I don’t quite remember when I first received the news regarding the the Sivand dam [Iran – Fars] reconstruction and how it could seriously damage Iran’s archeological sites, but I do know that now I’m completely sick and tired of my mailbox and Orkut scrap book getting filled up with all the emails and messages on the topic, which oh, yeah, happen to be ALL BLOODY LIES!
So here’s the story: The Sivand dam has been an important part of an on going 10 year plan to provide irrigation water for the farmers in the area, and now that it’s nearly complete, some very disturbing rumors have been spread around which have managed to cause serious concerns for a whole lot of people, including myself for a short while. [If you didn’t know already, I’m Persian. At least to a large extent.] The rumors have it that the flooding of this dam could cause the total destruction of some of Iran’s most important archeological sites including Pasargadae, the city built by King Cyrus the Great, and the King’s tomb. So these are the rumors that everyone has been receiving and damn well spreading without the smallest bit of research and any actual credible information.
Now here’s my question to whoever’s been spreading the rumors thinking that they’ve been doing a fine job opening the eyes of the world to the truth: HOW GULLIBLE CAN YOU POSSIBLY BE? Why won’t you go and learn the truth for yourself instead of getting so fizzed up over a bunch of spam mails? When are you going to wake up and see what’s really happening, and what role you’re actually playing here?
Last night I received an email saying that the flooding has started, and the tomb has already gone under, and HEY it included bloody PICTURES believe it or not. That’s it, I’ve had it, my folly taking capacity is officially over. I’ve decided to post a little piece of authenticated truth here, so “you”, rumor spreaders, might consider going and talking to the right people, or even better, taking a little trip and seeing things for yourself if you can. And of course I hope this helps anyone who would like to have some knowledge of what’s been happening.
The Pasargadae and King’s tomb are in fact kilometers away from the bloody dam. There’s even a few villages in between, which means what exactly? Are you telling me that all those people have been drowned for cryin’ out loud? Of course not, you didn’t even think of that did you? In addition, you seem to fail to realize that the archeological sites of Iran don’t just belong to Iran, they belong to the world nation and therefore they’re all under protection of UNESCO. The Persian government doesn’t do any kind of construction work around any of Iran’s archeological sites without the permission of UNESCO. On the other hand, a Persian-Italian archeological research team has just recently unearthed another huge site in the area, which is being explored right at this moment. Makes me wonder, did they drown too? Or are they doing under-water explorations now?
The only actual concern that has been brought up so far, is the effects of the possible increase of steam in the air. As it turns out, in comparison with the amount of rain that the sites receives each year, the steam problem is totally negligible. I also have to mention that some interesting solutions are being discussed currently for the rain problem. I also have another little hint for the rumor spreaders: You might want to start thinking in lines of “what effect these rumors have on the international view of Iran”, and how many more examples of similar problems we’re dealing with currently, which have to do with certain political matters that I’m just too sick of them to get into them here anyway.
And now for some laughs, I’d like to share with you the very amusing [or not] photoshop works that I’ve just received, displaying the supposedly flooded tomb of Cyrus.
If you have some additional news, photos, or anything to contribute to the article, or for some discussions or questions, please either ICQ, MSN, or Yahoo me. Thank you.

“I’m completely operational, and all my circuits are functioning perfectly”. Yup! I remember my own circuits getting completely fried after seeing this one. Perfect Love by LKCC & Bauknecht was the second “Robotic” demo of the show. The only complaint that I heard about this demo was toward the sound track. I was told that with a better sound track this demo could be a master-piece. Of course robot-happy people like me never minded the music anyway, and just enjoyed the super eye-candy! 😛
Next we had a bit of a sweet surprise for all the ASD fans. 🙂 Iconoclast which was actually a part of the last show, was screened again! This was one of nicest part of the show in my opinion, since you could actually see a lot of excitement going around. The crowd [specially the old crowd] seemed to be very happy to see Iconoclast once more, and the fans were actually standing up the whole time during the re-screening. Yup, ASD ruled the house again. 🙂
The last demo of the show was one that apparently has a lot of fans. Heaven Seven by Exceed is a very well known demo which I was actually told to watch by quite a few people when I first came across the Demoscene. [& Yeah I actually do go ahead and watch your recommendations people! :P] I guess I don’t even need to try do describe here how the crowd reacted to this one, do I? 🙂 This demo was actually screened twice back to back, since people wanted to grasp a bit more of the lyrics and the general concept. Besides the awesome visuals and great music, there’s definitely a lot going on in this demo, concept wise. A lot for us all to think about! 🙂 And of course, screenies as per request:So that was it! To wrap things up we listened to the 2 fantastic tracks, Chloral Hydrate by aMUSiC which made me and my Dune fanatic friends super-happy, and Music On The Moon by aMUSiC and Amigo, which got everyone dancing. 😀 And I guess now it’s time for me to finally finish up with this terribly long report [but what could I do, a promise is a promise! 😉 I just hope you guys are happy! :D] As for the next show, I have no clue when it’s going to be but of course if I decide to start arranging something again, I’ll let you all know. As for your questions regarding the demo-groups, as I mentioned before you can find their websites through www.pouet.net, [and refer to the update on part 3]. Still if it’s something that you can’t find and you think I might know, the shoutbox is open. Have fun people! 😉

A Simple Way by Vantage was another demo to bring up some controversy. Some very much liked it, some very much didn’t. Now if you’re one of those who liked it, then we’re on the same page. But if you’re one of those who didn’t, well then I’d like you to enlighten me a bit: What was it about this demo that you didn’t like? I do remember some guys saying that they were bored. But that’s as much as I could gather. The positive side seemed to have a lot to say though. This demos is….well….simple as the name depicts. An easy going /relaxing design with calming colors, put together with a fantastic sound track and some interesting lyrics, “demonstrating” the concept of beauty within simplicity. So explain to me, why did some of you look like you wanted to shoot me for being a bit Vantified? 😛
You are going our way now,
Our way is simple,
We like going our way,
Because our way is simple,
It is,
A simple way.

I guess you could say that my fellow Elec Engeez got quite a treat this time around, given that there were at least 3 demos related to their field in this show. The very directly related one was Electric Kool-Aid by Synesthetics. The whole demo is displayed through an oscilloscope tube, what else could we possibly ask for? huh? But this electrifying demo didn’t just make the EE posse happy, it actually managed to make everyone happy! The super cool design and general atmosphere of this demo was exciting for the whole crowd. It seems like there are not many Synesthetics demos out there, well I hope that we’ll see more from these guys in the future.

Update: Guys I don’t have the soundtrack for “A Simple Way” in s seperate file. If it’s out there, I’m yet to find it. If you find it, I want it too!

[End of part 6]

Next Stop: ALL HAIL SATORI!
Yes, thank you Satori, this is where the fight started. The crowd got divided to 2 clear groups, the ones who completely loved the Satori demos and the ones who completely hated them. No in-betweens what-so-ever. Given that 2 Satori demos were shown you can probably guess that I’m a big fan. And I have to confess that watching people arguing deep over DE:TOX and Circulation was fun to no end. >:) Total chaos took over. Some of the negative comments [specially around DE:TOX]: No content, no concept, horrible music, artless, meaningless, nerve racking, and….you get the picture. And of course some of the positive comments: Awesome visuals [for Circulation], Satori rules, DE:TOX kicks it hard, great music and great visuals for both, and hey, I even heard “great concepts for both”! 😀 How about that? I also heard a lot of people saying that they “didn’t get it”, or “you didn’t like it because you didn’t get it”. What I’m thinking right now is “define getting it”. What does it mean to get it anyway? Does it mean that you have to know exactly what the artist was thinking, in order to enjoy the art? Or can you just enjoy [or disenjoy for that matter] whatever it is that the piece of art makes you feel? In any case, this was definitely one of the most heated up parts of the show. 🙂
195/95 by Plastic [which apparently has a final version made by rgba…..or correct me if you can!] was exactly what we needed to calm the chaotic mood down after the Satori war. The uber eye/ear candy did a nice job settling the differences. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the show once more. Some wanted to know the name of the dancing creature. Some sort of a fairy I think?!
Arise by Stravaganza again divided the crowd to 2 parts: people who liked the demo, and people who went absolutely crazy about it! Arise proved to have all that it takes to make everyone happy. Graphics, music, everything’s great. But then, there’s a specific group of people who might enjoy this demo even more than the rest. A group that includes myself. Anyone who’s ever had something to do with building a robot probably knows what I’m talking about. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE THAT ANDROID IS AWESOME! Yup, my fellow electrical engeez and robot builders were in total frenzy during this one. Thank you Stravaganza for the pretty android. Resistance is absolutely futile.
Next came the Dooms Day fun pack Legomania. This super cute demo managed to bring a wide smile to everyone’s faces! 🙂 Apparently we had a lot of Lego fanatics in the crowd [again including myself] who were more than thrilled to see this one. The scenario for each of the Lego brothers was marvelous; specially the Matrix section seemed to have a lot of fans. The happy upbeat music was certainly a bonus. I have to mention this again, this is definitely one of the cuuuuuuuutest demos I’ve seen so far. 🙂
Fly fly brother red, close to home you will get,
Boost boost more speed, just another sci-fi geek!
Swim swim brother green, where have you been?
Smile smile don’t frown, or you might suddenly drawn! [Hahaha :D]
We are not like the others, we are the famous Lego brothers,
Brother red green and blue, sticking together like glue,
Drive drive brother blue, keep your hat on, don’t catch the flue,
Faster faster, keep the motor running, brick walls are very stunning! [ROFLz :D]

And of course some screen-shots as per request:

Stay tuned, cause we have another controversial crowd splitting demo to discuss next.

Update: Check out amv’s comment regarding the 195/95 demo. 🙂

Update: Check aMUSiC’s comment regarding Dragonil, on the previous post. 🙂

[End of part 5]

I’ve decided to start a new log for this part of the report, since the comments are already showing signs of difficulty while loading, and I think we still have a lot to talk about.
At this point in the show we had a bit of a change of directions. Next demo to go on the big screen was different from so many aspects compared to what we had seen up to that point. O Kyklos Tis Zwis [The Circle of Life] by Dragonil was the show’s only flash demo, which was also the representative of a rather different style of demos. If you’re reading this and you haven’t seen this demo yet…..I have a warning for you. A very serious one that is. Ladies and Gentlemen, this demo successfully broke my heart to a thousand and one pieces, and believe you me, it will do the same to yours. It didn’t just impress me, it actually made me cry. Yes. Honestly. Twice. And hey, I’m not exactly your example of an overly emotional person, and fortunately all the accusations of that sort were recently removed, thanks to the display crowd! They showed that it wasn’t just me; that this demo actually had something different about it. The amazing concept of this demo added to the cute graphics and the great music, makes this demo quite a memorable one, as I was told by the viewers.
Next came WHEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAA ASD again! 😀
Dreamchild, another ASD masterpiece. I was told by some of the viewers that this demo was not meant to be watched for simple entertainment purposes. The comment was pretty interesting for me. I think we can all see why that is. => CONCEPT <=. This demo definitely has a lot to offer to apprehensive minds. Besides that, the visuals rule and don't even get me started on the music. Kudos to aMUSiC and Leviathan for doing it again. There's also some super Kudos to go to aMUSiC [again] and Amoivikos for the lyrics: I’m not a product of your dreams,
I’m not either injected into your fantasy
by some conspiracy or diabolic plot.
I was, I am and I will be
a part of your crystalite world.
Omnipresent, spreading my roots
deep into your nightmares.
I cannot be removed.
I am just there.
Because I am, none other..
than you!

You are a dream.
You are the whispering twilight,
shining into my world of illusion.
You are the warmth of my mortality,
A moment in time.
You seek after me.
You are forgetfulness,
but you are forgiveness also.
You are the child I wish I had been,
the innocence I could never recapture.
You wish to embrace me.
You are but the candle’s flicker,
yet you can set my heart ablaze.
You cried for me,
yet not one tear has reached me.
You need not despair.
You’ll be there still for me to long for.
For you to be reflected,
into the stare of my loving eyes.
For you to be dreamt of.
For you..
am I.

UPDATE: DO CHECK THIS OUT: http://www.last.fm/music/aMUSiC+and+Leviathan

UPDATE: If you happen to be a last.fm user please go to the above page. We need some votes for a change of logo.

[End of part 4]

Yes, it finally happened. After weeks of dealing with all sorts of ridiculous problems, we were finally able to hold the second Demo Display, which turned out to be well worth all the trouble. Given the amazing experience of the first show, and the amount of positive feedback that I received, we decided to be a little more organized and do some actual preparation for the second one. [For anyone who might not know this, the first show happened out of the blue and based on a sudden mental spark that I had!] Although the preparations didn’t exactly happen in the most smooth manner, but we managed to get things done and send out the news to our Engee and Artzee friends and post some flyers for the rest of the world, on time. As a result of that, the crowd was considerably larger than the first time. The show was huge….a huge emotional outburst. I don’t think I had ever seen Artzeez and Engeez agree so much….let alone going crazy over the same thing. Once again my Artzee friends did an awesome job helping me running the show. In addition I had the luxury of having 2 very special friends with me, who came to Toronto just for this. Soren, Kay [KayOS], you guys rule.
I had actually came up with a solid list of the demos that I wanted to show this time, but as the crowd grew larger, we decided to prolong the show. As a result I was happily able to add a few more favorites to the list, including a couple of demos from the last display. So here’s what we showed:

• Aphorism For The Masses by ASD
• Ambience For The Masses by ASD
• Antidote For The Masses by ASD
• Ocean Machine by The Black Lotus
• Tokyo by xplsv & Roter Fleck
• O Kyklos Tis Zwis by Dragonil
• Dreamchild by ASD
• Circulation by Satori & Aural Planet
• DE:TOX by Satori&
• 195/95 by Plastic [The final by rgba..hmm..huh? I don’t quit know either!]
• Arise by Stravaganza
• Lego Mania by Doomsday
• A Simple Way by Vantage
• Electric Kool-Aid by Synesthetics
• Perfect Love by LKCC & Bauknecht
• Iconoclast by ASD [re-show]
• Heaven Seven by Exceed

And of course to close the show we listened to a couple of great tracks:

• Chloral Hydrate by aMUSiC [ASD]
• Music On The Moon by aMUSiC [ASD] & Amigo [The Lab]

Now as you’re suspecting I’m going to talk a little about the demos that we watched, and I’d be glad to know what you thought of each. The size of the crowd this time made it impossible for me to gather what everyone had to say about each demo, so lets do that here. But first I suppose I should mention a few facts, based on some interesting questions that I’ve received lately.
Nope, I’m not a scener, neither are most of the people reading this blog. I came to learn about the Demoscene just recently [although I had seen some rather old demos a while ago]. Yup, I code a lot, Yup, I do some graphic design too, but Nope, I haven’t ever done anything remotely related to creating a demo. Currently most of the coding that I’m doing is Microchip Assembly anyway. Given the way I came across Demoscene first, [watching Iconoclast completely confused & without the slightest idea of what was going on and with my jaw resting somewhere on the floor the whole time and enjoying the experience immensely that is], I’ve developed a tendency to pay more attention to the eye-candy/ear-candy aspects of the demos. Same applies to most of my friends here. [Not that I can ever completely ignore the behind-the-scenes!] Basically, we gathered to watch the demos for the joy of it. 🙂
The people who were present at the first display, came to the second one expecting particularly to see some more ASD demos. That, and the fact that me and my gang are huge fans, were the reasons for us to start the show with ASD’s trilogy [and to include 5 ASD demos in the show of course :D]. ASD’s trilogy is a superbly artistic symbolization of the 3 basic elements: Air [Antidote], Fire [Aphorism] and Water [Ambience]. Given all the discussions that were raised among the crowd specially over the “fire”, I believe I should present here the very helpful explanation that aMUSiC of ASD has posted on Pouet:
“The trilogy is focused on the Aristotle’s element line of Aether, Fire and Water. Aphorism is the Fire part. You can control fire up to a certain extent, but fire is always unpredictable both in its movements and constraint. The various backbone synch points and imagery is depicting the control and constrain of the fire, while the distortions and artifacts are representing the randomness and unpredictability of the flames, that however begin with a seed.. the flammable material (which is the music and its frequencies). The style of the music is harsh and expands into a multitude of frequencies to show the wildness and mercilessness of fire.” What seemed very interesting to me was, although to a rather minor extent, it was apparent that each part of the trilogy seemed to be more appealing to a group of people with rather similar tempers! I’d definitely appreciate it if you people let me know whether you observed something similar. What I do know is that a theater room full of people was on fire while watching each part of this masterpiece! 🙂

After a the trilogy, came the only Amiga demo of the show, Ocean Machine by The Black Lotus. Of course I was pretty curious to see what everyone would think of the Amiga demo and watch some reactions. And of course I wasn’t disappointed; having enjoyed watching this demo as much as I have, naturally I was hoping that the crowd would enjoy it as well, and gladly I should say that apparently they did. It seemed that the scene with the black dancer touched the hearts of most of the viewers, and I really didn’t have to go asking around to figure that one out. I just had to stand behind the panel and observe the reactions! 😉 In addition, the incredible sound track of this demo turned into a common favorite.

The next demo to go on the screen was Tokyo by xplsv. Yeah the same bloody demo that got me mistyping [yeah I know that most of you know what I’m talking about since you all had your ball making a huge fuss out of my tiny typo! :P]; the significance being the fact that my speech skills resembled my spelling skills for a few hours after watching that demo. But hey, it wasn’t just me! The colors, the awesome music and all the beautiful effects in this demo managed to create the Tokyo feeling for the whole crowd, and from what I could see, it was quite an enjoyable one too. Another interesting fact is that no one out of that crowd has so far told me that the demo was too slow for them. Anyone thought so? Let me know. Personally I think the slow pace was a must for this one, in order to have “the” effect. Anyhow; off to the next part.

Update: Since a lot of people were asking for this, do check aMUSiC’s comment regarding the ocean machine lyrics. [Yup, half a gallon Mustard/day for me from now on!]

Important Update: Ok I have to add this here so it won’t get lost in the comments pile: Starting from the show day, I’ve received so many “who did what in the where” questions regarding the producers of the demos, a lot of which I honestly don’t know the answers to. True, I do a whole lot of reading up and tracking down, and I do have “some” info, but I can not possibly have the answers to the kind of detailed questions you seem to have. So I suggest that you check out the group pages on www.pouet.net and from there find the website URLs of the groups that you have questions about [that is if they have one], and you probably know what to do after that. I also have to mention this: NO I won’t post those questions on pouet.net BBS. I’m still enjoying my life. If you like, you can try that yourselves. 🙂

[End of part 3]

Warning: This post does not contain spoilers.

If there’s anyone out there who still hasn’t seen the 2nd Garfield movie, this is a reminder for them to go ahead and do so, ’cause you really don’t want to miss this one out! Specially since you’re going to enjoy 2 copies of your favorite fat lazy orange kitty in this movie.

Ok here goes an ESPECIAAAAAAAL post for my ESPECIIIIIIAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL Greek friend, Eelytheria a.k.a lady Freedom! It’s her 25th birthday, so everybody shout HAPPY 25th BIRTHDAY FREEEEEDOOOMMMMMM!! 😀

With All The Best Wishes! 😀

YAY I’m free! My 4 days of doom are officially over and done with. Now I get the chance to sit down, organize my mind and post a new log. Hmmmm….there’s a lot to say…wonder where to start. First things first I guess.
I’ve been asked to post more often! Well thank you for your interest, and I will certainly try to do so. The trouble, you see, is that I have this overly hectic schedule, consisting of: school – work – research – projects – and… well…. hopefully “life” if I ever get any. So that means as much as I’d love to post logs often, I just can’t always steal the time to do so. But again as I said, I’ll sure try.
Now, back to the recent “Hot Topic”. If you’re still wondering what exactly happened around here during the last week, and where the apparent frenzy came from, well here’s what happened.
It all started when my sense of curiosity took me on quite a trip, which resulted in the “discovery” [:P] of some of the most beautiful works of art I’ve ever encountered. I posted a log about this “demos” which caused a bit of a big bang. Then I decided to share the experience with a group of artist friends. We had a little get together to which we refer as “the display”, where we watched a few of these demos and had some discussions. The idea of displaying the demos wasn’t something that I had pre-planned. It popped into my mind right on the scene and I’m happy to say it turned into quite the event. The crowd showed some strong feelings toward the 3 demos from the Greek demo group known as ASD, which honestly was no big surprise since…well….so did I! 😛
Big thanks goes to Dennis and Tim for helping out with everything, and my deepest heartfelt regards goes to the guys and gals who let themselves burst into tears at certain scenes, including that => scene from”Planet Risk“, [Tim, don’t think I missed your face! :P], and to my friend Alex [aka Anders] who now has to pay for a brand new brain, since his old one broke during the display of “Animal Attraction“. [Does SONY manufacture VAIO brains? hmmmm….nevermind.] You might get a deal on eBay. And of course the biggest and loudest of Cheers, Kudos and You Rox goes to ASD for their super brilliant creations.
As for this <= part of "Iconoclast” during which I myself pretty much lost it …..well we all thought it’s a sand-clock on a music box. As it turns out [thanks aMUSiC for the info] this thing is no music box! It’s actually an “Antikythera Mechanism”, an ancient Greek analog computer!! [info here]. Now is that kool or what??
And as for the sound track for “Animal Attraction” which successfully put us all into trance after listening to it about 10 times straight….here are the lyrics as requested:
A smell in the air,
a game never fair,
I’m holding the dice and you just move a square,
You’re facing the wall,
once again when I roll,
Not letting the fate to take it’s toll..
Don’t you fear my maze,
It’s natural to bite your lip and tremble in this fashion,
Mesmerize my gaze,
Touch me and surrender to the animal attraction.
[Lyrics by aMUSiC]
Ok…now I’m ending this log since it has already gone too long, and honestly I have no idea if there was anything else that I was supposed to mention here. If I’m missing something, please let me know and I’ll add. And by the way, regarding the question of which of these was actually my fave….oh for cryin’ out loud! Is that even a question? I think I’ve already been loud enough about it that the whole world knows and my sound system is crashing….it’s called “Animal Attraction”. =>

UPDATE: IMPORTANT NEWS, ASD’S WEBSITE IS NOW BACK ONLINE! CHECK OUT!
[There’s also a permanent link in the links menu, for future reference. Ummm….do check out, they have wallpapers! :P]

Update: This page was suggested by one of the visitors who goes by the nickname Asusu. I’m adding it here so it won’t get lost in the pile of comments. [Thank You!] 🙂

WOW. That’s all that comes to my mind right now. Big red WOOOOOOW. Possibly with a cherry on top….or something in those lines.
You know how sometimes you’re looking for a certain something and then what you come across is completely off topic? Like when you’re Googling for some MOSFET data sheet and you get a soup recipe instead? Well the same thing happened to me today…searching for something I came across something else…and one thing linked to the other…and I ended up HERE. Check out what I’ve found. This demo, called Iconoclast, has been released on July 2005 but I hadn’t seen it before, and if it wasn’t for this freak accident I would never have seen it, and that would have been the loss of a life time!!
So that’s what the WOW is for, this demo ROCKed my world so hard. Do check it out, it’s bloody amazing to put it lightly.
And hey, I was not looking for demos today. 😉

Update: Well I ended up registering an account in that website to leave a (+) for this demo. You might want to do the same!

Update: Hey hey hey people people! Comments regarding how kool this demo is, are NOT to be posted here! By rights they should go THERE! There’s a forum in there right?

Update: Quit asking what I was looking for…… 😛

Update: The “Shout Box” is open now. Feel free to say whatever….

UPDATE: EVERYONE DO CHECK OUT COMMENT #52 ON THIS POST!
UPDATE: EVERYONE DO CHECK OUT COMMENT #72 AS WELL!