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.

The Big Blue- Extended Version

Dont read it if you dont want to know the ending.

This is an enchanting film with absolutely amazing scenes and pictures. The story is very intense, at times very dramatic and at times very sweet. This is a film which I enjoyed tremendously watching as it let me sink into different moods as I marvelled at the scenes of blue seas and horizons. The colors are mystical and the hero becomes an interesting personality to investigate into. At some point the film confused me. It did not turn out as I wanted it to and the end was very strange. When it ended I couldnt believe it, as I didnt get what happened it the end. I think something very very sad happened.

And now a few things about the story.

A french little boy Jacques, lives on a Greek island with his father. His mother is american but left them and returned to the usa. He is a scared little boy that never talks much, never asks any questions and has no ego in him. Something like Jonathan livingstone seagull.. he learns to swim extremely well and especially to dive deep as his father used to do. The little boy learns to hold its breath for a very long time. Another boy, who is bigger and older is also a very good diver and always has everything his way. He boosts to be the best diver. The loss of Jacques father inflicts great pain in his soul and he gets engrossed more to the world of the sea. The dolphins now are his family.

As an adult Jacques has developed an incredible ability to dive very deep. He practices yoga breathing techniques and slowers his heart beat. That allows him to hold his breath for a very long time. He is now a professional diver and is called for dangerous missions. In his free time he still dives and swims in the sea, side by side with dolphins. Jacques has become a lonesome, romantic creature that finds pleasure in the beauty of the underwater worlds. In one of his missions he meets a young lady in Peru who falls in love with him. Apparently he is also in love with her but the sea is still closer to his heart. When they both live that place, she decides to go and find him. She discovers him in Sicily where he met the old enemy of his. He has been challenged now to the world championships of divers. A romance blossoms there, Jacques and Enzo (his rival who already has been a world champion) become friends but they are both very serious about the competition.

Now the film reaches its peak in the relationship of the american lady and Jacques. It is a completely sweet and romantic relation. Despite the championships that are taking place, he does allow her to enter his world. There is a lot happening here which I cant describe at all, you just have to see it. At some point though, and after you really enjoy the magical colours of the sea, the emotions of those two people and the friendship that blossoms under the italian sun... the film has a twist. The competitions become too dangerous, Enzo and Jacques dive too deep and break each others records. It seems that both have suicidal tendencies and they find more pleasure and peace underwater, than with people around them. The doctors claim that the competitions are no longer safe. Jacques also has started to neglect his girlfriend who has abandoned everything, her job and life to be with him. She dreams of a baby with him, and he just stares at the ocean. They make love for the first time and then he spends a whole night swimming in the darkness of the sea with a dolphin... She tries to make him listen, but in vain, his attention is elsewhere.

The end is very tragical. The sea becomes the tomb of Enzo in a dramatical way, somehow by the hands of Jacques. And Jacques is last seen in the water looking for Enzo but probably finding the mermaids. I believe he died in the end as well diving but I am really not so sure. He leaves his girlfriend screaming and crying so that he will not dive in the end, but he does dive... and she seems to respect his wish as Jacques did respect Enzos wish to die in the sea.

If they all had a bit less respect for each others wishes they might have been alive in the end :P.

The spammers technique in a dream!

I just woke up and checked my ballet forum. It was again attacked by spammers and I had to delete the spamming user and his posts. That brought back to my memory a dream I saw today but did not remember immediately upon waking up. I dreamt of the spammers-technique!!

I have been wondering the following: Spammers register in my forum with very weird (probably invalid) emails, that have domain names that might not even exist such as spammer@asdfasdfa.com. And yet I have the email activation on, that means that they would get an email which they have to open to activate their account and start posting. But I need their valid email adress so that I can ban them from my forum. So how do they do it?? I believe I dreamt of the answer. I dreamt that the spammer was using a valid email adress to register and activate his account and then, after postings all his spam, he would change his email adress from his profile into something that does not exist. The whole process might be done by a bot automatically but still this must be the only answer!

Shootings, the police and a mystery

A few minutes ago I heard shootings in my area. They were no shootings of the hunters who usually come near but different. I called the police immediately because it just was extremely weird. I also heard cries. For a moment I asked myself whether it was fireworks.

If I try to just record the event, I heard a series of booms, 3-3 or 6-6 or it could have been more. When the police arrived and I narrated to them what I heard it dawned on me that it could have been an exchange of shooting. The first party shoots 6 times, then the second replies. And this goes on for at least 4 times. They are now off to search, and I am curious if they will find something.

Mystery solved... it was a wedding!!! OMG. They were shooting again and again and I called again the police. It was someone who was getting married and though he should celebrate with shootings... for gods sake....