Mr. Summer, you have one week to comply.

Then it's vacation time, and no such shirking of duty (shining the sun, baking the nation) will be tolerated.

Quite. This is a conveniently compressed account thereof.

Work-filled monday and tuesday. Nothing to report.

Company summer party on wednesday. Boring artist, decent food, good occasion to bump into people not seen in a long while. Note to self: discussing long island ice tea does not mean that the drinking of one must be demonstrated.

Pre-midsummer party on thursday in Jollas. Skipped the official nonathlon (or whatever the decathlon minus pole vault is called). Excellent food - and going for seconds on steaks was not frowned upon. Noted that phone-elves had delivered a new toy via company internal mail.

Real midsummer event on friday in Pakila. More food, good lamb, interesting crustaceans. Subdued occasion. Which was pretty much what the doctor ordered. Finished the Dirt, a book that shows how self-destructive stupid people can be if given the opportunity and tons of money. Entertaining, not pleasant.

The previous few races were quite interesting, but the US Grand Prix has the makings of an utter fiasco.

The seven teams using Michelin tires were forced to retire the cars after the warm-up lap, and now it's just the two Ferraris racing the low-rung Jordan and Minardi teams.

Quite what this will do to the reputation in the states remains to be seen, but it cannot be anything good.

Bah. At least JJ Lehto finally won in Le Mans. And the football game between Brazil and Mexico from the confederation cup starts soon.

I was introduced to the works of Charles Stross by Tähtivaeltaja, the best SciFi-magazine there is, about last year.

Was intrigued by description, liked the accompanying short story, waited for books to materialize.

Bought Singularity Sky in San Francisco, and was not fully convinced by the story. It's good, no doubt about that, but very much on the strange side. In a good way, and it's definitely good hard space adventure, not the ubiquitous new weird. And it definitely bears some scars of being a first novel (characters get seriously lost among the techno-babble), but is compact and readable.

However, Mr. Stross has been busy indeed lately, and there's a scary amount of books in the pipeline.

The newest is now available at accelerando.org in multiple formats. Go wild. I know I will. At least to the extent of taking a sample, and then buying the actual book.

The vocal author demolishes the last Star Wars film in NYT, here's link to the relevant chunk of slashdot.

Deservedly merciless.

Visited the newly opened photo exhibit between lasipalatsi and the old bus station downtown.

Had walked through the place on friday night already, on the way to see the Bravery, and noted that it's a big expo all right. And the images are backlit during the night.

Didn't count the images, but I guess they number around one hundred. And it's a good selection, containing both classics (the sandy heart in a mangrove jungle) and brand new shots (a town levelled by the 26/12/04 tsunami). And it's not just the images themselves that are at work here, but lengthy explanations (in three languages) why the picture was taken, and what is really going on. Some of the stories approach preachiness-threshold, but it's a thought-provoking selection nonetheless.

Browsing got interrupted by sudden rain, so retreated into the expo tent for cover. And noted that the photographer, Yann Arthus-Bertrand, was present, signing books and photos.

Got the big book, and noted why the bookstores take a dim view of actually shipping this overseas - at five kilograms it is a pretty hefty thing to lug around. And will definitely head back to see the rest of the images. No hurry, though, as the photographs remain until mid-september.

Missed the picture from Finland, but I'm sure it's part of the collection.

And it's surprising how ATMs are like cops. All over the place when not needed, but utterly absent when useful. The expo tent will accept cards from next week onwards.

Google Maps now covers the whole world. Though without street-level details, or precise satellite imagery. But it's a nudge (a big nudge at that) in the correct direction.

Bought Foo Fighters' In Your Honor today. Haven't yet listened to it (been busy off hearing distance of the stereo, and a lot of other excuses). The reviews have been lukewarm, but as a veteran Grohl-fan, I've got mighty hopes for the quality of the record.

Bought the three disc version. The ever-reliable Tunnelin Levy had it, where eg. play.com cried "sold out" weeks ago. It's a double album, but it's the extra disc that's the most interesting. It's got the whole record in "extra stereo", and the acoustic side as a 5.1 mix. Same thing seems to be happening on other fronts as well, still haven't got the new NIN, but that is sold in a similar configuration as well.

Also bought the new Kuha album called Telekineettinen Testilaboratorio after Aaro's very positive review. I'll add my raves/flamage after a couple of rounds in the machine.

Also bought Markku Halme's history of Rumba-newspaper. They've come a long way in twenty-odd years. Very cheap in the akateeminen's summer sale, well-written and informative. What more could one ask from a book describing the life of a magazine I once read quite regularly.

And while checking for the validity of the link to the magazine's homepage, noted that the country's most vocal letter writers has passed away. Timo Saarniemi, a self-described rock'n'roll anthropologist is now gone. Never was a fan of his colorful prose, but I did admire his tenacity in his one-way communication. The finnish music press will definitely be poorer without him around.

Saw the Bravery at Tavastia. The first incarnation of 1st Warning Club, sponsored by Koff - next act seems to be Juliette Lewis and the Licks in early august (Hives was cancelled ~3 weeks ago).

The place was surprisingly not very crowded, especially considering the amount of publicity the band's had. However, there were good excuses: Kent was playing in Käpylä and the band could be seen also in Provinssirock over the weekend. So the place was not packed at all.

Warm-up band - Manboy from Pori - was just getting started when I walked in. Better than I expected, though a bit colorless. Clearly not my cup of tea, so I ain't the optimal reviewer.

Headliner started at midnight sharp. Strange combination of punk and disco, with cosmetic rockabilly overtones. Hadn't listened to their record beforehand, but some songs definitely rose above "this sounds pretty decent"-level. Bass player looked too much like Morrissey for comfort. Gig was short, around 40 minutes, minimal raps, some amusing interludes with a barely functional mike stand.

Will they be big? Or has the world already seen its fill of Strokes/Killers/Interpol/whatever. Hard to say, but yesterday's music definitely was appreciated by the not too numerous audience. Me? Was OK. Will give it a couple of spins and we'll see how things develop.

Had corruption dinner at Kuu yesterday evening.

Heartily recommended, the food was very good. Best fish soup I've ever had (smoked salmon's the trick), and a first proper steak in a way too long time. Only minus (albeit small) was the too sweet sea buckthorn sauce on dessert. It's supposed to be mean.

Appropriate wine recommendations, decent prices. Will visit a second time.

To counterbalance the cornucopia of wikipedia links recently, here's something completely different, yet seemingly very much the same.

And it's got a Zork game in it, so how could it be all bad.

Ever-reliable EFF has released a legal blogging guide.

Thoroughly based on american laws as expected, but probably useful anywhere else as well. As much as left open by a hefty dose of common sense about what to write or not.

Not that this blog would ever steep so low as to get sued for libel, and I aim keep work-related facts (and most of the opinions) out as well.

But it's interesting to see what the bloggers in the most sue-happy country have to put up with.

As soon as threadless sees light and takes it into their portfolio.

Indeed. My shirt addiction seems to be getting worse with summer. Gave in and ordered the Infocom shirt I so longingly looked at last month.

Could be worse though, at least I haven't been interviewed about the subject, or seen fit to display the pearls of my collection. Yet. Consider yourselves warned.

KMFDM is coming to Tavastia. See you on 19.11.

Thanks for the pointer Mike, waiting for the tix to come on sale.

Pink Floyd gets back together for Live8.

Executive summary: quality melanchomedy.

Took advantage of cheap summer tickets (6,5 euros a shot) and finally saw this raved-about movie.

Oozes quality, keeps lingering at the border of hysterical melancholy, but occasionally lapses into physical comedy.

And visually it's nothing but a declaration of love to California, with ubiquitous lingering sunshine shots at the dry Santa Barbara vinyards. And there sure ain't nothing wrong with old rock'n'roll playing in the background and the first use of multiple concurrent images in cinema for a long long while.

The movie just works. Despite being a roadmovie that actually doesn't really move anywhere. And a buddy movie, where the protagonists barely get along. Occasionally it ponders a bit on the slow side, moves on unpredictably, but definitely in a pleasant way. Actors are great - Paul Giamatti stereotypizes a reliable loser, while Thomas Haden Church acts his actor-role cleverly on the edge of believability.

All in all, it's a great movie, which epitomizes modesty - something that is definitely missing from most current fare. A quote from an interview by the directory hopefully lays out the future of cinema:

I want Sideways which has no movie stars in it, and a movie for which I had final cut, to make money, not just for my own career but for other film makers so that film makers and studios can point, if I didn't have stars to make money, Sideways didn't have a gun or a chase even though that made money, we have to be changing our cinema, little by little and have more human films. But the only way it's going to happen is there are examples they can point to, where they made money. It was just like that in the late 60's and 70's. Look, Easy Rider made money, The Graduate made money, Midnight Cowboy made money, and we should make more movies like those. That's what we need.

Nope, I'm not taking bets that studios will obey, but certainly need to see more of Alexander Payne's films, and I definitely have to get my paws on some pinot noir...

As last year's promotion plans surprisingly survived any changes, Yann Arthus-Bertrand's gallery is indeed headed for Helsinki (I'd put in a link, but hesari ain't free).

Nice going, and if it's at all like the expo in Vienna was, well worth a visit. Especially when considering that it's free. And I've got a blank wall that's just plain screaming for a nice poster on it. Just a matter of picking the right one, now.

The last time we stole someone's chant we ended up with the world championship in ice hockey.

So let's hope this appropriation of the roligans' own brings good results.

And yes, this is pretty much unexpected - the underdog (really the lowest ranked of them all) came out fighting, continuing into the semifinals.

Excellent entertainment, seems that there's way less diving and whining in the female game than in the masculine alternative. And with both teams with a severe need for goals, there were a lot of opportunities and great saves in both ends of the pitch.

This means that I have to budget wednesday night for more football...

Hit by a runaway meme, here's my list of six songs that have spun a lot recently:

• System of a Down: Old School Hollywood (off Mezmerize).
• Gorillaz: Feel Good Inc. (off Demon Dayz).
• Coldplay: Speed of Sound (off X&Y).
• Hawkwind: Psychedelic Warlords (off Hall of the Mountain Grill).
• Don Henley: The Boys of Summer (off Actual Miles).
• Andrew WK: I Love NYC (off I Get Wet).

And true, this does not fully agree with the top of the pod part on the left column. Tough. That list has mainly albums on it, this list only songs.

And this is not forcibly passed on to anyone. Do a list if you like.

Like the entry's title states, this is just a current snapshot of what's cool, not the ultimate list of best songs. None of these would make it on that.

Time to simplify the meta-part of entries, and since not a single trackback has happened, this won't be a great loss to mankind.

Bah. Scrap the initial plan for summer vacation, then.

As Velvet Revolver scrapped the last five dates on the European tour, the prospect of going down to Montreux Jazz Festival too see them and Garbage turns into less attractive Patti Smith and Garbage-combo. Likely not enough to justify the trip. But then, it'd be a prefect opener for summer vacation, so I guess the jury could still be considered to be out...

And the cause for the tour-ending is not clear... Some sources claim ego-clash of massive proportions, some that the band is heading in to record their sophomore album.

Multiple live music experiences last night.

Caiprinha at whatever lies between Gaselli and Michelle were very latino in their sound. Not knowing enough about the subject, not going to guesstimate the genre. Played well, but the place was very much on the crowded side. So, decided to leave after four songs or so.

Ended up at Molly's, where an unknown band (at least to yours truly & Jytky) was playing. Bod (no definite article in their name). More than decent collection of covers (from the expected [U2] to the eclectic [Abba!, Blink 182!!, Buggles!!!]), though some of the unrecognized songs might have been their own. Nicely redundant crew, all members appeared to be able to play all instruments and they swapped roles a few times.

It also appears from the list of this summer's bands that my very favorite quasi-irish band won't be appearing in Finland this summer. Bugger. Was looking forward to catching up on at least a couple of gigs.

The usual suspects in imaginative reality alteration come through in an excellent collection of M.C.Escher's work. Lots of repetition, but enough of those that raise above the norm to warrant a visit.

The highest ratio of firefox users in Europe: Finland.

Yah. We may suck in the eurovision song contest, but reign in use of quality open source software.

... now that Macs will run on Intel chips.

I sense a triple-OS computer coming up. Unless longhorn gets really really delayed. Or does not play nice with GRUB. But then, if the up-n-coming Mac OS versions can virtualize windows, and is a real UNIX system, who'd really need linux or the actual microsoft product on the desktop at all?

... now that Finland is actually playing its first game in the football european cup.

Indeed, finnish women secured entry into the elite eight nations and are now 2-0 against england, the host country. Missed the first goal, second seemed to have a lot of assistance from the referee.

It'll be a while before the men accomplish the same. But hopefully not too long.

New bus terminal opened in kamppi. Pretty much unfinished business, with only the two lowest floors occupied at the moment.

But there are a lot of shops already present. Including EB games (where they do not speak any finnish at all, it appears) and some quite gourmet-y food emporiums. Well, at least the chocolate shop seemed to be very much on the expensive side.

But for the most part it's nothing really new.

Shops-wise, that is. The actual terminal approaches science fiction, with per-platform monitors and altogether quite sizable resemblance to an airport, not to a bus depot. Well, I won't be frequenting this one, since the buses to Lavonardo HQ still take off from elielinaukio.

(ObNudge: So What!, Steffan Chirazi's unorthodox Metallica biography on sale in suomalainen kirjakauppa at 14 euros.)

The 1000th invasion since taking the sitemeter into use is now history.

Hello, hello, whoever you were. But we're glad you dropped by from verizon.net, googling for images from the MIT museum. They are in the archives, these days.

Swam in the Baltic Sea. Water temperature was around 11 degrees. A very good smoke sauna serves as an alibi. Otherwise would have to hide behind temporary insanity.

Sauna was indeed good, and the water very much on the refreshing side.

Blogging is big, and keeps getting bigger (right, there's probably a zillion pages telling the same story, just grabbed the one that was closest).

And, respecting Sturgeon's Law, the vast majority of them will be unreadably bad. And who knows how many of them will be abandoned after a while, the aggregators of the world are full of stillborn blogs.

And yeah, actually write one of every fifteen million blogs in the world at the moment: the one you're reading, one private, one that's gone semi-fallow (honest, fishblog will be updated one of these days) and one project blog at work.

Been sleeping rather well lately. Don't really intend to change my ways (going to bed early very seldom works), even though some people vouch on the benefits of being an early riser.

Though the idea of going to bed only when tired and sleepy is an appealing one. Too many early morning meetings mean that it's seldom usable.

And this entry better not jinx my relationship with sandman (and the other mythic sleep-inducing anthropomorphications).

System of a Down's Mezmerize has been spinning a lot, both in the stereo and in the ipod.

Extremely hard to describe, but pleasant to listen to. Or does american-armenian progressive/intensive metal with serious identity crisis ring a bell?

Softer than Toxicity. But not by much. And definitely not lyricswise.

And this is just the first part of a two-album combo, Hypnotize will hit the stores in november.

And hey, it has a pretty high score in metacritic, so it's not just me that's enamored by the record.

Irregularly scheduled portion of links to weird and good:

• Fictional swearing. Wikipedia delivers, once again.
• Star Wars Origami.
• editcss, a firefox extension to speed up .css-hackery.
• Untold true stories from world history (in finnish).
• One of the most addictive Palm games ever as an applet, a pseudo-3d version also available

Q: What's the month when there's abundant rain, and morning temperatures are in single digits?

A: That's right, it's june.

Clearly the current conditions are not according to the job description of "summer".

So, the three proverbial cats are now long out of the bag, the E3 being over a good while ago. There's ample linkage to information about the next generation consoles at the usual suspects, and the newest magazines provide facts as well.

And while each and every one of the new consoles seems to have its saving graces, it's ultimately the games that decide the future. And the game may be over quite rapidly, as the first wave of release games is bound to be buggy, expensive, technically inadequate and ultimately disappointing - if the previous big roll-outs are any indication. The snazzy graphics will suffice for a while, but soon or even much sooner, the shallow nature of the initial bunch will be apparent.

And in that respect, it's the backwards compatibility that can make or break a console (unless a miracoulous truly kick-ass launch game is discovered somewhere).

Nintendo Revolution seems to hold the lead in this category. With the long tail of the company's sizable ludography, this product has immediate access to countless classics from day one. Distribution mechanisms and prices are, of course, still up in the air, but the potential is very much present.

A good number two is Sony Playstation 3. With backwards compatibility to PS2 (and supposedly the original Playstation as well). But unless some on-line mechanism for purchasing ancient games is launched to mimic Nintendo's, the forgotten classics will remain so.

Microsoft Xbox360 remains firmly in the last place. Switching CPU architectures (x86 to PPC) does not bode well for backward compatibility. And the company has been wisely silent of the topic. Perhaps they're just counting on the newest instances of the Halo and Gotham Racing franchises being available just in time.

Of course, the preceding list is nothing but hype, based on more hype. But it at least looks beyond the looming big-hair era of games. And it is indeed pleasant to note that a mainfesto about bad things in games has been drafted. Unfortunately, the odds given for the elimination of the listed annoyances with the inbound seventh generation are not promising at all. Nintendo, again, seems to have a mesage about its consoles being reachable by small teams, even individual coders, rather than the blockbuster-class budgets demanded by modern games. After all, I'd much rather have a new Tetris, than sixteen indistinguishably photorealistic firstperson-shooters.

Me? Plans to purchase any? Wait and see, definitely. But it'll be a while before the actual tide rolls in.