Monkey business :-P
Well, I logged into my MSN account for a couple of minutes just to check my emails and I found a link to a blog of my friend Shashaank. On his blog there was a very cute virtual pet hamster so, being a person who is very into experiencing new things, I went and got myself not just one, but two pets! Ha! :)
The first one is a dog I called Zhemitschka (which in Croatian means something like a bagel) and the other one is called Bananko (quite understandable, since it is a monkey... Hihihihi!). I already had a dog, and I would like to have a monkey some day, so this is my way of trying to keep myself happy, until I'm able to get one or the other in flesh and blood. :))
So, if you want to play with my pets, just click on the pic and see what happens! ;)
Shashaank, dude, thank you for this cool link and keep in touch, okay? :)
P.S. Yes, my nickname is Palachinka! It was given to me by one of my best friends. It's nuts, but still - there it is... ;)
The truth that needs to be said
I was just watching the Croatia vs. Australia match of the World Cup in Germany and I cannot believe the level of denial people can maintain just so they can avoid facing the truth! I mean, really!!!
We have had 3 games so far, 3 games where we managed to score 2 goals only in the last one and the only thing I've been hearing from everyone since the World Cup started is "We're good, we're good, we're just not lucky enough to get the ball to go into the opponent's goal!" What?!? Are you people for real?!? Of course the ball is not going to go into the opponent's goal all by itself!!! It generally needs a little help from the players of your team!!! Or have I been mistaught since I was a kid to believe that things don't happen all by themselves, but because you (or someone else, for that matter) make them happen??? And now everyone is shocked and confused and not believing that Croatia is not moving into the second round of the World Cup.
And what is this with everyone believing the Croatian team is absolutely the best team in the world, just that we're not getting a fair break?!?! It's like our team has a God-given right to be in the final of the World Cup every time. Okay, so we won 3rd place in the World Cup in France back in 1998, but HELLOOOOOO *DING*DING*DING*DING* - that was 8 (EIGHT) years ago!!! And since then we have changed like a dozen different national teams and players...
There is one more thing I noticed as symptomatic about my nation in general (apart from the fact that absolutely everyone is a football fan) and that is that every time the Croatian team loses (or sometimes even when it comes to local teams losing to one another in a national championship) this is the list of explanations that are offered as the "official" evaluation of the game by the relevant competent people:
1. The team played a good game, but we just didn't get lucky today
2. The other team was too aggressive/fast for us and/or had 70% possession of the ball during the game (notice how it is not stated that OUR team WASN'T aggressive/fast enough and/or DIDN'T have the possession of the ball for the equal amount of time during the game)
3. This and that player of the team was badly injured and still hasn't recovered
and my all-time personal favorite:
4. The referees were biased against our team and made some shady judgement calls
Now I ask you this: do you think that we (or anyone else in the same situation, for that matter) will ever be able to move ahead and actually become world champions, or whatever else, if we are not able to look our team and ourselves in the eye and speak the truth - we were just not good enough for this World Cup!!! It's not a tragedy, it's not the end of the world - it's our wake-up call which we shouldn't be ignoring, but rather hear it and start really working on the things we need to fix.
I might come off as unpatriotic and harsh, maybe even mean, but I think I've just managed to keep a shred of realism in all this football frenzy everyone is experiencing the last few weeks. Well, whatever you may think of me, or my opinion, the facts still stay the same: there is no master plan for Croatia not to enter the second round of the World Cup... The Croatian team WASN'T GOOD enough, they DIDN'T SCORE enough goals, they DIDN'T WIN and they will now be COMING HOME instead of preparing for the next game of the World Cup. That's it! It is high time we started learning from our mistakes instead of trying to sweep them under the carpet like they haven't happened or were not our fault and pretend we are still the greatest team ever, when things just aren't so... There is just one thing we can all do to make things get better: face the situation, deal with it and move on!!!
That's it! Fin! Ende!
THE END!!!
Baby boom never stops! :))
Oooooooooo!
In the last 5 months we got two additions to our family in the shape of 2 perfect little baby boys! Two of my cousins got babies, but since my family is very close, I call them my nephews. The first one was born in February (this one I will call Baby 1) and the other one was born this morning (this one will be Baby 2). :)
It is amazing how quickly babies grow and change. Baby 1, when he was born, was very very tiny and totally purple and I used to call him "Stapic", which in Croatian means little stick. Now, a couple of months later, he gained some weight (as, I suppose, all babies do) and now I call him "Buhtlica", which in Croatian is something like a donut stuffed with jam or chocolate or something. :) Anyway, as I already told his mother, who is my cousin, I think that this baby will be very very spoilt. I don't mean it in a bad sense, it's just that he is the first offspring in our generation of the family and everyone in the family is very focused on him, always going to see him and bringing presents and stuff. :)
Don't you think it's nuts how people totally lose their mind when there are babies involved? It's like they have this version of Dr. Jekill and Mr. Hyde inside them (not that drastic and evil of course, it's just a metaphor for the two completely different sides of their personality) - one minute they are a completely normal person and as soon as a baby comes into the picture they go nuts: start making faces and talking in this unrecognizable language, googooing and booing all the time... I really don't know why it is. Do they think that if they talk like that the baby will understand them better? And of course, then the baby starts smiling (or, even better, laughing) and the people think it's because the baby understood what they were trying to say, when, in fact, the baby just sees this ridiculous grown-up acting like a fool and of course his first reaction is to laugh his ass off... :))
Well, for myself, I have to admit that since Baby 1 was born, no matter how hard I try to control myself, the mentioned Dr. Jekill and Mr. Hyde effect happens every now and then. :-P But the kid seems to like it quite a bit, so I don't really mind looking like a fool anymore. LOL! Not too often, of course, but still... :-P
Baby 2 was just born this morning, so there is not really much to say about him. Hopefully in time, there will be stories to tell about him too... I'm sure there will... :)
Till then... Farewell!
LOL!
:)
My personal DNA :)
Thanks to my dear old friend Askoura, I found this cool site giving you the evaluation of your personality. So here are my results, you can check them out and see how much they really reflect me. :) Just come over a color rectangle and you'll see how I scored on different areas.
(Thanks Askoura for this very cool link! ;) P.S. We should talk, man, SOON!!!)Plus, you can check out my personality chart here:My Personal DNAIf you want to take the test too, just click here:http://www.personaldna.com/tests.php And, of course, don't forget to let me know what your results are... ;)
Accentuate the Positive! :)
It's nuts, I know... As much as I try to keep this blog updated, still months manage to go by and I leave no posts. I could promise you that I will do it more often, but the truth is I don't know when I will have the time to write next, so I suppose you will all just have to manage reading about me and the things that happen to me with no clear timeline. But look at it this way - at least every now and then you will get a nice surprise on these pages... ;) LOL!
Well anyway, a lot of changes are happening to me lately. I started work - my very first job in a very cool marketing agency, I am taking my driving license course (was definitely about time I did it :-P), I'm also doing an international certification computer course and I am contemplating starting a postgraduate course in September. It may seem like a heavy schedule and it really is quite demanding, but, at the same time, it leaves me with a very good feeling of doing something constructive with my life. Ever since I was a kid I was never very good at balancing things in my life - I would do 10 million things at once, jumping from one to the other as my interests changed (and boy, did they change fast and drastically!).
It is only in the last year and a half or so that I have managed to learn how to actually create structure and balance in my life and still I find it to be quite a complex activity. You see, in my mind there is constant chaos. Don't get me wrong, I'm not nuts or losing my mind or anything like that ;), it's just that I tend to think of (and do) several completely different things at the same time and without good planning and keeping an overview of everything that I think and do I easily get completely lost and confused - to the point where I develop a very strong headache and let everything go for a while. And today, when I have become a young professional person, there is not very much room for chaos or mistakes. It's quite stressful, but it also gives you a good feeling of control over one's life. One of my friends would now start laughing at me and say that "Life is to be lived like jazz!!!" and yes, I do agree with it - at least in part, but, also, you can not always just go with the flow and take things as they come... sometimes you do need to make things happen yourself. And isn't jazz actually the product of musicians taking initiative and making things happen themselves? I think it is... :)
So, not to go into this huge discussion about jazz as a metaphor for life :-P, the thing I wanted to say (or better to say - write) is that no matter what things happen to me in life, I am looking forward to seeing just how far I can go and how "jazzy" I can make my life be. And if I fall flat on my face - who cares... at least I will know what NOT to do or how not to do it next time around...
And yes, I DO like jazz, too! :)
Football Fever
Is it just me or has everyone gone crazy with football fever lately?!?
Even I get this tingly feeling in my skin every time I hear our national anthem played at the beginning of the matches when the Croatian team is playing, and I haven't been following football much since 1998 when our national team won 3rd place in France. Don't you think it's quite nuts that this whole month people will drop everything they're doing and focus only on pouring their heart and soul into supporting their team - be it on the stadiums in Germany, or back home in front of the TVs? And all the things that were important till now, all of a sudden fade away into complete oblivion for the duration of the Cup...
Okay, I know it's the World Cup and all and I can understand how it triggers patriotic feelings in everyone and makes football turn from "the most important unimportant thing in the world" to the "absolutely most important thing in the universe", but I think that people are too quick to ignore all the other things that were important till now... Lately all the headlines in the press and on TV are all about football, all the other news have become secondary, not to say irrelevant. Well, it's nice to feel passionate about football, your team and the Cup, but I really do think people should try and keep their perspective more down-to-earth and focused on the really important things in life.
So - to all you football fans out there - the next time you're watching that "most important game ever" stop for a couple of seconds and think about all those people who are not able to share your passion because, for some reason or another, they have more important things to worry about at that particular moment. And if you happen to run into such a person, do not ditch them just because at that particular time they are unable to share your enthusiasm and euphoria about the World Cup, or something else for that matter.
If you ask me, a little more compassion and empathy would make this world a much better place to live in. So why not at least try and do your part to make it happen? :)
Gone With The Wind
I found recently that the movies that are made today are total crap - no story, lousy acting and even worse directing... This is why I am turning to the great old movies that have that "something" about them - I find them to be very good food for my movie-hungry soul craving a good movie with a strong moral every now and then.
I watched this famous movie called Gone With The Wind for the twentieth time a couple of days ago. For those of you who don't have a clue as to what the hell I'm talking about - it is a very cool american movie made in 1939 when Hollywood and its stars were starting their golden age. The movie lasts for nearly 4 hours and it's a real saga about two southern families going through the American civil war back in 1860s.
Now, I suppose many of you would roll your eyes at the very idea of seeing something so old and so long time and time again, but there is just something about that movie that creates this warm, fuzzy feeling around my heart. I don't know if it's the great visuals of the movie or the chemistry between the two main characters - Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara, or the whole timelessness of the nature of their relationship, but the truth is that their story, taken out of the context of the movie, could easily be transferred to any place on Earth and to any time and age. Essentially (not to go into details about the story now), the moral of the movie is that people can be very, very blind in desiring one thing they are fixating on and actually relizing that the thing (or person, for that matter) that they desire most has been right in front of them the whole time... The story is really very applicable even in today's world, especially when we are all focused on our careers and making more and more money and we keep forgetting that the good things in life are not money and the material things we own, but the people we know and care about and that care about us. So, every time I feel my life is spinning out of control, with all the stuff I have to do (workwise or otherwise), I watch this movie (or parts of it) and I remind myself what the true values in life are...
So if you ever get the chance, I strongly recommend you to see the movie. You might find it old, outdated and corny, but you will not be able to deny the fact that the two main characters could be anyone of us at any time in our lives. Enjoy it and let me know how you like it! :)
