i sat in the park today for a few hours – reading, listening to music, laying there – watching people coming and going, walking slowly, jogging, dogs barking, babies crying.

a mother pushed a pram – then laid out a blanket under a tree and sat herself and her baby son down on it – she hugged him and kissed him and talked to him. i really wanted to take a picture of this moment and for somehow to give it to the kid when he had grown up, a picture of an unforced, unrehearsed moment between his mother and him. a little while later they look up and wave. the father arrives. i always look at how couples greet each other, i guess wondering how a relationship evolves when there is something as crazy as a kid around. the man and woman held hands, he then leaned down and kissed the baby on the head and then her on the lips. they stayed for a little bit and then all three continued with their evening.

i didn’t take any pictures in the park this evening.

(i’ll preface all this with: im not a big gamer)

years ago people would sit around playing a computer game. friends, strangers and enemies would try to out do each other for years on end on a particular game. documentaries were made about high scores – of games that were built, sold and played and played and played.

the other day i bought a game called doodle jump for my ipod touch. it has some really nice features, you can send you score to your facebook profile, you can see how you’re getting on in comparison with your friends or with all players in the world. of course, i was doing really bad in comparison with the worlds best – getting a fraction of their score. the other day a free update (version 1,3) was waiting for me in itunes. i installed and started a new game. a minute or so into it i saw a change – the character now had the chance to pick up a jet pack. fantastic! but of course this makes it easier for the player to get higher scores. nothing necessarily wrong with that – but it was my first experience of playing a game of this type where it was updated in this way. i can compare scores now with friends / strangers but i’ll have to enquire as to what version of the game they’re playing first.

a few years back i was sent a link to a website of a polish photographer. every few months i would check in on the site and spend ages hypnotised by the pictures from his travels around the world.

a year or two back i found him on flickr, added him. i dont think ive ever gone to look at his pictures on flickr.

the reflections from the 5th to the 10th second is just astounding & hypnotising. a lovely video

i have a soft spot for “single serving website” (i.e. websites that provide only one single piece of information). a few months back i had an idea for one of those pages – using it as a way for me to learn a few things, i wasnt able to get it to work out but this time i was able to get another idea from 0 to working in a few hours.

it can be difficult to remember exactly when all the super markets close here in helsinki – all sundays in spring they are closed, then they open up – but not the next sunday after that (as its finnish mothers day). then they open up again. can cause some confusion.

a few hours spent messing with phpicalendar, its template, css and javascript files. its not perfect, its not even all that useful to pretty much everyone on the planet – but thats what the internet is all about. ishelsinkiopen.com