Scribbled on October 24th, 2009
It’s been about 5 years since I have last seen one of my favorite candies, in a different packaging though, but with the same old peppermint taste. The ingredients look like something that would usually be utilized in the production of pharmaceuticals, but nevertheless there’s something about these little edible rocks that makes my taste buds scream “more, damn it!” every time I see them squirming in my hand. Usually I have so much of these, I feel sick to my stomach, but it doesn’t bother anybody around me, since I’m oozing an unusually pleasant minty scent… and everybody likes peppermint, right?
Ingredients: sugar, starch syrup, natural flavor (menthol), colors (E102, E110, E124, E131, E151), glaze (E901).
Geez, I’ve gotta stop eating these… *puts a few candies in his mouth anyway*
Scribbled on October 6th, 2009
Yeah, it’s here, yes - it’s better, faster, prettier… but it still isn’t there yet… One can only hope for Microsoft getting their act together and stop relying on HTC’s TouchFlo or SenseUI, or Toshiba’s and SonyEricsson’s custom home screens and shells to put a fresh coat of paint on a old country house that is Windows Mobile…
I can understand Windows Mobile 7 is in the making, but why is it that hard to do some revamping on 6.5 as well until the great seven-point-oh arrives? Popup menus have a better and a much more finger friendly look, but what about scroll bars? To be honest, they look like “utter shayt” and take much underserved screen space. Buttons? Yeah, they’re better, but are still aranged in a stylus friendly manner instead of being finger friendly. Checkboxes? Don’t get me started… having large fingernails is the only thing that can prevent a WM user from reaching for the stylus when it comes to checkboxes and radio buttons. Why was so much effort placed in creating a new home screen (that most end users never get to see anyway) instead of rearranging and redesigning some UI elements inside the OS itself? Exiting a frond end GUI such as TouchFlo and playing with some advanced settings is like going from Windows 7 to Windows 3.11 in a nutshell – it’s that bad. A few gradient backgrounds, bigger screen widgets – properly arranged, and a nice screen drawing method would do wonders (it’s currently too slow and blocky, drawing one screen part at a time). It’s not THAT hard… is it? The start menu “honeycomb” icon arrangement really is finger friendly and esthetically pleasing, thumbs up for that… Kinetic scrolling, the new lock screen, app marketplace, beautiful icons, MyPhone, IE Mobile 6, Flash support and other new additions are good signs that Microsoft still has some punch in them, but they need to channel all that energy in a good spot, because OEMs are just not willing nor able to do that much customization to keep Windows Mobile 6.x going for a long time.
Also, why do some WM phones lack a 3.5mm audio jack? If Microsoft can mandate all new Windows Phones need a dedicated Start hardware button, why can’t it do something like this? Proprietary dongles suck.
Picture copyright intomobile.com
Scribbled on August 22nd, 2009
At about 4AM this morning, while I was crafting some junk to feed my ugly face in the kitchen, I thought I heard a kid crying outside… There was a weird owl chick nest near my parking lot that usually gave off such sounds, so I ignored the whole thing. 10 seconds later, there it was again! I rushed outside to listen to what the hell was going on out there and I realized my brain hasn’t turned to a pile of fish food yet – a sound of a ~4yr old kid whining and crying about his mom was truly echoing throughout the whole neighborhood that was fast asleep! Well, imagine that – a stranded kid in a not-so-safe neighborhood at 4AM (makes you wanna ignore the whole thing… right?)… Just as I was about to rush out to find him (I knew the police would like to help me as much as I would like to shove 4 potatoes up my ass at this very moment), the sound abruptly stopped. Complete silence overshadowed my ambition of going outside in slippers like a complete idiot, yet I continued spreading my ears while trying to hear something again for the next 15 minutes, even though the munchies were kicking in in a much more aggressive manner. Not even after 15 minutes of complete silence did another sound grab my attention.
So, what have I learned from all this? Either some dickhead with air conditioning turned off decided it was a good idea to open all of his windows nice and wide so I could go on a guilt trip whenever I hear a “helpless” kid crying –OR- some other dickhead decided it was cool to take his kid on a walk at 4AM in the middle of the dark… somehow I think the former situation is much more plausible, yet it still doesn’t make it right – curb your kids, close your windows and for fuck sake, learn to quiet your kid down in a few minutes or less if possible, after all, the sound of a child crying is genetically implemented in our brain as a signal of urgency, and we wouldn’t want to combine that with the acoustics of a urban neighborhood where a pin drop is heard in the middle of the night… would we now?
Scribbled on March 28th, 2009
While most other cities and suburbs around the world decided to switch off their lights for the purpose of participating in the 2009 Earth Hour, my very own city of Subotica did squat to show that they actually care, even though the city council specifically announced and confirmed there would be a 1hr dark-out on all major city monuments, and anywhere else if possible. Well, that’s a load of bullshit since I can see some major monuments from my window, and even at 21h (earth hour starts at 20:30) the whole city was lit up as always… nobody gave a damn… not to mention the residents, they are probably more informed about the weekly nominations inside the BigBrother house than about Earth Hour…
Now, I’m surely not some annoying Greenpeace hippie, and I know Earth Hour will do absolutely nothing for our planet in it’s tiny 1hr of power preservation, but it’s the thought that counts, like in every gift. If I turn off my lights, I still probably have the air conditioning, heating, TV, PC etc. turned on, which probably nullifies the saved energy from all the switched off light bulbs (and I even use CFLs), but it still counts – seeing that I’m letting others know that I give a damn and that I am aware of my surroundings.
It’s not just about the environment, it’s about the inclusion in major world events. If pretty much nobody did anything to show their participation in this happening in my neighborhood, that’s the mirror of the regional awareness in any global topic – zero – nada - null.
Enjoy your lights, people… I’m still not sure how you evolved from candles in the first place…
Scribbled on March 2nd, 2009
I’ve been flying around in Google Earth lately, usually just before bedtime, and I really don’t need to emphasize how much the combination of Google Earth and Panoramio can tell more bedtime stories then a smiling grandma, or a turned on TV set… What is weird here is my preference to browse remote areas, far away from the usual tourist attractions, far away from the city bright lights… Deserts in Utah, small towns in Alaska, Japan suburbs, small island nations, etc. – they all have a story to tell, and just by watching some of the nearby Panoramio photos (probably uploaded by their enthusiastic inhabitants) gives me the impression of how similar our lives are, and yet how exciting their overall simplicity can be. A while ago, I 
discovered a small island nation named Tuvalu. Nobody has probably heard of it, but here’s a hint: the .TV TLD was assigned to this country, but since it only has about 12,000 citizens, the government decided to lease it for use to the major domain registars, so that TV stations can get a piece of the action. (e.g. www.twit.tv)
This nation consists of a few islands, but the one with the main capitol on it (Funafuti) is what grabbed my attention. It’s surrounded by nothing but salt water, and yet a fully functioning city thrives within! Electricity, phone lines, the internet - the 
works. All that on a small speck of dust on the world map. The only means of travel to this little island is by boat, or by a small plane, which reminds me - Funafuti has an airport, and the runway takes a big chunk of it’s main territory for just being there. But it’s still a necessity, since all of the major supplies are usually transferred by air.
Moving outside the city, passing the police station, the local elementary school, the city hospital (take a look at the Panoramio pics, it’s *actually* a hospital, I kid you not), etc. is a narrow road, with a few houses surrounding it… What is the big deal about this? Well, the ocean is in everybody’s back yard! The narrow path in the Funafuti 
suburbs is so narrow, that on some parts, the water comes splashing down on the road pavement itself! “Hey neighbor, wanna do a barbecue and have a dip after work?” Now that’s a sweet neighborhood!
What’s even more interesting is that I could basically walk to the other parts of the island on foot during low tide! I can imagine that everybody feels as if they are about to sink, or that they are living on a boat, but that’s still living. In my humble opinion, that little dot on the face of the planet should be a main tourist attraction for anybody who literally wants to leave it all behind and enjoy him/herself, and also help out this small country take care of itself – it surely doesn’t need much to get it humming, as it has already proven. If I ever get a chance, I won’t hesitate to visit this oasis in the middle of the ocean.
Coordinates for Funafuti, Tuvalu: 8°31'29.66"S 179°11'46.98"E
Scribbled on February 20th, 2009
Recently I had the privilege to visit a “friend of a friend of a friend” in order to sort out his local home network. His name will remain undisclosed, and I can shamefully admit that I don’t even remember it, so I will refer to him as “HE” or “Big Kahuna” 
Moving on… As with every networking problem, small talk is compulsory, but this guy talked BIG, and I mean really big. If I may quote - “Sure will be glad to get this fixed. Every time my network acts up, I lose about 400$ daily.” It really was strange for someone to be revealing his daily earnings in a country with an average monthly salary of 200-400$, but I just kept on moving my head in an up-down acknowledging motion, confirming his claims and letting him have his daily shot of satisfaction, since he obviously liked the idea of being a rich yuppie.
Soon after, boredom kicked in and he quickly tried to sell me 5$ VoIP prepaid cards while I was meddling with his cabling. As a pathetic pleasant person I am, I mumbled quietly that I don’t have a need for VoIP services although I proceeded to give praise to his prepaid card distribution business, calling it “innovative” and “it’s what people want, compared to the current high long distance prices” just to get him off my back, and completely ignoring the fact that a “400$ per day big kahuna” just tried to sell me a 5$ product.
As I was finishing up with all the cables, I sat down with his 300$ laptop to configure everything (trust me, I know it’s value). As if I wasn’t surprised already, the keyboard did not work. Noticing that, mr. Big Shot quickly pulled up an already connected USB keyboard for me to type on, while claiming boldly that he accidentally spilled coffee on his laptop keyboard and was unable to fix it. (ugh) By the way, here is the keyboard I was using, the keys had to be literally stomped on to work properly.
Finally, everything was done. His home network started working properly, and he was online again. Before uttering anything related to “thanks” or “how much?”, he quickly sat down and said “There’s something I quickly have to do, I’ll be with you in a moment.” From the other end of the room, my fairly decent vision came into play… I saw him opening several Wordpress and Blogger blogs, scrolling down to the comments section and pasting 3-5 links with a message below - “Hi! I saw your website, and I thought you would be interested in some of my links too!”… He carefully entered some required captcha information, and pushed “Submit”.
Now that I knew he was a die-hard spammer, I asked innocently - “What do you do for a living?”… “Advertising and promotion” – he replied fairly quickly. “Here, here’s my card!”, he said with a retarded grin, and invited me to a promotion of a new DVD in a local town hall (that is usually rented for low-grade book promotions and cult gatherings).
Needless to say, he never saw me again.
So, what do I know about one spammer that may have even visited my own blog? Not much, except that he has a family, that he “earns 400$ per day” and still lives in his mother’s apartment with his wife and kid, and that he is an annoying, cheating, lying, conning bastard with no values whatsoever. That should cover it. Good riddance.
Scribbled on January 25th, 2009
It’s been a while since I’ve visited a few HTML/flash template stores online… Since I’m obviously posting this, that means I just did. Why? Just plain curiosity. The routine is pretty straight and dull - just browsing through the usual items and thinking about people who buy these things. If it’s not “uniquely” bought (means that as soon as it is purchased, for a 10x bigger price than usual, it is removed from the store, leaving the customer as the only remaining owner of the said template, thus actually owning an original design), then it’s not worth it. Being a serious online business while having a design that somebody else already has does not emit a very professional image, but clearly the numbers say otherwise.
Now, here’s the thing… I found a massive bunch of flash/html/switch/whatever templates available with the following theme: *wait for it* – WEB DESIGN and DESIGN STUDIO!
Um… Oh… Why?! I have to mention that the purchase rates for these are even bigger than other categories! Why the heck would a web design studio, who’s business is *duh* – web design, purchase a template like that? It’s the same comparison to a sugar factory buying sugar! (and we all know how often that happens)
There is one reason I could quickly whip up in my head… Fraud. The other one is a bunch of kids playing a pretend game of “web developer”. The third one (after some thinking) is overhauling the overall design and removing it’s “web design” aspect (but I personally think that’s a rare case).
Still, my advice for anybody seeking web design services is to check out the web designer’s portfolio (not the main website itself) thoroughly before making a decision, as the numbers clearly state that more and more “studios” are trying to look professional, even though their services are awful, or non existent. Be very careful, or end up loosing your money and using MSPaint and Word for creating your online presentation.
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It’s been about 5 years since I have last seen one of my favorite candies, in a different packaging though, but with the same old peppermint taste. The ingredients look like something that would usually be utilized in the production of pharmaceuticals, but nevertheless there’s something about these little edible rocks that makes my taste buds scream “more, damn it!” every time I see them squirming in my hand. Usually I have so much of these, I feel sick to my stomach, but it doesn’t bother anybody around me, since I’m oozing an unusually pleasant minty scent… and everybody likes peppermint, right?
