Pe vremuri, odata.

Si-acum o sa imi sara in cap jumate din FB, taci tu din gura ca esti mica, te plangi la varsta ta? D’apai. Fiecare la varsta noastra ne plangem de ceva si fiecare la varsta noastra stim mai multe decat aia la varsta dinainte si mai putin decat aia la varsta de dupa. Asa ca suck it up and act like a... people! Asa imi place mie sa vorbesc bilingv. Sa stiti ca am avut o perioada cand chiar ma frustram pe treaba asta. Mai auzeam chestii de alea, “nici nu a plecat bine din tara si gata nu ma stie sa vorbeasca bine romaneste” si alea alea.

Ca o mica paranteza, ca nu asta este subiectul discutiei de azi, sa stiti ca daca trecem peste fitzele ignorante cu accent italiano-spaniol si de care o mai fi el (daca se duce careva in Norvegia, Finlanda sau India si invata limba, tot respectful! Poate sa nu mai vorbeasca bine romaneste dupa aia, ii dau eu voie!) Deci dupa cum spuneam daca trecem de fitze, sa stiti ca creierul (nu este cacofonie, nu va mai uitati! Doar pare) asa functioneaza cateodata daca folosesti o a doua limba aproape la fel de mult ca prima si pentru foarte mult timp. El daca nu gaseste un cuvant intr-un dictionar se duce automat in celalalt. Daca as mai fi vorbit si franceza atat de mult pe cat vorbeam odata, as fi fost trilingva probabil.

La catedra de engleza nu era pauza in care sa nu imi bag nasul pe acolo si la fel vorbeau si oamenii aia. Si stiti cine avea o problema cu treaba asta? Nobody!!! Dar fac tot posibilul sa ma abtin cand vorbesc cu oameni care imi dau seama ca nu stiu engleza. Sa va zic una funny. Acum mult ani – ca tot vorbim de timp – au facut astia de la Acasa TV o emisune despre subnumita pentru ca incercam sa strang fonduri sa plec la facultate in State. Another story, for another time. Le zic la toti prietenii mei care au aparut in emisiune, toti studenti pe la “limbi” sau toti “engleji” sa nu le scape vreun anglosaxism din asta pe gura in interviu, sa dam si noi bine pe sticla. Mai si cand credeam ca am sarit hopul si toti s-au comportat 100% Romanian, pe Miha mea o ia entuziasmul, parca o vad si acum gesticuland: “I-am zis Mela, dar nu te-ai saturat, las-o, let it go!” Hahaha. La dracu’ am ratat-o si pe asta. Anyway, hai ca o deviem rau si uit despre ce vorbeam.

Da, vorbeam despre vremurile bune din facultate. Alea cand existau pachete la net pe noapte de 5 ore la vreo 5 lei. Cand exista MIRC si NFS (Need For Speed). Cand in intunericul plin de fum de tigare cu fetele albastrite de la lumina aia puturoasa de monitor, ne zgaiam super concentrati pe boul cu masina verde care ne bate pe toti aruncandu-ne in pereti. “Ba’, care e ma prostul ala cu masina verde? Cine dracu’ conduce ma’ asa! Ai gresit cursa pretene, asta nu e Karate Kid!”

Azi dimineata am vazut niste wallpaper-uri cu Assasins Creed, joculetul ala dupa care s-a facut si film. Bunicica grafica. Si mai bunicei baietasii aia. Yyyyuuummm. Bad ass si good looking. Numai in jocuri. Haha. Mi-am amintit cum jucam Quake. Va mai amintiti de Quake? Da, acestia care sunteti destul de in varsta ca sa va amintiti de Quake si cum spoiam pe toti peretii draciile alea. Quake III era cel mai sangeros. Si dupa aia… Starcraft!S.T.A.R.C.R.A.F.T. “Cand dracu’ ai apucat ma tu sa iti faci atata armata!” Imi amintesc ca era o chestie ca un zeppelin din care ieseau foarte multe nave mici ca niste molii. Daca apucai sa iti construiesti unul de ala, cam scumpicel, dar asta e, jocul se termina. Stai ca bosul cu scobitoarea in gura si urmareai killareala.

Starcraft

Si apoi, Age of Empires. Sa va explic. Erau niste misiuni in joculetul ala. In anul 4 de facultate, iarna dinainte de licenta, ma chinuia talentul sa termin misiunea cu Ioana d’Arc. Scopul era sa cuceresti capitala statului vecin si sa nu iti moara eroul. Adica Ioana. Deci. Pe vreama aia, calculatorul meu era facut de un prieten de la Valcea din bucati. Ii spuneam Prototipul. Si acum il am, si acum merge. Ce stiti voi! Avea 2GB memorie. Adica cat sa tina Word-ul si un joculet. Si un wallpaper probabil haha. Mergea cu discheta (aveam licenta pe vreo 3 sau 4). Cand pornea era la fel ca motorul la tractor. Incet, zgomotos, dar sigur. Iti dai seama ce placa video putea duce baiatul ala. Totul mergea perfect cat adunam lemne, aur, mancare, construiam o baraca, mai mutam doi fraieri mai la stanga. S’apoi hai la lupta.

Mai, era exact cam ca in Evul Mediu. Complet realist. Alora le lua vreo 2 saptamani calare sa ajunga, mie cam 2 ore. Puteam sa gatesc, sa mai invat la vreo doua materii si ajungeau si ei. Cand incepeam sa aud strigate ma mutam la consola. Select all. Aim target. Dai! Vreo 30 minute nu mai intelegeai cine cu cine sa bate. Se suprapuneau luptatorii, mai dam un select all ca sa vad culorile la ai mei, cata viata mai au. Cand brusc ii nenoroceam pe toti (4 ore mai tarziu!) aparea triumfator pe ecran: You Lost! Conquer enemy capital: check. Keep hero alive: DEAD. Cum mama ma-sii sa moara ma! Unde e fraiera aia!!! O caut. Distrusa langa un zid. Cum dracu’ a ajuns acolo!?! Odata, de doua ori! Bai, se apropia licenta si eu tot incercam sa o tin pe fata asta in viata. Se pare ca destinul ei trecuse dincolo de realitate si ramanea neschimbat si in joc. Ce era la gura mea, cred ca s-a invartit in moramant.

In loc sa imi termin de scris lucrarea, ma bateam singura pe calculator. M-am gandit eu. Ia sa las eu fraiera acasa. Fac armata, fac un zid, fac o poarta. O bag pe poarta, distrug poarta, fac un zid. Dupa care mai fac un zid. O selectez. Move forward. Se opreste in gard. Bun! E de bine. Let’s kick some butt!!!! Plec, ajung, nimicesc, astept. Mesaj: Conquer enemy capital: check. Keep hero alive: check! Ioana mea sta in continuare si se uita la zid. You win! Va dati seama ca daca eram in secolul viitor si brusc aveam de-a face cu un Artificial Intelligence being, sarea aia gardul si pleca de nebuna? Norocul meu ca treburile astea se intamplau acum un deceiun haha.

Da mai. Frumos. Frumos, n-am ce zice. Am sters dupa aia jocul ca sa termin si eu facultatea. La masterat mi-am laut o super scula de calculator din primii mei bani pe traduceri. Si dai cu Titans, Lord of the Rings si Sniper. Hai v-o mai zic pe asta si gata. Lord of the Rings era enervant ca trebuia sa apesi prea multe butoane ca sa faca aia 50 de miscari. Dar all in all, era o super grafica, eu am fost si sunt mare fan LOTR, asa ca m-am bagat. Preferatul meu era Gimli. Mic, indesat, sexy din categoria “a face only a mother would love”, bai da’ batea asta la orci de le iesea pe nas. Era o misiune la un moment dat, cand trebuia sa intri “under the mountain”, stiti voi, unde era armata aia de stafii, ticalosi, tradatori, hoti si numai natii bune haha. Eh, secventa aia incepea mereu cu regele care iesea din stanca si intreba suparat “Who dares enter my domain?” N-aveai cum sa sari peste partea aia. Asa de rau mi-o luam la bucata asta ca ajunsesem sa nu mai suport ca de fiecare data sa ma intrebe ala ce caut acolo. Replica perfeta a venit de la un alt prieten care se aseaza odata la jucat. Il aud din bucatarie urland la calculator “Ma’ta mah, pe ma-ta!” Asa a fost pe sufletul meu baiatul asta! Haha.

Titans. Age of Mythology.

LOTR

Sniper.

Deci na. Eu zic sa nu ma apuc de Assasins Creed cam din acelasi motiv de care m-am lasat de seriale. HAVE A LIFE. Daca ma prinde, aleluia hobby. Somn. Viata. Mai bine scriu. Uite, bag asa cate o postare, ma mai ventilez, si imi trece.

Assassins Creed. Looking gooood. 

Hai va pup si spor la o saptamana fara ploaie. Sper.

Mela

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Once upon a time.

And now half of FB is gonna jump at my throat, shut up, you can’t complain at your age, ok? Yeah, really. Each of us, at this age, whatever age that is, have something to complain about and each of us, at this age know more than the ones behind us and less than the ones before us. So, suck it up and act like a … people! I like writing bilingually. The English readers can’t see this haha but in Romanian I always write some words in English. It just comes in handy to me. I kept hearing stuff like, “she hasn’t even left the country yet and she is already forgetting how to speak her native tongue” and all that crap.

Well, as a small parenthesis, ‘cause this is not the main topic of discussion today, know that once we get over the so-called Italian-Spanish “immigrants” of Romanian origin (by the way if anyone immigrated to Norway or Finland or India and learnt their language and messed up Romanian, I wouldn’t mind it at all. Respect for that one buddy!)As I was saying, if we get over the fancy “I’m so Italian now I forget to be Romanian” after just 2 years abroad stuff,  you’d realize that the brain functions this way if you’re using a second language almost as much as you’re using your own. If it doesn’t find a word in one dictionary it will automatically get it from the next one available. If I had spoken French like I used, I’d be trilingual haha.

Every time I snooped in the English Department I’d hear teachers speak the same way. It helped with my frustration, because you know what? Nobody cared!!! But I do try my best to keep my bilingual skills at bay around people who don’t speak English at all. Let me tell you this funny thing. Many years ago – ‘cause we’re talking time here – Acasa TV (quite famous Romanian TV station back in the day) put together a show about me because I was trying to raise funds and go study in the US. That’s another story, for another time. I asked all my friends who showed up in the show, most of them Foreign language students like myself or plane foreigners, to keep their English under control and be 100% Romanian haha. All goes well, all the way to my best buddy Mihaela, who right at the end of her interview she messes it up: "I said Mela, for how long are you gonna do this? I said you have to let it go!” The “let it go” part was in English. She couldn’t help not putting some English into the friggin’ sentence haha. Anyway, we’re majorly deviating from the subject.

Yes, I was talking about the good old days in college. Those days when we could buy “night packages” at the internet café for like 4 bucks. The time when MIRC and Need for Speed existed. When in the darkness, toxic with cigarette smoke, with bluish faces and red eyes from having stared too long in those monitors we’d grin at the asshole riding the green car, beating the crap out of us all, slamming us against the walls. “Who is the idiot driving this thing? Who the fuck taught you to drive like that man! This is a car race not Karate Kid!”

This morning, I saw some Assassins Creed wallpapers, that game they even made a movie after. Pretty good graphic. Pretty hot men. Bad asses and good looking, such a rare thing in reality haha. I remembered how I used to play Quake. Do you remember Quake? Yeah, those of you who are old enough to remember Quake and how we were splashing those creatures everywhere. Quake III was the bloodiest. And then Starcraft! S.T.A.R.C.R.A.F.T. “Who in the fuck came up with this army?” I remember being able to create this machine looking like a zeppelin that would let out many smaller ships looking like moths. If you managed to make one of those, kind of expensive but worthwhile, you could just lay back, chew on your toothpick and watch the slaughter unleash.

And then Age of Empires. Ok, about this. There were some missions in that game. During my senior year in college, the winter before graduation, I was really struggling to finish this Joan d’Arc mission. The goal was to conquer the capital of the enemy state and keep your hero alive. Meaning Joan. So to explain. Back in the day, my computer was made out of parts by a friend in my home town. I had nicknamed it, the Prototype. I still have it and it still works, what do you know! It has 2GB memory, enough to hold Word, a game and probably a wallpaper haha. It worked with floppy disks (my thesis was spread across 3 or 4 of those!). When turned on, it sounded like the engine of a rusty truck. Loud and chocking. You can imagine the kind of video board that computer had. Everything went well as long as I had my people gather wood, food, gold, build a barrack, forge some weapons, move a couple of suckers around. Then built an army. Then let’s fight.

To be more exact it all looked very realistic. Very much like in the Dark Ages. It would take those people about 2 weeks to get there on horse, it would take me about 2 hours to get there on my computer. I could do some dishes and some studying before they got there. When I heard the battle sounds I’d get back to the controls. Select all. Aim Target. Let’s go! For about 30 minutes, you wouldn’t understand much of anything of what was going on. Armies were overlapping, another Select all to see where my people are by color and check on their life status. Then suddenly after a massive destruction (4 hours later!) this message showed up on the screen, triumphantly: You Lost! Conquer enemy capital: Check. Keep hero alive: DEAD. How in the hell is she dead? Where is that bitch!!! Looking for her. Lying dead next to some wall. How the hell did she get there? It happened once, then twice! Graduation was closing in and I was still working on keeping that girl alive. It seems her real destiny had transcended into the game. I had such a foul month when it came to that mission, you wouldn’t believe it.

I had to finish writing my thesis, instead I was beating myself up in front of the computer. So I gave it some thought. Let’s leave this idiot home. I built the army, I made a wall, I made a gate. I made her go through the gate, I took out the gate, built a wall instead. Then another wall. I select her. Move forward. She stops into the wall. Gooood! Let’s kick some butt!!! I leave, I arrive, I slaughter, I wait. Message: Conquer enemy capital: check. Keep hero alive: check. My Joan was still bumping her head against the wall at home. You win!!! You do realize that if I had played this during some Artificial Intelligence era, she would’ve jumped the wall and die again, right? Good thing I was playing this about a decade ago or so haha.

Yeah. Those days were a beauty. I had to delete the game afterwards so I can graduate properly haha. During masters I bought one super computer from my first earnings as a translator. And then go Titans, and Lord of the Rings and Sniper. Let me tell you this one more thing and then I’m done. Lord of the Rings was annoying because you needed a lot of controls for each character but it had pretty good graphic, I was/am a big fan of it so I was in. My favorite was Gimli. Small, round beast with a face only a mother could love haha, but he was kicking some major orc ass! There was this mission where they had to go get the Army Under the Mountain and every time you entered, the Kind would come out of the rock and ask “Who dares enter my domain?” You couldn’t skip that part. It annoyed the hell out of me after a while. One time this gamer friend of mine comes over and starts playing and I hear him roaring from the kitchen, with what I call, best reply to the King “Your momma, idiot, your momma!” haha.

So yeah. I say I should not start playing Assassins Creed for the same reasons I avoid watching TV series. HAVE A LIFE. If it catches me, I’m dead. Bye bye hobbies, sleep, life. I better stick to writing. Like now. Post something really quick, vent it out and then let it go.

Alrighty people, big hugs and have a sunny week!

Mela