This is getting way too regular, yet another weekly five from skrubu. And again, mistranslations mine, all mine.

1. Which browser(s) do you use? Why?

Firefox. No better alternative exists. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. And keeps on evolving. At work some of the intranet applications mandate the use of internet explorer, but that's about the extent I like to use it.

2. Which page is your start page? Or are you one of those weirdos that use about:blank? And why on earth, if so?

Yah, it's the empty page. Lack of distractions.

3. Do you use any extensions in your browser?

Some. IEView on the work laptop, RSS reader. Ought to use more, like browsersynch (I keep abusing del.icio.us for that purpose).

4. Have you changed any of the default settings of your browser (such as the font size)?

Nope.

5. Which group do you belong to - the ones that maximize the size of the browser window, or do you prefer to use a smaller window (and what's the size if so)?

Pretty big, but not full screen. And I expect the pages to adapt to changes in screensize.

A simple 50 penny pajatso (finnish wikipedia only) from the late sixties, re-interpreted in flash.

[ via linko. ]

Crashed my ex-team's recreation day, spent the afternoon bowling and waiting for dinner.

Former at the Tali establishment, which has been completely renovated since my last visit (quite a few years ago, it would appear). Bowled consistently, three lines within seven points of each other - averaged 127, which is nice and much better than anticipated. Way fewer strikes than I hoped, but lots of spares and subsequent nines boosted the score nicely.

Latter at La Famiglia. The upstairs restaurant proved that it can take more than two hours to cater a simple three course dinner. Food was quite good - much better than on the first visit in spring. The homemade sausages for appetizer were firm and spicy, the mushroom pasta creamy and a bit on the limp side, and the banana pannacotta for dessert surprisingly mild in taste.

New York Times has published its annual list of notable books.

And I haven't read a single one on the list.

A couple are in the "to consider picking up, amazon or physically at Borders"-category, but the zero is still a pretty pitiful score.

[Ones on the list: certainly the new Pynchon (so it's out already?), possibly the new Philip Roth (paperback, definitely), likely the new King (he's supposedly in good form); off the non-fiction side: Steven Johnson's Ghost Map (haven't even started his previous, so no hurry) and Omnivore's Dilemma sounds interesting as well.]

[ via Jason Kottke. ]

Things I didn't know a short while ago:

Kula Shaker is back. With a four song album available in iTunes (and some vinyl copies sold out ages ago). A proper album is expected early next year.

Meat Loaf completed part III of Bat out of Hell.

Cathedral plays their second concert of the year in Helsinki. A slice of the three day Helldone-festival, the gig is priced high. Parting with forty euros to see Lee Dorrian and his merry men does not seem likely.

Tackling this week's viikkoviitonen. As usual, mistakes in translation mine, all mine.

When was the last time (if ever), you last saw/visited ...

1. An opera

Been a while. I think (operative word being: think) it was Sweeney Todd in the Helsinki Opera.

2. A theatre

This january. Saw Hitchcock Blonde in the City Theatre of Helsinki.

3. An art gallery

Late summer. Visited Anhava to view the weird multi-colored bar codes by Leonhard Lapin.

4. A museum

Earlier this month: Museum of Australia in Sydney.

5. A ballet

Been a really long while. So long that I can't recall the name of the show. But I do have seen a couple of ballets. Never entirely voluntarily.

Random articles that made it into my del.icio.us-collection this week.

• A set of logic problems, some familiar, but mostly not.
• In the series of potentially useful tools: firebug, a javascript debugger. For the long-pending google maps mashup.
• A wireless router for free. For a well-defined value of "free".
• Museum of Bad Art, definitely something for the next trip to Boston.
• A convenient tally of camera popularity as used in flickr.
• A collection of humorous analogies.

According to Otto, deaths always happen in threes.

This week Robert Altman was joined by Kari Nenonen and Juice Leskinen.

A shocking revelation follows: I do not own a single album by Mr. Leskinen, even though I've always been fond of his work. Despite the dozens of hours in music class in junior high spent rendering viidestoista yö and syksyn sävel in a reedy voice, which ought to have installed a healthy hatred of the man behind the songs. Time has dulled the memories, but I'm pretty certain I even participated in a public show of the former song. Perhaps it's now time to distance myself even further from "suomi pop was not cool"-stance and buy the inevitable multi-disc retrospective. That's what happened when Gösta Sundqvist died. And his career spanned far fewer years than Juice's.

While Juice will be mourned by many and very conspicuously so, the passing of Kari Nenonen will not be heralded by column yards of coverage. Kari Nenonen was a finnish horror/sf-author who burst into the scene with a couple of novels in the early nineties and then disappeared as quickly as he arrived. His Ken Kuolleita Kutsuu has the dubious honor of being one of the very few books that actually scared me. The credible creep of horror into the authentic lives of three youth in an everyday Helsinki suburb was executed exquisitely well. And wrapped up in then-trendy splatter and gore - both as a subplot and a narrative device.

Spent a vast chunk of the day carrying bricks and concrete from an apartment under renovation.

Helped vanquish two piles out of three, using nothing but a shovel and an array of boxes and buckets. And a convenient elevator - otherwise the two floor distance to the temporary resting place of the material would have consumed a lot of time and a lot more energy.

Apart from ubiquitous dust, no adverse effects from the effort. Right now. I'm pretty sure some heretofore dormant muscles will protest come tomorrow morning.

Saw Exodus in Tavastia yesterday.

The band, one of the original Bay Area Thrashers from the early eighties, has disbanded and reborn twice, with an appropriate amount of member changes.

Went to the gig without any expectations - had not heard any new material since 1992's Force of Habit. Wasn't even aware that Steve Souza was no longer handling the duties of the vocalist.

The new growler was energetic, and attacked both classic and new songs with vigour. Sadly the club proved too challenging for the mixer, and as a result the sound was mushy. The band whipped up a nice frenzy in the audience, and witnessed decent pit activity. The lone stagediver was not much appreciated by the band members.

Recognized way less than half of the songs played (even with assistance from more knowledgeable attendees), so no set list will be available here (I'm pretty sure imperiumi's message board will take care of that). Hoped for Cajun Hell, but that's hardly among the band's biggest hits.

Tears for Fears' eighties angst-piece Mad World gets another high-profile resurrection.

Its first reincarnation was as the keystone song in one of the very finest movies of the third millennium, Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko. Eventually the Gary Jules' melancholy version got Really Popular in the UK, reaching the #1 spot on the charts for christmas 2003.

Recently the song popped up again, this time in a advertisement for Gears of War, a futuristic orgy of violence on the XBox360 (attached below as the very first video clip in this blog). I'd have expected some atonal industrial grind in the commercials, but the juxtaposing of the wasteland scenery and the haunting song is effective, very effective.

I've never been to a political fundraiser. Come to think of it, I've never even been close to being invited to one.

But the one (no proper link to the invitation available) thrown by the supporters of Jyrki Kasvi sounds like a good starting point. The topic (the birth of an ubiquitous society) is a pointful one, and the parliamentary candidate himself one of the very few I cannot find faults in. After all, there are very few technically savvy individuals with mainly correct and respectable opinions looking to be elected.

The price, at 350 euros, is a steep one to pay.

But if paying that meant that even just a single bright beacon would shine in the holistic cluelessness in the parliament, I'd gladly cough up the cash.

Though I fell asleep watching Gosford Park.

Robert Altman died yesterday, and the world is poorer by yet another great director.

Watched M.A.S.H. again a few months ago, and was once again surprised by its iconoclasm. It would be hard to imagine a major production company risking their reputation by putting out an equivalent movie set in, say, Iraq, right now.

[ via kasa. ]

Vanilla Coke, like so many under-appreciated things in life got phased out.

Phased out, without ever making it to Finland. Officially, that is. The grey importers (both Behnfords as well as the fly-by-nites on a couple of metro stations) occasionally stocked it, but it was never reliably available locally.

The Pepsi MAX Cappuccino was a worthy replacement, but not comparable to the real thing.

I don't have very high hopes on the newest arrival on scene: Olvi's Vanilla-Cola. Should be available in shops right now - will report upon tasting.

[ via Eating Muffins in an Agitated Manner. ]

I planned on writing something clever about the reversal of roles in a couple of recent cases when random passersby have caught the appointed guardians of society up to no good or even worse.

And failed. Several false starts didn't help.

So here's some random linkage instead. For the first time in absolutely ages.

• Lengthy profile of Will Wright in New Yorker. And it doesn't concentrate on the obvious Sims and Spore, but his 1984 debut Raid on Bungeling Bay gets namechecked as well. Inspired by the article Jason Kottke has put up a good addendum.
• KFC has crafted a giant version of their logo, one that is visible from space.
• Stand up or Die is a finnish portal for stand up comedy.
• Today's featured article on wikipedia is the much-lauded Stephen Colbert's verbal assault at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner.
• Photographic education. Loads of tricks of the trade.
• I failed to observe the no music day today. Didn't change the phone's ringtone to something buzzy, and got sideswiped by Eric Satie. In a meeting.
• They're not up to the level of adbusters, but the finnish anti-advertisements are worth a look.

As noted by Peter Jackson himself on the biggest Tolkien-related site on the web: he will not direct, nor be directly affiliated with the team that does The Hobbit, the prequel to Lord of the Rings.

The reason: the lawsuit between New Line Cinema and the Jackson/Walsh team is still ongoing. And as part of the settlement, the production company attempted to tie the production of a new film to the closing of the case. And the creative team does not feel that such a tie would be conducive to making the best possible Hobbit (or another prequel, to which the rights have also been bought).

So, this leaves the director's chair unoccupied for the biggest new fantasy film of the decade. With the right helmsman the stratospheric budget may be put to good use. With a poorly chosen one this has all the makings of an immensely expensive flop. And pretty pretty please let the pick be someone else than Uwe Boll.

[ via rajatapauksia. ]

White is the topic for this week's photo thursday challenge.

And in the absence of snow, alternative sources of whiteness must be sought. The one I finally settled on is the top surface of gromit the laptop, tuned slightly to eliminate the pleasantly warm glow of my dining table lamp.

This week's loss in yahoo's fantasy football league was brought on by one man: the very same that almost single-handedly whupped the Broncos.

The conspicuously named LaDainian Tomlinson scored four touchdowns, and pushed Hakkapeliitat once again below .500.

The team was not helped by the sensationally well-playing rookie tight end Marques Colston spraining his ankle on the very first offensive play by the Saints, nor by both Packers and Rams being shut out by opponents.

And with the Bears having their hands surprisingly full with the Jets, and Rex Grossman only bringing home one thrown touchdown, the loss was certain.

Watched the first half of Dallas putting on a very good show against the reigning Colts - forcing three turnovers in the first quarter alone. Colts suffered their first loss of the season, but I'd long since climbed into bed.

Indeed, there's finally NFL on television during the regular season. Viasat shows a good selection of games each weekend, most of them live, and I'm sorely tempted to continue the free two-week trial subscription. If they offer a decent rate until the superbowl, I'll consider myself sold.

Saw Martin Scorsese's The Departed yesterday. A good movie, definitely among the best in a long while and recommended to all who are not bothered by complex plotting or regularly applied violence.

The Departed is an adaptation of Infernal Affairs, a Hong Kong-crafted thriller from 2002. And while a lot of liberties have been taken with the plot as well as with the casting, it's still the same story, just told from a Hollywood-adapted slant.

The acting is top class across the three starring men. Jack Nicholson is frighteningly menacing (in a different way than in his previous menace-o-ramas) as the sociopath the irish mob boss. But he is outshone by Leonardo di Caprio in his best performance since the almighty Gilbert Grape. His tortured undercover officer suffers from many mental afflictions brought on by identity crisis after being embedded in the mob. He manages to convey desperation without resorting to over-acting. Matt Damon plays a golden boy cop, whose teflon surface lasts untarnished despite several glaring mistakes. Damon, like the two other leading actors, excels in the role - and the splintering of the character's confidence is faultless.

The supporting cast is not bad either. Though the roles do suffer from heavy-handed typecasting, none of the characters turns out to be an one-dimensional caricature. Here the first impressions do not lie: Martin Sheen is the jovial old mentor, Mark Wahlberg the angriest cop of a decade, and Alec Baldwin's Ellerby oozes testosterone with almost every sentence.

The actors have an excellent and complex story within which to lose themselves. Like the original, this is a paranoiac web of lost identities and challenged allegiances - in which the proceedings are regularly turned sideways by displays of graphical violence. So graphic, that I was surprised that this film made it through the certification bureaucracy with an over-15 rating.

The Departed is a long movie, clocking in at a tad over two and a half hours, but it never gets boring. The scenes flow with a carefully calculated pace - a flow that is varied enough to almost allow for the audience to be lulled into a false belief of understanding what is going on. A belief that is firmly shaken several times on a long romp through Boston.

Indeed, it's the city in which the movie is set, that plays a significant role in setting up the scenery. Both thematically (it's one of the biggest irish concentrations in the world) as well as visually (scenes are played in surroundings familiar to visitors). And that fact that Boston's finest folk-punk band is featured on the soundtrack is certainly no demerit to the film.

Watched the film in Tennispalatsi. The ticket queues are still terrible, this week's excuse is an "upgrade" of the operating system. But even worse than that was the volume in the theatre - it wasn't the regular gunshots that annoyed the most, but music. The very first bars of Murphys' I'm Shipping to Boston were eardrum-tingling in volume.

Recommended heavily, and not by your humble narrator alone; both metacritic and imdb agree that this is a movie worth seeing.

[ via Hiljaisten seiväshyppäjien kerho. ]

Bought Ramones' anthology off a sale on saturday (the double cd and book is positively a steal at ten euros in Anttila), and have been listening to the New York's godfathers of punk for a good while.

Had almost forgotten how good they were, but the song selection just keeps rubbing in the classics I've heard over and over. Though not lately. Seems that it's been ages since any Ramones got airtime in the Lavonardo HQ, and no albums are on the iPod either.

The anthology concentrates on the early years, and pulls in the best song from the nineties, Pet Sematary. But it's the parade of classics that's makes this double album so worthwhile - while Ramones' albums have never been exactly borefests, the concentrated punk rock mirth would is at times overwhelming.

Now probably would not be a good time to start looking for deals on the even bigger compilation, the Weird Tales of the Ramones. Almost bought it in the now-being-liquidated Tower Records in San Francisco last year, but thought that their price was a tad high. Well, back home the tag contains a much bigger number, and the currency is euro...

And I never had any idea that the parenthesized song of this entry's title (a perennial personal favorite) has a deeper meaning to it. Wikipedia just does not stop being amazing.

Finished the second season of Deadwood on friday, and am still convinced that the show's at the very top of the class.

While the pace was slower than on the first season, the twelve episodes told a powerful story. Powerful enough to start looking for the third, and last, season of the show. But knowing HBO, it will be a while before it shows up. Tragedy, swearing and pure seeking out the number ones fill the episodes - new characters are kept to a few and the old ones are allowed to grow to even larger than life than before.

Picked up the first season of Veronica Mars in Boston in september after a few glowing reviews from usually reliable people. And based on the first quartet of episodes the statements were not wrong: this seems to be quality television.

Veronica Mars is a combination of Twin Peaks (minus most of the weird stuff), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (minus the supernatural element), O.C. (I'm mostly assuming, never having watched the show for more than five minutes) and any detective show with a season-long story arc. One of the things retained from Buffy is the snappy dialogue. While it never reaches the heights of Whedon, it still runs circles around the competition.

Acting varies from pretty much OK to heavily wooden. Kirsten Bell convinced me in her brief appearance in Deadlands already, and Enrico Colantoni puts on a decent act as well. Some of Veronica's schoolmates, on the other hand, could be replaced with crash-test-dummies and a conveniently disguised ventriloquist without the audience noticing the difference.

Well, it's early to draw any conclusions after the first sixth of the season, but it does flow well, and possesses semi-addictive qualities. I'll report on the progress through the SoCal mystery in later entries. Stay tuned.

Utterly failed this year's interactive fiction competition.

Thought I'd catch up on many games while travelling, but always had better things on the agenda.

Decided to try out my place in the linguistic domain of the US, the result points to the north-eastern parts - which I've only briefly visited (on account of having Boston separate from its surroundings in the scale).

Somehow the bars do not come out right, but I'm not about to start investigating bogus HTML produced by the quiz site.

Updated the list of caches logged (by a whopping 50% increase), as well as of records and dvds for the first time in months.

Haven't bought many of the latter lately, but have picked up a lot of cds in the last few weeks.

One of those weeks.

• Flights: 11.
• Miles in airplanes: 20000+.
• Miles in buses: less than a thousand.
• Miles in trains: negligible.
• Bottles of water: 20.
• T-shirts: 11.
• Previously unseen animals: Many.
• New countries visited: 1 (skipped Indonesia.)
• Caches found: 4.
• Photographs taken: 1358 + 27 (digital + analog.)
• Moments in utter sense of wonder:
  • Diving in the reef,
  • Chorus of frogs and cicadas,
  • Fruitbats crowding a tree,
  • Feeding / petting kangaroos,
  • Night sky in the deep desert.
• Days taken off work: Three weeks.
• Days of long trousers: One (flying out of Sydney.)
• Suitcases overloaded: Two.
• Sunburns sustained: One.
• Work-related phone calls received: Zero
• Work-related SMSes: Two (proactive out-of-office clearly works.)
• Truly dangerous animals seen in nature:
  • Saltwater crocodile,
  • Peppermint stick insect,
  • Funnel-web spider (saw two nests.)
• Distant relatives met: Zero.
• Other countrymen met:
  • 2 elderly gentlement at a guidepost in Daintree,
  • a couple admiring a primitive wetsuit in the Sydney Maritime Museum.
• Jadedness lost: Huge chunks.
• Addictive substances discovered:
  • Solo-lemonade,
  • Apricot Delight,
  • Bounty Dark.
• Platypi seen: Zero.
• Aussie words not understood: Less than twenty, more than ten.
• Total cost: Priceless (but I charged most of it on Amex).

The photo thursday is on a break this week, but amply stood in by a convenient meme. Translations mine, challenge picked up from skrubu.

1. What equipment do you use for photography?

A Canon S3 and a Nokia 6680.

2. Why do you take photos, and of which subjects?

No particular reason. Subjects vary, I don't limit myself to a certain set of subjects.

3. Do you like the photos you take?

Sometimes.

4. Do you use any photography services in the internet (for e.g. printing, storage, distribution, etc)?

Not really. But definitely ought to take flickr in use - this blog is far from optimal distribution media.

5. If you could pick any single photograph on your wall, which one would you choose?

No idea.

Saw Richard Linklater's adaptation of Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly yesterday.

It is a rotoscoped movie of an alternate future where the populace is being decimated by Substance D, an addictive drug. The main plotline concerns the efforts of an undercover narcotics agent to observe himself and the resulting utter shattering of his mind. The subplots are provided by the junkie friends cohabiting with the undercover agent.

The actors are immediately recognizable in rotoscoped form. Woody Harrelson and especially Robert Downey Jr. shine as the drug-addled housemates of Keanu Reeves. Keanu Reeves himself is pretty much a blank slate - and Winona Ryder as his girlfriend remains bland almost to the very end.

The story has been thinned out somewhat to fit the 100 minute length. But it remains as strong and tragic as in the original novel, which I've thought to be among the author's very best.

The rotoscoped film is an odd one to watch. While it enables the use of the scramble suit without resorting to heavy CGI, it feels like an oppressive device at times. But the oppression is probably not uniform to all watchers, I just found the undulating surface textures unnerving - especially as skin tones.

The soundtrack remains an ambient, very appropriate one - up to the point of end credits. It's only then that the hefty presence of Radiohead (and Thom Yorke's solo material) really becomes apparent.

A cartoony cautionary tale, capped with a list of the author's friends adversely affected by drugs. Not a happy movie, but a thought-provoking one. But sadly a film with a very limited release in Finland - the copy shown in Tennispalatsi seems to be the only one. Tennispalatsi seems to be plagued with long queues these days, had to wait close to 20 minutes to pick up a ticket. On an early saturday afternoon that sure is an unexpected wait.

What are friends for? Let a scene played out in the mailroom today illustrate.

Man, I completely missed out on the Nine Inch Nails tickets!

Don't worry, I got one spare.

Really? And you'd consider selling it to me?

Sure. And it's on the ice, by the way, not in the stands.

Woo!

That's what friends are for! (Among many many other things, obviously - but sometimes material gains are just overwhelming.)

Welho gave up on their unlimited broadband service at the end of october.

Picked up a new modem and a new contract. Never tried a maxed out line before, so chose a middle-bandwidth one from the selection. Supposedly upgradeable with a phone call, the following few weeks ought to prove whether such an upgrade is warranted.

One more day off before the winter season at work begins in the earnest.

Three weeks away leaves a lot of things to be taken care of. This was by far the longest absence in years.

Didn't expect a very pleasant wakeup, but slept well and long, and got surprised by the immediate fallout from the US midterms upon opening the morning paper. It's not often when the first thing you read is as pleasant as "Rumsfeld resigns".

Helsinki hadn't changed much. Apart from the climate. Snow and ice, with the attendant slipperiness were not present upon takeoff. Upgraded to wintry hiking shoes, but still had to tread carefully - the first day on ice is never easy.

Absolute Sandman was not out yet, and neither was Cars available on dvd yet.

Had lunch in the steak/pizza cellar of La Famiglia - their quatro stagioni did not fail this time either. Have heard good things about Virgin Oil Co's pizzas, but at the moment this cellar provides the best in town.

Had to check this week's output from Hakkapeliitat before turning in.

Lost. By a wide margin.

Lost to the top team in the league. And despite a decent score racked up by Hakkapeliitat, the opponent just had piled on more points. Players such as Joey Galloway just seemed to have their lucky days, despite their teams picking up hefty losses, the players scored big on individual stats.

No second thoughts - wouldn't have won even with optimal allocation/benching of players from the team.

Landed much later than expected, but still ahead of the schedule of that of the last leg.

Luggage arrived safe and hale. And even on the same flight. Despite the warnings by the Lufthansa officials in Frankfurt.

The hot shower after a 35 hour flight was nothing short of absolute glory.

Sadly, this was officially a working day. Travelled the slippery roads to Valimo campus for three hours, and moved onwards to a team dinner at restaurant Cocina in the south harbor of Helsinki.

Food was good, not amazing by any means, but very good. Started off with the best part of the menu: a fennel-shrimp soup, whose bowl sure could have been larger. The duck was OK, but the fig sauce was surprisingly tasteless.

Bravely held on to wakefulness, but started looking for the exit around eleven - it'd been a long day. Managed not to fall asleep in the bus, nor on the keyboard, but am not going to push it any further.

Missed my first ever flight.

Frankfurt was having a bit of a fog (and that's like saying that the Beatles have sold some records). The inbound flights were set to a holding pattern, and outbound flights delayed. Apart from one. That's right: the one to Helsinki. Arrived at a closed gate, and had to pick up a new boarding pass to the next available flight to Finland. Which turned out to be late, very late, coming in, and even later, flying out.

Other than the fog-related problems, the pretty much non-stop journey from Sydney was effortless, even pleasant. Though I'd sure would have preferred the Singapore-Frankfurt to have been a Singapore Airlines, rather than a Lufthansa plane. And an empty 747 at that - had a full three seat row for myself. But obviously that's not enough to attain sleep - just catnaps throughout the night.

Sydney's turned out to be a hard city to shop in.

Whereas the shops in Cairns kept their doors open till nine, they close here on 5:30, with rare exceptions to the rule. Making evening shopping a bit harder than expected. Missed out on the ABC-shop, and had to pick up local standup comedy from HMV instead.

Even more surprising shopping hazard relates to shorts. In the most surf-friendly country in the world I had a hard time finding decent replacements. And in the end, failed. The two (of Quiksilver and Billabong decree) have fewer pockets than my faded-out Batistinis. But both conform to the Wagnerian style: knee-length, black.

Rode a harbour cruise after checking out and leaving the luggage at the hotel.

The cruise took around two hours and showed the highlights from the waterside.

Weather got increasingly better during the day, and the waterfront started looking like the top attraction it's supposed to: sunshine glittering off the slowly undulating waves next to the best-recognized opera house in the world.

Today was the day of the annual Melbourne Cup - the biggest horse/gambling-related event of the year. Spotted some sheilas in appropriate headgear, but all in all the race had limited visibility - though a lot of the cafes in the harbor did sport extra television screens.

Rain kept drizzling down, but not in biblical proportions. Walked through the city for some ten kilometers.

Located two caches out of four. First DNF due to bouncing signal, the second due to milling people all around the ground zero position.

Visited the botanic gardens for some excellent views on the harbor. Had my first encounter with fruitbats. Some trees bore dozens of the screeching creatures, who were surprisingly active before the dusk. Saw the biggest (and probably one of the ugliest) flower, and expectedly many orchids. The brand-spanking new batteries gave up the ghost after half a dozen images - but that's probably the fault of the shop, not of the manufacturer.

Rain continued unabated throughout the evening.

Skipped planned geocaching activities (had five hides lined up), and hung out in the vicinity of the hotel - stocking up on essentials such as batteries and food.

Had miscalculated the time of the rugby game between Wales and Australia, caught the last half an hour or so. Way more interesting, and less sleep-inducing, than cricket. Some of the rules do seem counter-intuitive, and the commentators do not devote a single second to explaining the intricacies.

Spent the day on the last day trip of the Australian Grand Tour: the Blue Mountains National Park just east of Sydney.

Assembled in front of the clean and nice looking YHA establishment about half a mile away from the hotel. The two hostels in the vicinity do look very livable - on the next trip down under they will ease the strain on the wallet.

Again a small coach, and a talkative driver/guide. First stop at the site of the 2000 olympics in Parramatta. No major walkies in the morning rain. Rain that punches in the message: I'm horribly under-dressed - a t-shirt and shorts do not cut it in 15C weather. Noted that U2 will play several dates in Sydney just after I leave, and that Pearl Jam is back on the road. As is Kylie Minogue, who will have a triple-night outing next week.

First stop in the national park was conveniently next to a smallish gathering of kangaroos (again euros - or grey kangaroos). They did not interrupt their morning graze due to humans with cameras, but continued chewing contentedly. Several joeys in the group, some still hosted in pouches.

The first image is from the Undercliff path near the Wentworth Falls, a fifty minute hike up and down the area, with some spectacular shots of several waterfalls in the area. Season having been dry, the falls themselves are on the dry side, but still enough to qualify for the name.

Lunch in Katoomba, the biggest town in the area, with no time to check out the neighborhood (Blue's Cafe won't win awards on service speed). Zuppa, a local coffee shop, probably hosts occasional scrabble tournaments, if the logo is any clue.

Rain started pounding harder at Echo Point, next to the most famous sight in the park: the Three Sisters. The inbound mist did not obscure the valley completely, but put in a valiant effort.

Walked down to the rainforest floor on some thousand slippery steps. Forest provides a good cover from rain, just as from the sun. As usual, no animals but birds and bugs visible - and even they few and far between on a chilly day.

The journey up from the valley floor was provided by the steepest railway of the world - an old coal mine chute put to good use as a transport.

Walked the Circular Quay to view the most famous opera house of them all in twilight and in the looming darkness.

The pictures in twilight turned out all right, the ones from a darker time did not. This is partially the weather's fault - as with the impending darkness came a steady drizzle with gusting winds, preventing the use of flagpoles and such as supports for taking images with long exposures.

Had dinner at City Extra restaurant. The dishes were plentiful, but tastewise unremarkable. Apart from the dessert. Had my first sample of a pavlova, the national specialty, and noted it pleasant indeed. Definitely not in the league of the almighty key lime pie as desserts go, but rather good anyway.

Spent the better part of the day walking through prime tourist attractions in the Darling Harbour.

Rode the monorail into the area, which provided a birds-eye view to the area I'd walked in yesterday. Was probably the second municipal monorail trip ever - I think the only other thus far has been in Seattle.

First up was the establishment named Australia's #1: the Sydney Aquarium. Which leaped to the podium of aquariums visited through the last two decades. Informative, clean, big, and full of animals that I haven't seen before. Sadly, one of the prime attractions remains unseen still. The platypus remained hidden in its huge tank. The saltwater crocodile, on the other hand, made its presence very well-known - lying in plain sight in its terrarium.

The Sydney Aquarium features two and a half oceanariums - enormous tanks that you can walk through. Their seal sanctuary is the first organic seal enclosure in the world - the seals of four different species swam happily amongst seaweed and some very scared-looking fish. The main oceanarium is quite similar to that of the Underwater World in Singapore, though bigger and without a moving walkway. Its main features are the big fish - sharks of half a dozen species and a similar amount of rays. No maneaters amongst the fish featured - though the biggest shark on show - a gray nurse shark does sport pretty fearsome set of teeth. The last walk-through section is a part of their Great Barrier Reef enclosure - the biggest reef tank in the world.

The selection of fish in the smaller tanks was imaginative - and avoided the normal pitfalls gracefully. Lots of native fish, featured in uncommon biotopes. The mandatory school of penguins looked copmfortable in their large tank, but this was definitely an underwhelming experience after the building-dominating penguin hold in the New England Aquarium in Boston.

The neighboring building to the aquarium hosts a brand-new zoo: the Sydney Wildlife World. And indoors zoo that attempts to show off native life in their natural environment.

And succeeds admirably. The place is well-engineered, and filled to the brim with interesting creatures.

The selection of which by no means follows the expected route - big animals are mostly left to the Taronga Zoo, the Wildlife World concentrates on the previously unseen.

A good example of which is the very first section, which is devoted to invertebrates. Of both the showy (butterflies, stick insects) and the not-so-photogenic kinds. Managed to snap a very decent portrait of two bull ants in defensive posture. These guys grow up to an inch long, and deliver painful bites to deter intruders. Saw a few in the bush, and gave them a reasonable safety margin.

Reptiles are more than adequately represented as well. Both lizards and snakes are hosted in large terrariums, and the animals seem to have avoided the apathy that settles in in small enclosures. Actually saw a snake climbing a rocky cliff in its tank, not a mean feat for a critter without legs. Utterly forgot the camera's capability to capture video - would have been a good catch. The big lizard in the attached image is the second largest in the world (after the Komodo Dragon) - this australian monitor lizard grows longer than two meters.

The Wildlife World features a nifty nocturnal zone - where light is almost non-existent, and the critters of the night are active in their terrariums. Possums and bilbies are amongst the featured creatures, but the top spot is claimed by the quoll, a white-flecked brown marsupial carnivore that resembles a weasel. The pictures from this section did not turn out very well, as expected when operating without a tripod.

Wallabies are hosted in a large enclosure brimmed with rocky cliffs, and the small kangaroos are surprisingly good climbers. Echidna, the wallabies' neighbours, appeared to be asleep in hollow logs.

The largest animal in the building is the cassowary, the second largest bird in the world. The two-meter tall bird pranced in its cage, certain of its position as the uncrowned king of the rainforest section.

A large enclosure hosted half a dozen koalas. Most of whom were awake and eating next to the visitors, their daily portions of eucalyptus having been placed near the separating glass. One enterprising koala quickly ran between trees, proving than the animals are capable of greater speed than sloths.

The Wildlife World was opened in september, and seems to be in full speed already. A couple of cages were undergoing repairs, but that's probably par for the course in the business.

Neither this, nor the aquarium can be called exactly cheap visits, but a combo ticket brings down the price to a more reasonable level.

Entry to the other famous museum in the area, the Sydney Maritime Museum is free of charge. That is, if you do not wish to visit the ships in the adjoining quays, or the special exhibit (currently on pirates, meant mainly for kids).

The collection of items and models is laid out in three floors, and features many items of interest, as well as lengthy explanations behind them. The collection concentrates on matters related to Australia, whether of explorers, steamships or surfers.

Skipped a visit to the ships - at least two of them were out of their docks, and was in a hurry to arrange the last day trip of the australian tour. Managed to find a place on a tour to the neighboring Blue Mountains national park, but the process took close to an hour and two agents to complete.

Walked back to the hotel via Paddy's Market - a huge indoors bazaar filled with standard-sized stalls. Avoided the rip-off-quality t-shirts altogether, and bought a new cabin-sized suitcase - the old one lost a wheel and a sizable chunk of plastic (though none of its integrity) in transit from Helsinki to Singapore.

Flew to Sydney on a Quantas cityhopper flight.

Trip was as uneventful as they come, though the plane was fully packed.

Staying in Mercure hotel almost next door to the central railway station. Based on the neighborhood establishments, this is not the swanky side of the town. Hotel itself is modern and clean, but they charge an arm and a leg for net access. And there does not seem to be a convenient open wlan located nearby.

First walkabout revealed that shops close early, and that there's a large-ish Kinokuniya bookstore in the vicinity. Minimized the financial damages in the latter by buying just one item - the first collected edition of Vertigo's DMZ.

Spent a couple of hours walking through Brisbane in the afternoon. The city is surprisingly large (over a million inhabitants) when contrasted with the size of its downtown area.

Visited the Museum of Queensland for a bit longer than ten days ago. Definitely a great selection of material, first floor filled with matters of cultural and natural interest for everybody, second one hosting more specific natural exhibits, and the top floor concentrating on the aboriginal and Torres Islands folks.

The Endangedred Species-exhibit showed the Queensland animals worst hit (usually by human activities). Learned a lot while browsing. Wasn't aware that there exists a spider species that is confined to a tiny intertidal area, and unable to settle anywhere else. The big-eared critter in the photo is a bilby, a smallish marsupial that has been badly displaced by rabbits. These days, in an attempt to play up the native animals, the local kids are visited by the Easter Bilby and not the traditional lagomorph. Frogs are a group that gets hit hard no matter where - the Queensland amphibians are not doing as bad as those in Central America, but a number of species has already been lost, and a vastly bigger amount is threatened.

The popular culture exhibits range from sea turtles to the advent of automobiles in Queensland. The image to the right is of a fire brigade bicycle - four guys biked in concert to the site, pulling a hose-buggy behind them.

Last day trip in Cairns on the 31st of october, this one to another chunk of Queensland rainforest.

Took the Scenic Railway up to Kuranda, about 90 minutes from Cairns. The railway is worth the name, it snakes up the mountainside in very entertaining fashion - at times resorting to 180 degree loops. The scenery varies from the expected (Queensland countryside) to the exquisite (Barron Falls Gorge, with several waterfalls toiling in the dry season).

Kuranda itself is a small town nestled in the mountains. Based on the few hours spent there, it pretty much relies on tourism for its income. The main streets of the town are filled with shops catering to the needs of the daytrippers: fast food, t-shirts, opals and organic groceries.

Fortunately there are other attractions as well, and the day needed not to be spent in retail therapy. Had just two hours before hurrying back down the mountain, towards the plane back to Brisbane, so any lengthy unguided walks around town were sadly not an option.

Picked two attractions out of the blue, and was quite happy with both. Initially the Australian Venom Zoo seemed very much a daylight robbery - a smallish industrial building filled with murky terrariums. Fortunately this turned out not to be the case. There was a large basement to the building, and the visit was thoroughly guided - no-one was left alone amongst the creatures. Creatures that ranged from utterly lethal (Inland Taipan) to merely painful (Giant Centipede), with some harmless ones thrown in for distraction. The most venomous land snakes and spiders were well-represented. Though of the latter the withdrawing lifestyle of the most dangerous (funnel spiders) meant that not much could be seen. All in all the establishment was a positive surprise - and not only due to the fact that it allowed petting of lizards (of the decidedly non-venomous kind).

The other selected attraction contained far prettier creatures: butterflies. The butterfly house was basically a huge indoors garden with hundreds of butterfiles fluttering freely. Participated on a guided tour here as well, and learned quite a bit about the life and times of the flying insects. Insects that were attracted to white shirts, and kept landing on visitors with regularity - wore a blue one, and was mostly spared of the experience. Noted that local caterpillars are quite a bit bigger than the finnish ones, corresponding to the size of the resulting butterflies, obviously.

Was running short on time and walked back down to the station to get back to the bus. Missed out on the famous Heritage Markets of the town, didn't have the time to even peek in. From the looks of the area, there's a lot of people subsisting on non-conventional means, and the markets would probably have had interesting products to browse.

Chose to ride the Skyrail down from Kuranda as opposed to another run on the Scenic Railway. Skyrail is a cable car that descends down to sea level from the mountain. It runs at a varying height above the forest - sometimes there's just a few meters between the car and the ground, but at times the distance grows to several hundred meters. There are two waystations on the rail, the same cable does not run the entire way down the slope. The waystations provide additional lookouts into the valleys as well as boardwalks through the forest. The day was apparently not optimal to canopy-watching, since there appeared to be very little activity in the tops of the trees.

A fine day out again indeed, and one that conveniently, yet unexpectedly, combined shock treatment for two phobias: arachno- and acrophobia.

Whoo, after a series of mediocre weeks, the Hakkapeliitat returned to the winning fold. Despite Eli Manning not having his best day in the windy Meadowlands stadium, the team pulled through. Aided mightily by the Dallas running backs (three touchdowns between Jones and Barber) and two fourth quarter touchdowns by a serious candidate for the rookie of the year award: Marques Colston.

Took a day trip to the Daintree national park and environs to see what real rainforest looks like. (This actually happened on the 30th of october, have been without net access for a while.)

Got to see plenty of forest, but felt no rain during the day. Which was for the better, since it was already pretty warm and humid.

Started off with an hour's ride north from Cairns in a convenient mini-coach. The route to Port Douglas is one of the prettiest highways I've seen - constantly snaking next to the coastline. Best compared to highway #1 in California - though the Australian road is not as high up the cliffs. Saw the first wild kangaroo on the ride - at least there was a promising dark shape of an appropriate size standing on a field of freshly cropped hay.

The first exposure to a rainforest was a boardwalk through forested flatlands. Lots of birds. Lots of plants. Including some truly primordial species - this is one of the oldest forests on earth. Very few land animals, but the one discovered by the guide made up the rarity in funkiness. The brightly colored beast in the attached image is a Peppermint Stick Insect, which boasts powerful chemical defenses - a sickly sweet spray that does not come off for a fortnight. Accompanied with a painful stinging sensation. The insect is endemic to the region, and it is not spreading out.

Next step was a river cruise, looking for crocodiles on the Daintree River. The reptiles were hiding, and lots of other examples of the local fauna made themselves available before them. The white bird shown to the right is a Great Egret. Lots of other birds sighted as well - including a parrots and kingfishers that are decked out in almost psychedelically colored feathers.

Reptiles stayed hidden for a long while. Apart from a few lizards (water dragons, if I had to guess) the family stayed hidden. A single snake was curled up in an epiphytic plant, conveniently almost totally camouflaged. As were the crocodiles that finally presented themselves. First two small (less than five feet long) females, and then one of the four males that inhabit the section of the river. The last one clocked in at slightly upwards of four meters. Definitely a potential maneater. Though there have been no recorded crocodile-caused fatalities since 1989, no-one on the boat any longer dragged their hands out to water. Nor stayed very close to the railings. The crocodiles were not really active in the noon sun, preferring to float languidly just below the surface - out of the three just one even bothered to move.

Lunch consisted of a properly barbecued steak and garnish, and was served in a very nice location next to a creek. A creek with surprisingly active animals within. Sighted a few turtles, and quite many different fish species. A perch was the dominant species, but there were some carp-like fish as well and a few catfish on the bottom. Missed out on the turtles, as well as on the biggest fish in the creek - a thickish mottled eel about a meter in length.

Saw no cassowaries - the biggest bird in Australia that is prevalent in the region. It has a tough time dealing with cars, millions of years as the king of the hill has not given it the keys to evolve to avoid moving objects.

The only point in the world where two World Heritage Sites actually touch is located in Queensland - the Daintree forest and Great Barrier Reef meet up on Point Tribulation (named by James Cook, who endured hardship in the area on his first voyage). A bright white beach, flanked by pristine emerald-green jungle on one side and the crystal clear Pacific Ocean on the other. As shown in the image at the very top of this entry, the location was indeed something to remember.

The very last target of the day was Mossman Gorge, a rivendell that provided swimming possibilities in swiftly flowing water (accompanied with rather grave warning signs). Surprisingly many folks were swimming in the river, which twisted and turned through tortuous rapids before briefly swelling out.

Managed not to doze off on the long ride back to Cairns. Another fine trip to cap off a three day visit to Cairns. This one was organized by the Oz Tours - certainly recommended over the bigger buses, a group of dozen or so people is just more mobile and manageable.