Unexpected...

I was in a very not-in-the-mood-to-show-myself-in-public-and-bored-to-death state of mind last night and a friend of mine compelled me to escape my humble lair and explore the realm of oh-so-crowded-pubs-on-a-Friday-evening...I must say, after a few hours of chatting with some very interesting individuals, thank God there still are some left, I didn't regret my going out at all. We talked about many, many things, from Tarkovski and Work and Travel to Yamaha and Deutschland. It was truly refreshing and it got me in the mood to start my late-film-watching nights, which sadly I have lately neglected.
Life is sometimes surprising and sometimes it lingers a tad in the surreal territory, but very few of us stop and enjoy that particular ride. For those of you brave enough to go deep into the rabbit's hole, A Clockwork Orange is a must.

The anguish cure

The proverbial crossroads is becoming a multidimensional ramification of highways that mostly lead to despair, hate, broken hopes and endless days of anguish and irritation triggered by everyone and everything that stands in your way...oh the horror...for those around you...
There are persons that treat these situations with calm and tact...I'm not one of them...when I try my best to bring the people around me as close to happiness as one can possibly get and as a result I receive only reproaches and black mornings, I get really upset and then I get mad, then I get furious, then I get angry at persons that have no link to my currently considered state of mind (which by the way, has repercussions on my entire body, when I get upset, my whole organism gets upset with me, it's a collective effort...lucky me). When I have these days of mental thunder I need something to calm my nerves down, something to neutralize the pain of the haunting thoughts, something that brings the awaited serenity back (supposing that there was one before the storm), therefore I turn to the one part of our world that I always like, no matter what...I turn to the seventh art, I turn to Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring.

Home, holed Home

Hei, yeah you...where do you live? In a dorm room? Do you like it? Does a pleasant smell and friendly faces welcome you when you come from tiring and amazingly extremely useless and boring classes or from a job you hate but you need, or from the worst date of your life?...No?! Does it smell like a no-cleaning-lady-in-the-weekends-bathroom down the narrow and working-light-ball-less hall way, or like French fries and mould and after a scribbled door used by many, many others before you, you get into a dark and freaking-hot-in-the-spring/summer or Greenland-cold-in-the-winter room, with not much space for a computer and a table to eat on?!...well...you'll eventually have a home all on your own, where it won't be so dirty and so not yours, where you can open a window to get a breath of fresh air without upsetting anyone, where your bathroom is yours and only yours, where nobody will urge you three times a day to buy toilet paper, where you won't get your door almost beaten down at 4 o'clock in the morning by a bunch of merry dudes singing carols in the middle of October, where you'll remember the dorm years as your youth's funniest moments.
Jeremiah (the Red-eared Slider Turtle from Florida) got a very interesting addition to his cozy aquarium today...a house with many holes in which he can play all day long. I don't know where he gets the energy, but he "slides" in the water non-stop, eats as much as a small cat would (although he's less than 5 centimeters long and doesn't weigh more than 200 grams :) ). If you get a baby turtle, if you really want one, you have to really love it and take great care of it and buy it special turtle menus to find out what kind of food it likes and give it the necessary vitamins and keep it's swimming water clean etc. etc. etc....it's a lot of work and you have to do it, unless you want your newly bought pet to die an undeserved death.
It's great to have a home fit for your needs, it's great to have friendly faces that greet you when you want to be greeted, it's no that great if you live in an horrible and hateful place and you have no choice but to express your frustrations by creating irony at any cost, with Quills and wits.

Do-s & Don't-s

It's funny how life can transcend in an instance from promissing to a worm hole straight to the proverbial hell...but that's good (afterwards, because it teaches you many things and it thickens your skin just enough to help you pass the terribly suffocating anguish of unfair defeat).
Do!: take advantage of any conversation from which you feel you'll sponge some interesting information, involve yourself in impossible projects (as long as they are mind challenging and pocket-emptying-free), hope and dream, read as much as you can, enjoy nature while you still can, be nice to animals, have friends, watch movies, what you like as long as you don't hurt anyone (that includes yourself).
Don't!: willingly physically or mentally hurt yourself (it's not worth it...you do not know how long your life is, so it doesn't make any sense do deliberately shorten it, you cannot know what you might miss), be a jerk (not even with jerks), try to change stubborn persons' opinions (even if you are 100% right, you won't succeed and you'll get a stomach ache in the process), get upset when you don't win (when I won I was happy then unhappy, when I lost I was furious then serene, it's not all black and white, it's a very special shade of ochre).
Winning isn't really everything, losing isn't really the end, nothing is that easily defined and categorized when it comes to us simple/complicated/odd beings.
Win/lose...it does not matter…just have fun...Little Miss Sunshine!

(See BELOW!)

Little Miss Sunshine Trailer

Little Miss Sunshine

Timeless Dali

Geniality is rare, and in most cases it is linked to early death, total unhappiness, social inadequacy, solitude and amazing discoveries and creations that change the world permanently...Dali isn't like most cases; Salvador Dali is a genius of contradictions, a self-declared deity of art, an amazing painter, a creator, a nonconformist, a mad man...he is immortal. Conscious of his geniality, he has always so immodestly stated his privileged nature as a well-deserved title, as the most natural thing in his unnatural way of being. Only after experiencing the sheer pleasure of being face to face with his paintings, even if they were in an art book, I can say without a doubt in my mind, that he is the most alluringly-complicated artist I have ever encountered. He is obsessed with time, degradation and the tangled human mind, which is actually his tangled mind...through every painting we see a different anguish of his, a different needle deeply trusted into his brain that he's trying to set free by painting and painting and sometimes writing and other times travelling and exposing himself and other times by emotionally torturing Gala. For a glimpse of a beautifully-intriguingly-wicked mind see (if you can) and understand (if you dare) Un chien andalou.

No corn, no pineapple

I love pizza. What a fantastic idea to mix a lot of delicious ingredients into a single dish, actually this is the main law of gastronomy, but pizza isn't exactly "gastronomical", it's a "eat good and run fast" kind of cooked food. Mozzarella, mushrooms, olives, pastrami, chicken breast, corn (I hate corn in my pizza and somehow every pizza maker in my delivery area is compelled by some unwritten law to put as much corn as possible on every pizza on the menu), pineapple (bleah on a pizza, great as a fruit)...I'm sitting in front of Milo, it's been approx 8 hours since I've opened him to do my projects, I'm hungry and tired and I'm trying to make some sense out of my life...which by the way kind of resembles a pizza, it can have ingredients that I looooove, but I can also get things which I detest in it, so...be careful how you order and order The Great Dictator, it tastes great even if it's prepared in 1940.

We blog, therefore we are

My first post was about a life aim I had, to make myself remembered even after 100 years after my death...this egocentric desire is one I truly crave for, I would love to become a piece of history, I would love to do a lot of good, to help a lot of people (financially and morally), to change things, to push the enveloped towards "+"...and all this just to satisfy my ego; I am selfish, I want to do as much "good" as I can just to satisfy my self-accomplishment need that Maslow talks about. I know there are a lot of people out there that want to selfishly do good, we should, even if it's for a personal reason; no matter for what reasons it is done, if it's good until the end, it will achieve goodness and the world needs it a lot. People are suffering like we cannot possibly imagine, people despair, most of the times it's because of material reasons, we, that blog, mainly suffer from "spiritual" reasons and many times from problems that we create for ourselves, especially when we choose solitude (as a friend of mine said: "course we'll get married someday too. and they will join us for our bride's dance. 'cause that's what friends are for. and we will be happy too. but we'll still get out of the house every now and then, take a walk through the park, search for that solitude.for that certain something it gives us."), solitude usually being the trigger for self issues.
So, we live to physically exist, we paint, write books and make movies to artistically exist, we blog to on-line exist, we constantly adapt and cover the new communication "pipes", to prove that we exist and hopefully "be" through them even when we stop existing.
It's all a dream, a powerful dream a Requiem for a dream and we are all in The Dreamers state of mind.

Muses are needed

Where are the splendid deities of arts when you need them? The potency of a good idea is enhanced by an excellent execution, but what do you do when you know there's no possible way of reaching an impeccable and visually-striking execution? Well...you have to have a fantastic idea, but they come so hard and unexpected.
Ideas like in the new Vodafone 3G spots, plus the dynamic and clean execution, are those that give us hope, hope that a revolutionary or at least a "wow" idea will come our way too.
But, enough beating it a round the bush, the issue here is the repositioning of a "since 1991" Romanian cosmetics brand, that has a certain amount of prestige in the country, also its sales are going quite nicely. This reminds me of the time when George from Seinfeld didn't know what career change to make after he had insulted his boss and quit his job; he kept naming things he thought he liked or thought he was good at and didn't come up with one valid solution.
Right now I'm in the same predicament, I peered into a good (with the potential of becoming a great) idea, but I cannot get it to grow into a wow.
Hope the muses will come though...if I only were a genius...see Amadeus, it really shows you the pain of idea conceiving and implementing.

Who's happy, please stand up, please stand up...

Good things really happen to good people, it's not an empty and groundless saying, it is a fact. When almost all my single friends fall in love in less then three weeks and they are simply floating with self-satisfaction and glowing with confidence and self-esteem, that is the proverbial goodness reward in action. I wouldn't have said that unless the above mentioned were the kindest, smartest and nicest people I have met in my life. So good for them, and for those who dream and want a love that transcends borders of time and mentality see 2046 (if you like a little time cocktail in your films and a lot of visual ecstasy in the colour-code of each frame).




Ah, almost forgot, if your turtle swims kind of skewed and cannot hold its balance in the water, it might have pneumonia. In this case keep the water temperature between 26 and 28 degrees Celsius and place the aquarium in a draft less place. For great advice about turtles you should go here.

Sad as hell

I hate the world where children are abused, where the old and crippled are disrespected, where personal so called ideals are excuses for the gruesomest crimes, where the innocent die, where the guilty prosper, where we become less humans daily, where there is no time left.
From our mother's womb to our death bed (or street corner) most of us suffer and strive. In Zimbabwe they don't even have money to die, families abandon their loved and sick ones in hospitals because they haven't got a cent. Orphans drug themselves in the sewers and die before 30. People are so lonely that they bye human shaped wallpaper just to keep themselves company, many persons leave their entire fortune to their dogs or roosters because they have nobody else.
We watch comedies, we go out with friends, we kiss our children goodnight, we cry at funerals, we read the books that people that we consider smarter read, we look at the sky when there's a meteor shower. Life is beautiful, life is sad, life is easy, life is hard, life is ours, life is short, life is individually uniquely defined and universally equally perceived.
What we do can be judged, criticised, disapproved, counteracted; who we are can be denied, hated, liked or loved, what we become depends only on us.
Lonely hearts have to say Paris je t'aime before all your base are belong to us and they become Idiots singing anybody seen my baby.
Define and live your life as you wish, but don't hurt anyone in the process ;).

21 Iron

You got to love people that state their opinion just to spite you, they don't even believe in what they're saying or they get influenced by little affections felt for other persons. This kind of individuals make me want to ignore the human race for a while. I know that as a species we are incapable of taking a decision or issuing a statement with complete objectivity, but it really pisses me off when it's not even their subjectivity that interferes. These are opinion adaptor-as-the-wind-blows-"leechers", they suck the fun out of a friendly and intelligent conversation. I could ignore them as they are talking, but that is considered impolite, therefore I reply (holding most of the delightful swearing aside), then I ignore everyone for a while. It's not fare to those who have an interesting point to make, because I just cannot calm myself down to give them the appropriate attention. So, following an insight from Kim Ki-duk's magnificently and wordlessly concocted film about the depths of human behaviour (3 Iron), I will wordlessly deal, for a while, with my frustrating irritation caused by the persons I've mentioned. ...oh, almost forgot, Jeremiah is growing fast and healthy, he chases worms all through the surrogate aquarium and hates it when you caress his head.



Hope you'll have less annoying situations in your life! Best wishes from a tired forehead!

Ice-cream treat

Few things in this life really make me serene: white non-pooping doves flying, when it smells like flowers after a summer shower, when my mother laughs, when a cat purrs and mint and chocolate chip ice-cream. What makes you truly serene? What calms you down?

Alex has a fever

Your head is on the verge of bursting, your face burns, your nose runs like it's in a marathon and you feel completely drained of energy. Sound familiar? Now, if for no specific reason, you're also in a very what-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life state of mind, you should listen to Maybe Tomorrow (Stereophonics) - absolutely brilliant.

We need New Toys

It kind of irritates me when something is unchangeable boring, some people, some products, some moods, some places, some ideas, many things. Can we do something about it?Yes we can. We can either kill or destroy the very essence of the boredom or we can improve something in the particularly boring thing. I recently went to a party at a local pub, where last year, for Halloween I had a freakishly good time. This time it was a bit of a disappointment: the same execrable music selection, the same stupidity driven lines, the same sexy-exaggerate-commonly-looking entertainers, the same badly supplied bar, the same annoying cigarette smoke. Luckily I was in the mood for dancing and the company was not bad at all, otherwise I wouldn't have stayed until 4 o'clock in the morning.
Reader, yes you, may you have a lot of merry, non boring events in your small and probably useless-for-others life ;)!

Fa yeung nin wa (2000)

I saw Wong Kar Wai's "In the mood for love" in 2005 and I was enchanted from the first image to the last chord. The way he transforms every frame into a work of art is simply amazing and this is the only film I have seen where, although played obsessively, the theme song never bores or annoys, it simply connects the scenery with the characters, with your reality and with an incredible but faded type of romance. The camera glides from frame to frame, the camera dances with every image and we get mixed in this dance of love. In the top three of my all time favourite films and a must see if you haven't already, this is an immortal piece of cinematography that transcends everything, even the irritability that some people get when reviewing a film. A picture that relaxes, grieves and puts you In the mood for love.

Life aim

If after 100 years from my death, one person remembers my name and a small good thing about me, then my life hadn't been lived uselessly. Immortality is a concept that kind of lingers through our thoughts from time to time. The very idea of becoming a part of history is incredibly alluring isn't it? Some may even have a plan for achieving immortality...I don't , but I do have passions that I want to keep nourishing until I can figure out what else I can get out of them except my sheer pleasure.
I a have a Florida Red-eared Slider (Trachemys Scripta Elegans) , its name is Jeremiah and I absolutely adore him. He was my 21st birthday present and it was love at first sight. I was obsessed with frogs before, now I'm infatuated with turtles. My friends say I'm mad and I agree, but when I'm passionate about something I really go the extra mile. I even joined a turtle forum so that I can provide Jeremiah with the best care and support he can get in a home.
You should think really carefully before getting a reptile as a pet, they are very sensitive. I got Jeremiah as a present but before I could figure out exactly what to do and how to do it, he got a little sick; I had to change his living environment and take him to the doctor. So get extremely well informed about the pet you wish to purchase, because when you get one, you became responsible for another life than your own, and that's a serious job.