Iva’s personal site - Squirrelism.net

Happy New Year…with a slight delay, as I had no time to post before;)

I spent the New Year’s Eve quietly with mom and dad, eating štanglice [can't explain], some prosciuto, cheese and olives on toothpicks and Dr. Oetker vanilla pudding with raspberry sauce. I was almost feeling like an old friend of mine died, because somehow, I learned to love 2006, even after some of the most painful experiences in my life so far. Maybe because I really loved the last two months? Either way, she’s gone to heaven now and I hope she’s beating the s**t out of 2004, the year that will never be forgiven in my mind, for many many reasons. All my problems date from 2004 and 2005 and 2006 didn’t manage to solve them all, either though I was really trying hard.

The New Year’s day was a stereotype one, apart from the fact that I woke up at five in the morning again. I was looking at the break of dawn from the bathroom window, and then I remembered there was a Tom & Jerry marathon on Boomerang. So, yes, I spent the most of the day watching that and updating Invisible Movement for the first time in 2007. I re-published the whole Albany and East Rutherford special and the Vienna special finally saw the light of the day.

Speaking of Vienna, I also watched the traditional New Year’s concert with mom, but this time it was slightly different, as mom was like: “Did you see this place? Did you see that place?” every ten seconds. I told her that I did see Belvedere, but that I did not see Schönbrünen. In the end, she concluded that I should go back to Vienna and do more sightseeing, preferably during the warmer part of the year, so I could experience Prater at its best and see the royal gardens. What’s with my connections to that city, anyway? Mom and dad made me in Vienna and I left my heart in Vienna, that’s for sure. Every single mention of Vienna gets out another moment from my mind and makes it more memorable. Hearing Radetsky Marsch at the end of the concert reminded me of how my friend Roberta said that one of her biggest dreams is to be at the New Year’s concert someday and how we both concluded that Radetsky Marsch is one of the greatest musical pieces on Earth. All cool people love classical music;)

Even with all this on my mind, I still can’t help remembering those New Year days we were spending at Zorana’s place, with her family and Jasna’s family; eating leftover food from the party we’d always been having there the night before. Us kids were eating on the floor, Zorana’s mom, Mila, was always trying to make us stuff we loved to eat…mostly dough-based snacks and cookies. And we were playing…one of our most common games was a roleplay of a family which was experiencing paranormal stuff. Despite the fact that I was the youngest of all three of us, I was the mother. Jasna was my son, Viki (not really a normal name for a boy) and Zorana was my daughter, Nina. Sometimes we were playing a game where we’d be running an orphanage and dolls were the kids. They all had names, last names and a history file. And when we were not in a mood for anything that special, we were playing with our Lego Fabuland sets. I seriously miss those days and it’s sad to see that Zoka & Jaca don’t miss them. So, yes, Jasna met a random dude in her grandmother’s hometown early this year, got pregnant in March, got married in July, had a baby named AFTER ME in November and she didn’t even freakin’ call me over. I want to go and see the baby, it’s a traditional thing. At least Jasna was actually replying to my texts after her mother gave me the number. I called Zorana twice, she told me that she’s not one of those people who arrange meeting up someone and then never meet up with them; but unfortunately she did that! I deleted both Zorana and Jasna’s numbers from my mobile phone, I am bitter and angry and I wonder how they can forget everything we’d been through as if we had not been best friends for eight years? I just don’t understand them and I am really disappointed with all my friends from the past. Many of the present as well, for that matter. I think it’s my biggest disappointment at the moment and it goes on and on and on…

I’d like to talk about something else as well, but I can’t be bothered as I’m sick with the certain girl sending her friends to bother me, as if it wasn’t enough that she was breathing behind my cyber neck for about 7-8 months last year. Seriously, get a life, sign up to some course, attend university, make money of your own and leave me alone. As for the most recent political issue, won’t discuss it either, as I don’t want eye for eye and tooth for tooth power-liking and death-admiring people to stab me when I explain all of my reasons for absolutely being against death penalty, regardless of who’s the person in question. So…yay for 2007, OK?

The title of this entry hardly has anything to do with the entry itself. It’s a rather humorous way to contradict some things. And I’m enjoying it with as much pleasure as I’d enjoy roasted potatoes…however, there’s one slight difference: this doesn’t give stomach problems, unless I’m laughing at what I wrote so much that my stomach hurts;)

So, now that it’s official, I can proudly say what’s my new job: I am the admin of Lush Serbia!:) The site looks pretty oldsk00l, but I, with suggestions coming from the head PR/trainer/godhedoessomanyotherthings will make it look as cool as possible. And I’m so excited about it, since I’ve been Lushing My Religion for about a year now and I’m totally addicted, so this is like the second best thing after being like a kid in a candystore (which would still be an equivalent of something else).

Speaking of Lush, here’s my yummy stuff for tonight or tomorrow night:

Snowcake soap and Puddy Holly ballistic

Other than that…gosh, I’ve had a pretty busy week, so everyone who didn’t get a comment back from me, even if it was long ago, it’s not on purpose. My busy social life from last week continued onto this week, but it turned out I also had a busy business life…if there’s such a thing. With little jobs here and there, now I also work for someone who’s free only on weekday evenings, so I’d often end up coming home at midnight and just jumping into bed. And on Friday I spent four hours freezing with 100-ish people in a row for something…and if I don’t get that something, I might just call 2006 the worst year of my life.

I wanted to bitch blog about how western culture turned Christmas into a major joke and how watching Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire for the third time in a year made me think of some things related to the psychology of the characters and ms. Rowling herself, buuuut…some other time. Too tired now and too annoyed with how I can’t set up my downloadables and gallery on Invisible Movement. Instead of that, I will just post a pic of John from the 56666887989789th RHCP gig in UK this year, taken by my friend Kim:

John Frusciante in London, 22nd November 2006

If you want a nice review of the show, Sarah wrote one, click here

I almost deleted this website yesterday. I had a bad, bad, bad PMS (sorry for too much info) and I don’t remember having been this self-destructive in years. The past two weeks have been mentally overwhelming for me, with good and bad things bombing me each from its own side. Blah. I could use some cheering up now.

The first week, which is, well, the week before this one was all about one BIG shock. Let’s say that some people are becoming more and more dominant as I’m writing this and that they have changed their tactics from You all suck to Aww, I love you guys so much! Wanna be my friends? Whoever the person in question is, they’re really taking this shiznit too far and I don’t get how they’re winning people? Maybe because people whom they’re winning, with honourable exceptions, are the social butterflies. Either way, I’ve had enough of know your whatever this year.

Unlike that week, the week that’s ending with today was…well, stressful. I learned one thing from it: never ask your parents for job advise. I am close to getting a very nice job and I almost lost it because mom and dad were telling me how much to ask from the job providers…and my unofficial older sister was on their side. In the end, it turned out that the pay IS small, but that it WILL increase as I’m advancing so…yeah, I said yes. Once the contract is signed, I’ll tell you where I’m going to work, but I guess it’s not that hard to guess. And no, it’s not Pepsi :p

Does anyone of my age and slightly younger/older remember Fabuland? You know, one of those lines of products Lego had before they became waaay too complicated to follow. For an anthro fan like myself, Fabuland was Promiseland. All the characters were cute animals. My favourite was and always will be Max Mouse. In my mind, Lucy Lamb was always his girlfriend, as they were together in most of the playsets they were a part of. I have a small roudabount with a parkbench, with Max and Lucy, I have a house with Bonnie Bunny and Edward Elephant, as well as the bus station with Nessie Hippo and Mike Monkey. But I don’t have the amusement park on this picture. That one was my obsession. When I went to Italy with mom and dad in 1987, I wanted that one so much, but I got some Lego Basic set instead. Then mom went to Germany twice in 1988, but she’d always bring me something else. Then it turned out that my wonderful friend Mira never got that one either. And we made a deal: one day we’re soooo going to get that amusement park, no matter how much it costs. Yes, we’re mad, but proud of it as well.

What else…John shaved his head again:

I’m going to miss those long romantic brown curls a bit, but, at the other side, he looks younger with shorter hair; and if he donated hair to Locks Of Love again, that’s one more reason to love him. Come to think, when was the last time we were able to see his whole face. Errr…early 2005?

This is not an entry you’ll get to read on the most of other people’s blogs on the last day of October, so I’m reeeeally sorry that I don’ fit into the cliché.

14 days ago someone sort of…slapped me in the face, in a good way. We met earlier this year and I instantly liked them for many reasons: enormous intelligence, knowing at what point people’s discussions turn from interesting to tasteless and their slight resemblance to my childhood best friend, as if they were a version 2.0 of that person (who is, by the way, not really nice, as we spoke a couple of weeks ago, talked about seeing each other and she’s not even returning text messages now! So NOT nice and so not sincere…). That evening, when I came home from a small gathering we both went to, I sat down and cried. I wondered if I was really becoming so strange that even people who don’t know me that well can notice it. And, at the same time, I couldn’t believe that someone was so nice to me, as I almost always have the bad luck of running into egoists, agony aunts, fake moralists and…you know, all those idiots. And, somehow, after that day, I did a huge amount of work, I didn’t sleep for more than 10-12 hours per night (and that’s a big step forward for me) and I didn’t cry one single time. It’s a nice feeling. And I wish we could be friends. I must be silly with the “will you be my friend” attitude, but ummm…sometimes it works. It would really be nice. Either way, I’m thankful to them for giving me a stress-free second half of October 2006.

However, some others have done all they could, probably because they’re dumb. Basically, someone descrambled the URLs to the new and very popular video clips on Invisible Movement and found the exact path to the .wmv files on the server. And what happened next? A bunch of “lol im so dumb how r u lol” MySpace kids have started using those videos on their freakin’ profile pages, among falling skulls, bright green lines, so all of their 6556566 friends out of them they know 2 could see them. Isn’t that cute? I am looking for the best way to protect my files so this never happens again. I’m also considering switching that domain to Dreamhost or some similar provider which does offer a lot, but is reliable enough at the same time.
Seriously, how does one deal with idiots? Any ideas? Experience from people running big sites would surely help.

Last week, I was pretty quiet…why? The last week of October is the week of the famous anual book fair here. It’s the second largest book fair in Europe afer the one in Frankfurt, if I’m correct….

On the night between 12th and 13th October, I was talking to my German friend Kerstin and somehow we came up with the subject of trends…girlbands and boybands. She told me that a friend of hers has to promote a girl band called Soccx and I said that I have not seen them yet, despite the fact that my prehistoric analog satellite system is mostly showing German TV channels. Either way, both Kerstin and I pulled an all-nighter; then, when my mom woke up, I logged off and went to watch TV, as dad went fishing and when he’s here, nobody can watch TV since he’s always in front of it.

Guess what was the first thing I saw? You guessed it right, Soccx, and their music video for From Dusk To Dawn. They were robbing a bank, they were examined by police, seducing police officers and bla bla blaaaaaa. The song was OK, I basically like happy pop songs, but everything else was something I’ve seen 1000 times: licking lips, making those dumb pseudo-sexy faces, pulling wonderbra straps from under small tops, exposed stomach, low-cut skinny jeansand miniskirts. Then I changed the channel to see if Spongebob was on yet and when I switched back to Viva Plus, there was Diddy talking to the band. I was confused because I had no idea what he’d be doing with a German pop band…

…and it really took me until the end of the video to realise that the Soccx video ended and that this was another band, Danity Kane and that they were, obviously, from USA. I swear that I could not spot the difference on the first watch/listen! They were indentical to Soccx in terms of haircuts, clothing, just more RnB and less pop. Then I Googled a little and found the whole story on Making The Band, the series which I don’t think German MTV and MTV Adria have stopped showing after the obvious fact that nobody really like O-Town, hehe.

Either way, girl bands became a bit too cheap nowadays. With Spice Girls, it was OK at the beginning, they did have some “headlights” showing in the Wannabe video, some of those skirts and dresses were really too short to sit down in and Geri Halliwell’s stunts and Victoria Beckham’s (actually, she was Adams back then) private life were such annoying things to fill the newspapers with…however, they were amusing. You can say everyone loved them. Then some idiot launched All Saints and eeeh…yuck. They covered a song they probably didn’t even understand, one of them got pregnant almost immediatelly and had to hide her huge stomach in the Bootie Call video clip and, well, you get the idea, they didn’t last long. Not to forget that there were the early Atomic Kitten, B*Witched, Solid HarmoniE, Funky Diamonds…and, to my knowledge, the most of those bands were formed after auditions.

When the whole thing got boring, the auditions became public, turned into big votings and reality shows. Anyone remembers popstars? No Angels won in Germany in 2000, the USA band was Eden’s Crush. No Angels were, well, pretty good and actually talented. And all five members actually could sing, two of them, Lucy and especially Nadja have stunning voices. I don’t know much about those popstar bands from other countries, though, so I’ll have to skip that bit…

Anyway, at that very point the audience didn’t want anything cute and girly anymore. The most of the bands would get, how I’m saying, sluttified after the first video or two…a complete image change, the “we’re not little girls anymore, we’re women” story, relationships with other celebrities, eccentric and ambitious “body modifications”. A couple of photo sessions in wonderbras or with hands covering breasts or erotic dancing sequences with men in videos were now obligatory. However, I think All Saints did that first with their performance at the MTV European Music Awards 1998, so all the girl bands of past and present must be hailing them as pioneers in that.

So, today, you have girl bands which are sluttified since the very beginning, no more pretending they’re cute harmless teenage girls. If they’re too young, you simply have to wonder who’s behind them? Marketing machinery, ambitious parents or pedophyle managers and choreographers? And, what’s worse, teen magazines are landfull of those girls, their sex and beauty tips and they’re praised on front pages for being “as sexy as one should be”. What does that result with? So many girls adopt the girlband babe image even for their everyday styling, they change boyfriends like socks (or soccx, perhaps?) and think they will always have priority over others just because they’re supposedly beautiful. Not good. Really, really not good. Also, the age limit for this or that is going down constantly. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a video with a 10-year-old singing while a small bikini top with wire inside is holding her barely existing breasts up and the camera is filming her bellydancing moves. I always remember what Anastacia Newkirk said a couple of years ago, that she was nowhere near her usual clothing style and image when she was a teenager. I repeat: nowhere near that. One thing is to listen to that music, it’s enjoyable (at least until it turns to p0rn); but you don’t have to copy those girls, for god’s sake, their image is artificial, anyway.

There will be a sequel to this entry sometime soon, as I have some things to say about boybands as well, as they’re even more stuck in a cliché. Ooooh yes I do.