I Must Go Home to Iran Again

I really liked this article from NY Times, Published: July 3, 2009

I Must Go Home to Iran Again

by Marjan Satrapi, the author of the graphic novels Perspolis etc.

PARIS — Six years ago, I went to listen to a man, whom I will not name, in a café in Paris.

He said it had been 24 years since he had been back to Iran, that he had to leave right after the revolution of 1979 for political reasons.

He talked of many things, and he ended by saying: “Once you leave your homeland, you can live anywhere, but I refuse to die anywhere other than Iran — or else my life will have had no meaning.”

His statement touched me very deeply. I’ve thought about what he said, not just understanding him intellectually but feeling his meaning with all my heart. I, too, was convinced that I must die nowhere other than in my country, Iran, or else my life will also be meaningless.

At the time I heard this man speak, it had already been four years since I had been home.

Yes, I call Iran home because no matter how long I live in France, and despite the fact that I feel also French after all these years, to me the word “home” has only one meaning: Iran.

I suppose it’s that way for everyone: Home is the place where one is born and raised.

No matter how much I am in love with Paris and its indescribable beauty, Tehran with all its ugliness will in my eyes forever be the “bride” of all cities around the world.

It’s a question of geography, of the smell of the rain, of the things we know without ever having to think why we know them.

It’s a question of the Alborz Mountains protecting my town. Where are they? Who will protect me now?

It’s a question of the unbearable smell of pollution, a smell I know so well.

It’s a question of knowing that the blue of the sky is not the same everywhere, nor does the sun shine the same way in every place.

It’s a question of wanting to be able to walk under my own blue sky, of wanting my own sunshine to caress my back.

At the time I heard that man speak it had already been four years since I had been home. Today it has been more than 10 years. To be precise, 10 years, six months and three days.

During all that time, I believed I would live a few more decades without ever being able to walk in my mountains. But 18 days ago, June 12, 2009, something happened, something I never believed I would see in my lifetime: Iranians, crowding into an extremely tiny space of democracy, usually left just large enough for them to vote for a president whom the Guardian Council had already approved, truly voted.

The question much of the media asked before the election was: “Are Iranians ready for democracy?”

“YES!” came the answer, loud and oh, so clear.

With a voter turnout of 85 percent, they started to dream that change was possible.

They started to believe “Yes they can,” too.

It’s likely needless to remind you that this was not the first time Iranians showed how much they love freedom. Look only at the 20th century: They launched the Constitutional Revolution of 1906 (the first in Asia); nationalized the oil industry in 1951 (the first Middle Eastern country to do so); mounted the revolution of 1979; and engineered the student revolt of 1999. Which brings us to now, and that deafening cry for democracy.

Almost 20 years ago, when I started studying art in Tehran, the very idea of “politics” was so frightening that we didn’t even dare think about it. To talk about it? Beyond belief!

To demonstrate in the streets against the president? Surreal!

Criticize the supreme leader? Apocalyptic!

Shouting “Down with Khamenei”? Death!

Death, torture and prison are part of daily life for the youth of Iran. They are not like us, my friends and I at their age; they are not scared. They are not what we were.

They hold hands and scream: “Don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid! We are together!”

They understand that no one will give them their rights; they must go get them.

They understand that unlike the generation before them — my generation, for whom the dream was to leave Iran — the real dream is not to leave Iran but to fight for it, to free it, to love it and to reconstruct it.

They hold hands and scream: “We will fight! We will die! But we won’t be humiliated!”

They went out knowing that going to each demonstration meant signing their death warrants.

Today I read somewhere that “the velvet revolution” of Iran became the “velvet coup,” with a little note of irony, but let me tell you something: This generation, with its hopes, dreams, anger and revolt, has forever changed the course of history. Nothing is going to be the same.

From now on, nobody will judge Iranians by their so-called elected president.

From now on, Iranians are fearless. They have regained their self-confidence.

Despite all the dangers they said NO!

And I’m convinced this is just the beginning.

From now on, I will always say: Once you leave your homeland, you can live anywhere. But I refuse to only die in Iran. I will one day live in Iran...or else my life will have had no meaning.

MARJANE SATRAPI is a writer and filmmaker whose works include the book and film “Persepolis.” Her most recent graphic novel is “Chicken With Plums.”

Statement by a group of Iranian bloggers about the Presidential elections and the subsequent events

1) We, a group of Iranian bloggers, strongly condemn the violent and repressive confrontation of Iranian government against Iranian people's legitimate and peaceful demonstrations and ask government officials to comply with Article 27 of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Constitution which emphasizes "Public gatherings and marches may be freely held, provided arms are not carried and that they are not detrimental to the fundamental principles of Islam."
2) We consider the violations in the presidential elections, and their sad consequences a big blow to the democratic principles of the Islamic Republic regime, and observing the mounting evidence of fraud presented by the candidates and others, we believe that election fraud is obvious and we ask for a new election.
3) Actions such as deporting foreign reporters, arresting local journalists, censorship of the news and misrepresenting the facts, cutting off the SMS network and filtering of the internet cannot silence the voices of Iranian people as no darkness and suffocation can go on forever. We invite the Iranian government to honest and friendly interaction with its people and we hope to witness the narrowing of the huge gap between people and the government.

A part of the large community of Iranian bloggers
June 26, 2009
-----------------------------------------
Dear reader,
If you are a blogger, please post this in your blog too. We might have differences in our views towards this crisis, but we can stay united on condemning the violence and valuing the lives of our people. Let's have our voices heard. (The complete bilingual version)
Thank you.

Engineer @ Work

Keep back, keep back.

This engineer is at work...

chaos? check.

mayhem? check.

One of the crazy things that happened on our trip to PA last week was that our GPS started acting crazy and saying that it wasn't charging up. So as we were crossing NYC, A and I kept turning the GPS off in hopes of preserving some battery life.

Anyhow so yesterday i started wondering why the GPS was not working and I thought the problem must be in the adaptor. So I was playing around with the prongs and one of the side prongs fell out! I put it back in the way i thought it would go in but nothing happened... so i was thinking hmmm i wonder...

next thing i realize is that my clock display was no longer working!

Sooo.. I am thinking that I either busted a fuse (hopefully!!) or shorted that section of the electric circuit in the car.

OMG for 2 reasons:

(1) I broke the car

(2) No GPS!!!

I think (2) is almost a catastrophe for me!!

Please stop this engineer from "helping out" again!

Stoned in circles

Is it wrong of me to find the following story really funny? Would PETA hate me? :-P

Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around "as high as a kite", a government official has said. (full story)

I wonder what the relationship between circles and being high is.

Meanwhile, the King of Pop has passed away :-(

Know thy self

I had a bit of a shock the other day---I was not the O blood type that I had always assumed! You see, I am pretty average in most things, so it was but natural for me to presume i also had the most common blood type. But no it seems I actually have a pretty rare blood type. FSM help me if I need a blood transfusion!
So anyway i started reading up about blood types and I learned some pretty cool stuff.
- The distribution of blood types is dependent on geography and the difference in distribution is pretty large. For example, [see wiki page]

Country	O+	A+	B+	AB+	O−	A−	B−	AB−
Aust.	40%	31%	8%	2%	9%	7%	2%	1%
Turkey	29.8%	37.8%	14.2%	7.2%	3.9%	4.7%	1.6%	0.8%
Saudi Arabia	48%	24%	17%	4%	4%	2%	1%	0.23%
USA	37.4%	35.7%	8.5%	3.4%	6.6%	6.3%	1.5%	0.6%

- That graph on top shows who can donate blood to whom. The universal donor is O- (so best blood type if you are selfless) but AB+ is universal recipients (best blood type if you are selfish :-P)

- Scientists have found a way of converting blood types A, B, and AB to O!
- An aussie girl's blood type changed upon a liver transplant!
Know any other interesting facts about blood? :-)

Ume ume yum yum yum

Last weekend I was introduced to the yummiest and most interesting candy ever -- Ume Candy from Nipon!
Ume is plum in japanese i believe and the candy is this dried ume in a container of sugar candy that tastes like cotton candy. The taste is almost like tamarind but not quite.

It is my new mission to find where i can get me some.

Young

I have a tendency to really connect with kids, probably more so teenagers. I love hanging out with them and talking to them. I feel like I am one of them. I can act their age. It's liberating and oh so natural for me.
Last weekend, I met two girls, probably around 13 and 15. I seriously connected with them and i hope I will keep in contact with them and see them again. A while ago (maybe a year or so ago), at a friend's house, I met her younger cousin (again around that age) and I didnt want to let her ago.

I wonder what these kids think when faced with someone like me.. the are probably thinking, man this really uncool ADULT (omg insults!) won't leave them alone!!
HA!
if only they knew :-P

Intolerable Cruelty

"We have seen courageous women stand up to brutality and threats, and we have experienced the searing image of a woman bleeding to death on the streets. While this loss is raw and painful, we also know this: those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history."

- Obama

enlightening

When you first join a new team, all the dynamics of the team members, the politics, the agendas etc. are hidden. You need to walk on your tippie toes for a while, keep looking around and making sure everyone is satisfied enough, happy enough.... until things begin to clear up and you realize who the players are, and how they play.

Today I had a very interesting conversation which shed some light onto some of these dynamics. I am learning the rules.

It's the wild wild west out there!

traffic story

A and I had did an illegal u-turn last night and the police caught us. The nice policeman asked Alvaro if he knew that u-turns over there were illegal and Alvaro replied " yes but the GPS told me to do a u-turn!"
Good reply!
surprisingly we got off with a warning.

sleeping story

A and I caught an overnight flight last night for the wedding reception of JA<3N - woo hoo! We ended up getting two middle seats so and it was so hard to get into a good position for the night. Anyway neither of us got much sleep on the way over. We flew into JFK in NYC and were planning on driving from there to east Pennsylvania. We thought to drive thru Manhattan, have lunch before getting to PA for the reception on sat night. As we started driving to Manhattan, the traffic around us got worst and worst. Since we were both tired we decided to skip Manhattan and drive around through Brighton Beach and have breakfast there and continue past to PA. Anyhow by the time we got to Brighton Beach, we were both so tired we ended up parking the car at the side of the road and locked the car and leaned our seats all the way back and took a snooozzzzzzzz..... for 1.5 hours!! when we woke up, the sun was up, the air was hot and stuffy in the car and there were people walking all around us! :-P ok maybe they weren't peering inside the car and there were on the side walk so not exactly next to us, but it was so funny! Sleep in the car? ha! been there, done that... now! ;-) We woke up just in time for lunch. Chevere!

Starting 3...2...1

Funny things are happening in my life and I am forgetting them!
I have to start writing them down, else they will be gone for eternity.
and that would not be good.
So I hereby renew my blogging efforts.

Clementine flourless cake

A couple of weeks ago, my cousin cooked the yummiest clementine cake eva. I found the receipe today and may I recommend it to you? :-)

375g clementines (about 4-5)
6 eggs
225g sugar
250g ground almonds
1 heaped teaspoon of baking powder

1 - put clementines in a pan with cold water and bring to boil. Cook for 2 hours. Drain and let cool slightly. Cut clementines in half and take out the seeds. Puree them with skin.
2 - Preheat oven to 190C (375F)
3 - Whisk eggs. Add sugar, almonds and baking powder and mix well. Add in the clementine puree and mix.
4 - Pour into a 21cm buttered and floured cake pan and bake (on the middle rack) for approx 40 mins. Then cover with foil and bake for another 20 mins.

Then cut yourself a piece and enjoy!
Yum!
Btw, this seems to be a recipe by Nigella Lawson and seems to be very famous. Just try searching for it!

Rachel The Movie

Last night I watched the movie Rachel Getting Married and I loved it so much. Seriously I think I was crying through half the movie (do I seem to be crying a lot recently??)
The movie is about a young girl Kym leaving rehab for a couple of days to go home and attend her sister's (Rachel) wedding, which is this beautiful concoction of music. I thought the movie was so heartfelt and beautifully filmed, focusing mainly on the relationship between the sisters. There were these scenes of Kym feeling so much pressure and stress, her face is just about to shatter. In between the story which covered the dysfunctional family and their past tragedies, there are these long wedding scenes, the dancing and the toasts and the singing, which wonderfully builds the atmosphere and also the secondary characters. This, along with the rest of the movie which primarily follows Kym, makes the movie nice and balanced. You end up loving both sisters and appreciate their differences and at the end of it, what came out of the movie was the strength of sisterly love.
One of my favourite movies ever.
Why did it only get 7.1 in imdb???

Paris Dreams with a Stranger

Grace Jones - Strange
(complements of AACM)

Strange I've seen that face before
Seen him hanging round my door
Like a hawk stealing for the pray
Like the night waiting for the day

TLC

I've been in CanadaLand the past week or so, being a kid again, not doing anything and watching Tv, while being spoilt by mi madre :-) I am usually a CNN fan since I don't have it at home but what i like to watch in the mornings is the show What Not to Wear. It's kind of fun because you see people who (you hope) are worst dressed than you and then you learn what they should wear etc. This channel also has a lot of baby shows. Straight after the WNTW show, there is a Baby Story show which is like a documentary of a couple who are pregnant and they go through the birth etc. Oh My... did that get my clock ticking. The whole baby thing is so amazing. Imagine being able to bring to life another little human being - Amazing no? It is one of the most wonderous things in the world. And then a little kid belongs to you and they will grow up. It's amazing amazing.

A living nightmare.... Action!

Last night I had a really stressful and scary dream. Ajax and I lived in a small unit in a motel like building where we were attending a summer school of some kind. I started thinking that someone was stalking me. On multiple occasions, there was someone in a car just watching the house. One day I came home and realized someone had been through the house. This happened again. The guy watching the house was still watching.I think they had taken something small from the bedroom. One night when Ajax was away, I realized that someone was again watching the house but there were two people in the car. I turned off all the lights but then i decided to come back and make sure all the windows are closed. I noticed one which had been used by the bad people to come in. There was another window that was stuck and refused to close. Meanwhile I was so scared you wouldn't believe. One of the bad guys (the third person which turned out to be a girl) came towards the house and was looking in thru the windows and calling out to me. I kept trying to turn off lights but there was always one light which was on so they could see me. Finally I though I had closed eveything and decided to go to bed (although i was too scared to sleep). Just as I was sleeping, I realized they were at it again so i decided to call 911 but the home phone kept dialing wrong and cell phone's battery was exhausted. I was sure that the stalkers had done something to mess up with my systems. As I am scrambling to use attach my cell phone to the charger and dial 911 -- this one works --- the door opened and all these zombies/people attacked. I never managed to tell the operator what was wrong but i started screaming and i think i half fainted. The operator was speaking calmly and started talking to the attackers who then decided not to attack, esp since they seemed to be actors! It turned out that this whole thing had been a movie production and I was the star except they wanted me to have honest reactions so they decided not to tell me and just let me go thru all, giving real emotion. Afterwards I got totally pissed off because i was so scared and so horrified. I wouldn't authorize them to use my pictures so their whole endeavour was wasted but they kept trying to get me to change my minds.

What a dream huh. No a nightmare becuase i was so scared through it. A dream in three acts: stalk, attack, the next day. I know i am missing a lot of details of the dream but I am pretty impressed i remember this much and in such detail.
Crazy.

A Tale of Much Woe

I have had an interesting time applying for jobs since my graduation. Almost immediately when i started my application process, I found a very interesting position with a good company. Over a short period, I had a number of interviews and then I was told the team liked me and were going to make me an offer but they had to get approval. Since I liked the team and seemed everything was working out I stopped applying and kept myself busy with work. A month later i was still waiting in limbo with no end in sight. I had a crisis period before I started applying again, this time like crazy. As days passed, my range of what I considered suitable jobs increased and increased. It's quite interesting when one day you are ignoring a job because you think that is not suitable but then the next day when you don't see any new open positions, you go back and say well, maybe that first position wasn't that bad!
Anyhow, so currently I have another offer waiting to happen -- a pretty good one too. iYay for me! I haven't signed anything yet but it looks much more promising. The funny thing is that i am still looking at the job websites every morning and applying. Just now I organized another interview for a job which is not that interesting but heck... I can't seem to say no. Now it's like a compulsion, a game, where I apply just to see how it goes. It has been really interesting going through the interviews as well. The technical questions are kind of fun now. Maybe I am only thinking that because I have the potential offer now. I remember when I first started the process I was really afraid. It was the first time I was going thru these technical interviews where over the course of a day, you meet with 10 people one by one. But I've been learning how to prepare.
Anyway so my tale is not so much woe -- atleast I am hoping it won't be.
To Be Continued.

Hu1u for n0n-US residents

If you want to watch Hulu or one of the US TV network's webcontent (which is usually solely for US residents) and have never been able to because it requires you to be watching in the US... this guide is for you.
How to bypass the country check at South Park Studios and in other places.

1. Get Firefox.
2. Download & Install "Modify-Headers"
3. Go to Tools -> Modify Headers
4. Click Configuration and check Always On: Enable ... and Open Modify Headers ....
5. At the top select "Add" from the drop down list. Type in X-Forwarded-For in the field to the left of the drop down list and 12.13.14.15 in the other one. Nvm the third field
6. Press "Add" and select your new lines and press Enable/disable if it isn't already enabled.
7. ????
8. Profit and watch South Park.

If someone can confirm that this works, it would be great.

Update: ok this doesn't seem to work for Hulu but it did work for comedy central. For Hulu, seems there are these VPN solutions.

Remember Me

Yesterday I was listening to This American Life on NPR which is a collection of stories and essays and field recordings. It's really interesting and thought provoking.
There was one particular story which I thought was so beautifully told and powerful and sad.
David Wilcox tells the story of how his mother, who was dying of lung cancer, made a short videotape for his sister, who is severely developmentally disabled. She hoped the tape would become a daily part of her daughter's life, like the other music and movies she liked to play, that she would watch it and remember her mother. But she also knew her daughter might never even see it.
If you get the chance, go to the website and listen to the podcast or online.

Epiphany

Today Ajax and I played a demo of Resident Evil 5. My second coop first person shooter game.
2 reasons why I didn't like RE5.
(1) too gruesome! I don't like so much gore and blatant violence. Guns is one thing, but axes and knives are totally different.
(2) I prefer distanced fighting. It is stressful (I don't know if that is the right word) for zombies to physically attack you.
oh and the controls seriously sucked! The controls of resistance are so much better!
The other girl in my clan also didn't like RE5 because she felt it was too stressful.

Dare I generalize the above two reasons for all female gamers?

Speaking of luck...

My husband is a very lucky, LUCKY man.
He managed to hook his wife on a game.
Now she cajoles him into playing one more game.
Last night:

husband: I am so sleepy. I am going to sleep.
me: no just one more game. We have a good group going.
husband: no no I am really sleepy.
me: Just one more game.
husband: no...
me: puh-leaze! I'll owe you one...

That man is a lucky lucky man. I thought women were the ones that tried to change men once they got them in a relationship. Alas he is the true Pied Piper in our relationship.

Test of Luck

This story on BBC is a true testament to serious bad luck or good luck! or both!
This guy survived both atomic bombs in WW2. He is from Nagasaki but was in Hiroshima on business the day it was hit. So he survived H and then went back to N to have to survive N!!
If you think about it for a sec, it blows your mind.
Atlanta and I were talking about this and trying to come up with similarly bad lucked scenarios. He mentioned during 9/11, escaping one tower to go into the other one after the first is hit.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Are my examples in bad taste? Possibly. At least when i put up this story in facebook, someone wrote me immediately saying there are people who find both topics offensive. But why? How would either the real story or my silly analogy offend anyone? The stories are supposed to have good endings. and they are devastating disasters which had many victims, but does that mean we cannot talk about them at all? Isn't talking about these things better because they keep them more alive in mind?
So although I disagreed with the email that I received, I still took down the story and instead i put it up here. But I am interested in what people think about this issue.
Or if you have any other funny (but sad) analogies!

Noruz mobarak!

Last friday morning (USA time), all Iranians celebrated Noruz, their new year! So...

HAPPY NORUZ!
or (now in Farsi)
NORUZ MOBARAK!

(No=New, Ruz=Day ==> Noruz = new day)

We are now in the year 1388. Yay!

(the actual calender details are really interesting like the fact that the first 6 months have 31 days and the last 6 have 30 days, last month can change by one day if it is a leap year. The day distribution is due to the fact that the sun moves slightly more slowly along the ecliptic in the northern spring and summer than in the northern autumn and winter)

Now I am going to give you all a history lesson. Gather around my little lambs and let me tell you all a story...

Noruz goes all the way back to the Achaemenid era (founded by Cyrus the Great) and was one of the important festivals of the Zorasterians (which was founded in that era).
In harmony with rebirth of nature, Noruz always begins on the first day of spring; more precisely, it is celebrated on the moment the Sun crosses the celestial equator and equalizes night and day. So the precise time of Noruz varies form year to year, depending on where you are on the planet, though it is somewhere in the time window of 21st of March, plus or minus a day.
I don't know any other new year which is so precise, do you?

Some of the activities during Noruz are spring cleaning, buying new cloths, painting eggs, family reunion, giving presents, visiting neighbors and friends and celebrating by having a picnic on the 13th day of Spring.
Just like the xmas tree and the nativity scenes for christmas, Iranians have a Noruz spread, called the haftsin (haft=7, sin=the sound of the letter 's'==> haftsin=the 7 's's) where families gather around as the new year rings in.
Haftsin consists of a spread with 7 items, all starting with the letter 's'. Haftsin represents renewal, happiness, wealth, good health, and other things which are desired for the new year. The items on the haftsin are:

• sabzeh - wheat, barley or lentil sprouts growing in a dish - symbolizing rebirth
• samanu - a sweet pudding made from wheat germ - symbolizing affluence
• senjed - the dried fruit of the oleaster tree - symbolizing love
• seer - garlic - symbolizing medicine
• seeb - apples - symbolizing beauty and health
• somaq - sumac berries - symbolizing (the color of) sunrise
• serkeh - vinegar - symbolizing age and patience

There are other optional items such as coins (sekkeh) representing wealth, candles representing enlightenment and happiness and mirror representing cleanness and honesty. Oh and then there is the gold fish which represents life within life and is the sign of Pisces which the sun is leaving.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I had my best Noruz in a long time, a real noruz. It had been a long time since I gathered with my mum and uncles and aunts and cousins to celebrate Noruz. We didnt end up having the hafsin which kind of sucked but hey, it was the best celebration in recent history. Next year my aim is the whole family and a haftsin. :-D

Addiction

Dear Diary,
they say the first step towards fighting an addiction is to recognize that there is a problem.
So here I am, proclaiming that yes I do have an addiction.
Every day, I get through my day with thought of the coming night when I sit on my IKEA couch in front of the Samsung TV, turn on the PS3 and first check which of my clan members in online and what they are playing, and then turning on the game Resistance: Fall of Man. Dear diary, I play and my heart pounds and my muscles are tense and i physically lean back and forth as I try to dodge software bullets. I usually suck, I shout out profanities to the heavens and the character(s) of the game who is pwning me and then in the end I am usually last on that list of rankings. But oh the rush, the energy, the adrenaline.
I cannot turn off my TV till late, very late. I go to bed and when i close my eyes, I dream of the light trail left off by those damn snipers that get me out of the blues.
Dear diary, I recognize that I have a problem, but really, do I have to do anything about it?
Love,
xoxo

Attack Dog

KK2

It seems they are making a new karate kid movie, with the kid being played by Will Smith's son. Nothing good can come of that. Last night before going to my karate class, i decided to have a quick watch of the original karate kid 2. This is when mister miagi goes to japan to face his old enemy and of course little karate kid joins him to offer support. Now I generally really like these kind of movies, love me some Rocky action, mighty ducks, you know sport related movies. These days throw in a bit of marshal arts and Bob's your uncle. But seriously, this movie is bad. Setting bad, acting VERY bad, story pretty bad, Japanese people speaking english BAD. The blossoming love between the kid (whose name i obviously don't recall) and the japanese babe.. bad. Everything bad. so so bad.
and yet I am wondering what happens in Karate kid 3. :-P

ps. one of the biggest problems people tell me about japan is that the society is very male dominated and women are to a large extent in the background. Now i don't know how true this is in reality, but it was surely true in KK2 and you know if it is in the movies, it MUST be true right? :-P

The Future is here

This article about iPhone's very slow (almost negative!) adoption in Japan is really fascinating. Basically it says that the iPhone is eons behind all the other phones in Japan, it is clunky and has too few applications. This being the phone that is revered in (world-minus-Japan). Seems in Japan people replace their home PCs with phone/mobile devices and most phones feature really good cameras and get this, TV tuners. How cool is that!! Basically the fact that iPhone relies on a home computer to sync media and get updates completely misses the point.
The future is here, only in Japan :-) I wish I could click my heels three times and show up there...now! Really good article.

thursday morning

I read the following line on a friend's mail signature: (Hafez is perhaps one of the couple of most famous Persian poets.)
Even after all this time The sun never says to the earth, "You owe Me." Look what happens with A love like that, It lights the Whole Sky. - Hafez

Meanwhile, I just heard on the news that a man who had donated his kidney to his wife, and who then wanted his kidney back once he found out she was cheating on him, is told his claim is being rejected. The whole thing is weird and sad.

Adjustable Eyeglasses at $1

Designer Focuses on Marketing Adjustable Eyeglasses at $1 a Pair: Scientific American
I always love all these inventions which make things available for the masses. OLPC for another.

Chemical Party!

From Gillen's blog. Which element do you want to be?
I am thinking of one of the alkali metals, as " They are soft shiny metals that usually combine with group VIIA nonmetals in chemical compounds in a 1:1 ratio."
i like the 1:1 ratio thing and who doesn't want to be soft and shiny :-P

If you hardly remember your chemistry, here is a quick list of properties. I am also hoping my chemical brothers and sisters will throw at us some of their knowledge! :-D

Job application =?= romance

This is my new theory. Applying for a job is like being in a romantic relationship. There are highs, there are lows: does he like me, does he not like me, are we a good fit, will he support me, i should play hard to get, not too eager... and it all ends either in breaking up or a marriage proposal.. i mean a job offer.
and so continues my saga of job hunting with no resolution in sight.

free water

i just heard that US airways is going to reverse their charges of non-alcoholic drinks. Seems they had too much negative publicity and they were not saving enough money to make the whole thing worthwhile. Also no other airline joined US airways in this charge. So now they have reversed it.
Now when are they going to remove the bag charge fee? it is so consistent in charging for checked in luggage and not carry ons. Because now most people try not to have checked in luggage and they bring these huge carry on pieces, which don't fit in the compartments above the seats and so they are "checked in" at the gate. So... what is the point? oh more importantly, the charge was brought on by high fuel prices which have since gone down down, way down. So why are we still paying for it?
Oh and my absolute biggest pet peeve about airlines? not being allowed to take liquids thru security. I heard somewhere they will relax this rule this year but nothing for sure. Anyone know anything about this?
wow this post has turned into a rant against airlines. Of course some airlines like Jet blue and Virgin are quite customer friendly :-)

the verdict

So has anyone been watching the Dollhouse? they had the second episode just yesterday and I must say that I like it so far. It has big potentials. Not the best actors, sometimes it becomes a little bit fake, but it's pretty good. The story is interesting and currently, I am hooked. That's a pretty good start right? :-)

I would love to hear from others who have been watching.

brilliant!

wonderful song, video... everything!

le Café - Oldelaf (english subtitles)
by Boebis

Sheherazade \approx Shahrzad

Last weekend (v)Alentino and I went to watch the symphony play Sheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov. The music is based on the one thousand and one night fable where a jaded king believes all women are dishonorable and dishonest. So every night he would get a new wife and in the morning, he would kill her. Until that is, he married Shahrzad (the correct Persian pronounciation -- and she was a persian queen). On the first night, to farewell her sister, she told her a story. The king overheard her and was in awe and wanted to hear another story. However Shahrzad said the king would have to wait for the next night. For 1001 nights Shahrzad told stories, at the end of which time it seems that the king had 3 songs with her and had been taught about morality and kindness. (everything up to here is plausible except for that 3 sons part. Is that even theoretically possible in 1001 nights?)

Rimski-Korsakov - Sheherazade - La mer

This is a very beautiful piece. The above video is the beginning of the piece where you can just picture the king having made his royal decree and then you hear the beautiful and sweet voice of Shahrzad bewitching his with stories. Really beautiful.

We also had a very special seats! we were sitting right at the front, on the 3 row in te orchestra section, on the right edge. We had very good views of the back of the double base players, the conductor and the first violin!! Fortunately, there were a lot of violin solos and the conductor was fun to watch!
A great night, ending with a quick stop in Carl Jr's for a bite to eat in all our finery :-P

Dollhouse countdown!

Something major is happening tomorrow. Hallelujah. Joss Whedan's Dollhouse will be debuting on the evil channel and oh baby doll, I am trembling with excitement.
I have waited for this moment a long time, counting the months and the weeks and the days.
First it was Buffy, then Firefly, then Doctor Horrible and now.... welcome to the Dollhouse.

Here is Joss' interview on NPR which was on today. Totally recommended.

Meanwhile I am wondering why the evil channel is putting the show on such a horrible time slot, 9pm on friday nights. This is HORRIBLE (no pun intended!). Esta bien... we will still watch it. But why did Joss go back to Fox??? Grr. Such a bad move.
As you can tell, I am very excited!

Impressive

A benefit of being in Calgary is that I get to watch cable. Last time I was here, it was just before the elections and i had the channel on CNN the whole time. This time around the channel is still on CNN and I am watching Obama promoting the stimulus package. The last couple of days he has started doing these townhall meetings and press conferences and I am so impressed. Seriously the number of things he has to have a handle on is very impressive. In his first press conference, he started by giving a short overview of the stimulus package, then he fielded questions on economy, foreign policy, sports (A-rod) and state of the union. It was amazing how he would shift gears and start talking about somehitng totally different and people would want detailed answers.

To birth or not to birth

A big story in the news these days in Calgary is about a 60 years old woman who just had twin boys. Seems she and her husband always wanted kids but they couldn't ever conceive. About 10 years ago they tried to get IVF treatment in Canada but she was considered too old. She tried IVF in India (where she is from). They spent all their savings but she couldn't conceive. Last year they again tried IVF in India and she conceived and she just had her two healthy little boys last week. Supposedly she and her husband are taking care of the kids with the women's two parents.
There is a whole lot of hoopla right now about the ethics of the whole thing. Was the woman right to have the kids? Is it fair to the kids?

For me, it's a really hard decision. In a way I understand that people have dreams and this couple has wanted a kid for so long. And they are able to provide both financial and emotional support. But I also wonder how it would be for the kids to grow up with such old parents. It is bad enough having one generation gap between yourself and your parents, here you have two generation gaps. Then again they say that a lot of kids are brought up by their grandparents and they turn out well.
I do wonder why the couple didn't adopt kids when they were younger, but then again a lot of people prefer to have their own kids.

So I don't know. I would love to hear what others thinks.

Dancing and Music

This weekend Albanini and I went to a great little bar called Cigar Bar and Lounge in SF. It's cozy and has a nice atmosphere. There was also a small salsa band who were fab and we danced the night away. A much nicer place than the salsa place close to our house which Albinoni and I go once in a while because we are too lazy to go far. So we have been to this place (the one close to us) several times and there are definitely regulars. There is this woman who is a fabulous dancer with long hair that generally flies about as she turns and little dresses which are rather low cut and I am always surprised they don't reveal more accidentally! But it is so funny when she dances there is usually a line of men standing to the side just watching her. Anyway we found out she is a bit of a slut. Then there is this smallish guy with slicked back hair who is so cool he wears sunglasses in the dance club. Gangsta material. The DJ there seriously sucks. Seriously. ok enough complaining about this club. One good thing about the club is the teaching hour they have before the band starts playing. The teachers are relatively good. Now i am finishing on a good note :-)

Last night we also went to a concert by the Kronos Quartet. I had only heard Kronos' soundtrack to Requiem of a Dream and I absolutely love their Lux Aeterna. So I had high hopes going to the concert. Alas the first half they played all these very modern atonal, discordent music which contained background synthethized sound and some whispers and voice additions by these guys. It was amazing to me how anyone could actually like this so called music. Given 2 violins, a viola and a cello, you can make the most beautiful, deep and harmonous sounds and when you hear deliberate jarring and scratchy sounds, you wonder. Of course, what do I know, for there were people who loved and clapped and expressed their amazement at the beauty of the "noise" after wards during the discussion with the band.
I really don't understand these modern arts, where you call noise music, and some splashes of color on a canvas, a masterpiece.

After the night

This is a picture of Gaza students back to school after the bombings. The cards mention the names [and ages] of the students who are not there anymore.
It is not hard to imagine the desperation and desolation of these kids and what actions ca lead from them.

Useful trick!!

Just enter 'pwn' in front of any youtube video before the word 'youtube' and it'll send you to a download file.
For more details, see here.
Very nice :-)

Job Hunting Syndrome

The last couple of weeks, while hunting for suitable employment, I have become kind of antisocial. I don't want to talk to my friends and I don't want to see them (esp the ones with jobs!). I don't want to answer any questions about how my job hunting is going.
The problem is more myself, because when i see friends I can't help but talk about what's on my mind but I also don't want to talk about it, so you see, my solution is not to see them or talk to them.
Which is probably not a very good thing! :-(

Informative Video

Watch the following 60 Minutes piece. Very informative. The situation in the middle east is extremely sad.

Time Running Out For A Two-State Solution?, 60 Minutes: Growing Number Of Israelis, Palestinians Say Two-State Solution Is No Longer Possible

Fathering babies at 111... say what!

This is a very cool story about Henry finally becoming a father at 111 (possibly for the first time). Seems he used to be very crabby but then a tumor was removed from his butt and he suddenly became all sweet natured and lovin, thereby leading to a pack of kids.

On a related note, this is interesting:
"Tuatara, which are found only in New Zealand, are sometimes referred to as "living fossils". They are the only surviving members of a family of species which walked the Earth with the dinosaurs more than 200 million years ago."

A tip of my hat to La Gillen

La Gillen gave the following link as a comment, but it is so hilarious it deserves its own front page announcement. The following is a most hilarious song about a boy and a girl ... and what happens at night. It is such a deja vu it is not funny. I lie, it is actually hilarious!

Australian Comedy act Tripod performing "Gonna Make You Happy":


ps I already know some people (you know who you are) are going to complain about the xbox mention. Suck it up!
pps La Gillen is seriously the best for continually introducing me to new music and hilarious shows and... the world! :-D

Colorful Benediction

I love the wording of the benediction by Rev. Joseph Lowery during President Barack Obama's inauguration:

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around ... when yellow will be mellow ... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.

Then Jon Stewart added a couple of more lines:
When Blue will be allowed in two, when Puce will be set loose, when we rise above the minutiae of Fuchsia, and Orange …. screw Orange!

Are you there God? It's me... Fly!

The above graph shows the relationship between how much (and when) an atheist believes in God and the activity the atheist is involved in. I can imagine a couple of more scenarios that could have been added! :-)

Dawn of a new era

This is the car I rented. Pretty isn't it? :-) but so hard to drive!
The interview went okay, I met with 10 people from 9am-5:30pm and I was so tired in the end! I can't believe I didn't think about drinking some coffee in the middle of the day. On the way home I got stuck in traffic and I could hardly keep my eyes open!
I loved the job description and let me not say more because I might jinx myself.
No more talk of this. My mouth is zipped.

The only bad thing was that I missed all of the inauguration ceremonies!! I missed it all!!! Did everyone else watch it? Which part was your favourite? Mine was probably the part that it was Obama being the president. Ha! but seriously, I would love to hear what you guys particularly liked about the ceremonies.

my trip - 1

I am having an interview in San Diego tomorrow which I am really looking forward to. The job seems so ideal for me. The last couple of days I have been preparing for thi interview, going over stuff, my papers, my resume, having a gaming party.. :-P That was saturday and it was really fun but we are not talking about that.
I flew down in the early afternoon and the excitement began on the plane when a combination of coffee and spicy tomato juice totally made me sick. Trust me, being in a plane is not the best place to be in when you get sick. By the time we landed I ok again and I went to get a car. The company had hired an intermediate car and i asked for a compact since I am so short i have trouble driving a big car. After some computer searching they gave me a convertible! :-p yes imagine me in a white pontiac solstice, with the top down (only after asking someone how to do it!). It would have been a magical experience except for the fact that it was so hard driving it! it is a tiny car, very very low to the ground with deep seats that yes I still couldn't see over the steering wheel!! but who returns a convertible for a say, corolla? not me!
Seriously i had a lot of trouble driving and the poor GPS got the brunt of my inability to drive. I took so many wrong turn and the poor girl had to keep recalculating!
finally i got myself to the hotel when i found out i had put in an incorrect hotel address!! I drove again and finally after a very long day i got to my hotel. Interview day tomorrow!

Your morning laugh

Enjoy!

DRM-free?

These Apple people are such sneaky people... makes me not want to buy anything from them!!
Although they are making their music in iTunes store DRM-free, they insert your email info into each song/video you purchase so that they can trace songs. Seriously Apple people???
Some thoughts:
- can't you just take out the email via a text-editor?
- wouldn't there be privacy concerns here for the consumer?
- seems Amazon puts inserts a watermark as well, but not related to the purchaser - only that it was purchased from Amazon.

Update:
Amazon doesn't watermark the songs itself. The labels that provide the songs do themselves so the good news is that the songs are not individually marked; i.e., the same song bought from two different accounts is bit-wise identical.

Great Jumping Spiders Batman!

This is the newest plush toy that is a big hit in Japan. They were going to add her to the Monsters Inc movie but he had powerful enemies.
ok I was lying. That's a real spider, one of those instances were you wonder at the craziness of nature.
It is a Jumping Spider. It is furry, female, has 8 eyes and can jump 30 times its length. Don't you just want to hug it? :-P It is amazing!!
More pictures. More info.

T-minus 10

I have been running simulations on my trusty machine in the past couple of days and I know my computer is doing some serious number crunching when its fans become alive and it starts humming real loud to get my attention. I think it's complaining. Anyway, sitting next to it and hearing that fan go faster and faster, I get this image of a rocket revving up for blast off. Other times I think I am going to gradually see smoke coming out of my computer and the whole thing just self-combusting... go up in glory!

Who said programming is not imaginative???? :-P

How to get music savvy

It might surprise many people, but I am not what is considered "cool"... NO WAY!! no, really? I know, I was quite shocked myself when I discovered it. But then I asked my mum and she said, well, surprisingly, she confirmed it.
Hark!
The who issue gets re-confirmed whenever we play trivia and I find myself so clueless about current music. Now give me a bit of opera and I might not do AS badly, but .. who am I kidding. Anyway, Atlanta is similarly clueless about cool music. As an aside, this might be why we are so good for each other -- both of us are clueless and yet we think the other one is cool. :-P
How did I get here? I am quite the meander-er tonight! the whole reason why I started writing this blog was because Atlanta, in his quest to become up to date with current music, is listening to the radio station of his car in Grand Theft Auto -- yes, not a real radio station, rather the radio station of his simulated car in the simulated NY of GTA. He has come up with quite a few new songs that we assume are cool because they are in video games. I think that is hilarious =D

Ape like

Recently Atlanta and I were listening on NPR to an interview with Josh Brolin who plays Bush in the movie W. While he was talking about learning the gestures of Bush, he mentioned a particular habit of Bush: when he stands, Bush has an ape-like tendency to angle his arms with the back of his hands pointing to the front. I finally got what he meant when i saw the above picture! it is so true!!! :-P

Meanwhile seems Bush is handing out Medals of Freedom to his good buddies little Johnnie Howard (the old PM of Australia), Tony Blair and Alvaro Uribe (president of Colombia) for their support of anti-terrorism and promotion of democracy in the world... meaning for blindly following in the footsteps of Dubya. What an honor to be in such an elite group...

Favourite Past Time

A new favourite activity of mine these days is watching Alvaro play Metal Gear Solid online... He is Ellen Petrovich and there is something so incredibly addictive in watching her try to rise above her sloth status :-P hehe I kid I kid. He is definitely a hawk (wannabe). He belongs to this colombian clan and you know they are the elite of the elite. He leaves around playboy magazines and while the innocent are distracted by these trashy mags, he executes them, Ellen style. That's just the way s/he rolls you see. But he really is getting better, making more head shots, and cries and curses the gods only once in a while.
Trust me... it's more entertaining than any TV show. 24 has nothing on this. :-P

Fair?

There is something wrong when a military offensive leaves a death ratio of 1:100 on the two sides. 5 to 500.... Can anything this unbalanced be fair? it makes me wonder.

Back to schooling

These days I am preparing for job interviews by going over my C++ progamming books. It's a lot of fun actually re-reading these and learning how the language has changed and what is new. I wonder if it is because I know the basics and so I understand everything much deeper and better now.
A couple of more days of this and then I begin the algorithms re-training.
Learning is Phun!

Spiderman

Seems I am on a music roll. I actually have lots of things to write, except I don't seem to have time. However, I do have just enough time to mention how much I love the big band music of Michael Buble. If you haven't heard him, try him on It had Better be tonight and Irresponsible and Feeling Good. Very nice! Here he is with Spiderman: (not my fav but pretty fun)

In terms of music, i think I was born after my time :-)

Argument to Music

and not just any music - Beethoven's 5th :-)