Normal? Not a chance...

Did I say quality time, did I say normal? Now Dragon is ill with cold and I get to play Florence Nightingale. Does not come to me naturally, by the way.

Later: I'm actually doing very well, in case you're wondering. Dragon has been mostly sleeping, and playing some hours of Arc in between. I've been bringing him cups of Lemsip and chicken soup. This has left me a lot of time to play Uru, which is fun - game controls are next to impossible, but views are breathtaking as always.

Back to the normal schedule

Much better today. Normal lazy Saturday, Smackdown in the morning, some shopping in the afternoon (couple of DVDs plus Uru - the next game in the Myst series), good long chat with Chu... And most important of all, some quality time with Dragon.

From a book to a blade

Sometimes this crazy job of making games really does reward you.

I just recently learned that Warp Artefacts has produced the sword I designed for one of my game books as a real-life replica fantasy sword. Meet the Slayer of Kings.

This isn't the first time when something I've written has been transformed into a real-life object, but I've always liked swords, so this is a special ocassion to me. I'll have to see if I can lay my hands on one of these to add to my games memorabilia.

I am really pleased. It makes the time when I was desperately trying to hit the deadline for the Champions of Chaos book where this sword first appeared a bit more worthwhile now.

Life on the slow lane

If this continues, I will need to start to use this blog to learn what my husband is doing since I don't otherwise meet him. I think I woke up last night when he came home, and I think we had a discussion, but I can't remember what it was about and chances are I wasn't very coherent. In the morning when my alarm went of I snuggled up to him, but he was totally unconscious.

It had been snowing all night in different parts of the country, so I considered this morning whether to stay at home or take it to the roads. According to the traffic reports Hampshire seemed to be ok though, and my car wasn't even frosty. Since some of the schools were closed due to bad weather, the roads were clear of the parents taking their kids to school and the trip to work was fairly painless.

Last night it was a different story - I was driving home in the snowstorm, and since from experience I know that a cold day, sleet and snow equal icy roads, I was driving relatively slowly. Which really seemed to piss off some of my fellow road users, flashing their lights at me. Sorry guys, but I'd rather get home late than in a wheelchair.

Working late

Just got back from work. This is the third day in a row when I've worked 15 hours+ straight. Why do I do it? Are games really worth this much pain?

Oh well. Fame is fleeting, but obscurity lasts forever. Tired. Must sleep. Dragon out.

Party on

We bot managed to get one more day of holiday so I booked the tickets. We're now coming to Finland for a very special occasion. Happy birthday darlings.

Spying

Call me naïve, but when Claire Short said this morning in her interview with BBC Radio 4 that UK routinely spies on UN officials in their meetings (she mentioned Kofi Annan), I was shocked. Maybe not surprised, but shocked. Spying and espionage sounds so... well, James Bond or cold war.

This all has come about after the charges against Katharine Gun - a translator in GCHQ who leaked some secret emails from US spies - were dropped because of "lack of evidence". She's never denied her leaking the story, but apparently this was not enough. Prosecution says that the reasons were legal - but more likely they are political as the trial would have once again dug too close whether UK and US had a legal right to go to war.

It's very difficult to see where all this is going. Looks like UK and US are openly breaking the international (and national) law, and nothing is done to stop it. I'm not even sure nothing can be done to stop it. This is something that disturbs me greatly and makes me very angry, but I feel powerless. It feels like a great chance is coming, and that the world has changed forever.

Medieval tapestry -something awful style

Quality link of the day. Well worth to go through all of them, there are some real gems here.

This really saved my day.

Party?

We just got invited to a birthday party. I think we should go.

Shades of Grey

Another night with the telly last night. Watched newest Stargate episode Inauguration, which was basically Shades of Grey, and repeated the once-a-season Stargate plot where someone in the government wants to either stop or overtake the Stargate program (it's usually senator Kinsey). The only redeeming thing about the episode was that it brought back some memories - I haven't seen the actor William Devane since Knots Landing in the 80s. I think I used to have huge crush on him, and in the light of recent evidence, he does have all those features that I find attractive in a man, like distinctive features and a big nose. And stop sniggering in the back row!

Also watched the new episode of Nip/Tuck, and I think I'm starting to get into this series. This episode was all about swingers, "threesomes, foursomes and moresomes" and I'm even starting to like Sean. And it had the best quote of the series so far that captures something beautiful:

And I'm sorry that the only thing I'm writing about is the telly, but it seems to be the only thing that is happening in my life at the moment. I didn't even see Dragon yesterday - when I left work in the morning he was asleep and when he came home I was asleep. I want my life back.

Sign o the times

With the new countries joining EU in May, there as been a lot of panic about all these people from the "poor countries" coming here to live of the state. The tabloids and the government seem to think that UK is the best country in the world ever, and that all that these people are waiting for is permission, and they will all come here in hordes and start living of our glorious benefits system.

Well, as a "migrant worker" myself, I've got some news for them. People don't generally abandon their life - their family and friends and familiar surroundings to go to the other side of Europe just to do nothing. For work, yes - if the situation is grave enough and they can find absolutely no work anywhere closer, or if they have career ambitions that take them to another country. But I find it absolutely incomprehensible why anyone would leave their home countries without a very good reason. (Granted, there are always exceptions, but being exceptions I don't think the numbers would be anything to worry about.)

Clogged memories

Staying up late once again, desperately trying to find some reliable news on the current situation of the ongoing hunt on Bin-Laden in Pakistan, I suddenly felt a moment of deja-vu.

Year ago, I was atteding the E3 computer games expo when the bomb attacks on Riyadh, the capital of Saudi-Arabia took place. I learned about the attacks on the newspaper in my hotel, but the news were hot off the press, and there was little detail in the newspaper, so I tuned up to the main news channel to learn more. Lo and behold I was in luck: World news were next.

Main news started (after loads of pointless ads) and ...the main story was on local LA group who were praticing wooden clog dances. And they sucked big-time. I took a deep breath. This was after all United States, and I knew American events were of paramount importance here, even if I thought there might have been something more important or interesting going on in some part of the vast US of A. So I decided to wait until the clickety-clop noices of the dancers' footwear would die down, and I would get some news from the Persian Gulf.

So I waited patiently, checking with my remote now and then to convince myself that these were indeed 'World news covering the latest events around the globe'. After another long commercial break I got... part 2 of the wooden clog dancers, with even worse performances, horrible country music and increasingly annoying interviews of the cream of LA clog virtuosoes. The 'World news' logo on the bottom left-hand corner of the TV screen seemed to mock me.

After 30 minutes, I couldn't stand another second of watching people holding each others hips while banging their wooden shoes on the floor, and I escaped to the expo. (According to my colleagues, I gave up too soon, the Riyadh bomb strikes were covered just after part 3 of the clog dancers).

Catching up on Enterprise

Watched some Enterprise yesterday that we have been too tired to watch earlier, and had an overall nice surprise.

Stratagem - tricksy humanses! But nice to see this episode from the other side for once. I was first a bit anxious when I though it was going to be another alternative-reality-time-travel episodes that form the basis for Enterprise's big plot, but it was much better.

Harbinger - huh and what was that? I have been following with Trip's and T'Pol's relationship grow slowly and I've been quite enjoying it too. There were some delicious moments in this episode, and some awkward ones too. Overall pretty decent.

Doctor's Orders - kind of amusing but pointless. Phlox is one of the better characters in Enterprise, but isn't quite strong enough to carry an episode on his own. Not yet anyway.

Overall I think Enterprise's third season has been quite watchable, at least compared to the first one that showed promise but not much else and the second one that just didn't deliver any of it.

Man of my dreams?

Since some other people have already confessed to their deepest desires in what comes to attractive people, I have to confess – yes, I did do that test too. Quite interesting test it was too – not actually just any net test but apparently based on some scientific research. Oh well, it will probably come to no surprise to people who know me that apparently my type is “not what usually defines "mainstream" attractiveness for men”, “football quarterbacks” and “ruggedly handsome men” and only 4% of women in the study (of over 10,000 women) are very attracted to my type. In addition, almost any age and race type was to my liking, except for Latinos which was a surprise considering Dragon’s heritage (and another thing I refuse to accept is my attraction to blonds!).

And can anyone else see the resemblance between "my dream man" and Jayne from Firefly?

Anyway, as with anything like this, I take it with a pinch of salt. Although I'm aware that there is indeed a certain looking man appeals to me physically, physical appearance has never been a factor in choosing a partner for me at all, and I can safely say it never will be. I mean, what would be the point?

Exercise, or lack of it

I’m counting the days and hours till the end of our deadline at work...

I’m too much aware that I haven’t even seen the gym over two months now, and I’ve only done some yoga once at home. I can’t help but feeling guilty although I know intellectually that it’s not really my fault. I’m very bad at doing any exercise at home, that’s why going to (yoga) classes suits me so well – but problem with classes in a situation like mine at the moment is that they are always at the same time, and there’s no way I can be at home in time. So I don’t go at all.

So, counting the days.

And more work

Nothing to see here. Still working overtime.

At least the Chu-sized hole in my life has been filled again.

Quiet life

I've been collecting a list of my nominees for the Kuukkeli awards and it's starting to look complete. I've got surprisingly large number different blogs - altogether around 20 - I won't tell you what they are of course. All are good, most of them I follow regularly. I'm looking forward to seeing the list of nominees.

My dreams have been very useful lately - the night before I understood for the first time something about how our product works, and last night I realised how I could find out where our seats are in the WrestleMania Revenge gig - not that Bookings Direct has a seating chart, but Ticketmaster does (just select WWE from the dropdown list - we are in block B on row 18). Pretty happy with the seats - I wouldn't have chosen them if I had the chance but they should be pretty decent.

Otherwise everything is very quiet. My life currently consists of working about 10 hours a day, travelling for another 2 and my social life consists of chatting on Yahoo with Thor when I can spare the time. I feel exhausted and stressed and in need of a holiday.

Geek Hierarchy

Have you ever heard that joke that makes other people laugh but makes you angry? For me that would probably be a tasteless chauvinist joke - but whatever it is, it will probably something that hits too close to home - in the same way Dilbert sometimes makes me cry because it's too true. My geekiness I've always been able to laugh at - maybe that's why I find Geek Hierarchy so funny.

Via Wil Wheaton.

Arc -Twilight of the Spirits

Those who know me well are well aware that I am utterly addicted to Japanse RPGs. Wild Arms, Grandia, Skies of Arcadia, Suikoden, Zelda, Shadow Hearts, Jade Cocoon, Kingdom Hearts... You name it and I've played it. Hell, I even work as a lead designer on such a game, so there probably is no hope for me. In fact I find myself having withdrawal pains if I don't have a game with a world to save on my PS2 all the time. My current fix is Arc -the Twilight of the Spirits.

This game might not not have the best graphics I've ever seen, nor the slickest battle engine, or the best voice acting. But it has something better: a good story.

By far the best feature of Arc is the way the story is structured. You have two main characters, first one being Kharg, your typical young, noble human swordsman, who is determined to save the world from being overrun by monsters. He has a supporting cast of a beautiful she-warrior, young thief, and a hugely powerful mercenary -as standard set of characters as you are likely to see in a game like this. But there is a reason for these cliches, for they act as a comparison point to the second main character, Darc.

Darc, your second main character, is an ex-slave and member of the Deimos race of monsters. He dreams of unifying the all the monstrous races and eradicating all humans. Darc gets to witness first-hand the destruction the humans bring to the world of Deimos and together with a motley crew of monsters (including a she-orc whose only mission in life is to slay Darc) he sets about to dominate the world with sheer ambition.

You play the game chapter by chapter, seeing the same events through the eyes of both Darc and Kharg, and the game subtly manipulates your symphaties depending who you are playing. You get attached to both of your adventurer groups, and yet you know that eventually they will have to face each other in battle.

Kolibri always berates me of slaying all the monsters I meet in my games, explaining to me patiently that Orcs and such are simply living in peace at their homes and then my party of adventurers turns up, and rips them to shreds for no apparent reason except the eternal thirst for Experience points and gold coins. Hammering this point home is the main focus of the game.

Sure Arc is guilty of all the usual sins of the Japanese RPGs: it is overly sentimental, full of random battles, turn based and probably impenetrable to a casual gamer, but I don't care: If you don't like console RPGs, this game will not change your mind. But if you are a self-confessed Japanese RPG addict like me, give it a shot. It may not be a classic like Suikoden, but it is damn good.

Ugliest building in Britain

Tricorn centre in Portsmouth, the building once named as the ugliest building in Britain, should be demolished. And actually, they are planning to - except some raging campaigners who want to get protected have managed to buy some time for it. As a resident and frequent visitor to that neighbourhood, I can indeed confirm that it is one of the ugliest buildings ever (reminds me of another building with same kind of problems - Makkaratalo in Helsinki). I was delighted when I heard it was going to be scrapped, and I have absolutely no idea who these nameless people who want to save it are, and most of all why anyone would like to keep that kind of monstrosity.

Granted, the building has a very exotic shape, but what it has in originality is overshadowed by its general ugliness - naked concrete, dark, damp, depressing. The supporters seem to have lot of ideas - mostly to do with painting or covering the concrete in some way. Another problem is that the complex has now been empty for quite a while now and has been vandalised too, so the cost of refurbishing is going up all the time. I understand that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but this is surely taking it too far.

(The problem with Portsmouth is that it was bombed very heavily during the Second World War (being the naval base) and had to be rebuilt. Unfortunately at that time rebuilding meant ugly concrete buildings, and now Portsmouth has more than it's fare share of those.)

Levoton nainen by Anna Kortelainen

Finished last of my "real books" yesterday, a book my mom gave me as a Christmas present: Levoton nainen by Anna Kortelainen. This book is about the cultural history of hysteria, especially about women's hysteria in the late 19th century. Quite horrendous reading really, the way women were oppressed and mistreated in the name of medical science - basically anything that women did that was out of ordinary (i.e. outside "sit still and keep your mouth shut") like nervousness, mood swings, crying and shouting was diagnosed as hysteria. The symptoms and the diagnosis were in most cases enough to lead the women into institutionalisation, isolation and into horrible and cruel and humiliating treatments. Especially in Paris in late 1800's hysteric women were put on display for large audiences, they were hypnotised and then made to display their symptoms in cruel and unnecessary ways.

Kortelainen uses letters written by Albert Edelfelt (a Finnish artist of that time) to set the background, and she then uses examples of art, literature and other famous figures of the time (like Sarah Bernhard, Ida Aalberg and Edelfelt's wife Ellan) to tell this fascinating story. Kortelainen says that hysteria has never in fact been the illness or the disease it was claimed to be, but a reflection of it's times - in this case the last effort to chain women that were starting to gain independence in Europe. When the creator of the hysteria cult in Europe Jean-Martin Charcot died, the idea quickly died with him and at the same time psychotherapy started to take it's first steps leading into more humane ways of treating mentally ill patients. Not that most of these women were really mentally ill - often they were just frustrated and desperate of their situations are found that this was the only way to get attention. In case of Ellan E. she actually wanted to have a career but the times forced her to marry an unsuitable and unfaithful man, which led into a nervous breakdown.

This book got me thinking again of feminism and place of women in the modern society. I believe I'm quite lucky in that I've never really come across any form sexual discrimination, either in Finland or in England. Still I know it happens, in both countries. The only time I've never come across any sexual discrimination or real chauvinism was at high school, were although most guys only did it because they got some macho points from it and not because they believed in it, there were some people who took it for granted that men were better than women. This kind of attitude has always amazed me - and those events are probably the reason I was quite raging feminist when I was younger - an overreaction to those people that tried to put me down because of my gender.

I would probably still describe myself as a feminist, although my views are quite a bit more relaxed than they used to be. I know the f-word has a bad reputation, and some people take it to mean female superiority, which I don't of course believe in. Still I feel that the word has its place and its use - and I still sometimes feel the holy rage when I read books like this - or come across things like Boys Toys incident that Janka wrote about some time ago (don't get me wrong, the book wasn't really a feministic book as such, it was actually surprisingly gender-neutral considering the topic). Injustice does that to me anyway, but maybe it's just that the gender issue is still a softer spot than I realised.

Harder and harder

Britan's Hardest man competition continues to entertain us on TV. There is something about the setting (a ruined industrial hall), Ian 'the Machine' Freeman (head judge and the Ultimate Fighting Champion), and the sadistically designed events that keeps both me and Kolibri entertained.

A further proof that there is indeed justice in the world, a car-salesman was taken out of the competition by a 56-year old grandfather in the semi-finals (to be fair the old-timer is a ex-navy as well as a butcher by the trade). Kolibri was starting to be afraid that the whole final would be taken over by evil salesmen of different nominations, while all rugged martial artists, powerlifters, boxers and special forces soldiers would be knocked out of the competition.

This episode had the most mentally challenging event yet, where the contestants had to stick their heads into a container and keep their breath as long as possible while 60 kg of fine sand was poured in. It was amazing how quickly even the toughest cracked -clearly the feeling of getting buried under sand is extremely unpleasant, and triggers an instinctive reaction no matter how hard you are.

Farscape will be back

Wohoo and hell yeah! New South Wales Film and Television Office lists in their "now shooting" section the following information:

FARSCAPE MINI-SERIES
TYPE: Telemovies (2 x 2 hr)
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Farscape Mini-Series Productions
START SHOOT: 15/12/03
WRAP: 15/3/04

Source: Production updates on New South Wales Film and Television Office website via TFL.

Underworld and thoughts about disease

We watched the vampire/werewolf flick Underworld yesterday. I have to say I quite enjoyed it - looking extremely cool, decent action scenes and decent enough plot. I liked the Romeo and Juliet take of it too, but then again I am a romantic fool with a weak spot for vampires...

But the film got me thinking of modern takes on old stories about vampires, werewolves and zombies - these used to be supernatural, usually Christian stories. Most of the modern versions explain it trough science - typically with some kind of virus: Blade, Underworld, Resident Evil, 28 Days Later... I'm sure there are others.

In the start of Underworld when Selene's partner is killed with some mysterious bullets we immediately thought that it must have been some kind of holy water weapon. However, the religion is typically left out of the modern versions - holy water is not mentioned (at any point), and the cause turns out to be ultraviolet light (sunlight).

What do these things tell about the modern society then? Priests are certainly not the heroes anymore, and devil or the supernatural is not the adversary. Instead, science is the enemy and problems are solved with weapons. So have the modern guns and their easy availability changed the mental landscape so much that monsters are not scary anymore - after all, you can always get big enough gun and shoot it down - that enemy needs to be something that you don't see by the naked eye and can be anywhere. Or is there some inherent fear of something new that makes people afraid of progress and therefore science that makes disease so scary? Or has disease itself become the last threat - soldiers used to be able to defend us, but biological warfare makes them useless.

These are really half-baked thoughts at this stage, but I find the idea very interesting.

Goals for the Summer, Part II

261 Hindu squats today. Afterwards I could barely stand -and I am still only slightly over half-way of my target of 500. But I would have rather cut off both of my legs with a blunt saw than even tried another squat.

However, deadlift of 315 was very easy. I'm up to 25 chin-ups, so I should be OK there too.

Blacklist ready and willing

Bye bye comment spam! After some difficulties (Blacklist 1.63 RC 2 just didn’t install at all for some unknown reason), I managed to install Blacklist 1.62. I tried it with couple of spams I had gotten earlier, and it seems to be working like a dream. It’s sad that spam exists and I have to go trough this kind of hassle, but it’s also good that people are working to prevent it. Again, this shouldn’t affect any normal usage, but in case it does, let me know and I’ll sort it out.

Many thanks to Jay Allen who helped me along the way.

Bookings Direct sucks

Well, that was my worst ever ticket booking experience. For some reason, the normal way to book tickets for WWE events – the lovely Ticketmaster – was only offering tickets for the Newcastle and Aberdeen shows. WWE website gave a phone number – which never connected, and a website address for a company called Bookings Direct.

So, I try the website. The shows don’t show up, so I keep hitting refresh. Some time around nine the page changes and Wrestlemania Revenge shows up and I get to select the Sheffield show – so far, pretty standard stuff. But then a first problem – they only offer the choice of three ticket price categories, no way to select preferences on seating, no way of knowing what price categories respond to what seating, no seating charts (which I BTW found from Ticketmaster). Just a box next to the ticket price indicating how many tickets you want, and opportunity to give your address and credit card number.

How annoying, but I proceed to fill in the information and select two tickets for the top price (and I’d like to add that on top of the £40 for the ticket, they charge fucking £5 per ticket for “handling fee” which is fucking 12.5% of the ticket price! AND a postage fee!). It said – this may take a while... so I wait. Then it comes back saying that there were not enough tickets left in that price range... WTF? Like two minutes after the tickets have gone sale all the top price tickets are gone?

I’m not young and naïve, and I’m experienced enough to understand that this puny little website has probably never seen this much traffic before and is most likely to be totally stuffed. So 15 minutes, couple of reloads later (every time it gives me different information on tickets available) and couple of tries later (Sorry! Don’t have tickets left in that price category! Please select again!) the system finally manages to barf out a reservation for me for the tickets I want.

But what a trouble. You’ll be sure I’ll be writing a letter of complaint as soon as I calm down enough to produce anything else than rude words and exclamation marks.

Site update

Dear readers, I've recently got some comment spam on this blog - so I've upgraded to MT 2.661 which has some added spam protection. You shouldn't see anything different and everything should work as before, but in case it doesn't, let me know.

How difficult can it be anyway?

I promised you a Friday 13th wedding day story... so here goes.

Now you would imagine that two Finns wanting to get married in Finland wouldn't be a big deal? You'd be wrong...

The Finnish government is extremely bureaucratic - all the details of all the citizens are on computer file somewhere. To get married in Finland you have to have a permission to get married - and to get this permission, the government needs to do a check on both parties to confirm that they can be legally married. This means that both need to be over 18, not currently married and not under guardianship. The problem is this: although we both are Finns, we don't actually live in Finland. Now, this means that although we can prove everything else - the officials want a certificate from the country we live in to prove that we hadn't got married in that country. (Don't even try to bring logic here - I could be legally married in Sweden, but because I live in UK, I just need to prove that I'm not married here...)

Second problem is this: this certificate that proves we're not married in UK, doesn't actually exist in UK. The UK marriage law is based to two people taking an oath where they say that they can legally get married. That's it. If we were citizens, they could check whether we've gotten married - but since we're not... we'll you guessed it: they can't help us.

So, I was still thinking at this point that the people at Helsinki Magistrate are reasonable people, and that if I just explain the problem to the they'll understand. Wrong. They did tell me though that we should be able to get the certificate from our local Finnish consulate - so we call them. They say that they unfortunately can't help us, but that the Finnish embassy in London can. So we call them - but they say that they unfortunately can't help us, since it's a private matter (it escapes me what their job is if not to help Finnish citizens, but never mind...), but that we should get what we need from a solicitor.

This shouldn't be too difficult, we think - surely this then is a service that solicitors offer for a reasonable price. We couldn't have been more wrong - most solicitors were not interested, since it was "a minor issue", and those who were would have charged around £600-700 for this piece of paper - and only trough a friend did we manage to get an offer for £250. Now this is still a lot of money for a paper that says that we say that we can legally be married - and I just refused to pay this kind of money for something I consider to be my right.

At this point we started to look into possibility of getting married here. Since we are EU citizens, there shouldn't be any difficulties - but at this point we also were not so gay and naive as we were when all of this started, and for a good reason. First of all, the local magistrate at Bishop's Stortford (where we lived at the time) was open only on very strange hours (obviously when we were at work). Secondly, although they do have a phone number and therefore presumably a phone - it seems to locked somewhere where no-one can hear it ring, because after calling them numerous times and leaving numerous messages on the answer machine, no-one never got back to us. So Dragon took couple of times time off work to see the magistrate, who wasn't very keen to help us because of all the work involved (for her that is) - and also at this point we were running out of time. According to English law, there needs to be a three week period between a couple telling the officials that they want to marry and when they do (I guess it's to prevent quick marriages). While the magistrate was fiddling her thumbs, this three week period run out...

It was starting to look more and more likely, that we would have to celebrate our wedding before we were actually married. We had never planned a church wedding, or even have a wedding ceremony at the reception - but still, we had planned to get married with our families and closest friends present. The ring had already been engraved with the date of 13.7.2001 - the day we had intended to get married. But then my brilliant mother had an idea that we should try to get the permission from another city than Helsinki - a city where we both have lived before moving to UK: Espoo. We had already booked a time from the Helsinki magistrate, but again, there shouldn't have been a reason why we couldn't get the permission from Espoo.

My mother then calls Espoo magistrate and explains the situation. This time, the response is very sympathethic and they promise to help us. Send us the paperwork and we'll take care of it they say. They promise to deal with the paperwork within 7 days. So my mum posts the form, and we start counting the days and holding our breath...

...and like a miracle, the permission arrives in the post to us, just like they promised! Not a moment too soon either, since this actually happens just two weeks before the wedding!

Getting married on Friday 13th - what could possibly go wrong?

Safe journey

Called Chu this morning to wish her a safe journey. Have a relaxing holiday darling and come back in one piece!

My computer dreams of electric sheep

My computer is dreaming, thanks to Janne.

In fact, it's dreaming a collective dream with hundreds of computers around the world, owing to a project called electric sheep. The images are dreamy, and hypnotic, and I feel like stopping all work right now to just stare at them.

At the moment the dream looks like a spherical white plasma storm. And I'm in awe.

Friday 13th

Friday the 13th - is it down to superstition that people stay at home today? I can't think of any other reason why the roads were so clear this morning. I mean, it just doesn't happen here.

But this date reminds me of another Friday 13th - in July 2001, the day we got married. We thought it was hilarious to get married on that date (although the date wasn't more planned than the fact that it was a suitable Friday in July) - but I was surprised how many people's first reaction was shock. Composure was of course quickly recovered - my friends are certainly (mostly) sensible people. But I got the distinct feeling that some people thought we were taking an unnecessary risk - organising a wedding after all can be a huge undertaking where about a million things can go wrong.

Nothing did, in fact - nothing major anyway. We had a lovely wedding ceremony on Friday in the magistrates' office with close friends and relatives, and a fabulous party the next day. It's not to say there weren't any complications along the way, they were - but maybe I'll write about it later since it actually makes quite a funny story. Looking back, that is.

Let's get ready to rumble

I'm going to have a a match.

Before any of the readers think of bright lights and roaring crowds, let me tell you that this is just a friendly three rounds at local gym against a well-known opponent, with no audience aside from any regulars that happen to be in. We're really doing this to motivate each other to train a bit harder, to give us something to aim for. We'll wear headgear as well as groing guards, shin pads, mouth guards and gloves, without any elbows or knees involved. Since we will both strike and grapple, I reckon I will try to go for a choke or an armbar, as my opponent is far superior at striking (being a kickboxer and having a longer reach) but I am stronger than him and know at least something about submissions.

It's been a long time (nine years to be exact) since I last fought in any way competitively. Sure I've sparred now and then, but there is always a difference when you are actually preparing for something and not just excercising for the your own fitness and conditioning. It is a wierd feeling, waiting for a match.

I think I like it.

Projects, decisions and visits

After talking with Chu yesterday on the phone, we decided to give a green light to a joint venture. She's leaving for US on Friday to visit her sister, and won't be back until end of this month so I have some time to get things ready. I feel positive and exited.

After speculating outcomes for No Way Out and WrestleMania XX we decided with Dragon to go against our initial decision to pass Smackdown's WrestleMania Revenge tour that is hitting UK next month. The tickets are going on sale this Saturday, so if we want good seats this is about the last moment to make the decision. Since this weird tour has dates mostly in Scotland and north of England (and if you know anything about the map of England, you know that places like Newcastle, Aberdeen and Glasgow are indeed very far from Southsea) we decided to get tickets for the Sheffield show on 19th of March. Even that is not quite around our neck of the woods, but at least that's a journey we can make relatively easily.

I also found out that a dear friend is coming to visit us next month. I love having visitors and this one is especially welcome - in fact I'm planning to take couple of days of holiday when he comes. Looks like after a two very long months of working very hard, March is indeed promising to very nice and relaxing.

I love fog

One thing I love about England is the fog. We're not talking about some pretty lingering mist that you see on the fields - we're talking about all consuming thick as soup fog where you literally can't see the car in front of you.

And no, I'm not being sarcastic - I really do love this fog. I love the way all landmarks disappear and how my whole world becomes so small. It's spooky and it's cool.

Bloglines

While surfing around yesterday looking at different blogs and pondering on what makes a good blog in preparation for Kultainen Kuukkeli, I came across another useful blogging tool. It's called Bloglines, and it's one of those services that you can use to keep track of all the blogs you follow.

Pinseri is a good one - but obviously only follows Finnish blogs, and is maintained manually (which is good because it caters for all types of blogs, but bad because it makes it slower when it comes to new blogs because it needs a human to maintain it). Bloglines is totally automatic which makes it really fast and convenient, but it requires blogs to have an RSS feed which means that blogs that are not maintained using some blogging tool like MovableType can't be added to the list.

However, most blogs I follow have this, so I've decided to give it a go to make it easier for me to follow non-Pinseri blogs. Don't worry if you don't know what an RSS feed is - you don't need to know with Bloglines. You can just bookmark a script that you can run (i.e. click) on your favourite blog and it will search for a feed for you. If one is found, all you need to do is confirm the addition to your blogroll and you're done. You can the view your blogroll and it will show automatically when new entries have been added - very easy to use. It's also possible to make your blogroll public (have a look at mine for example) in case you want to share it, or include it in your own blog with a simple include statement. Unfortunately the site is not very intuitive when it comes to some of the functionality, but a little digging goes a long way.

But anyway if you read more than one blog regularly, I suggest you have a play.

Heroes, part 2

Well, that was a very good episode of Stargate SG-1, and I have to say I saw none of that coming. Many things were turned on their heads, and I spent the last 20 minutes crying like baby. I’m aware that most of the world will see this episode later on this month, I’ll give you a warning and say that if you don’t want any spoilers, don’t read any further than this.

So, certainly they fooled me. I didn’t actually believe that O’Neill would have died, but I couldn’t figure out how they would saved him since there weren’t any Tok’ra or sarcophagus about. And I really didn’t see it coming until it actually happened... the lovely Janet Fraiser is dead, died in the line of duty while saving a soldier. Good ending for her, although I’m sad to see her go. Fraiser was a good character – fairly traditional what comes to female characters (in science fiction), but Teryl Rothery played her well.

Other things in the episode - Robert Picardo is the next member of the hordes of Star Trek actors that guest star Stargate nowadays. Although I have to say he wasn’t as nearly as threatening as his predecessor in the role of external investigator as John de Lancie – but then again, that man can play a slime ball like no one else.

The reporter character was totally turned around – he starts off in the first episode as an annoying creep, and ends up being the good guy and generally alright. Good chance though, and I like the fact that Stargate still has that edge and you can’t always assume things are going to happen in the most predictable way.

The memorial speech by Carter in the end was moving, and a point well made. Probably should have left it there, I didn’t think the humorous ending suited otherwise very serious episode that well. But good episode, nonetheless. I had hoped that season seven would be the last since the quality hasn’t been quite as high standard as it used to be – but there maybe some left in the old horse yet.

Kultainen Kuukkeli 2003

Voting has started for the Kultainen Kuukkeli 2003 awards - so it's time for my Finnish readers to start suggesting nominees. As an explanation for my non-Finnish readers - this is the Finnish version of Bloggies, the blogging world Oscars if you will. And yours truly managed to get herself in the honorary panel of judges.

And in case you're wondering - Dragon/kolibri is not a nominee for the 2003 awards - we started a day late.

93 Billion

93 Billion dollars a year. This is the amont added to the medical bill in US alone for treating the conditions caused by excess weight. (Source: US Centres for disease control).

If this is true, I am speechless.

Site update

Some of you have been wondering what exactly have I changed on this site.

Well, I'll let you in on a secret. I have a hierarchy fetish, I love to put things into categories and different folders and give them descriptive names. So I was getting annoyed about the fact that all individual archive entries were put in the root of the archive directory, with horrible names like 0000078.html. So, I had a look at the MovableType manual and found a solution. Now all entries are neatly put in directories according to the year and the month they were written on, and they have permalink names that come from the title. So for example, the permalink for this entry is http://www.dejahthoris.net/blog/archives/2004/02/site_update.html

I'm quite proud of myself, really.

Introducing Firefox

Today I installed Firefox 0.8 - formerly know as Firebird (apparently it was getting mixed up with another open source project - Firebird database). So far it's not looking awfully good - I managed to download the installer after couple of tries since Mozilla.org servers seem to completely stuffed with all enthusiastic Firefox fans trying to get a hold of a copy. But because the servers are down this also means that although I have the browser itself, I can't download my essential extensions (because old ones don't of course work in the new version), like the Tabbrowser extension that has made browsing bearable.

Tabbrowser extension offers features that I've always wanted in a browser, and I find really quite strange that they are not included in Firefox by default. I hate having million windows open - that's why I prefer to use tabbed browsers, where I can have all sites I want open in the same application but in different tabs. But Tabbrowser extension extends this concept by allowing for example you to define that all new windows (including windows opened from other applications, like Thunderbird) are opened as new tabs, together with javascript windows. So now I'm just waiting for the traffic to die down so I can get my hands on it again. It's all part of the excitement of using a beta browser.

Later: Ah, Mozilla Extension Room has saved me. I now have my Tabbrowser extension, and the new version is even more full with wonderful wacky features. There are in fact so many, I think some of them are either overlapping or duplicate... Could be that something has been lost in translation. Oh well, I'm not complaining.

Monday mornings

Sometimes Monday mornings are just like this - I come into the office, sit down, start up mIRC... and start chatting to people who sit only couple of meters from me. It's the office culture here where I work - since quite a few people work from home several days a week, we're just used to communicating via IRC. So on those rare days they are actually in the office you just forget that. And while there are some people who are actually too lazy to be bothered to come and talk to me - personally I try to avoid that. It's good to talk.

Spot the difference

A little Sunday evening geekiness led to some MovableType tweaking. Ten points to the first person who spots what I've changed.

Easy like Sunday...

Not much achieved today, not that I should have. Dragon is away on business, so I’ve spent most of the day watching X-files’ season one episodes that I borrowed from Andy and sleeping. It’s funny – I watched X-files when it first was shown in TV in Finland, but I didn’t really like it at first. Looking back now, I think at the time I took it too seriously – I was highly annoyed by the fact that they offered "scientific" explanations for all sort of claptrap they encountered. Now I take it more like a piece of fantasy fiction – and if you don’t take it too seriously it can be quite entertaining. Most of the episodes have aged well although Scully has started to look ridiculous in her 80’s look, and mobile phones look silly, but Ghost in the Machine has so far really been the only episode where the concept is now really stupid (and references to 2001 and HAL where less than subtle). And the tech speech made me squirm – "We’ve combed trough the parsing sub-routines and have so far found nothing".

The Warrior

I don't normally enthuse about movies, as I feel by and large the whole media is a bit over-valued. Books are and have always been my one true love, and I feel most comfortable when writing about them.

However, I make an exception here. The Warrior is an excellent movie. I like Asian cinema in general, and the star of the Korean film-making has been on the rise lately. This epic historical action-adventure is easily a match to most Hollywood productions in my eyes, and it is a perfect example of how far the Far East has come in their film-making.

The story of the movie tells a tale of Korean diplomatic expedition trapped in China during the fading years of the Mongol rule. After being captured and subsequently escaping, the Koreans become entangled in civil when they rescue Ming princess Bo-Yong (Zhang Zi-Yi) from Yuan Mongols. The Koreans have to flee through deserts and forests, with the ever-present threat of the pursuing Mongol horsemen hanging in the air.

The backdrop is relatively unimportant (though well-executed) when compared to the sterling performances by the great Korean actors. I especially enjoyed the relationship between young General Choi (Joo Jin-Mo) and the grizzled sergeant Jin-Lib (the quietly charismatic Ah Sung-Ki). The contrast between old sergeant's superior leadership skills and young generals insistance on leading the Koreans based on his rank is brilliantly portrayed. It is also worth to point Mongol General Rambulhua (Yu Rong-Kwon), who manages to be both tragic and honourable while being cruel in the extreme.

While acting is what captivated me, it is not to say that the action of the movie is weak when it comes to the combat sequences. Quite on contrary, the tremendous battles the rag-tag Koreans fight against the Mongol horde are visually stunning (and numerous). They are simply far more bloody, gritty, realistic (to a point) and tragic than the often ballet-like fight sequences of the Hong Kong cinema.

There are weaker moments as well, such as the end sequence that drags on a bit, and some of the actions of the quiet master spearman Yeo Sol (Jung Woo-Sung) as he strives to protect the Ming princess seem utterly illogical, but these are minor gripes when compared to the epic feel of this film.

If you can, get your hands on the special edition with all the deleted scenes of the movie, which are well worth your while.

Inspirations and failures

I’m sure many people will celebrate WWE ending their contractual agreement with the one-legged wrestler Zach Gowen earlier this week. I’m going to leave rumours of why this (probably) happened out of this – they are not that hard to find in case you’re really interested. Instead I’d like say that I’m saddened that this has happened.

No, I don’t think it was a good idea to put Gowen into such spotlight that he was put into. No, he wasn’t that good, for quite obvious reasons, and never will be. But I think his story was – and could have been even more – a success story. I think Gowen showed that it's possible to be whatever you want to be as long as you really want it and work hard for it. He shouldn’t have been a headliner, but he could have made a decent addition to the cruiserweight or the tag team division once all the hype had calmed down.

I know he was hired for his novelty value, and I know his matches against huge men were meant to shock us. None of my friends could see past his disability – whenever he came on they would fast forward or look away, thinking that it was sick having him in matches. (And yes, even I have to say that some segments were sick and totally unnecessary). Hell, Sky One even censored his matches against even-sized opponents - which I think was totally out of line.

He had chosen a profession – a professional wrestler. Part of this job is to take part in very physical matches, take punches and kicks and being thrown around the ring. All the other wrestlers do this. So why is it more horrible when a disabled person does this? I understand if you are against the sport because of its violence, but to discriminate against a guy because of his disability should be illegal. I mean, what if he wanted to work matches here – no one would have heard of him because his matches were always edited out.

Story of Zach Gowen is of course by no means over. He’s such a determined man, I’m sure he will surface in the indy arenas. He started from NWA-TNA, I’m sure they will take him back – if not with a contract, to do individual matches. And let’s face it – WWE is not the right place for all wrestlers – some of them will be better of elsewhere. Maybe what Gowen needs is a different environment – he will never be a legend, but I’m sure that he’s capable of winning at least some of the audience over.

The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy by Tim Burton

I found Tim Burton’s collection of poems - The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and other stories - from the book shop today. It was actually published in 1997, but for some reason or another, I’ve never heard of it before.

I found this book a delight to read. The subjects – mainly misunderstood mentally tortured abnormal children – were at times morbid, but touching too. Especially the story of the Oyster Boy sent chills down to my spine. Burtons own illustrations were a perfect accompaniment to the poems – and some stories, like Staring Girl, have a whole new meaning in combination with the pictures.

So if you haven’t read this book and happen to come across it, I can wholeheartedly recommend it.

Girls and Games

One thing that always upsets me in my chosen field of profession is how few women take up games as their career.

Now I am a games designer and a manager, and have been so all my adult life, and probably will be until the day I die (this industry will surely kill me at some point). I have heard all the arguments on the subject (how women are not bloodthirsty enough to do the games the market demands, how they cannot take the stress, how women don't have the mind to do it) and I say bollocks to them.

I am not saying there are no women in the games industry. Of course there are exceptions. In my own team I am lucky enought to have two very talented ladies, both who are invaluable to the team. But my team consists of 12 people, and we have the highest number of females in any team where I have ever worked. Your average number across the industry is even more grim: Less than 1 employee in 10 is a female. This is true to both video and computer games industry as well as traditional pen-and-paper games such as Dungeons and Dragons. This is an industry worth billlions and billions each year, and it is growing at astounding rate. As the games become ever more integral part of the human society, the women are missing out, both in the terms of money made and ability to infuence this media.

Main reason for this lack of women is not the bias of the people who hire employees for games companies, me being one of them. When I employ people, I of course try to pick the ones that I think would perform the best, with as little bias towards the gender (or colour or creed) as I can muster. No, the biggest reason is that CVs from women I get are almost non-existent.

This is what surprises me the most -after all this is a creative industry, with plenty of scope for artistic experssion which lots of of women I studied with wanted from their careers. From animators to designers, from artists to story-writers, this job is many things, but never boring.

Why do I want women to join the industry, you say? Why can't I stop whinging and be happy with my all-male cast? Here is my case:

Fresh ideas

Women bring different things to the table. Note that I didn't say better, but different. I have worked with many fantastically talented male games designers but in our design meetings, its the women who have a different angle to the problems, be it a story twist or puzzle for the players to solve. This really enriches the games. Of course I've known female designers who can mix it up in the stakes of, say shoot 'em up design with any man, but especially RPG design tends to be something where female designers I've worked with excel.

The industry big-wigs always complain about the fact that no-one makes games for girls. How about working with the universities trying to bring some women in who have a clue about what women want?

Bringing up the industry

Games industry is plagued by long unpaid overtime with unhealthy late-night meals. This causes many people to leave the industry, taking their experience, the most vital asset in this business with them. Many experts believe this has to change and the industry has to grow up in order to survive. Based on the personalities of the people I've worked with, I think the key to this is hiring more women. Women are less likely to put up with working 90 hours a week months on end, where young males tend to agree this state of affaris with no complaints, which causes the whole project to suffer as the whole team becomes too tired to work. With more female employees the industry will be forced to adapt to the 21st century, and will benefit massively for it.

Better working environment

There is also a little matter of the working environment becoming more pleasant if there is a more even balance of women and men. Arguments are more reasoned and less personal when women are involved, I've found. I am not saying women in this industry are less polite or rude: but with women around, meetings tend to be more focused and less personally aggravating, though I cannot tell you the reason. It also would make nights out bit more fun -after all going out in all-male groups gets bit boring after a while, don't you think?

So if any aspiring female desinger, artist, animator, programmer, concept artists or producer reads this: Help! Please, we need you! Do it! Do it now! Send your CV!

Firefly box set and other thoughts

Drat. I had ordered the Firefly box set from playusa.com, and it arrived yesterday - together with a customs notice of extra duty of £8. Which is like third of the price of the box set. Gone are the days where they shipped region 1 DVDs first to UK to Play and then to customers avoiding any extra charges. Now it takes three times longer to arrive, and is more expensive (ok, if it goes above £18, which normal DVDs wouldn't) - and they accredit it to "free economy".

The court ruling for CD-WOW, another of my favourite online shops, said that they violated UK copyright laws when they were importing cheaper CDs from outside Europe. Legitimate CDs I should add, not pirated ones or anything dodgy. So they were forced to put up their prices, artificially. I don't really understand this at all - if the material is genuine, how does it break the law exactly? I did get an email from CD-WOW this week that said that they had made some cuts in personnel and were now able to bring the price of CDs down again (and how exactly that makes it legal, I really don't know).

To be honest, I think £8.99 is an extremely reasonable price for a CD - and it makes me very angry that there are high-street shops that still charge double that.

Blacklash in Canada

Hum. WWE has just announced that Backlash will be held on April 18th in Edmonton, Alberta Canada this year. I wonder if this means that Summerslam would go somewhere else - I'm not sure they are ready to do two big PPVs in Canada.

(I should also point out that Edmonton Alberta is indeed home of Chris Benoit - and Backlash is the first event after WrestleMania. This must mean good news for the Crippler.)

Spam poetry

I don't normally do links, there are plenty of people who are specialised in it and do it better than I would - but this I just got to share with you. I came across it on my mindless wondering on the net while waiting for Dragon to come home from work (yep, he's working overtime again)...

The idea is beautiful in its simplicity - Spam Poetry.

Morning from hell

"It's a morning from hell!" a chirpy traffic presenter told me this morning on the radio.

She was pretty much right, there had been an accident and roads were totally blocked. But that was only minor irritation compared to what happened when I got to work - marketing grabbed me when I was walking trough the doors (my mistake was to say "morning" to the reception girls - so they heard my voice) to fix something that was their fault, and not our responsibility in the first place, that they knew about yesterday but didn't tell us although they should have if they wanted us to set it up, and it needed to be fixed in 5 minutes. It bloody takes 5 minutes to start up my computer!

Several hours later, I can finally sit down and have a cup of tea. Scott Adams puts it so well.

Later: At least someone is on our side. Our boss has told marketing in not-so-polite words that this needs to stop.

All sorts of aliens

Sif has taken some extremely bizarre and cool alien photos that I recommend you go and see. It's almost scary how alien real people can sometimes look - these photos remind me of some Alien movies some reason, but I can't replace the scene. Maybe it's the scene on the planet in beginning of Alien where they find these mummified aliens - did their skin look like that? I should really watch that movie again some time.

I was actually talking about the second film, Aliens, with Dragon after we watched Resident Evil on Saturday - it occurred to me that the character of Private Vasquez must be the mother of all angry female soldiers (like Rain in Resident Evil). Or can someone remember an earlier character like that? As I kid I thought Vasquez was highly cool, how she was just as tough as the rest of the guys and how she was accepted as one. Whereas Ripley was the heroine and she did extraordinary things almost against her will, Vasquez had chosen her profession.

Her character has probably been an inspiration for me - I have always admired strong and capable female characters that make it in the 'men's world' without loosing their sense of identity. Another character like that from the movies I saw as a kid would be Valeria from Conan the Barbarian - strong, intelligent, loyal and yet feminine and proud of it.

Of Freaks and Geeks

Many of my friends in Finland use term 'Friikit' (freaks) to describe themselves and the loosely-knit group of people who make up the social circle I grew up with. In this group, rest of the humanity is reffered with the term 'Mundis' as in mundane. While there might be a hint of elitism in this, it is chiefly a term of convenience for people to describe like-minded individuals. Though games (chiefly RPGs and LARPs), and sci-fi and fantasy have been the most usual common ground for Freaks, this certainly has not been any decisive factor. Plenty of Freaks come outside the games and sci-fi nut culture.

In all the countries I've travelled, I've met more Freaks. Despite the bewildering array of ages, shapes and sizes of these people, no formal introduction has ever been needed. They've always accepted me and I've accepted them within few hours. Though across the world lots of other terms are used by Freaks to describe themselves (americans prefer geeks and some even call themselves nerds as a joke), these people are always made in the same mint as I am. We are always chatting away almost immediately as if we've known each other for years.

I've never been quite sure of the exactly what is required to join the ranks of the Freaks. I've always accepted my membership in this noble brother- and sisterhood as a very natural thing and felt a great sense of belonging with my fellow Freaks. But never before have I stopped and started thinking about what exactly am I?

I've never been quite sure what makes me one of the Freaks. Granted, I do lots of geeky things. I like books and comics, and I enjoy writing and drawing. I don't care for cars at all, and each year spend countless hours of my life and hundreds of pounds of my saving savings on games. Obviously my job is a dead giveway as well. Designing and writing games for living is about as geeky as you can get -some would claim it makes me a somekind of an uber-Freak. Then again, I've known plenty of professionals in my field that are definately not Freaks, so these trends alone are not explanation enough. Besides I do plenty of non-geeky things as well ranging from martial arts to weight training. I quite enjoyed military training and to be honest, I enjoy wathcing ice-hockey, and you can't get any more mainstream in Finland than that.

It is equally easy for me to recognice a Mundis. Usually couple of words are enough to know that you should not start to enthuse about the new Usagi Yojimbo album or how I stayed up until 4 o'clock playing Breath of Fire V on PS2 last night. Mundis' just don't 'get' it. It is like trying to explain singing to a bookshelf -there is no common ground. And yet I cannot tell what is the difference between us.

Perhaps the most common traits of Freaks across the world are tolerance and open-mindedness, but even these are not universal -one of my best friends in Finland is a gun-nut patriot who has never played a game in his life, and yet he is definately one of us Freaks. Perhaps there is no exact definition. Perhaps being a freak is a state of mind instead of a set of social or behavioural rules?

Perhaps one of the readers of Dragon/kolibri has a better angle on this than I do?

Heroes, part 1

I love it when sci-fi series are able to laugh at themselves. Tonight’s Stargate SG-1 episode Heroes, part 1 had some quality moments along those lines. I loved the moment where the SG-13 has just stepped to a new world, and they start making bets about what they will find – and lets face it "abandoned naquadah mines", "ancient ruins" and "trees" often feature on strange planets, "two-headed aliens" probably slightly less often than that. Otherwise, it looked like a funny - almost Wormhole X-treme! -type of episode, but then serious things started to happen. I’m thinking countdown to Stargate Atlantis has started.

Of friendship

Last night I was tired and depressed. This morning I am happy, enthusiastic and ready to face the world again. What happened? It's quite simple, really, an hour and a half on the phone with my best friend.

I've been talking about nature of friendships with numerous people in the past few months. I feel enormously privileged to have a best friend, a soul mate. I realise that not many people have one - lot of people have lot of friends, even many close friends. Whatever they have in their minds, they can always find a close friend to talk to, some friends are better suited for some conversations, some for something else.

Especially I've been wondering why some friendships last while other don't - for me it's probably different than for most people since living in another country to your friends for seven years tends to make a big difference. Even despite the distance, my closest friends are still in Finland, and I've even got some new ones. With some I'm in constant contact with daily via chat, with some I email now and again, some I just meet twice a year. All of them I still feel close with, because different relationships have different dynamics - some require constant contact, and either you do that to keep the friendship going, or you don't and it will be dissolved (this has happened too). Some don't - you can just pick off where you left when you meet, and you think about them and think about emailing to them but never do, and they feel the same and you can laugh about your feeble efforts without anyone feeling guilty.

While I have those few close friends, there's no one else like my best friend. Whatever I have in mind, I can always talk to her, and she will always understand me. And it's not just about whinging (like what I needed to do yesterday), it's also about sharing your successes and happiness (like she did yesterday). And you know that whatever you want to say, she wants to know. It can be about silly things like that really hot guy in that movie you just saw (and you're guaranteed that she'll want to see it too) or it can be life and death situations or just the 30-something crisis we seem to be heading towards. Like she said to me yesterday "we are of one mind, half a mind each".

Aims for the summer

Before every summer I make a solemn vow to finally get into an acceptable (well, to myself) shape. Each year before I have failed miserably, for variety of reasons, including work pressure, closure of my regular gym, moving to a foreign country, or some new obscure Japanese RPG-game that is simply so good it keeps me off from my training for a month. I've always been disappointed with myself when this has happened.

But this year will be different, god-damnit! I hereby decree that come the summer I will:

Deadlift 325 pounds.

Do 35 chin-ups in a row.

See, I will even put my picture up here so I'll have to make visible progress come summer. That's it. I've cornered myself. There is no turning back now. Ah, I feel somehow more relaxed now...

Hogan makes me laugh

This made me laugh. One of the hot questions on pro-wrestling has for a long time been whether Hulk Hogan will be on WrestleMania XX. He has recently made comments about it to Bill Apter:

"I am not saying it will or will not happen," [Hogan] told me in a telephone conversation early this morning. "All I will say is that if I am not at WrestleMania XX this is a perfect example of what is wrong with the very heart of the wrestling business."

No Terry - that would be the thing that's right in the heart of this business. I mean, Hulkster was old even when he was young, and by now he is ancient history. It's time to move on and give the spotlight to someone else.

From ProWrestling.com.

...and justice for all?

David Blunkett has been let loose again. This time he is proposing new anti-terrorism laws that would make it easier to convict suspected terrorists. He basically wants to forget about the "innocent until proven guilty" and "beyond all reasonable doubt" and change that into "on the balance of probabilities". This would mean secret trials, secret judges, secret defence lawyers, and secret convictions. This, in my opinion, goes against the western justice system where the basis has been - and should be - the principle according to which it's better that ten guilty people are let loose than one innocent person going into jail.

So ok, desperate times need desperate measures - and the issue with suicide bombers is a difficult one because there's never a guilty party that could be convicted afterwards. However, I think Blunkett is seriously starting to behave like these men that he calls evil - if these kinds of laws would be proposed by some of the "axis of evil" countries he would be the first one to complain how unfair they are.

Baroness Kennedy likened him with Robert Mugabe this morning. Other people have described him as wholly unfit to be a home secretary. Civil rights groups have condemned the proposals as "wholly unacceptable".

I say they are understatements.

When I grow up...

On Pakkotoisto, a Finnish forum for strength athletes, the brawny hard men of Finland are comparing childhood idols. There are some real gems here, including the original Batman from the 60s TV series. I always burst out laughing just by seeing Adam West in his Batman uniform.

And me? When I was a kid I always wanted to be Bruce Lee. Or Tyrannosaur. Nowadays I would settle for being a silverback male gorilla, seeing as they get to sleep 16 hours a day.

Turms Kuolematon (The Etruscan) by Mika Waltari

Mika Waltari has always been my favourite Finnish author. Though Sinuhe Egyptiläinen (The Egyptian) is by far the best known of his works, I have always preferred Mikael Angelos (The Dark Angel) and Turms Kuolematon (translated as the Etruscan).

The Etruscan is set against the backdrop of the golden age of Hellenic glory, when Rome is but small, war-like city of barbarians. It tells a tale of Turms, a young man who has lost his memory after a lightning strike. As an instigator of rebellion in Persia, Turms flees the Great King's wrath to the orcle of Delphoi. From here he travels further west in a company of Dorieus, a Spartan warrior. Turms gets caught in the great events of the age, the struggle between the Greeks and the Persians. Eventually, after many adventures and wars, Turms finds his way to the land of the Etruscans, where the truth of his birth awaits him.

There are so many layers and so much subtle wisdom in this book that it would take hours to go through them. Let it be sufficient to say that Waltari writes on the corrupting power of material wealth, friendship and loyalty, the bitterness of love, and the cruelty of war better than any author I have ever read.

The repeating themes of Waltari's books -treacherous women, the decline of a noble cultures and young male's path to adulthood, are all present in this book in abundance. Equally evident is the meticulous research Waltari did to breathe life into a Ancient world of some 2,500 years ago. Waltari's secret is in his style of writing: there are not excalmation marks, quatation marks or question marks in the entire book. Instead the whole story reads as if you were viewing the splendid sights of the ancient world through someone's eyes as Waltari, the great illusionist, summons the events from the depths of time.

Though a literary classic in its own right, The Etruscan can also be read read simply as an exciting historical adventure with touch of supernatural. For me though, the book is far more than that. It is a companion during the dark and heavy times of my life when I have had to make hard choices. Waltari's ability to catch entire life story of a man in a single book (another one of his enduring themes) has made the book relevant to me throughout my life as I have grown older.

To those of the Dragon/kolibri readers who enjoy Historical novels, there are none that I would recommend more than the Etruscan. It is not the easiest of Waltari's novels, but for me at least, it has always been the most rewarding. Even after reading it a dozen times, I always find something new when I sit down and fondly open it again.

On a final note, there is no other book that ends with such a powerful words (apologies to our English readers, but I would not even dare to try to translate this).

Siksi tiedän kuolevani onnellisena, hehkuvan kuin nuorukainen, saadessani vihdoin sulkea hänet syliini ja tuntiessani hänet. Hänen väkevät siipensä kantavat minut kuolemattomuuteen. Sitten on tuleva leponi ja unohdus, suloinen, suloinen unohdus. Vuosisata, vuosituhat, samantekevää. Kerran olen palaava, minä, Turms, kuolematon.

Rockne says - it's alive

It’s still not official official, but it this is the best one yet. Rockne O'Bannon, creator of Farscape has pretty much said that Farscape will be back.

"And though I cannot confirm or deny anything, let's just say that your undying efforts to keep awareness of a certain television series alive within the entertainment community is the singular reason why a particular unnamed project is now halfway through production."

From SaveFarscape.com via TFL.

Saturday night at the movies

We watched two movies last night that most people have probably seen years ago.

First one was Resident Evil – the zombie movie based on the Japanese survival horror game with the same name. It starred Milla Jovovich (who I really like, but I’m slightly biased) as Alice, who wakes up with amnesia and ends up kicking some serious zombie-ass. I haven’t played the game, of course, but I have watched enough Japanese games to immediately recognise the look and feel of the movie. I’m also not a big fan of horror movies as such, but this one was ok – it had enough of action and sci-fi-like elements to keep me entertained, and the plot was fairly original (apparently following the plot of the game pretty faithfully). Action sequences were good: Milla did a good job – I find that often small girls in action films are totally unbelievable when it comes to the action scenes, but she did well. (Of course that depends on the fight choreography, but lots of choreographers don’t care about the realism as much as looking cool.)

Overall, it was a good action movie, probably better than average since it avoided the worst pitfalls of it’s genre by having a decent plot, and no force-fed romances between the main characters (there were some emotional attachments, but they were not exclusively boy-girl ones). And I see Resident Evil 2 is just around the corner.

The second movie was a Finnish movie called Raid – a DVD which I got as a birthday present from my friends last July. For some reason we haven’t got around watching it until now although we really really loved the TV-series this movie is based on. Story is about assassin Raid who comes back to Helsinki after two years of absence to find his old girlfriend dead. I had been told beforehand that this movie – although good – wasn’t as good as the TV series, so my expectations were not too high. But it turns out that my friends were right, it was a good movie. The writing was faithful to the original characters, the pacing wasn’t too hurried (which would have spoiled everything) and the story was well written – the background plot was one of those stories where you don’t really have a chance of figuring it out until they tell you what it’s all about.

Although it was really good to see all the old characters from the TV series, I felt that not all of the characters were really needed, and were probably there just for sentimental reasons. Ratsumies was useful in the beginning, but his presence in the end scenes was unnecessary and not explained. Maradona didn’t have any purpose at all, and Perse-Arska – although not completely useless – was as a character concept getting a bit tired. On the other hand, the few new characters introduced were good – Huusko’s girlfriend, the Estonian hooker Venla was good and so was Sundman’s friend Mehtonen.

What I enjoy most in Raid is the unashamed bashing of privatisation of public services that the writers continue doing. For example the contrast between the public free services in the hospital where people are sitting in the corridors when they have run out of beds, and the “special fee category” Jansson’s father is in where corridors are empty and private rooms large and well equipped is quite scary. It’s trying to serve as an example, but I’m afraid most people will just find it funny – downsides of privatisation are not immediately seen as for example railways can be neglected for 10 years before bad accidents start to happen, as people in this country are painfully aware of.

All in all, two very different movies, good experiences both.