up for Tuomas joining us an hour or so later. At this point we went through the wine list to chose Tuomas' "winnings". Now as most people know I had a bet with him on our 2 hockey teams playing each other.. I lost. The prize was the loser buys the wine for the meeting.
It turned 3pm and I caught the sight of a purple hat out the corner of my eye, who else could it of been. I wasn't as nervous as I expected when approaching him, after all we had been talking for over 3 months by this point. To break the ice I made a joke about expecting him to wear a hockey jersey to wind me up, he gave a laugh then simply gave a hug.. that was it ice broken, nerves instantly gone.
After introducing him to Sarah we sat, he laughed at the fact I remembered about his winnings. He went through some gifts he brought with him. I feel so privileged that he gave me what he did, his first ever lyrics- the song Nightwish. We also got loads of stuff for a competition which we will hold in the next few month, one of his hats he used in promo photos and live, the original artwork from Dark Passion Play, and loads of signed singles and some vinyl.
It was then I presented him with my personal gift and then of course the website book. He absolutely loved it. He was so emotional and flattered by it, it was getting myself and Sarah emotional too just watching him.

He said he will read every page and it was the best gift he's received, and really want's to write something special to the members of the site which he will do when he's finished reading it all.
Here is the video we took of him getting the book:

Following that we just chatted for a while. Told him off for the translation error of his recent illness which meant he told me he was suffering for something much more serious than the tonsillitis he was suffering from, of course still not a nice and you can tell especially on the videos that he was still not 100%.
We then preceded to ask him the questions that members of The Escapist had submitted. I had them wrote in a notepad which he took off me and read himself. It turned out to be a good little interview even if short. I apologise to people. We only took 20 questions with us as the interview was always going to be an extra to what we already had planned, it was not until we were into it and finished that we realised we didnt have enough. Typically when Tuomas put us on the spot to ask more, my mind went blank. Tuomas enjoyed our questions so much, we have sent him more via email that he was keen on answering.
To view the interview and read the transcript of it have a look here.

We then had Jukka, Ewo, Pip Williams and John join us. It was a good laugh and just very natural to sit and have a laugh. We quickly finished with a few photos. We initially were going to get quite a few and use them in website design etc but since Tuomas was still not feeling well, we only got a couple.

And that was it, after about 3.5 hours with Tuomas they left to head to the studio. Myself and Sarah retired to our room to make the last of our video blogs before heading out for food.

The next day we headed out to Camden, it was then I got a crazy idea of getting a tattoo to mark the occasion... so I did (you can see it on my right for arm on the top image of the blog).

We then headed to the Pipeline to the member meeting. We had a fantastic time! 20 people turned up which was amazing, the only thing is I forgot to take a group shot which annoyed me. We had some fun chats, and our Evil_Wench aka Sari decided it would be fun if she brought her whips.. I think she studied that picture of Tuomas whipping Jukka too much. I'll tell you she bloody hurts with it! We will be doing this again later in the year. It was so much fun, and everyone seemed to love the signed promo photo Tuomas did for everyone:

For more pictures of the meet look here
While there I got a phone call from Ewo, he was going to head over to party with everyone but in the end couldn't so a group of us went over to where he was. The guys had to leave to get the last train leaving myself and Cyntia to go with Ewo and crew to the Crobar till closing of 3am. We had a fab night, even though I ended up falling asleep on Cyntia's shoulder for a bit.

So that's it. Day after this I returned home to loads of work on the website and I'm still playing catch up.

Thank you for reading

Until next time!

Carol

The night after the event

Well it has been an interesting day. From sick with nerves too all gone in one tight hug. But I'll come back to this.

Myself and Sarah were up most of the night watching Nightwish in preparation for meeting with Tuomas later the next day. After 5 hours of DVD watching we called it a night.
Woke at a not so pleasing 7am but could not get back to sleep so lay there on msn for an hour or so before breakfast. It's hard to eat anything when you stomach feels like it's going to turn itself inside out with nerves, but the typical British cup of tea helped wonders.
After a few hours we were ready and sat in bar overlooking lobby so I could see when Tuomas came down from his room. I caught a flash of purple out the corner of my eye and instinctually knew it was him. Went over to meet with him and was greeted with him practically diving on me and a big hug, as I said earlier.... Nerves instantly gone.
We sat and he said "I have some gifts for you I hope you dong mind" my reply was of corse I don't mind and I have things for him too, he then insisted on going first and lifted out a huge collection of gifts. One thing which I will treasure forever is he gave me the original lyrics to the song Nightwish, which are his very first lyrics he wrote. I couldn't believe he gave me them.
I then gave him my gift, a Teemu Selanne collectors hockey framed signed picture etc, he freaked and loved it. Then we gave him the book from fans. He was so overwhelmed he was practically in tears at times. He promises to read every one of them and he was adamant he had to write a message to the website expressing his thanks.
We did the interview which he really enjoyed which we filmed and get online. All in all a great day, even got to meet Pip, Jukka and Ewo which was cool and they hung round about 40 mins or so too.
So it's 1am now and i'm getting tired.
So goodnight all!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:London- hotel

As the event approaches

The countdown begins..1 week to I head to London.

I made a list yesterday of things I still have to prepare before I go. I was shocked how much I still have to do. I have been working full time hours at work and also took on another project recently so I've been spreading my time out a little too thin it seems.

So far we have 27 people confirmed for the website gathering which is fantastic. The interview questions are set for Tuomas so at least the biggest things are done.

The "other" project I'm working on is building the site for the new Nightwish fan club for the British Isles.. it's going really well which is fab! (www.the-islanders.co.uk) I'll present the site and the idea to Ewo in London and introduce a letter from the club administrator to get the official status back for the club. Obviously we are sorting this out as soon as we can in advance of the album release etc so we can look at some fan related things.

I'm sorry for not updating regularly, hopefully that will change soon. But I do have more things I'm working on too so I cannot promise as many updates as what Anette does for example hehe... but of course I am far less interesting than her.

One suggestion someone had was if I could made a video blog of me and my work area when building Tuomas' site.. so I thought why not. I'll probably have a go on Tuesday with this.

So for now all take care- I will update on Tuesday

Midnight ramblings..

As if you couldn't guess from the title it's midnight here and thought before I get wrong again I best update.

Been really busy with work recently, move departments at work and after 1 days training I'm running it for 2 weeks..can anyone say stressful? This leaves me with a few small problems:

1) The department I've moved onto is Business and its peak sales in 2 weeks time for 6 weeks, anyone who works on business is not suppose to have any holidays during this time. I think I'm going to have to fight for my February holidays.

2) working full time hours, coming home and being a mum/administrator is getting hard to juggle. This will settle in time, but because I have so much to plan with London and upcoming things; I'm starting to stress a little. Little things like disagreements of members/staff which I would normally just shake my head at are annoying me and I have to "bite my tongue" so to speak.

I'm just glad I heard from Tuomas today with regards to set time and location to meet with him. It's one more thing not to worry about, as main panic was he would wait till in London and inform me down there when and where. I like to plan ahead. The man always had a way of making me smile with his correspondence.
But also on a good note, I'm closing submissions for the gift on Saturday this week. This will give me plenty time to get it right.
I still have to go through the member submissions again for interview questions, they are due an update so will try and do that when I finish work on Sunday. However that may go out of the window as a nap may be in order after being awake late Saturday night/Sunday morning for the Habs v Ducks game myself and Tuomas have a bet against each other on.

I was interviewed recently by Lerren of Nightwish Russia, they have not got it online yet. Hope they do soon as some of the answers I gave are about upcoming things. The interview took 3 hours, I couldn't believe it when I checked the time when we were finished.

Anette will be having a competition soon, which I will promote for her but I won't be entering it. I think I'm privileged enough in the realm of Nightwish not to take the chance away from someone else.

Well I cannot think of much more to say except zzzz so goodnight

1 month to go....

.. till I head to London. The nerves are already kicking in which is a bit stupid as spoken to Tuomas now for close to 3 month, but meeting in person still messing with my head.

Everything is about finished with the gift from the website to him, which is a big weight off my shoulders. For a while I didn't think we would get anywhere near to finishing it but I'm very impressed and it looks great.

More people than expected are going to turn up to the fan gathering also, which is fantastic for a first turn out. Probably do the second in the Netherlands.

Had a busy day today, more designing of things and plotting various things. Found the time to go shopping for Anette's gift too, so that's one more thing to cross off my to do list. Also got my makeup done today with some hints and tips on application so when we take photos in London I don't look terrible.

Finally found someone to loan me a slr camera too. Was Tuomas' idea to take some pictures but unless he had a camera I was a bit stuck with my 5mp digital camera. So good that I don't have to worry over this any more hehe. Only have few more things to sort then I'm about done.

Well to say good bye here's something which got me laughing from one of the comments from Anette's blog
http://ijustwanttofitin.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/lime-cat.jpg

Have a giggle at that and take care!

C hugx