so this is christmas?

Two days more, and it is christmas again. Have you spent all your bucks and credit cards buying gifts for your friends and family? Or did you created something by yourself? :)

Have you seen this cool picture? Describes the christmas mania well these days :P
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/12795842/

No extra news from last post. Gray and desperate, as always in November.
Fresh snow makes us smile :) Alaska forever :)

OK. Have a couple of beer now - and don't be late at supermarket, otherwise you'll be left without gingerbread dough :P

:)

Today I had a great chance to meet Graham Mitchell today. A selection of his works are represented in Pegasus café in Tallinn, do not hesitate to step in to take look. Mr Mitchell is a high end photographer, you can contact him for your next photography session :)

Here's another site I'd like you to consider to visit - Rūta Saulytė-Laurinavičienė's photography site. Beautiful work, simple but classy web design. I specially like this image :)

cordoba

one of the plazas of Cordoba (Spain) at night. Very peaceful and nice town (city?) with all its narrow old town streets, gardens and of course, the Mezquita Cathedral.

woophy-dot-com

Have you ever had photos of your country found being unused in your hard disk? Woophy.com has a solution for you now! :P - cover the area where you live or where you have been, with the photos you have made from there :)

L' Oceanographic

L'Oceanographic is one of the science centers of Valencia, Spain. It is a part of beautiful science complex called Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, which is a grand superior complex with stunning architecture.

If you ever visit Valencia, reserve few days to visit it. I had no time to visit all the parts of it, but took a day off to go to a journey to Ocean Center, which was a stunning enchanting experience to be in.

In a picture is one of many underwater tunnels, where you can see what's going on in ocean and sea life. The Ocean center is divided into five different parts, including cinema, dolphinarium, tons of aquariums, shops and underwater tunnels, enriched with little artificial environments (like rocks with waterfalls) and other extremely nice stuff.

Farm

This is where I used to spent my childhood summer holidays :)

Dreaming of living there once again one fine day, however it needs tons of bucks to be built / restored. So I don't know today when I'll be able to be there. Anyway, lovely place enough to mow grass there in summer :-)

Crow's Eye

Little son of a crow. Perhaps 3 weeks old?.. Don't know. Was not able to fly so I pictured his eye. Lovely and blue. My grandma used to say crow is a flying rat (because of the crap that crow eats. Not false, I've seen crows eating dog's shit :P)

strawberry

Hmm how tame colors. Guess IE does not support Adobe RGB?.. Anyway, I'm still not sure is it photoblog or what, just wanted to write you about a fairy tale called "US president to visit Estonia". Go get it :P

Stack Bones

Do you know what these are used for? I name it "stack (rick) bones" as my dictionary does not give me better words. These are used to stack hay so the hay can dry in the summer before getting it to loft :P Still widely used in Estonia, which is lovely in oil-age :)

...

South middle Spain has got some very nice desert (desert-like?) landscapes. If you drive from Valencia to Cordoba, you can meet several that kind of compositions :-)

:)

This is a long exposure shot from Portimao, Portugal. I had luck to visit these beautiful countries again (Spain and Portugal), if you ever have a chance, do not hesitate to go there as well. Probably more shots to come :) .. Anyway the weather is nice and snowy, so it feels a bit like christmas.

that noise

Well as I have no new cool pics to upload I use my endless Spain pics from 2005 this time to illustrate the boring article.



When did you last go shopping?

Estonians are crazy for shopping these days. I'm suspecting it is because of the gray/dark weather, so people get stressed and go in shiny and colorful shopping centres to feel themselves better.

I don't like shopping because after one minute in a mall I feel depressed and tired. Once a year is good enough (new jeans, t-shirt and shoes :P).

I think I also know why I'm not hearing so well these days - my ears might have been damaged in shopping centres! The level on sound/music is SO loud that my head becomes aching.. it is horrible. Why should I visit a shop with a loud level of music? I'd recommend you using nice Peltors in shopping centres.

The situation can be even worse in terms of sound levels. I had luck to visit Alicante's (South of Spain) one of the most gorgeous shopping centres (in terms of style it was pretty much like Kristiine Keskus in Tallinn, but a lot larger). So some young-oriented shops were not shops at all, but discotheques where you can buy clothes. So the process is like you scream to the seller: "HOW MUCH??!!" and she shouts: "WHAT?!" ... and so on.

Why can't we shop in quiet (OK with nice quiet music). Because then the naighbour shop volumes up their music, and people go there because they think there's something on sale, or just more life :P So if you want to sell, rent a nightclub and your sales will grow :P

3 weeks

have passed, what's new?

First, Estonia has a new president, mr Toomas Hendrik Ilves. I think he is OK, I also think former president of Estonia in 1992-2001 mr Lennart Meri (1926-2006) was the best president ever. Ilves is regarded to be west-minded president, so will we get visa-free relationship with USA? I'd like to go to get some pictures from Grand Canyon in this life :P

According to one of the most popular weekly report in TV called "Pealtnägija" ("witness"), estonian police is so corrupted that when your car is stolen, thiefs and police work together. Thiefs gets your number from police to call you to sell you back your car about a half price of what it's worth. So when you come to visit estonia, be sure you leave your car home. Of course we don't know the truth :P

I have not uploaded a picture within more than a month. Here's one, pure Estonian fall:



I'm lucky to have lovely Sigma EX 15-30mm lens these days, which is hell sharp at F8, and which is a good unit for some serious landscape shots (and city shots also, as the wide angle @ 22,5mm has some essence for urban photography).

We have had successful days in sports also, mr Heiki Nabi has won world champion title in Greco-Roman Wrestling :) Nice to see young talents to rise.

We have had lovely days also from other fields of sports, our world-champion 2005 mr Andrus Värnik has published three smart statements which are:

- if you win gold medal, you rule. If you only win silver in championships, you are no-one
- when people greet me with no title "world champion" I get offended.
- I'm not too arrogant after winning the world champion title in Helsinki in 2005

People got pretty angly with him as with the "no-one" he directly meant mr Gerd Kanter, #1 discus thrower in Estonia (#2 within many seasons lately, as mr Virgilijus Alekna rules so much :P). So we have a bad boy in our sport world, too.

Also what do you think will Michael Schumacher makes it to snap gold from Fernando Alonso in the final F1 event? :) I hope Alonso wins :P

---------------------------------------

here's another picture, sunset in Nõva Beach, august 2006

Gobotoru

When I entered: "define: Gobotoru" in the allmighty google that most probably sits comfortably in everyones computer today, I got zero result.

However Estonian photographers may know that alias as one of the most skilful photo editor having his work represented in many online sites, also having his works being awarded a price in terms of digital photo etiting/manipulation. This man is mr Anton Novozhilov. I'm 200% impressed how easily he can make his simple but brilliant ideas work together with stunning skills with after-editing the photos. Cheers, Gobotoru, and now everyone, did you click the link?

(haha, do you know the sentence "MoVe ThAt BuS?" - It seems I'm demanding to click the links I recommend, too heavily, completing each article with the bloody words Did-You-Click-The-Link?) :P

"lomofying" your photos

there are many ways to "lomofy" ( = to make your photo look like it was made with legendary cheap and not-so-high quality russian camera named "lomo") your digital photo, one of them is described here :P - happy lomofying! :P

ha

I'm busy these days so I don't know when I'll be able to write new articles again here in this blog :P

artist acknowledgement - Billy Bussey

When the talent of Billy Bussey was discovered a few years ago, his 3D demo and also three dimensional web page is still top of the line art today. Though the site is more than three years old now, it is hard to find a condign site today, in terms of the build quality and innovation of the site, also how simple it is to use and navigate. The link.

Rotlicht Score

Whed did you last listen to something different? Estonian scene archive is a funky site to surf in, start with this track as an initial one for scene style. The music will tell :)

Recommended photographer

Very classy images at Lev Dolgachov's live blog. If you are intending to work with models (photographing), or you already do, you have no choice but to click the link in one way or another :)

:)

Estonian nature can be beautiful, too :-) (Nõva, Läänemaa, Estonia)

DeviantArt V5

One of the most popular art communities in the internet today, DeviantArt, has got completely new look and level of organization.. It was about time, but I'm sure everyone understands that it is not easy to operate more than 24,000,000 works to make them work flawlessly in new environment :)

There are a lot of other that kind of sites available, most of them are more specialized, though. DA has remained the largest, biggest, and most popular. So whether you have poems, paintings or photographs to show to the rest of the world, do not hesitate to sign up and share your talent :)

lizard & honey

This a macro shot of the lizard, she was only some 4 inches long. Proud to present her here, and I hope she will feel herself well here :P

As with the honey, one of my friends is in trouble to sell all his pure & natural honey, so if you need some, feel free to send me a mail bright "at" dlancer.net, and I ask my friend to ship you some :P (for the residents of Estonia, the price is 60EEK/kg). The amounts of the honey is actually so big, that if you are somewhere abroad and would like to import a few tons of honey, feel free to contact me again :) (that's no joke).

Artist recommendation

Today, I'd like to recommend you an artist / photographer / conceptual artist - Liva Rutmane. (Did you click it? :P). She is from Latvia, and I have been watching her works for many years now. Every single of her works is always top notch in terms of concept, quality and art. So enjoy it now, and I'll be always lookin' forward to see new works from her :)

traffic culture in Estonia

There's actually no culture in traffic, it is just the ego in the streets, transfigured from no brain to speedy new shiny cars. If you are a foreigner driving around in the streets of Tallinn, you will be surprised how agressive it is.

The situation of the traffic police in Estonia is nothing but good today, which means that people think like that when there are no police watching us, we can be arrogant in traffic, can't we.

I believe it is not a matter of police force, but a matter of brain capacity. But the picture is like that there are teenagers with BMW-s, with the attitude that no one can punish us, so we can be arrogant.

I'm lucky not to be in a rush hour today twice a day every day, but I was, so I can tell. There's no such think like economy driving in the streets of Tallinn here, also if you try to keep the safe distance in the traffic, you can be sure that someone passes you using bus stop boxes, and will occupy the place that first was your "safe distance". So you can keep the safe distance, but consider to have many cars in a minute who think that this room is for them to dash there.

Also, if you drive with the maximum speed allowed +10, you are a snail in the traffic. And finally, we can't even park politely, the better (the more expensive) the car, the less we care about how we behave in the traffic or where we park.

Estonian media has been investigating about the reasons why the situation is like that. There's still room for additional cars (compared with the traffic of the US, for example), and when you are in your car, it is easy to forget the others. It is a phenomenon that for example drivers/cars from Finland are very polite drivers. They never rush in the traffic, nor they are inpolite. So is it a matter of that we re-established our independency 15 years ago, while our naighbours have had freedom times more?..

Also, when you see someone parking arrogantly, feel free to send the picture about it here:
http://wrongparking.blogspot.com/

Faith, Life and The City of God

This is an apricot. I've purchased some of them for degustation, and we like it, so it seems we'll buy some more to make jam of them (jam with white breat is a better sweet than skittles or cola bears :P )



Now, have you wondered what's going on in Isreal and Libanon these days. I have never understood all this magic Israel-and-Middle-East-show. I have never read a word from bible or koran, too. So I'm stupid these days. I have to authoritative friends these days, one of them has read bible from start to end and vice versa many times, to find how it is all connected with basis of all world and life today. And the second one tells me that why should one read just a history of jew nation. I personally believe that faith doesn't matter, but personality does.

--



Have you lately seen any movie, I happened to see the City of God (Cidade de Deus) - it is a nice seeing for the relatively rich european man, the movie talks about ghettos of Rio de Janeiro, and of the sentences in the start of the movie is something like this: the most part of Rio do Janeiro is far of what you have seen in postcards.. so, see the movie now.

...

time by time I find myself being kidnapped for photo sessions.. which is welcome, time by time :-)

Be a National Geogrpahic photographer

Have you ever had a dream to become photogrpaher of National Geographic Magazine? :P
Today, there's an easy way to participate via internet. If your shot os good, it will be printed in NG magazine. To submit your work, follow this link:

NGM.COM/YOURSHOT

...

failure

Today, I failed in a competition to enter estonian academy of arts, in photogrpaphy. Will have to prepare better, next time :) Will later also upload the photos that were represented in my portfolio for the council.

my sister's blog :)

Dat's myah sista'zz blooooooogh :P - click, click, click :)

caterpillar

This cutie was sleeping under the sun while we were visiting Hiiumaa this week :)



Hiiumaa is a nice island of Estonia, and if you ever care to take a trip there, don't miss the places like Sõru, Ristna, Tahkuna, Kõpu, Sääre Tirp and so on :P

jump :)

this is what happens when they miss to jump at the same time :-)

flower

Summer is late this year, these flowers (what's their name, again?..) were blooming on May 28th last year.. so 2 weeks. .. .. ..

:)

Hmmmm nothing fancy these days. Except that have had a great opportunity (thanks Merje) to make some freewear shots with some great models like Madli (yes, click it, don't wait for the better government).



I'm also attending spanish courses these days, that's why not surfing the holy internet too much. Our teacher is an interesting person, as there are also interesting ppl everywhere in the world, and I enjoy learning spanish. I wouldn't tell the date I'll speak spanish, it is like (quoting someone I don't remember, sorry) urinating against wind (sorry for the tactless thoughts).

Well what else. Yesterday I was lookin' at the world map, and it is a phenomenon that mayority of the world's population, some 3-4 billion people (including China + India) live in Asia + Oceania, while the territoy of these countries is equal/smaller than the territory of Russia. While there are only ~140 million people living in Russia. So, what is the force that holds back ivasion to Russia (as one of the most resourceful countries these days) when Asian people decide to move to the north? :P

Today I read from the news that price of the crude oil is to drop as Iran and Western countries are no longer to fight so much again. So step on the gas again, like it was the very last day you can tank and drive :P

Do you know what's specific to Estonian's climate? That theres 10C two times a year, in June and in December. Today we're suffering from the same here :P

A month ago we were planting 3x6 gladioluses in our tiny garden. 8 of them have risen so far, so you better be more careful takining care and treating them when you are about to do the same, because the flowers seem to be a bit finicky :P

another decathlon..

:) Another decathlon to take place this weekend in Arles (France).
Hopes were high in terms of Estonian #1 decathlist Kristjan Rahnu to compete.
It seems he will not participate this time, though.

Entry list of participating decathletes.

About DU, Gulf Wars, + media

Here's the link - pretty alternative/interesting information about the reasons of wars in Iraq/Afghanisthan + much more to think about (4 pages, scroll down for the other pages)

Goetzis Hypo Meeting 2006

(It's Estonian decathlonist Madis Kallas in Jumping Gala 2005 in Tallinn)

First, when talking about decathlon, we have our superstar of all ages here in tiny Estonia, it is mr Erki Nool, winner of the Olympic Games in Athens, 2000, his personal best is 8815p (Edmonton 2001) - today the world record is 9026 (by Roman Sebrle, Goetzis 2001).

Today, #1 in Estonia, is mr Kristjan Rahnu (personal best 8526p (Arles, 2005). He's not in competition today, but he is expected to compete in Arles (France) this year, in June 3-4.

So, decathletes are in competition today + tomorrow, in Goetzis, Austria.

- List of athletes in competition
- live results

So, who's about to win? :) I personally hope Estonian risign stars Mikk Pahapill + Madis kallas (-PDF!-) will be able to beat their personal recors :)

First event is already accomplished, the winner is Bryan Clay from the United States :)

More information about Decathlon from this great site - Decathlon2000

Portrait contests and other sh*t

First, here's a portrait of a girl (don't know who's she). If you want to argue, if it is a portrait or not, just send me e-mail, and we can meet one fine day in some pub or so :P

Then, sorry for the word Sh*t, but hey I'm not the only one using it in this lovely word, and if you have happened to listened live concerts by Fish, then you know it can be one of the most used words ever. Together with the most beautiful words in the world :) So that much about the music recommendations (If you really decided to click the link for Fish page, I'd recommendto listen to the live album "Sushi", besides being one of the concerts with the most frinedly atmosphere, it's sound's not bad either :)

Okay I was visiting the Pentax Portrait Photo Contest 2006 final today, so how was that?.. Bad new are that my works were not worth a penny, good news are that they are about to start a long time tradition, which means everyone can enter the contest again in 2007 again. Kudos, PPPC team :P (If you are eager to get informed about the winners, here they are:

- Professionals, 1st place
- Amateurs, 1st place (if I remember right, it was by rising star photographer Kaarel Nurk)
- Children, 1st place

- Grand Prix (trip to Sri Lanka) (believe it or not? :)

Now, I agree with the 1st place of the pro-s. I also competed in pro class (aren't we all pros after we've shot 1st film? :P), so the conclusion is, that there's a lot of room to be better :)

As with the organization of contest, it did not fail at all, but it was not that Grand also, as advertised. But I'm not the right one to say, and I'm sure it will be x times better next time.
The representative of the council, also probably the heart of all the contest idea, Kaupo Kikkas could manage his tasks + the speech was fluent.

As with the other sides of the contest, I was not completely happy with the explanation of what was the critera for judging. I'm also not sure whether 5 members of the council are enough to judge the winners, but as the company was diverse, that's ok. (For example, of the judges was one of the most famous Estonian portrait artist Aapo Pukk).

As with defining which category to be belonged to, I'd quote my drawing courses teacher Ülle Marks: " For me, you are always amateurs, no matter how long your learn, or how intensive you learn" :) (greets for her, she's the best art/drawing instructor I know :)

Now what else. I promised to upload you some skins, eh. Will do that later, I'm sure pretty much before the dollar collapse + oil wars :P There's also a list of psychedelic/progressive music I'd like to recommend you, but this take some serious hours to create that list :P

And there's another thing, I'd like to ask you - if yo happen to read some of these "articles", feel free to leave a comment :P comments are cute ˆˆ

Anders Quickver's flash page

ok here - link - is a link for Swedish flash designer porfolio page.
It's made almost four years ago, so you can imagine what can be done today with such a poweful tool like Flash. Last year Adobe has bought Macromedia, so Adobe's a big player in the field today (with its Photoshop, and now also Flash).

So I recommend you to learn some flash (oh, me? I'm lazy,*cough*) if you wanna be an outstanding performer in the field :) .. khmm and also if you want to know the score what's going on in Estonia's new media design, you should visit pixel :) not sure if the community is active these days (visited it a few years ago), but there's also archives + links to great design sites of all times.

I've been recently also been designing some "skins" I think I should upload some examples here as well how do they look like. Designing skin usually consists of 2 parts:

- graphics for the skin
- code that makes it work.

So I'm responsible for the graphics for that kind of bloody applications these days :) (ugh, code? :P *cough* khmm)

:)

I didn't know there's another excellent nature out there blogging from Estonia (shame on me) :)

Okay here's the link - click it or die! :P

Remo Savisaar's photo blog

This blog was chosen #1 animal photo blog of the year 2006!

"Da Vinci Code"

I'm one of the laziest human to read books these times (shame on me), fortunately there are some folks in Hollywood who care to make movies about this and that time by time, and they charge only a few bucks from you to see it.

So, if you have a minute, you should sit back and enjoy one of the Latest movies with Tom Hanks in head role, "Da Vinci Code" (by Ron Howard, based on a story by Dan Brown)

It was an exciting experience compared with the rest of Hollywood sh*t (*cough*) we can meet on cinemas these days :)

What's inside digital cameras

Link for a webpage, where are some decent information (in Estonian) + pictures, how digicams look like from inside :) If you know estonian language, the better :)

red leafs

.. dug in the old photo folders today, discovered that picture :) - it's a bit blurry, what pity, but when sized down to web, perhaps you won't notice that :))

tiny gallery ..

.. about kind youngster in Tallinn's EU Day (perhaps it is EU Day in all over EU countries?.. :P ). Thanks. I think I can consider the day succeeded in terms of photographing people :)

:)

Picture is from European Day in Tallinn, (thanks Laura and other kind youngster for the kind permission to make some snapshots)

I'm busy with different kind of things, including participating in many photo contests.

More "news" soon :P haha

some photo-related links

I'd like to recommend you to visit some pages. You probably already know them, and these are also found via google, but hey, who cares :)

Sven Zacek - outstanding estonian nature photographer. I'm personally a huge fan of his photos and there are no shots in my libraries that reach even close for that kind of excellent work. Awesome!

Tõnu Ling - another outstanding Estonian nature photographer. If Sven is specified (is he?) more to wildlife, Tõnu is specified more to landscapes and that kind of stuff. Do not hesitate to click, and perhaps you can even buy something from the site? :P

okay, there are many great photographers, but I'll check them out later :P


Now, some photo related sites of Estonia:

- FotoKala - probably one of the first sites allowing to upload your photo, so the others could critisize it and so. There's some serious art out there, and if you do not tolerate critique, this site is not for you :) many professionals are spending time there, so if they're in the bad mood (or just arrogant) they come and smack you up. I also started with that site, I reached for the mark of ~4.5 but today it has been exhausted for me as a channel to distribute my photography, I visit it often for new fresh art shots, though. Recommended :)

- Looduspilt - pretty new nature photograpy related site. As it is pulled by mr Zacek and his friends (I hope I remember right), there are a lot of activity there. I bet even more as the summer is about to begin soon. Very good contest/upload-type site for every kind of nature photographers.

okay, there are many others, but hey let's have something for the next time as well :P

Vote!

Here you can vote about what do you think about the works of the Pentax Portrait Contest pictures :) - do not hesitate to click! ;)

this time

First, some music recommendations.

- Pink Floyd - The Division Bell

very psychedelic and mystical album. It happens to be ordinary, that you discover the real character of the certain albub, when you have played it twice or more. Music has to clear up some time, then it shows up its real face. :-) anyway, music is so wide area of discussion, that there will be no day when all you want to say about music, is told. And it is also fatal that every time you listen a song, tons of songs are created realtime. So you are not able to listen all world music within your short life :) so better get the best ouf of shit till your ears are able to hear :P
So now it's time to listen to Pink Floyd's 'Division Bell' - pay good attention to "talk to me"

I get addicted by some certain song sometimes (do you?), then I play it till every second of it is written on my ear drums. In 1998, I listened to the Marillion's 'Brave' - loud and often. If you happen to see 'Brave' somewhere in the CD-store, do not hesitate to purchase it. Every song in it is a whole album, and the album is one whole song. 'Brave' is not easy to listen, so if Britney is your no #1, this album is not for you.

What else. I've been workin' in the garden a few days (got to be out when there's sunny days, especiallt after 5 months rain, snow, ice and cold), so no funky articles in blog. If it rains, I'm back again in front of my 6 years old Hitachi display, radiating my eyes again :P By the way, Hitachy CM625 is the sharpest/best 17" trinitron-based display by far :) (ok, I haven't seen Eizo's from this era).

I'm dreaming about getting some serius photos / photo sessions from this summer, I need to go on with shooting people. If you'd like to get pictured, do not hesitate to send me mail - thanks :) .. thanks for help Krislin, new people are alway interesting to shoot :) a picture as follows:


and another:



There's also an upcoming protrait contest made public, Pentax Estonia is about to organize a grand contest including spectacular final show in 'Estonia' National Theathre.

So now I'm browsing my 24,000+ pics to find something to refer to the contest. Hard to find, actually. As the time goes on, the more you pay attention to the quality and concept. So what looked brilliant 3 years ago, might not look so marvellous today :) ..

I'm also thinking about making a film come-back somewhere in the near future - film colors are just so much better (even simple standard 35mm films). More current spendings, but that's how things are. I fell in love with film photography a few years ago, starting with simple Pentax MZ-50 SLR, then a few years later, till today, many different digital (point & shoot) cameras have been in use (Panasonic FZ10, Sony F717, Nikon 5400, Canon G5, Pentax *ist DS). Using *ist DS today and very happy with it. But film is more lively, so you should consider it one fine day too, if you are started your photography life with digital camera :)

...

Funky youngster are hanging around

As the weather gets warmer, the more ppl are out there in the city. Many graduates are hanging around with funky toys and stylish clothes with nostalgic memories reflecting from theyr happy eyes :)


I don't know who's in the picture, if you happen to know, please tell me as well :)

piece of spring - tiny blue lily-like flower.. what might it be in English?..

Estonia from Outside :P

Pretty interesting reading, especially for those who live in Estonia.
Estonia From Outside

Here's also a link to a site containing brief information about Estonia.
Estonica

Tech Day

This is Estonian rally star Urmo Aava. He was in the "Motorex 2006" show today kindly sharing autographed postcards. Mr Aava still drives a JWRC car Suzuki. I hope we see him in real WRC one fine day, but we should also be ready for the worst scenario, as there are big money in WRC/F1 game, so they are like some competitiors (rumours say F1 wants to kick WRC).

If you haven't seen how the heart of the Suzuki looks, here it is:



Markko Martin was even more famous lately but he decided to step back from WRC arena last year. Mr Martin does not like to talk too much, so we don't know the exact reasons. I believe he is remembered as a Ford Focus driver who won outstanding bronze medal in WRC back to 2004. He has also won many rallies. Respect, Markko.

Okay what else did I see in Motorex. First, I believe I last visited this exhibition back in 1995. Today is more like a show, a lot of cute girls hanging around, a lot of performances and games, and if you do not play music so loud that your ears hurt, you don't rule. In comparison the exhibition was a lot larger also. Sitting in a new car is a good feeling, and car manufacturers know that, too :P We all want new, stylish, economic, safe cars with extras, don't we :P

Now that's interior of the Saab 93 - marvellous. Stylish design, automatic transmission, perhaps some 2.o Turbo Engine.


Okay, I'll go on with it some other day. It was a great experience over eleven years :)

april :)

.. it's a very special day today :) it's my wife's birthday! Happy birthday! :) .. which also means that the day is very busy and I have no time to update my blog again.. ugh.. :P

Pic is from back to 2004, "leaving Heltermaa Port" haha, sun, clouds & sky is saves us when there's nothing else particular to shoot :P .. I had a lovely Panasonic FZ10 camera these times, this was my first, and I'd recommend it to anyone.. aha. I have a plan to review some digicams and other tech stuff one day, so let's see it I can handle it :-)

shallalaa

shallalaa, i'm lazy updating my blog.
but let's see how it goes in near future - who knows.

Two years ago I wanted to start a freelance project - dlancer.net freelance community. One of my friends even helped me with starting the phpBB forum. However it seems I'm not a good project manager :) and these days, we have tons of forums out there, don't we. So my apologies for all who joined this forum.

I'm patiently waiting for the trees and plants to becobe green. Tired of gray landscapes and even grayer clouds. The photo is from April 10th, now that's some Estonian landscape. Looks a bit muddy though, I guess I should use film in summer (instead of digital, which is muddy, muddy, MUDDY. OR I haven't found the right one).

Estonian lead ornitologists also announce, that it would be great to watch birds someday these days. I totally agree. There are many of these little warblers hanging around here in spring, so if you have a second to visit forests, just do it.

Simple Minds..

edit: 22.april 2006 - here's finally the only pic from the concert:

.. performs live well :) music is a sophisticated piece of art, and I'm glad to see that there are still good musicians among all this crap available today. So the concert was very good, maybe a bit loud in terms of sound for my ears, but hey I might have stupid ears :) ..

Simple Minds is a kind of music that you might consider buying a few albums on your CD-shelf. It is powerful, vital music, that makes your hair rise and fears fall. There are other great artists too, but this is another topic :-) .. (I'll try to upload a pic later - i have one tiny mp-camera pic :P)

I hope this blog won't turn "photos only" :)

anyway, we are waiting for spring here in Estonia, but as with today, still snow here and there, and below zero here and there.

Cuba pics

Found this Cuba gallery today while browsing the holy internet.. excellent travel pics!

recommended artist

Rufus Wainwright

a quick link:
signs of the times
also this nice flash intro about if boeing attacked pentagon or not (thanks for the link to Marcela)

different people

What can be more enjoyable than different people in different countries? Today, while browsing the holy internet, I found this interesting travel page with some masterpiece travel pictures

Today I was trying to capture incence smoke again (I've tried this before, actually).
Now that's it. More 1337 news later on :P

car cult

Today, I found an interesting article while browsing the internet - why people love their cars. It is a phenomenon what we can understand, but which we do not want to change thill there another way around. Do you use a car? I do, my family and friends do, everyone who can lease a car, does it. Highway is freedom, there's still gas in the station?All the Europe and US are using cars, and car (+related) industry is one of the most profitable these days. Cars are even usen in not so highly advanced societies, like in Africa. They use europeans old cars, and meanwhile the picture might remain ratten.com, the cars are still in use.

What is the phenomenon of the car? I did not find too much information about that today while browsing the web & squeezing search engines, so I can tell you why I'm using the car. I'm sure sociologists have paid attention to it timeby time, though.

Now down to the business, why it is hard to relinguish our cars.

1) Car gives you a freedom to move when we want and where we want (opposite to every kind of public transport)
2) We are egoists, we love to be alone in our cars (opposite to public transportation where everyone can disturb you)
3) Cars look good.
4) Cars are durable these days - you can drive a few hundred thousand kilometers without major maintenance.
5) You can install an expensive hi-fi sound system, so music makes you feel in heaven.
6) When it rains outside, it is dry inside (opposite to bicycles and bikes)
7) Pretty cheap to drive around because of the (still available) cheap oil
8) We may love to investigate in our cars to make them look better and run faster (new wheels, engine tuning)
9) Owning car is an advantage (= speed, mobility) in business. In the same situtation, in the same business, the one who owns car, can probably manage business faster.
10) We feel ourself safe in our car, so we can provoke our co-drivers and police, can't we. And it gives us so much self confidence and adrenaline, ain't that.
11) Etcetera.

So in general, we are comfortable, egoistic, lazy, vain, indolent.

We won't die when we would not have cars. But two or more of them are nice also, don't you think. The more newer, faster, stylish, durable, multifunctional the better.

inking and drawings

This post stands for a picture I drew a few weeks ago. I attend in drawing courses with my wife, so time by time I digitalize our drawings and upload it to DA. As I now have my own blog (still poud of it, aha?), why not to post some work besides thinking about if there's fuel in the gas station tomorrow or if the protocol of the Kyoto makes sense. ain't that?

Drawing / designing has been one of my favourite doings since secondary school, I had all my math marks low because I designed cars while the others learned algebra. My math teaher told me that I won't reach anywhere if I if I do not learn math, but I did not like that kind of method of teaching, so I still drew cars in my math books. It was more than 10 years ago when I made a decision to learn sciences instead of arts, but today I still prefer arts, I even make some living out of creating art. Yes. Okay I think that's it, drawing/art is a very interesting topic so I'll continue some other day, comprende? :P

comic strips can cause trouble

I'd like to tell a few words about why comic pics can be dangerous. I'm sure you all already know a lot about it, but hey, I have to continiue by blog :) The pic with the cows stands for peace, it is taken in south-west Spain near Cadiz, which is a very beautiful district. I have more than 1,000 pics from my trip there from 2005, so you'll see a tons of them appearing here when I'm out of ideas/pics related with the article. You can click on the pic, for bigger size. I try make it a tradition from now on.

So one day a few moths ago a scandal flared up caused by pictures in danish second-rate newspaper. It has became one of the most serious conflicts these days between EU and the Middle East, I think it is sometimes considered even as a global issue. So what happened was that Danes were publishing silly pics about muslim extremists, which caused a huge hullabaloo
in many of the muslim countries. I'm not able to understand that kind of things, because I'm not very educated (I haven't read the bible nor the koran), but there's an incident related to that all I'd like to share with you.

One day while I was hanging around in orkut (oh holy internet, you are so great), I got a friend request from a guy from Algeria - seemed an interesting aquaintance for me, so I accepted it and we later talked a lot via msn. We had a lot of talk about - progressive rock (he's a real audiophile), global problems (why Kursk went down, why 9.11 happened, and so on, very interesting topics), why pakistanians are going to search a new life in UAE, and everyday's life.

Well, I enjoyed these intelligent conversiations much, till one day he came online and asked: "man, what do you think about this danish cartoons?" well, as much as I know, religions is always extremely sensitive topic. But I love to say to my friends what I really think ( = I want to feel myself free while being with my friends), so after introducing my background him ( = that I do not know much about chrisitians' / muslims' values), I said that I personally do not care much about the pics in some secondary newspaper. So that was the end of the story, my answer angered him so much that I did not meet him online for many weeks.

Geez, this religion has some power! I was thinking, and I was right. When I meet him later online again, we discussed about what has happened. I apologized and sayd I did not mean anything bad with saying what I said. No good. Religion was the most important thing for him, so today I do not have this contact anymore. So what I learned from this lesson? Uncountable list of things. First, never underestimate the power of religion. Second, that it is hard to discuss religion related issues with a seriously religious man in a neutral ground. .. and so on.

Religion is a very interesting topic, so I'm about to discuss about it here more closely one fine day I hope. I believe religion is related to so many things, that you can't ignore it, and I'm sure we all have examples from here and there about it. I believe religion has another dimension of power these days again, a good example is that when sms was sent to millions of muslims on middle east, the result of that was disastrous. and so on. So dangerous stuff :)

I love my naighbours

I love dogs, too. We moved from flat to a tiny house three years ago, it was sometimes interesting to see our naighbours' dog to visit our garden. The breed should be Moscow Watchdog, if you care (I'm not sure though, because the colors do not match).

Okay this dog sometimes managed his dog business in front of my window while I was eating coffee in my kitchen. Time went by and I hoped my lovely naighbours do something to restrain their dog, but no luck. So one day I went to talk with them, hey, you dog runs in my garden, he shits around while I drink coffee, and dig up the flowers my wilfe plants every spring. Well they looked at me like I was their utmost enemy, and said they do not know about the problem. But the problem became more global (the dog jumped over the fence and walked around the streets and so), so one day a poor doggy was chained.

As with today, they do not have this dog anymore, so I have no-one to scold about anymore. But don't worry, we have a new trend to complain about these days - naighbours' children love to run through my garden to get shorter way to the street (I love in a corner plot). I noticed that a few weeks ago and I was thinking - hey, these are kids, so okay, we all have been kids and have been making stupid things.

But today they also used this cute shortcut through my garden so I opened the window and squawked them, what's going on??!! - which caused them to hide behind the trees, and run like hell when they realized they were caught in the act. My wife and I do not like that kind on lovely things, so I jumped in my car to catch these poor fishes, but no luck - young people are fast! Consider this when they walk in your property next time! So I visited my naighbours again over 3 years today hoping to get an audience to the boys' parents. I had no luck, so I speaked with one young lady and asked her if she could pass my best regards, and I'd also be interested to hear from them about the reasons why they run through my garden. I also find this is not very smart to do this when there's snow covering all the garden, so their footprints are all visible.

Well that's the story this time - small place, small problems, sometimes funny though :P

A great way to start ..

.. learning spanish :) download the exe file from here - link - (for windows).. the interface is very easy & logical, the program also contains audio files so you can learn how to pronounce the words :) hasta luego!

spanish

pic is from Spain, from april 2005. What a country! (this is pic is also available in my dreamstime galleri, if you'd like to purchase it)

I'm trying to learn spanish, but I don't know if I succeed. I tried this last year at the same time, then I failed. I think it is a matter of diligence & laziness. I have resources to learn it, so if I fail again, I'm too lazy :P

When I learned German in secondary school, our teacher said that one talented german learned estonian language within 3 months. Unbelievable, but who knows.

oil age

yes, it seems to be a matter of time. What do we do after we're out of cheap oil? There are many alternatives actually, which are more or less not so easy to use today. Oil production is near maximum these days, and because of the lack of the new huge oil fields, big crude oil refineries are not built anymore. Demand for fossil-based fuel increases every day, but the production can not follow the speed. What is also interesting, is that we don't know if the information available in internet/media about oil resourses is accurate, because oil business is too big business to declare that.

So, what is the solution? No one knows so far, there are only speculations out there. Alternative energies are not so easy to take into use, all the infrastructure is based on cheap oil, producing alternative tehnologies to replace current infrastructure (solar panels, etc) takes too much fuel. Nuclear power yet to be developed to be effective and safe at the same time, meanwhile it is times more reconsidered than 20 years ago (Chernobyl disaster).

It has been told us that we're running out of oil, but we're still driving cars, heating our homes, and using this resource for many other applications. What will we do when it ends? Time to think about it, though there are still some big oil fields discovered, time by time ;)

here's also a pick of related links:

DIE OFF
Life after the oil crash
Alternative energy resources (1998)
EurekAlert (US science news)
Hubberth peak theory
NY Green Guerillas
revolution in public transport
ITER - new generation nuclear power
bio-diesel
price of oil over years & decades
energy bulletin

baruto

do you know who is Baruto? It is Estonian sumo wrestler (don't know if this is correctly said?..) Kaido Höövelson, rising star in sumo battlefield, redoubtable opponent in every tatami. You can read more here, or just google around. We here in Estonia, are proud of you, Kaido!

travel links

here are some interesting travel links:

1) Õnne Pärl's Diary (Afghanisthan)
2) Rebaseonu's Diary (Africa)

Now these blogs are both in Estonian language, so be sure to know it before clicking :P

why am I starting this blog

Today, I was wondering why I did create this blog. I still don't know. OR do I. Sometimes, there are things I want to say, or publish. So far I have used DeviantArt for that, I think 2-3 times a year. DeviantArt is more a place where you publish your creative side, not thoughts or that kind of thing. We are (and the world is) globalizing, anyway. Damdadaa, dobedoo.

But, for example, when I feel good, I come here, and say: "I feel ****ing good". OR chickadee flies by, and I snap her with my camera, then I'd like to share this picture with you. And so on. Let's see how it goes. I discussed that with my wife also today, and we were both thinking this blog will be forgotten soon. But hey, when I come back here again in 2016, it is good to see I published some thoughts ten years ago. aha. :)

link (scientific)

I'd like to share a cool link with you - Ellie Crystal's Metaphysical and Science Website

It just came into my mind, while I dug the link itself out of the holy internet years ago. The design is also stylish like created some ten years ago or so. Much useful information there, about Great Chinese Wall, mayas, atlantis, and much more. Just so much great information. Also, if the owner/creator of the site ever reads this here, do not hesitate to contact me in terms of new design - i currently make living as a freelance designer :)

Anyway, what is the point of sharing links anyway these days - google finds it all, and other major search engines. So if you know 2 words, "search+engine", you fill not fail using the internet. Well but humans mind is not able to process all this information (like we are not able to listen to all the music produced in the world, as while we listen one composition, tens of new ones are made meanwhile).

that's it. I have to check this picture-system out here, it didn't work last time. P:

second blog. now with the picture. let's see how big can the picture be. I already resized my portrait for profile 2 times. ahaha.

okay, update. it seems firefox isn't performing so well with pictures. I'll try good old internet exporer then, let's see how it will work. What about fixing this, blogger. OR will I check if I have to fix myself.

okay, IE is open. let's see how it goes.

all right, IE could not hande it, also. Will take a look later, what might be the matter.

I have another complaint to blogger, ha. My profile image seems jagged to my profile page (the directly seen in blogger.com/blah-blach-blah page); as I do care the image look all right here, I resized it down to 60x80 (pixels) for better look. So it look okay in my page. What about thinking about that, blogger? :P

edit. 3rd time trying to add picture; the default mode still refused to work, therefore tryin' alternative methods. let's see.

okay this is the carnivore cactus family plant that eats flies.
Here's slightly bigger version available.

first blog, thanks for coming, thanks for listening, meet ya soon :P