Posts from September, 2009

The Beauty of Typing More

Well, that’s all gone to shit.

After reading Atwood’s tweet: “even Hungarians are not using hungarian notation any more.”[sic] — I got to thinking.
People have stopped writing properly.

I know what Hungarian Notation is, sillies. And I know it’s has nothing to do with grammar or spelling things right. But then, few things today have to do with proper spelling. And I’m not talking about English, either. I’m talking about mother tongues. The beautiful ones, with funny letters and groovy sounds.

Languages will tildes,breves, carons, cedillas, circles and other diacritics. Those are the ones I’m talking about. They’re not dying. Their writing is.
The process itself is called Romanization. It basically means that you can only use the letters found on standard qwerty keyboards plus a few French-ish letters.

The Romanians have long adopted this trend. Now, most of our online writing would sound funny if read out loud and with no interpretation. The Hungarians too have fallen to this group. It’s understandable, since their letters are damn funny and tough to type. The Dutch, too. Their cosmopolitanism is what caused that stroked out o to vanish from the online. And the French? Well, they’ve been eager to leave all those damn accents behind since the day they were forced to start using them.

The Ruskies, zhe Germans, the Norse and the Asians have yet to be Romanized. And that’s good!
It makes inter-cultural communication a bitch, but it’s well worth it. People will have to study, translators will be hired, eyes will be pleased. That’s what the Japanese say when they’re asked why they don’t switch to the Latin charset: ‘Ours is so damn prettier!’

Granted, adding the special letters is cumbersome, at best. And sometimes, the wrong letters are added. Sometimes we’re just too lazy to switch between keyboard layouts. Sometimes, money gets printed with the wrong diacritics because of bad character support on Macs. Some bastards will write in English because they just feel like it.

Whatever our excuse is, it stands. But we’re still on a very slippery slope.

And yeah, Jeff Atwood’s twitter account is @codinghorror. A must-follow for any developer.

Posted on the 30th of September, 2009 | 6 Brilliant Comments

Football Blogmeet

Boy did we ever play football.

There were three types of players on the field:
The girls, with unbeatable tactics, and desirable decorations.
The boys, who played football when they were little, had fancy footwork and could score with their head.
And then there were the pussies, who spent their childhood pastime doing something else, apparently.

Naturally, I was the only one who fell into the latter category. That, and my disputed red/pink t-shirt accounted for my being on the girls’ team.
I was quickly joined by Moroi as goalkeeper and Cata, to even things our against te lads’ team.

I managed to score the first goal for the lasses, when it was three-null, after a very inspired pass from Dora. That was awesome, considering I had not scored since I was twelve or thirteen.

We had our fair share of injuries. Moroi was the first to fall, because of his bad knee. Then I had a massive collision with Dani. I was ok, but his nose was broken after that. I’m still sorry about that one, Dani. Rob, the blogless bit a chunk out of Cata’s shoulder when they collided, but they were both ok five minutes later.

The final score was ~~14 or 15 all~~… 10 all apparently, but that didn’t really matter. The funnies, the ‘marking’, the joy and the continuous running, or walking, we had outweighed the official result.

All stinky and sweaty, we then moved to Porto Arte. I got there and left right away, since my parents had just returned from their trip. So, while the footballers were all getting tipsy, celebrating their sore muscles, I was home, getting drunk with my folks.

I had a great time, all sores included. So I’d like to thank everyone. In no particular order, the players: Andrea, ily, Anda, Dora, Dani, Cata, Tomata, Paul, Ovi, Richie, Nuzzu, Luci, Rob, Moroi and yours truly.

I’m now waiting for the official ‘Zelist‘ from the blogmeet, the cheering fans list, and for pics from the game.

Posted on the 28th of September, 2009 | 10 Coarse Comments

GAMER

Gamer is just wow!

Some years from this exact moment… is how the movie starts. I just loved that line. Plus, the theme song of the movie is Marilyn Manson’s version of Sweet Dreams. Quite fitting, I’d say. Moreover, the movie stars Gerard Butler and Michael C. Hall.
After 300, I just wanna ~~shag~~ meet Gerard Butler. And I loved Michael’s acting and character in Six Feet Under.

The whole idea of the movie is totally new to me. People controlling other people via nanocells. Kinda like the Matrix, with a nice twist. But that’s not what impressed me the most. What I was blown away by was the dynamism of the camera shots. It really felt like Quake, on steroids. If you’re not careful, and the cinema’s decent, the frames themselves grab you by the ass and make you dodge bullets.

Also, the way in which humanity is portrayed, the occasional funnies and the intimacy you’re fed make for one big bonus. It’s definitely a ballsy movie for ballsy people, and is well worth a Saturday at the movies.

Did I mention Gerard Butler’s in it?

Image credit, and more info: imdb.

Posted on the 26th of September, 2009 | 8 Exquisite Comments

Twitter versus Yahoo!

When I switched from IRC to Yahoo!, the one thing that was most annoying was how intrusive IM windows became.
You’d be minding your own business and then, suddenly, the center of your screen was covered by a chat window saying ‘Hi’. Well, I eventually got used to that.

Then came the Age of Mass. Skillfully tailored mass messages, made out to look like they’ve been meant only for you. And then, people just got lazy and started blurbing out all the inanities they could come up with. All ending in ’sorry for the mass’. It was a dark age for communication.

Then twitter came along.
All the messages were mass messages, they were meant to be mass messages. You knew that upfront. The one monumental advantage? you could check your mass messages whenever you felt like it. I don’t know about you, but I like most things to be unobtrusive.

Also, twitter has reduced the number of chain-mail messages I receive. It’s way easier to drop a bit.ly link into a tweet.
So, even though twitter still annoys a lot of people, it has brought some good into this world. Whether you realize it or not.

Now, when I get a mass message, I don’t mind anymore because a warm feeling of nostalgia sets in.

Posted on the 26th of September, 2009 | 4 Extraordinary Comments

Open House

Yeah, that’s right. I’m home alone this weekend.

So, while you poor saps are out, paying good, hard-earned cash for your drinks, I’m enjoying a home-made Cuba Libre. Also, I’m TNM.

The thing is: you can come over. My address is written in full on my facebook profile, and with a little guidance from me, I’m sure you’ll make it.

You can drop by any time starting today and ending Sunday at noon. I do need to get ready for the big match; you know?
This is an open invitation to anyone who wants me to mix them a drink or watch me code in the nude.

One piece of bad news, though. My microwave’s busted, so we’ll have to do without.
Bonus points if you have a guitar and amp! Or drums. Or beer.

Posted on the 25th of September, 2009 | 2 Intelligent Comments

The Women of Timisoara

… are pussies!

Well, ok, not all. Tomata, ily, Anda and Dora have balls, apparently.

As you may know, there’s a football match coming up this Sunday, lads versus lasses. The lads’ team is all set, naturally. The girls, initially numerous and fond of the proposal, are now nowhere to be found.

Why?

I only managed to get ONE other girl thinking about coming. It’s way easier to get laid with a total stranger than to persuade a girl to play in a football match. Football match for fun, at that. Because having fun is what it really is all about.

If the hilarious image of me, all sweaty, out of breath and in shorts is not enough, then do it for the ladies, who need a teammate. That means you! Or your girlfriend.

Update:

Andrea has joined the lass’ team! Andrea, aka the ONE other girl I got thinking about coming, also has balls, so us guys are screwed! Thank, hon!

Posted on the 24th of September, 2009 | 23 Remarcable Comments

SONY. Like No Other

Ten years ago, I kinda won a SONY Discman. “Discman” is so old, my spell-checker does not pick it up as a valid word

The CD Player came with its pair of earphones, obviously. Simple, black, stereo, branded earphones.

Throughout the years, those earphones have been tugged at, sat on, rained on and have had their fair share of beer dipping.
I don’t even want to think about how many hours they’ve played music. And almost at max volume at that.

They still work great!

They’ve been shared with so many girlfriends, they’ve been shared with so many girls that were just cute, they’ve been shared with good friends. They’ve been close to my skin for so long, greased up with my own sweat. They’ve been with me on the bike and to the seaside. I’ve used them with my PC and with my laptop. Now, it’s my iPhone’s turn to enjoy their 3.5mm jack.

That’s not all. Before the iPhone, I was the proud owner of three Sony Ericsson phones. A K700i, a K750i and a P1i. My first digital camera? SONY W40. My first DSRL? SONY α200.

Anyone care to buy me one of their grossly overpriced laptops, please?

Posted on the 22nd of September, 2009 | Feeling Smart? Comment!

What’s Your Damage?

Cuba Libre, one of my favorite drinks, is essentially rum mixed with coke, some ice, and a few slices of lemon or lime. Easy to make, yeah?

Last night, I asked for a Cuba Libre made with sugarfree coke and I got a Cuba Libre with sugarfree coke, ice, sugar on the bottom of the glass and a sugar frosted lemon wedge?

Seriously, what’s your damage?

And this happened in The Irish Pub, one of my favorite get-together spots.

Posted on the 21st of September, 2009 | 8 Sexy Comments