I didn’t want to write anything, but on my way to the store a scene caught my eye that very vividly illustrates the attitude toward Victory Day and veterans — both from our authorities and from certain circles of the public. Photo from the wall of a private café. It’s not very clear in the shot, but the eye noticed: underneath the pasted-over words “Victory Day” there was previously “Defenders of the Fatherland Day”.

Having run into the cinematographic crisis known as “nothing to watch” together with my loved one, we decided to go through the Top 250 list in order. We’ll only skip films that both of us have seen and not too long ago — like “Inception”, for example. Yesterday we watched the first one — “The Shawshank Redemption”. I had seen it before and I disagree that the film deserves the top spot, but my wife unexpectedly enjoyed it. The movie is long, the plot unfolds slowly, so eventually I fell asleep while my loved one watched it through to the end. That is an undeniable plus of the film, since usually it happens the other way around :)

Does everyone know about Suchov already? You’re car people, after all! Even I know about it… Those who don’t, read here. “Good afternoon. My name is Suchov Vladislav Vladimirovich. I accidentally became a police captain. And that’s understandable — the system works this way. I accidentally pulled up to the car in which the video’s author was sitting. But I didn’t know he was the video’s author!!! If I had only known that he was the video’s author — I would have immediately told him so through his closed window: “Knock-knock! Hello, video author! I am police captain Suchov Vladislav Vladimirovich, and this is my democratic baseball bat! May I knock on your mirrors to clarify the question of whether you are involved in surveillance and banditry, and whether you have a pistol with which you are about to shoot me through the closed window?” That is how I would have politely asked him, as a citizen who might be a bandit and probably intended to take all my money… later, sometime. It’s quite possible. Later. Someday. After all, anything can happen! My car accidentally came equipped with an aerodynamic spoiler not provided by the manufacturer. I accidentally opened the trunk and accidentally pulled out the bat that accidentally happened to be there. I immediately accidentally approached the video author’s car and completely accidentally threatened him with violence. In Libya, God knows what is going on — watch the news yourselves!!! And so I decided to check — what is going on in this insolent car of the insolent provocateur — the video’s author!!! I politely and lawfully asked the video author for a cigarette. In response I received a provoking, insolent refusal in a rude manner, delivered in a whisper, so that the camera turned off and then kept recording everything wrong even long before my polite, profanity-free and threat-free address. Listen to how it actually happened. Everything said by anyone other than me is a lie. I accidentally thought that I could smash the mirrors of the rude armed bandits even better than “Berkut,” so I accidentally tried to sort it out myself, as always worked while I was growing up to become a police captain. Everyone knows how many cases of police officers attacking citizens there are now, and how many citizens have been killed in this country at the hands of the police. Not long ago I myself will completely be attacked by police officers, when I am no longer a police captain. And then I too will accidentally forget to call “Berkut,” since I accidentally have a bat that I accidentally permitted myself to carry! And I did not want to be filmed on video even accidentally. And approaching the unidentified car of Libyans, I was expecting a pistol or some other surface-to-air missile system to be aimed at me from inside at any moment, with a shot ringing out at any second. For this reason I also wanted to accidentally knock out their brains and mirrors in a polite manner — with the police captain’s accidentally permitted bat. When the window came down, the person sitting at the wheel whispered in the Chinese-Libyan dialect “Allahu Akbar” and fired a rocket-propelled grenade at me. But I was loudly enough not scared… not scared… not scared… because I have an adequate bat belonging to a captain in the traffic police system. Now I understand everything in a whisper: they are bandits. After that I accidentally kept speaking the way that was accidentally provoked against me in the video, always accidentally thinking that I was talking to potential criminal offenders. I acknowledge this incorrectly. But first and foremost I accidentally thought that they themselves would be the first to accidentally provoke an entire video by the author against me. And most importantly, I was expecting a shot to ring out at any moment. But now I know: a bat does not shoot. And therefore I did not even faint at the thought that they might use a howitzer or an entire cannon against me! And in such a situation it is impossible to speak politely. Have you yourselves tried to speak politely when a howitzer might be aimed at you from a window to fire like bandits??? If the driver of the car had said he represented a civic organization, or simply wanted to film police officers on camera, I would have calmly turned around and gone to faint. And if he had told me this yesterday — well, why not??? But the driver kept telling me “Allahu Akbar, takhtarkha bar and syrasу bar!” That was clearly a lie. The obvious lie put me on alert. I am always put on alert by obvious lies, especially when a howitzer in quantities of up to a platoon of insolent bandit-provocateurs might be aimed at me from a window. Since, I will accidentally repeat myself, I accidentally knew for certain that this exact car had been following the patrol vehicle for quite some time. I carried on… I essentially went off — and I agree with that. But all my personal data was published. In a day I receive hundreds. And thousands. Now that chapter is closed. I want to ask the video’s author: was this what he wanted? Is it really that, because of me, traffic police officers in Ukraine will now start working better? I have all the personal data of the video’s creator. But I am not posting it on the Internet, because I respect his right to a safe life. I explained this to him right away, next to his car, and as proof I showed him my legitimate bat, certified by myself. I am ready to meet him at any TV channel or in any ditch — let him show his face, if he believes he is fighting for a righteous cause. Why does he keep hiding from me? A civilized country differs from a savage one precisely in that all issues must be resolved by the civilized means of my bat, and not by posting the personal data of accidentally former Interior Ministry employees on the Internet at a time when crime is running rampant in the country. And in Libya things are completely off the rails! I wish I could give them my bat! And I also believe that every person should know their rights and defend their point of view in a civilized manner. And police captains may do so by means of a democratic bat. I behaved in the best manner, comparatively speaking. But, I repeat, I was thinking. Now it is clear to me that it was a planned provocation. But the method of provocations does not work in the civilized country of Ukraine.

Today we bought some beer to try, planning to enjoy it over “Velyka Riznytsia” (a Ukrainian TV show). The gist is that after the brewery (which is in Poltava) the beer is not put into a keg, but into an expensive German wunderwafe (actually “wunderfass”), where it continues to “live.” They claim that in any other container beer quickly spoils, so it gets pasteurized and preserved, and only in these wunderfasses can it stay alive for a long time. Once poured into a bottle, according to the sellers, it stays good for 12 hours, and after 3 days it’s gone entirely. Supposedly all other “live” beers in bottles are actually a scam for suckers. This super-beer is called “Oberfest” (to sound like “Oktoberfest”), sold at Amstor, poured from a fancy technological barrel, packed into a little bag, and they even give you a club card (every 11th liter is free). In light of all this, I’m reminded of the beer from our first local brewery, whose label read “live” and “Drink beer while it is clear.” That beer was great if the production date was within 7 days. After that, the taste noticeably deteriorated. If the beer was 3–4 weeks old, it was already swill. The thing is, our Zaporizhzhia “Zhyhulivske” cost 6 hryvnias per liter, while this wunderwafe stuff costs 36.

Just as Louis XIV once said “L’état, c’est moi,” I’ll now say “The Internet is Google Reader.” It’s genuinely strange to me to hear, for example on Radioti, questions about whether people use RSS. I, for one, have long since read nothing but RSS — if I come across an interesting site, I add it to Google Reader and follow it from there.

And so now I have 139 subscriptions covering all sorts of topics — fun stuff, IT, politics, blogs, more IT, and more fun stuff. 3,500 posts over 30 days. I can’t imagine a more optimal way to organize regular access to information. On top of that, RSS makes it possible to miss nothing that’s been published in a feed.

When I was reading “The Boy with the Sword” I really wanted to hear those songs that the author includes in the text. And then, by chance, without even trying, link by link, I found an audiobook in which the author-narrator sang and played those very songs… I’m going to listen to it — the book is wonderful.

As an experiment, I ordered a small pile of junk from DealExtreme:

1. Kitchen timer with a magnet — $2.43 = 19.44

2. USB sound card — $2.14 = 17.12

3. Mobile phone disassembly tool kit — $2.36 = 18.88

4. UV pen with flashlight — $1.30 = 10.40

5. Alarm — $1.88 = 15.04

6. Earphones — $2.09 = 16.72

The quality of the items is frankly disappointing. The earphones sound terrible and are made of an unpleasant material; the front panel on the timer is already starting to peel off. In general, most of the items are overpriced — for earphones like these I’d pay maybe 5 hryvnias, and the tools aren’t worth twenty either, since most parts are plastic. The alarm was actually ordered by me as a doorbell — that one’s my own fault, I didn’t read carefully enough. That said, I’m overall satisfied with the result — the service check went well, ordering is possible.

People who have known me for a long time are aware that I love reading. But they don’t read this blog )) So for my esteemed readers, let me state: I love reading very much. It kind of started in childhood — I was taught early, and I took a liking to it. On top of that, I read fairly quickly, so the amount of literature I’ve “devoured” across various genres is quite substantial. My university years put something of a damper on my hobby, so I had to stop reading everything in sight and focus on what I really wanted. What I wanted was mostly science fiction and fantasy. Those were the years of Perumov, Lukyanenko, Asprin (and a little bit of Bjarne Stroustrup :) University ended, but no great piles of free time to lounge on the sofa with a book appeared either. On top of books costing an unreasonable (in my view) amount of money, work and daily life take up a significant chunk of our time — and there are also the news to read and movies to watch. Fortunately, humanity invented (and the internet gave us access to) the wonderful format of audiobooks. Given that the commute to work in a modern medium-sized city takes about an hour, and I ride a minibus — no need to drive, so I can let my mind wander — this is a perfect option for me. In my previous post I wrote about podcasts. I don’t think I need to explain what those are. But all the shows I listen to only last for the first two days — an hour each way every day equals 4 hours over 2 days. So plenty of time remains for literature. And now, standing before a treasure chest from which I can pick almost anything I want, the hard part is choosing. Besides fiction, there is a huge number of psychology, self-help, and other books that are very often also worth reading.

Unsubscribed today from some podcasts:

• 2Giga (http://2giga.rpod.ru/rss.xml)
• 42/ Buffer Bay (http://42.podfm.ru/rss/)
• Krasnoglaziki Podcast (http://krasnoglaziki.rpod.ru/rss.xml)
• The Art Of Programming (http://taop.rpod.ru/rss.xml)

Haven’t updated or listened to them in a long time — they just didn’t click for me. Removed them from the aggregator today. Added two others instead:

• Habracast (http://feeds.feedburner.com/habracast)
• UWP - Weekly podcast by Umputun (http://feeds.rucast.net/Umputun)

And of course, I listen to these regularly and recommend them to everyone around me:

Mobile internet disappeared on my phone. The cause, as always in such cases — “I didn’t do anything, it just broke on its own.” For 5 days I tried now and then — no luck. Today I double-checked the settings (which I hadn’t changed) — everything looked fine, ordered new settings — they never arrived, so I called the carrier.

Endured 15 minutes on hold and 3 minutes of conversation on the theme of “maybe the SIM card broke, try it in another phone, and if it works — the problem is with your handset.” (The SIM CARD! Which hadn’t been removed from the phone! BROKE! And it still makes calls, just won’t carry data traffic! Oh, I didn’t bother arguing with the operator about how SIM cards actually work.)