Tic Toc

Have a look at the link "kellot". It just might come handy for foreigners, too. It only contains a list of brands of watches plus hyperlinks on companies + Finnish importers. www.kellot.fi

As you might not know, just like Volkswagen now owns almost everything from Lamborghini to itse "rival" Seat, Swatch has gobbled up the prestige marks. Rolex, this originally British quim so greatly favored by Americans, is no watch. It is a way of saying:"Look, I am rich!" Or it says:" Look, my wife believes I am doing O.K. and does not know, what a jerk I am really am, so please let us not tell her, because she really has some money."

Let us hope Esa and his friends include some really expensive stuff, double the price of a mealy Vacheron Constantin, like A. Lange & Söhne. Price for a basic watch $ 30 K.

"Yes, we all all Sirs", wrote Robin, when I asked something about him and his merry men. The timepiece Robin frisks still is the same Timex I noticed 1995.

The father of a friend, Mr. Pekka Herlin, was told by an ambassador or accountant that in China as well as Japan they have the tendency to check the condition of business-men's shoes and their watch. So he drew from his pocket a handy alarm-clock attached in paper-string, and worth the $ 6 he had paid for it.

The voluntary consult was disgusted, when the Chinese bought elevators for all Shanghai from Mr. Herlin, and walking platforms too.

Although I know a place where there is a carton full of 1968 Omegas in mint condition (Speedmaster, Spacermaster), I greatly favor watches that do not cost more than € 100, There is an exception, a large Mondaine Swiss Railway Clock, from Modern Arts Museum, N.Y. It is marvellous to see, what time it is. With these eyes, carrying bags ful of books or rudely wakened in office-time from sweet dreams.

In the photo there is Jacob Jensen's clock i greatly admire. It is cheap, too. Half of people I have asked do not understand, how to read the dial. For the other half, it is all obvious. In the picture, it is 7:45. The little circle pulses showing seconds and in this case that the alarm is on.

Jensen and Arne Jacobsen are the two Scandinavian masters. Of course we used to have our own, like Wirkkala, Sarpaneva, Still and Frank - but I admire the Danes. Kastrup is possibly world's least anxiety-ridden airport. It feels almost nice - and you can smoke there.

There are other things that are hard to learn but nice to use - Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator and even something else. Nobody but a nincompoop (non compis opiis - meaning certified lunatic) should yous Photoshop in this worl of ours that is so full of easier tools for trimming your basically bad digital photos - starting from the inimitable IrfanView.

At present I am changing my beloved old maps from bitmap into vector graphics. I went around asking, is this possible. Once again, my friends and students are all too good and skillful. The answer "I do not know anything about Windows and the programs those people use", is honest. However, they do not know Adobe-products either.

Therefore I do not degrade myself into really studying, how to use the programs, but instead do things wrong for a couple of years, meaning using ten things where one shortcut would do the trick. That is bad character, but that is what most people do. My father used first to memorize the manual and call me asking "Now I feel I might start using this Excel, but there is a function mentioned on page 732 that seems a bit obscure..." - But he served in Air Force 1939-1944 so that his attitude to technical issues is a bit warped. If you life depends of technical issues, you just might get cautious.

So, here is this day's piece of news. Yesterday I said something bad about MS Outlook (not Outlook Express). Actually I feel it should burn in hell together with its authors. But it really synchronizes easily with Nokia Communicator and I really have the tendency to be in Helsinki when an audience waits for me in Oulu, so this is one reason. And I do not think the law-courts are very admirable, because they have this tendency to use non-interoperable software. Helsinki Court of Appelas had an exotic word-processing program still in my time (up to 2000) and I had to figure out, how to save texsts in ascii. The Supreme Court was using Lotus, when I asked last, and typically a justice has never even heard of Word or Adobe Acrobat. That makes keeping contact difficult. Luckily they mostly do not want to keep contact, except in dire need.

So - Acrobat 8 claims it has a really good tool for archiving e-mail in pdf from MS Outlook. The thing in Ourlook for Acrobat 7.0 is rather good - but it is slow and makes mighty files.

This is too good to be true.

My solution has been to export all the damned stuff in ascii, clean it up using RegEx and find the old messages I need just using peasant cunning.

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En osaa päättää, pureutuako kiinni johonkin kieleen, kuten suomeen.

Voi olla, että mielen pohjalla on ajatus tavoittaa eräitä tuttavia ja tuntemattomia maailmalta. Mutta tarkemmin ajatellen rinnakkaisblogi voisi olla parempi ajatus siihen.

Lisäksi englanniksi kirjoittaminen falskaa. Osaan kirjoittaa suomea. Minulla on paperit siitä, että osaan kirjoittaa hyvin. Myös sisältäluku ja luetun ymmärtäminen oli kiitettävä.

Käskin vilkaisemaan linkkiä tai suroaan Esukan kello-listaa www.kellot.fi

Esa ei varmaan pidä lempinimestään, mutta Savossa kirjakielisen nimen käyttämistä pidetään loukkaavana. Jaakko on Jassi ja Marja-Leena on Massi. Lada on Latukka. "Vaehtaesko sitä Latukkaan ölöjyt?"

Olen myös syvästi kiintynyt Holopaisen mummu-vainaan puhutteluun: "Ottaako hiän lissee?" Luullakseni "hiän" tarkoittaa että olen arvohenkilö, rohvessori.

Päivän jutun kuvassa on Jakob Jensenin herätyskello, joka on kauneinta muotoilua, mitä olen nähnyt. Puolet ihmisistä ei osaa lukea tuota kellotaulua. Kello on 7:45, ja sekunnit sykkivät keskiössä.

Jensinin luomus on ihan halpa. Toisen tanskalaisen, Arne Jacobsenin tavarat ovat murhaavan kalliita. On minulla ollut hänen tuhkakuppinsa (kuvassa) 1960-luvun lopusta.