Help! Solve the mystery!

Dear Speedgrapher,

The other day I ran into a girl I used to sit next to in the school bus, many years ago. It was a really surprising reunion after almost 10 years. We exchanged phone numbers and decided to meet up for coffee sometime. On Christmas Eve I called her up and we arranged to meet on the 27th at 12:30...

Friday 27th December

I arrived at the meeting place a little early and decided to call her, just to let her know that I had arrived. The phone rang twice and she hung up?! So I casually wrote a message, informing her that "Hey, since it's cold out here I will be waiting for you indoors". I went in and waited... Correction: waited and waited and waited, had a coffee and waited some more and she never showed up! Given that time was a great luxury for me, about an hour later I went back home. I sent an sms "bitching" about it all, politely of course, but no reply. Actually, the day went by and still no word from her. I started wondering what the hell happened... I don't know if I should be worried or not. After this whole event, she has been completely unreachable. So I pose the question to everyone: What possible course of events lead to this situation?

Please help me solve the mystery!

Ergo Proxy

PS. She has grown up to be very cute. ;)

Speedgrapher, writing from Italy, in a shabby internet cafe in Rome:

Dear Ergo Proxy, I am sorry I could not deal with this earlier my friend, but just finding proper internet access has been a challenge in this city (and you thought Tripoli was bad that way...). Anyhow, there are of course several possible senarios like her losing her phone or oversleeping and then feeling bad about it (so much that she dissappeared off the face of the Earth, hmm...) and even gossiping away with a friend until it was too late. HOWEVER, being the more realist and cynical of the two of us, I will go for Occam's Razor, according to which, the simplest explanation is most probably the correct one: she was flattered that someone around 6 years older, whom she had not seen for 10 years, would want to go out with her and may our female readers excuse me, but all women love attention (which is not bad in and of itself). However, for all that, she already has a boyfriend who simply decided to drop by her house for a quickie, as testified by the phone ringing twice and then being shut down (ergo, one ring to get the phone and two to see who it is - Lord of the Rings pun intended). Sadly, that was at the same time you were supposed to meet. Sorry mate, but nothing's better for the Winter cold than sex and she probably agrees. Again, this is my horrible, cynical take, based on circumstantial evidence. However, it makes SOME sense.

Gotta go now, but I will get back to you and our readers the day after tomorrow. Cheers and good health above all; you can always find another chick.

Speedgrapher

Ergo Proxy, writing from an equally shabby internet cafe in Tripoli (military service sucks!):

Breaking news!!! The mystery has been indeed solved. Unfortunetly my dear, perverted friend, your fancy Occam's Razor has led you to a fallacy. The other day I managed to contact her (TA TA TAAAAA) and she has actually lost her phone along with all her contacts. As far as not showing up is concerned, she said she did not think that I would show up because we had arranged the meeting way in advance and did not talk at all after that.

You being a reductionist and all... I am surpprised you would come up with such a complex theory. Besides, that's what you get for trusting a 14th century English logician! HA!

To give a happy end to this story, we have rearranged our outing for this weekend. Note: this is IF the GDA (God Damn Army) gives me the weekend off! And by the way:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! The best of wishes to all of you!

Ergo Proxy

Speedgrapher, writing from home, finally: yes, yes boys and gals, I AM back to bother you and spend your precious time again. The trip to Italy had its ups and downs but now more to the point (an update on the trip in a few days). Oh, alas, my perfect, mean theory has been proven (?) wrong. However, there are some points I want to illustrate: first, my explanation is not the most complex because it involves only one stage (her being with another guy), while yours (which seems to be the case), involves losing the phone AND deciding not to show up. Secondly, the reason she gave for not showing up is bollocks: you had arranged the time AND place (and how exactly are 2 days "way in advance"?) and there are all sorts of conclusions to be drawn from this but let us avoid further complexity. Thirdly, you SO googled Mr. Occam! As to the happy end, I will again let my cynicism prevail and call it a "potentially happy possibility". However, I HAVE been known to be wrong, hehe. Now I am still cold and coughing my lungs out so ta-ta, see you later defibulator.

Speedgrapher

Monkey Business

Dear readers,

Today is an extraordinary day. Today is the day that I, Ergo Proxy, have finally gained the unique privilege of internet access after 2 months of net solitude! As you might have read, I am currently serving my Mandatory Army Service, so blogging has been out of the picture. Today I was given a small, five-hour window to visit the nearby town of Tripoli and naturally, in one swift, involuntary motion, I found myself in front of a computer - and boy does it feel good! I simply cannot describe faithfully what being in the army it is like... All I can do is attach a small sample of the idiocy I have to put up with all day and all night long.

Fun, huh? I live with this circus and I can tell you, I get the urge to scream on a "bi-hourly" basis. On the plus side, I have been keenly spreading the cult of Easy Subjugation to the furthermost reaches of Greece. *Evil Laugh* Eeeeeeeeeasy Subjugation! Hihihi.

All my love and best wishes for Xmas and New Year's

Ergo Proxy

Speedgrapher's Comments: I believe you failed to mention this usually happens when you try to take advantage of the sparse time allotted for sleeping... Ganbate ne? Ne?

Cosplay Party at Cofix! Part II

Here we are again and sorry for the wait but I do not seem capable of shaking off whatever virus I caught up north. Anyhow, the story continues in pictures, followed by an epilogue.

Real Mayar from...
Ergo Proxy! (and
she did not even know
that's the co-author
of this blog)

Deidara from Naruto's
Akatsuki again...
or is it...?

Native color is a must for a cosplay party. Yay,
Japanese pigtail-girl!

Deidara wants his cloak back but
the impersonator is not yielding!
Koi, omerra!

Sailor... (ummm, help please?)

J-rockers, bishies, goth-lolis, there was something
for every taste.

Awww, so innocent... NOT!

Finally, the Death Note cast meets.

"Pssst, I'll trade you my Death Note for him.
Light simply MUST have this plushie!"

Mmm, chinese buns...

Whoa! Zoro got pissed! Put the pig

stickers back in their sheaths pirate-san;
I'll take everyone's picture! Luffy,
put a leash on him will ya?!

Near didn't trade Misa the plushie after all...

And this is where, having done my assigned

duty for the event, I decided to photo-stalk
my favorite ladies. Though I may have
comments crossing my mind at the sight of
the following pictures, I will let you make
your own.

...aaaand to top it all off, two pictures I am
especially proud of!

A big "thank you" to all four

girls for being so patient!

Well, the last two pictures were taken at 2:00 in the morning (OK, it was so freezing cold and dark that you hardly call it morning but I do not like the simple A.M./P.M. distinction). At that point, the crowd had broken up quite a bit (Friday IS a workday for most) and at the same time, Demi's friends had to leave (taking her pink-haired accessory with them - yes, Astarte-chan IS probably the pretttiest accessory ever), so she was left all alone poor dear. Well, that is, except for an annoying little man (in comparison anyway; she is tall by herself and coupled with her boots, I have to crane my neck in order to look her in the eyes) with a camera, who had started to tire from running around Cofix for 6 hours (and having woken up and being on the move since 7:00 of the previous day).

For the following hour-and-a-half, Somnium treated us (and herself, hehe) to a surreal mix of An Cafe, Dir En Grey, a Japanese boy-band whose sound reminded me of such anime openings as Uchyuu Senkan Yamato or Kaizoku Harlock and one member of which was cosplaying as Squall from Final Fantasy (aaah, it was Kat-Tun - thanks Demi-chan), as well as some other visual-kei groups. After such a long, fun night, it was the time when discussions tend to spiral off in a Lovecraftian manner, so I will spare you the madness (and the fun though).

At 3:30, as all good things, it had to come to an end (well, not really, if you want to risk the cops coming to pay a visit). A quick packing for me, as well as dressing for the polar cold once more (I swear, I must look really funny in that heavy coat , which is older than me but it works like a charm for the season) and off I was to the station, after the exchange of warm goodbyes and auf wieder sehens. Demi walked me to Tsimiski Street to get a cab to the train station (I could not find my way around Salonika in one evening, if my life depended on it) and headed off towards home (and out of the - admittedly, even for me - ghastly cold).

Now, thankfully, there is an all-night cafe open near the station, where travelers unlucky enough to have to wait until 5:00 when the station opens, can find shelter and a warm draught. I drank a hot coffee, ate something and half-slept there, until the station doors opened. The cafe closes when the station opens, so I moved into the big building to wait out the rest of the time until the 7 o'clock train arrived. That is where I got my current cough and sneezing, because people were going in and out as the time wore on, letting the freezing wind in. Somehow, in the midst of trying to catch some winks of sleep, exchanging a few words with other travelers and bearing witness to a brief scuffle between a loud junkie and the security guards, I finally noticed something alarming: my train ticket was not for the morning, but the EVENING train at 19:00! In a state of controlled panic (since I had work to do back here, nowhere to stay up there and was half-dead from being awake for 24 hours straight), I talked to an incredibly nice lady at the booking section, who managed to change my ticket to the proper one.

If there was any problem during the 4-hour transit on the express train, I never knew, since I blacked out and woke up back in Athens. At 13:00, I was lying down in my warm bed, a satisfied smile on my face as I set the camera next to it. All that remained was to transfer, process and post the pictures. Thus ended my brief adventure and you now see the result on your computer screens.

Congratulations to Somnium in Tenebris and Mona Risa and many thanks to all involved and present for a great party full of cosplay, great music, great videos and, first and foremost, loads of fun.

Yours in earnest and have a Happy Holiday,

Speedgrapher

Cosplay Party at Cofix! Part I

Well, I have finally regenerated enough to type about what happened in Salonika (although I seem to have acquired a bit of a sore throat while waiting for the train back home – oh well). As with everything, it is better to start at the beginning. In the beginning… there was a humble photographer called Speedgrapher, who could not decide if he had time enough to go to Salonika and shoot at the local Cosplay Party, organized by Somnium in Tenebris and Mona Risa. However, that same photographer decide that he would, just the day before and met with his first challenge: no booking tickets on the eve; you have to buy everything and anything 2 days prior, so morning waky-waky it was. I woke up at 7:00 and had purchased my ticket by 9:00. The train would leave at 13:21, so I had some time to kill.

I went downtown and took care of some things (among which was buying Berserk vol. 2; to accompany me on the 5-hour transit), then headed to the nearest internet café to write the previous update. It turns out, I acted correctly, because Somnium had sent me her contact info in a MySpace message, which meant I would not be searching blindly for the locale described in the flyer (what can I say? – I have not been to Salonika often enough). After loitering sufficiently, I went back to the station (Larissa Station, for those reading locally or traveling to and from Greece by train). Sure as daylight, the 13:21 Intercity train was there and…

…full of smoke for some reason. There was no way a human being could survive in what had become a miniature gas chamber, so we waited around 15 minutes until the atmosphere was breathable again. Finally, we settled down inside to our allocated seats and the journey could begin. I had brought quite some things along to read (among which, the aforementioned manga, the, nearly finished, last volume of “Eberron: The Dreaming Dark”, a detective story titled “Bother Grimm” by Craig Russel and my pride and joy: “Cthulhu Fhtagn, Baby and Other Cosmic Insolence” by Will Ludwigsen. I was nearly through one third of the manga and roughly 20 minutes into the transit, when the smell of something decidedly burnt hit my (and the rest of the passengers’) nostrils. The passengers started to get agitated, some women started to come dangerously close to hysterical fits of panic and no one seemed to be too keen to appear and inform us.

Looking out the window, I (as well as the rest), saw a thick, billowing cloud of white something. Some thought (or hoped) it would be mist but mist, as I know (Environmental Physics 101), does not suddenly appear out of nowhere and the train was not going nearly so fast as to have encountered it without warning. Ergo, it was smoke; that was when I lost all interest in the matter, as well as comments and cries of: “are we on fire?” “the engine must have caught fire” “I have respiratory problems – I might die” and “why isn’t anyone making an announcement”. Now, before you go throwing all sorts of hurtful comments and objects my way, let me explain; the sort of smoke we saw was cloudy, snow-white and easily mistaken for thick mist, so it could only mean one thing: burnt oil. It is the kind of thing that happens to your car when it has an oil leak or simply, if you throw oil (room temp or lower) on a hot surface, such as the metal of a train engine’s machine. So I calmly kept reading my manga until someone decided to fix the damn thing and tell us what was going on. Sure enough, someone DID come and some ladies with a… ehem… vicious disposition started yelling at him, though obviously he was just a conductor, not a mechanic or a driver. After THAT theatre of the insane ended, the train took off anew, with only the back engine running and the speakers dully assured us that we were in no danger. “Hoorah” for the conclusion gentlemen.

The rest of the trip was uneventful as grassy farmlands gave way to snowy vistas, high on the mountains and finally, after roughly 6 hours, we reached Salonika Station (the normal transit is 5 hours). I had phoned Somnium just before getting off the train and at around 20:00 I found a cab and managed to reach Cofix 15-30 minutes before the event was scheduled, chancing upon the two lead ladies dressed as maids, getting frantically ready for the DJing and wall projections. Not having gone there before, I explored a little, took a look at George Bogiatzidis’s works from “A Kingdom in Pieces” as well as the bar’s own decorations.

As the clock struck 21:00, the scene was all set and J-pop started playing from the speakers, welcoming the revelers. As the night wore on, Cofix was drowned in voices talking otaku culture and Japanese popular culture in general, as well as people wanting to display their work at making costumes.

The interesting part of the story is told in pictures, in 2 parts. Enjoy!

Somnium & Mona Risa as Maids.
Hmmmm...

Neko-faced Schoolgirl...

...dangerous schoolgirl!

An Original Outfit. (I do not know
what style this is - enlighten me!)

Maids ARE supposed to serve things.
Yum!

Battle Royal Reenactment?!

Naruto Enthusiast no Ichiban as
Deidara from Akatsuki Organization
in Naruto. (Thanks to Demi-chan for
the help!)

Somnium-chan's turn at
justifying her outfit.

"My Little China Girl"
as Bob Dylan would put it...

...with Misa Amane from Death Note.

Lollipop, Lollipop, Lo-Lo
Lo-Loli Girl! (Actually
there is a bunny handbag on
her left side, though you cannot
see it here)

Misa Amane just learned Near
is upstairs...

...and she doesn't seem to be able
to get over it...

Pink-haired Goth-Loli.
Wicked stare Astarte-chan!

No, Kakashi! The other eye,
the other... AAARGH!

"Misa's here? I'll make a note..." said the
evil genius.

Naruto Enthusiast no Niban, again
from Akatsuki Organization.

Roronoa Zoro from One Piece has himself a fan!

When Loli meets Konoha Shinobi
then...?

Zoro-kun, you are way outgunned!

Even goth cowgirls get the blues but
not here and not tonight.

Stay tuned for the second part, soon at a theatre near you - err... Ah, whatever!

Speedgrapher

Onwards!

Hello there people! Hope you are enjoying the blog's photographic rollercoaster because there is going to be MORE. In fact, I will be on the 13:21 (Local Time) train to Salonika today, in order to attend - and photograph - the local Cosplay Party at Coffix (Cofee + Comix, see?). I cannot guarantee there will be an update tomorrow, since I will be returning on the morning train, probably devoid of sleep. However, Ergo Proxy will be coming back to Athens for his Christmas leave from the M.A.S. (today, I believe) so here's hoping he will fill in (he HAS to, damn bastard - I've been keeping the fort alone for so long, pun intended). Additionally, there will be another Literary Section, a little aftermath to Prometheus's story and then you will have to wait a bit, as I put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard, if you prefer). Stay with us, the surprises are just starting!

Speedgrapher

Gothika 2007 at Underworld Club - Pt.IV

Aaaand here we are, the last chapter to the rollercoaster that was Gothika, both in the way of entertainment and journalism. I believe this set you will like best because, other than the groupie-hunted lads, it features... you! At least, you who were there and bravely stood in front of the business end of my camera. *click* !FLASH! For Myrto's comments on the event (and some incredible nicety towards this humble photographer), go here. Enjoy!

So, after we concluded with the 2 pictures I count amongst my favorites (I am not sure, something about the colors and postures...), I bid you adieu for now, at least until we meet again in Salonica (hopefully) this Thursday.

All my best,

Speedgrapher