Author.::.4zy

I’m keen on beautiful photos, sometimes I just stand stockstill and gaze, gaze...:-)

Once, during my London training session, I was taking an evening walk on skates, when I saw an open-air photo-exhibition in Natural History Museum’s yard. Unfortunately it was too late and it was closed. The next day I came here and didn’t regret. It turned out to be “Earth From The Air” exhibition of an astonishing photographer Yann Arthus Bertrand.

10 years of his life have been devoted to this project. 3000 hours over 76 countries of the world have been spent by him in order to make photos of chosen landscapes. When he was asked: ”In what way is Art born?” he replied that the answer is quite simple. “The Earth is Art itself and photographer is only an eyewitness..."

“Their Circular Life” is a very interesting project. The concept is great and the realization is either. Don’t forget to turn on the sound.

And one more site is UK Nights, representing very stylish photos of different places of the UK made at night.

Posted by Xena at 2:53 PM | Comments (0)

Author.::.Savar

It’s Sunday, a wonderful day. The snow is up to your neck, there are six days of bitchy work ahead, my legs refuse going to work; meanwhile there’ll be Torino Olympic Games Closing Ceremony in the evening. Well, it’s all over, - we’ve had plenty of rooting and shouting, a bit of tears; and now it’s high time to draw conclusions. I wonder whether it’s a tragedy or farce, but the question concerning this working day perspectives (I mean two last medal sets) has been settled automatically. Surely it’s much more pleasant to take a final look at Pragelato ski-stadium and support Finland hockey select team, than to wade through mud on the way to work, and then spend the rest of the day making unsuccessful attempts to take off some signs of intellect on the post-festive physiognomy. But looking at the situation from the point of common sense (though the majority of Motherland defenders will be hardly able to do it today), it turns out that the results of man-ski marathon and hockey tournament final should be better announced at the final firework rumble, as it’s neither one thing nor the other for us; and the big brass is seriously thinking of assuming the most serious measures caused by constant sitting in the Internet instead of the abrupt labor productivity rise.

The very first Olympic days proved that, thank God, there would be no use of shedding crocodile tears because of Russian select team performance. Vice versa, each day was adding one more pot of honey to our tar barrel. The pot-capacity used to be different, but this fact didn’t influence general state of health, as initially honey isn’t chicken dung. After all it was hard to expect any golden rain during five last days; especially taking into account that figure-skaters, who’d been our primary hope, managed to take the maximum of what the International Skating Union could part with.

Continue reading "White Torino rings - 6"

Posted by Xena at 1:28 PM | Comments (0)

Author.::.Mazoo

The year 1660. Spain has already lost part of its territories in Caribbean region. England, France and Holland easily apply all possible means for fortifying their position in the region, there is still plenty of Ink gold, and sugar reed plantations guarantee incredible profits. Royal patents for piracy are willingly given, and island governors make their fortunes reselling captured valuables and providing pirates with shelter, ships, armor and women. French Tortugas and later English Port-Royal in Jamaica became real corsair capitals, where filibusterers of all nations returned to waste earned money. Churches, whorehouses, casinos, pubs, jewelry shops and boutiques were never empty. 1660 - 1685 were the golden years of piracy in the Caribbean Sea; it was the time we read about in Sabatini’s and Stevenson’s books; the time of the most popular, daring and the richest pirate attacks.

Continue reading "Sid Meier's Pirates!"

Posted by Xena at 3:55 PM | Comments (0)

Author.::.Savar

Well, we’ve got six more days left. I even feel a bit sad. We’ve been waiting for four years; we were ready to back up watching all the World Cups. And can you beat that! Everything is nearly over. Hardly has it all begun, when the Day of Motherland Defender came. And there are few moments till the Closing Ceremony. By the way it’s great we’ll have enough time to watch it at least. From my point of view one more day off could be given to us for the sake of the Olympiad. Can you imagine any normal person working properly in case our hockey team reaches the final? If it happens, we’ll have to blow the joint under any pretext at about three p.m. I’ve already thought out a pair of pretexts, because of which my Sunday presence at work will considerably spoil the welfare of the company. And Lord forbid me to stay for two extra hours, - the company will immediately be bankrupt. It’s clear that as an honest clerk, I can’t let it happen; though it will have any sense only in case Russia really reaches the final. Meanwhile it is all very doubtful.

Continue reading "White Torino rings - 5"

Posted by mazoo at 11:23 PM | Comments (0)

Author.::.Savar

Arse! It’s Monday again. By the way, it’s the last Olympiad Monday. It seemed that plenty of time would be ahead, four days is not a term, just a kind of warming-up. But five more calendar days have flown by like mad, just as Norwegians by gold medals. May be it’s only for a while, for they still have some chances, just as plenty of other candidates, including Russians, only if the beyond doesn’t prevent us. Right up from the times of iron curtain all forces, except Soviet armed ones were considered to be non-natural. Every normal Soviet person was always annoyed with any planning, beginning with family one and ending with intentions to finish five-year plan in four years. The other side, be it the British parliament member, or the Canadian Eskimo, was constantly irritated with our regular fulfilling of numerous plans, no matter how crazy they seemed to be, including collecting of Olympic medals. That’s why Olympic justice is a priori disinterested and incorruptible; severe, but fair; everywhere and to everyone; in spite of the achievements. The only exception is our Russian team. But we’ll speak about it later.

Continue reading "White Torino rings - 4"

Posted by mazoo at 3:24 PM | Comments (0)

Author.::.Savar

Only the fourth Olympiad day finished yesterday. It’s really nothing, just a kind of warming-up. But look how drastically has everything changed! First of all I mean my own attitude towards the event. From the very beginning I realized that there was no need to make up anything on purpose or to take pains trying to find proper words for describing Olympic competitions. The reason was that there once lived some Alexander Milne, whose vapid creation was brilliantly translated by Boris Zahoder. You can easily guess that I’m speaking about Winnie-the-Pooh, though it isn’t this bear I was keeping in mind. This cheerful bear can be hardly compared with rather poor solidity and optimism margin, with which, at least visually, our rather imposing team started the Olympiad. The leader of Russian Olympic Committee turned out to be the only exception. This cheerful man can be easily imagined marching along the biathlon stadium with a shouting: “Sing Ho! for the life of Tjagachev”. I saw him several times during these four days, and according to the expression of his smooth and rather fat physiognomy he seems to live rather well.

Continue reading "White Torino rings - 3"

Posted by Xena at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)

Author.::.Savar

It’s well known, that Monday is a difficult day and has absolutely nothing in common with Friday. Even Wednesday seems to be far more attractive. Though, tastes differ. It’s quite possible, that all the fuss around Monday is a purely Russian muddle. Then we should be very grateful for the touching attitude of the Olympiad organizers towards Russian team in their attempts to shorten the most possible quantity of starts exactly in this uneasy period, when, paraphrasing one famous aphorism: what is good for a German is mortal for a Russian. Being clearly aware of the fact, that very often on Mondays Russian man is not a man, for these days the calendar authors adjusted either those kinds of sport, which are very dim even for Russian Olympic Committee directors, or those, in which our sportsmen are obliged to succeed in spite of the Bastille capture day weekly celebration. Biathlonists and skaters are the only exception as if every their start is diluted with weekends, winter Olympiad will smoothly transfer into the summer one.

Continue reading "White Torino rings - 2"

Posted by Xena at 12:40 PM | Comments (0)

Author.::.Savar

Well, there has finally been gust of my gold childhood and partially adolescence. As later it has never occurred to me to tear to shreds “The Soviet Sport” newspaper which for that period of time was the only source of sport information used as the basis for collecting Olympic champions and persons close to them. On Friday the 20-th Olympic Games started. The event took place in Torino, the industrial capital of Italia, and the show was especially vivid and pompous.

As I’ve already said, I like winter Olympiads more than summer ones, as they are short, dynamic and scenic. White snow together with blew ice and red noses remind me of Russian flag colors, and it looks awfully charmingly. And if you still have a glimmer of patriotism, the TV set has finally been repaired, and commentator’s Guberniev heart-rending comments are clearly heard, then you’ll surely get high unendorsed adrenalin dosage fifty-fifty with validol, in which connection it’ll be useful to remember that the emergency number is “03”.

Continue reading "White Torino rings - 1"

Posted by Xena at 10:12 AM | Comments (0)

Author.::.4zy

Well, now we’re going to cook “Stuffed paprika”, which can be called an “autumn” hot dish :-)

What do we have to buy? 600-800 g. of forcemeat (if you have a mincing-machine, better make forcemeat yourself), 8-10 (better red) mid-sized paprika, half glass rice, 2 medium onion bulbs, 2-3 tomatoes and tomato paste (nearly 200-250 g. – it’s half the usual tin). And at last, we’ll need a dish to bake it in the oven (a stewing-dish or a baking form will do).

First of all start boiling rice, and while it’s getting ready, begin frying onion for forcemeat and make the sauce meanwhile.

Then we fill some dish or a saucepan with forcemeat in order to mix it with rice and onion later on. Don’t forget to add some salt and pepper. Cut the onion into small parts and fry it until it becomes golden and then add it to the forcemeat.

Continue reading "Stuffed paprika"

Posted by Xena at 10:59 PM | Comments (1)

Author.::.Mazoo

Disney Studio’s cartoons have become rather strange. It seems that at first there exists a great idea, perfect animators, inspiration and creativity, but then a somber analytic comes and says: “the market demands 5% of snot, 5% of adventure, 10% is promised to the government in order to support state schools as they have behavior problems, 20% should be given to surfers and hooligans for sales, and the rest should be distributed among the other spheres of national economy in order to satisfy everybody and overreach no one”. As a result, vivid characters shallow, the plot… Well, the plot of “Treasury Planet” cartoon needs no introduction, as it’s a well known “Treasure Island” in cosmic interpretation. And the thing is that even such a safe plot became as flat as the modern monitor.

Continue reading "Treasure Planet"

Posted by Xena at 10:38 PM | Comments (0)