The dancing hacker blog

Back to school

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 17:11:00 +0000

The first week of school is now almost over! And that means that the effective summer now seems long gone, even though the scorching heat is relentlessly beating down our heads.

In retrospect, the summer has been very productive. Although I haven't touched the multitide of mini-projects I was planning on touching, what I did spend time on turned out well. And as much as I can help it, I will try to make the upcoming semester feel like the summer did. Easy going, productive, and sweaty. So far, it's looking good - at least I've been sweating. I also managed to schedule all of my classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which means most of my weekdays are relatively easy going. And on wednesdays I get to rehearse once again with the wonderful Scorpius Dance Theatre for their upcoming production of Vampire Tale.

The big happy news is that Jessica and I are going down to Tucson for the weekend to celebrate our first anniversary. We will be staying at a bed and breakfast with a massaging jacuzzi in our bathroom and lined up massage appointments. Yay :-)

The big sad news is that a wonderful faculty member of the ASU dance department has been denied tenure!!! I am sad and disheartened, and in the process of writing e-mails about it to people.

Summer of Code

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 19:29:00 +0000

The conceptual summer is hitting the last 1/3 of it's existence and I am nowhere near being ready for it to finish. Even though this summer has been horrible in two aspects, that I was not able to go home to Croatia at all, and that I had to spend 95% of it away from my girlfriend, I have grown quite fond of it.

My primary occupation is my Summer of Code project, which has brought new friends, new knowledge, and new skills. It also brought a new lifestyle which I thoroughly enjoy - I do whatever I feel like all day long. I have had to use the alarm clock twice this summer, and I am yet to deny myself a nap. I am trying very hard to find out whether there is any way of keeping this lifestyle past the summer's end.

The coming year will also be a new experience for me - it will be the first summer I am not getting paid by the Arts, Media and Engineering Program, but instead through a teaching assistantship from the Computer Science department. I am yet to find out what all that will mean. Hopefully it will be a good thing.

More rambles to come.

Website Moved, Life Moving

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 21:17:00 +0000

It's been quite a while since the last time I posted anything, and a lot of things have happened since. Some of the happy things are that I am now in a happy relationship with a happy girlfriend, I have potentially finished my coursework for my Ph. D. degree, and I have had a paper accepted to a good conference.

Some of the unhappy things that have happened is that another good friend passed away... but I will write more about that later. Also, I am now unable to return to Croatia unless I plan to stay there until I finish my military service.

But overall, life is good, food is good.... And Global warming is NOT good, go see http://www.climatecrisis.net/ and DO something about it. I have started with not taking long showers any more.

aDDictiOns

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 03:33:00 +0000

Sometime in January, if I remember correctly, I developed an addiction involving Dungeons and Dragons Online, which is a multiplayer online version of the fantasy role playing game. If you don't know what I'm talking about, imagine a virtual world where people from all over the world log on and gang up on unsuspecting monsters. My addiction with this game has recently had (another) flare-up, to the point where I got absolutely nothing done for weeks except for pissing off a whole bunch of virtual monsters.

Yesterday, I found an ingenious way to turn the addiction into a source of unlimited productivity. For each day, I now make a To-Do list. And my rule is, until it all gets done, no Dungeons and Dragons. The result is incredible! - I have gotten more things done in the past two days than I have in the past month. And now, whenever I think of something that I should do, I just mark it down for one of the upcoming days, and I know it will get done! It's like magic!!! As long as this addiction keeps working, I can use it to fuel the rest of my life!

So, the last thing on my list for the day was updating my blog. And hey, it's done! OK, off to D&D land :-) I'll try to do this once a week from now on.

Phoenix-Cologne-Amsterdam-Cologne-Pula

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Wed, 31 May 2006 15:08:00 +0000

I am now home in Croatia, after spending a week with my brother's family in Cologne, and getting to meet/re-meet my three beautiful german-croatian nieces. It is worth noting that Mac OS X is a big hit with children, with the Dock animations inciting much laughter, and Expose sending them into an absolute frenzy. However, taking photos with Photo Booth is the ultimate favorite - during the course of the week, the girls took about 400 of what has been termed "Kwatsch Foto". I will put up some examples, so that those of you poor people that don't have the luxury of Mac can see what I mean.

I have to say that it is simply wonderful to be home now, especially not getting paid and not having any committments. Well, no committments is wonderful. As the lady from my dream said the other day, "In this room, flying bullets turn into scribbles suspended in air, and the sounds of bombs transmute into casual conversation. It's what makes it a room." (At the time, I was being chased by a heavily armed police squadron for what I believe was a case of illegal parking. From an incredibly ingenious cinnematic cut following this scene, I was lead to assume that I emerged victorious from this enconter, and proceeded to lead the robots onto some unknown satellite where they became the inferior race. Don't ask.)

Turning 27 on the dance floor

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 02:47:00 +0000

As my friend AJ says, the big 2-7 :-).

My birthday was on the Monday the 3rd, but with the time zone difference I figured it started on Sunday at 3pm. Strangely enough, precisely at 3pm on Sunday I was on stage, performing in the undergraduate concert at ASU. Rather poorly, admittedly, but that's OK, at least the earlier night's performance went pretty well.

So my birthday started on the dance floor! And even more strangely, around the time I was actually born (which turned out to be around 11/12 in this time zone), I was on a dance floor again! I was at a fancy wine bar with friends, watching a flamenco performance, and following a trip to the bathroom I came out to cheering and applause, apparently since my birthday was announced while I was taking a whiz. I was taken to the dance floor, and supposedly did a decent job at following the flamenco dancers in their birthday dance.

Meanwhile, some random woman that was also celebrating her birthday stuck a silly hat on my head. I'll try to post some pictures if I get them.

This blog needs a cheerful entry

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 07:58:00 +0000

That's right! I think I've been taking the world way too seriously recently. But today, this wonderful worm crawled out of my head, mounted my forehead, and dangled a big sign that said "Whateva' - I do what I want!". It was a Southpark worm, OK?

Soo, I got to spend a week in Lake Tahoe recently, with my mostest wonderfulest friend Maria, and boy, was that a treat for all the senses! It was like seven days of foreplay along about seven different dimensions. We event went skiing one afternoon!! It's been ten years since I went skiing. It was great, and I found that now that my fear of hights has largely gone away, I have to go a lot faster for the same amount of thrill. It's too bad that great times with great friends can only last for so long....

I feel like dancing tango... I don't really know how to dance tango, but that's OK. Maybe I can move to Argentina some day and learn how to do it properly. Or maybe I could just go visit sometime soon?

OK, off to bed. Post not long enough for you? Whateva'... :-)

Is this home?

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 06:38:00 +0000

When you grow up in more than one place, the concept of "home" becomes rather fuzzy. It becomes sort of like a collection of things that are scattered around the globe. For me, "home" is jumping into the Adriatic Sea from a rock, it is the smell of Iowa grass in the spring, it is laying eyes on my family, whether it happens in Croatia, Germany, Italy, or the US...

Having become such a fragmented and fleeting concept, I have never really tried to establish a more cohesive home in any particular place. Everywhere I went through, I would dip into the surrounding culture deep enough to find enough things to keep me going for the time that I am there. But now, I am starting to feel a little different. I am finding enough nice things about Arizona that I'm considering staying here for a while. Maybe even making it a true home for myself.

I love the weather. I love the desert, I love the forests, and I love the Grand Canyon. The people around me are great. The Arts, Media and Engineering Program is starting to feel more like a family than a workplace, and the research is starting to be very interesting and rewarding. The art scene is just waiting to explode. And artVERGE is becoming something that I'd like to take very, very far. And let's not forget that Las Vegas is pretty close :-).

So maybe I stay here for a while, eh? I knew there was something special about Arizona as soon as I found out they don't do Daylight Savings Time here...

after the artWHAT?

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 17:16:00 +0000

When someone goes to organize an art event without ever having done it before, and bites off far more than they can chew, I'd say there are only two likely outcomes: fortuitous success and crash-and-burn failure. If you imagine things riding on the very edge between the two, and somehow falling on the fortuitous success side, you get a reasonably clear image of the "artWHAT?" event. It was magic...

About 6 days before the event, we were armed with a near $1,000 budget, a website, and the promotional designs that our team put together. Saturday before the show, a team of artists and volunteers got together to clean out about 6 barrels worth of scrap metal + extra junk from the east courtyard of the venue. On Monday, we put up some posters. On Tuesday, we got our postcards printed. On Wednesday, we finally found the models for the fashion show. On Thursday night, the lobby exhibit started to come together. Jon Stacy, the sculptor, took a look at the east courtyard and decided to call some friends. Friday afternoon, they brought a collection of sculptures and pedestals, and with some creative use of work lights and fabric they transformed the courtyard into something amazing. I spent most of the time running around helping whoever needed help, and trying to tie things together.

5 o'clock came around, tools were still being put away, food was still being put out, and people started showing up. I looked like crap, smelled every which way, and tried to avoid them. I wanted to go take a shower, but our technical director Siew Wong was stuck in a meeting and I wasn't going anywhere until he showed up. When I finally spotted him around 5:20pm I let out a long breath, got my clean clothes and experienced what was probably the most releiving shower the FAC men's restroom has ever seen. Next time, I might even remember to bring a towel.

I ran to Matthew's Center, brushed my teeth, and returned to the event. The panel discussion was underway, and all the panelists were there... good! Now, the video projection needed to be set-up... somewhere. I grabbed Siew and Aaron Cuthbertson, and we attacked the west courtyart. About 20 minutes later, I was watching my own ass shaking on a twenty foot high section of the Digital Arts Ranch wall. Thanks, Devi, for suggesting the height of the projection.

When that was done, the panel discussion was nearing its end, which was partly a good thing because all the soda was trapped inside with it. The soda was taken outside, the stage was cleared, and I was running around answering an artillery of requests. Five minutes before the live performance, I realized I never got to practice my M.C. lines and my jokes. I was about to give an act that only ever happened inside my head. I also realized I misplaced the microphone.

7:30 rolled around, and the show was supposed to start. I had finally found my microphone. The first act had finally finished setting up. After a very long breat, I finally walked on...

I think that considering the amount of technical preparation that we had time to put into the show (practically none), it went great. The performers did a wonderful job, the tech crew managed to tackle a sound board that went nuts in the middle of the show, and I somehow combined the roles of M.C., comic, and stage hand. The show happened, people laughed, people aplauded, and after Miranda did her act in honor of Ben Maggos, people cried.

When someone goes to organize an art event without ever having done it before, and bites off far more than they can chew, I'd say there are only two likely outcomes: fortuitous success and crash-and-burn failure. Only because of all the people that jumped in to fill all the gaps I created with my insane ambitiousness, this event had the fortune of success. My sencere thanks go to you all.

This event belongs to all of you that created it, all of you that supported it, all of you that showed our art, all of you that performed, and all of you that attended. And to Ben, who inspired it, and who would have celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday yesterday.

Happy birthday Ben. I hope you liked the event.

Bring your own oil

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 14:13:00 +0000

When dealing with the Arts, Media and Engineering program, do not expect a well oiled machine. Being that it is a fairly new program, that in itself is to be expected, but this surprised even me... the following are summarized excerpts from an e-mail conversation I had last night:

(me)
Dear [AME advisors],

After finalizing my schedule I have decided to take the following two classes - [class 1] and [class 2]. I would like to take 6 AME research credits in addition to this, for which (as I understand) I need permission from my two advisors.

(AME advisor)
Please do not register for [class 1] - AME concentration students are not allowed to have cse 598 classes count towards graduation. So, you can take the class, but this won't count.

Regarding research - you cannot take these credits unless you form a doctoral dissertation committee.

(me)
Hmm... OK that is really confusing, because [class 1] is listed explicitly on the AME's Ph. D. program of study, and is also on my preliminary program of study that you signed. [class 2] is also a 598 class.

[other student] asked [other AME person] about taking AME research credits and she told him that it is not necessary to have a doctoral committee formed, but it does require approval from both advisors.

Can we meet tomorrow sometime other than between 11:20 and 1:30?

(AME advisor)
I realize that it is confusing - the rules for all cse students changed at the end of last semester. - this had a specific effect on AME concentration students being not allowed to count CSE 598 towards graduation. [this translates to "your tentative program of study that we approved is no good any more, and none of the classes you are taking this semester count towards your degree. we just haven't told you about it."]

Come by at 11:30am tomorrow and we can talk more.

(me)
Good to know...

I have a class from 11:40am to 1:10pm so I can't meet at that time...

So, I am now enjoying a very healthy dose of cynicism towards the world :-) It feels good to be a cynner...

Back in Aye, Zee!

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Sat, 06 Aug 2005 18:48:00 +0000

That's right - since tuesday I have been back in Arid-Zonea (which has been surprisingly wet). Since I came back I've been exploring a concept I call distributed living. I don't officially have a place yet, so my things are scattered throughout 3 or 4 locations around town. I kind of like how it's working out, and really enjoy the feeling of not having a home. Makes me feel like I could get up and go anywhere anytime. Even though I get to move into my new place later today I hope to explore this concept of distributed living further...

The last few weeks in Croatia went really well. My favorite time was at the Dance and Non-Verbal Theatre Festival which happens every year in a small town in the middle of nowhere. The night before day 0, I accidentally found out that there will be workshops as a part of the festival, and approximately 10 hours later I was taking my first dance class in Croatia! Taught by Sahar Azimi from Israel, who also did my favorite performance of the festival. It ended with him wearing lipstick, tidy-whities and heels while singing "These boots are made for walking...". Can't beat that.

The festival in general was an amazing experience, being my first opportunity to immerse myself in the Croatian dance scene. And immerse I did, spending all 5 days at the festival and with its people, even crashing in random sleeping bags and tents to avoid driving home. I greatly enjoyed the workshops and performances, loved the people, and had a blast dancing with them until wee hours of the night (or of the morning, which happened the last night and earned me an injury).

I also have to mention that I saw the best dance film ever - "Blush", done by Wim Vandekeybus and his Ultima Vez dance company. Laura Aris, of the company, also did a workshop with some really nice partnering excercises. Can't wait to see these people perform live.

And now in AZ, I am catching up with work and working on an interdisciplinary arts organization (ArtVERGE) which we recently started. The website has temporarily been placed at http://artverge.randomaxis.info/, if you'd like to check it out.

half way Croatia

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Tue, 19 Jul 2005 11:51:00 +0000

I am now past the half-way point of my vacation in Croatia. So far it's been a well-rounded mix of all-things Croatian, starting with good old Croatian procrastination even before I left the US. It culminated with a night of packing, moving out of and cleaning my apartment, which all got done at 5:10 am, 5 minutes before I scheduled the taxi to take me to the airport.

Fortunatelly, the only thing I forgot to pack in all that rush was my Croatian ID, courtesy of which I now have the pleasure of experiencing another ultimate Croatian pleasure - its beaurocracy. "To pick up this form, you need your ID" - "I don't have my ID." - "Then you need a certificate of residence, which you can pick up at blah blah blah." ... "Hi, I need to pick up a certificate of residence." - "OK, to pick that up, you need your ID." - "I don't have my ID." - "I'm sorry, you need your ID." - "I left it abroad. Can I get a replacement ID?" - "No, you can't, because you know the location of your ID." - "So there is nothing I can do?" - "You could lie and tell me you lost it, but that would be a criminal offence, punishable by act blah blah section blah blah blah..." ... I recently realized that I am eligible to apply for US citizenship, which is becoming more and more appealing.

Some more pleasurable Croatian pass times have been going swimming (in the rain once, ahh that was nice) and spending hours at coffee bars. It also happens that my hometown and the surrounding region have become a cultural mecca with all sorts of events, concerts, festivals, etc. going on all the time. Right now there is a movie festival, and if you can get past the attitude of certain Croatian movie "stars", or at least find humor in it like I do, it is pretty enjoyable. Each day there are a bunch of movie projections, with the most important ones projected in the roman colloseum (under the light of the night sky, ah...), followed by an open-air concert. Two nights ago a Croatian singer from Peru came with an international band which included a Cuban mother-daughter pair (and each sounded like Celia Cruz). With some effort I managed to convince a couple of girls to dance with me; It was fun, but all I can say is that the next time I travel I am taking someone that can dance salsa with me.

The night before that there was a Croatian singer with a more French sort of international band, and his violin player was a transvestite. Damn cool. I also got to see John Zorn and his Acoustic Masada (really good jazz with a Jewish twist), Andrea Bocelli and some soprano woman (there is nothing like being awoken by the crescendo of these two while accidentally nodding off), the Whirling Dervishes of some place rather (they... whirl. a lot.) and I don't know there were other things too.

Actually, the coolest thing I saw was at an alternative theater festival right after I came - it was a fire-music act by this group called Free International Radicals Etc (FIRE). Browse http://www.pyromancer.de for an idea about what this was about. Kate Pendry's act "Sex in the warzone" was also really good - she's got a page (about a different act) on http://www.deaddiana.com.

One night we also drove up to a free Chemical Brothers concert in Trieste, Italy - I got to learn how to dance crazy with about a square foot of free space. It was actually a Garbage, Snoop Dog, & Chemical Brothers concert (some "Isle of MTV" thing), but we got there too late to see Garbage, and we watched Snoop Dog on the TV of the restaurant where we decided to eat something in after the hour and a half drive.

Speaking of which, I need to go eat something. This was more than enough writing anyway...

Paper Submitted

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 09:18:00 +0000

Two hours and seventeen minutes after the deadline, I have submitted my paper to the ISVC conference! This one will take place on Lake Tahoe in early December, so a reeeeealy want to get accepted.

I almost gave up around midnight, but I made it through!!!! Woooooooooohooooooooooo! Finally, after almost 5 days of more or less non-stop work on this thing. Well, more less than more, I admit, but anyway.

I am now off to sleep, 'cuz in the morning I have to clean my apartment and move out of it. And the next morning... I fly to Croatia!!

Yabadabadooo

Why hello there, life!

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 17:33:00 +0000

Today, at the tender age of 26 and some odd change, I came to the realization that I am me, and that all I want is to be me for the rest of my life. Conveniently, that is what I'm sort of stuck with anyway.

So, watch out life, here I come, with all my strengths and weaknesses, all my quirks and imperfections, all my craziness and my sanity. I'm grabbing on this time, and I'm not letting go.

Appropriate for this change in attitude, when I turned on Radio Paradise (which is an excellent internet radio) this morning, instead of the solemn and sad sounds that it's been playing to me for the past week, out came a stream of happy songs, and quirky songs, and a smile on my face.

Certain only in uncertainty, and expecting all that is unexpected, here I come.

A poem

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 16:31:00 +0000

I had a nice surprise this morning (I had another interesting surprise when I was looking up the correct way to spell surprise - see http://www.uib.no/isf/surprise.htm). The nice surprise is that for the first time ever, when I typed in "Random Axis" in Google, my website came up on the very first page of results! On the bottom of it, but first page none the less.

See, usually, my "Random Axis" lingers on page 3, 4, or 5. If you just type in "Stjepan", I'm always on the first page, sometimes on the very top. I'm usually rivaled by a page on "Stjepan Radic", who was a prominent Croatian politician about a century ago, and sometimes by a page on "Stjepan Mesic", who is the current Croatian president. Sometimes Stjepan Mesic is nowhere near the top because he usually goes by Stipe and not by Stjepan, which is a poor choice because then you have to compete with Michael Stipe of R.E.M. If you type in just "Rajko", I'm also near the top...

And did you know that if you type in "Stjepan Rajko", with quotes around it, pretty much all of the pages that come up are about me? Apparently, I'm the only Stjepan Rajko on the internet, and perhaps even in the world.

Last night I wrote a poem in my sleep. I think it goes something like this:

Hey there (Ms. poet,
Would you write me ...a lullaby

I want to feel sleepy'
And the "bed I laid in
Can't write any songs for me.

It's an experiment. How do you like it?

A heavy dose of neurotic laughter

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Sun, 12 Jun 2005 17:51:00 +0000

Last night and this morning, I kept working on the paper I talked about in my previous post. I was working and working, and as the final obstacles sprung in front of me on the way to the finish line, I leapt over them with grace and elegance, watching the crystalline beauty of mathematics unfold itself as simplicity delivered the last few devastating blows to complexity...

And then, this morning, another obstacle came up. A conquerable one, of course, but tall... almost tall enough to make the finish line disappear. I started to panic, as the idea of skiing on Lake Tahoe in december began to fade and blow away in the winds of uncertainty... I kept chugging along, determined not to give up, despite the doubts, despite the lack of food, and despite the lingering headache that's been threatening to stop lingering and start pounding.

And then, an idea occured to me! A brilliant idea, a sure-fire way of getting the paper done on time. It is an old idea, and one that almost always works for me. I started checking, filled with suspense.... and yes!!!! The idea was going to work!!! There it was, on the conference website - "Extended Submission Deadline: June 30, 2005"!

Alright, I'm taking a break and getting some food.

The thrills of research!

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Sun, 12 Jun 2005 03:51:00 +0000

I am currently in the process of finalizing a paper that I hope to submit to a visual computing conference. The deadline is Monday, and actually, I don't think I'm at the finalizing stage quite yet. Hence, the thrills!

Most of today and yesterday my brain has been following self-conversation patterns such as this one: "Hmm... wait is it this way or is it that way. OK, it looks like it is this way. Great, that's exactly the way I need it! ...hmm no, wait, it's not this way it's that way. Shit!!! But aha! It turns out that that is the way I need it, and not this way!! Alrig.. oh shit I was wrong it doesn't matter which way it is. WAIT!! It doesn't matter which way it is!!! It's not an issue at all!! What was I thinking!?!?"

So, it's been pretty exciting - running into last minute hurdles and effectively jumping over them. I'm pretty proud of myself, this being the first paper that is all of the below:

on a problem I chose myself

with a solution I researched and solved completely by myself (well, with the exception of all the previous research by other people that I used)

for a conference I chose

with me as the primary person pushing me to make the deadline

The reasons for the two of the last items have something to do with the conference being on Lake Tahoe in December, and me having not been skiing for the last 10 years or so, but still, I'm pretty proud of myself.

OK, back to work...

Blue

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Tue, 31 May 2005 19:50:00 +0000

How I feel right now... you can click on the image for a larger version.

New Beginnings...

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Wed, 25 May 2005 17:36:00 +0000

I'm not really sure why I titled this post "New Beginnings". I just felt like it. I guess the summer is beginning. And so is the rest of my life. And I'm cool with that. So here it is, to new beginnings.

And I'm not really sure what I want to write about here... that's a new beginning too, since I'm usually full of things to BS about. Well, sometimes aimless streams of thought tend to be the best. When I was in elementary school, they had us all do some sort of an IQ test. I scored the best out of some group of kids (I want to say it was best out of the city, but later I met some girl that also claimed she had scored best out of the city so I'm not sure), and my friend that I always sat with scored the worst. The school psychologist saw both of us separately, and had us answer some more questions. He had me write 20 things I hate about school. When I started running out of ideas after about 10, he told be that what is left is the best part. So maybe now that I've run out of ideas on what to talk about, something good will come out.

That of course was a long time ago, and since then my IQ has suffered consistent abuse through various forms of brain damage. And I can really tell, you know? I think differently now, and I don't think it's only due to the difference in age. I don't think the way I think is any better or worse, it's just different. I can't focus very well any more. Unless I have fifty different things to think about, I can't think about anything. Well, women excluded... I never lost my capacity to get lost in a woman, and lose sight of everything else. Maybe that's why I like to do that so much, it's my only way of escape from the world.

Well, maybe not the only way. Sometimes I get lost in myself. Or with myself? I don't know. I've had some of the most fascinating conversations with myself. We come up with a lot of crazy ideas, I and I :-)...

Ahh, ideas... it's funny how people take ownership of ideas. Something so ephimeral, so unpalpable, so untracable, and yet we love to say "that was my idea!". So silly... one of the many human ways of desperately trying to grasp reality, as if we really have any fucking clue about what is going on.

You know what this might be a beginning of? Me sitting back, enjoying the ride, leaning into all the curves, and sticking my arms all the way out. Or have I been doing that all along? No, I think I've been worrying to much about whether the belt is safely tightened and the shoulder restraint is all the way down. Maybe it's time to forget about them.

On Unreachable Stars

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Wed, 11 May 2005 06:49:00 +0000

The problem with chasing an unreachable star is not that you might never reach it. The problem is that you actually might, for a brief moment, get close enough to feel its warmth, and to try to close your fingers so you may touch it...

The star will then inevitably slip away, and propel itself further and further until you can't see it any more. And you'll be left trotting after the star, first in exhilaration, then in disbelief, and finally in despair, realizing you are all alone, without a clue about where you are going...

The worst thing is, you don't know whether you should continue after the star, knowing that it might be further away than it ever was before, or give up, and wonder whether anything will ever feel like the unreachable star that you almost reached...

Anyway, that's just some silly stuff that's been running around my brain :-) I am actually all done with the semester, and some other deadlines, and finally able to relax, and enjoy life. I had chinese food for lunch today, and the fortune said "You thrive on adventure. Do something new." For various reasons, that gave me a pretty good chuckle.

In any case, I wonder what this summer will bring. I suppose whatever it is, I won't be doing much worse than the guy I passed this morning, who was standing on the sidewalk and screaming at his shadow.

Film Festivals and Strange Birds

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Mon, 25 Apr 2005 06:11:00 +0000

Last night I went to the ASU Art Museum Short Film and Video Festival and got inspired to clean my apartment. So today, I picked up most of my messes, vacuumed most of my carpet, scrubbed most of my floors, and washed most of my dirty dishes. I also burned most of my scented candles, and am now a proud inhabitant of a tolerably messy, decently smelling, semi-presentable studio apartment. Let see how long it lasts...

A strange thing happened to me the other day. I was eating my sandwich outside, and admiring this very beautiful bird that seemed to be minding its own business in the vicinity, when completely unexpectedly the bird flew over and snatched the last of my sandwich from my hands. Then she sort of just stuck around, and almost let me pet her. It was completely surreal... I'm not quite sure why the bird acted like that - perhaps she was wounded, I think she may have been bleeding. I didn't really think about it then, but now I get the feeling that this bird is somehow really intelligent...

Anyways, :-) off to the last week and half of school. And thanks, Keira, for posting the comment.
It's nice to get comments! Yay comments.

If I could turn back time...

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Wed, 13 Apr 2005 03:50:00 +0000

... I probably wouldn't because I'm pretty happy about the last few weeks being over :) It's been one thing after another to such an extent that I don't even remember what all went down.

There were a lot of performances going on, and I posted some info about a few of them in the dance section of the website. I'll be digitizing some documentation of those and a few others, and posting them when I get a chance.

I have also uploaded a very silly picture of myself to the picture gallery.

Website Updates

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Sun, 20 Mar 2005 04:49:00 +0000

In a violent outbreak of free time caused by staying home for spring break, I have made some additions/changes to the website.

The Pictures section is now powered by the Coppermine Photo Gallery. This will make it easier for me to add new pictures/images, which I plan to do in the next spurt of free time that decides to come my way. So, probably, summer.

I am also proud to say that The Lazy Cookbook has quintupled in size since its inception. And, a whole 20% of the recipes have been contributed by other people!!! In addition, the Heart Attack Bacon Sandwich, being the first Lazy Cookbook recipe to reach 69 views, has been placed in the X Rated category.

Finally, I have started my work on the Motion Analysis and Visualization Engine. Click on it to find out more, basically it is a collection of things I am working on for work/school.

AJ called me today from San Francisco, and spoke of crazy times, going out, getting drunk, and transvestites. In retrospect, I think it would have been a better choice to go to San Francisco with her and send all the things I've been able to get done by staying home for spring break to hell.

Podlings speak Croatian

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Fri, 18 Mar 2005 06:02:00 +0000

I just got done watching Jim Henson's movie "Dark Crystal", and am very astonished to say that the Podling creatures from the movie speak Croatian (or Bosnian, or Serbian). They use a heavily accented version of the language, but not accented enough not to be noticed.

I am also amazed that I couldn't find any information on the internet that would comment on how and why this happened to be. Which is why I'm writing this post now, in hopes that someone else that noticed the same thing sees it and tells me I'm not crazy. Well, at least not crazy in thinking that Podlings speak Croatian.

As an example, the first time Kira (who speaks Podling) sees Jen, she says "Odakle?", which means "Where from?". Also, the world "Dole", which means "Down", is used liberally throughout the movie to say "Stay down", "Let me down"... The cool thing here is that some guy (a Mr. Curt Markham) figured out from the movie that "Dole" in Podling means "Down", and posted that information on a Dark Crystal trivia page. I have to say that is pretty impressive! A few more words and he can go vacation in Croatia and talk to the locals.

Going back to the Podling-Croatian word list, when Podlings find Kira and Jen, they are happy and they shout "Gozba!" which means party or feast. Of course, they then throw a party. At the party, someone says to Jen, "Lijepa Kira?", and all the other podlings laugh. "Lijepa Kira?" means "Pretty Kira?". Also, when Jen asks how to say "Thank you", he is told "Hvala Vam", which indeed means thank you.

When Jen calls for the Landstriders, she says "Stani tamo" (stop over there) and "Dobar" (good/ good boy). Another example comes at the end of the movie, when a Podling being carried to have his essence removed shouts struggling "Pusti!" which means "Let go!". He adds, "Dole!". Let me down, eh...

There were more words that seemed to potentially have Croatian origin, but I'll have to take a better look to decipher them. If anyone else caught any, please let me know!

I should have been a detective

noreply@blogger.com (Stjepan) — Thu, 10 Mar 2005 23:23:00 +0000

Last friday night I did something extremely stupid. I left my keys hanging in the lock of the door to my apartment. On the outside. Where the community balcony/walkway is.

Of course, I didn't immediately realize I did that. The next morning, when I needed to get ready to go to Sedona, I couldn't find my keys. This is a fairly common occurence for me, so after a while I gave up looking, assembled a set of spares and left. When I came back, I still couldn't find the keys. At this point, I started considering the possibility that this time, I really managed to lose them.

On Sunday I convinced myself of this even further, when I assembled a feasable explanation in support of the fact. It went something like this.

One of my neighbors is a really nice lady that I often see smoking outside her door on the balcony. We always say hi to each other and exchange a few words every once in a while. Friday afternoon, when I came home after school, I heard the very annoying sound of adolescents talking much too loudly. To my surprise, they were with my neighbor. OK, so I assumed that they were her children that haven't been living with her, and are hopefully here to visit and not to permanently move in. I said hi, went inside, left for my performance, went shopping, came back home, and went to bed.

Soon afterwards, I heard the annoying sound of adolescents talking much too loudly before going out, followed in a few hours by the sound of adolescents talking much too loudly after going out, followed by the sound of adolescents talking much too loudly before deciding to finally go back inside and shut up. At the end of all that loudness, which I understand is unavoidable since I have failed to avoid causing much of myself over the years, I heard a very disturbing sound - what I thought to be the sound of my doorknob turning. I jumped up and glared at my door but nothing happened. I attributed the messing with my doorknob to kids being drunk and stupid, and went back to sleep. When I woke up, I found that my lock was sort of half open, which I thought was weird, but didn't think anything of it immediately.

When I later realized my keys were missing, I considered the possibility of having left them hanging in the lock. Using the spare key, I played with the scenario of unlocking the lock from the outside, then locking it from the inside, and then taking the key out from the outside. I found that it was possible to do it in a way that caused the lock to remain half open, and I also found that the process created sounds much like the "doorknob turning" sound I heard that night.

I finally decided that I did, in fact, leave keys hanging in the door, probably because I was tired, and I had to bring in groceries, and I have far too many brain cells missing. I also decided that the sound I heard in the night was the sound of my keys being taken out of the lock. Or, as I thought of it metaphorically later, the sound of my life getting unlocked. I also decided that the kids that took the key were probably the same kids I saw with my neighbor that day. Of course, I didn't really trust my judgement all that much so I wasn't about to go confront her about it.

Damn it. I had lost my apartment keys, my car keys, and my work keys. Whoever took them knew exactly where I lived, and even more stupidly, my car keys say "For Hyundai" on them. And that's exactly what I drive, and there aren't too many of them in the surrounding parking lot. I was somewhat amazed by the fact that by Sunday, my apartment still had all my stuff in it, and that no one had stolen my car.

I immediatelly had my apartment lock changed, and that made me feel much better. I took a very nice and relaxing nap after that. I also contemplated having my car locks changed, and feared telling people at work that I had lost keys to two of our spaces.

Then, as I was leaving my apartment to go to work, I saw my neighbor. We said hi. I paused for a second. "Did you happen to see a set of keys out here by any chance?"... She looked at me. "Oh, those are your keys?" She went back inside and came out with my keys in her hand. "My son said he found them lying around here somewhere the other night at like 2AM".

Well, it was more like 3AM, and he found them lying around in my lock, but, whatever. At least I had my keys back. And I the "deduction of events based on evidence" part of my ego got a nice little stroking. I should have been a detective :).