This week's photo thursday challenge subject is tenkkapoo, a suggestion to "think about it"".

My take on the subject is the attached image, a street sign from Amsterdam. The name's familiar, that's for sure. But who actually is Bianca Castafiore?

(As usual, the full-size photograph is available by clicking the attached image. And the previous photo thursday pictures are all available through the gallery page.)

Meh, missed the news back in august that sivuraide is not to be.

Too bad, I was kind of looking forward to a new finnish science fiction magazine.

Even if only to learn what "slipstream" actually means.

Not everybody's taking the alterations to Tuntematon Sotilas well.

And the yellow media is lapping up the storm - after all it's not often when they can savour the idea of actually shooting the president.

Image: Mesphin Forrester by Billy A (CC)

The victory streak is now seven games long. Thanks to a single point victory this weekend.

The highest score of the week was off the Cowboys' defense, who continued their mistreatment of offenses - the individual key play was a pick returned for a touchdown, sweet eight points in a single offensive miscue.

Drew Brees outplayed Derek Anderson, meaning that I really have to start thinking which one of the quarterback duo to field. The running backs executed themselves OK. But on the wide receivers should definitely gave fielded Atlanta's Roddy White - his TD-capped 104 yards are surprisingly many against the stingy Colts' defense.

The game was indeed close. And the opponent was carried by niners' Frank Gore, who demolished the Cardinals for 32 points total. A welcome return of the air/land threat to the San Francisco team badly in need of a saviour.

So the week culminated in Monday Night Football, with Hines Ward and Heath Miller of the Steelers receiving corps fighting for points and a nine point deficit for the opponents. The game turned out to be an affair on a well-soaked field. With balls slipping out of everybody's hands, the Pittsburgh-Miami event looked like the first scoreless draw in the 64 year history of NFL. But that was not to be, Jeff Reed kicked a field goal seventeen seconds before clock expired. No points for Miller, eight for Ward. Enough to preserve victory.

Bring on week thirteen.

Do not attempt to locate a hidden message in the selection.

There isn't any.

• Color-shifting tiles, just the thing for the upgraded bathroom.
• Let no internet meme be uninvited to this party.
• Origami CD case. Probably a bit more difficult than the garden variety crane.
• When did Star Wars jump the shark? What about Star Trek? And bad things in science fiction in general... Certainly the have been named and numbered already. You bet they have.
• Vector Magic, surprisingly effective tool to convert bitmap images into vectorized format.
• Largest island in a lake on an island in a lake on an ...
• A collection of Kindle links.
• Shredz64, a game for the Guitar Hero-controller on the commodore 64. Respect.

Today's biggest news item in the finnish blogosphere was the acquisition of Blogilista.fi by Sanoma Oy.

Thus this week's fiver is all about the site that just got sold.

1. What do you think of blogilista?

It's a useful aggregator, that's probably done more good for the finnish blogging scene than any other domestic site.

That said, it really could do with an editor. The list is full of blogs that have died a quiet death or been stillborn.

2. Do you use it to monitor blogs?

I do. Have done for the last three-four years, and haven't really evolved to using just a single RSS-reader.

3. What do you think about the acquisition?

No idea. I haven't paid any attention to what happened to other sites that have been bought by Sanoma.

4. What do you think the future holds for Blogilista?

More advertisements, that's a pretty safe bet.

5. Do you use any other domestic blog-portal? (Do you know whether there are even any others than blogispotti?)

I don't. And I've never looked at blogispotti before...

This week's photo thursday challenge subject is brokenness of time, being built from a snippet from Kurt Vonnegut's Man Without a Country

My take on the subject is the attached image, a chunk of first bona fide carved hieroglyphics I've seen. No idea what it means, but it easily shows that even if time itself is measured in fleeting seconds, some things will last through the millennia.

Initially thought about a clock running backwards, but don't have one on my wall (though have been longing for one for quite a while). And my recollection whether KuuKuu really has a Gammeldansk-supplied one on their wall is too vague to warrant a quick drop in to ascertain the fact. An image of my calendar wouldn't have been of much use either - the content is true to the task (time splintering into useless fragments), but I'd seriously break all possible NDAs showing that, and a snapshot of an Outlook screen simply isn't as nifty as a piece of ancient egyptian rock.

(As usual, the full-size photograph is available by clicking the attached image. And the previous photo thursday pictures are all available through the gallery page.)

Hartwall has been quite good with introductions to their 1836-family lately.

The white lager was easily the best new finnish beer last summer, and the two darker entries (porter and all malt) are not bad either.

The first seasonal trial (octoberfest), on the other hand, was surprisingly uninteresting. There's been many more involved interpretations of the topic, and as such this one seemed insignificant.

The newest entry in the family is chocolate porter, and it turns out to be very choclate-y indeed. The taste lingers on the border of being artificial or sweet, and manages to stay on the correct side. Though I'm sure the drink will have dozens of detractors who claim this is a hideous defacing of reinheitsgebot. Right now the porter is available in limited edition only (two cans + two glasses), but will be globally supplied after 2008 rolls in.

This week's photo friday challenge is two.

My take on the subject is the attached image, a scene from downtown Helsinki. Two buses, following an unsuccessful attempt of trying to fit them both into a space for just one. No major damages, apart from hurt prides and crunched mask, the speed of the crash was very low indeed.

Alice Cooper played today in Helsinki, on one of the last gigs of the Psycho-Drama tour.

Saw more than half of the warm-up band's act. Uriah Heep hasn't changed much (apart from the members) since the last encounter eighteen years ago. Pretty much the same classic songs were played this time as well.

The headliner act began ahead of schedule, and put on a decent, though un-surprising show. The song selection was very much on the safe side, with no new album to promote, most of the time on stage was given out to seventies' songs.

Alice's gig was also unexpetedly impersonal. There was no interaction with the audience, not even when Mike Monroe joined him on stage for School's Out. The band got introduced almost as an afterthought during the encore, and all in all the show seemed distanced from the viewers.

Musically, though, the concert went all right. The band consisted of lean and hungry young players (and Eric Singer, a seasoned drummer), who rendered the song selection well. Acting on stage was more subdued on this tour (though the use of a gallows pole instead of a guillotine was new) - with Alice's daughter Calico (though I could bet a decent sum that she was introduced as Tabitha) providing almost all of the theatre and acrobatics.

For a change, took notes on a set list:

It's hot tonight
No more Mr. Nice Guy
Under my wheels
I'm 18
Is it my body
Woman of mass distraction
Lost in America
Feed my Frankenstein
Be my lover
Dirty diamonds
Muscle of Love
Desperado / Halo of Flies / Drum solo
Welcome to my nightmare
Only women bleed
Steven
Dead babies
Ballad of Dwight Fry
Killer / I love the dead
School's out
Billion dollar babies
Poison
Elected

As noted earlier, there was very little played from anywhere else but the seventies. Nothing off the duo of respectably metallic Brutal Planet/Dragontown, and only the obligatory Poison off Trash.

Not a great show, pretty much like Metallica's earlier this year - a rehash of the glory years, with nothing new added to the mix. Good for the occasional listener, definitely, but not that good for the fans who have seen this material several times over. I sincerely hope that both Cooper and the Bay Area foursome get their monkeys off their backs with quick releases. And somehow I feel that the former is going to have far less trouble with his forthcoming Along Came a Spider.

The qualifyer groups for the 2010 World Cup (in South Africa) were lotteried today.

Finland, even after being moved up to the third basket, didn't have exactly the best luck in the draw.

We're placed in group D, with Germany and Russia included as the big boys, and Wales, Azerbaidzhan and Lithuania rounding up the number.

As only the team on top qualifies direct, and the second place holders play off amongst themselves, this is not an easy group to get through to the cup.

It's been nine months since the previous breaking of a barrier when it comes to visitor count.

The twentythousandth visitor, who surfed in this morning 11:12:19 from htv.fi and had no meaningful referral, is welcome to name his/her favorite drink and the place to consume it, as well as the time to do so. Within reason, obviously, when it comes to the last two details.

(And yeah, the previously given caveats about the count are still valid, but that ought not to get in the way of things.)

Re-watched Bryan Singer's masterful Usual Suspects, and am still awed, who knows how long since the first viewing.

The film is as tightly packed as I remembered, the spare execution of the seemingy straight plot only adds to the utter feeling of rejection when the floor falls out from underneath.

And it's testament to the film that the storyline is by no means obvious on a second viewing. While the MacGuffin is known, it doesn't diminish the plot at all. The hard-edged habitual criminals are good company even when it's known what really happened.

The acting is awesome across the board. Both Kevin Spacey and Benicio Del Toro got their big breaks from this movie and neither Kevin Pollak nor Stephen Baldwin has ever achieved these heights again. But still, it's the duo of Chazz Palminteri and especially Gabriel Byrne that excel consistently, both alone and when sharing the screen.

Seems that I definitely have to look into the scripwriters's other output - if it's even halfway this good, it still demolishes pretty much everything else Hollywood provides. And I so need to watch Miller's Crossing, the other Gabriel Byrne-vehicle, again as well.

Today was the first presso-less saturday in ages. That is, if the paper's summer hiatus is discounted. And from where I'm sitting, it definitely is.

Presso didn't go down all nice and quiet - the border of the front page was a very long (and surprisingly spiteless) message in a very tiny font indeed, as reported in M&M.

So long Presso, it won't be long before you're joined by Taloussanomat. Which completes the root cause of my saturday morning dilemma - what's a decent, tabloid-sized, yet intelligent paper to read over the breakfast?

Noted that Apple packaged Dashcode, the most productized widget-creation tool with Leopard.

Played with the workbench a couple of minutes, and was able to craft an RSS-viewer widget for this very blog.

Shocking. Speed-wise, that is.

But the widget does not render images, so everything is not at all perfect with it right now. And it certainly will not be published until that immediately obvious shortcoming is fixed (if ever).

The shipped documentation is meager, and my javascript-fu low, so it's time to turn towards the greatest of customer assistance tools in the world: random googling.

Stay tuned, for exciting announcements about further adventures in widgetstan.

Bought a new computer the other week, and got it delivered tuesday evening. Apple's web store proved to be efficient, and hit the delivery schedule spot on in the estimation.

I moved into the mac camp more than two years ago, and had no intention of straying from Steve's disciples. lynch, the replacement of gromit the iBook, is a Powerbook Pro. Sleek and metallic, and hopefully powerful enough to last the next few years as the generic computation device of choice in the HQ.

Leopard, which was supposed to come pre-installed, wasn't. But with the provided dvd that was quickly taken care of. Though not without a hitch, as the admin password for the Tiger-installation proved to be more significant than assumed (yeah, to be able to upgrade the operating system you have to remember said password).

While the iBook had a decent screen, the LED-powered screen the new laptop has is leaps and bounds ahead. And the extra real estate and brightness does not come at the expense of battery life either. Quite the opposite, as a fully charged battery clocks in at unexpectedly above four hours.

The keyboard is less plastic than that of the iBook, but sizewise there is no significant change. The illumination in low-light conditions has yet to prove its worth. As has the automagical brightness adjustment of the screen. Disabled both on account of occasionally triggering them accidentally in normal sofa conditions. And first worrying whether my flu medicine has kicked in an extra gear in surrealism.

The famed new release of OS X, Leopard has been stable and not too changed from the Tiger. Which is to say that I haven't been playing with the Spaces or the Timemachine yet. The latter supposedly kicks in uncomfortably when an external drive is connected, something bound to happen when bringing in music and photographs from gromit.

Installed lots of mandatory applications instead of fiddling with the operating system. No firefox 3 yet, it's too early in the cycle for that. Safari 3, on the other hand, seems to work well, and doesn't go on memory consumption binges like firefox recently has every now and then. Though its lack of "where this link points to"-info field is more than a cosmetic demerit. Canon's site was spectacularly slow, so camera software has to wait (and iPhoto may be able to pull the images out anyway). Nokia's brand spanking new PC-Suite Light for the Mac shows some definitely interesting tools as well.

No games yet (apart from ScummVM and a multi-talented interactive fiction interpreter). Lynch ought to pack enough power to facilitate gaming natively (I'm dreading my first step into the inevitable MMORPG addiction), with a bootcamped Windows XP (as soon as I find an SP2-equipped XP installation disk) and virtualization. With both VMWare and Parallels bringing circa-2003 XP on the desktop with ease, and there's no disrespecting DosBox emulator either. One of the three alternatives will, sooner or later, provide the ability to finish classics such as Planescape:Torment and Fallout 2 comfortably on the sofa.

The myfootballcub.co.uk has gone ahead and fulfilled the dream of many armchair managers - the group now owns a bona fide football team: Ebbsfleet United F.C..

A team that's currently not playing in the four levels of football league in UK.

But it's a team nonetheless, even if the prospects of a six year rampage to the top of Champions League do sound a bit far-fetched.

At 35 quid the membership in the club is neither cheap nor uncomfortably expensive. But not yet attractive enough to pull me in. But it sure would be cool to visit Gravesend in Kent as an owner of the team. Never mind the fact that by the time there will be forty thousand others in the very same position.

The finns are out of the Euro 2008.

We held onto the qualifying position until the very last game of the series, which is far longer than what usually happens.

The team fell with its cleats on, only one ugly loss (to Azerbaidzhan) really mars the series. But the number of draws was unseemly high as well, at least a couple of recent goalless games could have been easily converted.

So the qualifiers for the swiss/austrian games are now over, and the campaign for the 2010 games begins next summer. It's too early to say how many of the aging players are calling it quits by the time the next series rolls in. But it's a safe bet that some of them will, sooner or later.

It's been a two weeks since the images were originally taken, but the intervening days have not diminished the "HD" photographs taken by the japanese Kaguya moon probe.

Image: John Chehade by Mike Wood (CC)

The season marches on, with the sixth Hakkapeliitat victory in a row.

The highest individual scorer this week was no single player, but the stingy Giants' defense, that manhandled Detroit Lions with three picks, a forced fumble and a blocked kick as an added bonus.

Neither quarterback shone, chose Browns' Anderson, and he came away with a slightly better output than his counterpart in the Saints. No thrown touchdowns, very decent yardage and a scrambled score for a surprise.

Atlanta's offense was very subdued against Tampa Bay, and even the most prolific scorer, Eagles' Brian Westbrook was held without a touchdown (partially explained by Donovan McNabb getting hurt before the halftime, which cut down on the passing game).

Thankfully the opponent had an off-kilter week as well. Especially Peyton Manning was subdued - the lone Colts TD was off the running game, and the victory was sealed by skillful clock management at the end. Titans' Rob Bironas didn't provide a kickfest on monday, and with Brandon Marshall evening the game scoring for the Broncos, the week's margin remained the same as it was on sunday.

Bring on week twelve.

This week's fiver is all about television, and nothing but the television.

1. Do you watch television on an actual television, a computer screen, or some other gadget?

I do. On my aging Sony 29-incher right now, soon to be upgraded to a proper LCD monster.

Canal+. Planning on picking two or three months of Viasat on account of weekly NFL-coverage.

Sure it will, but not before the government gets it act together about the fees.

I do. More out of convenience than anything.

Everybody need some time, and with these links it's easily spent.

• The release of Amazon's electronic book draws close, if Steven Levy's Newsweek article is to be believed (and yeah, hopefully it's the lead article of the international edition as well).
• Jesper Juul has written a thorough history of matching tile games. Doesn't sound too exciting, until the list is perused: Tetris, Bejeweled, Puzzle Bobble, and many others whose addictive qualities would be cause for banning in most european states.
• History of digital tampering is much longer than expected - beginning with an overlaid image of Abraham Lincoln back in 1860s.
• Somehow the feature wishlist for next Windows release (codenamed "7") is more than a little bit underwhelming.
• Not being allowed to die in the house of parliament has justifiably been voted to be the most ludicrous law in Britain.
• Cost of the Iraq War? About 1.3 trillion dollars. So far.
• Domo Arigato, Battleship Legoto.
• An eponymous site lists the recognized biodiversity hotspots of the world.
• freerice.com = charity and vocabulary enhancement. I so need to establish a firm presence above level 40.

A semi-flu has occupied my vocal cords - and thus my brogue has gone down an octave or two (depending on the time of the day). No fever worth mentioning, no overarching world of hurt. Just a nagging feeling that someone turned my personal clock frequency down. Big time.

Been reading an excellent account of the first days of the Colonial Provincial Authority-led occupation of Iraq - it's no wonder that Imperial Life in the Emerald City was immediately optioned for a movie.

Increased my elf cap ownership by one. It's not often that christmas parties take this good care of participants.

Gave a healthy amount of props to Läkerol candy. In addition to being pleasantly non-sequitur in their advertising, the drops are excellent cough sootheners.

Haven't had much inclination to blog or play. Expect return to form next week on the former, and probably latter as well.

Today's Nyt.

Page 42. Above the fold.

The headline is not mine, apologies for that.

Just when the frighteningly activity-loaded weekend (two christmas parties, Turisas gig) rolls in, so does the first flu of the season.

No fever, but a sore throat accompanied by a seriously depleted tonal range is sure to cut into the festive mood.

Now you can be friends with Wagner. At least there's a Sika Wagner to be found in the facebook. But the fact of "no recent activity" might mean that this is quite some other porcine individual.

Fingerpori, by far the best strip in Hesari these days has been gathered up to an archive. Hopefully this means that an album is forthcoming as well.

This week's photo thursday challenge subject is unfinished.

My take on the subject is the attached image, a scene from the Museum of Australia, where paleontologists are investigating fossil discoveries in full view of the visitors. The white-haired guy in the picture clearly has lots of unfinished business to attend to on the table and doubtless tons and tons more stones just off the frame.

(As usual, the full-size photograph is available by clicking the attached image. And the previous photo thursday pictures are all available through the gallery page.)

Just when the list of recently interesting blogs got posted, one further popped up.

Extratextuals is a television/media blog with interesting and long entries. Not all about the latest and greatest on the small screen, but on a wide enough variety of topics to retain interest.

I am Nyarlathotep.

The 999 forms of Nyarlathotep are a point of meditation for the true initiate. It is through these manifold faces that the secrets of the universe are made known. Called "The Crawling Chaos", Nyarlathotep is the disembodied ego of Azathoth and thus the universal "I" of known reality. Some of the many documented forms are; Father of Knives, Nephren-Ka, the Black Man, the Beast of the Lashing Tongue to name a few.

Which Great Old One are you?

Image: Andrew Davie by Tipsterhog (CC)

Hakkapeliitat have five straight victories now.

Last week's game featured the largest margin of the season - where the duo of running backs outscored the opponent's by no less than fifty points. Picked multi-year Hakkapeliitat veteran Warrick Dunn off the list of free agents just before the game and slotted him in instead of Maurice Jones-Drew, who was up against the supposedly tight Titans' defense. Both of them scored, but Dunn picked up more yards. And Brian Westbrook continued almost single-handed demolition of Eagles' opponents: with three scores and 180+ yards in total he was clearly the key to victory.

The quarterbacks fared equally well: Saints' Brees engineered an almost successful comeback (marred by a muffed onside kick) after two interceptions in the first half, Browns' Anderson threw less, but had no picks either. On the defense Dallas put on a good show in the fourth quarter against the Giants, rattling Eli Manning with multiple sacks.

In the league proper the biggest news was Colts' second loss, following a remarkable rally from 23 points down in San Diego - Peyton Manning's six interceptions and Adam Vinatieri's miskicks guaranteed the loss to uneven Chargers. Rex Grossman returned to chair the Bears' offense (and didn't suck too bad) and Cincinnati kicked seven field goals. Patriots' bye meant rest for the team that actually (due to an easy schedule) actually has a decent chance to be the first team in NFL to finish 16-0 (Miami Dolphins, famously undefeated in 1972, played a shorter season).

Bring on week eleven.

Depite being laid out all in flash, the 19.20.21 is worth a visit.

The cryptic name hides an inevitable result of urbanization: there will be 19 cities with at least 20 million inhabitants in the 21st century.

Image: Arkham Horror by Ryan Junell (CC)

Fantasy Flight Games has announced the arrival of fourth Arkham Horror expansion.

Kingsport Horror, out early next year adds yet another board to the game. The increasing need of horizontal real estate ensures that fewer and fewer of gamers can actually play Arkham Horror on a table, as the multiple boards and increasingly many decks of cards consume all available space.

It's been a while since the last game - and the previous expansion hasn't even been tried out. Definitely a good time soon to see whether the great old ones still hold humanity in thrall (current score is 4-2 for the home team).

It's been a while since the last checking which new blogs have been subject of GETs lately.

• Hilavitkutin is the quintessential finnish generic gadget blog.
• Bldgblog is a fascinating blog about architecture.
• Risto Isomäki, the finnish environmentalist, in addition to just launching a brand new technothriller, has expanded his range to blogging.
• Blogging Ultima describes a gamer's journey through the Britannian tales (and is thematically similar to Blogging Zelda covered back in july, sadly that seems to have been taken over by marketers).
• Juhapekka Tolvanen has moved on to a new site, and still deserved the lifetime award of the finnish blogging scene.
• I seem to have completely missed the start of the Freakonomics blog. Materials-wise it seems to be both frequently updated and as good as the book itself. And speaking of popular economics blogs, the Long Tail remains worthwhile as well.

The Google-led Open Handset Alliance released the first version of the Android platform entirely on schedule.

Too bad it's not (at least initially) available for PowerPC-equipped Macs. But digesting pertinentest bits of the information avalanche (including videos) ought to take a while.

And yes: it runs Quake already, and a z-machine interpreter is probably just around the corner - thus cementing Android's status as a credible platform almost overnight. Whether it ever makes it into commercial playground remains to be seen - after all it's got the Symbians, iPhones and Windows Mobiles to take on.

This week Skrubu's fiver concentrates on learning and new ideas.

1. Does school kill creativity?

Nope, but bad teachers just might.

2. When did you learn something completely new, what was the subject and what kind of ideas did that provoke?

It's been a good while since anything "completely new", I'd say. Good enough not to be able to think up anything meaningful right now.

3. Do you actively seek new things to learn?

Yes. Being naturally inclined to besserwisserism, interesting factoids tend to be picked up whenever available.

4. Can a person ever be too old to learn new things?

Nope, age doesn't matter.

5. In your opinion: who ought to learn something right now, and what would that be?

George W. Learning humility to acknowledge the persian quagmire would be a good first step.

No, death star is not featured on the spiffy starship size comparison chart, but otherwise the mainstays of Babylon 5, Star Trek and Wars are more than adequately described.

As noted in the extremely thorough Ars Technica review, OS X 10.5 looks good indeed.

Sadly there's no mention what's going on with Xcode. Or whether Dashcode is included in the baseline.

Something to report on when the new laptop shows up, clearly.

Participated in the semi-regular 2-on-2 table hockey torurnament yesterday evening.

Keyword in the above being participated, since success was thin on the ground. Placed eleventh among sixteen players, and only irregularly was able to summon any sniping action. Scored only eleven goals in the regular season's fifteen games (but managed to de-stick a goalie), and got tossed in the first round of the playoffs (by the eventual winners of the whole shindig).

Like many great recreational endeavours, however, participation was pretty much all it took to have fun. Some of the games were classically good, and not nearly all of the best events victories. A skin-of-the-teeth loss is often a better game than a straight beatdown. But it sure was good to be on the delivering end of one at least once.

This week's photo friday challenge is dangerous.

My take on the subject is the attached image, a scene from a Queensland beach, warning swimmers of stingers. Which, in reality, are not excatly as pictured here, being small and translucent. But deadly, nonetheless.

Last month Alma Media announced that Presso will be terminated in november.

Its closest combatant to enjoyable saturday morning reads, Taloussanomat, will meet the same fate at the end of the year.

But where Presso looks like it'll be extincted completely, Taloussanomat continues as a pure web entity.

And now I seriously need someting else to read over a saturday morning breakfast / tram ride downtown. Hesari itself is no credible replacement, being too unwieldy for comfort.

Image: Stata Center by Christopher Chan (CC)

In a truly surprising turn of events MIT sues Frank Gehry because his celebrated Stata Center, opened in 2004 to great acclaim, is not that functional as a building.

While the building is spectacular both inside and out (and rather confusing to locate anything within), the claimed design sins seem rather unforgivable.

The best kind. Unplanned and unexpected.

• Good intentions of getting home early. Check.
• Multiple sentences beginning with "guys, I probably shouldn't say this, but ..." Check.
• Worthy superiors praised, less than optimal beaten down. Check.
• Late-night snack whose preparation consumes valuable sleeptime. Check.
• Wondering whether all the new beers in Kaisla would be worth trying out. Check.
• Not very productive day at work. Check.

And the world is definitely a tiny smidgeon better place.

This week's photo thursday challenge subject is continued analysis of an image of a path through woods.

My take on the subject is the attached image, an image from the Blue Mountains National Park, where a mountain vista offers a magnificent view over the lush rainforest in the valley below. The mist is not artificially added, the day of the visit was wet indeed.

(As usual, the full-size photograph is available by clicking the attached image. And the previous photo thursday pictures are all available through the gallery page.)

Yeah. I thought I indeed was more jaded than this.

After all, following the live coverage of 9/11, a smaller tragedy should just fade to black and wander by, unseen, unfelt.

But nope. The fact that the finnish tranquillity was once again shattered by violence hit deeper than expected.

A massacre at a high school left eight people dead. Perpetrated by a self-confessed de-humanist, and accompanied by a full media package on several sites, the act itself is nothing short of shocking in its callousness.

Like Jussi in Kasa I'm going to avoid discussion forums for a while - it'll be long before everybody and his cousin has had their say about the root cause of what happened.

This week's photo thursday challenge subject is picture that no-one was supposed to see.

My take on the subject is the attached image, a mis-shot of a duck, one that's missing both the head and the tail, and has minor focus issues to add insult to injury.

(As usual, the full-size photograph is available by clicking the attached image. And the previous photo thursday pictures are all available through the gallery page.)

Älä Kailota is a public awareness campaign worthy of props on account of two reasons:

Their domainname boldly uses umlauts.

And the far bigger aspect is that lots and lots of people on mobiles in public transport are completely unaware that they're spilling sordid details of their lives to their benchmates, if not the whole bus.

Anything that cuts down on such noise pollution deserves a round of applause.

Scrooge McDuck turns 60 this year.

Sadly, there's no new story by Don Rosa to celebrate the birthday - the six-part story by a committee of european artists seems very lame indeed in comparison.

Instead, duck fans are strongly suggested to turn towards an awesome scale model of the world's richest duck's money bin.

Google knows no fear, it would appear.

How else could its recent actions be evaluated?

After all, within a few days, it has taken on two 800-pound gorillas: Nokia, with their open mobile phone platform and Facebook, with their open social networking initiative.

Keyword in both of the above is obviously "open", but beyond that the analysis hasn't really progressed that far.

Image: untitled by jacorbett70 (CC)

And the streak just got extended to four games in a row. And Hakkapeliitat is now above .500 for the first time this season.

Gambled on Drew Brees over Derek Anderson behind the line of scrimmage and it paid off - he threw the highest total of the week, and a trio of scores. None of which, sadly, to Marques Colston, but that's not really a major concern. Brian Westbrook had yet another of his RB/WR-games, but earned a single touchdown - that on top of the 150 yards is just icing on the cake. Sadly return yards are not tallied - otherwise Maurice Jones-Drew's record 100-yarder would have been a humongous play.

In the league itself Patriots outfoxed Colts in a likely preview of the AFC championship game in january. Probably in Foxboro, if Tom Brady's offense remains as frightening they've been.

Bring on week ten.

Finished watching the third season of HBO's mighty The Wire the other day, and was both very pleased and dismayed.

Pleased on account of the multi-faceted storyline moving forward at a roller-coaster pace, and effortlessly picking up new threads while doing so.

Dismayed merely due to the fact that the fourth season doesn't arrive on dvd until march next year. At least in region 2. The US release has happened already, but the domestic HBO boxes tend to be on the expensive side.

This week's fiver is of a very common subject - the nowadays ubiquitous mobile telephone.

1. For starters: what's the brand and model of your phone?

Nokia, a N95.

2. Why did you choose that particular model, and how did you fund the purchase (own, employer-supplied, or tied to a specific operator)

Employer-supplied.

3. Do you know all the things you can accomplish with your phone? And what are the things you do use it for?

Likely not, as the S60 platform has probably hundredes if not thousands of new applications written every year.

Taking and answering calls. Sending and receiving text messages. Photography. Reading (and very occasionally writing) e-mail. General surfing (to either kill time or look for bus schedules). Navigation. Gaming (snakes and trivia). And probably some additional tasks which I cannot recall right now.

4. Are you happy with the phone?

Pretty much, especially after the firmware upgrade. The built-in browser is not perfect, but leaps and bounds ahead of that of the previous phone. The camera has serious issues in non-optimal conditions, but I never expected anything spectacular in the optics-department anyway.

5. When did you get your first mobile telephone, and how many have you owned?

Back in 1996. I think I've owned six altogether. Plus a couple of loaners for travel and such.

Visited the annual Digiexpo exhibition yesterday.

And returned, underwhelmed, not having seen much.

The next television at the HQ is probably Sony's Bravia. But which model exactly became no clearer on the floor. Just a single 40 inch model was displayed, and product details were not really available in the provided brochure. But the advert showing plasticine bunnies was worthwhile to watch.

Expected presence of Apple, but they were nowhere to be seen. Too bad, would've wanted to compare the "normal" and "glossy" screens of Powerbook Pros.

Probably the best stand of the whole show was that of the finnish nature photographers. The recently awarded best pictures of the year were prominently displayed, and the organization's magazine heavily discounted.

Gamewise the biggest catch was Guitar Hero III, whose rendition of DragonForce's Through the Fire and Flames seemed to be insanely difficult on expert. With RSI-inducing arpegggios and way too quick repeats, this looks like a proper challenge for the nimblest-fingered players. Me, I'll stick to the two lower difficulty levels.

Yes, it's been getting steadily colder, and the first snow fell yesterday.

And hopefully we'll escape the fifth season, the quellë altogether, and move right into a proper winter.

After all, this can officially be the worst period of the Helsinki weather - ubiquitous rain turning tarmac into slippery photon eater is no-one's idea of a great time.

Both Goners and Wonder Woman, Joss Whedon's planned films seem to have stalled in production hell.

But the proposed re-unification of him and the spunkiest of the Slayers is welcome indeed.

Dollhouse sounds like an interesting premise, and with the first episodes potentially airing as early as next spring, the series is definitely something to keep an eye out for.

It'd been a while since the last major screw-up.

Long enough for Murphy's Law to hit.

Dropped my wallet in a bus on wednesday night.

By the time the loss registered, I was out of the bus, and the said vehicle turning a corner half a kilometer away.

Just after cancelling all the relevant cards, a friendly phone call informed that the wallet (missing cash, obviously) had been found.

It'll be a while before the new cards trickle in, till then have to resort to the old fashioned "withdrawing money from a human teller"-method.

Against all odds spotted a duo of well-carved pumpkins on the steps of O'Malley's on wedndesday night.

And a clone of Snow White's as well.

Saw Rush in Hartwall arena on monday. This was the first time the band visited Finland, quite an accomplishment by a major band that's been touring for more than 33 years.

The set list is as institutionalized as things can get. Even on last show of a 65-leg tour the band did not add extra funkiness into the selection. The list included no less than nine songs off Snakes & Arrows, the newest album. Most of the audience would have preferred a wider selection of older material instead, but no mind-numbingly bad new songs were featured. Even the drum solo, usually the bane of tired customers, was interesting.

Had great seats, second row on the floor. No massive milling around occurred, people just stood up next to their seats, and that was about the whole extent of the movement.

The stage was on the elaborate side, with a mighty seven-person lighting rig twisting and swaying according to the whims of the controllers and a set of rotisserie ovens in which chickens were slowly spinning around.