Relaxing flash games

The motion of the ocean, the birds twittering, watching a small waterfall, having a great tea with a shisha(water pipe). All these can calm a person down through all his senses. But we are living in a jungle of cement, steal, glass and silicon mostly. So in my case I definitely need some things that can give me a bit relaxation from time to time. The next games usually calm me down and give me a new perspective of life in a few seconds. All of them have the basic idea in common. A simple game principle, an almost empty screen, with just a few objects of interest and a perfect calm music in the background:

Auditorium
Creator: cipher prime studios
This is a game I found today. The idea of the game is to change the direction/color of the light in the direction of the (?) objects, so they make sound.
http://www.playauditorium.com/
The handling of the game is easy though it takes a few seconds to figure it out.

Music Catch
Creator: reflexive.com
You need to catch as many signs as possible. The yellow ones give you a multiplicator of your points and the red ones take the multiplicators away and the purple ones work as a huge vacuum cleaner :) The blue tiles are points. Basically you don't need to play at all the music in the background is exquisite! :)
http://www.reflexive.com/index.php?PAGE=WebGamePlay&WGID=94

Update:
Music catch continues with:
Music Catch 2
Creator: reflexive.com
The principe is the same, new music pieces, and some small visual updates
http://www.reflexive.com/index.php?PAGE=WebGamePlay&WGID=182


Boomshine
Creator: k2xl.com
Just click a spot and watch the points expand. If you touched enough points you get to the next level. Very pleasing continuous music. This is the oldest game of these three, before the fancy animations could be used. In general this can be seen as an evolution of this kind of games :)
http://www.k2xl.com/games/boomshine/

X-mas dinner in Banska Bystrica

I had a wonderful Friday last week. After the AIESEC conference called Highway I decided to go to Banska Bystrica. A good cover reason was to bring back the badge of a person :P The only think left was a good timing. And I got to know that on the 12. December they are organizing a x-mas dinner. Definitely a good opportunity to meet the people.

So I arrived at the dorms at midnight after my dance classes and a few beers. Looked up on the internet, if by chance I got some information on how to get to the places at Banska Bystrica, as I had no idea were I will sleep, or meet the other people... So I got a small map, from which I tried to figure out were to go... Nice start, reminds me of the way how things are done in... AIESEC? :)

So after I woke up at 7:10 caught the bus at 9:30 arrived at 13:00, I was more then happy to get the wrong direction for 10 minutes... but after that everything went smooth. I put down my stuff at the dorms, and we went to the AIESEC BB office. I was never there before, but heard it was pretty big. Well not as big as the CUs office in 2004, but much bigger then it is now :P

I was a bit afraid how the people there will treat me. I knew 2-3 people from the LC, and most of them just left when I arrived. So I introduced myself quickly with the belief, that I will forget all the names as soon as I hear the last one... And it happened that way :P So I started a few random conversations with the people around me and it was fine, except of the fact that this is a beautiful LC, I really quickly realized how friendly the people are. They decided to make in the first hour or so just random postcards, so I was painting in my random style...
I will maybe upload some pictures. As I can't paint, I use to make easy drawings and connect them... You'll see you'll understand.
Except of that I was watching old slovak fairytales, and in this atmosphere I got the feeling of being 4-5 years old and waiting for Jesus to bring the presents (in these parts of the world it is the little Jesus who brings the x-mas presents :) ). Once my grandfather asked me if I have seen the leg of a little angel just flying out of the window, as we stepped into the room with the x-mas tree. I believed I saw a small white figure just disappearing - most propably the curtains - and I believe till now that it was the leg of an angel... Nice memories.

Anyway, we continued with some games, a small visit at the x-mas markets and then going back to the dormitories, having a tea, some more games then the x-mas dinner (with traditional kapustnica) and a small award giving ceremony. Then we left to have a party till 4 am.

What to add, there is not much I could write down, as my feelings from happiness come from the people around me, who were so friendly and open, that I felt from the first seconds like I would know them for ages. It filled me with joy :)

Except of that from the x-mas dinner I met a lot of old friends I haven't been talking to for a while. I realized again, that I need a few more topics of interest/specialization, what I could study and influences people in general. In the last days I was studying some social network services (facebook, linkedin etc.), and seems pretty interesting where these technologies are leading us.

And for the end a short story about how easy it is to get away from BB, too... I have spent a bit more money, then I anticipated, so at the end when I got to the bus station, I had a good timing - the bus just arrived, but I didn't had enough money... Thank god I had food vouchers and a friendly guy (now he's friendly, during the negociations he didn't like the idea :)), who gave me money for the food vocheurs. :)

And another party on Saturday night! Had to sleep a lot before that! :) I'm very sorry, that I didn't had my camera with me = no pictures :(

PS: the picture with the angel and the moon was taken from this site

Technical stuff

I got a new notebook one month ago. Extremely happy with it despite the huge amount of frustration it brought...

It just happened, that I got my book, one day before AIESEC Slovakias national conference. So it was a perfect timing, and I could take a lot of different stuff from the conference because of this - music, pictures, etc. This is definitely one thing on the bright side, I need to learn to complain less :)

Before all the bitching I need to say that I'm quite satisfied with my notebook after one month of usage. It looks stylish :) Is fast, quiet, doesn't overheat, I got used to the keyboard very quickly. It seems it definitely fits my needs for 15000Skk - 500Eur (+ 2000Skk for OS). What is a bit more expensive that the cheapest brands I had heard many complains about (Acer and ASUS).

So the TECHNICAL difficulties with my HP Compaq 6735s with 32bit Vista Home Basic (if someone would google this post):
1. Sound problems: during the hole first month I had problems with the sound. Approximately every minute once the speakers were making a strange noise, like if someone would touch a microphone. Even if I didn't do anything on the machine. It happened pretty sporadically. In the 4th week it was almost unbearable, and then it simply stopped, and the sound is now clear (as clear it might be from the speakers of a notebook :))
Possible solution:
Maybe the system downloaded some updates, and it solved the problem.
Update:
As I see that the problem appeared again, I discovered that it comes only when the WiFi and Bluetooth are activated. I plan to reinstall the whole system with Win XP and Win 7 (dual system). I will see if the drivers were properly installed or if the problems still occur.

2. Change of brightness of the screen without an apparent reason.
After the sound was working fine, something new had to appear... After thinking about the problem a bit and remembering, that by pulling out the power cord the brightness usually changes. By following this lead I discovered that the system without notifying me switches between the power plans (Control Panel -> Power Option). It usually changes my original option to a higher one.
So first, in this case what do you do to feel comfortable - change all power option to the same settings. During this I noticed, that in my own settings the processor works on a maximum of 70%. So I figured, that when the system had to run to many programs, it automatically switches to a different power option, so the PC didn't get clumsy. I didn't find any online reference about this, but it sounds reasonable... and is pretty annoying when your screen starts to blink back on you...
This would also explain why sometimes my PC has on the same amount of battery different amount of expected battery life.

I can't really decide if this is a good or a bad feature. When I use my notebook as a normal desk PC it is definitely a good approach, but when I'm on the road and need to have a long battery life more then speed then I don't want this option. The thing that bothers me is, that I don't have control about this feature, only if I set all the power plans on the same settings... Though maybe more expensive versions of Vista don't have such problems... Maybe

3. No OS CD came with the notebook
People told me and it is usually the mindset of the people I would say in these parts of the world, that if it didn't come packed, then the people don't miss it.
As I was working for 5 months in Dell on technical support for german speaking countries, I knew, that the CD/DVD belonged to me. So I called the technical hotline of HP, got redirected to the Czech Republic - the language is similar, anyway - after 10 minutes and 3 coworkers I got my answer: Even though I didn't buy my laptop through HP I'm entitled to have the media, they directed me to a website, were I should add some details about the product I bought, send some copies of the receipt and an address where they should send it and I will get what I want. They assured me more then once, when I asked, that this transaction won't cost me anything. Although on the site it says something about 250Czk (around 10Euros) for postal taxes... We will see what happens... I remember some similar experience in Dell, and if the media was asked for afterwards, they had to pay the postal cost, though they could choose during the reservation if they want a media or not, what I couldn't in this case...
I will know the answer next year :P

That's all now, I already look forward for the hours spent copying my data to a diffenrent hard disk, when I will reinstall my windows and create some new partitions for the new OSs and data. I like to format my harddisk and reinstall my stuff once every 3/4 year, and partitions are a blessing for that work! :)

Láska = Love (in Slovak)

This is a small video I found last week on one of biggest Slovakian newspapers webpage. I miss this poetic way of expression from my daily life, though I would prefer it in Hungarian, this little video made me dream... As I think of myself as a romantic pessimist the topic fits me well...

The video is in my eyes made in high quality, the texts and audio is very harmonic. Good job... hope they've got the rights to publish such a masterpiece :P

My grandfathers stories...

In the old days, just after the world war two, Bratislava (Pozsony, Pressburg) was a city that spoke three languages: German, Hungarian and Slovak. It was a mixed population because Austrians (who speak German) and Hungarians ruled the country before the first world war, and Slovaks after the war. He was telling a lot of short stories, about his friends who spoke all those three languages perfectly. As good, that he could even interpret jokes... It became a measurement for me to decide how good one can speak foreign languages + how quick someone's mind can improvise...

One of the stories he told us, and left on me the biggest impression was from his childhood. Once an airplane was shot down above his village. He was a teenager during the WWII. He went to the site and saw the wreck. The pilot was not able to catapult out of the plane anymore. He saw a long bloody, brainy line which leaded to a haystack, with the remains of the dead body. He never forgot the site.

In another story he told about the socialistic Slovakia. He studied as a dentist in Bratislava. He met my grandmother there, and they fell in love. After he finished the university he wanted to practice as a dentist near his hometown, where he had his friends, family and the Hungarian community. There is still a huge Hungarian community in the south of Slovakia.
A way to try to assimilate Hungarians at that time was to send the educated people as far away as possible. He was assigned a working place in the middle of Slovakia, as he went to ask for a different place he was transferred even further away. So he went there to work, and traveled back every weekend to my grandmother. He traveled half a year there and back, just to be with my grandmother.
As usually in the socialism corruption was the right way. My grandmother went to the office a thousand times, when her father finally gave her money. She put the money on the table, when a stranger came in out of the door and put some files on the money (coincidence?). She then hoped, that the bribe was successful. And it was. It took another bribe for my grandfather to get at the place he wanted, but those are only details... His strong will gave him what he needed, as in so many stories.

He had also a lot of stories about spies. One of the ways socialism held its power was, that you could never know who is a spy from your friends. The secret police could come to you any time, interrogate you on a false suspect and send you to Siberia to work (only a few people came back from there, and no one knew how long their going to be there) or make you a spy (=informer) also. As an informer you had to write down, what you were talking about with some specified people. There was no need in this system to have a lot of informers, the knowledge, that they were some made the people very suspicious to others. He told a story about losing some of his friends to the system.

In my mind he will live on as a strong man, who knew what he wanted, and acted upon that. His life was defined by his work, it managed to let him live on. He understood the people, and had a lot of friends. He loved his nationality, his hometown, his family. He was a good man.

on the 13.September 2008, in the age of 78 years, my grandfather died of lung cancer. May he rest in peace, next to the God, he believed so strong in his life.

Say thank you once in a while

And ask for it from those who you trust.

External memory

This is just a short note for myself... this short poem, which I know exists in many languages, and comes most propably from the English language is one of the few poems that stuck in my head so strong, that I still remember it. So I want to write it here to not forget...

János bácsi a csatában,
János bácsi a csatában,
János bácsi a csatában,
Elesett egy fűszállban!

Arra járt egy indiánus,
Arra járt egy indiánus,
Arra járt egy indiánus,
És szívébe lándzsát szúrt!

János bácsi testét kukacok eszik,
János bácsi testét kukacok eszik,
János bácsi testét kukacok eszik,
És az egyik felkiált!

Jaj de büdös ez a János,
Jaj de büdös ez a János,
Jaj de büdös ez a János,
Ez a lábát nem mossa!

As it was never easy for me to turn down a request, I won't do it this time neighter. After making a quick search around this songs history, I found out the original song comes from the USA and is called: John Brown's Body (click here for wikipedia entry and here for youtube video). Now it is a bit more painful to translate the text as it is definitely not as glorious as the original one was, I would say quite the opposite is true...

Uncle John in the battle
fell over a leaf of grass

An Indian went that way
And stab a spear in his heart

Worms eat the body of Uncle John
When one of them screams out loud

How stinky this John is,
He must have never washed his legs.

I definitely remember this song, because I though it was funny, and still have to smile when remembering it.

and another one:

100 forintnak 50 a fele
Egye meg a fészkes fekete fene
Nem lehet az ember fából
Ki kell rúgni a hámfából!

Azt mondják hogy részeges vagyok,
Pedig csak a jó bort szeretem nagyon!
Megverem a csizmám szárát
Csókolom a babám száját!

A kecskémnek nagy szakálla van
Az én anyósomnak nagy pofája van
Rusnya állat mind a kettő
Verje meg a jeges eső

Peace in the eye of the observer

I was waiting in a line this week for hours when I saw one of natures most beautiful wonders. I looked in front of me and I drifted away...
I was in a valley. Everywhere around me mountains reaching up to the sky. Full of live. My body wanted to climb them... Near my path between the trees and flowers birds were singing. On the way up a small reflection of light blinded me, so I turned and slowly, cautiously approached the light. It came from a small cave. When I enter it, I saw a small underground lake being lit by the morning sun. I sat down for a few minutes to enjoy the sight and moved on. Slowly moving up the hill the forest got thicker, my strength faded slowly, while my wish to get up grew stronger every second. After a while I slowly lifted my head and looked around. I was at the top. Happy. I spotted my soul on the horizon...
I was in a valley. Everywhere around me mountains reaching up to the sky. Such a perfect blue sky. No clouds to disturb the view. I closed my eyes for a second, while my soul slowly elevated up to the sky. When I opened my eyes I saw how I slowly pass the mountains behind me. I wished to have wings. I felt a small warmness on my back and my wish came true. I grew wings. I started to fly in circles. A bliss overwhelmed me. The seconds felt like an eternity.
Then I looked down and saw my self in the waiting line... I should have maybe said something. Something like:
"Please deliver my sincere acknowledgment to your parents, for these are the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen."

Peace in the eye of the observer

(by clicking on the picture you get the high-res photo)

The fields around Dunajska Streda in July.

A feather in a forrest

An explosion of colors

ps: dedicated to Elise and her Moments of peace

Szőttes folk dance camp 2008

From the 4th of August till the 10th I was in Várhosszúrét (Search for : Krásnohorská Dlhá Lúka) near Rozsnyó (Rožňava) which lies in east Slovakia. I was attending a folk dance camp there with a good friend of mine, Gábor.

Lets start from the beginning on: in June on a short notice I started to visit a Hungarian folk dance group called Szőttes (twice a week 2-3 hours). And there, as they wanted us to join the group, we were motivated to come to this camp, as we would learn a lot there. When it was clear that I won't get my internship trough IAESTE to Spain I was happy that I have at least something to look forward to.

We were sleeping in tents, had a great weather (it rained just on Monday and Saturday). The little village and the mountains around it were breathtaking. It was like beeing stuck in time. The calm surrounding with the traditional carvings. One of the local pubs was having a traditional design. But of course one of the local shops and the local "house of culture" (the place where the cultural presentations used to be in a village during socialism - concerts, presentations, meetings) where having the typical minimalistic construction. Most probably they were built during the socialism. Nevertheless those were insignificant in the whole picture of the village. The small Hungarian community gave me a very pleasant feeling.

The program - 6 days 3+3 hours of dancing a day + during the night there was a dance house. We learned traditional Hungarian dances from two regions (Mátyusföldi and Kalotaszegi). We started with the Kalotaszegi (from the village Bogártelek) dances. They were according to me much easier then the Matyusföldi dances, though the second one is much more fun :) Of course we learnded just the basics of these dances, but it was very interesting for me to see the little differences in them. Also the character of the Matyusföldi dance catched me. It was very much like a game, with a lot of moves, were you change get away, got close, run away, court your partner...

The Bogartelki dance:


Is definitely more fun when you're there ;)


The only problem with the whole show was, that I had an inflamation of my right ear the whole time, so no alcohol, nor staying up long through the night for me :( Definitely missed a lot of fun.

Of course from time to time the question popped in my mind why so few people are interested in folk dances nowadays, when it is so much fun. Somewhere on the way to the 21th century people were having so many new things around them that they forgot the old ways. Thank god I was never a type of a guy who just walked with the stream, and figured, that there is much more to see and enjoy!

more pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/hajdupeti/SzottesTabor2008

A small movie

12 minutes (+titles), a short movie when you don't know what to do... It's called: Our Time Is Up from the director Rob Pearlstein
(a psychologist who gets to know, that he has six weeks to live and so decided to tell the truth...)


This reminded me of a TED talk I saw recently, about positive psychology, where the guest presenter says, that he wanted to make miserable people happy with psychology. But he got only to the point where he got the people in a state of emptiness. This is where he started to search why people are happy. See what they found out till now.


Are you living a happy life?

How politics work

After the last elections in Slovakia, the political party SMER-SD with it's leader Fico got the best results. After the elections I have seen the small video clip below, which pretty nicely describes his tactic between the voters, and works marvelously. Czechs made a lot of good movies during the socialism, some extrelmy funny ones, and some with words of wisdom like this. I tried to translate it from czech... I had my difficulties in the process, but hopefully it understandable :)



Grandpa: What is our strategy for the campaign before the elections?
Candidate: ...
G: That everyone should have everything. Am I right?
C: Yeah, of course.
G: Every dumb ass knows that. But, what strategy to use to get to this? ... Come on, say it. ... So that everyone won't have anything.
C: No way!
G: Yeah. We just won't tell anyone. Just like you can't allow anyone to think, that you don't understand something. Your the head of the city, that means that you understand everything!
C: But I can't do that!
G: I know that to, but you can't let that show! See, the only thing you really must know is, that you need to know something about everybody... But be aware! Most importantly with those people who understand this.
C: Gramps, were did you take this from?..
G: ..and be careful! With the nit witted people be gracious! Show them that, that anything the clever people say is complete idiocy! Cause you can't argue with those who understand it, so you'll hurt your reputation! Because if you don't have the aggrieved, the harmed and the incompetent on your side, then you won't get far. Remember that!

Title of the movie: Tri chlapi v chalupe

Deevastating icy rain

A few weeks ago there was a huge icy rain in here. In a near city it had horrifying effects (roof, cars destroyed). I was home, we had "just" nut sized ice pieces falling down... at my grandparents place the ice stayed for another half an hour in the garden. I didn't make pictures from my grandparents garden before the accident just this one:

We were there to cut the wine, cause there were to many fruits (are they called bunches?) on them. Just 1 day before the rain :(

The garden afterward:

That time when I prelonged my stay in Bratislava

A small reminder of a few beautiful days in Bratislava this summer.

Just a few days ago one of my best friends visited Bratislava for a few days(he lives on the other end of Slovakia), so there was a need of meeting him. In Slovakia you usually try to find a good fake reason to meet up (or go for a drink) with people. In this case he wanted to give me my birthday present. :)

After failing to solve some thinks out in Bratislava I met with the guys at around 5pm. With him there was also Pivet a German girl and her Romanian boyfriend (with whom naturally we had a fight about Trianon and the Hungarians living in Romania. I'm pretty sure that I've picked the fight. Now that I think of it, he may have had no real overview about the matter, but had enough national pride to defend his nation by saying the same argument over and over again... Will need to focus more on reading peoples behaviour, was never good at it, but maybe now it will work better :) ). Afterwards also Petkan joined us. :)

Anyway we went to Slovak pub, ate from all kind of Slovak specialities. Then I had a meeting with old friends from AIESEC (something like a CU alumnie meeting), but had just 45 mins. before my bus left from to my hometown... At least I thought I would like to catch it.

The fact was, that I had nothing to do at home. This gave a very good position for Luki for convincing me to stay, what he used out... At the end we grabbed a few more beers and stayed at Petkans flat that night. After 3 of us drunk around 4 liters of mulled wine (The wine was pretty much undrinkable before boiling and adding some special Tesco mulled wine spices :) So for you to know, if you come to Slovakia and want to buy bad wine it is pretty easy to find them in shops, because it is cheap and is in plastic bottles or cartons...)

Continuing our tail the next day was pretty calm as Luki had stomach ache, and I wanted to go home to eat properly... Yes, wanted to, but as easily as yesterday I was persuaded to stay. We had a quite day, having a good talk in the city with Janie. Never had an opportunity to hear her out till now, what I do regret now. Quite an interesting person with a good taste of humor.(I write this here cause it is unsure when I'll meet her again.)
Then went back to Petkans apartment and killed time.
I went afterward to Doms beer pong party. Was as good as it used to be one year ago, but there are now again a lot of people I don't know, and won't have a chance to get to know for a while. Which made me realize, that I'm now in the same situation Sherisse was telling me about half a year ago, and heard also from a lot more people: there comes a time, when you get tired of getting to know new people and not being able to rely on the fact that they will be around even after you made a strong bound to them. It is definitely a hard thing and I'm not sure how I'll handle this situation.

I left early from Doms party. I haven't seen Luki for ages as he was in Australia, and he planes to leave again for an internship in Europe. I got back at around 11pm, and we were singing till 1am :) Luki was playing mostly Pink Floyd songs on his guitar + I will need to learn Hey Joe again in Hungarian... Awesome experience, as I'm a fan of such events.

We took the next day easy... Watching a movie, just chilling and as usually I wanted to get home with a bus at 7pm. We went to the "beach", had a drink and went to the Slovak pub to meet an ex-intern who was in Slovakia in 2001/02. It must have been a lot of fun having her around, we had a lot of good talks, there were a lot of people I haven't met for ages (alumni meeting number 2 :)) We finished at around 1pm. We were going again to Petkans apartmant (yep, was convinced to stay again... but wait for the twist...), when I suddenly realized that I forgot my bag and the flowers for my mother in the pub! While running back I realized that at around 2pm there should be a bus going home. Now I know 2:15, bus stop 11... Thou these facts were unknown at that moment, so I waited at the usual spot (at the other end of the station), and nothing came, so I called a cab and went to sleep with the others again :P

The next day I missed my bus again, and waited for 2 hours for the next bus to come, luckily Vaida was waiting with his brother at the bus station also, so I made them company. They met another Lithuanian girl, with whom they were talking afterwards. In a nice sleepy state I was able to listen to the Lithuanian language, remembered YouCan in 2004 and listening to Spanish and Portugese people :) I liked it. (On the photo, there am I with the same clothes for 3 days... Which were spend with friends and in a very good atmosphere, I definitely smile in my heart ;)

There are two more things I want to mention.
The perfect cooking skills of Pivet, though there were meals, which are easy to prepare, the taste was marvelous! Thank you!
And the few hours spent talking with Nadja, who I discovered lives in the same flat where we were staying. It was nice to her speak about annoying neightbors, dogs, german comedians and studies. Looking forward for the next opportunity!
As a lot of years in my life I was spending before the German television (we had satelite). I've got a quite good German vocabulary from those days + a piece of German culture just stick on me. Talking to her makes me get nostalgic feelings, spicing up the talks to an interesting person even more :)

Thank you all! Looking forward to meeting you again!

Tesco curiosities - Red Fruit Flavour?

I was wondering maybe I missed the marketing campaign of the next generation soft drinks... hmm this was quite a surprise:

An amazing weekend

This weekend I was celebrating my birthday, which was a few weeks back. The feelings afterward are a bit awkward. Like in all "best" parties I don't remember much of it :P

With my mothers help I have organized a small cottage inside the bath's in my hometown. The weather was perfect, the people in a good mood, their first experiences made them have a good mood, which lasted during those two days.

I missed most of the fun, while I organized the people, food, accommodation, payment... you can imagine. And in the evening, when the party started I pretty soon lost all the memories. I still remember giving everyone a sip of my birthday present - Danish alcohol (will find it's name) in the small happy birthday cup, which can contain around 1cl of fluids. Perfect way to share with everybody! So I did that, and though Anders told me it was a quite expensive bottle, I prefer using it that way. I'm sometimes the guy who waits for those "special moments", but the longer I live the more often it happened that the special moments just didn't seem to arrive. So I decided that to show the friends I care for my gratitude by giving a piece of the alcohol to them... Most probably it looked like a drunk guy wanting to make everyone else to drink and get wasted, but for me the thought was what counted.

With a lot of old and new friends around me, who one by one thank me for a great weekend I'm a bit sad that I don't remember much, but still think of joy, happiness and a lot of fun, when I remember that day.

PS: will need to get the receipt for the cherry soup :) I have a few photos, they will be added later on

PS2: The few photos were added, they capture very little of the whole atmosphere. Will need to learn to make pictures with a camera! http://picasaweb.google.com/hajdupeti/Bday2008

Bazant na Mlynoch 2008

And here it is again! Bazant na Mlynoch (see last years entry here!)

This years Bazant definitely better from the perspective of concerts. The finishing with Polemic and Horkyze Slyze made a terrific atmosphere (although miss wet T-shirt was a complete disappointment. It's called miss wet T-shirt because it is white, there is nothing below or above it and it is a t-shirt... and not a black fishing net like this year :( No real nudity, but at least some nice dancing... see yourself)

Anyway first bad to look at was Flavour United - Czech band played some kind of latino/reggae - they weren't excellent, the singer girl had a pretty good voice, while the black "rapper" was not understandable at all...

After a few meeting with friends, beers and uninteresting concerts later Polemic came on the scene. This was the time I understood I made a huge mistake coming there... in sandals. My confidence was empowered by the guys who brought bottles of beer and 40% alcohol in the crowd, which I was pretty sure would land below me. So after 5-6 songs I always moved in the back rows, where there was still dancing, but no more pogo. During Polemic it was fine, Horkyze Slyze even better. After the first 5 songs of the second band I was so afraid, that my legs are bleeding, that I went out of the crowd to watch in the dim light. I didn't see anything, calculated that drunk people are lucky + and believed it was just dirt and went back into the crowd, though further behind, so people won't jump on me.
What came next was also a bit surprising a huge dose of a "beer shower". Will remember this as an experience and not as a reason to take a long shower after the concert :P
All in all when after a huge concert and the feeling of proud for not being able to speak nor move my head the next day I went to my room, and examed my feet. It was perfectly healthy :) So I concluded, that there are a lot of thinks I'm afraid of, just because I'm not in daily touch with them, and went to sleep peacefully after going out again at 4:30am.

Looking forward for the next Bazant, hopefully with Vidiek! And more free time attractions like in 2004!

In The Waiting Line

I had a few experiences the last day which I was thinking about, while listening to the song In The Waiting Line from Zero 7 - good music for such activities.

I was talking to a person a few days ago, and she mentioned her interest in gypsy culture. I find this topic quite interesting, as I try to eliminate my prejudices if possible.

The gypsies at least in Slovakia (though I know about a few neighboring countries, too) are usually treated badly, and not without a reason. There are huge "ghettos" in Slovakia, in which only gypsies live, and if the social system tries to help them, then in most cases the help is abused. For example if they are given new flats, then in a few months they are usually looking like a waste dump. There are also quite often caught in the act of stealing. Bad behavior, violence, stealing a lot of children and not caring are the things most often come in people mind. Though there are exceptions of course people meet those more rarely. It is hard to get forward from such community, which also means, that there are only a very low percentage of them going into universities, if there are any (in the application form for the university there are most of the nationalities living in Slovakia including some which have lower then 1% of the population, but the gypsies are not listed - I didn't pay enough attention, sorry, false information) - in most studies the problems are related to their lack of education and the discrimination against them.
- All this information is subjective, and NOT based on my experience -

But I value the gypsy culture. It is still (though much less today) a part of the Hungarian culture. Gypsy music was a very important part of all the better restaurants in the country before the world wars and the growing popularity of the radio and recorded music. Until today I believe in the significance and beauty of their dulcimer and violin play, which underlines the regions folklore. Also they were moving traders and building special bricks, and other stuff only they knew how to produce. They were a part of the culture in a good way, too.

This second part always fills me with hope, that todays situation may change. Getting integrated into the culture (which must not mean, that they have adopted to the majorities culture, it can be that both cultures have changed to find a compromis).

Getting to the core of the post... The above situation is definitely not unique in Europe, or the world. At this point another TED presentation came in my mind, presented by the finance minister of Afghanistan, talking about the creating of a healthy economical system in a country where the basic conditions are missing. He asked the people in the audience to leave the clean world they are living in and start to think out solutions in a surronding, which works according to different rules. I think that the same principle should apply in this case to, as in many other. The people should stop looking at the situation in their won perspective and open up and be able to change if needed, not just wanting to change something...

But the will to change needs to be on both sides!

Curiosities - A man's life

I wanted to start a small section with curiosities on websites, which are interested in one way or the other.

This is a site, where you learn about a persons life through photos he had taken every day of his life till he did from 1979 to 1997.
Blog referring to the site:
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/15131

The site. It takes a pretty while till the photos are downloaded, but interesting anyway...
http://addresszero.com/pod-html/

I'm always was interested in peoples life, mainly those, who cold change or add a new habit in their lives. Gives me a hope, that people can change, when they are motivated enough...

And for those Slovak people with paranoia (in Slovak): ako to bezi s verejnym sutazom...

Apache, Phishing, Google Translator

Some useful facts:

Apache error code - 0xc0150002
Reinstalled Windows today (now with SP3), I've got an error while installing XAMPP.
Microsoft explanation: The package Microsoft.VC80.CRT was missing = "Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable Package (x86) installs runtime components of Visual C++ Libraries required to run applications developed with Visual C++ on a computer that does not have Visual C++ 2005 installed."
Solution: downloaded and installed the file vcredist_x86.exe
Solution found at: http://www.apachefriends.org/f/viewtopic.php?p=112694


Phishing
In the last days I see a lot of phishing. It is really todays trend as I can see it. One of the biggest banks in Slovakia got just a few weeks ago a huge phishing attack on it's clients. Also I've got a lot of "invitations" to sites through msn, from contacts, which were offline right after I've got the message. On ICQ I even got those messages from ppl who are not my contacts. So I turned off the possibility to get post from strangers. Annoying. Started with blockdelete.com, which promised the possibility to get you a list of users who ignore you, by giving the site your username and password... Must have been quite successful. Became the link from a quite amount of people. - if this happened to you to, change your password immediately! Thank you!

Google Translator
Translate text, sites between 24 languages (including Czech). Though the translation is still quite far from an understandable text, you will most probably have a better chance to understand what's written there.
http://www.google.com/translate_t?hl=en
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-12-19-n41.html

In the last days I was listening to...

- Support Lesbiens - Czech band, normal music for talking. Needed such music, you can't listen to Led Zeppelin, Waking Vision or Pink Floyd, with anybody. Some people just can't appreciate it...
- Death Cab For Cutie - inspiration was the song "I will follow you into the dark", can't listen to them for a longer time, cause I believe that one album has rarely enough variability - gets boring after a while... but good music anyway
- Starsailor (album Love is here) - the saddest album I know, to bad that I feel pleasure while being sad. Heard their songs first when I was 17 (Alcoholic), have a concert from them on a tape! Recorded through FM4 (Austria). Loved those songs since then.
- My Brightest Diamond - said, hear Something Like An End (you can hear this song at her myspace site), perfect song, perfect lyrics
After being influenced by Dr. House (you should watch the series cause it's good :) but some of the ending songs are also worth listening to... some of the best music also from the 60's, 70's...):
1. The Who - Baba O'Riley (note: Boris the Spider is just a cool song, Who Are You - title song for CSI)
2. The Rolling Stones - You Can't Always Get What You Want - perfect lyrics! Awesome song! Thank you for using this song!
Refren:
"You can't always get what you want" x3
"And if you try sometime you find
You get what you need"
3. Mazzy Star - Into Dust - need to hear the album a few times, but sounds good... Slow with a lot of low sounds. Though seems a bit "monotone". Need to read some lyrics to it. That could rescue some value.

No more time, take care!

Beeing in the organizating committee (SprinCo 2008 OC)

SprinCo 2008. A conference for the members of AIESEC in the Czech Republic. Last term I was in a lot of OCs mainly as site help. It was always a nice experience, but as I was mainly doing stuff in my AIESEC home country there was missing something.
After a half a year I was doing the job again, and I had a marvelous experience:
- working in a team with strangers, with whom I have built up a great team in a few days from nothing. Here I want to note, that AIESECers for me are never really strangers. There is always at least two things that make me work easier with them - they are full with energy and a goal (even if just a short term one) for which they are eager to fight.
- networking from the finest one. Meeting new people with whom I want to stay in contact with.
- interesting talks
- not enough sleep, cause I felt full of energy (haven't had so much energy in my life... still slept 3 hours/day), and didn't want to miss any opportunity...
- being appreciated, for a good work.
- feeling the spirit of AIESEC

And this all with a lot of fun. I'm not sure if I had such a good experience in my life before. I write down another list of events, so I will not forget:
- meeting an African by accident, who I was with 4 years ago on You!Can
- meeting friends I was doing OC work together
- 60th anniversary, were everything had to be perfect... still don't know why was "Death cab for cutie" played... :P
- singing in the night with unknown people playing the guitar
- OC wins topalky
- understanding how to be happy from my work, while the appreciation goes to my successor
- Ostrava! :)
- Jaromir Nohavice - Jezisek - don't you wanna dance, when you hear this song? A small 30 second vid here.
- Can I abuse you? (Mozem ta zneuzit?) - ezen percben engedd meg nekem e tettet, mellyel kezem testedre tekerem
- Waterpipe
- Saturday night fever - up till 7 am, slept one hour + 1 redbull, and was fit till the end of the conference

Afterwards I feel the need to change myself, to have goals, to miss less things in life by knowing what I want = goal setting session on the go.

Thank you OC SPRINCO, Thank you AIESEC OSTRAVA, Thank you AIESEC CZECH REPUBLIC, Thank you AIESEC.

Beeing torn apart by Richard Bona

14.04.2008 - Richard Bona in PKO, Bratislava, Slovakia. What a concert! (Click here for interview after the concert)

First I was afraid if I wouldn't like the concert after an AIESEC conference I still feel the PCS (post conference syndrome see: http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/AIESEC note uncyclopedia is not a relevant, nor trustworthy source of information! see rather wikipedia!), longing for the great OC team, but the international atmosphere on the stage made me quite fast comfortable in my position as a listener ;)

I always loved the typical African singing voice which is for me so indescribable, and now I had an opportunity to listen to it. Though I heard less from it then I expected, it was still a marvelous event far beyond my expectations. His repertoire listed mainly traditional African songs and I would say Latino type of music.

The problem on the Jazz concerts in Bratislava is mainly that you have to sit. And this concert was definitely for dancing your soul out. That's why I say I was torn apart. Should I enjoy the well positioned tones following each other by solving their mystery or let my body flow with it. I lost to my natural desire very quickly an was hard to handle in my chair, though as usual most of the audience bewared a calm had. But the clapping, screaming, whispering in the background broke through and 30 minutes before the end of the concert the whole place was clapping and singing "sen sen sen"... so much that Mr Bona and his band stopped playing for around 2 minutes and made the audience enjoy themselves.

He is a great entertainer. He put a lot of great jokes in his concert and made us laugh a lot of times. Like "only women over 40 should sing now"... silence ... "oooh, when you are over 40 in Bratislava your finished" :)

He also gave a solo to his percussionist from Colombia, to have a solo. Amazing.

At the end of the concert there was a 3 minute long standing ovation, one song where the audience had to stand, and should dance... but that was already to much for this type of people... anyway the mood was good and after another 3 minutes of clapping it was said to us, that there is going to be no more music. Central European people don't complain after this. Used to the fact, that the end, means the end, and so the people where slowly moving on.

All in all I was moving all the time in my chair, one of the best concerts of my life, hope to have a good Latino party on Friday ;)

Brezno

Sometime during February I was in the Low Tatra's (Malé Tatry) in Slovakia. I was there with a few good friends and enjoyed the weekend a lot, with sleeping, drinking a bit, playing table hockey and table football and singing. The usual stuff, which makes you feel fine and enjoy the company of good people. I don't want to go into detail. Don't think I want to.

What I want to talk about, and I'm sure I will remember for a longer time, is the city Brezno and it's surroundings. The first day I was going by foot for around 12 km's to see a near cave. The nature was beautiful, the weather clear, the roads slippery... The time flew by, and with a good friend to talk to it is always a good experience. Around 1pm, when we started to feel hunger, we stumbled upon a small cheese shop, where traditional Slovak cheeses were sold. Delicious! We bough also "bryndza" (sheep cheese) and "korbaciky" (woven cheese - the best were with onion flavor yam). And then we visited a stalagmite cave near there. (no pictures allowed, only for extra costs of course).

The second day I had a trip to Brezno. One of my friends lives here, so I was very interested in the city. As it is not a big city (you can see the whole city from the near hills) I enjoyed to walk freely and not getting lost a lot ;) As it was such a wonderful day I made a walk near the river, after like an hour I started to get hungry, so I tried to get to the city center. I was thinking what would I say, when somebody would ask me where I'm heading to, and I imagined to reply to a friend who lives in the Hviezdoslavovo street (in every Slovak city there is a street with that name.). For my biggest surprise just a few minutes later I found that street. Theory proven :P

Then my travels continued and with a rather long detour I got into the city center. Nice :) Wanted to eat something, found a pizzeria, at 16:00 they serve every pizza for 90 Skk. Fine... it's 15:00. Let's go around a bit more. Following some older buildings I got to a church and behind it was a road up a hill. I believed I will get a nice picture from the city from up there. I think in this case I was mistaken... at least not with a mobile camera...

The road went right into a graveyard. I felt a pleasing calmness and sadness while I was up there. I was looking around and found a few old graves and sepulchers. It was a beautiful day. I needed to be alone for a while, and this was the best place to do so.

and a nice pizza and a good beer at the end!
Cheers!

Beware of the Thing

Back in the 60's... A small family: mother, father, two children, a grandma, an uncle and a butler. Sounds quite normal, as it is. Though there is some more to mention like a lion, a hand and a dark, spooky surrounding. For those who don't know yet, I'm talk about the Addams Family.

In the last week I found most of the episodes of the original show on the Internet and I am watching it since then. I enjoy the the family members roles, and how they harmonize with each other.
A silly father, Gomez, who seems careless and is focused only on the things he loves, his hobbies, family and mostly his "querida". When near his wife he is easily falling into an almost uncontrollable state of the urge to kiss her.
The strange mother, Morticia. In my eyes a beauty in all means. Black long hair, humorous, full of the will to live with sarcastic and dark remarks. Having control over the family. It's nice to see, that she always has a good word to everybody, and encourages them.
The children being smart and "well mannered", playing with all childish things, like explosives, bats and spiders.
Lurch is someone no one could ignore. Gloomy, quite and still has so much to say with so few words... like grrr...
And uncle Fester. Who is simply crazy. Thing the hand, who never dials a wrong number, is always helpful. Kitty the lion, who doesn't eat human and is afraid when somebody screams at him and the burger eating plant called Cleopatra :)

A beautiful story of outsiders of the society, who in their own misunderstood ways try to be as polite and helpful as they can be. The jokes are always from the same field, and in this age you already know most of them, never the less the atmosphere of the family caught me, and so I will watch all of it. There are just two series anyway ;)

PS: I'm watching the series through veoh.com , if anybody is interested...

How easy life was...

In the last days I was remembered my childhood. I don't believe that I have ever grown up. This is a statement, that has to be clarified. I feel like a child, cause a child searches and enjoys the moment, while for me a grown up plans his/her future and enjoys the process and the success.

A few days ago I had to copy some documents, and at the copy shop there was a child looking at the movie "The Little Engine that Could". He was watching it on the computer, through which they print from USB keys (pen drives). The seller came (most probably mother, not sure), told that he should wait a few seconds, and can watch it again.

Of course he was quite unpleased by her decision, to stop him from his activity... well no one really cared about him, so it was natural to watch what is interesting a bit... And it was also natural for him to complain on the change of his position.

I would have felt in his situation now, like I'm unimportant, and just in the way. A quite unpleasant feeling. So I tried to make him smile. I love the fact how easily you can make children smile just by paying them attention, and so getting their curiosity. So I payed him attention. He looked around, so he saw me. I was looking right into his eyes. He didn't pay much attention at the first seconds, but as I was looking at him still he got slowly curious. After 20 seconds we played hide and seek with eye contact. Hiding the eyes behind the chair between us, and then searching for the eye contact again

This whole game gave me also a feeling of peace, calmness and happiness. The wonder of a simple childish game. He smiled, which made me smile also.

PS: Picture can be freely used, thanks to www.morguefile.com and Mary R. Vogt. Be aware that even a picture has it's copyright, not only music and video! ( original: http://www.morguefile.com/archive/?display=186338& )

Another one down

It's always hard to accept, that something you got used to diminishes. I heard a lot of music on pandora.com, before this happened: http://www.pandora.com/restricted
I loved that station, found some new bands I find to my liking through it, and got never bored of the music. last.fm is a pour alternative, as it happens, that I can choose any kind of music, after a half an hour I get to hip-hop or electronic music. I think they sort the artist to eachother and not the songs... or I don't know... simply it never worked as fine as pandora.

And now my second source of quality media deceased. www.stage6.com a.k.a. stage6.divx.com. I loved that site a mass of high quality movies, from the early 50s, through documentations and animes... and if you were lucky, you could get a glimpse on the newest movies (of course because of the copyright issues they tried to delete the illegal stuff as soon as possible).
Features included high speed download, high quality movies, full screen view, no limit for the file length. And the possibility to save the movie on your hard disk.

Thank you for delivering a whole lot of quality movies. Thank you for the hours of movie, I have been seen because of you. I hope you will be resurrected soon!

Some more info:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/66198-divx-and-stage6-chock-full-of-fail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage6

-> As I see in the divx forum, a spark of the spirit lives on... 1 month to wait to see the truth: http://newstage6.com/ <- well a few days after I wrote this post the idea was banned on copyright claims, according to my knowledge. :( Will see what veoh.com has to offer... or some other sites... please give a note, if you know of a good provider

Small wonders of technology

I remember the days, when I was a child, and wanted an instrument I could intuitively play. And then once in a while I just moved my fingers randomly in the air, like I would know what I'm doing. I believe that a feeling is all you need to make something unique. It's most probably also a feeling that most of the "air" guitar players dream of + a whole lot of need to show them selfs off :)

A lot of times happened to me (before I bought an MP3 player) that I was just imagining, creating some kind of a song on the go. Usually of course it where just parts from different song I have already heard and I glued them together... but sometimes it was something new, that no one will hear again (maybe). Or some classical instruments playing a Sunday afternoon song, other times words were going through my mind forming verses which made sense, and I never had a tool to write them down. Maybe now, if I will be brave enough to take out my mobile and switch in on record, I will have something. But the older I get, the less of them appear. And I think it is a sad think. Trigger your imagination, if you can. That's what a dreamer tells you :)

All in all I drifted away again from the original topic, so here it is. The theremin. An electronic instrument you don't have to touch, to make music with it. Enjoy the movie, if you got interested. (when I look at the artist I have the typical feeling of calm waters are deep :))

Preparation for summer - Action plan

On Monday I got some great news (though could have been better ones). I will go for a summer internship to Benifaió, Valencia, Spain through IAESTE Slovakia.

I wanted to write down my action plan, but got an e-mail from them (IAESTE), describing what they will need from me to do, to proceed with my application. And even then I just have a very high probability to go... I hate it when it's less then 99.69%...

I was always screaming when I was unsatisfied with something to everyone instead of talking to the person I needed to talk to, as I got used to the fact, that when I need attention usually people don't listen. And as for today I wanted to write onto my blog anyway, so I think I will write down the unpleasant facts around this traineeship, which though will be solved in a few weeks.

What angers me now is:
add 1.) The loosy description of the company, and what kind of work I will do there... This won't be that a big problem, but they would like to have a motivation letter from me, which is in this case I think pretty absurd. Of course, there are no limits for inspiration, if the price is right, which is (live in a different culture, country. The first time I will have the experience I'm so interested in)... And I heard now, that they can cancel my internship if they want to. But I have as usually no real information.
add 2.) The second interesting think is, that they want to get a list of subjects, I have completed in school... also quite absurd as I'm quite sure, that I will get that only in Slovak... so would be quite interested what does guys will do with it.
add 3.) That I didn't know this could happen. The actual information flow from IAESTE was, that I will have to make language test, give some papers after that, and then I will be able to go abroad. This was in November. Since then no information at all. And now I'm surprised. And actually this is what angers me the most. I hate it when something appears, what I'm not prepared for. It simply drives me mad.

On the other hand I have to say, that this gives me a feeling of great pleasure after making the tasks. But usually it took 2-3 hours to get the results of my work. Now it can be weeks. grrr I hate to wait with things that influence me so much and can't do anything about them (and I'm sure there are just a very few ppl, who wouldn't feel the same).

Maybe I'm just comparing to much, as I worked in AIESEC, that has a totally different way of managing these kind of things. Maybe.

On the other hand, please don't get scared by this entry. It is a mood, which will pass away, in my heart I'm excited and more then happy, that I've got this chance. I'm looking forward to it, and want to get as much as I can from it. So all in all, imagine me with a smile on my face ;)

"Emotional security" or when things change

I'm very sad in the last weeks, cause I lost a point I could lean on emotionally. I believe that most of the people have habits they don't give up, because they are used to it and feel secure doing/experiencing them. Such habits, moments can relate to experiencing the same situation for a long time, or just a few moments which carved themselves in our minds. Some of the situations I value: is a shower with hot (not boiling) water on my skin, as I used to go to the thermal baths quite often in my childhood - this brings quite pleasant memories back. Or simply sitting before the computer and hearing music which is in harmony with my feelings. This is more like a dull feeling of comfort. A feeling of something I know and am sure, that nothing can surprise me or hurt me when I do it.

I lost such a secure point in my life this year. After so much talk about climate change and such this year I finally admitted that it can be true. The second sunny warm winter in the south of Slovakia. How sad for me. If you live your whole life with four seasons than you can't really imagine, how could it be without one of them, how could it change. And now it is here. While the spring is still full of the birth of life - bloom, animals appear, the summer is hot as always - giving the feeling of freedom and joy, the autumn amazes me with all its color and gifts I miss the winter. I miss the snow.

The nature died this year also. The trees lost their leaves, the flowers disappeared as most of the birds and animals, but the country didn't disappear before my eyes under a white layer of snow. Except of x-mas and New Years Eve there was no snow or snowing around. I miss the feeling from my childhood, when I made snowballs, enjoyed the falling snowflakes.
I shouldn't romanticize the memories too much. But the though of snow comforted me. And this feeling is missing this year. If I would go into the wiccan believe - though the sun was killed in autumn this year again, his body was never buried. The cycle of life lost from it's beauty.

I want to see real winter in my hometown again.

Every coin has two sides (Benazir Bhutto)

While the media gave me a picture of Benazir Bhutto as a holy woman, it was very interesting as a friend living in Pakistan gave a different picture of her.

http://klepo.net/journal/
please look up - Day 213 (30.12.07) - The political Dynasty of Bhutto

Sorry, but only in Slovak: there is also a Slovak entry on his site + read also the feedbacks on the article, he is referring to.

http://klepo.net/slovensky/index.htm
Deň 214 (31.12.2007) - moj pohlad na Benazir Bhuttovu...

The Plains - Petőfi Sándor

I have the feeling that most of the people I know from my hometown and surroundings, with whom I was going into grammar and high-school have something in common. We love the place we are living. It is nothing special, I believe most of the people feel the same about their hometown and the places around it.
I won't go deep into the talk about why I feel so, cause it isn't anything you can describe, I rather put here a poem of a Hungarian poet. I won't translate the whole poem, just the phrases I had to learn in school and are still sometimes flying in my mind - cause I feel that way. It's quite a hard text to translate.

1.verse:
What are you for me, grim pine-grove lands,
Wilderness of the Carpathian Mountains
Though I admire you, but I don't love you,
And my thoughts don't wander in your valleys

2.verse:
Down on the plains, flat as the sea,
There I feel at home, there's my world
I'm like an eagle which escaped from his prison
When I see the never ending fields.

3.verse
Then my mind flies up
Above the ground near the clouds,
With the smile of the fields
From the Danube to the Tisza .

Last verse:
You are beautiful, plains, at least beautiful for me!
Here was my cradle slewed, I was born here.
Here should the shroud burrow my face, here
should my grave round up above me.


Az Alföld - Petőfi Sándor

Mit nekem te zordon Kárpátoknak
Fenyvesekkel vadregényes tája!
Tán csodállak, ámde nem szeretlek,
S képzetem hegyvölgyedet nem járja.

Lenn az alföld tengersík vidékin
Ott vagyok honn, ott az én világom;
Börtönébõl szabadúlt sas lelkem,
Ha a rónák végtelenjét látom.

Felröpûlök ekkor gondolatban
Túl a földön felhõk közelébe,
S mosolyogva néz rám a Dunától
A Tiszáig nyúló róna képe.

Délibábos ég alatt kolompol
Kis-Kunságnak száz kövér gulyája;
Deleléskor hosszu gémü kútnál
Széles vályu kettõs ága várja.

Méneseknek nyargaló futása
Zúg a szélben, körmeik dobognak,
S a csikósok kurjantása hallik
S pattogása hangos ostoroknak.

A tanyáknál szellõk lágy ölében
Ringatózik a kalászos búza,
S a smaragdnak eleven szinével
A környéket vígan koszorúzza.

Idejárnak szomszéd nádasokból
A vadlúdak esti szürkületben,
És ijedve kelnek légi útra,
Hogyha a nád a széltõl meglebben.

A tanyákon túl a puszta mélyén
Áll magányos, dõlt kéményü csárda;
Látogatják a szomjas betyárok,
Kecskemétre menvén a vásárra.

A csárdánál törpe nyárfaerdõ
Sárgul a királydinnyés homokban;
Odafészkel a visító vércse,
Gyermekektõl nem háborgatottan.

Ott tenyészik a bús árvalyányhaj
S kék virága a szamárkenyérnek;
Hûs tövéhez déli nap hevében
Megpihenni tarka gyíkok térnek.

Messze, hol az ég a földet éri,
A homályból kék gyümölcsfák orma
Néz, s megettök, mint halvány ködoszlop,
Egy-egy város templomának tornya. –

Szép vagy, alföld, legalább nekem szép!
Itt ringatták bölcsõm, itt születtem.
Itt borúljon rám a szemfödél, itt
Domborodjék a sir is fölöttem.