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

If you paid attention, you noticed the red search thingy in the top-right corner. That's the ad I warned you about a few days ago. Apparently, AllPosters.com promises to provide you with any poster you could possibly want, sort of like we here at Kekkuli promise you anything and everything. The upside of being affiliated with them is that we get free content by being able to link directly to their poster graphics. So the next time I talk about the Matrix, for example, I can enliven the boring white text with something cool like this:

Buy This Poster

And to top it off, we even get a commission if you click on the link and decide to buy something. So even though we don't have huge expectations of money-making with this, maybe someone out there decides to buy a poster for themselves and on the side help us out a bit. Hell, it's worth a shot.

Amazingly, more and more people seem to start finding their way to this site. Over the summer, we've increased the average number of visits per day from 10 to 16. At this rate, the entire world's population will be reading us by the year 2012. Getting ready for that, we're considering putting up some ads on the site, just to see if those things really work and can make us filthy rich. Not to worry, pop-ups and everything else really annoying is not on its way, we'll reserve those to the truly big and annoying sites.
Of course, you don't need to rely merely on positive word-of-mouth to increase traffic. We've received several enticing offers from various companies that promise to put Kekkuli on "100,000's of search engines", guaranteeing "huge increases in traffic for only $29.99". Of course, you can do it the hard way too, making sure yourself that no search string will ever miss your site by including something like this at the bottom of your homepage. Could somebody please tell me if somewhere in there there's a reference to "Leisuresuit Larry"?
Speaking of search strings, we've been hit by a few amusing ones again. I'll try to remember to share those at some point.

People often like music that moves them in some way. Me, I prefer music that makes me laugh. Well, not always, but usually when I'm ripping something off the internet. It's surprisingly difficult to find decent stuff, but recently I hit a real goldmine. This site has a very long list of all kinds of parody-songs, some of which are even quite good. I especially recommend the Bill Clinton -songs. Although the joke's the same in every single song, it's still pretty damn funny.

That quiz from last time: the right answers are East Timor (will be joining shortly), Vatican (not planning on joining) and Taiwan, which most of us consider independent but isn't usually called that thanks to its big brother. Switzerland just joined a few weeks ago, which proves that nothing in this world is eternal. Sooner or later, even Castro is going to die. Unless they make a robot out of him, like they did with Brezhnev.

For one reason or another, I wandered into the United Nations web site ("Welcome to the UN. It's Your World.") and then further to their member list. So here's my question: there are 190 states in that list. It is generally accepted that there are 192 fully sovereign states and one more that is a sovereign state in every meaning of the word except that it's not universally recognized by other states. What are the two (three) states that are not members of the UN? Being the optimist I am, I'll wait for a few days in the delusion that someone will actually Email me with an answer, after which I'll put some options up on the poll-thingy. Think about it if you have to.

As expected, whenever everyone thinks something will happen (Y2K, anniversary of 9/11), absolutely nothing does. It's only on the most regular days that something unusual can happen, and happens. So once again, the world didn't end on a particular date, nobody died (in the news that is, don't forget the millions from starvation and disease Tero referred to) and we can continue waiting for something to happen from the still-very-safe comfort of our homes.

So I'm back. Although absolutely nothing bad happened to me over the whole trip (in truth, I was cheated out of 40 cents in a money exchange transaction in China), whenever you're travelling you keep yourself in a higher state on alertness constantly ("where's my passport and money?"). So being back home, although not necessarily any safer than on the road, is more relaxing simply because you can lower your defences to idle-status. Maybe this is a negative way of looking at travelling, or maybe it's exactly the reason why nothing bad never happens to me on my travels. Anyway, it's good to be home, even though the trip was awesome. 81 hours (the longest stretch we took) in a train is nowhere near as bad as it sounds. And hey, no jet lag.
In terms of my predictions before my trip (see Aug. 16 entry), I fared quite badly. True, I didn't write on Kekkuli, but it wasn't because I couldn't have, it was because I rather spent my time going to see one more sight rather than sit at an internet cafe (which there were apparently more of than in Western Europe). I did manage to get an Kekkuli email-address activated as requested and I took several hot showers (several cold ones as well). But better than any shower, I took a dip in Lake Baikal, which was invigorating. And I just learned that it's also a UNESCO World Heritage site. I wonder how many of the 730 I've seen...

After having been away for a month, I have some catching up to do with movies I need to see. Which is why I'm going to go see Austin Powers tonight. But here's one more movie to look forward to, with a hilarious trailer.

Today is the last day before the day that a year before on that day was THE day. Well, at least according to CNN and their non-stop coverage of it. Sure must not be nice to have to watch somebody you knew or loved crash into that tower once and again every time you open the television. In reference to all this, while sitting in a cafe last night in Holland, I was involved in a very interesting conversation between Dutch, U.S., Venezuelan and Scandinavian people. Everybody eventually agreed, somewhat surprisingly, on why was this event, which is now brandingly called 9/11 in the States, such a huge-huge tragedy? Sure, they say we lost that certain innocence of a big protective soap bubble the western world thinks it lives in, but besides that there were less than 4000 deaths. Death is a horrible thing, and I am not trying to give these ones any less significance than they might deserve, but why are these particular deaths so much more important than the thousands that die of starvation every day in Africa for example? Why aren't they getting yearly memorial concerts and candle masses around the world? Why isn't the world attacking, instead of somebody politically convenient like Iraq, all those rich countries who instead of producing endless amounts of weapons could easily use that endless amount of money to solve problems like world hunger, overpopulation and so on. Are those people who unfortunately died in NY somehow more valuable than others? Or does it again have to do something with the fact that of the world's 250 richest people (who by the way possess the same amount of wealth as the worlds 2.5 billion poorest) are mostly from the United States? Our discussion ended unfortunately without resolve for a better tomorrow, but we haven't given up yet. So, please think a moment about this, talk about it and even send in your comments if you wish. We would sure love to read them and even post some here. But try to do it today if possible, who knows what can happen tomorrow! Assume nothing, prepare for the worst. This is Tero, signing off from bunker number 2.

And as you possibly noticed, the Swiss authorities took notice of our article on kekkuli.com last week, and took action right away. (We have reports that also the government of East-Timor is using kekkuli.com for inspiration.) So, let us welcome Switzerland as the 190th member of the United Nations. The swiss are getting at it finally. At this rate they will join the EU by 2078 and the monetary union by 2166. In any case a more unified planet is good for us all. Let us find unity in diversity.

After trying unsuccesfully to find an Internet cafe or similar in places like Leysin, Verbania, St. Anton (off-season!), Feldkirch and Vaduz, I had to drive all the way to Luxembourg to find probably the world's smallest internet cafe. According to the locals, there is only one in the whole town! This is explained by the fact that, also according to the locals, people in Luxembourg are only interested in three things: Money, money and money. So I guess that would leave no time for non-sense activities like emailing or surfing on the web. Well, I guess they all do it from their offices while they "work". Anyway, it has been a hectic week, spending the past 7 nights all in different countries. What can I say, there lies the beauty of the smallest continent on the planet. Long live Europe! It is a slightly different case for Jani who took one week to cross just one country and another to cross another... Speaking of which, I must say that crossing Switzerland, now that the Euro-zone surrounds it, is a pain in the ass. Paying in francs for the petrol and fondue seemed somehow so old-fashioned. Wake up swiss, live in the now!