Truskawkowe pola na zawsze. I met HIM.

Well yeah.
I'd like to comment on your posts but my speech centre is still out of order.
As michau mentiones, yeah, I met him.
Today at work (did I tell you? I'm working for Berlin television) I went to eat at the tv station's cafeteria, and uh, he was sitting at the table right next to mine.

Ahhhh.

I can tell you I almost fainted when I noticed that ROMAN POLANSKI was eating right next to me. He was eating peas and some stuff I think.
HE!!! was EATING!!! right NEXT!!! to ME!!! eating PEAS!!!

Ok ok. I told you I spoke to him.

The truth is: I tried to. As I mentioned, my speech centre shrunk to the size of a nut when he left the table and I said:
"Ejkdhsjkfhlsd"

and then I tried to articulate myself properly and I said

"Ejkdölcmknkjwr"

and it worked when I tried for the third time, saying "Excuse me but is it possible I am MIXING YOU UP WITH SOMEONE"

and he answered "PROBABLY"

and that was the point I noticed he was not in the mood for any conversation.

He left and I tried to continue my meal. I must admit I wasn't able to. I had to throw it away after a while.

I wasn't able to speak proper German for the next couple of hours.

I have spoken to Roman Polanski.
Now I am waiting for my grandchildren to tell them.

Good night.

Hi everybody...

Hard to hear about your nice new year party :) Mine was not that great actually...

Anyway, I'm fine !
To answer to you question about my friend's house I'm designing... It's going well... I'm quite happy about the design we finally found! The challenge was hard to make something good-looking caus when you read the rules about urbanism in the district, the house should almost be like a house of property developer ... But we tried to make something simple and timeless... We'll let off steam with our creativity more in the inside...
So we kept the two sides of roof we had to keep for the rules and I hope we'll make all that we want in the inside :) in accordance with my friend's recommendations... The program is enormous, so a big house, with six rooms, three bathroom... You can imagine the luxury it is...

I'll try to send you soon some sketches and pictures of the quick & simple 3D we made with sketchup... We didn't have time to make a 3D with better programs... But no need actually.

What is hard here in belgium is the rules and the obtaining of building licence... Rules are messy here in Belgium... caus the people who're judging your project at the urbanism direction are lawyers, or civil servants, but never architects... So hard to make good things with the opinion of people who know nothing about architecture!

Anyway we'll do our best, my father helps me when he's got time...
I'm a bit exhausted, working at the office 5 days a week, and working on my friend's house evenings and weekends...
But the good things is that when my friend's house will be more advanced, I'm gonna get a lot of money to go to china in one year :)

If some of you are planing to come to west europe, paris or other places, I would host you in Belgium and I would try to meet you somewhere (paris? amsterdam?) caus west europe is cheaper from here, and ... because I hope I'm gonna get soon the money of the contest I won in october. It would be great to meet in Paris one day :) Nice city, I love the Pompidou library :)

Another good news, my parents decided to pay me holidays, the last they'll pay for me I guess!
So we're going together to ski in Italy...with uncle, cousins, aunt and so on... At the end of February! It's gonna be so good not to work during one week :)

Kisses from the rainy country :) Give news :)

ma*

hell'fuck'n'yeah!

Dear friends,
been quite busy recently, but finally coming back with some news.

First of all, great thanks to Marie for providing us shelter during New Years Eve and some unforgettable memories AGAIN ;) (Believe me, Marie even paid with her health for that. Hope your fine already!)

Thanks to Denis, for moving to Berlin for this occasion, having some good Tampere-like time.

Thanks to Mr.Curator Flower, for having superb breakfast with us. Was short, but was cool and good to see you again. Best wishes for the final (most important ;] ) months of preapartions.

I'm working quite a lot at the moment (surprise surprise, but still not as much as Luc, dammit) on some commercial commissions, own house and the very last submissions at university. After that there's only diploma waiting in front of me.
But there as some moments, like yesterday, that make you feel good and keep you going on. Okay, i'll give you a hint of what happened. Recently there's been a competiton for a new theater in Warsaw, quite important thing. It was said that sth like 160 ffices were interested (from Poland and abroad as well) and finally 120 submitted work for the first phase (who passed the first phase was among 10 teams to join the final part and fight for winning entry and huge loads of money). And we (I and my friend) passed it. We're among those 10 teams to submit final drawings until the end of march (and we already won some money ;) ).

Of course as it comes to such big competitions, only regular architectural offices can tak part, so we had to have an architect on board. And that was one of our teachers, that have seen the final design just after we've sent it :D Of course now, he'll be included in the design process, i think ;)

Hope you're doing good as well friends!

SprMarie, any new twins?
MarieCherie, how's the house design?
Adam, how's the diploma? (and what about Peti's?)
Peter, i guess that if there's already a group on fb, that means that biennale will actually happen :D
Luc, any news from you?

stuff

Hello my dear ones,
as some of you might have heard, I spent the first few days of this new year mainly in bed since I am kind of, let's say, immobile. Just one of my feet is doing its proper job, but don't worry it sounds worse than it is, my new crutches are beautiful (aren't they??!) and I should be able to walk properly on one of the next days.
However I've had plenty of time to do something for university and I found something really cool that might show you what computational linguistics (remember? that's the thing I study) also is about, haha.
This toy is about synthetic speech which means you can enter any text (choose the language from the scrolldown menu, there's quite some large choice) either into one of the greeting card shells or here (there's a wider range of voices) and your text will be automatically spoken.
Works quite well even for more difficult words and languages!

Maybe you'd also like to play (well, shoot some bunnies that is!) with the squid alien or create your own cartoon.
Or maybe you don't find this as impressive as I do.
But I had a lot of fun with it today...

(My next task is now to find information about implementing different dialects and emotions into synthetic speech. Sounds interesting.)

We're back!

Top of the Pops 2008 - It's still all about the music!

I promised it, now here you go: just a couple of days before 2009 starts, 2008 has to be top-fived.
Feel free to complete it with your own view (username: becauseiamguest, password: becauseweare, to handle the format just copy/paste my text)!

Actually, while creating my 2008 charts I noticed I haven't been too busy listening to new albums. Hm.


Top 5 albums:

marie (spr):

1. Girl Talk - Feed The Animals
2. Why? - Alopecia
3. Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping
4. Bodi Bill - Next Time
5. Ratatat - LP3/Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

benni:

1. Black Keys - Attack & Release
2. Paul Kalkbrenner - Berlin Calling OST
3. John Frusciante - The Empyrean
4. Andy C - Nightlife 4
5. MGMT - Oracular spectacular

michau:

1. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
2. Santogold - Santogold
3. Sigur Rós - Með suð í eyrum við spilum
4. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
5. Leszek Możdżer, m.bunio.s, Andrzej Bauer - Lutosphere

maciek:

1. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
2. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
3. Air France - No Way Down EP
4. Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
5. Gang Gang Dance - Saint Dymphna

xammm:

1. The Allman Brothers - Live At Fillmore East
2. Miles Davis - Get Up With It
3. Frank Zappa - Imaginary Diseases
4. Ezio - Live In Cambridge
5. Interpol - Antics

jani:

1. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
2. TV on the Radio - Dear Science
3. Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
4. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
5. M83 - Saturdays = Youth

fransua:

1. Why - Alopecia
2. TV on the Radio - Dear Science
3. The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of Understatement
4. Islands - Arm's Way
5. The Notwist - The Devil, You + Me

Top 5 songs:

marie (spr):

1. Girl Talk - In Step
2. Bodi Bill - Depart
3. Louie Austen - Too Good to Last
4. Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma
5. She & Him - Why do you let me stay/Hot Chip - Out At The Pictures/Munk - Down in L.A.

benni:

1. Black Keys - Psychotic Girl
2. Paul Kalkbrenner - Gebrunn Gebrunn
3. MGMT - Time to Pretend
4. Paul Kalkbrenner - Castenets
5. Black Keys - Remember when (Side B)

michau:

1. MGMT - Electric Feel
2. Bodi Bill - Depart
3. Kraak & Smaak - Squeeze Me
4. Fisz Emade - Wiosna 86
5. Bon Iver - Skinny Love

maciek:

1. M83 - Graveyard Girl
2. MGMT - Electric Feel
3. Cut Copy - Lights & Music
4. Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal
5. Hercules & Love Affair - Blind

jani:

1. Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal
2. Santogold - L.E.S. Artistes
3. The Mae Shi - Run to Your Grave
4. Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma
5. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!

fransua:

1. Noir Désir – Gagnants - Perdants
2. bodi bill – depart
3. Andrew Bird – Sic of Elephants
4. TV on the Radio – DLZ
5. Why? – PlayThese Few Presidents

Top 5 songs-That-Were-Already-Great-Before-I-Was-Born:

marie (spr):

1. The Motors - Airport
2. David Bowie - Heroes
3. The Zombies - Care Of Cell 44
4. Queen - Don't stop me now
5. Pet Shop Boys - Always On My Mind (ok no. this was a lie. (wished it was true though. I'm getting old.) but I couldn't really find any other category and it just HAD to be mentioned somewhere!)

benni:

1. Led Zeppelin - D'yer Maker
2. Van Morrison - It's all over now Baby Blue
3. The Stooges - I wanna be your dog
4. New Order - Temptation
5. Van Halen - Ain't talkin bout Love

michau:

Mhm, i think i'm still too young,
but okay, i'll write sth in few days when i'll grow older.

jani:

1. Pet Shop Boys - Heart (ok, am cheating as well, but had to be included, full points for the video, too)
2. The Motors - Airport
3. Sparks (/w Giorgio Moroder) - The Number One Song in Heaven
4. Bob Dylan - Blowin' in the Wind
5. The Velvet Underground: After hours

Top 5 concerts:

marie (spr):

1. Dan Deacon - June 13 @ West Germany Club, Berlin
2. Bodi Bill - June 2 @ Weekend Roof, Berlin
3. The Mae Shi - May 29 @ West Germany Club, Berlin
4. Aavikko - April 25 @ 103 Club, Berlin (now I'd like to thank Koskenkorva for distributing free Salmiakki. Be sure we appreciated it!)
5. Concert of this one blues band I didn't know - Sept 27 @ some café in Kreuzberg, later on in front of the café with all possible instruments. Awesome!/José Gonzales, August 17, Sziget Festival, Hungary

benni:

1. Quit Your Dayjob - Sep 23 @ SO36, Berlin

michau:

1. Massive Attack, Erik Sumo Band, Barabas Lorinc Eklektric and Fatboy Slim - 10-13th July @ Balaton Sound Festival, Zamardi, Hungary.
2. Leszek Możdżer, m.bunio.s, Andrzej Bauer - 21st October @ Filharmonia Łódzka, Łódź.
3. Dj Krush - 30th July @ Zold Pardon, Budapest, Hungary.
4. Exploding Star Orchestra - 10th September @ Jazzga, Łódź
5. Hit Me TV, I Was The Satan Teenage Worshipper - 8th November @ Klubi, Tampere, Finland (it was more about the afterparty than a concert, but still bands were our first goal).
6. Klaxons, Happy Mondays, Primal Scream - 2nd October @ Pepsi Vena Festival, Toya Studios, Łódź.
7. Barabas Lorinc Eklektric @ A38 Boat, Budapest, Hungary.

maciek:

All of them were great, but some were greater. Too many to mention.

xammm:

1. Rage Against The Machine @ Zitadelle Spandau, Berlin

jani:

The theme of my year was rather missing concerts more than seeing them but here we go anyway:
1. Sparks - June 16 @ Tavastia, Helsinki
2. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - June 26 @ Klubi, Tampere
3. The Mae Shi - May 29 @ West Germany Club, Berlin
4. The National - July 6 @ Ruisrock, Turku
5. Seppo Boisman @ Various venues

fransua:

1. TV on the Radio - (01/12/08) @ Bataclan, Paris
2. Girls in Hawaii - (07/05/08) @ L'Olympia, Paris
3. Stars - (09/02/08) @ La Maroquinerie, Paris
4. Sons and Daughters - (04/02/08) @ Maison de Radio France, Paris
5. Death Cab for Cutie - (07/07/08) @ Théâtre de l'Alhambra, Paris

Top 5 concert venues:

marie (spr):

1. Roof of Weekend Club, Berlin
2. West Germany Club, Berlin
3. in the parks, by the streets, in the trains, Berlin
4. Sziget island, Budapest/Hungary
5. Immergut festival area, Neustrelitz

michau:

1. Godor Klub, Budapest, Hungary.
2. A38 Boat.
3. Jazzga, Łódź.
4. Klub 55, Warsaw (i didn't mention this one in the concerts, but i've been there for a Jazzanova set which wasn't superb, but the place was cool enough - in the Palace of Culture and Science. Yes, this one ;) )
5. Filharmonia Łódzka, Łódź.

maciek:

1. Schubas Tavern, Chicago
2. Grant Park, Chicago --> Pritzker Pavilion, Chicago
3. Empty Bottle, Chicago
4. Logan Square Auditorium, Chicago
.

jani:

1. Immergut festival area, Neustrelitz
2. Flow Festival area, Suvilahti old power plant, Helsinki
3. West Germany Club, Berlin
4. Roof of Weekend Club, Berlin
5. Heimolinna, Loimaa

Top 5 newcomers, new discoveries and personal rediscoveries:

marie (spr):

1. Why? (this was nothing new, but new to me!)
2. Erik Sumo from Hungary
3. David Bowie, Pet Shop Boys, David Bowie together with Pet Shop Boys
4. MGMT
5. Modeselektor

benni:

1. Simian Mobile Disco
2. New Order
3. Paul Kalkbrenner
4. Led Zeppelin
5. the will of many companies to react on complaints (shoes, MP3 players, metro tickets (worth 110€),...)

michau:

1. Erik Sumo, Barabas Lorinc and basically hungarian culture and nightlife.
2. Lykke Li as a foreign recent discovery and Noon as latest domestic discovery.
3. A-Ha
4. Bronski Beat
5. that it's easy to be gone, but it's hard to be back.

jani:

1. Pet Shop Boys
2. Cut Copy & M83 (mention them together as they kind of rediscovered themselves, too - Cut Copy making a synth pop album even New Order could be proud of, while M83 updating Air's Moon Safari to 2008!)
3. Deerhunter
4. Erasure (especially the Abba-esque ep!)
5. Paul Simon & Vampire Weekend (so what if the VW guys probably listened to Paul Simon's Graceland quite a bit, they still recorded a great, fun album and made me listen to Paul in the process. Nothing wrong with that!)

Top 5 tops:

marie (spr):

1. Top new toy: the record player from the trashcans together with the growing record collection from the flea markets
2. Top Alter Ego: Faster Harder H. P. Baxxter
3. Top secret favourite song: Culture Club - Karmakarmakarmakarma Karma Chameleon
4. Top alternative festival drink this year: Wilthener Goldkrone - cheers!
5. Top confession: I've attended a (free) Scooter concert in front of Brandenburg Gate. On purpose. I enjoyed it.

benni:

1. Top hip hop gesture: The "E" for East- Berlin
2. Top disco: Moritzbastei, Leipzig
3. Top guitar player: The guy I saw in my dorm in Mainz
4. Top realisation of the year: Badness Dub by King Tubby can make your subwoofer explode
5. Top Song from India with massive beat: Sapna Awasthi & Sukwinder Singh - Chaiyya Chaiyya Bollywood Joint

michau:

1. Top broken item: each and every sunglasses, fcuk!
2. Top summer: this summer.
3. Top drug: definitely not the one in the shop in my courtyard.
4. Top sport of all times: ultimate frisbee, hell yeah!
5. Top hope: this year was awesome, hope next will be better though.
6. Top country to ba back: Finland my friends, Finland.

maciek:

1. USA
2. drugs
3. glasses
4. gay butiqes
5. facebook

jani:

1. Top new toy: Pro-Ject Debut III (matt black)
2. Top tv-series: The Wire
3. Top secret favourite song: Karma Chameleon (couldn't help it)
4. Top Finnish literature classic: Mika Waltari - Sinuhe Egyptiläinen (The Egyptian)
5. Top dance move: Righeira - Vamos a la Playa

merry

we wish you all the bests friends, and we wish you were here under our beautiful christmas tree. take care and take rest...

adam&peter (both still slim, it's just the perspectives!)

* * * * *

I wish all my superfriends, their friends and their families a Merry Christmas and a good start into 2009. Guess I'll start it together with some of you anyway :)

-marie

(And be prepared for the 2008-Top-5-list, coming soon!)

:(

:(

Animal my soul!

Now that no one of you is blogging (shame on you!) I'm gonna spam you.
But with really REALLY funny things.

Brighten up your dark winter evening and check Bob giving tobacco to his bird!