Sweet dreams

Everyone has theirs, right? I certainly hope so 'cause I can't imagine life without dreams. When you are little, you dream of becoming a pilot, movie star or ballerina. As a teenager you dream of getting married by a certain person and having family. O.k., maybe not.

The point is some of the dreams might change as you grow up, but some just remain the same all the time. Do you have any dreams like that?

It could be the fool full moon effect but lately I've been thinking a lot about my dreams. Of course I got some tempting inspiration that made me almost smell them.

The question is am I bold enough to follow them? Are you?

Naughty Muffins

Not a big fan of sweets but every now and then I get bad sugar inch that needs to be fed. This usually happens shortly before or during a diet. Anyone who dares to come between me and my sugar could be dangerously close to meeting my inner witch.

Ironically it was the food machine who had the honors most of the times and couldn't care less about it either. Holding on to my paid! chocolates, ignoring my attempts of trying to talk it into letting the sweets go. Genuine nightmare, I tell you.

So I started to make muffins to get regular sugar supply when needed. My favourite would be chocolate muffins with fruit. Possibly cherries :).

Ingredients:

• 120 grams of butter
• 120 grams of brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 20 grams of cocoa
• 1,5 - 2 deciliters of cream
• 250 grams of flour
• baking powder
• cherries

Melt butter and mix it with sugar, egg, baking powder, flour and cocoa. Add cream.













When it's finished add cherries and bake about 15 minutes at 200^o C.

Of course you can also add some melted chocolate or chunks of chocolate to the ingredients and make muffins even naughtier.















Yummy!

Facebook obsession

Generally I talk a lot but somehow prefer face to face chats. Being internet addict as I am I got quite domestic with Skype, Messenger and communities like MySpace. But eventually you have to draw a line somewhere. New communities are spreading around the web faster than STDs and it's almost impossible to keep track of them all.

Occasionally I would get an invitation from my friends to join some "blah" community they are using. At the beginning I joined a couple but never really used them. However they never stopped informing me how big my network is and how many friends I've got. How did they know I was desperate for more spam? Eventually I decided not to join any more communities, communicators or whatever new stuff they come up with. Like ever. It's kinda nice people want me to be on line more often but I really don't think it's possible. Unless I plug a cable into my veins.

Anyhow, in past two weeks I got several invitations to join Facebook. What's the story with Facebook anyway? Seems lately people are somehow getting obsessed with it. Even if I try I can't find any good reasons to make me wanna open an account. Just to make sure I'll meet my friends mostly online while I'm working from home and waiting for my pizza to be delivered? Don't think so.

I like my daily off line time and I need my chatty little meetings for coffee, gossip or just to say hello. I refuse to become a face in some on line community. I like my friends face to face. As often as I can.

More about Facebook obsession

Cherry on the top

Yes I was and it was fantastic! Going to the mountains when you want to really is relaxing (in oppose to when you "have" to go there). New shoes left me with minimum collateral damage and my muscles waited two days before started to feeling sore. How very considerate :)

For the first time in my life I really used smart packing and didn't say one single swear word all the way to the top. It could be considered as Guinness record. The seven lakes of Triglav really are wonderful tour to take, even though we never saw all the lakes. The landscape was so damn beautiful I took more photos than Japanese tourists.

I'm really excited about it I can't wait to mountain hiking again. Yeah I know I surprise myself too. Next year we are planning to climb the highest Slovenian mountain, get spanked on the top and take a swim in Bohinj lake on the way back. I think I found a new hobby (to add to my existing 10000000 ones).

Enjoy the impressions:

Hike to the mountains

My way on how to carefully plan your hiking trip to the mountains:

1. Think about doing it. Not too hard though.
   


2. Talk about wanting to do it, but fail to take any steps to realize your wish.


3. Get information about some people taking a hiking trip and looking for company.


4. Join them and disregard the fact you haven't done any sports in a while (climbing stairs counts, right?).


5. Disregard the fact this is not a hill but a mountain .


6. Buy new hiking shoes only two days before to ensure it's gonna be more of a challenge.

Did I forget anything else? Nope, I think I'm ready :)

Invisibility

Today I found out I am invisible. But only while I'm riding my bike.

As I want to stay in shape for my trip to the mountains, I decided to ride my bike as much as possible. Well, not as much as Pina but still wanted to make an effort. Even if it rains. So I went to the store in the other part of the city. Yeah with my bike.

On my way back I suddenly realized nobody sees me: not the car drivers, not pedestrians nor even a mother with her two kids while they were trying to get in the car. On the cycling track. Lovely.

Not to mention it was kinda hard ringing the bell and avoiding the traffic while trying to hold on to my bike with one and umbrella with the other hand. I might reconsider joining the circus.

And for the record: looking left and right is still quite fashionable, not to mention life-saving.

Seaside nostalgia

Hi. My name is Cherry, I am workaholic and I survived my vacation without any work. After years of "working" vacation (which are not real vacation but more or less work at nicer places) I decided it is time to take a break. No festivals, no seminars, no writing articles or reviews. I must admit I'm pretty proud that I haven't lost my ability to do nothing. It's still here, for sure.

Few days on the seaside with my band was just what I wanted. I didn't plan much, actually I didn't plan at all. And you know what? It was liberating!

We got a lot of sleep, card and drinking games, turtle visitor, swim and the night life. Plus I got to read two books I really wanted (yes I am bookaholic and prefer to stay that way). I'd go back in a second but I guess waiting for a year will have to do. I miss the seaside a lot. Obviously so does Devon.

Here's some taste of it

Daily:













Sunset:













Night life:













Yes, we had to:

Environmental blogging

Up-2-date Proverbs

After a week of internetless vacation (report coming up soon), partying, relaxing and being plain silly, I came back to my more or less wired reality. Unread emails, posts and tags - all hungry for fresh clicks. Among them I got this cheerful spam of Silicon proverbs:

1. Home is where you hang your @
2. The e-mail of the species is more deadly than the mail
3. A journey of a thousand sites begins with a single click
4. You can't teach a new mouse old clicks
5. Great groups from little icons grow
6. Speak softly and carry a cellular phone
7. C:\ is the root of all directories
8. Don't put all your hypes in one home page
9. Pentium wise; pen and paper foolish
10. The modem is the message
11. Too many clicks spoil the browse
12. The geek shall inherit the earth
13. A chat has nine lives.
14. Don't byte off more than you can view.
15. Fax is stranger than fiction
16. What boots up must come down
17. Windows will never cease
18. In Gates we trust
19. Virtual reality is its own reward
20. Modulation in all things
21. A user and his leisure time are soon parted
22. There's no place like home.com!
23. Know what to expect before you connect
24. Oh, what a tangled Web site we weave when first we practice
25. Speed thrills
26. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the Net and he won't bother you for weeks

Glad to see recycling goes all the way ;)

Disputes over a symbol

Apparently Johnson & Johnson is suing American Red Cross for use of their symbol:







"The two had shared the symbol amicably for more than 100 years — Johnson & Johnson on its commercial products and the American Red Cross as a symbol of its relief efforts on foreign battlefields and in disasters like floods and tornadoes.....

But in 2004, the American Red Cross began licensing the symbol to commercial partners selling products at retail establishments. According to the lawsuit, those products include humidifiers, medical examination gloves, nail clippers, combs and toothbrushes."

more...

Apparently the peaceful symbiosis is over. I bet they can get loads of money from that dirty charity bitches. Raising money for the poor, providing them with clothes and medical equipment? What on earth where they thinking? Red cross is a symbol for overrated cosmetics and not for helping people. Obviously.

Can we do something about it? Hell yes. I'll never buy another Johnson & Johnson product again. In your face, you greedy capitalists! So sue me.

info via:

• Adfreak
• Seth Godin

Photo source

Sunny side up

Generally I like rain. It can be liberating, passionate and relaxing at the same time. However I hope the rain is done for this week, because I am off to vacation. This time a proper one, where I get to leave work at home and relax. Pretty much every workaholics nightmare. Will I make it? Not sure, but it's definitely worth trying.

I'm thinking sun, sea, book, drinks and good company. In case of rain probably just the last two but more often.

For everyone who doesn't like rain - no rain, no rainbow :). This one is from Sunday:



Enjoy it while I'll be soaking in salty waters...

Great cover remake

Another Magnifico, masterpiece. I adore most of his work and love it more with every new tune he makes. His Balkan spirit and sense of humour are a winning combination. Generally I am not big fan of Balkan music, but certain artist and songs always get me to the dance floor.

"Land of champions" is by my opinion far better than the original "House of the rising sun".

Love it, love it, love it! Not only he knows how to win, he does it with style.

Smokers hell...

might be somebody else's heaven. With the new law we'll have a chance to find out ;)

Slovenian indie rock

Does it exist at all? Until yesterday I was pretty sure it doesn't and it is all just presumptuous self-definition of some young pop rock band. So I went there and was glad to find out I was totally wrong. Boys were fantastic.

We can't sleep at night indeed is young slovenian indie rock band and a good one too. Their raw rock music reflects the influence of The Doors and flirts a little bit with Arctic Monkeys.


Photo source: We can't sleep at night

Nevertheless four boys (three guitars, drums and occasionally synthesizer) surely know how to give the audience pure rock energy. Even though it's hard to understand what they are singing about, they show great potential. But really, please do make your website is a bit more user and SEO friendly plus put some lyrics on.

Luckily they are also on MySpace. I hope I will hear more from them soon and I am really really glad to see indie is possible also in Slovenia.

Rock on boys!

Love, life and ecology

Yesterday I saw I heart Huckabees. Even though the movie is typical American production, the story itself is quite amazing and partly insane. I loved the characters, the actors and the whole plot. Besides the obvious there are some additional reasons why I liked it so much:

• it has some really good dialogues,
• it tackles some existential questions,
• it is about sustainable development.

In the past few years, environmental stuff has somehow grown close to me - maybe because I'm getting old. I never suspected this would evolve from hugging trees while being drunk, but well...I'll start worrying when I find myself chained to an oil tanker.

So far I just had another inspiration for my turbo ecological hobby. I decided to recycle toilet paper carton roll. There is so many of them, maybe I could do the whole series. But this time I needed an extra pencil cup.

Secret ingredients: toilet paper carton roll, black paper, silk white lace, strong string, glue, wooden corals or jewelry leftovers, some imagination and voilà!

Before:















After: