Woo, first mac-related entry here in a long long while. It's not that I have nothing to say about the subject, but nothing has exactly broken the surface yet.

Anyway, turns out that I seem to be incompatible with iPhoto. It just seems to be too constricting to work as an image-editing solution.

The best OS X software guidance site (snadiomena) I've located thus far features a wide array of alternatives.

And now's the time to pick and choose... Ought to be cheap(ish) (so photoshop CS is out), should have a decent interface (so GIMP is definitely at risk here), ability to deal with a decent swath of image formats (so getting an ancient version of photoshop is not an option) and altogether be more of an image manipulation program than something that attempts to organize my photos every chance it gets.

Have played with adobe's Elements, photoshop's kid brother, and it satisfies most requirements above. And its eagerness to reorder and tag photos can be curtailed by forcing it to work in a pure edit mode. So that just might be it, or not. I guess I have to bite the bullet and try out a couple of others before settling down.

And on halloween of all the days.

How could it be anything else but something on classic old school heavy metal. And what would be more essential than a celebration of Derek Riggs' art, the man behind Iron Maiden's image (until recently, that is).

And if anyone knows whether it has been collected anywhere, make yourselves heard in comments or via mail - would very much like to own a definitive collection of the images.

Maestro's own site is closed due to excess use of bandwidth. Which does not inspire too much confidence.

Boringly enough the finnish main page of google hasn't got the occasional logos that replace the traditional four color one.

However, as expected from a meticulous company, all the logos have been collected for future reference.

Surprised myself by not liking Rammstein's new album much at all, thankyouverymuch.

No deeper musical disagreements, the music just seems to be boring.

A couple of good songs (Mann gegen Mann, Rosenrot itself and Hilf Mir), Te Quiero Puta which seems to be an overgrown joke and the rest just nondescript.

Opinion's bound to change as time goes on. But this is the first time that I've been so disappointed on a Rammstein record.

Externally the record's good. Nice production values. Pretty cover, and a three song preview of a live-dvd "to be published later."

Worth1000's contest on mashing monsters and classic art turns up some very good entries. My favorite is the Hellraiser-originating Pinhead rendered as Mona Lisa. Too many Predators in the gallery for my taste, but the occasional facehuggers do serve their purpose.

The site serves up good set of reality-challenged art, able to brighten a rainy day or a meeting that goes on and on. The level of goods is not consistently good, but the site fortunately allows viewing only the highest-ranked entries per contest.

Quite liked these recent contests as well: Hockey 4 (the "mighty duck" out of Anaheim alone is worth the check) and What if Goths Ruled?. And don't forget Digital Blasphemy or Deviant Art either.

A bunch of fancy-ticklers from a couple of last days:

• Fox News is definitely not the first channel I turn to for information. However, every once in a while, it's refreshing to view news from a conservatively jingoistic perspective. Fox News has not been around for more than nine years, this site attempts to recreate old news with a definite FN-slant.
• Grand Theft Auto retrospective, just in time for the release of the newest game in the saga. Sadly, it's PSP-only, at least for the time being.
• The entire Llamasoft back catalogue is available for download (in emulated form in most cases). Mm... Ancipital.
• A quarter of a million superballs let loose in the streets of San Francisco. All's fair in love, war and advertising. Long (3 minute) version of the ad not yet out, but will check back. Sometime.
• Urban decay modelled in the HO-scale. Definitely better than the statically happy scenes on traditional model railroads.
• Just in time for Halloween:
  White pumpkins and LED-equipped Jack-o-lanterns.
• Photoscoping, the art of interfacing cameraphones with telescopes. With very presentable results.
• Just amazing how much trivia is available if you know where to look, like on the twice-filmed James Bond story, Thunderball

Saw Sigur Rós on their Takk-promoting tour in Kulttuuritalo.

Seppo scored tickets long past the sold-out date and set me up with one. Nice going.

Was very very unfamiliar with the band's output before the concert. Had heard the new album once, and occasional older songs. But was definitely an amateur member of the audience.

Arrived just before Amina, the warm-up band got started. Ambient soundscapes conjured with instruments ranging from wineglasses to powerbooks via more traditional strings. First song lasted 18 minutes; got bored well before the half-way point. Watched a couple more out of politeness, but joined a thickening stream of crowd walking out of the hall. Might have worked better from a seat, standing up in meaningless (albeit technically adept) stream of ambience has now been proven not to be my cup of tea.

Ran into Aaro & J. during the break. Their "visually sub-optimal" seats turned out to be pretty good indeed. No-one minded descending down to the floor, and you were guaranteed a seat if legs got sore.

Main act played for almost two hours. And was occasionally - during prolonged and pompous crescendos - nothing short of brilliant. But for the most of the time it definitely teetered on the edge of boredom. The stage presence was quite well up to the standard of 22-pistepirkko (ie. non-existent), and the chilled out feeling was replicated by a very static audience - definitely no mosh pits present tonight.

Purchased a decently-priced shirt, 25 euros was not too bad a price. They had handmade t-shirts available as well, but prices were not listed out, and there were no ATMs in the place anyhow. Coupling that with the fact that the bar refused to let you overcharge drinks on your card by more than 5 euros, there were a lot of miffed people left shirtless.

Was interesting - both from a musical and social perspective. The music was long-winded and incomprehensible, but pleasant overall. The audience definitely a more mixed crowd than a normal gig.

Visited the annual Helsinki book fair in the exhibition hall in Pasila.

The fair's pretty much three separate things thrown together: big publishers and stores looking to hook people with (sometimes sizable) discounts, small publishers just displaying their production (usually well-hidden in stores) and second-hand shops expecting people to troll their shelves and boxes for missing items.

Visited stands from all three kinds, and spent an appropriate amount of money. Surprisingly mainly on comics, the only book I bought was Suom. Huom., a non-fiction anthology about the pains of translating things into finnish. Comics bought included the new Don Rosa anthology, fourth album of Jean's life, a surprising continuation of Kramppeja ja Nyrjähdyksiä. Received the current issues of HBL and Reader's Digest as freebies - the latter looks scary, with ms. Karpela on the cover and middle class content padded between the covers.

Halls were packed with people, making browsing at times quite uncomfortable. Being kicked in the shins and elbowed relentlessly does add a moment of challenge to the experience, but I prefer my literature-browsing to be more tranquil experience.

Dropped into the gratis stamps-expo held next door, and was quite suprised by the nature and colors of the new finnish stamps. Yeah, it's quite obvious that I've sent less than five items via snail mail this side of the millennium-change. The newest finnish stamps (a two-stamp mini-sheet, actually) turn out to feature the priceless Winter-Egg by Faberge, and has been covered with both silver and gold foil. Which looks nice, and probably will end up being collected as a curio by thousands of philatelists domestic and foreign. The atmosphere in the stamps-hall was way more polite and quiet, as befits one of the slowest-moving' hobbies on earth... Which was much appreciated.

It's not often when you hear that one's hobby has been declared dead (finnish only, but it's a weakly argumented attack on the publishing phenomenon).

But it must be true, since the statement is by a real journalist as opposed to somebody who just publishes drivel in the web.

And this must be news indeed for the millions and millions of blogs out there. And multiplying by the moment. Let alone locally, when tomorrow's monthly supplement of hesari will be concentrating on the topic. And the newspaper just launched yet another wave of blogs, and there's again wheat among the chaff: 5G, which looks like an interesting technology blog.

Nelonen started showing HBO's Carnivale. Watched the first episode way back, but got mightily confused due to nodding off several times, and getting the flashback material mixed with the actual main storyline. Missing episodes 2 and 3 entirely did not help making sense of the tale. Did not fall asleep this time, and quite enjoyed the show. Suitably mysterious (with an appropriate of selection of circus inhabitants), and with enough setting/era trappings (a mid-west dustbowl sometime on the first half of the century) not to snap the suspenders of disbelief immediately.

Flipped through the november program of canal+. The fourth season of the Shield finally starts. As does NBA, but with only a single game per week. Shown live on friday night. Time to start looking into a HD-equipped digibox, it seems.

Määrääkö Pupu?

Pupu Määrää!

Indeed. Saw the claymation feature by Nick Park's aardman studios.

And laughed out loud for dozens of times. Yes, the movie is so good. It's an old-style horror movie, as acted by fast-moving and extremely expressive (witness Gromit's silent communication with nothing but his brow) clay figures. Full of gags (both verbal and visual), rubegoldbergian devices, mostly warm-hearted escapades, and great characters. And the scores of misbehaving clay bunnies do not lessen the film's appeal a single bit.

In the era of mass-produced CGI adventures, the aardman product is a breath of fresh and human air. Instead of being a product of a massive render-farm located in an industry-park basement, this is very much a handmade film. The clay figures are indeed clay figures, not computer models with unnaturally shiny and plastic faces, moving with elementary ragdoll physics. A fact that is hammered home by the appearance of occasional fingerprints on said figures.

Watched the movie in its original voices, it has been dubbed into finnish as well. The creator of the subtitles did not take the easy way out, but has included his own jokes amongst the material. Jokes that do not stand out as annoying, but blend into the severely proper british environment seamlessly.

A masterpiece definitely - and one that is worthy of the second five star review of 2005. And quite a good counterpoint for the other, Sin City.

The movie has received rave reviews all over the world, and box office bling to match. Sadly, the studio suffered a major fire on the movie's opening weekend. A fire that decimated the history of the company.

Survived the aftermath of yet another annual crayfish fest in Korso (thanks, Kati & Miko).

The only food, whose consumption actually takes more energy than provides.

But it's not the small bits of shellfish that make these parties so memorable, but the surroundings.

Would have included images of the red critters, but the phone camera turned out to be eh... sub-optimal in low-light conditions.

Whoopsie. Completely forgot that the Feast for Crows, the fourth part of George R. R. Martin's magnificent fantasy series is out.

Wasn't available in akateeminen yet. But considering the size of the backlog, there's no need for an emergency order from foreign suppliers either.

The third part of the series has been sliced into two volumes in its finnish translation. Which is only to be expected when the book is 1000+ pages thick, and the publisher is small.

Thus far the games have improved over their predecessors, and been a very enjoyable rendition of a winter sport I never expect to try out for real. Especially to the level of aerial acrobatics so frequently shown in the games.

The series has now evolved to its fourth chapter, and expectations were indeed high.

And after a single evening's session I must admit that partially the magic is still present, but also that partially it has been diluted by the publisher. Not by adding skiers to the mix, but by easing off the difficulty level too much. Went from medal to medal during the play, without any real struggle. True, this is in a way pleasant, but the feeling of achievement is way less than in succeeding against more difficult odds. I'm sure the difficulty will start to peak soon, but it's been a cakewalk thus far.

The presentation style has been changed to a more cartoony one. And the musical selection is wider than before - ranging from ancient heavy metal to catch of the day art rock. And the selection of Maiden's Run to the Hills as the title song is a strike of genius.

And while the game has been localized to half a dozen languages, it has retained the original language as well. This was not the case with the recent update to the Burnout-franchise, that was neutered of the english version during the process.

Gah. Felt definitely flu'ed this morning and didn't get better at work. Headed home after productivity seemed to hit its lowest point this fall.

Despite chills and all around ill feeling, turned out not to have real fever (past 37.5 that is). But noted that the sofa is a much better platform for general lounging when it's emptied of magazines, books, cds and other junk that tends to infest any horizontal surfaces around.

Finally a truly interesting blog from the biggest publishing conglomerate in Finland: retromania, a cornucopia of yesterday's technology.

Topics thus far have concentrated on retro computing. Not that there's anything wrong with that (apart from the fact that frodo seems to be buggy on my 6680).

However, the more interesting bits are about technology that's not emulated. A new favorite time-waster is toosa, which lists the tv shows on finnish tv from yesteryear. Lots of great discoveries, but it seems to be missing a couple of key shows, like Professor Drövel's Hemlighet (masterful norwegian nonsense). And whoever is able to provide a link to the origin of the series Villiin Länteen that was shown in 1979 in Finland. My recollections are vague to the extreme (recall a character named Luke who almost got lynched for stealing a horse, but not much else), so further pointers would indeed be appreciated.

Oh yeah, the science blog is pretty decent as well.

Jacob Nielsen, web usability dude par excellence has put forth his ten theses for a maximally usable blog.

Let's see how iconoclastic Lavonardo manages to be...

1. No Author Biographies

Got a cv on the site, but no real biography. That counts as half a sin.

2. No Author Photo

On the front page. Oldish, and too jolly summery for the season, but present, definitely. No sin here, vicar.

3. Nondescript Posting Titles

Almost the reverse. Too descript. To the point of non-sequitur. No sin.

4. Links Don't Say Where They Go

Sometimes they do, sometimes they do not. And the addition of link titles is definitely a good idea. Half a sin, I'd say.

5. Classic Hits are Buried

They are. No "best of #10" yet. Full sin. Vade Retro!

6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation

It is. And it's broken right now. Another sin. This better not be catching on.

7. Irregular Publishing Frequency

But I like the irregularity. Juggling too many things already is not conducive to having a metronome-class pace. Half a sin (but I refuse to acknowledge it).

8. Mixing Topics

And that's bad exactly how in a blog? Another sin I refuse to acknowledge, and will continue tilting at.

9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss

Nope, nothing incriminating here. The hardest hitting personal business is kept where it should remain - private.

10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service

Nope. Had my own niche of the web since the beginning of the blog.

And that counts as four and a half sins, of which three sins are ones that I intend to rectify. With perl, not a repetition of ave marias.

The final episode of West Wing's sixth season just aired. Considering that season seven has barely started in the states, it'll be a while before the show graces finnish screens again.

The show went downhill after Aaron Sorkin's departure, and the fifth season was at times almost painful to watch. However, while the stories decreased in credibility and the script violated truths about the lead characters, the show never actually jumped the shark.

The sixth season, with the new presidential race (with Bartlet out of the loop) brought new intensity to the proceedings. The various campaigns split up the quite stiff roles of the characters, and brought new themes forward. And having Jimmy Smits (ex-LA Law/NYPD Blue/whatever) as the most charismatic candidate didn't hurt either. Against him and Alan Alda's courteous republican the others simply faded or came off as cogs in the big political machine.

A nice comeback for a good series, and the ongoing season has the big election as its focus. That ought to be good enough entertainment, even without resorting to gimmicks such as doing some episodes live.

Finished first season of Lost. Had its weak moments during the 24 episodes, but held together well. And the capstone-episode of the season left the strongest WTF?-expression on my face since the almighty final episode of Twin Peaks.

The Verne-aspect is diminished in the later episodes, and there's a definite influx from Prisoner, Lord of the Flies and especially Blair Witch Project.

Looking forward to season two. According to an interview in Empire, the team has ideas for seven seasons more.

Time magazine listed the top 100 novels of 1923-2005. Quite an inspired selection it is. With comics, science fiction and pulp among the well-established classics. Have read 17 of them, and have an additional two already on the bookshelf. Considering that I liked the seventeen first, it's definitely time to seek out more.

In a nostalgia-inducing fit, the Magazine Publisher's Association listed the top 40 magazine covers of the last 40m years. Shamelessly american, of course, quite a few of these never crossed the atlantic. I remember holding four of the tallied issues (and have the Wired still somewhere), and am sure that I've seen a lot of the others for sale, and probably browsed a few of them. Have heard of a couple famous covers on the list, but dozens draw a blank.

150 watts of metal halide light, to be exact.

Replaced the very unergonomic (can't see jack when you're cleaning the tank) arrangement with a hanging light system.

Which is scarily bright. But well-reflective, to prevent major light spillage that would threaten enjoyable lounging on the sofa.

And cleaning was indeed much easier than previously, especially with the one of the world's laziest fish in the tank, it's good to see what's actually lying on the sand.

Open-topped until I find a decent glass/acrylics-shop, the curving front means that dishing out an order on the phone is out of the question.

And yeah, this entry would be more appropriate in the hibernating fish-blog instead. That'll get re-started when I get a decent chunk of free time. Or bored enough.

Yet another gamenight in the Flounder's Attic.

Continued to suck in pinball, and was not much better in Ghost Recon 2 either.

The traditional 2-on-2 Pro Evolution Soccer tournament was the highlight.

In addition to the host's socializing bunny. That ought to have been photographed, but wasn't.

Bah. No trips from Stockmann's bi-annual Crazy Days. Wrong alliance offered, though the locations seemed great.

Got a couple of books (my first Jeeves ever) and dvds (3 days of the Condor, a couple of animated features) instead.

Was looking forward to catching the finnish kings of barbarian metal on stage, but skipped that in favor of an inspired discussion in Kipinä.

So, the big cat's out of the bag. Something that was not to be released until next year, if "some people deep in the know" were to be believed.

Screen looks small, but has a verfy decent resolution (240x320). And the battery life seems better again.

The biggest problem I see is not technical at all, but commercial. Considering how long it took to get iTunes to Europe (let alone Finland), it'll be a while before tv-show episodes will be available. And then there's the issue of subtitles - screen estate is too precious to waste, and overlays do not seem to be a possibility.

Noted that Q-magazine [couldn't find a link, sorry] had quite a disrespectful article about the much-delayed Guns n' Roses fifth album Chinese Democracy.

It's only been a fraction of the time Brian Wilson spent on Smile, so there's still hope left. But Axl's spent a good 10+ million dollars on the album already, so someone should be very interested to get this out to recap at least a part of the investment.

But the signs are not good. Tidbits of any progress are few and far between.

The few songs released thus far. Apart from Oh My God they are decent indeed. Available on bootlegs only, sadly.

Learned a new word the other day.

Let's savour the word for a while: haircut blog. The very first hit from google describes the term in very explicit ways:

Each reader is now given a virtual warning sign they can wave if they think the content is getting too haircut-y. And yeah, cries of "my eye! my eye!" are received with an appropriate amount of compassion, the image was my very first try of inkscape, and the work was completed in twenty minutes. Most of which went to puzzling over some dubious interface choices. It's a good program. And I need practice. A lot more practice.

Saw Motörhead on their 30-year anniversary tour.

Played in Kaapelitehdas, which is pretty much a hopeless concert venue. Acoustically terrible, a narrow long hall that pretty much guarantees third level echoes on the ear drums. And the narrow exits were of no help after the gig - the misplaced coat check (thankfully not mandatory) managed to snag the exiting crowds pretty thoroughly.

Missed the first warm-up act. According to a friend happened upon near the mixing table it was metalish with a very low-voiced chick doing vocals. The original warm-up artist was to be Corrosion of Conformity, but they got replaced by way less famous (and cheaper) acts after the tickets went on sale.

Second warm-up band was Sweatmaster. Whom I've consciously never listened to, but doubtlessly heard previously. Energetic fare, simple enough to sound OK in the conditions. Sparked up by a surprising inclusion of Misfits Where Eagles Dare in the set.

The headliners took the stage after a needlessly long break. The gig was lengthy, loud and contained a respectable amount of old songs. A largish amount indeed, since I don't have any of their post-Orgasmatron albums. A lot of songs were off the newest album, Inferno, and they were pretty much all new. Old ones I recognized almost all - though Love Me Like a Reptile slipped through the net easily. The set list is long at 20+ songs, but them being not eight minute epics, the gig was over in 90 minutes or so. But it did include a drum solo. Unfortunately. Volume was high, and the show had the longest strobo-light show I've ever witnessed - easily a couple of minutes long. During Killed by Death the band was joined on stage by a female guest vocalist. From the first warm-up band (whose name escaped me completely) I guess.

Missed the last metro out. But a convenient 20N bus provided almost door-to-door service.

Spent the weekend in surprisingly warm Lapland.

Warm as in "t-shirt is OK for short distances, but not really". +10 or thereabouts for the most of the daytime. Which is plenty warm, considering the time of the year.

Winds had robbed trees of the bright autumn leaves, was about a week or two late for the prime ruska.

Saw Santa Claus in his workshop. No pictures of the man due to respect for him and the elves (and the nineteen euro fee they take for snapping pix of him and any gullible kids). Next up: the easter bunny and a gifted bass player.

Had no reindeer, but plenty of other game-related food products instead. Loimulohi, elk soup and roasted trout. And killer chicken tikka as well. To avoid going fully native, that was.

In the shade of the copyright debacle, do not smile when clicking on these. It would not be appropriate:

• A gloriously long interview with Jon Stewart. The book mentioned, America is a great introduction to the history and civic life of the great nation - an inbetween the lines it illustrates many things that are wrong with both.
• Bunch of semi-interesting links on O'Reilly's Radar. Not a bad new-tech blog at all.
• One of the things often referred to in the previous is Web 2.0. It's an interesting, albeit complex and hard-explain thing. Discover had an elementary article about the subject.
• The october issue of Aponogeton is out.
• The magnificently rural bothnian translation of the Lord of the Rings seems to have stalled. But the completed chapters are very worthy indeed.
• Brian Greene's view on the most famous equation of them all.
• Whedonesque, for those that bow to the new master.

The law passed. With a frightening majority. Didn't participate in the relevant demonstration.

So it's no wonder a GET for intelligent life at the parliament returns a 404.

Bah. But we've got exactly the kind of representatives that we elected. The beauty of democracy. Time for some precision-applied civil disobedience, now.

The choice of Kermit clearly wasn't a fluke.

You Are A: Frog!

Independent yet still part of a large community, frogs are unique creatures known for their distinctive sound and ability to hop. As a frog, you spend your days sitting on lily pads or climbing trees, searching for delicious insects to eat. While there are some frogs that aren't exactly cute, you are certainly not one of those!

You were almost a: Duck or a Pony
You are least like a: Groundhog or a Squirrel Cute Animal Test!

Started watching the first season of Fox's much-raved Lost, and based on the first six or so episodes it seems to be a worthwhile effort.

Kind of Jules Verne on a blind date with Twin Peaks, with occasional mild hints from Lord of the Flies.

Good stories, though hard to say anything definitive about the big arc. Interesting characters, most with a secret or two to tell. Decent actors, apart from Dominic Moneghan (Merry from the Lord of the Rings) the older dude from Millennium and the over-used Korean guy [from 24 among many others] are the only ones I recognized off-hand.

And yeah, as you can see the above is link-free. I try to avoid spoilers as much as I can, and I'm sure the web's full of episode guides written in full disclosure-mode.

Otherwise I wouldn't be holding brand-spanking new Delta Green material right now.

A demonstration against the impending finnish copyright law will be held on tuesday afternoon.

Would go, if it were organized at a saner hour. Or on weekend. Hard to reconcile this with normal workday.

Started reading Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture to get a better perspective of the whole thing. On the surface it seems to be nothing more than a badly worded law during whose processing far too much leeway has been given to people with definite commercial interest. But my paranoid half keeps thinking that the whole loud process is just something to distract the nation from seeing something else being smuggled through the legislation process unnoticed.

Last week was busy indeed, so the entry containing a magic set of lately discovered interesting things is both late and rather big.

• Star Wreck is an amateur, but very good-looking finnish sci-fi film that is now available for download (and under CC-license).
• Addictive web-game 1: Troyis, make the horsey move to all white squares.
• Addictive web-game 2: Hyperframe (has an annoying and longish ad, but is worthwhile).
• Japanese scientists film a giant squid, unfortunately ripping off one of its two feeding tentacles during the process.
• An inspired list of five ways to save videogames.
• Despite many sinning in ways listed in the previous, a lot of games are present in Gamespot's continuing listing of the greatest games of all time. And it's not packed to the brim with pure mainstream, so it's a good educational read.
• Billboard Liberation Front.
• Liquid Sculpture seems to be a definitive oxymoron, but the images are pretty indeed. Liked Harold Edgerton's work, but this is done on 21st century equipment and thus way flashier.
• Rock/Paper/Scissors-variant for people who feel limited by the three options.
• Yet one more mobile phone blog. Seemed to have decent selection of content.
• The first entries of this year's demotivator collection are revealed by Despair.
• Support humane gig-hours (during the week) and make your voice heard in the related poll.
• Most overrated albums in the world. Coldplay and Libertines ought not be on the list. Nope, not because I dictatorially declare them to be good, but because they are too new. Only time will tell whether they really belong here or not.
• Wikipedia-editing at its best: a deliberately bogus article (to be featured in Esquire soon) was serially corrected within hours. Of course, this being a public challenge, the number is rather skewed on the positive side, ut the IBM study on the subject proves that faith in the system is indeed warranted.

This year's annual interactive fiction competition is now in public play&review-phase.

With 36 games in all, this could be a long october. Or not, since usually I run out of energy around the fourth or fifth game. And at least two of the ones tried before that have been phenomenally bad.

Been an irregular buyer of the Pelaaja magazine for its whole existence (three-odd years). Noted that the cover extolled full-scale revamping, and the sentence was indeed true.

They had dropped PC-gaming altogether, and confirmed their concentration on consoles. Which leaves the perennial favorite Pelit as the only worthwhile domestic computer gaming zine. This was not an utter surprise, as Pelaaja had quite strongly concentrated on consoles before.

The layout had changed for the better as well, as had the number of info-tidbit boxes included per review. Unfortunately some of the content is still not up to par (too much direct regurgitation of hype) and some of the reviews could do with additional depth. (And yeah, this is based on long experience with the content - and is not particlarly drawn from the current issue).

But it's by no means a bad magazine, and the change probably further crystallizes their content in the upcoming issues.

Finally got my iBook from Stockmann. The dreadful "supply difficulties" lasted some five weeks.

And the machine got updated in the meantime - laptops with 40GB disks were not forthcoming, so I upgraded to 60GB.

Had Tiger pre-installed, and an almost full battery. But no mouse, and being a founding member in the Touchpad-Haters Anonymous, this was a slight hitch.

Played with the machine until the battery ran dry. The GUI is very good, full of imaginative shortcuts (a lot of them behind key-combos) and pleasing to the eye. And there's a real OS underneath - terminal allows access to shell. Which came in useful when firefox went berserk and had to be killed. Hadn't yet got to "force quit"-topic in David Pogue's great book, and had to resort to the old "kill -9" trick. Which worked as expected. Charming. I think this could be the beginning of a long friendship indeed.

But I will grab a new mouse. Cordless, optical. As soon as possible.

And rest assured that the blog will feature whoops of joy or cries of what on earth are they adding to the water in Cupertino! as the co-existence deepens.

Next up: installing Xcode-suite and selecting an editor.

Moved the blog to a monthly cycle from the "whenever I feel like changing it"-one.

Mind the loose cables and spilled water while archives get reorganized.

Saw the Rasmus in Tavastia on their Hide from the Sun-tour.

Showed up before eleven, and saw the last three songs played by the warm-up band: Clark Kent. And what I heard was not bad at all. Could have listened to it longer. Hard to quantify, energetic powerpop-ish thing with more than decent vocals. Will seek out their 4 euro EP.

Rasmus played around 80 minutes, with one encore. Concentrated on material from the two latest albums, with occasional forays into the past. Had a three song (or four) acoustic breakout, which culminated in a cover of Radiohead's Creep. A lot of the audience got involved only when the big hits were pumped out and stood idle otherwise (me? in full rock-cop mood, inaction is the best action). Missed Liquid and Ghostbusters, but the latter's probably disappeared from the playbook forever with the turn to moodier image.

Checked out the T-shirts on the way out (takes quite a while to banish 700+ people from a sold out club), and they were very expensive indeed, 28 euros is not a decent price.