AGV

The 4th generation of high-speed trains is being currently tested.

Good Morning Justin

Beam me up, Scotty!

Firefox 3 is finally out. On a Mac, it's blazingly fast. It correctly imported all my old bookmarks and passwords. Love it.

Botany

The lavenders are flowering now. Magical. By the way, the fourth season of Weeds started. Magical, too. Guillermo Díaz is a regular now. Magical times three.

Dolphins

Weird. When I was at high school, I read a novel by Strugatsky brothers named The Waves Extinguish the Wind. In the book, the whales and dolphins were committing suicides because they were sensing big events coming.

Ugly Betty

I wrote about me avoiding the stuff that causes a media buzz before, but I decided to give the Ugly Betty show a chance. Man, what an entertaining piece of junk (and I mean in a good way)! It's so light, so fresh, so witty that I cannot stop watching it. I have to save some episodes for tomorrow, I have to save...

My favourite character is undoubtedly Justin Suarez:
Marc St. James: Nice vest!
Justin Suarez: Ralph Lauren, we got it half price because there is a small hole but you can't even see it.
Marc St. James: So, the kids at school, do they like it?
Justin Suarez: No. They don't really get me.
Marc St. James: A word of advice, be who you are, wear what you want, just learn how to run real fast.

Green heresies

The Wired magazine nails it (once again).

Craziness

Spanish truck drivers are on strike, blocking freeways and causing total chaos. Today I had to go to buy some food and I found the Eroski store totally empty. There was no meat, no bread, no apples... I saw people carrying twelve tetra briks of milk, fifteen boxes of cereals and dozens of bottles of water. That's how my grandma must have felt before the WWII erupted.

Before the Devil...

...Knows You're Dead finally arrived to Spain. Great movie, superb acting, highly recommended. If accompanied by three delicious montaditos, una jarrita de Cruzcampo and later a cup of coffee in Antik, a great Sunday afternoon is made.

Sueño olímpico

The newspapers are ecstatic about Madrid being one of the four cities picked by the Olympic committee. The rhetoric though is truly laughable. The Qué! newspaper says: Madrid left behind Chicago and Rio de Janeiro, beaten only by Tokio. It's a typical way how they usually write: Spain was better than XY but unfortunately lost to WZ. In a truly self-confident country the sentence will be very simple: In the olympic competition, Madrid lost to Tokio. But Qué! continues with five reasons why Madrid should be hosting the Olympics, one of them: La gastronomía es una de nuestras armas. El cocido madrileño, mejor que el sushi. No comments as it's too ridiculous to even try. Just look at it and decide by yourself:

Despendolado

That's how they labelled me in my lab today. No se atiene a las normas sociales con el fin de divertirse. LOL.

Pentathlon

¡Qué guapo! David Svoboda, a modern pentathlonist, won a silver medal at the World Cup in Budapest yesterday. Congrats.

The Mist

Yesterday I saw the new adaptation of Stephen King's The Mist. It's surprisingly good. Advertised as una peli de miedo, it's actually quite psychological and smart stuff.

Pathetic

Is this a joke? It sure looks like one. BTW, Alejandro Sanz is a Spanish citizen so why is he supporting a US presidential candidate? Also, why the US public doesn't support Hillary is beyond me. For me as a European she would be the only choice.

Lost Season Finale

Desmond David Hume and Penelope Widmore finally united. I have to admit that the S04E05 episode named "The Constant" where Des calls Penny from the freighter to her London house made my eyes wet and it well might be the best TV ever made.

Hermano Sol

Love this movie. Graham Faulkner as Francis of Assisi could make an atheist convert. A stunning performance but unfortunately also the only one from this amazingly talented guy. There will never be better Francesco, ever.

Stationmaster

Only in Japan.

The New Indy

Today I've seen the new Indiana Jones movie. Overall, I wasn't very impressed, but at one point I thought it almost got the old charm back. When Indy and the Soviets fought over an alien coffin, Indy drove his jeep through the mountain of wooden boxes in some Nevada military warehouse. One of them cracked open and we could see the Ark of the Covenant for a second or two! Obviously, it was the same warehouse that we saw at the end of the first movie. Sweet.

Les Amants du Pont-Neuf

Google found this German poster of one of my favourite movies for me. Appreciated!

4X KT8

Propellers

Titanic propellers. Amazing. Breathtaking.

Expo 58

Czechoslovak Pavilion

Gropius

To remember the 125th anniversary of Walter Gropius' birthday, the Google logo has changed for today:

I think it's quite cool, especially the "Monument to the March Dead" hint. Bravo!

Nutrition

Don't eat any food that's incapable of rotting.

Misfits

Stakka Bo - Mute

Fall 2008

Kinda looking forward!
Rag & Bone
DSquared

Despair

Imagine a guy with three university diplomas and couple of pretty good papers in a musculoca bar, watching two of his friends making out, surrounded by shirtless teens making out, too. Sounds pretty cool, huh? But then I saw the famous man-in-black on a train today, dressed as sharp as always in a pair of narrow grey trousers, stylish black jacket and super cool black shoes. Strangely enough, I started to feel serene and conciliated.

Cobra Starship - Guilty Pleasure

Bravo Grey's

Bolonia

The students at the Autonóma are protesting against Bolonia, an important project of synchronization of the Spanish university system with the rest of Europe. Even though the motive for the protests is not very clear to me, I tried to understand their reasonings, but they ruined it for me by destroying the RENFE station tonight. The walls covered with graffiti but more importantly, out of the ten ticket machines there was only one working in the morning, the rest being fixed by the RENFE employees. Do the protesters understand that it won't help their case?

Hoy

... No Me Puedo Levantar, the name of a musical we went to see with Carlitos yesterday. A big success in Madrid, running for three continuous years with all performances being sold out. Therefore, I was expecting something extraordinary, something so spectacular that it would left me in awe. Well, maybe because I saw many other musicals, I found the storyline too "inspired" by RENT, the voices being a little weaker and sometimes lost in the music and the acting amateurish. On the other hand, I liked a lot the classic songs by Mecano (obviously), the inspired scenography and the atmosphere in the theatre. Big thanks to the birthday boy who let me to join him.

A tourist guide

Last week I spent with my parents who came to visit me in Madrid. Totally stressed, I was obviously responsible for everything, starting with the plane tickets, accommodation here and the minute-to-minute daily schedule. Surprisingly enough, the whole time was absolutely flawless.

Fuera de carta

Yesterday, Carlitos and me went to see a new Spanish comedy named Fuera de carta. I had such a great time, laughing the whole time and it's the best language school ever. Surprisingly though, I also enjoyed the acting, the leading trio, Javier Cámara as Maxi, Lola Dueñas as Álex and Benjamín Vicuña as Horacio had a great chemistry together.

Gym

Marc Jacobs, a fashion designer who recently underwent a transformation from an ugly duckling into a Chelsea boy, comments the gym regimen for the GQ magazine: "The thing I love about the gym is not having to make choices. My trainer says, ‘You’re gonna lift this; you’re gonna do that ten times.’ Okay, great—just tell me what to do and I’ll do it. It’s the same thing with my nutritionist. All I have to do is follow instructions. I love that. This is not about ‘Would it be better in red or blue?’ There isn’t a lot of abstract, circular thinking involved. And it’s great. Those times are really nice for me." Hahaha! That guy simply tells the ugly truth! If you want to look great, you better erase your brain and stop the questioning.

Phobos

NASA released new high quality pictures of Phobos, one of the two Mars moons, taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

A postmodern way

Yesterday I went to see a thorough exhibition of Picasso's work at the MN CARS. Carlitos joined me and I realized how elitist we, the intellectuals, actually were. He didn't like the cubist and surrealist works and praised the paintings from the Parisian Rose period. I started to argue with him and, at the same time, I started to think what gave me the right to denounce his opinions? Why should we impose our personal, yet educated views on somebody? If somebody likes Velázquez and doesn't like Dora Maar au Chat, it's his right to do so.

Eli Stone

I gave Eli Stone a chance. Eli Stone is a main character of a new ABC's comedy-drama show about a law firm. The first couple of episodes were still finding the face and the target audience, but the last eleventh episode just blew my mind away. So mature, so heartbreaking... worth checking it out, for sure.

Unkle - Rabbit in Your Headlights

Espinete does exist

What a Saturday! In the afternoon, my wonderful boss organized a BBQ in the house of his parents and as it's the rule, it turned out very well, the meat was delicious, the desserts as well and Mahou Cinco Estrellas was a necessity. I had to leave earlier because I had a dinner with Carlitos as he got theatre tickets for the night. The Chocolatissimo at the Bazaar was again super delicious. The play was a stand-up comedy with Eduardo Aldán, a popular host and screenwriter. It wasn't about "a childhood that you lived but the one that you remember", the same theme as Umberto Eco's "La Misteriosa Fiamma della Regina Loana". Even though we had different heroes and TV shows in Czechoslovakia, I had a good time.

Oops! He didn't do it again

While I totally adore "Donnie Darko", Richard Kelly's "Southland Tales" is a bad movie. Not quite sure why it went so wrong. It is still visually stunning, even though he repeats himself with the picture of the running clouds. The use of popular songs, once original and refreshing in "Donnie", starts to seem outdated. As it was probably meant as a criticism of a totalitarian state, I have to admit that the "V for Vendetta" movie was light years ahead.

Chamberí

In the morning, I went to a pharmacy to get a topical antibiotic for acne. I bought one bottle last month and it is working well. The pharmacist told me that it looked really much better now. I was quite shocked that she remembered me! Then I visited a newly opened museum of Madrid Metro in the old station of Chamberí, my neighbourhood, that was closed in the 1960's. There was a lot of old people who still remembered it operational so it was quite interesting to hear their stories. Madrid is a big city, but these little moments are priceless.

(!) No More

Panic! At the Disco is now just Panic at the Disco. Duh! I am listening to their new album and it's another addition to that ridiculous revival wave. My Chemical Romance sounds like Queen, the Killers sound like Bruce Springsteen and the P!ATD now sounds like the Beatles. What a disappointment.

Done

The forms are completed, translated and I am going to take them the government office tomorrow. The thanks for the fact that I am not in a mental institution go to El Pintor.

Cribaje

To further deepen my struggle with the RyC forms, I have to translate everything that I wrote so far into Spanish, including my trayectoria científica, which brings many challenges. I spent some time on drug discovery where the crucial assay is called "high-throughput screening". The regular dictionaries don't help, obviously, so I tried wikipedia. I found a site in English, no Spanish version, but fortunately, there was also a version in català available. In Catalan, the term is "cribratge d'alt rendiment" and because castellano and català are like twins, after a little approximation game using the on-line Spanish dictionary, I got to the term "cribaje de alto rendimiento". What a journey!
Update: These forms are driving me insane. I went for a little coffee with Carlitos to refresh myself and we ended up having it in the CaixaForum! There is a wonderful exposition of paintings from the Uffizi Gallery, called "El pan de los Ángeles", related perfectly to this time of the year.

Jueves Santo & Viernes Santo

I am having a wonderful Easter. While I am working on the Ramón y Cajal application forms during the day (and they slowly drive me crazy), I try to relax a little bit in the afternoon. Yesterday we met with Carlitos for couple of beers and then Tonito joined us for some more and we ended up having a dinner with Rubén and Jesús in a Japanese restaurant. Carlos haven't eaten sushi and tempura before so it was funny to explain him the wasabi stuff, soy sauce and the miso soup. Today we met again for a torrija from the famous San Onofre pastelería, later for some montaditos and then we went to see the oldest tree in Madrid in the Retiro park. I haven't been there before in the night and I have to admit it's quite spectacular, especially in the full moon. Tomorrow back to my forms, sigh.

Temptation

Wet Wet Wet - Temptation (Live, 1987).
Marti Pellow smiles through the whole song. Incredible.

Grammar

Last week I let myself to immerse in the world of English grammar once again. I realized that I normally used many words and expressions that were not correct. In a postmodern world I shouldn't care too much, but take the amount/number case. I am afraid that I said many times something like this: "There was a huge amount of people on that square". The signs in the supermarket usually say: "Express line. 10 items or less". In the first case, it should have been "a number of people", in the second one, "or fewer". Why am I posting it? Reading some "Lost" related discussion groups, I have realized that many Americans cannot spell properly. Couple of examples: "reckage/wreckage" or "intence/intense". These are not typos, they appear frequently. Is it worth the thought or it's just me, being picky and "germanish"?

Destender la ropa

Regarding the RAE and its online dictionary, I have to agree with Sergio. I've tried today to find an expression that I heard yesterday, "destender la ropa", in English it may be "to take clothes from a clothesline". Unfortunately, nothing could be found. Using a simple Google search, I found many links to that term, including the following video of a dog who está ayudando a destender la ropa.

Wet Wet Wet - Morning

Marti was so charming and cute 13 years ago. At that time, I believed that world can be a better place. The 3:04 moment is priceless. What difference does the heroin make.

A Day Out

It's their first day on the sun!

Thank You!

Thanks for all the birthday wishes: Carlitos, Mama & Papa, Marco, Paskaloo, Tonito, Manu, Mikel, the 316 Gang, Gabriel, Cristihan, Marc, Eric, Aingeru, Jackie, Clair, Mien & Ton and Steph! I love you truly.

New sins

Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, who heads the Apostolic Penitentiary, described what Catholic church newly considers as mortal sins: "certain violations of the fundamental rights of human nature through experiments and genetic manipulations." He also mentioned drugs, which "weaken the mind and obscure intelligence".
To be a biologist is a mortal sin now. Bravo!

What I want

for my birthday.


I meant the coat, of course.
Update: The Socialists defeated the conservative party in Spanish general elections. It's good enough as a present.

Borovsko Bridge

If the mankind is ever wiped out from the surface of the Earth, the Nature may take over:

A never-used highway bridge near Borovsko, Czech Republic. The construction began shortly before the WWII as a part of a transeuropean corridor, the 100m tall bridge was formally finished in 1950 but never used and later flooded by the drinking water reservoir built in 1976. The entry is strictly prohibited due to the water protection.

Emma

While I enjoy the warm weather in Madrid, Central Europe suffered a heavy storm named Emma. A video showing an unsuccessful landing attempt of a Lufthansa craft in Hamburg, Germany.

Magnolias

Cubs

November 23, 2007: In the Brno Zoo, two polar bear cubs were born. The event was announced only in the local media to avoid a possible disappointment if things go wrong. Kept in a dark den with their mother, without human intervention to protect them from infections, they survived the difficult first three months, observed only by infrared cameras.
February 25, 2008: The first pictures of yet-to-be-named cubs are released.

Guapo

This coming Friday, Spain will elect Miss and Míster España 2008. My favourite contestant is Pedro Enrique García, Míster Alicante.

Rectangle

Madrid was famous for its "Golden Triangle of Arts", where the vertices were formed by El Prado, the MNCARS and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. Now there is a new vertex, a new building of Caixa Forum, designed by the Herzog and de Meuron Studio, originally an electrical power plant. It's much smaller than the big players, but it has a potential.

Reconocimiento

Two days ago, a woman from the Health and Safety Department came to tell me that the next morning I had to go for a medical check-up. It's a wide institutional thing that was going on for months. The place is quite far away from Madrid, but she assured me there was a Metro station around. Well, suicidally walking on the Fuencarral motorway it took about 20 minutes to get there. While totally hungry because of the coming blood tests and already fed up, the day turned out to be one of the funniest days in Madrid. The reason was the nurse who was performing all the tests on me. At first, she tried to attach the "octopus" 12-lead EKG device on my chest. As soon as she attached 4 electrodes and tried to attach the rest, the first four fell off. This battle continued for about 10 minutes and I already started to laugh. After she brought some magic adhesive gel and the situation hadn't changed, I was laughing so much that the electrodes would have to be attached by a Superglue not to fall off. I had to take a five minute break. Then we continued in an acoustic anechoic chamber when I was supposed to hear something in the headphones that might remember El Caudillo. She described the sound I was supposed to hear as "toot", but not "beep". Well, in this special isolated cabin I could hear the doctor speaking across 2 walls but nothing out of those antique headphones. As a result, I am officially sordo now. Then we continued with lung capacity tests. I swear I tried really hard and after six attempts to satisfy her, she said that it could be finally OK, but then she wasn't able to print the last successful result. I was leaving the room with diaphragm spasms.
The further illustrate the hilariousness of that place, the doctor reminded me of Dr. Kylie Johnson from MADtv:

Morning, Madrid

From Facebook:
Joseph Mc Loughlin wrote at 1:23pm on February 14th, 2008:
When the streets are deserted, the shops close early, the bars and restaurants are empty, no one wants to come out and everyone is miserable and suicidal, and in school only half the students appear for classes... is it a public holiday (again?)... or is it the fiesta of Santo "Triste"... or has the King died?... NO IT'S RAINING!
Applies to trains, too.

Sad

Albanians in Kosovo declared independence. When I see them waving the bloody red flags of Albania and also the Stars and Stripes (but not the Kosovo flags), I keep wondering that the European Union diplomats, isolated in their glamorous Brussels palaces, ignited a fire, which effect cannot be foreseen. Instead of working harder to reach a compromise (where ALL parties have to loose), they simply gave up. Similarly to the Sudetendeutsche in the pre-WWII Czechoslovakia with their "Heims in Reich", the Albanian Kosovans have already started planning a unification with Albania. This fire may spread to Macedonia and as a precedent can be (and will be) easily applied to any province or minority anywhere in the world. The appeasing Europeans will pay the price soon, as they did for the Munich Agreement.

Inland Empire

David Lynch's Inland Empire is the best-selling DVD in the Callao fnac store in Madrid. Simply unbelievable. I love his movies, but this one was on the edge of being unwatchable. When I saw it in the cinema a year ago, about a half of the people left the room before the movie ended.

PR S04 Near the End

Although the Bryant Park Runway Shows have already happened, the TV is obviously running late: in the last episode we still had five designers to compete. Not to spoil the elimination surprise for the viewers, the producers decided to let all five contestants to present their collections in NYC. As we know now, in the MET episode Sweet P was eliminated, but we can still appreciate what she would compete with if she could. I have to say that while the execution was not always 100%, I really enjoyed her unique colour palette and most of the designs:
Bravo Sweet P! Your genuine personality was the highlight of this season for me.

Painting a petal

I have never experienced such a gloomy state of mind as now, when I read Cormac McCarthy's The Road. That book is brilliantly written and his English is a pure poetry. The language switches between a full but heartless style when he describes the burnt, lifeless Earth and a short, elliptic one for the talks between the father and his son. It's those dialogues that make my heart stop for a second or two.

Rainbow

Walking to the swimming pool today, the air was filled with a light rain. The sky was patchy, with deep dark clouds but also with promising flashes of blue. The swimming pool in Cantoblanco is on a little hill, overlooking the Autónoma campus. After couple of laps, the sun finally showed up for a minute and I looked through the glass wall and saw a gigantic rainbow spanning the campus valley. Unfortunately, it only lasted for one lap, as the rain shortly returned to wash the colours to the drainage as if nothing had happened.

Bizarre Love Triangle

Cover by Davi Não Vê Estrelas

Lost, Season 4

After neverending 8 months, the first episode of the season 4 of Lost! In May 2007, in the "Through the Looking Glass" episode, we learnt from those shocking flashforwards that Jack, Kate and possibly more survivors of the Oceanic Flight 815 had left the island. What we are told now is that maybe it was only six of them (!) who returned, including Hurley, who was the central character in this episode and referred to himself in the future as one of the Oceanic 6. The mysteries escalate and deepen and it's too early to draw any conclusion. I was happy to see Jeremy Davies parachuted on the island in the last two minutes of the show, portraying one the bad (?) guys who fool the survivors to be somebody else than they really are (Not Penny's Boat). There are only seven more episodes in this season, due to the WGA strike, sigh.

Vocabulary

Yesterday I learnt a new word. In the morning, our sister lab came to pick us up to celebrate José's birthday in the cafeteria. Juanjo, THE camarero, asked his typical: ¿Qué queréis?, and we ordered "seis con leche, dos solos, tres medianas, uno cortado y uno manchado". The manchado coffee was for a new post-doc in their lab and we haven't order anything like that before. ¿Manchado?, I asked and they explained me that it was a hot milk just stained a little bit with coffee.

Sentimental

I am remembering my summer vacations in a weekend house with my little brother and my parents. An austere, spartan place, with drinking water from a well in the woods. As a child, I hated carrying those heavy canisters. I hated the one hour walk there from the nearest bus stop, carrying all food and stuff in the backpacks. Happy to see my grandparents coming to visit us in a car, with cakes and other luxury items. On Friday evenings in July and August, happy to see either my Mom or my Dad, coming by bus for a weekend, bringing newspapers and magazines. In late August, waking up early to a cold house to go mushroom picking. Wish I could go back in time.

Tape

Today, trying to escape a boring discussion after a departmental seminar, I've tripped on a stair in the auditorium. Subsequently, I realized that the architect of that room must have been on crack: there are asymmetrical stairs covered with blurry beige carpet there! One simple recommendation to that twisted mind of his/her:

Heath, R.I.P.

Pushing daisies

With the WGA strike affecting most of my favourite shows, I am fishing in new waters. The result? I've discovered an amazing show called Pushing daisies. It's innocent yet funny and inventive and very, very stylish. It reminded me a lot a short-lived Wonderfalls, and it's not surprising that these two shows share the same creator.

These two boys cheat the Death a little bit...
A picture is worth a thousand words, so one more from the Episode 2:

Five minutes at Chamartín

8:15. We are finally leaving the stressful, dark tunnel and the train is approaching the Chamartín station. The sky is pink and I am thinking that the weather forecast must be wrong as it seems we are going to have a nice day. Enjoying it like every day, I watch people to leave and board and other Cercanías trains entering and departing the station. At that moment, I look at the Cuatro Torres and the tops of the skyscrapers are slowly disappearing in the advancing fog. In less than a blink of an eye, everything is sunk in thick white milk.

Shirts

Today, while ironing a mountain of shirts, I've discovered an interesting socio-political phenomenon. Nowadays, I have shirts that I bought in the US but also those that I've bought recently in Spain. Interestingly, those American ones are quite simple in terms of the cut, while the euroshirts are of a sophisticated construction full of tucks. As a result, it takes me five minutes to iron my GAP, Guess or Abercrombie shirts and about 15 minutes my Zara or Sfera ones. I keep wondering what that means. Is the fast-iron shirt a reflection of the fast-food style or, in general, a reflection of an easier life over there, as me and some of my friends realized after returning back to Europe? Is the complicated euroshirt actually here for some hypothetical Maruja the Maid who should iron them?

Watch for cars...

... while wearing headphones. Ads for the NSW Police Dept., Australia.

AVE

Today, while approaching Cantoblanco, my commuter train was passed in a short distance by a high-speed AVE train on the new Madrid-Valladolid course. It's happened to me for the first time since the line was opened at the end of December and I have to say it's quite breathtaking. ¡Viva España!

The Acoustic Maddens

For the original video featuring M. Shadows and Synyster Gates look here.

¡Felices Reyes!

Darjeeling

Wes Anderson never dissapoints me. I can blindly pick any of his movies and I know that I will love it as it's happened today. This was the opening weekend for The Darjeeling Limited in Spain. A story of three brothers who travel to India to find themselves spiritually? That sounds so lame and ridiculous, but as it's a rule for Anderson's movies, the truth is not far from that. I see his last work as a movie about letting things go if there is nothing we can do about it. Wes, I applaud you!

PR Canada Winner

It's Biddell, bitches! Tom and Lorenzo are reviewing his L'Oréal Fashion Week collection here.

Koleda

Surrealism lives! My January train pass has a true Christmas spirit, it's red and depicts a deer tied to a railway track. The ticket says: "Vasel Koleda", which I had to look up on the internet and it literally means "Merry Christmas" but in BULGARIAN. What a gem!

Feliz año

Happy New Year 2008! I celebrated the New Year's Eve with Antonio in a house of Ruben and Jesus, together with their friends. The food was amazing and I went through a truly surreal experience of an old Spanish movie with Marisol. It was called Las Cuatro Bodas de Marisol and it dealt with everything you can imagine: the English royalty, the obvious bullfighting and a trip to the colonies with some crocodile shooting and Marisol dressed as a nun. Unforgettable experience, thanks La 2!