So, to start with:

Have a merry Christmas and a happy new year!


Again, it's been a while since I last posted something or was really active here on dA. I apologize to everyone who expected some messages, answers or comments from me and didn't get them. In the last few weeks I just didn't feel like spending much time here or anywhere else online, for a couple of reasons.

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Good, let's leave the gloominess behind. I'm looking forward to next few days, which is quite unusual. Christmas was not really a peaceful or wonderful feast the last few years, as it is "supposed to be". Same goes for New Year's Eve. Until last year, this was a dreaded celebration for me - I was either sick, had no one to celebrate with (due to unlucky reasons) or just had a boring evening.
I do like the time of the year and it has its charms (the clear, cold nights, the snow, the warm houses, the hot punches, the hope for "change"...), it just didn't work out.

This year is going to be different, I believe. I think it will be a time to remember...
I guess I made my peace with 2009. It's been an interesting year, no doubt.

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Creativity is back as well. I don't really care so much about the results at the moment (of course I do, but not that much, probably, as I used to), it's rather the PROCESS of being creative that interests me. Trying out new things is much more fun that way. Some new piece is nearly finished and new ideas are ready for cooking in my kitchen of creativity. Time to get them done, learn new techniques and improve my skills

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There's been a nice question recently on the dA Polls - how do you think about other people's works? Inspiration or Intimidation? Do you care about them? Do they influence you or your work?

If anyone feels like discussing that, It'd be nice.
Personally, I definitely do feel inspired by other works more than I feel intimidated. Probably because I do have a somewhat..."healthy" self confidence. I do know that I'm far from the level of true masters but still I think I don't feel like a beginner anymore. Good works tend to be intimidating at first but soon I feel the urge to try it myself...step by step, if it's not possible all at once.

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And one last thing:
Do it like me, sit back and just enjoy the ride.
(At least as good as possible...)

Ever noticed that little dancing smiley that occurs every time dA is too slow to load some of its content? On my computer dA even seems to hang sometimes while loading emoticons or stuff like that (or new pages in a gallery). And so it dances and dances and dances...that cute little fella.



Back to serious business. Summer's over and life at University starts again. Not quite sure what kind of lectures I'm going to take, it's the usual chaos at the beginning of a new semester. Actually organizing the lectures is the one big step to have a successful semester. The second step is taking exams, but that is the easier one (uh, what? Maybe not ).
So, I'm currently learning some pretty cool stuff. If you ever have a lot of men and women (more than only 1 of each) who love each other and want to marry each other, yet you want them to be as happy as possible without too many fights (ex.: Ms. A who is married to Mr. D loves Mr. B more than Ms. C, who is married to Mr. B and Ms. C loves Mr. D more than Mr. B - a really bad situation!) - call me. I know the right way to arrange this.
By the Power of Mathematics!

I'm also going to work as Tutor for Information Theory Students. I'm going to show them the wonderful world of mathematics. More than 30% probably won't survive the trip (and drop out before the semester ends) but I'll do my best to keep as many as possible

Anyone else back to "work"? (yeah, a lot of you, as I know, but I still ask )


Summer's been short again, even though it is really long, actually. Turned 22, had some nice days, some nice trips, some nice anime conventions, some nice gaming parties, some nice dvd nights, some nice meals, some nice experiences, read some nice books and watched some nice movies - and got my hair cut (ah, it's somehow short!)...but for now, it's over again. I like Winter, too, so it's okay.


I haven't done anything...creative, though, for a long time. The reasons are simple: too many thoughts, too many obstacles and too less dedication. Touhou Project just takes so much out of me... (these games are among the hardest you'll ever find - if you want a challenge, try them, really).


So, yeah, what a boring journal. But that's what a journal is, most of the time, right? I shall try to keep you updated more regularly again, with less boringness. However, lying in bed, I was rather...bored myself...

Ah, it's been a busy week. I just came back from the very first international event (yes, there were some people from germany, great britain and sweden so it does count as "international") that I personally organized, with some of my buddies from Kasu ([link] - It's "my" club for traditional japanese games located in Vienna, I'm currently the vice-chairman there).
Today we had our second Mahjong Tournament and it was FUN! But a lot of work, I can tell you. But I do hope everyone had a good time, we tried our best to make it a successfull tournament.
Personally I'm quite satisfied with the outcome - the same goes for the gaming experience. I placed 7th (out of 20). and played pretty well, even though a tad too stupid sometimes But it's alright, I'm glad the day is over and I'm happy that it went as smoothly as it did!

But let's look at the days before that...
Did you ever consider going to an anime convention? Or something similar?
Last Weekend I was at the Maconvention near Linz. It's the second biggest Anime Convention in Austria and did help there by presenting traditional japanese games for "my" club Kasu (yeah, kasu is everywhere - KAAASUUUUU). It was fun!
Highlights include the ride to our hostel on saturday in ~Votaris's rather small car (we were 4 big guys and the lady driving...every curve was a delight and the slope at the end of our cruise a real thrill - CAN WE DO IT? Yes we could...She showed us her driving skills and brought us home safely.)
There were also two bands playing, Trill Dan, a japanese...Rock band and Lolita Complex, an austrian...Rock band. The first concert was fun, but both had real huge problems concerning the sound - one of the downlights of the whole weekend were the technical problems. They led to a lot of delays. Next year they hopefully know how the handle the equipment.
Many good cosplayers there, too. I tell you, many. It seemed to me like more than 50% of the visitors there had some kind of cosplay, some interesting Yoko's, some interesting characters nobody knew (or I didn't know ) and some please-I-can't-see-them-anymore characters. Everyone found something for their tastes, I guess.
The programm was nice and they tried to make it interesting, but the main highlight were the people there, no doubt. Met a lot of old friends and new interesting people. And I won the 3D "contest", as you all surely know (see my recent deviation for the entry). The contest only had two entries but still...



Oh, on Thursday I had an interesting experience as well. Went to an open air cinema at the top of the main library in Vienna. You know, during the day it was REALLY hot. 37°C and more. Weather forecast said "yeah, the weather during the night will be fine, most likely". So, off we went to see Monty Python's "Life of Brian". I haven't seen that movie in full length, yet, and as you can imagine, I didn't have the chance to this time, either.
After about the first half of the movie, the sky suddenly went cloudy. Lightnings were visible earlier already but they were far away. Now the closed in on us. The wind (or rather the storm) nearly tilted the projection area (and it would have done so, eventually, if the organizers hadn't reacted soon). Suddenly it started to rain. Heavily, it was quite a downpour. In the whole city the rain and hail did quite some damage (we were lucky not to get into the really heavy hail...). So, after running for some enclosed space we were completely soaked. Completely, some people even started to undress before going outside again.
Nice! Riding home was fun and cold. And that after the hottest day of the year (if it wasn't for the money and the fact, that I'll probably never see the ending of the movie, it was a fun evening, though.)

So, remember kids: NEVER trust the weather forecast, not even for the next 2 hours.


...a rather long journal, but it shall be enough for now...

Especially for non-Austrians:
What do you think about if you hear about "Austria"?


No need to answer the above question here, you can just answer it for yourself or read through that. But if you want to, I'd love to hear something.

Actually the topic is not really Austria here, anyway...
I saw the Movie "Brüno" a few days ago, by Sascha Baron Cohen. He tries to play a gay austrian fashion...ah, fashion guy (can't really say what he should be) but actually it's quite funny, as an austrian, to see someone fail totally at trying to be austrian. If I saw the film without knowing what he was supposed to be, apart from the german language he's trying to speak (he isn't - his german is so weird, it's actually impossible to understand sometimes, and I never heard something even remotely similar to his favorite swearword "Santzgaut"), I would never guess it should portray a Man from Austria. I expected that he at least tried to fulfill some of the typical cliches but he didn't. Well, interesting.

So...actually the movie is not totally bad or something, some parts are quite shocking because they are just awful and so-over-the-top, others are shocking because the people in front of the camera are just...incredible...

But to sum it up - Austria does not only have Fritzl, Bruno and Mozart, it also has Kangaroos. Not. Quite a collection for Austria, which " is a too small country to do good doping" (citation by one of the heads of the austrian skiing federation after a positive doping result during the olympic games 2006).
And I just wanted to express my feelings toward the movie - actually there are no hard ones, since it seems he just wrote the character portrait and then picked his land of birth at random. It's funny to see Austria in a prominent role in a big Production, though. I just hope everyone is bright enough not to take everything seriously that comes from hollywood


(I also saw Transformers 2 recently, which is quiiiite a fun movie. I just love, love,
love the animations, these robots are animated godly. And Optimus Prime is awesome! <3 )



Now for something completely different. Some updates on life.
Next week there's a 3D contest at an anime convention in Linz, which I take part in. I finished the image...well, I didn't really finish it. Which sucks. I noticed quite a few mistakes or not-that-good textures, the composition is plain bad, I didn't have the time to choose a nice tone mapping and it isn't even rendered properly. Oh well, I hate deadlines...(you shall see the image in due time, though.)

I'm so waiting for the new Dream Theater CD. I ordered it a few days ago, but it still isn't here. Hmmmm...

Eden of the East is a great show...short, crisp, weird, too short in many ways but the opening is fantastic (the Anime is made by Production IG - who, as you'll surely know, also produced the Ghost in the Shell SAC Series, Serei no Moribito and others...they KNOW how to do good stuff) and the main theme is, as usual, thought provoking:
Imagine you'd get 10 000 000 000 Yen (thats 108 300 000 USD or 77 651 107,8 Euro) and a Phone which can make anything happen, as long as you have enough money to pay for it.
WHAT would you do to make the world (or at least one country) a better place?


And right now I'm waiting for some updates about the BIGGEST Super Smash Bros Melee Tournament held in a few years - Genesis. A young, european Boy called Armada is there and kicking some american...pros. He's top 3 already. Amazing...(yeah I sit here for quite some time already and watch the news posted about it...I'm hyped >XD )

Life's really crazy. The strangest things happen at times you'd never expect them to...
Coming home past midnight, after a nice walk home (haha, I missed the last bus that night by exactly 50 meters), turning on the computer...logging in. Writing a reply...and suddenly noticing that there's a crazy number of messages in the message center. What the...however, it did not happen for the first time. Excitement starts to grow and slowly it dawns upon me...

I received my 5th Daily Deviation yesterday.
Really, I'd have never thought to ever get one again and once again I'm honored and grateful. To all of you who follow my path for quite a while now and to all of you who appreciate the stuff I do. To ^joannastar for featuring it.


...actually, I don't have much more to say. Sometimes you just can't describe how you feel, so I'll just leave it at that.