The pull of the non-traditionally good weather is strong.
Time to split, shop for groceries and head home.
Purposefully avoiding the roiling crowds downtown.
Happu Vappu to all readers.
Archive of entries posted on April 2009
#130: Masquerade
An unknown relative of the leafy sea dragon, hiding in the algae.
Photo Thursday #130: Masquerade.
Two For Tuesday 28.4.2009: Wide/Narrow
A cormorant on a pylon. Photo taken in Bodega Bay, California – fortunately the winged natives were more restful than back in the sixties.
Two 4 Tuesday 28.4.2009: Wide/narrow – the pylon is the narrow bit.
Portfolio: liquidated
Conde Nast has liquidated Portfolio magazine.
The high-gloss business/economics-magazine survived two years of declining advertising, but the downturn axed Portfolio.
Somehow I don’t think that a grassroots-campaign to rescue this magazine will happen.
Alice Cooper: Along Came a Spider
As free lunches go, a three-song mini-movie by Alice Cooper is the best deal I’ve seen this week.
DeepLeap, the second plunge
The fast-paced time-wasting word game has been updated.
The biggest upgrades are visual: the tiles show their point values and the game length is also visible on screen.
High score thus far: 924 (riding high on QUITE, ZINCS, WAVED and MODEST, and obviously keeping the multiplier rolling end to end).
Moody Monday 27.4.2009: Frightened
King Arthur: That rabbit is dynamite.
Moody Monday 27.4.2009: Frightened.
It's a riddle, wrapped up in a mystery, inside an enigmatic 200+ pages
Meh.
The May issue of Wired is a J.J. Abrams-engineered puzzle extravaganza.
We haven’t even seen the April issue yet in Helsinki.
Third Larsson
Loistopokkarit has announced that a finnish paperback edition of the third Mikael Blomkvist/Lisbeth Salander book Pilvilinna joka romahti won’t be published until August.
Too bad, this would have made a perfect summer book.
The second installment in the series, Tyttö joka leikki tulella, does not reach the high standard set by the debut. It’s a good book, but an incomplete one – hardly independent of the last part. The plot is far more complex, and at times feels like stretching credibility beyond breaking point. However, towards the end most of the strands converge neatly, but the conclusion resolves some elements in quite unconvincing fashion.
Games (4 credit units)
Pelitieto.net is an introductory website about games and gaming culture.
Sure, there’s tons of those on the web already, so on the surface this is no big deal.
But this baby is in finnish, which is very much on the rare side.
And it’s pretty comprehensive from day one, which, in the days of permanent beta, is not common either.
The combination of the two points above, and the speed with which issues in the content are corrected, ought to mean a bright future as a reference.
And that is quite a big deal in my book.
Darkly ambient
Saw Callisto in Tavastia on Thursday night. This was the first gig I’ve seen, and based on the entertainment value, will occasionally show up for future shows as well.
The warm-up band, Joose Keskitalo ja Kolmas Maailmanpalo, was an odd combination of apocalyptic lyrics, a large number of instruments, and angry blues. The thirty-odd minutes on stage were entertaining to say the least. But probably not enough to seek out the singer-songwriter’s albums.
Callisto played for a little over an hour and had minimalist interaction with the audience (a single “thank you” was all that was heard). I’d heard only their newest album Providence, and was positively impressed with the gig. Musically the combination of Sigur Rós-like dramatics and metallic growls is an odd one, but worthy of attention.
Shirts-wise the gig was on the uninteresting-side, but the chance to pick up the two early Callisto albums certainly did not go wasted.
F1 2.0
Consider the tables turned. Seriously turned.
After four races Ferrari has six points, McLaren is threatened with summary disqualification and the new guys have taken the lead.
With the likes of Brawn, Red Bull and Toyota racking in points ahead of the perennial favorites, things are looking up from the perspective of a casual observer.
See It Sunday #176: Illusion
No. The crane is not bending.
See It Sunday #176: Illusion.
Yy kaa koo nee #26: 29
An absolutely appropriate detail of an old Högfors stove. Photo taken it the Kiiala manor near Porvoo.
Yy kaa koo nee #26: 29.
Not that there's anything WRONG with that
Surprise surprise: the judge who handed out the harsh sentences for the pirate bay quartet seems to have a serious bias.
Skywatch Friday #41: Crepuscular rays
Crepuscular rays breaking through stormclouds.
Kabuki Driving
In Japan, getting a driver’s license is no picnic.
Thursday Challenge 23.4.2009: Communication
The dog does not clean up after himself. And the cat certainly will not assist. True sign art from Hiroshima.
Thursday Challenge: Communication.
