Finally

a good news related to the economic crisis: the recession is likely to influence - in the old, good, classical sense, the artistic standards.

Welcome to...

...the Pleo world.

I couldn't resist to reproduce a testimony of one of the customers:

My reason for buying Pleo was because I am allergic to all animals. When I saw Pleo I was delighted that at last I could have some sort of pet where I could receive affection instead of feeling sad everytime people talked about their pets.

Bad luck with sports

I've read lately various blogs and posts of men about the grotesque and unpleasant experiences encountered with women on JDate. For the sake of objectivity, I can confess I went through similar (bad, and mostly bad taste) episodes.

I started this on-line dating adventure with no prior thoughts. A nickname and vague references about yourself are offering a minimum safety of getting in trouble in the real world and I hoped that, it was a chance to identify from a huge database of opportunities my very small and special target-group. But, all I got after one year of serious approach and daily exercise was the conclusion that the high IQ single men must hide somewhere else. I don't know yet where.

One of the first contacts with this unusual universe was a guy, whose profile indicated he's high educated, socially active and with an impressive career. He started to send me an IM asking me directly "Do you like sports?" I was a bit surprised, because I am this old-type kind of person used to start a conversation, with known and unknown people with at least the classical "hi". but, anyway, maybe the guy was at gym and was planning some special sports gathering. Still, I was challenged by this plain question. To tell him or not the truth? The only sports I'm practicing are jogging, city biking and sometimes some gym, but rather at the very practical level, not something I really liked. And, because for me keeping the record of lies is quite neurons-consuming, I answered candidly: "No". For him to reply back, instantly: "No?"

How challenging! In two minutes we are just trying to get further a conversation started dead. And, I was about to fail this - it seems - important, very important test. So, I wrote back on a self-ironic tone how my relationship with sports was never a good one and blablabla. After another minute or two, he answered on a very professional and distant tone: "I'm very sorry for you (what I'm gonna do now, I missed the chance of my life), but I'm interested ONLY in women who like sports". And closed the window, as to run as far away as possible of such a looser. And I logged out. It was enough for one day.

To be continued.

My problems

I have a couple of small (new) problems these days:

- It is impossible to avoid the big fillers with Viagra pills advertising. Everywhere, including on websites for children.

- The pathetic features about the economic crisis. The last on the list is a Washington Times report about a lady who had the "misfortune" of being freed from prison in the "worse times ever".

- The story of the 14 children single unemployed mother (33), all conceived through in vitro fertilization.

But, in a way I am quite lucky, because I don't watch TV and I am out of JDate, so I could enjoy much more my private silence.

Why you don't want to marry?

Today I've been addressed this question, on a rude and aggressive voice, by a lady with whom I hardly exchanged more then a couple of polite words. While, for a couple of seconds, still keeping an empty smile, I was trying to figure out what's the best choice between an official, cold answer like - "who knows?", or "what an interesting question, are you interested by the answer" etc.etc.- and a similar aggressive and rude tone, I noticed she started to enumerate a couple of words, without a logical sense - mentioning religious duty, or human beings' eternal aims -, for sure her desperate explanation for such a big move. I took the decision to slowly leave the place and let her talking. Probably, she's still having the best of her speech. I don't care.

Worse than the worse

I found today this quote from Oscar Wilde: "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about".

Atheism 2.0.

It is about the good side of the 2.0, in societies where freedom of thought should be a secret well kept.

A brief Life

This four letter word - life - is having a different content, up to the intellectual profile of the person using it. It could mean to be able to correspond to the basic medical descriptions - breathing, heart beating - or more, at a higher intellectual level, give senses and interpretations of the world around.

For those choosing the world of fiction, reality is never enough. They need to rewrite each moment, to offer them content, to create senses to reunite small pieces and make them turn around, as in a kaleidoscope. By reading, you could offer yourself - because the writer aimed himself the same - a brief instant of life, other people's life. In "A brief life", Juan Carlos Onetti
is playing with times and lives, with the limits between dreams and his reality, consistent only with what he considered as real. He's the one who shouted "start" and who decided the story must stop.

At the beginning of our brief ride we are all new-born, with various chances and opportunities to became something. At the end, we all die. In between these thresholds it is a brief life, we could let a trace or not. In comparison with the whole universe, is almost nothing and memory is a very subjective notion, mostly a hope about ourselves we ought to live with.

Qu'est-ce que c'est l'amour? (apud JL Godard)

About ants

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22356

Madoff case: the consequences

An extensive analysis from the last issue of Commentary.

Postcards

These days, we do not send too many postcards. We have the e-mails or the phone multimedia options. Our messages could reach the destination instantly. Our pictures might have a more personal touch, because made by ourselves, sharing with the others our personal view of the world. But we are rarely making any such efforts, because we don't have an educated eye to look around us. Plus, we have thousand of (ideas less) ready-made hallmarks or postcards with stereotypical texts. We send it (instantly) sharing in fact our absence.

As for the old times postcards, they are displayed now in museums as this Walker Evans' exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts. What about an exhibition of electronic postcards in a virtual museum ?

The answer is: No

Randomly surfing to other blogs the last week, including atheist ones, I've found various levels of philosophical interrogations regarding the proofs you, as an atheist, you'll need, in order to believe in a god. Because I'm always in a hurry, I will not think too much in terms of philosophy. For me, the world around without any religious explanation is so amazingly complex and interesting and offering an infinite challenge for thinking that all this religious explanation is simply outrageous for the intelligence. And I don't waste my time thinking what if a god will make my dog talk, or whatever else "mystery".