Do I really have to do everything myself??

I want one: http://store.azfn.com/kingcoat.html
But they don't seem to ship out of the US.

Actually, I'd want a hoodie, with an asymmetric cut, I have the design right here in my head. Can't find it anywhere. Can't find anything approaching anywhere.

Each time I want to dress creatively, I get the same problem. The clothes I'd like don't exist for us males. They're either completely bland or printed with some commercial-cum-rebellious-cum philosophical message, in diagonal, on the shoulder or some other stupid attribute that makes me cringe.

So, for my current obsession, which would serve as a sweater.
Do's:

• basic cloth, or cloth with a technical purpose
  
• colours in the discreet (bland?) range, greys, blacks, natural tones, some oranges, most pastels....
  
• inventive, clean cut <-- that's where the uniqueness should be. asymmetry, peacot style, hoodie, different materials or separate cloth pieces with different fiber orientations, well-placed seams along tension lines...
  

Dont's:

• shiny and most patterned cloth
  
• no fancy trick like prints, "inside out" seams, tags on the outside or passants on the shoulders
• white, primary colours, turquoise, most yellows, greens, all purple and any bright colour that's currently in.
  
• no pockets, they're going to get deformed and they're not going to be big enough anyway.

Yes, I'm a difficult customer. I'm a male who wants to look different from the mass and different from those who want to look different, and my difference shall be "with a purpose".

I'm asking for a sewing machine for Christmas.

In the mood. Movies, Music

Movies, too.
I've seen way more movies than I've read books. it takes less time. Most aren't worthy of anything (Hellboy 2, Tropic Thunder, anyone?).
But some are quite interesting. I kinda liked Quantum of Solace, though it's a bit too close to the Bourne franchise.
Mesrine, a two-films series about the infamous french public enemy. The first movie showed a multi-faceted personality, staying safely away from the prejudices and the romance. Mesrine appears like an extremely violent, ruthless, instinctive man who's at the same time seductive, brilliant, protective. The second film hits the screens next week.

Another one I enjoyed? Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Actually, that's the event that pushed me into posting tonight. God I loved it.
It felt like the visual parallel to some of the books I read. Somewhere close to Bonjour Tristesse and with a twisted link to Le Coup de Grace. In colours and in music. With Scarlet Johansson, Penelope cruz and Javier Bardem.
After Scoop, which felt odd, I'm now reconciled with Woody Allen, I think. Although there are two or three scenes that felt unnatural, but maybe that's intentional. Scoop felt that way the whole time, I don't know for sure.
Yes, I loved it, and I'm probably going to watch it again very soon. Any volunteers to accompany me?

So I left the theater in a wistful mood (hence the title of the previous post, and by derivation, this one). Put my music player on with the super insulating earphones and hunted for some appropriate music. Classical, simple, rhythmic.

(Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven, right now) The best I could find was the Bolero. Not spot on for the first minute, but I'm weak to classical music. I just absorb it and wrap myself in it like a soft blanket that has the smell of childhood. Well, I was brought up in the refinements of Telemann (one of his menuet is playing now), Mozart, Haendel and Bach. It's a nice change from Metal, Gothic Metal and Rock.

In the end, I'm just happy to be who I am.

Je suis bien dans ma peau, elle est juste à ma taille.

In the mood. Work, Books

Not gonna talk about work, not gonna...
Ok, a little.
The office was officially closed today, officiously open for those who didn't have anything better to do. So I went. I had better to do, but heck, one work day with no colleagues, no phone calls, no mail, no interruption. Too precious to lose. I'll cancel my RTT on Wednesday so I can take it another time.
I ain't workin for free. 7:45AM to 6:50PM, good day, productive, calm. Enjoyable.
And no "I'm-not-a-retard-because-I-have-an-engineering-degree-but-I-sure-look-like-a-slow-guy" colleague 'm supposed to train. Sweet!

I've spent the last months reading, having two books in my bag, either because I forgot to remove the one I just finished or because I already had chosen the next one and kept it ready in case I finished the current one during the bus ride.
In no specific order:
Brisingr by Christopher Paolini,
World Without End by Ken Follet
Galactic Pot-Healer by Philip K Dick
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
La Joueuse d'Echecs de Bertina Henrichs
La Petite Fille de Monsieur Linh de Philippe Claudel
Riverdream by George R.R. Martin
The Coroner's Lunch by Colin Cotterill
Ever Since Darwin by S. J. Gould
Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan
La Fin des Temps par Barjavel
labyrinth by Kate Mosse
Le Coup de Grace par Marguerite Yourcenar

I'm currently in Ulysse From Bagdad by Eric Emmanuel Schmitt. It moves me, like many of the previous ones did.
I've started and erased half a dozen sentences already. It's quite hard to comment on this book. A work of fiction. the story of a young bright man named Saad Saad, in Iraq, during the current conflict. Fiction, right. His family decimated by suicide bombers, scared foreign soldiers, more bombs, sickness. The only fiction here is the names and the specific sequence of events, but it feels too close to home to feel like fiction. As those many previous ones I've recently finished, I'll not be quite the same after this one. Still me, not different, but not quite the same.
And I've got probably ten more books lying around when I'm done. All the way from a pair of kids books (even an illustrated story for a future three-year-old child) to more science-fiction, Victor Hugo, Descartes and a possible treasure in the form of an erotic novel by a syrian poetess. How exquisite.

I've always loved to read, and spending more than one hour every day waiting for or riding a bus has given me plenty of time to return to this favourite pasttime of mine.

angsty teen syndrome

so many things to say, so many things to do, so little energy, so much alcohol in my veins...
May write tomorrow.

tom

quick update

I'm going to see the surgeon tomorrow for my knee problem.
He's the colleague of the surgeon I wanted to see. I (don't) know this surgeon (not the one I'm seeing, his colleague) through a friend of him whose daughter lives with a guy who is the son of a friend of my mother. And I'm not making this up.
Yup, that's what I call connections.

And I'm working my ass off at work. 7:10AM to 6PM, as many days per week as I can. And I'm still late in my tasks. But I enjoy it, unexpectedly. I almost took the laptop from work to keep at it a bit, but a colleague took it to watch dvds this week end and didn't bring it back.

Apart from that? I'm quite content with my life, which is nice.

suis malade

(a prononcer avec une voix caverneuse).

Gorge prise, nez pris, cerveau embrumé. Je suis même persuadé avoir un peu de fièvre. Sinon je vais bien.

les onigiris avec une tomate séchée sont top. Et les sucrés avec une cerise confite et des raisins secs et des abricots secs sont sympa aussi. Mais c'est difficile de faire un mélange homogène avec les raisins et le riz, et du coup ils se démontent en les mangeant.

thé au caramel brulant avec du miel, et au lit. Bonne nuit les gens.

Onigiris

Photo stolen from the internet. You remember my camera's is empty, right?

Yes, I have bought a rice cooker, finally. 30 euros, who doesn't have one? You have 30 minutes to buy one and come back. Now.

Onigiris. I had always thought it would be a great idea to cook my own and bring them to work for the lunch break. Slightly out of the ordinary and totally japanese. They seemed completely idiotic to make, except maybe for the moulding into the right triangular shape.
So last saturday, I went to Darty, looked at the cheapest models and bought the second cheapest then came back home. Then I went out again to the local asian supermarked, skipped the 50kgs bags of rice and bought nori sheets, sesame, multiple cans of fruit juice (don't try drinking aloe vera juice, trust me), sushi vinegar and sushi sauce and came back home. Then went out yet again to the local supermarket for plain-but-not-long-grain rice and came back home with a reasonable quantity of riz camarguais.

The first experiment was a success, even the moulding is easy. I really should have tried sooner. But as I expected, it doesn't taste much. Sesame grings color but little more and nori isn't enough. The japanese usually put something inside the rice ball that adds flavour, umeboshi and salmon usually. I will need to experiment a little around those possibilities. Seasoned salt was something readily accessible in my depleted cupboards that I will use again.
And I don't need much to feel completely full.

One other idea I'm toying with is to try to sweet route.
Mix dried apricots cut in small cubes in the rice before leaving it to cool.
Rub sugar instead of salt on palms before picking up the rice.
Use some candied fruit as a filling
Wrap ???? around the rice ball to ease the handling.

I just need to find the ???? and try. Anyone has ideas?

Christmas - Go

No message in 3 months. That has to be a record.

So Christmas came and went. Birthday came and went. New Year's Eve...
I'd love to post a few pics, but the camera I bought 15months ago and lost 14months a half ago has dead batteries. Yes I found it back, on January 3rd when looking for my office badge.
The pics I'd love to post are:

• A Go board, Go stones and Go stones bowls. 5.5cm thick board, glass stones and woven bowls. I'm not too happy about the bowls, but hey it's a 5.5cm board! I never dreamt on having that. That model. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to pick it up at the post office yet.
• Another Go board and go stones, with the tweezers and the carrying box. Yeah, that board is maybe 8cm wide and 8cm long. The stones are black and white beads. Tweezers needed. All handmade by mom and dad. My favourite gift this year by far, and the parents apparently loved making it, with the rules. Even the wrapping was typically japanese, a cloth piece intelligently knotted around the box.