2011 Bolero - Alexei Yagudin - Vampires

Well, I guess it had to be done since vampires are so fashionable these days. I'm still amazed by his speed and stamina.

Venus - Erotic Sci Fi Stories

This is it, my first collaboration with SRSFF (Romanian Society of Science Fiction and Fantasy). They publish a yearly anthology on a given theme and have done it for three years in a row so far. This time around the theme was love.

The anthology is titled "Venus - Erotic Science Fiction Stories", compiled by Antuza Genescu and published by Eagle Publishing House.

Table of content:
Foreword - Marian Truta
"The Alphabet to Venus" - Cristian Mihail Teodorescu
'The Crippled People's Conspiracy" - Stefana Cristina Czeller
"A from Amsterdam" - Silviu Genescu
"The Truth in their Sights" - Ioana Visan
"Emanoil Popescu, Superhero" - Stefan Ghidoveanu
"The Lost Toys" - George Lazar
"White Stain, Silver Knight, Blonde Panther" - Liviu Radu
"A Temporary Phenomenon" - Antuza Genescu

The official launch will take place during Gaudeamus International Book Fair (November 23-27, 2011) and then during the ProspectArt meeting on December 16, 2011.

Me happy and can I say that I just love the cover?

Breaking Dawn or Where were the Spice Girls when Bella grew up?

Why am I writing about Twilight? I have a cold. A medium to bad one. As usual, when I’m sick, I can’t work, I can’t write, and I get all these weird ideas. Oh, and how else am I supposed to draw traffic to the blog? :)

So Twilight… well, it’s called Breaking Dawn these days, but it’s the same thing. I can’t find the mini-review I wrote about the first movie when it came out, so maybe I never posted it. Anyway, it was merely one paragraph long, no loss there. Besides, this isn’t supposed to be a review of the books or the movies, I have better things to do than that.

I just want to write some thoughts on Bella. *gasps* Yep, not Edward. Movie Edward looks nothing like the Edward I imagined while reading the books *embarrassed smile* so there’s no comparison there. All I’m saying is that my Edward looked less creepy and less clown-like chalk-white than Robert Pattinson does in most of the scenes. This is the advantage of reading books, you can imagine anything you want. With movies, you’re stuck watching images meant to give you nightmares later on during the night. That’s why I prefer books, but back to the point.

Bella. I’ll skip over the part where I should complain about the mannerism used by Kristen Stewart to portray Bella. She’s usually a good actress, but all she succeeds here is to make Bella even more annoying than she is in the books. No, I’m going to complain about the way Bella thinks. You see, Bella is a coward. Even worse, she’s a selfish, stubborn coward. She doesn’t want to learn, go to college, expand her horizon, she doesn’t want to work, have a family, a life. She has no aspirations for herself. The world moves around her, but she makes no impact on it. It’s like she doesn’t even exists.

She thinks she wants Edward, but what she really needs is a fairy godmother, who can snap her fingers and make her instantly beautiful, physically perfect, and a good match for her prince without any effort from her part whatsoever. She takes the easy route and jumps directly to the accomplished stage. And even then she shows no sign of self improvement, she still wants just one thing: to be with Edward.

I dread to think what such a mother’s influence could do to that poor child. Child protection should look into that, both parents are completely off the rails. They should both undergo a decade or two of therapy before having anyone entrusted into their care. Come to think of it, I’m not sure Bella should even be legally allowed to get married considering how immature she is. Ah, no worries, no one in their right mind would want to marry her in the real world… except for a controlling freak who can’t get anyone better. So she’s screwed either way. Do we really care? I think not.

Personally, I still have some hope left for her character to get interesting in part 2 of Breaking Dawn, and get some cool action scenes at least, but given how long and tedious the previous movies have been so far I better not hold my breath.

OK, end of rant. Send in the hate mail. It will make my recovery more entertaining. Tee-hee!

2011 Trophee Eric Bompard

17-20.11.2011
Paris, France

Full Results

Men

FPl.	Name	Nation	Points	SP	FS
1	Patrick CHAN	CAN	240.60	1	1
2	Nan SONG	CHN	224.10	2	2
3	Michal BREZINA	CZE	218.60	3	4
4	Adam RIPPON	USA	217.89	4	3
5	Florent AMODIO	FRA	201.34	5	5
6	Alexander MAJOROV	SWE	190.60	8	6
7	Nobunari ODA	JPN	167.20	7	9
8	Romain PONSART	FRA	160.45	9	8
9	Chafik BESSEGHIER	FRA	160.39	10	7
WD	Kevin REYNOLDS	CAN		6

Ladies

FPl.	Name	Nation	Points	SP	FS
1	Elizaveta TUKTAMISHEVA	RUS	182.89	1	2
2	Carolina KOSTNER	ITA	179.32	2	3
3	Alissa CZISNY	USA	179.15	3	1
4	Kanako MURAKAMI	JPN	161.31	4	4
5	Viktoria HELGESSON	SWE	154.90	5	5
6	Mae Berenice MEITE	FRA	145.44	6	6
7	Sonia LAFUENTE	ESP	136.32	7	8
8	Yretha SILETE	FRA	135.90	8	7
9	Lena MARROCCO	FRA	126.97	9	9

Pairs

FPl.	Name	Nation	Points	SP	FS
1	Tatiana VOLOSOZHAR / Maxim TRANKOV	RUS	194.13	1	1
2	Vera BAZAROVA / Yuri LARIONOV	RUS	184.91	3	2
3	Meagan DUHAMEL / Eric RADFORD	CAN	176.62	2	3
4	Amanda EVORA / Mark LADWIG	USA	169.58	4	4
5	Jessica DUBE / Sebastien WOLFE	CAN	150.68	5	6
6	Huibo DONG / Yiming WU	CHN	147.75	6	5
7	Ksenia STOLBOVA / Fedor KLIMOV	RUS	137.06	7	8
8	Vanessa JAMES / Morgan CIPRES	FRA	133.31	8	7

Ice Dance

FPl.	Name	Nation	Points	SD	FD
1	Tessa VIRTUE / Scott MOIR	CAN	176.93	1	1
2	Nathalie PECHALAT / Fabian BOURZAT	FRA	164.56	2	2
3	Anna CAPPELLINI / Luca LANOTTE	ITA	153.76	3	3
4	Elena ILINYKH / Nikita KATSALAPOV	RUS	140.32	4	4
5	Madison CHOCK / Evan BATES	USA	130.94	5	5
6	Xintong HUANG / Xun ZHENG	CHN	126.69	6	6
7	Kristina GORSHKOVA / Vitali BUTIKOV	RUS	118.48	7	7
8	Sara HURTADO / Adria DIAZ	ESP	103.75	8	8

Eurosport screwed up big time this weekend. The Men's FP was supposed to be broadcasted live and they ended up showing only the last three programs. The feed from the gala also had some weird cuts.

2011 Bolero - Alexei Yagudin - Tango. 12 Chairs

Alexei's comedic timing is spot on so no wonder his comedic programs always work for him.

Radu Negoita Official Website

2011 NHK Trophy

10-13.11.2011
Sapporo, Japan

Full Results

Men

FPl.	Name	Nation	Points	SP	FS
1	Daisuke TAKAHASHI	JPN	259.75	1	1
2	Takahiko KOZUKA	JPN	235.02	2	2
3	Ross MINER	USA	212.36	6	4
4	Samuel CONTESTI	ITA	209.69	7	3
5	Tomas VERNER	CZE	196.63	9	5
6	Konstantin MENSHOV	RUS	195.88	4	8
7	Tatsuki MACHIDA	JPN	195.45	5	6
8	Armin MAHBANOOZADEH	USA	185.58	8	7
9	Brandon MROZ	USA	184.83	3	9

Ladies

FPl.	Name	Nation	Points	SP	FS
1	Akiko SUZUKI	JPN	185.98	1	2
2	Mao ASADA	JPN	184.19	3	1
3	Alena LEONOVA	RUS	170.68	2	4
4	Ashley WAGNER	USA	165.65	5	3
5	Elene GEDEVANISHVILI	GEO	160.44	4	6
6	Kiira KORPI	FIN	157.53	7	5
7	Mae Berenice MEITE	FRA	143.69	8	7
8	Agnes ZAWADZKI	USA	138.19	6	9
9	Cynthia PHANEUF	CAN	131.82	9	8
10	Shoko ISHIKAWA	JPN	122.14	10	10

Pairs

FPl.	Name	Nation	Points	SP	FS
1	Yuko KAVAGUTI / Alexander SMIRNOV	RUS	177.51	5	1
2	Narumi TAKAHASHI / Mervin TRAN	JPN	172.09	2	2
3	Aliona SAVCHENKO / Robin SZOLKOWY	GER	171.68	1	3
4	Stefania BERTON / Ondrej HOTAREK	ITA	163.83	3	5
5	Caydee DENNEY / John COUGHLIN	USA	163.75	4	4
6	Lubov ILIUSHECHKINA / Nodari MAISURADZE	RUS	159.01	6	6
7	Marissa CASTELLI / Simon SHNAPIR	USA	149.02	7	7
8	Natasha PURICH / Raymond SCHULTZ	CAN	128.17	8	8

Ice Dance

FPl.	Name	Nation	Points	SD	FD
1	Maia SHIBUTANI / Alex SHIBUTANI	USA	151.85	3	1
2	Kaitlyn WEAVER / Andrew POJE	CAN	151.76	2	2
3	Elena ILINYKH / Nikita KATSALAPOV	RUS	149.48	1	3
4	Nelli ZHIGANSHINA / Alexander GAZSI	GER	136.12	4	4
5	Lorenza ALESSANDRINI / Simone VATURI	ITA	133.29	5	5
6	Lynn KRIENGKRAIRUT / Logan GIULIETTI-SCHMITT	USA	126.39	6	6
7	Cathy REED / Chris REED	JPN	123.22	8	7
WD	Alexandra PAUL / Mitchell ISLAM	CAN		7

Due to schedule conflict I missed a big part of the competition and gala, but Daisuke Takahashi was great.