james choice

a relationship is run by past traumas, families, friends, social media, the prices on menus, and the people responsible for the country's economy. if there's any chance left after all that, the partners swap roles now and then, bicker now and then, and get along just fine.

miuccia prada, who could make the devil put their shoes on the wrong feet, a communist party member with a doctorate, and a feminist on top of that. early in her career she held one of her first runway shows at the french communist party headquarters. she's certainly not unaware of her products' price tags. she has thoroughly earned the lifetime insincerity award, hands down.

one of the most enjoyable matchups of the round of 32, a match that will hopefully be completed with a japan win.

heaven for those with a lot of money, but for the normal or poor person it's europe's island swimming in shit. it doesn't just live quietly and keep to itself or anything, it's sunk into more crime and filth than cyprus, it just doesn't show up much in daily life. it's the backyard of europeans and even russians. if you have money you can get anyone to sort out any business for you. that includes the prime minister and the like too.

i want to write a few things about the crystalline, humming, ocean-breeze sounds we heard at its startup. every time the console powered on, these sounds weren't from a recording but were synthesized by the note files in the bios chip being sent to the sound chip. what you heard was a few analog sounds being synthesized and brought together, so each startup was like someone playing the organ for you. according to some the bios chip's memory was insufficient for .wav files, but the truth of it is that the japanese were making the 48-channel stereo and fully hardware-based 3d sound chip inside the device flex its muscles. the sounds didn't come from a single center, they practically swirled around us, and this was a huge revolution for the year 2000, some people had started needing the ps2 sounds in order to fall asleep. the ps2's sound engineer had said that while designing the startup sound he drew inspiration from the big bang theory; the first hum symbolized a vast universe with nothing in it yet, waiting to be discovered, while the blue/green light filtering that appeared on the screen (they changed according to the time of day) and the cubes (as many as the amount of games on your card) were stars and galaxies waiting to be discovered. an artist also made some nice music using the sound pieces in the bios.

whether it's the atmosphere or the surprises, it's turning out to be a wonderful cup. yesterday south africa, who was considered a sure bet to be eliminated from the cup as the last-place team in the group, earned the right to advance with the win it got. and today ecuador, who was considered a sure bet to finish last in the group and was moreover down early in the match against an opponent like germany, won the match and advanced. the people here saying "as if a 48-team cup could work," "football isn't played outside of europe," "they've filled the cup with every dinky country there is" were proven wrong yet again.

their country is at war. they're trying to play in the world cup on enemy country soil. since they aren't allowed to stay in america, they come to the matches via a 4-5 hour plane journey from another country. they're searched at the airport, and searched again separately on the way to the match. and not some rough pat-down or anything, they're flat-out made to strip. they play the match and go back to the other country via another 4-5 hour plane journey. despite all of this, having scored two goals and with two draws, they're sitting at the top of the group containing belgium, new zealand, and egypt. even though the west isn't going to make its documentary, its film, its series about it, the story of the 2026 world cup has turned out to be entirely the iran national team.

he's unquestionably the greatest athlete of all time. the guy even has an olympic gold medal.

his national team career is by far better than messi's and c. ronaldo's.

a film that ties together the stories of two women in different times, running parallel to virginia woolf's beautiful life. it was extremely moving. for a very long time american-made films have felt shallow and lacking in depth to me. i think after a long time it became one of those films that sticks with me and affects me. a woman is another woman's homeland. that she is. sometimes she becomes inspiration through the books she wrote.. a hundred years later, no less. to her sisters, for whom even a room of one's own is still a luxury.. just like in the film. she draws out the mrs. dalloway inside her.

--spoiler--
in one of the entries someone called it the story of three spoiled broads. how much it wears people down, the way shallow people belittle mental matters, labeling those who perceive the world differently as fragile, spoiled, pathetic. this perception is actually funny, because that's the film's core issue too. virginia woolf, clarissa, and laura are people who struggle to turn chameleon.. but when the matter is womanhood, those who define themselves as outside womanhood think the burdens are part of woman's existence. some shoulder those things handed to them later on and don't make a sound. some can't bear it.. they either pretend to bear it, or construct another fiction, or write.. once again a room of one's own came to my mind. woolf had a very strong stance, it seems. the film chose to reflect that stance a little quietly.

i'm not sure woolf was really as flat a character as this. because we hear a pretty strong voice and presence both in her fiction and in her essays. we do see in the film, though, that woolf brought out everything she witnessed and couldn't make sense of through fiction. the flow of the fiction, and the fact that this flow is actually the pattern in both woolf's life and the other women's lives too..

one morning mrs. dalloway decides she'll buy flowers for herself today. but what about the times when everything is normal yet inwardly doesn't sit right? going into an endless role and captivity.. truth be told, the structure of society has always counseled us toward this. at the slightest conflict the woman is set apart and branded. that's why even if you're bleeding inside, your outside absolutely must smile.. just like laura's smile, the most pain-filled smile i've ever seen.. let her smile, that's enough, because even if she's hurting nobody cares.. while watching the film i often wondered how it would have been if woolf too had known her illness* and maybe had been able to access modern medicine. would she still have walked into that river? maybe she wouldn't have, who knows.. woolf left this world just one year after the discovery of the first modern bipolar medication.

the laura character was, in my opinion, the most heart-piercing side of the film. the fiction transformed the fact that laura, just like virginia, would be heading toward her own death. and laura chose to leave behind and run from a life that was perhaps never asked of her, that she never even asked of herself.. while watching, of course you feel sad. richard's running after his mother, but the woman not being able to breathe in that life either.. a part of you that wants to judge wants to attack easily. just like the way someone who sees laura at the end of the film says, is she the monster.. but what about the monster's story? the film does exactly this, actually.. it lays out before our eyes both the monster's story and the victim's story. the rest is left to our own depth. just like it was said in the entries above, spoiled broads or real broads.. it's left to us to think about that too.

lastly, the jackass who's laura's husband. man, how can a person be this blind. turns out they can, but there you go.. let me go and buy myself a flower from back home too. and let's live. like mrs. dalloway and laura..
--spoiler--

it's unheard of for a company with an annual revenue of $18.67 billion, one that operates at a loss and will keep operating at a loss for years, to reach a valuation of $1.77 trillion. i can't say what'll happen in the short term, but in the long term i'm certain the people investing in it are going to get slapped.

the most underrated tv series. it's on hbo max

anyone who gets on the waiting list for one of these, and anyone who brags about making the list and scoring a watch, is a straight-up sucker. period. because all those waiting lists they run worldwide are fake. they're just manufactured "situations," artificially created so that demand, mystery, or whatever you want to call it keeps climbing.

let me tell you what that so-called "list" actually is. there is no official list kept anywhere, in any central database, least of all over in switzerland or wherever. think of it as nothing more than getting your name added to the dinky little contact list of whatever sales rep happens to be working that one boutique in your area, because you're an eager buyer who isn't quite vip enough.

rolex makes plenty of watches, but the authorized dealers are out here inventing imaginary lists to fake a shortage and juice the demand. dig a little and they'll tell you your spot on the list, or the reason you couldn't just buy the watch you wanted and got dumped onto some junk list instead, comes down to your "purchase history." meaning you've gotta build a relationship with that sales rep and buy other watches from them first. all of this, of course, assuming you're not vip enough :))

these lists are such a joke that a guy i know who got "added" to the list here in turkey ended up picking up the exact same watch within a few days while on a vacation in some european city.

okay, say you do make the list. don't go thinking there's some system ticking along like clockwork (no pun intended). think of it more like waiting in line at the bank, except people who show up after you, the ones richer than you, a little more prestigious, or who've already bought a few watches, just walk right past you. they get their watches in a matter of months while you look up and realize you've been sitting on that list for 2-3 years.
man, this is an entry/mid-level luxury watch at the end of the day, what waiting list? the way they act you'd think they were selling me antimatter.

anyone who laughs at people wearing this watch must be living with their head in the sand. speaking as a civil engineer, i can tell you the g-shock is my single biggest lifesaver on the job site. it takes a beating in concrete, it doesn't flinch from the vibration of a hilti, it never loses time, it just does its job flawlessly. turning your nose up at a watch built to military grade toughness is nothing more than proof you didn't do your homework. talking trash about a g-shock does nothing but announce to the world that you don't understand the first thing about engineering, technology, or durability.

“a japanese art based on repairing broken objects with gold in order to make them more beautiful and valuable than before”

just so you know, it doesn’t work on broken people.

tested it myself.