Enver Hoxa's Second Coming

There was a joke about communist Albania that we in Yugoslavia used to tell. (A short history digression for those who know that Yugoslavia too, was a communist country. Here we had a civil war between forces loyal to the King on one side and communist (and Nazis) on the other. The war lasted from 1941-1945, when communists won thanks to the support of the "allies". English and French in particular. Therefore it's not strange that we had western standard of living, or that Communist Army of Yugoslavia had some NATO equipment in its arsenal. Of course , why "the allies" wanted a communist state, rather than a democratic Kingdom - have became obvious since the nineties. But that is some other topic.)


Anyway, here is that cold war joke:

Question: How does the Albanian evening news start?

Answer: Good evening mister president.

Q: Why is that?

A: Cause only the president has a TV.

Here is how Albanian news look in 2007:

title:Bush in Albania 2007 - Cheering in Fushe Kruja
type: news and media
videofrom: videoshqip
llink: WATCH HERE


Now I could mock Albanians because of this, but why bother. They were junkyard dogs of every emperor - idiot who ever came to the Balkans. (From Ottoman Sultans, Austrian Kaisers till the Mussolini, communist dictator Enver Hoxa, and now Comrades from Washington. Just like Croatians, one would say.) But if you carefully observe that mob, you can notice some important figures from "old democracies". Little Sarko, jumps and yels: "Look at me! Look at me!" (in french of course). Little Gordie Brown sends smoke signals while BBCNN tries to amplify the drama. Indeed, true wannabe imperialists. :)

Here is my humble contribution to dignity of Albania, England and France.

Regards.

The Celts Strike Again

The latest elections in Scotland brought a new hope for the people of the Balkans. A hope that quasiUnited pseudoKingdom will be preoccupied with its own problems and thus it will keep its bloody hands out of the Balkans (and especially my country).

Let's celebrate this with some nice Celtic (Irish) music, performed by the Orthodox Celts themselfs:

title: Orthodox Celts - Star Of The County Down
type: music video
from: mamasaid
llink: WATCH HERE

Who wants to be an American?

title: Who wants to be an Amerikan?
type: Film and Animation
from: VancuverFilmSchool
link: WATCH HERE

Strait from the VancouverFilmSchool comes an exellent short (about 10 min.) movie about true values in life. Although the autor plays on many american stereotypes (and some soviet), this story has nothing to do with America. Nor it is some America vs. Canada thing.(With one click, we can check what is like in Canada. )
The story is universal. This "Amerika" from the movie, could easily be Canada, Australia or in my case the EU. Unemployment, poor financial situation, no rule of law, corrupted politicians, poor media, and gray future is something that is reality in TODAY'S ex-communist society. You can really meet the characters from the movie, just come to some of the ex-Yugoslavian reservations. Superficial view on EU ( and EU integration process) is widely present. (For much, much more about this situation try here .)

The author managed to capture that "Eeastern Laager feeling", in a way that I haven't seen in many movies.

The story, however, has a happy end with great message.

Surviving Puberty: Lonelygirl 15

The way I see it, lonelygirl15 phenomenon comes as an Internet response to the teen-TV-series classics such as My So-called life or Dawson's Creek . Unfortunately, inspite of the good acting performance of J.L.Rose, it came out no better than Sabrina, the Teenage Witch :) (At least some of the lastest videos, posted in feb. 2007.)


That is why I found this video

title: Lonelygirl15 The Media Whore
type: People and Blogs movie
from: mojo4mojo
link: WATCH HERE

too harsh. (But interesting.) I mean, she's only nineteen. :)
What do you expect? :)


Anyway, I don't think any web-cam video could come even close to such classic as the Heartbreak High . The best of the kind.
:)

The Best of Web 2.0

name: Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us
type: science and technology video
dur.: 4 min31 sec
from: mwesch
link: WATCH HERE

Although it is posted under sci-tech category, it's more like a commercial for Web2.0 (rather than a sci-tech movie). So what is Web2.0? It is the same old internet but faster and wider. Just like an old road which became wider, with less holes and more street lights and road signs. Will it evolve into high-way? I doubt it. Particulary because of some things that we need "to rethink". Such as privacy.
Would you appreciate going into some pub where a waiter, an owner, or some "third parties" are spying on you: listen to your conversation, checking out what you usually drink and do, so they could provide a better service?

I know I wouldn't.

Maybe that is the point of this video: the (people in the) machine is using us.
It is worth thinkining about.

Somethning new

The Internet. Once regarded as the next best thing, now just another one of the media. Is it alive? Is it dead? It is hard to say. It certainly is more alive than the television (whose corpse is in the last phase of desintegration) , and even much more than the printed media (whose bones are lying diplaced on the media cemetery).

Something that will certainly add up to popularity of the internet is YouTube.

"So what's so great about Youtube?" - someone might ask- "the same people which we are trying to avoid on the rest of the internet: boring individuals who think that their life is so important;, omnipotent psychologists, religious missionaries, politicians, "smart" oldtimers and other professional savers; cheeters, liers and thiefs, etc. " And I could agree with that. About 90% of all the things on Youtube is thrash (jus like on the rest of the internet). BUT that 10% that remains is something really worth writing about.

I'll do my best to prove that. Right here, on this blog. :)

Regards