I haven't written much about Hearts this year for two reasons: 1. I haven't written much about anything at all. 2. Hearts's semi-magical season last year has definitely not repeated itself after crashing out of Europe and failing to challenge for the top of the table in the SPL.

Apparently, Vladimir Romanov has also been sort of disappointed in this year's performance from his most expensive team. And he's looking both within and without for someone to blame. He unloaded in the most recent issue of “Футбол,” saying that Celtic and Rangers pay off both refs and players on other teams, going so far as to suggest that FBK Kaunas could, given a truly level playing field, take on the Old Firm. The Daily Record translates his comments into English: 

Celtic and Rangers? Even Kaunas are a match for them on the pitch.The thing is they've turned football into a type of showbusiness with their underhand games.

They buy off players and referees. When it comes to weaker teams then nobody can help but if two opponents are equally matched then the referees can have a real influence on the outcome.

Fantastic. Of course, the SFA will be fining him (again), and he may even get sued. 

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As I've milked for almost a year, the first emails I got about inCulto's video for "Welcome (to Lithuania)" were that it was a video developed by a tourist agency. Laughable, still, especially the more and more I watch the video and hear the song. Still there do exist videos made to sell Vilnius as a tourist destination, and they're making a return to BBC and CNN in England this March. As the Baltic Times writes:

The commercial is the second production of a televised ad campaign to entice tourists to Vilnius. The Vilnius Board of Tourism began the project in 2005, a year after all three Baltic states joined the European Union and NATO.

“The idea was to make something that was exciting, vibrant, inviting and upbeat,” says the commercial’s director, Donatas Ulvydas. “The Vilnius Board of Tourism wanted to portray people - real people - and feature them in various parts of the capital in order to present Vilnius as a happening European city with exciting possibilities. They wanted to show a city with trendy hotels and modern conveniences, a city full of energy with shiny glass buildings, without forgetting the charming Vilnius Old Town that tourists know and love.”

There's something very disturbing about the article as a whole, in how it engages in its own selling of Vilnius, but, in any case, the video's on YouTube, and here it is, Vilnius For Sale:

How do you respond to this video? With ethnic pride? Does it make you a bit queasy? What iconography of "Vilnius" or of "Lithuania" do you feel it overdoes? What iconography does it totally neglect? 

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I've been busy, yes, and unable to complete the discussion about the Lithuanian citizenship brouhaha—but it's also become a huge issue that's getting covered on artcles in Amerikos lietuvis and the like. So, I doubt I have anything particularly interesting or new to say. I'm not a immigration lawyer, after all. Plus, I'm behind the ball by now, etc., etc.

I've come back from Brazil, and I will have an article written about the time spent there for PLJS. As for the non-PALJS Suvažiavimas parts, I can only say that Rio is (still) a great city, and I would really like to return again soon—but this time I would hope that the rain could stay in the mountains. We had a lot of fun there, but we didn't stray far from Copacabana. That's only half a complaint; it was really the rain that was dragging us down (and that continued, unfortunately, in São Paulo). São Paulo is, I imagine, a far less impressive city than Rio, or, at least, that's what I get from my time there. It just seems really huge.

In any case, I'm still very eager to start posting here again with some regularity. I hope to start with uploading photos from my trip (there are about 700 that I consider worth putting online), but am not sure that this site's infrastructure is up for it. In general, it seems like the photo aspect of this site is losing steam. Before sites like Facebook and flickr existed, the photos on Lithchat served a noble task. Now, however, the site is slow in comparison to the pro sites, and uploading/commenting/searching/etc. is far more complex, slow, and unrewarding. Furthermore, it seems like I'm the only person still interested in uploading photos on Lithchat, and that's really too bad.

I'm investigating starting up a semi-private, multiple-user contributed photo site on one of the pro sites, but I'm not sure which way to go. Suggestions?

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