iG.STUDiO: Ilya I. Gerasimenko

This is from an actual letter I have sent to my congressman. Posted here to keep track of my struggle with CIS, formerly known as INS, and, to the extend of my knowledge, the worst organization I ever dealt with in this country. ____ I would very much appreciate your help with my case with Immigration and Nationalization Service. I am a naturalized US citizen since 1999. Recently I invited my mother to come live with us, and applied for an immigrant visa for her. The petition was approved. Enclosed is a copy of the approval notice, I have received from INS in August, concerning the immigrant petition for my mother. Since there was no activity on the case for several months, I called the Customer Service number, listed on the bottom of the notice. I was advised to call National Visa Center directly to inquire about the status of the case, so I did. They told me to send them a copy of the approval notice, claiming that they never received the original. I did. They returned the copy I sen...

Pun intended, naturally. I am not a keyboard player, but after careful consideration I decided that I need something to enter notes into GarageBand , rather than a mouse or a computer keyboard, which displays just a horrible latency, when you type the notes in. My first choice was, actually, a wind controller (and I already know which one, after reading an excellent blog entry , which does compare both leading instruments - Yamaha WX5 and the Akai EWI4000s ), which I still intend to buy some day, but for some tasks, like picking chords, the little two octave keyboard is just the tool of choice. Here comes M-Audio Oxygen8v2 , hence the name of the song ... I am so easily entertained...

Despite all my affection to that show, I must admit that the beginning of season III had given me some doubts. The more I think about the initially multi-dimensional and yet still heavily branching story line (or lines, actually), the more I fear that the creators of the show will not be able to eventually control it to the degree where it would still remain plausible. It's the question of energy vs. entropy with the whole structure being so complex, that it can collapse into something as cheesy as "...and the whole thing is actually a hallucination, which was going on in their minds during the last 3.5 seconds of the plane crush..." or the eversafe "...just a virtual reality experiment...". Well, that would really suck, wouldn't it? Every sci-fi story must have an "allowance", that's the rules of the genre. No matter what it is, time travel, space exploration, rebel robots or evil aliens, it should be there, or there is no story to be told. ...

That is from someone who gets picked out from the continuous flow of gently speeding traffic for going 2.25 miles over the speed limit - some of us are clearly marked*. Since I moved to NYC, however, my speciality became parking tickets. I get them everywhere. This is my way of supporting the city (seriously, why running the red light, which is a potentially life-threatening violation is priced $50, and parking with your spare tire hanging 1.5 inches over the sloppily painted crooked white line** - more than twice more, $115? I'd tell you why***, but this blog is a part of my professional image, or at least I hope it doesn't destroy it too much...) - as "premium" as the city is, according to our mayor. Another topic - warranties. How in a world they manage to build something which breaks one to three days after it's factory warranty expires? And how do they know that you are going to buy an extended one, and in that case the damn thing breaks not in 91 days, but ...

Apparently, it can drive you insane, especially if you haven't dealt with it before. They use a number of very simple, but effective methods: They only deliver, when you are not there, e.g. between 9 AM and 5 PM, and leave a note you can't read with a reference number. Since you weren't there, they will deliver again the very next day, making sure they attempt the delivery at the exact same time (because they already know, you wouldn't be there). They will leave a note with a different reference number. They will  try again (same time) next day, and then leave another note with another reference number, marked "final attempt". You will call the number on the note to figure out what's going on. Eventually you will get a live person, who will be very helpful and reschedule the delivery for the time you can be there (after 6 PM). They will deliver again next day around noon, and leave a note with a new reference number. You will call. After getting a l...

... or did I finally fixed this buggy blogger template (with the help of www.positioniseverything.net  )? Hasn't been five years... It still refuses to validate, but at least it's not running in quirks mode anymore, and renders in IE the same way it does in Firefox. Fills my heart with joy. Happy birthday to me, too.

... and we are still unpacked. There is something wrong with our lives. And we have way too many books.