In quest of a fancy title

κάποιες φορές να βιάζομαι υπερβολικά. Κρίμα.

I dislike

• Spaniards: Because Western and Northern Europeans love them unconditionally.
• Dutch and Northern Europeans because of their superiority complex – which is rather blatantly expressed when they start flaunting their alleged English skills.UPDATE: Nah, I still like them despite their flaws. Nooobody’s perfect.
• The Italians because of their sleazy “flirtatiousness”. UPDATE: Every since I started learning Italian, I changed my mind. Scusatemi signiori!
• South Americans, for the same reason as the Spaniards – Brazilians excluded because they speak Portuguese.
• Chinese, because for some reason they became too many and threaten to take over the world forcing everyone to learn one of the hardest and most dysfunctional writing systems ever made.
• Mechanical Engineers, for the same reason as the Chinese.
• Any combination of the above.

I am neutrally disposed towards : Most native English, French and German speakers ( Brits, Americans, Australians, Germans,  Swiss , Austrians), most speakers of Slavic languages (Russians, Poles, Czechs, Bulgarians, Ukrainians etc ) , the Japs , northern Africans.

BTW, I don’t give a rodent’s rear if you stay on my lawn. It consists  of carbon nanotubes dunked in cheap green paint.

There is no use in fighting against them. They have been evolving for years, thousands of them, gradually adapting by virtue of trial and error to their surroundings. Forced by their own career choices into an artificial environment acutely characterized by a population imbalance, they had to develop all kinds of imaginable techniques in an attempt to overcome the constraints indirectly imposed on them by societal prejudice. In order of course  for that to happen , immense sacrifices had to be made. Only a small percentage lives through them. Yet, their numbers are so enormous, that at any given moment in time, there exists a subset of them them which fully satisfy the criteria of the incredibly fastidious and over-saturated market. How then can an outsider, who landed inside their lair out of the blue, who has only a tiny idea of what the customs and the mores of their world are, compete with them?  Of course it is interesting to entertain, for a few minutes, napoleonesque thoughts of domination over them. Yet, very soon the sad reality strikes back: they are impossible to fight because what they are doing at this moment, has been in silent and persistent preparation for the entire duration of their lifetime. Their goals have been extremely simple and down to earth and this, combined with excellent backing from family and society bestowed them with deadly efficiency. How on earth can their potential “contender” with his inane daydreaming and unrealistic expectations  antagonize them? The only thing that remains, is to look down in servility and recall the sentences uttered by O’ Brien to Winston Smith in George Orwell’s 1984.

“if you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever”

It is one of these rare occasions that my usually  under-performing brain, temporarily fueled by a surge of blood caffeine concentration, manages to put together some actually constructive thoughts. So today I came to realize that I excel in processes which are so to say “elastic” in their input but reliable in their output and that I have a huge problem with processes the input of which has to comply with a very rigid list of specifications. Namely, I invariably seem unable to comply with *all* the specifications/prerequisites . There is always, at least one of them missing which leads to the process which requires them not being executed at all. We could draw a parallel between the first kind of processes and an analog circuit which, within a given range of input signals will produce an interpretable output and another parallel between the second kind processes and a digital circuit which expects very specific “quantized” numeric input in order to perform. Otherwise it produces an “error message”. Unfortunately the majority of “circuits” I am up against in my daily life are digital. And this spells trouble

of a spotless mind….

I was siting today on my fancy swivel chair in front of my fancy iMac gazing at the Aachen skyline. My office is located on the fourth floor of a renovated Art Deco building from the 1920s. I have an espresso machine and sparkling new “ikea-style” furniture, VoIP telephones and whatnot. But what’s the use of all that dear reader?

All the material possessions and comforts of the world cannot replace what I covet most…her love. And now she is leaving, never to come back, being happy because she is following some….divine plan. Don’t ask me to explain in further detail. The last thing I want is to provoke same crazy “dawkinsian” debate in the comment space of my peaceful and tranquil blog.

Because, dear reader, what matters in such cases is not why the girl refuses but the fact that she refuses per se. When you’ve had such a great time together, when you make each other laugh, when you hold fascinating conversations, when there is such “romantic tension” in the air. And then it all goes to the dogs.  And the pretends that “nothing ever happened” and “of course you can stay friends”. Who needs a friend though when you could have so much more but it was lost somewhere in the “translation”? And then you have your male friends and acquaintances,  nodding condescendingly in indication of “sympathy for your plight” whilst wielding under your nose, at the slightest opportunity, digital cameras and mobile telephones which display photographic “proof” of their allegedly wonderful relationships. Ah, its such a pity that they could make it while you couldn’t. Was it luck? Naaah…you know….it’s always a combination of luck and skill they say, with their winking eye conveying as much innuendo as it can without crushing the eyeball beyond repair. It is as if people got into relationships just to show off to others how cool they are and not because they found a person to love and with whom to share as many beautiful moments as possible.

Of course I am not the first to make this observation. Innumerable such comments have been made since the emergence of the first embittered, hapless guy who was turned down by a girl. Their value is purely the one of “emotional discharge”, nothing else. The reason is that such a ludicrous juxtaposition  “Ha! you loser did not make it while I did!” makes no sense whatsoever.  How on earth can you compare two different guys approaching different girls under different circumstances? Ok, there exist of course the cases of guys that know each other and that hit on the same girl but I suspect they do not occur that often .   Of course these are all details, overshadowed by the insatiable appetite that people have for identifying themselves as the “alpha” male in contrast to all the miserable “beta”, “gamma”, “delta”and… “omega” males out there.

So this is my call to all you hapless guys out there: Stand up ! Disregard all the “perambulating suitors” who flaunt their successes. The fact that they “score” x% more often than you do does not make them any better as persons. Believe in  yourselves, actualize your potential and success – however you define it- is bound to come. And remember that in the end of the day, one minute of “quality relationship time” is better than a 100 hours of exhibitionist “public demonstration of affection”.

Yeah, I begin to sound like a “male spinster”.  So what? Now get off my lawn!

This love of mine goes on and on,
Tho’ life is empty since you have gone.
You’re always on my mind, tho’ out of sight
It’s lonesome thru the day,
But oh! the night.

I cry my heart out it’s bound to break,
Since nothing matters, let it break.
I ask the sun and the moon,
The stars that shine,
What’s to become of it, this love of mine.