Lesson never learnd

What recently unfolded in Norway reminds us, yet again, that any kind fundamentalism or extremism is doomed to result in catasrophe in which the lives of innocent people is most often lost. And it really doesn't matter what ideology, culture, up-bringing, geographical location or religion you have, the outcome is pure disaster. Unfortunately, this was not the first of its kind and I amvery much afraid that it won't be the last.

What the...?

Perfect weather, not too warm, not too cold, with a tiny dash of cool breeze, slightly cloudy to cover the strength of sun rays, perfectly cut grass and well done clay for the infield, an up-raised pitching machine, lots of new balls, cage, electricity, bats...the stage is set for a good sweating and everything you could possibly need for a wonderful practice or intersquad game is available. How many present? 4! Only 4 people showed up for the practice yesterday and that includes the coach. What the hell?!?! We ended up with 120 swings each and that's about it. I suppose people were on 'vacation'....my god!...so much for the attitude of team with winning ambitions.

Unbelievable!

By 2107 tonight, it has gone exactly one year since my sunshine was born.

Oh man!

I just can't believe how fast it has gone; probably the fastest year of my life! Once again, I am speechless, I wish I could only freeze the time, right here, right now.

Oh my!

It is amazing that how a series of tiny, unrelated, careless and stupid events can ruin an entire entity.

It's just bloody amazing!

Fortune, fame, mirror vain

No one writes to me.

No one reads this.

"No one writes to the Colonel."

And yet, the Colonel checks his mail every day, sometimes twice a day...

Cold water

Memory: After a hard fought basketball game, I used to head to the shower room at the back of the locker room and seldom took a shower there. Instead, I opened the tap and let the water ran till it got cold (this was a pleasant waiting) and I drank endlessly from it "the way that camels close in on water!" I then washed my face, arms up to elbow, armpits and back of my neck, the drops of cold water ran down my body...an amazing uncomfortable feeling. Slowly I dried myself and without saying much words, I let myself sink very smoothly into a state of mental stand-by and never said much while others were usually making a lot of noise by talking trash or pure nonsense with the never-ending voice of gym caretaker in the background bugging us to leave the locker room ASAP since it was either too late and he wanted to catch his ride home or it was ladies' practice.

After heading out from the gym, we crammed in a few cars there were available and went some place to grab a bite and chill out; to sip slowly a large cold drink which tasted as sweet as victory.

From The Hurt Locker

Colonel Reed: You the guy in the flaming car, Sergeant James?

Staff Sergeant William James: Afternoon, sir. Uh, yes, sir.

Colonel Reed: Well, that's just hot shit. You're a wild man, you know that?

Staff Sergeant William James: Uh, yes, sir.

Colonel Reed: He's a wild man. You know that? I want to shake your hand.

Staff Sergeant William James: Thank you, sir.

Colonel Reed: Yeah, how many bombs have you disarmed?

Staff Sergeant William James: Uh, I'm not quite sure.

Colonel Reed: Sergeant?

Staff Sergeant William James: Yes, sir.

Colonel Reed: I asked you a question.

Staff Sergeant William James: Eight hundred seventy-three, sir.

Colonel Reed: Eight hundred! And seventy-three. Eight hundred! And seventy-three. That's just hot shit. Eight hundred and seventy-three.

Staff Sergeant William James: Counting today, sir, yes.

Colonel Reed: That's gotta be record. What's the best way to...go about disarming one of these things?

Staff Sergeant William James: The way you don't die, sir.

Colonel Reed: That's a good one. That's spoken like a wild man. That's good.


Source: imdb.com

The Big 4

I was at the Big 4 concert 2 days ago, a very impressive line up that included Anthrax, Megadeth, Slayer and Metallica. We entered the Ullevi arena at around 1730 and when we left, it was 0015 or something. Obviously, Metallica was the last act and they played for a good 2 hours non-stop. Others played for one hour and there was a roughly 30 minutes break between each of them. One day before the concert, I realized that the Swedish national TV i.e. SVT was going to show the whole concert live, one of the few things that can only happen in Sweden. I remember that they did the same for Iron Maiden concert back in 2005. I am sure I would have gone to the concert had I known this before, but I'm sure glad that I did specially now that I think back and remember that I missed the Sonicsphere festival last year in Istanbul despite buying the 3-day pass and flight tickets. Anyway, here's my take on the show:

Anthrax:

I myself have never been much into them, so I didn't care for their performance much. The sound quality was not good neither and the only guy that I knew from the band i.e. Scott "NOT" Ian was not there. Andreas Kisser of Sepultura was with them instead and the highlight of their performance was when they played "Refuse/Resist"shortly. I just noticed one of their songs which is called "Antisocial".

Megadeth:

They were a major disappointment despite having a quite good track list which included the likes of "Holy Wars", "Hangar 18", "Peace sells", "Symphony of Destruction", "Trust" (the opening song) and "In my darkest hour". The sound quality was bad and I could barely hear Mustaine's voice. Although Ellefson was also there, they looked not so excited throughout their performance and conveyed little energy to the people.

Slayer:

Same ol usual stuff with a not so good track list. Of all the famous hits (or my favorites) they played only "War Ensemble", "South of Heaven" and "Raining Blood". Kerry King claimed that he had many technical problems in the beginning of the show and I noticed that Dave Lombardo was kind of arguing with behind the stage staff at one or two occasions while playing drums. Tom Araya looked very strange as he was at times smiling with no reason and his few attempts to engage with people were lame and unsuccessful. Jeff Hannemann was not present due to a spider bite (I discovered later) and they had brought a guy from Exodus which was OK. The other tracks were unknown for me but they rocked pretty hard in total.

Metallica:

Despite being commercial and very mainstream, they were by far the best of the night. At one point, I was thinking to myself that even if they had started in 1981, it has been 30 freaking years that they are doing this and that itself is something. James, Lars, Kirk and even Rob played hard and rocked the whole town with great energy. The track list was:

1. Hit the lights: massive song for opening the concert! 

2. Master of puppets

3. The shortest straw

4. Seek & destroy

5. Welcome home (Sanitarium)

6. Ride the lightning

7. The memory remains

8. All nightmare long

9. Sad but true

10. The call of Ktulu: the fact that they played an instrumental song was really cool but I would have prefered "Orion" or "To live is to die"

11. One

12. For whom the bell tolls: I went crazy for this one!

13. Blackened

14. Fade to black

15. Enter sandman

16. Am I evil: They brought all the other bands on stage to play this one, yet again Mustain's could not be heard at all and I noticed that no one from Slayer was up there. I read in the paper the day after that Kerry King said they decided not to show up since they changed the song from "So What" to "Am I evil" in the last second which I find was pure BS since they had played this song together with other bands in Big 4 in other places.

17. Damage Inc.

18. Creeping death: a great song for closing

Of course, I would have put up another track list had they left it to me but I was very happy at the end. One cool aspect with them was that they always put some of the not-so-well known tracks in the list and not insist much on the latest material. It was an excellent concert nonetheless.

First day of parental leave

Today, I officially started my first day of 4 month parental leave and it started off not as smooth as I was hoping for: woke up with sore throat and after working for a good 3 hours non-stop trying to get things in order in the house and one hour of unsuccessful bout to put the kid into sleep, I noticed that not only I have to change the diapers but also due to an unfortunate 'leakage', all my white shirt and my brand new pants are stained with stool...one hell of a way to kick things off!