04-VIII-2025.
Dragana called last evening, and did I hear her, the phone was set to reaally loud. And previously it happened that it rang and I didn't hear it.
Stanley finally got [his] hands on his old ex four, vintage 1986, to put it in order. He already borrowed to his friend, the guy who had the idea to recalculate various trajectories by approximating them via a series of diminishing triangles in a circle, instead of trigonometry, counting on the various rounding errors accumulating less that way. I did say that it may be worth the while, those numerical methods were all the rage when I was a student, and by the time I got to my first keyboard these were already built into compilers... so maybe it's a good time to redo. The guy drove it for four years, and returned it last year and it has become the favored car. For starters, it finally has the pads for the handbrake, there's no more a piece of iron jutting out of the right door, and the windows are electric again. Were they acoustic until now? Huh? Well, guitars are electric or acoustic. Know what, there are guys who pay good money to yank the motor and get a proper wire and winch, to have their old beemer as european as it can, because they always had to make the american edition a matter of luxury - leather seats, powered windows.
I had a few days' dance with the provider hosting the sGradlj.com, they billed me and I couldn't log in to pay it, doesn't accept the password. But it does on other pages, where I track the statistics for statcounter.prg, ummm, they seem to have split the two and did that badly. Here this morning a guy there emailed me, saying „it says you've paid“. Must have set it on automatic last year and forgot. [nope, I never set it so, I paid a five year pack, but then why did they bill me at all?]
We both got up somewhat early, guess because we hit a hefty catnap the day before. True, mine was over two hours, and I hit the hay at half three, but once you're woken, you're woken. Or you arent, just like on saturday when I slept until 11. At least we went to detelina and bought hen fodder (just 30kg, five hens left), fish fodder, candles for evening sittings when we drink. Then to the butcher and grocer, but they had neither carrots nor sacked potatoes (10kg), so we had to drop by the supermarket. I stayed in the car, and in goes Nada, wearing a shorts. Um, she never looked bad, now neither, just enough to barely recognize her so far out of context.
A photo came from Nina - Raja tuning up his first electric guitar. He stretched. Legs spitten mine, just thinner. And everything on him is long, hands fingers nails hair.
Before going to the frendz parti, she dicated the curry recipe, so I emailed it to Dragana. She still insisted on printing it, just in case, says it's handier to have it on paper in the kitchen. So it is, true, but papers are prone to vanish, and I have the emails for the last 29 years.
On the way there we weren't in any hurry, to avoid sweating and arriving with shirts stuck, it was somewhat dank, there was rain for the weekend, so not to have showered in vain. And we did have a firm decision to take it slow. Then by the supermarket we met the neigbor, the one who worked in hats (v. 20-XI-2010.), with daughter and twin grandchildren (two*, and the kid is noticeably larger than [his] sister), and we chatted about grandchildren at some length. Then we dropped by Roda, he raised some cash (the scum, the serekeš imposed a 30000 dinars limit but doesn't say so, so it's the method of pokušaj and popušaj [trial and blowjob], nobody knows of it except those who try to overstep it), then went in to buy wine... And then a smoke break on that same bench that we know by heart, then to špajiz to buy the spices for that curry, then to Ružica's pharmacy to see about that ethylene blue (and the pharmacist girl made a face, worse than she would if she were asking for drugs), so we were late some twenty minutes, all taken. Made good shots along the way, I love the dusk light, when the sun is already low and the lights are already on but don't mean much. In such conditions the eos70, of course, provides too much light, but „surplus causes no headache“ (which is a proverb here).
Dragana and Borče already considered having a shot while waiting for us. But at least we cooled that tutifruti 2019.2 humanely beforehand, and it sat well. On the shots I can't quite see how much of it went, but it was poured thrice, as much as I managed to register. Dragana was specially grateful for the recipe right at the door, but then was even more so when she was presented with the printed version, and was floored with the spice package. And I did my homework as well, packed fresh photos of Tanja presenting her annual report.
Then under the windows, around 21:30, we heard whistles and vuvuzelas and „pumpaj!“, so I asked to get out on the terrace, carrying the eos70 of course, knitted three good snaps and one stressed (stresan - stressful; stresen - shaken, blurry), and contributed my bit to the noise. Dragana said they're passing like that every evening and are just as loud. Look at that, even I didn't know. This is not news since a while ago, not published anywhere. Only the cops publishes its warning every week, that they'll be recording the protests, announced or not, in the following three or five days, which one of the portals titled as „and now for something completely new“.
All good fun, we didn't even bicker much about politics, not even when Dragana fired a barage against all of them equally, in the fake neutral manner of theyreallthesameism. We did put a lid on her but not too fiercely, and she didn't defend much either. I recorded some of that, sound only, on my phone, but then didn't listen to it, nor I plan to, just as I listened to almost none of such recordings so far.
Borče is looking for a house... I made a shot of one, says „kuca na prodaju“ (doggie on sale, because house would be kuća, and I never saw a pooch of 240 м2). Explained that it's on the corner by bager, ah I know that house, it's two houses sold together. Well, find someone to buy the other half and your problem is gone. Dunja was also mentioned, she's selling the house for 100000 euros. Ah, no, it's 150 now. She's offering by not meaning to sell, she's fine as she is, if she sold she'd have to pay half to her sister.
For dinner, a filled chicken, which she wasn't quite able to carve so I had to intervene. Of course, you can't halve the chicken's back straight through the middle, but can do a little nearby. I may be pronounced a dežurni butcher, she even remembered to engage me, a bit later, to sharpen her knives again. That was actually quite a bit later, when we already had some wine, but okay, I thickened aka concentrated that much, and finished all three without a hitch.
We dispersed around half three, I was all mellowed out, embraced and kissed them both, felt just fine and so it seems did they. The cab I didn't have to call, as much as two were waiting and a third a bit farther away. The next day, when I did the shots, I saw the counter flipped over 54000. That's 17 shots a day over almost nine years.
Seventh, the retirement landed. I'm a millionaire again. First time I was in early october of 1980, when my first salary arrived. True, it was actually 10 thousands of then dinars, but we habitually still spoke in old dinars, the pre-1965 ones. My retirement ain't much, barely 340€, but for as much as I shoved into the fund (SIZ then), it's good that I'm getting this much. Go picked a large squasth, of kilo and a half, it'll be called Sementika (seme, semena - seed). In the afternoon Linda called on the chrilden channel, we saw each other for tensome minutes, with some appearance of Sanda, none or almost none of the rest. She showed us toys they have and how did they arrange them. And the cats, of course.
Speaking of cats, Zelena bore again, I see six on the picture. Again in the tyres under the apricot, and she kept them in the right one, then moved them into the left. And they're not all hers, seems it's communal, with Džimi. Who knows which are whose, Džimi mostly breeds those with white patches. The following two-three weeks we'll regularly hear them squealing from various places - random boxes on the terrace and in the garage, the tabarka too.
Ninth. After completely messing up my sleep pattern yesterday, with a record catnap of over four hours, I'm trying to go back into the normal. Finished reading Reynolds' „Eversion“, standard good and despite beginning like something between Defoe and Verne, just as the „Revenger“ was a buccaneer thing, not even close, the story is something completely else and kudos to the majstor, I couldn't possibly anticipate the finale. Lied down at 3:20, hoping to have reset the clock.
Lena announced their arrival for 14:00, but by 12:20 Tanja was still asleep, so they were delayed a lot, arrived at 15:00 sharp. Everything was ready, the soup, boiled young beef, mushroom sauce, roast with potatoes, and pohovano steaks, and cabbage salad, a complete banatian sunday lunch. Looking at how Milan is a real programmer, a good lunch by mother-in-law requires a half hour nap. Eh, I remember when I did so.
Tanja is now officially pedestrian. The first [one] in the family whom nobody held by hand and led around the house, she did it all on her own, they're letting her acquire skills in her own tempo. By the terrace door a new mop from Mere was leant, we didn't take it out so the cats wouldn't play with it, and Tanja took it and carried it around. When she wants to get somewhere fast, crawling comes faster, but with busy hands, she walks. She covered the whole room, anteroom and bathroom, it's actually a miracle that she didn't find the bedrooms, maybe some next time. After lunch we ran a bath for her outside, and she got some toys (a buckef from greek yogurt from Mere, a barbie siren), she enjoyed it and so did we.
When we went back inside (now Lena was also napping a little, on the other couch), Nina called, so we chatted for a while, with Tanja and Lena in the frame from this side, and Linda from the virginian. While trying to find a common reference to talk about, we remembered Springfield, and Linda said she still has an item from there, as a souvenir.
We're not going to Days of beer. In the evening, before beer and rakija, I leaf through the news, and I see the citizens were ID'd en masse when trying to make a round through it with whistles and signs, and „they neither say who they are, there's no badge, and they don't ID one by one, they just took all our IDs, just like a nurse in a waiting room“. I saw there were veterans too, and of course I recognized Čarga. Found later that they did pass through downtown (maybe not the same column or the same evening), but they were also ID'd first (again), and then they got escorted all the way through to Žitni, what with riot cops leading them. So we know who's heading the protest.
Sunday, 11th. The scorcher reached 40°. Aleksa appeared, with missus. I still haven't seen them, but she says he's just as he was, no thicker no thinner. The neighbor on the other side called while we lunched, to do her dues, give us a bag of potatos. Of course it's no good at all, but there, it's from our saplings. We won't give it to hens either, they sprayed the whole garden this spring with total, i.e. that Monsanto's poison, whatever the name, ah yes, gliphosphate. Which is, like, guaranteed to fall apart. There's missing proof there, they don't mention it at all, that what parts it falls into are harmless.
We had a hefty siesta, me until half five, she half shorter, temperature was down to 35°, guess it was easier on us.
In other news, counting visits on sGradlj.com is bonkers agaian, it seems they have tensome servers, and the daily tally is just one of them, others when time. Well, the tally gathered recently...
DT NCAJGER NPROGNOZA NDNEVNO
2025-08-09 07:16:52 14521 54212.9856 43.3644
2025-08-10 08:39:45 14568 48243.8858 44.4420
2025-08-10 16:21:49 15120 48412.3996 1720.2712
2025-08-10 16:55:17 15826 50551.5790 30377.6891
2025-08-10 17:57:41 19775 62884.7353 91130.7700
2025-08-11 07:03:33 22104 66564.5247 4267.5943
2025-08-12 05:35:30 22157 61147.3203 56.4518
Twelfth. The frajer croaked, this time definitely, a flame appeared in the rear. She just reheated her piece of pizza, I eat mine cold. She pulled out the cord, took the pizza out, sat to eat, the flame was gone, all fine. Minute two later, smoke again... now it's burning frontside. The plastic drips on the floor and keeps burning. She doused it with water from the bottle, and then I took it out into the backyard, dipped it into the vat with water, just in case there's another hotspot inside. As I wrote on 21-X-2024., we'll see whether we need such a contraption at all. The pizza (excellent today) can be reheated in a mirko as well, and as far as I'm concerned, cold is fine for dinner.
At least I wrapped a rubber band around the screw on which the air pump for the aquarium hangs, so the vibrations don't propagate into the shelf. It's decently more silent now, still haven't caught it preventing my falling asleep. And my sleep is a two-parter almost whole week, about 4 hours at night and a two-three hour siesta. The sun wokes me up in the morning when it shines into my eyes through the crown of the cherry, which I sometimes successfully ignore, yet sometimes it arouses me exactly enough to notice the reminder from my bladder. When I return from the bathroom, sometimes I manage to sleep again, sometimes not.
Thursday, fourteenth, I waked so until three and got up around seven, by just reading the news of last evening's protests. This time the ćacis (and cobras too!) got it seriously over the cunt [i.e. were beaten up]. The timestamp on the legendary shot of Andrej Hložan is of this afternoon, and the lego version is just two hours later. By next day a few more versions appeared, one was Simpsons. Since there are already five shots on this page, let the pair go to blockade.
Around nine, Đole the windower calle, his brother actually, but their voices are the same and they somehow look very similar, said they're coming around noon to assemble the sides and precisely measure the size for the accordion, then they'll have two more windows to do and when they're done with that the accordion should be ready, so all should be finished today. Well, let's see that miracle. I even found the photo of 20-VIII-2013. and printed it, so they'd know where the pipes went, where they may drill and where not. Miracle. Not that having a photo is miraculous in any way, I'm that hamster with an archive, but printing it on first try. Beatus linux. Remembering various times when I tried printing photos last thirty years simply hurts. It would practically never print right on the first try, I'd usually go through five or six attempts. It'd either be too dark or too thin, the shot would be too small and the margins [large enough] to kill a horse, or it would be shifted to one side, or was not whole. It simply never worked on just one click.
And he did come and was amazed with the print, that's the right thing. And he mounted all of it. And when the silicone sets, and the accordion door comes, just needs to fit them and be done. Of course, there were fisix times of the „ey, do you have... to save me a trip down to the van“, and I mostly had all of it, except nitro thinner, when he smeared silicone on his calf.
On UA it's now common to have two-three days without any messages, then a day or two of rush. On monday there was a nostalgia wave, when AOL shut up its dial-up services, no more phone connection. On rasejani (on Telegram) Zlotvor noticed that eventually today, so he reminded me of 22-X-2002. or whenever that was, so I wrote that from memory. And, amazingly, real programming problems still aren't extinct, Kristin has some stage left locks on a new (!) record, which shouldn't be possible. And the tables are old fashion, from fox for Windowses 2.6, from 1994, and that version still needs to run in parallel with her app. Fox is untearable.
At least I got my graphics out in the clear, it draws nice and clear and correct, in central projection. Now to fix the colors somewhat, to have them change with the slope and height... well, later.
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* for numbers, there's a gender in serbian; for numbers above one, there's also a distinction: dvojica - two guys, dve - two girls, dvoje - two of different genters. The latter in this case.
Mentions: 22-X-2002., 20-XI-2010., 20-VIII-2013., 21-X-2024., Aleksa Pajkov, bager, blockade, detelina, dežurni, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), eos70, fox, frajer, frendz parti, Gorana Sredljević (Go), hats, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Kristin Peiser, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), majstor, Mališa Borkovski (Borče), Milan Nastić, mirko, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), pohovano, rakija, rasejani, Ryu (Raja), Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), serekeš, sGradlj.com, Springfield, Stanley Berger, statcounter.prg, špajiz, Tanja Nastić, Tasa Radenkov (Carp), tutifruti, UbiquAgora (UA), Učubić, Velemir Prokin (Čarga), yogurt, Žitni, in serbian
4-VIII-2025 - 5-VII-2026