03-I-2009.
Haircut time... Lena shortened her hair, I beard. As they talked me last fall to skip one quarterly trimming, my beard got promoted into the rank of a patriarch, rich and luxurious, but enough now. It turned out we didn't know of each other, so we laughed a lot when we spotted each other.
For sGradlj.com I messed with bzdixt.bak - not the prg file, but the backup version, so I must have fucked up something and was looking the last healthy version... Poked also at dict2dixt.prg, which usually means I was migrating from one version of the table to another, which I usually do when I introduce some expansion... but no, it was not for the tribes, it was for the Byo, this is when I found the official dictionary of DBA, which I needed for the article of 02-VI-1992., just had to convert this dictionary table from juski to 1250. And that page wasn't written today, it was five years later. I managed to confuse myself, fifteen years later. An ambush suicide, indeed.
For „customs of northamerican tribes“ I shot three bottles of household chemistry, just to (go somewhere to show) how the label here doesn't have the purpose to tell you what's inside, but to help sales. That fucked my brains out, because despite not being too shortsighted, in weaker light I can't read the small print, and at the time when we had no bathroom and went to Richmond to take a bath at the children's place, out of seven bottles six were conditioners and only one shampoo - which I couldn't possibly discern, but rather had to apply the general method of trial and terror. Here's the article. On those shots I emphasized the part of the text where it actually says what's inside.
Just like the Vlasic's (er, Vlašić's? ...these Vlasi/Walachians must be some Jews, for each jar is labeled as kosher) pickled cucumbers, where the word „cucumbers“ is printed even smaller, somewhere among the ingredients, and the main word on the label is „DILLS“. The dill itself is nowhere to be bought, and can't be found on the net either, because all you get is all kinds of jars of pickled cucumbers.
The cacti (cac-tye) upstairs progress excellently. They blossomed really nicely, a pleasure to behold. Got some good shots... well, here. On the left there's the synthesizer, which we bought just to have it, if we could have one at home... Though I never hooked it up into the computer, the plan that I should mess with sequencers is always postponed until the next vanishing point.
The closet is full, mostly (... 37 words...).
Our agent lady from Rodgers (two villages left from Undersville) also emailed, to ask whether we got the title (because so far we got only the part where we swapped a triangle of land with the neighbor, and the drawing of the lot, but still not in our name, that's the status as of the day before), and along the way she said there's a cloudburst and the river may overflow. It is really no concern of ours, the house is on a top of a hill, and the creek ends two kilometers downstream from a snall dam on the river, so it gets water only from its local watershed.
The crazy priest from number six fed the seagulls again, and the noon light falls under exactly the best angle, and that hedge, which hides the chain link, is still lush and green, though it started withering and drying a dozen meters to the right of this scene, so the shots turned out really well, and there's even some video. True, the video is in VGA resolution, Fujica can't do better. At some point one seagull had a cored out ring of bread crust around its neck, but I didn't get a shot of that, only one when it still had it in its beak.
On UA a Fin from California reacts to my „programming being like prostitution, we do what we like anyway, and are most happy when we're also paid“.
As one who has bought numerous frameworks for numerous languages I have to say that a framework purchase is a no-brainer, unless you love typing a LOT, debugging the same things over and over again, and doing the same things over and over again and, oh, being penny wise and pound foolish.
As for the prostitutes, I beg to differ on the last premise of "we get paid for doing what we love to do." I've know a few prostitutes (not in a "professional" manner, mind you) and ALL of them told me that it is the most humiliating, de-humanizing, ugly and dirty occupation, which they wouldn't wish on anyone.
As it goes with parallels, they tend to keep the same distance to infinity.
And in what you say there's more truth than I can imagine - which I actually can't, having had no contact with them whatsoever (well, AFAIK), firmly believing that if I can't do it with a willing partner, I don't deserve it. IOW, I agreed with this in advance. The word was used more in the sense where "we're doing it for money" doesn't put us into any different position than them - and the "liking it" part was probably just an assumption, based on, as I said, no direct knowledge. The parallel within their work and our work, again, keeps its distance: we're supposedly both in it because we like it (I like programming, and it's assumed that everyone likes sex), but then quite often we don't even have to see our customers, and we get much more respect (well, not in Serbia, where I was when I coined the phrase; here, yes).
There were moments when I had some doubts over the morality of what I am doing. Should I have not left the training mode enabled - the user may have used it to have a parallel set of books. Should I consider that telemarketing company at all? Are these other guys just crooks or well respected (i.e. rich) crooks? So far so good, even when I was forced into some dubious things (dubious in my mind), they petered out.
So, pass my apologies to the sex workers - it was only my wishful thinking that they may like what they do and suffer an occasional bad user like we do. It must be a nightmare, something that most people enjoy, one has to do for money, with partner they don't have much choice about, and mostly having to hand the bulk of the profit to whoever is exploiting them.
A bit later, about the expression „run-of-the-mill“... I didn't bother to translate this into serbian, why bother.
„I often find myself amused when I try to take some of such proverbs at face value. What grain does one take to a mill to get it ground into a standard combo? What is it before it is called a day? Why do people try to call my name and not me? If one goes to relieve themself (them - who are they?), i.e. take a dump, where does they take it? I thought they is leaving something. If one is "on the air", do they (they who - I said one) fall when I turn the radio off?“.
At the same time, Go was en route back from Zrenjanin. Made interesting photos from her layover, I think in Chicago. Somebody was allowed to play with lights there, and it turned out quite nicely.
Some time before the new year we went with Nina so she'd pick the couch she wanted to buy. She already picked the model, something in two parts, the corner one having the backrest only in the corner part; this was to pick the filling and surface material. The filling she picked somewhat harder, because we learned how the typical american, thick and soft, is actually uncomfortable. It feels nice the moment you sink in it, fine all around you, but ten minutes later you feel your position being actually unpleasant, your but has sunk but your back is at wrong angle. For upholstery she picked some dark blue leather, something incredible. And yes, she could pick the legs as well, selected something simple which won't attract attention. There's about a two week wait, it's made by order somewhere in Canada. It arrived now, on seventh, and we were amazed.
It was delivered with legs in a separate box, which we just screwed in. It fit the corner by the staircase like ass on a potty, exactly across from the TV which we now don't watch... ie that television set is now the output organ for playstation and what not.
Over time it will gain the status of my favorite catnap location, when not already occupied. Otherwise, the carpet is good as well.
Her office gave up on moving the rest of the team to Atlanta. Among the 300 who were fired last month were also some of those who already moved (!), so she's still fine... for now. She's ready to look for a new job, specially considering that what the two who remained have to do is getting shorter and shorter. The publishing is getting reduced - those brochures with cars on sale, which were distributed for free (on shelves in supermarket's lobby, free for taking) will go from weekly to monthly (but then who needs last week's ads?), i.e. most of the content will be on the web only. Though that looks a bit strange, now would be the time for the used and even useder cars market to grow, because the market for new ones is the first to be hit. And maybe the blow already passed, and now the used cars are getting their turn to take a hit. And it doesn't matter that the gasoline is down to 1,40, there's nobody out there who'd buy a car, which means that the whole dependent industry is also falling. Here at the end of the street one who sold cars (used, I guess) just closed, and we see shops being closed elsewhere as well.
Emails to dad...
Presently there's a gas mess in Europe. Namely, Ukraine doesn't agree with the price of russian gas, and all the countries of Europe which consume it accept it, so the Russians introduced restrictions for Ukraine, but considering that all the pipelines go through it, they're stealing some. Tomorrow the negotiations Moscow:Kiev continue. We have the gas, but since this morning the pressure is lowered. Serbia provided for increased production of electricity, so the quartz heater will wowk non-stop*.
Yes, heard from Škrba and others that during the week the gas was issued from the reserves - some from Mokrin, some from Hungary - and that's a bit weaker so they didn't get much warmer. What happened later, I don't know.
We got no rain, and not much snow either. The lowest temperature this morning was in Sjenica (--20), and on Zlatibor and in Zrenjanin --11 C, in all other cities the minus was singledigited.
Meanwhile we had lots of it here, including a 100kmh wind (which just flew over, we didn't feel it much, just the shush of the magnolia), then the next day there was a storm - looked nasty on the radar, passes us quickly, and inside you may even fail to notice what's outside, because it was southwestern, i.e. from the backyard side, where there's no tree which would whoosh, and our roof is fixed so no hole to blow through. The only thing we noticed was some ticking sound in the kitchen, and gradually it dawned on us that that's where the ventilation pipe for the sewers is going straight up to the roof, so it's rocking the water in the sink syphon, and that's ticking.
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* in serbian et al, „non-stop“ is not a train (that's ekspres), but rather working hours without a lunch or any other break, shop open all day.
Mentions: 02-VI-1992., Office dictionary, Byo (Byo), DBA, Fujica, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Gradivoj Škrbić (Škrba), Jelena Sredljević (Lena), juski, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), sGradlj.com, UbiquAgora (UA), Undersville, in serbian
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