Death Note

Death Note is absolutely brilliant.

I've seen the final episode last weekend and I still can't get it out of my system. Well... Listening continuously to the soundtrack might have something to do with it, but I still fount it to be a near perfect story.

Death Note has several versions: there is the manga (Japanese comic book), the anime movies and the anime TV series. There is even a real live action movie released in 2006.

I've seen the anime TV series and I'm gonna give it a 10/10 for animation, directing and voice talents (for the original Japanese version, of course).

What I particularly liked about it is that there is no Good vs. Evil, no Light vs. Darkness. It's a conflict between two concepts. Let me put it simply: if you could kill every evil person on this world would you do it? Would you ignore a lifetime of believing that killing is bad and take upon yourself the role of the executioner? How would you decide who is evil and who isn't?

My answer is that I don't know. I believe there are some situations that you can't imagine a reaction for. You could say "I wouldn't do that", but in fact you can't give an honest answer because you're not actually in that situation. Furthermore, your answer is influenced by the person that raised the question; if you care what that person thinks of you, then you are bound to give an answer that will please that person.

You would think that answering this questions is a battle of mind and you wouldn't be too far from the plot of Death Note. The main character finds a note that enables the owner to kill just by writing down a name and he decides to purge the world from evil. But soon a mysterious investigator takes a particular interest in the case of serial killing. A duel begins between two brilliant minds, each trying to learn the name of the other.

The anime is a race that keeps you in constant tension. With each episode the situation changes and when you think someone is close to winning, a spin of events turns the edge to the other.

The characters are profound, unique and they evolve in response to the events that occur. Even more: there are no random events. You would even think that the characters defy fate and it's all about who can predict the other one's actions, who can control the environment and who can plan in advance. The tone of fantasy given by the Shinigami (Death Gods) and by the Death Note itself is fulfilling the plot in the unique way of Japanese stories. A bonus: there are no classical anime "teardrops" or "# signs" or "extreme big eyes" that you find in kids anime. I've seen the "small pupil" once or twice, but it was well placed and didn't bother.

The show has a slight fall after episode 25, once with a big event that steers the story on a different route. But even so, the second part of the series is worth watching as it concludes in a magnificent final episode that left me wondering what kind of person I really am.

Polished crosswalks

Today, on the way to my workplace I've stumbled on a newly polished crosswalk. It was fresh white and shining under the sun.

Bucharest has blossomed these last few days... Actually the flowers sprung out of nowhere. We now have newly painted fences and road markers, newly planted trees and flowers. Newly remade anything you can think of.

I'll bet that from space you can see a shining route all the way from the airport to the People's House.

What's the catalist of this accelerated and fascinating thansformation? 2008 NATO Summit. Everybody is doing the best they can to make the city look pretty, to make us look pretty. The foreign officials will get a warm welcome and they'll have a little patry surrounded by this pretty, artificially grown flower. They won't know it's just a mask; they won't see beyond the shiny path that's been laid down for them. They'll leave deceived by an illusion.

And when everything will be over we'll throw away the flower and keep living between the roots and thorns like we always did.

Everybody says that we've changed after '89. That the European influence made us better. But it didn't. We're the same as we were before, we're just as we've always been.

You don't believe me? I just got an idea for an experiment!

Stay tuned!

Lost in multiple identities

I've lost myself in multiple identities.

I have 4 personal email accounts, 2 job email accounts, 1 school account (supposedly), 2 or 3 other accounts on lesser providers (I don't even remember these), I'm registered on at least 7 discussion boards, I've started a couple of websites (not worth mentioning) and I think I have another blog somewhere...

Then I have entertaining sites accounts (marvel, youtube, starwars, miniclip etc.), software developers sites accounts (microsoft, adobe, corel etc.), programming communities accounts (codeproject, gamasutra etc.), software and driver download sites accounts (too many).

Now, when I have to login on a website I have to go though an entire algorithm: do I already have an account?, what username?, what password?, what email address? And the amount of spam all this generates... whoah!!!

Sometimes it's driving me crazy and I'd like to reset my Internet presence to one identity. Just one!

But I can't...

I am not a blogger (a.k.a. Intro)

My name is Alex Lazar and I am not a blogger.

If you think that writing this post makes me, by definition, a blogger, then you're right. Still, I don't have the mind of a blogger. I don't like to expose what I do everyday on the Internet so I won't.

Instead, I am going to review some interesting things about programming, movies and some other things that I like.

Who am I? I live in Bucharest, Romania. I'm a student; I study Economic Informatics. I work as a software developer, but occasionally I have hardware, networking or administration tasks. I like movies, especially fantasy and sci-fi, but I enjoy any good movie. I like games, but I'm not a hardcore gamer. Well, you'll get the rest if you stick around (and if I keep on writing).

Why am I writing in English? Because not all people that might be interested in this blog know Romanian, but most people that might be interested know English.

I think that's enough for now.
See you with the next post.