The film, being the only first part, is an unfinished story and shows the part of the life of Milarepa before he became a buddhist and took the name Milarepa. The story is well know in almost every culture in almost every part of the world. Young boy born in the relatively rich family faced the hard life after the death of his father. Together with his mother they were living under “care” of his father’s brother, who stolen all of their goods and made them almost beggers. When the boy - named Mila Thöpaga - became a man, his mother forced him to flee the village and to find the master of magic who would teach him the black magic to take the revenge on his uncle and his family. Thöpaga found himself as a skilled and intelligent. He lernt black magic from the highest master, and - which is rather obvious - came back to the village, destroyed it and killed many men. Then he was chased, running away he took a shelter in the house of the Buddhist monk. Later he started to feel that the revenge didn’t bring the peace in hi heart and didn’t make him feel better. He understood that his karma is not good and wouldn’t have been better if he would have hate in his heart. Thöpaga is starting to search for his master who will teach him the knowledge of Buddha.

As I have mention, this kind of story is present in almost every culture in the world, so it is not very exciting. The film is beautiful thanks to the very slow speed of the action, the constant rhythm almost like a Buddhist mantra. Film shows the breathtaking Himalayas, the language and the culture and the native old Tibetan religion Bön with its ceremonials and rites. The way the film is filmed, showing the gravious and unfriendly land, made me easy to forget about my ego.

Here are the photos:

the crack:

and the solution:

About 3 weeks ago I was busy burning the dvds with the film from the wedding of my wife’s cousin. I had to burn about 10 copies using the internal iMac Super Drive. After the end of the burning process of the 7th disc, it stuck inside the drive. My iMac went crazy trying to eject it. I tried all methods of force eject (during the reboot, and using terminal) but without any success. I would have stand the disc stuck in the drive if it had been mounted permanently, but my computer tried to eject it every time I turned it on. I had to use a piece of cardboard to push the disc inside to stop the ejecting madness and to force the iMac to mount it. I have even tried to use the tweezers both the ones for the stamps and the hand made ones, made of the piece of aluminium from the old 3,5′ floppy disc… without success.

All of my machines are under warranty, so I called the premium Apple reseller in Poland - SAD (orchard in Polish), where I found out that the new corporate is in charge of all Apple equipment warranties - iSource. Nevertheless, before I call them I found out that replacement of the Super Drive in iMac is a process of about 1 or 2 hours. So I asked the man in charge of warranties in iSource, how long it takes. He replied - 2 weeks, he suggested me to contact via e-mail the man in charge of repairs. I asked once again - is it possible to replace Super Drive in couple of hours if I bring my iMac to Warsaw? His answer was - of course - no. The repair (or replacement) will take 2 weeks. I started to think. What if my iMac had been my only one computer and I had no external hard drive? I wouldn’t be able to back up my files (roughly 150 GBs). No one at iSource could assure me that my files won’t be viewed. I have no porn or abusive material on the HD, but I have some personal documents that are private in sens of viewing by the people I don’t know. Computer is a private files storage and they couldn’t guarantee that it would remain not viewed. The only way was to stay with my iMac for 2 weeks at the iSource workshop. This situation forces the customer to spend additional money for the external hard drive device, so the warranty of free of charge repair is not really true in such case. I was also wondering, why such a simply procedure had to take 2 weeks? I cought a rumour that there is only one person in charge of repairs of Macs at the iSource (premium resseler). I am not sure of that, but from the other hand - Macs are a marginal or a drop in the ocean of PCs that is a computer market in Poland. I don’t know if there is so many Macs that brake and the guy has so much work to do. I said to myself that I was not going to left my machine with my files without my supervision and decided to ask someone to help me with getting the DVD disc out of the drive. Finally we made it, but I am not going to use internal Super Drive any more. I decided to buy an external DVD DL USB powered drive and it suits me fine.

I have almost forgotten about that story described above, when I have discovered the crack of the top case of my MacBook in a place where the inset of the screen frame touches the top case. This time I am going to send it for replacement (of a top case). It seems that both of my expensive Macs are far from perfect from the mechanical point of view.

I am going to be very busy and out of the office (my place) for the next month and first weeks of January (trip to Ireland) so I will wait till the mid January. Also, I am going to by new alu MacBook during my visit in Ireland. They are much cheaper than in Poland.

Luckily most of the viruses are not targeting Mac, though according to IDG.pl and Sunbelt Software there is one fake anti-virus software for Mac called MacGuard.

More about rogue Mac Guard on Sunbelt Software

Personally, I can not judge new MacBooks until I see and touch them. They don’t look as bad as many people claims (according to the photos). The only thing that is controversial for me is the lack of FW port.

Mac users’ community is not a monolithic, at least in Poland. It is due to the fact that it has been overwhelmed by something much wider and more specified - the Apple Users’ community, with the majority of iPhone and iPod users. The different perspectives on such Apple gadgets users and the old users (that started with Mac Classics and Performas) and the switchers (who switched to Macs from Windows) makes this Polish user community divided and even turn both parts of Mac users against each other.

I wonder how the Mac users’ community looks and works in U.S. I guess it is a bit crazy. All those queues in the front of the Apple Stores and Keynotes, private Apple museums and so on. This is for sure completely different to the Polish reality when for many years Macs were unreachable by the almost all Polish computer users. Almost nobody could afford them.
I wonder if the Mac users in the US help each other, do they socialize, are they friendly to each other? Maybe I will get some answer watching MacHeads The Movie

.

I remember when two years ago, during my stay in Ireland (Carlow), me and my wife went to Dublin for sighseeing. It was july and 2 weeks before I tried to book two beds in a hostels. All of them were full for entire holiday season. We finally decided to go to Dublin for one day and took the last bus to Carlow. On the O’Connell’s Street we met many Polish immigrants who just left the airlink buses (Dublin Airport <-> Dublin City Centre) and they were asking us about the accommodation and work. Many of them came to Ireland with 200 or 300 Euro. Try to imagine what would they do after staying couple of days in B&B. Some of them have run out of money very quickly.

Some people can not understand my very critical point of view over the Polish immigration, but I was always of the opinion that we should be able to communicate in English - at least, before we will pass the customs at Dublin airport. It would prevent many sad stories of happening and, what is also quite important, of closing ourselves behind the ghetto walls.

In the twentieth century we also chose our allies not very smart. As we know, united Catholic and nationalistic pomp on the alliance with France and Great Britain was the only cheating themselves, especially in the circumstances when it was easy to predict how our allies would act in the state of war. It was enough to look at the dying Czechoslovakia - also an ally of these two “major powers”. England and France with virtually no blenching agreed to the seizure of the Sudetenland, and then the whole Czechoslovakia, and Polish national democracy blowing the child trumpet entered the Zaolzie (Trans-Olza River Silesia) by joining them to our fatherland. It was clear that the next target will be Poland and that our allies would not move the finger to help us. But we’re not a smart nation, but a nation of honour - but often we do not even understand the meaning of the word. For us honour is what stomach drops for a cat, for example, our tendency to the troubles or battles. Thus, Poland stood honorary at attention hoping or believing that our allies would keep their promises (which they did not kept in case of Czechs and Slovaks - for us not enough tough and brave). Looking at the German army parade in Warsaw in 1939, many of our grandparents were still repeating the mantra that France and England would move on in the few days. But Germany went on, half a year later.

So, it appeared that the British and the French military did not appreciate the power of Germany, Polish soldier once again become necessary. Our pilots in the RAF planes were chasing and shooting down German Luftwaffe, the crew of our destroyer “Piorun” risked their necks under the massive gunshot of German battleship Biskmarck, seafarers and other units frozen in the convoys with the help for the Soviet Union. When we tried to raise our voices in defense of our interests, because in the middle of the war, Poland still count as ad hoc ally - purveyor of cannon fodder, our friends from the UK’s MI5 cleverly silenced this voice - and General Wladyslaw Sikorski (chief of the Polish army) died in the unfortunate crash of the plane.

Flagrant example of this, that our allies again “flushed us with the water into the toilet” was hesitance of Churchill and Roosevelt to recognize our National Army’s (AK - Polish resistance) as the official formation of the allied forces. Previously its soldiers were regarded by Germans as ordinary bandits. How much water our allies flushed with us and our honour turned out at the end of the war and immediately after it, when the Polish Government in exile in London became no longer recognized by the Western powers, while Poland was given on a plate to Stalin. English also forgotten (for the next 50 years or more) that the Enigma was broken by the Poles. Well, a Pole did his duty, Pole may depart.

60 years later, we are still in this strange state of delusion of honour and alliances with powers, for which we are only a tool for the moment. This time, we strive to be at any price - that is, unilaterally without reciprocity - the biggest ally of the United States. Polish soldiers has been dying in the name of U.S. interests and U.S. corporations in Iraq and Afghanistan. We stand against the interests of the European Union, leading often hostile policy towards our two much stronger neighbours than we are, trying to become something of the spokesman of U.S. policy in Europe.Our nation politicians , together with the President, mumbling about honour don’t realize (or just pretend) that the U.S. did not need any ombudsman in Europe, since there are currently (and even long would be) the strongest power in the world. The don’t need Poland because we are unpredictable in our pro American zeal, that can go too far at all will not be in the interest of the United States. However, all the time like a dog running around its owner, Poland tries to convince the U.S. that is their greatest and the most loyal friend and ally, awaiting grace and valuable gifts from Washington in return. We bought stale (though does not dispute that once magnificent) F-16 fighter jets, but promised further offset is miserable, and those American fighter jets spoil quite often.We expected U.S. to abolish visas for Poles, and it turned out that Poland was not on the announced list of countries whose citizens would soon go to the U.S. without visas - a wonder there were countries of the former Soviet Union, and our neighbours, which many Poles still considers as weak and fun (the Czechs). Polish General was to be elected, with the support of the United States, a chairman of NATO’s military committee but has not been, and the United States didn’t supported him.

For centuries, Poland in a national trance fueled with a closer indefinite concept of honour, has been choosing the worst possible allies. Tighten proudly breast and waving the fist against its two great neighbours, who have once proved that our country can be turned into ruin very quickly. They couldn’t destroy us until the end - is also a fact undeniable, but it is not too great consolation. We must be heartwood, pride, honour and mighty.

As we joke - The Czechs have 4 reverse gears in their tanks, but they have Prague and its original, not destroyed monuments while our capital city fears us with the communist era blockhouses in the center of a city and Warsaw has the old town built from ruins in nineteen fifties and the Royal Castle built from nothing in the nineteen seventies.

This is what I love about our nation… our famous Polish hospitality…

I have been always of the opinion that Polish community in UK and Ireland represents the same problems, diversities, social statuses and - of course - pathologies as the entire Polish society in Poland, and problem of pathological families (domestic violence, alcohol, drugs etc) has been always big in Poland. Worth to mention that the immigration resulted in as it is called “Euro orphans” - kids left alone by their parents who left for UK or Ireland.

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