Fri 12 Aug 2005
My blog/site was down since last weekend, when the hard disk in the server it runs from crashed. It is not a professional operation, but rather a server kept and maintained by a group of friends who share the costs. So, at first everyone thought it’s just something simple that would be fixed quickly, but it turned out that the biggest and newest hard disk in the server broke down. It is a 200 GB Maxtor bought just about six months ago.
Mon 1 Aug 2005
Yesterday I finally went to see this movie – “Bombon. El Perro”. And as I suspected judging from the reviews and what friends said I loved it. It’s basically a very simple story of a few days of life of simple men and a dog. All this set in contemporary Argentine, an impoverished country in deep crisis despite modern scenery where those less fortunate really struggle to survive.
But, there is another layer to all of this. The whole movie is “dualistic” in this sense, that it is so simple yet is speaks of the most complex problems of normal lives. After all, characters just try to get through life seeking happiness and avoiding suffering, just like we all. A subtle sense of stoic melancholy with which smiling “Coco” Villegas faces everything life throws at him remains as a vivid memory from this movie.
One of the high points of this movie is its music. It’s very positive, yet at time melancholic and plays very well with the pictures. It’s also worth noting that main characters are played by non-professional actors who even appear under their own names.
Highly recommended.
Tue 26 Jul 2005
It’s 17 km (10.5 miles) from where I live to where 4pi is located. It’s not the farthest stretch across Warsaw, but still it’s through the center and over the river. Since I’ve been doing some projects for them recently I have been there frequently. The most obvious way of getting there is, of course, by car. However, since I sold my car recently and don’t plan to buy a new one for a while I had to consider other methods. Naturally, I ended up using public transport a lot (after at least six years of never boarding a bus).
Sat 23 Jul 2005
A few days ago as I was eating breakfast I switched on a news channel and there was a short report from Germany about the state of… petrol stations along their border with Poland. It turns out that due to huge difference in the prices of fuel (both petrol and diesel) and lack of border (and duties) between the two EU members Germans go to Poland to fill up. En masse. The report pointed out that policies of big oil corporations regarding pricing make the situation even worse, since the petrol is cheaper in Berlin than in Frankfurt am Oder which is on the Polish border.