2009/11/28

Instead of writing…

Well, I’m still writing, but not what I should. I was working the whole afternoon on a play about using the back door in religious matters, but except one medoicre page, the rest is crap. So I started reading instead, and to not go far from the play, I’ve read Jon Dorf’s tutorial at playwriting101.com they are just the basic rules of writing a play (as it’s name suggests), but it was okey to remember me some issues.

Later I moved on to a more classic book about playwriting, namely to the Lajos Egri’s The art of dramatic writing. By the way, I can land it to you, just ask for it. And by another way, he was obviously Hungarian. I say obviously not just because I’m Hungarian, but because we all know, what Robert Capa, the famous photographer had said: “It’s not enough to be talented, you have to be Hungarian.”

2009/11/26

Dacă ai fi Pământul pentru o zi, ce le-ai transmite oamenilor?

Ambasada britanica m-a contactat pentru a afla raspunsul la intrebarea din titlu. In viziunea mea, ar fi cam asa ceva, scris in rosu cu vulcani activi in loc de pixeli:

“Incantat de cunostinta. Ati fost chiar mai distractivi decat dinozaurii, dar eu trebuie sa merg mai departe. Tinem legatura la nivel de fosil.”

In English:

The Brittish Embassy contacted me to find out, what message would I send to the people, if I were the planet for one day. It would be something like this, written in red with activ volcanos as pixels:

“It was nice to meet you all. You were even more fun than the dinosaurs, but now I’ll have to move on. Keep in touch at fossil level.”

2009/11/22

Geography of the 2010 Fifa World Cup

I made up a little map about the qualified countries, because I had a strange feeling about it:

And I was kind of right. As we can see, the teams who qualified on every continent are really close to each other. We just localized the main focus points of soccer… :)

2009/11/19

New changes

As this blog starts to be alive again, I think there is the time for another major upgrade: new email.
I’m kind of an old school internet guy, so I have my yahoo adress since ages, but from now on, I’ll be on the G side… :D
So, if you feel like it, contact me at carlosinfabula special sign gmail a different special sign com…

2009/11/16

The future

I didn’t needed a reason (like for example there was nothing interesting on the telly) to watch the FIFA U17 World Cup final yesterday evening, I wanted to. They are the future.
If you don’t follow the news, or just for the record: Switzerland had won the game against Nigeria with the score 1-0. You probably won’t remember this game for the rest of your life, but there are some issues which should come to your mind if you’ve seen it:
These guys are really young. Being U17 means that you have seventeen years or less. These guys are professionals. I definitely didn’t follow them before the World Cup, and probably won’t check after them after it, but it was obvious for everyone, that these players are kicking the ball in high class football clubs, or at least in the swiss respective nigerian first division.
Of course there is nothing better for a 16 year old than playing with the big players of the industry (yes, I used industry on purpose), but it has some drawbacks. For example, they start to act like them. In the bad way. They already act. Fall without fault, and deny even the most obvious mistakes. It’s not groundbreaking news, but it is sad.
As about the individual players, the nigerians were small, fast and technical as usual, and the swiss ones big and slow, as one could imagine. If the striker Ben-Khalifa will make it to be famous, he will be just as irritating like C.Ronaldo or Ibrahimovic. But we will see…

2009/11/16

New beginning

This blog did his job until now (being a playground for me in English matters), but it’s time to go on. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the official Carlos in fabula freelance writing blog. As for preferences, I usually consider strong, short and funny stuff first, but I’ll try to please everyone who is interested.
If you ever need a helping (writing) hand, feel free to contact me! I’ll keep on moving, since it’s already half past late…

2009/09/30

Switzerland, as locals see it :)

‘I have to ask you: Do you prefer girls or cows?’

‘Hmm, I would say girls.’

‘Then Switzerland is just not the place for you.’

2009/09/26

Our wildest dreams

“Johnny, darling, I think the third cat isn’t working properly.”
“It’s too bad that it isn`t in the range of my lash.”
“And I think it’s also walking a little strange.”
“It would be strange if it wouldn’t. It has only three legs.”
“Ah, right… But why are we using a cat with dissabilities?”
“Well, if you take a look… All twelve cats have three legs.”
“Pour things!”
“Pour me! It was really hard to find twelve cats who have only three legs.”
“I’m not a professional, but I think that a normal cat would do a better job.”
“That is true, but I like to play it safe. What would I do with twelve four-leged cats?”
“You’re not scared of them, aren’t you?”
“I’m scared of everyting. Especially when it comes to forces of nature. Let’s suppose these cats have four legs. Let’s suppose they get a little wild. And let’s suppose I loose control of them. Let’s not even think about it…”
“But I still don’t get it, if you are scared of cats, why are you using them for pulling your car?”
“Because I’m a bad driver.”
“That could be changed with practicing.”
“Maybe, but you know, a man and a car, it’s not the same weight category.”
“Just take a look around: you see any car pulled by cats?”
“I wish I would! The people can’t understand technology anymore. They are using it, but they can’t really understand it, so they basically fear it.”
“I have no fear of cars.”
“But this Mercedes is capable of one hundred fifty miles per hour.”
“Stop hurting me Johnny, I’m in love with speed!”
“You are a little bit spoiled. It have been only two weeks, since we took of from Ground Zero, and look, we’re already in Manhattan.”
“With twelve cats we should be farer.”
“Indeed we should, but the hand-brake is on since we started.”
“Aren’t you a little bit too careful?”
“Not at all, exactly this is the rythm of mankind.”
“How many people! And everybody is looking at us…”
“They’re just jealous.”
“Their eyes are almost popping out…”
“Because they see, that even our wildest dreams are achievable.”

2009/09/09

The picture

There is a cool website called freelancewritinggigs.com, who was looking for this picture:

coffeshop for writers

2009/07/07

A simple guide to the end of the world

It happens so many times that people don’t do what they want, and use the world not being at his end because of that as an excuse. I propose a method about how get rid of that nasty habit. Just pretend that it is actually the end of the world today, or at least tomorrow, if you are a lazier one. Here is a story that explains the whole concept:

Once a teacher of mine asked this from the class: If you were playing pool with your friends and someone would walk to you, and say, that the world had come to the end, there are only 24 hours left, what would you do? The answers came easily: one would go to his family, and say how much he loves them, the other would finally try bungee-jumping, the third would get her friends and have one big party. There were very different things, but they had one thing in common: they were far from being impossible.

He challenged us to do what we’ve said later that afternoon, and for next week prepare a more important answer to the question. One week later the same thing had happened, we had written down our new (for some of us, the same old) answers, and he suggested to do them, and for the next week come up with a better one. He told us the ideal answer only at the end of the semester. It was so easy, that everyone was just staring to him, and saying nothing, not even a wow.

The answer was: “Nothing special, I will take the next shot.”

The explanation is also simple: if you are really happy, and really true to yourself, you won’t leave your pool game, just because is the end of the world. Because you already did everything you wanted. Because for you that pool game is the most important in your life, else why are you playing it?

And this is not just about playing pool, it is about what you do. I dare you to think about this question once a week, and have the afternoon of that day for implementing your answer, just until that question will be present in every moment of your life, and because of that, every moment will represent the answer.

Life is short and you are the responsible for yours. Take the next shot, but if it isn’t your game, don’t be ashamed to leave the table.