Note: The older the entry, the unlikelier outside links are to work.

While GWB and his U.S.A are still hardly pressing for an offensive against Iraq and it's leader Mr. Hussein, this classic story below sort of reminded me of the whole current situation, wouldn't you agree? Of course the Canadians are at least aboot twice as dangerous as the Iraqis. Don't forget they still remain the only nation in the world to have succesfully burned down the White House...

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This is the actual radio conversation (released by the chief of naval operations) of a US naval ship with Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October 1995.

CANADIANS: "Please divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision."
AMERICANS: "Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid a collision."
CANADIANS: "Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision."
AMERICANS: "This is the captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course."
CANADIANS: "No, I say again, you divert YOUR course."
AMERICANS: "This is the Aircraft Carrier USS LINCOLN, the second largest ship in the United States Atlantic Fleet. We are accompanied with three Destroyers, three Cruisers and numerous support vessels. I DEMAND that you change your course 15 degrees north. I say again, that's one-five degrees north, or counter-measures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship."
CANADIANS: "This is a lighthouse. Your call."

Seems like Jani's arrival in Irkutsk caused such a major explosion of joy that even our dear website stopped working, or more likely it was all these horrible rains Europe has been having. Just look at these dreadful pictures from my backyard!.

Actually they are pictures from Germany, and by the look of it, maybe they do need those 4 billion megabucks we gave them after all!! Anyway, first of all let us apologize for any inconvenience or lack of sleep caused by this interruption on kekkuli.com (did anyone notice?). All is back to normal now, the email forwarding service is working, the discussion board is still as dead as usual and we are back with more smart dialogue. Or at least myself. Jani is somewhere beyond civilization. I will be off line soon too, as I'm heading down to central Europe on car in a couple of days (To help with the after-flood cleaning? They wish!). Destinations include Ljungby, Oldenburg, Arras, Gent and a few other places not even worth mentioning. Happy travels to all. Updating kekkuli will be difficult, but at least this time we promise that the service itself will keep on running. We even signed the honesty-promise George W. Bush sent over! I swear it's true! Also our accounting is tip-top!

But to not leave you totally emptyhanded (or rather emptystomached) in the meantime, maybe you can add some new items to your already boring menu. Try the Koala burgers, they are g-r-e-a-t!!

It's once again time to bid farewell for awhile. This time, I'm leaving on a train trip through Russia to Beijing (the infamous Trans-Siberian railway). I'll be gone for four weeks, during which it it VERY unlikely that I'll
1) write anything on kekkuli.com
2) get any kekkuli.com -email addresses (which have become very popular recently) activated
3) take a warm shower.

Hope you can live with that (I know the shower part is pretty tough). Meanwhile, Tero will be here to keep you company, unless he decides to go somewhere as well. If you still get really bored, you can play Bruce's Paranormal Death Match.

Since Tero mentioned the four billion euros transferred to the German government by a Finnish state company, I thought I'd put a positive spin on it. If the Finnish government called it "development aid", Finland would double its development aid and reach the UN-target of 0.7 % of GDP to development aid. We all know Germans desperately need that aid.

As talk is on Europe these days, and especially on European (mis)communications with companies like Sonera and their multibillion dollar telecoms adventures in Germany, I thought it would be fun to have this old time classic posted here on kekkuli.com. Mostly because it pokes fun at the Germans. Return us the 4 billion you stole!!

The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, the British government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement, and has accepted a five year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short). In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c". Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this new with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, bur typewriters kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20 persent shorter.
In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Government will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e" in the language is disgrasful, and they would go.
By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" by "z" and "w" by "v".
During ze fifz year, ze unnesesary "o" kan be droped from vords kontaining "ou", and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli snsibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru.

And I thought I was the only one interested in the new eurocoins, which have a different heads-side in all the 12 euro-countries. Apparently, some people are making academic studies on how the coins are spreading throughout Europe. And supposedly, in a few year's time, the coins will be evenly distributed throughout Europe. Which means that most coins everywhere will be German. They sure should've thought of that 50 years ago.
Oh yeah, the studies: a Dutch study and a German study.

One of the regrets of modern computing is that big game producers don't make games where several people sit at the same computer anymore. In the good old days, computer-gaming wasn't such a sign of solitude and geekiness (ok, maybe geekiness), but more of a social gathering. So if you can't trust big gamehouses to produce good multi-player games, you have to go to a different source. Luckily on the internet, it's not that difficult to find small amusing games to play with a bunch of friends.
KOPS is a game I played years ago in high-school during almost every single break. I don't know if it retains its original addictivity if I tried it today, but at least back then it was hugely entertaining. The game revolves around flying a spaceship in a maze, collecting different kinds of weapons and killing the other players
Triplane Turmoil was another hit in high school. What's different to KOPS is that you fly a triplane and try to kill the other players. Meanwhile, you can also bomb down some buildings. As a special bonus, the game isn't completely stupid and boring even if played just by yourself.
Last, but definitely not least, the game today's heading refers to: Jump'n'Bump. Instead of flying something and trying to kill the other players, you're all cute little bunnies that when they jump on each other explode in a bloody pulp. Very, very entertaining for three or even four players. Especially when drunk. And if you can have a good time playing this game alone, you know you're very, very stoned.

In its always-awe-inspiring creativity, Hollywood keeps coming up with movies to look forward to. In its less awe-inspiring creativity, most of these movies are sequels, most of them worse than the original movie(s). Actually, movies are often the exact opposite of computer games: as the latter improve with bigger numbers (try playing the original Civilization after having played Civilization III), the former just keep getting worse as the latin numeral increases (remember Rocky V? Or Nightmare on Elm Street whatever?) To releave themselves of the Curse of the Latin Numeral, movie producers have come up with an ingenious way-around: let's not number the movies at all, let's just have a lot of movies with very similar titles. Hence you have Die Harder, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey and Debbie Does Kentucky, just to name a few famous sequels.
Long introduction cut short (too late now I guess), this year there are actually quite a few sequels to look forward to (Star Wars Episode II was one of them, MIB II was not). And in the usual Kekkuli-we-aim-to-please-way, here is a list to some of their trailers, which you can either watch online or download to enjoy later. To watch, you need Quicktime. To download you don't need anything, but if you want to watch the downloads, you need a DivX-player.

Austin Powers: Goldmember Download Watch
(Some of you have maybe seen this movie already, but we're still waiting for it here in Europe. Groovy baby!)

Matrix Reloaded Download Watch

Lord of the Rings: Watch or Download
(You got a hand it to LOTR-makers, they're the only ones providing a downloadable version on the movie's official site)

I am not sure if you recall the picture of the small boy making lovely handgestures in his football shirt (go to the archives if you don't!), but now one of kekkuli's smarter readers spotted something I wasn't really trying to have anybody buy anyway. Here is how Kaj from Finland put it:

"I really donīt believe the boy is English because very few english football supporters wear Dutch shirts. And the boy is wearing a Feyenoord shirt!!"

So well done Kaj for spotting this fake of mine. I really had a difficult time finding a genuine picture of an English boy. I think the paeodophiles have downloaded them all. Anyways, as I didn't expect all of our readers to swallow my slighty anti-british hinting on this occassion, I deserve a slight slap on my face. Anyway, as a reward, Kaj will receive the music CD "Four Happy Incas - Live at Budoka", as soon as its released later in October, 2007. Oh, and here is a picture Kaj sent us, which shows him taking the piss out of some poor Irish lassy during the world cup.

My contribution to culture this week is this link for the yearly just-begun Edinburgh Festival, which is on during August. Make sure you try your best to be there, for it is one hell of a party. The best events and the brightest stars are around usually during the first weeks, so try to make it then, even if you are not a star or even that bright. So, either see you there or spot me in the news hanging naked on a lamp-post! And keeping up with our promise of providing you with it, whatever it is, girls attending the festival can bring one of these along, if they think the toilet cues will be as bad as usually...

And I MUST mention how proud I am to have been the 1111st, 2222nd and the 3333rd visitor on kekkuli.com. Now there is one fine accomplishment to look back in life. I rule! Also, I have no life.