isoglossia

We’re away this weekend visiting family in Dortmund. The First of May weekend is a big one here, and it’s usual to make a mini vacation out of it, and often to travel. The first year I was in Slovenia my old friend Dino, Sarajevo’s coolest DJ (top center photo, defying the rain to make him any wetter) looked me up and invited me to meet him for Spač’kijada.

Oh, do I need to define that term for you? Sorry. Spač’kijada is the local(ish) term for a global sub-cultural auto-worship-related event, in which all the owners of Citroën Spačeks (10 Cheveaux) meet up and admire each other’s wack paintjobs. In 2002 it was held very close to me, on the Croatian coast. For Dino and his crew that meant a grueling 12-hour drive from Bosnia (Spačeks are noted for many things, but touring comfort ain’t among them). We camped out on the Istrian peninisula and then went on the ‘Raid’, in which a thousand wheezing old Citroëns wind through every village available. Unfortunately it was an epically rainy weekend, but ultimately it didn’t really matter.

Spaček is the Slovene term for freak or monster, and the half-affectionate name for this wacky old car which makes fanatics out of its owners.

First test says that I AM PREGNANT. Do you think I should take one more?
Sent:
29-Apr-2004
11:25:34
Test no 2 is equally positive… JDS YOU’RE GOING TO BE A DADDY!
Sent:
29-Apr-2004
13:14:35

My official MoD calendar shows today listed in red but doesn’t define why it’s a holiday, so I hope I am spelling the title of this post correctly, what with its case endings and assorted grammatical frottage. At any rate, it’s a national holiday. Upon waking up yesterday morning, Magda mistakenly referred to the holiday as “Dan upora proti predatorju,” thus betraying the title of the last theatre film we saw before Adam was born (“Alien proti Predatorju”). I could go into a discussion of proti (against, anti-, contra, etc) and so on, but I’m kind of sick of grammar at this point and looking forward to getting away from it for a week. Suffice it to say that today’s holiday translates as “Day of Uprising Against the Occupiers.”

Many of the street names in Slovenian towns derive from esteemed national artists (see upcoming money shots) or are in honor of the Yugoslav partisans who struggled under the Nazi jackboot. We live on 30th Division Street, and within a biscuit-toss you can find streets similarly memorializing the patriots with names like Gradnik Brigade Street, Military Road, Partisan Street, 9th Corps Road, and so on. It’s no joke. This is a place where if your neighbor is over 75 and male (or even not), odds are he (or she) took to the mountains and shot at Germans as a youngster. You can hear some amazing stories with a little patience and a tolerance for Turkish coffee.

Today is a holiday marking the beginning of the tossing-out of the Nazis in 1945. It falls shortly before the May 1st Labor Day holiday so we’ve managed to cobble it together with a few days of leave to take a trip to Germany to visit the Dortmund family. Our young niece is taking her first communion so we expect to see a lot of family while we’re there. It will be Adam’s first time in Germany ex utero, and the first time his Polish grandparents get to meet him. Thanks to the fallen patriots of Slovenia for this opportunity to travel. I’m sure you would forgive us our destination.

Although we’ll be away, isoglossia.com can run itself, and will, auto-posting some memories of May Days gone by.

Magda informs me at 05.30 that Adam slept continously through the night, not even waking up for his typical 03.00-ish feeding. That’s nearly eight hours and counting. More ominously she adds, “I think my tits are about to explode.”

I have just spent an irrecoverable Sunday morning hour editing the site’s code in Internet Explorer 6.0. Just this short period with IE made me feel like a cat with its head in a brown paper bag. This site was designed using Firefox, which I consider to be superior to IE in every way, not least this one:

According to Brussels-based ScanIT, users of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) were “unsafe” 98 percent of the time during 2004, while Mozilla users — which would include those using Mozilla and Firefox — were “unsafe” only 15 percent of last year. — Information Week

Another reason for my animosity toward IE, leaving aside any questions of unsavory business practices, is that our site looks like crap in it, yet my magic statistic box shows that the majority of you (you, and you, and you, for example) are using it. Hence the recoding this morning, a most vexing thing. Most people are probably sticking with this browser out of nothing more than inertia (which is a polite way of saying ‘laziness’). Don’t be a sheep — unless you have real reasons why you like IE, which you can articulate (for example, in the comments box here), give Firefox a try; we’ve even included a link to their free download site in the sidebar–the same sidebar I just spent an hour recoding so that it wouldn’t look quite so fucked up to those still using Microsoft’s crappy browser. I have no idea why IE renders tables of pictures, for example “Walks, errands, chores” in such a lame-ass fashion. just the Microsoft way, I guess. Dump it.

Still waiting to hear from you Safari users about how bad things look to you; I’ll check it in Opera one of these days.