A dear friend of mine died today. We've been together since the early days of the broadband age and he's helped me through a lot of hard times and bad days and I have always been there for him when he needed my assistance. He was also there for me whenever I felt like having a light chat, or even a in depth discussion on why the grass is greener on the other side. Lestat was his name and he did not care when I was neglecting him to entertain a girl. He was awesome enough to watch me play a video game or do my work without trying to get in my way. Honestly, it was more often me who broke off something I was supposed to be doing in order to spend quality time with him, he was never a distraction on his own.

And today Lestat perished in a heated dramatic event. His graphics card decided to spew out a fan and overheat. I'm not sure how it happened, but I do know the thing is under warranty. The problem is that AGP graphics cards are not made anymore and so I could be left stranded. Having to buy a new one would mean also buying a new motherboard, CPU, RAM and HDD. All that would remain of my Lestat (even though nothing of the originally original computer residing in that box remains) would be the power supply and sound card. Would I even still be able to call the new guy Lestat? Would he be able to provide the same kind of support and friendship? And most of all, can I even afford it?

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Yesterday was far more productive than it should be (in that I did nearly everything other than studying as I was supposed to). My pet project that is destined to launch me into the rich and powerful stratosphere (looking from the perspective of a worm) urbanislovar.org has finally received that final significant boost into marginal usability it was waiting for since something like October or even September.

That's right, tags have been added. Each word can be tagged by any user of the website and a tagcloud is formed that shows the importance of a tag. Basically its size shows how oft said word has been tagged by a certain tag and the tag's opacity shows to how many different words it pertains. All in all a very useful tool and it even managed to look quite attractive. I'm almost proud.

I say this is the final boost into marginal usability because the project has finally reached a stage where I will not erase the database anymore, which I did often before because the structure would change and testing was going on and stuff. It also got transfer to a real host, because everyone tries harder once they're paying for the hosting of a project … especially myself.

So in the next few weeks or, which is more probable, months the project will slowly take on new features and reach to that final stage where it can begin being properly advertised with a campaign I've been planning since autumn. I think it's safe to say the project will be officially launched come May.

And here's what the tags look like:

A few days ago I got kind of fed up of relying on a free hosting service provided me by my friends at unimatrix-one and shelved out the moneys needed for dreamhost. It's surprisingly little for what you actually get if you ask me.

Upon registering I was offered a free domain to go with the hosting and having no better ideas at the time I did what any geek with a girlfriend would do. I made a domain out of my wench's nickname. Sure, at first I did intend it to be her blog because she is using something completely unfit for a geek's girlfriend, but as she said she doesn't need one I put up a picture of her. She loved the gesture, hates the picture … and that's exactly why I chose that particular one.

As for dreamhost, they seem quite nice so far. Responsiveness is superbly quick and I have more space than I could ever imagine I'd need, with said space increasing weekly, amazing. The monthly, I think it's monthly, transfer is also something I will probably never exceed … and also increases weekly. Should the need ever arise I can even get a dedicated host … lovely.

So yeah, so far I'm pleased with dreamhost and it gave me a fun day, because what better can a geek want than a completely new hosting account to play with and set stuff up?

There is a popular fable going around wherein somebody teaches values to a group of people, most often this is a philosophy teacher. The teacher takes a glass vase and fills it with large rocks. Then he asks the students whether the vase is full or not. They reply that it is. Then the teacher pours smaller rocks ontop of the large ones and they fill the nook and crannies left in the container. But it still is not full. He can still pour powder sand in it and then it really looks full. But what's this? A glass of beer can still follow before the container is absolutely and completely full.

An explanation then follows. The container is your life, the larger stones are important things in life like your spouse, children, friends and so. The smaller ones are less important things like work and money. Finally the glass of beer shows that no matter how full your life may seem there is always room for a relaxing drink.

However, I believe that, for me at least, the explanation reads differently. The large stones are success, work and money. The smaller represent my hobbies, like writing and things of such ilk and it is only the grain that finally represents family and friends. This, boys and girls, is why I will, ultimately, end up alone in life, married to my job and having projects for my babies.

Of course ocasionally a crazy enough girl might like me and think she can divert me from my monstrous ways and make a so called better man of me. And at first it will seem like she is succeeding, my life will revolve almost completely around her and there will be happines and joy, but eventually, as the infatuation and hormones wear off, my priorities will slowly begin to shift back to normality. Perhaps neither will notice it but finally my neglection of her will become too much and she will think that I do not love her anymore or that even if I do she simply does not feel like competing with my work.

And so it is that I find it difficult to foresee more than six more months of said kind of happines.

For the past week I have been pestered by a terrible illness that put me in bed for many days. I suffered horrible pains and fevers and what I still claim to be fever-induced hallucinations rather than half crazed dreams and visions. It looked so real!

At first the good doctor scared me quite a bit when I was told I had some form of viral tonsil infection that is in fact a saliva transfered STD. The problem there being that since it's viral it cannot be cured; you simply have to wait it out. Of course suffering an illness out brings along a great deal of trouble, namely pain and apparently, in this case, even up to 50% increase in size of some internal organs like the liver and spleen … with danger of ruptures. Also I'd be bedridden for a whole fortnight.

Luckily for me and my freshly new sex life (no strenuous activity until February in the previously describe eventuality) antibiotics worked and the infection turned out to be a more managable thing that was cured in a few days and I shall be regaining normality tomorrow. Of course I still have to take the pills for as long as they last and I can't start going to the gym until next week … and even then slowly ease in … as if I will. I'm glad I can get back to work and classes because having stayed at home for this long a time I can tell you, it's not lovely at all.

Where to begin this blog post that once again is far too late in being written much unlike blogs are supposed to be in that the events I am about to describe happened oh I don't know, three, four? days ago. On Wednesday. There, now we're clear on the time frame within which to understand the written words shining through our electronic devices that are some day to be the death of us all.

There was a poetry reading contest in a far away place of Maribor on Wednesday and for reasons unknown I had signed up for it a week prior to said event. Needless to say, in my enthusiasm I had completely neglected the fact that I've not written a single piece of poetry in about three years; surprise surprise, come the day of terror I had only half of a poem written.

But as luck would have it the day was completely free of all obligation so verily I could write some poetry then and have it ready for the contest. Right? Wrong. When my lass came hopping through the door ready for us to leave for a great journey in a few hours I still had only half a poem written. Later she confessed she thought me quite daft, but at the time she mentioned naught. We put our hairy heads together and before you can say "that is one big bug in your buttery toast that is attempting to steal your thunder and eat your toast" or figure out what it means we had two more poems written. In the device of timeleaping frogginess, otherwise known as a car, she managed to write two more.

The club wherein the event was taking place was full of strange people and an electricity in the air that made me have terrible stage fright. Oh I'm too late, oh everyone else is so much older, oh I haven't prepared properly. oh I'm just a hack, oh why do I even fool myself into thinking that I can write … and things like that. But a few whiskeys later I was all ready and the more I was on stage, the more I loved it. Have I mentioned this was my first time ever being on a stage of any kind?

In the end I finished third and received a surprising amount of congratulatory words from everyone in the club. For one reason or another they seemed to have liked me. I can't understand why. One of them even ventured so far as to say that yeah, the poetry was alright as well. Strange people …

The title is maths and poetry right? Well here's the maths part. Tomorrow there is a very difficult and terribly daunting maths midterm waiting for me, sorry, analysis, for which I have done nothing more than procrastinate studying and be a generally bad student.

Two, or was it three even, days ago there was a big punk concert here in Ljubljana. Pankrti had their 30 year reunion and decided against just having it at a pub getting shitfaced and rather give something to the fans as well. A memorable concert of a lifetime.

Of a lifetime, not because it's something that good, but more because it's something that happens only once in your life. It's not every day you get to go to a concert of a band whose last concert before it was two years before you were born. And for such a thing to occur in your own home town? Get outta here.

Unsurprisingly, but it still caught me off guard, the tickets sold out very quickly. In fact when I get to get mine five days after they'd begun selling two thirds of the place were sold out and I got weird tickets for some kind of seating where nobody ended up siting …

The concert itself was actually quite fun and I enjoyed it greatly. However it was very evident that those guys were kind of old as their antics on stage at times acquired aspects of parody and almost enduced laughter in me. I chose to disregard it of course and try my best to get in the flow of things and otherwise behave like a madman.

The crowd, also, was not something I expected. There was a lot of merely standing and even siting as many were as old as the fellows on stage. But perhaps it was just that a certain mojo was missing and when that mojo is missing people simply don't jump around like crazy fucktards.

All in all, I loved it and don't expect ever to do it again in my life.

Pred nekaj dnevi sem šel na sprehod čez jesenski grad z edinim namenom fotografiranja. Dolgo je že od kar sem se ukvarjal s čimerkoli podobnim umetniški fotografiji te branže in moram reči, da je še vedno zelo zabavno. Pogrešam pa fleksibilnost svojega starega Zenita, še postebno njegove sposobnosti slikanja čistih in ostrih slik v slabi svetlobi … ne pa tako kot te moderni digitalci. Žalostno švohoten senzor je pokvaril vse preveč slik.

Od 140 posnetih slik jih je tu nekaj dovolj solidnih za prikaz.

A few days ago I went on a little stroll through some autumny woods with the sole intention of photographing. It's been much too long since I did anything like artsy photography of this sort and I must say it's still a very pleasurable activity. However I did miss the abilities of my old Zenit analog camera, especially how it takes crisp pictures even in bad lighting … unlike this crappy modernity of digitalisation. The sadly weak sensor ruined much too many of my pictures.

Out of 140 taken, here's some that I feel are decent enough to be shown.

Firstly I should admit that I have been neglecting this blog horribly and I shall need to try to fix this new bad habbit of not blogging stuff. I will give it my best and honest attempt to get back into the habbit of blogging near daily. With all the interesting and uninteresting things that get written by that logic.

Yesterday was halloween and even though it's not really much of a tradition around these parts yet it's steadily gaining pace. As a result of a very silly decision I decided to actually dress up, something which I haven't done for any occasion in many years. I, of course being myself, needed something original and wholy interesting, but it also needed a flare of art and science behind it.

So I went as a living statue. The makeup was quite easy to create, but I shall use something store bought next time. Standing still is strangely entertaining as well and you know what, people do actually look and observe and are totally bewildered by why someone would be doing such a thing instead of partying and drinking. Only one things though, it was really really cold out and I couldn't feel my hands very soon. Think I managed to be a statue for about 30 minutes before I got dragged kicking and screaming to go partying with some people.

Here are some photos.