Matkakuumetta

Suunnitelmissa seuraavat matkat:

1. Maaliskuussa Massachusettsiin
2. Toukokuussa Barcelonaan Wilcoa et al kuuntelemaan eli Primavera Sound Festival
3. Kesäkuussa Italiaan

Ja liput ja majoitukset pitäisi varata nyt ja tietenkin niskassa on edellisen Jenkkilä keikan luottokorttilaskut... pitää varmaan vaihtaa duunia, että saa enemmän liksaa.

movies more

History of violence

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The Blue Dahlia

Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake in Raymond Chandler's Blue Dahlia -- a classic.


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New state quarters

This time two new: Oklahoma and Wyoming

US Mint 50 State quarter program

* = mulla on
1,2,3, etc rivinlopussa = ylimääräisiä

1999
* January 04,1999 Delaware December 07, 1787 774,824,000 1
* March 08, 1999 Pennsylvania December 12, 1787 707,332,000
* May 17, 1999 New Jersey December 18, 1787 662,228,000 2
* July 19, 1999 Georgia January 02, 1788 939,932,000 1
* October 12, 1999 Connecticut January 09, 1788 1,346,624,000 1

2000
* January 03, 2000 Massachusetts February 06, 1788 1,163,784,000
March 13, 2000 Maryland April 28, 1788 1,234,732,000
* May 22, 2000 South Carolina May 23, 1788 1,308,784,000 3
* August 07, 2000 New Hampshire June 21, 1788 1,169,016,000
* October 16, 2000 Virginia June 25, 1788 1,594,616,000

2001
* January 02, 2001 New York July 26, 1788 1,275,040,000
March 12, 2001 North Carolina November 21, 1789 1,055,476,000
* May 21, 2001 Rhode Island May 29, 1790 870,100,000 2
* August 06, 2001 Vermont March 04, 1791 882,804,000 1
* October 15, 2001 Kentucky June 01, 1792 723,564,000

2002
January 02, 2002 Tennessee June 01, 1796 648,068,000
* March 11, 2002 Ohio March 01, 1803 632,032,000
* May 20, 2002 Louisiana April 30, 1812 764,204,000 1
* August 02, 2002 Indiana December 11, 1816 689,800,000 Bad 1
* October 15, 2002 Mississippi December 10, 1817 579,600,000

2003
* January 02, 2003 Illinois December 03, 1818 463,200,000 1
* March 17, 2003 Alabama December 14, 1819 457,400,000 bad
* June 02, 2003 Maine March 15, 1820 448,800,000 1
* August 04, 2003 Missouri August 10, 1821 453,200,000 1
* October 20, 2003 Arkansas June 15, 1836 457,800,000

2004
January 26, 2004 Michigan January 26, 1837 459,600,000
* March 29, 2004 Florida March 03, 1845 481,800,000
* June 01, 2004 Texas December 29, 1845 541,800,000
* August 30, 2004 Iowa December 28, 1846 465,200,000 1
* October 25, 2004 Wisconsin May 29, 1848 453,200,000

2005
* January 31, 2005 California September 09, 1850 520,400,000 1
* April 04, 2005 Minnesota May 11, 1858 488,000,000
* June 06, 2005 Oregon February 14, 1859 720,200,000 3
* August 29, 2005 Kansas January 29, 1861 563,400,000
* October 14, 2005 West Virginia June 20, 1863 721,600,000 1

2006
* January 31, 2006 Nevada October 31, 1864 589,800,000
*April 03, 2006 Nebraska March 01, 1867 591,000,000
June 14, 2006 Colorado August 01, 1876 569,000,000
* August 28, 2006 North Dakota November 02, 1889 664,800,000
* November 06, 2006 South Dakota November 02, 1889 510,800,000

2007
* January 29, 2007 Montana November 08, 1889 513,240,000 2
April 02, 2007 Washington November 11, 1889 TBA Current Quarter
* Idaho July 03, 1890
* Wyoming July 10, 1890
Utah January 04, 1896

2008
* Oklahoma November 16, 1907
* New Mexico January 06, 1912
Arizona February 14, 1912
* Alaska January 03, 1959
* Hawaii August 21, 1959
Posted by srpnt at 12:09 AM
Labels: quarter, state

ja "In 2009, the United States Mint will mint and issue six quarter-dollar coins in honor of the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories: the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands."

2009
* Guam

Albuquerque/Dallas tour

I was visiting New Mexico for the first time in my life. Thought first that since it is far in the South it would be Summer -- luckily I checked the weather from weather.com and I was not that totally surprised when ending up with nightly frost and up to 10 degrees Celsius daily temperature.

I flew to Albuquerque through Copenhagen and Washington DC. The original plan was to fly through Heathrow, but BA end up cancelling the flight form London to Dallas. That then ment BLUE1&SAS. Traveling on Sunday and having the coach ticket means that with BLUE1 you are not only not paid for the traveling time, but you would also need to buy your own food, since only the coffee&soda is free. SAS kindly offers two drinks: one w/ meal and another right after that -- the rest will cost you money: beer $5. I manage to get one beer free, cause the payment with credit card did not work.

Copenhagen was nice as usual, but since the the deicing of the motors at Helsinki-Vantaa started when the taxing should have started we got that late to CPH there was no time to visit the Diners lounge or any of the fancy snack bars, which have been found to be world class.

Washington was just plain awful. The queue to the immigration took something like 2 hours. The check itself was not anything special, naturally my September visit might have helped here, but there was no any extra layer of security checking attached. My guess is that the officers try to grill the Asian travelers by leaving them standing there for indeterminable time and checking if they are getting nervous or not.

Well "luckily" the flight from IDC to Albuquerque was late and that left us plenty of time to have a bite. This was then the first of the many magnificent hamburgers I ate during the trip -- and Sam Adams too. The flight itself was not anything remarkable. I could not sleep much, so I just waited to flight to end. Unfortunately I had miscalculated the number of time zones and I was getting ready to land an hour too early -- caused some minor disappointment there.

Albuquerque Hertz did not much appreciate my Gold Card and we end up having a battered old Toyota Camry with lazy 2.4 4 cylinder.

The whole trip to the Albuquerque took full 24 hours. One of the longest yet. New Mexico is not that too far, but a small amount of bad luck easily delays you a lot.

We stayed at Hyatt Place Uptown. The downtown, it seems, is not the place you want to be and you best avoid all the western parts of ABQ. There was a mall, called ABQ, just opposite the street, but I did not make it at all during the whole stay. The hotel was decent, but not as cool as the pictures let you understand. Breakfast was not much and the airconditioning/heater made such an awful noise that most of us just turned it off. I couldn't, I was on the 1st floor and I was not enjoying the left over heat from other floors.



At the first full day Monday we took the car and drove the Sante Fe. There was Martin Luther King memorial day at the weekend and at Monday 8 am there was no traffic. Santa Fe was not all that much. Had a cup of coffee and enormous carrot cake in a coffee house there. Did not buy any indian crafts or art, did not feel that much about shopping, thought right after that went to outlet mall, which had decent bargains. Bought Tommy Hilfiger t-shirts $7 each, among other things.



We took then the alternative mountainous route backto ABQ. Drove through Los Alamos, which was not much. Stopped at the first place recognizable as a bar: Los Ojos. It was a small bar at a mountain village filled with local people -- who at the end turned out to be very nice folks: hunters, bikers.... Lots of dead game at the walls. Good food, although their idea of a hamburger is at least interesting.



We had an excellent beer there, but I not quite sure if it was this one or just something similar:



The next few days went on business. There was a visit to El Pinto, most established Mexican restaurant in ABQ and a visit to Sandia Peak (ie watermelon mountain). Sandia Peak hosted the longest passenger aerial tramway in the world and eating ribs in County Line BBQ.



And interesting detail is that the whole New Mexico or so used to be covered by shallow sea back in a couple of tens of millions years ago and one can find fossils of sea creatures at the top of the mountain at the left hand side of the picture below -- now at the level of 10000 ft:



One "funny" thing was that the whole ABQ was at the quite high altitude, some 1600m from sea level -- this appeared to have an interesting effect on my body: it did not matter what I drank, I had to visit the toilet quite a many times during the day and the same seemed to apply to all the other people too, thus perhaps there would be a place to have a new saying: "peeing like in Albuquerque" --- "One of the body's reactions to high altitude is water dumping to allow the blood to carry more oxygen. Frequent urination is a symptom of this process".

After three days of business it was time to go after some warm weather, or at least that was the idea -- to go to Dallas a day ahead the schedule. Most likely we were still lucky to get only minor rain, since there was a major storm in the Southern Texas.

Dallas or rather Irving provided the nasties surprise. We were planning to stay at the Marriot Residence Inn close to NSN office and I did make it to the room just to find a German Cockroach at the floor of my privy. Changed hotel of course, to neighboring Marriot Courtyuard, which was not much better. I got the first room at the top floor and there seemed to be a very noisy airconditioning unit at the roof of the building just top of my room. There was no way anyone could sleep there, thus I needed to change the room -- again.

Flight back to Finland started in the usual cicumstances: the flight was late. I arrived at the airport the two hours before the flight should take place just to find that there was no queue at the check in or at the security and thus had three hours to wait. Luckily the flight back was with BA and they served decent food, decent amount of beverages including a free brandy and a decent entertainment unit with full control on which movies you want to watch and when. The plane was nice too: Boeing 777.

Heathrow's new terminal 5 was not bad. Had a brief stop at the security and the buses to other terminals were very easy to find. My Finnair flight departed from the old terminal 3 and there was not much of thrills, apart the visit to the sushi place. Had an excellent view to what the chief chef was doing and saw him preparing some greens and failing to wash his hands or the salad at any times. Probably the last time I eat there.

Bought:

AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 55-200mm f/4-5.6G IF-ED
Vampire Weekend: Contra
Phoenix: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Niall Ferguson: The Ascent of Money
and some clothing

Movies from 10 miles up

An update on movies:

Aliens in the Attic

Goes well in mid-flight over the Atlantic, cannot guarantee that this is funny in any other circumstances

Zombieland

the same as the previous one

Hangover

Much more funnier than I thought. The end is a bit disappointing after all the building up the momentum, but still a good comedy -- or then the previous statement applies

500 days of Summer

Me watching a romantic movie, well if Zooey Deschanel is involved I just might and I did. Nice flik. Grown up Tommy Salomon ie Joseph Gordon-Levitt from 3rd stone from the sun was the protagonist falling in love with Summer ie ever-so-ihq Zooey Deschanel. Lot's of references to Manchester: Smiths, Joy Division...


District 9

Watch this one at home. Not quite sure about the goodness or badness: but see for yourself. Old theme in a new form. Nice camerawork though.

leffoja

3. Terminal

Spielbergin harhaosuma. Forest Gumpin olisi ollut parempi valvoa Seatlessa, kuin eksyä JFK:lle. Igqu Catherine Zeta-Jones tarjoaa silmäniloa, mutta ei pysty silti paikkamaan paskaa leffaa.

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4. Deep Rising

Ennen kuin Stephen Sommers ohjasi kökkö-muumion, niin hän tuhlasi other people money:n tämän juonen pötkäleen kuvitukseen: "A group of heavily armed hijackers board a luxury ocean liner in the South Pacific Ocean to loot it, only to do battle with a series of large-sized, tentacled, man-eating sea creatures who have taken over the ship first"

Ihquna Famke Janssen aka Xenia Onatop

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5. Underworld

Ihquna Kate Beckinsale, parempi tämä oli kuin naapuri kanavalla pyörinyt Pearl Harbor.

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Uusi yritys leffojen listaamisessa

aloitetaan tästä uudesta vuodesta:

1. The Secret of the Moonacre

Satu laaksosta, jossa on iso kuu. Pääosassa Golden Compassin Lyra, eli Dakota Blue Richards. Edelleenkin hieman yksiulotteinen. Kohtuullisen scriptistä on saatu kohtuullinen seikkailu aikaiseksi, mutta ei mitään mikä jäisi historian kirjoihin.

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2. Ali

Inhokki Will Smith näyttelee Cassius Claytä Micheal Mannin leffassa Ali. Leffa keskittyy Alin politikoitiin, kunnes sitten päättyy Rumble in the Jungleen. Kovasti kyhätyn oloinen ja episodimainen elokuva, joka ei koskaan pääse kunnolla vauhtiin. En ole koskaan Alin elämänkertaan perehtynyt, mutta en olisi kovin yllättynyt, jos tässä olisi Alin suhdetta mm. Malcomm X:n hieman liioiteltu -- tosin sanoen tarina ei ollut kovin vakuuttava.

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