March 30, 2003
ABBA spontaneity
I watched a VH1 special about ABBA's fans today and now the ABBA Top 10 is on, and i am listening to it in the background. The TV is behind me and the music is a comfortable volume. I just found myself typing an email while dancing with my feet and moving my shoulders, and singing along to Super Trooper.
I just realized that this is probably the only music in the world, that really grabs me and grooves me and moves me, any time, any day, any volume, any setting. There are lots of classic disco tunes that i like, that i will sing along to, that will uplift me, but ABBA is the only thing that immediately captures me, subconciously, no matter what mood i am in and what place or time. Amazing, really, what these 4 people did to music!
Lomo experiments
I got a new roll of film from the LOMO developed, and when i saw the pcitures, i got such a thrill! Look at the Beetle headlights! And the clarity of the Budapest view! Such excitement!
Me and Bence - reflection on a Beetle :)
This is the same view that i showed you in a fake lomo, now here's the real thing.
Killing time while waiting for Bence's train to arrive - so easy with a lomo!
Just some silly playing with chair silhouettes in a coffee house. This is not a great shot, but somehow i still like it.
March 29, 2003
Happy Springtime!
Last weekend i went out with Bence and a few friends and at night when going home we were freezing, it was -2 C (28 F). Since Tuesday, the weather took a complete turn, and now it's spring and beauuuuuuuuuuuuutiful! Sun, blue sky, and 20 C (68 F). And all this happened about overnight, very dramatic change. While i applaud the change, i can't stop wondering if these abrupt changes in weather in recent years are all a part of a big picture, that is not so beautiful ecosystemwise? :|
So how do i celebrate spring? Cleaning my windows to actually be able to see the wonderful new world through them, wearing spring clothes, leaving the windows open for hours and hours, admiring the beautiful blue of the sky (and lomoing it), and coloring my hear chestnut reddish-brown. :) A new haircut is also coming soon. It's always the first spring-celebration thing i do after cleaning the windows. Happy Springtime!
March 23, 2003
First real lomo photos
Yay, the first lomos are here! I scanned the best from my first two rolls of film. I have the third one developed but not scanned yet, there are really funky clubbing photos on that one. (coming soon)
Click on each thumbnail for the bigger version. The last one is a bonus: a lomo mirror project photo!
March 20, 2003
War
I am really pissed at Bush. As much as i would hate living under Saddam in Iraq, this is definitely not the way he should be dealt with.
Hungary is supporting the US in the sense that we provided our air space for fly over and some iraqi opposition people are being trained at the US base in Hungary, but in general, the country is against this war, no matter how many times Ari Fleisher mentions Hungary in "the list of the willing". In today's briefing he said that 1.18 billion people were a part of that coalition. Well, he is wrong. While the givernment of Hungary decided to open up air space, the majority of Hungarians, including me, are definitely not supporting Bush's personal war game, thank you very much.
March 19, 2003
Alaska saved
Yay! Senate Rejects Oil Drilling in Alaskan Refuge
At least one piece of good news among all the war preparations...
Beetle police
This is what some of the police cars look like in Vienna, Austria. I wouldn't mind so much if one like this stopped me on the road...
Funny thing on amazon
I was browsing amazon UK yesterday and saw this invitation to buy used address books and more:
I thought it was funny... they should call them second hand or something. A used address book has little value unless you're a direct marketer...
March 18, 2003
I have a LOMO!!!
No more fakes, no more fakes, today i bought a LOMO camera! It's an old-school, before-the-lomomania-began model, i have no idea when it was made, but it's not new. :) (I bought it at a used camera shop for $45, which was really cheap compared to the $180 it goes for at the official lomographic stores...)
I love it, love it, love it. I am shooting like crazy, and will have the first film developed tomorrow. I can't wait! Time to dust off the scanner too... i haven't used it for a while.
What's really funny is getting used to actually having to look into a camera's viewfinder when taking photos. And the clicks the camera makes when it's exposing the film. Ah, the wonders of photography... I should get out my Canon SLR too, and use it sometimes, i haven't shot with it since i bought the digital camera about a year ago.
March 16, 2003
Canadiana
It's official - only pending a visa application, that is - i will be spending almost 4 months in Vancouver, Canada starting from July. I am very very very excited.
Ever since i could make sense of maps, i have been dreaming of living abroad. Age 14 i decided i want to spend a high school year abroad. Didn't work out. Age 17 i wanted to work in a volunteer program abroad. Didn't get the scholarship. Age 21 i wanted to spend a semester abroad. My ******* school vetoed it in the last minute. And now after months of organising it and waiting for the decision, i got the OK to spend my internship in Canada. The extra joyful part of it is that my sister lives there with my family, and i only see them every 1-2 years, and now i will spend months with them. Yay!
Here is the top 5 things i am looking forward to seeing/doing:
1. Going on a whale watching trip like i did 4 years ago when i was there to visit. An experience i will never forget and can't wait to relive.
2. Spending hours in the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens.
3. Going to Granville Island and browsing the lovely shops and market there.
4. Riding the Sky Train and enjoying the view.
5. Flying to Vancouver and getting to see the arctic icy ocean, the vast flat areas in Northern Canada with the ocassional plume of smoke signaling people living in the middle of it, the Rockies, and finally the beautiful descent to Vancouver with the open sea to the west, the bustling city underneath, the huge volcanic Mount Baker to the south and the snowy mountains to the north.
March 10, 2003
Fine cooking and garlic extravaganza
On a brighter note: i finally found a cooking magazine that's not boring: Fine Cooking. They have great recipes and good instructions and tips that actually teach you how to cook. YAY! Being the impulse buyer that i am, i immediately bought a back issue that has a supposedly genius article about baking chocolate chip cookies (i didn't have much luck with baking them before), and i signed up for a trial issue. They send it surface mail so i won't get it till 2 months from now ... ah, the anticipation will kill me!
Today, to fight my horrible cold i cooked garlic soup (yesterday i had Spaghetti aglio e olio (spaghetti with lots of garlic and olive oil). I found the recipe online that was just what i wanted, easy to cook, yummy creamy taste: cook 1 cup garlic cloves, 1 cup of diced potatoes, 1 cup chopped carrot and 2 1/2 cups veggie broth, and blend in a blender. Very very yummy!
I hope all the garlic will work to fight the bacteria or virus that's making me ill. Cobined in the two meals i have now consumed 3 small and 1 giant (believe me, it was huge - like a larger onion) garlic heads. (No, i don't plan to go among people in the following day or so.)
Cold :(
Just 5 weeks after my last one, i am again suffering from a cold, and i am sooooo fed up with being sick all the time! I am feeling miserable.
:(
March 05, 2003
Fake blogs are bad
It was bound to happen.... some genious marketer at Pepsi came up with an advertising campaign based on fake blogs and paying bloggers with T-shirts to promote their new drink. I don't think it's gonna work, for obvious reasons... First, blogs are there to break information manipulations like this. Secong, blogs are about honesty and people and their thoughts and feelings and whatnot that they *want* to express on their little place of the web.
A few weeks ago the largest portal in Hungary started running a blog sponsored by Axe, the deodorant maker. They run entertainment related news in a semi-blog-like fashion, and i am totally annoyed by it. First, blogging in Hungary is not common at all, so people will get a bad and completely false impression of the word blog by it, and second it's not even a blog, so why call it that?? It's so annoying.
And another one...
This weekend in Vienna:
(click for Parking Spots page)
Can you see how addicting this is? :)
March 03, 2003
030303
Today while sitting on the train and wishing i was home already, i stared at my train ticket and the date 03-03-01, when i purchased it. I noticed that in a few days the date will look 03-03-03, which will be very very cool. And only now, half a day later, while checking out other blogs, did i realize that that very cool date is actually today. Just one more piece of evidence that long and boring train journeys are bad for your brain.
