After a lacklustre season, a bowl victory was definitely a surprise. Utes finished unranked, but took the Yellowjackets on for a ride. The struggling offense found its pace, and the passing attack decimated the Georgians.

And this time there doesn't seem to be a danger of losing the quarterback to the NFL early. The hype's seriously centered on USC's Reggie Bush. With the lowliest half a dozen teams clamoring for the first pick in the lottery. Last year's #1, Alex Smith didn't turn out to be an immediate hit for the niners. Thus far he hasn't completed a touchdown pass (but hasn't started in all games).

Grey skies, +2C, sleeting rain, slippery streets, snow puddling into overflowing drains.

Not what is expected from a new year's eve. Or beginning of january in general.

Feelings are adequately summed up in a snow-graffiti discovered nearby. Curses, indeed!

This is NOT what's it supposed to be.

Picked this up from the usually non-informative TV-maailma: Mark Frost (David Lynch's partner in crime) is considering a return to the scene of the greatest show of the early nineties.

Yeah, it's not really a credible rumor at all. And the revealed amount of material slashed from the extremely under-performing Fire Walk With Me is quite shocking - I'm sure the extra ninety minutes would have mattered.

"Sure, Wayne, let's field an aged squad and use the most hated man in the sport instead of the boy wonder, who's actually been worth the pre-sesason accolades."

And the bastard (and that's Bertuzzi, not Gretzky for the slow-witted) has the audacity to contest Moore's claim. Let's hope he tries to pick a fight with Zdeno Chara or some other guy with a short tempter and a long arm.

The prolific australian thrillerist has yet another book out. Seven Ancient Wonders is out in hardback format (supposedly in january, but held a copy in Akateeminen on friday).

Haven't yet read even his previous book: Hovercar Racer. It was originally released gratis in the web, but disappeared when the book came out.

Reilly's deteriorated since his sophomore book, Ice Station. The novels are still decent, yet thoroughly vapid entertainment. The one-upping style that relies on constant cliffhangers gets old quickly, however. Hence the lack of hurry to grab his new books.

It's a threepeat: Haagan Hakkapeliitat lost the third bowl in a row.

With a comfortable margin (provided mainly by a workman-like effort by Santana Moss), so that no amount of second-guessing ("should have played Evans instead of Porter") can turn the loss into a victory.

Some of the changed picks worked out all right: Denver's defense stifled Oakland to the point of just a single field goal, and Indy's Peyton Manning played just a single quarter.

A loss is a loss, but the team came a long way - especially considering its humble beginnings in the first six weeks.

First mystery novel of this christmas season was Harri Nykänen's Ariel ja Hämähäkkinainen (Ariel and the Spider Woman), a followup to the first novel of the new series published last year.

Continues using the almost trademarkable style of the author. It's laconic, but not to the extremes of his Raid-series. It's set it Helsinki, but does not assume that the reader has a full geographic recall of the scenery. Characters are effectively sketched with a broad brush, while giving them more than enough personality to stave off cardboard cutout syndrome as well as rendering them in pure caricatures. The Helsinki jewish community that featured quite boldly in the first novel is barely touched in this one.

The tale bears quite a bit of resemblance to Neil Hardwick's mini-series Musta Tuntuu from the mid-eighties. Both concern themselves with the Uneasy Seventies, when misbehaving powerplayers, national interests and international intrigues clashed in Helsinki. (And yeah, pretty, pretty please get the Hardwick classic on dvd ASAP. If nothing else, it had an entertaining storyline and introduced Taneli Mäkelä as an actor.)

The story is effortlessly told. The pace is quick, the characters believable and the almighty Suspenders of Disbelief are not too violently stretched by the plot. Subplots take a distant backseat to the main storyline, and are resolved painlessly. I'd say that the book is a bit on the short side - an additional 50 pages or so would have filled out some details better and allowed the subplots to flourish, but that's hardly any major criticism.

Especially when considering the success that Raid-saga has received in both big and small screen, it's just a matter of time before Ariel appears on either.

The biggest surprise of the book is a sudden bout of intertextuality. Jarkko Sipilä's (another finnish mystery author with a background in journalism) protagonist Kari Takamäki puts in a brief apppearance. No idea whether the favor is returned in Sipilä's latest. However, the act is not spotlit in any fashion, and the presence of the character seems natural.

Got a white one despite the scaremongering in the preceding week.

Spent the weekend in the hinterlands of Vantaa, enjoying copious amounts of food, daily saunas, and general atmosphere of extreme relaxation.

Had multiple sessions of cat-stretching therapy (which both parties seemed to thoroughly enjoy) and even partook some woodworking moments.

Lots of mystery novels were given and received, which is par for the course in the Lavonius clan. Expect reviews to trickle in all through the winter, already finished two (remember the bit about "extreme relaxation" above?).

Two days without surfing, e-mail and altogether modern connectivity (apart from ubiquitous SMS) only added to the chilled-out factor.

Weather was quite agreeable, apart from persistent flurries on a neighborhood-inspection hike on christmas day. Thankfully no household really had trespassed the borders of sanity in the annual "pimp my yard"-contest. Multicolored lights were in a very small minority.

Never been a ritual in the family, but I'm sure someone got miffed when It's a Wonderful Life had been bumped to 23rd...

Continued the adventures in introducing commercialism into the medieval Carcassonne. Time to buy at least the second expansion set soon, the potential of the first was quickly assimilated and put to good use.

Yet another annual just-before-christmas movie with a couple of high school friends just went by. Chose the Narnia movie on a hunch, and while wasn't exactly thrilled by it, wasn't really disappointed either.

A lot of the reviews concentrate on the biblical allegory in the film. This one won't touch the subject after the following sentence. Yes, Virginia, it's a re-telling of the gospels - get over it.

It's a good fantasy film, taken from the first novel of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. And unlike the previous fantasy blockbusters (LoTR and Potter), the book is short - and thus the story is told uncut. Or actually it's told in a bloated form. Some scenes have been added (I think, it's been ages since I read this), as well as characters (or how else is the constant presence of semi-annoying beavers explained). Pace is kept slow, with just a couple of crescendos.

Visually the movie is excellent. The final battle is given a lot more time, space and especially rendering power than in the book, but in a post-Jackson world the treatment is worthy. However, it's the first scene after transition between the worlds that's the highligh of the whole two hour epic: a winter forest lit up by a flickering streetlight, with a faun trudging through the snowfall with an umbrella and a lapful of packages.

The child actors succeed in being bearable, Tilda Swinton is appropriately icy as the eponymous Witch, didn't recognize Liam Neeson as her main adversary at all until the credits rolled in.

While this has not been a total box-office blowout (nor a flop), there's decent potential for a franchise. After all, there's still six books left in the series.

Noted that Teerenpeli's toasts are far more pleasant when the pickle-relish is left out. It ought to be an add-on option, and not the default. Especially when most of the topping-combos are in direct conflict with that, tastewise.

Whoo! Despite an off-key performance by Mr. Manning (TWO interceptions) and his Colts, made it to the superbowl in the yahoo! league by beating a good rival (split the series during regular season) in the semifinals.

For the third year in row, as the brand new fantasy sport profile-functionality shows.

Thus far it's always been a loss in the bowl - raging seahawk Shaun Alexander neatly took care of Hakkapeliittas' ambitions this year. And with Colts persistently stating that they will rest their key players now that they've secured home field advantage through the playoffs, the QB position is definitely shaky.

And as the games are played on christmas eve, I'll check the results post-facto, not live through the nfl.com.

As clued in by Lemmy yesterday, Cathedral is coming to Helsinki. And they will bring friends, two other doom-genre bands that I've never heard as far as I know: Electric Wizard and Grand Magus. Cathedral's newest is not up to their best, but I'll definitely grab a ticket to this trio of smile-less slow grind.

One more corruption dinner - it seems that when it rains, it really pours. This time it's russian food at Saslik. The poshest of the many russian restaurants in Helsinki. One that I hadn't visited before. But will, again, as the experience was pleasant indeed.

Had a set menu. Started off with borscht soup, which was good as the borschts go, but never been a big fan of them. Main course was Ivan's sword, which was sadly served with the actual melee weapon removed. A huge loaf of sliced meat accompanied by potatoes, onions, cabbage and delicious tomato sauce. Gave up after a third refill. And was looking for something small for dessert, perhaps accompanied with a sliver of sharp digestive. Was proven wrong, as a quartet of huge baked alaskas sailed in.

Left early, or so I thought - the meal had taken more than five hours at that point, and most of the group remained inside. This russian way of food is definitely something to check up again. Perhaps soonish, when Lasipalatsi's blini-season opens.

System of a Down coming to Finland in summer 2006.

Pink Floyd has bought seven fog screens to be "used in emphasizing their concerts". Can you smell comeback here?

Up, like the albedo after snowfall:

• Decided to join Ursa, the finnish astronomical society in 2006. For the membership fee you get a good magazine, discount on books and the ability to visit the observatory. Here's hoping for clear winter nights.
• It's now official, Big Boys like bloggers. Lessee how this affects the salary negotiations in the spring.
• The years are now back in the RSS feed.

Down, like the temperature:

• Skipped the Helsinki bloggers' christmas party. All work and no play, you know the rest.
• There's a distinct shortage of calendars in Helsinki shops. Proper calendars, that is, like the ones by National Geographic. Amazon, thankfully, is able to fulfil the hankering for great scenery on the cubicle wall for the next year.
• SiteMeter seems to be undergoing some hiccups.

You know the drill. Clickety-click.

• A functional visual puzzle.
• There's NEVER too many cute animals around. Especially on a bleak snow-less december day when meetings pile up.
• Yahoo has rebranded Konfabulator (it's Widget Engine now), and updated it to version 3.0. Had a bit of a hiccup-y upgrade on XP, but turned out all right in the end. There's still some bad blood between konfabulator and apple's dashboard. Still prefer the former. Even on Tiger.
• Still haven't gotten my hands on a 770, as they seem to be persistently sold out. Ars Technica has a decent lengthy review of the gadget, and have a good list of both pros and cons. Which is good, since there's something to address in the inevitable product upgrade.
• Despite the Register going ballistic against Wikipedia once again, it seems that in a head-to-head comparison with Encyclopaedia Britannica the free alternative comes out quite all right.
• An interview with Jimbo Wales, the head honcho of Wikipedia.
• The finnish wikipedia is not quite close to the original. Content is sparse and most of the time written not exactly fluently (try some music articles for a grammar-grimace). This has been noted by digitoday, who ran a similar experiment that guardian did a while back. Unsurprisingly some of the selected articles are noted to indeed suck.
• A nightstand that doubles as a shield and cudgel. On one hand this is worrisome (what actually goes bump in the night in London?). On the other, good old-fashioned melee-weaponry is still preferable to the arms borne by the americans.
• Roklintu has started the annual best of the year polls. Go and vote. You'll have more impact here than on 15th of january.

Re-watched the third installment of the Harry Potter saga. Saw it in a plane a long while back, and decided to give it a second look in anticipation of seeing the Goblet of Fire.

And quite a decent movie it is. The script concentrates on the main story and does conveniently away with the Mandatory Book Bits (quidditch, comptetition between houses) to a large extent. That's only to be expected, as it's quite hard otherwise to squeeze a 400+ page book to two hours. The next book will be even harder, and as such the movie extends to 160 minutes.

The movie has gotten slightly edgier than the two previous kid-friendly episodes - but not much, apart from a couple of bloody hells peppering the dialogue, there's not much to distance them. However, the visuals have been improved: Hogwarts has apparently been moved to Scotland, and the scenery is thus much grander.

Gary Oldman and Alan Rickman shine in supporting roles. The trio of protagonists remains good and non-annoying, but bland. Timothy Spall puts in a brief appearance, and is still as good as he was back in the days of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.

The pace of the movie is odd - most of the movie is just an extended setup for a very action-packed finale, but that's how it happens in the book as well. However, as noted abovem the book is interspersed with details and sub-plots, which have been quite thoroughly streamlined out of the celluloid version.

Two grouping-lotteries were performed recently.

First, Heidi Klum (whose finest hour is the impersonation of Jessica Rabbit in GQ), divided the World Cup contenders into eight groups. Some of which seem easy (France and Germany got off with lightweight opposition), whereas some certainly aren't (Argentina and Netherlands face each other in the so-called group of death). Well well, 170-odd days and counting...

In the second phase of the Champions League, a repeat from last season's goal-fest is brewing when Barcelona and Chelsea clash. Too bad that one of the exciting teams will have a quick exit from the competition.

Had corruption dinner at Ravintola Pörssi. And quite a dinner it was. Pörssi was by no means the first choice, but fortunately had to settle for it as pretty much every other was booked solid.

Enjoyed the christmas buffet. Which was mighty indeed, and left gastronomically very sated. All three parts of the meal reigned. Spent most of the time on appetizers, who filled out a seven (or thereabouts) meter long table. Fish, fowl, pork and higher animals all laid out in exquisite sauces and other accompaniments. Only had beef and sauteed root vegetables for the main course, as the previous guy in the line finished up the whitefish. Failure in cutlery protocol robbed me of the utensils and never went back for more. Which was probably wise, since the desserts would've been left without room.

No idea what the a la carte holds, but based on the quality of the buffet this is definitely a place to recommend. That is, if the meal can be expensed. On your own this is best spared for wallet-draining special occasions.

Been a long long while since I've been this full. And should've taken something less filling than a pint of Hoegaarden at the post-dinner event.

Thankfully no-one was around to offer wafer-thin mints.

And had a 100% increase of my "caches located"-stat, with a shared discovery of a well-hidden cache in downtown.

Read the newest incarnation of Pauli Kallio's perennial comic, Kramppeja ja Nyrjähdyksiä. This time drawn by Mika Lietzen.

And was very very disappointed. The characters seem to have grown up and grown bloated. Their lives are boring, and it's hard to tell them apart. They seem to have totally lost the edge they had in the earlier stories.

Not good. Even at 48 pages the book was a chore to finish. Especially when compared to the older stories (drawn by Sami Toivonen & Christer Nuutinen), this was as close to the biggest comics-related letwdown of the year as you can get. Not even Kingdom Come comes close, and that's pretty bad.

Pointered by Matti, went and peeked at the site he suggested.

And was quite surprised by the vigour of the worldcan'twait-group, who have no less a goal than ridding the US of its current regime.

Seems like an extreme standpoint, but the group contains some of the usual suspects (Martin Sheen, Jane Fonda), so it's not surprising that they've been able to purchase full-page ads in the biggest newspapers.

+

• Watched my first ever "salatut elämät"-episode. For a very good reason (an old friend was acting in it) and mostly on fast forward.
• Queensrÿche's 1990 album "Empire" is as good as I remembered, and the remastered version has a couple of songs originally available as obscure singles' B-sides.
• All in all, not many things sucked this week. And otherwise would have been worrisome - a proper extended weekend and all.

-

• Hello? Ms. Gaia? We really could use a winter here.
• Got reminded that Serenity did not make it on big screen here.
• Not that many things that were really good with sugarcoating on top, either.

• The december issue of Aponogeton cf. AW is delayed until the 15.12.
• A lengthy list of good and free online games.
• Ichiban in Kamppi offers halibut makis, and very spillable flying fish roe.
• Lars Wirzenius has not one but two good presentations about mixing software engineering and reality.

It's not often when a company utterly muffs an advertising campaign.

Hartwall miscalculated the amount of money people wouuld have to spend to get a laptop or another technocratically appropriate prize. After all, for a thousand bottles of Pepsi MAX you get a decent computer. And 400 gallons of soda. For which every penny you receive as payment is pure gain.

Turns out that they've opened the book of dirty tricks to spoil the game for late arrivals. Absurd timeouts have been inserted to the code-entry system and originally unnecessary receipts for purchases and actual bottle labels are now needed.

Not like this, dudes. This is going to soil the good name of pepsi for a long long while.

Me? Never been one to buy pop in industrial quantities, and am reasonably happy with max as is, and with the cappuccino variant especially. Though I'm sure its good taste is some infernal plot to finally get me to drink coffee more often than once a year.

Yahoo acquired del.icio.us, a collaborative link exchange. Where google seems content in hiring high caliber people (PhD not really optional), yahoo has gone on a shopping spree lately (flickr, konfabulator and now this). Of course the situation's not as black and white as that (google did buy Urchin), but it seems that Yahoo is more interested in snapping up newcomers. And if I were a betting man, I'd give 2:1 odds on "google bookmarks (beta)" appearing before the end of Q1/06...

Been a long time since the last.

• Top 10 bookstores of the world. Have visited two of the nine that are still open. City Lights in San Francisco multiple times.
• Wikipedia proves its worth again: a list of films ordered on the count of rudest english swear word. The Devil's Rejects comes out on top with an amazing 5.13 f*cks per minute...
• Typographic Style Applied to the Web, continuing on Bringhurst's classic book on the subject. Very much a work in progress, but interesting content thus far.
• A great spoof of Jakob Nielsen. Repurposing his classic "Frames are bad, mmmkay"-column for the AJAX-era.
• A selection of movie posters with colors rephrased appropriately. The Kubrick one is the best of the bunch, the others are kinda bland.
• Despair has its 2006 collection of demotivators available. The idea has been neatly retargeted on Linux distributions - with the prejudices played out well (debian's elitism is snubbed in the bud, and you just gotta love the term "metric assload").
• Cthulhu Plush Slippers.
• Misused metaphors. Haven't used a single one, but a couple have been close calls.

Been a subscriber of Mondo for two years. Easily the best finnish travel magazine - written by real people, as opposed being full of regurgitated press releases and reports from celebrities on paid trips (that's how the appear to be). Aimed somewhere between the lonely planet and eyewitness crowds - with most issues having several interesting articles.

And the newest issue did not disappoint either. Brazil's been on the must-see list for years - though I'd be more interested about a trip through the jungle than hanging out in Rio. Vilnius (with its odd free city within) seems to be a shoo-in for a long weekend in the spring. As does Brügge - a town whose one foundation is chocolate cannot be nothing but a great visit. And the big story on Africa was mostly interesting as well - again time to go see the sights instead of sticking to the beaches.

Definitely worth reading.

Only 8 movies seen of the Empire's annual selection (official version seems not to be available on the web). And of those seen, Million Dollar Baby was on a plane, with quite a bit of the dialogue getting lost in the noise. The selection has some oddities, but cannot really argue with Sideways getting the top honors.

Bad show, considering that saw a full twelve in 2004.

Been playing Criterion's Burnout: Revenge lately. Reached the 9th rank (they go up, like dans), the Assassin, today; and decided to retire the game for a while. It's been quite same-y for quite a bit.

The game's too easy. It's a rare race indeed that does not end up in a medal on the very first try (barring a total cluster of crashes or other blatant stupidity). The first game of the franchise was riddled with nigh-impossible time limits in the races, but the newest entry takes it too far in the other direction. Burnout is, however, far from the only game suffering from the sin of ease, the newest SSX is similarly affected. Games being easy is not all bad, of course - but the sense of accomplishment is diluted when a mediocre performance is rewarded with a shiny gold medal.

Another strike against the game is the lack of environments - there's just eight tracks on which to compete. Graphically the scenery is impeccable, but variety-wise it leaves players hanging on expectation, when nothing new appears despite progress through the ranks.

Lack of spirit on the soundtrack is not a grave offense. But deserves to be mentioned when the previous installment had a much more powerful (and longer) soundtrack than this one. Variety abounds - where 3 had punk/pop in spades, Revenge branches out more (including Apocalyptica's Life Burns).

Despite the criticism heaped on above, the game is good indeed. It is arcade racing nearing its zenith - easy controls, powerslides that make tire salesmen drool and other vehicular heroics in sometimes surprisingly three dimensional world. The car combat-element of the previous installment has been honed further, a lot further. Non-rival cars on the roads are now a free game for crashing (as opposed to being moving hazards) and can even be used as projectiles against the competition. On one hand this makes the game much easier when only traffic in opposing direction is dangerous, on the other it just means that it's a whole new game all right and should not be compared against the previous (or reality, for that matter). The crashes are even more puzzle-like than in Takedown, and with the elimination of score-multipliers from the streets they are less about precision aiming rather than disruption of normal traffic patterns.

Bought the game from the trusted supplier in Jersey, the finnish localization went too far and eliminated english altogether from the product. And that cannot really be tolerated. However, it turns out that the translation was done with good taste, and does not slavishly follow the original: eg. the highest rank is called Keisari (the emperor) as opposed to bog-standard Elite in the english version.

Yah, was entertaining enough, but it's time for something completely different now. Have barely reached the quasi-Vegas in San Andreas, and there's a lot of other good stuff on the backlog as well.

Tried watching 8 Mile on subtv. And failed. Had to give up after ten or so minutes, because the dialogue was so offensively translated. Not because it was full of profanities, but because it was bad. Bad, as in totally artifical and improbable.

So, still haven't seen this. Eminem didn't seem too bad in the scant few minutes, and Brittany Murphy does not exactly spoil movies with her presence either.

To be caught on dvd. Sooner or later.

That is, if I were living in semi-rural Colorado.

A new version of South Park Studio is out. And couldn't resist playing around with it. Still cannot save the image, but have to resort to screen captures.

This is a semi-ancient meme, link stolen from shrike.

South Park itself seems to have entered its ninth season. Never thought the show had any longevity left after the first few rollicking seasons. Haven't watched any in episodes in several years, so no idea about the quality of the recent shows.

Added a way to neatly refer to the individual entries in the blog. Or actually just experimented with permanent links. I'm undecided which would be the optimal linking element.

• The time/date (this entry)
• The title (the entry below)
• An additional element on the meta-line (the +/- entry below)

Make yourselves heard - otherwise the choice will be mine, and mine alone...

Also added some categories with the good old Stetson-Harrison Method (where you pull things out of your hat, and the Harrison-bit just attempts to give the method some additional credibility). Located at the end of the meta-line below the entry.

And some day they will be expanded into the archives. And there will be by-category directories as well.

Operative word in the above being: some day.

New version of firefox browser is out, and the guys have taken a big leap in version numbers (from 1.0.7 to 1.5). I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation somewhere, but am not inclined to spend the effort looking.

Yah, I must be one of the last to upgrade. Which is weird, considering that some stability problems have surfaced lately with flash-equipped sites. Might be the lack of RAM (half a gig) or just plain bugs.

foxpose looks mighty nifty. Time to take that out on a ride once the dust settles.

Let's start with the negatives on this yet again belated list of things that rose above the threshold.

grainy, torn and creased

• Revenge of early wakeup calls. And in the darkest season of the year.
• The original Galactica has not exactly stood the time well (but the title theme still reigns).
• Note to self: learn bus routes, not schedules. 210N does not go by Haaga. And the first stop past Munkkiniemi is somewhere in Säteri. But even with that roundabout it was still quicker than queuing up for a cab downtown.

in living color

• Four day weekend. Repeat: FOUR DAY WEEKEND.
• Stop press: Pepsi MAX Cappuccino is actually very very good. But then, I'm an inveterate Vanilla Coke addict, so take the recommendation with an appropriate caution.
• 73 minutes of Incredible Brainshells on CD. Finnish grunge rarely (if, like ever) sounded so good.
• Secured a playoff spot in virtual NFL.

Both in finnish only.

Vahtikoira, on the finnish use of (political) power. In its infancy, but the first few articles seem interesting, and the mission statement looks promising indeed. Released early, so there are a few rough edges, but - as the authors state - it's better to get it kickstarted than speculated in the server room.

Katuoja, shamelessly about comics and comics-related subjects only. Updates are a wee bit thin on the ground, but the content is good - reviews merciless when needed, and supporting where warranted.

Childhood's end. The Ritalin-reference is kind of blatant, but it's a sad strip no matter what.

[ via kasa. ]

Well well, never thought I'd actually like Shane Black's directorial debut this much. His previous scripts (Lethal Weapon *, Long Kiss Goodbye) have been okay, but clearly nothing to really uplift them from the roiling masses of thrillers. The oddly positive review in Empire piqued my interest - and the mixed reviews elsewhere proved that this is indeed a difficult movie to review consistently.

And quite a film it is, indeed. A somewhat black comedy/thriller/buddy movie story set in the glitz of Hollywood, with enough twists and turns to lose a good chunk of the audience well before the credits actually roll in. Robert Downey aboslutely shines as Harry Lockhart - a well-meaning dropout from the school of hard knocks. He tells the story on multiple levels - occasionally dropping into straight conversation with the audience. Character-wise, he's nothing short of perfection - a scruffy paragon of persistence and bad luck, who just happens to chronically visit wrong places at exactly wrong times. Val Kilmer puts in a good performance as "Gay" Perry van Shrike, an indifferent, but curiously effective private detective. The interplay between the two leads works wonders, and if there was an academy award for dialogue, some of the passages would be certain nominees.

It's not all perfection. The story hovers on the edge of a stall a couple of times, and the plot does have some gaping holes. But those are quickly forgotten in the rapid-fire delivery of quality entertainment. Black's quite well-known penchant for sadism puts in an appearance as well a couple of times. But in the surreal ambience of Tinseltown, even torture just seems to fit into the overall flow of things.

But it's very good. So very good, that it's worth the third full five star treatment this year. Pacing is good, the characters likeable, dialogue as snappy as you can get this side of Whedon, and the story itself a rollercoaster of well-executed plot devices. Add to that black humor that had the theater laughing in spades (I was actually worried that the guy sitting next to me would fall off his chair), and the courtesy of not stretching the movie beyond two hours, and you have a very competent package of storytelling.

Despite encouragement from the characters, there is no additional footage during/after the credits.

One of my favorite coffeetable books ever has been the Absolut Book. It's a story of the concepting of the advertisements on the most popular liquid swedish export.

And considering how well the ads (all centring on the same simple concept - embedding the well-known absolut bottle shape into an image, more or less seamlessly) have been put together, the book's an absolute (pun accidental) delight to read. However, the campaign hardly stopped around the fifteen year mark, when the book was published. Nope, the TBWA continued creating imaginative ads (one of which even featured Helsinki, in a lengthy line of city-based images). And a collection of them has been published by a second book on Absolut advertising, appropriately called Absolut Sequel. Heavily recommended for all who appreciate quality graphic design.

The brand's own site is an über-flashed navigation disaster, but decent sites about the images abound. absolutcollectors seems to be the highest profile of the bunch - they haven't got the Helsinki ad, but Potemkin (my other big favorite) is present all right.

Had dinner in Korea House, the first (and rather newly opened) korean restaurant in Helsinki.

Food varied between boring and provocatively spicy. In the end it turned out that the best bit on the table was a side salad that had been juiced up with extreme prejudice - taste bud explosion on first bite was very much unexpected. Had kimbap for starter - not sure whether this quite maki-sushi lookalike is supposed to be made of canned tuna or not - but the crunchy veggies embedded in the roll were good. Main course was tofu and squid with kimchi. The latter turned out to be a cornucopia of spice-fermented vegetables that didn't really agree well with the sweet'n'sour overall taste of the main dish. But it definitely seemed to be the thing on the menu, most of the items had kimchi either as an ingredient or a side dish. An acquired taste, perhaps?

A decent location on Mariankatu (it's the good old Savanna, with the stained glass windows back in place), quite laid-back service, interesting food and affordable pricing means that I'll likely be back. Not immediately, but certainly at some point during the winter. And hopefully by then the table grills have been approved by the fire department. Right now the menu is constrained to about a dozen items, with the grills in use the variety would be way wider.