This picture has nothing to do with the article!

I’m not originally a fan of doing such charts, because tastes change so often (2.5 years ago I listened nearly exclusively to metal), and because my lastfm account (old) give a fairly good insight on my listening tastes. This is why I decided to play around withlastfm API to know when a band first occurred in my stats. This is of course approximative, and offers some problems for bands I’ve listening since the day I opened my first account (12th June 2005), but this only occurs on two occasions,.

I’ve taken the liberty to link some youtube ids for each band, with a quick description and why I like them. Clicking on the band’s name links to their websites, so check them out if you feel like it!

1. Porcupine Tree

Porcupine Tree has been my all time favorite band for the past 2.5 years (since I stopped listening exclusively to metal), and even before was in my top 10. According to my last.fm charts, I listened to PT for the first me on July 20th 2006, which is coming up to four years. Over the albums, they offer different sounds, influences, and Steven Wilson (composer/singer/guitarist) has a gift for experimenting with music that is quite unique.

It’s hard to chose a favorite album, because all of them offer great and lesser great songs. “In Abstenia” and “Deadwing” are some of the albums I listen to the most (Deadwing is a real killer while driving on a nice summer day!), while “Up The Downstairs” offers some really interesting sounds. I’m not a huge fan of their latest album, “The Incident”, but I had the same feeling about “Fear of a Blank Planet” at first, but which I now adore. My fav songs are “Trains“, “Arriving somewhere but not here” and “Pure Narcotic“.

2. Anathema

According to my old last.fm profile, I’ve been listening to Anathema (UK) since the day I opened up the account (12th of June 2005, for those who have forgotten), which means I’ve effectively been listening to them since long before. When I first listened to “Judgment”, I was captivated by the melancholy Anathema’s music could deliver, along with Vincent’s vocals. When my mother died last year, I completely connected with the song “One Last Goodbye” which I listened to over a hundred times in a week.
The are today, along with Porcupine Tree and the next band, my biggest music inspiration while composing/improvising.

I’ve had the chance of seeing them live for their Hindsight tour, which was amazing. Also saw Dany perform a solo concert during which he played some of their greatest songs which was stunning. My fav songs are “Are you there” (the Hindsight version blew me away), “One Last Goodbye“, “Wings of God” and “Lost Control“.

3. God is an Astronaut

Don’t remember how I discovered this Irish band (but I posted an article about them), but probably through last.fm browsing which I did a lot in the day. My first scrobble dates back to the 8th of Feb 2009, which means it’s a fairly new band I’ve been listening to. GiaA (their short name) don’t have any singing in their songs, but as you listen to each album (5th is underway I think), you realise they don’t need any vocals. The music flows perfectly, and is very effective for working/concentrating. I have yet to see them live, but hopefully they are coming to Switzerland for their new album promotional tour!

My fav songs are Echoes, Suicide by Star and Sunrise in Aries.

4. Nightingale

First scrobbled this Swedish band back on the 29th of May 2008. I originally listened to this band after seeing that Dan Swano from Edge of Sanity was the mastermind behind it. From the start, the Progressive Metal, along with Dan’s voice seduced me. I started off with the album Nightfall Overture, to later listen to White Darkness, while only later listening to the older songs and seeing as how Dan progressed in his vocal skills. I listened to this band the most during my heavy Lineage2 playing sessions.

Some of my favorite songs include Losing Myself, Wounded Soul and The Dreamreader.

5. Sentenced

Have been listening to Sentenced since the 12th of June 2005, so this means I’ve been listening to it since before. This was one of my biggest musical inspirations during my metal composing days, and I still know most of “The Cold White Light” album by heart on guitar and vocals. Unfortunately they disbanded, so I’ll never get to see them live.

My fag songs included You Are the One, No One There, Neverlasting and Despair Ridden Hearts.

I was originally going to do my top 10, but I can’t decide on 10 bands to put in the list! Doing the top 5 was difficult enough. Might one day add Insomnium and Pink Floyd as 6th and 7th, but I’m too lazy right now

Pedobear Polymanga 2010

It all started at Japan Impact (my previous article), where I took several pictures and met a couple of cosplayers. During the event, the idea of making my own cosplay crossed my mind, and after a couple of discutions, pedobear seemed like the perfect choice! We were neither drunk, nor high, we just came to the conclusion that me cosplaying pedobear would be kinda perfect.
One problem is that I had no memory of my sewing lessons from back when I was 7-8 years old, and had no sewing machine, but thought it would be fun to make something, even if badly done. Pedobear being a uniform brown costume with a mask seemed doable, especially in the short time I had available (less than a month, during which I also happened to move).

Pedobear and Pikachu

Thus started my quest to make a pedobear costume. I bought the material (tissue, stuff for making the head, needles, thread, etc) for about 150 CHF, and started sewing like there was no tomorrow. The model for the pieces of the body were too small, which I realised only once everything was put together, so I started making a great big mess of my costume to make it bigger. I had the tissue going up my balls and ass because I was too tall for it, and trying to bend down turned out to be… a very painful experience. Anyway, I did what I could, and had to do several chaotic tries to finally get into my costume without it breaking apart as soon as I would try to move in it. Next up was the head, which was a nightmare to make, because I had absolutely no idea how to cut/glue/attach/transform my material into a pedobear head! Somehow I managed to make it look somewhat like the original (as long as you looked from in front), and was finally set for the big event (aka: next morning!)

Pedobear and Friends

So off I was, driving to Polymanga with a pedobear costume in the back of my car. Good thing I wasn’t stopped at the customs (was at my fathers in France during that weekend), I don’t know how I could have explained “I’m going to a party disguised as a paedophile bear”. I had my Pikachu friend buy my ticket since he was there early, so I didn’t have to wait for ages to get in. I started off the first hour or so of the event in civilian, checking out where things were, finding my friends at Omusubi, and basically just scouting, until I decided to go and get my costume. Walking from the parking to the event, with the giant queue in line waiting for tickets suddenly looking in my direction made my heart race like it never raced before. “Will they recognise my cosplay? Will they get the joke? Will someone punch me in the face?” Such questions were rushing through my mind at the time, until I joined up on Pikachu which hopefully helped relieve the stress and the anxiety.

No one can stop pedobear from kidnapping lolies!

The rest of the 3 days were just… amazing. I initially planned to only go a day or two, but the whole experience was so thrilling that I finally went all three days. I usually go to these events as a spectator, not an animator, so it was really incredible to be the centre of attention for once. Many people got my cosplay (maybe too much, especially little lolis), and many liked it and figuratively took their hats off to me for pulling it off. After a couple of hours, I started to really get into my cosplay character and chased kids around, hugged random people who recognised my costume, and basically had a blast. Some great moments involved some of the organisers asking me to race some guys while they were filming. The pics don’t show it, but my vision was really limited (I couldn’t see under ~1m50), so when they asked me to chase someone rushing down the stairs, I was sceptic, but it was fun.

Pedobear's new prey!

The most… well let’s say interesting (and tiring) day was the last. By then I had made many acquaintances, so I could hang around people (when not harassed by Thai lolies chasing me around the place). Everything was fine until I got mixed up in a giant “catapillar”, where I was put in front. We went around the whole complex twice, grabbing more lolies each meter. But a video is probably worth a thousand words.

Yeah, pedobear leading lolies to his car! I was forced into this, and was absolutely covered in sweat from head to toe by the end of this madness. The good side is that I managed to lose about 3 kg during the weekend!

Anyway, it was such a great experience being on the “actor” side of the event, I can’t help but look forward to the next event in the sorts. Until then, I must think of a new cosplay, heh. Maybe Reimu from Touhou? Or even better, Haruhi for the lulz, or Yoko for the WTFs

Pedobear and his lolies

Oh, and free hugs rock.

Kagami Hiiragi

Hatsune Miku

Eating Pikachus

Haku Yowane

Megurine Luka & Misa

Pikachu

Saber

Akatsuki

Pink Neko

Haruhi Suzumiya

Meiko (bad lighting)

So, I’ve had some time to think about articles I could post during all this time, and I’ve figured out I could at least try and post on article per week, with weekly pictures I take (both in and out of work), since I enjoying taking all sort of useless stuff in pictures! So, here goes :o)))

We received a couple of iMacs for clients recently. Two 21.5″ and two 27″ screens!

Lots of Mac Minis!

I also bought myself a Lacie 5Big network thingy, looks great

Also, a new Haruhi poster! She really looks gorgeous!

Enjoying Blue Screens of Death at work!

Sorry about the fucked up rotation on pics, don’t quite know what I manage to do there…

That’s it for this week! I’ll try and have nice and interesting things to photograph for next time. In the mean time, I’m looking for a new apartment, which is a pain! Putting lots of money aside so no more figure buying

After going twice to Geneva in the past two days by car, I went this time by train. Less hassle, more relaxing, costs less parking So, went for the third time to Geneva to meet up with mah’ homies Nico and DamDam. First up was going to eat sushi.

My first course, forgot to take the main dish, which looked like DamDam's

DamDam's

Nico's

Of course, Nico HAD to go overboard and order for 50 francs worth of sushi. Since he was unable to finish it on his own, we had to help out.

Once we were fully stuffed, we went over to the cinema to get our tickets for Avatar (in English, but not 3D). During the movie, we were laughing our asses off each time they said “Turak Maco” or whatever, because it reminded us of Tunuk Tunuk Tun. Other times were also full of laughs, like the Interracial porn/making out. THIS IS SPARTA OUR LAND. We actually said SPARTA out loud, but the movie failed.

I’m no movie critic, but I’ll give my impressions anyway. The visual was amazing, but the story was awfully lame and lacked depth. But it was a nice 2 hours 40(!).

Coming home, I got a new figurine from Play-Asia, but I’ll open it later and take pictures

Packaging was very “mac” like, at least for the beginning. Once the box opened, the tablet was covered with all sorts of protection and egg cases.

Next up is my reception of Nyan-type volume 2 and 3 this week. I saw some news about this on DannyChoo or Sankaku, don’t remember with, but I do remember that I found the posters extremely appealing. I took this chance to add some posters in my room

Delicious eroge

Om nom nom nom nom

And last but not least, some manga

First activity was to start watching the fall anime season. Lots of new shows, lots of stuff to watch and to decide if it’s worth watching or not. I’m also catching up on some shows I didn’t watch during the summer (GA, Sora no ManiMani, Taishou Yakyuu Musume, among others). Underwater also seem to be taking forever finishing “Fantome”)

Kämpfer: Not to sure about this one, but I’ll probably watch it completely
Seitokai no Ichizon: Brilliant, really had fun watching the first episode, and the second is ready to be watched!
The Sacred Blacksmith: I’m a sucker for these RPG-esque anime. Will watch this to the end
Nyan koi: I don’t like cats, but I like the artwork and the seijyu. That’s enough to keep me happy
White album: OH GOD WHY! I absolutely hated the first season, so guess what? I’m watching the second!
To Aru Kagaku no Railgun: YURIIIIIIII
Kimi no Todoke: Like this more than planned. Will probably watch this completely. “It’s 100% refreshing!”
Kobato: This was painful to watch. Horribly painful!

On other news, I’ve been far to occupied playing eRepublik, under the nickname Ilestis. We are currently rebuilding eSwitzerland (virtual Switzerland in the game), trying to get rid of polish guys who want to take over our country! It’s a really fun economic and politic simulation game

I’ve also received my new t-shirts that I ordered from Florida on the internet today! Have some really fun ones.

That’s it for the moment. Still waiting for some stuff from japan to arrive

Finally got my new guitar today, an ESP LTD EC-1000 Vintage Black. Worth 1700 gold, but totally worth it. It’s the most beautiful guitar I’ve ever seen, and playing on her just feels so perfect! The people at the shop liked it so much (first time they had it), that they are gonna order an extra on for display. I wish they wouldn’t, so that only I have it. And as with all my other guitars, I’ve given this one a name, and that’s Haruka.

So, enjoy her splendid beauty! And sorry for crappy pictures, I don’t have autofocus on my Coolpix. I really should get a new camera… But first I’ll need more gold!

Sinon, je ne me lasserais jamais de dire à quel poins avoir son permis de voiture est un bonheur. Je prend un réel plaisir à conduire (malgré quelques frayeurs, mais c’est normal). Être libre dans ses déplacements est une sensation géniale. Surtout les weekends où je vais rendre visite à mon père, partir à l’heure qui me convient, c’est bien plus agréable que de stresser pour prendre le bateau!

Sur un autre sujet, je poursuis ma recherche d’appartement à visiter. J’avais initialement prévu de visiter une annonce à Perroy, mais après avoir reçu les plans, l’endroit avait l’air beaucoup moins sympa et surtout petit. Mardi prochain, je vais visiter un endroit qui nécessite pas mal de travaux avant de pouvoir y vivre, donc on verra bien si ça en vaut la peine. Il y a malheureusement peu d’annonces en ce moment dans ce que je cherche. A croire que les gens attendent que les prix se stabilisent avant de pouvoir vendre leurs biens. Pour pas mal d’offres que j’ai vu, il y a aussi une surévaluation de la part des vendeurs, surement car ils savent qu’ils vendront moins cher. Heureusement que mon père me donne un coups de main pour trouver les rares offres sympa dans le lot, car il y a plein de défauts possibles auxquels je ne pense pas, étant mon premier achat.

Vu que j’ai envie de continuer de blablater un peu, je ne vais pas me gêner. Au premier octobre, cela fera déjà six mois que ma mère est morte. Je n’ai jamais fini la 2ème partie de l’article sur l’évènement, car je me souviens encore de tout. Je ne juge pas nécessaire de mettre le reste sur le blog, car les gens que j’apprécient connaissent déjà l’histoire. Mais le temps passe terriblement vite, six mois déjà. Nous avons heureusement presque fini tous les papiers sur le plan administratif. Il reste des histoires pour la copropriété ainsi que les frais de succession, mais on sait maintenant comment sera tout cela en fin d’année.

En parlant d’argent, j’attends toujours ma nouvelle guitare. Je m’assurerai de prendre pleins de photos dès que je l’ai. J’ai hâte de pouvoir m’amuser avec, depuis le temps que je souhaitais la posséder. Il va vraiment falloir que je me trouve un groupe après, car j’ai envie de faire partager à d’autres gens mon équipement. Mais en attendant, je continue mes séance chez le dentiste qui me coutent bonbon. Et si tout ce passe bien, un p’tit MacBook Pro 15″ pour noel.

Xmass get?

Je me suis aussi remis à faire du PHP chez moi le weekend, alors que j’avais perdu toute motivation à en faire depuis que je fais ça pour le boulot. Ca fait plaisir de pouvoir tester des techniques et technologies que je n’ai pas la chance de pouvoir essayer au boulot. Je retouche quelques vieux scripts et j’espère d’ici la fin de l’année, pouvoir relancer un gros projet de développement perso.

Continuant sur l’informatique, je devais m’installer OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard ce weekend. J’ai choppé un dvd d’installation, en espérant que ça marche aussi bien que prévu. J’ai pu l’installer cet après-midi sur un MacBook Pro 15″ d’un client, et ça tourne bien. Je n’ai pas lancé d’application profitant de Grand Central Dispatch ou d’autres nouveautés, donc je n’ai pas encore pu voir de différence au niveau performance, mais le système semble plus réactif, ce qui est bien. En espérant que tout fonctionne bien ce weekend!

What's a CPU Drop-in DVD?

Pour continuer sur de la discutions général, je vous conseil de jeter une oreille sur le dernier album de Archive, “Controlling Crowds”. Il est vraiment sympa, et ils passent aux Docks mercredi 23 septembre. J’vais probablement aller voir, s’il reste des places d’ici à ce que je me décide d’y aller. Bon, ça suffit pour du blabla, j’vais retourner à mes derniers achats.