The Butt Ugly Weblog

What kind of a moron would buy a train ticket for 30th May instead of 30th April, if he intends to travel today?

You're looking at one. It really is a fine weekend to screw up your seat reservation - all the trains are packed.

I have a bad feeling about this.

No, you are not supposed to understand that. But since others like to quote song lyrics, I figured I might as well. Consider it a challenge. It's one of my favourite songs (and I just hope I quoted the right part).

Had the most distressing conversation at work yet. You know how sometimes things and projects you thought you had buried and were long gone, can suddenly come back from your five o'clock and knock you with a two-by-four?

C-l-o-s-u-r-e.

It's an important word. And the older you get, the more you realize you have to learn it, and apply it properly. And if it cannot be done as it should be done, sometimes the best solution is to drop everything and just walk away.

I have to meditate upon this.

I don't usually comment on the Google keywords people use to arrive on this site, but about these two (from a single IP within five minutes from each other) I gotta say something:

"unable to form relationships", and "dealing with being ugly".

Hell, what can I say?

You should start blogging. It is sometimes easier to write to an invisible audience (even though consciously, you know people out there read your blog) than taking up personal issues with friends, relatives or casual acquaintance. It's like a free, bad shrink that just listens and provides no answers.

But it does help.

The value of the blogs is that it allows different voices to bloom, and find their audience. This article about dating and blogging says it in the simplest possible terms:

If you blog about what you love, you're bound to attract a reader who loves the same thing, and perhaps with a little coercion, he or she could come to love you as well.

Update: Well, I seem to be #15 on a search for Jean Paul Gaultier male miniskirts as well. No comments.

I got a dance mat for my PS2 as a birthday present. So far, I've nearly twisted my ankle, and banged my head against the lamp.

But it's actually loads of fun: you get to feel again like a complete klutz when you can't do even simple transfers of your bodily weight. Kinda like when I first started martial arts. You also feel completely stupid because you can't recover from a simple mistake after missing rhythm. And also, you sweat like a pig after 30 minutes on it. Though frankly, I don't know whether pigs really sweat that much.

And in fact, the whole thing has rather little to do with dancing. Perhaps, with more practice, it might be possible to develop a knack for "improvisation in a confined space", but so far it feels more like an exercise routine. A pre-programmed performance, so to say.

But I ain't complaining. I can't dance (any teachers around?), but this sure is quite fun ;)

Here's a new addition to the IT dictionary:

laptop ballet: the movements made by a person hurrying to a meeting, when he realizes he does not know where this meeting takes place, and that information is only in the email, but he is too busy or lacking a suitable place to sit down, so he ends up running down the hallway, balancing the laptop with one hand, and using the computer with the other.

Sometimes you also see this being performed with PDAs and cell phones, but these are nowhere as spectacular as the full 3 kg IBM Thinkpad version, performed in a narrow corridor in sync with 20 other people.

You know the party has been good if you still have people sleeping in your apartment at 11 o'clock. ;-)

Thank you, everyone! :)

I got challenged by Benrope (Finnish) to share this picture with you all. See, if you can guess which part of my luscious body it is?

I'll rethrow the challenge to Earl Grey, whose eloquent commentary to a certain... person got me smiling for hours. It's amazing how unbalanced the world is: one person can create negativity very easily by insulting others with few simple words, whereas trying to make someone feel good will take hours and hours. And bad feelings take a lot longer to dissipate than a good mood.

Sometimes I wonder why this is so - why is the world such that destruction is easier than construction?

Bought a new jacket in Harajuku. Here are the complete washing instructions:

Help... Where do I find fluorescent detergent? And how do I wash my jacket separately with other things? What is soapless soap? And what exactly is the stuff on the clothes that is so darned happy?

Whee! I'm in Roppongi, in bar Geronimo, celebrating my birthday. Again, Harajuku turned out to be a deathtrap to my wallet...

Anyway, I'm using a friend's borrowed 3G-phone to blog. :-) *warm technofuzzies*

Went to see the Sony Media World. Met QRIO. Saw PSX. Saw an 800g laptop. Was also treated to some new, astounding laser display technology. Turned 34 years old. Drunk beer. Drunk, period.

Very impressed now.
Can't talk in complete sentences.
The geek purrs in me.

(Found orange Pockys. Yay!)

Well, today it has been 27 degrees warm, and I have been bitten by the first mosquito of the summer. Yay. *scratch*

Actually, to continue the theme of relaxation: the Japanese have this wonderful invention called furoo, the hot bath. It feels scalding at first, but slowly you are overcome by this blissful drowsiness; much like in a sauna. They are in many ways similar in culture and purpose, and mostly they both just feel incredibly good in a country where it's actually bloody cold most of the time.

(Sorry, brain calls timeout. I was supposed to write more, but it refuses to work anymore, citing overtime legislation. Sorry.)

How come the Copenhagen airport has wireless internet access, but no powerstrips? Heh. You can't even pay for more than four hours of internet access, but I guess that's okay since your laptop battery will die in four hours anyway...

It's very sad, you know. Weep with me.

(On the other hand, while traveling is stressful, in an odd way it's also very comforting. A whole blissful 15 hours during which you are not expected to make any decisions, just follow the signs, sit in a cramped space, stretch and eat whatever is given to you, taken care of by professionals. It's really a very zen-like experience in all its calmness. Much like going to a spa or something.

I'm not so certain whether it is a bad thing to be docile and subservient every now and then. At least you are paying a lot of money for the privilege.)

Off to travel again. This time to Japan.

I think I need more destinations.

Somebody stole my rubber boots! I've been meaning to buy a new pair for ages now, and once I finally manage to drag my ass to the store and get them, some lard-ass, no-good, glue-sniffing punkboy steals them.

Why? I have no idea. They were in the trunk of the car, and what do I notice this morning? The bloody thieves did not stop at the boots, no! They had to take the sixpack of beer from the trunk as well AND the entire car.

*sigh*

Update: found the car. It had been moved by the city, due to some sudden maintenance work. Phew.

You know... I just realized another reason why the idea of software patents annoys me to no end.

When you are applying for a normal patent (say, a new way of manufacturing springs), you have to provide enough information on how "someone skilled in art" could build a duplicate. The dual idea being that if you know how a patented invention works, you can avoid it - and also once the patent expires, it is then readily available for the common good.

However, most of the software patents I've read only contain very vague descriptions about how the system really works. I do consider myself being "skilled in art", but it would still take me effort do duplicate the ideas presented in those. And that's what they are: ideas. They are not implementations, nor algorithms, not even flow charts. They are just that, general ideas on how a problem could approximately be solved. Which means they are pretty easy to infringe - drafting such a patent does not even require a functional implementation to prove it works.

I would really like to see the actual source code (or UML charts, or whatever) be added to the patent applications, as mandatory components. This would greatly add to the visibility and clarity of the patent applications, probably making them easier to understand to the patent office engineers as well - it's much harder to obfuscate code than it is to write vague descriptions on how things are supposed to work. Currently patents pretty much describe software as a machine, but you can examine a machine - build it and let it work to understand the process how it works. But with software, the process flow is integral to the invention, and thus should be described as well.

Of course, I don't mean patenting the actual implementations: software lives and evolves (and it should be allowed to do that), but there should be enough code so that it works, and the idea becomes clear.

One of the sad, geeky things I do for fun is to follow my referrer log, i.e. checking out the sites that people come to this weblog from. Sometimes, your site gets listed in the oddest of places, and with luck, you may find other interesting links from those sites. You can think of it as some sort of a website Friendster: different web sites get listed together if they have something in common. Though often, the common factor tends to be something you don't expect.

For example, I saw a bunch of people coming to Things You Can Do With Your Laundry But Probably Should Not from an Italian discussion board, which in turn leads me to... Happy Tree Friends, a wacky and violent cartoon with episodes that last only a couple of minutes. You know, the kinda stuff that would be perfect to forward to your friends if your mobile phone could play them.

I can't stop marveling the amount of talent and creativity that people keep pouring onto the Internet.

Remember: Never send email at 4:30 in the morning. Especially, if you are still drunk.

Sometimes I wish there was also an intelligent filtering system on my outbox as well as inbox. I wonder if I could rig SpamAssassin to delay outbound messages if they seem particularly stupid? Hey, it works for spam :)

Afterthought: Things could be worse - I could've blogged my thoughts. So perhaps I'll just breathe a sigh of relief.

Mindy (in Finnish) has gender issues.

So do I, apparently, in this gender role test:

Sukupuolirooliltasi olet ensisijaisesti feminiininen.
(Feminiinisyys: 55 / Neutraalius: 40 / Maskuliinisuus: 50).

Moi? Feminine? Waht?

Anyway. I returned home yesterday at around 21.30, and was faced with three tasks:

• Cook food, since I had forgotten to eat during the day
• Install new digital cable box with a hard-drive recorder
• Wash an ungodly pile of dirty clothes

See if you can try to guess in which order I performed these?

Yup. Guessed right. Congrats.

Sad, innit?

Today, I bought rubber boots, and some mämmi, the curious Finnish delicacy that looks like it has already been digested once.

What more could a single man hope for the weekend?

Spent most of yesterday evening wandering aimlessly in the local IKEA, having a Tyler Durden moment. It all looked so ugly, and... empty. Void of all emotions. Like a cage, built of warm colors and gentle wood.

My hair is now orange-ish. The hairdresser next to the office said that it was good to do something else than always the plain, average cut to the plain, average engineers.

Perhaps this all is fighting, refusal to become average.

Maybe it is futile, and I am just lying to myself.

Via Visa. But I will shorten it, and only answer a single question. The only question I care for anymore.

If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
I would take one certain person, and give her the love she seeks, because it is what she deserves. But which was not mine to give.

I don't want to hurt anyone else ever again.

Please excuse my low bitrate for now. Too much to think.

There's little I can or want to say right now.

Spent the afternoon and evening doing hanami at Ueno park (with approximately 200,000 very drunken Japanese people) and watching the moon. Then we ended up singing karaoke at a 8-story Karaoke building in Shibuya with beautiful Russo-Finnish ladies. Yes, even I sang. There was little reason not to.

Japanese way of doing karaoke is actually not that bad: you go to a small room (alone or with a bunch of good friends), fire up a TV, choose a song from 50,000 alternatives, sing to your heart's content, drink beer, repeat. It's a way of self-expression and relaxation, not a method for nursing your inner diva.

It's kinda like blogging is for most people. You just write to yourself or a bunch of close friends, and don't worry it about any more than that. Only the most curious, the most vocal - and unfortunately, the most read - persons worry about how and why they write, what is "right" blogging, why people don't like their writing, why people do like their writing, and other issues of insignificance.

It's just a song.

It's just text.

Don't worry about it too much.

How can you NOT like a country where even toilet seats come with remote controls?

Anyhow... This is my first trip in Tokyo where I'm staying in a hotel. Always before have I done the backpacking thing, staying in friends' homes or renting an apartment. But... The amount of politeness that the Japanese are pouring over you when you stay in a hotel is overwhelming. TWO beautiful girls escorted me to my room, and even the desk clerk was bowing over backwards at the inconvinience I had to endure when there were no non-smoking rooms available. It was funny, though, to hear a Japanese person say "impossible". I would've expected "difficult" (which usually means the same thing), but telling someone outright that something cannot be done? Amazing.

Oh well. A shower, shave and Pocari Sweat make me a man again. Woohoo! Tokyo! :-D

(Interesting tidbits learned from fast-food friends in the airplane: Apparently, in Malmö (Southern Sweden), 67% of women giving birth come from the Arabic countries. The implications are left to the reader as an exercise; I'm going out :)

Please excuse my childish joy over being bumped to business class onto the flight to Beijing. ;-)

The Chardonnay in the lounge was rather nice, though perhaps a bit woody. The cork may have been faulty, but otherwise quite acceptable with Carelian pastries.

</posh> :-D

(This entry was moblogged from the airplane. ;)

So, I write deep and thoughtful pieces on human life, or useful technical analyses, and what do I get? A couple of comments, and no links. OK, fair enough. Nobody really cares - I can live with that.

But then I post a biased, opinionated rant about how good Mac OS X is (of which most was copied from Jeremy Zawodny), and I get on the front page of TWO major Mac newssites, and MANY comments, completely agreeing with everything I said. Not a single whiff of disagreement.

It's kinda like going into a full church and shouting "God is Great!" from the top of your lungs - and the whole congregation goes off with an ear-deafening "Hallelujah!"

Scary.