{daily.fun} Happy Burger

happy burger
Originally uploaded by ashademan.

"Didn't your mother tell you not to play with your food?" -Zazu [The Lion King]

My happy burger is sold for twenty-five thousand british pounds. Read the full bidding and other stuff on my flickr page! I am a rich man now!

{sports.bayern} Karimi played 65 minutes

FC Bayern scored four goal against FC Tokyo to mark a fit pre-season team durig a friendly in Japan. Ali Karimi assisted on the first goal and played 65 minutes. He was substituted for Salihamidzic, who scored Bayern's fourth 11 minutes after entering the pitch. Lucio and Guerrero were the other scorers today. Read more.

I still don't see any updates on the FCB Champions, the exclusive Bayern coverage zone, after Felix Magath's exclusive interview in Bonn. The German giants web adminstrator may need some changes.

{daily.life} A Gentleman

I wanted to post this a few days back. I came across an Iranian celebrity on Sunday afternoon at Dundas Square. I am a devout fan. His work attracts 11,000 viewers a day and I so much wanted to meet him in person to see if he is one of those arrogant celebrities or one of those few gentlemen out there. I am talking about Sam Javanrouh of the [daily dose of imagery] or ddoi in short. I think the title of this post speaks for it all.

Yes, I am glad that he is one of the few nice celebrities out there. I caught him shooting some gymnasts putting up a very nice show. He uploaded his take on the show, the flying girl, yesterday. The photos are as breathtaking as the performance, if not more.

When I introduced myself to him as a fan, I was warmly received. He was at the same time a bit puzzled on how I have recognized him. He doesn't have self-portraits to the best of my knowledge, except for these two non-portrait images of himself, click [here] and [here]. It is hardly possible to recognize anyone from these two shots! But there was an interview answering so many questions I have been pondering and also showing his face to the world. He did actually shake hand with me and later on added me as contact on flickr after I praised this photo! I am privilaged Sam. You are such a nice person, a very talented photographer, and definitely an inspiration to many.

Some of his works have been recently re-introduced on BBC and Utata cool shots. I wish he published his photos in a book. I so much look forward to it. This is just a thought and I really don't know if he would do it or if he would think about it, but I would buy that book. Just imagine him being interviewed at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as a controversial photographer who has delivered the art to the next level in his newly published book. I previously mentioned that I am a devout fan.

{sports.bayern} Karimi Started the 2nd Half

FC Bayern Munich lost 2-1 to VFB Stuttgart in the German League Cup in their nice new stadium, the Allianz. They would head to Tokyo for a four-day marketing camp today. The Bundesliga's first kick-off is on August 5.

Despite the hype in the Iranian news media that Ali Karimi would appear in the starting lineup in the recent clash, he started off bench and entered the field at the start of the second half for Owen Hargreaves. I would try to reflect his situation with the team as realistically as possible in my blog. There is still no video coverage of the match on their site, but according to the match recap, the second goal was awarded after the ball possession was taken from Karimi. I would not comment before seeing what exactly has happened.

Karimi started the training camp with high ambitions and I have high hopes that he really ends up in the starting lineup. Sky should be the limit for him.

The above GIF Animation is Karimi's goal versus SC Bonn clash. Quoting from the English commentator of the match highlights, "... Fifteen minutes later, Owen Hargreaves, with a cross inside and Ali Karimi, new signing and Asian Footballer of the year, scores the 2-0 for Bayern Munich crowning his performance, not only with this heading goal but also with a good performance in offensive and midfield control."

Please do not mind the low quality of the animation. I tried to optimize the animation as much as possible, such that fans in Iran who do not have access to high bandwidth Internet could watch Karimi's good header. That game ended up 4-2 for Bayern and at the end, Bayern's manager, Felix Magath, commented on Karimi's performance, "I am happy that he is in a better physical condition than some had feared. Nevertheless, he doesn't have the physical substance the others do. But, he has great footballing skills and it's a joy to watch him play."

After the training camp in Bonn, Felix Magath reviewed Bayern's performance in an exclusive interview. When asked about the condition of the new signings, he replied, "...The only thing I can say is that all three players have been warmly welcomed, and it took them next to no time to be completely integrated, even Ali Karimi who joined us from an entirely different culture has had no problems integrating ...."

{kitchen.dessert} Mixed-fruit brownie

Well, the title of this post was supposed to be mixed-fruit brownie: the story of a good-looking guy, but here, I change it to mixed-fruit brownie: the story of a not-so-good-looking burned cake!

I guess I mentioned somewhere that I overheated the brownie and it didn't turn out as well as the other one. According to some, the beginner's chance played the major role in the taste of the first one. Anyways, the top-left picture shows adding apricot wedges, the top-right shows adding nectarine wedges, the bottom-left shows adding bannana slices, and finally the bottom-right shows what can be made with the fruit left-overs! I first wanted to write my name on the cake, and then I thought what the hell, I can draw my portrait! I am neither a good cook nor a good painter. I swear I look better than this dude. At least my ears aren't so red.

{kitchen.dessert} Apricot Brownie

A few days ago, I borke my kitchen's long awaited silence to bake some cakes! I just followed the steps and bingo! My citron cake was ready! I never knew it was so easy to bake cakes. As I was inspired to have my own cake recipe in dessertland, today I bought a box of brownie mix and some fresh apricots from the the fresh-obsessed Dominion store in our neighbourhood. Damn, this apricot brownies of mine (baked in less than an hour) are yummy. This all happened when I was waiting for the maintenance guy to replace our A/C unit that went down a few days ago. I offered him some brownies and next thing he asked was, "Hashish?". "I am too chicken for that," I replied, chilling with the new cool breeze of the replaced A/C unit.

{sports.soccer} Karimi Scores Again

Ali Karimi, Iranian living legend, scored the second goal of his new club, FC Bayern Munich, against capital's SC Bonner during a warm-up match in front of 11,200 spectators in Germany's capital. As seen in the photo, he was also given the responsibility to carry the corner kicks. He played the first half and was substituted by Ballack in 46th minute. All mid-fielders are seemingly playing well, we shall wait and see if Karimi secures a place in Bayern's starting line-up.

{science.news} Language barrier lifted

USC TEAM CREATES RUDIMENTARY VOICE-TO-VOICE TRANSLATOR FOR MEDICINE

Researchers at the University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering have created a way to translate a physician's spoken English into spoken Persian, and patients' spoken Persian into spoken English. The preliminary system, created using actual English-Persian dialogue between doctors and patients, uses a laptop computer and requires users to recognize its limits and weaknesses, and work within them. Researchers hope a version of their Transonics Spoken Dialog Translator system will be ready for use in emergency rooms and ambulances within in two years. Read more about it here.

Source: WHAT'S NEW @ IEEE IN COMPUTING, VOL. 6, NO. 7, JULY 2005.

{thesis.GA} Break

Break
Originally uploaded by ashademan.

I need a break from this clumsy Genetic Algorithm. It is not supposed to get stuck at local minima. It does.

{friends.nostalgia} Bittersweet

I have survived the harsh Canadian winter. I will survive nostalgia. Vahid visited Toronto the past weekend. We enjoyed our time by going to places along with other friends, where the memories of good old years were rejuvenated.

It seems as if even when time flies by, some things are carved in your memory and stays with you forever.

Today, I came across my memorial by Farhad. My heart stopped for a few moments. Well, it usually stops a few moments before pumping again, but at that moment I was looking at the picture, I felt that my heart paused more and consequently pumped more intensely. It may be meaningless to others, but for me it means a lot. So many hot summer days we spent shooting the ball. I feel like I am looking at it from the other world and I will not be able to visit the loved-ones again. I will survive the bittersweet nostalgia. A grown-up man never cries. Even when he is alone. I will survive nostalgia.

{sport.soccer} Karimi Scores

Ali Karimi scores one of Bayern's three goals in a 3-3 draw against Karlsruhe. This warm-up match has been Bayern's most serious friendly before Bundesliga's offical kick-off on August 5, 2005. Read the full story here.

I have been a Bayern fan for a long time. I am glad that with Karimi on the squad, many others would join me to cheer for Bayern's and Karimi's success.

Photo credit: The official site of FC Bayern Munich.

{friends.weblogs} Taftestan

Read Taftestan's latest post, for a different Wednesday.

{science.standards} IEEE PDF eXpress

The manuscript preparation hassle ... This time I followed every bit of advice from the conference and read all the comments to generate a hassle-free manuscript. All in vein. Now I am really driving nuts here. Using LaTeX and dvi2ps the .ps file is generated nicely. Fat. I used two methods to convert this .ps file to a wicked .pdf file and check the IEEE Xplore compatibility through the eXpress service:

(a) to convert the .ps from the GhostView (using the 'F' command, isn't it ironic that it is called the 'F' command?) and select "embedd all fonts" as true and the rest of the adjustments according to this. eXpress failed and

(b) using Adobe Distiller and embedding the fonts from there. First, I try embedding all fonts. It can't find some fonts to embed. Helvetica. Times-Roman. Times-Italic, and etc. How on earth have you found them to show them on the screen then, loser? Then, I enforce Distiller to "always embed fonts", those that are as simple as Times-Roman and Helvetica but still eXpress fails with the error message that those fonts are not embedded.

I search for the problem and google returns 761 hits, Adobe's support knowledgebase among them. Solutions 1 and 2 did not work and I only had 3 tries with this eXpress service. I am set up. It's like playing a game you think you are good at, and from no where a dragon appears and kills all your 3 lives in blink of an eye. I am set up by all those computer scientists (oh yeah, scientists they are) involved in this childish bug.

'Veh, do you have any solutions to my incompatibility problem?

{life.daily} Falafel?

Some del.icio.us food make me sick, literally. Among them are SHAWARMA and FALAFEL. To Arnavaz and Kaveh, thanks for asking. I am all right now.

{life.daily} Wedding

... and he flew back.

{life.ideas} Courage

{AnE.MnP} An Empty Chalice

جام تهی - پر کن پیاله را
پرکن پياله را
كه اين آب آتشين
ديري است ره به حال خرابم نمي برد
اين جامها
كه در پي هم مي شود تهي
درياي آتش است كه ريزم به كام خويش

گرداب مي ربايد و آبم نمي برد
من با سمند سركش و جادويي شراب
تا بيكران عالم پندار رفته ام
تا دشت پر ستاره انديشه هاي ژرف
تا مرز ناشناخته مرگ و زندگي
تا كوچه باغ خاطره هاي گريز پا
تا شهر يادها
ديگر شرابم جز تا كنار بستر خوابم نمي برد
پر كن پياله را
هان
اي عقاب عشق
از اوج قله هاي مه آلوده دور دست
پرواز كن
به دشت غم انگيز عمر من
آنجا ببر مرا كه شرابم نمي برد
آن بي ستاره ام كه عقابم نمي برد
در راه زندگي
با اين همه تلاش و تقلا و تشنگي
با اين كه ناله ميكشم از دل
كه آب
آب
ديگر فريب هم به سرابم نمي برد
پر كن پياله را

Master Shajaryan's latest album has been released one month ago.

{life.urban} Enghelab Square

Why do I like China Town in Toronto depsite the unpleasant chinese food aroma? I guess that's because it reminds me of Enghelab Square in Tehran. Streets and shops are packed with customers and non apologize when they step on your foot. And another thing that I like about that neighbourhood: they sell $5 phone cards for $4 and the vegetables and fruit are fresh and cheap. To enjoy it better today, I bought a new battery for my Swatch from a small shop, which without no doubt was the sister of the shop in south east of Enghelab square. Identical. I felt like shopping at home.

Cheers!

{entertainment.movies} Batman Begins What?

I don't know what exactly IMAX is, but I am going to find out tonight. This site says that it is a cinema using 360 degree projection to give a 3D effect. It's no secret that I am a fan of superhero comic book movies. Waiting eagerly for the Fantastic 4 to release next week. Hey, if you were out of idea what to bring to my birthday, here is a hint: Marv's action figure!

E N T E R T A I N U S I F E E L S T U P I D

{science.prattling} Meaningless questions

Are engineers pursuing a higher degree in science scientist-wanna-be's?

Are scientists pursuing a higher degree in engineering engineer-wanna-be's?

What constitutes the borders among scientific fields?

Note: There used to be general areas a few decades ago, e.g., electro-mecahnical engineering, then they decided to narrow down to the current areas (differentiating between electrical and mechanical engineering), but perhaps we should switch back to where it all started. There are too many other examples, but I think I made my point. Narrowing down multi-disciplanary fields (almost everything nowadays) is next to impossible.