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25/11/2006
The other day I designed an intra web page for my office - purely from html.
It's not too hard once you get the hang of it. I taught myself from
various websites. Perhaps it's time I did a web design course. I
used what I've learned to clean up some of my other web pages, including
http://www.motorcycleschool.com.au
and
http://www.fen.com.au/rogerjacobs.
Speaking of the latter, my mate Roger has posted some new poems on his site.
Check them out.
Jed and Bel head off to Serbia in the next few weeks, so I've
simply got to finish recording "Sad Isabella" with Jed. For those who
don't know, Sad Isabella (or rather "Tuzna Izabela") is my first and only
song written in Serbian. My aunt Rada, who is a gifted poet and writer
in both English and Serbian, helped to straighten out my grammar.
On a more sombre note, today would have been my late father's
70th birthday. He passed away on 29 June 1985. I wrote "He
Never Left" in his memory. Happy birthday Pop.
I've become a bit of a fan of the band "Panic! at the Disco".
For some reason their humour, lyrics and style remind me enormously of my
mate James Lavett. Last I heard (August this year) he was in PNG with
his family, playing resident doctor on some tiny island. If you're
reading this James, drop me a line.
I'll be posting some new pictures of Lara and Maya in the
next few days, so check back soon. Hasta mañana.
04/11/2006
I've been flat
out, as usual. I've finished 3 new websites (check out the
Web design section of the
Graphics page) and I've done a lot of new work on the
Academy of Traditional
Fighting Arts which is rapidly becoming the biggest martial arts
resource on the web. Oh, and my day job and family are also keeping me
busy...
Some frivolous thoughts next time, I promise.
26/09/2006
I've posted some new family pictures
here if you have the password.
Did you know that last Tuesday 19 September was "Speak like a
Pirate Day"? I found out just before leaving work. Then when I
was passing the Moon and Sixpence I saw a bunch of Uni students dressed as
pirates, going "Aaargh, aaargh." So I went up to them and gave them
the old "Aaargh, aaargh me hearties." Then I said: "I'm glad someone
else knows about "Speak like a Pirate Day". They were so pleased they
burst into pirate cheers. We shared a few hearty pirate words and
gestures and I departed.
16/09/2006
I've posted some comments and
a new Downloads page.
08/09/2006
Welcome
to the new-look Fen site - the second major overhaul in terms of appearance.
Inspired by my latest efforts on the
Academy of Traditional
Fighting Arts website, I decided to revisit my own site (which was
looking a bit woeful by comparison). Let me know what you think!
05/09/2006
Whew! Sorry Fen
fans - the last few months have certainly broken new wind - even for me.
First there was the visit to Master Chen, then I went back to work (real
work, that is) and I started working in earnest on the website of the
Academy of Traditional
Fighting Arts which, as you will see, is a virtual online encyclopaedia
of martial arts knowledge and information. That really took it out of
me. Anyway, that job is officially done (although tweaking is going to
continue for some time). My "free" time is so stretched with new
babies and other duties that I've not had time to even look at my own
site.
Another big development is the birth of my first fraternal
niece, Angelina Audrey Aung Than - to my sister Natalie and her husband (my
brother-outlaw Trevor). Great stuff. I'll post some pictures
soon but for those who are interested check out the Academy's
news
page.
21/06/2006
I see from the counter
that people have been logging on - only to find that there have been no
updates. Sorry about that, but it's been such a hectic time. The
family is all doing well - check out the latest pictures
here if you have the password.
Maya has started giving us some lovely smiles. It's
funny how you can feel so totally exhausted (especially in the wee hours
when you get up to feed her) and yet experience an overwhelming sense of joy
and love that somehow wipes away the fatigue (at least for a moment!).
Lara has started ballet and is absolutely chuffed. She
can't wait for each class. I took a picture of her before her first
class (see above). It's interesting to note that we have neither encouraged
nor discouraged her to dance - and yet she is so passionate about it.
Her grandmother was a ballet dancer (and went to a full time ballet school
in the old Yugoslavia) so it must be in the blood.
I'm off to see Master Chen in a couple of days. Wish me
luck!
29/05/2006
Well, mum and baby
are still doing well, so keep the fingers crossed. I've been a little
overwhelmed, so excuse me for not posting for a while.
Despite the hectic schedule set by Ms Maya, I've managed
to put more on my plate by booking another trip to Victoria in late June to
train with visiting Taiwanese Taijiquan (Tai Chi Chuan) master Chen Yun
Ching. I was last there in January. I don't really know how I'm
going to go, given that I presently can't bend my knees fully from
arthritis. Oh well. Here is a picture of Master Chen and me
taken during my last visit. For a report on that trip see
http://www.wuweidao.com/latest_news.htm
21/05/2006
Here are some newer pictures of Maya.
20/05/2006
What a week! For
those who don't know, just after Maureen and Maya came home Maureen
developed a bacterial infection. I had to rush her to hospital with a
very high fever. The nursing staff said Maya could stay as a "boarder"
but no nursing staff would be allocated to help feed her etc. I
decided to bring her home with me, especially given that Maureen was out of
it for the first 48 hours.
Needless to say, replacing one supermom with one inept dad
must have been a rude experience for Maya.
Maureen is now back, so once again we are together - take 2.
Here are some new pictures of Maya (eyes open!). I love the
startled one.
09/05/2006
Mum and baby are home!
Both are doing excellently.
08/05/2006
I keep getting asked
about the pronunciation of "Maya". It's pronounced "My-ah" as in the
Mayan civilisation (or, shudder, as in "Myer", although I happen to think
that the "r" at the end changes things), not "MAY-ah". We have chosen
the continental European way of pronouncing the name. Maya means
"great" in Latin and "mother" in Greek. I was at the hospital today
and asked for my baby at the nursery. The nurse said "I'm sorry, we
have no baby here by that name. Then after about 3 minutes of arguing
she said "Oh MAY-ah!". I could have strangled her.
My Serb cousins would spell it "Maja". For those who
don't know, "J" is pronounced "Y" in most of continental Europe.
And yes, the first of May had something to do with choosing
the name.
Оn the
subject of names, I've decided it is not a good idea to say: "Hi, it's Fen
here," because I'd always get:
"Okay/Hold on/Thankyou Sven".
07/05/2006
For those with the
passwords, I've added new pictures of Maya and a video of her in hospital,
taken today. Check it out here.
The video features Lara singing "Rock-a-bye Baby" to Maya - although Lara
spontaneously changed the lyrics from "in the tree top" to "in my arms".
She's a regular Fen Mark 2 in the making...
 
06/05/2006
Maya is with Mum at
last! She is breathing on her own and is feeding well, so everything
is looking good. I will post some pictures soon.
05/05/2006
Maya is still
improving but not yet ready to leave ICU.
L She
is still off the CPAP and her feeds are increasing by 5ml every 3 hours (she
was at 35ml at last count). Mum is well.
Lara asked me on the way home: "Why do you need to drive with
the (head)lights on at night. I answered: "So the police don't catch
me and put me in jail". After a moment of consideration Lara said": "I
know Daddy. If the policeman puts you in jail I'll say 'Look over
there!' and then I'll open the door and we'll sneak away. That's a
good idea isn't it?" I said it was an excellent idea.
04/05/2006
Okay guys, the latest
news is all good. Maya is not only breathing on her own but is feeding
via a bottle rather than a drip or tube into the stomach. Maya
actually ripped the stomach tube right out of her mouth. Once she is
drinking a certain amount of milk per feed she can come off the drip
altogether. The next step will be to reunite her with mum which I
would guess will be very soon. I don't have any new photographs, but I
think she looks very pretty and definitely like her mum. It's so much
easier to see without all the tubes and wires etc. Thanks to all the
well-wishers. You guys have been great.
03/05/2006
Maureen and I
are proud to announce the birth of our daughter Maya Emma Djurdjevic, born
at 4.00 pm on 1 May 2006, weighing 7lb 1 ounce or 3.2kg and being 50cm long.
Maya is presently in ICU having had some difficulty breathing due to fluid
in the lungs, however we are informed that this is a common and temporary
condition associated with caesarian births and that she will soon be
reunited with mum. When I last checked the baby was improving steadily.
Maureen thinks she looks like a minature of her when she was born. I can't
tell one way or the other, but hope for her sake that this is true. Mum is
doing well. For those who have the password, you can
view pictures here.
 
25/04/2006
Less than one week
till May Day.
I've finally managed to rerecord the bass and remix the
drums for "Sensei Say No". I'm chuffed with the result. You can
download it
here.
17/04/2006
Two weeks till D-Day.
Or rather May Day.
I've realised that this website doesn't load correctly
when viewed with Mozilla Firefox. Use IE6 please. I've also made
the site dial-up friendly by changing the pictures to smaller gifs.
Maureen and I made a treasure hunt for Lara on Easter Sunday.
In line with family tradition we made up a little story - check it out:
 
14/04/2006
You'll notice the
fancy new intro page with the flashing Fen gif. Made it meself.
12/04/2006
Finished! The
revamp of the website is complete. Check it all out! Also some
new Comments.
10/04/2006
Exactly three weeks till D-Day! I
wanted to call the baby "Maya" given the birth date, but Lara vetoed this
proposal. She wanted to call the baby "Silsie" (a name she insists she
didn't make up) but I vetoed that. Oh well, back to the drawing
board...
I've just finished a DVD of a friend's Dad's 80th birthday
(have a look under Comments).
I hope you like the "torn paper" look to this page. It
took a lot of creative energy to work out how to do it.
09/04/2006
A new look
to the website! I'm sure you'll agree it is a real improvement (thanks
to some design suggestions from my lovely wife)! I haven't done all
the pages yet, but have a look at
Sound/Music, Graphic Art and
About Fen.
07/04/2006
It's been a
while. Sorry Fen fans. For my family and friends, here are some recent
photos. You'll need a
password. If you haven't got one, email me. I've uploaded yet
another
Class Cretins
comic.
02/04/2006
I've
uploaded some more comments and another
Class Cretins
comic.
30/03/2006
I've
uploaded another
Class Cretins
comic.
29/03/2006
I've
added a newsletter email list devised by my mate
Martin Watts.
28/03/2006
There's a professor by the name of Richard Flynn at Ulster University who
has just published a study on comparative IQs of various races/countries.
This topic seems to be an obsession of his judging by his previous studies.
The results, not surprisingly, favour his own ethnocentric view of what is
"intelligence". He has found that north western Europeans are the
"smartest" and disparages, among others, southern/eastern Europeans and, in
particular, my fellow Serbs. His study absolutely trashes Africans and
Australian Aborigines.
He previously came to the attention of the media by
publishing studies that suggest that men are, on average, 5 IQ points
"smarter" than women. Oh boy...
What I find most objectionable about his "research" is that it is
essentially completely worthless. What application can such a study
have, especially as regards an individual? Should we be denying
someone a particular vocation on the basis of the person's race/gender?
Consider for example, that while statistically women are shorter than men,
I, at 176cm, am regularly passed in the street by women who are taller.
Fat lot of good the statistic does for me. How much good do the
results of this study do for the professor? I'll wager, nothing.
I tell you what the results of the professor's studies
are good for: reinforcing racial stereotypes and giving support to far right
neo-Nazi movements. They give comfort and to those who are xenophobic
and ammunition to those who are racist.
As for the results? If we can accept them as evidence
of anything, they are a good indicator of which country has the highest
average number of people who are good at IQ tests. That's all.
I've studied enough psychology at university to know that we can't even
agree on a good definition of "intellect". How would Shakespeare have
done on such a test, compared with, say, Newton? And how would
Einstein have performed given that, as a high school student, he was thought
a dunce? Why is it that child prodigies who score very highly on IQ
tests often fail to go on to contribute anything to science or the arts
(unlike, say, Einstein)?
And what of the contributions of these, so called, "less
intelligent" cultures? Where would be we be without African influence?
We certainly wouldn't have rhythm and blues, rock and roll or jazz music.
The good professor notes "the unwritten rule that those with higher
intellects win wars". Except of course where they are "vastly
outnumbered" as was the case with Nazi Germany post 1942. Well there
is the small problem that a "smart" culture would never have started such a
war, or at least not fought on 2 fronts, but this is conveniently forgotten.
He also forgets that my fellow Slavs - the Russians, who didn't score
particularly well - defeated not only Germany but Napoleon as well.
And they have virtually every worthwhile record in relation to space
exploration prior to the moon landing.
I find it highly irresponsible for the newspapers to have
even carried the story of the professor's study without some form of
editorial comment, much less trumpeted its results as proof of comparative
intelligence.
27/03/2006
I've
added some addresses to the
Beachwood
email list
25/03/2006
We
celebrated Lara's 4th birthday today. She absolutely loved it.
The party had a fairy theme. We hired "Maya" the fairy to entertain
the kids and she kept them captivated for an entire hour. She
introduced herself to me as "Maya... Fairy Maya".
I've uploaded another
Class Cretins
comic.
24/03/2006
I've just
uploaded heaps of stuff. Check out the Other
and Writing for example. Amazing what you
can do nowadays.
Ever notice how technology is speeding up? I went to
get my minidisc recorder fixed at the Sony shop and the technician told me
(incorrectly it seems, for now) that Sony will no longer be making them.
"The minidisc is dead." The CD and DVD will be next. Then the
hard drive. Who needs them when you can get tiny flash cards that can
store 4 or even 8 GB. It's not a long shot to think that they will
soon store 60, 100, or 800 GB in a piece of plastic shorter than a matchbox
one tenth the width. Nen told me that someone nailed an SD card to a
tree and was still able to get most of the data off it.
So familiar data storage devices will go the way of the
typewriter. I remember in the mid '80s lamenting the fact that
typewriters were destined for the scrapheap with the rise of computers.
Surely we would still use typewriters occasionally? It seems we don't.
It's funny how things we have taken for granted as constants
in this modern age are rapidly falling by the wayside. Two other
examples are 35mm film and public telephones.
What is driving this exponential development in technology?
Why is it that from the 1300s to the late 1700s there was virtually none?
Today we talk of obsolescence in terms of months or weeks. Or days.
I think you can understand this process better by looking at
a human being as a microcosm of it. We often consider things to be
impossible and this alone prevents us from tackling them. Once someone
takes the plunge and opens a particular door we see a corridor to other
doors. They open to others and so on. The possibilities become
endless.
Our forefathers considered many things to be impossible.
"Trains can't travel faster than 30 mph because the human body is not built
to withstand such speeds. People's heads will blow off." Once
such self-imposed limitations are lifted, entire universes of unexplored
possibilities are opened up. The more you explore, the more corridors
you find and the more doors you have to open. It becomes exponential.
So don't lament the pace of technology. Embrace it, and
use it as a model for your own life. Don't put up your own
limitations. There are enough out there already.
23/03/2006
When I was a little tacker I was
often given the encouraging advice that "you can be whatever you want to be
- if you REALLY want it."
Over the years I have often
thought about the apparent absurdity of this advice. Cold hard logic tells
us that we can't all be astronauts, world class orchestra conductors, pop
stars, actors, champion weightlifters, NBA basketball players etc..
So why do those words of
wisdom/encouragement still hang around in my head
like a loiterer at a train station?
Is it because I see that, after
a fashion, we all become who want to be? An example would be a mate of mine
who saw himself as a hard-boiled journalist. You know - the kind you see in
noir movies wearing a hat with the peak tilted back, puffing on a rolled up
cigarette and hammering away at an old typewriter. Well my friend became
that very person before my eyes. Even I live my dream after a fashion - I am
a writer in my day job (okay, it's not glamorous writing, but it is writing
nonetheless).
No, I think the reason why I
keep thinking of those words of wisdom is that I finally understand what
they mean. REALLY
is being used in the sense of "in reality" or "actually",
rather than "greatly" or "hugely".
So, do you
ACTUALLY want to be a writer/musician/actor etc.? Or do you just want
money, fame or some other trapping that goes with the territory?
I know dozens of people who claim to want to be writers, but I
just can't see them happily typing away at a
computer all day. Writing is a lonely and frustrating business. I also know
dozens of people who want to be pop stars. Yet I
know for a fact they would never get used to the stresses of
performing on stage.
In the end I believe that if
you "actually" want something you will achieve it in some form. Witness the
busker singing in the mall, the actor still doing
commercials after 20 years, the struggling writer,
etc. They must REALLY want to do what they do. Who
do you REALLY want to be? Maybe
you already are...
22/03/2006
On the subject of Martin Middleton…
I remember in high school
there was this thug who used to terrorise the other kids. He was in the year
ahead of me — an excellent athlete, tall, lithe and well muscled. But he was
also streetwise and downright nasty. One day our freshman class had the
misfortune of having to share a classroom with his (older) class due to some
emergency. The teacher, unwisely left us unattended for most of the period.
The thug proceeded to press-gang some of my classmates into playing a
sadistic game where they had to cane each other. Martin and I were playing
our own “board game” (one we had invented) and watched the unfolding events
with trepidation out of the corners of our eyes. Then the thug approached
Martin and said: “Okay, you’re up next.”
I still remember Martin calmly
ignoring him. The thug became quite exasperated and aggressive at this
“insubordination”. But no matter how dire Martin’s personal “Cuban Missile
Crisis” became he continued to ignore the thug — as if oblivious to the
monstrous threat facing him.
Abruptly, the stand-off ended.
Martin, it appeared, simply wasn’t worth it. The thug grabbed another kid
who obsequiously agreed to his orchestrated sadism and Martin and I were
left alone.
I’ve often wondered what was
going through Martin’s head at that time. Surely participating in the thug’s
“game” would have been infinitely safer than the high probability that, in
defying his orders, he would get thrashed to within an inch of his life?
But I’ve finally worked it out.
The indignity of submitting to the thug would have been worse than any
beating that the thug could have administered. There are some things in life
that are just not worth it. In this case, cowardice was one such thing. It
would have left a far deeper scar in Martin’s memory than any beating. I
often wonder what would have happened if the thug had picked me instead…
21/03/2006
I get asked a lot where I find the
time for all my activities. My day job is so focussed and demanding that
(appropriately) there is no time during office hours to do anything but
work. Then I have a young family to spend time with and, health permitting,
I train and teach martial arts.
So how does it work? I usually mumble something about
borrowing from sleep. But the truth is, well, different. Sure I stay up
sometimes. But mostly I just do things at odd moments: I’m composing music
on the bus, I’m writing something in my head while washing dishes, I’m
planning my next activity in television ad breaks. I also work fast.
As far as I can recall, I’ve
pretty much always lived like this. Ask Martin Middleton who, in high
school, joined me in producing the 8mm sci-fi motion picture classic “Escape
to the Stars” (now lost, thanks to a thief who mistakenly thought it was a
real film). Or Paul Baines who, in 1980 joined me in producing my first EP
of 4 songs (on cassette) — an experiment in radical punk “released” under
the name “The Scum”. That cassette was also stolen. I console myself by
arguing that, after all, theft constitutes a kind of publication…
20/03/2006
Well
it has been almost 2 weeks since I first opened FrontPage and thought "what
the hell does this do?" Twenty minutes later I had a website - albeit
in embryonic form. About a week ago I realised that I was rapidly
approaching my limit of 10 Mb of free space on my server, so I paid for some
space with Planet Domain (who arranged my domain name).
Right now everything is pretty much up and running, although
my next task will be a major tidy up (everything is basically dumped in one
folder). I also plan to have some links open up in separate pages.
When I get the chance I'm going to post more of the cartoons,
but many are in a half-finished state. My Beachwood mates will be
pleased to note that I plan a full archive of material, including scans of
the Beachwood Log.
I went along to Tyre Fire's latest
gig in South Perth and heard some of their new material. Great stuff.
The band has progressed heaps since I last saw them. Make sure you get
along to their next gig.
Six weeks to the day until the baby arrives...
Adios for now. |
