The time has come yet again to hop across “The Pond” to my native Slovakia for a bit of rest and recreation. After a year ‘s hiatus, I am joined again by Andi and for 10 days also by Francis and Lisa who will be taking a train from Switzerland to join us in Slovakia on the 27th of June. We have been here for a week now so I am using the first day of bad weather to update this thing.
The End of the Line (Documentary)
June 9th, 2009 · Movies
Stumbled upon this documentary by accident and it looks pretty intriguing. The End of the Line in a nutshell focuses on overfishing of World’s fish stock and presents a scathing analysis of the fishing industry. The film will start appearing in US theaters in the second half of June, mostly in major cities. I have no hopes it will ever find it’s way to Stony Brook, or Suffolk County in general. I guess I will have to wait for the DVD or hope that it ever makes it to TV so that the cable-intoxicated masses will be able to see it. You can view the trailer below and check the status of your favorite fish.
Stupid CNN headline
June 5th, 2009 · Uncategorized
When it comes to stupid headlines, CNN simply beats the crap out of the competition. I actually do think, that there may – in fact – be no contest. I used to take screen shots and built quite a collection but eventually deleted it. Not sure why, it would come in handy right now. Today was no exception.
God bless you Dr. Kevorkian
May 15th, 2009 · Books, Personal
I don’t remember what my first encounter with Kurt Vonnegut was, but it must have been impressive. Impressive enough to prompt me to look him up and to read some of his novels. I think it all started with his last one – A Man Without a Country, which I listened to while I tried to fall asleep one night. I did eventually fall asleep, but only long after the book finished. Then came a classic – Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel which undoubtedly is one of the best written books I have ever read. Browsing through library stacks one day I stumbled upon a tiny little book with an intriguing title – God Bless You Dr. Kevorkian.
Bicycling on Long Island – Stony Brook to Long and Short Beach
May 1st, 2009 · Bicycling, Geocaching, Long Island
Long and Short beach are located in the town of Nissequogue on the North Shore of Long Island. Both beaches seemed to be accessible by ~20-25 mile bicycle ride to the west from our homebase in Stony Brook. The weather forecast for the weekend was sunny and hot (too hot) so we decided to leave around 8 am from campus. After some minor repairs and bike maintenance we left around 8:30. The basic plan was to follow 25A to St. James and then Moriches road north to the beaches and then on the way back, to avoid busy 25A we planned to follow the coast on Harbor Road back to Stony Brook village and to campus.
→ 3 CommentsTags: Bicycling·biking·Long beach·Long Island·New York·Short beach·Stony Brook
Geocaching on the Mason Rail Trail, NH
April 19th, 2009 · Geocaching, Hiking
Compared to Long Island, north-central Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire offer plentiful opportunities for mountain biking, hiking as well as geocaching. One of those opportunities is the the Mason Rail Trail, which starts at the MA/NH border and continues north before turning west. We were eager to take an easy walk in a fairly secluded place, while doing some geocaching and giving Curie a chance to run around.
→ 2 CommentsTags: Geocaching·Hiking·Mason rail trail·walking
And the spicy mess was banished …
April 18th, 2009 · Cooking, Personal, Photography
From our kitchen, that is. Over the years we have accumulated quite a collection of spices. Starting with asafoetida (or hing, if you insist), through berbere and cardamom pods (both green and black) to vanilla and yellow mustard – it was all in there, stuffed several rows deep in a cabinet. An unfortunate consequence of this arrangement is that every time we needed a bottle of spice that was not in the first row we had to rummage through everything and inadvertently drop some of them on the counter.
→ No CommentsTags: do it yourself·Photography·spice rack·time lapse
Welcome to redesigned asmirnov.org
April 14th, 2009 · Personal
The old website is no more. I have moved the worthy content into the new WordPress format and content management system and removed the old unncessary fluff that has not received a hit in months. As a result of this migration I expect to disappear from google search results for a while but hopefully bounce [...]
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My favorite bits from Monty Python’s Holy Grail
April 12th, 2009 · Movies
MORTICIAN: Who’s that then?
CUSTOMER: I don’t know.
MORTICIAN: Must be a king.
CUSTOMER: Why?
MORTICIAN: He hasn’t got shit all over him.
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