We are working hard to get Paprika published before 2006. I can’t promise that but at least we are trying our best. I’ve used many 8h+ days for it during last month.
Unfortunately I’ve been rather lazy today, only been hoyling total time. But well, passed skint0r, Tisk, dynamo, petsen, MP, psy, pajen… I think it was worth. My newest times are told in Mopolauta and the current total time is 40:38,99.
93%
While nothing interesting happening in my Elma life (I’m just playing random pipe levels and making Paprika) I write something about my latest sport project: 50km walking.
A week ago I was having good time with some friends and met there one guy who is into the adventure sports (long running, bicycling, rowing trips). I was interested in his hobby and we came up with an idea to walk some kilometres together. I told that I could try 50km, my current record was 33km or something like that (army treks excluded because I can’t really say how long trips we walked there). So there we were and yesterday at 10:00 we started walking with two other guys.
The first 20km went pretty well but then I started to feel pain in right leg, the speed of walking was faster than my own usual. Heart rate was near to 145 which is way too much for 10h walking. The other guys were OK (two of them are in totally different level with me, doing double marathons etc), heart rate 103 or so. 5km more and a few beers (yes, we had some booze and beers there, it was Saturday after all) later one of those sick guys called his wife to come get him and he left us. After that walking was much easier for me because we dropped the speed from 6-7km/h to 5-6km/h. The last 25km were easier (at least relatively). We also met px (Elma aspect!) and his girl friend during the second half.
In the end we had walked 52.6km in 10h 12 minutes. I was satisfied. Then sauna, some party time and sleep. Today in the morning I couldn’t walk anymore. My legs hurt so much that I can’t stand or walk. I move by using a chair as a walker (rollaattori). Quite painful feelings.
100km would be so cool to achieve, but that won’t happen in the near future. The next goal could be a long skiing trip because now my record is like 40km and skiing is much easier (like 2-3 times) than walking.
Last two days have been very productive, hopefully tomorrow too. 90% now. I’m happy.
After Paprika is released I will be telling publically whats going on. But now I’m keeping this secret because I did that at first place. Actually I always try to keep secrets in Elma projects for two reasons: 1) it’s fun to get/give secrets 2) I don’t like people asking in IRC when x is ready.
+5 celsius degrees outside, summer soon gone. School has started, I selected 7 courses including two English courses. It’s pretty free term, I only have to sit 6 hours per week at university at certain time. The rest is up to me. I watch lecture videos at home, read book, make exercises and so on. The situation is pleasant, yet dangerous, because you need to have quite high self-discipline to control things. But I’m sure I will handle it.
One of my two English courses is called “Self Access Grammar” which can be done at home or in self-learning centrum. The second one is “Lecture Listening” where we listen to different kind of medium (TV, radio, speeches and so on) and write down notes. We also talk a bit there, which is good for me. Tiny speeches of our own will take place too but that’s not a problem.
I gave up in sport competition. I have had 2 points (90 minutes) per day pace for nine months now but it had gotten extremely annoying when you have to do night walks alone without any other reason except those two damn points. But I hope I don’t stop all sport, just that stupid sport-for-points. Today I will be swimming.
And finally about Paprika. It’s getting very near to publishing due to our good mood latelly. But to set your expectations down I must tell you that Paprika is just the first step of one, even bigger, project. So it might not be as grand as you thought. 88%
It’s party time, just got 4 credits more! And from this day I’ll use an international credit system where our 180 is converted to 300 as needed credits for graduation. In the new system that 4 is 7.5 credits. Thus I have 39.5/180 or 70/300 credits depending on the system I use. I’ve never got this many at once before. Hooray. To bad the grade isn’t the best one: 1+ out of 3. I might improve it in the future. The course was Programming Basics (Java).
My university studies will start in two weeks and in this term I’m trying to double my credits. That needs a lot of more effort than before. Also the hospital work (I think I’ve told about that earlier) is taking more and more time every week. Yet you shouldn’t forget the sport competition which is still going strong (I’m second right after px). The next two weeks will be used in another work though. I’m handling the statistics service in the youngs athletics competition. Also got a few new site requests. So pretty active autumn is coming.
But today I’m going to use my time for Paprika.
FM (Flowertouching Men), my team, was founded in the end of 1999. In total there have been 12 players. The first players were selected according to playing skills and having the WCup2000 in view. There were members from Finland, Sweden and Norway. So originally FM was just a super team consisting people over country borders.
Nowadays FM is known as a very stable team formed by good friends (even in real life). All of them are veterans and the top enthusiasm is gone. Still the greybeards achieve WRs, get good positions in different kind of contests and live the Elma.
Here’s a little overview of each member in FM. More I know about the people who are in FM now. Less I know of those Swedish and Norwegian guys who quitted many years ago. In brackets the number indicates the order when the certain player has joined FM. Current members are italic.
Abula (4.)
In team: 2002 summer -
Current total time: 41:08,96 (70.)
Number of WRs: 0/3 (current table / all-time)
WCup positions: -, -, 52, 8, 12
Role: Plays everything, projects, worst player in team
Been in FEM: 4 times
dz (5.)
In team: 2003 April -
Current total time: 39:03,07 (11.)
Number of WRs: 0/26
WCup positions: -, -, -, 31, 25
Role: total time, WRs, Mopobattles, level designing, projects
Been in FEM: 2
Dr_Luni (1.)
In team: 1999 end - 2000 Dec
Current total time: 46:26,25 (248.)
Number of WRs: 0/4
WCup positions: 38, 1, 1, -, -
Role: World Cups,WRs
Been in FEM: 0
Jokke (1.)
In team: 1999 end -
Current total time: 39:36,81 (17.)
Number of WRs: 0/53
WCup positions: 2, 8, 4, 5, 132
Role: Total time, WRs, World Cups
Been in FEM: 4
Karlis (1.)
In team: 1999 end -
Current total time: 39:37,43 (18.)
Number of WRs: 7/61
WCup positions: 19, 10, 3, 3, 5
Role: WRs, World Cups
Been in FEM: 4
mr (4.)
In team: 2002 summer -
Current total time: 39:04,92 (13.)
Number of WRs: 2/19
WCup positions: 71, 25, 25, 15, 26
Role: Total time, WRs, projects
Been in FEM: 4
psy (1.)
In team: 1999 end - 2001 Dec
Current total time: 40:52,86 (60.)
Number of WRs: 0/37
WCup positions: 18, 2, 11, 20, 53
Role: World Cups, total time, WRs, level designing
Been in FEM: 1
Sathy (2.)
In team: 2000 Oct - 2001 Dec
Current total time: -
Number of WRs: 0/0
WCup positions: -, -, 21, 19, -
Role: World Cup, level designing
Been in FEM: 0
Stene (1.)
In team: 1999 end - 2000 May, 2000 Dec - 2001 Dec
Current total time: -
Number of WRs: 0/15
WCup positions: 81, 7, -, -, -
Role: WRs, total time
Been in FEM: 0
Tisk (3.)
In team: 2001 Dec -
Current total time: 41:53,09 (91.)
Number of WRs: 0/2
WCup positions: 90, 76, 15, 13, 103
Role: all-around hoyla
Been in FEM: 4
Ufo (1.)
In team: 1999 end - 2000 Dec
Current total time: 45:14,49 (212.)
Number of WRs: 0/8
WCup positions: -, 58, 63, -, -
Role: all-around hoyla
Been in FEM: 0
YeeS (1.)
In team: 1999 end - 2000 May
Current total time: 42:51,04 (136.)
Number of WRs: 0/10
WCup positions: -, 5, -, -, -
Role: WRs, total time
Been in FEM: 0
Willing to join FM? It’s not the easiest thing. You have to be a Finn, a good player, own good Elma attitude (not going to quit, life style, keen to meet other members) and our friend. Currently only one guy fulfills the criteria who isn’t in the FM. I don’t reveal the name but it shouldn’t be difficult to figure out.
Jokke, who has been active from the very beginning of Across (1997) and is one of the greatest players in the history, has been getting more and more inactive in last months. He hardly played World Cup 5 and a while ago he announced that he will quit for quite sure. He’s only waiting for Elma2 to see if it’s any interesting and after that he’ll quit Elma and FM. Sob sob.
Tisk has been in non-military service for a year now. A few weeks till and he should be active again. I hope he will bring some new fresh athmosphere to our team. Karlis is not in Elma mood, also mr is just cruising and dating. dz is living with his girl and taking care of their hedgehog. Tisk’s also having a girl friend. Soon FM will be just a club of boring house-husbands.
I would like to see some competition in total times between Karlis, mr and dz. They are very near to each others. Other than that I’m not expecting anything from those guys.
Tisk is moving to Helsinki in a few weeks. Then 67% of the FM lives there: Karlis, dz, Jokke and Tisk. I hope Tisk will host me sometimes so I could come to meet my team friends. mr is living in Joensuu and me in Oulu. I might move to south (Helsinki is in south and Oulu north) after I get graduated. mr also has tried to get his girl to accept moving to Oulu which would be great.
Yet, we have a home page. Not updated too regularly though. We have ideas how to improve it and so on but unfortunately it’s not high priority. “Maybe one day…”
Because WCup is such an important Elma event I feel that I really have to write something about the end of it.
It ended.
Grats to players who deserve it: MP, Jalli, axxu. Jalli is before axxu because I overrate the Pipe king status. Thanks to px and vk for organizing the contest.
I came 12th, which I’m very happy of. An original goal of mine was top20. Karlis was 5th, dz 25th, mr 26th, Tisk 103rd and Jokke 132nd. As a team FM was just the third best in the WCup5 after ICE and AC. In fact, originally FM was founded because of the WCup2000 where we (well, I wasn’t in FM back then) got the victory. Also WC3 and WC4 team victories came to FM.
Nowadays many people are suffering of Elma overdose including me, Karlis and MP. But what I’ve heard at least axxu is already improving his total time. Actually this may be your last chance to rise in the total time list! I bet you want to show your best in the end of the Elma1: go and improve your total time.
Update: Wrote a personal WC5 report to Mopolauta.
Tisk (my team friend) arrived in Oulu on Monday and left the town on Friday. During that time we played some multi records (team and personal) and wc515. Because Tisk has been taking his non-military service and living in an apartment without internet connection he hadn’t been able to take part in to the WCup5. He just finished one level when was spending time at his brother’s and now got quite an OK time in current event. Anyway the final standings are not too good for him.
I’ve met Tisk five times before if we exclude FEMs and AC-meat2. Once I was at his place and this week was his second time here in Oulu at my home. The other times we have met during non-Elma IRC channel meetings (we happened to irc in the same non-Elma channel back then). For me Tisk is one of the most met Elma players.
Most time of the meeting we chilled, talked, did sauna, ate and drank. Had really nice time, at least if you ask me.
A few days ago I cycled my longest trip ever: 170km. That took about 8 hours. I’m quite satisfied. Next goal is probably 200km, would like to get some company though.
The previous weeks have been quite active. Paprika-% is 76.8 now.
About one month left of vacation, then back to the university. Yesterday and today I’ve been very lazy, don’t really know why. Even watched one movie (Cube Zero). Most of the time I’ve played WCup515, the last event of the World Cup 5. Pipe it is and I like it.
Just woke up. Talking about messed sleeping rhythm. Went to sleep at 13:00 or something. The last days I’ve been programming Java (one school work) and doing Paprika (tijsjoris: yeas, it’s progressing, most likely I’m able to publish it during the summer). If I recall correct last time I was outside was on Sunday: played football. I should go to the food store but they are always closed when I’m up. Been eating mostly just ice cream and a few breads which are run out now. Fortunately I still have some chicken - going to fry them after writing this.
Summer. Yeah, this is good way to pass it. Sleeping when the sun is shining. But I don’t care, actually I like my current situation. I’ve finished many old computer ‘todo’s, because it’s quiet at nights and you don’t get jammed to IRC.
Sport is hard though. I don’t really get inspired to do any at night and when the sun rises I’m too tired. I think I’ve skipped 3-5 points now, which I really should get back soon. I really hope that I’ll get my ass up for a long cycling trip tonight.
I suck at fixing things like bicycles, computers, cars, whatsoever. Fixing my bicycle costed me 65e. I’m not sure if it was worth it because it’s already broken again. I just drove about 277km during three days, maybe this has some effect though. Actually I think some oil would get it working nicely again. Mostly it’s only the weird noises that are annoying me, nothing more serious.
Needed some time to get all lost sport points (because of FEM) back. We were going to do the walking battle in FEM, but then I was the only participant and didn’t bother anymore. Also the midsummer fest wasted a few days.
One week. One of the best in my life, so far. Hopefully FEM06 will be even better although. You might think I must have the most boring life if this is best I get. I’m such an Elma freak, that’s why.
A few hours ago I finalized my personal story. After that I’ve done everything I wanted for FEM report. The videos are ready, the pictures are ready and all the results up too. 95% of the Applelane readers have already seen them all but for the rest readers: pictures, story.
I really hope that the participants enjoyed their week but also the people in community who weren’t there. At least I tried my best to offer many pictures, interesting videos and short story.
Also the GAA prizes were given. Only a few left to be snail mailed to Australia, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Turku.
So now. Finally back to Paprika. I have also been mailing with one very interesting person. Stay tuned!
Three nights to annual Finnish Elma Meeting. Time to begin to think it. It’s an event where many Elma players are gathered to meet, play and even talk. Most of us are coming from Finland but this year nine guys are coming from abroad aswell.
Jeppe will arrive to Oulu on Sunday. Then some sleep and in the Monday morning the Sorsa (my FEM car) will direct towards Kokkola or Ylivieska depending on whether we got room for Stini or not. Juzam lives in Kokkola and then our heavy loaded car turns to Jyväskylä and Leivonmäki where the cottage is.
I’m going to drop the guys and computers to the cottage and then drive back to Jyväskylä (about 50km from the cottage) to buy ‘a few’ beers and mirco pizzas. Seriously I will try to avoid eating micro food there. Must make a nutrition plan for the week.
In the meeting my main targets are: 1. Walking battle victory, 2. Beerbattle top3, 3. beat Tisk, Karlis, mr and skint0r in the 24h total time competition. Walking battle is a compo where we walk as long as we can and the winner is the one who walks for the longest trip. Five minutes per one hour is for rest. Beerbattle is about drinking beers and playing Elma. 24h total time competition is an Elma playing contest and it lasts .. 22 hours and 12 minutes.
Other goals are meeting my friends, make new friends, learn some English speaking and have lots of good time.
That’s what I expect for the meeting.
World Cup 5 event 4 was a long level made by skint0r. The best level in wc5 so far, if you ask me - and of course you ask me. On the first Sunday I played 12 hours and got 2:51 which I was very happy of. After a while I heard that some guys have 2:3x and even 2:2x. I even got a 2:35 replay and the driver of it said “ez 20 secs better”. Not that easy but eventually he got it. I was so sure that I won’t ever get this good time, maybe not even 2:3x. Days went by and I got annoyed - no finishes in two days. Karlis and dz were probably even more mad.
Played ten hours more. Got 2:30. I was happy enough. MP was going to visit me for a few days and I thought I wouldn’t play while he’s here. At my place, MP hoyled for 3-5 hours and improved 2½ seconds. He also tried to encourage me to play more - and so I did, but without results. Seemed like I could do 2:23-2:25 with a good run.
After MP left I played more again and luckily improved. My final best time was 2:28,44 which finally brought the 13th position. Not bad.
Luther’s winning time was played in the Monday-Tuesday. That’s so sick. MP was second and actually I saw his best time ride on live, pretty cool, isn’t it. Karlis got quite nice time if we remember that his actual area isn’t long levels (the longest WR of his six ones is 23,64 seconds long). The standings are still fascinating: Luther 324, Jeppe 300, Karlis 281, Jalli 265, axxu 253. Hopefully no one will give up.
As I wrote I was not and still am not going to play the WCup seriously. The previous event took 35 hours so that is kind of paradox. Actually I am not totally in balance right now. I don’t want to waste so much time for playing. Anyway I beat skint0r and that’s all that matters. I’m MASTER.
505 is an easier event for me. I hate the level and thereby no need to play it too much.
dz, my lovely team mate, entered the blogger community. Welcome.
I started writing this post at 22:15 but at 0:30 I noticed I’ve been playing Elma for 2 hours and not writing at all. Well, I improved my best time by 15 seconds so let’s forgive.
Event 3 was a catastrophy to me. I would have got 15 points in the first part but I didn’t send in. I thought we (FM) had decided to play 503b but then dz and mr sent to 503a. Karlis was angry. In 503b I got my best time 2h34min after the level release. 29,32 was pretty good time back then but not in the final results anymore. No points for me. The previous no-points-for-abula-event was 314. This is quite sad moment.
The current player standings are amazing: 225 points for Jeppe, 224 Luther, 222 TorInge, 221 Karlis and 216 for Jalli. So great entertainment. I’m trying my best to help our star, Karlis. Too bad I’m bad. We would need Tisk’s slow styles and Jokke’s skills.
Luckily MP will come to Oulu to help our team. He is good in long levels and invents nice tricks. Seriously actually MP will come here to meet me. I’ll host him for a few days. We might play some 504 too if you ask me. If you ask him we will hoyl it for 48 hours. I’ve planned to get GAA prizes ready with him. And organize upcoming FEM (21 days left). Hopefully we’ll walk some kilometers aswell.
Since this an Elma blog, I’m playing in the best WCup team, was 7th in the WCup4 and also being a bit involved in orgranisation of the cup, I think I’m supposed to write something about it.
In my opinion World Cup is the most legendary contest there is in the Elma world. It’s very old and popular (pity that some national scenes don’t want to participate). There are some facts that belong to WCup: px organizing, Rollercoaster, Karlis, FM doing well, participating to all events (personally), strange levels and the most important one, the exciting Sunday evening results publishing. I really appreciate that px still gives time for it and offers us the competition. This time we also have to thank our coding master: Viper_KillerGuy. There are some things though that could be improved in WCup: a better statistics system for old WCups (this is mainly my problem now), top20 replay packs available and some other minor things.
In WCup4 FM won the team competition. Back then Jokke played actively, now he doesn’t. Also Tisk is offline. But on the other hand dz is more active than two years ago. Let’s see how it will be going. I would play the cards for ICE. But will they bother to play all the events? FM is struggling for top3 at least, if you ask me.
WCup4 was probably my Elma career’s top moment. No way I will do such good performance in WCup5. I don’t want to spend my Sat-Sun nights with Elma anymore. I have good touch with studies and I won’t ruin that. I try my best to find styles and help Karlis as much as I can. But I will keep quite low profile in results. Maybe I will do top20 in standings anyway, that might be possible because most people won’t play all the events anyway.
And for the last a few words about my life nowadays. I’m 29 points behind px in our sport competition (read older posts if you don’t know what it is). I’m going to study 12-17 credits (from now using this word to descripe our .. credits ['opintoviikko' in Finnish], 180 needed for graduation) in summer. Currently having 28. One of my favourite blog entries are those where I report my newest credits. In the summer I’m going to do at least two trips: FEM05 in Jyväskylä and some trekking trips to North (hopefully more than one). The main problems are money and company. Would you like to join me?
Time to update my diary. What’s been happening latelly.
Only one spring exam left: circuit theory. After that I will plan my summer studies. Currently I’m going for 3-4 courses. Usually people don’t study in summers but go to a full-time job. I didn’t get one so I must study to get money. That’s not a bad thing because thereby I will be again nearer to the graduation. And actually I do have a job but it takes approximately 5h in a week which means not that much money and therefore I can’t really rely on that. If I only got enough money for travelling (Jotunheim [Norway] trekking trip is under planning at least) and new items (cell phone, backpack, trekking boots, swimming hat, swim trunks and some clothes) I’m very happy of my summer situation.
I swam 1585m (average heart rate 157) yesterday. Almost a new record.
The Wappu aka Wappen aka Valborg aka 1. May is now behind. It’s the biggest and the most important student fest in Finland. For most people it means drinking like in hell. I didn’t drink like in hell though. For me it was quite calm and relaxing. No great emotions involved.
This week was supposed to be very free and lots of time for organizing things. But but, I’ve been working some hours on Monday and Tuesday, which is great. I’ve been quite lost in my job for some months (mostly not my own fault) but now it’s getting better. I know what I’m supposed to do, how I do and where and who can I ask help for if needed. In this evening I’ve been doing houseworks and later today (on Wednesday) I’ll go to Chinese restaurant with mom. After that some work (luckily I can decide my comings and goings myself) and at 17:00 I’ll be playing football for first time this year. Whee.
World Cup 5 started a few days ago. My WCup mood is quite high and I’m afraid of getting hooked. I don’t want to use my whole summer to hoyl wcup. WC04 was my best performance in my Elma career and I’m totally happy of my 8. position in it. FM will try the best it can. None of us want to ruin our so-called lifes again.
New swimming record is 1600m now. Average heart rate was 164 which is quite high. I also met one old school mate in the hall, he is a swimming guru and also studing in Oulu university (geography).
The morning of the day I used for Paprika, 56%. Tomorrow morning I’ll have a math exam, after that it’s party time (Wappen). About 6h for math today it was.
Just put a bottle of beer to fridge to get it cooled down. 30 minutes and I’ll drink it. After that sweet dreams. I don’t have any sleeping problems. For me it takes maximum 10 minutes to fall asleep and yes, I’m happy for that.
FEM cottage is payed. 13.-20. June 2005 will be a memorable event for 20-30 guys - that’s what I hope. My personal goals are English speaking, winning the walking battle and beat Tisk and Karlis in 24 hours total time competition.
Ok, the beer is ready.