Thursday, December 08, 2011
Yo! Win Somehting!
Just wanted to let anyone visiting here know that not only can you read the entries but you can click and win a Flip! Just go here (it's a safe site, guaranteed), check out the fly-fishing video, post a comment on THAT blog and you're entered to win a free Flip! Even mailed to you FREE. If you post that blog's link on your own blog, Facebook account or Twitter account your name gets entered again. TWO chances to win.
Act qucikly. Again, here's the link.
Another plug, especially if you like watching videos of the great outdoors while listening to music, check out Yukon Goes Fishing. A fine site put out by someone who inspired me to start blogging (yeah, yeah, I know I've been criminally negligent lately...) in the first place. He has kept up the good fight and continues to post always entertaining entries to get you through the doldrums of the day.
Act qucikly. Again, here's the link.
Another plug, especially if you like watching videos of the great outdoors while listening to music, check out Yukon Goes Fishing. A fine site put out by someone who inspired me to start blogging (yeah, yeah, I know I've been criminally negligent lately...) in the first place. He has kept up the good fight and continues to post always entertaining entries to get you through the doldrums of the day.
Labels: Blogs, Personalities, Quirks
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Note to Current & Future "Helicopter" Parents....
...from Maurice Sendak.
"Go to Hell".
Love it. Absolutely. Positively. Love it!
"Go to Hell".
Love it. Absolutely. Positively. Love it!
Labels: Family Matters, People, Personalities
Friday, June 19, 2009
Meaning Of...
When first presented with my name, folks tended to hesitate, pull their ear, perhaps even stick a twisted up handkerchief, a la The 3 Stooges, into their right ear and pull it out their left ear.
"Had I heard that correctly?", their face indicates?
Yes, it is Darko.
"And, uhmmmm, what does it mean", comes the usual response indicating that a meaning must be available to help clear up the matter.
I've always told folks that Darko has no meaning; it's simply one of those Croatian things. Inexplicable.
Now, it seems, there's a web site explaining all.
Or so it seems.
Per the site, "Damir" means "Yes Peace". Which is true....sort of. If you split up the name, "Da" does mean "Yes" and "Mir" means "Peace". But "Yes Peace", even when considering how clunky translations can be, sounds awfully....stupid (and primitive), wouldn't you say?
Continuing, per the site, "Darko" means "Gift". Let's look at that a bit closer.
"Dar" does mean "Gift".
But, using the same logic as "Damir" then, you have to come up with the translation for "ko".
"Ko" is a shortened version of "Tko", which means "Who". So, stretching things here, it seems "Darko" means "Gift Who", suggesting something along the lines of, "Gift? Who thinks he's a Gift!?!?".
Not exactly the thought I'd like to give people when I first meet them. Afterwards, they may well think, "Gift? He's more of a Burden!", but that would at least would give me a physical and temporal distance before they would decide if some time to get to know me would be worth the "Darko" mystery.
This whole "gift" thing will play well into the Ever-Loving Wife's hands. My mother, bless her broken Croatian-English vocabulary, has mentioned on occasion to the ELW that I'm a jewel, i.e. a very specific and highly-prized type of gift. The ELW jury's still out on that one, debating whether I'm precious, semi-precious, or simply industrial grade.
Labels: Croatia, Personalities
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Just, in Passing
John Mitchell aka Mitch Mitchell, a truly under-rated drummer died yesterday. In today's NYT's Obit section, Mr. Mitchell was the (gravestone) Headliner.
However, this obit, regarding a certain Nikola Kavaja, is what caught my eye. A scary guy with a ghost-filled resume stuffed with controversies. Among other bizarre facts, if he was the anti-Communist and Tito-hater he preached he was, what the heck was he doing living in Serbia when he died? Last sentence of the article about sums his life up.
"A classic Balkan fable, long on drama, short on truth," Paul Gimigliano, a spokesman for the C.I.A., said Tuesday
Well...at least in Mr. Kavaja's telling, his own life makes Chuck Norris look like a wimp. At least when he was alive, I would have probably agreed.
However, this obit, regarding a certain Nikola Kavaja, is what caught my eye. A scary guy with a ghost-filled resume stuffed with controversies. Among other bizarre facts, if he was the anti-Communist and Tito-hater he preached he was, what the heck was he doing living in Serbia when he died? Last sentence of the article about sums his life up.
"A classic Balkan fable, long on drama, short on truth," Paul Gimigliano, a spokesman for the C.I.A., said Tuesday
Well...at least in Mr. Kavaja's telling, his own life makes Chuck Norris look like a wimp. At least when he was alive, I would have probably agreed.
Labels: Idiosyncracies, Personalities
Friday, November 07, 2008
How Not to Mince Words.
Jack Bruce, making sure that his opinion re. the Led Zeppelin regrouping leaves no wiggle room for mis-interpretation.
The last line in the linked piece is especially gruesome/delicious.
...awaiting the return salvo from the Led, especially Jimmy Page.
The last line in the linked piece is especially gruesome/delicious.
...awaiting the return salvo from the Led, especially Jimmy Page.
Labels: Personalities
Monday, November 03, 2008
Palin, Rubbing it in in Pittsburgh
In her ongoing campaign in Pennsylvania, VP candidate Sarah Plain is striving to be booed at all major sporting events. Gov. Palin of Alaska either doesn't get it or her not-so-hot-at-handling her personnel don't get it. You don't come to Pittsburgh, home of the most beautiful, IMHO, baseball stadium in baseball and home to the Pittsburgh Pirates, a professional baseball team that hasn't caught a whiff of the playoffs since Barry Bonds was 175 lbs., and rub it in to the home crowd about the cross-state rivals being World Champions.
...and then, after being a dimwit with her words, she puts on that dimwit smile? Come on PA! Get with it and start the "O" landslide, staring from the western cornet all the way to Philly. Home of the Champions.
...and then, after being a dimwit with her words, she puts on that dimwit smile? Come on PA! Get with it and start the "O" landslide, staring from the western cornet all the way to Philly. Home of the Champions.
Labels: Personalities, Philly
Back and Hands
A great NYT article from Sunday, written by Stanley Fish. A lifetime ago, I remember having a memorable meal in the train car restaurant he mentioned in his piece. I'd quibble with the location, though. Unless the train tracks or cars moved, the restaurant is in Carrboro, NC (The Paris of the Piedmont) and not Chapel Hill, N.C. There definitely was something about eating in a rail car, stationary or ripping on the rails, that promotes easy and gradually ratcheting up conversation.
What rings true for me with Mr. Fish's article is the Slavic tone and the concomitant attitude toward politicians. Entwined like rope, this mind-set is what throws, for me at least, the whole RNC "Joe the Plumber" scenario into disbelief and a touch of empathy for the poor guy. Somehow, a guy working with his hands, dealing literally with the muck of humanity, and associating with politicians, of either stripe, throws in doubt his very connection with the working guy. Having laboured during my high school and college summers in various jobs involving back muscle, excessive sweating, and colorful language I graduated college thankful that I had other work possibilities and grateful that I had worked with such great people. There was such a sweet pleasure at the end of a day and particularly at the end of the week, when my hands and back had a chance to recuperate. Callouses were a visible reward for another day's work. The approval of my elders at work, transmitted by their calling me by name rather than by "Kid" or "Punk" stayed withe me longer than any "A" in high school or college. Those summer jobs were probably why I always tended to work for companies after graduating that made something rather than simply serviced something. The tangibility of manufacturing rather than the construction of words was primal, in a way.
Am I happy with the choices we've been provided for tomorrow? Absolutely not. It is a shame that this great country can come down to Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain. Perhaps the Max the Plumbers know what an unfulfilling and dirty job it is to run for president. They would rather deal with the pipes than what runs through them.
But, vote we must. So, I'm sticking with Hope rather than Hate. I'm voting for Obama's plumbing company.
What rings true for me with Mr. Fish's article is the Slavic tone and the concomitant attitude toward politicians. Entwined like rope, this mind-set is what throws, for me at least, the whole RNC "Joe the Plumber" scenario into disbelief and a touch of empathy for the poor guy. Somehow, a guy working with his hands, dealing literally with the muck of humanity, and associating with politicians, of either stripe, throws in doubt his very connection with the working guy. Having laboured during my high school and college summers in various jobs involving back muscle, excessive sweating, and colorful language I graduated college thankful that I had other work possibilities and grateful that I had worked with such great people. There was such a sweet pleasure at the end of a day and particularly at the end of the week, when my hands and back had a chance to recuperate. Callouses were a visible reward for another day's work. The approval of my elders at work, transmitted by their calling me by name rather than by "Kid" or "Punk" stayed withe me longer than any "A" in high school or college. Those summer jobs were probably why I always tended to work for companies after graduating that made something rather than simply serviced something. The tangibility of manufacturing rather than the construction of words was primal, in a way.
Am I happy with the choices we've been provided for tomorrow? Absolutely not. It is a shame that this great country can come down to Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain. Perhaps the Max the Plumbers know what an unfulfilling and dirty job it is to run for president. They would rather deal with the pipes than what runs through them.
But, vote we must. So, I'm sticking with Hope rather than Hate. I'm voting for Obama's plumbing company.
Labels: Life Decisions, Personalities
Monday, September 29, 2008
Santorum with Lipstick
Only in Philly. Protesters outside of the Irish Pub on 20th & Walnut in Philly held up signs, including one that read, "Palin is Santorum With Lipstick", referring to one of the previous Pennsylvania senators, Rick Santorum, known for his religious vigor as applied to national policy. While I didn't agree all too often with Mr. Santorum, I did respect the credentials he had in getting to the senatorial position. Had he been re-elected in 2006, there would have been a strong possibility that he, not the inexperienced Palin, would have been the VP candidate this year, based on his strong conservative streak. As a Catholic, he would have been a formidable opponent to Delaware's Joe Biden, a Catholic himself. I think the "Santorum with lipstick" comment really disses MR. Santorum, someone who probably wants nothing to do with the mess of the Palin-McCain campaign at this point.The train wreck that is Sarah Palin will most probably be the undoing of McCain's chances to win this November.
If nothing else, this year's election has been quite interesting, capped off so far by the "Do I cancel? Do I not?" behaviour last week of the man of action, Mr. McCain. But who really decided to go through with that cheap move? His handlers had to have had a say in the matter; this doesn't seem to be all McCain's doing.
Labels: Personalities, Philly
Friday, January 25, 2008
Brise-fer...
...... is one of my favorite expressions. Comes in quite handy when you're talking with someone who has an uncanny ability to unwittingly destroy items, especially items of a considerable heft and importance. 
A Brise-fer, roughly translated, is a person capable of breaking iron. Early on in our relationship, I bestowed this lovely moniker on my ever-loving (to-be) spouse as the electricity that she personally generated seemed to inexplicably blow up, first, my amplifier, second, my receiver and, third, my turntable. She had your classic (I know I'll be hearing about this shortly) female incompatibility with stereo equipment. No, it wasn't misuse on her part; she was extremely careful as to which buttons, dials, doo-dads to push, turn, or combobulate (if you can discombobulate then you can ....). Her electric personality just was not in synch with equipment made by mere mortal men.
She was/is a good sport about the Brise-feriness of her aura. She was even agreeable in my purchasing of slightly better (read that as "more expensive") equipment to replace the non-operative stuff she had her way with. It's been a long time since any circuits have been blown. I've taken that as indication that our two personalities have co-mingled such that we are exuding neutral energy.
Alas, that has changed recently. It now seems that it is time for me to bear the title of our house's Brise-fer. Two PC's have gone south recently and even a replacement (which is currently caught in the limbo of "Pickup by Seller" land) has refused to operate within my general vicinity. I'm seriously thinking of going this route for my personal computer needs.
I post this now as I am scheduled to do a dj-ing shift the next two Sundays, Jan. 27 and Feb. 3 at WVUD doing The Morning After show from 9:00 until 12:00. In addition, I'll be sitting in for a friend and doing his Friday Jazz gig at the station for 4 weeks starting in February. That is a lot of me being at the station; I'm hoping my Brise-feriness is in abeyance during my proximity to Very Expensive Sounds Studio Equipment. I've not made plans to shell out my retirement funds to replace sound boards, microphones, etc.
A Brise-fer, roughly translated, is a person capable of breaking iron. Early on in our relationship, I bestowed this lovely moniker on my ever-loving (to-be) spouse as the electricity that she personally generated seemed to inexplicably blow up, first, my amplifier, second, my receiver and, third, my turntable. She had your classic (I know I'll be hearing about this shortly) female incompatibility with stereo equipment. No, it wasn't misuse on her part; she was extremely careful as to which buttons, dials, doo-dads to push, turn, or combobulate (if you can discombobulate then you can ....). Her electric personality just was not in synch with equipment made by mere mortal men.She was/is a good sport about the Brise-feriness of her aura. She was even agreeable in my purchasing of slightly better (read that as "more expensive") equipment to replace the non-operative stuff she had her way with. It's been a long time since any circuits have been blown. I've taken that as indication that our two personalities have co-mingled such that we are exuding neutral energy.
Alas, that has changed recently. It now seems that it is time for me to bear the title of our house's Brise-fer. Two PC's have gone south recently and even a replacement (which is currently caught in the limbo of "Pickup by Seller" land) has refused to operate within my general vicinity. I'm seriously thinking of going this route for my personal computer needs.
I post this now as I am scheduled to do a dj-ing shift the next two Sundays, Jan. 27 and Feb. 3 at WVUD doing The Morning After show from 9:00 until 12:00. In addition, I'll be sitting in for a friend and doing his Friday Jazz gig at the station for 4 weeks starting in February. That is a lot of me being at the station; I'm hoping my Brise-feriness is in abeyance during my proximity to Very Expensive Sounds Studio Equipment. I've not made plans to shell out my retirement funds to replace sound boards, microphones, etc.
Labels: Personalities
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Mongo Lives!
In the small and quaint state that is Delaware, oddities of character are quite abundant. From the state's largest paper, in Monday's edition comes this local vial (or is that "vile"?) of color.Birthday Bash Ends Badly (names altered to protect the innocent and shade the guilty)
A birthday celebration ended abruptly when a man stabbed three people early Sunday morning, state police spokesman Sgt. Po Lease Speakman said. None of the injuries was life-threatening, he said. The incident began about 1:40 a.m. when Julip Mongo, 39, of Smyrna, and the three victims returned to a home on Raven's Wood Road in Towns End after celebrating his birthday. One victim, a 28-year-old, helped Mr. Mongo after he fell out of the vehicle in the driveway. Mr. Mongo came into the home "very irate", grabbed a steak knife from the kitchen and threw it into the living room, hitting a 31-year-old Wilmingtoooon woman, causing a scratch, Sgt. Speakman said. When a 33-year-old Wilmingtoooon man tried to calm him, Mr. Mongo got a second knife and stabbed him in his left hand. Mr. Mongo then stabbed the Wilmingtoooon woman (that he'd previously caused to have a scratch) in the chest, leaving a superficial wound. As the Smyrna man (the Good Samaritan from the driveway incident) entered the house, Mr. Mongo swung the knife at him, inflicting wounds to his chest and left shoulder.
The Wilmingtoooon woman's mother called 911, and the other victims fled. Troopers could not calm Mr. Mongo down until a K-9 officer arrived and threatened use of the dog, Sgt. Speakman said. At the state police barracks in Odessa, Mr. Mongo tried to dismantle the jail doors and destroy a video camera. Mr.Mongo ("Mongo only pawn... in game of life") was charged with three counts of felony second-degree assault and possession of a weapon during commission of a felony. Bail information was not available Sunday.Possible police scene, somewhere in the mix.
Bart:I better go check out this Mongo character.
[Bart reaches for his gun]
Jim: Oh no, don't do that.
Bart: Why not?
Jim: If you shoot him, you'll just make him mad.
Labels: Delaware, NaBloPoMo, Personalities
Friday, November 16, 2007
Identity Crisis, of the Self-Invented Sort
Not so much in search of topics as in Search of Self, I've decided to channel the inner Croatian and see how he communicates in his alleged mother tongue. If my relatives are any judge of my communicating methodology, laughs are sure to be provided by the possessors of basic Croatian when they try to read my entries.
My purpose, aside from providing unintended giggles to the Hrvati? Practice makes perfect, or in my case, ameliorates an embarrassing situation. So, this blog, My Hrvatski Really Stinks, is now open on the major Croatian blog site, the teeny tiny country's version of Blogger. We shall see how this goes. If nothing else, I'm sure my posting there, if they do attract flies to my 3 day fish entries, will produce fine examples of the Croatian Art of Cursing.
The blog site will be improved/changed as time goes on. I've blown the dust off of my Croatian-English/English-Croatian dictionaries, so the words used there will be accurate. However, for those hoping to learn anything from that site, I say, 'Speak not as I write". My grammar is, well, primitive. There are more than enough conjugations in the language to have 2 or 3 languages, so my "take" on them is haphazard, at best.
My purpose, aside from providing unintended giggles to the Hrvati? Practice makes perfect, or in my case, ameliorates an embarrassing situation. So, this blog, My Hrvatski Really Stinks, is now open on the major Croatian blog site, the teeny tiny country's version of Blogger. We shall see how this goes. If nothing else, I'm sure my posting there, if they do attract flies to my 3 day fish entries, will produce fine examples of the Croatian Art of Cursing.
The blog site will be improved/changed as time goes on. I've blown the dust off of my Croatian-English/English-Croatian dictionaries, so the words used there will be accurate. However, for those hoping to learn anything from that site, I say, 'Speak not as I write". My grammar is, well, primitive. There are more than enough conjugations in the language to have 2 or 3 languages, so my "take" on them is haphazard, at best.
Labels: Blogs, NaBloPoMo, Personalities
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Another Slow Posting Day in Lit Land
Find out your Harry Potter personality at LiquidGeneration!
Well, he does approximate my age better than the majority of the cast of characters, although I was hoping to be pegged as Hagrid's double. I just love what he does with his hair!
Labels: Personalities
Friday, December 01, 2006
Temper
"Like most irritable people I rarely lose my temper (a dog that's let out for regular exercise isn't as apt to run away when it does escape), but I was losing it this morning. At least in that respect I was resembling our Lord, who was forever losing His. It took very little to rile Him; Scribes and Pharisees, His Family, even a fig tree." (Peter DeVries from "The Mackerel Plaza" )
It's not as if kids scatter; in fact most seem to be drawn to me. Must be the bushy mustache and the humming I seem to engage in when I'm hiking from God's Half Acre, where I parked my car, to my Happy Abode, a couple of blocks away. They also seem to like calling me by my first name. "Hey, Darko! Home now?". They don't call other older guys or fathers by their first name. Something naughty about yelling Darko, I guess. But, that's a different issue.
So, you see it's not some always threatening exploding volcano in me. It's got to be my occassional teeth-gnashing and mental accumulation of small tiffs that causes the occasional solitary uproar in my Humble Abode. I've found that speaking in tongues, preferably tongues of minimal mutual understanding works quite well to let steam off. In fact, non-vulgar words in a quaint language can be made to sound as profane by simply raising one's voice and milling one's arms about.
For me, at times, it's as if I'm a rooster. I bellow out some screech of a noise, irregardless of that exclamation's connection with whatever is actually going on. The family has learned to ignore it or, better yet, derive amusement from it. A trip to the old country a couple of summers ago opened their eyes to this common habit of the Croatian male. All basically much ado about nothing much left to do. Cock-a-doodle-doo....
The Facts:
A definition of Losing One’s Temper: Get very angry and fly into a rage
Flip: (option a) One’s Wig or (option b) One’s Lid.
Fly: (option a) Off the Deep End or (option b) Off the Handle..
Have: (option a) A Conniption or (option b) A Fit or (option c) Kittens.
Hit: (option a) The Ceiling or (option b) The Roof (a corollary of “The Roof” is Go through (said) Roof. Hitting the or Going through Roof is directly related to the construction of your house, so keep that in mind when Losing One’s Temper.)
Blow: (option a) A Fuse or (option b) A Gasket or (option c) One’s Stack or , simply, (option d) Up.
Go: (option a) Ballistic or (option b) Nuclear.
Lose: (option a) It or (option b) Self-Control or, via REM (option c) One’s Religion.
The Aussies Bung on an Act
Wlliam Butler Yeats thought that, "One should not lose one's temper unless one is certain of getting more and more angry to the end.", while one of Delaware’s senators, the ever-enthralling Mr. J. Biden, tries to distinguish anger and losing one’s temper here.
Thais believe that to lose one's temper is most unbecoming of the person and thought of as a person with low character or poor upbringing.
In fact, not losing your temper is one of the 3 cornerstones of a long and fulfilling life. Seems the cosmic creditor can’t find you if you’re in control of your temper.
I’ll conclude with John Malkovich’s opinion on losing one’s temper, "I don't lose my temper very often now, and if I do, it's well deserved."
So, dear readers, when your emotions are negatively piqued, how do you classify your Yosemite Sam moment?
It's not as if kids scatter; in fact most seem to be drawn to me. Must be the bushy mustache and the humming I seem to engage in when I'm hiking from God's Half Acre, where I parked my car, to my Happy Abode, a couple of blocks away. They also seem to like calling me by my first name. "Hey, Darko! Home now?". They don't call other older guys or fathers by their first name. Something naughty about yelling Darko, I guess. But, that's a different issue.
So, you see it's not some always threatening exploding volcano in me. It's got to be my occassional teeth-gnashing and mental accumulation of small tiffs that causes the occasional solitary uproar in my Humble Abode. I've found that speaking in tongues, preferably tongues of minimal mutual understanding works quite well to let steam off. In fact, non-vulgar words in a quaint language can be made to sound as profane by simply raising one's voice and milling one's arms about.
For me, at times, it's as if I'm a rooster. I bellow out some screech of a noise, irregardless of that exclamation's connection with whatever is actually going on. The family has learned to ignore it or, better yet, derive amusement from it. A trip to the old country a couple of summers ago opened their eyes to this common habit of the Croatian male. All basically much ado about nothing much left to do. Cock-a-doodle-doo....
The Facts:
A definition of Losing One’s Temper: Get very angry and fly into a rage
Flip: (option a) One’s Wig or (option b) One’s Lid.
Fly: (option a) Off the Deep End or (option b) Off the Handle..
Have: (option a) A Conniption or (option b) A Fit or (option c) Kittens.
Hit: (option a) The Ceiling or (option b) The Roof (a corollary of “The Roof” is Go through (said) Roof. Hitting the or Going through Roof is directly related to the construction of your house, so keep that in mind when Losing One’s Temper.)
Blow: (option a) A Fuse or (option b) A Gasket or (option c) One’s Stack or , simply, (option d) Up.
Go: (option a) Ballistic or (option b) Nuclear.
Lose: (option a) It or (option b) Self-Control or, via REM (option c) One’s Religion.
The Aussies Bung on an Act
Wlliam Butler Yeats thought that, "One should not lose one's temper unless one is certain of getting more and more angry to the end.", while one of Delaware’s senators, the ever-enthralling Mr. J. Biden, tries to distinguish anger and losing one’s temper here.
Thais believe that to lose one's temper is most unbecoming of the person and thought of as a person with low character or poor upbringing.
In fact, not losing your temper is one of the 3 cornerstones of a long and fulfilling life. Seems the cosmic creditor can’t find you if you’re in control of your temper.
I’ll conclude with John Malkovich’s opinion on losing one’s temper, "I don't lose my temper very often now, and if I do, it's well deserved."
So, dear readers, when your emotions are negatively piqued, how do you classify your Yosemite Sam moment?
Labels: Personalities
