the power of procrstination

procrastination (latin: pro- (forward) and crastinus (of tomorrow)) is somewhat related to the ancient romanian custom of “mint rubbing”. it basically involves (but is not limited to) all those small activities one does at work or school in order to improve his productivity – like drawing random caricatures, reading webcomics or counting the cracks in the ceiling. in modern times, due to the advent of the internet, procrastination is easier than ever, still, if you’re somewhat confused and don’t know how to start, you might wont to check out some of these sites (the first one is really kawaii and involves permutations):

- grow (http://www.eyezmaze.com/grow/cube/index.html),
- big red button
(http://www.transbuddha.com/mediaHolder.php?id=747),
- progress quest (http://www.progressquest.com/),
- 1d tetris (http://www.tetris1d.org/),

enjoy and have a productive procrastination

chocolate fondue....mmm

tonight we -me and some neighbors of mine- had chocolate fondue, complete with bananas, pears and oranges. it was great fun. by the time it ended we had fondue all over the place (the table, us, our clothes), which is quite a frequent occurrence in my case, though it felt got not to be the only one :)

+2 flamming mousepad of the moon

well, this is my new mouse pad. cute, isn’t it? it reads “space protectors” instead of invaders, cause we don’t want to infringe any copyright law, now do we? (this grammatical structure is called a ‘tag question’ *gains +10 in english grammar skill*). anyway, i’m looking forward to using it.

shin seiki evangelion

it’s quite difficult for me to review this one as it’s my favorite anime of all times. a masterpiece. truly unique. if you pick this up i promise you, you’ll either love it or hate it. (it’s important that you watch the entire series and don’t stop halfway through at episode 14)

an acquaintance of mine from france once told me when i inquired about him seeing eva that he is not into mecha anime. EVANGELION IS NOT ABOUT MECHA!! keep this in mind. if you want an action mecha anime pick up gundam, macros or anything else, there are a million plus one titles out there. for those unfamiliar with the term, mecha stands for anything from powered armor to giant robots/mechs (basically any mechanical thingy that has 2 or more legs and is piloted by humans).

the anime is rather old (it’s 10 years anniversary will be sometime in spring if i’m not mistaken) so the animation might seen somewhat outdated by today’s standards. but it really doesn’t matter. it’s not the animation or the action scenes that make eva great, it’s what lies underneath. and i can assure you, there are plenty of layers below the surface. i could write about the philosophy or the religious symbolism or the psychology of the show, but i won’t. just get the anime, find some time to watch it and if you liked it you’ll find plenty of forums and sites with detailed info and interpretations. just don’t expect to understand everything after the first viewing, you won’t.

after watching the 26 episodes of the series there’s also a full length feature called “the end of evangelion” which is an alternate ending, but it’s as much an integral part of the show as the 26 episodes (so don’t go to sleep before you watch that too). again, i can’t emphasize enough (maybe some caps will help) THIS ANIME IS A MUST SEE !! it doesn’t matter what genre you like, if you are into anime, you must try this one out.

also, as a not entirely off-topic side note, if you are interested in a crash course on kabbala you might want to read “inner space” by rabbi aryeh kaplan (amongst other things it explains in a comprehensive manner the basics about the ten sefirot and their standing in the context of jewish mysticism). just keep in mind that by reading what some contemporary rabbis wrote about some medieval rabbis who wrote about the kabbala, you won’t become an expert on the subject, unless you’re madonna of course.

and to finish with a well suited quote:

"god's in his heaven, all's right in the world!" - robert browning

shiroi kisetsu [white season]

it was the 18th of november. saturday. it snowed…a lot. when i woke up on sunday morning the snow was around 30-35cm. it was simply great. usually snow doesn’t last too long around here, since it’s not cold enough (can you believe that?!) and a colleague of mine made a bet that it wouldn’t last for more then 4-5 days. she lost the bet, as today is the 30th and we still have some snow left (though very little).

i wonder if we can expect some snow for the winter holidays (hanukkah :p, that is)

asoiaf - grrm

i’ve been neglecting my blog somewhat lately, but that’s mainly because i’ve been reading the 4th book in the “a song of ice and fire” saga by george martin. well, i can only recommend it to everybody, it’s fantasy literature at it’s best. forget about those shitty dragonlance and forgotten realms books (i’m ashamed i’ve ever read those). this is true literature, not some stupid wizards of the cost novel (they release three or so every month, but they are not worth the paper they’re printed on).

also, you can forget about tokien’s high fantasy and the war between the absolute good and the absolute evil (the former always winning, i still think sauron should have won, a few centuries of darkness might have been welcome) in a song of fire and ice all the characters are grey, and have their own goals and ambitions.

the plot is thick and runs on multiple threads. george martin uses the multiple point of view characters narration, which means that you experience the story through the eyes of different characters (thus you know more than any single character, but you’re not truly omniscient). far from being just a rewritten history, the novels were somewhat influenced by the war of the roses, and two of the main families, the starks and the lannisters represent, to a certain extent, the house of york and house lancaster, respectively. the story is truly epic in scale spanning several continents and featuring more than one hundred characters (from podrick the squire to ser gregor clegane, the mountain that rides); also all the names are perfectly pronounceable and make sense (no “yafein val'sullisin'rune” here).

the plot, like i’ve said, is truly complex, no trace of the typical “farm boy becomes magician and undertakes journey to defeat dragon and marry princess” cliché here. we are faced with political power struggles, a clash of religions and many subtle or violent twists. the only drawback: seven books are to be released, but only 4 are out so far, the fifth being released sometime in spring 2007 (and i can’t wait any longer!)

so whether you’re into fantasy or not, grab the first book (ask viki to lend it to you) and start reading. decide for yourself if you’re interested in the rest or not. (i think pete and andrei will like it, endi should first finish the black company though).

and to serve as an ending, the oath of the night’s watch:
”night gathers, and now my watch begins. it shall not end until my death. i shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. i shall wear no crowns and win no glory. i shall live and die at my post. i am the sword in the darkness. i am the watcher on the walls. i am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. i pledge my life and honor to the night's watch, for this night and all the nights to come.”

pic of the day

i promised you some pics so here´s one of them. i tried to do a 180 panorama, but since i don´t have a support for my camera it´s far from perfect. the image alignement isn´t too good and also there are some mistakes in the photo (but i think they can be corrected with photoshop)

welcome...to old home

it’s been some time since i did an anime review so here goes: haibane renmei.

first of all this as a great anime. it’s no eva or lain, but for me at least it’s right there in the top with those two. haibane renmei started out as a doujinshi written and illustrated by yoshitoshi abe (character design for lain, texhnolyze) so this alone is reason enough to watch it!

the anime starts with two strange images: a girl falling through the sky with a crow flying beside her trying to stop her fall but to no avail; then we are presented with the image of an old dusty corridor where a girl carrying some boxes accidentally stumbles upon a large cocoon growing out of the ground…

during the 13 episodes you’ll follow a young girl joining the haibane (winged creatures with haloes above their heads) while she retains no memory of her previous life – not even her name – and the joys and hardships she endures while becoming a haibane. in the first three episodes you’ll be introduced to some scenes form the lives of the haibane who live along with regular humans in the town of glie, a town surrounded by a wall that nobody is allowed to cross. after these first few episodes you’ll have so many questions that you’ll just want to continue watching all of the 13 episodes (some of your questions will be answered, some will not). i’ve found a several-page-long essay on haibane renmei discussing the nature of the unknown, the unknowable and faith (but i won’t link it here since it contains spoilers). yes, it’s one of those anime that require you to think.

the animation is exceptional, somewhat different from traditional anime (instead of vivid screaming colors you get a lot of shades and worn-out colors) which makes the setting feel more real. the music is also great and it supplements nicely the majestic landscapes of glie. the characters are well-drawn and very lifelike (much like miyazaki’s ones) and a lot of attention is given to details.

bottom line: if you want a very beautiful, emotionally compelling anime that will also make your brain cells jump a little then go watch haibane renmei. if you want a deeply philosophical, psychedelic experience then go watch eva and lain (though these are not recommended for everybody)

perspective, birds, cats...and latex

it was one week ago that my plane landed in iceland, give or take 2 hours. i like it here. slowly i’m getting used to the place. i’m not sure yet, maybe it’s too early to judge, but i think i might have found here the place i’ve been looking for in france. i’ll just write some more impressions, nothing coherent, just some thoughts.

one striking feature here is the landscape. due to the lack of tall buildings and the relative flatness of the terrain (at least in my side of town) you can always see the horizon far, far away; and somehow the clouds are so low you have the impression of being closer to the sky. it’s really nice here when the sky is clear (and even when it’s cloudy it still seems majestic). and the buildings and trees seem to be scattered in a random fashion, unlike in grenoble, in neatly engineered rows; this makes the landscape seem wild and primordial.

the day before yesterday i saw a bird flying upside down. i’ve always believed this to be impossible. there were actually two of them, crows or ravens as much as i can tell. and one was chasing (courting?) the other. when it would get above the other this latter one would always do a corkscrew maneuver, several times in a row. stupid drunken icelandic birds.

the only animals i’ve seen apart from birds are cats. i was told there are quite a few stray cats in reykjavik. well, it’s still better than stray dogs. especially the ones that live in bucharest and feed on japanese businessmen. i like cats. i like cat-girls even better. hmmm. do you think if i’d take in a stray cat she might turn into a cat-girl like it happened in true love?

i’ve also started to learn to use latex (got myself some documentation too from the prof). i think it’s just like linux: easy to use, difficult to master. i only wish i had taken advantage of pete and sanyi and learn some tricks from them while i had the chance.

i’ll post some nice pics of reykjavic soon…tomorrow maybe.

random thoughts...

i’ve been here for a few days now and i’m slowly getting acquainted with this place and the people. there was some mix-up, and the i had to move to another room cause there’s somebody housed already in the previous one. my new room looks a bit basementish (i suppose it’s because it is in the basement). in the other room i had two huge windows and a balcony, here i only have one small window but the wireless connection is much better (it was useless in the other room). so i’ve basically traded sunlight for internet connection, fair enough (i only have to get a wireless adaptor now).

at the lab, i already have my desk and a pc. the prof asked me “are you a windows user or a linux guy” and i was like “aaa….windows”. “because we have a pc here for you but i’m not sure if it has win on it, if it doesn’t we’ll just buy you one“ (gao!) he tells me. turned out the computer was a brand new out-of-the-box dell optiplex 620 (2,8ghz/1gb/80gb) – oishii.

i entered yesterday the cleanroom for the first time. pretty neat. i felt strange. did you notice that in any movie/anime where a science facility gets to be overtaken by armed forces, there are always those unarmed scientists in clean environment suits (no name, no face) who are shot down by a machinegun or a flamethrower half a second after they scream “no please..” (or even sooner sometimes). technicians always carry sidearms or crowbars, but scientists-in-fancy-suits are fully expandable and die in the lamest most useless possible way. well that’s what it felt like :D of course, gordon freeman is an exception to the rule cause he is a theoretical physicist, much like sanyi and szabi.

yesterday's post today

well, i’ve arrived safely to iceland. the trip was mostly pleasant and uneventful if i don’t count all the explanations i had to give at the borders (yep, it’s difficult to travel with a romanian passport – we’ll see if anything will change after we enter the eu).

anyway, first impressions. iceland is expensive. and i don’t mean, my that’s expensive, i mean holy fucking shit mother of god expensive. well 6 eggs, 1 liter of milk, oil, cup ramen and some other things i could get for less than 8 eur in france here i paid 15+ eur for. (shocking - gao gao!). the fee for a monthly pass on public transportation costs 60 eur (in france it was 25). gao !!

second, the tap water does seem to have a subtle mineral taste, but not as bad as the one at borsec. i’ll have to get used to it anyway since i won’t be able to afford any juice – i wanted to drop that habit anyway.

the people seem nice and helpful, and most of them speak english to a certain degree. it’s not cold or dark at all, at least for now. but i was told that temperatures don’t really drop below -7c (so much for the superconductors at room temperature :p )

i’ll write some more about the lab and the ppl in my next post.

take care and don’t misbehave

also, my deepest thanks to everybody who cheered for my arrival - it's good to know you're not alone as ai-chan would say (you figure it out)

a new beginning

so, due to peer pressure (pun intended for those who get it) i'm restarting this blog i've just returned from bucharest this morning so this will be a short post as i'm rather tired. i'm flying to reykjavik this friday via berlin. i've found a pic of the plane i'll be taking from berlin, nice. i used to joke about the fact that since it has only two engines, if one should malfunction, it would only be able to fly in circles - for some reason my mom doesn't enjoy these jokes :( anyway, i'm back on the job and i'll post next time on saturday maybe

CLOSED TILL FURTHER NOTICE !!

since i don't have access to a pc at home anymore and i really don't have the time to write posts here at work, this blog is closed till i return home, sometime in august probably.

5 boys + 1 manga artist + alcohol

no comment (pic taken on 01.01.2006)

a quote from aldona

this is a random quote from a fellow researcher here in the institute. i just liked it so much i had to post it (and i was out of ideas today). we were talking about what things are worth doing in life (almost) when she said: "well, we only live once!...perhaps?!...according to my religion..." (hihi, sweet)

Rock never dies! Thank you, Lordi! You showed'em! HARD ROCK HALLELUJAH!

the above statement was in fact my bro's yahoo msg status message yesterday, but i feel exactly the same way. in case you don't know what i'm talking about go check the news on wiki: finland won the eurovision contest with the song 'hard rock hallelujah' performed by lordi. quite unexpected, but awesome beyond measure. you can watch the clip on youtube (there is a link from the wiki site) i always had a great deal of respect for those bands that played the music they loved without being deterred by the mainstream or the unpopularity of the genre. also it should be mentioned that ,while in certain european countries -finland, norway, iceland,etc- the heavy (but not only) metal genre might be closer to mainstream music, in romania we only have that shitty 'manele' (bleh desu!). so, for me at least, it's very comforting to see that in other countries metal (any genre) still gets some public attention, let alone international recognition, awesome! well done lordi! carry on and remember "when losers say it's over with you know that it's a lie, the gods made heavy metal and it's never gonna die!" - manowar

dungeon crawl

X
this green x might not look too menacing to you, but beware, it's a tentaculated monstrosity (ahhh run for your lives!!)
this post is a pc game review and the game i'm talking about is a neat little rpg called dungeon crawl (now that's a rpgish name, don't you think?). most of you are familiar with that new type of gamer that only thinks about the visuals of a game and not the actual feeling or gameplay (that essential thing that can't be described by the number of polygons or the color depth). i lived in the same room with such a guy for 5 months and it is very annoying. you can show him real games like doom, ufo, full throttle, tie fighter, stunts, jazz jackrabbit 1 :p and he'll only shrug with disgust and say "oh but it has so shitty graphics!" and then go back to play need for speed 17 (or whichever is the last one). so if you are like that dungeon crawl is not for you (unless you find ascii attractive).
the goal is simple (and also very rpgish) descend deep into a mosnter-filled dungeon and recover the orb of zot! as with most rpgs you first create a character (choose your race and profession) and pick some starting equipement. the entire graphics of the game is done in ascii!! you are shown the layout of the rooms from an over the top perspective (viewing it under normal incidence) and both your character and the occupants of the rooms are represented by colored ascii caracters, eg: @ (your character), o (orc fighter), o (orc priest), o (orc champion), O (ogre), X (tentaculated monstrosity -ahhh run! hans, run!!). as in most rpgs you are awarded xp and advance levels, but also using a skill automaticaly trains you in that skill - much like in elder scrolls 3:morrowind- so using a sword several times in combat will increase your swordfighting skills. there are many neat things in the game, but i'll let you discover them by yourselves - i once found a scroll that summoned a host of colored butterflies, utterly useless, but quite spectacular.
besides your race and profession you can also choose a god to worship. different gods demand different tasks to be performed by their followers. i chose makleb, the blood good, and praying to him while in combat gave me an increased strength and berserker rage and i was healed every time i killed a monster - "ahhhh! blood for the blood god!!", ups, this is from warhammer, sorry khorne :p. (other gods may ask of you to destroy undeads or infernals, or to refrain from using magic or to sacrifice valuable items on their altars). upsetting your god can result in your his servants attacking your or even in your banishment to the abyss (you are so toast!).
the game is rather challenging and retrieving the orb is not an easy task. playing with a straitforward fighter is difficult enough, but for a greater challenge you may try a spriggan assassin or a ghoul ice elementalist (yup, you can even do that!)
good luck to you all, and don't forget to identify that black viscous potion before you drink it!

update

well, looks like i've been neglecting my blog lately. so here goes: the police here in france is even more idiotic than the police back in romania. i know this sounds very unlikely, impossible even and you might think that the mere thought of it would produce one of those quantum continuum paradoxes the doc has always been telling marty about (the ones that could destroy the entire universe). but it's true! the police here doesn't give a shit about 'minor' crimes such as assault and robbery, theft, break in, and so forth. a guy had his car stolen from the parking lot right in front of the institute, but the police did nothing. some time ago the institute has been broken into and a lot of flat displays and various other things were stolen. the police didn't even bother to look for fingerprints. the romanian police just loves searching for fingerprints and taking fingerprints as well (they will take your fingerprint for as little as living in a student dorm in a town other than your hometown and not having notified the local police). the reason i'm bringing this up is because the plastic harness of my laptop case has been found (moni and i went looking for it cause the police wasn't even interested in the scene) and moni said the thief wasn't wearing gloves - i didn't see his hands clearly. but when we wanted to take it to the police for a fingerprint check we were laughed at. in romania assault and robbery is considered a serious offence and the culprit can get 3 to 5 years in jail if the victim was not injured (my case) and as much as 15 years if serious permanent injury has been dealt to the victim. like i said, the secretary form the lab has been extreamly kind and came with me to the police station so i could fill out a complaint. the two of us were sitting at the officer's desk and were talking in english. and the officer told us in french, in a very upset tone, that this is france and we shouldn't speak romanian here. baka! and he was an officer. sous-brigadier pascal. some idiot with the iq of a wooden plank.

bad news

i had quite an adventure yesterday.

well, how should i put it...i got robbed! I AM ALL
RIGHT AND NOTHING HAPPENED TO ME!! I AM STILL HEALTHY
physically and mentyally (almost :p) too.

it's simple, i was walking down the street with moni
(a coleague of mine)in broad daylight and i was
wearing my bag on my left shoulder and my laptop case on my
right one, and suddenly i heard the engine of a
motorcycle and i felt that somebody bumped into me; the
first fraction of a second i believed it was an
accident, but the guy grabbed my computer case
(needless to say that the plastic harness snapped like
a twig), and drove off, i tried to follow them (there
were two on the bike) for about 20-30 meters, but to
no avail. (i swear i've only seen this thing in the
movies up till now - and i always took pride in the
fact that nobody ever stole anything from me).

anyway, besides my laptop i had my passport, my bus
ticket back to romania, my health insurance, 10000 huf,
and some other papers.

i'm most depressed about the laptop, more over the
physical thing and a bit less about the data on the
hdd (some research data that is backed-up here in the
lab, but on several pcs, and all the photos i've taken
since i've arrived and all the articles and bibliography i've downloaded)

of all these things, the passport is the most
problematic (i'll be able to buy a new laptop if i get
a ph.d. grant here, my health insurance is also
registered at the company, as is my bus ticket). but i
have to go through A LOT of paperwork to get a new
passport and a new 'carte de sejour' for the remaining
two months of my stage. i also might have to travel to
strasburg or to paris to the ambassy.

anyway i got over the thing (mostly),
i just went home, ate some cold food, drank a beer with
tequila and went to sleep.

(sorry for the sloppy formating, but i'm not using my
lappy with my familiar word on it)






i would also like to take this opportunity to thank the
secretary here at the institute for everything she has
done for me. she did help me a lot in the past, but yesterday
she was just brilliant. besides alerting the campus police and the
bank she took the time to drive down to the police station with my file
in case i needed help. (as i had no id whatsoever and my french is
rather bad). today, in the morning, by the time i arrived at the lab,
she has already contacted the ambassy and also had a paper signed
for me by the head of the institute that he backs me up and aknowledgees me
as a student doing research at the institute. so, jessie is the greatest!!
not to mention all the moral support she has given me, simply amazing.
if all the secretaries would be like her, this world would be a better place!






THANK  YOU  JESSIE  !!


from the bottom of my heart !


*bows deeply*

fuck fireball !

here’s what i’ve been thinking of while going home after doing the groceries (you’ll soon understand why): if you could choose any spell up to level 5 to cast at will as a free action as a level 20 caster in your everyday life, what spell would that be? i can almost hear you: fireball, lightning, create minor undead (yes seri, we know you’re a necromancer), dispel magic, gaseous form…screw all of them. the only spell i would ever need would be tenser’s floating disk. this one just beats them all. it wins hands down. you know why?

because when you live two kilometers away from the nearest shop, and you have to buy food for 3 days (given that on sunday everything is closed and on monday it’s some national holiday and everything is closed again) and, not owning a car, you have to carry all that stuff back to your place. i once tried to carry 16 liters of orange juice and two full bags plus a small backpack and my lappy. i didn’t manage, so i’ve come up with an alternative. i’ve kidnapped a cart (or whatever they are called) like the one shown in the photo and pushed it till i reached the student dorm, then i abandoned it. (this is no easy job either as the cart doesn’t roll too well on grass and tilted surfaces and you also have to be on a lookout for the cops). also the downside is that once you reach your destination you have to find another similar cart in order to retrieve your coin (if you can’t…well you’ve just lost one euro!). of course buying a car would solve all my problems, but wouldn’t casting tenser’s floating disk be a more elegant solution. and it’s also handy when you have to move your fridge (oh boy) and a car won’t be of much help to you unless you can make it climb the stairs to the 10^th floor. (if someone would fix the elevator i would be thankful).

so, bottom line, you can keep all your fancy spells, i’ll just stick to tenser’s floating disk; this is the greatest spell ever devised, not counting evard’s black tentacles (this evard guy must have seen a lot of hentai to come up with this one).

batou’s tip of the day (totally unrelated): the only way to defeat in melee a pkf cyborg with a modular body and with his pain receptors turned off is to deal massive trauma to the brain unit!

tibi’s note: or you could just use your positron rifle, like pete did with the forvalaka (massive overkill !!!!). thanks god (the dm that is) it didn’t misfire!

read or die (oav)

another anime review. this piece is a strait-forward action movie without any depth to it. if you have another anime you want to watch, go for it and forget about rod, but it’s great fun if you want to relax a bit after watching some heavy stuff – if you don’t have ‘ninja scroll’ or some hentai around (yes szilard, i know you always have home hentai around :p). i watched it after ‘now and then, here and there’ and ‘kakurenbo’ and i found it very pleasant.

it’s basically an old-school spy movie, where a small taskforce of ‘special’ agents takes on some supervillain with outrageous powers and a plan to take over the world, while the entire army proves useless. it slightly reminds me of the avengers movie (the one with sean connery; i haven’t seen the old series); even the boss is an english gentleman who, while saving the world, still has time to enjoy his 5 o’clock tea. the music also bears resemblance to the soundtrack of old spy movies.

my favorite character is miss deep, not because of her large boobs, but because her face, hairstyle and attitude remind me of faye valentine, while her movements and clothing resemble those of makoto kusanagi. at some point she is even sent to a hospital suffering from amnesia (like faye valentine!) and she is shown sitting on a bench trying, but not succeeding, to fold paper animals (like kusanagi in the sac2 flashbacks!). of course she also reminds me of kitty pride, and while she is far from being my favorite x-men, she still has a special place in my heart as the first ever x-men story i’ve read was the one with kitty traveling to japan to find her father – it was featured in some spiderman issues (prof charles taught all the x-men telepathically to speak fluent japanese, why can’t this happen to me? ;p )

i love the part when the american president freaks out, wets himself and has to be restrained by his bodyguards not to launch the nuclear attack.

the anime is bloodless and there is very little violence, so it might be suited for younger viewers. it also has a lot of comic relief moments. if you like your action anime more gory and serious, but still enjoy the supernatural, then you should stick to ‘ninja scroll’ or ‘blood the last vampire’ (jubei: “all right, it hurts! we’re even now. stop! if we keep this up one of us will get killed!” tesai: “yes, one of us…” :)) )

kakurenbo - hide and seek

kakurenbo is an animated short from yamatoworks. it won the 2005 tokyo anime fair and was nominated for best short film at the 2005 seoul comics and animation festival. just so you get an idea, it competed against ‘appleseed’ and ‘howl’s moving castle’! it’s only flaw is that it’s too short :(

it tells the tale of a group of children playing hide and seek in an abandoned town, where allegedly children have previously disappeared while playing at night. the movie features many elements of japanese mythology and folklore both in terms of plot - the story is based on a folktale which warns that children who play outside at night or in the fog will be kidnapped by oni (=demons, in case you didn’t know)- imagery, and music (at some points you can hear daiko drums). i’ll have to improve my knowledge of japanese folklore as there is a lot of symbolism in the movie that i still don’t understand (what do the kitsune masks stand for? what’s with the nocturnal butterfly? what do the names of the oni mean?)

the characters are very well drawn and each with a personality if its own, although it’s rather difficult to fully develop the characters in a 30-minute film. the backgrounds are beautiful and radiate mystery. the oni are simply marvelous and the next time we role-play and i’m the dm, you can expect to go against these things :p.

anyway, i advise you to watch this even if you’re not an anime fan. the director mentioned in a recent interview that kakurenbo was just a project to test the team (it’s the first anime from yamatoworks) and after it’s completion he intends to work on full-length features. i wish him best of luck and i hope they’ll stick to folklore and mythological themes, although i’m convinced that they could do an equally gorgeous phildickian cyberpunk or a steampunk setting. (if you don’t know what ‘phildickian’ means, look it up on wiki!)

btw, oni is both the singular and the plural of the noun, just like anime and ninja, not NINJAS! (baka gaijin, you lose one point of honor, roll 2d6)

now and then, here and there

i was going to write today about a comic book, but last night i watched "now and then, here and there" (ima soko ni iru boku) and i just had to review it. my bro sent me two dvds full of good stuff (lain included!) so for the next week my blog will probably resemble szilard's, meaning that i'll be having a lot of anime reviews.

i started watching "now and then" with rather great expectations. what shocked me in particular, after only 10 seconds of viewing it, was the animation, as it seemed quite childish. i was told by viki that this anime is about war and pain, and i just doubted that these could by conveyed through such childish animation (i was expecting something like gits). it took only till the second episode (till the scene when sara and shu were suffering in captivity) to realize how very wrong i was. in a nutshell this anime is about the horrors of war and about the evil that men do, and about this very passionate boy, shu (trust me on this, he has ten dots in willpower and must have taken the merit 'unbreakable resolve' at least three times - not that it would stack). while it is no eva or lain, this one is well worth watching! i both liked and hated the ending - i will refrain from commenting it as i don't want to spoil anything for those of you who might want to watch it (szilard, you must see this one).

have to go and work now, can't wait to get home and watch kakurenbo.

five reasons why the color green sucks

everybody knows that green is a shitty color, for several reasons, but since i don’t have neither the time nor the space here to explain en detail, i’ll just list a few of them.

first, green doesn’t have conterspell in it (this alone is reason enough for a color to be unworthy, but green has many other shortcomings). it also lacks swords to plowshares, hypnotic specter and fireball.

second, green’s main asset is large, fat creatures at a low mana-cost. but who would use creatures to beat an opponent when you can do an elegant isochron scepter-metamorphosis lock.

third, green is full of useless creatures with useless abilities (birds of paradise, troll ascetic, wild mongrel and blastoderm are just some of them). not to mention that the iconic green creature is the elf (bleh desu!) – slender, pointy-eared and gay (“not that there would be anything wrong with it” -seinfeld)

fourth, green has a lot of artifact hate in it. but artifacts never ever hurt anybody, so why hate them so much?! most artifacts –sensei’s divining top, skullclamp, umezawa’s jitte- are useless anyway!

fifth, green creatures can’t fly and we all know from porco rosso that “a pig that doesn’t fly is just a pig!”

a trip with the moon

i was having a walk in a park near the campus last weekend (can you picture me walking in the park...anyway, nothing is open here on sunday). so there i was walking in the park and i saw, in the middle of a small clearing, a large metallic semi-sphere, around 5-8m in diameter. some kids were trying to climb it, while others were kicking it as hard as they could (did i mention i hated kids). so i approached it to see what it was and next to it i spotted a wooden stand with a piece of paper on it. it said 'the sun' and listed some facts about our beloved star. then i got it! it was a model of our solar system!! it didn't take me long to spot mercury (a small sphere on a pole) around 50m away. lovely, as i walked down the path between the trees i would pass each planet one by one. neat idea. and every planet had a small fact sheet next to it with astronomical data (tilt of the axis, rotation and revolution periods, moons, etc.), a short history of the planet's discovery and a few words about the roman/greek gods after whom they were named. lucky for me the relative distances were not the real ones, or i was bound to walk some 20km to get to pluto and even farther to reach the oort cloud (yes, even the oort cloud was there).

in the picture you can see me hugging jupiter (the great red spot is clearly visible) although my favorite has always been sailor mars (omfg, i can't believe i wrote that!) -anyhow, i've grown up now and i only watch deeply philosophical anime, like ninja scroll.

did you know that jupiter has a very large and turbulent magnetosphere. it was discovered that streams of high-energy atomic particles are ejected from the jovian magnetosphere and travel as far as the orbit of the earth. also electric currents were detected flowing between jupiter and some of its moons, particularly io (guess you can call that the largest lightning in the solar system - though they probably aren't as spectacular as portrayed in 'hoshi no koe')

pete's day

today’s post is dedicated to a very good friend of mine who is celebrating his birthday tomorrow – but i’m posting today because i don’t usually write on saturdays (not cause it’s shabbat, but because i don’t have access to the net).

i’ll try to describe this dude to those of you who don’t know him (he’s so going to hate me :p – haha, all his dark secrets will now be revealed *diabolic grin*). well, by trade he is a physicist, he’s doing his first year of master studies in solid state physics and he’s interested in particular in carbon nanotubes (he’s a ‘csoves’ like many others). he was gifted with a healthy dose of sense of humor, always a fun guy to have around. very dependable. lousy guide “come with me, i know a shortcut” (that was one hell of a shortcut, the romans must have had a more pleasant time climbing the serpents path to massada under enemy fire). an average cook. a mac guyver kind of guy – he can’t build an airplane out of paperclips and chocolate wrapper, but he can manage a submarine (although just a tiny one) out of a few plastic bottles. likes eating ice-cream in winter when it’s freezing outside and everybody is giving him weird looks (just like me). has read the guide. likes rpgs (role playing games, not rocket propelled grenades). loves idiotic humor magazines like ‘kreten’ (mee too). listens to rock music, but not the heavy stuff i like, though he enjoys some iron maiden and manowar songs. he plays magic (the card game). he has seen shin seiki evangelion (but not la blue girl). he almost finished dungeon crawl (omfg, he got the orb of zod!!). on the sci-fi/fantasy personality test he turned out to be g’kar (from b5). the had a t-shirt with candle jack on it. the (almost) speaks basic klingon. he likes lake of tears…and there would be a lot more to tell about him. he was my roommate for 3 years (i miss those days). i still have to beat him at quake or ut.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PETE !!

rainbow

somebody recently told me that it’s not important how many breaths you take during your lifetime; it’s the moments that leave you breathless that count.

well, i was feeling pretty down yesterday evening, after having missed the chance to buy a cheap fridge and having been soaked by the rain on my way home. it was just one of those days when nothing seems to fall into place. so i ate a cheap microwaved pizza and i was getting ready to go to sleep, when by chance i glimpsed out the window. and there it was: the most perfect rainbow i’ve ever seen! so i got off the bed to open the window and i was struck by the sweet smell of fresh rain (you know, that thing that makes you want to run across a field).

there i was , eating my chocolate dessert, leaning on the window frame, hearing the raindrops beat on the glass, enjoying the cool scent of the rain, listening to ‘shiroi kisetsu’ …and watching the rainbow… call me a romantic if you want, but this was one of those moments that are eternity.

needless to say that after this the entire day seemed somehow better. even if i wasn’t able to buy the fridge; who needs a fridge anyway, i’ll just get a ps2 instead :p

endi's blog

you should check out endi's blog 'britewitelite', it has some awesome pics on it. the link is in my sidebar. to the left --------->

klingons and dft

it is a little known fact that many klingons concern themselves with the study of dft. for those of you who don't know such trivial things: dft stands for 'density functional theory', a quantum mechanical method used in the investigation of many-body systems, which overcomes some of the shortcomings of the traditional hartree-fock method.

i've posted a pic of some klingon friends of mine who are interested in such studies (for those unfortunate souls who do not know me in person, i'm the fat guy in the middle). this really brings back sweet memories, like when claudiu and i were trying to learn some basic klingon phrases during molecular physics class, oh those were the days...

and finally, the tip of the day: never tell a klingon his mom had a smooth forehead, unless you're ready for a fight!

my league

i was cruising through the threads on 4chan (there is a comics and cosplay section now) and i found an interesting challenge launched by an anonymous user: do your own take on the league of extraordinary gentlemen; anything goes! (if you haven’t seen the movie yet, go watch it, sean connery stars in it). needless to say that this idea was much to my liking. my first list only featured heavyweights (the beyonder, galactus, unicron, cthulhu) but a team of immortal beings/gods is no fun at all. so here is my revised list, with caps i’ve listed the role that person fills in the group:

1. makarios (exalted – games of divinity) ARCANE SUPPLIES (you name it!) demon of the second circle, the warden soul of that which calls to the shadows, he is a merchant who will trade rare items for dreams (anybody’s dreams). having him on the team gives you access to all the 5-dot artifacts you ever wanted.

2. mr morden & co. (babylon 5) HIGH-TECH SUPPLIES (guns, ships, nukes..) mr morden is an arrogant human with no powers at all, but his employers, the shadows, have an entire fleet of starships and are powerful telepaths. just keep an eye on him, he probably has an agenda of his own. and remember, mr morden is never alone!

3. cable (marvel) WEAPONS EXPERT and TACTICAL ADVISOR he hails from the 40^th century and has spent his life fighting apocalypse, he excels in guerrilla warfare and is good with both conventional and futuristic weapons. did i mention that he is also a mutant?

4. the limper (the black company) SORCEROR and ARTIFICIER while there are many other magicians far more powerful than the limper (no, not harry potter) this guy just has attitude. and he CAN’T BE KILLED. trust me on this, he just keeps coming back (even after his head is cut off and his body is burned to ashes!!). and he can bring toadkiller dog if you want a canine friend on the team.

5. lupin the 3^rd (lupin iii) THIEF (theft, infiltration, sabotage) this guy is the grand-daddy of them all. masterthief garett and solid snake just pale in comparison. and he also has two trusty friends (jigen and goemon)

6. reverend mother gaius helen mohiam (dune -1984 movie) INTERROGATOR should the team ever take prisoners that need to be questioned/tortured she is the person to call. and she is also a bene gesserit well versed in the weirding way.

7. osaka (azumanga) LEADER very resourceful and creative, able to think outside the box, just the kind of leader the team needs. and as a bonus she has an unearthly aptitude for word puzzles.

there are three things that set apart my team from the classic bunch of superheroes:

first, none of them can fly, though the limper could build carpet-thingies for everybody, or they could hitch a ride on a shadow ship or use some artifact provided by makarios.

second, there is no large-breasted foxy lady on the team (as the reverend mother is ugly as hell and osaka is still in chio-chan’s group), but if you really can’t do without, you can ask lupin to call fujiko :P

third, there is no hulk-like muscle man on the team, because it doesn’t need one, they resolve their problems through creative thinking, not brute force, that’s why osaka is the leader!

a cat, a cell phone and an extra-dimensional tower

what do these three have in common? they each play an important role in one of makoto shinkai’s anime: ‘she and her cat’, ‘voices of a distant star’ and ‘beyond the clouds, the promised place’, respectively (i have just viewed ‘voices of a distant star’ yesterday; the other two i’ve seen earlier).

‘she and her cat’ is a 5-minute animated short which, though all you see are short glimpses of a cat’s life, manages to tell an engaging story. the last two are somewhat longer (voices is around 40 minutes and beyond the clouds spans a little longer than an hour) and are both romance stories placed in a science-fiction setting (the former is a bit more emotional). in all three anime the visuals are astonishing and the plot is not at all typical, with some rather interesting twists and turns at some points. the first two of them were produced entirely by makoto shinkai himself (!!); everything, from concept to storyboard to animation, even the voices (his fiance voices the female character and his younger brother is the cat), truly astonishing!

whether you like the philosophical issues posed by eva or lain, or the beautifully portrayed characters of miyazaki (“a pig that doesn’t fly is just a pig” – porco rosso :P ) or the gritty dystopian futures of akira and gits or just the gory action of ninja scroll and blood the last vampire; whatever reason are you into anime for, makoto shinkai is a must see. i rarely use caps, but here goes: MAKOTO SHINKAI IS A MUST SEE !

i’m eagerly awaiting his 2006 project ;)

philips and big brother

a friend of mine sent me a rather interesting link today. it describes a marvelous new invention patented by philips: a chip that, when incorporated in the tv would force viewers to watch the adds during a program (by denying the commands of the remote to switch channels or turn off the tv - or in a vcr it would disable the fast forward function during the commercial breaks of recorded movies) http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/ dn9011-invention-the-tvadvert-enforcer.html outrageous and disturbing at the same time. the first thing that popped into my mind was a scene from the movie '1984' (if you haven't read the book yet -by george orwell- go read it fast and then watch the movie, both are outstanding). the scene when o'brien, wanting to talk 'business' with winston turns off his screen, much to winston's surprise (and shock), only to tell him afterwards that party members have the privilege to turn off their screens for an hour each day! is this the future philips has envisioned for us?! and while you're at it, you should also read ray bradbury's 'fahrenheit 451' (you might also want to watch the movie, but it's not that good). perhaps the charming dystopian futures depicted in these books aren't even that far away. (did you know that in certain states christian extremists have started burning harry potter books for their alleged promotion of witchcraft !?)

tiberius sempronius gracchus

this is the guy i was named after (or was it the emperor tiberius !?). anyway, this guy was a tribune who wanted to introduce some reforms and certain people didn't agree with him, so he was killed - very tragic (the same fate awaited his brother gaius)

battlestar galactica *SPOILERS*

i watched the first two seasons of battlestar galactica this weekend (thanks to a klingon friend of mine who was kind enough to mail me the dvds, yep, good old conventional mail) and i have mixed feelings about it. i liked it better than andromeda (where every episode is like this: crew member/civilian gets into trouble, kevin sorbo saves him/her through an act of selfless sacrifice - lesson on trust and friendship included) or than the new sg1 (the first two seasons were great, then they ran out of ideas and the show got too shallow for my tastes) and than sg atlantis. but, it has several flaws, which are too disturbing to overlook. first of all, most of the characters are stereotypical and lack that certain something that make you care for them. a lot of situations are resolved in a very unrealistic, or at least unlikely, fashion. never mind everybody overlooking a revolutionary cancer cure after a terminally ill patient is cured (oh joy, the president is alive, who cares about the others suffering from cancer). the military part is also portrayed in a very unreal manner (one example is fighter pilots being able to fly any ship, even a half organic half machine alien ship, while also being experts in land warfare - i highly doubt that an f-14 pilot could fly a boeing 747 just because it works on the same principle). another part i 'liked' was when a technician decides to build a spacecraft and someone comes up with the idea to use carbon fiber instead of metal for the airframe, and voila: the first stealth craft is born (but after it is destroyed nobody thinks about coating one of the existing fighters with stealth materials). there were also some episodes i enjoyed, like "downloaded", when, after having seen the genius doctor being tormented for more than 15 episodes by visions of no 6, almost to the point of nervous breakdown, you finally see number 6 also having visions of a very calm and detached dr baltar (smoking his expensive cigarettes). bottom line, if you can watch the series without having to pay a dime for it, and you really don't have anything else to do for the weekend, then go for it. otherwise just look for alternate forms of entertainment.

pic of the day

i've deposited this today, before noon. the lines that make up the numbers are 8-10 microns wide. the contour of the numbers is in fact a gold wire (several tens of nanometers thick) obtained through the photoreduction of HAuCl4 using a femtosecond pulsed laser (it's a bit more complicated in fact). the picture was taken with a bw ccd camera through a microscope objective (100x, oil immersed). if i make it to the scanning electron microscope next week, i'll post another picture.

random thoughts

i am extreamly busy today, so i'll just write something random to fill this space. perhaps a quote...aha. "God's in his heaven, All's right in the world!" - robert browning (1812-1889)

Yumi: “It feels different when, ah, somebody else is touching me!”

well, today i was going to write about klingons and density functional theory (guess it will have to wait till monday), but yesterday a friend of mine asked me about my status message on yahoo msg – which is now the title of this post. i never thought people actually read the status message; it’s been the same for three weeks and nobody noticed.

by now some of you might have guessed that today’s topic is h-games. they are also called “bishoujo games”, graphic novels and many other names. these games are very popular in japan, but are much less known in the west. if you have not seen such a game yet, imagine reading a novel on your pc’s display while 2d bitmaps scroll in the background illustrating the story you read (most such stories, though not all of them feature sexual content to some degree or another). in addition, in most of the games you’ll be able to make decisions at certain points which will affect the outcome of the story.

as with other forms of media, you will find a lot of trash and very few diamonds among it. the worst titles of the genre are very linear, have a shallow story (if they have any at all) and present nothing except for the sexual content itself – you should try your best to avoid these. on the other hand you’ll also find games with an intriguing plot and multiple ending possibilities, where the focus is not on the sexual scenes. (although, since the text is translated from japanese by small companies or by fans, usually the narrative is too simplistic). “kana imouto” (kana little sister), “critical point”, “devi-dead” are just some of the titles i think are worth trying.

i find that these games will much sooner leave you with a lasting impression than the dozens of american action games (which by the way are of an ever-decreasing quality in terms of gameplay). sure, spending an afternoon with your friends playing halo is fun, but it’s by no means a memorable experience. contrary to this, after having played “kana little sister”, you will sometimes remember her when it snows or when you see a grass-of-parnassus and you will surely think of her pale face every time somebody mentions chronic kidney insufficiency.

there is a lot more to be said on the subject, but i have neither the time nor the inclination to put my thoughts to paper (i didn’t even mention the hard-core genre). and just to round it up nicely i’ll end the post the same way i’ve started it: with a quote from “kana imouto”, kana todo’s last entry in her journal.

Kana: “Today, I have seen the ocean. I’m not afraid anymore.”

two things i like about the french

there are two things i greatly enjoy here in france. first, the french have an entire subculture around cartoons and comic books (here they are called “bandes designees” or bd for short). here if you walk into any respectable book store you will find a section dedicated to these comics. and they are not for children alone; an adult can take his time browsing through the comics or buy any of them without getting weird looks from passers by.

unfortunately, in romania, most of the adults will dismiss comics or cartoons/anime as strictly for children and you’ll only get questions of “just how old are you?” if you confess to any of them your passion for such things. i greatly dislike these individuals, not because they despise comics/cartoons/anime, but because they just refuse to sit down and watch an anime (or read a comic) before they judge them – the word “shallow” now pops into my mind. unfortunately there are two such persons who i’m very close to. to the first one i am related by blood (no further comment here) and the second one is my bro’s gf (girlfriend, not guardian force). i can only hope that maybe one day they’ll have the patience (and the broad-mindedness) to watch “grave of the fireflies” or “lain” or “perfect blue” or “ghost in the shell” and maybe realize that an anime can indeed convey a serious message (even an ideological or philosophical one)…

oh, and the second thing i like about the french is the “moutarde forte de dijon”.

drinking laban's milk

for those of you who are not familiar with the story, laban is a large hairy-chested shepherd from canaan. he is mentioned several times in the bible, most notably because of his hairy chest [gen 23: 3-12] and his revolutionary sheep cross-breeding techniques [deut: 42: 137-141]. after having married both his daughters and having given all his genetically enhanced super-sheep to his son-in-law, laban decided to try his fortune in the milk industry. though his first attempts to market his dairy products were meager nobody could foresee the breathtaking success his milk would enjoy by the end of that same fiscal year. today, after having defeated his arch-rival, the ‘lapte de cocos’ brand, laban now owns more then 80% of the market shares. his success is mostly due to the rumor that the laban milk is the key ingredient for the formula that would turn anyone who drinks it into chuck norris. (some experts even argue that regular ingestion of laban milk can increase one’s eva synch ratio).

i’ve tasted this one last week, but i still didn’t turn into chuck norris. so i think i’ll just go back to drinking regular milk.

gratitude

i would like to dedicate the first entry of my blog to some friends of mine who, while partying and having fun took some time to remember their exiled companion and went through the trouble of sending him a message.

i am genuinely touched and this means a lot to me.

thank you! *bows*

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GABI !!!