Mašine za mužu

It's not milk if nobody gets to drink it.

Hranim ruku koja ujeda,
jurim otrovnog leptira.
Hoćeš li jos malo dlana?
Hoces?
Ima za još par dana.
Ne brini se, izrašće ponovo...
...neće se desiti da gladujes,
Nećes morati da me glođes,
to bi bila prevelika žrtva
i previše intime.

__________________________

Feed The Hand That Bites

I feed the hand that bites,
I chase the poison butterfly.
Want some more of the palm?
Want?
There's enough for couple more days.
Don't worry, I will grow it again...
...you will not starve.
You will not have to gnaw me.
That would be a huge sacrifice
And too much intimacy.

But that's Progressiade.
They burry you and cover you with textile.
But that's Progressiade.
It's all a matter of style.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?
Took driving lessons, accidentally made my contribution to the music history, felt something for a person without being the one who initiated it, quit a job because of emotional abuse and started working on a project when a person I was almost scared of invited me to join.

2. Did you keep your New Year's Resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
The wish I made at midnight makes me laugh right now. I'm glad it did not come true.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Whenever I go to look at my friends' albums, babies keep on popping up in photos. I love it!

4. Did anyone close to you die?
The year started with the death of a very dear person. A funeral on the Christmas Eve felt surreal.
The year also ended with the death of a relative. We found out only from a returned parcel.

5. What countries did you visit?
None. I don't want this to happen for the fourth year in a row....2012, please.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Ability to see things the right way. Steady income flow.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
July was a pretty intense month, so was June.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I had a set of worldwide viral videos that will probably go down in music history and be shown to generations to come.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I was scared to submit my designs to a bunch of projects, I was scared of some job interviews...generally, I was scared. And I didn't seek the reasons for it until very, very late.

10. Did you suffer any illness or injury?
It turned out I have convergence insufficiency. It's a bitch when you already PMDD and anxiety. Oh, and I had stomach bug which I hadn't had for 20 years...twice. At the very end of the year, it turned out my cholesterol is slightly higher than normal, and my iron is near the limit, too.

11. What was the best thing someone bought you?
My best gift ever came by itself, walking on her little legs, dehydrated and wanting someone to take her home. Money can't buy that. Oh, and I have something only 4 other people in the world have, but that one doesn't poop on the living room carpet.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Someone moved me with their words on the 17th of June. If I said who it was, everyone'd think I'm sucking up to him. It's a male, 40-years-old, really loud, getting his nose into everything. Like all people born on a cusp, he was super-cruel with his observations of me, but I took it right and there was some improvement in the way I see things.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
My ex-boss - he degradated me in his own weird way.
The odd guy I met in October 2010 that I no longer speak with.
The guy whom I met mid-2011 - I'm not sure how to define him at this point.
The client I had during the winter. I ended up being scared of working for him.
Not sure about this, but one of my best friends rapidly changed in September/October.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Food, concerts, bills, new computer.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
I don't get excited much.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
La Sera - "Never Come Around"

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) Happier or sadder? I never know how to respond to this one.
b) Fatter or skinnier? Compared to this exact time in 2010, no change. But I was fatter throughout the year.
c) Richer or poorer? Poorer. Working on it and somewhat glad it went the way it did.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Working. Number 19 prevented that.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Worrying, speculation and being scared of people and things.

20. How do you plan to spend Christmas?
Ask my aunts.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?
Yes. I unexpectedly turned out to be having feelings for someone without anyone pushing me into it, so, technically, it's the first time I fell in possible and doable love. It was unrequited, never confessed to that person and he messed my mind up, badly. I don't want to know what he thought of me for real; but it was a strange experience as I have never before met a person who never said a single good word about me.

22. How many one night stands?
Eww.

23. What was your favourite TV program?
The Simpsons, House, Aqui non hay que viva reruns.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Hate...it's a sad way to waste life.

25. What was the best book you read?
I haven't read anything since March and I read only a couple of Chernobyl-related books this year.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery of the year?
It's a long list!

27. What did you want and get?
The "basic human decency from someone specific..." from the 2010. survey came around in a very unusual way, though it's still not what I would've wanted it to be Oh, and I wanted to drive. There you go, I'm driving.

28. What did you want and not get?
A lot of previous questions illustrate wasted opportunities and things which never were opportunities.

29. What was your favourite film of this year?
Hmmm...I only saw Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
28 and I had some friends come over. I also had my salary lowered by ummm...90 percent, and apparently, "the date was coincidental"; which is why another person fired me on the same day in 2010. Might have to hide my birth date if I get a reoccurring job in 2012.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
A full-time or reoccurring job, not holding onto things I don't even understand and things that are smoke and mirrors, etc.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
Hiding the tummy fat.

33. What kept you sane?
If I knew, I'd want more of it. (same as in 2010)

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I am barely interested in the one I'm interested in by default, even...it's an odd year, 2011.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
This was the darkest year of the century so far. 'nuff said.

36. Who do you miss?
I find myself missing people who are with me, because they're somehow not with me.

37. Who was the best new person you met?
I'm not sure. I have never met this many people within a single year.

38. What was the best thing you ate?
Tapas at the Zapata restaurant!

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011?
When it's already complicated, it can become only more complicated.

2009
2010

Was that nice? Partly, yes. And partly, no.

So, yes. This is simple: all of you who were here by accident during last week...do stay. I'll be definitely visiting more concerts this year (I'm working hard for that since the amount of times I got free tickets in my life is astonishing: 2), I'll be writing about some normal, regular, everyday things and there will be more poetry. To me, those would be valid reasons to stay.

And for everyone who's been wondering what eventually happened with that viral video, it's still blocked, but the hype surrounding it in Serbia has been enormous. Before I translate the summary to English, you're more than welcome to read the original version.

Here's my response to YouTube, accompanied by the entire story. I screwed up the word "original", but do excuse me, I barely slept during the last couple of days and you'll see why if you read this.

This video brought me anything I could possibly wish for at this moment; so, friends, please help me get ot! I did not make any money out of it, it was released as public domain and other than hype, I do not have any gain from this.

I was having one of the best days of my life. My photographs were picked by the editors of MONDO, one of the largest Serbian news portals and they appeared next to those taken by Brian Rasic, the man who famously photographed the Rolling Stones. Trojka, an indepedent news portal created by Internet enthusiasts also picked some of them.

I was contacted by three different divisions of ABC and my video was featured on Good Morning, America and live stream of Seven online. My name was and still is on BBC and my comments from this blog were quoted on Seven Online.

Later during the afternoon, AP headquarters in London expressed the desire to distribute my video to news outlets. They were indeed serious and they sent a local representative to come to my home and have me sign an agreement. A German news agency contacted me, too; as they're intending to make a little documentary.

At the end of the day, I was asked for an interview by one of Serbia's leading daily newspapers, Alo! They found the hype around the video and the overnight traffic madness on both of my blogs interesting and they thought it would be fun to cover.

Mashable. B92. Prva TV. Daily Telegraph. Gawker. Splash News (this last one actually ripped me off, but that's a different matter).

The list goes on. My video was all over the world, in all possible media. Such recognision means A LOT to a self-employed web designer and aspiring photographer/video maker. And where did it all start? Of course, on YouTube.

I am not a social media scammer, I am allergic to them. I am not a "vulture", like a local hipster described me. I was very respectful in my concert review and I never used the words such as "drunk" or "drugged" in relation to Amy Winehouse, having clearly expressed my view that this is not laughing matter

Am I going to make money from this? I doubt that. There's no affiliate program in my country and I ignored all possible spammers who wrote to me.

As a matter of a fact, I currently have 13 € in my pocket, until the next monthly retainer and the next payment for my freelance design. That's pretty poor for a social media scammer, don't youu think? One more reason to bring it back.

The Amazon camera link? Was that the supposed social media scam? No. It was there solely because every other person was asking me about the camera and I obviously had a lot going on and I did not want to respond to any more questions. Ironically, I also thought I would be disabled if I would keep on responding to the same question with the same comment all over again.

Not to mention that Panasonic clearly didn't mind this either - they responded to me when I wrote them about what my camera has done and asked to have the video included in their online gallery, so people could see the true power of TZ7/ZS3. I was not promised any merchandise or anything, so once again, I had no specific intentions other than being happy with what I have done.

This does not apply to numerous people who ripped my video and re-uploaded it in .flv format, solely to have ads placed on it and actually earn money. Why are they allowed to do that and I'm not allowed to, even though I recorded it with my own two hands, having stood there until my hands were going numb?

This apparently does not apply to numerous people who were posting links to "who's stalking your Facebook profile" and other scammy content in comments, neither to those who were trying to post ridiculous video responses. Why are they not spammers and I am?

I have the support of the online community in my country and a lot people who have watched my video. I surely hope that this was an error and that people will continue to watch what I recorded, as it's clearly a part of music history, something that people will be remembering for much longer than our lifetimes.

Moreover, I hope that all the copycats will be disabled.

My account, in addition to all of this, makes people happy. I have filmed concerts many couldn't afford to attend, I have put up videos of funny animals and video blogs. I'm most certainly harmless. I doubt you're familiar with having lived in a blocked country for pretty much all the childhood, adolescence and early adult age and willing to give people something you couldn't experience yourself. Wasn't your company initially started by two young men with big hopes?

Please, be fair to me. Kindest regards from Iva Tanacković over here in Beograd, Serbia.

Wow. A concert review I have actually written on time. Truthfully speaking, I was doing my best to write it as soon as possible. The festival sponsored by Tuborg and organised by the people of Avalon production and EXIT that took place on Saturday, 18th June at the Kalemegdan castle in Belgrade, Serbia, 3 km from where I live and where I'm writing this from, sure was one of the most memorable events I have ever witnessed, mostly due to Amy Winehouse's performance that's being spoken about all around the world.

I'm sure you're all familiar with complex and troubled music personalities as well as their struggle against substance abuse, as well as the consequences they end up facing due to many years of the said abuse. Serbian fans are more than familiar with mishaps. In 2006, the legendary Rolling Stones had to delay a large number of concerts when Keith Richards fell of a coconut tree. At the Green Fest in Inđija a year later, the Red Hot Chili Peppers had to shorten their setlist due to one of them falling ill...here, out of all possible places in the world. And the small fish in the sea have their own moments, too: a couple of weeks ago, on their first-ever gig in Belgrade, members of Croatian band Brkovi disappointed an entire raft full of people when they got on stage completely drunk and played a couple of odd improvs such as this one - and, well, life goes on.

A cynical person would probably say that Amy Winehouse was simply a disaster waiting to happen to our enthusiastic crowd, the whole set-up was calling for an unusual, badly-done performance through which she coupld pass out, get booed or break a bone. At the same time, it appears that nobody was paying attention to the multitalent that is Moby, scheduled to perform the same night, as well as three bands that are ex-Yugoslavia's own - Zemlja gruva (The Land of Groove), Elemental and Bei the Fish. All the eyes were on, as one of Zemlja gruva's singers said, "the queen".

So, how was it? Delightful, despite Amy's controversy.

In the beginning, I have a couple of little remarks towards this event's organisers.

Where was the food? Where are those hot-dogs that you normally sell at the EXIT festival? I couldn't care less about promoters offering cigarettes, I couldn't care less about Tuborg - I was starving! It's natural to get hungry during a festival that goes on all throughout the night, right? Oh well, at least the security wasn't munching on sandwiches right before our eyes while we were trapped in some sort of a cage at the temperature of 40 degrees Celsius, on our way to dehydrate. And yes, that happened once upon a time, too.

Where on Earth did so many mosquitos come from? I killed two bloody ones (literally) long before dark, and there was a story going on that the place would be desinsected.

I am also not sure why the organisator was advertising this as a concert. Why don't you say it out loud, that this is a re-branded Tuborg Green Fest? We know what happened in 2007 [Red Hot Chili Peppers debacle], we know that the event was cancelled in 2009 [as Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode fell ill]...and all of that still doesn't mean that people wouldn't show up, either way.

Anyway, back to the present time. I arrived to the concert ground around 5.30 PM, worried that there would already be too many people and that it would not be possible to take the place in the middle of the front row. However, there were only about ten people at the gates of the fan pit [people here tend to be late to everything] and, in the meantime, journalists of Studio B [Belgrade's legendary local TV and radio station] asked me a couple of questions, which was shown on their evening news. I truly hope not many people watched that, as my mother told me that I looked wonderful and my head was on the entire screen which sounds pretty disturbing. Shout-outs to the cameraman and the journo - nice peeps!

The gates opened 20 minutes later than it was scheduled. I managed to get in first and grab a spot in the very middle of the front row, right below the singer's microphone. Soon I was accompanied by two nice girls named Ivana and Joana, and later on, Ćufta, my elementary school mate and an avid concert goer who decided to see all good musicians performing in Belgrade this year, popped up out of somewhere and joined us.

The audience seemed to be awesome, which was most likely the reason there were no riots after the event - girls in hippie dresses, married couples, even senior citizens. Most of them came for Amy Winehouse, but some of them considered Moby to be the true star of the night as well. The fan pit was filling rapidly, but it was still possible to spread one's arms and/or turn around and sit down, if necessary. I liked that!

Amy Winehouse

And so we were waiting...and waiting...and waiting...passing our time by singing whatever they play through the speakers: Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This), Firework, Sexy Bitch. The audience has warmed up and they're in a great mood. But this would change very soon.

The "queen" appeared a little later than what was intended, after a band of excellent backup musicians dressed in orange suits got on stage before her. With blonde highlights in her hair, wearing a black and green stripped dress, she jumped onto the stage and headed straight to the guitar player to give him a hug. As the cheering got a bit quiet, she turned her back to the audience, sat down and took off her shoe, solely to toss it at the backling vocalists. Then she sat down again again, likely to take off the other, until the first chords of Just Friends were played. Sadly, instead of singing, Amy was mumbling something and then she went on with band introduction. I firmly believe that this video will end up being shown in documentaries about her life and I hope that, once it happens, she'll be healthy and happy, and there to actually comment on it.

During the first song, the crowd was still cheering on. As it continued in a similar fashion, we were aware that we were witnessing an unusual concert, later quoted by newspaper Blic as "the worst in history of Belgrade". A little bit later, the cheering stopped. During one of the songs, a hat was thrown at the stage (not cups and plastic bottles, as quoted by some media - just a hat). An older lady who was more or less asking us in the front row to make place for her, the same one who kept on repeating that this was her dream coming true, disappeared after the second song of the night, Addicted.

We thought that this would be it, that she needed some time to warm up, that there was absolutely no way this would go on. But that was wrong. Amy continued to improv, having first greeted Athens and New York. Then she had a lengthy monolog on the origin of her backing vocalists, stating they're Nigerian. A couple of times, she even asked us whom do we think she likes more and why.

We forgot all of those "You can do it!" and "You go, girl!" from the very beginning of the concert. While people with cheaper tickets were already booing and whistling from the back rows, we were just standing there in disbelief, clapping probably because nothing really bad happened to the singer. At the beginning of Tears Dry On Their Own, Amy moved herself and the microphone closer to the backing vocalists, solely to yell out the second verse. The rest of the song was pretty much an instrumental track with backing vocals, as if someone was messing with Audacity or a similar program.

After having previewed one of the songs from the upcoming third studio album, Amy had a rather good start on Some Unholy war, only to get completely distracted afterwards, put her hands on her mouth, then stare at the backing vocalists as if she had seen a pair of ghosts. At the same time, she did not spot a green laser pointer that some joker was pointing at her cleveage. Then she hugged herself, the audience booed louder and the vocals of someone behind me were actually louder than the real ones.

That was when she left the stage for the first time and the band performed a cover of Boulevard of Broken Dreams, famously sung by Tony Bennett some decades ago. Some of us actually didn't believe that Amy Winehouse would be back, after having seen her talk to someone at the side of the stage. But she came back. At first, she intended to ask us something, only to add that one of her backing vocalists is very handsome. She ignored the opening lines of whatever was the next song to be played and they decided to do the fantastic Back to Black from the album with the same name instead. This song was probably the best of the night until sometime after the second chorus, when Amy threw the microphone on the ground and took one from the backing vocalists. Then she solely stared at us and the patient singer took his mic back.

This was followed by Love Is A Losing Game, also abrupt with the question "What the fuck up?" and blank stares after a couple more comments made to band members to the British singer's left. At this point, one would wonder about the nerves of these men and probably wish to be as stoic as they were.

The hit You Know When I'm No Good was mostly instrumental. At some point, Amy was fixing her own hairdo, then speaking to the guitarist and appearing as if she was about to wander off the stage again.

Perhaps because Ivana, the girl next to me, yelled out its name a couple of times, perhaps not, the next song was Valerie, which would've been played at the very end of the show in other circumstances. As the matter of a fact, the singer was pretty sure of it. "But I want to sing Valerie!" This was probably the only song with more singing than talking.

After this, we got a duet, You're Wondering Now...actually, it was supposed to be a duet, but the dark-skinned singer mostly sung it on his own, while Amy was nervously starring to both left and right, grabbing her cleveage, picking her nose, expecting someone to tell her the next line of the song. After all of this, she demonstratively left the stage. Someone noted that the lines of this song were more than symbolic, especially the last line of the chorus: you will pay for the way you misbehaved.

And where was Rehab? On the liquid shampoo shelf in the Lush store, where else? That was probably the only Rehab we could get our hands on, as we were not getting the song.

Here are the photos. There would be more of them, but I was mostly taking them when Amy wasn't singing. You can also see the images in a bigger size on Flickr.

Moby

After Amy Winehouse's staff started removing the equipment with no explanation (they almost forgot to take away the four candles that were likely put there to prevent mosquitos from biting), we all sat down on the floor again and many people, disappointed by what they've seen, left without any interest to see Moby. And they missed on A LOT. The girl who was now standing to my right and sleeping almost all the time through the American musician's performance also missed a lot, which her friend sarcastically commented on.

I don't even want to know what amount of pressure was on Moby at this point. He was due to come on stage after a fiasco that would be talked about all around the world within a matter of hours and he was probably well-aware that, no matter how much heart he puts into this and no matter how hard he tries, it will remain in the shadow of Amy Winehouse's onstage antics. However, it turned out that this was not an issue for him. Experience, sobriety and self-esteem combined with a perfect backing band made the audience forget the shock they just experienced, even if it was for just a while.

"Thankyouthankyouthankyou" after each song, soon later also "Hvalahvalahvala", a charismatic onstage persona and incredible energy of a man who jumps around the stage like a hyperactive toddler at the age of 46 combined with the fantastic vocal range of the female vocalist Joy Malcolm were nore than worth the ticket price and remaining in the front row after almost seven hours after having arrived to Kalemegdan. Leg cramps? Not feeling my own numb fingers on the camera anymore? Never mind!

At the very beginning, Joy sung a part of the song Amy Winehouse did not grace us with - Rehab, and later on, one of the Brit's backing vocalists turned up and danced with her. He was having a good time enjoying the concert sidestage, wearing an everyday outfit instead of the orange suit. This was a wonderful tribute, assuming that it's what it was. If not, I stand corrected.

Moby knew exactly what we needed - after a performance where we were citizens of Athens, New York, unknown people, hallucinations and random nobodies, we needed a little love. We needed him to dedicate us the melancholy Porcelain and the upbeat Lift Me Up on, as he said himself, "on this beautiful night, under this beautiful castle". We needed the voluptuous Joy add "Serbia" after the almost bass-voice suitable vocals on Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad? We needed that one single song we got for the encore - according to the author's words, it was the fastest song in music history. We needed this man and his band - Joy, the female bassist, keyboardist and a stunning violion player, and the male drummer. We needed it and we got it!

From rocking out to guitar numbers, over fooling around with repetitive melodies such as Honey and Bodyrock, to raving ourselves out to Go and Feeling So Real, this was something we should've been prescribed age ago, as suitable group therapy. The trouble is that this particular doctor doesn't come around as often as we would need.

(FIVE MOBY VIDEOS AND MORE PHOTOS COMING UP - THEY'RE UPLOADING!)

One day later..

After Moby finished, it was time to go home. I looked at my watch, it was 2.35 AM. By the time I arrived to my home in the north of Belgrade's centre, cursing two particular streets for being way too long, it was 30.30 AM. A tropical quiet night after a particularly loud, burning evening that Belgrade will surely remember forever.

And trust me, I'll be remembering it forever, too. For some more reasons. My viral video of Just Friends has had 500 000 views at the time I was translating this write-up, I've been getting mails from various media outlets worldwide; to which I'm scratching my head, wondering if I have drunk from some strange water bottle, perhaps one that was backstage before

From what was reported and seen on Twitter, Moby was very concerned about Amy Winehouse while she was still on stage, despite not knowing her in person. And Amy's management cancelled the shows in Athens (the real one) and Istanbul, thus the next show being the one in Spain in July. Let's hope she'll be in a much, much better place at that point and delivering performances that live up to her quality.

A concert buddy I met seeing RHCP in Vienna in 2006 asked me if I could give a more personal view on this. So?

I don't know what exactly happened to Amy Winehouse. I'm, in fact, a bit uncomfortable with other people giving sensational titles to their videos, such as "DRUNK Amy" and "Amy Winehouse on drugs". I tried to keep both this review and the comments on my video clips as tasteful as they could possibly be. That woman is six months younger than me, and she's already done so much damage to herself that, as a straight-edge person who never did drugs and never got drunk, I would have to live for a couple of centuries to measure up to that.

I am, by no-means, trying to appear holier-than-thou. I am a fan of John Frusciante, a musician with a troubled past that almost costed him life and I have been maintaining a website about him for seven years now,. During this period of time I learnt many valuable lessons, changed my ethics and I know for fact that the words you say might get where you least expect them to get to, so if anything was up to me at this point, I would ask people to have a little more taste when they're commenting on Amy. The concert was an obvious disaster, but you absolutely have no right to wish her death, make sick assumptions about what she actually need back-up singers for and enjoy her misery. If, and only if, it's opiates, have you ever had someone struggling with addiction near you? Was it, as you put it, fun? I doubt that. Four people on my father's side of family died from liver cirrhosis and my half-paralysed first cousin, a 49-year-old father of two, spends all of his small pension on alcohol, comes home and thrashes the place, getting his 74-year-old mother worried sick. Funny? I don't think so? Helplessness and misery are equally experienced by both rich and poor.

And Moby? Anything else I could add would be a repeat of the praises I already sung, so this is where my review is done. Get well, Amy! Please.

This article is still being updated - I'm advising you to check it a couple of more times today, as well as during the upcoming days. Uploading full HD video and processing photographs can be quite demanding!

One of these people probably never expected to end up in any of my pieces. The others? Well, they all appeared in my pieces before, mostly as antagonists, anti-heroes and generally, annoying little bastards. Kidding about the last one, at least about the bastard part.

Now the whole world will know how I love Silvia. But I don't care. This is a funny automatic-writing kind of shit, either way.

Volim Silviju

I love Silvia!

But what is the most important thing? The theme. A 71-year-old family friend complains that I change the site looks a lot and I tried to explain to him that I am never happy with out-of-the-box WordPress themes. That motivated me to finally sit down and make my first WordPress theme.

All right, I lied a bit. The actual story is that this theme was not planned to be put to personal use - it was for a corporate blog, but my boss wasn't really happy with it, so I brought it here in order to show him a working example on an already-populated website. Also, when someone's not happy with what I am doing, unless it's the world's number one "Humourist" who prefers things not to be done at all (which is a whole new bedtime story), I tend to outdo things.

The theme was supposed to be named after the family friend, but I just cannot picture that man in something that's orange and purposedly displaced. So, I named it Funkyblog for now and I shall name another theme after the friend. Something...something more serious. Everyone will think I named it after dragons, anyway.

Funkyblog is currently in private alpha. It's a premium theme by all means, as it features premade custom widgets and an options panel. It will likely feature localisation too, as some people, such as Sandra expressed interest, which automatically makes 'em suitable beta testers. At this point, I'm yet to fix the navigation menu, add true custom menu support, give the users ability to change

The theme was not based on anything, though I think that I had a vision of Kubrick and TwentyTen making love to each other in Nowhereland, therefore getting a really unique offspring. Some of the widgets were modified from existing GPL licenced themes' widgets and I followed three different tutorials for the options panel. The obligatory kudos will follow once the theme is released.

Funky Blog utilises the ever-so-popular 960 Grid System and its features, at the point of writing this are:

• An unique look, heavily utilising CSS level 3 features.
• No images and font convertion necessary - looks fine with Arial Black made to look fun!
• Custom header images, soon backgrounds, too.
• Built-in support for FBML/JavaScript SDK, to avoid iframes
• Six widgetised areas - one primary sidebar, two secondary sidebars, three footer columns.
• An options panel featuring insertion of social profiles, analytics code, verification meta tags and what most themes appear to be missing: meta description and keywords for oldsk00l SEO.
• Post thumbnails support.
• Deregistration of wp-pagenavi styles and replacing them with its own. This also removes the ugly inline styles.
• Custom default gravatar and login screen image.
• Flickr, about me and sideblog/featured content widgets.
• Curly quotes removed for those who post a lot of code
• Image attachment and page full-width templates.

To-do:

• More post formatting styles, perhaps a shortcode or two.
• Custom background support.
• Custom menu support.
• Either child themes or options to change the colour scheme.
• Feedburner email subscription widget.
• Facebook fan page widget.
• Tidying-up templates for search, categories, tags and date-based archives.
• Tidying-up share links.
• Better navigation on the image attachment template. It's horrible.
• Threaded comments.
• Comment policy option
• ...
• Once all above is done, iron out the extra code and the dreaded PHP warnings.

This is a theme that suits my needs, covers everything from aesthetics to socialisation needs and I am not sure if it's good enough to be sold somewhere, but it sure is good enough to grace my blog and stick for a longer period of time. Look out for upcoming updates if you're interested.

As a resident of a country that clearly has enough water, I still sympathise with those who don't. Some time ago, I asked visitors of Invisible Movement to contribute to Water Aid and though they were, at that point, used to having their backsides buttered by fun content, they actually did it. Later on, they made a contribution to War Child as well and bought the charity album featuring Duffy, Lilly Allen and many more...which made me feel even warmer on the inside. That was when I realised how beautiful activism can be. Helping someone instead of getting something you might not need at all makes us grow and puts a smile on the faces of those who couldn't smile for a long time, or even those who never smiled before.

So...your little can be a lot for someone. Please, help provide clean water in the places where it's literally a luxury. Sign the petition, donate money if you can.