Sapattivuosi, the finest finnish Black Sabbath-cover band ever, returns with their third album in April.
Things have changed since “vol. 2″. There’s a new vocalist in the band, and the source material is now taken from the Dio years of the band. The first single is Pelon Lait (Neon Knight, onomateopoetically correct), to be released on 4.3. – along with the identity of the singer.
For this week’s Photo Friday challenge of morning routine the answer is pretty simple.
It’s not a good morning if there’s no newspaper to read.
Usually the product is not as thick as this Sunday Boston Globe.
Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a puzzle game for Nintendo DS console.
True to its name, the game centers around solving puzzles in a village packed with more mysteries than EU directives allow.
The puzzles are realized perfectly with the dual-screen hardware, and the touch interface is used admirably to render several categories of brainteasers. The individual puzzles range from often seen classics to new inventions. A lot of them do seem oddly familiar, but all in all the selection is wide and no single genre is overplayed.
The plot of the game initially seems to be nothing more than an awkward scaffold for the collection of puzzles, but soon the haphazard themes are tied together to a mostly coherent whole. Graphically the game is pleasantly simple. The presentation is rarely the reason when a solution to a problem is not forthcoming. A couple of extended video scenes are short and pointful, appropriately located at clearly-cut turning points of the story. Musically the quasi-classical tunes rarely annoy – the themes change with the location and progress in the story. The slow pace of the music complements the unhurried nature of the game well.
The Curious Village is the first part of a trilogy. The other two have not been published outside of Japan yet. Based on the success of the debut, it would be odd if the latter two wouldn’t be released in short order.
Carcassonne is the board game whose finnish edition back in 2004 kickstarted the new boardgame boom.
Originally designed by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede, the game has reaped award after award around the world.
It’s an easy game to learn, but due to its random nature very hard to master.
The game centers on the chaotic town of Carcassonne in the southern France. The randomly created gameboard mimics the layout of the medieval town and its surroundings – the fields surround small hamlets and monasteries, crisscrossed with roads.
Carcassonne features some interaction between players, but it’s mostly a simple resource management game. Each player has a limited number of citizen pieces, and their appropriate placement on the newly constructed structures is the key to victory. The game works out best when there are three to five players, but it is enjoyable with two players also.
Carcassonne has given birth to a number of expansions and spin-off games. The former add elements to the basic game (ranging from extra tiles to magic and a wooden catapult used to shoot tokens onto the playing field). The latter transplant the basic tile/citizen-mechanic is to other environments (ranging from stone age to the conquest of the Americas).
Sierra has crafted a competent version of the game for the Xbox 360 Live Arcade.
All in all Carcassonne has served well as an introduction to the world of modern board games (tigether with Guillotine the duo has been responsible for attracting quite a few new players).
Missed opeth in December when the Helsinki gig was cancelled after the vocalist fell ill.
The band played a replacement tour this February, and the last of the four concerts was also the capstone for the Finnish Metal Expo.
The concert was again in Kaapelitehdas, and the based on the extremely echo-y sound of the warm-up band, Entombed, I was quite worried that the conditions would play an adverse role in the gig.
Happily enough that turned out not to be true, and the acoustics were not a detracting factor.
As a reward for the missed concert the band turned into a metal jukebox, and included both audience requests and snippets of classic songs in the set. Mikael Åkerfeldt’s stage presence was charismatic as usual, though this time he refrained from telling jokes.
Didn’t take notes, so the setlist is taken from the band’s forum.
Heir Apparent Ghost of Perdition Godhead's Lament Leper Affinity Credence Hessian Peel Closure Black Rose Immortal / Bleak / Burden / The Drapery Falls / Master's Apprentices "Medley" The Night And the Silent Water The Lotus Eater // Deliverance
Interview with the guy who created the astrometry server on flickr.
It’s been years and years since the Sealife Helsinki aquarium was opened. Last Embarrassingly enough, last Saturday was the first time I visited it.
The aquarium is housed in a large building next to Linnanmäki amusement park, and is certainly easy enough to reach.
The selection is pretty much confined to fish and occasional invertebrates – no penguins, no seals and especially no whales.
Inmates range from the typical (large swarms of cardinal tetras) to seldom seen (cold water rays), via oddballs (trumpetfish). This year’s theme is sharks, and there are a plenty of them on show – though they are from the small end of the range.
Compared to the likes of New England Aquarium and the one in Barcelona the Sealife Helsinki is a small establishment with around forty tanks. Twoof which are large enough to walk around (or even through). A few are embedded in walls with bulbous extensions providing visibility into the usually odd inmates.
This week’s photo thursday challenge is drama.
What would be more dramatic on the busy streets of New York than a sudden appearance of one of Spiderman’s arch-foes.
This Sandman-statue promotes the third (and by far the worst) installment of the movie saga.
the Mikkonen family gets their own television show.
Somehow this doesn’t favorably compare to broadcasting Sopranos and West Wing back in the day.
But is cheaper, far cheaper.
I’ve confessed liking Jon Stewart before, and this gem certainly does not diminish my appreciation:
You can not compromise your principles. Otherwise they are not principles! They are hobbies!
This week’s Thursday Challenge is all about being pink.
I couldn’t locate the image of a Thomas Pink sign from San Francisco, so here’s a domestic alternative – Piglet, probably the very pinkest thing at the HQ.
Spent Friday evening in the fifth Finnish Metal Expo at Kaapelitehdas.
Entered just as Grand Magus took to the stage. They were by far the most interesting group of the evening’s lineup. Grand Magus played old school heavy metal with a minimalistic stage presence. Quite a few songs off Iron Will, but occasional glimpses into the past with older material.
Stam1na cleaned the table in the awards ceremony, picking up pretty much every category they were represented.
Skipped Blake, and spent the next hour browsing the salesfloor. Bought one record (Candlemass’ newest), and picked up a few freebies (some as giveaways, some as rewards in games), the loot was rounded out with a towel (crimson one for Children of Bodom’s Blooddrunk) and a frisbee (again crimson, this time for Brother Firetribe’s sophomore album).
Chaosweaver played their very first gig. Melodic industrialish metal played in horror regalia. Not bad, interesting enough to warrant further investigation. At some point.
The last band of the evening was Ensiferum. Just like last year, the day was capped with a bout of folk-infused metal. And just like last year, the crowd went ballistic over the band. Though this time the pitting was of the regular kind and no wall of death was invoked. Ensiferum sounded a lot nastier on stage than they do on record.
The acoustics of Kaapelitehdas are never optimal, but somehow the crew managed to conjure a decent soundscape for the entire evening.
Programmable World of Tomorrow sounds pretentious enough to be used as a launchpad for the very first embedded slideshow. Which, based on the first thirty-odd slides, is not pretentious at all.
Moneyball, the basketball take.
Almost, since the NYT article concentrates on a single player – Shane Battier, these days playing for Houston. I ran him in Hakkapeliitat a couple of years back, and was quite happy. Never flashy, but never prone to choking or massive amounts of turnovers either.
With the kickoff of the Pirate Bay trial, the case begs the question: aren’t governments as guilty of assisting robbers, since they provide the roads with which the criminals can get trivial access to banks?
Of the many things on my inexhaustible want-list I chose just one for this week’s Moody Monday challenge.
This photograph of a “garden with a big waterfall” is taken in the Montreal Botanic Gardens, a location heavily recommended to all visitors in the Quebecois city.
And while the subject is pretty impractical in the current HQ, that’s just a reason to plan the upgrade well, not a cause to abandon such a decoration in the yard.
For this week’s Macro Day challenge of tags I’ve chosen a cloth tag picked up at some museum of modern art.
The original, bearing the legend “pull to eject”, is sadly gone. A perfect conversation starter if I ever saw any.
For this week’s challenge of 4 in Yy kaa koo nee I’ve chosen a replica of the best poker hand I’ve ever had in a proper live tournament. Too bad the resulting 400+ euros from the “all in”-response were just play money.
It sure has been a busy weekend.
Look forward to multiple gig reports, several photography challenge participations, strange in-bar sports, greek food and sighting of sharks at an appropriate time.
Matt Barton, the video game historian par excellence (I’ve raved about his Dungeons and Desktops already) returns with a new book in March: Vintage Games doesn’t have as tight a focus as his debut, but landed on the shopping list nonetheless.
This week’s Photo Friday challenge is pet.
My take on the subject is the attached image, of Pooh the Catfish (of Pterygoplichthys gibbiceps species). A big loricariid catfish that outgrew its holdings, and was returned to the shop after 15+ years.
Yes it is. But unfortunately it’s not usable as a power source.
Exhibit A: Sure, of course the new law allows daily strip searches.
Exhibit B: Copy&paste defeats the redactments in the Facebook/ConnectU-lawsuit.
For this week’s Thursday Challenge of clothes I’m recycling an old photo of my reliable winter shoes – this time rendered in bold black and white.
This week’s Photo Thursday challenge is an unfamiliar finnish platitude extolling the virtues of February.
Well, haven’t been outside with a camera on good days this month, so this picture of a snow moomin (taken in Porvoo last Sunday) is the best recent one. Due to a couple of last lousy winters the selection in the archives isn’t that good to begin with.