Stolzes Herz

just two flower pics

Just some quick snaps of some more or less funny stuff I’ve seen on my trip to B’ham:

Hazards

1.Choking Hazard- Actually bought these, they don’t fit me, ironically they’re too small, you might think they’d make the boxers that advertise male hugeness large but no. Actually it was the only size left (they were dirt cheap) which makes me think that either all the large ones had been bought by people who had the goods or that they make’em small on purpose.

Jaws is back

2. The loan shark. I find this actually offensive to sharks, besides, banks nowadays are just that, loan sharks, so I really fail to see what’s the warning about. Should read “No need to search for a loan shark to get screwed / We can help you get screwed just as well”.

Teh Minions

3. Jesus army. Such an unfortunate term combination when you think that Jesus had been crucified by roman soldiers. I think Jesus minions would be even better, also the slogan “People that love Jesus” is just wrong , it really doesn’t say anything about their intentions , if I recall right Jesus said to love thy neighbours and enemies. Saying you love Jesus doesn’t give me the confidence that you’re any better than say someone who loves pasta, Chuck Norris or Camus and it surely doesn’t portray any deep moral core either. Just stupid.

Here, here, the finest silk in Birmingham

4. On a lighter note: Fancy Silk. I thought silk was fancy by definition I mean I haven’t seen any construction workers wearing silk… Made me wonder  were the regular (or less fancy) silk store might be.

Trainspotting never gets old, no, wait, it does...

5. Another dumb ad. I mean really would you go to an insurance that insures people like Iggy Pop?? They surely count on you being to simple, drunk or stoned to understand their contract. These seem to be the kind of people with whom you should really read the fine print, you may never know where they squeezed a  “If you’re not Iggy Pop you don’t get jack” phrase in the contract. I’d go to somebody else for car insurance on that ad alone, Iggy Pop even.

Some childish humour as well

6. Humps. You either get this or you don’t actually it’s not even that funny.

They probably sold all the good spots on the Moon and Mars already

7. The bulgarian property consultants. Guess what, they were out of business which frankly doesn’t amaze me. What did amaze me though was their relative closeness to the city center. Must have missed the news announcing Bulgaria as the new Portugal or Spain.

On the way to Amsterdam

Been to Birmingham for a week to do some work. First no jet lag which is always welcome J . Went there to use a machine they (Bham University) had and we (Emac) didn’t and test some samples

Scheduling on the machine I was supposed to operate was lacking to say the least so I had to wait for other people, negotiate, talk to people in charge (professors) etc Talking to the professors got the PhD students off my back but the undergrads remained (undergrads working with guess what, other PhD students). Explaining that I came from France and was only there for a week to test my samples didn’t impress people too much as apparently I wasn’t convincing enough. It’s always hard to explain to someone why your time is more important than theirs. Maybe I should check my Dale Carnegie books see what I was doing wrong. Well for one putting my needs before theirs, though in this case I think my lack of authority in front of them had more to do with the outcome. It’s really hard to sugar coat “I need the machine now so could you work on it later, please”. Also impolite answers on their part like “I’ll only use it for a few hours then it’s all yours” didn’t help communication either. So in order to get anything done I had to work some strange hours (like 4pm to 10:30pm).

Anyhow all in all it was a good experience, I got what I came for (almost), people who weren’t in competition with me for the machine have been very helpful and hospitable and I thank them for their collaboration. They know who they are but I doubt it they read my blog or even know or care that I have one.

Birmingham University Landmarks

So, onto the free time, didn’t have much of that since my schedule was so chaotic and the few pictures I took aren’t that great. You can get around Birmingham with either train or bus or plain walking. Unfortunately the University hotel refused to lodge me for the whole period as they said that for the last night I would have been their only guest and with too high operating costs in such difficult economic times they couldn’t afford to keep me. So instead of searching a hotel for just one night I chose another hotel for the duration, some 35 minutes away from the university (on foot or bus/train combo, time remained the same). Hotels name was the Edgbaston Palace on Hagley rd, it’s proper, room was double even though I asked for single, kind of cold in the room but as soon as you get under the blanket everything is nice and cozy. And since I only slept there room wasn’t really an issue. Small TV in the room, large one at the bar, wireless internet only near the bar not in the room, this didn’t put me off frankly, I might have a 17”, 8 pounds laptop but it also packs an 8 cell battery pack so for some evening browsing it was alright. However if I ever come back to Birmingham I hope they would have fixed this. Breakfast was big: cereals, yoghurt, croissants, full English breakfast (also had a vegetarian option), good coffee. Eating at 8 am kept me satisfied until 4-5 pm. This was quite a change from my usual “eat nothing in the morning & lunch at 11.30-12pm” but I survived.

I truly hate Marmite

As mentioned didn’t get to see much of Birmingham did some shopping in the malls around the central train stations and that’s about it, also I was close to the Botanical gardens but since I like walking alone in botanical gardens just as much as dining alone in restaurants I thought I’d pass on that. Also my main evening food supply was sandwiches. Subway is nice although I feel it smells of hobos inside.

Daily Train

I’m tired now more impressions and pix to follow.

Someone described fable 2 as the perfect casual gamers game. I will be the first to confirm that. It’s an RPG but not a very impressive one at that, you have the choice between good or evil, you have some nice spells but all in all it brings nothing new to the RPG world. It’s charm resides more in the side-quests, in the fact that you have a dog that begins to grow on you, in the fact that you can buy houses, have multiple families etc. The biggest downside I could find was the fact that the hero never speaks. He can make faces in order to get people to like or dislike him, but it’s somehow annoying in the main story where everyone either tells you what to do or they already know what you’re going to say. Makes you feel that little bit dumb and I can’t find any logic behind the main hero not having a voice.

Otherwise graphics are nice, game is quite responsive on the Xbox 360. I didn’t mention the fact that you never really die in the game so you’re never really scared. Well maybe scared is a too strong word but you know that certain jumpiness. This also means you’ll never do the same mission twice, because no matter how bad you suck at it you’ll always finish it. You can also have sex protected or not, you can get married and have children, do boring chores for little money, trade items, buy real-estate and just enjoy the simple life. This is pleasant and you can really take the time to enjoy the great work done by the graphics team. But it gets boring quickly.

The genius idea behind this game was the dog, I know fans knew about it before the launch and it also has been presented as the highlight of the game.

“Hey a new RPG is coming out. It’s called Fable 2, you’re a hero in a magical distant land and you save the world”

“Yeah, same old, same old”

“But no, it’s much more than that, you have a DOG”

There basically two comics I really like: wulffmorgenthaler.com and xkcd.com.

The first one is kinda pervy, often S&M like, always trying to shock but every so often, funny.

The other one is more for the geek inside, references quite often math and programming and it talks quite alot about social inadequacy.

There a other sites as well from garfield to mordantorange, but none of those hooked me yet.

One comic that I really like is comic 29 from xkcd because I find myself quite often expressing inappropriate ideas in public forgetting people might not share my kind of humor. Ok not as extreme as the one in the comic but still enough to let some uncomfortable silence creep in

Winter holidays are over and I’m back at work. I’ve spent my holidays with my family in my hometown in Romania. It’s been quite pleasant, except for losing all my papers (lost or stolen still not sure) and coming a week late to work. As it stands apparently I won’t be getting much sleep this year anyhow so i suppose a couple of days here or there don’t really matter. It’s my last year of PhD with still plenty of experimental work to be done, writing and three conferences on top of that. Still it’s the path I chose so I can’t really complain .

We spent New Years Eve in a Club in down-town Timisoara and we were five: Rodi (my wife & friend), Radu (high school friend), Doria (Radu’s wife, friend) and Vale (high school friend). On the upside it was quite cheap (around 23 euros with unlimited drinks & some food), music was good and we had a good time, on the downside we didn’t really meet anybody, new or old, and got bored and tired around 3.30 a.m. and went home.

Unfortunately no pics to show off since Radu had his camera I’ve left mine in the car.  Radu had some ulterior mishap with his camera so in short no pics. I do have some pics of other outings in the pubs of Timisoara during this holiday so i may post those when I find them.

This is about it on a personal level. On teh blog level new home banner that Rodi designed for me which I find more pleasing the the first one while still no real about page but I’ll be getting to that.

It’s been exactly one hundred fifty two days ten hours and 46 minutes since my last post on this blog which coincides with the spare time I’ve had during this past five months. What happened was this: I entered the second half of my PhD thesis on wet granulation of cohesive powders and deadlines started to crowd themselves onto an ever-shrinking calendar while being hassled by some minor health issues so the website activity had become a luxury I couldn’t really afford.

A lot of stuff has happened in the last five months but I say out with the old in with the new, the new being a Simpleviewer gallery of some of my pictures that you can also find on deviantart and this new theme I have adjusted more to my liking and for which I must thank Julien De Luca (whose designs can be found on www.jide.fr).

I did not find the time to put anything in the About section yet as I’m not really sure what should go in there: a short CV is kind of impersonal and useless since I’m not applying for a job, some background story about who I am, maybe, but that demands time …

I guess I could also explain the title of the blog, Stolzes Herz, stands for proud heart and is a song by a German goth rock band called Lacrimosa. I happen to like the song and the lyrics a lot and their views on humanity in that song not so far from my own. I also think I have a certain positive pride about me and my way of doing things so when deciding on a title this one really stood out.

Each day some blogs die out while others are born so let’s consider today the 31^st December 2008 the birth day of this new blog, I will certainly try to post more often and you can expect more posts in the following days, until then: Happy New Year to anybody celebrating this day, I know I am.

Estoy trabajando en esta puta de blog, volver más tarde.

I don’t really speak spanish so what i really ment was: F*ck off, i’m just starting this blog, please come back later!