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

With a headline like that, you'd think I'd have something to write about curling, wouldn't you? That couldn't be farther from the truth. All I wanted to do, before the memory of the Olympics completely fades away, was to link this hilarious article by Dave Barry on the subject. Nothing else going on here. Move along.

Anyone who has ever tried to write something comical knows that satire is probably the most difficult feat to pull succesfully. That's why the masters of it need all the encouragement they can get, which in the case of getting a link on kekkuli.com isn't very much but hey, we're doing our best.
Anyone who has ever tried to read something satirical on the net has most probably come across the Onion. And for good reason: many a internet discussion board uses the phrase: "Funny, but it's not the Onion" to put an almost-hilarious piece of comedy in its rightful place. I should warn you, if you do go to that link, you will find yourself going deeper and deeper into its depths, eventually realizing that you were supposed to go to sleep three hours ago and now you'll have to get up in just a few hours so you might just as well spend those reading some more Onion articles. If you're not ready for that kind of a commitment, I've made it easy for you and picked one classic article for you to enjoy, without having to confront all the other appealing links and articles: Study Reveals: Babies are stupid.

Internet domain names can be very confusing. One very good example of this is the fact that there are so many different kinds of "white houses" out there in cyberspace. You'd think most people would be looking for that place where the president of the US lives in, but what's the address for that again? Dubya dubya dubya dot whitehouse dot what? Dot com is very obviously the wrong choice, although not as obviously so under the Clinton presidency. After that, though, it gets tricky. Very few people are apparently aware that there is such an extension as dot gov, which makes for a great possibility to take advantage of people's stupidity. Dot org is the more ambitious attempt, providing a full site of close-but-not-quite-Bush-like news and press releases. There are new and innovative ways of ending the war on drugs, as well as the Operation Mandatory Patriotic Tattoo.
But at dot net, which is a leaner site than dot org, the difficulty of satire is proven by the level of competition from idiotic people. Sure, satire is funny and all that, but it could never reach the level of hilarity offered by people too stupid to realize it's satire. Just look at dot net's comments board if you don't believe me. Stupid, stupid people. Or is just satire?

So, the Olympics are finally over then, and the time to look back and contemplate has come. Some of you are jumping up and arguing that the Olympics are not over at all, but then you must not be Finnish or even more so, Swedish. I have chosen not to watch the Olympics any more, mainly due to the fact that the Finnish Ice-Hockey team is out, but not only for that.

I will not watch the olympics for a few simple reasons such as:

- NBC has a greedy monopolized grip on the television and broadcasting rights for the Olympics, which means people without expensive satellites or cable-tv are unable to take part in this supposingly world-uniting event. Also, (and even worse) everything, and I mean everything, being broadcasted comes with a proudly-waving US flag and some reference to the patriotic and heroic Americans. Sure, NBC is American and they paid billions for the rights, but don't forget there are other people in the world besides you. And who wouldn't prefer to watch even Belarussian hockey over some sport called skeleton... Anybody heard of it? No? Well, you will soon, an American guy won...

- The Games are partly fixed and often very much pro-American (see also point above). I mean, if the US guy in this skating incident had been the first one to cross the finish line initially, I am 100% sure he would not have been dis-qualified. If you saw this event live, I am sure you would at least admit that there was no clear error done at all. But these weird fixings affect other events too.

- The Olympics involve too much money, too much sponsorship and too much controversy and bitterness nowadays. Long gone are the times when Olympic athletes were not only amateurs, but they were true, humble and honest sportsmen, who participated in order to be part of something bigger, not only because it makes Nike (and the athlete's bank account) look good. Maybe we will get those days back sometime, once the Olympic committee stops taking bribes and hell freezes over.

Ok, ok, I admit it. I'm just upset about Finland's loss. Ignore me.

Today, for the first time since the year 1111, the world can rejoice in celebrating a complete "palindrome day". Palindromes, as we all know, are words, text strings and numbers that can be read both from left-to-right and right-to-left, with the same result. An example would be: "A man, a plan, a canal, Panama." Sentences like these often turn out quite silly. If sentence palindromes interest you, Palindrome Paradise is the place for you.

What we're interested here are date palindromes. For many of you, this won't make any sense, since Americans are used to writing dates in a confused and confusing order, namely month-day-year. The way-more logical way of day-month-year is used almost everywhere else in the world, but for some reason Anglo-Americans have a hard time grasping logical and straight-forward ways of measuring things (as witnessed by the recent "Metric Martyrs" -case in England). Anyway, as I was writing, today's the first complete palindrome day, 20.02.2002, since 11.11.1111. What's more, at 20:02 (another no-no for you Americans out there: it's 8:02 p.m. for you. Sheesh!) we can pop the champagne to honor the palindome minute, which was also celebrated last time in the late morning on one November day in the 12th century. We'll have plenty of time to cure from our hangover this time as well, since the next palindrome minute will occur on 21.12.2112 at 21:12. Before that, though, we'll have plenty of palindrome days: 21.02.2012, 22.02.2022, 23.02,2032 etc. Enjoy it while it lasts!

The Olympics have now advanced to the critical stage of quarterfinals. Well, not the Olympics as such but the only sport there worth watching, Ice-Hockey. Tomorrow will be a no-show-day for me at the office, as my favorite team Finland will try to dissolve the Canadians. No matter how the game ends, it should be an exciting event, so may the best team win! Although I do wish that the Finns win and if not there will be riots. Watch it on NBC (the Hockey, not the riots... better tune in on the Argentinian channels for those...) and make sure you watch it at the right time!

And speaking of winning, read this great article from fool.com on how to win the lottery, without even playing... Anyway, here is how lotteries really work:

A man moved to Texas and bought a donkey from an old farmer for $100. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.
Come morning, the farmer drove up and said, "Sorry, but I got some bad news. The donkey died."
"Well then, just give me my money back."
"Can't do that. I went and spent it already."
"OK then, just unload the donkey."
"What ya gonna do with em."
"I'm gonna raffle him off."
"Ya can't raffle off a dead donkey!"
"Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't tell anyone he's dead."
A month later the farmer met up with the guy and asked, "What happened with the dead donkey?"
"I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at $2.00 apiece and made a profit of $898."
"Didn't no one complain?"
"Just the guy who won. So I gave him his $2.00 back."

In an ever-expanding corner of the internet, there exists a site called Fark.com. Having started out small, it's now a huge monstrosity of links, people and wasted time. After my yesterday's post, I figured I'd submit a link to the "Einstein riddle" to Fark, and against all odds, it was posted on the main page. The results were manyfold:
-The riddle file was accessed almost 9000 times, which is about 9000 times more than the next-most accessed file on kekkuli.com.
-The counter on the main page more than doubled in one single day.
-The amount of votes in the sidebar poll also more than doubled.
-I received several emails to my kekkuli-address, which has never happened before.
-For the first time, I have to hope these pages suck so bad that people don't want to revisit, or there will be serious problems regarding bandwidth.

In addition to providing a link to a file, Fark also has a comments board for each link posted. On the comments board for my link, there was a link to a page outlining very nicely the problem-solving steps, also giving the correct answer. The answer is also given several times on the comments board, which is also filled with discussion on why the problem sucked and how easy it was to solve. Constructive criticism is what you'll find mostly on Fark comments boards.

It might be that this was something of a turning point for this site, provided that even a small fraction of those that found kekkuli yesterday come back at some point. Of course, it can also be that this will always remain a freak occurence in the otherwise-quiet history of kekkuli. In either case, it was a refreshing event.

Motivated by all this action, I've now also placed a comments forum here on kekkuli. It's the cheapest thing ever (meaning I got if free), but it'll do for now. When I get even more energy, I'll try to make it look better. You can get to it from the link on the left.

After a hefty weekend celebrating a friend's wedding, I'm not in the ultimate mood to work with brain exercises, but maybe someone out there is having a boring weekend and want's to do some brain work. For starters, you could take the Spark's IQ test just so you know where you stand. Once you're satisfied with your result, see if you can solve this little teaser, supposedly created originally by Einstein himself. And if you pass that test, see what Mensa thinks of your chances to join their club. Of course, only people with low self-esteem see it necessary to join a club just so they can say they're smart. You know you could join if you wanted to, but you just don't see the reason why you'd need to do that, right?
Well, if you're so smart, you tell me why this dangerous chemical hasn't been banned throughout the world already?

Although it is indeed Valentines Day today, I am not talking about a wedding ring here at all, even if that is the real ring to rule them all, or at least the one to rule him. Neither is this about the Olympic rings. I am talking about the movie Lord of the Rings – Fellowship of the Ring (a.k.a. LOTR – FOTR), which has been nominated to a whopping 13 Oscar statues this year. I think that is some sort of a record. But taking aside such un-important thing as the Oscars, the tale of LOTR is one not to be missed. They say the English-speaking world is divided into two categories of people, those who have read the book and those who are going to read it. Here is the story on how the movie came to be. Also, check out both the official LOTR website and this not-so-very-official LOTR website, which contains some quite funny material. Visit the Hobbit name generator and become a citizen of Hobbiton. And to complete the circle, download the beautiful song from the movie “May It Be” by Enya from the AudioGalaxy website. I think AudioGalaxy is trying to take over Napster’s legacy. Fine with me, for it looks (and sounds) pretty good so far. Their software might cause some problems with your Microsoft Outlook, but then again, its Microsoft... nothing works anyway!

So its Valentines Day and you should send flowers and take loved ones for a spin in town, but be careful out there tonight. Here is a good example of celebration gone wrong.

Exactly five months ago, it was impossible to talk about any other subject but THE event. Today, we are much in the same situation, only this time the event is a bit more relaxed and less earth-shattering, namely the Olympics. With the winter olympics, you might be safe from it all in some distant African jungle, but when the summer olympics come rolling, everyone's involved. The World Cup is something of a similar event (coming up in just a few months). So whether you like sports or not and live in the northern hemisphere, for the next few weeks you'll hear of the olympics. We here at kekkuli don't want to go against the tide, not at least as long as I can't come up with anything better to write about.

Nine events have been competed in (out of 78), and nine gold medals have been awarded, to nine different countries. Spain has received one of their few gold medals in history, thanks to a German guy who didn't like his national skiing federation and changed nationalities. If these nationality-switches become ever more popular, it'll soon cease to make sense to count medals according to countries. But while we're on the subject of nonsense in sports, what's the deal with doping? Everyone's doing it, it's not that much unhealthier than professional sports in general (when was the last time you saw a healthy athlete?), equipment is allowed to be improved constantly, why not just make it simple and call it free-for-all? The audience wants to see better results, so there's obviously a market for puffed-up athletes. If someone wants to do it, let them. In the first modern olympics, training and coaching was thought of as cheating (remember that thing about olympic athletes needing to be "amateurs"?) We should be on a path to make doping as accepted as these methods of improving your results are.

While you're at it, legalize all drugs.

Many of you have been intensively wondering about the meaning of the word kekkuli, or maybe you haven’t. Either way, and after extensive studies, research and development, we have come up with a summary of various meanings for this word. These should leave all questions answered and all curious souls satisfied.

- According to the Finnish dictionary the word ‘Kekkuli’ comes from the word ‘Kekku’, which means “A small wooden cup for spirits” (pieni pirtupänikkä). ‘Kekkuli’ can also be used as a synonym for being in a slightly confused state of mind, i.e. drunk.

- According to the English Premier League, a player whose name is Keith Armstrong is nicknamed ‘Kekkuli’.

- According to a Finnish student magazine called “Julkku”, ‘Kekkuli’ is a drunken messenger (Juopunut lähetti).

- According to the Finnish Army, ‘Kekkuli’ is the man who directs indirect artillery fire (tulenjohtomies).

- According to some guy, ‘Kekkuli’ stands for; “A totally useless person who doesn’t know anything about anything, but is able to speak in the right manner about totally incomprehensive things and thus will receive the reputation of an important person.”

- According to us here at kekkuli.com, ‘Kekkuli’ is a general word, a dear child with many names, and can mean basicly anything and used in any context possible. An example in Finnish would be; “Kekkuli kekkuloiden kekkuloi kekkulimaisessa kekkulissa.”

Julius Caesar is known to have said: “Alea jacta kekkuli est” (Arpa on kekkuloitu).

And as the Winter Olympics (spelled 'Oulympiolaisiet' in Finnish, I think) are ready to begin, it's time to see the schedules for those most-important hockey matches. I think there is curling too, for all you weirdos out there. Have a nice weekend everybody and enjoy the materialistic Olympiad in Mormon paradise!

Oh yes, this was overheard at the Super bowl last sunday:

This guy who had tickets on the 50 yard line was just sitting down, when another man came down and asked him: "Excuse me, is anyone sitting in the seat next to you?"
"No," he says, "The seat is empty."
"This is incredible," said the man. "Who in their right mind would have a seat like this for the Super Bowl, the biggest sporting event in the world, and not use it?"
The other man says, "Well, actually, the empty seat belongs to me. I was supposed to come with my wife, but she passed away. This is the first Super bowl we haven't been to together since we got married in 1987."
"Oh... I'm sorry to hear that. That's terrible. But couldn't you find someone else -- a friend or relative, or even a neighbor to take the seat?".
The man shakes his head. "No, they're all at the funeral."

We live in exciting times. Seems like there are amazing things going on around the globe constantly. I mean, there is a volcano erupting in Mexico, the Afghans are re-adopting the solar calender, robots are living in colonies, horses give birth to donkeys and here in Lima, we just had yesterday some real rain. First real rain since 1970 actually. That is 32 years for you! I'm sure the people in the UK envy us greatly, for Lima is actually one of the dryest places on earth, although you would not think so. There you go, today's learning experience!

Speaking of learning, have you ever thought of yourself as a connoisseur of fine beers? (We all know you probably are a large consumer of these fine products, but it's not the same thing). Well, if so, then take this test and see just how well you know your beer bottles and brands.

And soon to come, the mysteries of the name kekkuli will be revealed to the world. Stay tuned.

It seems I was luckier than Tero: I was able to watch a critical ice-hockey world championship game in Kosovo a few years ago. You would think Cuzco's IT-systems are better than Kosovo's, but you never know.
Apparently the Super Bowl would have well been worth the watch, but none of the 14 channels (two of them sports channels) I can see on our TV showed the event. And I'm not so enthusiastic about it that I'd go to a bar to watch it, especially since in Europe it's on in the middle of the night.

To today's main point: many of us have heard about the "six degrees of separation", whereby every person in the world is connected in a social network via six other people, all of them acquaintances of some sort. To test this more extensively than ever, a group of sociologists at Columbia University have set up an experiment to which anyone with an email-address can participate in. I like being a human guinea-pig and these are the kinds of things I rush into. So I registered, and my "target" person whom I'm supposed to be able to reach -preferably in less than six steps- is in Russia. Great, no problem, I don't have any close acquaintances in Russia, but I know someone who does so I forwarded the message to her. It's now in other hands. I don't know where the enjoyment in this is, but it's definitely fun. So what are you waiting for? Go participate!

While my brother is suffering from an obviously self-inflicted hangover, I am here in Cuzco, south-eastern Peru, trying to look desperately for a bar or establishment that will have enough cable/satellite capacity to bring us the event of the day, Superbowl XXXVI, live from New Orleans. It should be an exciting event, but not even close to as exciting as the absolutely fantastic lost city of the Incas, Machu Picchu, where I had the pleasure of breathing and contemplating yesterday. Whenever you are planning an exotic destination next time, make sure to put this wonder on the top of your list.

Sunday:

Despite what you may have read earlier, this is the first official posting on Kekkuli. I'm sure everyone's expectations are sky-high, but that's just plain silly. We're not doing anything better, we're just doing the same thing as earlier, sometimes more successfully, sometimes less so.

With so many dotcoms going under these days, there's a possibility that someone is not getting the email-services they once did. We here at Kekkuli try to fix one gap by offering a free email forwarding service. Go read more about it.

Some things should be made a tradition: this is still the weirdest shockwave-movie I've ever seen.