Balcony furniture

Living in an apartment building has its advantages; it requires less maintenance on behalf of the owner of a flat and it's also usually a lot cheaper than living in a rowhouse or a detached house. Easy and cheap is the only way to go. The apartments in an apartment house usually lack their own yards, but in many cases they have balconies to compensate. As almost all of the work required when owning a yard is quite boring, at least if your a well-known bachelor as I am, a balcony is actually a better thing to have than a yard. 

Having a balcony is one thing, furnishing it is another. As the balcony is a place where you really want to have a chill time, all the furnitures should be comfortable and decent looking at the same time. There's no point in having uncomfortable furniture on the balcony, that would be Tonto with a capital T and no Lone Ranger in sight. A balcony should be a place, where suitable clothing is either bathrobe, toga or full frontal nudity.

A man's balcony should not contain any excess frills, as a certain amount of asceticism should always be present. These empty spots are ideal for a potential life partner to fill, as without the asceticism, there is a great deal of risk involved, that the lady in question would just get rid of your stuff and fill it with her stuff. This will probably happen in any case, but the damages can be minimized with the previously mentioned method. If some reader's important pieces of furniture or decoration is saved this way, I am entitled to royalties, 2% from the net worth of the piece in question.

Here is a picture of my balcony. The floor is covered with mats made of some sort of reed. It is important to have something on the floor, otherwise the floor would be unbearably cold for bare feet and also the balcony would look like a balcony of a drug addict. The chairs are foldable and greenish, which is a good colour for balcony furniture, as it reminds of nature. There is a table on the corner, which belongs to a same set as the chairs. There is also a bed for the dog on the floor, which can also be used as a human bed, when having a hangover and feeling like a human trash.

On the table are my house plants, which are basil and chili. Both are functional plants, as they can be used for cooking. Functional is good, as it is easier to forget to give water to purely decorative house plants. As I don't know that much about decorative house plants, it is better not to obtain any of them. If I would start dating someone, that person would anyway throw the plants away, as she would consider the plants to be morbid. There is also the plant watering thingy on the table, which was cheaper than the next meal of some one, who searches for food from the dumpsters for lifestyle purposes. Fucking hipsters.

As mentioned in the beginning of this text, the keywords for living are cheap and easy, and this goes also for furnishing and decorating a balcony, not forgetting the necessary hedonism when considering the furnitures. Without hedonism there is no bachelor and the lifestyle can also be included into life of some one, who is in a relationship. You can trust me in this one, as I have thorough experience in fucking up relationships.

Sandals

Summer is finally here and it's also the time to get those lighter pair of footwear out of closet. Although the most of the year is too cold to wear anything that light in ones feet in Finland, during those couple months of warmth, it is anyway necessary to have really light footwear. Nothing is more lighter than sandals, except bare feet, but we are not cavemen now, are we. Besides, if humans feet were ment not to have footwear in them, we would have similar skin in the bottom of our legs as dogs.

I bought a new pair of sandals, because my previous ones are at least four years old and a couple weeks ago the dog decided to add them to its diet. Although the old sandals are still usable, it is still probably best, if I don't wear them anywhere when there are people around. The purchase was an impulse one, as I had not planned of buying sandals when going to store. Having sudden urges of buying something illustrates how the decisions we make as consumers, are quite often not so thoroughly considered. Acting according to those consumer's urges is however something that demonstrates decision-making skills, and one of my defining skills is making life-altering decisions in a blink of an eye.

As sandals are the type of clothes you usually wear with something that is not worn when dressed to impress, it is unwise to buy expensive sandals. Instead it is smart to buy cheap sandals, that don't look too low-life. Expensive clothes might also attract ladies who are accustomed to expensive things, and hooking up with one is a fatal error, at least to the wallet. Saving money on sandals leaves you with more money to spend on togas and grapefruit.

Here is a picture of my new sandals. The color is black and green, I don't really know is it good or not. The main point is that they weren't expensive and that they look decent enough. As I don't walk that much in the summertime, I don't empathize how the sandals feel in the feet that much. These sandals felt like wearing sandals.

There really isn't an alternative for sandals, this is why it is a must to have, but because of the short amount of time in a year when it is possible to wear them, at least in the north, you should only have max two pairs. The third pair is pointless to own, it will get you nowhere. You are not any better as a human being, if you have three sets of sandals. Also it is vital that you never, ever wear socks with sandals. By doing so would make you save all the money you would spend on contraceptives in the future, which is not really a good thing.

Hallway mat

First appearances are important, although they are not everything. It is possible to change the opinion of someone about something they spotted on the first time around, but as it takes time, it is always easier to make a good first impression, than to cover the faults later on. When a person is entering someones home, the general impression comes from the scent and the first things the person sees while entering. This is why it is very important to take care of the appartment's hallway area and how it is furnished and decorated. It is also a good idea to leave a opened jar of cleaning liquid of some sort near the door leading out of the appartment, as the clean scent may do the trick considering the first impression.

One thing someone always notices at first glance, is the hallway mat. This is why, first of all it is important to have one, and secondly, it also might be a good idea to have some consideration behind the purchase of the mat in question. Having a hallway mat probably deviates quite a lot from classical bachelor hallway decoration, which is having empty beer cans and half-empty pizza boxes laying all over the floor. It is anyway not a very good idea for a single man to invite (sober) women over, so the obvious lack of taste and tidyness isn't that big of a deal.

This is my hallway mat. It used to be a nice looking mat, until the dog decided that it is a good idea to rip it with its teeth. The pattern on the mat is dark and it resembles tree branches, when looking at the tree tops from the ground at night. Horror theme is very good, as it takes the attention away from the mess of the appartment. It's pointless to replace the shredded mat, as the dog would probably do the same to its successor. It is still not a problem, as I can blame everything on the dog and if any ladies happen to stumble in my appartment, they tend to be drunk enough not to mind.

As with any furniture/textile/decoration, it is preferable to match the hallway mat with the general design, feng shui and other shit of the room and also the whole appartment. If you don't understand anything about the subject, no worries, you can always ask someone who does, or just go with the flow. At least for a bachelor, there is nothing wrong with showing that you haven't got a clue what you are doing with your interior design, as opposites attract and if they don't, things tend to work out eventually. Why bother to to spend too much time decorating, if you don't see the point of it and you are anyway going to stay a loner.

Dark blue jeans

Today I'm wearing dark blue jeans, which are regular in every way. Regular is good, there is no need to have anything else to wear than regular type of clothes. My jeans are a little bit long for me, because they don't make fitting jeans for people who have typical finnish body structure, which is so called "persjalkainen", meaning short legs and long back. I'm not so sure how typical it actually is, but as I have seen quite a few finns who look like that, I can safely claim so. I could have shortened the trouser legs, but I chose not to, because I'm more of a lazy cheapskate than someone who cares how he looks.

Jeans are generally safe clothes to wear, you can wear in almost every occation, expect when you are in a fancy party (very rarely, as at least I am far too ordinary for that, or it might be also because I'm sort of a hermit), doing sports (weightlifting/gym, as other sports are unimportant) or having leisure time at home, wearing crappy but comfortable clothes (make sure that  absolutely no one can see you while doing this, as it is important to maintain the illusion that you are always wearing at least decent clothing). You can easily hook up with anyone by wearing jeans, at least that's what the word in the street is. I can very rarely hook up with anyone, but that's my business. Those times when I have hooked up with some random ladies, I have usually worn jeans.

Here is a picture of my dark blue jeans. The leg type is straight, but it could also be wider, just not as wide as seen in Saturday Night Fever. Slimmer leg type is passable, but not preferable, at least not for men. As I do not understand anything about how women dress, I'm not going to say anything about what type of jeans women should wear.   

There is no real need to own jeans in any other color than blue, as blue has more shades than that book about sadomasochism had of grey. White jeans are begging for dirt to smudge them, black jeans are anyways not as good as blue ones and colored ones are for people who are so pointless, that they have to wear colored jeans to compensate for their pointlessness.

Sorry for all the vocabulary and spelling errors in the text. In the future, I'm not going to do anything to correct the issue.