Inglorius Bastards, remembrance of things past

Yesterday I went to check out the new Tarentino movie. Afterwards in Tikis, several guys remarked that they would probably see this movie multiple times, also in the theater. Not surprisingly, the Matrix was brought up (I watched it 2x in the theater and probably 10+ times since). I had a flashback to high school times. It was summer in North Carolina and I was with Gemma, Lucy and some boys. We ate Goodberry's frozen yogurt cream before the movie in an enormous empty parking lot. Lucy was raving about how she loved the movie. I still remember the black skin chunks dotting the purple of the blueberry ice cream and the texture of the yogurt on my tongue. It was really a madeleine moment.




Vanilla with blackberries


Goodberries

Moscow times

In Moscow we spent a lot of time in Inara's kitchen. It was our gathering point and home base. Every morning I woke up to a banquet of cottage cheese, berries and other delicious food. Yulia's friend Genya took some great pictures, and here they are, thanks to Yulia for scanning.


Inara


Yulia and tea cups

Nerds

Yulia and Onno

Branding yourself

This morning was bright and sunny, leaving no evidence of the tremendous amount of snow that had fallen the previous night. After Michiel and I had both awoken, we made our way slowly to the market. We ate a haring a piece, the taste would continually haunt the corners of our mouths the duration of a Saturday, and drank coffee on the Beestenmarkt in the sun. Michiel later shopped for some tobacco for the pipe he had gotten from Alexander for his birthday and we trolled around in the used bookstore for some cheap books. I ended up buying two more books than I will probably read (The Debt to Pleasure and The Vesuvius Club).

I noticed that the common thread that punctuated our walk through this morning was how we often end up consciously and subconsciously branding ourselves to the outside world by gravitating towards the things we like or think we'll like. Michiel told me that he hoped that he would enjoy smoking his pipe because it would fit his image.

When I first met Michiel, he told me that he had branded himself one day a couple years ago as a mousquetaire moderne. Not being one myself, I can only say that in all appearances, being a mousquetaire moderne means living an understated, quiet, yet extravagant lifestyle of enjoying fine wines, literature, and having a greater than basic understanding of antiquated crafts, planting techniques, and history. Today, he reflected that the image of the mousquetaire moderne had fallen away slowly to reveal something new, and now he found himself needing a new name to call himself by (while I am writing this at my breakfast table, staring down at the canal a pigeon just rammed itself into my window. BOOM).

This topic of self branding has been on my mind these past weeks (although not those catch-phrase words until now). Now that I am done with all of my prerequisite classes and looking for the perfect graduation project, I have been busy thinking about how to present myself via resume/portfolio/website/blog to the outside world. How do you create a coherent image out of a mess of interests and past projects? How to display your strengths to an uncaring, bored world? How do you express to others who you are, when you don't know yourself?

Regardless of these questions, the importance of self branding cannot be denied and I will spend many more days thinking about this topic.

Math Game: 8-bit game for four legs and a dock

I was playing with the Airguitar yesterday when I remembered a game that I played in the past. In Boston, when it became too hot during the summers, we used to take my car and drive to Mystic lake where Tuft's boathouse is located. Though it is not legal to swim at that spot, it is the best location and has plenty of parking space. The best times to go are during the night towards the end of summer the water has already been heating up throughout a period of several months.

At those times, we swam always with the lurking fear that the lochness monster might be in residence that night. But to get to the point, the game I mention is a game to be played with four people and eight legs*. Each of the players sit on the dock with their feet sunken into the water.

Leg in the water = 0
Leg out of the water = 1

The left most person starts by raising his or her left most leg out of the water (1), then as fast as possible count 2 (10), 3 (11), 4 (100), etc... in binary. The goal is to not mess up and go fast. The result is a lot of splashing and of course if someone lifts their foot incorrectly there is a punishment of having to jump into the lake.

*Note: More or less legs can be added or subtracted, but then it wouldn't be an 8-bit game.