Killed...Killed...Killed... KILLED

Galaxy: Whirpool Galaxy

Mood: Weird

Song: The World Is Not Enough * Garbage

"I feel safe
I feel scared
I feel ready
And yet unprepared
The world is not enough"

The whirlpool galaxy. One of the most important spiral-type galaxies to be known.
Look at it.
A magnificent structure. But something intriguing, bloodcurdling resides in it. The beauty in it screams horror.

Change of situation.
The Earth.

In one single week (among several dreadful events):

200 killed in Sao Paolo air crash (Brazil)
80 killed in dual attacks in Kirkuk (Iraq)
36 killed in attacks in Karachi (Pakistan)
24 killed in Mumbai building collapse (India)
09 killed in 6.9 magnitude earthquake in Japan (Japan)
01 killed in pipe explosion in New York (USA)

Terrorism…
Natural disasters…
Human mistakes…

Where are we heading to?
The Whirlpool is sucking us deeper … into more disasters, more terror, and more human failures…

Failure to Respond

Nebula: NGC 1999
Mood: Pissed
Song: No Surprises * Radiohead

"A heart that's full up like a landfill,
a job that slowly kills you,
bruises that won't heal."

I was to go to Romania last week to see a concert.
Many people think that traveling to attend a concert is selfish to the point of being ridiculous.

I don't see it that way.
The whole world knows how a big fan of Tori Amos I am.
This new tour of hers proved to be extraordinary, and as I have never seen her with the band, I wanted to get a taste at that.

I convinced my boss to take a vacation for a couple of days to go to Bucharest, Romania, to see the gig. I chose this location since I've never been there, adding to the fact that I have always been intrigued to visit this place.

I had tons of work to do and wrap up before I leave Thursday evening. Needless to say, I had an extremely tiring week, going back and forth between the office and the movie theater in which I work, the travel agency, home…

The agency booked my flight but my hotel has only been confirmed at 9:00 PM, a couple of hours before my flight. I paid at that time, return to the theater to take some material back to the office, packed my luggage and left to the airport.

There, at the check in, they refused my Shenghen VISA, knowing that when I called the Romanian embassy, they said a simple working Shenghen VISA makes me enter. Obviously I have no idea whom I talked to at the embassy and was a total moron, could have been the gardener or the maid, how the hell would I know.

The stupid guys at the check in didn't allow me to talk to anyone, and they ended up getting mad at me, saying 'talk to the ambassador and wake him up' or something to that effect. I can't be that silly and not ask for VISA before engaging myself in a trip! That's ridiculous, I said. They refused to listen and I left the airport.

So there I was, returning home. At first I couldn't believe it. After the tough week I had, the least was to go and enjoy myself and the concert. But no, more problems had to show up to prevent my flight.

Even though I don't believe in that, I felt someone did not want me to go and was putting obstacles everywhere.

I hate it when everything is planned to go perfectly yet something goes wrong, not because of you, but because of an abnormal factor that you were not prepared for.
Sometimes you need to just have a loophole to get out of the madness that you are in, so you travel, you go for a ride, you take a break.

But when your source of escape becomes the foundation for more madness, then there's no way out.

(Picture is of NGC 1999, a bright reflection nebula filled with dust that only shines through the light of a variable star in the Orion constellation. Hence when the variable star has minimum radiation, your loophole to escape through it fades out…)

Remembering the Fog of the War

Element: Mare Orientale (Eastern Sea)

Mood: Pensive

Song: Washing of the Water * Peter Gabriel

"River, oh river, river running deep
Bring me something that will let me get to sleep
In the washing of the water will you take it all away
Bring me something to take this pain away"

It's been exactly a year ago. Lebanon was a chaos, lost in a desolate war between Hezbollah and Israel.

Looking back, I have no idea why this war took place. What were its results. If it did matter if there was a winner or a looser.

What matters is that there were more than 1300 Lebanese casualties in 34 days.
And massacres
And bombs,
And rockets,
And bridges broken,
And flamboyant nonsensical speeches,
And damage,
And so on…

On another level, the war was an ecological disaster. The already not-so crystalline waters of the Mediterranean were inflicted a heavy duty: the Israeli navy did its share of polluting it.

Sure thing no one hit the waters right after that. The ecosystems were in danger, Greenpeace had global warnings about that, and the beach was in serious trouble.

A year after, we went to the beach.
We were welcomed by an exuberating14$ entry fee … and asphalt on the whole sand alley juxtaposing the beach. Each one going to the sea was prevented, and had to use alcohol in order to clean up afterwards.

The didn't prevent the place to be packed. Children everywhere. Foreigners. Families. Work mates…
And even myself and my friend Sarra.
On such moments, maybe it would have been better to go on the moon to prevent longtime sickness or things from such sorts.

The Moon's Mare Orientale (Eastern Sea) is not only considered one of the most striking large scale lunar features but also one of the biggest impact basins in the solar system.

This 900-km sea is believed to have been formed some 3.85 billion years following a collision with an intergalatic object, which could well be an asteroid.

A multi-ring platform has taken shape over the course of the centuries, the inner ring being Montes Rook while the outer and most prominent one (in the photo) is the Montes Cordillera (Cordillera Mountains) of 930 kilometers.

This crater in Mare Orientale has been there for millions of years now.
Even if the Lebanese have hit the beaches in a time when the water has not cleared yet from its wounds, there is no doubt that the scars of the war will stay lie in their lives for the millions of years to come.

(In the photo, Mare Orientale is the brightest spot in the middle far left)