PR S04E03

Menswear. Panic! On this week's Project Runway the designers had to make an outfit for Tiki Barber, well, I don't know him either, but apparently, he is a former American football player who is now a TV host. He was all about his butt, that they should pay attention that he has a big butt, that he really (!?) likes details and patterns, blah blah blah. It was pretty pathetic, but the designers were incredibly stressed out, which I didn't get, because half of them are men (gay men, more precisely) and they should know hot to fit a pair of pants and which colours to combine, no? Anyways, it was a real nightmare, they were behaving very unprofessionally and I hope that the producers noticed and repeat the menswear challenge at some point because it was a good episode! Kevin, the only straight guy on the show, has combined purple and black (the colours of the Winter 2007 H&M collection, as I've realized today while shopping there for more black items) and the result was stunning:

I would buy that stuff immediately! Unfortunately, he lost to Jack, who made only a two-piece outfit, well tailored according to the judges, but endlessly dull:

And that little squeaky monster Christian got the cutest model. There is no justice in the world.

Snow

A breathtaking picture I found on the internet yesterday. A high-speed train in a snow storm approaching my hometown approximately a week ago. To remind me in this sunny and still relatively warm place that Christmas time is around the corner, Madrid Christmas lights were turned on yesterday night. Apparently, there are nine millions bulbs around the city (1 million more than last year), but in total they will consume 8% less energy than in 2006 due to new technologies.

Jesus cut his hair

PR S04E02

This week's Project Runway was about creating a 2-piece outfit for Sarah Jessica Parker's BITTEN line, which is a super cheap, mostly trashy looking garbage. The designers had to work on a $15 budget in couples, with team leaders selected from all 14 designs by SJ. Victorya (team leader) and Kevin won with a simple yet beautiful black dress paired with a vest:

The bottom two designers' teams were Christian (TL) and Carmen with a freaky monstrosity from the 80's, and Marion (TL) and Steven, who didn't expect how badly their fabric would behave. Subsequently, Marion as a team leader was eliminated. During the presentation and also during the whole episode, Marion's sweet and genuine personality sharply contrasted with Christian's self-centeredness. I hope I won't have to wait too long for Christian to be eliminated.

Finally

Fog in Cantoblanco! Grey is totally the new black.

T2[in] Victim

There was no way I could leave without this pair of shoes. To further deepen the superficiality of this post, I can assure you that the straps are actually silver.

PR S04E01

Project Runway is back with its 4th season. Even though it was more or less obvious who would celebrate at the end, Rami Kashou (who, by the way, looks like a Right Said Fred member) really deserved to win, the execution was flawless and the presentation fortunately avoided the usual "sculptured European-inspired tailored piece" talk. You go boy! I am looking forward what is coming next week, from the preview it seems that this season will be pretty dramatic.

DEXTER

Smart + witty = my new obsession.

¿Por qué no se callan?

OK, a controversial post that I wanted to write for some time, but recent incidents triggered my final decision. For some time, I am thinking about the immigration issues. I've started to have an impression that many Latinos have some unreasonable feeling that Spain has to let them stay because Spain did something horrible to them in the past and that they have rights to make comments about the Spanish politics (or European one, in general). Spain is a member of the EU, thus it has to coordinate its immigration politics with the rest of Europe. I know that these people won't probably move to Germany or France, as they don't (and won't) speak the language, and that's why the other European countries keep quiet about this influx. If I hadn't faced some arrogance towards people from the north of Europe, who have a real right to live here because of all the treaties that Spain signed as the EU member, I wouldn't write this. But because we are just guiris for you, read something about the European law and shut up.

A quote worth reading

Concerning the dating business: "If you can not find someone better than or equal to yourself, it is better to travel alone than journey with a fool." Thanks, Dub! from MySpace.

Private: My Secret Lover

The next big thing, trust me.

Quite shocking

A new study by medical researchers has caused consternation among public health professionals by suggesting that, contrary to conventional wisdom, being overweight might actually be beneficial for health, The Independent reports. The study, published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, runs counter to almost all other advice to consumers by saying that carrying a little extra flab – though not too much – might help people to live longer.
Does it mean that all my starvation and pescado y ensalada con ensalada was just a waste of time? LOL.
(No way, the Hedi Slimanesque 31" black pants are totally worth it).

MIT vs. Gehry

MIT sues renowned architect Frank Gehry for alleged flaws in unusual building. I hope MIT wins. The l'art pour l'art style of Gehry is monotonous and tiresome. Lately, he is trying his hardest
to leave me unimpressed.

Recognizing the Saints

The last movie that left me feeling totally sick was Requiem for a Dream. Today, I've had the very same nausea while watching A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. It's a story of a guy growing up in a desperate neighbourhood of Astoria, Queens and finally leaving all the horrors but also his loved ones behind and moving to the West Coast. The performances were stellar and the storytelling almost surreal, even though it's based on Dito Montiel's autobiography. Highly recommended.

Hallowmas

Maulik Pancholy

I love this season of Weeds. All the characters are so well written, including this out-of-the-closet future father:

Mak

Today, my boss has made something super smart, so I told him: "That was a pure MacGyverism!" The girls in my lab looked at me with curiosity and asked me who was that person I just mentioned. I said: "You know the one who was able to make a nuclear bomb out of the box of sugar cubes and half a bottle of bleach." And they said: "Oh, you mean [Mak Giber]!" Yes, that's exactly who I meant.

For Kids, By Kids

Gap Inc. has been caught in a child labor scandal as Dan McDougall's reports in The Observer: Jivaj, who is from West Bengal and looks around 12, told The Observer that some of the boys in the sweatshop had been badly beaten. 'Our hours are hard and violence is used against us if we don't work hard enough. This is a big order for abroad, they keep telling us that. 'Last week, we spent four days working from dawn until about one o'clock in the morning the following day. I was so tired I felt sick,' he whispers, tears streaming down his face. 'If any of us cried we were hit with a rubber pipe. Some of the boys had oily cloths stuffed in our mouths as punishment.'
Living and shopping in Spain, I am keeping in mind that "50% of the products Zara sells are manufactured in Spain, 26% in the rest of Europe, and ONLY 24% in Asian countries and the rest of the world."

X.5

John Siracusa reviews MacOS 10.5 at the Ars Technica. This may as well be the only review that matters.
Summary: John hates the GUI visual "improvements" and likes the internals. For me, that's a good thing, as the makeup can change or be wiped off later but the guts must stay.

Zoé: No Me Destruyas

Imaginationland

The South Park show continues its 11th season with a second part of the Imaginationland trilogy. The Imaginationland is invaded by some terrorists that broke the barrier between the good part, inhabited by creatures like Luke Skywalker, Zeus and Popeye, and the bad, bad part, the home of Freddy Kruger, a Xenomorph and many others. Watching the first two episodes, I had the feeling that it might be a parody of the current US politics with the "monsters from the other side" (but from the SAME land) being the good, patriotic citizens who went berserk after 9/11. Consider this: Strawberry Shortcake is captured by the monsters that want to question her when The Woodland Critters appear with the cruellest ideas. These cute little squirrels, raccoons and porcupines reminded me the soccer mums with the "Support our troops" bumper stickers.

ADN (again)

The ADN newspaper is reporting the surprising victory of Kimi Raikkonen on four pages today. That's fine with me, the only problem I have with this is that his last name is Räikkönen. It will not surprise me if these ignorants spell his name next time as Rayconen to castellanized him even more.

Hard Rain

Today, I have visited my favourite Real Jardín Botánico again and I took a walk through their olive trees collection when I discovered an open air exhibition of the Hard Rain Project, a series of disturbing pictures taken by Mark Edwards accompanied by Bob Dylan’s lyric written more than 40 years ago.
"Most of the photographs are from the personal archive of Edwards, who first had the idea of illustrating the apocalyptic imagery of the song when he was lost on the edge of Sahara Desert in 1969. He was rescued by a Tuareg nomad, who led him to safety, made a fire, then produced a cassette player and played the Dylan masterpiece. As the song unfolded, Mark Edwards was struck by the idea of illustrating each line with a photograph. In the years that followed, he took pictures of his travels through more than 150 countries. The resulting collection reinterprets Dylan’s classic song as a powerful commentary on climate change, environmental collapse and global poverty. It is an urgent appeal to world leaders – and all citizens – to act responsibly to sustain all of humanity, while also sustaining the planet. The pictures are displayed on a spectacular 40-metre outdoor canvas – the first reportage exhibition of its kind."
It's such a breathtaking piece of beauty!

Felicidades guapo

Chirimoya

I just finished a chirimoya fruit and started to dig Wikipedia for some details about this world wonder. The most interesting part for me as a biologist is the pollination mystery. "The flowers are hermaphroditic, but have a mechanism to avoid self pollination. The short-lived flowers open as female, then progress to a later, male stage in a matter of hours. This requires a separate pollinator that not only can collect the pollen from flowers in the male stage, but also deposit it in flowers in the female stage. It is acknowledged that there must be such a natural pollinator, and while so far studies of insects in the cherimoya's native region have been inconclusive, some form of beetle is suspected. For fruit production outside the cherimoya's native region, cultivators must either rely upon the wind to spread pollen in dense orchards or else pollinate flowers by hand. Complicating matters is the notoriously short lifespan of cherimoya pollen." Isn't it amazing?

Fountains in Brno

Four moody pictures from my four-day stay in my hometown.

What we aim for

Ricardo Almeida for 2008

I shouldn't care

Monzon for Xelibri

La prima en W.N.

Every time I go out with El Pintor, we meet some celebrity! Yesterday, we met Silvia Pantoja, a singer and a sister-in-law of Isabel Pantoja, a controversial Spanish VIP, who was recently arrested during some anti-corruption investigation. I almost forgot that we saw Silvia singing during the 2007 Pride party in Madrid. Well, she is not the best singer in the world, but it's kind of funny to meet these people with El Pintor, because I never know who is he talking about so when I ask for some details, I can practice my castellano.

Tesseract

Do androids dream of electric sheep? I think they more dream of this. Probably also of this.

You know...

that you've lived in Spain when... I found this Facebook group by accident and I cannot stop laughing. It's so hilarious and true! For example, Sammi Egan wrote at 1:31pm on August 17th, 2007 ... "when you automatically use Spanish words i.e. ayuntamiento, or ferreteria, and don't actually remember how to translate it back into English". It happened to me in France when I couldn't remember how they call "gambas" in English.

Languedoc 6.IX.-9.IX.

Figeac * Caussade * A little salad * Crema catalana?! * Toulouse * Place du Capitole * Saint-Sernin Basilica * Gégé * Gad * La Faim des Haricots ** Carcassonne * Montpellier * Pascal and Ethan * Place de la Comédie * Le Mex * Rugby game ** Croissants * Shopping at the Antigone District * Ricardo Bofill * Palavas-les-Flots * Les escargots ** Relax at the pool * Le Viaduc de Millau * Aurillac, McDonald's

Auvergne 3.IX.-5.IX.

Bastian and Marlene * Picon Bière ** Uncle Jean-Louis * Clermont-Ferrand * Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption de Clermont-Ferrand * Michelin * Crêperie * Le Puy-de-Dôme * La Truffade ** Seat Ibiza * The translator is sick * Salers * Les Bourriols * Le Pounti * Aunt Geneviève * Rugby boys * Steaks * Here is my crème brûlée! * Chez Lulu * Baptism

Paris 1.IX.-3.IX.

CDG Terminal 3 * RER Châtelet * Place d'Italie * Baldi * La Folie en Tête ** Michele * brunch in Le Loir dans la Théière * Place des Vosges * Beaubourg * The Studio * Promenade Plantée * Nono and Delphine * dinner in Le Plomb du Cantal ** rue Mouffetard * Panthéon * Where is my crème brûlée? * Institut du Monde Arabe * Jardin des Plantes * La Grande Mosquée * Florian, the translator * Gare de Lyon * Clermont-Ferrand

Olfactoriana

When I was visiting Paris, a friend of mine offered me a bunch of cologne samples, but I took only the one of Le Male by Jean-Paul Gaultier. Yesterday, walking from a little "i-am-just-looking-i-am-not buying" trip I passed by a perfume store and I bought 212 Sexy Men by Carolina Herrera that I tried a couple of weeks ago and I liked it a lot. I got back home and looked at the internet what people thought about it and voilà, they were all saying it's a copy of Le Male! I don't think it's the case but it's a crazy world, indeed.

OR

Kernel panic

Shadows

Salers

Toulouse

Carcassone

Palavas-les-Flots

Sweet France, Proud Albion

Tomorrow I am off for two weeks. I will miss Madrid, but more importantly, I will see my old friends and also some new places.

Karaoke with the VIPs

OK, after clearing the air with El Pintor on Saturday (and declaring to be good friends), we hit the usual spot. But as he just told me on the Messenger, I apparently sang to some Spanish celebrity who was standing next to us at the bar. I really don't know whether he is really famous, but El Pintor swears he his. As a matter of fact, I don't even remember singing to him...

Zara Summer

The Devil You Don't Know

Yesterday when I was posting the happy video of Kylie and Jason from YouTube, I went through a couple of her solo works, too. My attention caught a video to "Better the Devil You Know", an example how much can be the lyrics disconnected from the picture and the music itself. The song lyrics is so shocking and frightening that even Nick Cave called it "one of pop music's most violent and distressing" and "when Kylie Minogue sings these words, there is an innocence to her that makes the horror of this chilling lyric all the more compelling".

Jasonrolling

I was 14 years old back then and Jason was über hot (BTW: not my style now, but whatever). It's frikkin' 20 years ago! (In the meantime, Kylie became an icon, who would have guessed).

Skákavka

VarioLFR.E, Registration number 1596, Public Transportation Services in Brno, Purchased in December 2006
I particularly like the headlights, as they remind me of the eyes of a jumping spider, the one and only spider I can handle.

Bargain hunter

I know I should be ashamed of myself for such a shallowness and consumerism, but it kinda made me happy to get a €40 Benetton pink shirt for €9 and €90 T2[in] shoes for €30.
BTW, today I have discovered an amazingly delicious drink they sell in EROSKI as their own brand. Called Té Verde, it contains juices of maracuja, lime and apple and a green tea extract. I have to admit that I really love that store.

Beauty

Pumped-storage hydroelectric plant Dlouhé Stráně underwent a asphalt surface reconstruction and is being filled with water again. Elected a No.1 "wonder" of the Czech Republic in 2005, it's one of the biggest plants of its kind in Europe.

The Metro's World of Gossips

The only free newspaper that is published in Madrid in August is Metro. The next-to-last page is specially designed for tourists, because it's entirely in English. One can find a gossip column that I find incredibly funny. Today they published a little note about Britney Spears as she is being put on the covers of all U.S. gossip magazines because of her continuous troubles with raising her kids. The Star magazine published a headline: "Britney to her kids: You were both mistakes!". Now a little excerpt from that Metro article: "We don't see what the big damn deal is. If we had a nickel for every time our parents called us mistakes, we would have enough money to buy Britney's babies and raise them as our own. Girlfriend needs money for mojitos." Brilliant.
UPDATE (five hours and dos cafés after): Now I don't think that this particular one was so entertaining anymore. Oh, those desperate mornings... Anyways...

Where is my mind?

Walking from the RENFE station at the Autónoma, on one of the benches I saw a canister with some red liquid, resembling kalimotxo. I thought: 'Oh my, it must have been some mini botellón'. Close to the canister, there was some yellow plastic string, but I didn't pay enough attention what kind it was. A little bit further down my way, voilà, there was another still life, absolutely identical, a canister with red liquid and a yellow string. I thought: 'C'mon, this is completely ridiculous, what was happening here?' and then, all of a sudden, I saw a guy with a string trimmer.

Weeds

The first four episodes of the third season of Weeds leaked on the internet. While still unreleased on Showtime, they are surprisingly in a DVD quality. Thou shalt not steal.

Terremoto

Today at 9:47am, Spain was hit by an earthquake of a 5.1 magnitude with the epicentre in Ciudad Real. Apparently, it was noticed around the whole country, Madrid included. Fortunately, I was sleeping deeply at that moment. Sometimes it's not such a bad idea to go for a couple of drinks, particularly with El Pintor, who, by the way, looks more and more like Jesus.

Vacances françaises

Yesterday, I bought airplane tickets for my trip to France in September. I can't wait to see all my friends there. Moreover, I will be travelling with Stephanienounette! Alegría total.
UPDATE: To get myself into the French mood, we went to see "Ratatouille" yesterday. C'est magnifique!

The Mirror Universe

Mr. Spock 2008

After months of speculations, it was finally announced that Zachary Quinto will play young Spock in the new Star Trek movie. Honestly, who else can play that role? Zac looks exactly like young Leonard Nimoy. It's a perfect choice, thanks guys!

Luxury

As they are closing the RENFE tunnel in 7 days, I bought again the general Madrid Transportes coupon for both the metro and the cercanías services. Today, I've travelled through Nuevos Ministerios again. The station is so spacious, light and clean, a perfect opposite to the Recoletos one. There is a reason we call it "Manhattan" with Gabriel, with Recoletos being "Queens". One week of luxury!

Posturas impresionantes

XV Pan American Games Rio de Janeiro 2007
Cassius Duran (Brazil), 10m platform

Cassius Duran & César Castro (Brazil), synchronized 3m springboard

Die Schlamperei

I am quite angry right now. The wonderful RENFE is the target. I am already over the fact that the computer system often collapses, leaving the trains and the platform signs unmatched and that sometimes the trains have no labels at all. I digested the fact that two weeks before the closure of the aorta of Madrid, El Túnel de la Risa, almost nobody in my lab knew about it, all being surprised when I told them. But today the amateurism has reached a new level. I wanted to take the train to Cantoblanco, obviously because of the swimming pool. Last week they started remodelling of the Recoletos station by taking off the tiles and the station air is basically filled with a cement dust. As soon as I was inside the station, already using my ticket, they announced that we would have to wait 50 minutes for the next train. Imagine: breathing the cement dust for 50 minutes! They didn't bother to put any note on the door of the station, even though it's clearly a planned activity so I could save my ticket and take a metro to the Chamartín station, for instance. Ironically, on the platform there were three security guys chatting. One of them could put such a note on the door, don't you think? So I turned around and went back home. In German, there is a beautiful word that my teacher in the elementary school used a lot when describing such working morals: "die Schlamperei".

Everything's

...waiting for you!
The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares
So go downtown - don't wait a minute more

Alexandre Despatie

Perfection. One of the most beautiful sports. I can watch his 5353B forever.

To the End

In the '90s I couldn't care less who would win the Battle of Britpop, because neither Blur nor Oasis affected me as much as Suede did. Therefore I missed this gem from the Parklife album by Blur. L'année dernière à Marienbad revisited.

Corn syrup

There is a good reason to live in Europe.

Cruising MySpace

...and finding places I miss... Steph... I am going to call a cab... oh, wait... Ramon is calling... see you tomorrow, sweetie...

The Big One

Today I saw "Fast Food Nation", a fiction movie based on a non-fiction book sharing the same name. It's an extremely political endeavour. Yes, it's merely predictable and plain, but the strength of the message reminded me of Crash, my favourite movie of 2004. Crash was criticized for being obvious, for showing things that everybody knows. Yet it was the very same experience I carry with me, for good or bad, from the five years I spent in Southern California. Similarly, everybody knows how bad is the globalized food industry, but we do nothing about it. MEAT IS MURDER.

Sick and tired, bombed and stuff

Cpl. Trent Thomas, a Marine who faced a possible life sentence in connection with abduction and slaying of an Iraqi civilian is going to go free. He initially pleaded guilty in January as part of a deal that would have sent him to prison for 12 years. At the time, Thomas admitted having taken part in the killing, saying his unit “wanted to make a statement that Marines were sick and tired of being bombed and stuff.”

Flexibility

It's really cool how the living languages use and modify what is available around. Take the "@" sign. Couple of months ago, it was just a part of the e-mail address for me, e.g. john@gmail.com means the address of John who has an e-mail account at Gmail. Sometimes I used the sign to express "at" in general: Let's meet @ 2pm. But in Spanish I see it often being used as a gender-neutral way how to address a group of people: chic@s or tod@s. Pretty amazing, huh?

Sync

This must have been one of the best use of music in the movie. Everything fits perfectly, the picture speeds up or slows down to follow the beat. Awesome.
(Tears for Fears: Head Over Heels in Donnie Darko.)

Becks

The Beckhams are moving to LA today. I think the both sides of the Pond are happy but from opposite reasons. The Pink is the New Blog cries today: "They're almost here ... and then the fun really begins. There has been much anticipation of their arrival ... it's gonna be great having them here in town." My goodness, why are some Americans so deeply and insanely stupid?

Trustworthy

My father is a professor, he wears glasses and his build is quite impressive. Every time we went for a family vacation, he could be sure that somebody would ask him for directions at the most peculiar places. An old Italian woman would ask him where to find some tiny street in a small Italian village. Carrying a camera and a map, he would still be asked for a location of a local city council in Vienna. Well, why am I writing this... Even though I look like a 100% guiri (not from a concentrate, but wearing shorts), three families stopped me on the street today to ask me for directions. It runs in a family I am afraid.

Felicidades

On July 7th, 2003, the Mars Exploration Rover B, known as Opportunity, was sent to Mars. The probe was launched less than a month after its twin, known as Spirit. After successful landing on the Meridiani Planum, the Opportunity probe started to study a history of flowing water there. The rover mission was extended from the original 90 days to more than three years of a breathtaking flow of data with Opportunity becoming the first probe to travel more than 10 kilometers on the Martian surface!

Finally!

I can't wait to get the new Interpol album. As the first single they've picked "The Heinrich Maneuver" and it's definitely worth the longing through the two-year gap:

Spring 2008

My favourite two outfits from the Paris shows.

Redux

Sometimes, an amateur cover is better than the original.

Naturalized?

Diario ADN, Lunes 2 de julio de 2007:
Los príncipes Guillermo y Enrique presentan el gran show celebrado ayer en London Londres. WTF? I always thought they were British and baptized as William and Henry...

Orgullo 2007

La Renta

Today I've had a last chance to send my Spanish tax declaration, but what a week of nightmares. First of all, I hadn't received the certificate of my income, it must have got lost somewhere. I have to admit that I should have taken care of it a long time ago, but well... one can make mistakes, can't one? I tried to get the document through the CSIC intranet but somehow I wasn't able to finish my registration process. I thought it might be because of the Macintosh peculiarities, so I opened the website in virtualized Windows on the same computer. I got the same result, with only half of the form showing up. Totally desperate, we called a CSIC computer guru and apparently, one can access the CSIC intranet only from a computer that runs Windows and a web browser that are both SPANISH localized! I haven't heard about such a stupid excuse before, for me it just doesn't make any sense. Then I experienced a classic Mac vs. Win clash, as the software that I had to use to fill the declaration forms was only for Windows. Fortunately, the virtualized version worked well (with some manageable quirks), so I could bring my tax papers to the bank in the morning. Hallelujah!

Sponge

I feel like a sponge, constantly absorbing new music. Antonio told me about The Ark, a truly amazing band from Sweden. The following song, 'It takes a fool to remain sane', is so fabulously glamorous that it's giving me creeps:

More quirks

As the EU row over Polish demands quiets, there are other full members of the EU with similar oddities that go unnoticed in the media. Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said in April that the Soviet soldiers buried on Tõnismägi Hill in the center of Tallinn had, under one version, “been drunk and got run over by their own tank”; under another, they had been “looters shot dead”; and under yet another, “deceased patients of a nearby hospital.” Similar alarming case is the "Monument of Lihula" installation, yet another example of revisionism in modern Estonian/Baltic history. The Baltic SS-Legions, glorified on the site as fighters against Bolshevism, were directly responsible for such actions as deportations of children from the occupied Soviet territories and their deaths after "medical" experiments at a concentration camp in Salaspils, Latvia.

Someone new

Sometimes a little stupid thing changes one's mood significantly. I haven't seen or spoken to El Pintor for a LONG time. I know I shouldn't care, we have nothing in common - except the drinks in the bar, but still... I would like to know what I did wrong so I can be smarter in the future. It's even worse as the big Chueca event approaches... Well, at least one cute song from the Scandinavian breed.

Le Pavillon de la Tchécoslovaquie

Jaromír Krejcar (architect)
Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne Paris 1937

The Twins strike again

Jarosław Kaczyński, the Polish prime minister, complained that Poland would have a far bigger population on which to base its EU voting power if it had not been for the Nazi invasion in September 1939 which started the war. "We are only demanding that we get back what was taken from us," he told Polish national radio. "If Poland had not had to live through the years of 1939-45, Poland would be today looking at the demographics of a country of 66 million."

Oh my, what will come next? I still cannot digest the fact that bigot and reactionary country is a member of the EU. Well, I will have to live with all the quirks that are coming from there. Analyzing such a challenge, I can ask the Czech prime minister to demand justice at the current EU meeting: If the Swedish army didn't invade the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1630s, the Czech lands would have 30 million inhabitants by now. Maybe it would be still a Kingdom, welcoming millions of monarchy-loving tourists to spend their drachmas and tollars there! And just between us, I know who to blame for the plague.

A case study

AUSTIN, Texas - An angry crowd beat a man to death after a vehicle he was riding in struck and injured a young girl.

Police believe 2,000 to 3,000 people were in the area for a Juneteenth celebration when the attack occurred Tuesday night.

The driver had stopped to check on the little girl at the entrance to an apartment complex when a group of men attacked him, authorities said. The passenger, David Rivas Morales, 40, got out to try to help the driver, but the crowd turned on him.

Morales was beaten to death by as many as 20 men and left lying in a parking lot, police Commander Harold Piatt said.

The little girl, 3 or 4 years old, was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Soundtrack of my life

Today, a friend of mine posted a Myspace bulletin. Here is how the game works:
1. Open your music library
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button

I used my 2G iPod nano with a limited number of songs (1/10th of my iTunes library, but it still turned out pretty well:
Opening Credits: There Is a Light That Never Goes Out - The Divine Comedy (the Smiths original is a song of my life, a good beginning)
Waking up: Que Voy a Hacer Con Mi Amor - Alejandro Fernández (I am sure we have listened to this one at least once with R., still in bed)
First Day At School: Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me - Sexy Sadie (weird choice)
Falling In Love: Vojáček - Bratrstvo (this is an anti-war song, so make love no war)
Fight Song: Defying Gravity - Wicked (The musical) (Elphaba was against them all)
Breaking Up: Enterlude - The Killers ('outside the sun is shining')
Depression: I Am Just a Patsy - Manic Street Preachers (this matches perfectly, it's amazing)
Recovery: Lyric - Zwan ('a road without end')
Prom: Do I Look Like a Slut? - Avenue D (actually, I didn't)
Life: Brass in Pocket - The Pretenders ('gonna use my style... gonna use my imagination')
Mental Breakdown: Promiscuous - Nelly Furtado (well, anything goes at such a time)
Flashback: Oceán - Oceán (high school)
Getting Back Together: Solo Quédate En Silencio - RBD (very kitschy, both the song and the idea)
Wedding: C'mere - Interpol ('you said today, you know exactly how I feel')
Birth of Child: One Love - Suede ('tomorrow in their eyes')
Final Battle: Shipbuilding - Robert Wyatt ('diving for dear life')
Death Scene: Life On Mars? - Seu Jorge ('take a look at the Lawman')
Funeral Song: Sudestada - Gustavo Cerati ('trataba de explicar que ya no hay vuelta atrás')
End Credits: The Space Between - Dave Matthews Band ('hope we don't take this ship down')

Italy vs. Helsinki

Laakso and Peter Jöback. The lyrics (and the video itself) cannot get more queer:

Oh, let's go to Milano, it's fashion week
and so am I
weak, in need of love, any love from anyone...
Oh no, come with me to Helsinki, where the streets are white
and so am I
wide open for love, any love from anyone...

America reinvents the style

C'mon guys... Buy an airplane ticket and come to Europe and you will see there is nothing to reinvent. Milo Ventimiglia is pretty cute, though.
To balance the shallowness of this post, the following is from a classic Woody Allen's essay, My Address to the Graduates: ‘Today, we are at a crossroad. One road leads to hopelessness and despair; the other to total extinction. Let us pray we choose wisely.'

Ultrawhite

Yesterday, the Real Madrid team won the Spanish league. Later on, the streets were occupied by either drunk yelling supporters or the excited car drivers who couldn't stop honking. Today, the ADN newspaper put a big title: "Liga blanca" and I remembered a neonazi music band from the 90s who sang: "White league, white power". The same brain capacity, I am afraid.

Parties at the Autónoma

One thing that surprises me from time to time is the generosity of the UAM towards the student parties on campus. I spent few years in the US and I am sure that something like "San Canuto" simply wouldn't be possible there. Yesterday, there was another party on campus; drunk people sleeping on the benches, trash and broken glass everywhere and three destroyed check-out machines at the RENFE station. In the morning, the poor campus workers were already cleaning the mess that "the Future of Spain" left behind.

Mika

I tried hard to avoid him, as the wide buzz usually makes me careful, but at the end, I have to admit that I like some of his music a lot. Mika is pretentious, flamboyant, kitschy and one can use many similar adjectives to describe him. He openly steals/borrows from Queen, Elton John and Scissor Sisters, yet keeps some unique style, fortunately. My favourite songs are Any other world (with the old Lebanese lady at the end bringing tears to my eyes, pretty pathetic, huh?), glamorous My interpretation, chart-successful Relax (Take it easy) and closing Happy ending.

Bratrstvo

Bratrstvo (Brotherhood in English) was a cult band in Brno in early 1990s, known for its sophisticated visual style. Through its members, the band was linked to an art movement with the same name. They released three albums and ceased in 1994. I have found a website of its former member, which contains videoclips to songs Bludička (Ignis fatuus in English) and Mária and other songs as mp3 files. (Yes, I'm struck by a reunion-triggered sentimentality).

World Ocean Day

Dante's smile

Another excerpt from "The Dante Club" (slightly shortened):
>>"There is a story that Boccaccio tells of a woman in Verona where Dante was staying during his exile. She saw Dante and pointed him out to another woman, saying, 'That's Alighieri, the man who goes to Hell whenever he pleases and brings back news of the dead.' The other replied, 'Very likely. Don't you see what a dark face he has? Owing to the heat and smoke!' This made Dante smile. Do you know why I doubt the story's veracity?", Lowell continued. "Perhaps because this woman would not know of the contents of Dante's poem, " Sheldon postulated. "I do not for a second believe that Dante smiled", Lowell answered.<<

Reunion

I am in the Czech Republic right now. Yesterday, we had a 15-years-after-highschool reunion. It was kind of funny, because everybody just simply stayed the same (just with wives/husbands/kids), with a similar tolerance to gin or vodka. I had a great time!