Ilya Vedrashko

Запахи 84-ого

2012-02-19T02:39:00.000-05:00

Сургуч на почте. Новые обои на стенах. Чешки. Цирк. Клеёнка в детском саду. Сливовое повидло в корыте на костре. Бумажка вокруг кварцевой лампы на процедурах. Резина перископа на автомате Морской Бой. Молочный отдел. Спорттовары. Обертки Турбо. Выжигатель по дереву. Канифоль. Школа летом. Квартальная библиотека. Костры из листьев в парке осенью. Гуашь. Напиток Байкал. Тамбур. Новенький рубль. Очередь за квасом. Парикмахерская. Столовка. Пиво-воды. Кефир в полдник.

2011-12-10T01:35:00.001-05:00

Downtown Boston. June 2010.

2011-12-10T01:11:00.001-05:00

Urban Outfitters. Boston, December 2009.

2011-11-18T18:27:00.001-05:00

Rubber ducks at an Italian street parade in Cambridge. Fall 2011.

2011-05-08T01:23:00.001-04:00

Dale Chihuly at the MFA. Boston, May 2011.

2011-05-08T01:06:00.003-04:00

Dale Chihuly at the MFA. Boston, May 2011.

2011-01-19T13:49:00.002-05:00

Consumer Electronics Show. Las Vegas, January 2011

2010-10-12T04:32:00.003-04:00

Frankfurt Airport. August 2010

2010-10-12T01:21:00.003-04:00

Lifeguard boat. Dyuni, Bulgaria. August 2010

2010-10-10T02:31:00.002-04:00

Nedelchev. Boston. May 2006.

2010-07-06T13:43:00.001-04:00

Office of a creative director. Boston, 2009.

2010-06-23T16:32:00.002-04:00

Danversport Yacht Club. June 2010.

2010-06-21T22:58:00.000-04:00

Kendall Square in Cambridge. June 2010.

2010-06-13T00:11:00.000-04:00

Refrigerator. Spring 2010.

2010-05-12T01:10:00.001-04:00

Hill Holliday's talent show. May 2010.

2010-05-06T20:21:00.002-04:00

Christmas 2009.

2010-05-06T02:39:00.003-04:00

Boston. March 2009.

2010-05-06T01:52:00.003-04:00

Poppies. May 2008.

2010-05-05T19:43:00.000-04:00

Mike and Chris. Fall 2009.

2010-05-04T18:57:00.002-04:00

Photographers' portfolios at an art review. Fall 2009.

2010-05-03T17:52:00.003-04:00

Boston. Spring 2010.

2010-05-03T17:49:00.000-04:00

In Hill Holliday's barber room. June 2009.

2010-05-02T05:16:00.001-04:00

On a lunch break in Phoenix, Arizona. September 2009.

2010-05-02T05:04:00.002-04:00

One day, we woke up from a nap to find amazing afternoon light flooding our kitchen.

Winter 2010

2010-05-02T04:49:00.002-04:00

MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue. May 2010.

2010-05-02T02:51:00.001-04:00

Downtown Boston shot with an iPhone app.
2009

Newborn Baby Shopping List (for Dads)

2008-10-03T14:21:00.000-04:00

One thing I wished I had found before the baby arrived was a comprehensive and unequivocal shopping list of baby equipment. Abundance of material goods may be the greatest achievement of capitalism, but it sure doesn't feel like it when you have to scroll past pages and pages of conflicting reviews of everything from pacifiers to "travel systems". Ridiculous -- I don't need The Perfect Baby Bottle, I just need the one that holds the milk without too many spills, is a no-brainer to operate and clean, and doesn't poison anyone with its toxic plastics.

Here's such a list. For what it's worth, I compiled it based on my two months of experience. The stuff here may not be The Perfect Baby Stuff, but much of it was bought after a rather extensive pre-purchase research. So far, it does the job, and it didn't cost a small fortune. I hope the list takes away some of the pre-arrival stress and adds a bit of so-much-needed structure.

It is marked, tentatively, "for Dads" because moms that I know seem to be ok with this whole exercise of baby shopping. Shopping for cute clothes -- yes, I can see why. Deliberating over pacifiers? Honey, come on.

1. Stroller (~$130). We ordered a lot of stuff on this list from the net -- mostly from Amazon, because it has free shipping on a lot of baby goods -- but this one you gotta test drive in the store to make sure it's as light and convenient as you want it. We needed something that could be lugged up the stairs. We also didn't want any of the very expensive ones knowing that the first strollers don't last long before they are outgrown. We went with a Graco frame (~$50, some assembly required) and a Graco infant car seat (~$80) that fits on top of it. It's not the most fashionable stroller on the market, but it is solidly build, is compact and very light, and so far, no complaints from the rider.

Separately, we got a Graco raincover (and a mosquito mesh in the same package, ~$10).

2. Bassinet (~$200). We didn't like anything they had in Babies 'R' Us, and ultimately went with The First Years 5 in 1 Carry Me Near Sleep System (~$200, assembly required), a bassinet that you can carry around the house and that also doubles as a changing table.

In hindsight, we could've probably done without it and gone straight for a crib (which we just got delivered anyway). But yes, it is very convenient to carry the baby around the house if you want to keep an eye on him at all times, and the changing table proved very useful. It also has this thing embedded in the handle that makes a bunch of soothing sounds (it runs on a couple of batteries), although it probably works better to calm the tired parents than a screaming baby.

I'd say it's a toss-up: if you want a bassinet, you can't go wrong with this one, but you may just as well get skip it and get the crib. Also, if you are expecting a bigger baby, he or she will outgrow it pretty fast -- it only lasted about two months for us. Overall, no complaints.

Separately, you'll need bassinet sheets (~$20?).

3. Car seat (~80). We live in the city and don't drive, and so we were a bit bummed out about having to get a car seat, but you can't even take the baby out of the hospital without one -- you'll need it for the cab ride back home. We got a Graco that doubles as the upper part of our stroller (see the note above). It comes with a base that you don't actually need as the seat has a couple of hooks for the seat belts built into it.

4. Bathtub (~$20). We got The First Year's Infant To Toddler Tub with Sling. It's an ok bathtub whose functional design could be much better. I don't see how one person can hold the baby's head, shield his ears from water, and do the washing all at the same time. This one looks like a better alternative, but also see if there are any tubs that offer some sort of head support. Also, get some soft washclothes and a towel.

5. Bottles and stuff (~$50). I think the only principled position we took about baby equipment was on bottles -- they had to be made of glass. We tried Avent plastic bottles that came with the sterilizer, but for a couple of weeks they were giving off a strong plastic smell after being sterilized, so we switched to Evenflo Classic 4 oz. Glass Nurser - 6-Pack (~$10). We also got a Born Free glass bottle as a gift -- these are great bottles but more expensive than Evenflo. Here's a pack of five for $45.

The Philips Avent Express II Microwave Steam Sterilizer (~$30) is great, though. Fill it up with a glass of water, pack it with bottles and pacifiers, and stick it into the microwave for three minutes and you are done.

You'll also need a cleaning brush for the bottles if you don't have one, but I don't know how much these cost.

6. Pacifier (~$3). A mind-boggling variety out there for something so simple, but pacifier is one thing you'll have to experiment with since the preference varies from baby to baby. Our hospital got us hooked on Newborn Soothie Pacifiers 2-pk, which is a simple one-piece silicone deal that gets the job done. I like how it comes in one soft piece so that baby can't hurt itself on the plastic ring when it falls out of baby's mouth while he's asleep.

7. Clothes (depends, but probably around ~$100 for the first three months). Not much advice that I can give here, except maybe for these two things.

After you've loaded up on cuteness, get some function. It's not easy to pull a onesie over an uncooperative's baby head, so get something you can easily manage when you are called to duty half-asleep in the middle of the night. Our hospital got us hooked on very manageable side-snap shirts, but those took time to find in retail since the hospital gets them from a wholesale supplier. These come close: 2-Pack Long Sleeve Side Snap Shirts (~$8).

Also very useful: baby sleeping bags (or sleep sacks, or whatever). These we discovered later in the process after the baby refused to stay swaddled or covered with a blanket. I'm not sure what exactly we have, but it's something like this.

Oh, and go easy on newborn-sized clothes -- babies grow frighteningly fast. Get size one and up.

A quick checklist: hats, socks, mittens (crucial to keep baby's nails off his face; you can use socks instead), pants, shirts, onesies (or side-snap shirts), swaddling blankets, bibs, a few washclothes and spit-clothes, sleeping bags.

8. Diapers (~$50). We realy like Pampers Swaddlers Sensitive Diapers (~$50 for a box of 136) that are equipped with a very helpful moisture indicator strip that changes color when nature has called. Amazon offers free shipping on these, but plan ahead since it takes about week for the diapers to arrive. At 10-12 changes a day, the box lasts just over a week. Sign up on Diapers site and they'll send you sporadic coupons.

Baby wipes (~35) We tried a Pampers variety but quickly switched to Huggies-Natural Care Baby Wipes (~$35 for 720). Huggies wipe sheets don't stick together as badly as Pampers so that you don't pull out five when you only need one.

9. Baby carrier (~$40). These things can cost anywhere from $30 to over $100, but the best advice I can give is get it from a store near you so that you can easily return it. We've are on our third one and it still doesn't fit right neither for us nor for the baby. Your mileage may vary, but if you get it off Amazon and it doesn't work, returning it will be a hassle.

10. Nuts and bolts (~$40): From a local drugstore: a baby thermometer, a nail-clipper, shampoo, baby powder (get a small pack first; baby might not like it), petroleum jelly (for the bum), rubbing alcohol, disinfecting wipes (for you and your guests), Q-tips, baby-friendly washing detergent. Toys don't really matter much in the first three months.

11. Book (~$12). If uncertainty terrifies you, What to Expect the First Year is pretty good. The Baby Owner's Manual is cute but nowhere as comprehensive. Makes a great daddy gift, though.

------------------------------
TOTAL: ~$700

Tickets to Moldova

2008-04-24T16:53:00.000-04:00

Moldova House
Answer Travel

(image source)

2008-04-07T01:15:00.000-04:00

Some random bank in Kazakhstan is using my skateguard photo on their career page. Wonder if it works for them.

2007-12-04T23:14:00.000-05:00

Pictures of Soviet arcade machines.

The Graduates

2006-12-11T20:28:00.000-05:00

Я не помню, было это или нет, но вот вам старые фотки Булы.

Диафильмы как ПауерПойнт

2006-11-21T23:05:00.000-05:00

Кто-то переснял кучу диафильмов и залил как слайды PowerPoint-а. Осталось проектор с работы взять и потолок побелить.

A Collection of Soviet Music

2006-08-16T15:38:00.000-04:00

Marches, odes and other cool aural legacy of the Evil Empire at sovmusic.ru

Defended

2006-08-14T19:54:00.000-04:00

Here's what a defended MSc thesis looks like, in three acid-free copies. 70+ pages in single space, Times New Roman 12pt, 200+ references and 6 months of life.

2006-06-21T18:04:00.000-04:00

From postnext.com

История рода Забелло

2006-06-20T04:54:00.000-04:00

Вот тут вот. Из жизни замечательных Забелл: "Мешала поэту и усиливавшаяся страсть к вину."

Pizza Hut For The Movies

2006-06-19T13:19:00.000-04:00

One of the best ads I've seen in a long while, for Pizza Hut in Singapore. The One Show 2005. Via Coolz0r.

2006-05-01T23:41:00.000-04:00

Poster for dorm council elections, MIT/Ashdown, 2006.

How To Say McDonald's In Russian

2006-04-24T16:01:00.000-04:00

source

Учи Албанский

2006-04-18T04:08:00.000-04:00

A Russian Course by Alexander Lipson, 1981

2006-04-17T10:25:00.000-04:00

"Vaporize the Communist Mutants before they overrun your home planet." 1982, Arcadia Corp for Atari 2600. Source.

Press Badge

2006-04-14T01:59:00.000-04:00

I faked my first press badge when I was 14 to get into some concert. It wasn't 100-percent groundless; I was writing for a school stengazeta (a large hand-written poster with news and opinions) so that gave me some authority (I thought) to claim admittance to events. I then worked for FlashNews, an email newsletter in college, and did my own press badges to get into pubs without paying cover, with occasional success. When working in Sofia, I used a home-made badge saying I was a foreign reporter (and I was, kind of) to get into conferences. I then worked for Reuters and had a bona-fide press card, but the events it was good for weren't all that fun. Yesterday, I got my first press pass that was based on my highly successful blog to get into the Advertising in Games conference in New York. Moving up.

Revolutionary

2006-03-20T10:02:00.000-05:00

source

2006-03-18T22:33:00.000-05:00

Today was the last day of my exciting two-year career as the MIT skate guard.

Vogue: Wizard of Oz

2006-03-17T09:10:00.000-05:00

source: Vogue

AUBG Links

2006-03-02T03:46:00.000-05:00

I haven't seen any collection to AUBG-related sources before, so here. If you want to add something to the collection, comment to this post and I'll update it. Add your personal sites and blogs, too.

Official:

AUBG main site - drop me a line if you know a direct link to image gallery.
AUBG alumni site - I actually worked on this site six years ago. Now dead and needs redesign, but has some useful contact info. Don't try with Firefox.
Alumni Board discussion group - a Yahoo group for discussing alumni business by the board of directors, open to public. Weed out interesting stuff out of heaps of spam.
AUBG forum - not terribly official, but this is the online hangout place for the students.
An old multimedia tour of AUBG. Easter Egg: there's a picture of my Hilltop bed there, thanks to Borce.
Archived version of AUBG site circa 1998 from Archive.org

News:

Flashnews - started by guess who in 1999. Website version, email version with full archives. Some old web archives on the slow hit.bg server.
deFacto - a newer competing online publication with news and features.
AUBG Student Journalism Awards - a cool initiative that needs to be continued. Drop me a line if you are interested to pitch in for the prize fund.

Yahoo Groups:
Most Yahoo groups related to AUBG can be found here. The largest and the most active are:

AUBG Alumni - over 150 assorted members
AUBG 2000 - class of 2000
AUBG 2003 - class of 2003
Moldovans
Soviets

Social networking:

A growing AUBG alumni group on Frappr.
Tons of current students hang out at Hi5.com, but you need registration to find anyone.
AUBG bloggers on LiveJournal.
A collection of email addresses of former AUBG faculty I found on the web.

Image search results for "AUBG" - a time-killer but not very exciting since the results repeat:

The Fat Lady Sings

2006-03-02T03:18:00.000-05:00

The pic and the title come from Advergirl, since one doesn't really work without the other.

Комментарии известных личностей к креативу А.С. Пушкина "Евгений Онегин"

2006-02-20T05:02:00.000-05:00

(Троляша по айсикью прислала)

Наталья Пушкина:
Первая нах! Ща почетайу...

Наталья Пушкина:
Затронуло до глубины души. Сашенька, обязательно пешы ещщо!

Лермонтов:
Пушкен жжот!

Дантес:
кг/ам Афтар, убей себя!

Кюхельбекер:
Жжошь, Санёк! Взаправду жжошь!

Turgenev:
Ya seichas v Baden-badene, poetomu pishu translitom. Kreativ ponravilsya. Peshi escho!

Гоголь:
Афтар - аццкий сотона! Крео п*здат.

Чехов:
Местами прошибало слезу, местами улыбало, и все чиновники поглядывали на меня с явным недовольством. Думал уволят нах*й.

Л.Н. Толстой:
Прекольно, но мало...

Салтыков-Щедрин:
Неплохо, правда сказки у афтора намного лучше получаюца, да и повеселее.

Достоевский:
Щедрин, не песди! Ты со своими сказками совсем йобнулся. Афтар реально отжог, просто это абсолютно другой жанр.

Есенин:
Про ра*пездяя. Понравелось...

В.И. Ленин:
Толстой всё сказал

Набоков:
Не раскрыта тема йобли!

Бунин:
Согласен с Набоковым

Маяковский:
Жму руку, товарищ! Как говорят буржуи: "Респект!"

Чуковский:
Неасилил

Людмила Гурченко:
Ничо так, гламурненько!

Юрий Куклачёв:
У ката уши дленнее беспесды

Н.С. Хрущев:
Бля, да ты ох*ел столько песать! Чуть глаза не сломал!

Н.С. Хрущев:
Сцука, предыдущий камент не туда запостил. Это было к "Войне и миру" Толстого. гыыыы... А у Пушкина ничо так, жызненно...

В.В. Путин:
Буду краток (с) готичьно!

Sunsets of The Second Life

2006-02-19T22:51:00.000-05:00

To those who say gamers should get a life: if the real life was fun, I would not have been logged on.

Got Fish Soup?

2006-02-08T15:54:00.000-05:00

A source and an explanation

Film Strips of Shared Childhood

2006-02-08T15:05:00.000-05:00

Having lived in one foreign country or another for ten years now, I keep coming back to one question – what it is that makes it hard for an immigrant to blend into the landscape of his new country. This question is not so much about whether the hosts begin to perceive you as one of them as it is about whether you perceive them as a part of you. It is like when you buy new clothes, and you like how they are new, clean and crisp; and yet it takes time for them to start feeling as comfortable and invisible as those old sweats you’ve been wearing since the first episode of Friends. Some countries break this wall and you feel in them as if you have lived there forever, some fail and remain an expensive but forever restrictive Sunday suit even as the novelty wears out.

The answer lies beyond the physical space, of course, and even beyond the language. Shared culture, too, is only part of the answer, for contemporary collective cultural practices of the Western world differ from one country to another no more than they vary among city neighborhoods. I wake up in Sofia, take a cab to the airport, get on the plane, land in Logan, take a cab to my dorm within the span of a single consciousness. At least on the surface, nothing has changed; the cabs are the same and Brittney Spears on the radio is the same, billboards peddle the same Coke in the familiar two-liter bottles. My TV plays the same CNN; a Big Mac on Mass Ave tastes and feels just like the one on Slaveikov Square. Even the jet lag conjures nothing but an aftertaste of last week’s crunch time in the office. With clothes that smell of airplane food being the only indication of the distance just traveled, culture shock ceases to be a function of space.

It should not have been harder to make friends here than it was there, yet it was. Same bars, same drinks, same gossip; same friendliness and really a lot in common, yet a chasm in between. This chasm is not culture, or more precisely, not present culture. It's the past, but not the type of collective historical past upon which nations construct their mythological identity. It is a nearly immediate, a very recent past, as collective as it is individually intimate, the past also known as childhood.

A childhood viewed from the distance of passed years is not a continuum; it's an assortment of colorful shreds - a flash here, a smell there, a sound maybe. These shreds make up a childhood DNA code. Regardless of having been born and having grown up time zones apart from each other, my friends remain kindergarten buddies, sharing a collective childhood.

"Do you remember diafilms?" I asked them the other day, typing away at my instant messenger with a buddy roster of nearly two hundred and a VIP friend list of merely a dozen. "Of course!" they would answer.

Diafilms, a bit of the common DNA, are fairy tale comics printed on short strips of film, approximately 30 frames total, one panel per frame. A diafilm, immutably linear, projected on a white surface through a hand-cranked magic lantern, is a technological cousin of a slide and a grandfather of PowerPoint presentations. Unlike more traditional comics, diafilms had their all captions and dialogs in the bottom of the panel.

For us living in a pre-VCR era, diafilms were our movies on demand, and demand we did. My family had an elaborate set of rules regarding show-times; very quickly, diafilms replaced traditional bedtime fairy tales and were my irrevocable reward for being good throughout the day. Around nine, mom would goad me to bed, and programming negotiations began. A diafilm couldn't be shown twice in the same week; and on my good days I would be rewarded with longer strips. A few of the strips were of double length, that is 60 or 70 frames, which easily could mean a whopping whole hour of magic; those strips were reserved for the occasions when mom had to compensate for not showing up the night before.

I learned to read when I was five and switched to books some time later; the diafilms were for the illiterate younger me. The text had to be read out loud and thus my mom was instrumental to the success of the performance. For it was a performance: the most convincing voice-overs I’ve ever heard were moms' lines for the big grey wolf. When the stage was set – that is, the bed was made and I was in – the lights would go off, and the show would begin. Like millions of other apartments in the country, ours had wallpaper all around, so the diafilms were projected on the ceiling, very convenient for the authorities to keep the spectators in bed.

We had our commercial breaks, too. Half-way through the show, dad would burst in to peddle warm milk or vitamins or other goods praising their obvious advantages for one’s health and wealth, and well being of the humankind in general. Every once in a while, the pitch was complemented with a story how dad, now a film maker, had set up the first outdoor theater in their town to project and read diafilms to the local kids, charging a random nickel, a frog, or an equivalent in other boys’ currencies. That was in the late 1950s, when he was barely 10.

Unlike movies, diafilms were rarely discussed for they were not a socially synchronous experience; unlike today’s DVDs, diafilm releases were not widely announced or anticipated.

Nor were diafilms a pull medium. The film containers where bland and so unattractive to kids - at least in contrast with today’s gaudy packaging - that it must have been our parents who chose them for us.

For other kids, as I learned much later, the circumstances of their diafilm experience varied. Some would watch them as today’s kids watch TV – on their own during daytime, window shades down. We even had "multimedia" diafilms - film strips that came together with stories recorded on a vinyl disk. For others, diafilm shows were a party ingredient, with the oldest kid doing the reading, a distraction their parents would put together to keep the children occupied and the adults undisturbed. Yet everyone I talked to remembers diafilms as something special, almost magical. Unlike the plug-and-play VCRs of today, diafilms always required special ceremonial preparation: deciding on what to use for a screen, seating the audience, darkening the room, adjusting focus, appointing the reader.

Few of us now remember what the strips were about, apart from a handful of stories made famous elsewhere and then retold on static celluloid. But the magic of total immersion in a dream world remains, as remains the smell of hot metal, the screech of the crank and the memory of a white sheet on the wall.

Boston, 2004

Diafilms are still made by Diafilm Studio (site in Russian).

AUBG: Mission Possible

2006-02-08T14:31:00.000-05:00

This essay was a winning submission to a contest held by the American University in Bulgaria in 2001 in celebration of the school's 10th anniversary. The topic: "AUBG: Mission Possible?" Photo by Goha.

What mission? Nurturing future leaders does not count as a mission—future leaders are a by-product. Liberal arts? Providing liberal arts education is not the University’s mission—it is one of the Blagoevgrad’s downtown edifice. "American University in Bulgaria" shines proudly off its sides over the town. What a confusing misnomer. The real University is not brick and mortar, glass and marble. It's not in any of the classrooms, labs, gyms, dorms or even canteens. Not exactly. AUBG is in the hearts. There it teaches. There it lives.

AUBG's true mission is to reverse the story of Babel, re-blend the tongues of the ever-warring region into one Absolute Esperanto. Its mission is to bring together young people dispersed and locked in their hundred (nevermind their eighteen) years of ethnic, cultural, historic loneliness. Its mission is to amalgamate an Über Nation without wars and hatred, where Knowledge is an elected President and where Friendship holds the monopoly of power. In that AUBG has never failed.

I remember myself on my first day: a foreign freshman stuffed in a room with three Bulgarians, not even knowing how to nod correctly in this strange country. My Bulgarian has crystallized out of the Bulgarian-English-Russian-Moldavian lingual soup my roommates and I devoured. A young Kazakh woman speaks Serbian to a Montenegrin, watching his jaw drop. Another, a Bulgarian, converses in Bucharest with its natives. A Romanian starts singing along to Russian music. Making grammar mistakes? To hell with mistakes! Understanding each other—that's what matters. "Te dashuroj, te obicham, te iubesc, ljubam te, yes kez si'rumem, liubliu tebia, volim te, szeretlek te'ged." Can one really mispronounce "I love you"?

We moved beyond understanding, slowly developing a common system of symbols. The landmarks are equally familiar and dear to all, regardless of age, sex or origin: Underground, hiking, Bansko, beer, MUD, IRC, deadline at 11.59 p.m. Sunday, dead computers, Volga’s lobby, JMC, Pegasus, a Chavdar bus, Napoli. Banichka is now an international word. So is otpor. AUBG kept converting ethnicities into all possible permutations: Belarusians into Bulgarians, Moldovans into Albanians, Armenians into Macedonians. We became a whole, throwing our nations' squabbles and politicians aside. Instead of the solemn building, the University’s seal should've featured a canteen scene: a Kosovar hugging a Serb over CNN’s bombing coverage.

AUBG is not about what others, the untouched, think it is. Liberal arts, English, computers, books, Western philosophy, black leather-clad diploma printed in a gothic font make only a fraction of the university’s true unique meaning. After all, this quality academic matter is similarly available elsewhere. What AUBG truly means to us is the four years of mastering the Absolute Language, breaking the shells of our stereotyping seclusion. To one generation after another, AUBG means growing from a humble "stupid" freshman into a cutting-into-the-canteen-line senior hand in hand with people we previously thought to be from another planet. For us, the acronym A-U-B-G stands for

Aaaaaaa! Awesome! Ask asl. Answer ASAP. Ah, Angela, Anguel, Anastasia, Atanas, Andrej, Andreia, ans960@, "Amigo, abstaining?!" An Aspirin after—aposteriori. Anthropology 101–-all A's. ABM, ad-hoc, Algiers, abdication—A’s again. Aspecter and airian--an attitude. Alkazelzer—all-time aid against Absolut Armageddon, Alt+F4. April. Away. Alt+Ctrl+Del.
At

Underground--U2 unplugged. Ulcer--unavoidable. Unisex underwear--utterly unnoticeable. UDF—unifying utopia. Uninstalling UNIX? Unacceptable, undo. "Understand utility, UCC, unemployment, uncollectibles?" "Uh-huh."
Unwashed

bus brings back Bachinovo, Bistritza.
Break-up bashes, bends:
Bewildered boyfriends babbles: "B-b-but..."
"Bye, bambino." Bonjour, bachelor.
Buddies beckon, beginning banichka baptism. Ben’s busy buying "Bankja", bananas. Bansko-Blagoevgrad-Borovetz. "Boje!": BUS 354 brought B-. Bragging 'bout bossoms, "Baaasi bebeto!...,"

girls grin. Gossip: "Gencho, Galia? Graffiti?" Giggles. Georgians greet: "Gamarjoba, genatsvale." Geniuses going gradschoolward: GMAT, GRE’s "gait, gall, gallivant, gregarious..." Geez! Graduation: goofy gowns, gaping grandparents. "Good gang, guys’n’gals. Go, govern!" Greece, Germany, Grenoble, Gabrovo. Gone.

Gone? Never. Simply relocated.

A friend of mine, who writes for a large newspaper in Bulgaria, complained to me once. "You know," she said, "you guys are everywhere."
"How do you know it’s us?" I asked. Had she run across boastful AUBG pins, ties, t-shirts or framed diplomas, I wondered.
"No, no. Somehow you all are different. Everywhere I go I spot one or two and then ask. Never got it wrong. It’s something in the eyes, if you know what I mean."

I knew exactly what she meant.

AUBG is in the hearts and the hearts require no shiny bronze. The eyes say it all. I remember walking down a London street once. As my eyes did the sightseeing part of the trip, they stumbled over a pair belonging to a thoughtful stranger. For a moment his stared at mine from under stylish glasses in quiet perplexity, then smiled as broad as the eyes can. The stranger passed by without uttering a word, without looking back, but by then I knew. He might not have been a leader of his region. Yet he was one of us, carrying AUBG, a symbolic 4 a.m. banichka in his heart around the world. He spoke the Language.

Sofia, 2001

CV: Assorted Gigs

2006-01-18T23:39:00.000-05:00

As you are about to see, I truly excelled at tasks of ever increasing sophistication and responsibility over the years of climbing up the career ladder (before or apart from the full-time relevant experience).

1993. I think this is when I got my first hard-earned cash by translating (Romanian into English) and subtitling a documentary. The currency I was paid in doesn't exist any longer. See how it says "cupon" (coupon)? That's when Moldova got independent but didn't have enough money to print its own money, they printed these monopoly banknotes. I got paid ten of those.

1994. Sporadic English tutoring gigs.

1995-1996. A year in Kentucky saw me working as a stables hygeine executive (scooping horse poop on a farm) and later as a dish washer at a family restaurant. The dishwashing gig, in the hindsight, was one of my best jobs ever. Nothing beats a warm place that smells like good food. People who worked there were either pretty high school students or members of the local intelligentsia (we had a journalist cutting up salad, for example) with nothing better to do. At the end, they threw a nice retirement party and handed me a huge bunch of balloons. Priceless.

1996-1997. First "serious" job as a research assistant to a history prof in college transcribing taped interviews with American socialists. These interviews were later published in The Communist Party in Maryland, 1917-57.

Summer of 1997. Counselor at a summer camp, looking over and entertaining a bunch of 12-13 year-old kids. Got a congratulatory pie for desinging a day-long massively multiplayer (about 200 people ages 8-16) outdoor war game that involved cache-hunting and shooting water guns.

1997-1998. More research assistanships and now also a resident assistant (RA) at a dorm that had been a Party (as in Communist Party) resort in the past. Very little direct cash value, but free room and board made it the best-paying job at the university. A suicide prevention training as a bragging-rights bonus.

Summer of 1998. Bringing down the world's borders from the control room of the World Federalist Association in D.C. (their website at wfa.org is now something else). When making the world a better place failed to prove lucrative enough to pay the Dupont Circle rent, I took up a telemarketing gig (urgh), attempted a career as a time-share salesman, and worked at the dissemination department (gotta love the name) at a certain controversial religious organization.

1998-1999. More research jobs, this time for the political science department. Moved to RA a different dorm, another rebuilt Party hideout. Start of the media career - first wrote for and then managed a student newspaper called Vox that had a tomato for logo. It also was the only newspaper on campus that was not given away for free and ran ads by city businesses. Entirely self-sustainable, it was later converted into a life-style magazine.

Summer of 1999. The CV-building summer with a marketing internship at Procter & Gamble Balkans.

1999-2000. Vox, research and RA-ing, plus FlashNews, a student news weekly distributed by email. Started on my own with the first September issue; finished the year with some 15 people on the team. Some ads, but mostly power brokering. Seven years later, FlashNews is still doing well (although badly needs to have its website redesigned).

2000-2003. A full time job with Netage and almost no other gigs apart from random freelance writing, mostly for Sofia Echo, an expat newspaper.

Fall of 2003. A three-month stint as a reporter for Reuters Bulgaria. Had to cover all sorts of government functions. Wasn't good at it and was relieved when we parted ways after the trial period. Mark this as a learning experience.

First half of 2004. Another full-time job, this time with Grey Sofia, a local branch of the famous ad agency. No side gigs.

2004-2005. Ah, a student again. Began working at the dorm's reception desk and was promoted to the Desk Captain (no, seriously) after one term. Worked for two years at the MIT's skating rink as a skate guard and rental guy. Began blogging in October 2004.

Summer of 2005. Intern at Fallon doing interactive strategy.

2005-2006. Desk and skating rink, teaching assistant, Convergence Culture Consortium, some freelance consulting. More blogging with nice AdSense revenue.

Effects of News Photos on Brand Perception

2005-10-11T01:25:00.000-04:00

One question that MIT Brand Lab is look at is how paparazzi pics of celebrities holding a particular product influence popular perception of this product. A related problem: what is the effect of the "bad news" pictures that happen to capture or revolve around a brand? Below: an Iraqi soldier wearing a Nike ski mask, an abandoned Coke truck at the WTC ground zero.

2005-10-11T01:13:00.000-04:00

Inspired by Trainspotting, obviously.

Sofia, 2004

Mothers Against Peeing Standing Up

2005-10-09T22:54:00.000-04:00

Mothers Against Peeing Standing Up. "Fact: Peeing standing up destroys families."