Repetitious

(I've been trying to post this since Sunday, but my laptop was having a Mr Hyde day... anywhoo)

A hearty hello,

Again with the blue skies and coffee this Sunday morn. Really nice cafe yadda-yadda, I won't insult your memory, I'll just provide a photo. I don't think it's polite to point a camera at people in a cafe, so here's a shot of the only unoccupied corner - je présente: Café Delicato!



Best damn coffee and sandwiches in Helsinki. I'll reiterate that, they deserve the plug.

technorati tags: helsinki, delicato, coffee,

Not about rights

Must...not...blog...on...digital...rights.

It'd be so easy to do too, I'm beginning to think that RIAA is pronounced "nats-si".  

Instead I'll mention an intersting BBC study I saw about (computer) gaming habits in the UK.  The gender gap isn't as big as you'd imagine, and many people over 65 game.  The eyeopener however, was the 6-10 category.  100% of 6-10 year olds consider themselves gamers.  I guess it's some small comfort to us game-junkies that, rather than stunt our social skills, our gaming is making us into savvier parents who'll be able to understand and interact with junior.  

That's the way I like to spin it anyhow.

Also, after an attrocious climbing session, with no sends and a two metre fall I've vowed to go twice weekly.  If I haven't posted about my weak pinch-grip twice by next Friday, send me old fish in the post.  That'll learn me.  

Spread the good news... er...

I'm pretty avidly pro copyright reform. That is to say, I'm disgusted at the way people, corporations, entities - whatever - claim sole ownership over, and jealously horde, information. It's one of the topics I've been avoiding here, because there's a chance it takes over entirely. I didn't submit you to my strong opinions with regard to the over-zealous MPA threatening people who run websites where guitarist post self-transcribed music for other guitarist for free with jail time. This, however, is so illustrative of the fallacy of "Intellectual Property" (gag) in general, I thought I'd break my rule.

Vatican 'cashes in' by putting price on the Pope's copyright. If you would like to spread the Pope's teachings, you'll have to pay. Every little parish news letter that would like to quote the latest from the guy in the Vatican has to pay a tithe. What's more it retroactively covers all papal pronouncements going back 50 years.

If past experience is anything to go by, I'm getting blank stares, or I've been tuned out completely. Guthenburg would understand.

Snow-shoes for shitsus

Snow makes things bright and pretty. That wasn't my initial reaction stumbling out of the building, but a good cup of coffee tends to bring me round. I really must remember to take pictures of the exquisite Café Delicato next week, it's a bit like a very homely family sitting room crossed with a café, with some art-gallery genes spliced in for good measure (not to mention ambience). Quite a good place to work out the cobwebs on a Sunday morning.

Last night we helped Rosalinde move into her new apartment. At least, the others helped. I mostly spent over an hour stumbling about in the cold trying to find it, and arrived when most things were moved. A lousy sense of direction can give you hypothermia at this time of the year.

The temperature is holding below twenty. Conditions like this are hard on dogs and dog owners - Fido still needs to be taken on his constitutional stroll about the block, but padding on ice isn't so fun for either party. Maybe Gatochy Corp. could start selling snow-shoes for shitsus.

I spent the last few days concerned at international press reports that Russia had warned it might cut power exports to Finland by a third due to domestic demand. Not so much concerned that I might freeze, but that my computer wouldn't function. I think I've crossed some kind of threshold. Anyway, there wasn't any mention in the Finnish press till yesterday. Despite the fact that Finland gets 30% of it's power from Russia, and yesterday power demand was 300MW higher than the previous national record, they're totally unperturbed - they have not one, but two coal-fired plants on the outskirts of Helsinki ready for just such a scenario. So wonderfully, typically Finnish.

Forecast: frigid

Things have escalated a little around here since I mentioned it was cold. Maybe declined is a better word. I've a new "should have worn long-johns" cycling record (more than 5km at minus 22 celcius). The only way to overcome that kind of bone-chilling (my breath fogged my glasses, the fog froze) was with dinner with friends. Luckily that was the destination, and frostbite was warded off with belly laughs and a bowl of vindaloo - huzzah. The record-breaking was almost rounded off with some arm-shattering when I neatly demonstrated, albeit unexpectedly, the proper technique for dismounting a moving bicycle, as practiced by motor-cyclist in an emergency. I really must fit my winter tyres.

On a more serious note, this weather front has been moving east from Siberia and has hit Moscow pretty badly. It's around thirty below there and despite keeping the subways open, homeless people are dying on the streets. No friends. No chilli. Life isn't really fair.

Sky salt

So it's snowing at last, in that powdery little way it does up here.  You get little sand-devils of snow moving down the street, it's very dry.  I'd be delighted, except I've been doing some work outside recently, where you remember the corollary of "It is snowing" is "It is cold" (this is the polite, anatomically unspecific, blasphemy free version) - minus twenty without factoring some serious windchill.  I did have one zen moment amidst the chill, when a perfect, perfect, six armed snowflake landed flat on my screen, was back lit for a second, then contracted into a tiny droplet. 

Happy New Year!

Hello hello,

Belated best wishes for the future to one and all.  My 2006 started a little inauspiciously, I had a bit of a cold, and lost a sum of money playing poker with my extended family on New Year's, then once back in Finland my computer died, leading to a bout of radio silence.  In all honesty, it didn't die, so much as become terminally ill, whence, attempting resuscitation, I accidentally euthanized it, but I don't like to tell it that way.  Many family members trust me with their computer's mysterious inner organs, and I don't want to disillusion them.  Likewise, I don't inform them the magical "incantations" I employ when necromancing their hardware are sotto voce curses.  The world needs more mystery. 

I've decided not to make any new years resolutions just yet.  January seems a bad time to pledge change, I find it an attritious month at the best of times, without the hardship of pledged self-improvement.  This time of year more than any other finds me retreating to the soft bosom of minor vices I'd be likely to swear off: sugary milky coffees, chocolate, and late-night gaming sessions and attendant day-sleeping.  God help newly minted non-smokers.

On a brighter note, happy birthday to the inestimable, the inimitable, the ineffable, the one and only... Taarzaan!