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

I'm pleased to announce that I won't be updating kekkuli for over two weeks. Not that there's anything inherently pleasurable about not updating, but because of the reason I'm not: I'll be travelling around the various "stans" of Central Asia. I couldn't tell you exactly which countries I'll be visiting, since my visa situation is more than shaky, but hopefully I'll know by the time I'm back, which should be sometime around April 15th. Until then, it will be up to Tero's activeness how this site fares. And knowing that he will have some important visitors over, we might be in for a bit of a dry spell over here at kekkuli. No matter, keep checking back, if not earlier then at least in a few weeks. Good to have you over.

And a very nice Easter to all. Why don't you treat yourselves to a few easter eggs? They're not the kind you think (or maybe they are).

Looks like kekkuli.com has found a niche market: 2 puzzles posted here, 2 puzzles posted on Fark.com's main page. Those of you more familiar with Fark know how difficult it is usually to get submissions accepted. A 100 % success rate is pretty good.
The impact this time wasn't as drastic as last month, but still a few thousand new visitors found the site. Also, two other correct results have been found to the 6x6 puzzle, I'll try to post them on that page sometime later.

If you're running out of puzzles to do, you may want to create your own Rock Star in your spare time. A fun little online game that doesn't take up too much of your time. I'm currently ranked 13655th in the world. But I'm rising fast, baby!

Since many of you have found this site through the puzzle that got linked to from Fark.com, I figured some of you might still be having quiet Sundays and would enjoy some more brain-cracking. So here you go.

While ET is having problems reaching us, he might as well not waste his time totally and do as we humans very often do when we have nothing better to do, drink. (Also, he can waste his time on this tournament.)

Having recently moved to Chile, one of the worlds great wine-producing countries, it is only natural that I should spend my time researching (as I like to put it) this wonderful nectar of gods. Or was that beer? Anyway, if you aren't a friend of wines yet, then become one by learning about wine. Let me tell you that the more you know about wine, the more you will in time learn to enjoy it (and have great parties in the doing!). And of course if you are a connoisseur already, then become a friend of Chilean wines, or find your favorite here. I can heartily recommend any one of them, if I could only remember what they tasted like.... Kippis!

And if you understand spanish, dont make the mistake of mixing poetry and wine like these "huebones".

"I told my girlfriend last night how much I loved her, and she said that I must have been out drinking again. I asked her why she would say that, and she said, 'Because I'm your father.'"

Typical: just when I decide to post a link to the seti@home site, it decides to go down. I'm sure many of you are competely bummed out since you can't join the kekkuli-SETI-group, but I'm sure things will turn out all right sooner or later. I promise I'll keep track and let you know once Berkeley gets its act together again. Meanwhile, we'll have to hope no aliens decided to contact us just now or we'd never know about it. Stupid unreliable world-wide-web.

Update: Yep, it's fully functional now. Knock yourselves out. This is where you can find the kekkuli-group which all of you are just dying to join. Right? Right!?

Note: I know this thing is years old and probably everyone who has ever read any newspapers knows about this, but that hasn't stopped us from posting something before either. What I'm talking about is the famous "Seti@home" -project, in which everyone can turn their computer into an extraterrestrial-life-looking machine. Although this kind of thing is right up my alley of cool things to do, for some reason I hadn't signed up until a few days ago. And I feel like a better human being already. If you haven't signed up yet and you keep your computer on for hours at a time without really using it for anything, then I propose you do so. Hey, if your computer is the one that finds that sign of extraterrestrial life, you get your name mentioned along with the real scientists. And it's not like there's anything to lose.
Once you've signed up, or even in case you've signed up already earlier, you can help make kekkuli the most popular science-oriented community on the web (where do I come up with this crap?). I've created a group on the Seti@home-site imaginatively called "kekkuli", which all you more-or-less regular readers of Kekkuli (hey, we're more-or-less regular writers, so who's to blame?) and SETI-activists are welcome to join. Pathetically, I'm considering this little project a success if one other person besides Tero joins the group. Surprise me.

First, as a late footnote, I was glad to see that The Economist agreed with my view on the steel tariff thing: "The fact that the president did what everybody expected him to makes this decision no less damaging, and no less stupid." And 63% of all respondents to our highly scientific poll agreed with me as well on Bush. I feel vindicated.

But now onwards to more important things: Lucasfilm released the new Episode II trailer a few days back and I at least am impressed. After the first trailer, which looked like a trailer for a romance movie, I wasn't too happy. But this new one... see for yourself. Very nice. And if you have a Divx5 player, you can download the newest trailer for yourself and watch it on full screen as many times as you want. About two months to go to the premiere... I wonder how those guys that started lining up for tickets at the beginning of this year are doing?

Not you. I am talking about these guys here below, last years top 5 idiots on record.

Idiot # 1
A medical student was doing a rotation in toxicology at the poison control center. A woman called in very upset because she caught her little daughter eating ants. The med student quickly reassured her that the ants are not harmful and there would be no need to bring her daughter into the hospital. The woman calmed down, and at the end of the conversation happened to mention that she gave her daughter some ant poison to eat in order to kill the ants. The med student told her that she better bring her daughter into the Emergency Room right away.

Idiot # 2
Seems that a year ago, some Boeing employees on the airfield decided to steal a life raft from one of the 747s. They were successful in getting it out of the plane and home. When they took it for a float on the river, a Coast Guard helicopter coming towards them surprised them. It turned out that the chopper was homing in on the emergency locator beacon that activated when the raft was inflated. They are no longer employed at Boeing.

Idiot # 3
A pair of Michigan robbers entered a record shop nervously waving revolvers. The first one shouted, "Nobody move!" When his partner moved, the startled first bandit shot him.

Idiot # 4
Arkansas: Seems this guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. Seems the liquor store window was made of Plexi-Glass. The whole event was caught on videotape.

Idiot # 5
Ann Arbor: The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 12:50 A.M., flashed a gun and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away.

And to end this message in a politically correct tone: Please note that these above-mentioned people are all allowed to vote!

Is the above title in spanish "En otci tego lo pana"? Or perhaps in palindromish? Beats me, but let's get one thing clear; we here at kekkuli.com have nothing against the United States of America as such. Sure, nobody in his normal mind likes Bill Gates or GWB that much, but all in all this is just the little dog barking impersonally at the big dog. Just harmless loud-barking fun. I mean, even one of our own close family members is a US citizen, and besides Disneyland kicks ass. What we are doing here is simply pinpointing some of the occurences taking place in this great big nation and how it might affect the rest of the world, and vice versa. After all, the US dominates most of the worldwide media, and therefore a major part of the information we get is regarding the US. If somebody wants to be angry and call us names (I know at least one person in NY who does... darling you there?), please go ahead, but remember, he who laughs last is the one digging the hole for the other guy. Let's all live in peace. Oh, wait, one more thing about the US legal system before we all come together. I read this somewhere:

A man was on his way home from work one afternoon in L.A. He was stopped in traffic and thought, "Wow, this traffic seems worse than usual; we're not even moving."
He then noticed a police officer walking down the highway in between the cars, so he rolled down his window and said, "Excuse me, officer, what's the hold-up?"
"O.J. just found out the verdict, and he's all depressed. He's lying down in the middle of the highway and he's threatening to douse himself in gasoline and light himself on fire. He just doesn't have $8.5 million for the Goldmans. I'm walking around taking up a collection for him."
The man then said, "Oh really, how much have you collected so far."
The officer replied, "So far, ten gallons."

GWB has done it again: over the last year-and-some-months, Bush hasn't made a single decision with international repercussions that I would've been satisfied with. In fact, it's not only a matter of not being satisfied, it's a matter of getting pissed off. The latest example is the decision this week to impose huge tariffs on imported steel to protect US steel companies. This while there's high-flying talk of how free trade is good for everyone. This hypocrisy shows already in the way developed countries protect their agriculture and textile industries (Europe is just as much to blame here), but I'd like to think these countries would slowly try to clean up their act instead of including ever more industries on the list of protected ones. I don't even see how the decision makes sense for the US. There are about ten times more people in the US working with steel than producing it, to whom cheaper imported steel is a better deal. Somehow, the much smaller group of steel-producers have managed to lobby the administration more effectively than the manufacturers, and this is the result. What a joke.
So Bush is continuing strong with making sure everything is screwed by the time his presidency ends: the international arms-balance, the environment and now international trade. It seems like the terrorists chose the perfect timing for their attack: with their help, Bush can enjoy huge popularity ratings while acting in such moronic ways. I'm optimistic enough to think that in normal times even Americans would realize what this guy is doing is bad. I can only hope that next November enough of them do, and the Democrats get a comfortable majority in Congress, and that two years from that, this clown is thrown out. I'm ready to become a US-citizen just to chip in on that effort.

After getting heated up over this thing, it's good to cool down with some enjoyable movie-viewing. Of course, if you're a Swede, that clip is going to get you boiling much more than any tiny matter like international trade will ever do.

I have just landed from Venezuela, and more specifically so, I am back from the beautiful beach of Choroni on the Caribbean, unfortunately I might add. Now ahead lies only the perils of a busy work week. Mondays truly are for the masochists. Luckily there are ways of easing the pain, although I hope my case won't be just another Russian workplace accident. I can spend my time reading weird facts about the Titanic, or maybe even start a new hobby this week, which could last and provide joy for a lifetime and take me to many places, although backwards. This is, I think, the ideal sport for all you palindromists out there... Who comes up with this crazy stuff anyway?