William Shatner has recently made a Leonard Cohen style music CD called Has Been and it has, shockingly perhaps, received rave reviews all over the place. Amazon is recommending it as a better together purchase with Spaced Out, which looks like one of the TV star exploitation musical albums that were common in the 60’s and 70’s.. and yes 80’s! Remember Don Johnson? David Hasselhoff? Plenty more to be found at Frank’s Vinyl Museum, one of the first camp culture Internet links I ever found. I’m quite happy that the site is still up.

William Shattner: The Captain of a Starship

On the artwork for Transformed Man, Shatner appeared as Captain Kirk, in his full starfleet uniform. Here, however, licensing restrictions prevented Imperial House records from using any actual Trek material. Notice how Shatner is the captain of the “Starship”, not the “Enterprise”, and how his shirt, while similar to the one he wore on TV, lacks the official Star Trek insignia. If you look closely you might also notice that the space rifle he’s wielding is actually an upside-down camera tripod — talk about your low-budget photo shoots!

SubTV is continuing to establish their sub-culture orientated program profile by showing a Star Trek marathon broadcast that’s seems to be lasting for days on end. I can imagine the fans of this show nested together somewhere in Otaniemi adoring this legendary relic of science fiction history. To be honest, the show made a big impression on me as a kid, so I kind of enjoy seeing it myself every now and then. 48 hours in a row might be a bit too much though.

Star Wreck is a independently produced science fiction parody of Star Trek (and a number of other cult tv series) which is about to be released on August 20th, 2005. Just look at the trailer and draw your own conclusions about the level of commitment and endurance the creators of this movie have. (Star Wars has an established fan film production culture as well, by the way)

Star Trek Summary at tv.com

After its three year run Star Trek began running syndication where it was discovered by legion of new fans and became a phenomenon. The show inspired six features films, an animated series, and four additional spin-off television shows. Other spin-off’s include novels, comic books, merchandise and an enormous amount of fan-fiction based on the series. Despite its short network run, Star Trek has become one of the most successful shows in television history.

Startrek.com – the official web site

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Japanese culture can be very hard to understand sometimes, but they do seem to enjoy all kinds of physical stunts and other antics on TV. Takeshi “Beat” Kitano has made several movies which I would easily classify as true cinematic masterpieces. I saw his interpretation of Zatoichi, the blind samurai just last year and it was really, really good. Still, in the beginning of his career he was hosting one of the mindless stunt competition comedy shows: Takeshi’s Castle. It was not exactly a talent show, but a sort of competition with tasks that seemed to be right out of a platform jumper video game.

There seems to be an endless stream of video clips from Japanese Talent Shows making their rounds on the Internet.

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Dr. P’s Dog Training: Vision in Dogs

Most humans have the ability to see all the different colors of the electromagnetic spectrum, and consequently perceive all its’ colors. [The color that is perceived is a result of the visual system, and not the spectrum itself.] Animals, such as the dog, are often thought of as being at a disadvantage by not being able to see all the hues of the spectrum. Evolutionarily however, the dog and the human each developed the visual system that worked best for them. Humans have depended on their diurnal ability and a sense of color throughout time to help them find food. Dogs on the other hand, were not originally diurnal animals, until humans domesticated them. Consequently, the ability to see at night was originally more important to the dog than color. After all, their prey is often camouflaged with the surroundings, so they are unable to rely on color vision cues as heavily as humans do to find food.

Hunting retrievers: What do dogs see?

Causes of Color

Many people think anyone labeled as “colorblind” only sees black and white — like watching a black and white movie or television. This is a big misconception and not true. It is extremely rare to be totally color blind (monochromasy – complete absence of any color sensation). There are many different types and degrees of colorblindness – more correctly called color deficiencies.

What do birds see

The tetra- or pentachromatic color space of birds appears to be the most complex in nature and is likely involved in virtually all areas of the animals’ lives, from the discrimination and recognition of objects to more complex behavioral tasks such as navigation, the classification of objects, and social and sexual behavior.

Various “special vision” effects have been used movies and TV series to convey a story. “The Predator” thermal vision, the chase scenes in “Alien 3″, “Six Million Dollar Man”, “Pitch Dark”… most of them are obviously sci-fi movies. I can’t remember seeing any of these exciting visual filters being in any of the dog movies though. Lassie’s life was always portrayed through the eyes of a human.

Vision is a strange thing. I recently read an article about how brains have adapted to ignore the short black-out that occurs in the retina during a single blink. I’m quite certain that our brains could adapt to all kinds of very advanced vision enhancing devices if just given enough time.

Upside down image in the retina:

… As a result, though, it is believed that for the first few days, babies see everything upside-down. This is because they have not become used to vision.

Your brain CAN be retrained though. In one psychological study, participants were asked to wear inverting lenses – lenses that invert the image BEFORE they get to your eye, so that when your eye inverts it, it’s right-side-up. At first, everything appeared upside-down to the participants. But, after a few days, people began to report that everything appeared right-side-up!

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Now this is really something! I found a little package marked “Wonderkeep” among these Wasabi Coated Green Peas (which are extremely delicious by the way). After a little googling around I found out what the function of this package is:

Wonderkeep

Wonderkeep is pioneered from the iron powder production technology as an oxygen absorber. Wonderkeep extracts the oxygen from the interior of a sealed package in a short period of time and the normal atmospheric oxygen level of 21% drops to less than 0.1%. With the elimination of almost all the oxygen in a package, the freshness and quality of food is maintained for a longer period. Wonderkeep is a fast-acting quality product with a wide range of applications.

This stuff is a great invention. It helps to keep food fresh without additives. I have previously considered getting a manual household food container vacuuming system such as the one from Vacuvin. These little Wonderkeep packages would be really handy on extended camping trips to preserve leftover food. Obviously one needs an airtight container to make them work, but such containers are readily available. I bought a few Lock’n'Lock boxes just last week.

Most of the pre-packaged meat sold in Finland is either vacuum packed or packaged in “protective gas” which is just regular air with the oxygen removed.

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Datelance.com is yet another manifestation of the emerging “egocasting” phenomen. Very modestly funded projects and even individual people use exactly the same media and methods as the biggest companies in the world. I have read several news stories about people publishing ads on newspapers to propose to their fiancee or to apologize over something.

With modern technology it is relatively easy to imitate very high quality production values in printed media and even video. This makes it harder and harder to distinguish between a real ad campaign and a parody. Especially after the ad agencies have increasingly started to use “fake home video” and similar tactics to blend in with the media stream people are constantly receiving in urban environments and to confuse us poor customers even further.

DateLance.com FAQ

Q. Did Lance know about the billboard or the website?

A. No, Lance had no idea. He found out about it when we drove him by the billboard about 30 minutes after it had gone up. In fact, we secretly videotaped his reaction.

Q. How did you get all of those pictures of Lance?

A. When Lance first started at LogoWorks about six months ago, he went down to a local photography studio called Rubberball Productions. He is our Director of Marketing and was there to supervise a photo shoot we were doing to get artwork for a website we were launching. Lance is a good looking guy, so the people at the studio told him they’d comp the photo shoot if he’d take some pictures for them to put into their stock photography catalogs. Lance agreed, and we ended up with hundreds of pictures of him that he now regrets having taken.

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Well, what I can say.. she didn’t wear a seat belt. I hear she was a devoted seat belt user though.

Nevertheless, this is the stuff that myths and legends are made of. Excellent icon for a T-shirt as well.

But should stalking by Paparazzi by criminalized? I personally think it should. There was a lot of debate about this after the incident, but it seems like the issue faded away from the mainstream media after a year or two.

Privacy protection act 1998

Last year, a stunned America heard the news of Princess Diana’s untimely death. Early reports lay blame for the accident that caused her death on photographers whose reckless pursuit through a Paris tunnel caused her car to careen out of control. Instantly, debate centered on the need to curb the increasingly outrageous conduct of celebrity photographers. The role of the media in the Princess’s death has now been disputed, but the controversy over its conduct continues.

At issue is the proper balance between the press’ ability to engage in news gathering and an individual’s right to privacy and personal safety. Freedom of the press is guaranteed by the First Amendment as a fundamental cornerstone of our democracy, but it does not confer a license to engage in criminal conduct in the interest of securing news. When in the guise of getting a story, the press puts someone at risk of death or serious injury, the First Amendment is no shield.

Princess Diana’s tragedy is one of the latest and most notorious examples of how the sensationalist press operates. But celebrities have been complaining of similar conduct for years. In fact, the word ”paparazzi,” the term for the increasingly aggressive celebrity media, has made its way into common parlance. We’ve learned of the lengths to which reporters will go to score that photo that is just a little more sensationalist than the last one.

It is my understanding that there is only one professional Paparazzi in Finland.

How Paparazzi Work?

The word “paparazzi” is derived from a character in the Fellini film “La Dolce Vita.” The character, a photographer named Paparazzo, reminded Fellini of “a buzzing insect, hovering, darting, stinging.”
Fellini’s inspiration for the character was the famous Italian “street photographer” Tazio Secchiaroli. Fellini consulted Secchiaroli for research while developing the script for his classic film.

Secchiaroli became famous as a photographer when he captured candid photos of the former Egyptian King Farouk turning a table over at a restaurant in rage. On the same night, Secchiaroli also snapped photos of actor Anthony Steele in a public spat with actress Anita Ekberg. These photos started a trend in European publications, moving away from posed promotional shots of celebrities and toward surreptitiously captured candid photos.

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I almost couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw these three dogs laying on the ground. It’s a wheel based urban Siberian Husky wagon! Perhaps he is selling rides to tourists or just doing his thing. Nevertheless, it’s super cool.

Siberian Huskies FAQ

The Siberian Husky has a delightful temperament, affectionate but not fawning. This gentle and friendly disposition may be a heritage from the past, since the Chukchi people held their dogs in great esteem, housed them in the family shelters, and encouraged their children to play with them. The Siberian Husky is alert, eager to please, and adaptable. An aggressive dog is not a team dog, and therefore a lousy sled dog. Siberians are an extremely intelligent and independent breed. They can be very stubborn, owing to their original purpose, and they are easily bored. This independent and stubborn nature may at times challenge your ingenuity. His versatility makes him an agreeable companion to people of all ages and varying interests. However, this is not a breed that is typically recommended for first-time dog owners, as mistakes are easy to make and sometimes difficult to fix with this remarkably intelligent and opportunistic breed.

So… You want a Siberian Husky?

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Here are my travel tips to Berlin fresh off from the medium term memory pipeline:

1. The public transport system is among the best in the world. It is the veins of the city. Get a weekly ticket, get a route map and use it. Considering it is an old network, it really works like a dream. There are also night buses by the way.
2. You can wear any kind of rags or a business suit on the street. People may appear to pay very little attention to your appearence, but they are very style-conscious and dress stylishly in their own unique personal way.
3. If you don’t know german well, it’s a good idea to practice it with friends instead of starting conversations in german at shops and switching to english later.
4. People are rude on the surface as far as manners are concerned, but they have an empathic and good-hearted spirit under the big city survival skin.
5. Haggling is not easy and not always a good idea. The locals are very good with saving their money at every possible opportunity.
6. Restaurants are affordable and good. Thai and sushi places seem to be the latest trend. There is also a very big variety of turkish night kitchens for clubbers’ needs.
7. Clubbing scene starts very late. It’s not uncommon to go to a club at 3 or 4 am.
8. People like traditional things in everyday life. Analog cameras, record players, gas stoves etc are commonplace
9. Cafes with Wlan and Internet parlors are not hard to find
10. A lot of places are closed on Sundays
11. The best way to get on the current programme is to buy either a Tipp or Zitty magazine. They feature the concerts and other attractions for the current two week period. The period they cover overlap with each other.
12. The music scene is predominantly electronic. You hear it everywhere.. in shops, restaurants, clubs. If that floats your boat, you’ve come to the right place.
13. Bring some rain gear just in case it rains.
14. If you go to Kadewe, the luxury department store, be sure to visit the food department in the upper floors. It is amazing.
15. The only people you see taking photographs are tourists and professional photographers. The locals don’t like getting photographed at all.
16. People use bicycles a lot. There is a rental bike called Call-A-Bike and you might find a used bike for 40 euros or so. Locks are almost as big as in New York.
17. Beach bars complete with beach chairs, sand and water smoking pipes are a new and popular trend.
18. People smoke cigarettes all over the place. The only smoke-free places are U-bahn stations, the trains and the shops.
19. The new Jewish Holocaust monument is really worth seeing.
20. There are a lot of art shows in galleries and creativity in shop displays, graffitis etc. It’s a big city visual culture.
21. Sunday brunches are a good way to start a day. Breakfasts are avaible from 7 or so at most places every day.
22. Gyms are difficult to find and expensive. Cycling and swimming are a good way to stay fit.

EDIT: You might also want to try Dark dining at Unsicht Bar with a colleague or two if you have professional interest in matters of equality. Also, the best cocktail bar in the world, Green Door with their concept of power of positive drinking is a must-see.

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Icon Berlin has been renovated into a relatively clean and accessible club by Berlin standards. We went over there to a live Photek show. The crowd was visibly excited and danced the night away to the pulsing and very intricate drum and bass beat. I really loved a section in which he had mixed in some gregorian chant to the ragga style jungle beat. It was very original and technically very well made. He had a very energetic and intense stage presence and vocal output as well. There were two guys on stage so the vocalist may have been some other person though.

Photek profile at Allmusic.com

Though Goldie became the first superstar of jungle, the recordings of Rupert Parkes — as Code of Practice, Aquarius, Studio Pressure, the Truper and Sentinel, but most famously as Photek — made him an easy pick for the style’s most artistic and intelligent producer. Working his way through street-level hardstep (on early productions for Certificate 18 and Street Beats) and airy, sub-aquatic “dolphin” tunes for L.T.J Bukem’s Good Looking label, Parkes finally arrived at a sound that pushed the bounds of drum’n'bass from the dancefloor into the realm of breakbeat headspace; unlike most jungle producers, Parkes has never DJed and rarely goes to clubs. His incredibly intricate rhythm programming — often requiring weeks of computer preparation — and the unmissable aura of paranoid menace on recordings such as “The Hidden Camera” and “UFO” exerted quite an influence on the return of dark-style drum’n'bass during the late ’90s.

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We found an excellent DVD shop called Videodrom in Kreutzberg. They have horror movies from all decades, a whole collection of Godzilla movies and tons of other goodies including documentaries and other hard to find items. I just had to buy something, but I had trouble choosing from the wealth of their selection. I finally picked up a “The Black Gestapo/The Black Six” DVD of two blaxploitation flicks on the same disc.

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Globetrotter is one of the biggest outdoor supply stores I’ve been to. They have an indoor pool to test out kayaks, several rock and gravel surfaces to try out hiking shoes and a recently added bike simulator just to entertain your bored shopping companions. There is also a cafe with Internet access which is very suitable for “wife-parking”.

I bought titanium tent stakes, Montane featherlight rain gear, miniature clothespins among other useful items. A fun and not too expensive shopping session.

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Kodak news

Eastman Kodak Company remains committed to providing Super 8 camera users a range of products and creative choices. As such, Kodak has added a new color reversal film to its Super 8 portfolio-the super-saturated, fine grain KODAK EKTACHROME 64T Color Reversal Film 7280 will be available in August of this year.

“Introduced in 1965, Super 8 film has found new life with each new generation of filmmakers that continue to embrace the format,” said Bob Mayson, general manager and vice president for Image Capture products, Entertainment Imaging division at Eastman Kodak Company. “Forty years after its introduction, this small-gauge film still provides an easy, inexpensive way for students and enthusiasts to work at film resolutions and color depths as yet unmatched by the latest digital technologies.”

“In fact, many of today’s great cinematographers and directors began their careers decades ago, at the counter of their local photo shop, buying a cartridge of Super 8 film.”

Super 8 is still being used for many professional movie projects. Super 8 Sound provides high quality transfers and other support services for aspiring filmmakers on a really tight budget. There is also a film transfer service called Reel One in Helsinki which provides Super 8 transfers of professional quality.

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Suddenly I felt as if I was being watched.

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Arrived to Berlin. On Eberswalderstrasse there was a man carrying a laptop which was playing a slideshow with the words “Radio frequency weapons” and dealing out some sort of doomsday brochures.

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