19-VI-2022.
On 18th I came down for another leak before sleep, and got arrested by Violet asking me how to make a cube, she can't do it on her own. So okay, where are triangles... a sheet of A4, let's do it. Also added the tiny tabs on odd edges and showed her where and how to glue them, and good luck, see you in the morning. If it doesn't work, we'll do it over.
Later Nina made a proper drawing on her laptop, or downloaded it from somewhere, and printed half a dozen. By monday's lunch we had some five paper cubes, what with nose and eyes drawn and ears and tail glued on. Paper rendering of a three dee character she made on her phone a few weeks ago.
She bought this pot in the shop in Roda's building. Nina noticed something about the scribbled text... well of course this is no handwriting, it's simulated by picking an appropriate font on a computer, and the text... wow, a true lorem ipsum. I had to post this shot on burundi, because a couple of guys had to have a pot like that. Now there are several possible reasons why this could happen:
- doesn't matter, the pots are for cooking, not for reading
- for that money they can't expect them to pick a suitable text, check whether it's copyrighted, offensive to anyone... well fuck that
- hey boss how come it's already in production, it's not finished... what does it matter that you thought it was complete, I'm signing off on the design and I decide when it's finished... well okay, nobody will notice, nobody reads pots
And then Fića discovered that the pot is in a regular production line of Metalac, and us phantasizing that we caught a rarity, almost a Mauritius stamp with a typo, limited series, fuckit, none of that, that's simply what goes today. As Vasa said, „like a cop at a party, turned lights on and music off, no fun at all“.
On 22nd I took the van to repair shop, to replace the turn signal handle and check the backrest of the seat next to the side door. That backrest should flip down to make room to pass to the back row, but it got stuck. The guy just flipped the seat - perhaps the WD40 that she applied a week ago did its job, we didn't check - so that was it. The handle they have to order. Okay, left the van and took a cab and look who's my cabbie today: Grne, no less. Same as he always was, talkative, not complaining, no nonsense. Invited him for a coffee, opted for the backyard, didn't want to smoke inside (but he saw only Raja, not the girls). We talked for as much time he had, until about 11, when he had a scheduled ride. Said he had a real cake of a gig lined up, to play acoustic guitar in some hotel in Prague for six months, at a 2000€ monthly rate, plus extension after six months if they both like it, plus a car to use while there, all expenses paid, and if they go for another extension, it's 3000€ and he keeps the car. Perfect. They made the deal in february 2020, and was supposed to start in april, but corona screwed all that, fuckit. He divorced J. (Milica's sister) a while ago, sold the apartment on Mala Amerika and bought a house somewhere near kinta. Said he drives the cab specifically with the goal of meeting people he hasn't seen last ten years, and it's amazing how many times he gets it.
The van was done the same day, they ordered the assembly, it arrived same day, ten minutes to replace (and the labor is still 1500 dinars, plus 4000 the part - but that's the price of them knowing the part numbers and being able to get them the same day).
zmajček worked flawlessly since 6th until 20th, and then it crashed nicely. Una, ie. linux mint 20.3 would then freeze after just a few minutes of work, even idle. Then I installed 20.3 again on a different partition but couldn't bring the Byo's database over. Then went back to 20.0 for it but still didn't work - brought the database over but it kept freezing just like before. So I found the recovery mode, where it would unpack any system files which didn't look right, and it would still freeze in a few minutes. Then discovered that I'm actually booting into the previous 20.3, not the new one, as it wasn't offered in the boot menu - but then found that recovery can fix that. Okay, boot into the new one, everything works except I don't have the database again. Then I booted temporarily into the previous one, made backup - takes five seconds - booted into the new one, backup is the wrong format for the tools I know. But it's text format, I could use that programmatically... Then next morning I just changed the format to what the tools can take, jumped into the previous one again, another backup... got the database. Then reinstall wx, Dabo, and I was back in business. Bringing forgotten pieces along took one more day - e.g. pictures added in Byo for fox wouldn't appear in the python version because the syntax changed in psql and now I couldn't run it as radnik (my worker alias here, different from sGradlj) because it wouldn't accept the password; had to change it to run as me but then needed to give myself a full set of privileges. Inscrutable are the ways of the electrons, but hey, by 26th I've already updated sGradlj.com four or five times.
Along the way I reworked statcounter.prg and _api_posetu.prg to do two projects in parallel - sGradlj.com and Byo (now published). The visits counter is spinning madly, after four days there's more than a 1000, but... it's just one guy, who has read more than 700 articles so far. I've put a link into my signature on UA and burundi, but so far only two takers on the latter, on 24th, and those didn't get interested.
First tomatoes from the yard! We never had them so early, this is two thick weeks ahead of the previous earliest in the garden. Actually, last time in Čankovo I ate one cherry tomato, about 30mm in diameter, not quite ripe, and it already tasted right. House special, tomato with the taste of tomato.
That was just a sample. On 24th we went to Čankovo and picked a half a bucket of apricots (that's all we got now, and in 2017 and 2019 we distilled tens of liters, eh), enough for some pekmez (got five jars), and picked some tomatoes for dinner. This promises to be such a crop, to refill all those bottles with juice. They got empty because we didn't grow them last two years because of thievery. This is a trial... and not worth stealing, it's few stalks of each kind, and there are at least ten kinds of them, not ripening at the same time, in same color (from yellow to dark purple, striped and whatnot), impossible to sell.
On 25th we distilled a new papazjanija (see 06-IX-2020.). It worked swimmingly back then - we had some leftover fruit and added some pekmez and whatnot to fill the batch, it was the last of tutifruti for the season. Got five liters then. This time we rounded it up to a regular batch of 50kg, with several jars (still OK, we tasted most of it) from 2016 or so, and ditched most of the apricots that kept falling on us, too late, there's no next batch for at least three weeks, until the plums. And the plums are not even blue yet.
The drip started insanely strong, 72% methanol, 68% the firstborn. The second kettle started a bit weaker, 70/68, but kept going likewise strong and steady. While it cooked we had muggy weather, wind, some rain, had to take half an hour break, the thermometer showed 40 instead of 55 for methanol and 60 instead of 74 for ethanol, because I'm holding it in the rim, in the water cork aka water stopper (there's some ambiguity here, I'm asking burundi for help with thranslation of „water cork“, will re-edit this paragraph later. Anyway, we got 8,4 liters, excellent. Now for that three week break, until the plums.
On twentysixth we did nothing, for a change.
In the afternoon Kees complained that the link to the lorem ipsum pot is local, so I sent him the proper one, on Byo as published on sGradlj.com, and a link to A. And then he started reading. He only asked to be left out in one place, didn't want to jeopardize anyone's marriage (sure, it's not in danger when the guy cheats, only when the wife gets word of it). Then overnight I got someone from Mexico (also starting from introduction, so I guess someone on UA found the link), and by morning statcounter.prg showed that it now has more views, in just a week, than the whole sGradlj.com. And then Jan started reading. Next day, someone else - perhaps his brother, perhaps Inge, can't know. Or was it Kees reading on the job.
In the evening we gathered the big platoon meeting (but not on skype, m$ fucked it to unusability, but on signal, all the girls have it installed). We hit it off with Lena first, then Go joined in, we even saw Neša. Anita was asleep, it was only 13:30 over there. Stanley appeared briefly, he's moving his business, the place where it presently is is too crowded, he even dented a customer's car recently while maneuvering in the yard. He's returning to where he worked before, I guess as a partner this time. And it should be in a quieter area, in this place he almost had to pull the gun, when he saw a guy crawling under the fence. The guy understood the gesture and made about face. They steal the catalythic („catholic“) converters - one customer first lost the original factory one, then a refurbished replacement, then a simple piece of pipe that was put as a replacement.
On 27th I got up quite early, this must be the seventh time this year that I see the sunrise, and used the extra waking hours to add a random page link to Byo, see the link in the end of the page. First I thought to generate a json with all the page ids, but then remembered that the navigation (the stripe on the left) already has them all, so I messed with jquery for 2-3 hours and ended up with just three lines of code which extracts a random link from it, and puts it at the end of the list. And it works swimmingly, I'm quite satisfied.
Twenyteighth. Slept until eleven. In the afternoon we made another batch of thin noodles, now both barrels (60 and, I guess, 30 liters) will be full, then we go for wide. The hens made too many eggs in the spring, now they're down to 3 or 4 a day, too hot. In the news I read that the new, state defined price of gasoline will be 212 din/l of diesel. It was 202 last time I poured into Joda. And the van just got yellow enlightment yesterday as we were returning. And the state order is valid until 30th... so I just got out and filled it up. Almost 16000 dinars, the tank minus reserve is 75 liters, well at least it's by the old price, as in bad old times.
Mentions: A word from the author, 06-IX-2020., 15-VII-2022., Anita Jennifer Berger (Anita), _api_posetu.prg, burundi, Byo (Byo), Čankovo, fox, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Grne, Inge Brandlicht, Jan Brenkelen, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Joda, Kees de Cock, kinta, Majkrosoft (m$), Milica Zubatović, Nenad Berger (Neša), Nevena Sredljević (Nina), pekmez, Ryu (Raja), sGradlj, sGradlj.com, Stanley Berger, statcounter.prg, UbiquAgora (UA), Violet, zmajček, in serbian