Matt Hollingsworth's Blog

2011-11-28T22:20:00.002+01:00

Recorded some new videos today. Liam's vocalizing a lot these days and we managed to capture some of that in these videos. He does certain things like this for a short period sometimes, so we have to make an effort to capture it on video before he stops doing it.

2011-10-15T16:46:00.000+02:00

The latest series of pictures of baby Liam is now online, in the album linked below. Some good ones too! Enjoy!

October 15, 2011

2011-07-03T21:01:00.001+02:00

We also took a bunch of photos of Liam while on vacation, which are in the album here. Click the photo to go to the album.

2011-07-02T20:29:00.004+02:00

We just got back from vacation on the Croatian coast and recorded some new videos of Liam. If you watch only one, watch the third one below. It's the best video of him ever.

At Čigrađa beach on the island Murter, in Croatia.

In the apartment in Tribunj, Croatia.

Liam has a major laughing fit at the restaurant Šimun in Tribunj, Croatia.

At Konoba Lanterna in Tribunj, Croatia.

2011-06-05T22:58:00.002+02:00

Blogger's photo uploading software SUCKS. So, using Picassa to upload the whole album. Click the photo to see the album, which I will update and repost occasionally.

And here's another video, while we're at it. This is a video of Nada and Zvonko Zednik entertaining little Liam. They own the apartment that we used to live in, so were our landlords. But we became friends with them. They're great people, as you can see here.

2011-06-04T10:32:00.005+02:00

Well, the blog's been dead for a while. But as you can see below, I've been busy!

Baby Liam was born on February 24th, 2011. He immediately showed a lot of personality and has been a joy to live with. He's not much for crying except when he's hungry or wants to be held. He's at a stage now where he's really vocalizing a lot. He smiles at us constantly and always wants to talk to us. He's not shy with other people either. He's social and likes being around other people.

Anyway, I'll start posting some photos and videos of Liam in this blog so that friends and family can see how little Liam is progressing.

2010-02-14T09:59:00.009+01:00

It being winter, we're missing the Thailand trip we did last year to escape from winter weather. What a great vacation!

Anyway, on with the blog posts about the Thailand trip.

After the elephant center and hospital we continued on towards Chiang Mai and stopped by a natural hot spring on the way.

The park around the hot springs was pretty nice, so we stayed for a while.

Politically incorrect bathroom signs at the hot springs.

This area is obviously where the geysers rise up and spray out of the ground. There's an area near there where you boil eggs. They sell you eggs here with a little basket which you hang into the hot water to cook. We had duck and quail eggs. The quail eggs were really great!

After that we went and had a soak in a large private room. We rented one for the boys and one for the girls that were next to each other. The girls kept throwing cold water over the wall at us, so a sort of battle erupted over that wall. Like I said before, we had a great group who were fun to hang out with, so we enjoyed ourselves.

After that we continued on to our homestay near Chiang Mai. Our homestay was in a little village and was my favorite part of the tour. There was a family there who had a sort of family complex of houses and huts and such. The boys stayed in one room and the girls in another but we only slept in those rooms. We spent all of the rest of the time hanging out, doing activities or being entertained by our hosts.

We arrived at the homestay well into the day, so we just threw our bags into our rooms and then joined our hosts for a great dinner and entertainment. Local musicians played for us as we feasted on some tasty food. The music was interesting, but as you can hear below it might not be for everyone. They played for maybe 45 minutes or something. The food, like nearly all of the food we had in Thailand, was tasty. Afterwards, they showed us their instruments and had us each play some small bit on each one.

After that, we headed outside where they entertained us more. They performed some traditional Thai dances and had us do some playful fighting with the younger boys. It was all really great and the fights were pretty funny as the little boys were giggling and playful about it. We wrapped up the activities with this candle lighting ceremony below. We all wrote our names on this paper lantern then lit the candles and watched the lantern sail away into the sky. It flew pretty high. And towards the end of the night our group hung out and some of us drank a lot of beer!

In the morning we got up very early to go make offerings to the monks at the local temple. We gave them various kinds of foods that our host packaged up for us so this was an easy process. The local people do this with the temples, supporting them so that the monks have what they need to live and on this day we took part in this process which was pretty cool.

After that, we went on a bicycle tour around the village, starting off at another temple. We went inside this one and took a look around. On the walls of temples there are often paintings depicting daily life in the area. In the detail below, if you look closely, you can see a guy under the tree vomiting from too much drink the previous night. Nice!

After the temple visit, we rode around the countryside near the village for a while enjoying the natural scenery. We went to a local mushroom farmer and did a little tour. And we selected some mushrooms for our host to include in our lunch which she would cook later.

Those are plastic bags that the mushrooms grow in. Inside the bag is a nutrient mix and mulch for the mushroom along with their spores. They grow sideways out of holes in the bags and are harvested from there. When they're harvested, new mushrooms grow and go out of that same hole and this repeats until the supply of spores and nutrients is exhausted at which point new bags are placed in here.

We also stopped off a local crafts shop with all sorts of scarves, purses and clothing items. It was all local handcrafted stuff.

Thailand has a lot of dogs. Everywhere you go, you see dogs on the sides of the road or on sidewalks, sleeping like this fellow here. In some areas, the Thai also like to put clothing on their pets, so if the animal is owned by someone, you often see some clothing on it, whether it's a dog or cat.

Eventually we went to a local school where we helped teach English for an hour or so. We then went outside where football and volleyball were played with the children.

After hanging out at the school we went back to the homestay and had another great meal prepared by our host. It included those mushrooms that we'd harvested too.

2010-02-01T16:27:00.009+01:00

After that, we headed to Lampang and our hotel, which was listed somewhat romantically as being on the river. Well, as it turned out, while I guess it was a river, it was sort of like being on the Los Angeles river. Like a concrete aqueduct. The hotel itself looked decent enough but everyone in our group was complaining of bed bugs the next day. We weren't there long anyway, though. I wouldn't personally recommend Lampang to anyone.

After breakfast we headed towards Chiang Mai and stopped at an elephant park on the way there. The main elephant park had elephant rides, elephants painting and such and was an overall educational park all about elephants.

Elephant painting.

Now if only we can teach them Photoshop!

At the start of our elephant ride here, not that you can see the elephant in this shot!

They also make paper out of the massive amount of elephant dung that's generated by the park's residents. Seems pretty eco friendly and the proceeds go to the park.

Mmm mmm. Poop!

Near the elephant park was an elephant hospital. They showed us a film to educate us about what they do and introduced us to some of their elephants. In the area around the border with Myanmar, people illegally use elephants to haul timber. And in that area, there's a ton of landmines. Once in a while, an elephant gets their foot blown off or is otherwise injured. And this hospital helps those elephants.

You can see his injured foot.

We donated some money to the hospital, bought some shirts and such. And otherwise, we had a pretty nice day. The elephants were pretty cool. Sad to see the injuries sustained by the hospital residents, but nice to see the hospital taking care of them!

2010-01-31T10:41:00.017+01:00

More about our Thailand trip:

The hotel we stayed at in Bangkok, the Viengtai, was also the meeting point for the Intrepid tour that we had booked to start off our vacation. I also booked us time in the south, on Koh Mook and Koh Lanta. So, we'd have some nice, warm beach time with sun and swimming and such. For the tour, we decided to head to the Northern part of Thailand so we'd see a bit more of the country rather than just the islands.

We decided to take the tour called Treasures of the North. This took us around the north a bit, starting with a train taking us up towards Sukhothai. After the train, we switched to a songthaew for transportation to Sukhothai. The songthaew is basically a small pickup truck that's been converted to carry tourists in the back. They range from moderately comfortable to totally uncomfortable depending on the seat structure and how low the ceiling is. Anyway, this carried us to Sukhothai where we checked into our guest cottages.

The guest cottages were pretty decent. If memory serves, we then headed off for a Thai massage at a local place (which was great! Maybe the best massage I had on this trip.) and returned to the cottages where we had some tasty dinner and drank beer for a while to get acquainted with the group we were touring with. As it turned out, we had very good luck with our group. It was a mixed group from Australia, Denmark, New Zealand, Canada and Luxembourg (and Croatia and America counting us). For the most part we all got along great on the whole trip and had a lot of fun together. And our tour leader, Toon, was really great. I'd recommend these guys to anyone after this experience.

The next morning, we headed off to see Sukhothai National Park, which was quite a sight to behold. We took a songthaew to get there, once again, then rented bikes for touring around. Our tour guide was fantastic, explaining a lot of the history of the place and really showing us around. And she made us some amazing lunch too that she brought with us for a picnic. Our tour leader was not really our *guide* per se. She did a great job of getting us around and helping us, but in each location we had local guides who really knew the area. That was the case here as well.

Our tour group.

Further reading about the Sukhothai Kingdom:

Sukhothai Kingdom.

2010-01-15T11:45:00.008+01:00

Last year at this time, Nara and I went to Thailand for a four week vacation. Originally, we had planned to be married in December of 2008 and this would have been our honeymoon. But when we were renewing my visa in 2008, the process took ten full months, which took us up to November. And when they told us that I would have to renew my visa AGAIN within 8 days of getting married, we decided to delay the wedding until August of 2009 instead. The Thailand trip was already planned and paid for, though, so we went anyway and had the honeymoon before the wedding!

It was the best vacation we've ever had. Truly fantastic. Not just because it was 4 weeks long, but because we really got to relax and we did a lot of exploring of Thailand, which is a beautiful country filled with great people.

Me, outside of the hotel in Bangkok.

Nara, outside the hotel in Bangkok. Intrepid sign in the background.

When planning our trip, I had talked to a few friends who had either been to Thailand a lot or who travel a lot. We were basically told that Thailand is an easy country to get around and that you can just book everything yourself. But I wanted us to do a guided tour for part of the trip. Having never done a guided trip before, I took the advice of my friend Marie Javins who recommended Intrepid. The basic plan was to arrive in Bangkok, then head north on a tour for 8 days, then return to Bangkok and head south on our own and head first to Koh Mook then Koh Lanta, then return to Bangkok and return home from there.

Local Heinz!

Khao San Road.

The view from the hotel room.

There were a few reasons a guided tour sounded good to us. Neither of us had ever been to Asia, for one. And we'd be pretty jet lagged. I didn't really want to arrive into Bangkok then have to deal with all the travel and planning stuff to get around up in the North. And from reading Intrepid's site, it looked like they'd also take us to some places to do some things I just wouldn't have gotten around to.

Driving around Bangkok in a Tuk Tuk.

Anyway, we arrived into Bangkok. We had booked a room at Viengtai Hotel, just a block away from Khao San Road, which is a street bustling with activity and backpackers. It was fun to be in that area for a short time because there was a lot going on. It's loud at night, though, which would be a drawback for me if we stayed there for longer. As it was, though, I wore earplugs and all was well. We settled into Bangkok and spent a couple of days wandering around the city before heading north on our tour. More posts to follow with tons of pics of Thailand. Wish we were there this year too!

Khao San Road.

2010-01-07T22:17:00.006+01:00

Well, today I went and traded in my California license for a local Croatian driver's license.

The process was fairly easy, but it still took some time. We first went to the local MUP station, which is the police station where I am registered. That's where the embassy site says to go, but as it turns out, all licenses here are issued through the MUP on Heinzelova Ulica. We'd taken the bus to the local MUP because it was so close, but this other MUP station is much further away. As it turns out, we should have driven. But we just took the tram there instead. Of course, they required one more piece of paper from me. We had a translation of my license that was basic from the American consulate, but they needed a full translation also. So we took a taxi back to the center and got the full translation, then went back and got my license. It took more time and effort than that all sounds like. But the people at that MUP station were great, very efficient, and the process was easy.

The bummer is, they kept my California license. I couldn't keep it. Well, anyway, this is one more piece of the puzzle that I've gotten. Mission accomplished today.

We also had the best Chinese food we've had yet in Croatia today at Asia Chinese food, right by Glavni Kolodvor. Not amazing, but very good.

So good day overall.

The license here looks very strange to my American eyes. I guess they don't use it as ID here, because this would be easy as hell to counterfeit. They have a separate card for ID and I don't have one of those yet. The license is like a little book. Looks like this:

More information about the process of getting a license here if you're an American is at the link below. But, be aware that the cost is 70 kuna for the stamps you have to get, called "biljezi", not 35, and then another 35 paid as a bill. And you must have a full translation of your license AND the translation from the American embassy that explains the class of license that you have.

http://zagreb.usembassy.gov/service/other/drivers_licenses.html

2010-01-06T12:24:00.003+01:00

So, it's 2010 now. Snow covers the ground outside as the new decade starts.

2009 was one of the best years in my life so far, as detailed in a previous post. I'll miss 2009! An amazing year for me.

Last year, my resolution for the new year was to stay on top of my finances and to keep up with saving money for both retirement and for buying a house. I did a good job with that in 2009 and aim to keep that behavior up.

For this year, my resolution is to finally look into getting a higher level of medical insurance here and to do a thorough medical checkup. I'm 41 now, so it's time for me to start looking into certain sorts of tests to make sure I'm taking good care of myself. I gotta go get a local doctor to hold my balls while I cough.

;-)

I'll likely take a look at Sunce Osiguranje and Basler Osiguranje Zagreb here locally and see about getting in for a checkup. I'd like to do all of that before tax time, which for me is April 15th. So, that's the goal. Do all of that, go to the dentist for a cleanup here in Zagreb and stay on top of saving money.

Not exciting goals, but good for me to do.

2009-12-02T14:29:00.004+01:00

There are some funny little language differences here in Croatia. Differences between the English and Croatian languages.

One that popped up last year for me was "džuboks". My friends here thought that that was how you pronounced it in English too. But, the funny part is, that is pronounced like "Jew Box". For my Croatian pals, in English, it's "jukebox". It has nothing to do with Jews. Well, if it was playing Klezmer music, I guess it could. But it's not a Jew Box.

Another one that is really strange to me is when Croats pronounce a V like a W. This makes absolutely no sense to me. They don't even have a W in their alphabet. They also pronounce a W like V, which to me makes total sense. Seeing as how they don't have a W, change it to a V. Makes sense. But to pronounce a V, which IS in their alphabet, like a W, which is NOT, makes no sense to me. My friend Esad says womit instead of vomit, for instance. Always reminds me of Chekhov in Star Trek 4 saying "nuclear wessels". Esad also says "awailable".

I've asked him and others about this a lot and have never gotten a good answer. They say basically that they see no difference between those letters. But that still doesn't make sense to me.

Inspired by the blog here:

http://rosemarybaileybrown.blogspot.com/

2009-11-27T12:26:00.003+01:00

Where have I been? What have I been up to for the last 9 odd months?

Well, I've been all over. And I've been doing a lot of things. So, here's a bit of a catchup blog post.

I've been meaning to get back to this for a while, but once you stop for a while, there's some sort of inertia that keeps you locked on (or in this case off) course.

2009 has been a good year for me personally. We spent a good chunk of this year traveling. We've taken almost 10 weeks off from work and spent the bulk of that time traveling. That's more than 2 months off this year, which is huge for me. We spent 4 weeks in January and February in Thailand, 10 days or so in Southern California, and 3 weeks in Tribunj, Croatia and traveling around that area (1 week was working, so I don't count that week). In early August I headed to London solo to attend the Great British Beer Festival, which was four days of drinking with thousands of merry strangers. Lovely. In September we headed to Tunisia for a week, which was not so lovely. Then, just a couple of weeks ago we headed to Vienna. It's a beautiful city and we had a great time.

I'll post more about these trips later, but in brief, Thailand was the best and Tunisia was the worst. All of the trips were fantastic except Tunisia. All told, 5 countries other than Croatia were visited on 4 continents. Well, 6 countries if you count our 2 little day trips to Slovenija.

Nara and I also were married in August. And she's the best wife a man could ask for! We're very happy together. We lived together for a while before that, and life's pretty much the same as it was before we were married. We're a great couple and really like living together and enjoy our shared life. So win win!

I also set up my homebrew brewery here in our basement. I homebrewed for five years while living in Portland, but had last brewed in 2002. So there was a 7 year hiatus there. But with quite a lot of effort, the brewery is all set up here and functioning well. Brewing beer, of course!

Still working a lot for Marvel Comics, but also working for DC Comics again for the first time in some years.

We're also saving for a house and for retirement. So working hard when we're not traveling and trying to invest and save as much of that money as we can.

This is all just a quick catchup on what's been up in my world. I'll touch on these topics in more depth later and post pictures and all that good, fun stuff.

But that doesn't quite touch on why I stopped blogging. I stopped primarily because I started to get really annoyed with the volume of people e-mailing me about their desire to move to Croatia. Well, that in and of itself is not annoying. The annoying part was when they'd ask me for a lot of in depth advice about the process or when they were just up late in America and dreaming about moving overseas, had never been to Croatia and thought they'd just up and move here. Okay, it's fine to dream. But I'm not here as a service to people who want to move overseas. I mean no offense by this, but I will no longer answer this stuff. And in fact, I have removed my e-mail contact. If you want to have some contact, leave a comment on this blog. Don't e-mail me about advice for moving here, please. Anything I have to say on the subject is already in this blog, so read the blog if you want information on living here.

I also didn't quite get back to blogging because some of the stuff that I notice that I might want to blog about is sometime a negative impression of Croatia, the people here and living here in general. And I don't want to offend a lot of my friends. So how do I go about writing about the negative aspects of living here? I don't have the answer for that yet, but we'll see. Either I'll try to find a way to write about this stuff and hope to not offend my friends and others or I'll just skip that part. More likely I will write about it, but try to be as tactful as I can. That said, I still like living here and enjoy a lot of the culture and the people here. But as with anything, it's not all rosy. Yin yang and all that. The overly positive first impression has, logically, been replaced by a more balanced view of life here after having lived here for 3 years now. When you first arrive somewhere, it retains that "vacation" edge to it for a while. Once that's worn off, you can settle in and get a more realistic impression of the place. That's where I'm at now.

Oh, and I have my third visa. This year it was easy. It just required us to stand (yes, stand the entire time) in line at MUP, the police station, for 6 hours. We then got in for our meeting and had to return 30 days later and it went smoothly. The woman who processed me this year was great and all went smoothly.

So that's that for now. I'm hoping to get back on here more regularly but can make no promises at this point. Time will tell, as always.

2009-02-25T12:53:00.003+01:00

I looked out the window a few minutes ago and saw this image. Seems some local gypsies got inventive and knocked over the paper recycling container to bust into it from the bottom and take the paper. Presumably, they'll hit as many of these as needed to fill that van then take it in to some recycling center and get some money for it.

2009-02-22T12:24:00.005+01:00

Well, we'll see if I can get back to blogging a little more regularly now that we're back home in Gajnice.

Took a look at that little map at the bottom of this page and see that I've now had visitors from 79 different countries. Wow. That's kinda cool.

Also received e-mail recently from a site that added me to its links section. The site is called Spotted by Locals and is intended to have people living locally in various locations around the world blog about their own area, thereby providing local knowledge and insight about the area. I added a link to their site in my links section to the left side of my blog here. The Zagreb portion is called Zagreb by Locals, and the link goes there. Go check 'em out, wouldya!?

It's snowing today in Gajnice. The snow started last night and went all night and now there's a blanket of snow covering everything. I'm sure it'll melt in the next day or two, but for now it looks nice outside. And I'm currently reading the book Snow, by Orhan Pamuk, so it's nice to sit there and read with the snow outside. Appropriate.

2009-02-14T08:43:00.005+01:00

We're back home from Thailand. Been back for one week. And while it was a great four week vacation, it's good to be home.

When I've been here for a while, in Zagreb, sometimes I get jaded. But often when I leave and return, I notice how much I like it. I was in the center yesterday and was noticing how clean it is. There can be a lot of graffiti in the center (and, well, everywhere). And this sometimes makes it LOOK like it's dirty. But as I was riding the trams and buses around, I was noticing how clean it is. Very little litter. Walking around the center, with the sun shining and looking at the park on Zrinjevac was nice. And taking the train home later, I was just happy to have this fast ride to avoid traffic with.

Sometimes when I travel, other places are MUCH much dirtier. I had the same reaction when we returned from Belgrade. While I really enjoyed my time there, it's a dirty city. And by comparison, Zagreb looks shining, new and clean. Same thing with Bangkok. Bangkok is perhaps the dirtiest city I've ever been in. The infrastructure there is not enough to support the large population they have. Many areas have a bad sewage problem with the horrific smell of raw sewage wafting through the air and mixing with the wonderful spices of the cooking going on in the little stands on the street.

Not all areas are filthy, but many are. It's a city of ten million people, so it's 12 or so times larger than Zagreb. So comparing it isn't really fair. It's a city that is bustling with life and all that entails. It's filled with wonderful chaos, but also immense filth. We enjoyed our time in Thailand. And we will return someday. But man, it's good to be home.

2008-11-26T15:45:00.002+01:00

After a hellraising process that took 10 full months, I finally have my second visa.

Long time readers of this blog may remember the process I had to go through for this. To get my first visa, I had to start a company here and have myself as the director, which meant I received a business visa. When I put in my papers to renew the visa in mid January, the amount of paperwork they required from me regarding my company was just ridiculous. I ended up having to go from one ministry to the next and back and forth constantly. Every time we'd think we were done, they would ask us for a new paper. Really. We'd visit them and they'd tell us that we only needed one more paper, then when we delivered that, they'd tell us we actually needed yet another. And that part of the process went on for a few months.

I had that company for a year before that and paid all of my taxes and filed all necessary papers. But sometime before summer they actually denied my visa. The ministry of finance had denied it to my company basically. And they offered NO explanation. The people at MUP, the police station (who deal with visas) said they didn't know why I was denied, but they had a huge stack of applications for people who had the same thing happen to them.

My girl and I got engaged in December, though, of last year. And so we put in a new application for a visa based on this. But it's not as simple as that. That whole part of the process is also ridiculous. And every paper we supplied them with last year had to have new copies given to them. It's just crazy. A paper that is literally exactly the same must be given to them with a new date on it. Even stuff that is not dated requires a new copy. The file for me is something like 3 inches thick with papers. And that's just for this year.

But finally, today, they gave me my visa. And of course, they couldn't just give me the new visa. They also want more paperwork. I now have to give them a new birth certificate. In Croatia, their birth certificates are not actually birth certificates. They're more like life certificates. They record stuff in them over time. For instance, if you are married, your "rodni list" is updated with this information. We don't do that in the States. A birth certificate is just that; a birth certificate. It lists only facts about the birth itself, not about the person later in their life. I already had to go to the American Embassy and have them certify that I am not married which is also stupid because they actually can't possibly know if I am married. Anyway, because I did *that* they basically said okay. But I still have to supply them with a new copy of my birth certificate. The date on mine is 1988. But the certificate itself is from 1968, when I was born. They were already supplied with a fresh translation dated now, but they need that purple ink with the notary public stamp to have a date within the last six months.

And, I have to supply them with a paper that proves that my landlord actually owns the apartment I am living in. This despite the fact that we already went to a notary here to certify this and they already have that.

Ah well. At least I have the damned thing now. Now I have to take the application for the birth certificate to the American Embassy and have their notary certify that I am in fact me and send the application off and hope that it actually arrives in the mail.

And I am closing my company. For anyone who is considering opening a company here I recommend you avoid it at all costs. For me it was a pain in the ass and keeping it going is totally a waste of effort and a cause of stress as well as a good way to pay higher taxes. Fuck that.

And we head to Thailand in January and today I read about bombs going off in the Bangkok airport.

America doesn't look too bad sometimes.

2008-11-20T14:01:00.001+01:00

I recently started collecting foreign currency. There's an antique market here on Sundays and I go there once in a while and buy stuff from a guy there who has tons of money from all over. No, I have not visited all of these places. I like the art on them and the view into the culture of where they come from. It's fascinating to me.

Click the image below to view money from Russia, Czechoslovakia, Slovakia, Yugoslavia, Iran, India and Montenegro.

Foreign Currency

2008-11-05T12:09:00.002+01:00

I ask all of my fellow Obama supporters today to not gloat. I ask that you not kick the Republicans while they are down. Extend a warm hand in their direction and draw them into the process of governance that will follow. Their party will have a lot of soul searching to do in these next 2 years at least. And by extending our friendship to them we can not only have a more unified country filled with far less vitriol and hatred, but we can help draw some of them to the Democrat party. And we can also help them shape the new foundation of their party that will have to be built. Engage any of your Republican or conservative friends in conversation.

Our long national nightmare is over. But don't use this as a chance for revenge. We're above that. Use this as a chance to reshape the dialog in our country. In doing so maybe we can get rid of all the spite and hatred that has rocked our political world since 1992.

A man can hope. And as we've seen, sometimes that hope is fulfilled.

2008-11-04T10:57:00.004+01:00

What to watch on Election night as the polls close.

We should be watching a lot of these states that are close or that have gone Republican in the past and are leaning Democrat this time around.

Below are some of the closing times, what states to watch and what my predictions for those states are.

But overall, I predict that Obama will win. I predict he will take 338 electoral college votes while McCain will claim 200. I also predict that the popular vote will have Obama winning 51% to 46% over McCain with 3% of voters choosing third party candidates such as Bob Barr and Ralph Nader.

6PM: Indiana.

Prediction: McCain wins by 1%.

7PM: Florida and Virginia.

Watch Virginia and Florida. Even if McCain wins Florida, Virginia could go to Obama and make it very difficult for McCain.

Prediction: Obama wins Florida, but only by 1%. It's so close that they don't call it right away and counting goes late into the night.

Obama wins Virginia by 2% or less.

7:30PM: North Carolina and Ohio.

Prediction: McCain wins North Carolina by about 4%.

Obama wins Ohio by less than 1%.

8PM: Missouri and Pennsylvania.

Chances are, if Obama wins ONLY Pennsylvania and Virginia, and McCain wins the rest of these, Obama will still win.

Prediction: Obama wins Pennsylvania by around 5%.

McCain wins Missouri by about 2%.

I think the single most important state to watch is Pennsylvania. If McCain loses Pennsylvania it will be nearly impossible for him to win. But earlier in the night if Obama racks up a win in any one of these close states, the odds are very difficult for McCain.

Happy election day everyone! And remember, whoever wins, in January Bush will be out of office. We will be better off next year without Bush one way or the other.

2008-10-29T01:14:00.005+01:00

More videos, kids!

Sure, they're not exciting or anything. But this is what the market near my apartment looks like. This is about 100 meters from my place. Nice!

First video's a bit shaky as I'm walking. Second one's steadier as it's just a pan across the market.

2008-10-20T12:38:00.002+02:00

In March of 2007, my girl Nara and I went to Berlin for a 6 day vacation. We loved it and had a fabulous time. Never got around to posting photos until now.

It's easier to post them on Facebook than here, so that's what I've done. Click the link below to view the photos.

Photos of our Berlin trip

2008-10-19T15:44:00.003+02:00

I came upon some new music today. Great stuff too!

I found them by way of a band called Paris Combo, who I like very much. They were listed as a band that people who liked Paris Combo would like also. And it's true. If you like Paris Combo, you will like them.

The band is named after the singer-songwriter, Amelie-les-Crayons.

It's very light and airy feeling. I can't recommend it enough.

This is the album I was listening to earlier today.

And this is the band, pictured above, and a link to their site below.

Enjoy! Happy Sunday!

http://www.amelielescrayons.com/

2008-10-17T18:25:00.019+02:00

Now it's time to finally post some of those pictures from the Makarska show, MaFest, from this year. There are a lot of pictures, of course. But I'll make my way through them here. MaFest is a comic show that we attend every May in Makarska.

The faces of Esad, Goran and Dejan are all deformed from violent shaking back and forth. See the video in an earlier post.

Talaja likes to get close when he's sketching.

Talaja, thinking about Israel.

Everybody did sketches except for Jamie Delano and me. We're not drawrers.

Jamie Delano gives good interview.

Talaja came out of the closet as a gay wrestler who plays basketball on this trip. Thinking about Israel too much finally made him snap.

I think he's ready for wrestling, basketball or maybe even tennis.

Esad, Tico, me and Talaja at lunch in Makarska.

Esad attacks his dessert.

2008-10-17T17:19:00.005+02:00

Everybody loves Donkeys. So here you go, back to the Donkey race in Tribunj. The jockeys dress in traditional clothes and race them around the island three times if I remember correctly. Funny shit.

2008-10-17T15:58:00.004+02:00

So yeah, it's a crazy blogging day today.

Nara and I went and bought her engagement ring earlier in the year. We took a day and walked around Zagreb a bit looking for a shop we'd like. And we happened upon this really small shop with this jeweler named Štef. We liked him immediately. We talked to him a bit and he was a very friendly guy who we got a warm feeling from. We still continued looking at other shops because we felt like we shouldn't just immediately settle with him. But we didn't like the other shops. So we returned to Štef and ordered a ring with him.

When we went to pick up the ring, he closed down his shop and took us to coffee. This struck me as amazingly "European". I really cannot imagine someone in the States doing this. He's had his same shop there on Ilica in Zagreb for something like 35 years. And it's just him and one guy that helps him with some things. He's a very nice guy with a great sense of humor. We'll return to him when the time comes to get the wedding bands sometime next year.

The ring is a classic Croatian style of ring. It's very different from what I'm used to in the States, but I like it.

2008-10-17T15:07:00.007+02:00

Yes. Going through videos. So here are some more.

This first one is in Makarska in Croatia. There's a comic show there that we go to every May. Makarska is on the sea and is a nice place to visit that time of year, as the tourist season has not yet started but the sea is also warm enough for a swim.

This is Esad Ribić, Goran Sudžuka and Dejan Kraljačić making fools of themselves upon my request. Nice! Dejan was our host at the show in Belgrade.

Here is one still image from that same time, when they were doing the shaking head. Makes for nice still images.

And here's Esad's infamous snoring, also at the Makarska show.

2008-10-17T13:29:00.005+02:00

And some more videos!

This first one is towards the end of the Donkey race in Tribunj. This is a big event there. There were seemingly thousands of people there. It was totally packed. They have some donkeys race around the island. At one point, one donkey didn't want to have anything to do with it and ran into an alleyway. Funny shit.

But here's some video of a few of the donkeys racing past.

And here's Krka National Park with it's waterfalls. This doesn't really capture the scope of how big the amount of water is or how large those falls are. There's a series of them and there really is a huge amount of water moving through that area.

This is during the summer, in very early August. And it was totally crowded with people, which was annoying. I've been there before, as pictured early on in this blog. When we went before, we went in very early June and it was pretty empty. Which is better for me. Viewing nature's beauty is something best done without the massive crowds, thank you very much.

2008-10-17T12:01:00.004+02:00

Aha! Yes yes. I know. It's been awhile yet again. I suck. Yes I know this.

But things are still a bit busy. Things are starting to slow down just a touch, though. I finished up the Angel comic I was coloring for Marvel. I also just last weekend finished up the book that I was coloring for Vertigo, that Chas one from the Hellblazer universe. So instead of 5 books I now have three, which is much more tolerable. But those are sometimes running a touch late too. So I get into this cycle of late books throwing my schedule into disarray. And that's what's been up with me.

We went to Belgrade for the comics show there. And I will post a few pics of that later on.

Now we're back in Zagreb for a month or so and then we head to Dublin for a show there.

Went out drinking with a lot of the comics people here last night in the center, so today I am totally hung over and don't feel like working. Which means that I will post a few things on ye olde blog.

First up there are a few movies from our trip to Tribunj. We spent most of our summer there. And it was just fantastic. We rented a little one bedroom apartment with a kitchen and basically lived there for over 6 weeks. Much of that time was spent on the beach. We would often spend an entire day there from 11AM or so until sunset around 8:30 or something. Great! I spent a huge chunk of this time reading and read 8 books while we were there. 7 of them were great too! So that's a good ratio. I also spent a ton of time swimming, sleeping and relaxing. What a great way to spend the summer.

This first video is a basic pan across the water. This is where we spent almost every day while we were there. This is what the Croatian sea, the Adriatic, looks like when the water is calm. Even when it's not calm it doesn't have waves like in California. Ain't no surfers here!

And this second video is a pan across the area surrounding the apartment we stayed in. This is the view from the terrace. You can hear the Croatian crickets in the background, which reminded me of Southern California.

2008-09-20T09:50:00.007+02:00

What have I been up to, you may be wondering? Where has Matt gone? We miss him so!

Uh, yeah.

I have mostly been working like a dog. Well, dogs don't work. I've been working like an American, then, I guess. We returned from the sea nearly 6 weeks ago now. And I have been working the entire time, with no days off. The cosmic balance of the universe is evened out, yin and yang restore order after my six weeks at the sea. We leave town on Tuesday for a little break in Belgrade, Serbia, and by that time I will have colored 7 books in 6 weeks. Them's a lotta books!

We're heading to Serbia to attend a comics show put on by my pal Dejan. I am a special guest and will have an exhibition of my work there, which is a first. And I will be giving a talk too. Wanna come join us?

The site is here:

http://www.skc.org.yu/arhiv.php?ime=salonstripa6#gosti

In my talk I will go over my workflow in Photoshop for painting comics. I'll cover a lot of different aspects of this workflow, though have no notes planned out. I generally just wing it and it works out well. I hate notes. And the exhibition will feature something like more than 40 digital pages, a number of original blue lines from Grendel Tales and a few prints from the Fantastic Four films, which I worked on as an effects artist.

I have also been giving away a little of the money I am earning. Some has gone to Barack Obama. I loathe the Republicans and cannot stand the thought of McCain winning. It's against everything I believe in. And Obama is a great candidate and I have liked what I've heard from him for the last year.

And on that note, I have also voted already. I received my absentee ballot and voted via fax. Yes, the future has arrived. Let's hope Obama wins.

2008-09-06T11:22:00.001+02:00

Hahaha!

This is DEAD ON. Thought it was worth sharing.

2008-08-23T10:39:00.002+02:00

Heh heh. Of course, as soon as I returned home, I became antsy. These things were already in the works, but I'm in the middle of confirming upcoming trips to Belgrade, Dublin and Thailand. Nice. While I have to work like a DOG for the next few months, I can squeeze in a little travel. Then the big Thailand trip will come early next year after I wrap up all of my current jobs except for Daredevil. Of course I will stay on Daredevil, but all of the other gigs are short series and they end. Which frees me up for a full month in Thailand just when winter here is at its worst.

Nice.

Meanwhile, it really IS good to be home. Just wish I had a little less work at the moment. Still, that money will pay for the traveling and much will also be saved. Retirement account, baby!

2008-08-20T09:32:00.005+02:00

We returned home from our extended vacation about eleven days ago now. We immediately settled back into life. The cats are happy we're back, though they got a bit fat while we were gone. They've calmed down and are very content now.

And of course, work is fucked. Too much of it and too much of it is late. Late artists. Oh well. Such is the nature of life. I won't have any days off for a while, I guess. I'll take part of Saturday off at least. I have to go buy a new bike. Mine was stolen while we were on the coast.

Anyway, vacation was good. Nice and relaxing. TONS of time spent on the beach, swimming, reading and relaxing. Read 8 books!

But we're glad to be home in Gajnice.

2008-06-18T18:07:00.004+02:00

Today I found out I'm nominated for a Harvey Award for best colorist. The Harveys are big, maybe the second biggest awards in American comics, behind the Eisners. Unlike the Eisners, though, voting on the Harveys is strictly limited to people who work on comics as part of the professional team that produces the comics. Editors, writers, artists, letterers, color artists and others can vote. It's not open to voting by fans or retailers like some other awards. So I guess it's sort of the Golden Globes of comics.

Anyway, it's a big honor. This is my 6th nomination for a Harvey Award, but I have never won this particular award. So wish me luck! And if you're a pro, vote for me if you're so inclined!

The Harvey Awards

2008-06-17T20:08:00.002+02:00

I'll be away for a while. Early next week my lovely fiancee Nara and I will be heading to a small town called Tribunj on the Croatian Adriatic Coast for a nice, six week vacation.

It's here, if you're curious:

Tribunj on Google Maps

I will be doing some work while there, but not very much. It will be a chance for us to relax away from the city and enjoy the sea. We'll be swimming a lot. I'll be eating a ton of fish, though Nara tells me she won't be eating much at all. She's a girl, you know, and they say these things sometimes. Usually after the boy orders pizza late at night one too many times. Anyway, we'll be there. We'll relax. We'll read a lot. We'll get sweaty and salty. We'll pick figs off the tree and eat those for sure. We'll ride our bikes around. We'll visit the local islands and hang out with the natives. And their spears. Sharp, pointy spears.

I suspect that I may drink some beers too.

But one thing we won't be doing much of is replying to e-mail or surfing the internet. The blog will likely go quiet. As will MySpace and my e-mail account.

We checked on an internet card for the laptops, but it was a rip off. T Mobile and VIP can suck my ass. I'm not paying what they want. Which leaves us with an internet cafe in neighboring Vodice. But I'm not likely to go there very often. And when I do, it'll be mostly to check in with work. And really, this is actually okay. Because if I have internet there, I will have a harder time breaking from routine. This will force me to relax and go outside.

Anyway, the point is to give you all a heads up. I'm alive. But I will be inactive until sometime in the middle of August starting early next week. And this is being posted and sent out early so that I can reply to replies of replies before I leave.

I hope you all have a great summer and that the cannibals don't catch up with you.

Beer!

2008-06-13T15:13:00.002+02:00

My hangover has faded a bit. If you live in Croatia, then I'm guessing you were out partying last night too.

I went to the center to meet some friends for a drink up. While I had not really planned it that way, it so happens that we were meeting up after a UEFA EURO 2008 game between Germany and Croatia. I've been rabid about watching all of these games and have really been enjoying it. I watched the game, which was a great game. Croatia beat Germany 2-1. And not only that, but they beat Germany solidly. Croatia played extremely well. It was an exciting game to watch too. Very lively and a lot of fun. And for those of us in Croatia, very satisfying. The coach, Slaven Bilić is very popular here. I like him. And it's nice to see the team, as lead by him, doing well in these games. To me, it's an indication that he should be sticking around as coach as we head into the World Cup qualifying season, for the 2010 World Cup. And it's also nice to see Croatia playing well considering that some English player broke the leg of one of the lead players, Eduardo Da Silva. Da Silva is a goal scorer, so when he was injured, it was a major concern for this tournament. It's nice to see the other players stepping up and doing so well.

Of course, Zagreb was crazy last night. Everyone was decked out in the Croatian red and white checkers. And it seemed like the entire town was out partying. We sat outside near Bulldog and groups were wandering around singing and happy. It was a nice environment.

Now let's hope they keep it up. If they win first place in their group, which is very possible, then whoever is second will have to face Portugal next. Let's hope that's not Croatia.

2008-06-07T09:41:00.002+02:00

Hahaha!

Just saw the teaser poster for Oliver Stone's film about George W. Bush.

Click the image below for a larger version that you can hopefully read. All of those quotes are direct quotes from Dubya, without any distortion of any kind. How sad is that?

2008-06-06T18:52:00.005+02:00

The "gypsy Ikea" is back! It's time once again for people in the local neighborhood to dump their larger garbage. Which, of course, means the Gypsies show up to grab it!

I laughed when I saw this today, though, as they set up almost their own little cafe while they guard the dump area. They usually watch it and claim it. I suppose they're competitive and are making sure nobody else tries to claim what's theirs. It seems like maybe the older folks stay and watch it and the younger ones come and go with trucks to take as much as they can carry. You can see here they set up an umbrella and what looks like a little cafe area. That's not normally there, it's just their area to hang out in while watching the goodies. It's raining today, so I guess it's there to stay dry. But it's funny. It looks like a full little cafe they have there. And those are their three trucks that will cart stuff off.

2008-06-05T17:20:00.003+02:00

The first issue of Hellblazer Presents: Chas - The Knowledge is off to the printer today. It marks not only my return to Vertigo, with whom I worked for years (including on Preacher) but my return to the Hellblazer universe. I colored the monthly Hellblazer for a couple of years, working over lineart by Sean Phillips with writing by Jamie Delano, Eddie Campbell and Paul Jenkins. I think that was around 1994-1995 or something, certainly a long time ago.

This book is a five issue series written by Simon Oliver, drawn by Goran Sudžuka, lettered by Clem Robbins, edited by Jonathan Vankin and colored by myself. We're having some good fun with it. Hope you'll pick it up.

2008-05-31T12:08:00.003+02:00

The book that is replacing Iron Fist in my schedule has been announced in Philadelphia, at a comics show. So, I guess I can mention it now.

I will be coloring the five issue mini series Magneto: Testament for Marvel Comics. It covers the early years of Magneto's life, between the years of 1935 and 1945, when he was living in Poland and dealing with Nazi persecution.

Greg Pak is writing this series and Carmine Di Giandomenico is drawing it. The editorial team is Warren Simons and Alejandro Arbona, who I do most of my work with.

This will be an interesting job, allowing me to color with more real world colors and explore the gritty nature of World War 2. On a personal note, one set of my great Grandparents went to the States from Poland in the late 1800s. And one of my grandfathers died fighting against the Germans during World War 2. His family was 100% German and had moved to the States sometime earlier. He was German by blood but fought for the Americans against the Germans. He was wounded and taken prisoner by the Germans and died in a POW hospital only a few short weeks before the end of the war. It was another tragedy in a war filled with tragedies.

Anyway, I have some higher level of interest in this comic and will enjoy painting it. Check it out, won't you?

Here's a brief interview with the writer:

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=158611

2008-05-28T11:07:00.007+02:00

On Monday, I wrapped up work on my final issue of The Immortal Iron Fist for Marvel Comics, issue number 16.

When I started the book in 2006, I was returning to comics after leaving my job working on visual effects for films in Los Angeles. Warren Simons, the editor, had told me of an artist named David Aja who he wanted to pair me with. He sent me a link to David's website which had a lot of samples. Upon seeing his amazing art, I agreed. Warren didn't know which book he was going to put him on yet, but it didn't matter to me. I wanted to work with David.

Then, it turned out that the book he was being put on was Iron Fist, along with Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction doing the writing. I'd worked with Ed many, many times over the years and loved working with him. I love his writing and he's also a good guy to work with. I hadn't heard of Matt Fraction yet, but Warren told me to go check out a book called Cassanova, which I did. Wow. Matt's stuff was also great.

This was a great book to become involved with. The scripts handed in showed a deep understanding of the character and a ton of new ideas and directions to push him in, all with a large pinch of humor. They were great scripts to read. Some of that humor wasn't even in the actual book, just little asides to those of us working on the book. I always looked forward to getting those fun scripts.

And David's art was always top notch. His style fuses a realistic, photo referenced look with a heavily cartoony look. The result is a book with a lot of dynamic movement, a lot of gestural shapes, nice layout and design while retaining a touch of realism. Perfect for this kind of book. He shows an understanding of emotional nuance in the facial expressions rarely shown by comics artists.

Then I saw that Dave Lanphear was lettering it. He's great. He's got a nice design sense that fit well with the look of the book.

And to top it all off, the book was being edited by Warren Simons and Alejandro Arbona, the guys who I do 75% of my work with, if not more. We have a nice connection and ability to work together in tight deadline situations. I like working with them.

So, naturally, the book was a pleasure to work on. Sure, it had some tight deadlines that were a pain in the ass. But this is comics. This is what happens. We got through it and had some brilliant little gems that we put out.

But times change and books change and after #16 the entire creative team on the book will change. I don't know that much about the new team, but I'd say give them a chance. Meanwhile, David Aja and I are joined at the hip and will be doing some more work together again soon. Keep your eyes peeled!

2008-05-27T09:29:00.001+02:00

Hahaha! This one's for Talaja! It's some DVD commentary for the film Conan, buy Arnold. He sounds like he's wasted. Funny shit.

Enjoy!

2008-05-24T10:12:00.005+02:00

Before I moved to Croatia, I had never heard of the Eurovision music contest. And I suspect most Americans have never heard of it.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, Eurovision is a music contest in Europe. Each country selects who they want to send to represent them. And then there's an overall contest between European countries. But, by saying "Europe", it's stretching the boundaries a bit as Israel, Turkey and some other questionable countries are included. Nothing wrong with those countries, but to say that Israel is part of Europe is a bit strange. Anyway, it's sort of like American Idol is for Americans I guess. When you watch, you can then vote for whatever country but cannot vote for your own, either by text message or phone call.

We missed most of Tuesday's runoff but saw maybe 5 acts. And ALL of them were fucking horrible. There were around 20 on Tuesday and 20 on Thursday. 10 are selected each day to go forward to the Saturday final. We watched all of Thursday when Croatia had their turn.

It's sort of sad to watch because so much of the music is really horrible crap. Really, really horrible. Most of the countries choose some extremely cheesy dance music. And most of them sing in English. What the fuck? Latvia had their guys dressed up like fucking pirates singing about being pirates and in English. They're the new Village People! I suspect they'll have a gay dance hit in northern Europe. Lithuania had, by far, the worst music of the night. It was one guy singing. He looked like some weird sort of heavy metal Michael Bolton, singing a ballad called "Nomads in the Night", while accompanied by weird Joe Satriani type guitar. Finland was on Tuesday and had their usual speed metal sort of act. They were funny but at least it wasn't someone trying to be fucking Whitney Houston or something.

The competition takes place in Serbia, which I think is good. Last year Serbia won, though I didn't watch. From what I've heard, and what I've read, the Balkans countries banded together in voting and people were happy that Serbia won, even here in Croatia. I think this is good. Serbia's having a rough time at the moment, so anything that can get spirits up can't be so bad, eh?

Strangely enough, I actually like Croatia's entry. It's genuinely representative of some music from this country. Most other entries seem really western and seem just like crappy dance music that doesn't really represent the culture of the country they come from. They seem more to be pandering to what they think people want to hear and what might increase their chances of winning. Well fuck all of that. The Croatian entry really sounds good and sounds genuine. I've seen the old guy in the video playing music on the streets in the center of Zagreb, accompanied by an accordion player (locally called a harmonica). And he's great. In the act they played on stage, he was funny too. He was like this ancient Balkan rapper. During the act they had an old record player with the giant funnel for the speaker, that sort of thing (phonograph?). And at the end he went up and was scratching on it.

They were great. I suspect that they could even have a chance in the long run because really, on this crappy show they're a breath of fresh air.

We couldn't vote for Croatia, though. So we voted for Turkey. They had a halfway decent rock act. It wasn't the usual crappy dance music either and they sang in Turkish and had some real Turkish flavor mixed into the rock. So there you go.

Croatia and Turkey both made it to the final round on Saturday.

Here's the video for the Croatian act:

And here's the actual video from the Eurovision contest with the old guy scratching at the end:

2008-05-21T10:07:00.003+02:00

Back from Makarska and working like the dog I am. Some monday deadlines approach. Yes, 2 deadlines.

For those folks who may have seen me around some forums, notably the Bendis board or other forums, I will no longer be active on forums. Never say never, right? But for now, I'm done. The quantity of stupid motherfuckers I had to deal with on each and every forum I ever posted on was just getting to be too much. There were also some really great people on the boards. But I started to realize that the amount of time I was aggravated or angry on a forum was higher than the amount of time I was enjoying it. So, that's it. No more. I'd rather spend my time in front of the computer doing something I enjoy.

Like painting comics, for instance. So back to work now!

I'll post more pictures soon.

2008-05-15T10:27:00.008+02:00

So, to recap, these are pictures from last year's MAfest in Makarska.

At night, we hung out mostly at Rokatansky, a nice little beer cafe with an outdoor area to sit in. We wandered around a bit to check out other places too, but what we encountered was mostly crappy dance places where the younger folks were going to presumably get laid, blasting really loud, crappy techno. So, Rokatansky it was! And we enjoyed that place. It was filled with other strange creatures such as us so we found it to be a great fit for us.

You can see the usual group here hamming it up, notably with Talaja milking his own tit. The first pictures here are of me, Diego Garcia and Esad Ribić at Rokatansky. The view of the sea at the end, with the pool, is the view from our hotel room in Baška Voda. The view looking up at the mountains with the guy on the beach and the hotel there; that's our hotel. And that's Talaja, as always, dancing around and having fun.

The 2 pictures towards the end in the cavernous restaurant are of the final dinner we had. Our hosts treated us to this amazing feast in this little restaurant that we basically took over. It was utterly fantastic. The wine was a domestic red (black) wine that was really very strong and tasty as hell. I couldn't drink enough of it. Loved it! And the food was served up course after course, presenting us with a very wide range of dishes over the course of hours. We had all sorts of different kinds of food representing a wide range of choices and all at the highest level of quality. Really, it's one of the best meals I've had in Croatia and in the top ten meals I've ever had. So, thanks to our hosts for EVERYTHING. We had a fantastic time.

We're leaving today to go to the 2008 edition. Come say hello if you see us. Buy us a beer, wouldya? I'll be the white boy over in the corner.

The next set of pictures to go up, sometime next week, will show the trip we took after Makarska last year. Giulia, Nara, Esad and I went to Hvar for 3 days afterward and enjoyed more sun, swimming, eating fish and relaxing. Nice!

2008-05-11T09:24:00.007+02:00

And now, continuing with more pictures from MAfest 2007. You can see that we had a lot of fun. The same group is featured again, noticeably with Diego Garcia leaning back pretty fucking far in that first picture and Misch looking all Cuban, smoking a cigar while wearing the flag of the Netherlands.

Our routine was to sleep in a bit. Everyone would be lounging around the pool, so we'd meet up there, have some coffee and enjoy being outside by the sea. I'd usually manage to lure a few people into the sea, which was pretty cold at this point. We had Bura the first day, the cold wind from the north, so the sea was chilled down for a day or two. But we still went in. We'd then go grab some lunch at some place on the seafront in Baška Voda where we were staying, a little north of Makarska. Baška Voda is a little town and is quiet. Makarska is much louder and larger and bustling. Though it's nice, it's also nice to actually stay outside of town to have some quiet and enjoy the sea.

That said, we had a pretty hard time every night finding a way back to the hotel. Taxis were no longer running by our 3AM to 5AM returning home time. We lucked out each time, but it was a real struggle that was very lame.

The show itself was pretty nice, though it's the smallest comics show I've ever been to. It was a nice venue surrounded by plants and the occasional drunk guy wandering the streets. Part of the show was outside. People sat at tables out there having coffee and beer and artists did sketches and mingled with the fans. It's a good show to see the artists at as you can approach them easily. Giulia and I did a talk about our jobs as colorists, answering questions about what we do and generally laying out what our job entails.

One of the days when we were wandering around in Makarska we came across a Havaianas shop. They make sandals. And Nara had made some custom sandals and display stuff for a fashion show in Zagreb for that same company. They had Nara's stuff on display at this shop in Makarska! What a coincidence! You can see in the photos her various offerings. It was pretty cool to come across randomly like that.

Eventually we'd head over to the book store cafe near the church. It's just down from the show and has a nice little outdoor terrace to sit at. I drank a bunch of Laško pivo and we smoked some cigars that I brought.

More photos to follow soon...

2008-05-10T13:05:00.007+02:00

With MA Fest in Makarska quickly approaching, I think it's finally time for me to post pictures from last year's show.

Our friends Diego Garcia and Giulia Brusco flew in to Zagreb to hang a few days. Diego stayed at our apartment and was a great guest, very curteous and a pleasure to have at our place. We then went to the show, where our gracious hosts offered us hotel rooms right on the sea. Very nice! We stayed in nearby Baska Voda.

We spent most of our nights drinking at Rokatansky, a local cafe/bar where many of the people affiliated with the show hung out. Esad spend the time being crazy, as usual. The pictures where his face looks all distorted look like that because he was shaking his face back and forth as fast as he could, so his cheeks were swinging around. Funny shit. And we all took turns using Giulia's hair as our own. I like Misch's best myself.

The stars of this little drama, on this post at least, are: Esad "The Barbarian" Ribić, Kresimir "Misch, The Cuban Mouse" Certić, Diego "The Trappist" Garcia, Giulia "The Red" Brusco, Dalibor "Đugro" Talajić, Me-Matt "Žujo" Hollingsworth, Branka "Nara" Nikolić, Goran "Đuka" Sudžuka and Bob "Bad Taste" Solanović.

2008-05-09T12:01:00.005+02:00

Wow, I've been tired for the last two or three days.

I've been working for 14 or so hours a day for about the last week. But it doesn't seem to be that. Maybe it's the weather. Croatia is the only place I've lived where the weather can make you tired. Not sure exactly what it IS in the weather that does this. Pressure? Sometimes it's Jugo, the winds from the south. But there's not Jugo right now, or doesn't seem to be.

So, what is it? Anybody who lives here know? Do we have some weird weather phenomenon right now making me tired? Or maybe it's just all the work.

Incidentally, I will be attending MA Fest in Makarska, Croatia, next week. I will leave with Talaja and Esad on Thursday. It's a little comic show right on the beautiful Adriatic coast. That's one of the reasons I'm working so many hours. I'm trying to catch up with work. But I also have a lot of work right now. And Goran Sudžuka's stuff (linked at the left) is especially slow for me. Still, it's coming out nice. My wrists have been hurting a bit because of the heavy hours though. I'll try to soak them in the sea and see if the magical salts help.

Now back to work.

2008-05-07T18:28:00.006+02:00

Stupid Microsoft!

I'm bummed today. And it's because of Microsoft.

I use(d) their software, Zune, for music. They have a monthly subscription, which gives you unlimited downloads of their music library. I was paying $15/month since December for this and LOVED it. I downloaded maybe 300 albums in that time and got a LOT of new music. Fantastic! The music only works while you have a subscription. That's the catch. But I didn't care. $15 is not much for unlimited music. If those albums were $10 a pop, which is not unusual, that's $3000. And I've paid for 5 months, so $75. Not bad.

But today, when I started up the software, it said "new software available, click to update". But, after updating the software, the new version now eats ALL of my CPU resources. I have a 2.4 gigahertz processor. This is enough. I am normally running Photoshop, Firefox, Open Office and XnView all at the same time without trouble. And I USED to also run Zune. But no more. This new version literally would tie up more than 90% of my processor at nearly ALL times. Which would mean that when I was typing an e-mail, it had a major lag. And so did Photoshop. I couldn't paint while I was waiting for it to do something. Ridiculous.

See these screencaps. The one with the processor used up to 100% is with Zune, the one at ZERO is without Zune.

Microsoft are idiots. They always do this. They try to add so much functionality that the software uses up all of your resources and no longer works. See Vista. Damned idiots. I even called tech support to see about downgrading, but no such luck. So, I promptly canceled my membership. Back to 300 less albums and iTunes, sadly. Oh well.

Fucking Microsoft.

2008-05-04T10:33:00.003+02:00

The ćuk has returned! Yay!

Last year, starting in spring, I would hear this regular whistle outside at night. The sound is so regular and consistent in tone, duration and the length of time between sounds that I had initially thought it was something electronic. It sounded artificial.

But Nara, moja zaručnica, told me that it was in fact a ćuk, a small owl. After that, I loved hearing it. Gajnice has a lot of plants and is close to some forested areas, and this is a reminder of that that I enjoy. Eventually, sometime in summer, the ćuk disappeared. I cannot remember exactly the timing, but I was sad the little owl was gone.

Across from our apartment is a large kesten, or chestnut tree, that the ćuk spent much of it's time in. It would also switch spots, presumably moving around the neighborhood to find an area with fresh bugs to eat. The kesten has come into bloom lately and I remember the ćuk last year arriving sometime around then. So, I'd been awaiting the arrival of the ćuk.

And last night, it returned! Yay! In the same tree, we could hear that short, high pitched whistle filling the air and terrifying the local insect population.

So, welcome back little ćuk!

I have not seen the ćuk yet, but maybe one night I will. It's immersed in the heavily hidden areas of the branches up high, with no clear line of view to it.

If you're curious, the ćuk is also known as the Eurasian Scops Owl, or by its Latin name, "otus scops".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otus_scops

And here's the Croatian page:

http://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%86uk

2008-04-18T09:38:00.003+02:00

So, wow. I FINALLY received an absentee ballot from California for a Democrat primary there. The bummer is, it's not the presidential one, which happened in early February.

I had followed the advice on the American government's website about registering to vote overseas. This just meant downloading a form and sending it in to the proper address in California. I had HOPED to vote in the primary for Barack Obama. I registered really early, like early in November. It was recommended that I do it by January 1st or something, and I did it way, way earlier than that. So I figured I was in good shape. But the ballot never showed up.

I was bummed. Obama lost California. But I gave him a lot of money for his campaign.

And now, a ballot finally shows up, but it's for some local bullshit that I don't know anything about, like city council and judges and such. I don't live there, I don't know any of this shit. But I'll probably read a bit and vote anyway so that they see I voted and make sure they give me a ballot when the November election comes.

And the ballot was addressed to "Zagrep". Hahahaha!

So, it's not just Croatia that has bullshit, slow bureaucracy. Speaking of which, we've had to give them even more paperwork and have to return to MUP yet again today. And then we'll have to go again in a few weeks. I'll have my visa eventually. Maybe by the time Obama is president.

2008-04-17T13:13:00.004+02:00

I'm up for an Eagle Award for best colorist. And my buddy Declan Shalvey is up for best new artist. Go vote for us, willya? Anyone can vote.

Eagle Awards

2008-04-10T10:34:00.002+02:00

Lame.

My wrist has been fucked the last two days. Again. It's a bit different this time, though. It hurts on the middle of the top of my wrist. Last time it was more over to the side. But still, it's pretty sore.

Naturally, what I should do is work less to let it heal. But that ain't happening. I just have too much work to do right now. And I can't quit any of these jobs and leave these folks hanging. But I will have to ease back a little where I can.

Wsh me luck that it doesn't get worse.

2008-04-04T10:01:00.003+02:00

With Bush arriving in Zagreb today, I'll take another brief detour into commenting on politics. I usually avoid it on this blog. But here he comes, so I gotta say something.

I hate his fucking guts. I am not a Presidential historian, so I cannot accurately say that he's the worst President the US has ever had, but I *can* say that he is definitely the worst, by far, in my lifetime. It's not just that he's right wing. I am left wing, so yes, that *is* an issue. But there have been other right wing Presidents who weren't so fucking evil. His father, for one, was okay. But Bush Jr, or "Shrub" is not even loyal to his own supposed principles. He is not conservative financially. He spends our money like a drunken sailor and has gotten us into serious financial trouble. He's also authoritarian. He's the furthest from a Libertarian that you can possibly get. And he's fucking retarded. We have a far right wing, authoritarian and retarded President in the States.

I could go on and on and on and explain all of the stuff he's done wrong. But there's not really too much point in doing that. If you've lived on Earth for the last 7 years, then you already know at least some of the stupid, inane shit that he's done. But as an expat living in Zagreb, where he's visiting, I'm speaking up and saying I don't support you. I don't want you as our President. You're an embarrassment. The sooner you're not only out of the White Office, but out of the press, the better. Hopefully some of the bad karma you have built up over the years comes back to bite you in the ass. And we don't want you in Zagreb. So fuck off and go back to Crawford. Take some English lessons so somebody can understand what the fuck it is you're *trying* to say.

And, BTW, go Obama! Fuck McCain and all the war mongers.

2008-03-25T20:21:00.006+01:00

Woo hoo!

We just booked our little apartment for our summer holiday. We'll be staying in Tribunj for 6 weeks during the summer. Nice!!!

For those who don't know, Tribunj is on the Croatian Adriatic coast. Doesn't have any castle or heavy tourist destination, just some nice swimming and easy life. Nice!

If you're curious, I took pics when I was there before and they're in these blog entries:

http://matthollingsworth.blogspot.com/2006/11/tales-of-croatia.html

http://matthollingsworth.blogspot.com/2006/11/tales-of-croatia_25.html

http://matthollingsworth.blogspot.com/2006/11/tales-of-croatia_116449361134064344.html

2008-03-25T09:15:00.003+01:00

Nara and went to see "There Will Be Blood" or "Bit Će Krvi" at Cinestar in the Branimir Centar last weekend. For anybody who lives here, it's still playing and is really well worth checking out.

It's the story of the rise of an oil baron from the early 20th century. I also enjoyed it from a different perspective as my father is an oil worker and has been his whole life. He works running the rigs that do the drilling for oil and he worked in Signal Hill when I was a kid, which is in the movie. Other California locations that I recognized from both living there and my father working in the oil fields were also of interest to me.

It's long, at 2 hours and 40 minutes, but it's not boring in a single instance. It's great all the way through. It's an acting and writing film, not some FX spectacle or anything like that. It's one of the best films of 2007, I'd say, and well deserving of its Oscar nomination. Other films I enjoyed in the last year that fit into that same vein, of being mostly writer, director and actor driven, are: The Prestige, The Departed, No Country for Old Men, Zodiac and American Gangster. If you enjoy that kind of film where you can really enjoy the performances, then go check out There Will Be Blood. Daniel Day-Lewis hands in a truly fantastic acting job, really earning his Oscar win for best actor. Go see it before it's gone.

2008-03-19T09:53:00.002+01:00

Man. Delayed again.

We went to MUP, the police station, on Petrinska yesterday. Waited about 2 hours. That's not the worst. We had to wait 4 hours once. But, this is, hmm, I think our 5th time there, working on my visa renewal. Last time we went they told us all of my papers were in order and that I just had to go to a different police station that's in charge of my district for an interview. Those guys never got around to calling me like they were supposed to so we had to go to them on our own. Got that done. Just a basic interview asking why I'm here, where I live and all that. Easy.

I had a 30 day extension from my last visit to MUP on Petrinska. And it was up and they still hadn't called me, so we had to go in. And wait 2 hours. I was hoping they'd take us in and give me my renewal finally. But no, of course not. My joke has been that to get anything done in Croatia requires at least 3 visits to any place. For instance, we had all sorts of different places to go to renew my visa and each one required about 3 visits before we accomplished what we needed. Same thing with most things here. But with MUP, it's been 5 visits already. Anyway, after 2 hours we finally go in and she tells us that they're still waiting to hear from some finance ministry or something and she extends me another 30 days.

We've been at this for 60 days now. Ah, lovely red tape. But I'm extended again, so that's okay. As long as they eventually approve me it's okay.

2008-03-14T13:37:00.004+01:00

Yes, it's started to happen. I seem to be losing touch with American culture a little bit. I tend to go see movies here a bit. And most of the big American movies come here. And I still watch Lost by downloading on iTunes. But I don't have as much contact with Americans. I frequent some message boards for comics and that tends to be how I see some of this stuff. Basically, though, in America, language is largely affected by movies and television. If a hit movie comes out and has some funny line, it becomes frequently used and becomes part of the culture. It happened during Wayne's World, for instance. And I hate that shit. I find it hugely annoying. It's like an insider's club. Someone will drop a bit from a movie into their language and kinda wait to see if you get it. Well you know what? Fuck you. I don't care to be an insider with you. And fuck Wayne's World. Or Austin Powers. Or any other film you're taking your fucking language from. It doesn't mean you're smart. And it certainly doesn't mean you're cultured or witty. It means you have no personality of your own and have to borrow it from a crappy film or TV show.

On that note, some recent things I don't get.

I think this one came from a comic. I keep seeing the word "taint" as in the area between your balls and your ass (or between your vagina and your ass). Evidently in some comic someone was kicked there and now everybody is dropping this goody into their language, like "wow, that kicks so much taint". Well, fuck you. It sounds stupid. And you sound stupid when you use it. You're not funny. You need to leave your apartment or house more often. Says the guy who's been working 7 days a week. Fuck. I need a day off. Maybe tomorrow.

There also seems to be some phenomenon of making fun of "gingers" or people with red hair. Uh, ok. I don't get it. I think I'll make fun of Slovenians instead. They're my friends so I can do this. Maybe some of them have red hair so I can double up on this.

And, god damn it, I am sick of hearing "my bad", as in "Sorry, my bad." Where the FUCK did that come from? Buffy the Vampire Slayer? It's not funny. And you're fucked. Stop trying to manufacture some wit by leeching of of some crappy pop cultural reference.

Now if you want to quote the Simpsons, *that* I can forgive.

;-)

2008-02-10T11:18:00.000+01:00

One of the interesting things that's happening to me, one of the effects of living in Croatia, is that my ear is being retrained. I'm immersed in a culture that does not have English as it's primary language. Sure, people speak a lot of English around me. But they all have accents. And, their basic foundation of language, of speaking and making sounds with their mouth is fundamentally different from native English speakers. And, it's very different from American speaking.

It comes out in every day speech. There are lots of little phrases that Croatians in general use in English that American's don't. I often hear, for instance "and in one moment", as in "I was walking down the street, then in one moment I realized I left my keys at home.". It's not incorrect, it's just not phrasing that an American would use. And there are lots of little ones like that. "Moisty" is another one. It's actually incorrect but it gets the idea across. I think it stems from following a pattern. They hear us saying "It's sunny outside", or "It's rainy outside". So, instead of "It's humid outside", they use "It's moisty outside".

But, really, the thing I notice a lot these days has more to do with my ear being retrained. Croatian's don't speak with a nasal sound. Americans DO. I've been watching American news more than usual now because of the election (in which I heavily favor Obama, BTW). And I notice it every day. Americans sound like they have a head cold. They sound like they're congested and speaking through their nose. I never noticed this before I lived here. But now, I've gotten used to the way they speak here, which is not at all nasal. By comparison, Americans are very nasal in the way they speak. And sometimes it actually sounds annoying.

Strange.

2008-02-07T11:12:00.000+01:00

So, yesterday I went and picked up my freight. My friend Tyson has a van that he uses to help out Hladno Pivo with shows and such and he was gracious enough to help me out.

My stuff actually showed up on January 25th, but they required some additional paperwork to release it. Translated packing list and stuff like that. The main bummer, though, were all the fees. I valued my stuff at $2495. I figured customs would charge me $500 or $600. But, with all the warehouse fees and customs, it actually ended up being around $1300 to pick my stuff up. Fuck. It was about the same price to SEND it. It's a lot of money. But now I have 4.5 cubic meters of my stuff here in Croatia. Which means it's not sitting in a $200/month rented storage space in LA. So, I guess after 13 months it will have paid for itself in a way.

Plus it means I have my stuff with me. Which is cool. My trip LA in December was all about getting rid of stuff and sorting through things to decide what to keep.

Among the stuff that I shipped to Croatia is:

My brewing equipment for making beer. Not ALL of the equipment, but many of the large, heavy and expensive pieces like my computerized mash tun and boiling kettle. Tyson and I will make beer sometime in the not too distant future.

My drums. I have a nice wood hoop Ayotte set from Canada and a great DW double bass pedal. I'm not into double bass at all, but it's great for exercises to keep those feet equal. I hope to rent a practice space sometime after my visa is renewed.

My comics. 3 long boxes and 2 short boxes totaling around 1200 comics, 95% of which are comics that I worked on. Been coloring comics for 17 years now, so they add up.

Kitchen wares. I have some decent stuff I didn't wanna get rid of. Nice silverware, a food mill, mortar and pestle. Simple stuff that I use a lot.

Books and DVDs. Lots of collected hardcovers of comics, drumming books, some software books etc.

Comic art. I still have maybe 100 pages of painted blue line colors from the Grendel book I did with Edvin Biuković and Darko Macan. I'll give one to Darko. Darko? Any preference? I'll check if I still have whatever page you want. Or you can come over and look through them.

Golf clubs. Yeah, I used to do SOME golfing. My buddy Dave and I would mostly play 9 holes or go to the range, which was fun and an excuse to drink the rest of the day.

Computer. A back up PC that's pretty decent, a printer and scanner that always did right by me.

Scuba fins and snorkel. For the sea in the summer!

And various clothes; a suit, several pairs of nicer shoes etc etc. And various knick knacks. They add up, but I got rid of most except a nice little Buddha statue that I've had for 20 years.

Nice to have my stuff. I'm not much of a pack rat, but it's a feeling of relief that it all arrived and it's all okay. Nothing was broken or fucked up. It arrived in better condition than most mail I get. So that's something.

2008-02-05T11:39:00.000+01:00

That took a bit of effort.

I switched my web hosting service late last summer when I created my website. And I never got around to getting rid of the old one, which was Yahoo. The reason I switched was that I was using Joomla to create my new website and Yahoo does not allow you to use files that begin with a dot in the file name. Joomla uses MySql databases which require a file called ".htaccess", so I couldn't use it on Yahoo. That, and once I started looking, I found a better provider for FAR cheaper for FAR more storage space.

But, all the pictures in this blog were hosted on Yahoo. And going back and changing every link was gonna be a pain, so I delayed. That is, until this week when it was reported that Microsoft will buy Yahoo. Well, fuck Microsoft. I think they suck and will make it even worse. And I don't wanna give them my money, so I went and did all this work finally.

Here's how I did it, to try to make it not all that painful:

I manually backed up the entire blog into one text file for each entry and named each file with the date. Okay, that took a little bit of time but not that bad. Mostly just a copy paste. I then wrote a very short Python program to switch the URL for the photos. This python program opened each text file and did a search and replace, basically. It then saved the file back out. Writing that program took about 10 minutes. It made it so that I didn't have to manually change anything. Then, when I opened each text file, it was already fixed. So, I just copied and pasted it back into the blog and the blog is now fixed.

Still, it was some effort. But now I have gotten rid of Yahoo. If you see any dead links or anything on the blog, please let me know.

2008-01-26T12:06:00.000+01:00

I've been very busy. So I haven't posted in a while. But I'm back!

I went to California in December to go through my storage unit. I donated most stuff, threw some stuff away, sold some things and shipped 4.5 cubic meters of my belongings to Croatia. Those things arrived yesterday and I should be picking them up soon.

Being in LA was hell. I hate it there. It was nice to see my friends, though.

Since returning, work has been pretty steadily heavy. I bought a new Wacom Cintiq 12 inch and have been warming up to my new toy. It's pretty great. For those who don't know, a Cintiq is a tablet for painting that has a monitor built right into it, so your drawing is directly under your hand. Very cool.

And, of course, I've been absorbed by the primary elections in the States. I don't usually write about politics here as I want this bog to be more about culture and sharing good things rather than arguing over policy or candidates or whatnot. But, I've gotta break that silence.

I strongly dislike Hillary Clinton and feel that if she wins she will be a bad President. People are nostalgic for Bill Clinton. But this is simple because Bush is SO retarded and SUCH a bad president. He's fucked. So Bill, by comparison seems amazing. But he wasn't. He was nothing stellar and in fact dragged the Democrats to the right by co-opting Republican policies and claiming them as his own. I, for one do not miss him. And for those stating that Hillary is her own candidate, please. Gimme a break. She's the worst kind of disingenuous politician there is. She's full of shit. Her and her husband seek out power for its own sake. They aren't merely seeking to help people out as they so often say.

Barack Obama is by FAR the better candidate. He's shown regularly and consistently that he thinks out issues and makes a decision based on a strong ability to understand the issues and what's best for his constituents.

But, to be honest, I am more against Hillary than I am for Obama. I don't want my entire life ruled by rotating dynasties of bad presidencies. What, we'll have had Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton? Then what? Jeb Bush runs in 8 years? Fuck that. It's already been 20 years of 2 families running the States and that's more than enough for me. Give the next generation a chance.

And, if you doubt that Hillary will do anything to seek out power, check this out:

CLINTON TRIES TO REINSTATE MICHIGAN AND FLORIDA'S DELEGATES.

This is a very, very, very big deal. From the Clinton campaign:

I hear all the time from people in Florida and Michigan that they want their voices heard in selecting the Democratic nominee.

I believe our nominee will need the enthusiastic support of Democrats in these states to win the general election, and so I will ask my Democratic convention delegates to support seating the delegations from Florida and Michigan. I know not all of my delegates will do so and I fully respect that decision. But I hope to be President of all 50 states and U.S. territories, and that we have all 50 states represented and counted at the Democratic convention.

I hope my fellow potential nominees will join me in this.

I will of course be following the no-campaigning pledge that I signed, and expect others will as well.

This is the sort of decision that has the potential to tear the party apart. In an attempt to retain some control over the process and keep the various states from accelerating their primaries into last Summer, the Democratic National Committee warned Michigan and Florida that if they insisted on advancing their primary debates, their delegates wouldn't be seated and the campaigns would be asked not to participate in their primaries. This was agreed to by all parties (save, of course, the states themselves).

With no one campaigning, Clinton, of course, won Michigan -- she was the only Democrat to be on the ballot, as I understand it, which is testament to the other campaign's beliefs that the contest wouldn't count -- and will likely win Florida. And because the race for delegates is likely to be close, she wants those wins to matter. So she's fighting the DNC's decision, and asking her delegates -- those she's already won, and those she will win -- to overturn it at the convention. She's doing so right before Florida, to intensify her good press in the state, where Obama is also on the ballot. And since this is a complicated, internal-party matter that sounds weird to those not versed in it (of course Michigan and Florida should count!), she's adding a public challenge that, if the other Democrats deny, will make them seem anti-Michigan and Florida.

But if this pushes her over the edge, the Obama camp, and their supporters, really will feel that she stole her victory. They didn't contest those states because they weren't going to count, not because they were so committed to the DNC's procedural arguments that they were willing to sacrifice dozens of delegates to support it. It's as hard as hardball gets, and the end could be unimaginably acrimonious. Imagine if African-American voters feel the rules were changed to prevent Obama's victory, if young voters feel the delegate counts were shifted to block their candidate.

Ezra Klein

2008-01-04T11:58:00.000+01:00

As regular readers of the blog may know, I've stated before that I won't really write about politics in this blog. This blog is intended to be something positive about what brings people together, not about what tears them apart.

That being said, I will do some political writing today. It's primary season in the States. And I'm a political junkie. So, it's hard to resist. And since I'm writing about politics anyway today, I will also mention a few local topics; Kosovo, the Adriatic and the stupid bridge to be built on the Pejesac peninsula.

But first, the presidential primaries in the States. Last night, Barrack Obama and Mike Huckabee won their primaries. Amongst Democrats, Edwards came in second and Clinton in third. Among Republicans, Mitt Romney came in second.

This is exactly what I wanted. I strongly dislike the Republican party and want them to lose badly.

2007-12-24T13:12:00.000+01:00

Well well. The freezing rain of this morning has now shifted to snow! So, it's snowing!

Will it stay? Will we have a white Christmas? Time will tell.

2007-12-22T12:56:00.000+01:00

Ah, back home in Zagreb. And it's Christmas time! Double happy yay!

Just went for a bit of a stroll. The neighborhood is packed with shoppers. Presumably, people stocking up on food, shopping for gifts and whatnot.

Konzum, our local mega chain supermarket, just opened a gigantic store nearby and I decided to walk over there for a look. Thought I might buy a few things. But, no way. Forget that. It was PACKED. People were lined up to pay in lines that would obviously take a half hour or more to get to the front of and I was not in the mood for that. So, I just wandered around and took a look. It's nice to have in the area because they really have a lot of stuff. Electronics, TVs, kitchenware, notebooks and papers, all sorts of food and a HUGE wine section. But, I will still go to the little local shops for most stuff. I wouldn't want this mega store to drive the little fish shop and wine shop and others out of business. I like talking to those folks and having a connection to the shop keepers.

I tried also to find a Christmas tree stand with no luck. It's not that they don't have stands here, but they're different. They're just an iron stand to hold the tree up. Nothing to hold water to extend the tree's life. I asked around at a few places and nobody even knew what I was talking about. They'd just point me to that iron stand. So, I guess iron stand it it. We're going to get our tree tomorrow.

I think we'll also do our food shopping. I proposed to Nara that we do some cooking on Christmas day. Maybe we'll make some soup or something. Don't know yet. We'll see what the market has. I'd like some squash soup, but don't know if they're still available. Sunday, we're going to our landlord's house with some wine. We'll pay the rent, but also hang out. I brought back a very nice Zinfandel to share and also bought a Dingač to bring, which is an excellent wine. One of the parent grapes of Plavac Mali, the grape that makes Dingač, is in fact Zinfandel. Zinfandel is originally from Croatia, as proven by DNA testing in the late 90s. If you think it's originally from Italy and is Primitivo, you're partially correct. It IS Primitivo, but Primitivo is ALSO originally from Croatia. In Croatia, it is called Crljenak Kaštelanski, which sadly seems to not be used to make wine anymore and is exceedingly rare. I've never seen wine made with it. Plavac Mali, on the other hand is used to make a lot of wine. It'll be interesting to compare the two.

Monday, Christmas Eve, we'll exchange some of our gifts, then go to a party at Smart Caffe, one of our local haunts. That should be a rager. Christmas day, we'll probably just have lazy times. Maybe we'll watch some movies, cook, sleep a lot and take it easy. Should be nice.

Na hrvatskom: Sretan Božić. Na engleskom: Merry Christmas to everyone!

2007-12-12T04:37:00.000+01:00

So, I've been in Los Angeles for two weeks now. I sit here at LAX using a hotspot to connect and kill time while I wait for my flight home to Zagreb.

It's been a bittersweet visit.

It's been great to see my friends and family. My hosts Dave and Dominika were especially great and Dave and I had many a drinking night.

My basic routine was to awaken quit early, seek out breakfast, then get to it. I spent most of my time sorting through my possessions, throwing stuff away, donating stuff, selling some stuff and packing up the belongings I decided to take with me to Zagreb. It was a lot of work. My hands look and feel like the hands of a laborer; tough, sore and blistered a bit. This from endless opening of boxes, lots of lifting and all manner of nonsense. I also spent a huge amount of time driving around LA, which meant I also spent a large amount of time stuck in traffic. Yesterday was the worst.

I spent three and a half hours stuck in traffic. My printout from the sea freight company said to deliver my stuff between 8AM and 6PM, to Compton. My storage unit was in Van Nuys. I had the van all packed and ready to go, but I had to wait for the Salvation Army, who picked up lots of donated furniture and whatnot. By the time they finished up, it was 3PM. I left for Compton around 3:15, heading north on the 101.

Naturally, it being LA and all, the 101 was fucked. Bumper to bumper sometime after passing Sunset. Like really horrible. We weren't moving at all. I got off the freeway and drove surface streets to the 110, South. Again, heavy traffic. All told, it took 2 hours to get to Compton. I arrived around 5:15PM. And, the freight place was closed. This despite my printout telling me to come between 8 and 6. Motherfuckers! So, the aggravation of being stuck in traffic was all for nothing. The drive back to Dave and Dominika's apartment in West Hollywood took an hour and a half.

So, let me just take this opportunity to say again that I fucking hate LA. With a passion. The land itself can be nice in areas. But the people here are largely fucked. It draws the worst people here from all over the world. Sure, I have friends here. And they're obviously the exception. But I couldn't live here again. No way in hell. The list of what's wrong with LA is massively long and the list of what's good about it is very short. At least by my estimation.

I enjoyed some nice food here at least. But I've come to realize that being in LA makes me angry. The city itself makes me angry. And it's like this fairly persistent anger the whole time I'm here. I hate it.

So, I am glad to be going home to Zagreb. Sure, I can't get some of the things I can here in LA. But I'd take it over LA any day. I miss my friends in Zagreb. I miss being relaxed. I miss my cats. Most of all I miss my girlfriend. She rocks. Home soon enough.

2007-11-30T16:53:00.000+01:00

So, I'm in Los Angeles for two weeks to go through my storage unit. I'll be selling stuff, donating stuff, throwing stuff away and sending some small amount back to Croatia via sea freight. Only been here for a couple of days and I already remember the loathing. I've always had a love/hate thing with LA. I love driving through the canyons and beautiful parts, of which there are many. But I hate traffic and having to drive vast distances to do anything. And people drive like assholes here.

I love all the multicultural stuff here, food selection and whatnot. But I really dislike most of the people here. My friends are the exception, of course. But SO many people move here from somewhere else to try to break into some sort of media job. And those are usually the worst kind of self centered people who I hate. Fuck those people.

Unless your my friends, of course. In which case I love you.

I miss Zagreb already. Much better than LA.

2007-11-21T19:45:00.000+01:00

My apologies to everyone who's reading and the lack of posts. I'm heading to Southern California next Wednesday to pack up my stuff and ship it back here to Croatia. And drink some beer, naturally. And I'm taking tomorrow off for Thanksgiving to make a feast for some friends. Which means, of course, that I am slammed with work. I won't likely be able to update the blog until the middle of December.

Meanwhile, enjoy yourselves. I'll have a beer for you at Lucky Baldwin's in Pasadena.

2007-10-20T12:34:00.000+02:00

While in Dublin, we had tremendous luck. It was pretty sunny and not too cold. No rain at all. The locals told us that they had more than 40 days in a row of rain during the summer. Holy fuck. Must have been during that storm season that was flooding the UK.

Trinity College in Dublin.

Declan hamming it up in Dublin.

Butt ugly building, though with a lot of character.

The streets of Dublin.

One of the main attractions which I enjoyed was a pub called the Porterhouse. It's a brewpub and has a really great interior. They make 9 of their own beers and also sell a ton of others.

Declan and Nara in the Porterhouse.

The Porterhouse.

They had 3 stouts and porters, 3 ales and 3 lagers. Of course, upon arriving there, I decided I'd try all of them in that one day. We had walked a lot and our feet were tired anyway, so we camped out a bit. We had a couple of pints, then went across the street for some Persian food. I had a tasty kebab. I tried to joke around with the cashier, but he was a humorless man. So we just ate then wandered around a bit before returning to the Porterhouse.

The Porterhouse.

Me at the Porterhouse.

The Porterhouse from the exterior.

The Porterhouse is very near the River Liffey, so we walked on the river for a bit and checked out some nearby neighborhoods. It's a city filled with a lot of nice walking areas. But there were also the required riverside drunks hanging out on the Millenium Bridge. Sadly, we had to return to the Porterhouse so we couldn't join them. Instead, we snapped a few quick picks with the aid of Declan.

Nara and me near the River Liffey in Dublin.

The River Liffey in Dublin.

Nara and Declan in Dublin.

We then returned to the Porterhouse and hung out for the remainder of the evening. Nara's friend Zdravka showed up, then later her friend Jelena also showed up. Declan immediately fell in love with the lovely Zdravka, but it's a tragedy since she's already involved and pregnant. So, naturally, he then fell in love with one waitress after the other. Some additional pictures taken by Declan will be included in a later blog entry.

I ended up trying all of the nine beers, then settled in on the oyster stout as my favorite. They use actual oysters in the production of this stout. It doesn't taste like oyster, curiously, but it's very tasty stuff. I liked all of their beers except two. One was a XXXX stout that was way, way too hoppy for a stout and one was their Temple Brau, which was just an unappealing lager. The rest were top notch and very nice beers. Declan even took a sip of each one as I got it even though he doesn't like beer. He's a cider man.

We stayed there until fairly late, then returned to the house that we were staying at, to go to sleep.

Ah, lovely!

Porterhouse Temple Bar
Google Map to Porterhouse Temple Bar

2007-10-19T18:08:00.000+02:00

So, Nara and I recently did a bit of traveling for one week. Not a long vacation, but enough to recharge the batteries a bit.

I'd been invited to the Birmingham International Comics Show as a guest. And though we were broke when we booked our tickets, we did our best to try to find an extra touch of traveling to squeeze onto the trip that we'd be able to afford. So in swoops Ryan Air. The cheapest way for us to get to the show was to fly to Luton, north of London, on Wizzair. We could then take a train to Birmingham or take a bus. Instead, we took Ryan Air to Dublin for cheap, 15 pounds each. Nice. And, my buddy Declan Shalvey was nice enough to set us up with a place to sleep for free. So, we added that wing of the trip with cheap tickets and no hotel charge. Nice!

The view from the terrace of the room we stayed in in Dublin.

So, we had 2 days and 3 nights in Dublin. We wandered around a lot and drank a lot of beer. We hung out with a bunch of crazy Irish folks and a few crazy Croats, with me, the totally normal American. Yeah. That's right. That's what I wrote.

Walking around in Dublin.

Two of Nara's friends from Zagreb also live there now, so we met up with them. Her friend Zdravka met up with us for a few drinks and her friend Jelena hung out a bit more, which was great. She showed us around Dublin quite a lot.

Jelena and Nara in Dublin.

Walking around in Dublin.

There's some beautiful architecture in Dublin. Where it's new, they've made an effort to have it stylistically fit in with the other architecture. It's pretty nice. There's also some very nice green space.

St. Stephen's Green in Dublin.

Oscar Wilde in Merrion Square Park in Dublin.

Merrion Square Park in Dublin.

Me and Nara in Merrion Square Park in Dublin.

Nara on the throne in Merrion Square Park.

Me on the throne in Merrion Square Park.

Declan in Merrion Square Park.

Mostly a photo blog for this first entry. More to come soon.

2007-10-06T12:31:00.000+02:00

I will be leaving Tuesday to head first to Dublin, for beers and a visit to Mecca (Guinness), as every good beer drinker must make that trip if they are physically able to. Afterwards, I will head to Birmingham to attend the Birmingham International Comics Show. The show is Saturday and Sunday the 13th and 14th.

I will be doing a two part color demo live onstage, one part each day.

It's a great show. And this year they have great guests just as they did last year. They even have Mike Mignola and Kevin Nowlan attending.

So, come join us. And buy me a pint, willya?

Birmingham International Comics Show

2007-10-05T14:49:00.000+02:00

Seems that NATO and EU authorities now fear that violence may break out in Kosovo. They've asked Croatia to make sure that the borders of neighboring EU countries are secure in the case of some mass exodus of refugees fleeing any fighting in Kosovo. I don't think there would be many refugees fleeing here to Croatia, but I think the EU and NATO also want those borders secure. And Croatia borders Italy, Slovenia and Hungary. All EU countries.

Some scary buildup is happening in Kosovo.

If my family's reading this, don't worry, okay? I'm not near Kosovo.

Fears of violence in tug-of-war over Kosovo.

U.S. asks Croatia to take any Kosovo refugees: paper.

2007-10-04T13:37:00.000+02:00

A look at recent activity in Gajnice.

Twice a year, people take larger junk or garbage and leave it in a supposedly designated area for collection by trash trucks. Trucks eventually come around with a crane arm and pick this crap up and take it away. The lame part, however, is that they don't actually do a good job of cleaning up the mess. So, these designated areas usually have crap left afterwards that is never cleaned up. This particular one in these photos is right next to a house. I wouldn't wanna live there.

Gypsies usually show up first. A group shows up and leaves the women behind to guard the garbage when they go get a vehicle. Sometimes they come back with a large van and cart the crap away. Sometimes it's a Yugo.

And to contrast this, the local supermarket in Zagreb, called Konzum, recently sponsored a new playground in the park here in Gajnice. They actually sponsored a few around the area, but this is the only one in Gajnice. It was being built for a month or so. During the construction, they had to post a security guard to watch the site at night. Esad tells me it's the law that they have to do this. I guess people would steal the construction materials.

The playground was very well received, though. The place is usually swamped with children during the day and evening and with teens drinking beer or hanging out at night. It's a big hit. Not the best pictures, sorry. But there it is.

2007-09-27T22:15:00.000+02:00

My buddy Talaja hamming it up at Pivnica Medvedgrad.

2007-09-26T12:59:00.001+02:00

I found this article about languages in Europe interesting. It's not too long. Maybe you'll enjoy it too.

Deutsche Welle

2007-09-22T15:27:00.000+02:00

One thing I don't miss about living in LA is the sound of helicopters. They seem always present in LA. News channels have them all over the place. In Santa Monica, at least, it really seemed like there were always helicopters.

In Zagreb, I don't think I've heard a single one. And that's nice. Not many airplanes either. The airport is not near and small planes are also much less common here. LA also seemed to have trash trucks every day. And Mexican immigrants working on people's yards with various loud equipment; leaf blowers, lawn mowers, hedge trimmers, etc. None of that here. The parks are taken care of, but it's not constant noise from all of these sources. Most noise is from scooters and cars screeching around.

I *do* however miss all the vast amount of choice I had in LA. Tons of different ethnicities live there, so any kind of food is available. Any DVD or CD you can think of, you can usually find.

Zagreb doesn't have a wide range of ethnicities living here and there are not very many different kinds of restaurants. Not much in the way of ethnic food at all, actually. Except for maybe 5 restaurants. Some Chinese, some Japanese and one Indian place. But it's severely limited. And the range of choice for CDs and DVDs is fucking awful.

But then I don't have LA traffic to deal with either. I just take the train, tram, bus or walk. The train's the best for avoiding traffic, but not entirely reliable either. It's often late or doesn't show up at all. But, really, it's pretty good 75% of the time.

Just some thoughts of the moment.

2007-09-13T09:59:00.000+02:00

My new website launched yesterday!

http://www.matthollingsworth.net

It took about a month to build it, using a Content Management System called Joomla. This tool made it much easier to make, and to make it much better than I could have done from scratch on my own.

The site is mostly my comics art portfolio site. It's got tons of my color work for Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Vertigo, Dark Horse Comics, ONI Press, Wildstorm Comics and Top Cow Productions. Go take a look, willya!?!?!?!

2007-08-30T16:47:00.000+02:00

Okay, a bit of a rant here. So much for the niceties of that last post.

I fucking hate scooters of all incarnations. It's a nice fantasy of Europe that people in the States have and scooters are part of that. Like it's romantic or something. But scooters suck ass. They're fucking awful. They're extremely loud. And they seem to give off far more exhaust than a car.

I have a neighbor who has one. He's got a really old one that looks like an old moped and not so much like a scooter. He takes it outside and revs it up all the time. And we always want to go chop his fucking head off and shove it up his ass. People race around on them in this area and they're fucking loud. It's like a lawnmower engine or something.

A plague on scooters!

2007-08-30T15:24:00.000+02:00

This blog is not intended to comment on politics in the region. It's meant to be a cultural blog, to show the things about mankind that bring us together, not separate us. Like food, drink, music and vampires.

Yes.

And as such, I'm not really going to be commenting on Kosovo or any of that stuff. If you want to read stuff like that, go read Balkan Baby and watch as a Westerner living in Zagreb gets embroiled in controversy over politics and his perhaps ignorant opinions. I don't hold the claim of not being ignorant. I am. Commenting on stuff I know little about seems folly.

But, in the same article that discusses Kosovo, it also discusses some Croatia related news. I suppose it's ultimately politics, but I'll let basic news items like this through if they merit any attention. No offense intended to any Balkan readers.

From Deutsche Welle:

During a visit to the Balkans, German Defense Minister Jung underlined his support for the supervised independence of the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo as well as Croatia's desire for EU and NATO membership.

...

Jung also supported Croatia's bid to join the European Union and NATO.

"Germany will continue to support Croatia's European perspective and efforts to join NATO," he said.

Croatia hopes to receive an invitation to join NATO next year and from the EU by the end of the decade.

Jung will travel to Macedonia and Albania on Thursday. Both countries are hoping to get an invitation to join NATO next year.

To read the article in full, go here:

Deutsche Welle

2007-08-22T10:58:00.000+02:00

From Deutsche Welle:

The success of Balkan music in getting German and European clubbers onto the dance floor is proof that culture doesn't have to spread from west to east. DJs are giving a new sound to the eclectic music with old roots.

People enjoy Balkan music because they can dance to it, said DJ Robert Soko, who emigrated to Germany from what was then Yugoslavia before the Balkan Wars in the mid-1990s.

"People had sort of hit a dead-end as far as new music went," said Soko, whose show is called Balkan Beats. "Suddenly a new sound came along that was danceable. When you mix it well with modern sounds you get a result that works great in clubs.

"It has ethnic or traditional elements that are fused with more modern beats," Soko said, adding that the traditional components can include brass instruments, Oriental sounding semi-tones or Slavic-language texts.

To read the rest of the article, go to the Deutsche Welle website:

Deutsche Welle

2007-08-21T11:22:00.000+02:00

Yes, it's happened. I'm fed up with western news coverage, finally after all these years.

I've decided to not listen to or watch western news much anymore. Which is not to say that I will stop entirely. But I've always been someone who watches and listens and reads a lot of this stuff. BBC, CNN, Newsweek, Time Magazine, NPR etc etc. The only thing I will really continue with is probably Newsweek, as the European edition has a much more rounded approach than the American one. It shows more about life around the world rather than just covering America.

The thing that primarily really got on my nerves and made me snap is western coverage of China. It seems to me that there is an orchestrated attempt to discredit China. I think it's because the west fears China is going to be the next big power and feels that it must defend itself. I am hearing everywhere about products from China being bad. They'll kill your pets, those evil Chinese (the pet food scare)! They'll kill your children with that lead paint in those toys!

Now, I'm not saying these stories are false. But I am saying they are blown out of proportion to scare westerners. What the fuck? It reminds me of the 70s and 80s when America was afraid of Japan as the next big power. I'm literally hearing some sort of bad shit about China nearly every single day. Here's the news: "Another truck bomb kills 120 in Iraq. The most people killed at once in 2 years. And, more products recalled from China. This time, they're using lithium in baby food, which as you know will really fuck up your precious baby."

Well, fuck that. I'm not listening anymore. That's it. Obviously, being a news junkie of sorts, I will continue to stay in touch and read more. And don't post me some links to some fucking British news source. They're just as fucked as the Americans. And I fucking hate the Daily Show too. Not that it's news. But I still hate that smarmy, snide bullshit that passes as funny. What are they gonna do when Bush is gone? 90% of their show will be gone.

Maybe Al Jazeera will show a more rounded view of the world. Need to get satellite TV. Yes, that's it.

Dr. Who starts on September first on BBC here in Croatia. Maybe that will cheer me up. If not, there's always the second season of Rome on HBO here, also starting around the same time. And Monk, which is on too. Fiction better suits me at the moment.

That's the rant of the day, thank you very much.

2007-08-04T16:47:00.000+02:00

Okay, so Darko Macan prompted me to get off of my ass and finally post something after a month. I'm preparing the photos from my Makarska trip in May, of which there are many. So, meanwhile, I'll post a simple one to hold you folks off. Not that it's necessarily anything exciting.

After discovering that there aren't really all that many good beers to drink here in Zagreb, I've been drinking a lot more wine. There are tons of really great wines here, from Croatia and also the surrounding countries. Particularly good wines that are very cheap can be found from Bosnia and Hercegovina and Macedonia, for instance. Now, I'm not knocking all of the beer here. But the range of choice is severely limited. Local stores in Gajnice have maybe 3 or 4 beers that I am willing to drink. I did not previously like Laško, but grew to like it a lot in Makarska, where they had fresh draft Laško. Tasty. I can get a decent bottle of that here. I don't drink Ožujsko much anymore since they switched to green bottles. Stupid motherfuckers. It ruins their beer, which is already not the best anyway. So, that's out. Karlovačko pretty much sucks as it always has. The original Budweiser is available here and is the best I can get in my neighborhood. I found a Prehrana store on Cvijetni Trg that carries Edelweiss, from Germany. If you're at Cvijetni Trg, it's the only Prehrana there. Pick one up. It's somewhere between Paulaner and Hoegaarden in flavor. I also found a local market that carries Nikšičko Pivo, from Montenegro. It's better than any of the Croatian beers I can get here. Sadly, I have not seen Velebitsko Pivo ANYWHERE in maybe 4 months. Fuck. That beer's from Croatia and is the best I've had from this entire region. Oh well.

So, onto wine then. There are tons of great whites and reds to be had here.

Our current favorite is called Samotok, from the Mostar region in Bosnia and Hercegovina. This is a very nice polusuho crno vino, "half dry black wine". Folks here call red wine black. Anyway, it's semi dry. It's only 12.5% alcohol but very nice. It's also 25 kuna at the shop. Which is around $4.50 or $4.75. Not bad. We're gonna buy a case. We drink it more than anything else.

The same producer, "Hercegovina Produkt", also produces a Žilavka and Blatina we like a lot. Žilavka is a white grape indigenous to the area around Mostar, Blatina a red grape also indigenous to the area. The Žilavka is nice. I can't really compare it yet until I've drank more, which I'm working on. But it's more in the family of a Chardonnay or Pinot Grigio and nothing near a Riesling or Gewurztraminer. It's a clean grape without and sharp fruit or heavy acid. Nice. They have a higher graded one that is 80 kuna if I remember right, and the medium grade, which is around 24 kuna. The 24 kuna bottle is very good and that 80 kuna price will not get you a bottle that's much better. Blatina goes into Samotok, which is a blend. The one labeled Blatina is a drier version.

Most bottles we buy are "Kvalitetno", which is considered the second best quality wine. "Vrhunsko" is the highest grade and usually costs a lot more. "Stolno" is basic table wine. In basic practice, most of the wines are pretty decent and Kvalitetno is really very tasty stuff.

Another favorite of ours has been the Traminac from Iločki Podrumi (podrum is "basement"). The Traminac grape is the same as the Gewurztraminer grape, but the wine that I've seen here is generally not as strong as the huge 14 to 15% wines I've seen from Alsace. It's a really very nice wine here. I had not looked it up yet when I first tried it, but as soon as I smelled it, having not even tasted it yet, I said to Nara that this really reminded me of Gewurztraminer. I looked it up, and sure enough. The stuff from Alsace is absolutely the best on Earth in my opinion, but the ones I've tried from here are first rate and very nice. They're better than the ones I've had from Washington State, for instance. Aromatic, a touch sweet and no heavy acid like some wines. Nice! They have both Kvalitetno and Vrhunsko. The Vrhunsko is only 40 kuna and is a bit better, though the Kvalitetno is also quite tasty at under 30 kuna.

Malvazija is a very nice white from here. It's hugely aromatic, but it's main drawback for me thus far is some pretty heavy acid. Brings up heartburn. I get this from some wines, though. Still searching on that grape as I love the flavor and aroma, if not the heartburn. Second from the left in the picture.

Teran is on the left in the picture. It's a red grape. Seems like a good grape, but that wine was not very good and thus not recommended.

We've become friends with the local wine merchant, going to her shop once or twice a week. She recommended an Argentinian Cabernet Sauvignon, called Kaiken, which we tried and loved. It was 60 kuna if I remember. This is great wine. Strong at 14.7% alcohol, but it doesn't taste sharp or anything. Very clean and drinkable. We love it.

And, the monster of the region is Dingač, a strong red wine made from the Plavac Mali grape. Plavac Mali is related to the grape Zinfandel, made popular in California. The grape Zinfandel has been found to originate on the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia and was seemingly brought back to Rome during the time of the empire, then spread out. It eventually found it's way to Austria, then to the States, where it found a nice home in California.

Anyway, Dingač is the most expensive of local wines. It's the wine I've bought as a gift for people, having given away 4 or 5 bottles but still not having tried it. I finally bought one today, for 165 kuna ($31), but have yet to try it. It generally ranges from 125 kuna to 250 kuna in price. That's currently $23 to $47. So, I don't usually buy this wine. I can find very tasty wines at much, much lower prices, so I usually do that.

This is wine growing land, especially on the coast. And there's a long and rich history with the grape going back centuries. Grapes were brought back from Dalmatia to Rome. And the wine here ranks up with the best of what I've had from California, France, Italy or any other grape growing region.

Which is great.

Plavac Mali on WikiPedia

2007-07-04T14:39:00.000+02:00

For this July 4th holiday, I decided to combine the American and Croatian flags. So, here you go:

Travel safe, enjoy the day and be happy! Happy Independence Day to the United States!

2007-06-18T10:59:00.000+02:00

So, I went to the doctor for the first time in Zagreb yesterday. My friend Danijela really helped me out with getting in without any troubles of any kind, which was really great.

For the last couple of months, I've had a ganglion cyst which was not going away and was causing some aching.

I went in and the doctor stuck a needle in and drained it. And now I can't use my hand for a few days. So, typing all left handed for now. Glad it's not serious!

Ganglion Cyst on WikiPedia

2007-06-07T15:08:00.000+02:00

A film that I worked out comes out this weekend, and I hope that you'll go see it. The film was the seventh and final film I worked on in my 2 year career in visual effects. I took a break from working on comics for those 2 years and worked at three studios: Stan Winston Digital, Rhythm and Hues and finally, Sony Pictures Imageworks.

The film is called Surf's Up.

It's a CG animated film about surfing penguins. May sound goofy, but it's the best of all the films I worked on. It's co-directed by Ash Brannon and Chris Buck. Ash Brannon was an animator and director at Pixar for years, having worked on Toy Story, Toy Story 2 and A Bug's Life while at Pixar. Chris Buck came from the 2D side, working as an animator and director at Disney. He directed Tarzan for Disney and worked on a ton of other stuff.

I spent an entire year on the film as a texture painter.

In 3D/CG, every model needs it's surface painted, which is what we did. We painted color maps, bump maps, displacement maps, transparency, specular, translucency and other maps.

I was the main character painter. I painted about half of the characters in the film, plus tons of background elements. So, I painted Jeff Bridge's character, and the female lead and tons of other stuff.

As an example, the penguins needed a color map to show what color their fur would be and show markings. We'd paint that. Then we'd also have, in some instances, a root and tip map that was different, to fade the hair to a different color at the root or tip. We'd paint a specular map for some penguins who have a colored highlight. The beaks and feet required bump maps to show bumpiness, cracks, whatever. Plants would also need a translucency map. So, for instance if you shine a light behind a leaf, you see that the stem stays darker, it block the light more. We'd paint maps for that. And transparency maps to sculpt the edges of the leafs, add holes or whatever.

Make sense?

It's the best crew I've had the pleasure of working with, and this great crew produced a great film. So, go see it, willya!?

Surf's Up on IMDB.com
Surf's Up official site

2007-05-10T18:25:00.000+02:00

Just a quick blog to show one of our basic dinners here in Gajnice. They have a very nice little fish market here that has fresh fish. We went there recently and bought some sea bass, or "brancin", which looks different than the sea bass in SoCal to me. I always bought fillets in SoCal, but the fish was from a much larger fish there. The one here is just as tasty, though. And undoubtedly far fresher.

A new beer discovery from the local store, Konzum. Sarajevsko is a decent light lager. Nothing fantastic, but drinkable.

The food layout. Fresh bread, tomatoes with garlic, basil and local olive oil for dipping the bread, "mladi luk" or young onion and "rotkvice" or radishes, a spinach dish and potato dish made by Nara.

Simply prepared, just fried in some olive oil with vegeta, a local salt mixture.

A bit browned, but still tasty!

2007-05-10T11:20:00.000+02:00

I've started to get noticed by a lot of people interested in Croatia. Some are expats living here in Croatia, some are Americans who hope to move here and want to ask questions. I've gotten e-mail from maybe half a dozen in the last couple of weeks. I usually try to help and answer whatever questions I can.

One such encounter was with expatinterviews.com. They asked me to fill out a questionnaire, which I did.

If you're curious, click to picture for the link:

2007-04-29T17:27:00.000+02:00

Something blasphemous has been done to Ožujsko, the beer from which my nickname, Žujo, is derived. They have changed their packaging. And the new packaging is in green glass and plastic.

I am not upset because of the LOOK of the packaging. I couldn't give a shit what it looks like. What I care about is flavor. And packaging beer in green glass is the worst possible thing you could do to a beer. This effectively ruins the beer.

The reason for this is chemical in nature.

Beers are given bitterness by something in hops called "isomerized alpha acids". When ultraviolet light hits a beer for too long, it provides the energy necessary to cause a chemical reaction that combines those iso alpha acids and some trace sulfur in the beer into a new compound: 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol. This is a sulfur compound. And sulfur is funky shit. Skunks use this same chemical compound for self defense.

Anyway, while the green glass itself does not cause this to happen, it *does* virtually ensure that it will happen. Brown glass protects a beer pretty well while green glass doesn't really protect it at all. So, when the beer is packaged and then sits in the light somewhere, which usually happens before it gets to you, the beer is "skunked".

This is avoidable. The fucking brewer shouldn't be bottling in green glass. More than likely, what's happened is Ožujsko lost some market share to Tuborg or something. And Tuborg is bottled in green glass. And a lot of "cool" beers are too. So, Ožujsko has a new look! But fuck them. Stupid assholes.

If you want to compare, go find yourself a bottle of Ožujsko that's in the brown glass before they're gone. And find one in green glass. Hell, buy 2 of the green glass variety. Take one and set in your window sill in the sunlight for 2 or 3 days. Then chill it. Take 3 glasses and pour the 3 beers and compare. You'll see what I'm talking about. It's fucking horrible, skunky, sulfurous shit. If you're not in Croatia and want to test the same thing, do this same experiment but use Heineken in the green glass and Heineken in the can (which is obviously way better).

For some reason, some people like this skunky taste. But I don't like sulfur. It's disgusting.

So, naturally, I will no longer buy Ožujsko. Ever. Until they change packaging to something acceptable. Wanna join me in this crusade? Easy! Please STOP buying Ožujsko. NEVER buy it in green glass. Maybe they'll lose some sales and the stupid assholes will go back to brown glass.

One caveat here; some brewers remove this hop compound or use other means to ensure this does not happen even though they bottle in clear or green glass. Miller Brewing is one of these. And I've never tasted a skunked Stella Artois, but I HATE Stella so don't drink it often enough to be a proper tester for this.

2007-04-19T10:41:00.000+02:00

I've been into Gypsy music for five or six years, but never really explored it too far. But lately I've found myself using iTunes more to randomly wander around and check out Gypsy and Klezmer music. I like the "people who bought this also checked out these guys" feature, whereby you can wander from band to band and listen to part of their song to see if it's worth buying or not.

With all that in mind, these are the guys I discovered yesterday.

Zagnut Orkestar

When I first heard them I thought they were from the Balkans. They sound partially like that. And their album is called "Sedam Mačaka", which is "Seven Cats" in Croatian. But, upon searching, I found they're from New York. They have elements of Klezmer, Gypsy, Jazz and other music in their songs. It's pretty nice stuff if you like any of that kind of music.

2007-04-09T11:57:00.000+02:00

We then went to Rafaelo to drink with some of our pals. Nothing unusual, just some drinking debauchery.

Esad at Rafaelo.

Neđo.

The sexy Rafaelo girls.

Nina.

Esad gives Nina love.

My pal Domagoj.

Jura.

Me.

Nina and me.

Domagoj and me.

Joža and Markoni.

Danijela.

Markoni, Maja and Danijela being retarded.

Me, Maja, Danijela and Domagoj also being retarded.

Giving Danijela love.

Happy Easter, Sretan Uskrs!

2007-04-09T11:15:00.000+02:00

On the Saturday before Easter, I had a nice, lazy day.

Nara and I slept in, lazily, then had a slow morning. Early in the afternoon, I walked her to the train. She went to her home town to hang out for a long weekend with her family. I met Esad for coffee outside at a local cafe. It was like summer and I wore shorts and a T shirt and sandals. Nice!

Esad's new apartment.

Esad invited me to come out to Zaprešić, which is where his new apartment is. He bought this place while it was being built, and they recently finished it. The area is not fully populated yet as they're still finishing the building. Downstairs are spots for some stores and cafe's, but they're also still being worked on.

The view from his deck looking to the right.

The view, looking to the left.

Work area.

Esad at his new front door.

Esad's building is further back here on the right.

Zaprešić is a 20 minute bus ride from Gajnice, where I live. It's further from the center and is around the other side of the mountain in the north of Zagreb. So, if you've seen any of my pics in the hills of Gajnice, Zaprešić is on the other side of that same area. It's not old like Samobor, but is near there too. Samobor is on the other side of the river Sava, to the South West. The infrastructure of Zaprešić is all new and reliable, but the town itself lacks the flavor of Samobor. It's nice, though, and the building Esad is in is really well made and roomie. So, it has it's benefits.

Near the apartment, walking to Trajbar.

The forest near Trajbar.

Anyway, we took the bus there and walked around a bit. We wandered to a restaurant near where Esad lives called Trajbar. It's a horse ranch of some sort, the kind of place where they have horse shows with jumping and that sort of thing.

Trajbar.

It's near some forested area and is very green, and they have an outdoor deck. So we had a leisurely lunch outside in the warm spring weather. The trees were brown and leafless a few weeks ago, but spring has really sprung now and everything is much more lush and green. It was a nice, lazy afternoon.

Esad at lunch at Trajbar.

Me, working on my beer gut. Not angry, though you can't tell!

Our lunches.

Sunset in the forest.

Later, we made our way to Gajnice for some drinking, but that's for the next blog entry.

2007-04-07T15:54:00.000+02:00

A quick post just to show the kitties. They're happy here in Gajnice, all fully adjusted to life and digging the warmer weather and sun.

The cats, Hukwe and Said, enjoying the sun on one of our beautiful spring days.

2007-04-07T15:43:00.000+02:00

Esad, Nara, Marko and I went to a rock show last night in nearby Vrapče and saw some of the locals there, including our pal Nina and also Milko, the keyboardist from Hladno Pivo.

I took the chance to test my new cell phone's camera. So so, but then I have not used it before to adjust the settings.

The band playing, with a girl dancing onstage.

I took another shot in the bathroom. Heh heh.

Velebitsko pivo.

That's Velebitsko Pivo, the best beer in Croatia without question. It's far superior to everything here. If you doubt it, round up a bottle and compare. It's the equivalent of a craft or micro brewed beer in the States; it's produced by a small brewery rather than some multinational corporation. It's a lager, but the flavor reminds me more of a malty Alt Bier, or Anchor Steam. Or even one of those malty Czech lagers like Krušovice.

Lovely lovely, Velebitsko Pivo. Tamno i svijetlo, dark and light.

2007-04-05T19:36:00.000+02:00

I always joke around about donkeys with Esad and Nara. Last summer when we visited Tribunj, we heard the donkeys braying as we sat there watching the World Cup and drinking beers. And when I moved here, I just started joking around about them, as if they're around in much larger numbers than they are and as if they're responsible for things they couldn't possibly have anything to do with. I've never seen any donkeys here in Zagreb, sadly.

As an example, on the weekend when the young punks are out speeding around loudly in their cars, Nara and I always say "Fucking donkeys", as if there's no technology here, no cars. Only donkeys could be racing around making such a noise. Yeah, I know, we're strange. But there you have it.

So, naturally, when Nara saw donkey stamps, she bought me one. Yay for donkeys!

"Magarac" means donkey, and "Dalmatinski" means Dalmatian. If you don't know, the Southern Adriatic coast of Croatia is Dalmatia.

2007-04-05T19:32:00.000+02:00

Nara and I tried a Serbian beer last night, called MB Pils, from Brauerei MB in Novi Sad.

While it wasn't terrible, it wasn't anything too special. It's better than some, worse than others. Just a basic lager, something akin to Ožujsko. Much better than Tuborg, though, which is one of my most hated beers here so far.

2007-04-05T18:49:00.000+02:00

A stranger on MySpace recently approached me. They are taking a class which includes some Python programming. Apparently, they must have done a keyword search on MySpace for "Python Programming", found me, then asked for help.

The assignment was to list only leap years. I didn't do a "perfect" program for her, because I didn't want to do her assignment FOR her. She had to make a function of this, so I didn't do that for her. And I left her the problem of trying to figure out how to have that zero year without just dropping it into the list. But I figured this would get her head around making lists and sorting data, so it couldn't hurt too much. Besides, it was fun to program for a few minutes. I haven't done much programming since I've been in Croatia.

So, this time, instead of getting the Croatian language, you get the Python language:

#!/usr/bin/python

#written by matt hollingsworth
#04.04.2007

#short script to count every four years and print the year out
#evidently leap years don't land right ON the century mark, except for
#every four centuries, so I need to remove the centuries

century_list = ["0"]

for item in range(0, 3000, 4):
....comparison = str(item)[-2:]
....if comparison == "00":
........century_list.append(item)
....else:
........print item

#now go through our list of centuries and also show only every fourth item

list_length = len(century_list)

#print century list to see how we're doing

print century_list

for item in range(0, list_length, 4):
....print century_list[item]

2007-04-05T18:42:00.000+02:00

I just started using Yahoo! Widgets. They're pretty cool so far.

They don't seem to be hitting my computer too hard so far. If I see them starting to really eat up a lot of resources, I'll ditch them. But for now, they're cool. The weather is there, a currency converter which shows current exchange rate for me, a table to chart the rate as it changes, a clock that shows various timezones and also a work timer. I've just started using the timer to see how much time I use goofing off online and how much time working during the day. I'm not used to it yet, so don't have a good reading, but hope it'll help me be more productive during the day. We'll see. I can always dream.

Yahoo! Widgets

2007-04-03T19:23:00.000+02:00

I order pizza and take out from the local place, PJ's, here in Gajnice on a fairly regular basis. They make very tasty food, so it's a nice option on a lazy night. And a large pizza is 34 Kuna, or, currently, $6.12. That's not bad!

Anyway, the routine is the same. I call and attempt to order in Croatian, as they speak no English. The pizza tonight had rajčica (tomato), sir (cheese), šunka (ham), kiselo vrhnje (sour cream, the only unusual topping by American standards), pršut (proscuitto) and slatki feferoni (sweet pepper).

The conversation usually goes like this:

"Dobra večer. Izvolite." (Good evening. Can I help you? (izvolite can mean many things, it's one of those words.))

"Dobra večer. Mogu li naručiti pizza?" (Good evening. May I order a pizza?)

"Da." (Yes.)

"Ja bih PJ jedan, velika, i to je to." (I would like a PJ one, large, and that is all."

"PJ jedan, velika. Adresa?" (PJ one, large. Address?)

And I tell him my address.

He says:

"Kod Zednik?" (At Zednik's?, which is the Croatian name on the door.)

"Da."

They know me, so once I say the address, they know it's me. And if I fuck up the language, they know earlier than that. But I usually do okay.

Tasty pizza.

2007-03-20T20:15:00.000+01:00

Maybe some folks are curious about the Croatian language. I'm posting my homework for my language lessons for yesterday.

The assignment was to write a ghost story or something about a local myth from where I am from. So, I chose "Char Man", which is the most famous legend from my small town of Ojai, California. I had to write this, then tell my teacher the story without looking at my paper. And I made no mistakes! Woo hoo!

First the Croatian version then the English:

U godini 1948. bio je veliki požar šikare u Ojaiu, selu iz kojeg dolazim. Požar je spalio veliki dio doline. Nitko nije mogao ući u dolinu, zato jer je požar bio suviše veliki. Kasnije, ljudi su provjerili sve kuće na obroncima planine. Tražili su preživjelu osobu i našli su zabačenu kolibu gdje je čovjek živio s njegovim sinom. čovjek je umro u požaru i njegov sin je bio opećen. Sin je tonuo u ludilo i objesio je oca na obližnje drvo i ogulio ga je. Kasnije je pobjegao u šumu. Još obilazi šumu kao duh, izlazi noću, luduje kao luđak i plaši mještane.

In the year 1948 there was a large brushfire in Ojai, the village which I come from. The fire burned a large part of the valley. Nobody could enter the valley, because the fire was too big. Afterwards, people checked every house in the foothills. They searched for survivors and found a remote cabin where a man lived with his son. The man died in the fire and his son was burned. The son descended into madness and hung his father from a nearby tree and skinned him. Afterwards he fled into the forest. He still haunts the forest like a ghost, coming out at night, raving like a madman and scaring the locals.