Rental Magica started very well, like a combination of Elfen Lied and Full Metal Alchemist. Unfortunately the magic is a lot more benign and not founded on anything interesting like in FMA, and the only connection to EL is the fact that the lead character is a nice guy surrounded by children looking female girls that have a crush on him.

Other than that, I've only watched the first 10 episodes. There was the potential of greatness, while the series explored the taboos of magic and what happens to mages trying to break them. Also there are a homunculus and a mechanical archenemy present. However, someone decided that it is better to fight evil with goodness and that in the end goodness should win, making the whole thing really silly.

I would recommend it to children only.

I got this game from a colleague of mine, something she labelled as strategy. Well, it was actually an RPG, and a pretty good one, too. Considering that it is rather old, it certainly goes up there in my games top. It is one of the games in the Vampire the Masquerade series, codenamed Redemption and released in 2000 by Activision.

Ok, the idea is that you are a crusader, left behind by your company due to severe battle trauma. A helpful and kind nun takes care of your wounds and makes you better. However, you soon find out that the city (of Prague) is plagued by monsters and undead creatures. As a devout follower of God's path (infidel! I kill you!), you get your mighty sword and crusader expertise and proceed on a debug mission. It would be pointless to go further from here, as the story evolves until you get in the year 1999 and in the cities of Prague, Vienna, London and New York.

The fun of the game is that you use both vampiric attacks and magic and a bit of strategic thinking in order to attain your goals. Starting out with a single character, you get to have up to four.

Now about the fast lane: how to finish the game as soon as possible. First of all try to equip your characters with the best armour and weapons you can find. At first you don't have a lot of money, but you find all kind of stuff when you kill monsters. Second of all, you will get to find a lot of rings and necklaces and bracelets that only improve APP(earance). You might think that wearing them will pimp your vampires, but Appearance is very important for one of the most crucial spells in the game: Enchantment. The other very important spells are: Feed, Blood Healing and Ice Statue. If you master these four spells you can defeat anyone. Unfortunately, Ice Statue will not be available until you defeat the Tremere, which is quite advanced in the game. Any spell that makes the target not attack will be as good, though. The next important spells are Awaken (wakes up a dead member of your group) and Walk the Abyss, which allows you to instantly transport to your save game place (the Haven) and store your objects and increase your stats. A good secondary spell is Spirit's Touch, which will identify the unknown objects you find.

Another important thing is to go to Options -> Controls and remove all spells from your group except auto healing. Otherwise your vampire buddies will gobble up blood like it's 12 years old Whiskey. And talking of control, near each character's picture there is a green light. Click on it and the guy will not follow you around like a dumbass, killing the people you are trying to feed upon or do magic tricks on.

And back to the fast lane: use Enchantment to control an enemy to fight the others around him when there are more than one foe. Then run in front of him with one of your group, so that he follows (or do that from the start if you can separate him from the others or if he is alone), then wait with another character with big Feed rating and, of course, Feed until the foe dies. In order for this to work, the little green lights must be off, otherwise they will follow and attack like idiots. In the case of monsters and non-blooded creatures, freeze them and kill them.

Also to note is that Christof's AI is more violent than for others. Even without his little green light, he will still attack stupidly. Another thing to note is that using the middle mouse button, the characters will attack with a slower, but stronger attack, optimal for frozen creatures or when they are fighting someone else in the group. Remember to keep your Feed guy empty by letting the others feed on him!

Ok, that's it. The game has a multiplayer option as well, but I haven't explored it yet. The movement AI is the worst part of the game. Also the story could have been more interesting. At some times I managed to enter unfinished portions of the game, where characters would just sit and not interact or where the dialogue would have been replaced by general options like "Threaten" "Leave Alone". Other than that, it's a pretty smooth, though linear, game.

If anyone is interested, there are three possible endings, and here are the YouTube links. Just make sure you want to see them before you finish the game or not.

Good Ending
Neutral Ending
Bad Ending

Update 11 Feb 2016: I've just taken another look at the VLC menu (version 2.2.0) and the way to get to the encoding is: Tools → Preferences →

• For 'simple' interface: Subtitles/OSD → Default encoding
• For 'all' interface: Input/Codecs → Subtitle codecs → Subtitles → Subtitle text encoding

I have been using VLC Video Lan Player for a long time, mostly for myself, since it can show instantly movies that are incomplete and gets past most video performance issues in Windows by mostly ignoring the default video renderings and using its own codecs.

But there was always this problem with the Romanian translations. The specific Romanian letters (diacritics/diacritice) appeared like weird characters and it got annoying. I thought a simple configuration setting might solve the problem, but it wasn't the case. In the extensive (and mostly incomprehensible) configuration interface there were all kinds of options regarding the subtitles, but not a default subtitle encoding.

Ok, so here is how to do it.

• Method 0: See above :) It's the GUI way of choosing the setting at Method 3
• Method 1. Load the movie from the Open menu option. You get to choose your subtitle file and also the subtitle encoding, in the Advanced Options menu. For Romanian all you have to do is choose is 8859-2 (Latin2). But this doesn't solve multiple movie files in the playlist or set a default encoding. This doesn't seem to work anymore
• Method 2. use the --subsdec-encoding=ISO-8859-2 setting in the VLC command line.
• Method 3. And the one that solved all my issues. Go to the folder <Operating System Drive>:\Documents and Settings\<Current User>\Application Data\vlc\ and open in a text editor the file vlcrc. Then search for the option subsdec-encoding, uncomment the line and change the Default to your encoding, for example ISO-8859-2.

That's it.

Mushishi is a strangely calming anime. It takes place in almost feudal Japan (they seem a lot more liberal and have access to some technology like microscopes and the mushishi talks about genetics in one episode) and follows Ginko, a man that can see the strange lifeforms that are all around us, called Mushi.

In the end the episodes are rarely tense, with no or almost no violence. The mushi themselves are not perceived as evil that must be killed, but as a part of the ecosystem. Unlike most mushishi (a sort of mushi hunter/doctor), Ginko, the lead character, seeks only to restore the balance between normal life and mushi life.

The anime itself takes place for only 26 episodes, all self contained, you could watch any of them in any order without losing any continuity. The manga is of course much longer and you can read it here.

The calm music and the elements of traditional Japanese life and history are most welcome for a leisurely time when you want to relax and take your mind of things.

I was building my nice little web app, you know: grids, buttons, ajax, stuff like that. And of course I had to create CSS classes for my controls, for example a button has the class of butt and the Send button has a class of buttsend. I agree it was not one of the most inspired CSS class name, but look what ajax made out of it:

One of my favourites blogs is The BÜKRESH Blog which boasts a number of excellent concise images, although rarely meaningful text. However, I found this particular entry having all the makings of a great article. It has it all: great pictures, ironic text and an unbelievable subject. It is written in Romanian, so I will try to translate it below. First visit the link and see the pictures. (and yes, those are real human bones)



First a bit of data that might help you understand what is going on: In the old center of Bucharest they recently found ruins from a previous time. I have no idea what time and what the ruins represent as I am not interested in archaeology, but bottom line they tore up a couple of streets and started digging underneath and expanding the site.

Gypsies are an ethnic minority in Romania, genetically linked to populations in India, and mostly shunned for their style of life, unclean living conditions and high criminality rate. They represent a maximum of 5% of the Romanian population and discriminating against them is illegal in Romania.

What the article is about is the way the archaeological site is being handled.

Translation:
Is it hard to describe the mixed feelings the medieval ruins in the Bucharest old center gave me. I passed by there for the first time (across the street from the Comedy Theater on Tonitza street) last week. In the space from the second image
there were 4 people - a 50 years old Gypsy man, sitting in a squatting position and smoking a cigarette, a Gypsy woman of the same age, with all the Gypsy clothing arsenal (I have nothing against them, quite the contrary, but I want this description as clear as possible), digging like she would be working the field, and another Gypsy girl, 15 or 16 years of age, kissing with her boyfriend who came to see her at work. In the top-left corner there was a pile of bones, a complete human skeleton, cranium included, and on the edge of the hole there were bags of food - lunch for the four workers. Yesterday I went there again and this time there was nobody there. I took the pictures you see. Today I passed through again and it was the same situation as yesterday. On the French street there were 10-15 workers digging, aged between 15 and 60 years old, multiple ethnicity and some of them were either drunk or very drunk. They wore no protection gear or uniforms. Some wore Adidas type shoes (and working in mud), no one had gloves or protective helmets. I asked them about the archaeological site and why there were hundreds of years old human bones laying around... They said they didn't know and that people had come before and taken some in big bags. I asked them if their bosses ever came to see them and they said that they do that, once or twice a day...

The firm that is handling the rehabilitation of the old center is called Sedesa and it's from Valencia. The money are sourced in a non-refundable credit (in other words free money) from the Dutch government, a credit from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and public funds (the city-hall, Sector 3 division).

I am concluding with these words taken from the Sedesa company site:

Sedesa is a solid business group with more than sixty years of experience and international activity. Its high level of specialisation has not only enabled the group to establish itself in numerous sectors, but also to carry out projects and infrastructure based on quality, respect for the environment and solid technological ability.

by Vlad Nanca on 05 December 2007

I am not the one to write essays on how "real men" behave or anything. But this article says it all: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7123460.stm. I have all the respect and admiration for Vitangelo Bini, even if he is too old to really lose anything by incarceration. He showed logic and respect for his wife. For her spirit, not her decaying body.

I always thought that if I get into the same situation, I would kill myself. But I wonder if this resolution is not stored in one of the first regions of the brain affected. Before I realise what is going on, I forget I always have this option. In situations like this I say screw the law and the hypocritical society that spawned them. Way to go, dude! This is how real men act.

Hey, a long time since I posted a song. Here is a Japanese rock+hip pop video for one of the soundtrack songs of Naruto.



And if you like it, listen some more on this MySpace site.

I remember reading Greg Bear books a while ago and thinking they were really cool. The coolness, of course, came from his hard sci-fi style, mixing good ideas with believable science. Now, after about a decade I suppose, I've decided to read another of his books and here is my review.

Darwin's Radio starts a little like Village of the Damned, but without the extraterrestrial origin, continues a bit like The Stand, without the religious mambo-jumbo, and ends in waiting for Darwin's Children, the next book in the series. The plot is about a major and sudden evolution of the species, without the X-Men powers.

My personal feel was that the writing is less than I wanted. The book seems shallow and uninteresting after reading Peter F. Hamilton. While the science is interesting, it also makes huge leaps of faith and I wouldn't put it behind Bear to end the story with a good versus evil battle. Was I too young to appreciate good writing, starved as I was of anything interesting in my life? Or is this book not so hot?

I will certainly read the next volumes, but I am a bit disappointed. I feel like I am watching a play after seeing a real good movie.

The third in this category of blog entries, this describes the few TV shows I have been watching lately. The previous entry can be found here.

House MD is a doctors show. A bit more interesting than E.R. and Grey's Anatomy because they actually focused on interesting characters and interesting medicine. However, after three seasons, the quirky intelligent doctor is just annoying, the supporting cast makes no sense and the medicine is becoming a joke. It's never lupus!

Prison Break is the new Lost. It had an interesting premise and I admit I watched it with pleasure for about a season and a half. Then it all went haywire. I predicted it, too... When people recommended the show I said "How the hell can you keep a prison break for 3 seasons?"; and the answer is that you can't. Not without bringing in mysterious government secret agencies with hidden and malevolent agendas. As acting goes, I like Dominic Purcell, interpreting the older brother, but I can't seem to see him in any decent show. You may remember him from John Doe, another clicheatic TV dead end.

Also in the list:
Numb3rs, even if the math has gone sour already and the show has basically turned into another pure police show. (good versus bad silliness)
Stargate Atlantis, which will probably end with this season without any other decent sci fi to replace it.
Battlestar Galactica, which was great, but moving towards boredom.
Regenesis probably won't get another season after season 3. It was never a great show, but it was decent, being Canadian and all :), with a bunch of virus hunters. It could have been a lot more scientific.
Grey's Anatomy is still on the market for my wife, but barely. A doctor show, but now it is very little about medicine and a lot about the human side of the characters; and who the hell wants a movie about people, completely overlooking the cool stuff happening near them?
Private Practice is an off shoot of Grey's Anatomy, but we never even started watching it.
Ugly Betty still sucks enormously and the wife still watches it.
Eureka. The second season waits on my harddrive, cobwebs on each file. Maybe if I am really bored...
Desperate Housewives takes the desperation way too far, probably reflecting the feelings of the screenwriters when watching the audience numbers fall.
A new season of Doctor Who will start in December.

He did it again! Or would it be better for me to say he has done it afore, as I am kind of moving backwards in the Peter F. Hamilton writings? Night's Dawn is a huge book, about 9Mb of pure text, divided into three parts purely out of paper formatting reasons, I am sure. So far, this is the best thing he has written, at least in my opinion.

Maybe the guy is the kind of writer who writes his best work first, then tries unsuccessfully to follow up. Not that any of his followups could be called a failure, it's just that Night's Dawn is really cool! I mean who can seriously deal with possession, necromancy, devil worship, witch hunting, vampires, werewolves, ghosts and demons, all in a future world in which humanity has conquered space an tries to attack the situation with science and rationality? Seriously! If this guy would have written the Bible, there would be no Muslims! (Ron Hubbard, eat your heart out!)

There isn't much else I can say. I certainly cannot summarize a book that spreads over about a dozen inhabited planets, all with their own history, socio-economic situations described and own characters to add plot (real plot) to the story. Right now I am terrified. I need to find the Greg Mandel trilogy, which is the last of the Hamilton big stories, and there are only two outcomes: a) I hate it, which would have wasted my time and trust in humanity; b) I love it, and then I go into withdrawal waiting for the last two volumes of the Void trilogy and whatever else he brilliantly writes in the future.

Bottom line: if you like Sci-Fi, you need to read this. Hamilton and the ReSharper guys are the only people I ever felt the need to send money to in order to apologize for my shameless Internet piracy.

Links:
Peter Hamilton's official site
Wikipedia's entry on the Night's Dawn trilogy
Peter F. Hamilton's entry in Wikipedia.

There are a lot of people in the world having problem with lateral parking. It is not only difficult to manage when you have nothing to go on but the little tiny images in the car mirrors, but stressful as well, as normally the procedure is done on a crowded street with drivers behind you urging you to do it faster.

Not a problem anymore! The Chinese have found the perfect way of parking in under 5 seconds! Here is a video tutorial on how to do it:



Here is an alternative solution.

Two months ago I wrote a post about the exotic fruits I found in a hypermarket in Sibiu, now it's time for additions, taken from the Bucharest Metro.


So here are the fruits I bought today:
the Maracuya
. It has the same feel as a fruit from my first post, the Kiwano. The taste, though, is very sour, like a lemon, and a little spicy. I could eat it, but I think people don't really eat it raw. The outer skin is hard, inedible and thick.
the Kaki fruit. It is very tasty, although it has a peary texture that I didn't quite like. It is a sweet banana tasting fruit.
the Cactus fruit has a sweet coating around the hard inedible seeds inside with a texture of baby food and taste like a not aromatic cantaloupe, similar to the Pepino. The seeds, though, make it less than pleasant to eat.
the Pepino mellon has a similar texture to the Kaki, but it has the taste of Cantaloupe, yet not so aromatic.
Now, the Papaya is an interesting tasting fruit. I am afraid my best approximation is still the cantaloupe, but the papaya also has its aromatic properties and the texture. Its aroma, though, is slightly different, more like banana. It has a big core of inedible seeds and the skin is also inedible. That makes the useful part of the fruit rather small.

In conclusion, one must definitely try the papaya and the kaki. The maracuya is the weirdest taste among all, not entirely pleasant, although I can try to eat it with sugar or something. The net suggests mixing the seedy content with water and sugar after letting the skin wrinkle.

I went to one of the Metro hypermarkets in Bucharest and I was pleasantly surprised by the variety of stuff one can find there, as compared with other hypermarkets that seem to be supplied from the same sources. Also check my next entry, I will write about exotic fruits there.

In this post I will talk about calamari! There is an entire store dedicated to fish in Metro, filled with a lot of nice looking and/or packaged treasures of the sea. My picks were swordfish stakes and one big calamari. Well, not that big... it's no architeuthis, but it will do.

I went home, made a longitudinal incision, threw away the awkward looking organ inside (which I suspect had a digestive function) and the eyes and beak, then threw it in boiling butter after putting a bit of spice over it. I removed it after 2-3 minutes and ate it. Yes, it's that simple! The taste is not strong, but really special and it was totally worth the buy.

Warning, as read from the googling on calamari: Calamari is either to be cooked in 2-3 minutes or in more than 30. Everything in between turns it to rubber. So, if you are like my wife and you want to spit it after you taste it, you might want to try the long cooking calamari recipes out there. :)

I saw this chick sing "They" on Mtv. She was stripping in space in that video, a thing that I found a bit distasteful, even if it did link to a Jane Fonda scene in a film called Barbarella, Queen of the Galaxy. But that's the MTV world: strip if you want to get noticed. True enough, I haven't seen any other of her videos on any music television since, but then I stopped watching them.

Jem (real name Jemma Griffiths) is a Welsh singer and this is (I guess) the original video of "They". She is young, beautiful, but also has a nice voice and sound. Check her out at her official web site or the MySpace site.