blog.starwreck.com

(English summary: Star Wreck RPG author Mike Pohjola’s first novel was released last friday. It’s in Finnish.)

Star Wreck -roolipelin tekijän, roolipelitaiteilija Mike Pohjolan esikoisromaani Kadonneet Kyyneleet julkaistiin viime perjantaina.

Tällä hetkellä Mike opiskelee Taideteollisessa Korkeakoulussa elokuvakäsikirjoittamista ja CV:stä löytyy myöskin useampi roolipeli, näytelmäkäsikirjoitus, sekä Sanaleikkikirja.

Koska yhtään kappaletta kirjaa ei ole vielä ehtinyt Energialle, niin arvostelupuolella täytyy tyytyä toteamaan, että kansi on hieno. Julkaisijan sivulta löytyy seuraavanlainen juonikuvaus:

Roosan isä on kuollut, eikä koulunkäynti kiinnosta. Äidillä on uusi miesystävä, jonka luona hän mieluummin viettää aikaansa. Roosa ei halua selittää elämäntarinaansa enää yhdellekään psykiatrille. Tuntuu kuin viettäisi puolet kouluajasta juttelemassa kuraattorien ja koulupsykologien kanssa.

Toisaalla, keskellä suurta merta on pieni saari, jossa kasvaa iso omenapuu. Puu on kahden airiin, Punakanelin ja Omenaruusun, koti. Eräänä aamuna kun Punakaneli hyppää alas puusta, hänen jalkansa eivät laskeudukaan omenapuun juurelle, vaan loiskahtavat veteen. Vesi peittää alleen puun juuret ja jokainen aalto nostaa veden pintaa. Saarelta on lähdettävä, keinolla millä hyvänsä, mutta Omenaruusu ei halua jättää kotiaan. Kun Punakaneli yrittää taivutella ystäväänsä, Omenaruusu järkyttyy ja vaipuu syvään uneen. Ainoa tapa pelastaa Omenaruusu on hankkia hänelle airiin kyyneleitä.

Roosan ja Punakanelin kohtalot kulkevat rinnakkain nuortenromaanin sivuilla. Toden ja mielikuvituksen rajat hämärtyvät heidän etsiessään kadonneita kyyneleitä.

The first episode of Iron Sky Signal is here!

The spiritual descendant of Energia Dailies, Iron Sky Signal is a monthly show that will follow the production of Iron Sky from the very beginning to the premiere and beyond! Hosted by the lovely and beautiful Mariel Mettälä.

Part 1

Part 2

You can send your comments, questions and suggestion to Mariel at mariel@ironsky.net or comed and discuss the episode on our forum.

The papers are writing today about Adolf Hitler’s sense of humor. The DailyTelegraph writes:

The dictator would often break from the serious nature of waging his campaign to “pull the legs” of his entourage of generals and hangers on.

His favourite victim was the Luftwaffe chief Herman Goering, who was notoriously fond of awarding himself medals and decorations.
…
Hitler recounted how Mrs Goering found her husband waving a baton over his underwear in the bedroom and asked him what he was doing.
“He replied: “I am promoting my underpants to OVERpants”", Hitler then joked.

Hitler was said to be so proud of his joke that he had medals made from gold and silver paper for Goering to wear on his pyjamas.

Daily Telegraph describes Hitler’s sense of humors as “bad”, Finnish tabloids as “weird”. But hey, imagine working with Herman Göring

Herr Göring was just begging for it…

It was a few weeks after the sharks, and the flying. The panic was sinking in, the unreality, punditry, end of the world.. itry. After the initial safety broadcasts, safety broadcast ignorings, and such, there were the inevitable rash of dog eatings. But soon after, it was noticed that among the dog remains, there was something missing.

Cat remains.

Cats weren’t being eaten, at least by sharks. Inexplicably, and of only mild slightly more than disinterest to cats, the sharks, for lack of a better word, liked them. But in the opposite of the desire to eat, sense. There was much discussion among the edible folk as to why. Much interest in studying cats, capturing and dissecting them, to learn why, was had. Except.

They had to first get past the sharks.

Check out art by The Searcher. You might know him from such internet classics as “Jesus Riding Dinosaurs“, but there’s more. There is a word for stuff like this and it’s AWESOME.

British artists Jake and Dinos Chapman recently held a show titled “If Hitler had been a hippy, how happy would we be”. It consisted of a series of Adolf Hitler’s original watercolor paintings modified by the artists to include rainbows, psychedelic skies and smiley faces - thus making them much more interesting. This here is a great example of creation trough destruction.

There is more about the exhibition in The Times.

Arttu, a swell guy who helped with the editing of the Iron Sky demo/teaser, is a really active fellow. Now he’s been involved in the design of an intriguing online game called Swell. Well, maybe calling it an online game gives the wrong impression. The designers themselves call it a “web riddle”.

Swell is a collection of clues - mostly visual ones - making up a set of “levels”. The goal is to discover the way to the next level until the end is reached. (I’m told there is an end, but it’s not easy to reach, and anyway the game is expanding.) Advancement generally happens by figuring out the URL of the next level, or finding a link and thinking of a password. There’s a social aspect, in that there’s an IRC channel dedicated to discussing Swell.

While it’s definitely not everyone’s cup of tea, Swell is pretty much guaranteed to hold your interest if you’re into puzzles and brain games. Personally, I fell for the Finnish geocaching/riddle game “Tajunnanvirta” (a version of Igor Naverniouk’s Funny Farm) some time ago, so if you like those, you might get a kick out of Swell as well. If not, well, you should try everything once. It seems that something… familiar can be found later on…

The address where Swell resides is http://swell.kapsi.fi.

May 21, 2008: Not so long ago, anyone claiming to see flashes of light on the Moon would be viewed with deep suspicion by professional astronomers. Such reports were filed under “L” … for lunatic.

Not anymore. Over the past two and a half years, NASA astronomers have observed the Moon flashing at them not just once but one hundred times.

So, it seems that our friends from the far side of the moon are already testing out some weapons. Hope they don’t come back earlier than expected, or we need to change our tagline :(

Here’s the full story on NASA.

The Awesome Huba4 will be shown on Finnish TV2 next week. They’ve also got a english subtitled version available on their brand spanking new website.

Hubaveikkojen viimeisin pitkä komedia Huba4 - Naurat vain kolmasti nähdään TV2:ssa tulevana maanantaina kello 23.40. Tämä on mitä mainioin tapa aloittaa koulujen kesälomat. Mikäli Hubat eivät ole tuttuja, niin kyseessä on hauskin kotimainen sketsisarja sitten Julmahuvin - sillä erotuksella, että Hubat ovat Wreckin tapaan kotipolttoisia ja alunperin nousseet kansan tietoisuuteen nettilevityksen kautta. Myöskin Huba4 löytyy katsottavaksi ja ladattavaksi porukan uudistuneilta kotisivuilta Creative Commons -lisenssillä.

Jos Huba on katsottu puhki, niin sunnuntaina 00.30 esitetään making of -dokkari “Ensin työ, sitten making-of” joka on aiemmin nähty vain DVD:llä.

Uutta hauskaa on jo suunnitteilla, joten kannattaa myöskin käydä antamassa Ylelle myönteistä palautetta esityksestä, niin ehkäpä Huban tekijät saisi pysyvämmänkin jalansijan televisiosta.

(Huba YouTubessa)