Ali's Journal

5:24pm: Planned on doing this while Zerochan was over, sadly it didnt happen.
Doing it in a bit with a few friends.

2:02pm: Sexy Beast

To celebrate managing to not clutter up the flist of those who follow me(my last LJ post was 31 weeks ago) I shall post a picture of me.

The beard is gone in a few hours.

1:12pm: Travel
Been quite busy lately with leaf stuff and travel.

Did a three city trip to the US around GDC and after that I had to travel to places like Munich for Modern Warfare 2 and Helsinki for a Finfacts press tour that lasted for 5 days.
Inbetween we had some local events(not all of which I attended) and next week all going well I should be in the US again for a 10 day stay around E3.

Should be fun, its been a while since I did the E3 thing(for several reasons) so I am looking forward to heading back to LA now.

1:07am: Star Trek
Despite some iffy parts and stuff I didnt like all that much I can say I thoroughly enjoyed the new Star Trek movie.

11:08pm: Buddha Collapsed Out Of Shame

Wonderfull movie yet depressing in a lot of ways.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1094627/

Unusual use of kid actors to criticize the adult Taliban, 7 December 2007

 

This is an unusual film, but not a film that can be considered a major work of cinema. The Iranian film is shot on Afghan locations very close to the spot where the fundamentalist Muslim Taliban destroyed the centuries-old rock hewn gigantic statue of Buddha. Had it existed today, it could have been a modern wonder of the world. Hence the title--"Buddha collapsed from shame". The film location probably has not a single Buddhist--at least officially. It is habited by gentle, peace loving Muslims terrorized by fundamentalist Muslims. Women are forced to wear burkhas--to cover their hair. If the women use lipstick, they are brutally punished, even stoned to death, after being given water to drink before they die! Girls are not allowed to attend school, while boys are. The film begins with the documentary footage of the destruction of the Buddha statue.

The film is an interesting film for several reasons. It is directed by a 19-year-old girl--daughter of a famous Iranian director. Like Sofia Coppola, her family must have encouraged her at every step.

The movie is equally interesting because a Muslim director is criticizing the Taliban.

The most valuable part of the film is that the criticism is indirect as perceived from a child's perspective. The entire story is told by a lovely, persistent, young girl child who yearns to learn to read and attend school, and makes intelligent use of her mother's lipstick and four eggs taken from her home to attain her aim in life. Her mother is away, working. (I guess here shades of director Hana Makhmalbaf's personal aspirations are mirrored, though she led a much better life than the Afghan girl.) The film is a wonderful example of use of kids in world cinema. What credible performances!

Yet there are problems with the film. Many sequences seem to remind you of "Lord of the Flies". There is a sequence where the girl child ties a baby with a rope and leaves for school--but this scene is never followed up. There is another scene where the girl rings the school bell, and no one in the school seems to notice her action. Humour takes its toll on credibility. Yet Hana needs to be commended for her brave and intelligent work.
 

4:54pm: Its been a while
I dont post enough here.

GDC came and went, was fun with a few frustrating personal parts parsed inbetween.
Went to New York afterwards and went to the Carnegie Deli twice there.
Came home jetlagged and sick and since then I have been working on GDC articles and contacting companies for E3.
Will be of to Munchen for CoD WaW2 later this month and almost right after that to Helsinki for a few days for Alan Wake amongst others.
End of next month I will be in the US again for E3(havent done E3 in a couple of years out of principle).

Oh and I gots myself a DSLR camera.

3:32pm: Lets play avoid the 1up

12:12am: A little depressed right now
A time in my life which I asumed was far behind me reared its ugly head again.
Ill deal with it to the best of my abilities so I hope everything will be ok soon.

In other news there is GDC next month and I will do a tri city trip around that one.

Arrive in LA on the 19th and from there I head for San Francisco on the 22th.
After GDC on the 29th I will be of to NYc to be back home on April second.

3:09am: 40 Years worth of thanks

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/02/12/40_years_worth_of_thanks/?s_campaign=yahoo

6:37pm: The panic pack


Two games of your choice with every new PS3 hardware purchase(temporary Sony promo)=140€ retail value.
300 on Blu Ray=30€ retail.

Price of the PS3 with the movie and your choice of two out of games like Fallout 3, Resistance 2, Motorstorm 2, LBP, Singstar, Buzz, Fifa09 etcetera=299€ tax included.

This is living.................................................in panic mode.

12:52am: Gimme my miles and fuck off bitch

In addition to the miles you earn for your time, request an Official Alaska State Vacation
Planner and receive 10 extra miles from e-Miles®.

 

2:21am: Our Moscow nights are cold
Without your love to hold.
and I dont know where to go.
There is nothing here but snow.

Been in Budapest for a few days now and I observe the same thing I have seen in all previously communist countries.
A weird mix between old Soviet style history and US style consumerism.

Hard to describe but insanely intresting to experience for someone who witnessed old style Comunism when he was a young teen traveling trough those countries on his way to Turkey.

3:31am: Yesterday at the choclate factory
In the cantina they always have a few newspapers lying around and of course the front page had the US Elections on em.
Someone with a marker had written God Bless America on em.

Its not just the American people who won with this presidential election.

Personally I am not naive enough to believe any big changes will come for the US nor for the rest of the world(Israel and Cuba policies being perfect examples) but the mood worldwide has changed and that can only be a good thing.

12:10pm: To commemorate this day
I propose we all watch Boss Nigger and Blazing Saddles back to back

1:57am: You guys know what to do on tuesday(if yer American that is).
Dont give me any crap about ooh we are lost anyway or(more importantly :) ) we will win anyway.

Shut up and VOTE.

DO IT.

2:00pm: Happy 20th birthday Sega Megadrive.
Time flies.

1:13pm: Sweet

6:55am: Pretty groovy interview if I do say so myself

And I DO say so myself because none of you fuckers will.
Ungratefull bastards.

http://games.kikizo.com/features/sega-am2-vf5r-interview-oct08-p1.asp

Hahahaha, enjoy the(long)read peeps.

It was a pleasure conducting this interview together with Zerochan.

4:41pm: One of the last greats has past away.
RIP Paul Newman.

May your altruism live on trough your delicious 2000 Island(twice as many island`s as other salad dressings) dressing.

4:16pm: New RPG by Rieko Kodama and Yuzo Koshiro?
DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN.

DO WANT NOW.

4:13pm: Back home after just over two weeks in Japan.
It was a fun trip despite getting things fucked up by the Shinkansen troubles.
Lost time we should have spend in Nagoya and Osaka because of it so I will have to find a way to get back asap to make up for that.

2:46pm: Its been an intresting few days

Japan so far has been great.

Its always fun coming here and so far this trip has been no exception.
Zerochan and I got in on Tougeki(Arcadia Cup) as press and watched some great fights on SSF2X and VF5R and Comiket was certainly an experience.

My task there was to take pics of cosplayers, A job that was forced upon me and which I reluctantly caried out.

3:57pm: In Japan, its been a while

Smoking is still crazy cheap here yet it gets harder to smoke in public.

Funny contradictions, they should up the prive of cigarettes.

1:03am: Need sleep

Monday I woke up around 3.30pm, did some chores, followed E3 the press conferences a bit and then close to midnight I received an assignment with a deadline of 9am tuesday morning.

Finished it to a satisfactory degree and couldnt sleep afterwards, when I finally was starting to get tired an old friend decided to drop by and we hung out for a bit, got back home early evening and was wide awake again(at this point I was awake for about 28 hours).

Finally around 11.30pm I fell asleepafter having been awake for around 32 hours straight.
Barely 5 hours later I woke up again(around 4.30am wednesday morning), had to take a pee and couldnt get back to sleep so at 5.15am I crawled out of bed, put some coffee on had some breakfast and followed whatever new info I was receiving from E3.

Today I had to call my Sony reps, send some emails and finish up some work related loose ends.
Afterwards I ended up going shopping, having food, came back home checked up on more E3 related things and lo and behold it is suddenly 1.12am thursday morning.

If I stay up for three hours and 20 minutes more I will have slept a grand total of 5 hours in a 72 hour timespan.

Not a good thing, reminds me a bit of Leipzig a few years ago.

4:10am: Its been a while

In more sense then one.
Havent had a LJ post in quite some time AND I havent been to Japan in over two years.

Yesterday however I booked the below itinerary and today I am posting on LJ(woohoo).

 

Your outgoing flight :  Brussels -  Tokyo

+

Wednesday 13 August 2008

AF 7188  - Tempo

-  20:36 Brussels, Brussels Midi TGV Railway St (ZYR) - Belgium

Check-in deadline : 20:21

-  21:50 Paris, Charles de Gaulle (CDG) - France

 

Flight operated by :  SNCF

Aircraft : Train

no inflight meal  

Class : L

Flight time : 01h14  non stop

+

Wednesday 13 August 2008

AF 278  - Tempo

-  23:35 Paris, Charles de Gaulle (CDG) - France  - Terminal 2F

Check-in deadline : 22:35

-  18:00 Tokyo, Narita (NRT) - Japan

 

Flight operated by : Air France

Aircraft : 777300

Inflight meal served :  1 meal  1 breakfast  

Class : L

Flight time : 11h25  non stop

Your return flight :  Tokyo -  Brussels

+

Thursday 28 August 2008

AF 277  - Tempo

-  21:55 Tokyo, Narita (NRT) - Japan  - Terminal 1

Check-in deadline : 20:55

-  04:15 Paris, Charles de Gaulle (CDG) - France

 

Flight operated by : Air France

Aircraft : 777300

Inflight meal served :  1 meal  1 breakfast  

Class : L

Flight time : 13h20  non stop

+

Friday 29 August 2008

AF 7179  - Tempo

-  09:40 Paris, Charles de Gaulle (CDG) - France  - Terminal TN

Check-in deadline : 09:25

-  11:15 Brussels, Brussels Midi TGV Railway St (ZYR) - Belgium

With my JRail pass this edged out on almost 1500€.
Auch, its about 300€ more then I expected to be paying so I will have to be frugal in Japan(for referance, 1500€ at current exchange rate=2,335.60 USD).

Looking forward to meeting some friends in Japan again and whatever high profile interviews I can secure between now and then.
I will check out the crazy fanperson fest called comiket while wondering why I decided to skip LGC and go to Tokyo during the hottest time of year.