We had a bearly visitor last week. :) He didn't go to the main square or anything, but he did take a walk through Ljubljana's recreational area and was sighted by a few people. They 'chased' him towards 'greener pastures' or rather, away from the city, but he came back and was then put to sleep and transferred somewhere, who knows where.

Happy easter! If you're celebrating it. I hope everyone is having a nice weekend in any case. :)

I have been reading books much less than I used to because of lack of time and neccessary concentration. I have though read a couple of nice things in the past year that I don't think I've written about before or I might have forgotten I've already done so? Anyway. No major spoilers anywhere, I swear! :)


His Majesty's Dragon by naominovik

( I like dragons. :) )


Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

( I love time travel stories, but they have to be done well - and this one is. )


The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

This is Kipling's The Jungle Book, retold with the orphan raised in a cemetery. It is really lovely. Especially when read by Neil himself. :)

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

( You probably know about this one already, no? )


The Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

( Who is watching the big brother? )


And last but definitely not least!
I have been reading sarahtales's lj for quite some time now. I find her writing really funny and I think she could write about shopping lists and make it interesting and fun. :) Now she's written a book! It is a YA contemporary fantasy and it is the first of a series (I think it is a trilogy?). And I was lucky indeed to get an advanced reader copy, also called ARC and have read it already even though it doesn't come out until June:

The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan

I loved it! I really recommend it. :)

( How come I got the ARC. :) )

( What I did when it arrived. :D  )

( What I thought of the book. :) )


You know what is awesome about my new vaio? It has a slot for my camera card. :D I no longer need to use a cable or a connecting thingie - I can just take the memory card from the camera and slide it in the slot in the laptop and viola! There are the photos. :D

I can't figure out the network though. Internet works fine, but I can't see s.'s macbook and he can't see my vaio and it's annoying because we have to email each other things we could have shared otherwise by just having public folders for each other. There is always dropbox, but it's still annoying. BTW I hope everyone knows about dropbox, because it is awesome! :) Very useful if you use multiple computers or if you want to backup something quickly or if you want to share something with your friend. :)


I actually came around to making a couple of Easter eggs this year. :) Not very elaborate, but here they are, on the left:

my 5 minute creations (hey, I was in a hurry! :P) and on the right are S.'s: one a tribute to Space Invaders and the other a pirate. Hm. I suppose boys will be boys, even when they 'grow up'. :P
And I always put one chocolate bunny per person on the kitchen table on Easter morning. And when I turned my back, S. put them together like this. And, well, I thought it was awfully cute, so here they are. ♥

:P

Oh, um, this entry seems really long o.O I guess you can tell I had half a day to myself (while s. went to visit his grandad) after a looong time, no? :)

As of a few days ago I am computerised again! :D I am really happy with my new computer. :)

I am also really busy and have no time for anything fun. *pouts* I hate knowing that I'll be working through the weekend.

But even being busy can not spoil my squee. :D *pats vaio*


For this post to not be purely about my pretty new laptop, here is a really cool (and a bit long) video graffiti stop motion animation:

I really like this video and the music's not bad either. :)

( The same video, embedded in lj. :) )


I ordered the previously mentioned Vaio as per excellent advice! :D I'm buying it online and paying cash because that way I save more than 100 Euros. :D But I have to wait for it. :/ It may not arrive until mid next week, wah, I want it now!
I have persisted with windows xp so far - I shall have to face Vista now though. :( I hope it doesn't turn out as sucky as I fear.
S. is out until late today and so I am queen of his macbook pro. :P I have to say I have gotten a bit used to using a mac now that I was forced to do so for a while. I hardly mistype y and z anymore (which used to drive me CRAZY :P) and I have learned a few of the useful shortcuts that are very different to windows and I really like the icons on the bottom of the screen - always there and bouncing to be used :). I am beginning to see why he is so excited about it. But, well, CAD programs are still a problem. Until mac can't run those in its own OS, I def. won't buy one for myself. I mean, I know you can have windows on a mac and all that, but it's not the same when you have to switch operating systems etc.


It is SNOWING right now. This is a crime. It is supposed to be spring time! Yet we've been having weather very much unspringlike for the past week, it's really cold and windy. Bah!

So many things have happened lately (among others I was quite ill for three weeks and spent my first night at the hospital, but that's over thank god) and I've been busy working but the main reason I haven't updated in a long time is that my computer died. :( I never go on livejournal at work because there is always someone looking over my shoulder and I try to spend as little time using s.'s computer and writing posts takes time for me... I have hardly been able to keep up with email and flist as it is.

Anyway. I am buying a new laptop! Does anyone have any opinion on sony vaio vs hp? This is the model S. seems to think is the one we should buy: Sony VAIO VGN-FW31M 2,4GHz.

An alternative is a hp I don't know the exact model but vaio has better components for the same price, I think. Also, it is prettier. :P It has a shorter warranty though.

Poll #1370645 laptop!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Which one should Moia get?

The squee: rj_anderson had a contest (lottery?) a little while ago and I won a bookmark of her new book that has been published just this month and looks like it will be a lovely read, when I manage to get my hands on it. :) The bookmark arrived yesterday and it is ( very lovely and shiny )

A fun link: Is it Saturday? :)

A couple of US-political links:
Is Bush still president? :P
Is Obama president? :)
Obama's truth-o-meter should make it obvious how well he keeps his promises.
Pretty cool software, no?

Seriously? Russia? How about not shutting down an important energy source to EU countries just because you want Ukraine to do something? During wintertime?
Thankfully we have a bit of a supply of cooking gas (what is the roper English term?) through pipelines from Algiria through Italy, but otherwise we'd be screwed and quite a few countries are (Croatia, the Check republic, Austria...). Me and S. only have an electric stove and oven so it doesn't apply to us directly, but I am still very uneasy about this terrible dependency on certain things in our lives, supply of which we can't really control.

( links to slovenian news sites )

The above was in a card from a friend and I loved it, so here it is for everyone else, too. :)

Today we woke up to a winter wonderland as snow was falling in the morning. :D It's really lovely outside, as everything is covered in five or so cm of whiteness. I went out on a walk alone because S. is very fond of our couch and tv (the latter a relatively new addition to the household) and much less a fan of the freshfallen snow than myself.

We had a mostly quiet celebration. We went to see both sets of family, eating too much food and getting a bunch of presents from Dedek Mraz :). At midnight we toasted with Baileys (I don't like Champagne :P) all alone at home, watching fireworks from the window, which was pretty much perfectly to our taste. We could see up to four different fireworks going on at once since we have good wide view. :) None of them were exceptional, but it was nice anyway - one of them lasted for about 7 minutes, which is no poor job for a small local fireworks display and must have been quite expensive.

Since this is the first time we were celebrating Christmas at our new home I had to put together a Christmas tree from scratch, which was quite a bit of work, but I'm really happy with it as I could do it up exactly to my taste, quite simple and as orange as possible. :) I have to say I've never before given any thought whatsoever to how much a christmas tree actually costs as at home we used the same decorations all the time, we just bought the tree each year and, um, it sort of adds up. I mean, I saw some absolutely gorgeous simple white snowflakes made from porcelain and lovely orange glass birds that were all 5€ per item which I ended up not getting because if you actually decorate with only things like that it costs a small fortune o.O so I kept things simple:
100 white small christmas lights - 7€
20 orange tiny christmas lights - 5€
42 cheap orange christmas baubles - 7€
a couple of meters of bronzelooking wire to make hooks for hanging up the baubles, because I didn't like the little goldlooking strings that came along with the baubles - 2€
one small fir tree - 15€
I actually don't really care how much it cost, I love our tree. :) I hope it doesn't grow too poorly too soon...

I hardly went online in the second half of December because I was busy with the gifts and cards and the tree and the friends and family... but things have calmed down a bit now.

Thank you Dedek Mraz for paying for my livejournal yet again. :) I've kind of got used to it now... I've gotten this gift every year for a few years now and I just want to let you know I still appreciate it. :) ♥

And in celebration of still being able to post polls, here's one:
Poll #1323703 christmas tree
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

christmas tree

Man, I had to rush it as we jsut got a call we have to go pick up S.'s mum from where she was celebrating because she doesn't have winter tires on her car. Oh, well - so much for a quiet evening at home.

I hope everyone's had lovely holidays!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year!
(or whatever it is you celebrate, if anything - and, hey, at least have a nice few days in case you aren't much for celebrations :))

Thanks to everyone who voted in my poll. :) My nephew's first birthday cake is now finished. I am not entirely happy with how it's turned out, most likely because I don't even know myself what I wanted it to look like. I had an idea this morning of having both dark and white chocolate cover, making a lovely swirl of both chocolates but chickened out of that at the last minute. :P I am making the whipped cream to take along, because it's a great thing to have with chocolate cake :).

In case anyone is curious here's what it looks like:

I think I'm bothered because I started out making a careful pattern and ended up putting the smarties at random, so it's neither very patternlike neither completely random and either would look better. :/ And the sprinkles (I think that's what they're called?) were bouncing off the smarties and going all over the place - I'm sure S. will be swearing at me for having to vacuum them later on. *hides* *is not a great friend with the vacuum cleaner*
The centre is left empty for the candle. :) I hadn't put it on yet because it wouldn't go in the cake carrying thing we conveniently never returned to S.'s mum.

I hope to get some good photos of my nephew putting his hands in it or something. :D Those are always the most fun years later. :)

For cake comparison, under the cut is what S. got for his birthday: ( Schwarzwald/black forest cake. )

Cake for my nephew's first birthday party is in the oven right this minute! :D

I want to do something different as it's the first time I'm making cake for a kid. I have grand plans of making it veery colourful :D even though I usually detest such things and much prefer to simply cover cake with chocolate, fruit and/or cream. But, it's for a kid, no? Has to be colourful. I am armed with Smarties and all sorts of other things, but I can't decide what to do with the decorations exactly. Help! :)

Poll #1309416 Cake dilemma!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Cake should be covered with:

Oh, and if anyone wants to know, underneath the decor will be essentially a Sachar chocolate cake, but with homemade somethingberries marmelade instead of the usual and I put freshly squeezed orange juice to make the base nice and juicy and not dry. :)

*beeps from my oven, got to run!*

This is the sort of thing one imagines might be the effect of global warming some day, though from what I gather it was mostly due to persistently strong southern wind. I think many have seen the photos of flooded Venice. Slovenian coast is sort of on the other side of the Adriatic sea from there and apparently the sea in our parts had the highest tide in about forty years yesterday.

Some people on my flist are complaining about all the Christmasy tunes they have to listen to. It's not that bad here yet - there wasn't anything Christmasy playing in the stores today when we went shopping. It is true though that I never listen to the radio at home (since I don't have one, duh :)) and the one in the car is only working when it feels like it wants to... and am therefore not subjected to such things as much. Anyhow. Anyone wants to hear a Slovenian 'classic'* wintery song? A friend just posted this it on facebook and I thought I might share with my flist as well: Bela snežinka :)

Ahaha, S. is already yelling for me to turn it the f*** off. :D


*NOT classic in the sense that it's brilliant (which it is NOT), but classic in the sense that it's hugely overplayed every winter (which it is). :P

We saw Dark Knight last night. It was well done - as in, the acting was great and there were interesting 'social experiments' and ok action scenes I guess (am not much of a fan of action films :P), but it was just so looong. I think none of us were all that impressed to be honest.


I have a tonne of things to do and so of course, I did a meme instead:

Answer the questions in reference to your significant other.
( answers to the meme. )

I am unsure if Slovenia ended up third on the medals per capita list for Beijing Olympic games or fourth, but either way, I think our medals tally these games was great: 5 medals (one per every 401,542 people) :D. I doubt we'll get such great results in London, but who knows? :)

I wonder if the closing ceremonies will be close to as good as the opening ones and if they are worth a download (S. and I still haven't bought a tv and I'd like to keep it that way :P).

I don't often go browsing my fflist (friendsfriends), but occasionally I do and occasionally I find some gems there. Like this one: a bunch of fans made a 'pratchgan' - a pratchett's books inspired quilt-blanket and gave it to him recently. :) The giving away and more photos. Aww! It's such a nice thing to do and he seems to have liked it and I love how it turned out with lots of nifty references to the books. :)

I'm not much of a sports fan, but I am happy that we got quite a few medals in the Olympics! I don't think Slovenia's ever gotten as many as in Beijing - we got five! Well, so far, but I think all Slovenian athletes that were capable of getting a medal have already done their thing by now. Two bronzes, two silvers and one gold. :) We're currently at the top of medals per capita list. Woo! The article I linked to is quite sarcastic and comments best avoided, but I couldn't find a better one. :P


Two videos I liked that I meant to post links to but haven't gotten around to before now:

+ Solar eclipse video taken from a plane

+ Font conference

I've just come from my vacation today. We went to island Murter in Croatia. We basically lazed about for a week, sleeping or reading on the beach, occasionally swimming during the day and being eaten alive by mosquitoes during the night in the rented apartment. *scratchscratch* :) It was lovely. Well, not the bloodsucking monsters. But the water was crystal clear and warm and a gorgeous blue-turquoise colour, we were staying only a few steps from the seashore and we found a lovely beach with a lovely pine tree shade, rocky shore and sandy area once you got in the water, where we stayed during the day. It's one of my personal favourite beaches I've been to so far. I'd love to be there at some time when there are fewer people and the facilities really need some renovation as they've have seen better days (at least I hope they have!).
As nice as the vacation was, it's good to be home. I can't hear a single mosquito bzzzing around! :D And it's about 10 degrees colder as it's been raining here today, which feels like a bit of a relief frankly. Also, internet. :D

A photo of the lovely beach:


( A few more under the cut :) )

In other news, there is now an iTunes store Slovenia! Amazing, no? See, this is how long these things take to get to a small country and therefore a small market. I mean, you can't even buy music on it yet and it's not in Slovenian or anything, but in iTunes store you can choose Slovenia and looks like you can buy applications and things like that from there.

Slovenia. *raises glass at having a day off work midweek* It's odd to think that our country will only be 'full of age' next year and yet, as my boyfriend put it, Europe has let us have the keys to the car (we had presidency for the last six months), which feels a bit soon, no? I guess it's nice to be thought grown up, though I personally think we've still got a lot of growing up to do. But I'm not really complaining as my life is good at the moment.

Actually, I won't be going back to work tomorrow, because we finished the project they hired me for only yesterday. I'm feeling happy and sad and exhausted all at the same time. Happy I got to work with nice people and in a lovely office in a lovely part of town, sad that I won't be working there anymore, at least not in the foreseeable future, happy that the project is finally finished as it's been overdue and I really really need to catch up on my sleep. *eyes bed* Hmm. I may just go laze about for a bit more before starting cooking lunch. I've put The Dark is Rising audiobook on my ipod. :D

After really busy two weeks working so hard I hardly ever got to sleep - I hate deadlines, but I like the people I was working with and the place as well - I went to the seaside for the weekend. It's been absolutely ages since I went to the Croatian seaside. I have to say, no matter the fact that it rained a bit and that we're only here for such a short time, it's so gorgeous here. If you only get to smell the air and do nothing else, it's worth it as it smells so so wonderful! Full of mediterranean spices like rosemary and Lavender, and also pine trees and so many other things... I wish I could bottle the lovely smelling air up and take it with me!

We went to the beach yesterday, the crazy Slovenians, despite the not brilliant weather and we were there all alone, random passers by looking at us as if we were crazy, because who would be swimming in this weather?! Yeah, if I got to spend months at the seaside, I wouldn't be swimming in this weather either, but I'm only here for two days, so. :) It was still very lovely. I'm sad we're already leaving today.
The house we're staying at is huge and lovely. :)

Oh, man! Why is the forecast showing a bit cloudiness only?! It was brilliant sunshine when I woke up but it's just started raining again. *pouts* The forecast, it lies. I hope it stops by the time all my friends wake up...

I've been working in a lovely new place in old town Ljubljana this past month (only one more week to go there though, sadly) and today when we went out for lunch break it felt like we stepped out to a gathering of Men in Black... There were about twenty of them standing around, as well as about fifteen huge black cars parked (but with motor running (?!)) filling most of the street. It appears Laura Bush was having lunch in the restaurant next door to where I work. Either that, or there were aliens and that was their cover story. :P I don't really care much about her, but it was funny seeing all those security guards and reporters behind the corner as it's definitely not something you could see around here every day. We didn't linger to see her step out of the restaurant as we really couldn't be bothered - we had more important things to do, like have lunch and then go back to work :).