Earth Hour

I have a question: isn't burning stuff what's making all these greenhouse gasses? Does anyone think that burning wax (i.e. candles) instead of using a light bulb will help the environment? Do you really think that your little Ikea candlestick generates light cleaner than a gas, hydro-electric, or even nuclear power plant? No?

OK, so why did all these the people turn off light bulbs and light a candle on Earth Day?

No wait, let me answer that question for you: it's because they're sheep.

I can just hear their counter argument now (and I'm using the word argument in it's most charitable form). It's all about the gesture! It's all about getting people to think about the environment! Blah, blah, blah.

Except that argument is all bullshit. It's not a gesture, it's a stupid gesture, and it's about getting people not to think about the environment. It's all about getting people to be sheep.

You can read more about Earth Hour here. You can learn more about sheep here.

Mimino On The Drums

Yes, that's none other than Mimino, Vakhtang Kikabidze on the drums.

IT.Mimino.Org and Two Tips For Blogger

One of the things that I've been trying to do with Mimino.Org has been to try to see exactly how professional and thorough a web presence you can build only leveraging free services on the Internet. I haven't spent ANY money on Mimino.Org beyond domain registration.

Yesterday I came another two steps closer: I figured out how to replace Blogger's favicon (the little icon that shows up in the location bar of you browser when your at the site) with my custom favicon and I figured out how to get rid of Blogger's Navbar (the bar that shows up at the top of your blog).

Why would you want to do these things? Well, to make your website look as professional as possible. Blogger's favicon, after all, is pure advertising and Blogger's navbar, though it does have search functionality, also has advertising. On both counts, it would be nice to have the choice.

To replace the favicon, just paste the following into the HTML template of your blog:

<link href='http://your.favicon.url' rel='icon' type='image/png'/>

It goes after this line:

<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

Don't forget to edit the favicon tag with your favicon's URL and your favicon's image type. (See the Wikipedia article on faviocons for more information.)

Turning off the navbar is just as easy. Just past the following line into your blogger HTML template:

#navbar-iframe { display: none !important; }

It goes just before this line:

/* Variable definitions

Oh, and how do you display html code for display in Blogger? While writing this post I had to figure that out too. Just replace all the

<'s and >'s in the HTML with &gt;'s and &lt;'s.

Finally, what's IT.Mimino.Org? it's Mimino.Org Information Technologies, a new service I'm going to launch. The idea is that these kinds of "Guerilla Information Technologies" (Catchy phrase, huh?) are probably useful for many small businesses and non-profit organizations.

IT.Mimino.Org will help people set up and run their IT services almost for free (without sacrificing functionality or professionalism).

That's the idea anyway. Stay tuned.

Mimino Will Be On The First Tbilisi-Moscow Flight!

Hurray for the resumption of flights!

Mimino is of course none other than Vakhtang Kikabidze:

Georgian singer to board first flight from Tbilisi to Moscow
Tass , March 25

Georgian actor and singer Vakhtang Kikabidze and singer Eka Mamaladze, the daughter of Nani Bregvadze, performer of Russian romances, will board on Tuesday evening the first flight from Tbilisi to Moscow in a year and a half. "The resumption of air services is a good move toward the establishment of normal relations between Georgia and Russia," Kikabidze told reporters. "People who are used to visiting each other are very pleased. It was tiresome to fly via third countries, changing flights," he said.

Kikabidze expressed the hope that "Russia will facilitate the visa regime with Georgia." "Taking one good step, resuming air services, Russia may take a second step, facilitating the visa regime with Georgia. Russian citizen receive the visa on the Georgian territory upon arrival. It would be good if the Russian side introduce the same format of the visa regime for Georgian citizens," Kikabidze said. He said, "This would promote the development of people-to-people contacts and cultural and economic cooperation of the two countries."

Eka Mamaladze said that her mother, Nani Bregvadze, who resides in Moscow, "is very glad at the resumption of direct air services between the two countries." "This is veritable joy for Nani and for all Georgian citizens in Russia," she said.

Representatives of Airzena told reporters on Tuesday that "the first Tbilisi-Moscow flight has all been booked." One-way ticket costs from 175 euro depending on the ticket's class. The air company will fly on this route Boeing 737 airliners carrying 115 passengers. The first flight from Tbilisi is fixed for 17:30 Moscow time.

What Will Happen At The NATO Summit In Bucharest?

If I knew, I wouldn't be writing this stupid blog, I'd be working for the CIA or FSB, right?

And let's face, you probably don't know either, because if you did, you'd be working for one of the above organizations, and you wouldn't be reading this stupid blog.

Still, guessing this kind of stuff is more fun than buying lottery tickets (meaning also it's at the same intellectual level), so I've put up little voting buttons on my blog.

There are two questions on the right panel.

Go ahead and tell me what you think.

The Bathroom!

Yesterday, when I posted pictures of my apartment in Tbilisi, I forgot to include pictures of the bathroom.

Well, here they are:

Georgian Citizenship For Foreigners: How Does It Work?

I get interviewed by the Georgian Times:

Georgian Citizenship For Foreigners: How Does It Work?

By Kristine Pataraia

Nika and Dato

Oh, talking about my apartment, here are two of the guys that worked on the place.

This is Nika. He did all the electrical work. This is from when he stuck a fork into an electrical outlet.

Just kidding. On camera flash does things like that.

I know a bit about wiring and his work looked like a fantastic job to me. Later on we became friends and Nika refused to take money for the second half of the job.

We became closer friends still, and he told me that, actually, he's a dentist. He learned about electricity when the clinic he was working in had to be rewired and he (just like Ivan Vasilievich) changed professions.

This is Dato. He did all the stonework: the windowsills, the bar and the kitchen counter tops.

After everything was done, he took some of the scraps that were left over and said he wanted to make an ashtray for me as a parting gift.

I told him I wanted to quit smoking and nice ashtray wasn't going to help. Then in moment of inspiration, I asked him to make me a Saint Nino's Cross.

He's just putting on the finishing on the cross in the picture.

My Apartment In Tbilisi

I know it took a long time, but finally here here are the pictures of my completed apartment in Tbilisi.

In case you forgot, this is what the complex looks like (well sort of, my building is finished but the others are still going up).

Rustavi

A while ago I wrote a post on the Sukhishvili dance troupe.

The thing that makes Sukhishvili interesting is that reinterpret traditional Georgia dances (for example, they are much more flexible about male female roles).

But Sukhishvili is hardly the only Georgian dance troupe...

Maybe it's because the first time I saw Georgian dancing it was at a Rustavi concert or maybe I like the traditional interpretations better, but whatever the reason , personally, I've always preferred Rustavi to Sukhishvili.

Here is a Rustavi Video:

Kosovo - Serbia's Troublesome Province

The Serbian Ambassador to Canada will be giving a talk at the University of Ottawa this evening.

The website of the Serbian Embassy in Canada has the details. Here is the direct page for the talk:

Kosovo - Serbia's Troublesome Province

I Demand The Cone Of Silence!

Question: What has GPS Unit, an LCD screen, remote blogging capabilities, a personal Alarm, all in a stylish personal package?

Well, you're not going to guess, so I might as well tell you: It's PDA shoes specially designed for prostitutes.

You can read about the project that developed them: The Aphrodite Project.

Are they real? Who cares!

Just be happy that Get Smart is dead or else Max would have certainly had bought a pair for Agent 99 (see this, if you don't know what I'm talking about).

Oh, and I Demand The Cone Of Silence!

Levon Ter-Petrosian On The Events In Armenia

Levon Ter-Petrosian Writes About The Events In Armenian For The Washington Post:

Silence On Armenia

Sukhisvili

A friend of min Antoine Terjanian sent me this YouTube video of the Sukhishvili dance troupe:

I was lucky enough to see Sukhishvili once in Tbilisi. If you ever get the chance to see them, you absolutely should. You can't imagine what it's like.

In the meantime, check out the Sukhishvili website.

Update: it seems that the video that Antoine sent me has been removed. I replaced the video in the post with another one.

Armenia/Azerbaijan: Fighting Erupts In Nagorno-Karabakh

From RFE/RL:

Deadly Armenia/Azerbaijan: Fighting Erupts In Nagorno-Karabakh

More IWPR News About Armenia

More IWPR news about Armenia:

Eyewitnesses Tell of Violence Shootings and Armenia’s Bloody Saturday

Leap Year Impacts Energy Use

You know, one of the things I still truly enjoy in life is observing human stupidity.

That's why I read the papers.

And that's why I when I saw this article in our local Ottawa free (you get what you pay for) newspaper Metro, I perked up and started reading right away.

Yep, no disappointment too. The article actually claims that electrical devices will have to work longer because this year is a leap year.

Somebody shoot me please.

Here's the web version of the article:

Leap Year Impacts Energy Use

Bloody Saturday In Yerevan

From IWPR:

Bloody Saturday In Yerevan