Lavonardo

So, NHL’s cancelled for the season.

Took a surprising 153 days until the parties came to the conclusion that they indeed have irreconcilable differences.

And there’s no guarantees that next year will be any different.

And yeah. The blame’s fully on the players. After all, they’re just over-paid jocks.

Apologies for the evidence being only in finnish. But this is just too funny and sad to pass by.

First, there was this: the Finnish EFF taking a localized net nanny- equivalent program [maximum cluelessness alert] for a spin. With predictable results.

Ok. You’d expect the developer to lick its wounds, and come back with an improved version. Or at least send out a vaporous press release claiming to do so in the near, if not immediate future. But nope… Like Rob Schneider, they decide to take the fight public. Which is never a good choice. As shown by the massacring they’re subjected to.

Of course. In the era of pure capitalism, there’s nothing inherently wrong in marketing dysfunctional programs whose results fail to resemble anything promised by the glossy advertisements. But using children as leverage to do so is. Wrong, and reprehensible.

Here endeth the sermon. Back to bomb-building and fornication, ye readers of the filty intterweb. Right now. You know you cannot resist its siren song.

Got better. First day at work. Had doubts in a two hour project meeting, but voice held together nicely. Ought to be plain sailing now.

Not totally silent any more. Speaking is now actually quite painless, but the tone is still on the low side. My absolute tonedeafness prevents estimation of quite low exactly.

More Martin. More KotOR. More lazy lounging on the sofa (the little red triangles in antihistamins do work).

Stumbled upon this, a pretty credible subdivision of the US. Quite a few regions I’d
probably hate to live in.

Had forgotten how good old Sepultura actually was. And by old I mean “Schizophrenia” from 1987. And by good I mean “unlike the latest few albums, and thus actually very listenable”. Had underestimated the quality of the new Apocalyptica record, much better than was apparent on first couple of rounds. And not only the vocal-accompanied tracks, some of the instrumentals on this (like Farewell) rank among the best of their output thus far. Also played too much Pet Shop Boys for comfort. But only as shelled out by the ipod.

boingboing pointed towards a good article about H.P. Lovecraft on Salon.

Yet another blogger dismissed due to extracurricular online outputs.

Showing that imitation is indeed the strongest form of flattery, a cheap replica of the ONE TRUE SOURCE has
arrived onto the web [Neither makes any sense unless you speak finnish, I'm afraid].

Noted from Empire that Angelo Badalamenti (yah, the guy behind the uncanny soudscape of most David Lynch’s movies) is the composer of A Very Long Engagement’s soundtrack. If he hasn’t strayed too badly from his old mainstays, this is definitely a record to pick up, one of these days. Still haven’t seen the movie, either.

EDIT 18.8.2008: maamme.fi is gone.

Quite silent. Grocery-shopping mandates some vocal contact, but not much…

No longer any fun whatsoever.
Caused skipping of a good friend’s bachelor party. Can’t talk, can’t participate in lazer tag, shouldn’t really walk around in zero-degree weather, can’t go to sauna. Yeah, negatives all the way, but I’d rather miss this than the wedding. Small consolation, but a silver lining nonetheless.

More Martin. Updated fishblog.

According to ESPN both Karl “Mailman” Malone and Reggie “No wussy nicknames” Miller are retiring. Miller after a season where he’s still put in a good few clutch shots (considering that his proteges are still banned from the court after the debacle in Detroit). But Malone has not seen any action this season - injury (must be an LA curse, he was never hurt in SLC), politics (feuding with Kobe) and now toying with the idea of capping his career in Texas.

Well, the league will be short of two entertaining athletes, that’s for sure. Never saw Miller play live, but saw a few Jazz games back in the day and Malone was the king of the parquet, no matter who they played against. They might have lost, and sometimes indeed did, but he was the Chairman of the Board at Delta Center. The gawky russian kid has been putting up good numbers, and he’s definitely impressed the
merciless Sloan with work ethics. Now with a six year contract signed, AK-47’s the cornerstone of this decade’s Jazz team. As evidenced by the total nosedive of the performance during his absence (the unlikely victories over the mighty western duo of Phoenix and San Antonio being the exceptions to the rule, of course). And a ring is so much further away than it was in the glory days of Stockton and Malone - if only Jazz’d had a center who could jump more than three inches, they’d taken at least one title in the late nineties.

Not an utter success. Had to do shopping. Had to visit the post office to claim a package. Had to say ‘ow’ a couple of time at the dentist’s office. But probably said less than a percent of words uttered during the course of a normal day. But the voice is still low, very low.

Well, since I’m going to spend the next few days verbally incommunicado, it’s time to stock up on good reading. And music. Got plenty of the latter still waiting for a spin (see updated list). I’ll play ‘em loud to contrast my own silence. Hope that the not-so-well-behaving amp is up to the task.

And no shortage of the former either… I think I’ll start with the latest Terry Pratchett, a supposedly classical treatise on character sets, the sole remaining published chapter of George R.R. Martin’s saga, and a couple of random comic books.

And picking up a long-dormant game of Knights of the Old Republic. Still the best Star Wars since Return of the Jedi.

And should be ample time to select and purchase the first fish for the aquarium. And to add some more pictures to the relevant blog.

EDIT 18.8.2008: The Lucasarts website doesn’t provide much content on old games, upgraded to wikipedia.

This is how Google Maps works.

A worthy explanation, indeed. One that puts my meager web-knowledge in perspective.

Was too optimistic about getting rid of the flu. Voice went definitely down the stairs yesterday, and was approaching infrasound-class rumblings at worst. Decided that it was time to see a doctor about this (no fever, not that bad a cough, just an occasionally runny nose and a very very low voice).

Very fast examination at Diacor, props to them.

I’m now officially banned from speaking until sunday to give my inflamed vocal cords a needed rest. And got some funky antibiotics to assist in the battle against germs.

A movie ticket expired yesterday, but would’ve been unable to go watch a movie anyhow. Too bad. But purchasing tickets in nine-paks is good, since it forces me to watch a healthy amount of movies per season.

A good competitor for the mapquests and yahoos of the world. Google Maps. But US and Canada only thus far.

Renders well. Renders fast. And allows scrolling. Would be nice to have scale noted on the maps, however.

This is where I lived ‘93-’94. It was less gray back then. Must have been the olympics that stole the colours from the neighborhood.

[Probably the least informational entry ever.]
Added a picture of myself on the front page. Consider yourselves warned.

Though no fever any longer. Still feel like #include .

The day’s absence from providing added value provided the chance to finish Half-Life 2. And what a game it was… Short enough to maintain interest, repetitive enough to allow the player to benefit from experience, and awesome as an audiovisual experience. And considering the lurch poor Mr. Freeman was abandoned in, a third part is pretty much a certainty.

Was feeling a bit under the weather yesterday and even worse today.

And I indeed seem to have developed a nice startup of a flu, there’s a fever and all. Despite the rather horrible (humid and clammy) weather this is the first case the whole winter.

Well, this means I can watch re-run of the superbowl at my leisure tomorrow instead of devoting the whole night to it.

Why am I constantly late to news of this magnitude?

Best english comic duo in ages is now set to return to the small screen. Hugh Laurie ought to have the clueless-aspect of Dr. Watson hands down, but Stephen Fry’ll probably raise a few eyebrows among those whose fundamentalist views do not permit anyone else but St. Brett to represent the great detective.

Shamelessly plucked from schizoblog: imaginative disrespect on Star Wars fanboys. And some scary fangirls as well.

On a completely unrelated note… It’s now been proven that there’s indeed a connection between eating too much blini and having a very very slow morning come the next day. Don’t hold your breaths waiting for the mathematical model, just trust the empirical evidence.

Started yet another blog. The new one is a project blog at work, and thus off limits to any civilians. Seemed like a bright idea, as there’s lots of information to spread, and email is so last millennium as media anyhow…

The two first ones? You’re reading the very first right now, and the second documents the setup and life of my new aquarium.