Alice in wonderland

"Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves."

- Matthew 10:16

The fridge

It is almost always cold in the fridge. Every now and then, the door opens and the temperature goes up locally, but generally, it's cold. The coolness doesn't let anything go bad or corrupt. This causes that the fruits, the food, the drinks etc have much longer lifetime. They are cold, not that they are cold by nature, some are actually, but they're kept in the cold environment which makes them cold... and healthy.

Things don't move much in fridge. Not very often, something is moved from one level to another but other than that, it is very stationary. It is not like the supermarket where as for the fruits for example, there are lots of them from everywhere in the world in the fruit section and keep on coming and going. When their life is over, they are moved out and thrown to trash. They will be eventually replaced by a younger one.

It is also dark in the fridge. At the same time that the door opens, the lamp turns on and it would be light. Depending on how long the door is open, the light lasts. Sometimes it is open for a short while and sometimes it is open longer. That is normally when many new-comers arrive. When the door is closed, it’s dark and cold again.

There are not lots of them in the fridge, just a few representatives from everywhere, every corner in the world. Their numbers are very limited as the space is limited.

Life in the fridge is very safe. Nothing happens to the food except being gradually consumed and getting cold. There are no threats, no plague, no nothing. As it’s not so much action, it is very boring.

Life in the fridge is very boring.

The day that never comes

Is the title of the 4th track in the latest Metallica album "Death Magnetic" and its first released single.

Reminder: This album is supposed to be back in the good old heavy/thrash metal genre done by another producer than Bob Rock who was one of the main figures behind hard rock taste of those albums in the past except St. Anger

It starts brilliantly with a taunting horror movie rhythm, something that could surely be found somewhere in "Ride The Lightning" but then comes the sounds of guitars with kind of trademark hard rock (Load/Reload) rhythm and is followed shortly by the main rhythm assisted excellently with Lars' drums. James starts with slow/soft voice which reminds us how good is voice is on a general scale!

Born to push around
Better just stay down
You pull away,
He hits the flesh,
You hit the ground

Mouth so full of lies
Tend to black your eyes
Just keep them closed
Keep praying
Just keep waiting

Here comes the chorus and everything takes a turn and gets rough with almost the same tempo

Waiting for the one
The day that never comes
When you stand up and feel the warmth
But the sunshine never comes

No the sunshine never comes

Slow again and back to the same riff...just beautiful rhythm

Push you cross that line
Just stay down this time
Hide in yourself
Crawl in yourself
You'll have your time
God I'll make them pay (typical James' sound effect...yeah yeah!)
Take it back one day (here you could easily imagine James' face turning a bit big bad wolf or something)
I'll end this day
I'll splatter color on this gray

Back to chorus again...rough and fast drum beats but at the end, instead of no the sunshine never comes (ca. 3:51), it all changes to completely another track with different riff and tempo which is quite OK as a separate track but has no coherency whatsoever with what has been played before. It feels like that the writers/producer remembered that this is supposed to be in Death Magnetic and it is still too soft and all the ingredients have to be added as fast as possible not thinking too much of the whole picture. You realize that you haven't put too much salt in your pasta exactly when it is about to be "al-dente" so you rush with salt and you end up with salty pasta or something weird. The peak of weirdness (and mediocrity if you will) is when James screams

This I swear
This I swear

and after that it continues with a upbeat tempo, something like Whiplash, with its usual elements and fast riff and Kirk's typical lead and stuff...back to Kill'EM All...and it finishes accordingly, nothing special, nothing new, still OK but not as attractive as the first part

Overall: A+ first part, C- second part, total B+

The video is also kind of a disappointment, starts with 2 soldiers (supposedly in Afghanistan) sitting in the back of a truck ridding in a desert while at times it is cut to the band playing in the same location. They come under attack from out of nowhere, they seek refuge by the road side, one of them is injured, a rescue helicopter finally arrives while injured solider faints at times and the other tries to keep him awake. Then their small platoon comes across a small car with a man and a woman who need help and there's all this lame suspense and fear if they are (particularly the woman) suicide bombers or not but at the end the lead soldier gets a deep eye contact with the woman who is wearing burqa and he trusts her and they help them start their car.

It all seems like that they chose this premise just because US is involved in a unpopular (and failed?) war and it's just on everybody's mind as a hot topic, it draws everyone's attention. As a whole, the video is totally worthless and doesn't have any value whatsoever

Overall: D-

La fin d'une histoire d'amour

1.

“This is the end...my only friend, the end”

2.

Time: about 0930, early fall, 1989
Place: The courtyard, Alborz High School, Tehran

I had just left the exam hall after a mid-term exam and was talking with my best friend as we came across two boys whom we didn’t know and were playing basketball. My friend suddenly asked if we could join them and they quickly agreed to play a 2-on-2. Neither of us were basketball players but I said to myself I’d give it a shot just to try something new and we played for a while.

What happened there changed my life in a very profound way. I fell deeply in love with that game and the rest is a just another love story with the usual ingredients i.e. pain and joy, happiness and sorrows, pride and satisfaction, achievement and failure and last but not least friendships and rivalries…

3.

On 3rd of Dec. 2008, I was having a miserable day on the court. My shots were way off, missing easy lay-ups, incredible turn-overs everywhere, lack of ball handling, low agility and bad overall condition and of course lots of pain in my ankle. All these created a massive disappointment in the control room up there. Add to that anger, confusion, lack of judgment, loss of concentration all mainly caused by this chronic ankle injury that had been taunting me over the past years and to a much higher extent recently (the one that pushed me to the door of operating room only to chicken-out in the very last minute!)

All of a sudden it struck me that, if I get pass this season in a decent way i.e. average 15-20 pts, 20-25 minutes, 7-8 rebounds and 60-70% on FT with a 70-80% presence at the practices, if I accomplish all these in this season (I believe that I was fully capable of doing that), then I can sit back and say goodbye for good. I don’t know where I got this thought in the middle of all that unstable state of mind and body. If only my injury would have allowed me to get through this in that manner, then it would have been all over. After all, I had finally found a team with a possible good position for me after such a long while and it felt right time to do so. I just wanted to finish with style, with dignity against all odds.

If only...

I injured myself again on the ankle only a few minutes short of the end of the practice and needless to say, the castle of dreams collapsed in despair.

That was indeed the end of a very long love affair. The love which was not lost, as I had stated before, it was totally gone! My ankle got better after a while which means that it returned to its normal sick state but when that happened, I realized that I would never be able to make that final push, something that I craved for in order to convince myself for the last time and come into terms for this farewell.

3.

When you start thinking about failure, you have already failed. Failure is not a choice. Failure n’existe pas! The concept of kamikaze or benzai charge, I think, originates from this mindset and approach. You’d rather die than fail. It’s the crystallization of “Bushido” code. It is straight, honorable, honest and courageous.

I failed because, in my mind, I was already thinking about the end of the battle, not seeing the fact that the battle never ends. There is no end for that, it’s an everyday war going on which we happen to call it “life”.

I should have never given in, I should have never surrendered. Now it’s all over...for good.

4.

“This is the end...beautiful friend
This is the end...my only friend, the end

This is the end“

Along the edge

"I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor...that's my dream...that's my nightmare...crawling...slithering...along the edge of a straight...razor...and surviving."

-Colonel Walter E. Kurtz