have a good one + and then another one + good one.

Ogilvyks_christmasy
/Et itetimoK
One thing I enjoyed was the food+wine, but did not get to taste them much. Prior to coming here, I helped nita&Co. pack some gifts for their clients. The music was light, with the ambient lightning not helping. Good cake.

+
IPKO_christmasy
/ODA
It's worth mentioning the music: as the (free) alcohol intake increased, and the DJ cranked up the volume of Alb. songs, the atmosphere got really heated up. People were dancing like crazy. And drinking like crazy too. I've seen people with three bottles of Smirnoff Ice on one hand, and a peach juice on the other. Good gathering, but more than enough.

+++
gangsta_1+ gangsta_2 + gangsta_3 + gangsta_4 + gansta_5 + gangsta_6 + gangsta_7

50cent/G-Unit Pictures
Prishtina, Kosove




thank Agron for the pics.
thank you Agron.

As gangsta as I could ever be. ever.
50cent/G-Unit in Prishtina, Kosove

a day prior to the show, we had no tickets. i got the ipko mobile number but no tickets. I work for ipko, but i still did not have a ticket! man, I could use my gangsta genes and put a bullet in someones behind. But kept my calm and went to drink some nice warm tea. It's not that I did not want to go to the concert, because I knew 2 measly 50cent songs, but because of this huge huge event where a world superstar (talk all you want, he is a superstar - in a weird way), come up in this place at a such crucial time in history. I could argue that Boots to the Moon was the biggest star that ever set foot in Prishtina, and his gigs gathered people (numbers remain confidential), and he was all gangsta and that, but still 50cent is 50cent! so yeah, i wanted to be in a place with 20,000other people, and use this one-time free life opportunity to get a taste of what people experience at such these concerts.

50cent was promoting his latest album, and i thought once or twice how this concert would impact his album sales here. it would probably, since (almost) all who were at the concert have a new superhero - 50cent - and they would go out and buy the album > pirated copy of course (we're almost a country with almost no "enforced" copyright laws). It's like, you take a kid to see the newest spiderman movie, and the next thing the kid thinks he's spiderman and wants to buy spiderman-stuff. See, it's quite normal, since you see this uber-real guy dressed up in a tight latex suit that is super strong, and you want to be like him. That i could argue and relate with people going out and buying 50cent/G-Unit gear/stuff and want to be like hime, since we could not believe that the all powerful 50cent (come on, it's FI'RIcent) is there.

The pre-show performance that Albanian rappers (NR, K-OS, BimmBimma, Tingulli3, Real1 & DJ Blunt) put on display just showed how they are: 1) scared, 2) lost, 3) unprepared for a crowd of +20,000. I don't blame them, in fact, I support them a lot even if some of them really suck. K-OS were constantly promoting their new album/single, and when they brought Nora "Rrezik" Istrefi on stage, the crowd went nuts. She must have been nuts for going out dressed as if it was 28C and not -8C, but i was assured that she was not harmed during her (almost) invisible/minor performance that sent people rioting (almost). K-OS handed out t-shirts, and at times it seemed as if they did not know if they should throw shirts or sing. BimBimma was lonely and lost and his mic-sound was so low that you could only listen to the beats. But i still like the guy, he has some interesting thoughts. NR light up the stage, partly because Ergen (member) said "Qifsha shkijet" and asked if they wanted to come now and "shoot us down with your snipers" - the crowd (almost all) liked that, but i laughed when he said that and was a bit shocked (and waited for the UNMIK guys to come and wash his mouth out with soap). But he is the most expressive one, and i really like how he raps. After G3nti said "Une jom qaj qe nana jote me adhuron", people started throwing stuff at him. I was not offended, but people were. Real1 was just killing time, telling people to say "Eh, Oh, Yeah, DJ-Blunt, etc." which was so repetitive. Even Vedat was onstage for NR's song of "Axha Sneq", and it was hilarious to see vedat rap like that. The locals were done for the night.

We were at the stands /VIP entrance, VIP stand, that had no benefit from other people/ from 6:20PM, and the show started at 7-8PM I think. It was soo sooo cold that time froze as well. It looked like 50cent was not coming, and I had this feeling that they will trick us again (it happened with other super-big DJs who were scheduled to come, but never did, and people were given a stupid excuse), and thought that they will bring another gorilla onstage (a fake 50cent double). Anyways, people were shouting their heads off, when some spotted the 17vehicle motorcade approaching the stadium. After some 30minutes of shouts, three guys (G-unit presumably) jumped onstage and people went really nuts, more nuts than independence-nuts. The visuals that were projected while these guys performed were to be admired: guns, flames, more guns, a lot more guns, diamonds, coin emblems of 50cent, women... 50cent was flashing his entire gun arsenal, that had only a nuclear warhead missing from the collection. There was a time when someone from the stage asked the crowd "Do you smoke weed?" twice. Of course we all do. The lights went green, visuals marijuana, and a Dr.Dre song was sung. But the lights, visual effects and the super sound made Prishtina stadium really loud and shinny. Being as gangsta as I could ever be, I danced (otherwise I would have frozen). Nita screamed her lungs out, but it was another defense mechanism against the cold i guess. Some time passed (an hour i think) and then the moment came: 50cent on stage! it was unbelievable, but it was true, he came! (i must admit that it was just after the half of his performance that i really believed that was 50cent - always had that feeling of "they're-gonna-fcuk-us-again-bastards!"). He sang all of his hits, partially, but he performed. No political statements, just his biggest hits that sent waves of hands up and down, up and down, now at the side, side, side, and up and down. the whole G-Unit/50cent dance was funny, because they looked like they were humping someone (us?). It was also funny to see how 50cent would shout: "now hold your hands up in the air", and gun-shot effects, as if "stick your hands up where I can see them" and then shooting the guy. but that's gangsta i guess. There were some fights that broke in the crowd, and i also saw a dance-off challenge that people threw to see who is the sickest dancer of the show. People found "other" ways to enter into the stadium, and it was almost packed.

My hunch is that the fireworks show (+all that smoke that came out) put on only seconds after 50cent said goodbye, was a way of distracting us as 50cent left the building. Nita was afraid that the firework pieces that were landing like crazy in the stadium would set her on fire. I reassured that i won't happen because we saw 50cent live. It was a great finish to a good concert, people were happy, parents secured that their children did not misbehave (how could they think that this concert is an ordinary one where people parade in good clothes, or no-clothes for that matter, instead of gun-shooting, marijuana-seeing, curse-words used and danced-to concert?).

Good times. Our legs froze, but that was some good times.

P.S.: BBC, Reutres and some other news agencies commented the story.

Ogilvyks

+ Bardhi's site

I don't know why, but this past week was a week that saw the launch of Ogilvyks - Ogilvy & Mather Kosova office - and Bardhi Haliti's online portfolio. Since bardhi is many miles away, we could not attend his website-launch gala-party, but we managed to go to Ogilvyks bowling, drinks and pancake party. Don't worry bardhi, we heard you served the best bread ever baked by a bread-baker. Fisi (resembling a slight version of an over-weight lead guy in the movie: 300), Gent (appeared three times in VALA's video commercials), and Visar worked for two years to finish the website. I cannot figure how a website could take that long to make, but there you go. We had drinks and hot cream/suxhuk topped pancakes kept coming in, and they were delicious. Visar spilled his strawberry juice all over Nita's (other one, seen next to Fisi in the pic) very expensive new shoes. I had some strawberry in my boots as well, but i did not remove it because the smell was good. All the fellows at Ogilvyks are swell guys, and super funny, and loud loud loud. We took over three bowling lanes, and I barely finished the game because my arm-strength shut down, as the game progressed. It is so sore and it aches a bit right now. 

Good luck with your new site Bardhi.

Good luck with your new site Ogilvyks.

Note: As I was writing this, i could not access Ogilvyks website. I think they're working on the Albanian version of the site as well. you just go guys.

SKENA UP
WRAP UP.
++++

It's the first time (or the second, not so sure), that SkenaUp is mentioned in this blog, so its best to write about its finale. November 27th saw the last day of the festival, and handed out awards to individuals the jury members were most impressed with. "Story of Tea" and “…the rest is silence” were the two plays that will stay here for a while, but i do not want to remember that much of the Iranian play (based on what we saw that night).
It is pleasing to see that Agon, the director for “…the rest is silence” won the price as the best play. Now, some might not agree on this, but there are always people that do not agree. The Serbian play "Story of Tea" was pretty good from my not-such-a-play-critic point of view. “…the rest is silence” was a play in which I felt (really felt) scared, at points. It was an eerie play, with two mute actors, who only screamed and cried. I especially liked the projector+actor combination, and the on-screen visual effects were done super good. As I try to rewind the play in my head, the sound of the gun-shot chills down my spine. It was a tale of deceit and suicide, where the wife betrays the man for another one, and the child is left in the middle of it. Worst of all, he knew what his mother had done. Agon (the director), involves his father in the play as well, giving him the role of the father that killed himself in the beginning of the play, and that is projected on-screen as the guy in the Wizard of Oz. Both parents commit suicide by blowing their heads off in the end. Sorry to spoil the ending, but it was such a gruesome ending.
Agon is such a talented up and coming play director, that deserved the prize.

it was not gonna be a "glorious" day from the beginning: it was freezing outside, ice-covered roads made proper walking very hard, and the construction on our newly radioactive town square had yet to finish. Academics and academic societies were beamed on tv screens as they blabbed about the importance of yester-day. not knowing what to do, we went to the cinema to see the Albanian-produced movie, "Mao Ce Dun". I don't know if it is a true story, but everything in that movie was true for Albania during the dictatorial reign of Enver Hoxha. Just from the title you could easily tell that the movie's setting is in the 80s, when communist Albania invited all the people of China people into their homes (reason: Chinese and Albanians were brothers back then. hard to imagine). The movie starts off by a woman giving birth to a son that would serve as a tool to have his father mingle with the people in the higher up (in the Government). Living next to a river, in a plastic-tent camp, with mud up to the knees, the charismatic and witty Hekuran decides to name his 9th son (from his second wife, Sulltane), as the Chinese great leader - Mao Ce Dun. As a simple nobody, dead-broke, and with nothing but raki, singing and dancing as his qualities, the Albanian communist party is delighted to hear that one of its citizens has named his son Mao Ce Dun. Even the Chinese Ambassador to Albania comes to visit him at his new apartment, which the communist party gave to him as a way to impress the visiting ambassador. It gets a lot weirder as the honest, quiet, and quite smart man twists and uses (without any intention) the benefits that the party suddenly grants him. Hekuran (Mao Ce Dung's father) sells the furniture of the apartment three times, and the stupid party members cannot do anything to him (except jail and torture their own members). The movie shows the fragility, superficiality and the big loopholes that the system created. It also showed how a man, without a single working day in his life, benefited a whole lot by just naming his son as the great Chinese leader. But as these systems work, you get all the benefits you request, then conspiracy theories about you start to circle (people at the Albanian communist party thought that Hekuran, the father of the famous boy, was conspiring against the great Albanian socialist nation and was backed up by the USofA, or Russia - the arch enemy).
As they sang and danced, the security came and took Hekuran away, with him not knowing why was he arrested, or why was he even given new clothes and house. Sulltane knew this was coming.
Then it was Creme de la Creme, for a glass of home-made wine and some good music.
"One for all, and all for one"- Hekuran used to say in the movie. He had such a Robin-Hood like figure, but he was a bum and a good-hearted guy who was really sharp, and knew how to get stuff from idiots from the Albanian Communist party.

It was a good way to spend your 28th day of November.
Today, Yugoslavia celebrates its day. Wherever she is.

SKENA UP
Theater and Movie Festival
+++
Day three

The annual theater and film festival "Skena Up", was supposed to start on November 17, coinciding with the Election Day. So, it was postponed for a later day. There seem to be quite interesting plays and movies, and the organizers really worked hard to continue doing this festival on a yearly basis. In the beginning, I must admit that I kind of had this feeling that this won’t last for a year or so. But it did and I’m glad. People have new places to go, and for a little while forget the smoke filled cafes that have become so ordinary. This year’s theme is dedicated to Faruk Begolli, a great actor that passed away a few months back. I wanted to go see the plays and moves from the first day so bad, but could not, but finally tonight nita and me managed to go see two plays: One was from Serbia: “The Story of Tea” (played at the ODA theatre – insert link), and the other one was from Iran: “The Last Royal Smile of the Moon” (played at the National Theater).

We were gonna see two plays at ODA Theatre, and actually we wanted to see a play that was directed by a friend of ours, but were surprised to find out that he was rescheduled at a later date.

We enjoyed the story of tea a lot (an adaptation of “The Three Sisters”), particularly the way the four actors moved and danced around, and they had great costumes. I don’t know much about acting, but you could easily tell that the three middle-aged/super-vital ladies, and the bald/Yugoslav named actor were real professionals. One of the actresses had more biceps muscles than me, and was super thin. The only male part of the play was acting in a quite feminine way as well. The performance was fantastic, as they depicted the wars/tragedies during the war in Bosnia. My eyes were watery at one moment, during a beautifully choreographed scene where a woman laid clothes and the others wept. The actors briefly explained the history of tea, and I was glad that they mentioned that green tea is good, because I drink a lot. Fresh/hot tea was handed to the public, and in the end, actors put candles on those cups of tea, making an eerie yet “in memoriam” scene for all of those who died during the wars. It was so perfectly performed and the story was implicitly stated. One more thing that’s worth mentioning is the bilingual dialogue the actors used: Most lines were in English, but then there were lines where they spoke in Serbian, which was okay. Pictures courtesy of Nita.



We rushed to get nita a pill for her headache, and then went to the other play at the National Theater. Roozbeh Nasseri’s play disappointed. The theater itself was cold /I could feel my nose freezing/, and the play was dull. It did not help that the whole act was in Iranian, which me and nita cannot understand. The music was awful – they choose songs that were shit, shit, and shit. Then the actors (more than six), did not impress. I slept for a minute or two, and then we left. I really did not want to do that, but if we stayed there a little longer, we would have slept or died from the cold.
The festival is running until the 27^th of November. So there should be lots of great movies/plays to go and see.
+++

TOPIC: ELECTIONS
DAYS PASSED: 4
SIDE: WINNER'S
++

A couple of days passed and both people and politicians cannot stop talking about the elections. don't blame them, since what else is there anything to talk about around here /lots/? i confess that even i had a hard time trying to stay away from all that /but i voted/, but most of the time i could steer away from hard-boiled conversations where one side tries to defend what they lost, and the other beats its chest about the victory. I had no clue who is was gonna vote for, but I had a 10min walk to the polling station to make up my mind. Since my last post, election results have not changed much:

PDK is still leading by a 12% margin over LDK;
AKR is waiting in line for that invitation to form a government;
ORA has been sent to the emergency room for some finger-nail and hair implants.

But, that's how people voted. Now, a lot of people ask me who did i vote for /most of the people here tend to ask that question and they tell you who they voted for even if the question is not asked to them/. It was strange because in the beginning i did not want to vote > i only changed my mind when i figured that i could inflict more damage if i voted, than if i did not vote. This time round, people that are around me, felt more joyous, more inclined to tell that they voted PDK, and some were just still shocked about ORA's performance. This is the first time after 8 years, that people punished the big guy for not doing what they are supposed to do. Now again, a lot of people say that there is not a clear line that distinguishes the previous winners (LDK), to the new ones (PDK), and that might be true, but the previous party led the /country/ for 8 years and we were not bathing in the things they promised.

stick/
stick/
stick/

i'm kind of curious what the new government will do differently from the last one, but if they under-perform or fail to keep the promises, well, i just hope that people will not vote for them. no matter what party they belong to.

KOSOVA ELECTIONS ARE OVER&OVER.
++
the results keep coming in. everyone has his or her number, but one thins is official:
The momentum has shifted, the balance has tipped!
These are the current stats that are circulating on the media frequencies and people's tongues.
PDK 37% / LDK 22% / AKR 15% / LDD 10% / AAK 9% / ORA 4%

PDK gained, and they're happy about this.
LDK lost ground, and are in ass-kicking mode towards LDD.
AKR are the surprise that is now standing on the shoulders of giants?
ORA is engaged in a fingernail-eating frenzy.

official results are yet to follow, but these preliminary results will not change for a large %.
now i can sleep.

++
honesty.honey

i was in the school's fourth-floor bathroom, unzipping to perform the pre-exam urination ritual.
lights went out. my world was my toilet seat. there i stood, half an inch outside my target, like in a dream. a very weird dream. who i feel really sorry for is for the nice cleaning ladies. had to run for the exam. hate it when the lights do that!

+++
Hallofween bash at Olta's. sip sip and sip some more. me and nita were two goth/zombies.

+++
The next day. Skopje, Macedonia.

view from my triangular-shaped workplace.

+this is how
it should be.

+bayram.

i thought i might get more sleep today because i felt better, but that did not happen. RATS! anyways, today was bajram - a festive muslim holiday. i don't want to get into all the details of explaining that. i was happy because i saw my cousins Bert and Ben, my newly appointed security adviser uncle, and my grandpa and grandma. their garden looked lovely - oh, so lovely, i would live there - and we ate specially made treats, some of which were hand-made by my two young cousins /the deserts had deformed shapes, but they were sweet/. i also got a phone call from vesa, a cousin who has the luck to call croatia her home and have a croatian passport, and told me that my online order had arrived! (i gave the address of her father's workplace in Osijek, Croatia, because packages do not arrive in Prishtina, Kosova). so happy, historical online-purchase moment for me, and probably my family. but they were not aware about that. later, ate lunch with my brother and parents. people usually make tons of food for this kind of holiday, but my mother made enough, not too much, and i was not hungry that much. all i wanted was some sleep. and sleep came, in the form of a one hour nap, that could have gone into a serious night-sleep, but i did not let that happen. the city was crowded, music up loud, mud on the ground, cars carrying people and mud to places, drinks drinks drinks and drinks some more! as we were cruising with eluise, a group of young people were running amok and were jaywalking, running. eluise passed the streetlights, and suddenly, she herd a bump in her back door: a boy that was running like crazy had just crashed/splatted himself into eluise's rear left door! it was such a bang that scared the jeepers out of me and nita, and made us feel so so sad. luckily, the boy was off and running by the minute he hit the car, and just kept running like he was being chased by wilderbeasts. we felt sorry for the guy, but also hated him for scaring us so badly. man. anyways, we wanted to do something else, to escape from the usual bayram-routine, and i did. me and nita chose the cinema as our date with this holiday. there were hardly any people, so we had a cool cinema-party-movie-watching night! knocked up, made me bite my tongue a couple of times. it was fun. glad it's over.
another exam is on my trail, but i will lose it this Sunday. muddy Sunday.
for all of you that missed this day, here's some treats. enjoy.

+done.

just done with a commodity market exam. it was plain easy, but my eye has an, well, eye to miss details and screw up the answers. then i hate myself, but not that much. today was also the last day of my job at MDA. over the week that i went there and stayed a while, i was pretty emotional about leaving them. they treated me with respect, and i'm thankfull that i've been part of that great and growing company for the past 16months.
so full of germs ruin my body-party and brain-dance. the bird flu, sorry, the flu, has hit my entire defence mechanism and i think i'm loosing that battle. i won't succumb at this stupid flu, weather-caused probably, and dust-particle assisted as well. makes my legs all shivery, shivery to cold, cold to hot and the all over again.
can't wait to start on the new job. new week. next week.

alas! t'was joe's birthday. was.
+++
so we were like: joe, we are gonna tear Prishtina apart!
joe was like: but i love Prishtina, more than Tirana even, why tear it apart?
we were like: dude! it's your birthday-day!
and he was like: oh yeah! totally forgot! damn, fetch, motherfetcher fetch! let's do it dudes! lets..
we ALL were like: PARTEEEY!
let's go!
min-e was in the zone, and she was behaving in a way proper cars behave. birthday-day dude and bardhi dude came down, and got in, music up, wheels off! the joscef was looking shinier than his castor self that day of days. it was a sign we were ready to roll. since it was a special day, we did not make the usual stops (ginger, retro, bakery, retro, strip?, zcaffe?), but we changed the route (ginger, bakery, retro, retro, aroma!). at ginger, we saw that mathematics et cetera cds were flying off shelves like the breaking ice-shelves in Greenland! that fast. they needed another batch of 10,000 copies. man, that joscef had really made it in Prishtina. sold more copies that meda himself. amazing! we said hi to gingerguys, and gingerthedog said hi and bye at the same time, which was quite confusing. did i forget to mention that joscef played a sold out crowd earlier this summer at ginger's back garden? it's true. i forgot to mention that.
as great as that friday-day was, the bakery were so kind as to treat us all to chocolate-chip cookies, chocolate sufle!, cheese sandwiches and, oh man, the most heavenly cheesecake our taste buds tasted! we all wanted to go, live at the bakery and make cakes forever, and ever for. nita drew a painting of us eating cake. bardhi ate more cake, and i wanted to eat more cake. joe sang a cake-song.
retro was next. joscef was constantly phacebook chatting with this mysterious friend he was talking about. "joe, if you don't leave that wireless technology off your mind and soul, we will not cut more pieces of cake for your birthday". and so he did. another place trashed, and it was time to pay for the cokes and move on to our next spot. nita must have been partying too hard, because she could not remember where she left her wallet, (actually, min-e stole it from her. I'll deal with you later min-e, and hand you proper amnesty-international bound justice), so she could not pay for the drink. as amazing as joscef is, he took out his wallet full of fliff! and just started spending as much fliff as your braincells could comprehend! $ching$ching$ching$swish!$
strip depo was welcoming as well. but we did not stay there too long. crappy music is for crappy people. we don't belong in that group, of people. aroma had great sandwiches which we ate and took some with us. aurora sucks! and you know what i mean by that!
long story. make it short? It was one fun-day-of-a-day. we wish you all the best joe. we wish you a place in Prishtina, and a sandy, beach-house in Dhermi. come back. this is what we independence-craving people of Kosova call a parteeyy! time well spend. more than that even. peanuts, and coke, and other beverages were at our disposal.

we were like: dancy dances for everyone and sing-alongs!
joe was like: kosova is cool!est!
bardhi was like: cannot talk. mouthful. eating cake, lots of cake and bread and ajvar.
nita was like: what? joe? strsh-strsh joe!
i was like: everybody else was like: we were like: good times were like: passed.

great glory of all glory decorated glore-objects!
i found my long-lost ID, driving license and credit card, all stacked together in the underground parking garage at my father's workplace. it reassured me that my mental abilities to rewind the memory tape is still on /which is more than just flickering/.

i told the bank that i found my card,
i tried to tell the police that i found my stuffs,
i tried to drink a whole water-mellon with one sip.
++

back home/
similarities
++++++++
two hours after i got back home, i lost my id, driving license and credit card, all-in-one. this reminded me of another minor "incident" we had while we were going to mavrovo: having to travel an extra 30km of mountain-road because of some navigational problems we had, almost two hours before we arrived at our destination. no more min-e or eluise. at least for a week.

had to wake up too early today. carried and counted governmental newspaper editions. which - again - reminds me of the time yesterday, that i had to carry and count cosmetics/hair products from a "long-vehicle" truck. i also saw this dream that a real good friend of mine chipped his tooth. so scary. exams are near, so i better run fast. i loved this trip because i got to meet one of the beeeeaaarstrooonauuuuts! space crew member. i love the professors brothers. so good!

i want to bubble my way into a real royal jacuzzi.