Lavonardo

The cluelessingest copyright-law ever is to be reopened in the parliament.

Surprising show of sensibility by the democratic establishment. An utter ban of ripping copycontrolled CDs seemed a shoo-in a couple of days ago.

Chapter four in my favorite vehicular mayhem-series seems to be on the verge of release. At least in the states, the official EU-date is the 22nd.

The rubberband AI is bound to be present, but the uncommonly addictive high-speed hijinx are usually enough to keep the suspenders of disbelief from snapping. At least until I get overtaken on the goal stretch for the umpteenth time in a row by a competitor last seen as a smoking wreck in the inbound chicane.

A random selection of things that have tickled my fancy one way or the other.

• The collective death of the angry young man as a concept has indeed been misreported.
• The uncyclopedia entry about Finland is chuckle-inducing, but only if you can spot the references. Or at least the majority thereof, quite a few are on the obscure side.
• V for Vendetta is out in finnish. Quite a nice hard cover edition. Ought to get, just to entice the publisher for continuing the good work.
• Never knew there were so many Taschen books around. Will get the “Movies of the $DECADE” one of these days. After the bookshelf-capacity has been increased.
• PopOut Maps rule as a tourist accessory. The official site manages to suck in several interesting ways (like the utter inability to provide a decent catalogue of the range), so it’s better to check amazon for the locations the maps are available. Collection thus far: Boston, Dublin and Barcelona. All bought on location, used and appreciated.
• Surprisingly vocal endorsement of the 770. Which has its own watchblog, so there’s clear pent-up interest. And the release ought to be imminent, with 3Q/05 ending in just two and a half weeks.
• A big collection of Hello, World-programs in tons of different languages.
• boingboing has been wallowing in post-Katrina-Bush-hatefest, but still occasionally contains gems. Like this scrabble-set in 1337-speak
• Perspectives on the inevitable Google vs. Microsoft battle: Phil Wainewright, Tim O’Reilly.

The Complete Inspector Morse is not the only desirable huge collection of a very good tv show.

Buffy’s seven seasons will be released in one 40 disc set in november. Thus far I’ve borrowed the show from friends, and have only one season on disc. Now would be a good time to catch them all.

The Cracker clocks in at a lighter 10 discs, but content-wise it’s hefty stuff indeed. Robbie Coltrane’s star turn as overweight and problem-ridden psychologist would indeed be mostly pleasant to watch again. “Mostly” because some of the stories cut a bit too deep for comfort.

NFL started last weekend, and so did the relevant fantasy football leagues.

Still have a basecamp at Yahoo.

Did not get as good a draft position as last year, and thus missed out on the obvious #1 pick. And no big QB indeed made it to the roster of Hakkapeliitat, unless you count Michael Vick - whose star has definitely been declining lately. Did manage to draft the controversial T.O. from the Eagles - no touchdown catches in the first game, but decent numbers nonetheless.

Too early to say whether the choices pay off, but by far the biggest overachiever of the first week was the Colts defense. Strong show at the expense of Ravens (whose defense I also drafted, coincidentally) - lessee if this D is finally enough to overcome the Patriots, an away game on the ninth week is a major watershed for the season.

A new week, a new game. This will be interesting.

Yet another delayed review. This time of Donald Westlake’s first collection of stort stories that concentrate on his unlucky burglar-protagonist, John Dortmunder.

And a fine collection it is, indeed. Consisting of eleven (right, it’s a thief’s dozen) stories that clock in at an average of fifteen pages each, it’s a nicely brief read. The tales have been collected from various sources: several from Playboy, others from the publisher’s pamphlets and various magazines.

And while the tales are entertaining, they are mercifully brief - most of them couldn’t carry their weight much longer. But the classic Dortmunder humor: ironic and non-violent is ever-present in them. And that sets the book apart from the usurpers’ products.

The last story of the book contains an entirely different set of characters - named differently, but immediately obvious to anyone who has read a couple of Dortmunder-novels. This was written during a time when the ownership of the original characters was contested between the author and an unnamed “Hollywood entity”. This is not expanded upon, and as arrival of the Dortmunder books has continued, we can only surmise that Westlake beat the lawyers.

A much delayed review of a book that’s evoked a pretty disjointed reception for itself. Either it’s billed as the best thing since Dan Brown or a horribly boring hackjob that misses the good bits utterly.

I don’t have a strong opinion on this book - it was a pleasant enough read, but nothing to get too excited about.

And it’s indeed close to brownian escapades in style - an old secret returns to haunt a sceptical academic protagonist. Here, however, the tale is not lost amongst disjointed car chases and other escapades. There’s very little action in the story, and much of the space is devoted to describing college life in Princeton. Which is unnecessarily spiced up by tales of paintball in steam tunnels, nude olympics and such.

But the antics of the alma mater of the authors are not enough to completely camouflage the main plot of the book. Which is yet another mystery, complete with its own cryptographic devices described at length. And the tale does not concentrate on the present, and a single protagonist - rather than weaving the history of four roommates into a mostly coherent whole. It is a way warmer and more human novel than any of Brown’s (have read two, don’t expect the rest to be any diferent), and thus a more appropriate comparison would be Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum instead - though this is far less literate and encompassing story, but that’s only to be expected from a first book.

Not bad. But not great either. And definitely mis-billed as an suspense novel.

Returned to San Andreas after a couple months break. Summer’s not really conducive to progress in games…

Got majorly stuck inbetween the virtual equivalents of San Francisco and Las Vegas, trying in vain to control a misbehaving plane to circle an airport. Turned out not to be a real spoiler of a mission, but took its time before learned to be gentle enough to ease the plane back to the airfield. The rest of the flight school missions were a walk in the park after that, and have now progressed to driving a spike between a triad and the mob in the control of casinos…

The game does not cease to amaze. In addition to the mandatory do-rags to riches story, it presents a well-executed sandbox of a world. The two most famous cities in California complemented with the gambling capital of the world. And a lot of other things to see and experience.

The latest chapter in the saga is a return to the original scene of the crime. Liberty City, the setting of GTA3. And the game of the series I’ve played the least. Rave reviews expected, but we’ll see whether that’s convincing enough to add yet another console to the Lavonardo HQ.

Saw the decades-awaited film of late (and sorely missed) Douglas Adams’ classic.

And despite the mediocre reviews it has received, it’s a good enough movie. A lot of liberties have been taken with the original to fit the story into a 90 minutes worth of movie. And that’s not really the issue, after all, the story has been told several times already - every time with a slightly different angle. No, a far more puzzling aspect of the story is the addition of several whole subplots - the sorest of which is the creation of a romantic strand between Arthur and Trillian. In comparison to that John Malkovich’s Humma Kavula is tied into the rest of the movie rather well. And someone added one too many chase scene to the film - the guide’s not really about running away into random directions…

But it’s not hopeless - far from that. The actors fit their parts well. Even the most worrisome of the cast - Mos Def as Ford Prefect hits the spot as the best friend from Guildford Betelgeuze. Martin Freeman, most famous from britcom of the decade, the Office, is hapless as ever. However, it’s Stephen Fry that steals the show, as the smug, yet very proper voice of the Guide.

Apart from Marvin (whose new incarnation, incidentally, is not nearly as miserable as he ought to be) missed all the of the original 1981 cast. But the biggest homage is paid to the author - indeed, an image of Douglas Adams is the last frame before the end credits.

Recommended. It’s not the answer to the life, universe and everything, but a pretty good movie in its own right.

The dvd is out next week. And looks interesting - it’s the first disc that sports “fake deleted scenes”, whatever they may be. Ain’t going to be queuing up for this, but might pick up from a sale a year on.

Dropped by Dubrovnik to see whether it’d be worth to spend some time at a mini-sized scifi-event.

Decided against. Place was not really optimal as seats were in short supply and the PA did not amplify interviews properly. Saw Johanna Sinisalo interviewed, and noted that still haven’t read her two newest books.

So, cut losses and retreated. But not before nabbing a home-made “Hello Cthulhu” pin for the grand price of one euro.

EDIT 24.8.2008: Link seems to be dead (or requiring some higher authority to access).

Quite a few things to write about. Hampered by a severe lack of inspiration. That’s what writing 30+ lengthy mails a day does to ya, it seems. Bah, is there such a thing as reverse writer’s block?

On a completely unrelated note, the iPod nano, the brand new replacement for the mini-series, looks interesting, but as roklintu notes, the storage space is small indeed (the new models max out at 4 GB). But it looks nifty, very nifty indeed. The battery on my 40 gigger isn’t getting any better, but it’s a livable liability. Until the next generation models are launched.

Some thought he’d already reached his zenith, but Jarkko Nieminen proved doubters wrong with solid performance in the US Open.

Next up? Lleyton Hewitt, and that’ll be a harsh lesson, likely. But a good chunk of ATP-loot nonetheless.

Yet another nifty test.

Woody Allen Your film will be 57% romantic, 43% comedy, 21% complex plot, and a $ 24 million budget.

Be prepared to have your life story shot entirely in New York City — though lately Woody’s been loving shooting in London. Also, your music soundtrack is all jazz from before 1949. Filmography: Annie Hall, Manhattan, Stardust Memories, Everyone Says I Love You, etc. Woody has released one film per year consistently for the past 35 years. For the past 15 years he’s been trying to make films like his older, funnier ones, just like characters in his Stardust Memories film suggest throughout. Regardless of his personal life, his films are American classics.

Could have been way worse. I mean way, way, way worse. Or it could have been Hitchcock.

Still missing all of his movies on dvd. Don’t intend to get many, but Manhattan, Annie Hall and the bunch of early comedies definitely have a place in the collection…

And by the way, I’d have been an expatriate in thirties germany. Lost the link.

[ via SchizoBlog. ]

Had dinner with a bunch of friends at Raku-Ya, a newish japanese restaurant in the harbor area of Helsinki.

Food was way better than expected, and the raw tuna/avocado/red onion plate was very much a “to repeat” experience. The prices a tad high, but not excessively so. And the place itself was nice, not throughly steeped in japanese regalia, but subduedly quite far removed from its location.

A pleasant nachspiel was curtailed by a sudden combined attack of drowsiness and acute slurring of speech. The former can easily be explained by a long and arduous week, the latter not really by the five beers consumed. So, let’s just blame stress on the early exit and be done with it.

Ho hum, not falling for a zero-day purchase… Nice ads, though. I bet on tv as well, but haven’t seen any.

Yet another platform, further deepening the hole for game companies. At worst there’s SIX formats to consider for new entries: PS2, XBox, XBox360, PC, Gamecube and now PSP. Adding the less powered handhelds (DS, GBA, n-gage) into the equation complicates matters even further, but for the most part the games do not span the whole spectrum. And this misses out PS3 and Revolution, since they aren’t going to matter during the next six months or so.

And it’s indeed not for the multiplatform games that PSP is interesting. Nope, PS2 games are better appreciated in their native format. It’s the exclusive games that are far more interesting. And sadly, there ain’t too many of them. Lumines, the current leader in metacritic aggregate review scores, is definitely in the “ought to try” bunch, as is the next GTA episode. But for the most part it’s just rehashes of existing games, and that ain’t too hot, frankly. Though the Burnout game, supposedly a collection of the “best drivey bits from the three first games” definitely does appeal to an amateur road rager like me. And the n+1:th iteration of the Wipeout-franchise is supposedly decent as well.

And until Sony figures out what it’s going to do about the homebrew scene, any firmware update is to be considered dangerous…