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

If you feel like you don't know yourself well enough just yet, the Internet comes to the rescue once again. I've mentioned The Spark several times before, and it's still the best source of tongue-in-cheek self-tests that I've found, so if you haven't tried them out yet and have some spare time on your hands see how gay you are, for example.
A more sober site with more tests than anyone could desire (apparently not, since you get more if you subscribe) is Queendom.com, where you can measure all kinds of aspects about yourself. One personality test that's used even in the work environment is Myers-Briggs typology test, which measures you in four different categories. Very useful, I'm sure. But the toughest test of them all is this really annoying Color vision test, which just seems to get impossible at later stages...

Now you can honestly say you know yourself. Isn't the Internet amazing? Only a few years back, you would've had to buy a huge stack of women's magazines to get access to as many tests as this.

It seems that in all our reporting about Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings, we have missed one crucial interest group that might constitute a significant part of our readership (as none of us really have a life, we should be ready to admit by now, especially to you-know-who, who so accurately portrayed me after digesting her extensive medication. Argh, I still can't get over it. It's not like we said that she looks like this). What I was talking about was Trekkies. So as a test of how fanatic you are, see if you have the patience to watch through all Star Wreck movies. I made it only to Star Wreck III: Wrath of the Romuclans, but then again, I'm no Star Trek fan.

After a quick browse through our archives, it seems like I never posted the story where that picture was from. Strange, since I did mention the Nigerian letter -scam earlier. Well, risking a double post, another test of how much spare time you have is Wendy Willcox's Adventures with African scammers. It really is a much longer article than what we get used to over in the fast-paced world of the Internet, but it's definitely worth it.

One more thing: The way things look, my guess is that that Two Towers Petition thing is just a bad joke. At least, the people that got so offended by the movie's title that they registered the domain name are Canadian, as can be found out if you type the domain "twotowersprotest.org" in here. Smells fishy to me... Also, a visitor at this forum of some website seems to know even the name of the prankster. Still, the fact that we're ready to believe this kind of thing could be real (and it still might be) speaks volumes.

Well, I'm glad to see that readers of Kekkuli haven't fallen into total despair despite the incoming war in Iraq and, more importantly, the poor quality of writing on this site. In our highly-scientific poll of 11 people, 63% thought this year will "rock", and no one thought we'll see the end of humanity just yet. Someone was even (a) wise(ass) enough to notice that there will be no perfect palindrome dates this year (Staffa?), cause hey, there just ain't a 30th of 02, baby.
So, you're wondering why you were supposed to read this post before replying to that poll. You see, early in the history of Kekkuli, I did a small post about a site called Planet Alumni, which was supposed to help you find your classmates and make everyone happy. So I mentioned the site on March 13th, 2001. And lo and behold, less than a week later (March 19th) someone else signs up in my high school. Please go read those posts to understand (if possible) what the hell happens from this point on.
You see, earlier this week, I received a message from that person who signed up at Planet Alumni, giving me the impression that she read some other post than mine. Her message said:

I would like to have my name and insulting references about me to be removed from your archives. I have no idea how you got my name - I don't visit porn sites as you imply.

If you read that post I did almost two years ago (I told you you should!), you can share my bafflement at this message. Anyway, as a frontguard of free expression, I sent a rather polite note back:

Dear Hilkka,

1) I don't know where you got the impression that there are "insulting references" about you on my site. All I said, judging by your graduation year freely viewable at Planet Alumni, that you do not belong to the demographic group I assume to be mainly reading my site, namely 18-32 year old males.
2) I don't know where you got the impression that I imply that you visit porn sites. Neither Kekkuli.com nor Planet Alumni, the only sites mentioned even close to your name, are porn sites.
3) By signing up to Planet Alumni almost two years ago, you yourself put up information about yourself to be freely viewed on the Internet by anyone. If you didn't do it, then someone else did so for you and you should ask Planet Alumni to remove you from their site.
4) Isn't the Internet amazing? Put your name in a search engine and look at the strange places it pops up in. Just try it with my name to get an example of weird places, many of which I did not agree to at all. But that's the Internet for you.
5) Kai tämän kaiken olisi voinut kirjoittaa suomeksikin.

So I thought I handled myself rather diplomatically. Back comes an answer:

Jani,
To an adult your web site is intellectually equivalent to a porn site. You obviously are very young and/or in need of a real life (based on a quick take of your content which looks like keyboard diarrhea).
I use the Internet extensively (since ARPANET) and I have also developed several B2B websites yet I have maintained my privacy for almost 30 years except for your garbage-in-garbage-out archives. The proof is in your writing: you have nothing interesting to write about since my signing up at PA satisfied your day's crap quota. By the way, the PA public domain info will not show up e.g. on a Google search since my data is stored in a database, not on a web page -duh?
If you can write Finnish that does not impress me either because I could do that as a 4 year old. I prefer English since it is the only language worth promoting in an effort to unify the world and it is supported by a standard keyboard. While Finnish is a unique language it is also a dying language, being incongruous with proliferation of new terms.
However, I am glad about this encounter with you since it reminded me again to be so always grateful that I had the foresight to leave the vast dark tundra of Finnish civilization in 1966 and to seek more enlightened people in the New World.
Since your site is supported by the U of Hel I will complain to them about your misuse/misrepresentation/ridicule of my name/person. Even if your reputation means nothing to you (as evidenced by your website) you should check into the concept of libel before using a person's good name when associating it with your crap.

What...the...fuck? There are so many things wrong with that message that I can't even begin to comprehend how this kind of a person should be dealt with. So give me your opinion on that poll, and feel free to post comments on the poll or even at the Forum on how I should reply to her. And Hilkka, in case you're reading this: I guess that just shows you're not that much above crap like this. It might turn out we'll end up going in Zirkles with this thing...

The end of last year didn't only bring us the new year, but also it brought us the second part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Two Towers. So, whether you saw the movie or not and whether you liked it or not, you can still stay in the world of Tolkien by playing a MUD game online or by visiting these Middle-earth science pages. Indeed a very interesting collection of stuff summoned by people who have nothing better to do I guess. And speaking of which, jerks like these really make my blood boil. I mean, why should a fantastic piece of almost 50 year old literature change its name just because some yanks feel "bad" about it?! Boohoo. Get on with it, like this guy wisely suggests.
Anyway, coming back to the science pages, my absolute favourite was Sauron's diary. Make sure you read it! (You can also print it out and attach it to your copy of The Silmarillion... make the book truly complete!). Also, find out where you would live, if you lived in Middle-earth.

Oh, and some of you might remember a link I posted a while ago, which was to be opened only if you were an idiot. So, if you still think you are, well, only an idiot would open this link.

Some of you may remember a story I posted from some Norwegian friends of mine who had bit of a hard time trekking with horses through Mongolian wilderness. Now the story has been spiced up with a picture, of bad quality no less, so if you want to read up on that whole story (again), you're welcome to do so.

I also posted a week ago or so a link to a site with clips from Late Night with Conan O'Brien (which I'm going to see live on May 1st, yay!). As it turns out, even the official site has some clips, most importantly some of those Triumph the insult comic dog -clips, which are almost always hilarious. I like the attitude they display on that video page:
"Since most of you were illegally sharing Conan video on the Web, we decided to put all the new video in one spot and update it occasionally. What? You thought we didn't know?"

People in general lack a capability to look into the future. I don't mean a lack of clairvoyance, which would be seeing into the future, but just a general lack of understanding where they might be in five year's time. Which is I guess why that keeps getting asked at job interviews. Forget five years, how about tomorrow? I've ranted against the misuse of mobile phones before and this comes back directly back to that issue: since people have a hard time setting up a schedule for tomorrow, they don't know what time they can meet you to go see that movie. And mobile phones are just so convenient to make last-minute changes to any plans. It seems we are often living in that last-minute all the time. Why is it so damn difficult to do anything with a deadline well before that deadline?
To counter all this, there's a refreshing foundation ("Long Now") that tries to emphasize a long-term view on things. The original idea that started it all off was to build a clock that would tick once a year over 10,000 years. A prototype has been built and another one will follow, and perhaps finally in a few years a monumental clock that will last for 10 millennia.
After that idea, several others have followed. One of the more recent ones is Long Bets, through which people are encouraged to make bets that expire in no less than two year's time. Many of the bets have no deadline ("The US men's soccer team will win the World Cup before the Red Sox win the World Series."), others are very precise and concrete ("A profitable video-on-demand service aimed at consumers will offer 10,000 titles to 5 million subscribers by 2010"). Minimum bets are USD 1000 and the spoils go to charity, so it's not for your average joe. And it's not really a website you'll be wanting to check back on every day. Actually, 2007 is the year the first bet expires, so that might be a good time to see how it goes. Or will we no longer have websites in 2007, but something better?

Frankly, I have no idea what I mean by new tricks, but I'm sure we'll come up with something together with Tero over a whole year. Last year, we received almost exactly 5000 hits on Kekkuli's main page and tens of thousands on those puzzle pages linked from Fark.com. Just try a "Who keeps the fish?" search query on Google.com and see who's there in the top five. But greed is insatiable, so we're bound to try something to make us more famous than Mel Torme.

I guess I never mentioned how I fared in that NokiaGame I mentioned once a few months ago. Well, as it went rather smoothly and turned out to be a relatively simple game, I managed to get into the top 50 in Finland and win myself a brand new phone! Still waiting for it to be shipped, though, but once it does, I'll be ready to take pictures and movieclips of anything and everything. Oh, and make phonecalls too I guess.
Drugged by this recent victory, I'm now participating in all kinds of ridicilous contests, imagining I have any chances of winning. Right now there's a contest to win a trip to New York to see the Conan O'Brien show, which I'm taking part in. The bad thing is, there's only one price to be won and it costs to participate but hey, I'm bound to win, aren't I? Still, even if I lose I'm planning on going to New York in May, I might have to try to get tickets to the show anyway. We'll see how that goes. In the meanwhile, we can enjoy great clips from the show, courteously ripped off by someone. Enjoy them while they're online. That's good advice for all this free copyrighted stuff floating around: the good times can't go on rolling forever, so better get your hands on as much as possible before someone comes up with a way to stop this free-for-all pillage. You can then tell your grandkids later how you were one of those brave internet-pioneers that were able to watch, listen and play anything for free.
While (barely) still on the subject of Conan O'Brien, check this guy out, recently a guest of Conan. He's building his own rocket to hurl him into space and back. A future winner of the Darwin Award?