Shuarian’s Weblog

blog is closed for now, will think of a new concept or scrap it altogether.

This blog has remained in a pretty inactive state so far. I never meant this blog to be buzzing at the top of daily affairs, but neither did I envisage it to be collecting digital dust. This renders the situation rather unsatisfying. Hence there are two options at the table. First, to abandon this blog completely, or second, to rescue it. As the title already spoils, I decided to go for a second try.

My first attempt at blogging failed mostly because I tried to write long, oversized posting while simultaneously lacking the time to complete them. You wouldn’t believe the amount of unfinished articles I have left in my draft folder. Hence I’ll try to write more frequently, a resolution which can only be achieved by writing shorter pieces.

Of course, longer posts may still happen from time to time (I still need to finish my report on my not-so-current-anymore trip to Armenia), but they won’t be the new norm. I hope this new style will suit me and increase the quality and appeal of the blog a bit. Maybe I’ll also end up writing useless crap, who knows…

Well, another year has passed. And so it’s time for a brief review, about me, Switzerland and the world in general. I do this from the top of my head, so it might get superficial and rantish :-)

 
The Past: 2007

It certainly was an interesting year. I‘ve visited two countries, moved to my own flat, and had a quite sucessful but very demanding time at school. At work, our team underwent some painful personal changes but is back on the right track.

Reflecting on myself, there were some unnecessary mistakes, and some unavoidable ones. I don’t regret them, but I’ve learnt some lessons, and paid for it. Overall, I enjoy a feeling I seldomly used to have, the one of moving in the right direction. I didn’t change my attitude, but advanced in confidence and independence, developing a deeper sense for the humbling struggle of trying to do the decent thing.

Switzerland infamously made the news because of some sheep, and later went on to vote the shepherd out of its government. There was much rejoice. And disturbance. So many a politician had to step forward and voice his opinion and do a wordily fight. But all was well in the end, because Christmas arrived, and the populace quickly turned its attention to gifts.

The world has seen many crises. Iraq’s progress is slowly and at a high price, at best. Dafur got some media love, but that doesn’t help the hungry and threatened people in any way. There’s still no solution for Kosovo. The US government commits tortures. Pakistan is in turmoil, and so is Kenya. And the list goes on.

However, not everything was bad. Annapolis brought all actors together. There’s still much do be done about global warming, but at least the threat gets acknowledged and worked on. India’s growth and progress turns out to be sustained, and could have a lasting effect on South Asia. South America remains stable, with Brazil and Mexico going strong. Africa finally sees some long needed cooperation as well as new investments. The integration of Eastern European countries into the European Union goes smoothly. And this list, too, goes on.

 
And the pending: 2008

I don’t make any new year resolutions, as I like to take on changes immediately. However, one goal for this year is to finally run a half-marathon. The one I’ve set my mind on takes place in June, which gives me plenty of time to prepare.

Unlike me, some countries have good resolutions for the new year:

* The United States of America will elect a new President, trying to make the rest of the world love them again.
* China will host the Olympic Games, trying to play down their undemocratic and unjust regime by looking friendly and advanced to potentional investors.
* Switzerland, together with Austria, will host the European Football Championship, trying to look not too bad.
* The countries of the Middle East will remain hostile, not really carrying what anyone, including their own citizens, think of them.

Meanwhile, the population of the world will continue its move towards cities. The overall economy outlook remains good. Kosovo will try to become an independent country, and will most likely succeed, even if not by name. Russia will be everything but a democratic state, but it will integrate and behave itself better.So will China, at least for 2008. Still, Burma will be neglected, unfortunately.

 
That’s is. Or rather, it isn’t. For it first has to become, and that means it all can be shaped.

Happy 2008!

Just a quick note - after I had some trouble upgrading Wordpress to the most recent version, everthing should work fine and as usual again. I also used this opportunity to make some minor changes. Well, that’s it.

[Updated 27.12.2006 / 21.51]

Looking back at 2006

Well well, the year 2006 is soon over. Since this is neither a special interest/professional blog, nor a public site about my hidden secrets, there’s not that much to review. Other media, like newspapers, websites and blogs, will hopefully do a fine enough job on the former, while the latter remains private (that is, until someone hires a private investigator, hehe).

So my review of the last years remains limited to my blog and the usual stuff I put on here:

* This blog is now ten months old. During this time, I’ve made 43 posts (including this one). This makes for 0.93 posts per week, which isn’t that bad.

* The average blog entry (not counting this one) had 501.38 words. 15 posts are above this average, and six of them have more than a thousand words. On the other side of the spectrum, there are also six entries which have less than a hundred words.

* During these first ten months, this blog had 8685 hits, and 826 unique visits (not counting my own visits). This makes for 2.95 unique visitors a day. I suddenly feel lonely =:->

* Not surprisingly, 55 % of all hits are from Switzerland, with the United States and Germany coming next. Interestingly enough, after all hits from these three countries and indeterminable locations, Malaysia and Kiribati are next on the list. Either I have some avid readers there, or I now know where all the deleted spam on my blog originates :-)

* There were only 16 refers from search engines, most of them due to sensible queries. However, I wonder if my blog really is the right place when “looking for backup singers in zurich“…

* According to my blog, I’ve read 12 books this year. Which is way below my usual average, but the current workload at work and my education at school take their tolls.

* I haven’t released an Adrift game in 2006.

 
Looking forward to 2007

A short outlook into the new year, with some notes on changes to my blog:

* As I’d like to change the title of my blog every year, I now use Crazy Like A Fox instead of the old Neutralität, Chuchichästli & Rösti. More information about this term is available on the ‘About This Blog’ page.

* I’ve added a best of tag (on the right side, directly below the display of the current time) to some particularly well written and/or interesting posts of mine. And no, this one certainly doesn’t qualify. I’d also like to mention that I’m still experimenting, so the entries therein may change, or the tag might disappear completely again.

* I’ve added about 20 new links to the random link section.

* I’ve added one new site to the website column (Gulf Research Center). I’ve also added four more blogs (DeFocused, DailyKos, Art Nudes, as well as Pasta & Vinegar) to my linklist of other blogs. One of them (Art Nudes) may contain nudity, so visit at your own discretion.

* I’m still thinking about adding some bi-weekly columns to my blog, probably one about photography and one about interesting facts & figures, or maybe one including only a collection of links.

Well, I have no flu, but got a bad cold and felt very sick over the last weekend. I’m fine again, but thought this would make for a a very nice and surprising introduction nevertheless.

As I hate nothing more than staying in bed all day, feeling sick and pitying myself, I began to write on some long overdue blog entries. Given my conditions, I wasn’t able to finish a single entry but at least it got me started again. Right now, there are just way too many comments about soccer, and I want to change that with many new entries about everything but soccer. So look forward to some new entries very soon!

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated

I hadn’t much time to update this blog. But yes, I’m still alive, and yes, I’m fine. Thankyouverymuch. While I certainly would have liked to write more, the reason for the lack of updates is a positive one: As of June 8th, 2006, I started on a new job as assistant on call for Credit Suisse in Aarau. It’s a challenge I gladly accept, one which demands a lot but also returns a lot. One other positive factor are my terms of employment. I’m employed ‘on call’, which gives me a flexible working schedule - an important factor, given the fact that I’m also attending the Aargauische Maturitätsschule für Erwachsene (AME) on Wednesday and Saturday.

It’s only natural I don’t have all that much time for my blog anymore. I do, however, want to continue with it. I’ll probably write fewer, shorter and less polished entries. Another idea I’ve tossed around with recently is the introduction of some weekly features like photo of the week, link of the week, fact of the week and so on. This would allow me to update the blog frequently without any pressure of having to come up with all-creative, all-exclusive and all-interesting stuff by my own.

To reanimate my blog for now, I’ve quickly finished some of the stuff I’ve started over the last few weeks and merged them into one, big entry:

Movie Review I: American Dreamz

Paul Weitz is a director who has a mixed record with me. I absolutely love In Good Company and About A Boy, but loathe American Pie (I spare you the Wikipedia link). And so on a nice Thursday evening I was eager to see on what end of the scale his new movie, American Dreamz, would end.

The idea is promising although barely very originally. The President of the United States (an obvious parody on George W. Bush) has a special kind of mid-life crisis - after winning his bid for reelection, he starts reading books and newspapers, and loses sight of other important stuff like meeting the press and listening to his Chief of Staff (a Dick Cheney/Karl Rove type), who is shocked by this new development.

The solution for the low approval ratings of the President seems easy - putting him as a guest judge on the most popular TV show of all times, American Dreamz (a mockery of American Idol - Note: Reading through Wikipedia’s entry actually reveals quite a few interesting and rather precise parallels between these two shows I wasn’t aware of earlier). Things are getting complicated when a would-be terrorist enters the show in order to commit suicide during the President’s appearance.

From there on, the movie basically follows three narrative plot lines, centering around the process of the show and presenting the lives of its main characters: the President of the United States of America, the Arab terrorist, the cynical host of American Dreamz and a young and overambitious wanna-be music star girl.

Unfortunately, the wide scoop of the movie means it can’t focus on just one or two topics. Thus the satire touches many interesting points, but doesn’t really go into any details. Despite some good and witty scenes, the whole movie just has too many loose ends and remains too tame for a satire (this can be seen when, for about five to ten minutes, the movie shows clips of miserably singing and dancing aspirants for American Dreamz. That’s what the real American Idol is for, gosh).

All in all, the movie was… nice. Unfortunately, for a movie which should have been a snappy and witty satire on the media and politics, this is hardly a compliment.

Movie Review II: Stesti - Something Like Happiness

Stesti is a movie from the Czech Republic which tells the story of a life far away from the shiny and beautiful picture tourists see when visiting the Czech capital Prague. Instead, the movie presents the rural, agrarian-industrial area, where daily life is hard and people live a life of quiet desperation; yet still rave about moments of luck and future dreams, swapping between optimism and melancholy seemingly seamless.

I don’t want to go too much into the story, for this is a movie you should see for yourself. Let me just add that the movie features some incredible wonderful cinematic shots of the Czech Republic and that the cast does an awesome job.

Yeah, I’m a sucker for these kind of movies, and I probably should have written a more elaborate review. Mea culpa.

Summer vacations: Czech Republic & Adventures

Travelling is something I love to do, and I always look forward to the next place I can visit. For this summer vacations, my favourite destinations would have been Lybia, Morocco or Uzbekistan. For one reason or another, I had to rule out each one of them - at least for this summer. Oh well, thankfully our world isn’t really short of interesting countries to see.

And so I’ve come up with the following nominees: Norway/Sweden, Portugal, Czech Republic and Albania. As you surely already have guessed, the Czech Republic won in the end. Bernhard, who will travel with me yet again, and I have already decided for a nice route (Prague & Around - Ceske Budejovice & Ceske Krumlov - Brno - Olomouc - Prague), and I just hope we can avoid the mass tourism crowds once we are outside of Prague itself.

Apart from that, I’ve bought some old adventure games over Ebay recently. They were a real bargain, and here’s my list so far: Syberia I + II, Omikron - The Nomad Soul, Beyond Good & Evil and Sam & Max Hit the Road. I’ll also try to buy Dreamfall, which is the successor of my favourite adventure of all times, The Longest Journey. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if it will run on my laptop. I don’t have time to play more than one of them. First of all, I’ve bought them a few weeks back when I didn’t have a job, so I don’t have that much time anymore. Secondly, I don’t want to sit in front of the computer all the time, so one game really is enough. And last but not least, my very own first adventure (really, rather Interactive Fiction) game, All That Remains, is also due this summer, and I sure as hell will try to meet that deadline.

I also might visit the Montreux Jazz Festival (wikipedia entry). However, it’s held in early July, a time when I don’t have vacations, so I could only go during the weekends of 8th/9th or 14th/15th July. As it is, the only concert I’m somewhat interested in on that date are Iggy Pop & The Stooges. And as the entry price is rather high I’ll probably miss on that one.