Man, I'm so psyched about everything "PACKAGE". As soon as the word "PACKAGE" comes up, I'm really ready to flip. It has become one of the words that I associate with exams, your aunts that you don't like or the guilt of letting a banana half-eaten on top of the refrigerator. Seriously, you don't want to use the word "package" around in these coming 2 days. It is so amazing how peoples' attention are shifted to someone who uses the word "PACKAGE". Man, the "PACKAGE" scares the hell out of me.

PACKAGES
ARE
OUR
FRIENDS.
BUT
WHY DO
OUR
FRIENDS
COME
IN
PACKAGES?

Today I went to Fushe Kosova, a small town on the outskirts of the industrial zone of Prishtina. Reason: get my driver's license back after paying a 25 euro fine. There were lots of people on the narrow/overcroded streets, and there were even more surrounding a young man as he was speaking from the top of his lungs so that all of the gathered could hear. A big box was in front of him, and a dummy wearing a box with the pictures of Mr. Ahtisari was right next to him. Maps of Kosova were visible, and this whole scene signified one thing: VETEVENDOSJA was out doing what it does best - communicating thought provoking messages that could easily spiral into violent ideas by not rational individuals. It is their right to do that, even if it involves covering a dummy's head with a package, and displaying the "Ahtissari Package" in fron of all that crowd.

SORRY N.KOREANS. NO MORE COGNAC, IPODs, FINE WINES, AND FAST CARS FOR YOU.
YOU BAD BAD NUCLEAR BOMB TESTERS.

Saturday. January 27th, 3:13 PM

Saturday. January 27th, 2:52 PM

I JUST HAD MY BIG TOE NUMBED OUT BY A NEEDLE. THEN THE DOCTOR GOT HIS KNIFE AND OPERATED ON MY IT.

It was not big deal. A minor operation, lasted about 30minutes. I kept asking if I was able to play soccer tomorrow, and they laughed. Sarcastic. My big toe is still numb, but I am starting to feel a little tickelish feeling now. This is the first time that I saw how my flesh is sliced and diced, which is not nice. I apologize if you I added to many details of the whole procedure. Hey, you might want to know stuff before you have something like this. Like, I'm offering you an insight into this. Wow, I'm writing if I was a war veteran hit by a granade that cut his entire leg down to the bone. Yeah.

NEPALESE AND SOCCER

It is so strange when you did not try the foreign restaurants that opened here. A Nepalese Restaurant in Prishtina? Yeah. There is one, and thanks to Peter and Julia, I had some delicious dish, the name of which I cannot remember. Next, we will go to the Japanese and then Chinese restaurant. The soccer match started at 10:00. I finished my Nepalese dish at 9:34. My digestional system requires at leas 12 hours to process all the food. I though that it would be impossible to play, kick, and run around the soccer field. But the food was delicious, and it did not give my stomach a hard time. For all of you that want to try Nepalese food, they're in Qafa, the second floor.

Saying

"ONCE YOU'VE BURNT YOURSELF WITH HOT MILK,
YOU'LL CRY EVERY TIME YOU SEE A COW."

Mavie, a really good friend of mine from Rosario, Argentina, told me this today. It is a spanish saying.

I HATE MORNINGS. I REALLY TRY TO HUG THEM REAL TIGHT, AND MAKE THEM MY FRIENDS, BUT SERIOUSLY, I JUST CAN'T WIN THEM OVER. I'M TRYING TO ADAPT TO THIS SAD FACT.

Bad-camera-luck continues.

- I HAD A CAMERA STOLEN FROM ME ON ELECTION DAY. IT WAS NOT MINE. I DON'T VOTE NOW.
- A CAMERA'S LENS BROKE WHILE I WAS USING IT. IT WAS NOT MINE AGAIN.
I BOUGH A CAMERA A FEW MONTHS AGO. GUESS WHAT,
- IT HIT THE GROUND TODAY, AND NOW SOME BUTTONS DO NOT WORK.
BUT I CAN STILL TAKE PICTURES. MERELY.

Feeling sick.

Toilete paper roll for you runny nose. What a way to spend the weekend.

YES. I'VE JOINED MILLIONS OF OTHERS IN...

"The iPhone Pandemic". Who cares if CISCO has filed a patent infringment lawsuit against Apple. iPhone kicks mobile phones' asses. Just pinch me.

Click to watch the 4min. presentation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgW7or1TuFk

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

PUBLIC FINANCE CLASS: INCOME SUPPORT FOR THE POOR

Who is poor? In Kosova, If you live with less than 94 cents a day, then you are extremely poor. This constitutes about 15% of the population. If you make 42 euros monthly, then you are poor (1.42euros daily). 40% of the population are in this group.
This is according to the professor, who deals with these statistical data from the ministries. During the lesson, Ereblina, a friend of mine, showed me this book she received as a gift, titled: " Transcendental Meditation" by Maharashi Mahesh Yogi, a guy who thinks that the state of man is joy. A passage on economis said that economics should be perfected if it could create an abundance of materials, not distributing the ones that are already scarce. Can we make more oil, or other resources? Probably not, but that does not mean that we cannot use other renewable resources and replace the scarce resources with some other more abundant one. This is quite a thought by Maharashi Mahesh Yogi. He also stated that even If the man had all the material wealth, he would still not be happy. That's when the Transcendental Meditation comes into question. He sparked the whole Transcendental Meditation Movement. Beach Boys, Beatles, Clint Eastwood and David Lynch are few of the million practicioners. Neat.

English Language Learner's

"pizzazz" or "pizazz"

Function: noun [noncount]
Status: informal
Meaning: the quality of being exciting or attractive
Examples:
The young actress has a lot of pizzazz.
The song has plenty of pizzazz.

Just got the daily email of the English Language Learner's Word-of-the-Day and found this word. Could they possibly be mistaken with this word for a simple pizza +extra "zz" for that extra taste and maybe super-extra large size. "Can I have the special Pizza with quadruple z's? Oh, and don't hold the cheese." Merriam-Webster doesn't think so.

weird dream.

Having a turkey, then a peacock attack you in your office is not a dream you wish you remembered.

"Well, I won't talk to you anymore...

... I will just shoot my mouth and not say a word"
- nita.

This sentence can find its way into many usages during a complex, unintended conversation. Yes, it's funny, but it kind of stuck in my mind and it really gives a sentence a eerie meaning.

took a shower and now I'm feeling better.

"I washed away last years dirt and now I'll let myself be covered in this year's dirt."

CNN: The U.S. military on Sunday announced its 3,000th fatality from the Iraq war.

"On Monday, the military said two soldiers were killed Sunday in an explosion in Iraq's Diyala province, north of Baghdad, bringing the death toll to 3,002."
"More than 22,000 other U.S. troops have been wounded in Iraq since the war began nearly four years ago. "
"The war has also claimed the lives of about 250 allied troops, more than half of them British."
"Estimates of Iraqi dead range from about 50,000 to several hundred thousand."

Isn't the number game fun? It makes you remember the number, and the problem is that, it just remains a single large number (in your head). These numbers might portray a sad fact, but nothing compared to the sad fact that lies underneath these large numbers.
HappyNewYearYeahRight.

BBC: A "molecular condom" to protect women against HIV is being developed by US scientists.

"The liquid formulated by a University of Utah team turns into a gel-like coating when inserted into the vagina."

"SpIFF to open with a feel for Kosovo". KUKUMI is scheduled to open the 2007 Spokane International Film Festival. Read it from spokane7.com/movies

Costume party at SPRAY.

Banksy's Wall and Piece

Such a controversial/provoking/simple book. Thank you Partin for this great gift. You are a great friend.

Semaine du Cinéma Français

The film french week came to a close on Saturday. There were a total of eight movies and i saw only a measly one movie. The movie however turned out not to be measly at all, but quite frustrating and nerve-wrecking in the beginning and then it gradually moved into a mellow state and then there was real drama and movement in the end. French movies do that to you: beat you up real good in the beginning and then they feed you crossants and wine in the end, and i still love them. The movie was called TRAVAUX: on sain quand ca commence or Housewarming.

It's good that ABC Cinema in here throws a couple of foreign movie weeks in a year.

A bit of London runs around

Vala900 Revamped!

This is the new VALA logo (previously known as VALA900). The whole VALA corporate image change was done by Ogilvy Kosova, part of the Ogilvy&Mather Worldwide.

Gurrakoc the Great!

Once again, it is the time that i embark on my frivulous journeys in Kosova. I somehow feel a bit of pride because i've been to so many places that i never knew existed, places that were so sharply contrasted with Prishtina, that you thought you were actually traveling to some other place. I was in Gurrakoc this time round, because we are with a local chips producing company "LuKo Chips" (would advise you to try one, but at your own risk). First, Gurrakoc is a village on the road from Peja to Istog. Second, it is like any other village: poor, almost no infrastructure and the locals can barely survive. Still, the more you see these things, the better picture you can build of what is the real situation of the place you are living in. Sure, the government comes up with all these figures of economic development, but when you see how are things on the ground, the "economic development" sort of dissapears from your mind. Gurrakoc the Great, a small village where a struggling patato chips producer from Switzerland is located. LukoChips gave us a basket of chips. That's something.

Polonium-210

Got it from www.dronecorp.com

polonium-craze!

An ex-KGB spy died of polonium, this mysterious yet so famous poisoning chemical substance. It was sad, but it happened. I thought that this story might die out with the ex-KGB spy's death, but on the contrary, the wheel of mystery just keeps on spinning. Check the headlines I read today from a BBC article:
"Polonium affects four in Germany"
"A car, understood to be used by Mr Kovtun, has tested positive for the radioactive substance polonium-210."
"Airplanes contaminated with polonium-210"
"Traces were also discovered in his ex-wife's Hamburg flat and the home of Mr Kovtun's former mother-in-law in the town of Haselau, west of Hamburg"

I also read that they will make a documentary series with Mr.Litvinenko's polonium-210 affair. And this story keeps on growing and changing countries and people. I don't mind this, because it is turning up to be THE story of the year, but i think (subjective) that there are massive cover-ups taking place for stuff that some people don't want to be shown. Politics.