Self-destruct

The selfdestruct sequence for this blog has been activated.

I decided to delete this blog for a single reason: I don't like blogger.com.

I noticed that I haven't been blogging for a long time but not because I had nothing to say. Its because I dont like using internet explorer. Blogger.com doesnt cooperate with my opera browser and I am lacking comfort here. Writing a blog should be an easy thing to do. Open the browser, log in (by operas brilliant wand), write the post, publish. The end. And not frantically looking for the right page to log in and the right old nick or new email ... Because this is the main problem.. I cant log in. I lost many accounts, have no idea how to login them, by which email, by which username.. Ever since google decided to merge, in a way that is still beyond my comprehension, google accounts with blogger accounts, I lost them. This account is the only survivor of this electronic catastrophe.

So long blogger.com . We had our nice times along with the bad ones. I ll try to re-establish contact with all the nice people I met here from my new place at www.viruswitch.com ;)

This blog will be beamed out in 7 days. Energize!

Goodbye Jonathan

I was surfing on youtube thinking what to search for next. Jonathan Brandis flashed through my mind quite unexpectedly. I havent thought of him since many years!

He was one of my few teenage heros, an actor I really admired and I was expecting much from him! I had been a fan of SeaQuest DSV, long before I got to know Star Trek. Jonathan played the role of a prodigy teenager, an expert at computers and a genious scientist. The only teenager in a government submarine that traveled through the seas a bit like the Enterprise did through the galaxies. Jonathan belonged to my generation, he was an extrordinary young actor, adored by fans, who posessed great charisma and personal magnetism.

So after many years I search for Jonathan in youtube. The results were quite odd. Memorials... ? A quick search through google and I knew all about it. Jonathan Brandis commited suicide in 2003 :(.

Tragic is the way he killed himself. Tragic is that he had no suicidal tendencies and this was most unexpected. Tragic is that the real reason to his suicide might be the psychological pressure of the star system in hollywood.

What the real reason is, we ll probably never know. May he find peace.

Skotos Philosophy

"Stories live within our hearts. Through them we immerse ourselves in the tales of events and people we do not know; we see conflict rise and be resolved; and we revel in all of the other surprises comedy, tragedy, and drama can offer."

A very fine text about story-telling. It is obviously related to adventure games/text rpgs and it is written by Skotos Tech. I found this text while searching information about Brian Moriarty, an adventure maker I admire. Read more here.. http://www.skotos.net/about/

Men and Devotion

Its really amazing! Most men are not able to devote themself to a woman, nor express themself emotionally towards her. And yet look how devoted they can be for a soccer/basketball team!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0rMe2Vyb9E

This is a chant by the fans of Panathinaikos. The symbol of panathinaikos is the cowgrass or clover. Thats what they used to call the chant magic weed. And there are I dont know how many thousands of people there screaming with blind devotion:

"It's a magic weed, give me a little bit to taste, to dream of my PAO and shout until God: My Panatha, I love you, like heroin, like a hard drug, like hashish, lsd, for you PAO the whole world is stoned, (or: PAO the whole world is high on you), the whole world. My Panatha, My Panatha, I love you, I love you, wherever you may play I will always follow you, I follow you, PAO here, PAO here, PAO there, PAO there, wherever you may play we will always be together, always together."

Omg...

And here is another one from PAOK fans:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fONyDesdPKc

Reflecting on writing

I find myself thinking about writing much more often than I actually do sit and write. Whenever I see something that impresses me I think "This is something I can use for my novel!". Sometimes when I relax and let my mind free I think of things that seem to me good ideas but if I try to reproduce them a few days later... they are gone.

An extremely great amount of details regarding plot, characters and the way one records these are present in a novel. Sometimes I wonder whether one should consciously try to "craft" a novel by creating blueprints and gathering slowly and carefully all the ingredients. Maybe writing is not so much of an art as it is a craft. On the other hand, I dont really enjoy reading novels that have been constructed in such a way. Aren't they artificial?

I have associated novels and stories with the wild imagination that entertained me as a child and teenager. Novels that have realistic elements are bound to disappoint me. It might be entertaining to read a modern thriller with historical and mystery elements but its not that, that will set me into a reading nirvana. I now realize that so far there have been two categories of books that have managed to fascinate me completely: books that deal with the occult and the supernatural, and ancient greek dramas. What do these two kinds have in common? I believe its fiction. Its the lack or realism. In the occult books the heros are in search of the greatest mysteries of the universe. In ancient greek dramas, the heros suffer and experience intense emotional situations through inner pain and the deadends that they find themself into.

To me the goal of creating a story is to allure the unsuspected reader or viewer (in theater). The goal is to kidnap the reader and lock him into the world of fantasy I have created. And when he thinks to exist there volluntarily, then I would have succeeded as a story-creator.

But then again, can we really create new stories? Haven't all stories been told so far? Is there something new to tell? Aren't stories filled with psychological archetypes that remain the same throughout the human existance? Thats true. However, stories are like music. There are only 7 musical notes but millions and billions of different melodies and musical pieces. A completely new combination of sounds is always possible. So maybe stories are more about combining elements than really creating them.

The invisible enemy, TV and that "Look"

Have you seen that look on the face of news moderators? They look straight towards infinity, which seems to be located a few meters above your head. They are very grave and serious no matter what kind of news they announce. *blackout* Commercials. A lady with the greatest smile you have ever seen flashes through your screen. Marvellous tunes are heard on the background. You shake your head in wonder, didnt the world look so dreadful a few seconds ago? Am I missing the real truth? And dazzled you observed the hanging jaw, the wide open mouth of the lady promising you a better tomorrow in return for a shampoo. *blackout* News continue. A group of moderators who belong to the never-smiling guild are gathered to discuss very very grave matters. From politics, to enviromental threats, from economy to education. Your happiness disappears like a bobble in the air. The moderators emphasize, they shout and pause, they argue and do gestures. They are nervous. Academic and scholars, the church and the politicians. The police and the universities. Everyone is at stake. We are all in danger. Nobody agrees! you panic *blackout* The lady with the wide open mouth smiling to you from heaven appears once more. Happy people bathe in the sun and drink the elixir of life: orangejuice X. Couples kiss, prodigy-kids parade through the screen and the world is ok again.

Thats when you start feeling silly, someone is mocking at you. Someone is fooling you. Someone is pulling your leg. An invisible enemy which can only be combated by pressing the power button of that god damned box.

Godsent (revised and explained)

Its the little unexpected things that make our life interesting. We make plans, we create schedules to stick to, and yet always SOMETHING happens that makes us reconsider or (worse) does not even give us an option of that.

There I was desperate looking into my computer screen, knowing that I am already days behind my schedule, that I might not manage to send my very important papers for the university just because I visited the ORACLE. Although I asked Neo for precautions, he did not prepare me for that, and the reason was once more a communication failure. He couldnt speak greek. So neither did the Oracle.

When I shouted in the cyberspace, Morpheus sent me the blue pill and I quickly woke up from this nighmare with the power of my own mind. No, I didnt really take it.

Huh! I managed to fly! I created matter, houses and TABLES, I INSERTed information into odd brains, I made and solved the QUERIES of our universe. I JOINed and SELECTED, I DROPPED and I found. I shouted and I was heard. Untill...

"Red Alert! Red Alert! Injection effort, Hacker attemp. You are now being DUMBed but unfortunately not correctly. :)"

There was another user running on the road to hell. And I had forgotten to delete him.

My problem was now twofold, I couldnt dumb the matrix although I really had to and I couldnt ask Morpheus for the blue pill because it would have expired by the time he sent it.

With the power of my own mind I sought for truth, but alas! in the wrong order.

At least I tried. I did everything a decept man could do...when the Window of Liberation suddenly flashed through my screen! I didnt know what it was and I didnt care to wonder where it came from, all I wanted was IT and I greedily got it as fast as a man could ever do so...

So the journey goes on with hopefully plently of the good and little of the bad surprises.

Godsent Explained
====================

>>Its the little unexpected things that make our life interesting. We make plans, we create
>>schedules to stick to, and yet always SOMETHING happens that makes us reconsider or
>>(worse) does not even give us an option of that.

Its refering to my efforts on planing my prodigy-studying which includes solving difficult assignments that should take 20 days in 2 days time.

>>There I was desperate looking into my computer screen, knowing that I am already days
>>behind my schedule, that I might not manage to send my very important papers for the
>>university just because I visited the ORACLE. Although I asked Neo for precautions, he did
>>not prepare me for that, and the reason was once more a communication failure. He couldnt
>>speak greek. So neither did the Oracle.

Oracle was the database we had to use for this assignment. Oracle proved to be a real ORACLE. It created a few problems with the greek encoding and I was reading Neo (is the documentation and manuals) for advice.

>>When I shouted in the cyberspace, Morpheus sent me the blue pill and I quickly woke up
>>from this nighmare with the power of my own mind. No, I didnt really take it.

Morpheus is my professor, the blue pill was his reply to my problem. Which I didnt really use because I found the solution to the greek encoding in oracle myself.

>>Huh! I managed to fly! I created matter, houses and TABLES, I INSERTed information into
>> odd brains, I made and solved the QUERIES of our universe. I JOINed and SELECTED, I
>> DROPPED and I found. I shouted and I was heard. Untill...

And when I overcome that problem I started working on the database I had to build succesfully. I created tables, inserted data and performed complex queries.

>>"Red Alert! Red Alert! Injection effort, Hacker attemp. You are now being DUMBed but
>> unfortunately not correctly. :)"
>>There was another user running on the road to hell. And I had forgotten to delete him.

Then I faced another problem. I had reinstalled oracle but I couldnt dumb the database in a correct manner since it had stored the previous user which was the same I was using now.

>>My problem was now twofold, I couldnt dumb the matrix although I really had to and I
>>couldnt ask Morpheus for the blue pill because it would have expired by the time he sent it.

I couldnt ask my professor for advice because the deadline to sent the assignment might have expired until he replied.

>>With the power of my own mind I sought for truth, but alas! in the wrong order.

I tried to unistall Oracle again by using instruction for NT windows (thats what the university gave us), but I followed them in the wrong order. I should have unistalled firstly and then end the processes and delete the registry keys. And I deleted the registry keys first.

>>At least I tried. I did everything a decept man could do...when the Window of Liberation
>>suddenly flashed through my screen! I didnt know what it was and I didnt care to wonder
>> where it came from, all I wanted was IT and I greedily got it as fast as a man could ever do
>> so...

I thought that I wouldnt be able to finish my assignment. But I decided that I did the best I could. The oracle system for uninstalling itself could not detect installed products. But suddently a window flashed showing me the installed products. I pressed unistall without thinking too much about where this window came from...

>>So the journey goes on with hopefully plently of the good and little of the bad surprises.

Oracle is really odd. It still wasnt unistalled succesfully, so I searched through the whole internet to find out how to create a new database. Since the passwords given to us from the univerisity did not work (stupid to even consider the possibility of something working from the uni :P) I created a new user. And I did the database with that user. God knows if the dumbing was then correct.