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My main man, Dinko is as Balkan as they come. That being the case, he loves his čevapčići and his pravs. It's in the blood. My father was a super praver whose work still stands at my parents' house despite years of nearly falling apart. Being a second generation Croat didn't stop my father considering bailing wire to be one of the most important tools in his toolbox.       Maybe it's because Dinko is Bosnian or maybe it's because of years living in the west have changed him, but the fact is that Dinko's praving is actually pretty damned good work. One could go so far as to say it's quality and that the only praving lies in the initial approach, which for pravers is somewhere along the lines of, "Hmm, this is going to require my big smashing hammer, the smaller pounding hammer, and a lot of bailing wire." For instance, in his recent job of mounting a flat screen TV, Dinko started out with, "Since I don’t have a laser level, I attached a regular presentation laser pointer to my level using cable ties." Genius. Cable ties, while not my favorite (I stand by bailing wire) are the choice attaching system for a 21st century praver.       From there, you'd think things would start to go downhill and his project would turn out looking a good deal like any Homer Simpson project, but no, the end result was quite nice. You can read all about it, here and see what happens when one strays beyond the principal that, "Any tool can be a hammer".

Lets put a little joy back in the blogging...       A couple of days ago, I came across what is probably one of the most useful things ever invented--an automated tennis ball launcher that a dog can load.       You can watch in the video below as this really cute, old little dachshund keeps running back and forth, reloading the thing to fetch the ball. But, don't think less of the owner. He claims that the dog has only used it three times when he's not been around, although it appears in one shot that the thing has launched the ball 10,000 times. The video is a tad long-winded, but still enjoyable and hey, it's a dachshund. One could be biting off my toe and I'd still think it was the cutest thing to ever attack my foot.

I was very annoyed to come across this TechCruch article today. It wasn't because the article didn't really research anything and it wasn't because I'm a fan of keeping around Internet Explorer 6, but it was the fact that I was flat-out ripped off and TechCrunch was there promoting the guys that stole my idea which put my cheese out in the wind.       Sometime back, I created a campaign called, End6!. It was a site that set up a very simple widget that people could embed in their own website to tell those who visited their site that they should really think about upgrading from this very broken browser of Explorer 6. It was simple enough and something that I tossed out in October of 2007 with four different language versions. It got picked up on Menéame and a few other sites. Some people started using it and continue to use it. It wasn't anything that I did to get rich, but just to make the internet a better place.       Now, along comes this group at savethedevelopers.org (no, I'm not linking to them as they're on my naughty list) who have basically ripped me off. Obviously you could say it is very possible we both had the same idea, albeit theirs comes six months after mine. I don't discount this at all, but there are several things that jab me in the eye about this. First, it is really the same idea with a snippet of JavaScript you can link to or download to put on your site. Yes, their JavaScript is built differently, but it does the same thing. Second, there is the language, calling it a "campaign" and saying things like, "a more enjoyable experience on the web" where I say, "Make the Net a happier place". Then there's the domain registration. End6! was registered on 2007-10-13 while Save the Developers was registered on 2008-02-05.       Overall, I'm just ever so pissed on two fronts. One is that I don't get any credit. If they admitted that they took what I did and make it different or better, I'd be thrilled. Second and of most importance is that they're trying to make money off of this. What a load. I built, hosted, and had #1 Fan do some great translation work for the site all for free. Sure, I could have tossed some AdWords up there or a tacky t-shirt, but I didn't. Why? I was much more interested in making the campaign work and making the net better. These guys have got merchandise for sale and I don't care that, "Proceeds from merchandise sales go right back into furthering the Save The Developers program." It costs absolutely, next to nothing to host a site these days, therefore it would seem that the proceeds are going more in the direction of the groups pockets than anything else.       Lastly, I have to say that these guys just really missed the boat. That gif image popping down is 7k and a problem. End6! was designed around being extremely lightweight and fast. Why? Because the people on the old crappy browsers are invariably those who are on old crappy connection speeds. Around 20% of people of in the US are on these slow connections, which "astoundingly" overlaps with the average amount of people using IE6. But, it's because of these super slow connections that people don't upgrade. For instance, the only way I got my mom (who lives in the boonies and can only get dialup) to upgrade to Firefox 2 from IE6 was to bring the updates on a flash drive to her house. So, if your message takes up more bandwidth, like how the one from this group's does, the people who need to see it, just aren't going to.       Anyways, if you buy in to what I'm saying, blog about it and spread the word. Of yeah, you could also install the End6! JavaScript on your site if you're really feeling like being my buddy.       

My mom was visiting last weekend and just about everywhere we went I had to explain to her what a hipster was because she was constantly wondering why in the hell people were dressed like crap. While there is nothing wrong with constantly wearing the finest piece of clothing ever invented (the zip-up hoodie), there is a great deal wrong with skinny jeans and buying new-vintage clothes. Oh, and irony. Irony has never been more intolerable than now.       Thankfully, some folks pulled together and made this all so easy to understand for the lay person. And despite it taking place in NYC, it all applies to San Francisco, because well, hipsters ain't original.

Nakládaný Hermelin is a type of cheese preparation that's eaten in the Czech Republic. I won't sit here and tell you that it's a national dish, because it's not. It's something that's eaten in bars most commonly. You order a beer and a round of cheese that's been soaking in a jar of oil, peppers, and spices. It's quite tasty and it also happens to be something that's easily made here in the US to enjoy with just about everything you can think of.       The Hermelin bit of it refers to the cheese, which isn't really something you can get here. But, you can easily substitute in any kind of softish cheese with a bit of a soft, edible rind to it like Camembert. Everything else can be easily gotten round these parts though and following is the closest approximation to the recipe we put together from this forum:       - 3-4 rounds of the cheese       - onion rings, garlic cloves, sweet red and green peppers       - olive oil, black peppercorns, paprika, red pepper flakes, and salt       Preparation:       - Peel the onions and cut them into rings       - Cut half of the garlic into slices/rings, leave the rest as whole clove       - Cut the cheese horizontally into 2 halves       - Sprinkle the inside of both cheese halves with red pepper flakes and paprika. Put on each half some of the onion rings, 3 slices of garlic, and - according to your own liking - also some grains of pepper       - Fold the halves back together again and pierce them with 3 tooth sticks to fix them       - After having prepared all the cheese halves like this, put them into the glass, adjusting them evenly in layers. While doing so, add garlic, onion rings, bay leaves, grains of pepper, grains of pimento and green pepper, and always cover with some oil.       After all cheese is finished, add oil up to the brim of the glass. Close it.       Ripening:       The pickled cheese has to "ripen" at room temperature. The duration is up to your liking, but the onions should become soft. In general, it may taste good even up to one week in the jar. As a rule, if you like the cheese less "ripe", 14 days will do. If you like it a bit "riper" (i.e. also spicier]), give it at least 3 weeks' time. If everything is starting to get kinda mushy in there, eat it as soon as you can.

Number One Fan and I have been going around, looking at various wedding items lately. While everything in the wedding world is overpriced and is deeply rooted in emotional usury, the worst offenders of the lot have to be the people making wedding dresses. For a long time, I thought that the profit killing funeral homes made off of taking advantage of people when they were in the depths of despondency from losing a loved one, were horrid. Now I'm realizing that those in the bridal business are just as bad if not worse. For, the people working in death are doing a job that most none of us really want to do and there is a cost to pay to have people doing those jobs. Those working in weddings try to wrap everything joy and love and doves and white satin to cover the fact that they're trying to get you to spend tens of thousands of dollars on what may be the happiest day of your life, but one that will put you in debt for decades to come.       So, when it comes to wedding dresses, it isn't the fact that most everything I see is some god awful tribute to lace and rhinestones, but more the fact that everything is so overpriced. An average, basic dress that is nothing special and hopefully not horribly ugly will cost about $500-1,000. There is no reason for this other than the fact it is a "wedding" dress. Make the dress black and put it on the 2nd floor of your average Macy's and suddenly the same dress is at most $200.       It's not like there is any special care that has gone in to these dresses. Once I got tired of looking at what is essentially the same thing over and over, I started looking at manufacturing tags. Sure enough, all of the dresses under $1,000 were made in China or some other country that relies heavily on sweatshop. So in the end, there's what, $50 or $10 or even $5 of expense in these dresses? Naturally, I have no hard figures as no one wants to look in to this because everyone is either too fixated with trying to find their special dress or sell one of these special dresses.       Of course, if you want something fancy like Vera Wang you're talking $5,000 and up. At least these dresses look good, but are they also made in China? If so, how can this be anything but laughable, filthy greed?       Ah yes, there is the other screwy facet in all of this is that you simple cannot try on a wedding dress without an assistant and most likely only by booking an appointment with said assistant. This may seem classy, when in reality all they're doing is upselling you and something bigger and fluffier than you wanted with the, "Oh, just splurge, you only do this once!" Folks, the divorce rate in the US is a bit of 50%, so don't listen to this line of crap.       I don't know what to say and it seems that so many women are hell-bent on paying these outlandish prices for a dress that they wear once that there isn't much that can be done about it. I'm betting that even if Oprah did a special on it, it wouldn't change a lick and it's sad because not only could that money be put to better uses in life, but it could be spent on a better party for the guests. I mean really folks, when it comes down to it the only thing people remember about your wedding is how much they drank and how much they ate and if either of these items were worth the wedding present they gave you. So, feed your guests and skimp on the dress!

Apparently, it's been time to play catchup in the realm of documentary film watching. While I watched Czech Dream awhile back, I just checked out This Film is not yet Rated a couple nights ago. This is a good film that digs in to the MPAA ratings board to find out who these anonymous people are and what gives them the right to dictate the ratings to the movies we see.       This movie is good. It started out by stating a lot of things I already knew, but I was happy to have it educate me in a great many more things that I did not know, such as some of the films that were originally NC-17 and then recut to R. It was also interesting to find out that all the blanket statements from the MPAA about the type of people who are on the board, are largely false. For instance, there is only one rater that had children within the young age group that the board states everyone has children in.       It was also interesting to see people dig in to the fact that sex is seen as a bigger problem than violence, which is pretty much the exact opposite in Europe. Apparently when it comes to sex, certain positions are okay, but once you start making the "business" the least bit interesting or show women thoroughly enjoying sex, that throws up red flags. Oh and naturally any kind of gay sex gets the big, "I don't think so." from the raters.       But, the biggest shock came with the appeals process when you want to try to get a lower rating than the one given by the board. The fact that there is a Protestant minister and a Catholic priest present was definitely news, but not much of a shock. The real shock was that everyone on the appeals board is in some way a film distributor. So basically, when you are appealing your film, you are not arguing a case to have it released with a lower rating due to a mistake by the raters, but you are in fact arguing to a group, who will decide if it gets a lower rating based on if it is marketable or not and what rating they need to give to hit whatever certain demographic they need to hit.       The unfortunate irony in all of this is that this film was given the NC-17 rating because of all the movies it shows clips from that were rated NC-17. I think that there is almost no swearing in the whole film by the people making it and obviously no nudity. So, the documentary, without the "evil" clips that it shows would actually have been rated damned near G. At some point, I hope that they recut it so that it can somehow be released on TV, since Americans really need to see this and see who it is that dictates morality on the silver screen through this outdated censorship program.

Czech Dream. At the very least it sounds like really bad porn, but for people living in Prague, in 2003, it was the name of a new, and super-duper-mega incredible hypermart that was coming their way. The only catch is that it never came. Two fellows by the name of Vít Klusák and Filip Remunda created this whole charade as a film project to show how capitalism has the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe firmly in its grasp.       This film was released quite some time ago, but it has only recently been released on video in the US by Morgan Spurlock from Super Size Me and soon to be released, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?. Yet, despite the time lapse of five years, the move is still poignant and probably even more so today as we in the Western World buy ourselves in to madness.       The parts that document the marketing process won't be the groundbreaking to those of us in the US who are the least bit familiar with the process, but it's always interesting to see how cocky people in advertising and marketing are. At one point the firm that is helping the filmmakers promote their fake store boasts, "We make people want products that don't even exist." Obviously, we don't need anymore of these people plying their trade these days, but it keeps working, so they keep marketing and they're scary bastards to watch as they play out what are essentially God Complexes.       It's a good movie though and overall it's sad to see how people all walk to the altar of the Almighty Cheap Price no matter what. For those looking to laugh at people doing exactly what Americans do who don't happen to be American, check it out. I think that people looking to see a commentary on the current direction and decline of the 21st century citizen might get a bit more out of it though.

Waking up at 11 in the morning is rarely good. While it doesn't always infer that you've done ill will to your body or wallet the night before, it kind of stunts the day to some degree. It's not fair to the day of course, but the highly underrated hobby of sleep is given a chance to catch up with life.       Such was the case yesterday. It was a pathetic, slow, mumbling start to the day. It was further lumbered down by a jaunt to the gym for some brief de-fatting. Then, after realizing that I'd done little more than write two emails the whole day, I remembered that I was going to an art opening at 5 in the ever-so-blonde Marina. These sort of things bring out the 80 year old man in me. I always like to have something to show at the end of any day. Even if it's going to the cafe on the corner to chat with friends for a couple of hours, it's still more than grousing around in my slippers and having, "Took a shower after lunch at 4PM. Feel clean for dinner now." be my main action item of the day.       So, without feeling much momentum, #1 Fan and I took a walk up to the Marina. It ended up being quite a nice day out, as many of my fellow San Franciscans had discovered.       It's weird when you start to drift in to the Marina Ghetto. Everybody does indeed get a lot more white and blonde (whether fake or real, but mostly the former) and I start seeing less hoodies, ironic t-shirts, and hip facial hair and more clothes that look like they're from the Gap or Tommy Hilfiger, although I wouldn't know as I don't shop there. I was unhappy.       Being in this super fantastic mood, we slipped in to Nectar. This was interesting and surprising. First off, the lack of baseball caps and conversations starting along the lines of, "Ah man, that's awesome. Donkey punch. Cool!" or "Omigod. Omigod. Oh! My! God! Donkey punch?" were not to be found, at least while we were there. The wine bar was plush and kick back. The seats were welcoming to asses that had walked two miles to get there. Much appreciated.       Oh, I should mention that we were there for a show by Hilary Williams. She's a hip local artist specializing in prints and paintings whose work we've gotten to like a great deal to the point where we even commissioned her to make a print for us. Her show is going on there for awhile yet and is a great splash of her recent works. If you happen to be in the Marina for some reason (um, maybe to shop at uh...? I don't know) swing by and enjoy it.       Naturally after downing far too much good wine, we were hurting for sustenance. Pulling ourselves together, we stepped out, ready to hike around and find somewhere to eat, only to go right next door to Nectar for, Bistro Aix. Not expecting much, we were incredibly surprised to find good food at good prices with good service. We weren't frowned upon at all, like can happen at so many restaurants because the host gives you attitude due to their thinking they are someone important standing behind the podium and walking people to a table. But no, Aix is a tasty place. I'm sure it can get loud as the bar crowd moves in there, but while we were there, it was a great mix.       Obviously, this gleaming moment of Marina bliss starting to tarnish a little as the night got later and more people showed up playing in to all the stereotypes of the area that one could imagine. Thankfully we were walking out of there before too many polo shirts were buying too many princesses too many drinks to get them to stop talking and move in the direction of a bed. While the mating of the BMWed crowd can be amusing, we were quite happy to be back at home having made something of our day (beyond the 4PM shower) and then returning to our little neighborhood clinging on to the edge of Nob Hill.

These days, now that there are two of us in the household and thusly about 1.5 times more waste (not twice as much, as two people are more economical living together) I really try to make the effort to not throw away anything except organic waste. I like to run with the assumption that somewhere, someone can use what I am not using anymore. To this, I might add that I mean someone local. It is often the case when donating large, obsolete items to developing nations, you can do more harm than good with how much trouble it is for them to receive something that they can ultimately buy for less than what it takes to get it in to the country. Take that in to account when you think you're doing good by shipping off your 15 year old megalith to somewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa.       So, #1 Fan and I did some Spring cleaning recently and got rid of a great many things that were hogging up space in the 63 square meters we call home. But instead of just throwing them out, we tried Freecycle. Previous to this, I had just left items down on the Free Shelf or out in the very Free Street. Freecycle seemed to have some advantages, as you were basically advertising items that you wanted to get rid of and the people responding were really interested in getting them. Ultimately we had mixed results and realized that Freecycle is best for those living in a rural setting who don't have a Free Shelf or a Free Street to easily toss items out upon. But, following is a run down of what works and what doesn't in each situation.              Freecycle       It's a website, but it's mostly an email list that people post on and respond to. It seems like a great idea and a way to circulate things that you just don't need to those who do need them. The principle is sound, but the how it plays out in the end is not. The two issues with Freecycle are the hoarders and the flakes. The former group are those that see something for free and think, "Hey, it's free, I could probably use that somehow." and they just respond to any and all postings no matter if they need it or not. This group sorta cripples the purpose of Freecycle and makes it a free for all that's about as useful as the Shelf or Street method. This group is also most likely where the flakes spring from. There are so many countless, endless people on Freecycle who just never show up to pick up something that they said they were going to pick up. It's pretty maddening really and makes giving things away a real pain.       Again, Freecycle is probably best for those living outside large cities, but then again, those are the areas with the fewest people subscribed.              Free Street       Yeah, just dumping it out on the street. It's simple, but it can also make a neighborhood ugly. You can also get ticketed for doing it. In reality, unless you have something big that's in nice condition, it's a pretty crappy thing to do. This is about the only case where I do it. One exception is where I'm getting rid of an older pair of shoes. I go and put them on top of a trash can around the corner. Ultimately, some homeless guy will always pick them up and get some use out of them still. And of course, if this doesn't happen in less than a day, I would go back down and toss them in the trash.       The biggest mistake [lapse in judgment] most people do is to put out old couches or mattresses on the street. These almost never get picked up until after some homeless guy has slept on them for a night or two and then the municipal trash ultimately tosses them.              Free Shelf       Probably the best method. I often leave things down on the shelf in my apartment, but then again, you really need to live in a decently large apartment to pull this off. This method runs the risk of angering the building manager though, unless you just put one or two items down there that are small and could really be used by someone else.       Lately, folks have been abusing the Free Shelf. Art students moving out (who never live in the building for longer than two years) will just dump all their crap down there. All of their "ironic white trash" apparel will end up on the shelf and stay there for days until the building manager tosses it. Some kids even left a pile of used bras and underwear. This is pretty ridiculous as a) no one in this building will pick it up and b) there are three charity groups and can actually use it. I've seen it end up in the trash on more than one occasion.       Even still, I love the Free Shelf and think that it's just the bomb for person to person recycling.              Free Box       I close with one extreme failure of the whole free recycling thing which was the Free Box at Peoples' Park. That box came to epitomize the worst of out capitalist society with it getting raiding by guys in the area who lived in the park and who got in fights with the other guys at the box over the junk people would dump there. They then ultimately sold whatever they got out of the box, negating the whole purpose of it. I was thankful to hear that it has gotten burned, smashed, and dismantled several times, since its presence in the park always created a bad atmosphere, unlike the Free Shelf in my apartment which just propagates endless love. Really, it does!