Eurovision Song Contest 2008

I watched both semi-finals and the final, together with my girlfriend. At the beginning I thought there are only bad, average songs, but afterwards I realized that there are some which are nice. My favorite songs were from Croatia and Armenia. I also liked Bosnia & Herzegovina, but I felt like it has no chance to win. Many songs disappointed me, especially Ukraine and Greece. Ukraine because the singer was jumping around like a slut and Greece because I found the song very similar to their 2005 song which also won. The great four countries also made no surprise in my opinion, except Great Britain which was pretty good this year. Spain had very funny song, unfortunately I couldn't understand all those Spanish words appearing on the screen although I study Spanish language in school, but I felt that such song can't win or make a really good result anyway. Why have I chosen Croatia and Armenia as my favorite songs? Actually Croatia was my only favorite for the victory, Armenia was the song which I like a lot. Croatia had wonderful band there, they looked and sounded as a bad which plays on the Mediterranean streets. The guy in Croatian squad who speaks some verses at the beginning is so great, he looks like an old guy who sits in front of his house and looks at people passing by. I liked Armenia, because the song had catchy melody and it was sand in two languages, this was really nice. Turkish song was great, too, I couldn't understand it though. I find it great, because it was sang in their country's language, I appreciate this a lot, because nowadays almost everyone sings in English. I have to say, that voting was quite predictable at some countries. For example Greece - Cyprus and at ex-Yugoslavian and ex-Soviet Union countries, they were giving top points to each other. This happens every year, I somehow doubt that people really vote every year the same. When it was clear that the most serious candidates for the victory were Russia and Greece, I hoped for Russia, because Greece has won recently, with similar son, and this wouldn't be the best idea to watch ESC from the Athens again. I don't know how come that Dima Bilan won with this son, it was nothing outstanding. I couldn't get what were the ice skater and Stradivari violin doing there; the song had no connection with ice and the violin couldn't be heard. If I may mention, I also found the Belorussian song very similar to Russian, concerning the melody, singer's accent and the singer's appearance.
If I conclude, I think it was not that bad Eurovision Song Contest at all. People argue it was very politically influenced. But was it really more politically influenced that contests in recent years? I doubt, because there are always same vote patterns which I notice in last few years. I wish those political-colored voting patterns would finally disappear and people would vote for the songs they like and not for the countries they find important. I will continue watching the Eurovision Song contest, because I find it very nice, when we can heard many songs from different countries, everything joined in three evenings. I wish Austria would return to the competition and that ESC stops being a political competition.

A day in Ljubljana

Yesterday I was in our capital, Ljubljana, with my friend. Everything has started when I got a catalog of Collecta, international collectors fair, on Monday. Now I had two reasons to visit Ljubljana, my first reason were 2 reserved coins waiting for me in one bank in Ljubljana. At about the same time I found out that there is only one coin waiting for me, but this didn't matter, I decided to go anyway. Because traveling alone is boring, I asked my friend to join me and he agreed. On Thursday we went to the train station to buy our tickets. Our trip started on Friday, at about 6:40 when we met in front of the Maribor's main train station.We decided to take IC 503 Pohorje. This train is very slow for an InterCity train, because between Maribor and Ljubljana it stops for 8 times and needs 2:35 hours to reach Ljubljana which is 'only' 156 km away. Traveling begun at 6:50. Interior of the train was old fashioned, but time passed fast, because we were talking about what exactly are we going to do in Ljubljana. At around half past nine we reached Ljubljana. In compare with Maribor train station is the one in Ljubljana much bigger and more people are there, but it still somehow doesn't look like the biggest passenger train station in the country. When we left the train station we immediately went to the bus station, to buy daily tickets for public transport. Tickets are big and not really easy to be carried in a wallet. I was surprised because there are no ticket checking machines in buses, so I guess you need the ticket only in the case if inspection comes. When we had our bus tickets, we walked to the bank where was possible for me to get coins. The procedure of identification, printing out bills took me about seven minutes, but at the end I was happy, because I have got my 3€ proof coin and 2€ ToR coin in a plastic cube (I wasn't planning to byu this coin, but when I saw it there I decided to take it). From the bank we went to the nearest bus station, to go on the bus which drives on the edge of city. We were planning to visit Apple shop. After some minutes of driving and some minutes of searching we have found it. We were very disappointed. Because this is official distributor of Apple products for Slovenia were we expecting huge Apple logo or anything similar, but we only found a modest panel with the name of they company and tiny apple as a logo. The shop itself was small, it didn't give us the feeling like we are in Apple center. They had two iMacs (one was running Windows XP), OS X, Windows Vista, Microsoft Office for OS X, iPods, some Apple accessories and in the lobby were two old iMac models. Really, we were expecting some more products. We've left the shop disappointed. Fortunately Ljubljana has very good public transport, unlike in Maribor, in Ljubljana buses drive every few minutes. The bus number 6 drove us to the city center where we were walking around, I bought some tea and sent a postcard to my girlfriend. My friend was surprised, because I wrote 'a bit' more than 'Nice greetings', but in my opinion it's normal to write something more on the postcard. We went to the bus station again, to drive with bus number 27, because we wanted to go to the shopping city BTC. This shopping center really deserves such a title, it has so many stores with everything. After walking among shops we went back to the train station with the bus and from the station we walked to a place where is the international fair organized. We came there too soon, thus means we had to wait. Slowly people started gathering, there were many older people, some came even with the suitcases. I'm quite sure, that my friend and me were one of the youngest visitors there. There was possible to get everything: coins, banknotes, stamps, postcards, albums for collectors, comics, badges... Temptation was so big that I had to buy two Finnish commemorative coins and an album for coins, everything was much cheaper than usually. After about an hour (or maybe more) we decided to walk back to the train station. This time we took better train, fast EuroCity train named Emona which drives from Ljubljana to Vienna. In about two hours we were already home, I was missing my home town, to be honest. Ljubljana is a very nice city, but dialect in Ljubljana is quite different to ours, so it gives us a feeling like we are far away of home. I enjoyed this trip very much, I'm pretty sure I will return to Ljubljana again :)

Kendl Core

www.kendlcore.com

Kendl Core is a web comic created by Xavier Rutario and Enigma S. Riddle, it's parodying modern technology, mostly operating systems, Linux, Windows and Macintosh.
The comic is made from Counter Strike game screen-shots, with characters posed using Garry's Mod. We present comic in a blog form, followed by an explanation or news written by one of the authors.
Most of the events in the comic are based on real events, which happened in Riddle's or Rutario's life. Characters who appear in the comic represent alter egos of Shayo and Xavier. Protagonists also represent the behavior and appearance of Linux and Windows.
The name 'Kendl' derives from the word 'kernel', which is the main core of Linux operating system.

The story about Kendl Core started in April 2007 when Shayo and me decided to make a web comic about us, our ideas, out lives. There were numerous funny events from our lives, chats, we simply wanted to tell this to the public. Nowadays our comic is published twice per week, every Monday and Friday. We have no story written - we make up new episodes every week, so you can never know what comes next!

More can be found here (general information) and here (cast).

Dr. Janez Drnovšek

Dr. Janez Drnovšek
(* 17.5.1950, Celje, Slovenia, SFRY, † 23.2.2008, Zaplana, Slovenia)

He has died last Saturday. In Slovenia we remember him as one of our most important politicians of all time. In the time of transition, he was the president of Slovenian government for ten years (with one short brake 2000), and since 2002 to 2007 he was also the president of Slovenia. As an important politician in Yugoslavia, later even as a president of Yugoslavia, he was eager to turn Slovenia into democratic country. He also took a big part in joining Slovenia numerous international organizations, including the European Union and NATO. As very educated person (Ph.D of economy), fluent in six languages, was one of main architects of Slovenian story of success.
In 1999 he has faced with a diagnosis of a cancer on kidneys, later was one kidney removed. Until 2004 he was fighting against it with alternative medicine, then he has abandoned any kind of treatment. IN the last few years of his life he has changed drastically, he was stressing the importance of peace, harmony, justness, and he was fighting against poverty. At the beginning of year 2006 he left his party, Liberal Democracy of Slovenia, and found Movement for Justice and Development. He's also known for writing posts on his blog on the web page of the Movement. Public and politicians were criticizing him, because he was leading unusual, new way of politics at the end of his presidential term. Despite criticism, he was recognized by many people as a great son of Slovenian nation after he has died. Many people are mourning all over the country, this show his importance and it is ultimate proof that people liked him. Here you can learn more about his life and opus.
I liked him as a president. When he became a president in 2002 I wasn't interested in politics, I was paying more attention to his work since 2006. I was quite surprised because of his approach, it was so different to approach of other politicians. He was talking with people, listening to people's problems, he was also some kind of the spiritual leader, not only the head of the state.

Picture source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/15237218@N00/346741638/

Dies klasični, postus secundus

Yesterday our event finished. I must admit, I regret because I didn't take part in more afternoon activities, they were very interesting. Our classical days were very enjoyable event, thought we had to do some additional work which was from time to time rather annoying than pleasant.
Wednesday, first day. Nothing spectacular happened on this this day during school time. The only subject where we had any activities connected with classical days was Spanish. We formed two groups, one group had to make a poster about Hispania and second one about España. I was part of second group, out poster is relatively ugly, but the project remains undone, we still have to present our work in front of whole class ;) In the afternoon was an interesting lecture (it was said it is interesting, I didn't see it on my own) about sexuality, sex and clothes in Roman and Greek antic times. The lecture was given by anthropologist from Ljubljana, she made something similar last year already (last year's topic was Latin/Greek names nowadays), and she can do such a presentation really well. I wish I would have went there, I would learn something interesting and new :) (I found calculating taxes more important than the lecture, so I stayed at home, just in case if you are wondering why I didn't have time to go there).
Thursday, second day. At history we started preparing for our debate, our team got quite a shock when we saw how unprepared we came to the lesson, we had no book about the religion with us :P Some lines bellow you will read how we did it. Our task was to present negative aspects of Slovenian mythology and face our arguments with group having positive aspects. There were also lessons guided by my classmates (I think it was Slovenian and maths, same thing happened on Wednesday already), but this is not so interesting to be mentioned here. In the afternoon I went to our little school theater, because some of my classmates prepared a play, about seeking Caesar's murderer. The result was very interesting, they were excellent actors and they connected this ancient story with present time ;)
Friday, third day. At history we had our debate. Opposite team disappointed me personally, because they didn't present any positive aspects of mythology, they were only describing it. This was our first history lesson, presenting our aspects. Second lesson of history was more interesting, we could have a real debate :P Unfortunately there was not enough time, teacher had to calm down some classmates for few times, but it was very interesting to hear it :) After school was last even of classical days for me. Professor from faculty of art of Ljubljana came to here to give us a lecture about Greek/Roman myths in later eras and in paintings of Marij Pregelj.
At the end were teachers satisfied how we did our classical days. Well, there is still some to do, for example this with Spanish and a report about our history lessons when we had a debate. We are also going to be graded at history for our report :) I like such days, because school time is not so dull anymore. Hopefully they will be organized next year as well.

Dies klasični

In next days. from Wednesday to Friday, we are going to have some additional activities on our school, dedicated to my educating program, classical gymnasium. The event which will be dedicated to our gymnasium is called 'Ex antiquitate lux", meaning 'The light from classical antiquity'. Title of the post means 'Classical Days' (I wrote it in Latin and Slovenian), that's unofficial name of our project. The same even want organized already last year, with purpose to celebrate anniversary of our gymnasium, this year's will be made simply as additional activity.
At every subject we will discuss topics connected with main topic, this year's main topic is myth 'The Rape of Europe". At history of art we prepared large poster with an imagine, similar to the on the Greek 2€ coin. During history lessons we will make a debate about Slovenian, Slavonic and Germanic mythology. Those are two main projects, at other subjects will students have some presentations connected with this myth or any antic topic of this subject. In the afternoon on those three days there will different plays made by our students and different lectures on antic Roman times, connected with present time.
Now I must prepare for the debate at history. I will participate in a group which must speak in the favor of Slovenian mythology, we are supposed to defend 'for' arguments, but I don't know how this is going to be done :) In general, I won't take really big part in this project, I'm simply not that kind of student and I am very lazy ;)
I will report what exactly we will do in our project, I am curious how everything will end up :)

Greek 2€ coin

Welcome

Yesterday I decided to move back to Blogger. As it was already said, I want Turkish visitors to be able to read my blog and I like to create statistics :)
If anybody is still interested in reading my old blog, don't worry, it will remain online. Soon I'm going to customize this blog a little bit, I'm going to add links to my friends' blogs and most likely there will be some design changes. And the most important, I'm also planning to post something new, finally :)