This week's photo thursday challenge subject is a flower.

My take on the subject is the attached image, an unknown blooming tree from southern California. The tree was covered in these stalkless bright red flowers, a sharp contrast against the blue sky and emerald grass. The tree was visited by two hummingbirds, but their size, speed and darting movements guaranteed that the tiny birds were not successfully captured on a photograph.

(As usual, the full-size photograph is available by clicking the attached image.)

Played two games of Arkham Horror (supplemented with the first expansion Curse of the Dark Pharaoh) today. And the combined score of the two games was 1-1, a draw.

Originally planned on playing just a single game, but got so readily trounced by Cthulhu in the first game (lost on account of having seven open gates on board without us having sealed a single one), just had to try our hand on a second game.

Indeed sucked big time on the first one - didn't do anything wrong, but fought against a stacked deck, and ended up losing big time (no investigators lost, just very slow progress on the Arkham streets). The final battle commenced much sooner than expected, and we hardly made a dent in the skin of the R'Lyeh Sleeper.

Used the same characters in the second game, against Yig, and while a handsome victory (six gates sealed), it was far from a clear-cut game. The expansion's Mythos-cards broke the progress several times, and recomposing forces was twice much more a matter of luck than skill (clever anticipation cannot be claimed to be the cause, since there was hardly any strategy for long stretches).

Next time: a two board game, with Dunwich Horror added for extra rugosity and squamousness.

Delta Green is back after a long long hiatus.

Back as a properly published game. Dennis Detwiller has worked wonders with the ransom model during the last year, and now the game is back with a one-two punch.

The original book is finally reprinted, though sadly the content has not been updated since the original printing (apart from adding d20-based mechanics), the conspiracy-riddled world contains no details of a post-911 scheme. (This is based on a very brief and cursory look in Compleat Strategist in New York, so the new and improved data might be there, just carefully camouflaged).

The main event of this spring, however, is the long-awaited release of the three Eyes Only books in a much-expanded edition. The trio of books was originally available directly from Pagan Publishing only - and in the days of pretty much nonexistent web stores, really hard to obtain outside the united states. Got the last two books from a friend who visited Gencon back in the day, and have been looking for the first on eBay. Though, with prices regularly crossing the $100 mark, haven't been sorely tempted. Now, with a reworked edition, with doubled page count from the originals. There's simply no excuse not to buy this book. Even with the horrible shipping costs. The initial printing is limited to 1000 copies, half of which have now been sold in ten days.

Rather strong a show for conspiracy/cthulhu mix-up, which was judged to be dead in the water years ago.

No less than two new guitar hero games have been announced.

Sadly, like the Tomb Raider's tenth year anniversary game, one of the pair will not make it anywhere else but PS2. But hopefully the tracks from the Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s will make it to the xbox 360 as downloadable content. After all, a game that features Dio and Skid Row as the source cannot be all bad. And while there are no utterly unmissable tracks (like the Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight in the second installment), Asia's Heat of the Moment comes pretty close...

Guitar Hero III will be the first game developed by Neversoft instead of Harmonix. Look and feel is the same, but the list of tracks approaches teh awesom already with the first announcements: Living Color, Alice Cooper (still from the glory years: School's Out) and Beastie Boys' Sabotage to top it off.

Haven't come close to finishing respectably either of the first two installments - the promise of Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird as the final encore song in the second game is good goal, though. The last two difficulty ratings seem to be built for people with much much faster fingers and a functional sense of rhythm...

Watched David Fincher's Zodiac today. It's not a film in the same category as the rollicking masterpieces Seven and Fight Club, but a very good movie nonetheless.

Its attitude is close to documentary, playing out the investigation of Bay Area's most notorious serial killer from the limited perspectives of the protagonists. This is indeed not an action packed thriller, but a meticulous police procedural lovingly set in the sixties/seventies turn.

Fincher has coached great performances from the three lead actors: from Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey Jr. this is pretty much to be expected, but Mark Ruffalo as the obsessed cop puts out the best show I've seen from him. The few female roles are pretty much token across the board, acted well, but small enough to fade into the background.

The format is indeed very much of a documentary - on a few occasions (such as Gyllenhaal's solo investigation towards the end) the director lets out his drive for thrill, but for almost the whole film the pace is slow.

Stylewise it's well-executed as well - Fincher's liking of San Francisco was established back in the Game, and well-honed shots of the city abound. The music selection ranges from classical music to period pieces (including Donovan's Hurdy Gurdy Man against the backdrop of the rolling credits).

So, definitely a good movie and heavily recommended - just don't go in expecting to be thrilled and twisted like in a conventional Fincher movie.

Saw Placebo in the old Helsinki ice hockey arena today.

Saw them play from the highest nosebleed section of the whole hall - row fourteen in the middle, not very far from the roof at all.

Following a sleepless night, stifled warm air and a wall to lean against I had trouble staying focused. Despite reports to the contrary: I did not fall asleep, was just resting my eyelids a little. Falling asleep might have led to literally falling, as the rows are organized very steep.

My Placebo-fu is not very strong - and not having listened to their newest album I missed quite a few songs (discovering a set list is left as an exercise to the reader). Though they did occasionally play hits from throughout their ten+ year discography.

The hall was not sold out officially, but it was pretty packed. And the lines to the toilets, as mr. Srpnt notes were indeed impressively long.

Missed the warm-up band totally (no idea even who it was), and gave the shirts a wide berth as well - at 25-30€ and not very exciting design, they just didn't appeal enough to justify the cash outlay.

Figured I'd take a look at the inevitable pirate shirt salesmen following the concert, but the roadies supplementing their income were nowhere to be seen. And the cause for such dereliction of duty was simple: a rainstorm. Or a thunderstorm, to be exact. Quite an impressive one for the first of the season.

The band played on the loud side. Wore plugs as has been the case for the last decade or thereabouts, so didn't really mind (apart from the lack of clarity). Noted that my right ear was completely locked up after the show. Hasn't happened before - and time to seek out proper help if the condition doesn't wear off by itself.

Seems that my DVR managed to not record a single television show during the last three weeks.

Obviously, there are no logs to explain the omissions, just an utter absence of episodes of Heroes, Shield and 24.

Bugger on the double, obviously - but profuse swearing only helps so much.

Canal+ will likely re-broadcast Heroes and Shield already this summer, and picking up the events of 24 ought to be doable at the show's dedicated wiki

I'll cure this with the best of what the britain's greatest angst-ers have to offer.

Two weeks in twenty-odd lines (just like the entry on the Aussie trip):

• Flights: 5.
• Flight miles: >10000 (though not all of them in Star)
• Hotels: 3.
• Biggest moment of awe: "Dude, that's a hummingbird right there".
• Gadgets bought: 0 (though got a memory card reader as a gift).
• Pandas (proper black/white ones) seen: 0 (missed San Diego Zoo).
• Utterly scary taxi rides: 1 (in Boston, didn't understand anything the speeding driver was saying).
• Cran-apple juice consumed: 1.89 liters.
• T-shirts bought: 4 (+ 2 received as gifts).
• New countries visited: 1 (Mexico).
• New states visited: 1 (New Hampshire).
• "Song and Lyrics"-movie seen: Twice.
• Geocaches found: 9.
• New state quarters picked up: 2 (Florida & North Dakota).
• New boroughs visited in New York: 2 (Bronx and Brooklyn).
• Photographs taken: 489 + about two dozen with the phone.
• Citypass tickets used: Four of five.
• Damage to credit card: Physical. I so need to call Amex about a replacement.

Whoah, Microsoft has released a very good version of Klaus Teuber's classic boardgame Settlers of Catan as a Xbox Live Arcade Game.

The computerized version is indeed well put together, game flows fast, and the potentially problematic user interface in the essential trading presents no extra boundaries.

The articficial intelligence puts up a decent fight, but seems to be no match to a grizzled veteran (at least below Hard). Haven't yet tested the waters on the multiplayer game.

Great value for money - bring on Carcassonne (slated for a june release) and Alhambra. As well as a long line of adapted expansions for them...

Finally managed to attach the photos from the trip, a couple of highlights:

• A brave pigeon attempting to hide the view from empire state building.
• Running tapir, climbing tree kangaroo.
• A tight neppis race on the Atlantic coastline.
• San Diego oddities (including a fortune teller and bulbous cacti).

Got fed up for the umpteenth time with the increasingly malfunctioning 6680 yesterday.

Its skill in missing calls and delivering SMSes very late (occasionally they need to be pulled from the server by sending a bogus message), clearly it's not worth maintaining such a misbegotten gadget.

So, after noting that the newest phones are available in the internal purchase system, went ahead and ordered a n95. It may not be perfect (especially in its GPS-service), but it can hardly be any worse than what I have now. The color schemes available were rather lame: sand (self-explanatory) and deep plum. Yes, deep plum. Which seems to be nothing more than an euphemism for purple.

Dave Mustaine is angry again.

And there was much rejoicing.

Megadeth's new album has been spinning in my cd player. A lot. And it's time to give serious consideration whether to go see them in Tampere in two weeks.

This week's fiver continues where it left off last week (regarding magazines) and then carries on about green matters.

1. What do you do with your old magazines? Give 'em away, keep them, take to the cottage to be read in the loo?

Keep them or recycle them.

2. Do you have a bio-garbage can? And if you do, does it get used?

I don't have one.

3. Do you recycle all that you can? And why?

Not all that I can. But a lot gets recycled. Clothes, paper, cans, glass, ...

4. Do green values affect what you buy and do?

Occasionally. But usually they do not get inbetween me and a good deal.

5. Did you watch incovenient truth off the telly last week? And if you did, what's your opinion? If you didn't, why not?

Nope. Excused on account of being in the states last week.

As challenged by Mr. Ylitalo, here's my take on the oddly topical birthday meme...

Search for your birthday in wikipedia, and pick three events, births and deaths that occurred on that day, and do note whether the day is a holiday anywhere in the world. The challenge two of your buddies to do the very same thing.

23.5.

Events

1618 - The Second Defenestration of Prague precipitates the Thirty Years' War.

1934 - American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed by police and killed in Black Lake, Louisiana

2003 - The euro exceeds its initial trading value as it hits $1.18 for the first time since its introduction in 1999.

Births

1707 - Carolus Linnaeus, Swedish botanist (d. 1778)

1934 - Robert Moog, American inventor (d. 2005)

1972 - Rubens Barrichello, Brazilian formula 1 driver

Deaths

1701 - Captain Kidd, Scottish pirate (b. 1645)

1945 - Heinrich Himmler, Nazi official (b. 1900)

1992 - Giovanni Falcone, Italian judge (b. 1939)

Holidays

There's a grand total of three things observed: Declaration of the Báb for the Bahá'í Faith, the World Turtle Day and Day of Disunity for the Discordians.

Four liturgical feast days occur: Saint Desiderius, Saint Euphrosyne of Polotsk, Hegumena of the Monastery of the Holy Saviour (1173), Saint Guibert of Gemblours and Saint Montana.

Challenges

Well, let's let mr. Srpnt and Mane enlighten us what happens on their birthday (apart from eating way too much cake).

This week's photo thursday challenge is the One, the first birthday of the challenge.

My take on the subject is the attached image, a view of the Manhattan skyline through the Brooklyn Bridge cabling, with Empire State Building covered in the very middle of the bridge itself. It's hardly representatíve of the challenge as a whole, but a nice picture nonetheless (haven't got any of a birthday cake to spare).

(As usual, the full-size photograph is available by clicking the attached image.)

A year older, hardly a year wiser.

Peretty much par for the course.

This week's photo thursday challenge subject is harbour.

My take on the subject is the attached image, a view of tye New York harbour, through the bridge's cabling.

(As usual, the full-size photograph is available by clicking the attached image.)

Managed to stay awake till midnight yesterday, and enjoyed a very deep sleep.

That's what 30+ hours flat staying awake with some extra adrenalin thrown in for good measure does.

No crises at work. Had a surprisingly productive day. Productive when compared to similar post-travel days, not in general.

Attaching of photographs to the recent entries won't happen today, I feel mr. Morpheus starting to blow his pale sands in my direction already...

Home sweet home.

Didn't sleep a single wink. Didn't even catnap.

For many reasons, which combined to make this flight one to remember.

First: the travelling companions. The black-clad folks of a distinctly hebrew extraction indeed turned out to be uncommon company. Nothing bad, just odd. I've had much worse company on a plane (drunken bulgarians, hyper-talkative french guys, babies with a surgically inserted air raid siren), but not odder. The guys kept to themselves pretty much (apart from an elderly gentleman seated across from me who almost succeeded in tripping up a stewardess twice).

Second: the weather. Somewhere south of greenland and iceland the plane hit a turbulentious area. Turbulent enough to warrant the captain to call the cabin crew to their seats. The ride was definitely bumpy for some two hours, but not too bad - no flying objects were present in the cabin at any time, and the few dips were shallow. But the progress was bumpy enough to keep most passengers from falling asleep.

Third: sudden onset of airsickness. Not mine, though the Amoeba from Tijuana still seems to persist. Of other passengers. And of the kind that needs attention from stewardesses and application of extra oxygen (and probably doctors being called in to see what's going on).

Combination of the three above sure made the JFK-FRA leg a much livelier one than usual.

In comparison the second leg to Helsinki was just plain boring.

This probably qualifies as one of the oddest turns for the better.

The Pod Hotel bell captain obviously was onto something this morning when he smugly asked whether I needed a car to get to the airport in the afternoon. In a city fulled with yellow cabs I figured there'd be no need to tie myself to a set pickup time.

Little did I know. Come half past three, and there's not a cab in sight on the fifty-first.

Figured I'd bide my time with the twin suitcases for a credible while before moving onto the second avenue round the corner (and a bit).

Noted that two women, obviously from the hotel, were stuck with their luggage as well. Idled for a while before asking them for how long they'd been waiting. A while enough for them to address me. In finnish. (Strange thing #1, for those keeping the score at home).

Turns out that there was no black magic involved, they'd just picked my name off a suitcase tag. And their car was late, very late - and naturally, if it'd be big enough I'd be allowed to ride with them to the airport (we turned out to be on the same flight over to Frankfurt). Decided to find out whether the car was indeed large enough to accommodate all three of us. It was. It sure was. It was a stretch limousine, proudly equipped with all kinds of bling inside. But sadly there was no Cristal in the fridge. (Odd event #2).

Road to JFK was bristling with cars, and the limo took its good time using some odd shortcuts to optimize the route. But got to the airport without any incidents, and in very decent time. And the shared ride, ended up being much cheaper than a taxi ride. Pleasant surprise indeed.

Security formalities were on the extensive side, but the lines flowed rather fast, and ended up beyond the checkpoint early enough to have a leisurely dinner before the flight.

After walking to the vicinity of the gate, noted that there's a lot of very sombre looking lean gentlemen in black suits and hats... It'd appear that a third of the plane will be settled by orthodox jews. All of whom are packing amazing amounts of gear. So it'll likely be a struggle to get enough room in the overhead bins. (Peculiar coincidence #3).

So yeah, as an executive summary - not bad for two afternoon hours: I ended up hitching a ride in a stretch limo from two countrywomen, and then forced to mingle with people whose idea of a good time is probably geometrically different from mine.

Back in 2003, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum was almost eniterly shut down because of repairs. And I got a very abbreviated (yet cheap) view of a small subset of the collection.

I had allocated a couple of hours this morning to view the galleries, but to a medium-sized dismay noted that the repairs elves had struck again. This time the exterior of the building was scaffolded up for a total reworking of the surfaces, and a couple of floors inside had been emptied.

Took a tour (the last citypass ticket used on this trip), and quite enjoyed the collection of Kandinskys and other artists works available.

Had quite a bit of time to kill before the flight out, so walked down the fifth avenue to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Its collections are nothing short of humongous, so just picked a couple of halls to view instead of trying to browse them all. The Greek/Roman gallery was new, and had lots of statuary and columns. The egyptian section had mummies sarcofagi (mummies wouldn't keep well) and hieroglyphics, lots of them. A visiting exhibit of Catalan art in the first four decades of last century was very interesting - it's never boring to walk amongst the works of Gaudi, Dali and Miró.

But before long it was time to walk out, the rest of the afternoon wouldn't probably been sufficient to see it all (felt especially bad about missing most of the arms and armour section).

Annual AIDS Walk Parade filled up the avenue, marching bands and performance artists were slowly moving uptown, giving plenty of photo opportunities of the rapidly warming New York sunday afternoon. Though the folks in central park tossing frisbees and just lounging around clearly couldn't care less.

Both of my suitcases got inspected by TSA on the way over from San Diego. Indicated with a jolly document inserted into the lugagge. Not the first time this happened, and probably far from last.

The yellow monster sustained no damage of the event, even though it's an old piece of luggage and has no (at least no marked one) backdoor in its lock. So, either the TSA guys have a lot of patience or a clever lock spinning device.

So, while the bigger suitcase got off unscathed, the TSA-approved lock on the smaller one got cut and the contents browsed.

Brookstone offers lifetime guarantee on its locks, but as a clever catch-22 requires that you show the lock forced open by the officials to be entitled to a a new one. Based on past experience, such locks are never convenietly inserted into the lugagge, but thrown away.

Picked up a new trio of locks, and discussed the fairness of the policy with a salesgirl. She was obviously unable to comply with the guarantee, since I had no cut lock to produce. A commercial standoff, clearly - one which I intend to resolve by querying the head office about the procedure.

(And no, it's not about the money - locks are cheap, and I'll expense this set of them anyway. It's principle - empty promises are so easy to keep...)

Visited the Empire State Building pretty much as it opened to beat the crowds.

I've been up once before, but the chilly winter on 2003 (-20C weather and high winds and humidity off the twin rivers) curtailed the visit to a very short length.

So, part of the visit was to really check out the scenery, but another was to seek out my first NY cache. This was a virtual cache out of necessity, as any unexplained boxes would bring out the NYPD bomb squad post haste, I'm sure.

Another sight that got only a partial visit back in '03 was the American Museum of Natural History, located next to Central Park.

It's a huge building with impressive contents, so concentrated on bits that were missed on the previous visit to avoid spending the entire day inside. The show on colliding objects in the planetarium got things off to a good start. And the life-size model of the blue whale in the ocean room was quite impressive at 29 meters. Too bad the largest flying animal ever on earth (a mighty pterodactyl species) was featured only with a single wing bone, and not a full-scale assumption what the beast looked like.

Like most american museums, this was packed with giftshops as well. Almost managed to resist the urge to purchase, but succumbed to a book on cryptozoology in the very last shop walked through (they are quite cunningly placed on common routes).

Missed the Frogs: a Chorus of Colors for the second time. It will open here the next monday, and I just missed it last year in Philadelphia.

Walked through Central Park, and picked up three easy caches. Virtuals all of them - it had started raining, and the idea of rummaging through soggy undergrowth and wet grass for tupperware was not that appealing.

Brooklyn Bridge looks impressive from afar. Even in movies. Especially in the iconic street shot dominated by the bridge in Sergio Leone's Once Upon A time In America.

And even more so, close up. The bridge is not too long, and trivially accessible with the subway. So no visitor is excused from not crossing the East River on the most picturesque bridge of the city.

Heeded weather channel advice (supposed to rain today), and walked across first thing in the morning. No rain, but wind was definitely on the hefty side. Hefty enough to warrant stashing the cap in the backpack out of fear of it being blown away into the flowing waters.

The cablework of the structure is exquisite, and the views were very nice (to quote mr. Sagdiyev). The grey day added to the subdued color scheme (dirt on grey)

I wasn't alone on the bridge. Far from it. Though the raised center lane, which is reserved for pedestrians and bicyclists, really started filling up as I neared the Brooklyn end, with tourists streaming out of the subway.

Brooklyn was in even better shape than Bronx, looking very respectable and gentrified on a brief walk through the area surrounding the Brooklyn end of the bridge.

Took a brief look into Empire State Building (it's one of the targeted sights of the Citypass), but decided to give it a miss upon seeing the supposedly 45+ minutes lines on milling visitors. Maybe tomorrow morning. Early tomorrow morning.

Macy's, the world's largest department store, turned out to be quite a maze. The building is divided on the gender, and obviously I entered from the feminine end, and was puzzled by the utter lack of male clothing in all of the seven floors visited. The store has terrible guides on the walls, and it took a while to discover where the individual departments lie. Got very tempted by a Ralph Lauren hoodie, but fortunately it had such an ugly backprint that it just had to remain on the rack.

The entry's title is of a classic Arlo Guthrie album, which sadly seems to be unavailable. Even in the giganteoustic Virgin megastore on Times Square. Or ebay. And browsing the wikipedia page on him, it appears that he's been a guest on Muppet Show (on season four) - yet a further reason for the production company to speed up the release schedule of the show on dvd.

I have enthused about Dennis Lehane's books before, and will continue to do so until he jumps the shark like James Ellroy sadly has done.

Finished Sacred, the last remaining Kenzie & Gennaro-book, and can heartily recommend it to any who are partial to noir-ish modern mysteries.

The plot starts off pretty simple, but twists and turns in moebiusian way towards an expectedly loaded finale. Saying more would be spoiling.

This is vintage Lehane, so the dialogue and plot remain faithful to the series - this is not an experimental book like Shutter Island.

It's been a while since the last novel, I've been considering picking up the newest, Coronado, in hardback form, but have settled on waiting for the inevitable paperback. And besides, the content (not a novel, not a plain collection of short stories) is exactly the kind of book where Ellroy started to go wrong back in the day, though this seems to be devoid of the true crime-stories so loved by my ex-favorite author.

Ain't no justice in the basketball world...

San Antonio Spurs got what they wanted in the highly contested western NBA conference finals. They traded a nobody (Robert Horry) against two major scoring threats from the Suns (Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw).

Yeah, NBA suspended all three players, even when the latter two never participated in the brawl resulting from Horry's bodychecking Steve Nash, the Suns playmaker, into the scoring table in the waning seconds of game four of the series.

So, out of the tree players suspended so far, only one has actually had a physical altercation on the court, the two are just collateral damage. With the ongoing series having features such sportsmanlike conduct as good old knee to the groin (again on Nash), clotheslining a jumpshooter (Warriors' Richardson on Okur in the Golden State-Utah series) and elbowing a passing guard (frustrated Baron Davis decking Derek Fisher), it's really a wonder if the rulings do not change in the forthcoming season.

This week's fiver at skrubu is about a subject close to my heart: magazines...

According to a recent study a finn reads twelve magazines - time to find out how voracious readers bloggers are. And what would be a better way to do that than to unleash a meme.

1. How many magazines do you subscribe to? List 'em.

Pelit, presso, roolipelaaja, mondo, tekniikan akateemiset/tekniikka ja talous/talouselämä, viini and tähdet ja avaruus.

Yeah, that's not that many. I'm more of a buy 'em singly kind of reader, and while subscribing to foreign magazines is less of an issue these days, I just haven't really bothered. And especially the american magazines, apart from national geographic, do not offer economical overseas subscriptions.

2. Do you subscribe to them yourself, or are they gifts? Do you give subscriptions as a gift?

Yes, I subscribe myself. No, I don't shell out subscriptions.

3. List all the magazines that you read, but don't subscribe to.

The borrow/buy pretty much every issue list is as follows: Empire, Akvaristi (great magazine, the website: not so good), Edge, Wired, National Geographic, Tähtivaeltaja, Business2.0, Time, Suomen Kuvalehti, Pelaaja, the finnish edition of Le Monde Diplomatique, Sue (by far the best music rag in Finland right now), Voima, V and City (both last about a single bus ride from downtown to Haaga), Monocle, ...

The occasional list is shorter (mainly on account of not remembering nearly all): GQ (the original, of course, not the localized british version), Rumba, Newsweek, Sarjainfo, Image, Economist, Scientific American, MIT Technology Review, Make, Sports Illustrated, ...

4. Do you buy your magazines as single issues, can you pick 'em up for free or do you read them in the library/barbershop/dentist? Tell us, we want to know!

Single issues. And I have a hard time getting rid of them.

5. Is there some unfulfilled niche in the magazine market that would fit your needs perfectly?

Probably, but I'm not sure there'd be many readers there.

Spent the morning in Bronx Zoo.

This was actually my first foray into the northernmost of the five boroughs of which Manhattan consists. The scenery was not nearly in as bad shape as popular culture would like to present, at least from a subway car window the neighborhoods looked quite all right (but obviously there are zones in much worse shape).

There are two trains going to the zoo, and they both have a stop of the same name - Pelham Parkway. Sadly, those two stops are about a mile apart, and naturally I picked the wrong train... Fortunately wasn't alone in my quest to see the animals, a dutch couple had also mis-selected their vehicle of choice.

Zoo was pretty much the same as any modern one: large enclosures for animals that demand them, and smaller ones gathered in co-located houses under biotope/taxonomical/behavioural name.

The two highlights of the place came from an unusual direction: big hoofed mammals... A malaysian tapir (yeah, the one with the funky black&white looks) was trotting in its piece of jungle, and dropping in on a swim regularly. Sadly, didn't think of capturing the splashing tapir on video, rather than taking single exposures. Had the best view ever of an okapi, as two of them were munching on leaves in their very large private forest. Previously the shy relatives of giraffes had been pretty much AWOL from any previous photography expeditions to zoos.

Gorillas and snow leopards were both active, today's a lot cooler than yesterday, and that seems to be keeping the animals from just lounging around.

The natives (schoolkids, mostly) were misbehaving rather bad - it's unusual to see such rampant knocking on the terrarium glass as these guys put up in the reptile house.

Saw Monty Python's Spamalot in the New Shubert Theatre.

The musical is based on the first Python Film (Quest for Holy Grail), but doesn't stick to the original material the whole two hours. Which is fortunate, since the old material actually seems to be rather boring when contrasted with the new, which plays fast and loose with conventions.

The show's been running for two years now, and no longer features the star-studded original cast (including such personal heroes as David Hyde-Price and Tim Curry). But the less-famous actors certainly didn't detract from the show, and in the case of prince Herbert (the "damsel" in distress for those whose python-fu is weak) exceeds all expectations by going above and beyond all taste in the role.

The playbill has been lovingly crafted to consist of actually two of them: the proper one and a fake one about a story set in Finland. Yes, Finland. Which features also in the opening scene (though the song about the country was strangely off-tune).

Didn't think much of musicals a few years back - but this, and especially the first (Chicago, also in New York) have definitely tilted my opinion towards the positive. And there seems to be no end to subject matter for musicals: the origins of Oz have been well-received, and the production of Evil Dead as a musical sure got a double-dose of raised eyebrows when I saw the soundtrack in Virgin...

The hot day evolved into a sluggish rainstorm, which had luckily subsided during the show. Had a post-theatre beer in Hard Rock Cafe. The upstairs sapped the respectability of the place severely - it's not immediately obvious what Shakira and Black Eyed Peas are doing in a place tagged with the Hard Rock-epithet. Downstairs, however, the music was better, much better.

Spent the morning in the Museum of Modern Art, convenietly located just half a dozen blocks away from the hotel. Though in the humid heat of what appears to be a very hot day the distance felt extended a bit.

Missed MoMA on my previous visit to New York (the museum returned from exile in 2004 to a renovated building), so had no clear expectations of the place.

Picked up the City Pass, consisting of access to five top-shelf attractions at half the price, since it seems to be a decent deal even if all of the options are not exercised.

The museum was a good selection of both industrial design (including a homage to Helvetica font, which just turned fifty years old) and art. One of the biggest attractions, Dali's Persistence of Memory was loaned out, but Van Gogh's Starry Night and Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon were the works with largest crowds surrounding them.

Took the Amtrak regional train from Boston to New York. Opted for the regional in favour of the Acela Express, on account of 40$ extra for the ticket being not so great value for money for 35 fewer minutes on track.

Scenery hadn't changed from last year, the not-so-choicest bits of America (trailer parks, rusted out industrial zones) were proudly displayed alongside splendid natural vistas.

Encountered the first hustler-wannabe a minute into the stay in New York - a gangsta-infused local was very concerned whether I could find a cabstand (Penn Statíon is very well guided, thankyouverymuch) and made repeated references to his wife and kids on welfare while walking alongside. Quick hop into a yellow cab (and the sudden appearance of an NYPD officer) dissuaded his intentions considerably.

Rode through Manhattan to Pod Hotel, a no-frills establishment on the 51st street between 2nd and 3rd avenues. No-frills is by no means a disrespectful description - while the rooms are small and the services nonexistent, the overall apperance is very clean and effective.

You miss out on some of the fun back home. Like the Eurovision Song Contest (where we sucked, it would appear, but at least beat Sweden) and the World Championship final of ice hockey (where we did not suck, got silver and beat Sweden [albeit indirectly only]).

No, you can not follow such contests on television here. Even though the device at the hotel has more than thirty channels to choose from, none of them shows Ukrainian ballads from Helsinki or hockey shootouts from Moscow.

But never despair - there's quality replacement for those absent activities.

Like going shopping for books.

Which I did, and after a trip to two of the very favoritest and bestest stores (MIT Press Bookstore and Harvard Bookstore) came off with plenty of stuffing for luggage, and some semi-lightweight science to be absorbed over the holidays.

Even got a bonus t-shirt, which was nice (not on account of mass of volumes purchased, but selection of a particular book).

Last remaining work day before a mini-vacation was a long and involved one. And out of fear of shattering NDAs and tossing about state secrets, let's move directly to the nachspiel.

Or indirectly, as we (yours truly and mr. Srpnt) did, for we had a cache to look up in the neighboring New Hampshire. Neighboring only in the loosest sense of the word, since driving there and back took considerably more time than expected (note to self: as the crow flies is not a very good metric when it comes to driving).

Dinner, at Firefly's in Marlborough, MA, was not your typical New Englander fare. No, this was serious barbecue of the pleasantly flavored sort. Wasn't hungry enough to resort to a double dose of meat - beef brisket and a singular St. Louis rib were clearly enough, since the portions were indeed generous. As were the desserts, which I deviously traded for a margarita. None of the three red velvet cakes on table got finished, even with decent assistance from the non-eaters.

As stated, this was a restaurant serious about its barbecue. The sauces brought to the table were all named, with contents lovingly listed on the menu. Unfortunately, the cups on table were without names, so I'm not exactly certain which of the six came out on tops. And these were the barbecue sauces only, hot sauces (dozens of them) were available from a special shelf in addition. Our party opted for the sauces of lesser capsaicin only, for the meat did not really require anything of a particularly poignant taste.

Had no plans for dinner, and ended up selecting an indian restaurant in Cambridge at random.

And was very pleasantly surprised. Bombay Club's food just hit the spot after a long day. And with the best naan I remember ever tasting, there's a lot to explore for the main course on the lengthy menu (after all, no sense in going without the bread).

Original plan of seeing Cape Cod were scuttled upon us learning that there was no car ferry service between Boston and the peninsula.

Opted for exploration closer to the city - with the aim of seeing the sea and a few beaches and lighthouses as a bonus.

Met a few oddities: a family run cafe with chaos everywhere you looked, an island stocked with the Massachusetts homeless (and off limits to everybody else) and the most Stepfordian community in a while (on Spinnaker Island every house looks exactly alike, even on a closer look).

But encountered also positive things: a neppis competition on Long Beach Rock turned out to be great fun, and tossing sandwiches on a rock-strewn beach felt natural after a break of a decade or so. Placed second in the former (ran with abbreviated rules on account of foreigners) and managed to get five bounces (and some unexpected sideways deflections) with the stones.

No lighthouses were seen apart from a great distance. So there's definitely room for improvement.

Flew to Boston, and got seated on an exit row. The very seat next to the exit door of the plane, meaning that I was the last to enter and first to get out. Yes, even before the folks in business class.

Had forgotten that domestic flights have a no-catering policy - following the first soft drink everything has an attached price tag. Luckily had stocked up on water and cashews before boarding.

Accommodated in Sheraton Commander in Cambridge, once again. The hotel hasn't changed since the last time (pretty much exactly a year ago).

Had dinner in McCormick & Schmick in Faneuil Hall, once again. Had a very overclocked waiter, who didn't seem to have his facts about the food (or the profession) crystal clear yet. Food was divine, as expected - took the traditional menu: split four appetizers among the four eaters, scallops with artichoke and bacon for main course, and key lime pie for dessert.

Had no energy left for a post-dinner drink (an early morning wakeup call, a five hour flight and three hours lost to time zones definitely took their toll).

The third day opened with some of the most technical presentations amongst the offerings.

Virtualization Food Fight compared the various implementations, and refrained from making too bold predictions about the future. Sessions on realtime and performance optimization were interesting enough to prevent me from nodding off, same cannot be said of the lone post-lunch presentation. Seemed that quite a bit of the audience was lulled to sleep before being cut loose.

As the conference hotel was outside the town proper, there was an appropriately large bit of sightseeing and shopping to be done. Not to mention a dinner to take care of.

Confined shopping to a bare minimum, just a t-shirt and a book on the city.

Walked around the Balboa Park for an hour or two - pretty much every attraction had closed at five already. But the park itself was interesting enough to hold interest. And the sunset over the trees and seriously spanish-styled buildings wasn't shabby either.

Had dinner in Old Town San Diego - a part of the town that positively outclassed Tijuana in all respects. Shops looked like they stocked decent goods, and weren't optimized to rip off visiting gringos in a horrible fashion. Food at restaurant named Fandango was very good - though my order, a shrimp-filled tortilla probably did not stretch the chef's skills too much.

Entered the official AMD/Red Hat party at the San Diego Aerospace Museum late, very late, on account of having had an excellent corruption dinner concurrently.

The museum would be very impressive, if there weren't the equivalent Smithsonian establishment in DC to compare it to. Then again, against the might of the largest museum in the world everything would pale - and the selection of craft is by no means thin - ranging from an Apollo capsule to a Blackbird via many many flying things inbetween.

Hung around for an hour or so, no appetite left and no inclination to move to a second beer either (especially when the Sierra Nevadas seemed to be hidden in some "other" bar on location). Didn't pick up the "official conference salsa" on the way out - that'd be checked luggage content for sure, and tomato-based liquids are not really a good idea...

No major events to report from the second day.

Biggest applause went to the keynotes. Not only on account of the opening minutes of Shrek 3 shown by the Dreamworks guy.

Still a bit under the weather - took a long siesta after lunch, and that rectified matters by a large bit.

A subset of the sound files of the Jeeves-clock have been put under a CC-license, and made available on the developer's website.

Seems like a mandatory addition to sleep-combating equipment, to be supplemented by a light-based clock for the toughest of winter days.

[ via boingboing. ]

Spent an hour at IBM's Tiki-flavored beach party (organized on the hotel lawn).

Food was available in copious amounts and it was of good quality. There were multiple cooks on-site, and IBM had clearly upscaled from the rather low-key parties they have thrown in Ottawa. I especially liked the shrimps, and must have downed closer to twenty of them.

The oddest point of the occasion was the sandcastle-builder, who valiantly carved up a mighty camelot from wet sand. The light within the fortress is a retina-irritating flare - probably half of the participants peeked in and ruined their night vision for a few moments.

Still felt the Mexican magic, definitely seems that I picked a stomach bug of sorts in Tijuana. So, cut the party early, in the vain hope of not upsetting digestion any further.

Channelsurfed for a while, and discovered one good reason to avoid even considering immigration: Fox News was as bad and biased as I remembered. Fortunately the NBA playoffs were on as well, seems that there's two games shown nightly for the duration of conference finals. The ads get repetitive in an hour, but the game itself doesn't.

Collected the obligatory conference loot, and marched into the sessions.

The booty was on the meager side - though the sailor's bag is nice.

The sessions were a mixed bag. As if the conference organizers couldn't get to grips whether this is a technical or marketing gathering. Right now it falls somewhere inbetween. Without much pain, fortunately, as there are between five and seven concurrent tracks, so there's something for every attendee.

My own presentation went well. Despite a very thin crowd (below 20 in a 1400 attendee conference is downright disappointing) the session was very interactive, and plenty of questions were shot off by the audience. Most of which got a decent answer. The presentation will appear on Red Hat's website at some opportune moment, stay tuned.

This week's photo thursday challenge subject is camp. Camp in the sense of "an ironic appreciation of that which might otherwise be considered outlandish or corny".

My take on the subject is the attached image, a lizard with sunglasses on a cheap polo shirt. A shirt which I will proudly wear, as the design clearly fits the definition of camp as explained above.

(As usual, the full-size photograph is available by clicking the attached image, and the previous photo thursday images are viewable on the gallery page.)

Spent the afternoon in Tijuana, Mexico.

And was quite surprised to see that the fourth largest city in Mexico was not really up to par to its reputation. It was not seedy at all, and the streets were very much family-friendly. Apart from a few pushy salesmen there wasn't anything truly exotic about the place. This is not how TJ has been depicted in the media - the guide alluded to a Giuliani-like zero tolerance policy, and that likely has cleaned the place up.

The utter lack of drunken citizens from the better-off neighboring country actually meant that Tijuana was a nicer place than Tallinn.

But then again, it was early afternoon on a hot day (over 30C easily), so the action probably starts in the earnest only after sunset.

Spent two hours strolling Avenida Revolución, the main drag of the city, and stopped for a quick plate of nachos and a margarita to get away from the sun momentarily.

Tijuana's shops run on the bargaining principle, and I'm quite sure I overspent a little on a few items. Only a few items have "set" or "fixed" prices, trying to purchase anything else leads to a protracted search for a compromised price.

According to the guide/driver there's nothing genuine for sale in in the streets: Nike is not Nike, Prada is not Prada, and especially silver is not silver but nickel. Even the zebras are fake - they are just burros with white and black paint lathered on as stripes.

Tijuana is very close to San Diego, the border is about 15 minutes away by car, and the mexican neighbor has pretty much grown into the border. The customs service was pretty much non-existent going in, and lightweight on the way back (though a wooden bull in the x-ray machine raised some eyebrows).

Resisted sleep almost successfully on the way back, and was feeling a bit peckish still.

Visited the famous Gaslamp Quarter for dinner - of sushi kind. Indeed, Itto offered a lot of very special rolls and traditional nigiris and makis on the side. Settled on a Caterpillar roll (eel and avocado) after noting that most of the non-traditionals were built on cream cheese.

Karl Strauss' local brews have proven themselves good: both the amber lager and the Red Trolley ale have been pleasant to taste.

Spent the afternoon away from the coastline.

First stop was Julian, supposedly an ex-golddigger town among the billowing hills. Sadly, the reports were on the erroneous side, it was not that much different from generic sleepy small towns. Though their other specialty, apple pies, were very prominent, the gold seeking past wasn't displayed at all. The pie was indeed great, and the accompanying home-made cider (non-alcoholic, served in a glass boot) good as well, though on the uncomfortably sweet side.

The real desert was nowhere to be found - just plains that alternated between verdant and reallyt dry. The roads had a shortage of places to stop for photo ops, but ended up with a couple of good images nonetheless.

Stopped at Fry's on the way back. The local instance of the emporium of cheap electronics wasn't really different from its siblings located elsewhere on the west coast. Restricted shopping to a couple of stand-up comedy dvds, wasn't really looking for anything particular (apart from an power strip for the hotel room - Sheraton is poorly equipped with sockets).

How do you improve an already great candy product?

Easy... Just cover the original product with dark chocolate.

Indeed, altoids just upgraded their mints, and the result is very pleasant. Though as a cough-removal device, the dark chocolate isn't probably helping much.

Used the early morning hours for geocaching with Mr. Srpnt. First on foot on the Harbor Island itself, later driving in the neighborhood.

Got four of seven. The first two would have required too much work for comfort: a film can in a rocky seashore is a mean idea, but hiding something purposefully inside a thorny bush is even worse.

Thankfully the rest were easier - picked up all three Spanish Landing caches and one next to a fake ship (USS Recruit, used for some nefarious training purposes).

Spotted a duo of hummingbirds gathering food from the odd flowers shown here, but the frantic birds flitted away too fast to be captured on film.

Despite the local baseball team, San Diego Padres, being rather far removed from Boston - the Red Sox caps attracted a lot of attention.

A ten hour difference in time again proved too large to handle reasonably.

Woke up around 2:30, and catnapped tossing and turning for a while before getting up.

The marina looks even better just before sunrise than full-lit. Played around with the camera until batteries ran dry.

The breakfast room opens in an hour - thankfully thought about buying groceries yesterday. The jalapeño bagel and blue nachos really hit the spot, after all, it's pretty much between lunch and dinner back home.

The hotel, San Diego Sheraton, turned out to be sprawlingly large and quite nice, with a view across the marina.

But the hotel is without a decent store, which necessitated a trip outside the compound. Forgot half the things to buy, including sunscreen - some more shopping tomorrow.

Now is the time to crash. At least for a few hours.

Flew to California, for the annual Red Hat Summit, where I'll be giving a presentation on wednesday.

The flight was a two-leg affair through Frankfurt, with a frighteningly early wakeup call. Wasn't able to use rapidly aging SAS-points to upgrade to business class on the Lufthansa-flight - cross-airline use of mileage points is still in in the "coming soon"-category.

The flights themselves were as uneventful as they go. The security check in Frankfurt was expectedly paranoid, but the INS procedures at LAX took a lot more time than expected. Several planes landing at the same time and the corresponding crowds are never good news - this time the lining up for questions and fingerprints lasted quite long. And if not for some creative lane shuffling, it'd taken even more.

Collected a SUV from Hertz and boarded the backseat for the ride to San Diego. Traffic was heavy for a sunday afternoon, it wan't really clear whether this was the first warm weekend - based on the number of fellow motorists, that seemed a likely explanation.

Had a burrito for lunch in some nondescript small town, good food, eating complicated by stiff winds that threatened to sweep away the napkins, utensils and even the food itself.

Took the pacific coast highway, which sadly only occasionally exhibits as great scenery down south as between San Francisco and Monterey. Cliffs and beaches were occasionally available, but for a lot of time the road snaked through non-spectacular land.

After an unexpected delay of one year, the dvd release of the second season of the Muppet Show has finally been announced.

Hopefully the later seasons do not undergo such severe hiccups. Yes, I'm still looking forward to seeing Alice Cooper's visit on the show, which happened during the third season.

Helsinki is gearing up for the festivities next week.

Haircare product-sponsored rickshaws patrol the streets, attempting to trap unwary tourists with an expensive ride. Of whom only the most fanatic have already arrived, and several mongolian hordes more expected to descend in the next few days.

Bookstores are brimming with either travellers' guides to the city, or books that attempt to convey the image of Finland as one of the eccentricest nations of the world.

City squares large and small have been festooned with screens that bleat out the contestants' songs non-stop.

Haven't consciously heard a single entry yet (but probably been exposed to quite a few).

Put up a gallery page that contains an extremely artistically selected detail of every photo thursday image thus far.

It's a new page, so edges may be sharp, and the links off tangentially. Enjoy the ride, and be sure to report any errors or general funkiness.

This week's photo thursday challenge subject is empty.

My take on the subject is the attached image, a deserted beach in Cape Cod, with only a flock of tired seagulls for company. The lifeguard's chair officially stays empty until the next season kicks in. The rules and regulations-plaque on the chair would have been a worthy contender in last week's "no"-topic.

(As usual, the full-size photograph is available by clicking the attached image.)

And when you're the ex-girlfriend of our prime minister, the tools at your disposal are of bigger caliber than those offered to other jilted lovers.

And that's not William Shakespeare who said the immortal line of the subject line, but William Congreve, an 18th century playwright.

(And yeah, I never thought about writing about the woman, but this act of unprecedented stupidity just went and broke any resolutions about the subject.)

That's temperature, in celsius degrees on the y-axis.

Plenty cold, compounded by wind and rain.

Rarely I've missed my scarf so bad in may as today.

Recently sighted game-related links:

• The third part of the history of computer role-playing games is out. This one concentrates on the decade starting from 1994 - and covers many of the classics of the genre such as Planescape:Torment and the Baldur's Gate saga.
• Unsurprisingly, a videogame on Lost has been announced. No statement on which seasons this will cover - if it's up to the third, the spoiler-averse in the audience (including me, obviously) will avoid this until the third season is available on dvd - expectedly in september.
• Bethesda Softworks has bought the Fallout IP. If the resulting game combines the storylines of the previous Fallout installments with the graphics of Oblivion, its arrival will be a happy day indeed.
• Keyboard pad for xbox 360 - how long before the first Z-machine (and Zork, naturally) makes it into the Live Arcade...
• World Without Oil, an alternate reality game launched on mayday eve. Haven't played with it at all yet - seems US-centered on a first blink.
• Publishing a game based on George R.R. Martin's still-to-be-completed septalogy a Song of Fire and Ice suddenly bankrupted Guardians of Order. The sad history of the franchise doesn't deter Green Ronin from trying out the very same move.

The mayday's very traditional festivities on Ullanlinnanmäki were celebrated in unexpectedly warm weather. And expectedly good company. And with very predictable set of supplies.

Apart from tippaleipä, of which the local shop was utterly sold out. But that's a manageable loss.

Time to make sense of the way too rapidly moving finnish and russian players in the hockey world championships now.