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')