4512 km

This is my terrible score for the Europe geography game Kaido proposed. The closest I could get to somewhere was 23 km for Athens. The game is, however, nice refreshment of geographical skills in Sunday morning.
The conlusion is that travelling is better than looking at maps and trying to memorize them: naturally the closest targeting was for the places where I have been.
And what's your score?

Some time ago Siim wrote that it is not possible to talk via mobile with mittens. Well, it is :)) He was there and knows it's not staged...

...

London

Amazing USA

USA doesn't stop to amaze: I just read an article in NY Times (you can see it, if you're registered, and registration is free) where I got to know that in Virginia they test I.Q. for inmates to decide if to grant capital punishment or not. Threshhold is 70. I find this application of I.Q. testing quite funny.

How Unfortunate

Last week two well known women got kicked out: Carley Fiorina from Hewlett-Packard and Kristiina Ojuland from Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

HP CEO Carly Fiorina dies, and she goes through the usual
process of defending her case in front of the Divine Jury.
It is not clear what happens exactly and where things
go wrong, but when the jury comes back and the sentence
is read it turns out she is admitted into Heaven.
So Carly is filling in the usual paperwork at the HAO's
desk (Heaven Admission Officer): non-disclosure
agreement, legal disclaimers, non-competition clause etc.
"Congratulations and welcome to Heaven.", finally says
the angel. "Go down the corridor, first door on your
right."
Carly walks to the door, pushes it open ... and staggers
back.
Through the flames and behind the door, all you can
see are countless devils inflicting the most horrible
tortures to screaming souls. She rushes back to
the Officer and waves her admission pass, breathless.
"Must be an error, this thing here says Heaven!"
"Oh yeah, says the angel, barely looking up from his/her
screen. Forgot to tell you ... we merged."

Reflections on Old Article

More than a week ago Siim wrote an article in Areen, supplement to Estonian weekly newspaper Eesti Ekspress. He discussed development of blogging in Estonia with general conclusion that it's pretty boring :)
He said that mainly there are 3 groups of bloggers, which I quite agree, and they are school/high-school students, university students, and young pencil-pushers (sorry, but that's the best translation what I could find for kontori rott / kantora žurka / kontorskaja krisa; anybody has better suggestion?). I'm definitely the last one - kontori rott, there is no doubt.
However, what I wanted to argue about is reasons for writing. Yes, I do write kind of diary, and my thoughts on different things, which is nothing in particular interesting for majority of Earth's population, but I do it just because I'm lazy. Yes, my motive is laziness. Since I happen to live in a place and a country which is different from the place and country where many of my friends live, I make one story for everybody who is interested to know how I'm doing. I do not like to repeat more or less the same story from time to time to each and every of friends (copy-paste trick with altering details), and usually I feel too bored to do it and don't write at all which is bad for keeping in touch.
Actually I do not really care if it's very interesting to the rest of the world (sorry, rest of the world). Thus, I contribute to the boring blogging for the majority of people. :))

...

Couple of pictures to show that I really have been in London and Amsterdam. On the one hand, they do not show the place in particular and could be taken anywhere; on the other hand, only there and only then.

Borough Market at London Bridge

Surprise-surprise: a bicycle in Amsterdam!

New Album by U2

I'm totally in love with it.

Back again

Yepp, it has been some while.
However, I would say that it's justified because of all the things that have happened meanwhile, and here they are in no order of importance whatsoever, except for the first one :)))
- I met Kaido!!! and spent some very nice time with him which doesn't occur too often these days
- there was Christmas with all the present stuff - I don't like getting them but I enjoy giving them (probably not unique at all in both of those things)
- I met my family in Christmas, which also doesn't happen too often these days, and their new dog is particularly cute
- I met my totally nice granny
- there was New Year where I organised kind of Latvian invasion in Tallinn; I've never seen my flat so crowded - 2.5 square-meters per person on average: it's not much but sufficient, but that's about limit
- I was in London for some while and met some very good people
- I met Tadas who made perfect breakfast
- I was in Rotterdam but didn't see very much of it because it happened to rain during of majority time I was there
- I was in Amsterdam, and I can tell that riding a bicycle is one of the nicest things one can do in Amsterdam
- I checked out how Juris is doing with his studies in Warwick and where it actually is
- I saw a play which I enjoyed a lot, it was in Estonian, but original English title is Someone Who'll Watch Over Me by Frank McGuinness; I recommend to see it if you notice that it's staged somewhere nearby
- I saw 4 very good movies: Eyes Wide Shut, The Shining, American History X, Strangers on a Train
- there were several perfect freezing winter days with snow and sunshine: at least something for this year to enjoy
That's about it.
So, if I do not write anything it means I'm doing either very good or extremely bad. However, if I write, it doesn't mean that I'm not doing well :))