Star Wars: Devilworlds 1 ja 2

The post to come is in finnish, seeing as how I wrote this at finnish forum. I however think its worth saving here as well.

Sain juuri luettua Dark Horsen Star Wars: Devilworldsin. Kyseessä on kaksiosainen minisarja joka julkaisi parhaita, alunperin 70-luvun lopussa Britanniassa Britannian markkinoille tehtyjä Tähtien sota-sarjakuvia. Kummassakin numerossa oli useampia lyhyitä tarinoita, joista yhteensä viisi oli Alan Mooren, tuon sarjakuvajumalan, käsikirjoittamia. Mukana on myös Alan Davisin varhaisia tarinoita. Jännä katsoa miten herrat ovat kehittyneet vuosien saatossa. Mooren tarinat ovat runsassanaisia, mutta harvassa niistä on sitä twistiä joista Moore nykyään on niin tunnettu. Davisin kuvitus on selkeästi nuoren miehen kuvitusta, eikä se ole niin sliipattua ja juoksevaa kuin ne esim. Excaliburin ja Ryhmä-X:n tarinat, joista hän myöhemmin tuli kuuluisaksi.
En ole aiemmin lukenut vanhoja SW-tarinoita -- niitä joita julkaistiin Suomessakin 80-luvulla -- mutta osa näistä tuntui erittäin tutuilta. Muistin jopa yhden tarinan lopun, mutta mulla ei ole mitään muistikuvaa siitä missä olisin näitä lukenut...

Joka tapauksessa. Tarinat olivat hyvin outoja verrattuna niihin useisiin nykypäivänä kirjoitettuun. Kun nämä uudet tarinat tuntuvat olevan scifiä pienellä fantasia-silauksella, niin nämä vanhat tuntuvat olevan fantasiaa scifi-silauksella. Tarinoissa pyörii demoneita, jumalia, mutantteja, aikamatkustusta ja vanhoja sivilisaatioita.

Luettelen tarinat:
Devilworlds 1:
Dark Lord's Conscience. Alan Moore ja John Stokes. Vader on kutsuttu pelaamaan jotain shakin tapaista vieraalle planeetalle. Hänen pelatessaan rakennukseen murtautuu mutantti joka kykenee nostamaan ihmisissä niin syvän epätoivon pahojen tekojensa tähden, että nämä tekevät itsemurhan.
The Flight of Falcon .Steve Parkhorse ja John Stokes. Millenium-tehtaan valmistamat Hawk-alukset ovat salakuljettajien suosiossa. Niinpä Imperiumi "pyytää" että tehdas valmistaisi Falconin - prototyypin tulevasta aluksesta, jota Imperiumi sitten tuunaisi salakuljettajajahtia varten.
Dark Knight's Devilry. Steve Moore ja Alan Davis. Luke ja Leia ovat aavikkoplaneetalla, etsimässä timanttia jonka avulla aikaa voi kelata takaisin ja tapahtumien suuntaa voi muuttaa.
Blind Fury. Alan Moore ja John Stokes. Luke törmää matkoillaan hätäsignaaliin, joka johtaa hänet muinaisen velhon linnaan. Linnasta löytyy vanhoja jedi-ritarien haarniskoja ja sieluja, krystalleihin vangittuna. Ja velhokin on vielä hengissä.

Devilworlds 2
Rust never sleeps. Alan Moore ja Alan Davis. R2D2 ja C3PO ovat saapuneet robottien hautausmaalle, järjestämään kapinaa Imperiumia vastaan joka aikoo louhia robottiromujen vuoria raaka-aineita vastaan. Planeetalla he tapaavat ikivanhan robotin, joka kertoo että planeetta on itseasiassa robottien romuista muodostuva elävä jumala.
Tilotny throws a shape. Alan Moore ja John Stokes. Leia pakenee aavikolla, perässään iskujoukkojen sotilaita. Paetessaan hän törmää ensin tuhansia vuosia vanhaan iskujoukkojen sotilaan kypärään, ja sitten outoihin, todellisuuden ulkopuolelta tulleisiin olentoihin.
The Pandora Effect. Alan Moore ja Adolfo Buylla. Paetessaan paikallista mafiaa Hellhooppiin (eräänlaiseen Bermudan kolmioon) Leia, Han ja Chewbacca löytävät joukon sadistisia velhoja jotka ovat vanginneet demonin kristalliin.

Tarinat ovat aika outoja, niissä ei ole kovinkaan "SWmäisiä" piirteitä. Tarinat ovat fantasiaa, jossa silloin tällöin vilahtaa avaruusaluksia.
Hahmojen kasvojen piirrustustapa ei ole vakiintunut, ja niinpä Luke ei näytä yhtään Mark Hamillilta eikä Han Harrison Fordilta. Piirtäjien lahjakkuuden huomioonottaen kyse ei ole kuvittajien kyvyttömyydestä, vaan tietoisesta päätöksestä.

Ennen muuta ne ovat katsaus aikaan jolloin Imperiumin vastaisku ei ollut vielä ilmestynyt, ja käsitys siitä millainen SW-universumi oikeasti on oli vielä aika hatara, varsinkin Britanniassa missä ei ilmestynyt niin paljoa oheiskrääsää kuin Yhdysvalloissa.

Tunnistaako joku muu kuvattuja tarinoita? Julkaistiinko niitä Suomessa? Onko kenelläkään tietoa minkä takia osa näistä tarinoista, varsinkin Tilotny throws a shape ovat niin tuttuja että tiesin loppuratkaisun vaikka minulla ei ole mielikuvaa aiemmasta lukukerrasta?

Challenge

I challenge you to pick ten wierd books out of your bookshelf and explain why you havent gotten rid of them. So wrote Tekno-Kekko at his blog, after he had been challenged to answer to do something quite different. However, I found this one particulary amusing, so I think Ill do it. Not ten, however. Tekno-Kekko is probaply over 50, and Im little over 20, so I dont have as much wierd stuff as he does. Plus I moved only year ago, so most of the stuff I could not explain to myself were left behind. Such as my mormor's (mom's mom) old schoolbooks. Im going back to get them, however, one of these days. They are very entertaining.
So I will settle for five entries. Can you, dear readers (all two of you) do the same?

Helene Schjerfbeck - Piirustuksia ja akvarelleja (drawnings and akvarels). I loaned this from my farmor (dad's mom), who has since lost her ability to read or hold books, so I havent bothered to return it. The name of the book is quite misleading. I thought it would have her best art, but it mostly has stuff that "hasnt gotten the attention it requires". In other words, most of those pictures are shit. And Helene S. was very talented woman. I would hope to have tenth of the skill she had! It also has lots of stupid text about said artist's life and why she did the art shown.

North American Indians by E.S.Curtis. Photos from early 20th century. They are pretty funny and depressing at the same time. I think my dad gave it to me as a keepsake, when he moved and couldnt take it with him. I think he thought it would be of interest to me.

IKEA catalogue. I have never even visited IKEA. I have no idea why I have this in my bookshelf.

Dezra's Quest. Dragonlance. I think I got this dirtcheap somewhere. And thats good reason to get anything. Now, I do have other Dragonlance-books on my bookshelf, but this one I couldnt even finish, and I have finished some really sucky books earlier on.

Dragon Knights. Few years ago, when I was still new to manga, I bought the first ten books in this series. I think I was confident that the book was the highest peek of civilization or something.
Its rubbish. Complete shit. I dont know what I was thinking. I however, did use 150 euros on the books, so I cant just throw them away.

Batgirls everywhere!

In livejournal, there is going this boom of drawing Batgirls. Go take a look, they are very well drawn, I think most of those dudes are professionals. Anyway, even tho I arent professional, I drew one too. If you wish to see what I did with it, just change the number.

This is the only picture I link here; you can see more on my webpage, but I kinda think this was worth a post.

And no, I am not all that happy with the colours I ended up with. But I did draw this from first line to last mouseclick myself. Didnt even use a model.

Best Blonde Joke Ever

Im ashamed to admid but it took me awhile before I got it.

Matti

In the eighties, there was a ski jumper named Matti Nykänen. He wsa said to be the very best jumper in the world; he won olympic gold five times.
I remember vaguely, that when I was in daycare* that we made gold medals to honour him. I brought it home, and showed it to my mom. I was very happy.
Then I went to Africa for few years**. When I came back, no one of my peers in the class remembered him. While I had been in media void for two years, they had seen new things and forgotten the man, the legend. There were new ski-jumpers, and thought they tried to be like him, not one had that "something" that made them interesting. I have the impression that back in the rich eighties skii jumping was something cool, and Nykänen appeared in commercials and whatever; I returned to Finland during the depression of early nineties ****; there were "promising future stars" appearing in few commercials, but after that, nothing.

Of Matti, I didnt know what happened to him. Then I grew older and mom judged we kids were old enough to read rumour-magazines she liked to read, but didnt earlier dare to leave to us kids; and therefore I learned that Matti had become a stripper. That didnt last long. Even later, I heart that between his Golden Days and strippers, Matti had been a singer. A very bad one. mp3's of his songs are still common laughing stock on the hard drive of nearly every male teenager on this country.
Even later, he stabbed a friend of his while drunk, as he was leering on Matti's woman (who he has married three times, I think). Got him jail, and was freed after two years. I heard that few months ago he had repeated this deed. Did he go back to jail, I dont know, I only read the headlines.
I think he has some arrangments with the journalists; he seems to be the equivalent of Royal Family in UK. Thats the regularity he appears in covers. It has been statistically proven that his name in the cover rises sales as much as 20%.

And now Matti is back. They made a movie out of, telling of his later days as a jumper till the time his life starts to fall apart. I havent personally seen the movie. I only write this post as huge intro to the Matti merchantise shops are full here, these days. You see, Matti had this habit of making deep philosophical remarks by mixing finnish and english;
"Elämä on laiffii" (Life is life"), "Jokainen mahdollisuus on uusi tsänssi" (Every oportunity is a new chance) etc. And of course "Ehkä join, ehkä en" (Maybe I was drunk, maybe not).
And there was one thing he made so popular everyone forgets he said it first; "putki päällä", literally "pipe on", meaning everything from getting thru Pac-Man without dying or doing many things succesfully one after another. The orginal meaning, of course, was drinking without pause for days.

I so want one of those black t-shirts or headgear, one of those phrases above printed on it on big white letters.

*I can remember so little from those days, I think I was like three then. Mostly impressions.
**My childhood is divided into parts "before Africa", of which I remember very little, "during Africa", of which I dont remember much more, and "after Africa" which is my life till I was 11***.
***This is when I moved to where I grew into adult.
****Soviet Union fell, and with it most of foreign trade. And after that came the bank crisis. Nineties was not a good time to be in Finland.

Sicky

Short post.
Im sick. Dunno why, but my throat has been REALLY painful the past few days. Started Tuesday night with little itch. Wednesday I couldnt even breath without it being really painful. Today it didnt hurt as much, but I could only get whisper out of my mouth.
Oh, and I couch like a chainsmoker.
Which gets us to the point where I decide to drink hot glög* to help my throat... and then I go to calculate the temperature wrong, causing my mouth being very very tender.

All this would be pretty reasonable, I would just stay home and wait to get better, if not this were the end of the period and all my assingments need to be finished and returned. Its quite nice to do teamwork when other teammember has bad couch and cant really talk...

*Heavily spiced hot wine or berryjuice.

About eternity projects

(Yes, Im still yet to finish my last post, to which I promised sequel, this isint it, though)

Around this time each year, I have a tradition.

Checking out Duke Nukem Forever webpage. And each year I have great laughs on that subject. I remember Daikatana, and laugh heartily again .

Dosen't say anything to you, does this? Yes, Im fastily becoming an old fart, and I know it well. So, I thought I would tell you the story of these two games, as they are very funny indeed.

John Romero was a superstar in videogames (does anyone know why the are called thus? Videogames?). One of the founders of id Software, he was a leading force behind Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake. Each of these games was groundbreaking, and more importantly, financially very, VERY succesful. They developed the First Person Shooter, and to this day, new Doom and Quake can be assured to revolutionarize -or at least, bring something new - to the genre, to what is possible to do with the graphics.

John Romero thought to strike it on his own. He created a new company, named Ion Storm, got Eidos (the company behind Tomb Raider) finanzing it, and announced he would do a game named Daikatana. Now, this would be HUGE. Im quoting wikipedia;
Romero's initial game design, completed in March 1997, called for a huge amount of content -- 24 levels split into 4 distinct time periods, 25 weapons, and 64 monsters. Despite this, Romero believed the game could be completed in seven months, just in time for Christmas 1997. Expect he couldnt. The date got slipping farther and farther into future. And while the game was in develoment Romero lived like a rockstar. He got office for the company in the toppermost floor in a skyscraper (I heard somewhere that the doorknobs there would have been gold), raced heavily modded Ferraris, got interviewed by several periodicals; Time wrote that "Everything that game designer John Romero touches turns to gore and gold." Underlined by the fact that they had things like (again, from wiki;) an infamous [...] advertisement for Daikatana [...] with large black lettering proclaiming "John Romero's about to make you his bitch" [...]nothing else [...] but a small tag-line reading "Suck It Down" and an Ion Storm logo.

In the end the game came out in 2000. The AI of the game sucked, the graphics looked three years old (even six months was "old", thats how fast the industry developed), and many of the salepoints of the game were, infact, its weak points. Did I mention it didnt sell that well?
John Romero was one of the jokes of gaming community back on its day, for examble in Megatokyo, back when it was still good.

Now, to Duke Nukem Forever. There are two Duke Nukem-games in the early 90s, they were pretty run-out-of-the-mill games, where character jumped up and down like Mario and shot aliens (not like in Mario). Then, in '96 Duke Nukem 3D came out.
It was cool. There was multiplayer, you got to shoot aliens (and other players), there were dirty phrases and you could go to toilet to piss or pay strippers so they showed you their tits (thanks to the graphics of that time, it wasnt that special, though). Playing DM3D multiplayer is one of my best memories, back when I was 13. We played it at school on multiplayer (I sucked, I had no idea how to do evasive action and always got shot. I was much better in Quake). Now, DM3D sold really well, really well indeed. And so sequel was announced, in early '97. It would be published by Christmas '98, and it would be huge. It would be better looking, cooler, gutsier &c than any other game in the market.
There was Hype, oh, how there was hype. Back then there was PC Gamer being published in Finland, too. It was rather expensive magazine, as it came with two demo-CD's (back when the topspeed in net was 36k (that is, 3,6 kilobytes per second).. our computer had 28k modem). Me and bros, we gave the magazine as Christmas and birthday-presents to each others, as it was the only way we could justify to each other the price. But thats off the topic. Anyway, it had big hypes on the game, and we bought it all. Even thought it was wrapped in stupid story about the reporter crawling into high-security building stealing peaks on the plans (as opposed to taking part in tour and copypasting from mediafile). And we waited for the game. And waited.
The game was developed by 3D Games and thanks to money from Max Payne (another eternity project) and its sequel, the company floats very well still. Infact, it floats so well that the game is still in develoment. Nine years after they started programming, eight years after it was supposed to be finished. And after nine years, the game still dosent have any screenshots to be shown. Imagine that.
Oh, and in case you are not familiar on the subject, today, game is made in one to three years, depending on the subject. Nine, however, must be the record. The game is still in production, there are people who are still paid to write the code. Would think that employers would notice they dont get anything done.

That is my dream job. To get paid continually for nine years, for the job of one or two, and employer still keeping faith in me that I shall finish it.. one day. And not fairing me.

Endings

Comicbooks (and tv-series, I suppose) can end several ways. And you realise Im talking about series that arent mini- or maxiseries. First one is that, thanks to publishing or deal problems the next issue goes farther and farther to future, until its outright stupid to continue. To average reader this means that the story ends with "to be continued". Examble of this would be Stormwatch: Team Achilles, of which I was huge fan at one point (I own both TPBs).

The second way is that the writer has finished the story, and has enough creative control over the result that he can make definite ends. Such as Sandman, Starman, Transmetropolitan and Preacher.

The third way is that, thanks to bad sales the book will be canceled, and the writer has one to six issues (depending how good the writer is, and how much goodwill towards the company editors want the writer to have) to tie the threads and give some sort of conclusion, similary leaving the characters into situation where new writers can take them and twist them into something that might actually be profitable. Sometimes the new writer and the twist never comes. But lets examine several endings of comicbooks. Spoilers ahoy!

Impulse (read my post from before the last one) ends in issue 89. Max Mercury is meditating, when something attacks and possesses him. It is the evil anti-Flash from the 40s! Max runs away, possessed. Instead of consulting help from the superhero-community, Impulse is moving to Jay Garrick's place (first Flash) in Keystone. Impulse promises to visit his friends but never does. Of Max, nothing is heard, and he ran away nearly ten years ago.
When Bart is seen again, he is immediately shot into the leg, which causes him to lose his illusion of immortality. He becomes very serious and thoughtful character, even taking the name Kid Flash.

Generation X, was about mutant school, its a spin-off of X-Men. Its about the schooling of young mutants, most of which want to become superheroes, X-Men when they graduate. The (spelling?) school has been several times under attack during the last months. The teachers dont seem to have anything to teach anymore, and nobody knows when they would be graduating. All the remaining students decide to quit school. They promise to talk to each other, to call, to have class reunions. They never do. Most of the characters are "kills of the month" during next ten years.

Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E was about teenage superhero and her step-dad, who is sidekick from 40s but is still relatively young thanks to timewarps and whatnot. The comicbook ends after just few issues, into promise that someday Star Spangled-Kid (Girl?) would be great hero. Nowadays she appears in JSA, which is written by the creator of the hero.

X-Man ends when the maincharacter, a telepath of nearly unlimited power sacrifices himself by saving Earth of alternative dimension from being destroyed. The last page implies he is still alive, thru all the people he saved with his heroic action. After seven or eight years, he is no longer mentioned. Ever.

Soldier X was reimagination of Cable. He was very much like X-Man, even shared the same first name and powers. Only he is in his late fifties, and his powers were cribbled by disease that was changing his body into metal. The series was about Cable wandering in Russia, playing Messiah and doing miracles, now that he was healing from the disease. The book has infact two endings; when the writer quits with story how in 2000 years, Cable is remembered as messiah who saved the human race; it is followed by two mediocre stories that dont really connect into previous continity; Cable is again cribbled by his disease, and he is now back in America. The series ends in issue that could end nearly every story. The last two issues didnt really have place in the book.

Spider-Man 2099 was exellent book about future Spider-Man, who is banner in rebellion against corporate rule. He is more extreme than the normal Peter Parker, and his powerlevel and skill is several levels downwards. The first thirty issues are really good writing and art, and then the writer and artist both quit as statement because of the way Marvel was managed. The series then survived two dozen more issues, during which the status quo changes ever more (the alter ego becomes the CEO of the company he was rebelling against; the old CEO is his biological father and Spidey becomes the banner of the company). New villains are introducted, each worse than the previous one. In the end the whole world is flooded. The 2099-universe ends in miniseries which were so crappy I couldnt finish them even thought I got the issues for free.

Superboy was a book about character who thought he was clone of Superman, but wasnt really. After fifty issues on Hawaii and then twenty on Project Cadmus (which was trip down the memory lane back to old Kirby stories), Kid of Steel tries to make it on his own in the big city. New people are introducted during the span of few issues, until Superman appears and takes Superboy to Kent farm. Several of the villains also decide to move to Smallville, but of them nothing is ever heard again.

...

I think its time for me to go to bed; clock is 2:30. I shall continue on this subject later, on a new post.

Rex Mundi

Rex Mundi is a comicbook, from Image, its homepage can be found here. Check it out, the gallery has some very cool wallpapers - that is, if your screen resolution is 1024x800 or under.

Rex Mundi is latin. Apparently it translates into "King of the World". When I opened the first issue - or the zero issue, as it is - I thought Rex Mundi was the name of the character. Indeed, when I heard the name, I had the impression -- dont ask me why -- that this was DC-title, and that the maincharacter was so named and adventurer.

Could I be more wrong?

Julien Sauniére is a doctor. Year is 1933, and the location is Paris. This Paris is capital of Kingdom of France. It is one of the Great Powers, along with United Kingdom, Prussia (read: Imperial Germany), Holy Roman Empire (read: Austria-Hungary) and Ottoman Empire. The Great Experiment of United States didn't work. What was once United States, rising continental power with dreams of greatness, is now divided into Federal Republic of America, Confederate States of America, the lawless Nebraska Corridor and City-State of New York. FRA and CSA are locked into never ending border skirmishes, and the nations can barely keep themselves together. Only New York fares well. And so, Europe is still ruled by the feodal system, as adjusted to the modern world.

In the world of Rex Mundi, the old magics really work. A man who has studied hebrew or armenics can well cast spell of great power. And while Pope, the undivided ruler of Christian World (Luther got killed before reformation got really rolling), dislikes sorcery, it isin't exactly forbidden. The nations are policed by the Inqvisition and they arent happy punch.

Anyway, Doctor Sauniére is a doctor, who late one night is called by his friend, Father Marin. An manuscript has been stolen from secret library he takes care for the Church. If Church finds out that the manuscript has been stolen, Marin is sure to lose his head. And so he begs that Sauniére, whom he knows to be a resourceful man, would look into the matter. But things aren't that easy, and soon bodies start to pile and what looked like simple theft starts to be ever more complicated. It involves Knights Templars, and secrets they left behind, after King had dispanded them, so many years ago.

The story is limited series; in three years, 16 numbers have been written and gone out. I have no idea how many issues for this is planned. Two TPB's have been published, the second came out on the second half of 2005; they are both 176 pages thick, and very reasonable priced; Amazon says about $14, and Suomalainen kirjakauppa €15,70. I am going to order them come Saturday (tomorrow, Friday, shops are closed thanks to some holiday, but bugger me if I know why the day is holy).

To my eyes, the book seems very nicely written and the art is quite beatiful. But dont take my word on it; the official webpage has the Rex Mundi #0 in PDF form, to be downloaded for your use. Also, spin-off comicbook (which, I admid, I have not read) of Brother Mathew can also be found on the page. Apparently, the whole story (as long as the story is) can be found on the wetpage. I frown to the fact that it is in PDF, but you don't look gift horse into the mouth...

Go on, browse the netpage. If I should whine about something, it is the map of Europe. Why is it, that everytime alternative version of European map is drawn, the east border of Finland is all wrong? In the Red Alert game from Westwood Studios, the European map was that of 90s, even thought the game was about World War II (in alternative history); in Rex Mundi, Lapland belongs wholly to Sweden, and I have nothing against it; its part of the story. But why does Finland's east border go where it is today? It is set so thanks to reasons going back to World War II; the borders of both pre-WW2 and Grand Duchy of Finland, as well as Eastern Sweden before that were somewhat more to the east from those shown in this map.

Impulse!

This time I thought to talk a little about a comic book, named Impulse. The backstory to the book was as follows; the Flash is the fastest man on earth; but Flash is not just one man; indeed, three men have used the name. Apart of these three, several other people also share the power. Living at 30th century, Bart Allen is the grandson of the second Flash and the cousin of the third one. Unlike his relatives, Bart was born with superspeed; the ability to run near the speed of light. Somehow his powers didnt work normally, and Bart aging was accelerated. Aging in three years from month-old baby to teenager, he was plugged to Matrix-like computer environment, that teached him how to talk, to write... and that life comes with experience points and the chance to save and load if you happen to die accidentally.

Bart came to 20th century to be healed, and after the aging was halted, he was given to Max Mercury, 200 year old superspeedster to rise and train. (This happened in The Flash #95-102 or so).
The comicbook starts when Max and Bart move to Alabama, to small community where Bart starts going to the ninth grade. The comic book revolves around laughs; much jokes are taken from the fact that Bart thinks the whole secret identity is just one of the ways for Max to torture him; he also has problems to understand that he can die on line of duty.
The comics revolve mainly on Bart trying to cope with normal reality, playing video games and wrapping his thoughts around one idea or another, as Max tries to keep him from killing himself or blowing his secret identity. While he is feeling particulary adventurous, he tries to teach Bart about his powers and about world...
The villains Impulse now and then meets arent that serious either; in the world of Impulse, you can find supervillains location because they have the adress of their secret hideout on their webpage.
The book is not drawn in the normal "realistic" style of american superheroes, but rather in iconic way, that sometimes reminds of manga or grafitis. The book had a run of 100 issues, and near its end it tried to find more readers by having the book to have shares stories with Young Justice, a group in where Impulse was a member (YJ was also rather comical by nature).

After Impulse ended (after 89 issues), most of the supporting characters just vanished. Bart Allen himself continued his adventures in the comc book Teen Titans. And while the book is exellent read, the character (now using the name Kid Flash) dosent have much in common with Impulse.

Pilot episodes

In America, one extralong episode is made, and based on how small group of people react to it, it will be shown on television.. and if people still like it, tv-series will be made. The first episode is known as pilot (just in case you didnt got that).

This short post is about pilots. Wikipedia also has exellent article about the subject. Read it. It's not that long...

...

Done yet? OK! Now, as you could read from that article, most pilots wont last that long. At least here in Finland, there is one whole slot in the telly for failed pilotes. They are quite depressing, all ending with questions of "what happens next". For a person that dosent know these were made are pilots (they are always advertised as "TV-movies") this would be rather shocking. And some of the so-called movies are so sucky that you wonder how they even got that far. And some were so good you wonder why they didnt go farther. In the first category, probaply, there would be Justice League Live Action, that looked rather like Power Rangers; and Generation X, which I thankfully dont remember that much about, but that it was so sucky.

Should the pilot get attention and decision to make real series be made, there can be some time, say, year or two, between the filming of pilot and the first episode (or the third episode, as pilot would be shown as two parter to begin the first season). Of course, during this year much might happen to the people of the shows. They might get forward in their career, and consider television series a step back; or the actor might die.

It is then very amusing for new viewer to wonder why Flash's girlfriend mysteriously vanishes between episodes two and three, and why the style of clothing changes from over-eighties comedy look to something more modern (and less radical)... or why the character is potraited by different actor.. or there is new character that has taken without explanation the place of older character...

People from Turkey

You know them. Every year, usually around the change of the year, they come to IRC, ICQ or maybe MSN. I have no idea where they get your screen name, but there it is. They say "hi", and after little chatting (showing that they have about two years of english studies under their belt, maybe), they will ask if you know turkish (even thought its established that you are American, or North European or maybe Australian). Then they ask to be your pen pal.
There are variations, and sometimes this problem grows bigger... I once remember three turkish people hitting one channel at the same time (without knowing of each other). They started talking in turkish, and after few ignored prompts, it was they who were ignored.
The end result is, that many channels in irc have banned Turkey ip's outright.

So, I have been asked at least three or four times to be penpals by people from Turkey. And they always specified that they meant real letters, not emails. Do they have some sort of school study program down there, that means that they have to have a pen pal from abroad? Because I dont get it.
Nowadays, each time an unknown person starts talking to you in MSN or IRC, and his language/input skills are severly lacking, changes are very good the guy is sitting somewhere in Turkey.

Happy 2006

New year, new tricks, as they say here. Would it be true; 2005 was quite dissapointing. Its amazing, how a thing that is actually quite long can seem so short. In my personal life, what happened?

I got my first "true" summer job, that is, without using family connections.
New computer.
This blog.
Still in school.

So, nothing special. Hope this year happens something good, something big. I would hate to find out the big thing would be someone in my family dying or me being kicked out of school...

Some idle thoughts;
Spent new year with my friends. We burned some rockets and other explosives at pre-Great War trenches*, mostly with "what happens if I do this?" and "is this cool?" mentality (as opposed to "lets shoot things up in the air, to see how beatiful they are"). Spent the turn of the year at bus, while going from one friends home to the next one; saw some great and cool explosions from the (dirty) windows.
We were the only people in the bus (there were three of us), and the bus driver talked to us, and he wasnt exactly happy about his situation, of being working while year changed (thought he did crack some jokes).
Walked home (mom's place), was here half four. Other bro came home soon after, and my youngest brother at five. Today met and had lunch around 1230-1300 with uncle and aunt (my godparents, thought in this family it dosent really mean anything, I suppose), whom I met at Helsinki, after getting there by public transportation (which remainds me I have used over 20 euros this Christmas in transportation... ugh). So didnt sleep that long or well.

Saw my greatmom, who has been very jolly after getting some new medication. She had become ever more angry and depressed during the past ten years, thing she tried to outsource to us. Anyway, is happy now, which I find great. Its actually cool to visit her again, something that had started to be rather a chore lately. Now she seems more like the granma I remember from my early childhood.
However, I cant help but wonder, how much under that happy smile still remains; shes dementic and loses little more of herself each day. I assume that the pills dont improve her status, nor even stop the progress, only makes it more pearabable. And how it feels like to be drugaddled all the time? Would the woman she was, twenty years ago, choose to go without her happy-pills now, rather than live in the cloud all the time? And what exactly does it feel like...
Of course Im happy she has that medication now (she actually calls me and talks to me without complaining about something, which she hasnt done in nearly ten years), but at the same time I feel guilty Im happy about it. Confusing?

* * *
Year 2006. New copyright-law this year, which is very confusing, and dosent make difference between rightful and malevolent copyprotection (its as illegal to remove from the computer copyprotected virus as try to get your CD's play on computer). The law defines "circulating copyprotection" so, that every DVDplayer in this country is, by definition, illegal, even thought it would be nonmodded, and you would be playing legally bought movie. Illegal. It is left to courtrooms and police to determine, where the line of legal and illegal goes. This is something never before seen in Finland, and I would tend to blame the culture minister. Im not going to this more deeply; there are surely enought rants about this online, even in english, if you wiki or google it.

* * *

While using metro today, I saw this guy who was maybe in late fifties, early sixties. I noticed him because he and his pal were blocking the electric stairs, and I couldnt walk past. Very impolite. Anyway, he had this big leather jacket, with big USA Rebellion flag in his back, an eagle over it. And Finland flag and the word "FINLAND" in the jackets arms. I assume he was one of those "racial purity" and "Finland for Finns" people, which makes it so awesome that he has very grand FOREIGN flag on his back, and very small Finland-flag in his arm. Real geniuses, wouldnt you say?

*threnches=around 1913, when Finland was still a Grand Duchy (and the Grand Duke also simultaneously being the tsar of Russia), the ruler became nervous of the news coming from the continent; war was coming. He was nervous of the idea that some enemy power might choose to attack Finland, that didnt really have an army (only small force to keep the peace), and then march thru wilderness to Finland-Russia border and from there to the captial (only 50 kilometres off or so). So, order was given that trenches and security lines should be build, to halt and tire the enemey forces as they land. Now, I don't know how things are where you are, but Finland is entirely made of solid rock, on which valleys there are water and land... So, the trenches had to be made by using dynamite, and then trenches made were from one meter to five meters deep, there were bunkers and all kinds of desings to protect strategical hilltops etc, so when the enemy army would march forward, they would encounter defence line after defence line, that would wear the enemy thin until it could be compeltly destructed.
Now, Finland didn't take part in World War One; Russia fought in central Europe, but the enemy powers never did come to Finland. And then the war was over, and Finland became monarchy, and only months after, republic. The trenches were never used, but being build with stone and beton, they dont vanish. Nearly hundred years have gone past, and at some places trees have grown over the lines, and at some places the stone dosent allow trees to grow; but be it so or not, everywhere where they were build, they can still be seen. And "everywhere" being seemingly every even little higher hilltop in Southern Finland (as opposed to Lapland). They are seen when Im dead, and they are probaply still very visible in two hundred years.
Testament to tsars folly. Building them was very expensive, and they never saw any action.

EDIT 6.1.2006: fixed some typoes and edited for readiblity.