03-III-2026.
Monday, the day for frendz parti at Borče. No idea what was I doing all day, except processing the photos and packing the monthly bundle for the girls to lift off Dropbox. And, ah, a bit of local news, three representatives from the opposition's side refused to support the initiative to convene a session of municipal parliament about the triple increase of price fo water (of which some analyses claim it's clean, I say some because the other analyses aren't posted on water main's site but zzzzz neatly publishes them all). Of these three one is some chick from Šumadija, sent here to boss over the party's city board or whatever, the other is some unknown, and the third is Bogdan. Like an evil coin, fucktcha, unheard of for years and then suddenly jacks out of the box.
Shivered some the rest of the day, napped and whatnot, I said spring came and I need no sweater. And when he finally came (we already established that to Dragana we manage our arrivals, but to us two the host collects the guests), we already waited on the street and my geese weren't particularly bumped.
Dragana noticed I did something with my beard, but doesn't get it what was it. Ah, the trick is that I did absolutely nothing at all, just let it grow, skipped one round of trimming. They talk me into doing it every few years. And then I went on žilets (gilette is a generic name for razor blades here), the reeeeeal old type, fuck me of with the triple and quadruple ploughs, even two blades are too much for me. There Borče was surprised, he thought I wasn't shaving at all. Yeah, right, c'mon, what do you think maintains this line here, genetics?
I brought a liter of pear, because I ran out of those liter and a half bottles. As I promised, if you don't regularly return the bottles, I'll pour in what I have. Of that pear about half a liter went, because he kept nudging me to pour more (of what I got poured last time there was no mention, it's a #neverhappened). And when he began bringing out the main dish, turns out he took three kinds of roast fish - trout, carp and some fillets. To that Dragana launched a whole avalanche of „are you nuts, why trout, it's full of random bones bla bla bla“. Well, what maam remembers is from 30-50 years ago, the kind of fish served in taverns, and by her telling she knew them all, here and in Belgrade - doesn't matter anymore. The trout had bones just as much as a hake, same layout - the three-prong spine-and-ribs in the middle, and bits by the fins. I ate one, and half a horseshoe of carp. Took a bite off the fillet, but it was too salty on the surface, which makes me cough. As soon as we began eating she abruptly shut up, as nothing was as she said. Maybe it was so, once somewhere...
Then someone blurted out something from modern life, guess them two touched upon prosecution and Smrdić's laws... yeah, I think she came under fresh overdose of Informer. I tried to drill it into her skull that there's no logic in putting the statewide organized crime prosecution under Belgrade's high prosecutor (who is ipso facto local), but didn't get a say. And then Brics became the current subject, and there he had a ready stretchable thesis that Brics can't function because it doesn't have the institutions, first of all a central bank. Aha, so they're not imitating the EU, so it's wrong, and coming up with original ways is out of the question... And what was the EU doing before it built these institutions? Well then why wouldn't Brics do something like that - what, first you criticize them for not imitating the EU, and when I suggest imitating the EU (from an earlier time), that's also wrong.
But the above was an uphill battle, to get a say at all. Colleague, you may hold a class and have a shouting match against your class, but I haven't forgotten the tricks either. When I guesstimated that he said what he wanted to, I spoke, but he cut me. I restarted the sentence. And again. About the seventh time he understood that I began a sentence, okay your turn. I finally went past the fourth word but he cut me on fifth. Stop, I speak now. Okay. Restarted my sentence, and he cut me at the same spot. I kept raising [my, who else's?] voice (the girls said by octave, wrong, octaves hurt the throat, my enlightment voice stays in the comfort of lower registers, I add decibels). And I'd tone it down when he'd let me say at least half a sentence, then added ten decibels when he couldn't help himself and cut me again. This lasted some fifteen minutes, and the content of what was said was the previous paragraph.
Afterwards it was boring and I don't remember the rest. We got home a bit after one, just had a smoke and didn't even have a drink, and hit the hay to sleep. No matter how far my chills receded while going and returning, they came back now. When I woke up, the front side of the long sleeved shirt which I use as a pyjama, was all wet, so I carefully laid it with that side up, to dry.
Nothing much during the day, I kept scribbling here, translating the forelast article into english, tried to read a little but that didn't work, and solemnly confessed surrender: I gave up on the sweater too early. And I stayed chilled and somewhat drained out all day, ahem, may be one of those which are cured by sleeping off.
I remembered to congratulate the birthday to I.Z., by SMS message, with weak hope that she may receive it, it's a landline with a rewinding secretary. But just in case the calls and messages may be forwarded to a mobile, it may get there. Did my due, but actually I'd like to see her, to see what she was doing the last 48 years.
In the evening I just couldn't endure longer, lied around eight, and thundered a stretch until one. This is supposed to be a febrile state, when I dream a recurring theme and keep trying to find an exit from it, but instead the theme was good and pretty well self-organized. I dreamt something akin to something that existed in one of Baxter's texts (impossible to find now, I'm at forty someth now), where various entities are released into a common substrate and manage themselves, accompany each other, barter, negotiate, organize... And I as the dreamer have only to watch how nicely it goes, a thing of beauty. Woke up around one, bleeted until half three a bit, and then slept until eight-nine. And another hour before lunch. I was so not looking my regular self that she even measured my temperature, aha, it's 37,8°, and your pressure may be down, they say the taurine may do it. Okay, I'm lowering the dose, even a gram a day was working for me, I don't have to push three grams.
Borče mentioned his ekskurzija to Paris, where he went with, I think, chemists (but having run out of participants, they took just anyone, so he brought Paja, maybe Strle and a couple of others), said that was the time he first ate a pizza. But that was eventually in 1978. But when was the first pizzeria opened, that „Tifani“ behind the Mideri (corsets, ladies underwear factory). I dare anyone to tell me you can find everything on the web. I'm no wild horse rider to tame the beast, listen to its reaction and after a hundred travails get what I wanted. I simply asked „when was the firs pizzeria opened in Zrenjanin“ (in serbian, cyrillic), and got a heavier case of cognitive dissonance. First of all, there was never a first pizzeria in Zrenjanin, never existed. There was a first one in Italy, and one in Belgrade, guess they paid the fees to have it published on the internet as having firsts. Also, it's not „Tifani“, must be that all ten or twenty of us who survived, misremember. „Tifani“ is in Temerin, sit, it's an F. I shit into your sound film.
So fuck internets, the contraption is clueless, whatever happened hasn't happened, rely on yourself and your mare. Well by memory... so on 22-VII-1976. in Trdža (Trieste :) we ate a pizza which was not even close to what we were used to. Aha, this means we already had some habits... Besides, on 09-II-1976. I ate it the first time, and then and there we may have run into a recipe... Though, the recipe we for sure had in spring of 1978, I remember puking my soul out because we topped the pizza with some canned (could!) fish, of romanian descent and unknown best-after date. Don't even remember when that „Tiffany“ was opened; I know that Baja took us there, and him I know since mid-1978, and that the big joke about „tell me what you know of forms of selfmanagement in the vojska“ was when I was on leave, and that we already had a habit to go there. So the most probable time is 1980. or 1981.
Me meddling in this kind of archaeology is no wonder, comes from writing this here, but now it began contracting on her as well.
The fourth I mostly slept all day and woke up drenched with sweat. But I waited for the geese to unbump, and then showered as late as 22. Then felt like sleeping again, guess my temperature was raised somewhat, but I resisted it. We drank three of our small shots and eventually then went to sleep. I woke up almost normal, though with a few dizzy moments, stayed until 10:40 and eventually then took a nap - on the couch, finally - and neatly woke for lunch, a čorbica and yesterday's Alfredo, will have for tomorrow as well. And then let's pour some čorba into Joda, new prices are out on thursdays to be in force on fridays. Having poured last time on 25th of november, I didn't care much that the čorba was 200 dindžies today, we'll see about tomorrow, and it was 216 once already.
Thursday, fifth (confusing - the slavic languages and hungarian too have words for thursday (četvrtak) based on fourth (četvrti), for friday (petak) on fifth (peti)).The visits on sGradlj.com suddenly surged, from the regular few hundreds a day in the preceding months, all of a sudden the speed reached almost 44000 a day. It happened before, but a boom like this rarely held - by seventh it fell - 8000, 4000, 3000 - not falling off so fast. By that day the visits for the month surpassed those of all february. Went on to see what's being read - lots of SF stories, some joke pages, and most of the rest is Byo, all of it in english. Someone must have discovered it somewhere and told the neighbor.
Ere I see no news yet, it used to be regular, each thursday both local portals would publish it (okay there are five but the other three are all ćaci) and in Danas, what'll the price of fuel be on friday. That's so by years, who knows which government (Brbana's first?) brought that order and they published it regularly, on that term. It seems there's a big tumbling on the market, the monkey got into the tank and jerked trigger happy all over Persia, the Persians responded with whatever they had, so the Ormuz straight was closed, trouble ahead. That they didn't fix up the friday's price on thursday is a sufficient sign of Mazut's* gov't filling its pants and not knowing how much to declare. If they go overboard, there'll be panic and run on the pumps. If they underwhelm it, the fuel merchants would get in the red, the cost price may be above the selling... and then the only reasonable solution is not to sell, which is an even worst outcome.
Otherwise, another day I slept through, where the major cultural event was this filling the Joda up, at 200 dindžies a liter. She made me company, I asked for it, to keep me awake. It worked, I didn't veer my eyes sideways, not even once. Works every time, and if it becomes a longer effort, I sleep it off when we return. Routinely.
And I finally gathered myself to respond to DotEasy. Did homework first - went through their emails, starting from the very beginning, found also when they were taken over by a fucker british firm, established 2019 - aha, must have been another two guys who wrote a wee app, got famous and look within three years started buying smaller businesses all over the globe, how yes no. Another wild wad of money demands sex, to multiply, and if it breaks something in doing so, eh, furniture breaks, it happened in the fit of passion (Riblja čorba). I assembled my answer thusly:
Sorry for the delay, I was under some flu and more or less slept through the week. Just a few notes:
(1) „Your current hosting plan is fully prepaid until August 1, 2026.“. Wrong, it's been prepaid for five years in August of 2024. As per email thread „Re: New Support Ticket Message - BBP-728-92675 - Re: Manual Renewal Required - sGradlj.com“ - so even if you don't keep the old emails like I do, there's a support ticket ID for you. So I'm covered until August 2029. Check your data before you quote them.
(2) Titan email. You never explained what it is, and never asked whether I'd want it. And no, I don't need yet another attention-hungry app to read my twenty emails a month (plus 30 spam mails a day). I don't even use web mail at all, unless some of the spam gets the mail stuck and I have to go delete that email (or, better, block the sender), which used to happen twice a year, now its four times a week. Something you also fixed? So the SmarterMail is being retired (and whatever was before it... SmartMail in 2007)? So what, I am retired and I'm still functional. Just SMTP and POP3 is enough for me. That's in case this is not a blackmail.
(3) Since I never got a copy of the contract in email, I can only assume that the current conditions are valid troughout the prepaid period, as they were the first 22 years. If the conditions are unilaterally changed, I'm no legal expert, but there are a few ways to resolve it.
Now „Titan Email is a new service and not included in your prepaid hosting. However, you do not need Titan Email in order to continue using email services.“ - fine, I'm opting out of it and we're done. It sure took you two weeks to clearly state that it's optional. And your failure to communicate was typical of any good old tech company of decades of experience when taken over by a investor bying small companies left and right, who obviously think the techs were doing it all wrong and yet bought it... And then in few years all the good things that a whole generation of engineers has built gets destroyed by the investors' new sales department, put there not to think but to enforce policy. Sorry about that, but just look over the dozen emails we exchanged, and count the questions you didn't answer. I never had such problems with tech support, they were always great.
Just fix the issue with stuck emails or you'll be getting support tickets from me.
I hope we're clear now.
But „having slept the week over“... is not the whole thing. Yesterday it happened very often, less so in the preceding days, to type random shit. Simply the fingers didn't do what head thought up. I meant to write „nice“ and it comes out as „ifzz“. Whoa, buddy... Luckily, the old in-head autocorrect kept working, so I immediately knew where I went wrong, looked at what I typed and corrected it right away. But it happened too often. This morning (I typed 'thim' here) it got already better, I'm not messing it up, not sweating either, fewer typos, not chilly, it's so nice to feel normal.
And this is not a news anymore: the UA is gone. Even if it magically started working, it would take several weeks for us to gather again, and even so it would never be all fifty of us (out of once 70000 registered members). I've also stopped trying to check it out daily, now it's two or three times a week.
New price of čorba came out on friday afternoon (!), three dinars more.
Seventh. Recovered fully, except I woke up with my back to the edge of the bed, and almost fell when I turned to get up, quickly lowered my left leg to the floor, didn't fall, but then waited two minutes for the cramp to pass. Sipping coffee... looking at mudrosti.txt (wisdoms), file from which the whole site was generated in the beginning, and found there, on one of the candidate lists, weird examples of infinite and finite article, and oddball singulars and plurals... and there I composed this for the forum, topić (topic, misread as topić, little cannon) „Lingualizing“:
„Well it can't be a crossroad, it must be in plural, where have you seen one street crossing“
„In Mitrovica, I think... but okay, if it must be 'I came to a crossroads', what's the plural of that?“
„Intersections“
„But then why is it a crossword puzzle, where did they ever see one word crossing?“
(takes something off the table, throws at me)
And no, I've checked now, a crossroad exist, but it is, wait for it, „a road crossing another or main road“ (and it doesn't cross it back?), ergo a sideroad. And one crossing is „a crossroads“.
Seventh. I'm feeling quite normal. To sum it up, this was yet another weird three day flu. Precursor signs on monday, tuesday all my geese bumping and sweating all over (me, not geese), slept through wensday and thursday, friday almost normal with balance veering off course at times. During the day mostly checked the email. DotEasy's sales [department] gave up on me, happy that they got off cheaply, tried to bluff me into buying what I didn't have to, failed but there, I had something to say about spam, they passed me to the tech [support], where they found a few things to set up properly. For mail.sGradlj.com the SSL wasn't turned on, so it took some time to set up on both sides, and meanwhile they were doing other things on the server as well, which messed up some of my testing - actually the link to mail.sGradlj.com stopped working, then suddenly resumed operation but as a redirection to sGradlj.com itself, not the mail client, um... they must have turned the smartermail off (yup, the guy confirmed), and by bits it went into regular operation.
I finally chopped off the extra lilacs in the corner on the hilltop, where it grew through the slats in the old extra grille shutter. I took it behind the birch, behind old windows. To hide somewhat the old bricks that Radoslav stacked to block the passage to Juliška. Springtime, fuckit, I'm getting into the swing. She, then, went on washing the walls, this time above the table, where we sit the most, and when it dried, drill nails and went on to hang the vitrages which her late uncle began making when Klaus died and he retired (at age of 60, eh). When they all died, this reached us, that's all that she asked for from the old house (and I did that railway ashtray, 05-VII-2017.) and it finally waited out the time to get hanged. And, a wonder, suddenly the whole room looks differently, finally complete. „We eventually cozied up the big room, took us a while but we achieved it“.
And we entertained ourselves, a bit rusty, but „this is like one of those solitaire games when it won't go this way, won't that way, you try this, try that and in the end it comes out. In. Whatever them solitaires do.“. And then the bottle was empty, and I was compsing the options to present („1. there's that martini, 2. can do wine, 3. I can get out on the terrace to pour something, wouldn't be the first time“), she said „we got that stuff from Stojan upstairs, something martini and what else, I'm going up to see“ - and brought some „Irish cream“ (weird name, but what do I know about husbanding cattle in Ireland), which turned out to be a 17% liquor, which we recalculated (both [of us, of whom else?], simultaneously, with same result) as „three shots like one of ours“. Tastes like molten chocolate icecream, laced with alcohol. We drank the three, can't do more, the taste saturates. So we had our doček of 8th of march, without thinking of it.
Eighth. Now how come there's no more spam, am I getting emails at all? That is I get it from tech support, my own self-tests do, but they're all coming from the same server, and what about the rest of the world? So I wrote a test message to oldwave, and lo, my copy came back neatly from the mailing list. So it does work. „Now I still fear that they may have accidentally produced a perfect spam filter.“. To which Škrba said „and what's the perfect spam filter's best-by time? Twenty minutes? Maybe whole half of an hour?“. Well, it wouldn't be that simple...
...it's not that two algorithms are measuring each other up all day. There are thousands of spammers out there, filters likewise but on a billion machines. Technological breakthrough either way is no way simultaneous all over the field, and if anyone makes a perfect.2026.3 model, and it works on one group of seervers, what are the spammers' chances to notice it? The number of customers decreased by 0,0000001, give or take a few zeros? And how did they measure success so far? Did they ever get any confirmation of receipt? Did they ever know how a spam campaign influenced sales? Maybe only those in Nigeria did...
If in visual spamm/shitvertising it's the viewing count that matters (actually only the number of deliveries to recipients, nobody knows whether it ever reached his scree, he adblockers are smart enough by now, and whether even then any eye saw it, is even less known), so spam can only count the number of delivered emails and maybe clicks into links. But that number of delivered doesn't distinguish how far did the message reach - a bucket on the server, a bucket on recipient's machine automatically, client's trashcan manually... I don't see how can they ever notice it until it becomes a statistically significant phenomenon. But the merry platoon who measure success by amount of ammunition fired and doesn't care of hits, hardly.
And hey, I got one spam meanwhile, it stayed on server, didn't come home. I deleted it manually. One in three days, hey. How beautiful is this silence.
Then after lunch I heard her bemoaning and shouting from the yard, „the greatest idiot in existence!“. Of course I first thought it was Rundek, must have dug out something she planted yesterday, but no: Aleksa cut off both clematises. Just when they started greening for the season. They were in his way. I got out too and joined her in shouting. And he „but I didn't know“ - well why didn't you ask. Two years we waited for it to start blossoming, and now it kind of went spreading to his side (it didn't, it doesn't spread that way, it was some other plant). Well fuckya. And even his missus asked what it was and mine explained, the other week, but the education didn't reach where it should. And how is it in your way when it's on our fence (although by banatian customs it should be his fence, and ours to the next neighbor, but we couldn't wait for him, kids from the neighborhood were coming and making damage, they were already living here, and they stopped when we fenced the lot from all sides).
And whenever he needed something, he'd be at our door, asking to borrow this or that, and it never happened that he returned it on his own, it was always give by hand ask by foot. There's our wheelbarrow on his terrace since mid fall, he needed it to bring in firewood. He never bought firewood, it was some cousin coming at times to trim the big walnut behind the house (which looks really weird no, its crown beginning at seven-eight meters' height), which is ten meters from the door, why would he need a wheelbarrow for that. And if I total our relationship since eightythree, it began with us borrowing two barrels from them and having to return three, and then they borrowed four fosna (2" plank) and returned three...
And there he came within half an hour, returning the wheelbarrow. And I said you still owe me 70 marks from 1991. when we got water and you begged to have a hose through that window so you'd have water, and promised to close the valves when frost comes, because the meter was still in a hole, no manhole cover yet. And you closed it downstream of the meter, not upstream, didn't drain it, frost came, glass cracked, new meter, 70 marks. But no, he said, from 1991 to 2006 (not sure I got the end year right) he was not in Serbia. Aha, and me replacing the meter was a dream. But okay, we finished the story, ciao.
But I do remember well, just mislaid the year - it was around 17-XII-1990. and it fits neatly, they weren't here the next february. I went into these dates here in Byo and moved the pieces where they go (him into this date, the garage roof to december of 1991). And it turned out he cut only one, the other clematis by the garage he hadn't found yet, and even the cut off stump is about 50 cm tall. Those who trim them leave maybe a pedalj more. It may yet recover, we'll see.
In the evening we first talked with Nina, saw both Linda and Sanda, and what she did with her back yard. She cut the branches of something growing by the back neighbor (house is vacant), it was already a leg thick, there's firewood by bundles, and she's chopping them and piling neatly. She planted two ginkos and one canadian maple. The cherry she replanted from here, a sapling from the one which drops its fruit on the van, keeps kind of growing but bears no fruit, wrong soil for it. It's still not in the way, let it for a while, but if it becomes an obstacle, it'll fly.
Then with the Seattlians, at 22:00 despite them having already switched to summer time, so the time difference is only eight hours now. We saw Anita a little and her friend (who already stopped shieing away from the camera, i. e. phone), and Neša - they had the same decimation as we did, she a day before me, he four days later, he was now exactly in the phase when he's sleeping with a subcap [on his head], which looks like chain mail on him, I immediately asked, o knight, where's your helmet, shield and horse. Go already filled the house with oodles of stuff from Amazon, which she keeps getting for free (and isn't paid for it yet), just as long as she keeps writing honest reviews about them. Stanley's work at the shop finally took off, and he's got prospective customers for a couple of vehicles. He also asked what will happen with the house, the old [one]. Well nothing. Said it would be good to tear down and build anew. That's what they do here, all over the town, be my guest if you're willing, just tell me where to sign. Hmmmm...
The eighth of march we, like, celebrated... I poured apricot. If the irish cream comes across as a molten icecream with some alcohol, this is pekmez with alcohol. Mellows the thoughts. We stopped just after the third, went to sleep. I got around six, the first pee break, and look how the sun hit the exact angle... Got my shooter and knit a few. Then another break around seven, no shooting. Finally got up at 11:30, and the whole day is somehow lopsided now, it's five in the afternoon and I'm no further than half of second coffee. At least we made another batch of noodles. Those from the barrel have lost the smell of pear, aired out. They still smack of something, just a bit, but unrecognizable. As when cooking with wine, the food doesn't taste like wine but the taste is subtly different. On the east side horizon some hangar sprouted, can't see the whole of Naftagas anymore.
And a piece of spam arrived (from an old patient, where I once subscribed for a newsletter, and they keep sending it, some software peddlers), so that works too. Now the only thing remaining is if someone emailed me out of a blue and got swept by the server, and I wouldn't know if it happened.
I remembered that Marinko fucked around with artificial minds, so I talked him into asking this twinses one, the DjemmEye or whatever it's spelt in classical latin, when was the first pizzeria opened in Zrenjanin.
"Pizzeria "Tifani" (Tiffany) was opened in year 1987.
It occupies a cult place in the history of zrenjanin hospitality industry as the first real pizzeria in the city. Situated in Gimnazijska street, it quickly became a symbol of one time and the main gathering place of the young by the end of eighties and doing the ninety years.
Three things wrong. First, the year. I thought it'll tell us exactly when it was opened, because we narrowed it down to between 1977 and 1982, but no, it said '87. Street is, of course, completely wrong, it was behind „Corsets“, by the carwash, almost on the [river] bank. The gathering center-of-gravity was in Gimnazijska, from '85 and on, when all the cafés were opened there and the korzo moved, but „Tifani“ was not there. You're such a waste of petabytes.
And then some more of reporter style overemphasizing and bullshitting, for one „Despite the hospitality trends kept changing, "Tifani" remained for decades a synonim for a good pizza in town“. Well no, nobody ever anywhere said „what a tiffany they have here“.
Mentions: 09-II-1976., 22-VII-1976., 17-XII-1990., 05-VII-2017., Aleksa Pajkov, Anita Jennifer Berger (Anita), Bogdan Levacki, Byo (Byo), Čedomir Spajin (Paja), čorba, doček, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), Dušan Starkić (Strle), ekskurzija, frendz parti, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Gradivoj Škrbić (Škrba), Jablan Škanata (Baja), Joda, Juliška, Klaus, korzo, Linda Sredljevich Aquilla (Linda), Mališa Borkovski (Borče), Marinko Protić, Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), oldwave, pedalj, pekmez, Radoslav Pajkov, Riblja čorba, Sanda Sredljević Aquilla (Sanda), SF stories, sGradlj.com, Stanley Berger, Stojan Nastić, UbiquAgora (UA), vojska, zzzzz, in serbian
4-III-2026 - 2-IV-2026