we are the 99 %

Some recent additions to we are the 99 %.
You can find these entries there, but I add them anyways just for example.

Architectural Failures

This is actually a newly built residential complex in Shanghai, China. 

On the morning of June 27, 2009, one of the buildings toppled over, just barely missing an adjacent building. Had it not missed, it might have caused a horrifying domino effect.

The building that fell just awaited tenants to move in and therefore only one person died in the accident and a few more were injured.

This is a hotel in Las Vegas, featuring unique curved structure.

However on a sunny day inner surface of building collects solar rays and projects them as a ray into the swimming pool area, regularly burning skin and possessions of guests. Thankfully, no casualties there.

French

Je n'ai pas écrit quelque chose en français pendant un an. J'ai l'habitude de lire des articles et des livres en français. Autre que cela, je n'utilise pas beaucoup le français.
Aujourd'hui, j'ai lu quelques articles en français et a décidé de voir ce qu'il reste de ma connaissance.

J'ai été complètement déçu.
J'ai appris le français dans les jours d'école.
D'une certaine manière ma capacité à écrire en français a été réduit à de simples phrases. Quand j'écris, je dois arrêter et vérifier les livres de grammaire ou de dictionnaires, même si, quand je lis, je me sens confortable et presque confiante.

Je n'ai jamais utiliser le français pour travaille et dans dernièrement j'ai rarement l'utiliser du tout.
Être capable de comprendre une langue est une chose; être capable de l'utiliser est une autre chose.

Je me dis souvent «Je peux apprendre le français si je fais un effort». Mais est-ce vrai?

[Mais aujourd'hui j'ai enfin rappelé pourquoi je écrivent parfois «confortable» (en anglais) au lieu de «comfortable»] ^^

Android

It is convenient using android device for text input and blogging. How do you think why lately I write so many short posts?
And swear at XT9?
Too bad the application i am using now doesn't support posting to 2 blogs at a time.

Well well well. Now XT9 insists there is no word "blog". Kinda funny I find it.

Certain places

As J.Jerome once wrote I don't want George know I said it but. . . When I enter halls in some apartment buildings I feel an urge to never enter them again.
Urine stink, syringes, other stuff like that. . . I begin to feel lucky to be born where I have been born.

Another quote from poodle god

The first bird gets the worm, but only the second mouse gets the cheese.

Basking in the sun

I just adore my cat when she is lying on the windowsill. Cats basking in the sun are the most jolly and cute cats.

Head in the clouds

Last few days I have been daydreaming most of the time. Daydreaming as in "having my head preoccupied with minor things and stuck on something that doesn't really matter". So now I have things piled up on me till Wednesday.

Getaway

How great it would be if I could come home once and do not bother with cooking or cleaning or washing up.
If I could come home and everything - dinner, supper, laundry - would be done.
Sometimes my head goes round when I try to remember all the things I need to remember. Work, housekeeping, paying the bills. It's even more vexing because I have almost no income myself lately. Meaning amount of my income depends on other people. Not that I don't earn it...
Guess now I know what they call "getaway".

Life and problems

This whole situation is getting on my nerves.
I am sick of waiting for some celestial hammer to fall - either on us or on our opponents.
I am sick of waiting for something bad to happen.
This whole lifestyle is almost unbearable.
Waiting for doom to fall is the most unnerving occupation. . .
I just wanna breathe free. At least for a while.
As A said today slavic countries have a kick for solving problems and they take life as one continuous problem. Never ending nightmare.
I am sick of it.

Work #2

As tired as I am now I still maintain the ability to think straight. Wonderful isn't it?
Oh yeah sure.
Did my flash work. Should be proud of myself, but I am not really. All the embedding work was done using standard procedures. And yet it works.
Will require some polishing though.
If i am lucky one project will be completed tomorrow.

夜の散歩

私は今日は7月1日だと忘れていました。

そしてぴったり午前1時で私のインターネットと携帯電話が動作しなくなってしまいました。
私は料金を支払っていなかったので, プロバイダがサービスを停止しました。
それで真夜中には, payboxを探すため地下鉄の駅へ行きました。

色々な人達を見て, 夜の街の経験を受けて, 面白くてちょっとだけ恐ろしい夜の散歩になりました。

どのような人達を見たのかは後で話します。

on html and css

Sometimes when I read something like this:

.arrow-left {

width: 0;

height: 0;

border-top: 10px solid transparent;

border-bottom: 10px solid transparent;

border-right:10px solid blue;

}

I think that some people got nothing better to do.

Ok, this example is primitive, but I saw a demo of multicolor icons done via css 3 transformations and pseudo elements.

The question is... what for? To show off? We came to era of advanced graphics just to get back to drawing in primitive shapes?

Ofc I understand that they implemented all those transformation possibilities not just for people who dislike pictures in their designs, but also to make some tasks simpler, but ... BUT.

I prefer to take it as in: 'if they don't show off the features nobody would use them and they would occasionally die'.

Ofc html 5 and css 3 were implemented for people to use them. But I hate to think how long it would take at least countries like USA to switch to full support of them. By that time I guess html 7 would be out ^^. And here... in a country where majority of office workers with win XP still use IE6 >.<

I can't afford using any of it. That's why I didn't learn many 'new tricks and ticks' yet. What's the point in knowing how you COULD do it when you know you WON'T?

Though I patiently wait for IE6 to vanish. Slowly learning new things...

----

I just checked. Statistically (my sites only though) 50% of users who browse the net using IE use IE6.

Strangely enough since the last time I checked (about 3 months ago) Opera is now the most common browser (though it beats firefox by 2-3%, which is nothing really). Next is Firefox. Then IE.

Now the chart looks like this:

Opera 30(-33)%

11+ 85%

10.? 15%

Firefox 30%

5.0 35%

4.? 20%

3.? 45%

IE 20%

6.0 50%

8.0 35%

7.0 10%

9.0 5%

Chrome 15%

Others  …

Meaning at least 10% of our auditory uses IE6. Some would say 'it's not much'.  

Tough it depends. Ask anyone - having extra 10% visitors and potential buyers is better than having 0% extra visitors and potential buyers.

Usual scenario: your contractor himself uses brand new or almost brand new notebook, while his workers use XP and IE6 to work. And since they will have to work with site and know nothing new, want nothing new, etc. you should optimize for IE6. And they heard it all can work in IE 6 as well. You just have to work on it, but that is what you are here to do, right? To work?

Each time it happens I struggle not to send them to hell. But hey - I'm still not in the position to choose too much. At least not for reasons like this...

Ok, that was spin-off. I admit it. But this time I'd be building a site that works in IE 7 or even 8 and Firefox 3.5+ which is a change. Time to be glad? Though I'm not... not too much.

On Russia and Ukraine

The main reason why you shouldn't bother with Russia and Ukraine is not only crime rate - which is constantly rising - and minority problems.

The main reason why I am ashamed of being Ukrainian with Russian ancestors is mentality of *our* people. There's even a joke that says sth like: 'If you toss Americans, Jews and Russians into a deep muddy pit, one American would crawl over heads of other Americans and wouldn't bother helping others; if at least one Jew would get out, he would help other Jews out; and if one Russian would get out over heads of other Russians, he would make sure none would get out after him'. Sadly, it is too true regarding most of population of Russia and Ukraine.

People here do not give a damn about each other, even friends and often relatives. The only thing that concerns people here is making money(for rich)/surviving(for poor) even if it means walking the bones.

Thus never-ending political and social instability: rich too busy squeezing money from poor no matter the cost; poor too busy making money on other poor people to survive.
People care less than shit about anything that doesn't concern them directly.

Examples? Well...
When I was a schoolgirl my friends and I saw a middle-aged normally dressed man collapse in the street near the entrance to underground station - a very busy place. But people kept walking by, some were cursing 'damn drunkards', some were making fun of slumped figure. When I started to move towards the man to see if he's ok my friends tried to stop me saying 'why do you bother? you wanna get involved in it?', but I went anyway. When I squatted near the man to feel his pulse and see what's wrong some woman started yelling that I was trying to rob a man and that I was a 'young whore'. I tried to tell them that a man here had a stroke or something and that they should help, but people started yelling at me to get hand off him. That yelling attracted attention to me and a policeman appeared from somewhere in two or three minutes (from the underground station most likely).
He first asked me what I was doing and if I was the man's relative. After I said he just collapsed and no I wasn't, he told me to go away if I don't wanna spend the whole day filling in blanks and that he will call the ambulance. Nobody bothered until then.
That's something about how people treat strangers here.

And another example...
When my mother collapsed and was dying at her workplace (you might have read my journals earlier this year) everyone - colleagues, administration - waited for more that 10 minutes to call the ambulance. Why? Because if they call an ambulance to a enterprise it is a reason for future inspection and inspection means spending money. They felt her pulse getting weaker, but did nothing as administration hoped situation would solve itself. Some of the people that were present there worked with my mother for 20 years - and yet they didn't bother calling ambulance from their mobile phones, because administration told them 'no ambulance'. And only when her heart stopped, they understood they would have to call for help and started calling ambulance. It took them 15 minutes. Of course when ambulance arrived it was too late.
And when we tried to address police telling them that it was failure to render assistance situation they told us 'not to bother, because you wouldn't be able to prove nothing'. No one would be a witness that there really was a command 'no ambulance', because that would mean losing a job.
My acquaintance's mother died while private ambulance team was waiting for his father to fetch money to pay them; they didn't bother moving a finger watching a woman bleed out until they got their money. And again you can prove nothing.

Bottom line: you shouldn't bother with these countries and their population, because no good would come of it.

A Song of Ice and Fire #2

I have finished reading 4th book of A Song of Ice and Fire.
Impressions?

Too long. It is my main impression.
Many things that happen are just fillers, like 'this character would be useful in the next book, so he has to do something in this one. Many characters feel like fillers too.
Many things happen erradically.
Many choices characters make are at least illogical.

Also characters' images change from book to book, and change too drastically. People change, oh yeah.
But after Cersei is portrayed as ambitious and vile b#tch in first book you do not expect her to switch to stupid and shortsighted b#tch in fourth... And so on.


After you've read second book you begin to notice that story goes like this: 'slow slow slow slow slow slow ka-boom slow slow slow slow slow slow slow slow slow slow slow slow ka-boom slow slow slow'. So you have to read tons of pages of fillers to reach something meaningful. And when you reach that meaningful, everything goes upside down.

Characters that move the story change in each book, but imho in fourth author had the worst combination. Cersei, Brienne, Samwell, Arya, Jaime, Sansa. Choose one that's the most interesting, heh? Or rather choose one that's the least irritating. My choice would be... Jaime. Arya's story could be interesting, if she wasn't just a filler for future use.

So overall A Song of Ice and Fire gets 6/10.
I thought it'd be better. And now having read these 7000 pages I get to think that maybe movie adaptation wasn't bad at all. It was shorter :)

Below you'll find visual representation (in tv series' terms) of main characters. Of course, as they appeared in Game of Thrones tv series. 
If you ask me why they made all children at least 4 years older I've found an answer: if they were showing with young actors WHAT those kids did in the book they'd get banned from tv :)

A Song of Ice and Fire

Recently (in a week or so) I've been reading George R. R. Martin's 'A Song of Ice and Fire'.

By now I finished reading 1st book and read about 2/3 of 2nd. [Update: I finished reading 4th book by now]

Still I have no idea why I keep reading it.

I hate to spoil your fun if you're planning to watch 'Game of thrones' TV series, but seriously... in TV adaptation there's almost nothing but boobs. Oh yeah! They occasionally show cocks too... Thus the rating yeah?

The book itself started to get on my nerves after I ruled out their little secret of 1st book (prince's) and read why Kingslayer is STILL alive. Or rather ... *why* king Robert's court is like it is. 

That was almost enough to make me stop reading.

I hate stories for children. 

I bore with it and waited for interesting parts to begin, because less than half heroes had interest for me. I bore with twisted balance between historically correct medieval world and 'magic'. I bore with children, yes, with children, who were either too old or too young for their young age. Meaning I didn't buy children's parts of the story. Except for Arya maybe. And Jon is not a child in a full sense of this word.

...but... 1st book lacks common sense more than anything.

I often had an impression that author sat in his chair and thought: 'we need an unexpected twist here, so he/she will do the least likely thing now'. There're times when you read something you didn't expect and think 'yes, I see it happening', though not in this case. Some events were planned as story turning milestones and have no logical connection whatsoever to other actions of heroes. Or so it seemed to me.

Well, that pretty much spoils it all. They story turns and twists, but I lost most of the interest in how it all ends in the first half of the book.

So I persisted on reading it only because we started watching Game of thrones and it had even worse storyline. I think scenarios for TV series were made by someone who never read the book. They took main event of each one chapter and filmed it, leaving most of the book behind the scenes. Motivations, secondary events that led to main events, etc. Also since series are low budget they cut out most interesting scenery.

And characters... became paper dolls that speak. 

Therefore an answer I posed to myself at the top of this post is... I'm reading it because I'm bored and I have to fill my head with something.

I can't cook all my free time.

Also... it is kinda educating to read something you don't like, but you know that it has commercial success. Makes one think.

Oh yeah... I laughed at a miss in first episodes of Game of thrones. When Jon speaks to Jaime near blacksmith's anvil he starts his speech with one beard and finishes with another one... makes one wonder who's filming it.

恐喝

最近、私の友達の事務所で「インスペクション」が起きました。 この友達は法律上の小企業を経営しています。
「インスペクション」の隊員が直接「金が欲しい」と言ってきたのですが、金を払わないと会社の閉鎖が決まった事になります。

実は、このような事例はウクライナで普通の事になっています。
担当者の要求した金額は、友達の会社の1か月の収益よりも大きく、友達は難しい選択に直面しています。
この人たちは来月にまた来る可能性もあるので、金を払うのはいけません。

でも払わないとどんな状況になるでしょうか。

今

お母さんが亡くなった日から苦しいままであった。
「時間が全てを癒す」という言葉を知っているけど、寂しくて苦しすぎる。二週間ほどんど、何も変わっていない。
お父さんはいつも「俺は何かをしたら、別の方にいくかもしれない」という。
彼も同様私も悪くないと信じてほしい。
私の人生に対する考え方が変わった。

死者の心は、どこに行くの。

ずっと前にこの質問した、答えは誰も知らないだろう。
あなたは何か宗教を信じているか。私は宗教はなど信じないとおもう。
それで、私のお母さんの死を受け入れる事ができると、何をしたらいいだろう。

今は、私と私の夫がお父さんの所に住んでいる。子供の頃この家に住んでいた私幸せそうな子供だった。今突然家の持ち主になった。
その上、お父さんと何をしたらいいの。このままにしておけないのよ。
でも今の私には良い考えがない。

私のお母さんが心臓の病気で亡くなりました

今、もっとも悲しい私のある事情についてのエントリーを書いています。
5月16日、私のお母さんが心臓の病気で亡くなりました。
52歳で亡くなりました。若すぎると思っても、人生は人生ですね。
5月16日の朝、お母さんの同僚が私に電話で「彼女が意識を失った、直に来て」と言ってくれました。お母さんの事務所に届いたまで、全ては終わりました。実は、私は救急車と同じ瞬間でやってきました。救急車が現れるまで３０分近く待たされた・・・
言葉を捜しても、別に何も言わなくてもいいでしょう。
彼女の葬式には大勢の人が参列しました。
同僚なんて、一年でお母さんの事を忘れてしまうと思います。仕事とか同僚とか・・・結局、悲しみに家族は一人ぼっちです。

Kalafina - Magia (lyrics + перевод на русский)

Несколько заметок о переводе.
Во-первых, 君 (kimi) я перевела как "ты" в женском роде. Почему? Потому что мне представилось, что песня о главной героине аниме (это ведь ED Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika). Вы можете трактовать песню, как обращенную к лицу мужского пола. Все равно в японском это не определено.
Во-вторых, 願い (negai) я перевела как "мольба", хотя наиболее часто употребимый перевод - "желание". Это мое имхо. Имхо - "мольба" вписывается сюда лучше.



いつか君が瞳に灯す愛の光が
Когда-нибудь свет любви, что ты зажгла в своих глазах,
時を超えて
Пройдет сквозь время и
滅び急ぐ世界の夢を
Спешащего погибнуть мира мечту
確かに一つ壊すだろう
Одну обязательно разрушит, правда?

躊躇いを飲み干して
Испив до дна свои сомнения,
君が望むものは何?
Чего же ты желаешь?
こんな欲深い憧れの行方に
Будет ли у столь жадно жажданного пути
儚い明日はあるの?
Мимолетное завтра?

子供の頃夢に見てた
Виденную в детском сне,
古の魔法のように
Древней магии подобную,
闇さえ砕く力で
Силу, что разбивает тьму,
微笑む君に会いたい
Улыбающуюся тебя хочу встретить

怯えるこの手の中には
В этих дрожащих руках
手折られた花の勇気
Храбрость смятого цветка
想いだけが頼る全て
Только на чувства надеюсь во всем
光を呼び覚ます
Свет пробуждает
願い
Мольба

いつか君も誰かの為に
Когда-нибудь и ты ради кого-то
強い力を望むのだろう
Возжелаешь огромной силы, правда?
愛が胸を捉えた夜に
В ночь, когда любовь сожмет грудь,
未知の言葉が生まれて来る
Не известные ранее слова родятся
迷わずに行けるなら
Если будешь идти, не сбившись с пути,
心が砕けてもいいわ
Даже если сердце и разобьется – не беда,
いつも目の前の哀しみに
Всегда находящейся перед глазами печали
立ち向かう為の
Чтобы противостоять
呪文が欲しい
Магическое заклинание хочу

君はまだ夢見る記憶
Память о тебе, еще видящей сны,
私は眠らない明日
Завтра, в котором не засну,
二人が出会う奇跡を
Ради нашей встречи чудо
勝ち取る為に進むわ
Вырвать – вот причина, почему я иду вперед

怯えるこの手の中には
В этих дрожащих руках
手折られた花の刃
Острие смятого цветка
想いだけが生きる全て
Только чувства еще живы
心に振かざす
В сердце и не дрогнула
願い
Мольба

囚われた太陽の輝く
В сиянии лишенного свободы солнца
不思議の国の本が好きだった頃
Волшебные страны из книг, которые когда-то любила,
願いはきっと叶うと
Научили, что желание обязательно исполнится
教えるおとぎ話を
И я в выдуманные сказки
信じた
Верила
（光と影の中）
(В свете и в тени)

静かに咲き乱れていた
Безмолвно отцвела
古の魔法 優しく
Древняя магия и нежно
世界を変える力が
«Сила, способная изменить мир,
その手にあると囁く
В твоих руках» шепчет

終わらない夢を見よう
Давай смотреть не заканчивающийся сон
君と行く時の中で
Во времени, где мы вместе идем
想いだけが生きる全て
Только чувства еще живы
命を作るのは
Жизнь создает
願い
Мольба

二十四時間目覚められる能力

最近、私は夫の働き方を許すわけにいきません。

たとえば、彼は朝の十時まで重要なレポートを書くべきです。彼は夜の十一時に「もう寝よう」とレポートを捨ておいて、すぐに寝ます。

そして朝の六時に起きて、八時までレポートを書き終えるつもりです。「朝なら、うまくいけなければならない」の意見が嫌いになりました。

朝では、手に負えない問題が起ったら、時間はなくて、神経質になってしまいます。問題とか、色々な環境とか、この状況では家と仕事がめちゃくちゃにしてしまいます。

彼が朝早くに仕事があっても、彼を放っておく事に決めました。

私なら、朝まで終えるべき仕事を放っておくのが嫌いです。時々真夜中に働いているけど、仕事が終えた後よく寝ます。この方が朝も大丈夫です。

正直に言って、私は寝不足で元気がない日もあります。残業は厄介な事ですね。

でも彼の神経質な行動が心配です。

不注意な間違いが損失を被る事になるのかもしれません。

二十四時間目覚められる能力が欲しいです。

A ball

I doubted whether to post it here, but oh well. Why not?
Here's something I made a short while ago. Actually what inspired me was my boredom.

This one is based on one pic I saw in the net and immediately thought 'it's meant to become a ball'. Lol.
Made in paint .net. Original is suited for hi-res printing.

引越し ￥ 新居 ￥ 経済 ￥ 結婚

今日、私の新しいアパートについてエントリーを書き記します。

それと、別の事について話します。

皆さんはたぶん私には夫がいる事を知りません。けど、これは本当の事です。私は二年前に結婚しました。

何とか、自分が結婚した女と考えて、あり得ないと思います。

ほとんどの場合、夫婦は結婚式の後、新しい家に引っ越します。最近のウクライナの状況では、全ての国民は金がないです。

アパートを買う事はとても難しくて、至難の業になりました。不動産が高すぎるのせいで、住宅ローンに手を出すと、終生奴隷制になります。

世界中で、不動産の値段が異常なほどに高騰してきたと思います。日本も、ウクライナも住宅は大変ですね。

住宅費もどんどん上がり、住宅費を支払う為に私のサラリーの半分を使います。

最低生活費が最低賃金より三倍大きいです。

この状態で不動産を買うのは夢みたいですね。

けど私たちは二年くらい働いていた、金を貯めるには出費を切りつめました。

その上、結婚の贈り物として金を贈ってくれた人達はたくさんいました。二人の両親は他の人たちより大きな贈り物を与えてくれました。

そしてやっとに小さなアパートを買える状況に変わりました。

私は嬉しいけど、実に一時的な住宅です。このアパートには20ｍ２の部屋、12ｍ２の台所と風呂場があります。建物の１８階です。

子供ができると、小さすぎる家です。その時までに何とかしなければなりません。でも今はあの「何とか」が別の夢みたいです。

もっと金を貯めようと思います。

で、古いアパートで冬を越した私たちは引っ越す事つもりです。引越しの日時はおそれ二週間後です。

その日は少しだけ怖いです。なんでだろう。幸せそうな事みたいですね。

実はこのままであれば、私は生涯同じ地域に住んでいました。事務所がある地域と家がある地域は違います。新しいアパートは夫が住んでいた地域にあるので、彼は引越しを全然構いません。

私にはまだ不安があるけど・・・仕方がありません。

「住めば都」の言葉を試してみます。

Yuki Kajiura FICTION II

Recently I'm listening to this:

It has some nice songs, though not as much as I'd like. At least I think so. Out of 14 tracks only 4 are worth listening again. Or I will change my mind when I get used to them a bit more. But I guess 4 will stay, others will go.

Yuki Kajiura - Forest:


Yuki Kajiura - E.G.O.:

I've got cold

Today I was sure I've got cold so I called for state doctor in the early morning. Now it's 3 p.m. and she hasn't come yet. Well, I guess she should be here soon cuz her shift ends at 4 p.m.
Or are they ignoring me?
You can expect anything in our country.
Sadly... maybe later I'll write more about news I read today.

when...

"Когда умрет последнее дерево, высохнет последняя река, люди поймут, что деньги нельзя есть"

'When the last tree dies and the last river gets dry people will understand that you can't eat money'

...

It's past 1st of April so smart.fm is paid-only now.
I really wonder how many users signed up for their service :)

私の母について

何を書いてもいいと思ったけど、とくに書きたい事がありません。

それでよく目の前にいた人について日記のエントリーを書く事に決めました。

この人は私の母です。私の家族はちょっと変わった（「変わった」の語に「普通じゃない」の意味があるでしょう）家族だから、母もちょっとだけ普通ではありません。

「母」といったら、すぐに真面目なで優しい人だと推測します。私は母が好きだけど、確かに理想の母親像じゃないと思います。

何かが起こるまで、私と兄に注意を注いでなかったですし、私達の居場所や、趣味、興味に関心がありませんでした。私は学校に入学した後、母と問題をあまり話し合いませんでした。でも彼女は掃除、料理と洗濯をちゃんとしていました。

えぇぇ、「ちゃんと」と言えば、正しくないかもしれません。母は料理を作るのが嫌いでも好きでもありません。無関心なモードに作った料理のようで、料理のクオリティーは毎日違いました。　今、私は母よりよく料理を作ります。掃除に関しては・・・ま、彼女は掃除しながら部屋をカオスに変えるの事が出来ます。何万回並べても、一週間でキッチンウエアはぐちゃぐちゃになります。服まだいいです、洗濯は洗濯機でしますから・・・

この事を聞いて、私のことを「恩を忘れる娘だ」と考えたでしょう。私は両親を大切にして、色々な事が有難くて、そんな事が絶対に無い、けど・・・母のような女性にならなくて、少しだけ嬉しいです。

子供のころ家に起きた無限のカオスで疲れました。

けど私が高校を出た時に、私と母の関係が変わりました。大人になった私と母はいい友達になりました。母はたぶん子供を扱う事が下手なのです。

these days

Lots of things have been happening around me lately.
Vlad told me I wasn't writing much in my blogs - well, I wasn't.
Obviously.
Had many things (and still have) on my mind. Heavy things.
Some of you may know my BD is approaching... it'd be one of the worst, I fear.

Is it really worth writing here?

Week-end

This week-end we were quite busy.
Actually I wanted to write a long entry about it, but then it became too busy and in the end I try to write something now.

To make long story short, Saturday night we went to our country house. When I say 'went' I mean 'drove'. But as you may remember the weather was bad with melting snow and pouring rain and fog. So when we made it out of the city with its lights and "not-really-so-bad" roads, it was very hard to make a way through the night.

Regularly we reach our destination in about an hour, this time it took us an hour and half. And I say we were lucky and cautious. When we drove in foggy areas we had to suffer from fog and from idiocy of other drivers; you're not supposed to turn on upper beam when you're in fog. Though most of cars we met were trying to lighten the foggy mud with upper beams and it was driving through a shining jelly. There were some spots on the road where you could see only 5-10 meters ahead of you and also we had to keep to the right side of the road because other cars tended to drive dangerously close to the middle of the road or even in the middle of the road (to navigate by demarcation strip). The road paving itself was slippery and somewhere icy.
Yes, I know you're allowed to do that when driving in fog, but if you drive by demarcation strip in the middle of the road, you must drive 30km/h maximum, not 80. So it was scary to watch so many people behaving like fools.

To add to the topic: when we were coming back Sunday morning we saw a car that flew off the road the night before and it was badly hit.

When we were coming back I came to a new conclusion: driving culture decreases as you come to a proximity of a town. We spent 35 minutes to cover approximately 65km on a busy inter-city road and another 25 minuter to cover 7km in Kiev.
And the reason is... the reason is the amount of cars and their behavior on the roads. When you drive on a inter-city road less people try to behave like a smart ass to gain 30 seconds by pushing you aside or jumping in front of you suddenly. If a person wants to perform a overrun maneuver on a inter-city road, he just does it and that's it. No "get off my way" blinking, no sudden panic, he's free to go. People on a inter-city road are not so lazy to turn a wheel to go faster, while in the city they want YOU to turn the wheel while THEY want to go faster.

Next...
Next is Sunday evening when we went to a family gathering. We were invited to a Georgia restaurant at Pozniaki. I like hachapuri there :)

Eh, now I believe I don't remember all the things I wanted to say about the week-end, but well... That's how it is.

Recent events and lang-8

Thought about writing a post on lang-8, but taking into account events in Japan decided to postpone it.
I have no intention to talk about consequences of earthquake and tsunami and even more so while crisis with nuclear power plants isn't resolved.

truthful joke

'It takes only two people to make marriage happen: a solitary girl and a worried mum'

Ukraine got into bbc "day in pictures" column

Back to filling with default content

Did some work on changing designs and layouts...

...

and if you wonder why I add these seemingly meaningless posts, I tell you...
I do it to have some content to try out new designs :)

In short time...

In a short time I'd change many things here - design, profile, etc. Also will add links to other things I do and what associated with this profile xD

1st post

I've decided to start a new blog with my generally known nickname.
Now what's left is to organize my thoughts and come to a conclusion how to place the info I want to place on my blogs.