I am 31 years old today ... and loving it

Pioneer 10 Final Assembly

I was born on this day, 25th of April, 1980. That makes me 31 years old today. It is late and I do not feel like writing much so I will leave you with a Wikipedia article that lists significant events that happened on this day through history, births and deaths of famous people, and world's celebrations. I chose a photo of the final assembly of Pioneer 10 spacecraft, since I work in the industry and I also consider myself a "pioneer" (this is what many kids were in Yugoslavia prior to the break up of the country - pioneers). Communication was lost with Pioneer 10 about 8 years ago but I am still communicating loudly.

Enjoy! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_25

Can't say that (in America)!

Copyright Save the Internet

As I sat down to devour a few slices of bread covered in Nutella spread in front of the TV, I saw that the Daily Show with Jon Stewart is about to come on. I am a fan of the show and used to watch it in America on Comedy Central. Since I arrived in Ireland, it was difficult to catch the show since I didn't know which channel carried the show. Also it aired a day after the original making some of the headlines not as exciting.

Well I haven't seen the show in over three months. I switched over to the show which is broadcast as the "Global Edition". Now, what was the first thing I noticed? Even before the show started, the lovely lady voice announced that there is some strong language in the following show. I was thinking there would be words like "damn", "pissed off", and similar not-so-vulgar-but-might-be-offensive words and that the swear words would be bleeped out, like in the regular version of the show I used to watch in America.

But nooooo, not in Ireland. Strong language meant there would be proper cuss words in the show, such as "fuck", "pussy", "shit", etc. I have to tell you, I was so relieved to hear the words without the bleeping. God damn, that felt good! For 16 fucking years I had to put up with ignorant American censorship of TV, radio and movies. I have watched quite a few documentaries about the roots of censorship in America and the influence of private organization and minority groups on the government policy with respect to restricting free speech in the media. The Americans don't even realize how sheltered they are from everything because of the censorship in the media. It is difficult for most Americans to develop as "normal" humans by being prevented from hearing, seeing, and reading about the "controversial" aspects of life. They are "protected" by the special interest groups from the horrors of normal life through the use of censorship.

I thoroughly enjoyed the show. The lack of censorship improved the overall message of the show and allowed Jon Stewart to fully express himself in order to make his points come across stronger than they otherwise would if he was bleeped out. Uh, I really fucking hated watching movies and shows on USA, TNT, TBS, ABC, NBC, whatever, because they were always modified to remove sex scenes or bad language and shortened to give more time to the commercials. I remember watching movies where complete scenes were taken out that the viewer who hasn't seen the original movie would not even have the pleasure of experiencing because of censorship. There are scenes that simply need to be seen in order to fully experience the show.

I'm so glad once more that I am not in America any more. Those Jerry Falwell-like groups cannot reach me here. Fuck them and fuck their attempt to silence people's expression.

Wanna know what gets me high?

This ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6w2M50_Xdk gets me high.

I can't even begin to describe the emotions I get when I watch this video. Hopefully you will feel something, something you won't be able to explain. Enjoy.

A win!

F.C. Bosna

We won! We won! Team with a new coach, some new players, and lots of heart won another game tonight. F.C. Bosna scored 4 goals and let only 1 in. It was a great game for this team because we just got a new coach who is teaching the team how to play organized football. This is the team's first season so it is a great accomplishment to win any games at all seeing as most players never played organized football or they never played with each other.

I played last 25 minutes or so. I've got a painful heel injury on my left foot so there goes my planting and half of my speed. It's been killing me for the last three weeks but I'm playing through it. When you're passionate about a sport you have to sacrifice time and your body. Fuck it, life's too short for me to worry about some shitty heel injury keeping me from playing. I'm not some bad ass footballer but I love the sport and I've only got this one life in which to play so I'm going to play through anything save for the life-threatening injuries.

Hopefully I get better by Sunday because we have another game. This time it's a cup game so there's extra time and penalties if it's tied in regular time. It will be fun either way. Can't wait!

Another full day

hello@ready2spark.com

It's late and I'm tired so I'll keep this short. I had another full day of life activities. Did the work, cycled, ate food, watched football, sorted the laundry, cooked, ate more food, played some guitar, wrote some emails, took care of some finances, and now I'm ready for bed. Life is so complicated these days, isn't it?

I'm kind of sick of the fact that we have to do so many things every day just to live normally. If I don't do the laundry then my clothes will be stinky (not terribly important) and dirty (important for health reasons). So if I don't want to be sick, I have to do the laundry. Then I have to cook in order to eat and cooking also requires going to the grocery store to buy food. Same thing with going to and back from work, it has to be done in order to make the money to buy the food and pay for shelter.

Maybe I should move to a remote location of the world, somewhere where I can live off of the land. Only work I would have to do is to make sure I eat and am properly protected. I know for a fact that doesn't take 8 hours a day. I remember studying about a Kalahari desert tribe in Social Anthropology class in college. They only spent an average of 26 hours (or so) per week doing everything that is required to live. Rest of the time they spent doing whatever they wanted to do. But guess what? They were "happier" than people of any country of the western world. They were well fed, lived on the go, not too many diseases, not too many personal belongings. Who cares about material things - they were happy. And here we are, slaving away by working 40+ hours a week counting work, cooking, cleaning, driving, whatever. This tribe did all of this within 26 hours per week.

I'm depressed now. Ok, not really, just tired. Aaahhhh ....

Life overload!

Ha! I've been absent for a while. I have a good reason though. To be honest, so many things from this week are worth writing about that I should definitely continue to make effort to write every day instead of waiting for the end of the week. Now it's just an overload of information and it will be difficult to document it all without forgetting something or not going into all the details.

I've joined a football team this week. It is not just any football team, it is a football team composed of guys from former Yugoslavia (and Laly). Most of us are from Bosnia so the team is called F.C. Bosna. It is great to be playing organized football again. I missed it and even though I've been playing some pick up football on Tuesdays, I haven't played organized football since I left America. We train twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays and we usually play on Sundays. Oh, man, it feels good to play again and it's good to meet new friends. It will take a while for me to mend with everyone but all the guys are great so it will be much easier than with guys who weren't from my country.

In order for me to get to the training, I have to cycle on the opposite side of town from where I work. The team practices in Clonsilla which means that after cycling twice a week to train plus 5 days a week to work, I am now cycling over 100 km a week! I have to say that I am in great shape and that after another month or two of cycling, training and playing, I'll be like a freak of nature! I feel like I'm taking everything the nature has to offer (wind, rain, hills) and just breaking it down like a bulldozer going through a brick wall. I feel great, probably the best I've felt in my life because of cycling and football. I think it helps the fact that I am cycling from necessity and for the passion of the sport. This is making me not give up and, on the contrary, it is making me work harder. It is making me work harder so I am in better shape, so I can play football better, so I can cycle faster, easier, so I am healthier.

Today is also the first time I ate "cevapi" in Ireland. I think it's been over 8 months since I last ate cevapi. Oh, man, it was good! And we topped it off with some cold beer on a warm sunny Irish day and it was like being back in Banja Luka. I can't wait to eat some cevapi again next week.

Finally, I am watching the documentary about the first moon landing on Discovery Science called "Moonwalk One". What an amazing documentary. It contains "lost" footage of the entire mission which is simply breathtaking. It is remarkable that we as humans made it to the moon and the effort that went into making this possible is even more remarkable. Thousands of engineers, scientists, technicians, secretaries, you name it, have worked together over almost a decade to allow our missions to the moon. If we could only spend as much money on this kind of research as we do on wars ...

If you have a chance, please read some info about the moon landings and the Apollo program. It is amazing. 'Till the next post!

Updated blog design

I spent some time updating the blog design. Please let me know what you think.

Murder by Death, a band I just discovered

Murder by Death

Oh, sweet Jesus! I discovered a great band by accident. Meaning, I wasn't looking for music or listening to radio but reading a posting on a web site about an abandoned coal mine building that could be used against a possible zombie attack. Weird, I know but anyway, the guy who posted the original post and the photo left a link to a song by the band "Murder by Death" for some reason. Maybe it had something to do with zombies. Maybe it was the name.

I clicked the link and was blown away, albeit slowly. You know how that goes, you first hear one song and you're impressed, then you listen to another one, and another one and every song you hear gets you more excited than the previous one. Man, I haven't been this excited about a band since I heard Clutch for the first time.

Thing is, discovering new music is bitter sweet for me. On one hand, I am so happy and exhilarated that I found a great band, that I heard new music that fulfills me, invokes some emotion in me, takes me to another level, basically gets me high with the opiate combination of vocals, guitars, drums, other instruments. Ah, I love that feeling, makes me feel alive! It's hard to describe for people who don't care much about music or don't experience it the way I do (someone remind me, I want to write a post about how I experience music). ... On the other hand, I am sad that I haven't heard the band earlier, when it was first formed. It makes me think about all the time I could have spent listening to this new music and all those feelings I've seemingly thrown away.

It's such a shame that I haven't heard this band earlier. There are no genres that can describe this band and there shouldn't be. Take them for what they are. Listen.

Murder by Death - Steal Away
Murder by Death - Brother
Murder by Death - A Second Opinion
Murder by Death - Dynamite Mine
Murder by Death - Fuego