CUBILONE IS ME, BUT I’M NOT CUBILONE

This place has been rather quiet lately. My last post here was more than 8 months ago, and this blog wasn’t exactly teeming with life before, either.

Standing in the digital space of what used to be my dimension feels like returning to my teenage bedroom and coming face-to-face with a caricature of who I used to be. Still, caricatures are quite good at jogging the memory. Here it is, disused, but not as dusty as one would expect – 80% of dust consists of dead skin cells and here there’s no-one it can be shed off of, after all. The walls are still covered with posters of bands I still like (or think I do) but never listen to anymore, and the corkboards still have pictures pinned on them of my younger self together with old friends I’ve lost all contact with. Did they move away from me or did I move away from them? The question is as pointless yet painful as ‘why must there be death?’, or ‘can oil and water ever be lovers?’

In the almost 10 years I’ve had this blog, my WordPress backend tells me that I’ve written 985 posts – a respectable number, but way too close to 1,000 for comfort. If I’d kept posting my earworms and the handful of Goodreads and Game 2.0 reviews here I haven’t shared, I could have done it, but right now the achievement seems hopelessly trivial (it’s no accident I’m calling it that).

I’d been meaning to write this closing post for a longer time than I care to admit. What had been stopping me until now is that I thought I’d be ‘betraying’ a part of myself. I realised at some point that there’s no shame in letting the past be the past.

I was thinking recently what I feel about the entity Cubilone. Am I Cubilone? Hardly anyone calls me that anymore, because most people I share my life with today don’t remember the time I identified myself as Cubilone. They didn’t know me, and I wasn’t aware of their existence. In time, no-one will remember. But let’s not go there.

Are an acorn and the oak tree it grows into the same ‘thing’?

I am now 28 years old. White hairs have started to make their timely yet not wholly unwelcome appearance in my beard. The unibrow hairs I regularly pluck were the first ones to go white, actually. I started using the nickname Cubilone when I was 17. I can’t recall if it was for Hi5 (yikes), MySpace or some other website where I felt the need to hide behind a mysterious-sounding nickname. It was an alteration of the even older handle CuBiCLe, a nickname I had spontaneously chosen for myself to play CounterStrike with friends at DaSilva, the first hit netcafe in Nea Smyrni. When I chose that name for myself, I’d barely count as a teenager.

The me who first called himself Cubi.
Sometime around 2003, the me who first called himself Cubi. Or, if you’re catching pedant from reading me, an uncharacteristic photograph of me. What I can tell you is that, although I hated hairgel, I knew the cool kids loved it, and I was dying for their acceptance and appreciation.

For years I preferred not to talk too much about the true origins of the name Cubilone (and CuBiCLe) – as you can tell, they wouldn’t win any awards for originality. But now I wish to share this story with you in greater detail.

CuBiCLe’s true origins probably stem from ‘GameCube’ (I was an obsessed Nintendo fanboy at the time), but I really think it also had to do with reading/watching either The Sorcerer’s Stone or The Chamber of Secrets and subconsciously catching the word ‘cubicle’ from somewhere therein – Hogwarts toilets did feature rather prominently in both stories, after all.

Pretty soon, I was just Cubi. Eventually, I added the extra suffix “-lone” because it reminded me of ‘alone’ and it also kind of sounded Elvish. I don’t remember how vocal I had been about what the word ‘cubicle’ meant, but I definitely didn’t want to be going around introducing myself as ‘toilet or office compartment’.

In all honesty though, I don’t imagine I kept quiet for long – my humor was way more self-deprecating back then that it is now, and embarrassing myself for laughs is something I had not yet developed the pride to start avoiding. Today, I seek guidance from that part of me who didn’t feel threatened by the completely imaginary prospect of being embarrassed.

I have so many memories of love, friendship and joy connected with the name Cubi. It feels like by giving up on the name, I’m giving up on the memories, or even worse (?), the people I share them with. It is, however, some consolation that my memories of loved ones calling me that are probably just mine. You know, memories are some volatile, fleeting, malleable things; blindly assuming I share certain ones with people I care about is a recipe for disappointment. So I won’t assume that.

Still. For that, and for many other reasons, I know that I’m not giving up on the people, on the memories. That would be just me taking myself on my beloved guilt trips. No; this whole thing? It’s just about me. Just for me to grow out of my skin, leave my cozy, comfortable cocoon behind.

So, am I still Cubi? Am I QB, qb? Am I Cubilone? Today?

…

Cubilone is me. He’ll be me as long as I live. But I’m not Cubilone.

*holding breath*

*exhalation*

This marks the end of Cubilone’s Dimension. This open diary I would turn to whenever I felt lonely and thought that writing something would make people in general interested in me or help them understand me, no longer serves me. It might still serve Cubilone, but it’s not serving Dimitris.

If you’re reading this, you might be interested in reading some more of what I’m planning to start writing soon. I’m obviously too vain to not have some kind of personalised web presence that’s not plebby like Facebook, and most of all, I have really missed writing (in case you’re wondering: yes, with the goal of making people interested in me or to help them understand me).

I do hereby present you Hallografik.ws, my new site, which at the time of writing is still not ready, but I’m kicking myself into action. I hope I’ll stick to that one for longer than what Cubilone Dimension felt comfortable for.

As for the fate of this blog? It will stay online until December 7th, which will mark the 10th anniversary of when I registered it. I don’t plan on renewing the domain name, so I only know that “cubimension.net” will become available soon. In case you’re interested to grab it and use it to swear at me with really big letters.

The 985 posts? I’ve yet to really decide, but I don’t think I have the heart to lock them away or even delete them forever. Not yet…

EARWORM GARDEN // BIONIC COMMANDO REARMED 2 — FLUTES OF EKTANADU

6 χρονιά μετά το review. Sheesh. Το έπαιξαν αυτό στο RPGamers Game Radio που βοηθάει πολύ με την συγκέντρωση κατα το editing για το Spotted by Locals (και είναι ο καλύτερος VGM «σταθμός» που έχω βρει. Δεν έχω ψάξει όμως και πολύ). Kαι φυσικά αυτό το κομμάτι του οποίου η μοίρα έμελλε να είναι ενός αποτυχημένουμου παιχνιδιού, μου (ξανά)κόλλησε.

Πείτε μου. Δεν σας έχει λείψει η dubstep, έστω λίγο; Την αλήθεια.

 

EARWORM GARDEN // JAKE CHUDNOW — SHONA

This one worm’s a persistent little fella. The music video too is brilliant, it reminds me in all the best ways of the video DJ sets I’d run into at the late K44 in Athens, oh maybe 5 years ago (yes, 2012 is 5 half a decade ago now). I secretly admire people who can do that kind of thing, mixing together obscure, eye-catching videos to music.

While I do love how Jake Chudnow was made famous through my beloved Youtube channel VSauce, I hope he’s not forever doomed to be “the guy who makes VSauce music”.

Is doomed  too strong a word for such a fate?

BURU SURI

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This post’s title is inspired by a skit from Azumanga Daioh which has for some reason stayed with me, even if it’s been more than 10 years since I watched the series in 12th grade – proceeding to draw Sakaki-san on the Eastpak school backpack I used to carry around back then.

I don’t remember who says what, but the characters make fun of the fact that “Bruce Lee” sounds exactly like “Blue Three” in Engrish: both are in fact pronounced buru suri. Just give me a second to google that and have something to back up my words with.

…there.

So, how come? Last week some indomitable urge to rent a movie took over me. Yes, rent one. Legally. Amazing, right? I couldn’t remember how many years it had been since I had last actually gone to the video club, browsed the available titles, having to weigh in rent duration as a factor – to decide if I should rent a newer movie for a single day or a slightly less recent one for three.

In an age of instant gratification and unlimited libraries (Steam, Netflix etc) small limitations such as these can be truly relieving. It’s the same kind of ease of mind you get when you only have one book to read and all the time and energy you would otherwise put into deciding which book to read is converted into actual time for reading!

But, as usual, I’m being overly romantic about anything that does not exist in purely digital form or exclusively on the internet, or which had already existed before I was born: only while typing out the lines above did the numerous instances of the same archetypical memory of arguing about which movie to rent with the same, but different, friends, in the same, but different, video club, come rushing back. So, you might disregard all the nonsense I wrote above, if you wish.

Anyway, what inspired me to go out and watch films legally was that I suddenly realised that I have a Bluray player (my PS4) sitting under my television, but I’d never actually watched a fim in Bluray, something I realise is not entirely unsimilar from declaring in 2011 I’d never watched a DVD. “Why not get with the times”, I thought.

I didn’t go to my neighbourhood movie club, Video Blue, which I must say would have been rather apt, but chose Seven instead. Looking around for a bit, I saw that they had an offer for three movies for three days for only 5€. Their advertising offer worked on me and rent three movies I did.

Without further ado now then, here are my brief opinions on what I watched. If you are to keep something from this post, may it be that media consumption can be more beneficial and memorable if done mindfully and with some kind of artificial limit placed on it.

Ex Machina (2015)

ex-machina

I’ve been meaning to watch this since Autómata, which dealt with similar themes: true AI has come about; what do?

I’d like to divulge as little as possible about this one. The pacing, the dialogues, the setting, the characters, the music, the feelings, the effects, the acting, the twists… all top-notch, no beats missed whatsoever. I really can’t think of a single thing I didn’t enjoy about it. If you like soft science fiction and a slower film that will give you a lot to think about but even more to feel about, give it a shot.

While you’re at it, watch Arrival, another sci-fi film I watched recently, that one at the cinema, which single-handedly made it very close to the top of my list of all-time favourite science fiction films.

Boyhood (2014)

boyhood_b&w

Richard Linklater, maker of Waking Life and the Before Sunrise, Sunset and Midnight, started filming Boyhood in 2002, when the movie’s main character Mason was only 5 years old. He kept filming as the boy grew older, and what we got by the end is a movie about the mundane little moments of growing up.

It’s true that Boyhood could have been a lot more than the uneventful story it turned out to be, namely about a kid more or less like any other American kid, but watching it I didn’t get bored at all. Apart from the fact that it worked as a real-time recap of events that marked the ’00s and my own earlier years, it was fun watching characters develop and age, and I could more than relate with the whole broken family and mother-in-search-of-replacement-father thing, even though I must say I did feel pangs of jealousy at the appearance of so many (step-)siblings.

It was a long movie at ~150 minutes, but in typical Linklater style, the most banal conversations were somehow the most engaging and I didn’t feel it draw out at all.

Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

pstrain_gbh_web__medium

This one’s probably the best known out of my buru suri films. Grand Budapest Hotel is an experience, like all Wes Anderson films. Intense colours, over-the-top aesthetics, completely wild situations, humouristic, heart-warming, clever little touches that challenge and reward the viewer… it’s by no means a bad film. On the contrary.

However, there’s something in Wes Anderson’s work I can’t quite put my finger on that I find obnoxious. I would like to look into what it is exactly that puts me off films like this, give it a name, cause I think it’s fascinating how a film I should theoretically quite enjoy didn’t work for me – how whether you’ll like a movie or not depends on such little factors that work together to create a satisfactory feeling… or not.

 

 

SHARY-CARY TAB RELEASE // GAMASUTRA – MOST PLAYERS WON’T FINISH YOUR GAME, AND THAT’S NOT A BAD THING!

vandenberghe_thumbMost players won’t play to the end of your game. That’s not a tragedy — that’s a feature of video games’ design landscape. Ubisoft creative director Jason VandenBerghe explains, in this reprint from the final (June/July 2013) issue of Game Developer magazine.

Came across this article when I googled something akin to “I never finish the games I play” or “getting bored of games” only to discover, to my crowd-sourced relief, that people never finishing the games they start is actually a wider phenomenon, one which seldom gets talked about. Check out the comments.

EARWORM GARDEN // DREAM THEATER — PANIC ATTACK

Πρόσφατα καθόμασταν σπίτι μου με τον Φάνη στη Νέα Σμύρνη, είχαμε βάλει Youtube στην τηλεόραση και βάζαμε τραγούδια εναλλάξ. Κάποια στιγμή ο Φάνης πρότεινε να βάλουμε το Misunderstood («ωχ ρε, πού το θυμήθηκες αυτό;») και αναπόφευκτα μου έγινε το earworm of choice για αρκετές ημέρες – “if I seem superhuman I have been misunderstoooood”.

Καμιά 10αριά μέρες αργότερα, στο Ηράκλειο, τη μέρα που η Μαριλένα έλειπε το πρωί και μπορούσα να απολαύσω μέταλ χωρίς να της πάρω τ’ αυτιά, έβαλα να παίζει στην τηλεόραση του Airbnb της ξαδέρφης της όπου μέναμε (thanks Athiná!) ένα Dream Theater mix για soundtrack στα morning pages μου – τις καθημερινές, υποτίθεται, σελίδες ελεύθερης γραφής που ξαναέπιασα εδώ και κανέναν μήνα τώρα μετά από έναν χρόνο περίπου που τα πρωινά μου ήταν χωρίς ενδοσκόπηση γραμμένη με στιλό. 5-6 τραγούδια μετά, ο αλγόριθμος του Youtube μου σέρβιρε το Panic Attack.

Το Panic Attack και το ότι μου έχει κολλήσει στο μυαλό 5 μέρες τώρα ήταν ο λόγος που κούνησα τον κώλο μου (και τα δάχτυλα γιατί δεν μπορώ να πληκτρολογήσω με τον κώλο ακόμα δυστυχώς) να γράψω το παρόν ποστίο.

Καιρό είχα να ακούσω Dream Theater, νόμιζα ότι τους είχα αφήσει στην εφηβεία μου, ότι «είναι πολύ φλύαροι για τα γούστα μου τελικά» κτλ. Κι όμως, The Spirit Carries On.

Είχα πάει στη συναυλία τους στο ολυμπιακό γήπεδο του beach volleyball το ’05. Τότε που ακόμα έπαιρνα φωτογραφίες και βίντεο οτιδήποτε πέρναγε από μπροστά μου.

img_7998
Τότε που ακόμα τα εισιτήρια δεν στα δίναν σε μια φωτοτυπία με ένα barcode.

img_7999

Κι απ’ τη συναυλία:


This one’s called PANIC ATTACK — ντάμπαντα ντάμπαντα ντάμπαντα ντάμπαντα ντάμπα ντάμπα κ.ο.κ. Αυτή είναι η πρώτη φορά που άκουσα το κομμάτι. Ναι, το Octavarium δεν το είχα ακούσει πριν πάνω στη συναυλία… 11+ χρόνια μετά μου έγινε earworm.


Μια γεύση του Fatal Tragedy.

Ο Σταύρος, με τα γυαλιά στη φωτογραφία πάνω, είναι που με κόλλησε περισσότερο με τους Dream Theater τότε στη Β’ Λυκείου. Εκείνος μου έπαιξε πρώτη φορά το Misunderstood σπίτι του, και μετά το έμαθα με τη σειρά μου στους φίλους μου – και στον Φάνη. Και ο Φάνης με τη σειρά του, μου το θύμισε τώρα. «Ωχ ρε, πού το θυμήθηκες αυτό!» Το μόνο που μπορώ να κάνω εγώ με τη σειρά μου είναι να το θυμίσω στον Σταύρο. Αν δει αυτό το ποστ ποτέ.

Αν κι αυτό ρυθμίζεται…