Fair warning: Not the nicest version of me has written this article.

Last week I wrote a blog post about my thoughts on the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Since then I've been receiving preposterous amounts of "feedback" regarding that post. The tone and language of some of this "feedback" in my comments section resulted in flame-wars between readers, and I ended up having to disable comments. But I'm still getting the emails and the Facebook messages and so on. So for some of you who've written me comments and messages that have been a pleasure to read, thank you. And for the rest, I feel the need to write a response.

Sorry I'm not writing back to each of you directly, I'm afraid the post here will just have to do. As it happens I actually have a life, and a really busy one at that. And perhaps due to my line of work and style of life, I'm not nearly as obsessed with fiction as some. Simply put, this whole thing is just not important enough.

First, this is my weblog, and I will write in it as I please. I'm not employed by anyone, I'm not paid by anyone, I'm not under any form of obligation and the only rules I follow here are those of my own values. This weblog is old as hell, and yes, I have readers. Some of them read because they like what I write, some because they hate what I write, and some somewhere in between. And sometimes they share my posts with others, so that they can like or hate it together. And sometimes my posts end up on websites with a lot of readers. I don't ask for that, I don't object to that, and I don't change what I write because of that. I'm generally not concerned about accidentally stepping on anyone's toes, due to _my_ personal_ opinions.

Having said that… putting all the attack literature I've received together, a few very interesting points stand out.

It is quite interesting how in general there's no real mention of precisely "why" I'm wrong. There's a whole bunch of "you're wrong because this is the best movie ever made", but no rational responses to anything I've written. Mind you, once again, what I wrote wasn't to say that this was a "bad" movie, it was to say that it did not, at all, meet the expectations set by the DnA [and the long line before that] comic books. It appears that some 90% of the unhappy comments I've received are from people who've never read those, or haven't paid much attention, and generally do not have any idea what I'm getting at. I did mention that if this is your fist encounter with the whole thing, you're probably fine… didn't I? [Well unless you were looking for intelligent entertainment in which case.. well… hello!]

Even more interesting are the comments from people saying that they find the books not interesting, because they're "needlessly complicated", "don't feel like comic books", "there's too much details" and so on, and that they're happy with the now more entertaining version of things. I must admit, it's taking quite a bit of my energy to not write something really obscene in response to that.

I will however say this, thank you very much, that's very 1984 of you. So how's about we abandon the needlessly complicated English dictionary and just go for Newspeak then? We don't need so many words to communicate do we? I mean after all it's not like we have any need of communicating complex concepts, do we? And while we're at it, let's take every bit of thought provoking, meaningful literature out there and simplify it to death. It doesn't matter that we're already suffocating under the tons of pointless nonsense, let's take the few remaining shreds of good substantial thought-food and convert them into mass-pleasing balderdash too, how about that eh?

Or, you could just stick to whatever pleases you, and leave what pleases me alone. Hmm? How about you enjoy your 90% and leave me to my 10%. You see, if you don't "get it", it doesn't make it "bad"…

Oh, and thanks for calling me an "Elitist", again. I'm starting to feel quite comfortable with that term. In fact I seem to get a warm tingly feeling every time a clueless ninny calls me that. So yes, I enjoy both intelligence and intellect, but even more so, wisdom. And you have no idea how happy it makes me that you don't like that about me.

Forget that it's 2014, it not possible for me to have one such discussion without somebody playing the "but you're just a girl after all, what do you know" card. Honestly that's so old I don't even feel like addressing it anymore. So I say only this: I can build you a functional robot out of the junk in your garage, and I can teach you a fine lesson in humility with a pair of long-swords. Feel free to drop by any day of the week.

Another really big load of text that didn't explain in any rational way why I'm "wrong", went in the direction of explaining why it's "bad" to be a fan of Joss Whedon. Hmm. There was the attempt to make me understand that the only reason I like Joss Whedon is that I'm a feminist, and he has a reputation for writing strong female characters. It was then explained to me how that's only a pretence, and how his female characters are actually weak and needy. 

On one hand, I am as further away from feminism as I can possibly get. On the other hand, yes I do happen to like Joss Whedon's female characters, as well as the male ones, and everything else outside or in between! Why? Because he writes characters I can actually relate to! You say his female characters are actually pathetic because… what exactly? Because they have flaws? Because they have needs? Because they make mistakes? Because they have weaknesses? As opposed to what exactly, what is it that you want to see in your female character, a glorified cyborg??? And do Whedon's male characters not have the same issues in general? Are they not humanized the same way? Are his male and female heroes not equals?

On the third hand, what does this all have to do with Guardians, pray tell? Did you really just try to convince me that I'm wrong to prefer Joss Whedon's direction by launching a "he's a fake" campaign? Dear god people… as I have said before… please, please get a life.

At the end I would like to say this. You see, speaking my mind has a history of putting me in terrible trouble of the real sort. If you think the scorn of some Hollywood fanatics, over a movie review of all things, is going to have an effect, well… that's just adorable.

Labels: Entertainment, Reviews, Thoughts

So, well, yes, I did finish reading The Hunger Games trilogy. My thanks to you who forced me into it. ;) I don't however have much to say about it. Not for the lack of thoughts, mind you. But simply because I don't know what to say… I don't know how to put it into words… I guess for me it got a tad too emotional.

As usual, the movies are good but they do not at all reach up to the books. The books tell a story that can very well happen tomorrow, in detail they depict a world that so resembles our current one. That's why it was very emotional for me to read them, because there are too many familiar elements, too much connection to reality. Thanks to all I've seen, I had far too many "oh, I know exactly how that is" moments reading the 3 books.

All I can say is that I hope we somehow manage to skip that. I don't know how likely it is though, as my own experiences living in various parts of the world have shown me too much to leave me with much optimism regarding the direction our race is currently headed to.

And you know what? The ending always looks like that….

Labels: Books, Literature, Reading, Sci-Fi, Thoughts

Fair warning: I'm angry and therefore quite possibly offensive. Also, you'll need to speak Persian for this one....

Of all the misogynistic idiotic mindless hogwash that _some_ of my beloved Iranians are nowadays spreading around social networks such as Facebook, every once in a while something really gets on my last nerve. Here's one. I guess what really boils my blood is that this was shared by a WOMAN. Mind you, I'm not a feminist by any definition, but sometimes I just run out of patience with these things....

So I'm saying to the "man" who created this and whomever's spreading it: I dare you to compare my IQ, my credentials, my accomplishments, my technical skills, my general wisdom and etc with YOUR OWN. Lets create a chart and publish the results. I dare you. Lets see which one of us is doing better in this life, and then lets talk about your work of art here....

I double dare you.

Labels: Anger, Iran, Life, Thoughts

When I first started using Google+, the name on my profile was obviously my nickname which I had always used on my Google account. A nickname which by no means gives me anonymity, seeing that it has been attached to my real name all over the web, and even people in real world very often call me with it. The nickname has been around since my first days of hacker-spaces and various other tech sub-societies and as a result a lot of people would look for me by it, hence my persistence in using it...

When I received the warning message on my account saying that I had to use my real name, despite the bad taste that was left in my mouth, I went ahead and switched to my real name. I figured I was way too busy for the drama that would follow, were I to keep the nickname. That was a bit more than a month ago.

Well, big surprise, the drama came anyway. 2 days later my contacts started telling me that my Google+ profile was no longer accessible, showing a "not found" message. I checked my profile and saw the message on the top of it, saying that my profile was suspended due to my name not being acceptable by their "standards", and was waiting to be reviewed, which would probably take a few days. A week later, my profile was still suspended, I had received no communication from Google, and I had come to realized that my ability to use other Google services was also limited.

That was when I started looking for ways to communicate with whomever was in charge. First thing I noticed, was that there basically are no functional ways for doing that. I tried sending a number of feedbacks which clearly had no effect. Then I landed on the support forums which is apparently where Google intends for you to end up, if you go looking for help/support. Of course what you'll never receive on these forums is help or support. My requests for help were ignored and eventually buried, same as many others. Soon it became clear that a terribly large number of people are on the same boat.

While searching the forums for answers, I came across a few mentions of writing an appeal, using a link that should be somewhere on the suspended profile, but I saw no such link anywhere. Then I found out that the appeal link only shows up once your profile has been reviewed and "really" suspended. My profile seemed to not even qualify for that. So, for the duration of an entire month, my profile was stuck in the proverbial limbo.

By the end of the 3rd week, I was thoroughly inflamed. With everything I had read in other people's complaints, responses and stories, it had become quite obvious what the problem was. My uncommon name and even less common last name didn't look enough like a real name to Google. That's just so deliciously ironic, seeing that a simple Google search would have cleared out my identity. My name's all over the web. I have a couple of domain names and as a result who-is records which happen to tie my Gmail address directly to my name. For Pete's sakes, how difficult would it be to verify my identity?

Doing some more digging, eventually I found a link to the appeal form somewhere and sent a number of appeals through. Then a good friend of mine offered to talk to his contacts in various departments in Google... but what finally did it, was another dear friend talking to her contact in Google+ , and getting my profile released [thanks a lot =) ].

So now, after a month of bloody struggle my account is usable again, and that only because of my friend and her friend. I find many aspects of Google+ quite brilliant, but this experience has been a true disaster, and the whole "real name policy" is looking like serious folly.

As I once wrote in the forums, it was my impression that this was supposed to be a social network for people from everywhere. But these so called policies seem to be shaping the service such that mainly people from North America and certain parts of Europe can use it without trouble. In the past decade Google has slowly taken over the web so that one way or the other you're using some of their services, and now a lot of people who for some reason or the other can't do exactly as almighty Google commands, are in trouble.

There are many people out there who have very good reasons for not using their real names on the web. For instance, just look at the amount of political activity on services like Facebook or Twitter in the past year, by people from the middle east. Well, ban the use of nicknames, and you ban all these people. There goes all that political and humanitarian activity. There goes what was one of the most important contribution of social networks. There goes the platform for freedom of speech.

Of course these are only a part of the reasons people might have, for not wanting to use their real names. Google says that they want people to interact on Google+ the same way they would in the real world. Well, look around you. There are many people who don't use their legal names in their day to day lives. Plus, wake up and smell the coffee, this is the web, it was never supposed to be the real world. Google says that the real name policy is there, so that they can provide users with better service. Sorry, but would it have been benefits for users that you're concerned about and not your own pocket, matters could have been much simpler. Instead of suspending user accounts, you could just warn them of the possible service quality issues, leave them to use whatever names they preferred, and put an end to this grand fiasco. Instead you've bought yourself a great deal of anger....

And then there is of course the small and insignificant problem of those of us who have names that you have not heard before. I even know of people who's accounts have been suspended several times simply because they have uncommon names. So what exactly is it that we're supposed to do? Prove to the almighty gods of social networks that I'm actually called this? Well that would be pretty much the end of both my patience and my interest.

So thanks to my friend, I have my account back which is pretty important for my use of several other Google services, but as to Google+... I don't know. After all of this, I'm no longer certain that I'm all that interested in using the service. For the moment the only reason I'm sticking around is my connections in there. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what will happen next....

Further reading: A similar story, and an interesting article

Labels: Friends, Internet, Social Networks, Technology, Thoughts, Web

I just feel like mentioning this, because recently I was talking to a couple of friends about it... ;)

Bones and Castle are both TV series that I like and I watch [whenever I get a chance, which usually means so many episodes at once...]. But seriously, how can anyone not see that Castle is totally a Bones rip off?

I've been a fan of Bones since it first showed up in 2005. I find the series to be a very interesting one, and generally not brainless entertainment. The story lines are complex and sophisticated. Also full of interesting scientific facts, and I can even see a touch of sci-fi in there rather often. I do consider myself a fan of the series and I try to catch all the episodes even if it means late night marathons.

Castle on the other hand... well... let me see how to put this. Castle seems to have borrowed much of Bones' structural elements. The cop and the novelist, the touch of romance, the adventurer and the conservative, the single parent... and many more details of Bones can be seen in Castle. But of course all of that does not in any way mean that Castle's story lines are EVER as interesting as Bones'. Castle is a very usual mystery/crime/cop TV series. It's rather entertaining and often enjoyable to watch, but I watch it for smiles only, and I don't find any thrill what-so-ever in it's plots. So all in all I don't think I'd really call myself a fan of the series, and I don't mind missing episodes here and there.

So yes, that's how I compare the 2. I sort of like Castle but I very much see it as a rather weak Bones rip-off.

Oh, and I must say that I'm so looking forwards to seeing Bones season 7. The way season 6 ended was pretty insane... ;)

Labels: Entertainment, Fun, Thoughts, TV

I have to start this by saying that I'm not trying to "bash" vegetarians or vegetarianism. I'm not an anti-veg, and I don't have a problem with vegetarians or vegans for that matter. Generally I'm a kind of person who believes that every human being is entitled to their own opinions and beliefs, and I respect people's way of life, regardless of how different from mine they may be. I have to insist on all of the above, because I don't want to cause any misunderstandings.

I don't know how exactly this started, but I'm currently feeling exceedingly tired and annoyed, as a result of a collection of encounters that I have had with vegetarian people during the past couple of years. When did vegetarianism turn into a religion? And why is it that a very large percentage of the people who turn veg, see it fit to try to either convert you, or act as if you're somehow unholy?

I read the labels on the food products I buy [or anything else for that matter] quite carefully. I pay close attention to my diet, nutritional balance, and needs of my body. I do sports and I exercise every day, sometimes heavily. Generally I pay attention to my health and fitness. Apparently, this somehow makes me the perfect target. First I am "invited" to take the "next step", then comes the bickering and well, if you know anything about me you probably know that I don't react too well to someone trying to poke at me using arguments that they can't properly and logically defend. And yes, I'm afraid most of the times the discussion comes to an uncomfortable halt once you bring the medical and nutritional facts to the tables. Facts that unfortunately most of these terrifyingly passionate vegies didn't think to read through before they chose vegetarianism not only for themselves, but for the rest of us as well.

But before we get to the actual health facts, I also have to make a mention of another questionable reasoning the religious vegies usually bring up [very often when all else seems to fail], and that's the whole animal cruelty discussion. Well, I don't wear Merino wool or fur or anything of the sort. I don't eat in McDonald's or any of the similar chains. I think what these corporations do to animals is indeed criminal. But is that in any way the same as what humans have traditionally been doing for millenniums now?

When the Native Americans hunted a buffalo, they killed it as quickly and painlessly as possible. They did so for their survival, and they used pretty much every part of the animal for a purpose, so that nothing went to waste. Like them, I believe in nature, and in it's rules and balance. In the cycle of nature there are billions of examples of bigger living organisms feeding off of smaller ones. I don't see anything wrong with that. To me, that's as correct and  natural as it gets. However, unfortunately us human beings have turned into the only animals who kill other living beings just for the heck of it, or torture other living beings for our own profit, and I truly despise that. But how does it make any sense to say that use of meat or other animal products in the traditional sense is also "animal cruelty"??! "Meat is murder"? Really? If that's the case then I suppose mother nature is the biggest murderer of all eh?

So now let's get back to the health and nutrition side of things. I'm not going to try to explain the medical facts myself seeing that I don't have a degree in any of the related fields, but instead I have decided to create a reference list below, from a number of quite well written articles on the web that explain everything.

Of course I have to add a few notes of commons sense as well. In general what a person's body needs and what keeps them healthy is to a good extent depending on the person's body type, age, sex, life style, form and amount of activities and many other details. To recommend a diet [more like a life style in this case] to someone without taking account all the variables of their life, is generally a very bad idea. I for instance have a somewhat above the average amount of physical and mental activity per cycle, and I hardly ever sleep. The following articles will give you an idea as to how it would be an extremely bad idea for someone like me to become a vegetarian.

Also, if your diet used to consist of so much meat that you may have expired from Gout, your new vegetarian diets is most certainly much healthier. If you pay a good deal of attention to your vegetarian diet and make sure to include replacements for what you don't eat, you can certainly have a more healthy diet than most people in this world. But again, that doesn't mean that vegetarianism can be healthy for everyone and in fact, very often it is not, specially since it becomes a severe pain to create a "real" healthy vegetarian diet, which is something that many vegetarians don't seem to realize.    

The list of articles and references below is something that I'm compiling [with help from friends] so that from now on I can just forward people with "suggestions" to it, instead of having to say/type it all again each time. I have gone through the articles that I'm listing, with a couple of doctor friends, to make certain of their validity. If you'd like to add anything to this article or the links list, either log onto Verse and do so, or contact me. Enjoy reading! ;)

[I have posted this article and the actual links list on this Verse page. This way anyone else interested can edit and contribute, so that we can have a more complete reference in time.]

Labels: Aasemoon, Health, Life, Nutrition, Thoughts

Let me start this by bringing an example. I'm not Chinese, Korean or Japanese. I've never been to either one of the countries. I've had my share of superficial contact with the languages and the cultures, but just that. I've never made any serious attempts at learning either one of these languages. And yet, if you write in all three on a piece of paper and show it to me, I can tell you which is which. I think most of you probably could... it's 2010 after all. It's the age of information, and with a tiniest bit of interest or curiosity, and 10 minutes [or possibly much less] of free time, you can gain yourself a general knowledge of just about anything.

So, why is it that the movie/TV producers of the current era seem to have so much trouble gathering a very general idea of what the Persian language is, and what it's supposed to look like, before using it in their productions in the most messed up way they could possibly manage? How difficult is it to get a correct and real piece of text to use?

I was recently watching the latest episode of Chuck, in which the heroes of the story are supposedly stuck in an underground bunker in Iran, and the mistakes that were made in this episode regarding the Persian [aka Farsi] language made me think of a rather lengthy list of similar mistakes in other motion picture productions. So, here I'm going to write up a a few tips / common follies that you could pay attention to, if you're going to use Farsi in your production...

1 - Persian is not Arabic or Ordoo. [Well Duh!] Even though these languages have a similar font and some shared words, they're completely separate languages. Just like English, German, Italian and Spanish are not the same language. So if you have people stuck in a bunker in Iran, please make sure that the stuff written on the walls is in Persian, NOT ARABIC! That includes you, Chuck producers! =P

2 - The Persian font has capital letters and small letters. Every word consists of small letters that can stick together in most cases, and capital letters that come at the very end of the word, separating the word from the next one in the sentence. You can't just throw a bunch of disconnected capital letters sticking back to back in a line and call it Persian text. I've seen so many examples of this exact mistake recently, what's up with that? One example would be this German movie I recently watched, called "Auch Lügen will gelernt sein". A friend of mine sent me this movie as a part of my German practice homework package. Orrrrr maybe it was just because René Steinke is in it... ehm... *cough* *cough* ;) Either way, the DVD came with a warning attached. Apparently my very much German friend who's never had anything to do with Persian [except for the existence of me] could actually tell that there was something severely wrong with that supposed Persian text used in the movie. So how come the producers of the movie can't figure as much? =P Come on!

3 - Persian is written from.... here it comes ...... RIGHT TO LEFT! Yes, most people give me such a surprised look the first time I tell them that.... I rather enjoy it! =)) =P So, if you have a piece of paper with a bunch of Persian stuff written on it and you want to make sure it's the real deal, make sure the empty spaces at the end of the lines are on the LEFT SIDE, not the right side. That includes you, German folks mentioned above! =P

4 - Iran and Iraq are NOT the same country, and they do NOT use the same language! Iraqi people speak Arabic! Iranians speak Farsi! This is also one very common mistake. A rather horrible recent example was the Lost TV series season 6 premiere, where the Iraqi character Sayid had an Iranian passport. Well not everyone can tell that a passport is Iranian just by looking at it, but as a producer you should at least be able to figure out that the writings on the passport are in PERSIAN, not Arabic. I wrote an article and included a picture here.

5 - Persians are a not very small population who have been scattered around the world due to obvious unfortunate reasons. There are Persian communities in most major cities in North America and Europe. There are also lots and lots of online Persian communities, forums and websites. So what I'm trying to say is, finding someone with a proper knowledge of Farsi, is the easiest thing to do. If you want to use Farsi in your production, just get one of us to write you up something proper, rather than throwing a load of letters on a page and calling it Farsi.

Well, this is what I can think of for now. Hope someone finds it useful! =)

P.S.: The above picture is not exactly your example of a normal everyday Persian writing obviously. ;) It's the art of Persian calligraphy, which I'm currently practicing.

Labels: Farsi, Iran, Languages, Motion Picture, Movies, Persian, Thoughts, TV

A few months ago, a neighbour's cat walked right into my bedroom when I opened the flat door to come in. After inspecting my bedroom for a bit, he found himself a comfy place on a mini table under my window, and that was that. The cat didn't seem to want to go out! =) I tried picking him up and putting him on the floor and leading him to the door, but he just turned around and went right back to where he was. Then I sat down and started doing some work on my notebook, and the cat would just circle around my chair and rub his fur to my feet. =)) Any attempts of getting him to get out was completely unsuccessful. Until finally after about an hour of playing around in my bedroom, he finally "accepted" to go back home.  

If you know anything about raccoons, you probably know that they never let you get close to them. They raid people's backyards and if one of them finds its way to your kitchen, you should probably say goodbye to any food you had in there. =) And they seem to detect human presence from kilometres away, 'cause the only thing you get to see of them is their cute behinds jumping up and down running away from you with the speed of light. =) And then, once when I was sitting under the rain, in my aunt's backyard, I noticed one of these cute creatures slowly walking towards me... I was expecting it to just turn around and go away at some point, but that didn't happen. It walked right to the spot where I was sitting, and then it climbed up my jeans all the way to my knee, so that it's eyes were looking directly into mine. It was extremely odd! I even petted the raccoon's back a bit. So it was just sitting there on my knee for some minutes.. I don't even know how long. And then it decided to leave..... it was a very cute encounter. =)

Yesterday, I noticed that a couple of pigeons were in the balcony again... up to some mischief. I love them really, but they make a bloody mess in the balcony that seeing how I'm on the 23rd floor, is slightly difficult to get cleaned. ;) Anyway, I knocked a few times on the glass door to the balcony... quite certain that they would be scared and leave. Well, that didn't happen! So I stepped in the balcony, excepting them to fly away any second now. That didn't happen either. At some point, I found myself face to face with the pigeons... close enough that I could see all the shiny pretty colours in their eyes. And I was laughing my head off too, seeing how they were just.. standing there watching me! =D So at the end I gave up... and walked back in.... it's as if they knew the threat was simply non-exiting! =P I swear, one of them was totally giving me the "yeah, right" look! =)))))

And these are just a few..... so... what is it with animals and me anyway? Any theories? =)))

Labels: Aasemoon, Animals, Funny, Life, Nature, Thoughts

As I've been going through yet another one of those extremely busy periods, I've been out of the loop with some of the latest developments in the world of social networks and legal patents. So I hadn't read or heard about FB's recent work of art till today. Today I had a conversation with a Good friend, Twain, who kindly brought me in the loop with what's been going on. Apparently, Facebook has been awarded the patent for "Dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network". Check this link, and this link for the full story.

Well, I'm honestly shocked at what they seem to be getting away with. Actually, on a second though, I basically don't think they'll be getting away with this. As I told my friend, I think this is very much like stealing a piece of the ladder that everyone is, or wants to be climbing. And a good number of online services out there have in fact been climbing this ladder as long as Facebook has, if not longer. Orkut is an example of a social network that's been providing the news feed for a long while now. There are also services with a more specific purpose that do the same.. Last.fm and Goodreads would be examples. And I could bring a dozen other examples just of the top of my head.

So, exactly how does Facebook think that they have a right to be doing this? How is it that they managed to get this patent? Oh well, I think there are reasons I don't get too close to the worlds of business and law. I'm better off with engineering, math and code. Things that make some logical sense...

But even though I don't have much of a view on the topic, I have a firm belief that other online services are just not going to accept this. I have a feeling that Facebook has just brought together the ingredients for an upcoming fiasco. Well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see.....

Labels: Facebook, Technology, Thoughts, Web, Web Development

I just felt the need to quickly mention here that I LIKE this! I've been trying out the Office 2010 Beta for a few weeks now, and so far I find it to be quite a nice bundle. Nice features, not all of them new of course but everything somehow appears to be smoother.

I'm mainly impressed with OneNote 2010. It's lovely... try it.... trust me... ;)

Labels: Microsoft, Software, Technology, Thoughts

I just saw a commercial about a cell-phone company on TV, and the supposed "high-light" of the commercial was that some of their cell-phone models are made partially of recycled plastic. And some teenager girl was shouting about how using the recycled material can help us "save trees". And this was the part of it when I felt a rush of blood to my brain....

So the bloody cell-phone company sells cell-phones that boil human brain cells, and they pride themselves with recycled plastic and saving trees? Giving people cancer and supposedly saving trees?

Is it just me, or is this completely bizarre.....

Hmmmm.....

Labels: Bizarre, Electronics, Horrible, Technology, Thoughts, TV

Oh... boy oh boy.... I'm about to make myself a few enemies....

Given the kind of relationship that I have with music, I often get asked a lot of music related question... "How do you like this singer? How do you like that album? What do you think of blabla's latest track? What's your current favourite?" and... you get the picture. So in the past couple of days, quite a few people asked me what I thought of this year's Grammy Awards. And I said... "let me think about it a bit, I'll tell you...". Mainly because I just wanted to have enough time to "defuse" first, before saying something that would possibly offend anyone. But it looks like no matter how much time passes, my opinion on this does not, at all, change. So I may as well say it... I'm sorry if I'm offending anyone's opinions, I absolutely do not mean to... this is JUST my personal opinion.

So here's what I think... I think that the day this year's Grammy winners [with the exception of perhaps 1 or 2] win the Grammy Award, is the day I stop watching Grammy. Permanently. Good music has officially left the world's popular music scene. [Again, with a few exceptions... too few I'm afraid.] And that about sums it up.

Of course good music still very much exists... but you have to dig pretty deep and pretty hard to find it. And for the larger part, it's NOT on the shelves of the music stores. And even if it is, it nearly never wins any awards. Can anyone tell me, when the last time was that Mike Oldfield won any awards? [Well as far as I know it was 1975 Grammies. He has released a gazillion albums since then.] And how about Amethystium? And how about Craig Armstrong? And how about all the ingenious "Creative Commons" musicians? Who's supporting those?

Would it have been up to me, this year's Grammy Awards would have gone to: Sleepthief, SinQ, Brian Culbertson, aMUSiC, Röyksopp, Massive Attack, Keiko Matsui, Mosaik, Brian Tyler, Schiller, and may more....

So now I'm going to go and enjoy listening to SinQ's "Hyperism" series... ingenious electronic music....

Labels: Art, Music, Thoughts

Ok... ummm... is it just me imagining things, or did Charlie Francis actually just come back from the dead??? Huh??

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Charlie get killed by a shape-shifter? And wasn't this shape-shifter later shot by Olivia Dunham, causing her to go through a rough psycho period, which hopefully ended with help of Sam Weiss? So... if all of that isn't just a fragment of my imagination, then how on earth did Charlie Francis just show up on the 11th episode of season 2, following a case, just like nothing has happened?

In fact this episode looked like a lot of things haven't happened... I get the feeling that we're simply not looking at the same universe! There were other inconsistencies in the past too, for instance how Olivia ended up in the middle of a car crash after she came back from the other universe... a crash that had never even started. She parked her car, went to see Nina Sharp, Nina didn't show up, and then Olivia was led to the elevator to the other universe... there simply never was an accident, so how did she end up in the middle of an accident that never started???

Given all the inconsistencies, I think that we're seeing events from different universes, like that episode where Olivia was seeing pieces and parts of events from different universes. In any case, something really weird is happening.... and that's the whole fun about Fringe, isn't it? =D

I have to say unlike SGU, Fringe is going on strong... very interesting, very very kool. =)  Can't wait to see what happens next... and how Charlie just reappeared out of thin air....  

Labels: Fringe, Kool, Sci-Fi, Thoughts, TV

Umm... no. Yeah. I have to start by saying NOOO. Big NOOOO. God, just what are these folks doing? We're so used to Stargate being this larger than life complex intriguing epic plots, and that's what we like about it! Now of course there needs to be evolution, there needs to be change... but then there's "change" and there's "mess up". And so far, SGU has been the ladder. None of my big time Stargate fan friends seem to like this one at all up to now.

So far, SGU has only been a bunch of extremely shallow people doing extremely useless things. All the time. What bothers me even more, is that the general plot and the big picture is in fact VERY interesting. People who are not supposed to be doing this, further from home than any human has every been... this could be SOO full of events. But it's NOT! And I think it's mainly due to how un-interesting the characters are. So far, I only find 3 of the main character interesting [sometimes!]:
- Dr. Rush - Cause he uses his brain
- Eli Wallace - Cause he sometimes uses his brain
- Camiile Wray - Cause she started drawing the boat

As for the rest of them, I find them completely and utterly vain.

So that's all I have to say, so far it's been a big disappointment. The 9th episode is the last one I've seen so far, and now they've left my favorite character, Dr. Rush, on the surface of some planet and left him there to die.... but he's alive, and that may go to interesting places. It would be "nice" to see my favorite character turning into the big anti-hero....we'll just have to wait and see. I really hope things start picking up....

Labels: Entertainment, Sci-Fi, Stargate, Thoughts, TV

Due to all sorts of lacks of access, including the lack of access to the web and lack of access to a stationary chair [ =P ], I didn’t get the chance to post about what I’ve been up to in the past week or so… now I’m going to give you a general overview. And by the way, this is all aside from the 4th of November events… since I did already manage to post enough about that on Facebook…..

As I mentioned before, we were planning on seeing Lynn’s short film that was featured in the Roshd international film festival… and we did manage that, with a bit of adventure that is. The movie theatre showing this specific movie was “on the other side of” Tehran… non of my friends knew how to drive us there and even the driver of the cab we called was semi-uncertain about the location… so it was a bit funny, driving around and asking people where we were supposed to go. But we did get there at the end, and Lynn’s film was definitely worth the trip. =) Some very nice films were shown this year, and we managed to see a number of them in various movie theatres.

Unfortunately none of my favorite movies this year were from Iranian artists. With all the talent and intelligence that clearly exists in the Iranian youth, it was quite a bit sad to see that most of their movies were rather weak. Once upon a time, a couple of really amazing Iranian movie directors made some fantastic movies that were showing the pain and the hardship in the lives of the people living in small villages of Iran. Since then, it is as if a large number of Iranian artists think that if they just pick up their cameras and go take some movies from Iran’s small villages, that’ll make a great movie. Excuse me, NOT SO!

On my quest to see as much as I possibly can of the new developments in Tehran’s exterior and interior, my friends have been taking me to some interesting spots. TanTan took me to see a number of shopping malls and restaurants and such… One of the more interesting places she took me to, was this mall called “Milaade No”. Now the mall itself was rather good looking, but that’s not the interesting part of it. On the 3rd floor of the mall, there are 2 face to face shops that have some very cute decoration and jewelry stuff. The 2 stores are ran by 2 gentlemen and 1 lady, and all 3 are deaf. And guess what, in my entire shopping experience in Tehran in this trip, I hadn’t been treated so nicely and politely in ANY stores anywhere. With all the unfortunate behavior you keep running into these days, in the truly damaged society of Tehran [which I will write more about, later], this was a breath of fresh air. WAY TO GO FOLKS, LOVED YOU! I’m planning on going back there again for some serious shopping…. ;)

Mahyar finally took us to this café that he’s constantly talking about. It’s called the “Gramaphon” café, and I can see now why he’s so into this place! It’s this tiny little café that hardly has enough room for a few tables, and it has one of the neatest decoration I’ve ever seen. It gives you this really warm feeling of being in a very old and very familiar place… it’s difficult to describe, so I’ll just upload the photos I took. ;) I guess the nicest part of it all is the company…

Pehgah and her dad showed us around this shopping mall called “Tirajheh”. Another very nice looking new shopping mall in Tehran… but this one I really don’t recommend going to! Why? Because…. uh…. how do I explain this. Let me give you an instance of what may happen in there. My mom was with us that day… and the very first shop she went into, she nearly got into a fight with one of the attendants. Here’s what it was like… it was this perfume shop, and the first thing about it that took my attention was that one of the attendants was standing there behind the cash, shaving his arm!!! Yeah. No kidding. I mean… ewww!? Then my mom went in to ask about a couple of perfumes she’s into, and before she finished her sentence, the other attendant was already packing up the perfume to give it to her… no mention of the price, no question as to whether she actually wants to buy it or not… and my mom was a bit surprised, so she mentioned to the guy that she’s asking a question… and the guy goes “Oh, so you’re just asking questions? You’re just here to ask questions then??” SOOOO BLOOODY RUDE! I’ve not seen behavior like that anywhere in this world before… and heck I’ve been to a few places! Well you can imagine how my mom reacted… and the only thing I could do was to go in, and pull her out using all my bloody might.

So well, above was an example of what I mean when I say that the society here is sick. Due to all the pressure that the people here have undergone in the past few years, they have changed. Not that things like this didn’t exist in the past, but in the 6 years that I hadn’t been to Iran, the change has been HUGE. A large part of the society have became rude, uncaring and extremely indecent [so sorry to say…]. There needs to be some sort of a change… and that’s what people were shouting for, on November 4th….

Anyway…. tomorrow evening I’m flying to Shiraz for a short visit. Haven’t been there in nearly 12 years or so. Will take tons of photos…. =) I’ve taken a large load of photos so far, and I’ll do my best to upload them soon.

And something else… I’m searching for my dad.

Labels: Aasemoon, Art, Friends, Iran, Motion Picture, Tehran, Thoughts, Travel

Tonight I heard people shouting “death to the dictator” and “the political prisoners must be freed” on the rooftops around our building. It was the first time I was hearing it for myself… up close… And from what I hear, on the 4th of November [students day], people are going to be in the streets again….

On the other news, today I paid a visit to the “Tajrish” marketplace to shop for Persian stuff… and noticed that the place has been prettified and renovated…. but the mud on the ground is still the same… darn… somebody please do something about that! =P

Oh, I forgot to mention before…. last week we went to the new and fabulous Azadi movie theatres compound, and watched this VERY Persian movie called “The Rule Book”. I have to mention that the compound itself is worth making a movie out of. Pretty. Darn good architecture possibly the prettiest theatres compound I’ve ever seen. And I’m not putting that lightly!! As for the the movie… well… let just say that me, my mom and TanTan managed to drop more water than the Niagara Falls while watching it. Not that it’s a truly sad movie or anything… but it’s showing some of the bigger scars on the face of this society… and that’s why you end up crying…

Labels: Aasemoon, Iran, Movies, Tehran, Thoughts, Travel

Reporting from Iran again, have to start by saying that I’m still having loads of fun. ;) I’ve so far had a chance to see around the city a bit, eat some very fine food and pack up some of my childhood stuff.

Something very special that I’ve had in the past few days [a large amount of it that is ;)], is Persian ice-cream. Well I’m not even going to try to describe what that is and what it tastes like… because there’s only 2 options: either you have or you will try it for yourself at some point, or you’ll miss out big time. =P Those huge pieces of frozen high concentration cream are just… heavenly.

I also had another very original Persian food called “Kabab Loghme”. Basically it’s bread wrapped kebab of a special sort, with some onion and herbs. And it tastes fantastic, I can tell you that. ;)

Also… we finally had a chance to have a dinner at Pantry pizzeria/restaurant. This would be Tehran’s oldest pizza place, and it serves very fine Italian pizza. Love it. I’m only somewhat disappointed to know that their Mexican food is no longer that great…  But anyway it was a great night with TanTan, Mahyar, Yazdan, my cuz Pooneh and my mom. =)

Thanks to TanTan and Yazdan I’ve had a rather extensive tour of Tehran streets up to now, specially since Yazdan managed to give us a nice evening ride around some of the more central + old areas of the city. I also spent a very delightful + fun evening with TanTan’s family, they’re just amazing! =)

Tomorrow the Roshd international short film festival starts.. and fortunately I already have a number of guest tickets for me and a bunch of friends. We’re planning to see Lynn’s short animation film which is being shown in the International films category. The only problem is, I have no idea when they’re going to show it as of yet! The festival is a week long, it’s starting tomorrow and the people in charge haven’t released the schedule yet. Amazing eh? Hopefully we’ll figure it out in time…

And I swear, I have indeed taken a large load of pictures. I simply haven’t had the time to select the best and upload them as of yet… but I will, soon, promise! =)

Labels: Aasemoon, Art, Friends, Iran, Life, Thoughts, Travel

Thanks to my fantastic friend TanTan, I’ve been seeing more of Tehran in the past few days. One of the more “outstanding” places she showed me so far, was the “Tandis” shopping mall in Tajrish street. Wellllll words sort of fail to describe what I saw in there… aside from the fact that it was proven to me that the Iranian government no longer has a problem with foreign brands opening branches in Iran, which was the positive side of things, I also saw a whole load of faces, hairs and make ups that I’m afraid I’d neither call nice nor even remotely stylish. My only description for what I saw would be “too much”. Hey, I’m all for funky fashion [you probably know that ;)], but I have this old school idea that “looking good” should be the operative phrase at the end.

Well, it looks to me like unfortunately due to the insane amount of pressure that the gov has put on people during the past 3 years, the goal has became to simply do something that defies the tight Islamic rules as much as possible, rather than looking good. And for the love of God, can somebody please explain to me the philosophy of the \ / eyebrows? I mean come on people, it’s sodding UGLY! So yeah… that’s what I’ve been seeing in the streets and the shopping malls… expensive brands and pretty ugly looks. =P

I have to mention though… it’s really quite a lot of fun doing the sight-seeing with TanTan and awesome friends. =) And I had quite a bit of laughs with TanTan in this small restaurant in Tandis… since basically everything that they had on their menu, they didn’t have in reality. =P I’ll post pictures soon….. Oh, and I felt near death at some point when I was near Tajrish street… I officially no longer can take Tehran’s polluted air… I was feeling so bloody sick… 

Labels: Aasemoon, Iran, Life, Tehran, Thoughts, Travel

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but flying to Iran and getting through to the IK Airport happened quite smoothly and without any trouble. =) I mean the whole IK Airport experience was quite unusually easy… Our luggage arrived with no delay, and our hand luggage + suitcases where only put through the scanner, all together, and no one opened ANY of our luggage.. they didn’t even tell us to take out our electronics, just the notebooks! And we just simply walked through the sensor thang, and no one checked our clothing… in fact no one even looked us in the face during the whole process! We were out of the Airport in about half an hour after our arrival!!!!! I mean… heck, when was the last time that happened in Iran?? =) Very nice surprise there….

Then Mahyar came after us and drove us [and all our suitcases, oh yeah! ;)] home. It was such a wondrous experience seeing Tehran again after 6 years.. and arriving home broke me into tears. Thanks to our beloved friends, our apartment [yes, we’re actually staying in our own home this time..] actually looked quite livable since the very moment we arrived.

Up to this moment, I’ve mostly been doing 2 things:

- Having fun with our friends who are coming here back to back to see us + going out with TanTan,

- Taking my old “stuff” out of closets, huge packages and storage… making decisions as to what will be kept and what will be thrown away, and re-packing what I’ll be sending to Switzerland… And by “stuff” I mean… all sorts of things…. from drawings of the 2 year old me, to my Nintendo games… to old pictures… to letters… to…. oh God… this part has not been very easy, I can tell you that…..

So I haven’t done a lot of Tehran seeing as of yet, and there’s a large ton of my friends that I haven’t had the chance to visit yet… but will be doing that in the coming days, and possibly after a short visit to Shiraz. =)

Will be posting updates here on regular basis [well, as regular as possible in here!], and photos will follow soon. ;)

Labels: Aasemoon, Friends, Iran, Life, Tehran, Thoughts

So, after a whole lot of searching and being as horribly picky as I usually am about my gear, I finally found me the perfect backpack to have support for my notebook, as well as the rest of my rather massive load of stuff. And to my un-surprise, it turned out to be Swiss Gear. Love it!

Labels: Thoughts, Weeee =D