We have new—collectible!—business cards

We have new business cards that just came in! And as hot as they came from the printers, as hot as they became around the office: tradeable and collectible goodies. Here's mine:

Gotta' catch'em all!

One-week vacation over (personal recap)

I haven't had a vacation since the beginning of the year, so this short week was heavenly, even though I crave for more. But it's what I get for being MIA for three months this spring. And I'm thankful, because it could have been a lot worse: I could have been unemployed.

But now that my batteries have, at least partially, recharged I can do a short and uncomprehensive recap.

Nobody keeps count anymore

I'm not exactly on track with my plans for this year because, unfortunately, time wasn't on my side with the job challenges, starting the local Magic community and keeping Khrome on track. A lot has been accomplished, but I feel there's still a lot to do.

...of the things I've planned to do

Back in spring I was talking about moving over to a different blogging system in order to better serve my content. That's still in plan, but instead of Mephisto, I think I'd rather use WordPress. I took it for a spin for Planeswalkers.ro and I'm quit happy with what it can do on the admin-user end. And being PHP I don't think it'd be too difficult to extend.

...especially the one's I'ven't even started

A couple of friends and I will soon start working on yet another pet project. It's a game we've been dreaming of making since quite a while ago, and although the code idea is unchanged, the floating ideas have ever shape shifted. Nevertheless, I have great confidence in what we can create, we just have to figure out how we'll implement it. On the side, I've also got two more pet-projects on the go, but little time is found for those, and I don't know if any of them will see the light of online very soon.

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Having many things I want to do helps, though. At the end of the year half of the things I planned for the year will have been done, along with as many things that weren't planned. The good thing is that I know what I want to make of next year. It would be silly to have a new-year's resolution of "Heck, whatever comes!", wouldn't it?

Grapefruit Menger Sponge

Even find yourself with too many business cards? Maybe a big pile of them came with defects from the print shop and you’ve no use for them. Or you might have just moved like we did at Grapefruit and all of a sudden hundreds of business cards have just become unusable.

You can find a few more photos of this Menger Sponge on  Flickr

The Menger Sponge

 The Menger Sponge has it’s roots in fractal Mathematics, and it’s the three dimensional analog of the Sierpiński Carpet.

I’ve got the idea to create a menger sponge out of our business cards from an article on Arcana from a while back. That article itself was inspired from The Institute For Figuring.

Make your own

Personally, I wouldn’t use Magic: The Gathering cards to create a Menger Sponge just yet. My floor’s not crawling with commons, so I guess I’ll have to wait. But if you’re in the same situation Wizards R&D is in, you might want to create your own Level 2 Menger Sponge of Commons. Or maybe you’ll just build it from business cards!

Here’s an excerpt of the instruction PDF provided by The IFF.

This image is an excerpt. You can find the original full document on The IFF website.

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I’m waiting until the new business cards ship, and then I’ll collect all the remaining old business cards to see if we can make a Level 2 Grapefruit Menger Sponge.

DS vs. iPod Touch

Although this spring’s changes drove me into recession, now that my life is coming back to normal, I think I’ll be able to afford a gadget gift for myself this summer. For one thing there’s going to be a some traveling this summer. For the second, I’ve decided to use public transportation more often. Both of these would go nicely with a toy on the side.

Right now it’s hard to decide between the two beautiful gadgets, both with strong and weak points. This is where I’m asking for help: which would be best for me? Throughout the following week I’ll update the post according to which device scores better.

More Changes

Get new toys

I have tons of thing to write about, but I just feel that this isn’t the right place to put them. I don’t want to just throw content in, without any way of filtering it. More than that, I have very little control over this blogging system.

So what’s most likely to happen, I’ll get a hosting service up and running and start writing code for my own blog. I’ll probably start building over Mephisto. They’ve recently moved to Git, which means I can fork it really easily.

Be a better waiter

I want to serve my content nicely, so what I’m going to do is start differentiating the content. Not only serve selective RSS feeds, but also have different presentations according to what a user is seeking on my website. I mean, not everyone wants to hear my rants about society, but that doesn’t mean I should publish somewhere else, does it? Instead they’ll have the option to just filter it out and never hear from it again. Well, unless some freak deletes their cookies, or they don’t use their own computer, in which case I’d recommend an RSS reader or… no, wait… that’s it.

Cookies for preferences might seem like a cheap trick, but it would be effective and usable. After all, that’s what cookies were designed for, right? There’s always a thought bothering me about whether it’s actually usable, considering factors like… people who don’t use their personal computer, or don’t have profiles setup for themselves on the computer they use…

Pay more attention to old toys

Khrome hasn’t been getting much attention lately, with this job change and everything… Lots of failures, lots of downtime, lots of people unhappy, yet still a lot of them loyal. I’m planning to revive that project in the next month, especially since we have a new sponsor on our back. (We’re moving away from the old one, by the way.)

Some probably wonder why Khrome is worth it… How about I tell you that when my new blog launches? :)

Changes

Like I said, the beginning of this year was marked by changes. Many changes, some smaller, some bigger, but undoubtedly all changes have happened due to a choice I made.

Bad choice

One of the bad things with my system is that when some plan is in place I usually stick to it. However, if premises change, I usually reconsider my choice, except if I’m way too tired to do that. In January I planned some work to be done in my appartment, which involved a lot of money spent, and lot of dust and…, well, dirt. When I came back from mom late February I had spent a lot of money, and my resources were quite low. More than that, I changed my workplace, and the pay day had shifted an extra half a month. However, I still started the work in my home, disregarding my lack of funds.

Morale: Don’t do that.

Good choice

A year ago, while I was working on maPolitique.be, I had an idea that it would be nice to hold some seminars about Web 2.0 and Rails. Later in the autumn I contacted missis Ema Cerchez and mr. Marinel Serban, my ex-teachers from highschool, about holding a couple such seminars for the students in their classes. We started this spring, and it proves to be a good thing. I really like that some of the stundents are quite enthusiastic about Ruby on Rails, especially those who had some trouble with PHP. I’ll sure keep this up, and maybe talk to a broader audience some time soon.

Morale: Do that.

Of course, I had many more choices to take, but I can’t talk of the most frustrating, and I won’t talk of the most boring. Nevertheless, there’s a subtle embedded message in this post.

Breaking Radio Silence

It sure has been a long while since I've last had time to write. There has been a lot happening, I've had tons of ideas of stuff to write about, but there's just been... well, no time for me. Not that my blog is got a lot of readers now, but I feel worm and fuzzy inside knowing I've posted something some might digg. Isn't that what drives all bloggers?

Since the whole beginning of the year has been about change, this is what I want to talk about next. The next post will be about change. Also in the area, I'm going to change some things in my blog: I'm moving all the techy posts to their own lair, and all the gaming/entertainment posts to another lair. This place will stay and act as a personal blog of it's own. I'ven't yet decided whether to move the blog to another hosting service, or whether to create separate accounts on Blogger...

I'd say "I'll keep you guys posted", but since my blog doesn't have much of an audience it's quite stupid. So here's another change... I'd have to build audiences. Most hits on my blog came for the Jeff Dunham post via Google Search, and it hasn't fell any lower since October. Cool, but I'm not happy about it! I don't know if I'll find much audience for the personal blog, but there will be plenty people to read the gaming or the techy blog. Or at least I hope so.

New Challenges, New Responsabilities

Last Friday was my last day as Grapefruit, and to me it was sad as hell. I had planned leaving six months ago, and I knew March was the month I'm off... But even so, leaving friends behind is tough. I'm not a faint-heart, and I didn't expect this to get to me, but it seems it did. I just know I won't be able to help paying them visits often.

Now I work at Educatus, and professionally, the road ahead is quite shiny: all I have to do is what I do best. The major income for me is that I get to do a project I've been dreaming to do since quite a while ago. It's a big plan, and there are lots of risks, especially now in the beginning, but I have faith we will succeed, even though we're starting from mud-level and we're aiming mountain-peak high. I have good partners make for a good ride, there's no way we'll fail.

Yet still, there's a glimpse of doubt in my guts, and I can think of a million reasons why I should go back to Grapefruit right this instant, and a million more why I should stick with the plan. I'm a man of my word, and there's lots of excitement about the big project I'll be working on, which is why I must stick with my decision. I can only hope a year from now I'll be laughing about ever doubting my decision.

A Long Trip, To Visit Mom

See this map on Google Maps! Credit embeded with the file.

Bags are almost packed, plans are made, credit id ready: I'm leaving on a complicated trip to visit my mom in Corsica. To be honest, this trip couldn't have been planned at a worse time. I'm in a transitional phase at the moment, which means I'm very vulnerable in most ways. On top of that, this trip looks like a wild goose hunt.

A couple of hours from now (5:30am, today) I'll be on the Intercity to Bucharest. After a few hours at the Bucharest Grapefruit office, I'll be on the plane towards Rome, landing on the Fiumicino airport around 8:30pm. I get to spend about a couple of hours in the grando aeroporto de Italia, before taking the train to Livorno, via Roma. The funny part is that the train arrives in Livorno at 3am, and the ferry leaves to Bastia at 8:15am. Umm... Not funny!

I sure hope I find some late night non-stop shop where I can spend the rest of the night, while I wait for the ferry. Perhaps some McDonald's? After four hours on the ferry, a couple of friends of mom's will come and pick me up from the port, and then there's one or two more hours before I meet her.

It will be worth it, no doubt... But when I come to think the amount of work I leave behind... The amount of work I have to come back to...

Well, you can follow me on Twitter if you're interested, as I'll keep it updated via SMS and IM. (Actually, please follow... if there's trouble, I'll also post there.) I'm also planning on taking that Flickr account off the dusty shelf.

Crash like I haven't had in a while

It all started with a headache a couple of days ago, which of course I ignored, carelessly continuing my daily taks. So I wake up next morning with a lesser headache, but a painful swollen neck. "Eh, I'll just have some hot tea at the office, maybe a Coldrex and it'll go away." But little did I know...

By the time I got to the office, my headache was completely at home again, and the neck situation had gotten worse. I drank the hot Coldrex, but the coat back on a started reading my mail... So at this point there's this struggle: I had a lot planned for yesterday, but if I stayed at the office or, worse, if I had ran through town to complete my deeds, it would have been a disaster. So I take the day off, call for a cab and go home. I stopped by the pharmacy to buy a couple more Coldrex.

Yesterday was a nightmare: I had no apetite, although I constatly felt the need to eat, my head was pumping like a boom box, I puked blood, had so much medication I can still taste it in my mouth... Not to mention the wild actual nightmares about weird folk insinde my body/head/mouth/whatever fighting for territory, which war caused my pain. By morning, though, things felt better, but not enough to get up and resume my humble life.

My neck is still swollen, I still have a mild headache, and I have to wear a blanket on me around the house, or else I'm shaking like crazy.

Will someone remind me to get a flu shot next year?

Chaos before spring break

It's been a tense couple of weeks, and I nearly started to lose grip there. Looking back I can't even realise why that happened, but the good thing is that I'm back on track now. I didn't have much time to update, so here's quick tour of what went on.

No sure verdict on LOTRO

I played LOTRO with 3 character so far: an elf, a hobbit and a dwarf. I like the game, and I must admit it gets a little addictive. To be honest, after playing it for a while I see it with new eyes: it's not the grind-loot-grind type of MMORPG that Lineage II got me used to, nor the boring PvP-less MMORPG that beta tasted like. The game is quite relaxing: there are lots of nice quests, some even innovative.

What I love most about this game so far is grouping. In LOTRO I found grouping that really proves useful. It's amasing to see how a fellowship's power grows by the number of people joining, farther than just adding up! The way the characters are build makes for very nice fellowship combos.

More on these in a soon to come review.

Magic: The Gathering Morningtide release

This weekend marks the release of the Morningtide expansion set for the Lorwyn block. Not give then time nor financial resources I couldn't attend the release events in Bucharest that took place yesterday. However, judging by what I did at the pre-release, maybe I should just play some more before showing up at a new sanctioned tournament.

Diesel and I played 5 of 6 rounds two weeks ago at the pre-release event. I didn't win any rounds. Diesel, however, won just one—the one agains me, lucky bastard! Anyway, we didn't go there for anything: I can had the Morningtide pre-release card, plus three more complimentary DCI folied cards.

More on Magic: The Gathering soon, I hope.

TV broke half-season

No, it's not my TV set that broke... It's the TV in general. With the writer guild on strike it's only now that we can see the real effects of what happened back then. Mid-January is usually half-season for TV, and there are after-holiday comebacks. And there were comebacks: there was 30 Rock with a pretty nice episode, there was Family Guy with a nice episode, and there were there were a handful of Prison Break episodes. Alas, some of them hit season finale prematurely, like Heroes and 30 Rock. Prison Break will still run for a while, and will hopefully have a decent season finale. Family Guy seems to have a lot planned ahead, but will it commit?

I feared that Lost might get canceled aswell, but it seems it hasn't: Lost season 4 is underway. There are 13 webisodes that aired during the downtime, and I'll watch them all soonish. A special episode and the season premiere have also aired last Thursday, so there is hope.

More on TV soon to come!

2008 (before)

This year is generally marked by changes: some harder to make, some expensive, some of the uncontrollable, but hopefully all for the good.

And changes have made their way into my home ever since the first hours of the year. My brother came home with half of his face covered in bruises and blood, back from his party last night. Apart from being scared to death, I didn't know how to react... I warned him that it's eventually going to come to this if he kept hanging out with his friends in that piece of crap neighborhood it will turn bad. Worst of all, he doesn't want to talk to me about it. This is one of those times I wish I had a real dad.

Last August, my mom went to Corsica which means I'll try to do some travelling before this winter comes to an end. Since I won the "Employee of the Year" distinction at Grapefruit last year, I'll be using the money to go see mom.

On a much brighter side of the panorama, I'm going to move to a new job this spring, and take on a project that I've had in mind for quite some time now. It's a little late to start working on it, but not too late. Given the right team, the project will be deliverable by the end of the year, so I'll have something to write about before 2008's end.

I'll even do some new travelling for the new job! I'll have to fly to England sometime in March, essetially work-related, but I'm also going to see some sights and walk some very specific shops.

This year seems to be fully booked, but I know—well, actually hope—there will be room for enjoying myself aswell. I'm also hoping for a random event that's going to change my personal life, and which I hope won't set me too off course... You probably know what I'm talking about.

A crowded St. Nicholas day

The end of the year has always been a crowded time. It's like every end of the world you see in the movies, where doctors are robbing electronics stores, atheists screw like rabbits, mobs are running throughout the streets killing other people, buildings explode, glass gets shattered, Days of Our Lives Heroes stops airing, cops get killed, projects clutter up, terrible migrene, but in the end nothing happens. They all get to live their lives, ashamed of what happened during the mayhem. You watch these movies and you kinda get the feeling of office work during late November and the beginning of December.

But it's nice to have that dream that someday, hopefully before the 15th, you'll get the chance to kick off your shoes, lay in bed, play all the games your spent your hard earned money on, and watch ripped US TV shows. And then, about a week after, Christmas and the New Year kick in. Wouldn't you just kill for that? I have some clients people in my mind that I would kill even for no purpose at all. But I can't possibly be serious about killing, unless it's the Mayhem we're talking about.

Work is kind of cracking me lately, and just when writing this I'm on the influence of quite some effort aboard. It is wonderful, however, to have good colleagues to share this pain with. Too bad they share pain with you back… One of us had the "wonderful" idea of making secret St. Nicholas presents to each other this year. This naturally became mandatory, as the other couple of projects I had on my shoulders, which rendered secret Nicholas quite a pain in the arse. Especially when, by shopping for other people's gifts, I found something that I like for myself, and the other secret Nicholas didn't get me.

Truthfully, it proved to be quite fun in the end, although it only lasted for a little over half an hour, because not only I'm cluttered up, but the rest of us aswell. I've got a weird noise-maker that I've seen only in mexican related material. Whoever bought it should better shut up about it, because by this time next week the whole company is going to be after him… I promise to make a lot of unwanted noise with it. (See above picture.)

Promise! ;)

21

I don't celebrate Haloween. It's weird enough I was born on Haloween. Yeah, I know… It's a good day for crazy events… Just try Wikipedia, you'd be amazed.

It's a good thing that I don't feel different. I've survived the operation, it was a success. The doctor has removed the zero, which I will keep as memory, and has replaced it with a 1. Standard procedure, nothing to worry about.

It's just a new age, and this time no dinossaurs died. It can't be that bad.