Katie Melua – The New Kid on the Block!

Katie Melua, the 22-year-old songwriter/singer was born in Georgia and moved to Belfast at the age of 8 because of her father’s profession. I find her songs very simple and honest. She is inspired by everything that surrounds her; she writes love songs. I consider her the next Norah Jones.

She brings a fresh, new feel in her songs and this is accomplished with the simple (yet magical) elements she clings to. Needles to mention, her polished voice is the main reason I listen to her music. She is a full time artist (she writes her own songs), listening to her songs is like she is sharing her life with us. I can’t help analyzing her lyrics, I feel she is telling us her own stories trough the metaphors used in her songs.

Check her out. She is worth the 3:49 minutes.

How to win the Lottery?

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A Winner - video powered by Metacafe

I decided to buy a Lottery ticket today… The probability of me winning with a single ticket is 1 in 14 million. The only known trick is to play impossible numbers, like 1, 2, 3,4,5,6, and win. The idea is that if you do win (with 14 million to 1 chances), nobody will be crazy enough to play these numbers and you won’t need to split your winnings with anyone else. The chances of these numbers to come up, are exactly the same as with any other numbers.

So, good luck…

Should Brian Joubert open up a can of “Walking the walk”?

I was browsing trough blogs earlier today, checking out what others think of Brian Joubert, and came across some pretty harsh notes. One of these notes, on the Shot to Nothing blog, states (basically) that Brian is self-centered and his gold medal at the 2007 Europeans is pure coincidence, given that Plushenko is not competing this year and Lambiel pulled out of the competition last minute.

Watch his statement and decide for yourself.

“Well I never refuse a fight, even if I’m not on top form. It’s a shame really, quitting competition because we don’t feel good. I think it’s too easy to do that.”

Brian’s words translated by the EuroSport reporter

My best guess is that this statement came from the bitter feeling left by the failure at the 2006 Olympics. He might not have been in top form and still decided to take part of the competition, a decision he ultimately came to regret.

I agree that Brian Joubert’s performance at the European Championship was far from a gold medal, but there was nobody better to claim the throne. After his short program, he came up only second and the free program wasn’t as planned either.

My question is: Should we give up on Brian because of this statement? Let’s not forget that he was the first skater who was able to face up to Plushenko, and force him to skate better. After his screw-up at the Olympics last year, he was criticized and bad-mouthed by many, but I think the most painful hit was the criticism coming from the French people. As if, he didn’t do his best at the Olympics… He tried and failed. “Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.” One mistake shouldn’t be rubbed in like this. Brian proved to be strong, even when his own father opposed to his career and stated that he would rather see Brian as a soccer player.

About Jupiter, the Most Successful Planet in the Neighborhood

Hello, my name is Jupiter, and I am a victorious planet.

I have four wives Callisto, Ganymede, Europa and Io, 60 children and 3 adopted kids. I am also the most popular in the neighborhood and most successful in my field of work.

When I purchased the piece of territory where I decided to build my life, I made a good deal with my landlord, the Sun. He can be pretty obnoxious sometimes, but really helpful when needed, so I took the parcel that was far enough to keep me out of harm’s way, but close enough to enjoy the benefits of the Sun. The benefits of the deal didn’t show off at the beginning, but later on, the minerals of my terrain led to my growth in size and popularity. Now, the neighbors closer to the Sun, Mars, Terra, Venus and Mercury suffer the consequences of parking too close to the landlord. Because of the constant pressure of the Sun they weren’t able to cultivate their properties well, they remained limited to the boundaries set up by the owner. Some of them have wives, but none of them have children.

The dwarf planets like me because they are the ones that most often receive my protection. Sometimes, hooligan intruders come to our street trying to reach the Sun, and they vandalize everything in their path. I always do my best to intercept them and teach them a harsh lesson. The latest attempt to vandalize our neighborhood was in 1994, when a comet named Shoemaker-Levy raced towards the Sun. I used my atmosphere to stop him, but it wasn’t enough. Shoemaker-Levy was a stubborn comet, and my atmosphere had just thorn it in pieces and speeded it up to encounter me. I wasn’t about to give up, but neither was Shoemaker-Levy. The dwarf planets watched closely as Shoemaker-Levy went down in a blaze of glory, they calmed down when they saw that the intruder was defeated.

The neighbors further away - Uranus, Neptune and the tiny Pluto – didn’t hit it off with the Sun. They found his dominative and bossy qualities too much to bear and moved as far away from the Sun as possible. They didn’t benefit from the Sun’s heat, which eventually led them to become cold and lonely.

I persuaded my best friend, Saturn, to move right next to me. He followed my advice, and he is very contented with his decision. We are very similar in many ways, we both worked very hard to be where we are today, but Saturn is more outgoing. This is why he has seven wives Iapetus, Titan, Rhea, Dione, Tethys, Enceladus, Mimas and 50 children.

Lately I have been receiving visits from one of my neighbor’s spies. This neighbor, Terra, was infested with bacteria four billion years ago, which has evolved to interesting life forms. I cannot help feeling guilty for this, because the bacterium most likely arrived to Terra trough one of the comet intruders I failed to stop. However, the evolution of Terra since the infestation was unique and very interesting. If this comet hadn’t hit the Earth, it would surely be a dull planet now.

My wife Io, also nurtures bacteria, we are open-minded about the life form exchange program and we encourage it. Terra hasn’t made up its mind about the program yet, but in a little time, like 100 years or so it will come around.

For a better inside on our Solar System please visit Wikipedia.

Why do I Love Brian Joubert?

Brian Joubert, the 22-year-old figure skating bombshell, has been in the media spotlight for almost five years now. Since the age of 18, Brian Joubert has continuously amazed us with his high-performance quads, skillful footwork sequences and dazzling interpretation of music that represents him best.

Even tough he speaks fluent English; he chooses to articulate English words with a very strong French accent just to make the thousand of admirers across Europe and America fall harder for him. Brian leaves room for imagination, by concealing almost every aspect of his personal life. He is coquettish; he knows it and takes benefit from it. His disarming smile is reason enough for thousands of supporters to eagerly track his performance and follow him on the competitions he challenges.

The majority of Brian’s fans are (obviously) girls and women. Every country in Europe has a Brian Joubert fan club, and the number of fans is increasing with the popularity growth of the figure skating charmer.

The Internet is also a Brian Joubert admirer, since, if googled up, the keyword Brian Joubert displays nearly one million results. Moreover, this only means that there are a million pages, which have subscribed with Google, and this figure is not the total amount of WebPages available on the Internet about Brian Joubert. YouTube has 400 short movies featuring Brian, and new videos are uploaded every day.

One could ask, Why choose Brian Joubert over Evgeni Plushenko? Plushenko’s confidence on the rink is his medal winning quality; he makes it look so easy to jump three quads in one performance. Joubert does not have the arrogance and self-confidence of Plushenko, and maybe he doesn’t have the talent either, but this only means that he worked and will continue to work many times harder for the awards he fully deserves. Brian Joubert was the first to meet the high skating standards imposed by Plushenko; he was the first to tip Evgeni from his throne and claim the gold medal.

After Brian’s downfall of the 2006 Olympics Championship, instead of support and cheering up, Brian received causeless criticism and discredit. This event was the boiling point of several quarrels with his coach, whom he ultimately dismissed, and members of the French Skating Association. Brian managed to put himself pass the difficult moments, and returned to the 2006-2007 skating season with a firm attitude. In fact, the 2006-2007 season turned out to be great, so far Brian qualified first in every competition he entered.

Baboo (Brian’s nickname) is very dependent on his family, especially his mother – Raymonde Joubert. She follows him to every competition he enters. Trough Raymonde’s eyes Brian is the perfect child, not because of his skating skills, but rather for being in his position and maintaining such a strong relationship with his family. Most kids leave their homes by the time they reach their twenties.

But why do I admire Brian Joubert? Because he proved that hard work pays off.

Poem

Poem ("I heard of a man ...") from "Let Us Compare Mythologies"

I heard of a man
who says words so beautifully
that if he only speaks their name
women give themselves to him.

If I am dumb beside your body
while silence blossoms like tumors on our lips.
it is because I hear a man climb stairs and clear his throat outside the door.

Leonard Cohen

Mark’s Journey Into the Invisible

Once upon a time, across the great ocean of Operencia… lived a boy named Mark.

Mark was a nineteen–year-old boy, who was very concerned about the existential issues of the world.

Being raised in a Catholic environment, he attended mass each Sunday and prayed every night. As the years passed, his curious nature led him to ask too many questions, raise too many forbidden issues and eventually led him to stop going to church and lose faith. Mark, intrigued by the questions still unanswered, seeks for answers in other faiths and religions.

He showed the enthusiasm of a baby playing with a new toy, as he discovered the variety and diversity of the myriad religions out there. He spent several years to study and be part of these religions, but towards the end of his seek he still didn’t find what he was looking for. His childhood upbringing created an addiction for belief, belief that was lost by now. He was far from giving up, after spending so much time in the shadow that the Catholic faith coated on the world, and him discovering the beauty of the unknown. He decided to look at the scientific vision of the world. His discovery as magnificent as it was had some flaws. He discovered, that the building blocks that form us, atoms and particles, are present since the Big Bang. Mark then realized that he was seeking for answers in all the wrong places, all the answers were in his being, and not the beliefs of others.

The Universe is larger than our imagination, and infinite in every dimension known to us. The atoms that were now part of him, traveled a fourteen billion year journey, and would continue this travel until the end of time. Are we part of the Universe or is the Universe part of us? Understanding his immortality through the elements that composed him he stopped being human, and started enjoying the journey to the end of time.

The End

Confessions of a Computer Junkie

“I sit before this electronic window to the world
Wondering what the hell I'm doing here?
Smoke fills the room, encasing my brains
(God, I've got to quit someday)
Crickets call from through the open door to the verandah,
There is romantic starlight dancing on the cool October air
And breathable oxygen our there,
But I am tethered to this nineteen nineties damnation
By some invisible umbilicus wrapped around my neck
Like a neonate striving for breath at birth
I cleave to each breath, cringing at the unbearable brightness
Of the fiery star glaring in my squinty face.”
Twyla Turnbow Sorrells

Hello! My name is Blanka, and I am a computer junkie.

It all started, when I applied to University, branch of studies: Computer Science. Much to my mother’s dislike, I was accepted. During the first year of college, I wasn’t passionate about computers and didn’t show much interest towards the Internet either. In fact, I didn’t like browsing on the Internet or using computers. After a disastrous first year, flunked exams and low grades, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity that was given to me, and started studying harder, spending more time with my computer. The second year of university turned out to be quite successful, I actually ended up receiving a fellowship for my achievements. By the end of the third academic year, I fell in love with computers and developing software applications. Up to this point, all was going well. I enjoyed computers so much, that I decided to have a permanent Internet connection at home. This was the first episode in the chain of events, which led to my computer addiction.

To better understand my addiction to computers, you should first learn a bit more about me. Born in a culturally mixed family, my mother is Romanian and my father is Hungarian, in my childhood, I quickly developed an aptitude to better understand foreign languages and be part of two, very different societies. This was suitable up to the point, when it stopped being so. It stopped being pleasant, when I realized, that even though that I was part of two societies, I didn’t entirely belong to any of them. Because of the hatred between the two societies, entirely belonging to one culture would have meant to repudiate the other, and this was something I didn’t, and still don’t agree to. I started feeling like an outcast, and this feeling stayed with me throughout my life. A defense mechanism against this depressing feeling was to develop - sympathy towards lifeless “beings”.

During the two-year period when I was permanently connected to the Internet, I suffered two major depressions, I have spine warp, and my eyesight got way poorer – I wear glasses now. These are only the palpable consequences of my addiction. My social skills took a turn also, from bad to worse. I developed all sort of phobias: aphenphosmphobia - fear of being touched, fear of speaking, fear of failure, and so on. I enjoy loneliness; I spend my life in my room with my computer. I have no prospects for my life, other than growing old.

On the bright side, I am handy with a computer, I type fast, and my English knowledge is good, because English is the language of the Internet.

Currently I work at a small firm, in my native town, specialized in software development. After the eight-hour work schedule, I come home exhausted and can only focus on relaxing in front of the computer. I spend an average of twelve hours a day in front of the computer.

Today… today was a good day. Currently I work at a small firm specialized in software development. After the eight-hour work schedule, I come home to my computer.