Archives for October, 2006

I tried, and failed, to carve a Winnie-the-Poohmpkin this year.

Today is Reformation Day in Slovenia. Despite being nominally and overwhelmingly Catholic, Slovenia still officially celebrates this quintessentially Protestant holiday. That may seem odd when you consider that all non-catholic Christians put together in Slovenia don’t even equal one percent of the population, but it makes sense when you realize that it’s primarily about this fellow, and the tremendous kick he gave to the language by printing the first Slovene-language book and also translating the New Testament into Slovene.

It’s also Halloween, which is also mildly celebrated here. There are Halloween parties, television stations play scary movies, and stores offer various knick knacks and decorations. I’m not sure how much the average Slovene gets involved in it. My guess is not too much.

Which is a bit of a shame. Halloween is a major event in the United States, and it gives commercial enterprises the chance to do what they do best: produce a dizzying variety of delicious junk.

After trick-or-treating, I used to bring home enough candy to last a lifetime. My mother (a European at heart) never quite liked the idea of me gorging on sugary treats until nausea forced me to go lie down and rest. In fact, she would always secretly destroy my stash sometime in November. I wouldn’t notice, of course, because like the Eye of Sauron, my will and energy were by that time intently focused on the impending Christmas.

Happy Halloween!

Above: Four Slovenian cows grazing in a field. (source)

Here’s a real-life Halloween story for you: Slovenia has ghost cows.

The country also has other phantom animals, but first and foremost ghost cows. And, just so we’re clear, I’m not talking about blurry old stupid fake ghosts, like the ones you see on the internets. I’m talking about internationally recognized ghosts, confirmed by reputable sources like the European Union and the UK’s newspaper of record, the The London Times. In fact, here’s what a recent Times story had to say about the spooky situation:

“[EU] Inspectors found that half the cattle that Slovene farmers said they owned, so qualifying them for special EU cow and beef grants, did not exist. A quarter of their sheep and goats were equally invisible.”

In other words, the whole country is haunted!!! If I was a member of the Slovenian government, I would immediately apply for 55 million euros in EU “ghostbusting funds” to deal with this. I’d also work to set up a multi-million euro “containment unit” in Ljubljana — fully funded by Brussels, of course — to store all the captured phantom livestock.

Seriously, though, I’m quite proud of Slovenian farmers. The way the system is set up, you’d be an idiot NOT to try something like this. As the Times story makes clear, two out of three EU regional projects that were audited contained “material errors.” Last year, Poland’s government simply gave a “warning” to people who “did not apply good farming practices” instead of, say, fining them. And it’s happening everywhere.

In short, the EU is quite probably the world’s largest gravy train — Slovenes should be making as much effort as everyone else to get on board this before it dries out.

Links:

–> New Europeans use imaginary cattle to milk EU subsidies (The Times)

–> Slowenien erschwindelte EU-Gelder mit Geisterkühen (German magazine Spiegel)

(Thanks Damir!)

A scene from the Slovenian cartoon Bizgeci. (Source: SloCartoon.net)

There isn’t much of a Slovenian animation industry, but there is Bizgeci. (Translated as “Nincompoops”) They’re very short, with each episode lasting around 5 minutes, making them perfect for the evening slot on national television when it’s time to say goodnight.

The official page has a few samples at the bottom (it’s probably better to turn off the embedded audio first: at the top right click on “glasba on/off”) — you can also watch some videos about the creators. (At the bottom left, with their names listed.)

More links

–> An embedded trailer clip (RealVideo, unfortunately)

–> The Bizgeci Page at SloCartoon (In Slovene)

–> Seven complete episodes over at RTV: (direct links to video files, hover over link for English translation)

* Krotilec levov
* Koruza / Ribolov
* Češnje / Pesniki
* Na jug / ÄŒas Ljubezni

If you don’t like RealPlayer, you can always download RealAlternative. Have a whimsical weekend!

Croatian soccer fans are known for their delicate sensibilities.

In what be the most ridiculous story of the year, the Association of Croatian Societies in Slovenia is suing two Slovenian cable operators because they blocked Croatian TV broadcasts of the World Cup this summer. Got that? No? Okay, don’t worry. Let’s break this down together. From the beginning:

1) Slovenia’s two big TV kahunas, Pro Plus and RTV Slovenija, secured the right to broadcast World Cup matches in Slovenia.

2) They ask cable operators UPC Telemach and Ljubljanski kabel to “black out” Croatian TV transmissions of the matches. Why? To ensure that they have a monopoly on coverage here, of course. What’s critical to note, though, is that this almost certainly has nothing to do with Croatian viewers. Croatians account for less than 2% of the population here. What the broadcasters are worried about are Slovenes — many of whom may have preferred watching Croatian coverage of the matches. Was this a shitty thing to do? Perhaps. But it was also perfectly understandable and, frankly, par for course. But here’s where things take a turn for the worse.

3) In a fit of rage, the Association of Croatian Societies in Slovenia sues the cable operators, claiming “discrimination” and the kind of deep “psychological pain” that only 1.6 million euros can make right again.

And that’s where the story is right now. It’s the “psychological pain” part that irks me most, not only because I was hoping I’d left that kind of nonsense behind in the U.S., but also because it’s almost offensively ridiculous. In fact, you could say that this lawsuit is causing me psychological pain. And it’s deep… Like €50-million deep.

First of all, it’s not like they were hog-tied, caged and prohibited from watching World Cup matches. They just had to watch them in the language of the country where they currently live. And they didn’t even have to do that. I mean, let’s imagine for a second that you’re the type of fanatic nutter who absolutely HAS to see a match broadcast in your native tongue. If you don’t see matches with a familiar voice explaining that you just saw a goal being scored, or a pass being made, you become traumatized. That might be difficult for you to imagine, especially since those kind of people probably belong in a mental hospital, but try to imagine it anyway. You HAVE to see the game in your mother tongue or else, mental schism. If this is the case: Why not just drive to Croatia to watch the goddamn matches? The distance is less than the average New Jersey-New York City commute. Hell, they were showing them for free on big screens in Zagreb, if I recall correctly. Or go to Germany? I mean, it’s not like anyone was working during the time anyway.

Or how about this: tuning into Croatian radio while watching the match on TV? I know a lot of people who do this. What about that? My point is that there were options. Lots of ‘em. It’s not like me and Taco Bell, where traveling 1,000 kilometers in any direction just leaves me standing there, a poor fool, just as wise as formerly.

And I don’t want to sound insensitive or anything. I mean, I know firsthand that it’s difficult being a foreigner, and that maintaining a connection with your country of origin is important. I’m guilty of doing plenty of crazy, stupid things to keep up this connection, like going to Austria to get Dr. Pepper, or praying every night for the Good Lord to deliver a Taco Bell unto Ljubljana, so that I may rejoice and gnash chicken soft tacos with mine teeth. But at some point you have to decide if something is a deal-breaker or not, if something that’s missing here is going to cause you “psychological pain” worth millions of tolars, or not. In short, you have to adjust. You have to recognize those things that are inconveniences or annoyances, and work around them — not clog up the courts with monkey shit like this.

As for the legal implications: They may actually have an argument of sorts. You could argue that people (myself included) paid for a television package with HTV, and that we were denied this during World Cup matches. Then again, if withholding service or not delivering an expected service are crimes, I know a lot of Slovenian companies that should be sued. Really a lot.

In short, I suppose I can understand (although not sympathize with) the black out as a “breach of contract.” But all this “mental pain” garbage needs to be reserved for moments when it really applies.

“Alpine milk” version 1.0. It currently looks like this.


The “hedgehog” ice cream bar.


Pasteurized milk… mmmmm.


Yugoslav cheese spread.


Yogurt / Fruit yogurt


Nowadays, asking for a Zlatorog will get you this.

If anyone has any memories about these products (what they tasted like, if they’re still available anywhere) please leave a comment!

(Thanks Pengovsky!)

Alexa has a list of the biggest web sites in Slovenia.

Alexa has a list of the 100 biggest web sites in Slovenia. Although Alexa suffers from a serious case of statistical bias, it’s still worth taking a look.

Search engines, not surprisingly, take the top three spots. They’re followed by the popular news site 24ur.com, Internet-provider SiOL, and the wildly popular forums of Mobisux. The rest of the top 25 include the usual giants (YouTube, Yahoo!, etc…) but also some odd surprises. Like ManagerZone in spot 21. It’s a virtual soccer manager site, in case you didn’t know. (I didn’t)

Only one blog appears on the list, and it’s had in spot 41. (That’s ahead of heavyweights like Amazon and Maribor-based newspaper VeÄ?er)

Some other surprises: Croatian-site Index.hr made the list, as did the interestingly titled Go Fuck Yourself (NSFW) message board.

(Thanks TinÄ?ek!)

Nika Mulec delivers the sad news of Kostelić’s sabbatical on live TV.

Since Slovenia prides itself on its Alps, and since Slovenes are almost universally fanatical about skiing, it’s always been a bit of a bummer that arch-rival Croatia produced a world-class skiier like Janica Kostelić.

Still: you’d think that her recent decision to skip this season wouldn’t so obviously delight this nation’s sportscasters…

(Thanks Miran!)

My voting slip.

A few days ago, Brian told me that dirty, no-good foreigners will be eligible to vote in Slovenia’s regional elections this Sunday. I assumed he was kidding or crazy (or a healthy mixture of the two) but it turns out he was goddamn right.

This week, to my surprise, I got a call to electoral arms in the mail. So, on Sunday, I will cast my first ever vote in a Slovenian election, ever!

I couldn’t have picked a more challenging one. Whereas Ljubljana is fielding 21 candidates and Celje 41, the Dame on the Drava is boasting 137 — half of them from Glas Žensk (Woman’s Voice), the only party that has more members than people actually voting for it.

What’s also interesting about this election is that I can’t talk about who’s getting my vote, because there’s about one degree of separation between me and a lot of the candidates. That’s the problem with small cities: everyone is so interconnected that things can get sticky very, very quickly. Avoiding conflicts of interest here seems impossible to do.

At any rate, regardless of whether you’re a Slovene or a lousy scumbag foreigner, don’t forget to vote on Sunday. Remember what George Jean Nathan said: “Bad politicians are elected by good citizens who do not vote.”

That’s goddamn right.

* * * *

UPDATE: Comments have been closed, in order to avoid any noncompliance with strict Slovenian electoral laws on “blackouts” before the vote.

Soon to become more expensive.

The essential tools of pirates: blank CDs, blank DVDs, external hard drives, and other copy-related technology, are about to get more expensive in Slovenia. The government has announced that starting this Saturday, all of these things will include a “compensation” fee based on things like the amount of recording time, or number of megabytes, a device can hold.

Although the extra expenses can be circumvented by shopping outside of Slovenia, it still seems like a much better solution than the ongoing “sue-em-all” campaign happening in the United States. I guess we’ll see how it pans out.

And, of course, if you need any of the stuff on this list — it might be a good idea to go pick it up today or tomorrow.

Anže Kopitar’s NHL debut. Click play to watch.

The 19-year-old Slovenian hockey player Anže Kopitar¹ had a tremendous debut in the NHL this month, scoring twice in his first game. Sadly, an AP article referred to him as a “rookie from Sweden” — the first known instance of a major media outlet mixing up Slovenia and Sweden. (The problem: He played in Sweden, but is a Slovene.)

The official NHL site corrected the mistake, but many other news sources (including Sports Illustrated, Forbes, NBC, The Chicago Tribune, Seattle Post Intelligencer, and even his hometown paper The Los Angeles Times) repeated it. You can browse through all 156 of them here.

Another opportunity for Slovenia to get some press, down the drain.

(Thanks Matty!)

1. Pointless tidbit: Although Americans refer to him as KopiTAR, here in Slovenia, the second syllable is stressed, thus: Ko-PI-tar. [back]