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It seems that Google has done it's little dance again, and consequently Naboj has been bumped up quite a bit. At least that is what I can conclude from the increased traffic to that site. I have been adding a few more new features recently, and restarted blogging there as well, so maybe the almighty Google gave that little site more credence. I just hope it lasts.
Many years ago when the web was just starting to become the global phenomenon that it is, some of my friends expressed a concern that it may lead to even greater 'hegemony' of English. Even back then I had my doubts about that. True, English is the dominant language on the web, but English was already the world's most dominant language even before the web rolled around. However, I think that the ease with which content can be published online has actually helped many small and otherwise inaccessible languages.
The web has certainly helped me to keep in touch with the events in Croatia. I started following Croatia-related newsgroups in the early nineties, and then a multiplicity of website that sprang up. Every once in a while I would listen to Croatian web radio, but that was too choppy and inconvenient for a consistent use. Recently I started downloading on demand programs from Croatian Radio, and listening to them while driving. On a longer drives I can almost feel like I am back in Croatia.
I deposited my dissertation yesterday. That was the final hurdle to cross in my life as Ph.D., and now I am totally and completely free. That is, unless I fail to turn those library books in, and then they can withhold all sorts of things from me. Which wouldn't be cool.
I also sent out an application for Optional Practical Training, which will allow me to be legally employed in the US during the next year. That should go a long way in helping to keep me off the street. Or at least so I hope.
My recent post about turducken attracted some interesting comments from a few friends. Some online banter led me to conceive of an even worse monstrosity - osturduckenail! That would be an ostrich, stuffed with a turkey, stuffed with a duck, stuffed with a chicken, stuffed with a quail. It would be a feast of gargantuan proportions, enough meat to feed a (small) village. However, finding an oven large enough to make this meal would be a challenge in its own right.
If you have for some reason missed the Bee Joke (if it is even possible to know me without knowing about The Bee Joke any more), I've done my personal best to make it even more accessible and ubiquitous: I put it up on all the major online video sites. So now, if you so desire, you can see it on YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video and Metacafe. This ought to go a long way in satisfying global demand for viewing of the Bee Joke. (More about the Bee Joke can be found in the About Bojan section.)
It seems that my nightmare has come to an end. I had to endure weeks of my neighbor's erratic behaviour, yelling and screaming out of nowhere at all sorts of odd hours, banging on my wall, and making my stay at my own apartment really unbearable. I had to sleep with earplugs in my ears. I had to face the opposite direction from the wall. Even those measures would not yield any results and I would get woken up in the middle of the night. I called the police on him four times. The last time I had a nice chat with the officer, and he told me that the guy really was crazy and thought that he was a captain on a ship. Great! Not that I was surprised. The police could really do little about the whole situation. They could issue him a ticket, but much good would that do. So I had to put a lot of pressure on my landlord to do something about it.
Which he finally did. The landlord filed the paperwork with this guy's case worker to have him moved to a different apartment, away from other tenants. Meanwhile the landlord had a nasty encounter with this guy, after which the landlord called the police and had the guy taken to a nursing home. He will stay there for at least two months, and afterwards he'll be put in another unit. The quieter days (and nights) are , hopefully, ahead.