Sebastian - drops of life!

Changes...

2007-09-21T10:42:00.000+03:00

Hello everyone... It's been some time since I last posted on this blog... I know! I know! Shame on me! Well there are some good news, though. I have a new web page. It's still under construction, but hopefully in the next few days I'll manage to finish up the design. My new web page will also be the "home" for my new blog, which I plan to keep updated, in a more daily fashion. So, subscribe to the feeds and/or keep visiting.
I want to thank all of you for your patience and interest in reading this blog for all this time. :)
I hope you'll enjoy visiting www.sebastianadel.ro.

The realm of dissapointment

2006-11-23T11:56:00.000+02:00

On the door it reads: "WOMEN".
All we could find inside is toilets... :))

Enjoy the silence...

2006-11-23T11:34:00.000+02:00

Hello! Do you still remember me? I'm deeply ashamed of my long absence on this blog. It has been almost a whole month since I've last posted an article on this blog. Shame on me!

I have so many stories to write about. It has been a full month! So many things have happened, which is actually the reason why I didn't write anything in so much time. Now the sad part is that it's gonna be more difficult for me to recall all the wonderful experiences and to lay them here, on my blog, but I'll do my best for sure. In the next couple of days I'll write about everything.

So stay tuned! Oh, and please forgive my long silence...

Always yours,
Sebastian aka SebishOR

The last few days...

2006-11-02T11:30:00.000+02:00

Well my last few days were quite full... and I'm not referring to joy and happiness. It was quite a busy week. On Monday I worked pretty much all day on a project, so that on Tuesday to be able to start a new one. Well I couldn't do that properly as my computer went nuts... again! This time it just wouldn't let me work. So I decided to reinstall the whole thing, including operating system and the all the other software. I realized once again how much I hate doing this. I always preferred doing this for anyone else than for myself. It generally takes me a whole day to install everything. It is a long, boring, disturbing process.
Anyway, while waiting for Windows to install, I decided that I feel like eating. Yeah, when I'm either very bored or pissed I eat. :P I sound like a woman, huh? :)) So I went to this store, which is a bit larger, hoping that they will accept visa, because I was really low on cash. I searched carefully on the door for a VISA stick. Nothing. But there were like ten different companies promoting their product while saying "PUSH". I always believed once is enough, but the manager of the store thinks obviously different so I thought "once a redneck, always a redneck". I went inside and looked by the cash desk for a POS. There it was! Feeling much better I went on adding products to my cart, but still bearing in mind the fact that it might not work or something... Got in front of the lady at the counter and showed her my card. She looked at me, like I put a gun to her head and said nothing. I asked: "Do you accept cards?" so she answered: "Errrr... we don't". And I come again: "But isn't that a POS? Shouldn't you accept visa if you have a POS? Why else would you have one?" "Well it's out of service..."
I think to my self... "GREAT!" now I hope I have enough money so I wouldn't make a total fool of myself. She asks for 11.6 RON and I hand her 12. She looks at me and says... I don't have change to give you. I guess I turned all red that instant. "Then why the hell don't you accept VISA? If you don't want to care about cash, just take the damn card!" Then, all embarrassed, she looked at me and said: "Actually, I don't know how to operate this machine. It's new!". I just grab my stuff and left... while thinking "once a redneck, always a redneck". What kind of stupid manager pays for a POS and then doesn't inform his stuff on how to use it?
Not long after that I got back to the office, my operating system installation was over. I was quite happy to see things are moving faster and everything is new, when the f***ing thing crashed again. I went nuts. I went on installing other things but now I regret I did that. I should have started from the scratch again. I just want to finish this article now, so I could reinstall it again.
But before restarting, I want to tell you something else. Yesterday was a very busy day, as I had to run around to all my clients to deliver the invoices for last month and also fix up everything they fuck up. Adi, my team mate, was so tired and mad at the end of the day I couldn't believe it. It was a tough day for him also. Anyway, at a certain moment I had to go home and drop some things for my father, and there I had a really strange surprise. As I entered the courtyard, I noticed that one of the guys working on the exterior wall, was wearing an AIESEC blouse. First I thought I don't see well, but when I looked closer I realized it was MY blouse. I was wondering how the hell he got it? But being in a rush and not really in the mood for a show, I just left the place, thinking that maybe my father give it to them for some reason. Just in the evening, when I got finally home, I found out that the blouse was somewhere laying around (yeah, I left it there), and that the dork just took it. I went nuts. How did he dare doing something like that? I went out to see if he at least left it somewhere. Nope! He took it home. My blood pressure rose again. That's stealing. I just couldn't believe that an unqualified worker would just take something like that, use it all day and then take it home. Today, in the morning, when I questioned the guy about the blouse, he told me that he didn't think it was mine and that he was cold. He brought it back today. I was sincerely shocked by this impudence. What I want to say is that you just can't trust people these days. Especially people in construction business. :(
Now, in the end, I want to say that I got an answer regarding my DO-IT application for facilitator in Switzerland, and it was a negative. Though I'm sad about it, I'm sure they made the right choice and I totally believe it's for the best. :) Thanks to all of you that supported me with this. :)

The Miniature Earth

2006-10-26T11:42:00.000+03:00

I remember when I first saw this movie. It was just a slideshow back then, but nevertheless it was impressing. A whole plennary was watching it in deep silence as if it was the most interesting story they have ever heard. Well it is a great story... The fact that it's real and important makes it so great. I am still impressed each time i hear this story. And I always say... "I'll try to appreciate more often what I have and try to help the others more".
Only if we wouldn't forget forget about the other problems of the world each time we get overwhelmed by day-to-day worries and problems at work or home...
Just take 4 minutes of your time and watch this movie...

Communication platforms

2006-10-26T11:25:00.000+03:00

If you are or were part of AIESEC you definately know something about AIESEC.net... I guess the most common thing about it is that it's unstable and very limited. Well that's not that bad, as it sure helps the people in the organization share files, ideas, opinions, in search for the same old positive impact.
Now, my dear friend Matt has developed a brand new platform for the AIESEC network. It's called, very suggestive, AIESEC Platforms and it is supposed to facilitate the communication among AIESECers worldwide. It is obviously free, so I consider you should take a look and join up with the others, for a better, more efficient and much more fun communication among us. ;)
Congrats Matt and good luck with it!

Three things in life...

2006-10-24T19:23:00.000+03:00

I found this in an email draft that I've saved a while ago, without actually understanding what those lines say. Today, as I came across it again, I found them really interesting. Even though they might come out of a spam or mass message, I will share them with you as I think it's good for us to remember from time to time what's really important to us... I hope you'll like them as much as I did.

Three things in life once gone never come back... 1. Words 2. Opportunity 3. Time
Three things in life we can never be sure of... 1. Dreams 2. Success 3. Fortune
Three things in life that make you a great person... 1. Hard work 2. Sincerity 3. Success
Three things in life are most valuable... 1. Love 2. Self respect 3. Friends
Three things in life must never be lost... 1. Peace 2. Hope 3. Honesty
Three things in life that will destroy a person... 1. Greed 2. Pride 3. Anger

Chill or warm with USB

2006-10-24T16:33:00.000+03:00

I found a really really crazy item online today. You're not gonna belive this! There are people that really think about those 24/7 sitting in front of the computer people. Really. Now they have the chance to warm up their drink as well as chill out their soda, all with just a USB plug-in. I can't believe this, really. Go to the fridge? Me? Whyyyy?! I can just plug-in my usb chiller and I'll get my Pepsi ready in no time... This, my friends, is the peak of USB tech. :) Now that's something that I'd want for Christmas :)) Did you hear me, Santa???

Fredo and Pid' Jin

2006-10-23T14:24:00.000+03:00

Two evil pigeons. One world to destroy!
Awesome comics. I got on this link today while surfing the web. At first I just found it funny. After browsing a bit through the archive I realized it is hilarious. I laughed a lot at those two pigeons. Really cool stuff. I totally recommend their feed.

The Europe that I've seen...

2006-10-23T13:59:00.000+03:00

I always loved traveling. I enjoy so much meeting new people, getting to know new cultures, visiting new places. Each one of those leaves a print on my soul and puts a new sheet of paper in my "awesome experiences" folder... Obviously not all the travels are 100% exciting... Sometimes we face problems we were not expecting and/or live experiences we have never thought we would.
Even so, I always love traveling. It always makes me feel empowered and refreshed. This is why I do it. Now I'm planning a trip to Switzerland for an AIESEC Conference. I'm applying as facilitator (trainer) and I totally hope that I'll be accepted and that all things will smoothly :) I'll let you know about this later.
Now, let me share with you something else. While reading Janina's blog today, I came across this article about the part of the world she has seen so far. And there was this picture of the world showing in a reddish color the part she has visited. I followed a link and I got one for myself also. So here it is...

Well not that much of it... 21 countries... 9% of the World. Well not that much compared to the World... a lot compared to Europe. I have never set foot outside Europe, but I definitely want to change that next year when I'll go in a traineeship.
Meanwhile, wish me luck with the conference, and get your own map like this here.

Fun weekend... Part 2

2006-10-20T17:15:00.000+03:00

We had also another reason for celebration last weekend. We gathered in our beloved Juice bar to celebrate Flaviu's 25th birthday. At first we were supposed to go to Pestis, as usual on his birthday, but things turned different this year. Even so, we had a good time there. Sadly, Relu had to work most of the night and couldn't be with us from the beginning. He came though a bit later, and even if was tired, he was a great company as always. I had a great time and I want to thank for this matter to Flaviu and to all the others present there. Also I want to wish Flaviu, once again, a Happy Birthday and many accomplishments in the years to come. :)

That night I had also a wish coming true as I had the chance to get around the bar a little bit. I always wanted to be for a few minutes, or hours, on the other side of the bar, just to see how things are from that perspective. Well on last Friday I had this chance. Gyuri, the bartender, let me for a little while handle the glasses and bottles. Damn, that was fun! :) I realized this way that though it's fun, I wouldn't work for me to do this a whole night. :P

Fun weekend...

2006-10-20T16:49:00.000+03:00

Last weekend was quite full for me. It kinda started on Thursday, when Oradea, my hometown was celebrating its day. Yes, on the 12th of October 1944, Oradea has been set free from the soviet forces and since then it is on this date when we celebrate the day of the city. Obviously there was a big celebration, with lots of concerts, beer, "mici", and crowed places. The traffic in the city center was closed in order to make space for the thousands of people coming to celebrate.

Many international bands and singers were present to entertain the public. I was really surprised to see artists like Sash or Alphaville coming to Oradea for these days. The atmosphere was quite fun. :)

The bands were not the only VIPs in town, of course. Traian Basescu, the president of Romania was here too. I don't know for sure why. Maybe to visit his old friend, Filip, our mayor on this special occasion. Maybe to solve some other important business... Who knows? Anyway, it was a great event for the people in Oradea. Here the majority loves Basescu and the party he represents. I found it really funny to see that there was so much security around him. I was expecting 5-10 guys... Well there were at least 30 to 35 designated bodyguards plus the police. It was quite fun to observe their movements and the way they were looking around to search for dangers.

Another cool thing that happened that night was about this 20 meters long skewer that was made for this celebration. It was something totally new for Oradea. I think it's quite funny. Lately I keep reading in the papers about different towns and villages around Romania celebrating their anniversaries. And why is that? Because they are all trying to beat some food record or to prepare some spectacular food. I don't say it's bad at all. I just wonder... Are we, the Romanians such a food lover people?

Din tag in tag: Oradea

2006-10-11T16:19:00.000+03:00

Thank you Codruta for passing the "ball" to me. I couldn't miss this opportunity to have my own edition of "din tag in tag" (from tag to tag) where I could express in a free way my opinions about my beloved hometown, Oradea.

So here we go!
3 places I like in Oradea:
- Up to Ciuperca (the view of the city is awesome)
- Water lilies park in Felix (very relaxing place)
- The Fortress of Oradea and the park within

3 places I don't like here:
- Lotus Market (or Mall) - it's like everyone is trying to impress by walk, clothes and attitude. It sucks!
- Republicii street - looks really bad with the new pavement and all the dirt
- anywhere where fancy, snobbish people have high density

3 places where I like to go with my friends:
- Juice cafe
- Joy club
- Chanson (I don't like it that much, but my friends do :P)

3 things an occidental could hardly understand about this city
- the never ending "under construction" streets and buildings
- the very insistent beggars and gypsies
- the fact that amazingly beautiful buildings with historical importance, have become property and/or are maintained by some idiots that don't care about them...

The most "fancy" neighborhood:
- I'd say it's "Beverly Hills" and "Europa"...

The ugliest neighborhoods:
- definitely Iosia... and Velenta! Yuck!

I'm now passing the tag to:
Pixi (Singapore), Zeno (Sibiu), Georgiana (Constanta), Janina (Craiova)

Technorati Tag: din tag in tag

"Romanians don't know how to appreciate what they've got"

2006-10-11T14:08:00.000+03:00

That's a long title, huh? It's about my latest revelation... I was talking to my dear friend from Constanta/Bucharest, Georgi and at a certain point she said "I don't like Romanian guys (I reached this conclusion recently) because Romanians don't know how to appreciate what they've got". That shocked me... I realized, once again that it is true. I remember that research made by New Economics Foundation called "Happy Planet Index". It seams that money and wealth isn't the source of happiness. Anyway, the point is that Romanians have a continous need of complaning and victimizing themselves. I guess this is due to the fact that during comunism you didn't really have to work hard to live. You just needed to exist. Now things have changed and many people live in poverty and have really big issues. The common Romanian would say "the government is guilty!", "the others are guilty!", "there's nothing I can do about it!". Well that's bullshit! WE are guilty! We are the ones supposed to make a difference. We are supposed to improve the way our country works and the way we live. We should stop complaining and stop expecting the others to save our lives and souls. We should start doing something in order to make a difference.

Obviously, I'm not expecting everyone to say, think or do so. We, sometimes, are too damn confortable and lazy. I do hope though, that there will be some, including me, who'll manage to make that change, that difference. I do hope that with trust, faith, hard work and compromises we'll be happier.

On the other hand I know EU is not gonna bring us happiness. It's not gonna make it easier for us. But for sure it will raise the awareness that only by acting things can change.
In the end I want to say that I love my country, I love my people, I know that we're capable of a better state, a better situation, and I hope that many other young people like myself will manage to make it work!

Damn PayPall and Flickr!

2006-10-11T13:51:00.000+03:00

I really want a Flickr.com account. I think it's a great way to share photos with friends and also have a "safe deposit". Sadly they totally suck in terms of services for "free members". You only get to upload like 20MB per month, which let's face it, is not even close to enough. Therefore I have decided to go "Pro". That's about 25$/year. Fair enough I'd say. So I click on upgrade... "Pay through credit card"... OK. "Select your country"... DUDE! Where the f$@% is Romania in the list? There's no Romania in the list? Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy? That totally pissed me off. What do you mean I can't pay?
This is really discriminating. Why can all Europe pay, but us and some other Eastern Europe countries. Not fair at all. Why the others can just click, write down the numbers, and pay and I have to find other, much more difficult ways?
Luckily I found this post which explains how a Romanian can get a Pro account... I wonder if it will work. Will let you know. ;)

The US Schools are failing to educate...

2006-10-11T11:47:00.000+03:00

I came across an article on Reader's Digest about the situation in America's schools. They are pulling an alarm signal regarding the education system there. Well that's just one of the emerging crisis of the American people... They also have huge issues with infrastructure, energy, leadership, immigration, etc... But education is the future... If they fail in this, I really don't know what's gonna save their asses... oh, maybe immigration :)

So here are some numbers on how they do:

997 - the average number of hours a U.S. child spends in class per year.

1023 - the average number of hours a U.S. child spends watching TV.

30% of their students don't graduate from high school.

40% of college freshmen need remedial classes because they are unprepared.

I'd say this is really BAD! Imagine this... Only 70% of the young people finish high school. I wonder how many of those get university studies after that... And even out of those only 60% are able to work afterwards... The rest still need to be educated as they suck totally.

I do agree this is starting to happen in Romania also... People start to fail more and more to graduate from high-school. Which is really bad! And also... the university is not very good. I mean even if you really want to study, most likely you will have to search other education sources as well. I, myself for example, I didn't work that hard to graduate university... and to be honest... I haven't learned that much out of it... On the other hand, I was lucky enough to gain practical experiences and enough interested to study what I was interested in on my own... I do hope that most of my colleagues feel the same... Sadly, I know for sure that some of my friends don't.
So what is there to be done? What can we do for us, for our kids and nevertheless for our future? When I think of it, it really puts me down... It's not that I care that much how America is doing... In fact sometimes I really loathe US and it's policies. What I'm concerned of is the fact that the my country, Romania, has this issue as well. We used to be so great in education. Now, we kinda suck.
The same Reader's Digest comes with some ideas on what we can all do:
As a parent: Set high expectations for your children; pay attention to the quality of the work they're doing and meet with teachers regularly -- especially if you have concerns. Read for your own enjoyment, and read to your kids, regardless of their age.
As a taxpayer: Demand accountability for how school districts spend public money.
As a voter: Support candidates who are committed to educational initiatives that prepare students for life after school.
As a citizen: Keep learning. Enroll in an adult class or workshop. Recognize that -- whether or not you've got children in school -- improving education is critical to the long-term health of the country. Volunteer your time. It's in everybody's interest.

Understanding versus Memorizing...

2006-10-09T16:02:00.000+03:00

I remember when I was a little kid, back in the elementary school, I always used to get big grades and be among the favorites in the class/school. Then, as I grew up, my interest for studying diminished more and more. I used to be pasionate about some subjects, while the others I left totally aside. Therefore, I started gathering smaller grades as well. As I grew up to be a young high-school student, the time that I used studying for school got shorter and shorter. Even so, I always managed to pass years and get not-so-bad grades, while others used to fail or get poor grades even so, they might sometimes, study even less than I did.
Well now I realize that my advantage was always the fact that I wasn't trying to memorize anything. Actually I always hated memorizing. I always searched for the logical, understandable, part of subjects. This is why I strongly recommend this to anyone that, like myself, are not really keen on filling up memory space with school garbage.

I was surfing the web today and I came across this really interesting blog, agrees with this in a quite elaborate way. Feel free to read more ;)

Hard labour... not really my thing...

2006-10-03T23:07:00.000+03:00

Today I had to move 4 cube meters of planks from the ground level to the 1st floor... If you can't imagine how much is this quantity... well... I'll tell you... A LOT. We've worked like slaves to take those things up. Initially was just me and my father... that would have been killing. Luckily we had the help of two other people. One of them was Relu, who really helped me a lot. Him and I were supposed to lift the planks up and my father and Dan, the other guy, were taking them, pulling them up and then arranging them in a pile...
If you think of it better, it's not that much, but really exhausting especially after a long night out (yesterday), a few hours of sleep, and a hard day at work. And what's worse each one of them was quite heavy and all full of sawdust... So we had to protect our eyes. I've got my swimming gear out and used it. It was so funny really. Besides the fact we looked like dorks, it was also really unconfortable. Even so, there was no other way. Tomorrow I'll go buy some really gear for this type of work, just to be on the safe side in the future. You can see in the picture how we both looked when we were done. I think I had sawdust in any pocket, cloth layer or on any part of my body. Nasty thing. But the good, cold Tuborg after was a delight. It always is. Also the laughs and fun was great. It's always great to spend time with your best friend... no matter what you're doing. So thank you, my friend, for the help and especially for the great moments... I couldn't have done it without you.

Free Hugs...

2006-10-03T22:47:00.000+03:00

I really feel like blogging now. I haven't done it lately that much. I do miss it, just that my time is very limited these days... Even so, I still do receive nice links from certain people... This is one of them... Today I got www.freehugs.org. This is an awesome website, really.

Sometimes, a hug is all what we need.Free hugs is a real life controversial story of Juan Mann, A man whos sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger to brighten up their lives.
In this age of social disconnectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs campaign became phenomenal.

As this symbol of human hope spread accross the city, police and officials ordered the Free Hugs campaign BANNED. What we then witness is the true spirit of humanity come together in what can only be described as awe inspiring.

In the Spirit of the free hugs campaign, I AM REALLY CONSIDERING doing something like this too. It would be fun and cool, at the same time. I am serious... One Saturday or Sunday... I'll just go down the busiest street in Oradea and start hugging people... Though this might totally ruin my reputation in this snobbish, judgemental society we live in... Even so... Anyone care to join? Post a comment or send a mail... Again, I am serious about this!

I got my digi camera back...

2006-10-03T22:38:00.000+03:00

... but Panasonic still sucks :P Yes, I did. Yesterday I finally got THE call, telling me that my camera is back in town. Well it's not mine actually. It's another one. They realized that they suck so bad that they can't repair it... so they decided to replace it. After such a long time... Well it's still good. Even though it's not even the same color. Yes, they changed that also. Now it's blue... no longer silver. I don't mind about that so much, but still...

Anyway... I am trully happy to have it back. Especially knowing that I only waited for it 53 days. Fair enough, right? I leave you know. I'm going to have some fun with it. ;)

Understanding Marketing...

2006-09-25T10:59:00.000+03:00

I found this really cool explanation of what marketing actually means... I loved it so I thought you might enjoy it also ;)

You see a fabulous girl/guy at a party. You approach them and say, "I'm fantastic in bed."
That's Direct Marketing.
You're at a party with a bunch of friends and see a fabulous girl/guy. You have one of your friends approach them, point at you and say, "She's/He's fantastic in bed."
That's Advertising.
You see a fabulous girl/guy at a party. You approach them to get their telephone number. The next day you call and say, "Hi, I'm fantastic in bed."
That's Telemarketing.
You're at a party and see a fabulous girl/guy. You get up, straighten your clothes, walk up and pour them a drink. You open the door, pick up their bag after it drops, offer them a ride, and then say, "By the way, I'm fantastic in bed."
That's Public Relations.
You're at a party and see a fabulous girl/guy. They walk up to you and say, "I hear you're fantastic in bed."
That's Brand Recognition.

Strange statues around the World

2006-09-20T10:27:00.000+03:00

I've got this link in my yahoo messenger a few days ago, but only yesterday I managed to see the page. I don't usually follow this links anymore. Most of them are stupid pictures or idiot letters. Even so, from time to time I click, and see. This time I'm really happy I did. I found this cool page with pictures of statues around the world. Some of them are strange, others are funny. I suggest you take some of your time and check this page out. It's worth the time. Also, make sure you share your own pictures of strange statues... :) Enjoy!

Don't buy stuff from Panasonic!!!

2006-09-19T16:38:00.000+03:00

At least not in Romania. Now really! I have bought this camera 54 days ago. It is indeed a wonderful camera. It has all kind of functions, plus a cool ultrazoom (10x). Obviously all these come with a price. A good price. About 350 EUR. Yes, that's how much I paid for this thing. I was so happy, since it worked so well and takes this amazing pictures. Well not more than 13 days from the buying moment it broke. Well that makes 2 weeks of use, right? I got my warranty and took this thing to the service. It have passed 40 days since then, and I still haven't got it back. I called them, I went there, I even wanted to call the Consumer's Protection Office so they would solve this out, but then I realize they have all the rights to do this to me. Our wonderful law says that they have time up to 10% of the warranty time (in this case 2 years = 730 days) to fix the problem. They don't have to replace it if they manage to fix it in this amount of time. Well let me tell you something I found out about Panasonic... Their policy is "fix and DON'T replace". The damn motherfuckers are holding my 350EUR camera in service, and I'm quite sure it won't be of any priority to them before at least 65-70 days pass. What kind of fucked up company is that? Is that client support? Is that customer care? They are so cheap and greedy that won't replace your camera before the time passes, even though they know they won't be able to fix it. This is what my dealer, which is a friend of mine, told me. I'm so pissed and so sick of this brand! They totally suck! And the Romanian law that protects the clients sucks too. We should definitely do something about that. But what? Any ideas are welcomed...

Get rid of "manelisti" (RO only)

2006-09-14T17:07:00.000+03:00

This is gonna hurt. This is very not culturally tolerant. I mean I have nothing against the people that listen to "manele"... but I really dislike the ones that insist in polluting my ears with this kind of music. I say pollution because I severely, totally dislike it. And I'm sure that there are quite a lot of people that feel the same. I apologize to the people that are offended in any way by this article, as long as they are not part of those that I should like "manele" to, whether I want that or not.

Actually this post is a quote from a forum I found today, telling the story of a guy with a "manelist" neighbour and about how the first managed to teach the other a lesson. The story is in Romanian, as I just couldn't translate it to sound the same.

"Asta trebuie sa v-o povestesc. Inainte sa ma lege. Pentru ca am comis-o. In principiu, nu-mi e frica. Pentru ca vecinul n-are adresa blogului meu. Si nici nu cred ca cititul e punctul lui forte. Dar s-ar putea sa aiba amprentele mele.

Am facut ieri seara, sambata fiind, sedinta cu baietii din bloc. La o bere, un Rammstein si un rummy la mine acasa. Si s-a decis, in unanimitate, ca a venit vremea sa luam atitudine impotriva acestui momarlan de vecin care ne polueaza fonic vietile, si asa prea scurte.

Dupa cateva beri am ajuns la o solutie.

Dupa alte cateva beri, ne-am razgandit.

Si tot asa pana cand am gasit solutia perfecta: Vecinul trebuie izolat. Dar nu oricum. Trebuie inchis.Am facut lista de materiale necesare. Materialele erau in boxa lu` tipu` de la 5. Am coborat la subsol. Am luat materialele. Era vreo 2 ceasul. Noaptea. Am uitat sa va spun ce materiale erau... Erau vreo 50 de caramizi, adezivul necesar si o cutie de var. Presupun ca v-ati prins deja ce s-a intamplat mai departe...

Daca nu, sa va explic.In cea mai mare liniste, si cu acordul (si ajutorul) altor vecini, i-am zidit momarletelui usa de la intrare. Da` zidita calumea. Nu am facut treaba de mantuiala.Si, dupa ce am zidit-o, am si dat-o cu var, astfel incat, la 8 dimineata, care trecea pe palier, ramanea surprins ca, din trei usi pe etaj, au ramas doar doua. Presupun ca v-ati dat seama ca n-am dormit pana nu s-a trezit manelistul, ca trebuia sa vedem reactia. Pe la 9, se trezeste taranul. Stim asta pentru ca am auzit vocea lu` Gutza Putza de Maimutza.

Ca fulgerul am coborat jos, si am luat cateva beri la cutie (pentru ca berea la cutie e mai practica, si se raceste mai usor), si ne-am prins locuri pe palier, sa auzim macar reactia tartanului.S-a facut 10:30. Deja doua doze de fiecare erau gata. De bere, nu de fiecare. Coboram, si mai luam o serie.11:12. Se aude o cheie in usa . Incepe distractia. Se invarte cheia. O data. De doua ori. Se aude lantul. Si yala. O data. De doua ori. Clanta.Din momentul asta, nu cred ca puteti nici macar sa va imaginati cam cat de tare se putea rade. Am febra musculara. Poate de la carat si zidit, dar ma indoiesc. Nu am mai ras in halul ala de ani de zile.Se aud injuraturi. Care acopera rasul nostru. Bufnituri, dumnezei, pumni, picioare, rasete, mame, morti. "Unde mortii mamii lui e ciocanul ala?" se aude de dupa usa , semn ca trebuie sa spargem gasca.

Tipu` de la 5, constructor de meserie, ne linisteste, spunand ca are incredere in lucrarea facuta, si "n-o da jos un laba trista ca asta din doua ciocane".L-am crezut. A avut dreptate.A spart taranul pana la 12 si un sfert. Cruci, dumnezei, tot tacamul.Noi deja eram plecati, ascultam de la mine din casa, chicotind.

Nu se mai aud zgomote, semn ca a terminat.Se aud pasi pe scari.O bataie violenta in usa mea.Imediat arunc tricoul de pe mine, pantalonii scurti, raman in boxeri si ma ciufulesc. Imi iau fata de abia trezit din somn, si deschid usa . Nu inteleg ce spune. Il calmez cu un simplu "Poftim? Mai spuneti odata, ca n-am inteles...", si incep sa inteleg.Ca se duce la politie, si ma reclama, si face scandal, si-mi iau amenda, si ma da afara din bloc (ca parca-i blocu` construit pe tarlaua lu` ta`su`...) si o sa vad eu...

La care, brusc ma trezesc si-i spun:"Adica, cum mai nesimtitule? Tu spargi pereti de o ora, duminica la 12, si nu ma lasi sa dorm, si tot tu te duci la politie sa faci scandal? Du`te la politie, da` mai intai du`te`n #OOPS# mea!".Si inchid usa . Liniste.M-am uitat pe vizor, pentru ca am crezut ca a facut infarct. Nu. Nu murise.In schimb a stat perplex vreo 3 minute in fata usii mele.Dupa care a plecat. Cred ca la politie.

Acum il asteapta altceva."

Vacation... Part 2 - Travel, Trip, Enjoy! :)

2006-09-11T14:13:00.000+03:00

As I was telling you, at about 11:30AM, I managed to get back to Oradea together with Relu and Georgi. Even though they were tired like hell, they have offered to help me out with my preparation for the departure... So, right after I got home, I dropped my bag, took my passport and headed together to get my traveling medical insurance, pay my cellphone bill, and solve some other stuff. As soon as we parked the car, I got this call saying that we might not go anymore, since we have some transportation issues. Then my world collapsed. I was thinking, "What the hell I was rushing like crazy for?". Damn I got pissed. What could I do? I just went home and got into bed.
A few hours later, I get another call saying we're definitely leaving at 8:00PM. My sun was shining again :) I got ready A.S.A.P. and headed to the departure spot. I've met the whole crew there and after waiting about 1 hour for the bus, we finally left for the border. It was a great feeling to know that I'm gonna see the Netherlands and also, postpone my return to the office. :D
The trip was quite exhausting, but good overall. I also drove the bus for a few hundred kilometers, which was great as well. Anyway, about 24 hours later we were entering the magnificent territory of the Netherlands. As soon as we got the Amersfoort (the city we were supposed to stay in) we got lost, obviously. We stopped at an information point to look over a map or something. This is when my first cultural shock happened. :) Two cars stopped to help us out. Wow! You wouldn't see that in Romania, that's for sure. A young lady and a mid-50's man both offered to help us find what we were looking for. And that wasn't all. The man also took me inside his house, let me use the internet to search for the venue, and then drove us to the place we were supposed to stay at. Dude! That was too much! I just couldn't believe it.
We checked-in at this "King's Home" camping site. Great conditions and at a really low price. We set up our tents that night and all fell asleep. We were all dead tired so we slept like babies.
Next day we went to the Sporthal, where the competition was having place. Oh, I forgot to mention why we were there. There was taking place the International Mix & Breed Championship Agility and Paragility. I'm quite sure you don't know what this is all about. Well in a few words, it was the canine agility world championship. What is canine agility? Well that's a really cool sports where dogs are jumping over obstacles, going through tunnels and jumping through circles. Very interesting to watch and very fun to practice. I used to practice this as well a few years ago with my dogs.
So this was one of the fun parts and the main reason we went to Holland. Obviously not the only attraction, though. :) Besides this we got to visit around Amersfoort, enjoy the culture, do some shopping, spend loads of money on useless things and of course... visit AMSTERDAM. :) Well this was amazing!
We first went to Amsterdam on Friday (evening), the 1st of September, and actually it wasn't really the coolest experience... Sadly! I talked to this guy from Finland, Roberto, who was actually Dutch. He was kind enough to share all kind of aspects regarding safety and fun in Amsterdam. Well maybe too many, as we had a really hard time finding a good place to park our bus. He told us to park in a covered, secure parking place. Well we just couldn't find one that we'd fit in. So after we circled around about one hour, we decided to stop anywhere... and so we did: right in the middle of the Red Light District. :D:D:D Well that's a place one's got to see. I loved it so much, as I have always appreciated freedom and fun. What I love about that place is that the slogan sounds like "do whatever you wanna do... as long as you don't disturb me or the others". That's the second cultural shock I've had in this trip. I was just amazed how people would just mind their own stuff while you're having a wonderful fun. After walking around and watching, quite confused actually, the things happening around us, we have decided to go to a coffeeshop, but before that, stare at some red light windows :P Man, we were disappointed. Besides the fact that most of the window curtains were shut, the remaining girls where most of them ugly... And when I say ugly, I do mean it. Some of them looked like they exploded together with Chernobyl. Anyway, there were also some cute ones :) I was also disappointed to see how small RLD actually is. Only later I realized, after looking on a map, that it is much wider than the place we saw. Well that's for the next time I go there. Next stop, next cultural shock. Coffeeshops. Dude, this is like wow! Can you imagine a place where you just go inside, and ask for weed and hash? I totally amazed. Everytime I smoked this, everywhere else, we would always hide, or just step out of others attention. Here was different. You'd just go in, buy some gear and then go out, sit down, roll your joint and start flying. Most of us decided we should go for some, so I went in and bought 1 g of mary, asked the nice lady there to roll it, as I was a mess and then just went out, sit and started smoking. We were all high like shit. Damn that weed was good. :) I won't get into further details about this. I'll just say we laughed like crazy that night and that it has been waaaay better than any other time or place.
We decided to move our car that night because of some nasty looking guy, that we guess was following us at a certain moment. Well I really don't know for sure if that was true or not. I was really not able to think clearly (which is why I strongly suggest you be home when you trip). For sure is that moving was a really big mistake. We drove around A'dam for like 2 hours before we decided to actually go back to the camping site. Everyone was quite tired and not really happy with what we saw and did. We really wanted more. Sadly, in the end, Dani, the driver was the one blamed that we didn't find a proper parking place. Definitely it wasn't his fault. Sorry 'bout that.
Well more has happened the next day, when we went again to XXX city for another round of fun. This time we got there around 5PM and we also had a few hours of walking around and taking pictures. I discovered then that A'dam is also a very beautiful city. It's not only insanely fun. It has amazing buildings, large squares where you can see people hanging around, singing or just talking. You can see great churches and wonderful architecture. We really had fun while sightseeing. Obviously, the girls had also the pleasure of shopping. After walking around for several hours we decided that we want some space cakes... And we didn't settle for the usual, we wanted the renown brownies, so after we went from coffeeshop to cofeeshop for about half hour we headed back to the place we have been a night before, knowing for sure they have it. Oh, I forgot to mention that at a certain moment we really wanted to get pierced and/or tattooed, but we changed our minds as soon as we realized that the prices were at least 4 times the ones in Romania. So here will be good enough :P
We got the gear we need (brownies and some more weed) and left A'dam with deep sadness. I loved it there. I really loved that place. Seriously, I'm not thinking only about drugs, porn and wild places. I loved it as a city, for its cultural beauty and value. I would love to get to see it again and learn more about it.
As soon as we got back in the car, we ate our brownies and waited anxiously for it to kick in. Well it did for some of us... Me and Vicky got really pissed as we never felt anything out of that brownie. Damn cakes! Anyway, Crys and Claudia definitely had fun. For us the real fun started back at the camping site, where we lit up the joint. Well from that point there's too much I missed. :P There are pictures and movies, really worth watching, that definitely describe the fun we had. That was our last night in Holland. A memorable night!
Next day we went back to the Sporthal, were our team had the final rounds, so that at night we would leave for Romania. Oh, you might be wondering if we won any prizes... well not really, but it was ok, taking into consideration that agility in Romania is still a fresh sport and not many people know about it. All the participants from Romania managed to get good rounds even if they still have to work on timing. Definitely next year will be much better. :)
Around 7PM we got back to the camping site to gather our stuff, put them in the car and leave. We had a joint and left. We slept all night, to the disappointment of our driver who was really tired and had to go through most of Germany alone, with no one to talk to. Dani, we're sorry about that. But you do know that you have been a great driver and a wonderful companion, so I want to say thank you for everything. I, and I know for sure that we all, appreciate your help. :)
It has been an amazing vacation. I really missed traveling outside the country. I realized how much I missed that. It was just great and it will always be a beautiful memory for me. I want to say thanks to all of you that were there, for accepting me in your group and for the wonderful times we've had together. It was great to get to know you better and to have so much fun with you... Especially with Crys, Vicky and Claudia. Crys, I really want to thank you once again for the wonderful present. It has been the best ever. ;) I really hope someday I'll have something similar for you.
Now, in the end, an advice and a thought for you my dear readers... Advice: go to Holland and especially to A'dam. Thought: I hope you'll visit me there, as I definitely plan to get a traineeship in the Netherlands next year :):):).

Vacation... Part 1 - Relaxation

2006-09-11T09:25:00.000+03:00

Yes, my holiday was split in two... A relaxation part and then an intense, crazy part... This post is only about the first one, so it might not be that much fun... Still, I still want to share some of the cool moments I lived there...

I went with my friends at my cabin (which, btw is for sale now :P) near the Belis-Fantanele resort in Cluj county. We planed to go there for a whole week so on the 21st of August I left Oradea, by train, together with Flaviu, Dora (his girlfriend) and Teo (a friend of mine). After a few hours we finally got to Huedin, where Georgi was waiting to take us by car to the cabin. We were all so excited to go there. Once we got there, we realized that we'd need some bread so I went to the shop/inn, together with Relu and Georgi. As it started raining on the way there, we had to wait for the rain to stop, as we had a beer. Then I've met this guy, whom finally turned to be some sort of cousin of mine. He's in his early 50s so he started to share with us his life... well I'd say he's lived quite a strange life, which I don't really feel like describing. What was really odd about this is that as soon as he found out I'm his cousin he wouldn't let go of me, as he starting hugging me like crazy and kissing me on both cheeks constantly. He was drunk like hell, so it wasn't much fun for me... yuck! We decided to leave, even though it was still raining heavily, so we got home all wet. We took a shower and joined the others at a drink and some discussions. Anyway, I don't think I'll ever forget the way that guy was hugging the hell out of me.

The next few days were pure relaxation. I got to read a bit, we played all kind of ball games, laughed, cooked, ate like nuts. It was like heaven on Earth. Well at least for some of us... Teo and Dora also needed to study a bit, but overall was awesome. I loved that, especially that I didn't have my cellphone on most of the time, so no worries and no clients calling all day long.

On the weekend, on the 25th, Petru and Carmen joined us. As on that date was Petru's Birthday, we had an outdoor private party, which lasted till dusk. We sang and we danced like crazy. It was a hell of a night. We also had a cake which you can see in the photos what it turned to. We had a blast fighting with cream and other cake content :P The sad part was when we finally realized what we've done to the yard and to our clothes... Anyway, it was fun to act our age :P The next night we celebrated again mine and his birthday, but since we had a crazy night before, we just didn't have the energy to stay up till morning. Even so, we had a great time, especially me and Relu and Georgi.

Sunday was a total chill out. Petru, Flaviu and the girls went to Fantanele lake, while me Georgi and Relu just hanged out, got some tan, played some cards and shared impressions. It was indeed awesome. Later that day, Petru and Carmen left, which was a bit sad, since we really had a great time... Now, "you might be asking yourself why" as Petru kept saying all day long. :)

Another thing that was really cool about this day is that I got all this nice SMSs and phone calls from people around the world to wish me "happy birthday". I was totally impressed. I wasn't expecting that to happen so it totally rise up my self esteem. So thank you all that called, sent me messages or emails. I appreciate it. A LOT!

On Monday all things changed. In the morning I got this invitation to the Netherlands... Which obviously I accepted. This is where everything went nuts, as we had to clean up and leave the cabin in proper conditions... state which was far from reality. :) We had a broken bench and a broken table... we had a mess in the yard, the interior was all dirty, etc. We decided that I would leave next morning at 6:30 AM, and they would finish up cleaning after. Well that changed late in the evening, when my father insisted we would all leave together so we'd avoid any complications. So that changed our plans quite a bit. At 4:30 AM we all got up and started cleaning. I guess nobody (including me) was happy about this, and everyone (except for me) were unhappy with my departure to the Netherlands. So I apologize to all of you that got upset about that and I want you to know that I am really sorry that we had to end our wonderful holidays that way. By 11:30 AM Georgi, Relu and myself, were all back in Oradea, where I had to start the preparations for the departure... Everything about this and some stories about Holland in a future post ;)

To close this, I want to say that it was amazingly fun, exciting, beautiful and very relaxing to spend one week there. It really makes me sad to think that this might be the last time I go there. It has always been great to spend time there, having the fresh air, the freedom, the silence and the joy as constant companions. Also I want to thank all of you that were there and made this vacation unique. ;)

LPM 2006! Oradea fresh!

2006-09-10T23:23:00.000+03:00

As I promised in a previous post, I'm about to tell you about the great times I, or better say we, had on the Local Planning Meeting of AIESEC Oradea in 2006, at Munteni. Munteni is a place right next to Remeti, where I've been a few months ago. Well this time was way different. It wasn't so much relaxing. It was more like partying till there's light outside, interesting talks and debates all day long, lots of laughs and fun, and great overall a wonderful time.

What I really loved about this conference is that I got to see the enthusiasm from outside the box. I mean, everyone gets excited around this kind of meetings and when you are a delegate or trainer (/facilitator) you can't really have an overview of people's excitement. Now I had the opportunity to see them from the outside, not being really involved in the matter. I simply loved that. Also, being there with my friend Flaviu was also great that we got to enjoy each day out, by playing a lot of Frisbee and cards... Janina, the chair of the conference was great. I met her a few years ago, in AIESEC, obviously, and we always had a good time talking and everything. Well this time was even greater, as we had the time to get to know each other and by this I discovered the really funny, great person with really cool perspectives on the organization and life in general. It was great talking to you and laughing all the time... Thank you for all those nice moments.

It was really nice to see also that Flaviu finally got to meet Dora in a friendly environment, which also led to them hooking up. That's great news, as she's really cute and they look lovely together.

I don't know what else to write... oh yeah! the parties were quite fun also. It was great to see that everyone had enough energy to go through the long parties also and not only through sessions. Also they were very energetic (and energizing) all the time. Especially the last night party was a blast for all the people there. Oh, and the last night, before the party, right after the finished all the planning, it was this great session which inspired and also had all of us feel more responsible of this LC's future... It might have looked like a witches gathering from the outside, but really felt great inside. Sort of a brain washing like. :P:P:P

I loved the theme of the conference also... Haiducii (the Brigands)... lovely atmosphere that created.

I was writing about the energy... well indeed it was a lot! Even on the way back, during the two hours train ride, we sang our souls out. In the end we were like totally out of songs and ideas, but still singing like crazy. It is only when I arrived home that I felt tired actually. Especially when thinking "oh shit, tomorrow I go to work"... and I did, just that not on time :P:P:P

I am very glad I attended this event and I'm looking forward for the next ones ;) I wish all of you that were there to have plenty of luck and pure energy to accomplish what you've planned.

One month and several adventures later...

2006-09-10T19:15:00.000+03:00

WOW! That's all I can see now looking back on this month. I haven't posted anything in 36 days. That's a lot of shameful time... I apologize to all of you that were disappointed by visiting my blog and not finding anything new. I'm taking the snow-flower position right now.

But now I'm back! Oh yeah baby! Back in the business. Oh, maybe I should tell you some things about this past month. Some of the things that happened to me lately... First of all, on the 5th of August I did leave town for 5 amazing days. I joined the team of AIESEC Oradea for an amazing Local Planning Meeting. Actually this was one of the best LPMs I have ever attended. Details in a future post about this. Then I returned in Oradea for 2 overwhelming weeks at the office. I was all alone and guess what, our clients didn't care that much about that. Thank godness it was August, and people tend to go to holidays this time of the year, so I didn't have exactly all the clients on my ass. :P Then the real blessing came upon me. Finally vacation! On the 21st of August I started my best holidays... this year :P Well this is where another story starts, so therefore another post will fully describe this matter.

Now I just want to let you know that I'm back (it's the third time I'm writing that, I wonder why?!?!) and that I'll be updating my blog more often from now on. I hope you'll enjoy reading it as much as you did in the past. Wish you all a wonderful autumn, as it's coming up, and good luck in everything you do! :)

Cheers!

I'm leaving today...

2006-08-05T02:13:00.000+03:00

Yes, I will leave today in the morning... actually in exactly 5 hours. I'm going to spend some time away from the city, away from the job, clients and responsibilities, away from stress and traffic, away from home :D:D:D I'm going to some place near Bulz, and I'm gonna leave my cell phones, worries and thoughts at home... If you need to contact me... and there is no way to postpone it... well... BAD LUCK! :) I'll be nowhere to be found 'till Wednesday afternoon. Stay tuned for stories from my trip. I wish you all wonderful holidays, wherever you are... ;)

The 80's - Generation X

2006-08-03T22:20:00.000+03:00

I've got this wonderful email today from a friend of mine just about my age. It was actually a nostalgic spam dedicated to all of those that are part of our generation, Generation X, as they call it. It presents the generation of Romanian kids, born in the early 80's, which experienced both part of the Communism and post-communism era. Read bellow about the way we grew up.
I will translate that e-mail, because it touched me deeply. I'll try to be as accurate as possible, but even so there might be many words that I can't translate. Sorry for those that can't understand Romanian :(.

Born at the beginning of the 80's, we see that in the year 2006 the our parents' house is about 50 times more expensive compared to when they bought it, and we realize that we gonna pay for our houses about 50 years. We do not have memories of the first steps on the Moon, or bloody wars, but we know more about history and politics than our oldies believe, when they say we know nothing. We are the last generation that played hide and seek, castle, ducks and hunters, country-country we want soldiers, catch, poison bottle, pac pac, thieves and cops; the last that shouted "un, doi, trei la perete stai"; the last that used pay phones with coins; but the first that played video games (remember Mario?) and the first that saw color cartoons.
We wore elastic jeans, splayed pants, Turkish jeans jackets, and the ones that were wearing brands like Lee or Diesel used to be the heads of the gang. :) The boys used to write the name of the favorite football (soccer) player with tooth paste on their t-shirts, and the girls used to sew stars and hearts on their jeans. We didn't pass Capacity exam in the eight grade, we didn't have poll like exams and were the last of the Soimii Patriei during communism, wearing those incredibly bad color matched costumes. We have been taught in Romanian in kindergarten, not in English, and we sang "Multi ani traiasca" and not "Happy Birthday" at birthdays. We used to say "misto" and "fain" instead of "cool". We watched closely Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, Twin Peaks and Dallas... and who says they didn't either they lie, either they didn't have a TV. We used to watch cartoons on Italian TV channels, and hated that there were no subtitles so we could understand why Mila and Shiro had a fight. The commercials on the foreign TV channels were driving us crazy, and we were looking forward for the Magnum ice cream or those magnificent water pistols commercial to come up. Meanwhile we were comforting ourselves with vanilla+chocolate Tango and those old school tap water filled cans, that poured onto our heads were getting us with pneumonia. And there was the good reason to skip school.
We have listened to Metallica, and Ace of Base, and DJ Bobo, and Michael Jackson, and Backstreet Boys, and Take That, and never heard of "manele" (a Romanian stupid kind of music). The only round like dances being the ones at the weddings, where nobody knew the steps but everyone was dancing. We heard of Abba and Queen, and also about names like 50 Cent and Britney Spears, not like the kids today. If you ask them, the music started with Backstreet boys, but that's old school anyway.
We read magazines like "Licurici" and "Pif et Hercule" (which had this wonderful toys included), and drank Cico and TEC juices, without worrying about the E's, and also at school the hole class was drinking from the same bottle, without worrying about viruses.
We swore the hell out of the referee that cheated us on the game with Denmark, and we were the ones that sent him 10000 "sweet" mails. We didn't use to beep each other on cell phones, but we were whistleling to come out and play. We didn't have Dolby Surround, so we were shutting up to hear the movie action. We didn't have Nintendo or Playstation, but Tetris games and TV games that were starting to suck one month after we bought them, just so we would leave them in a closet to gather dust and forget about them.
We used to look forward at the parties to play "Fantanita", or "Flowers", "Girls and Boys", "Spinning Bottle", or Truth or Dare, or anything that would give us a reason to kiss the one we liked on the mouth. We were the ones that were still "asking for friendship" (ne ceream prietenia), the ones that used to blush when hearing the word SEX, the ones that were flipping a coin to pick the one about to go into the pharmacy to buy condoms so we could fill them up with water and throw them at eachother. We filled in "oracles", hoping that the person that we liked so much would read where was clearly written "Who do you like?".
It is amazing that we are still alive, as we never used helmets, kneecaps, or elbow caps when riding a bike, we didn't have special car seats as babies, we didn't throw in garbage cans the candies that accidentally fell on the street, we never had child proof medicines bottles, we didn't used to wash our hands after playing with all the homeless dogs and cats around the block, we didn't drink only bottled water, we used to slosh and dabble in the slops, and we never cared on how many proteins we ate one day.
We heard the gun shots at the Revolution in '89, we witnessed three bills and coins changes, we laughed at jokes with Bula and were the first that heard Andreea Esca presenting the news live on TV. We remember the "Feriti-va de magarus" (Watch out for the donkey) show.
We are a generation of winners, of dreamers, of first-timers...
If you are one of us... Congratulations!!!

Joke of the day :))

2006-08-03T11:38:00.000+03:00

A cat and a rooster are sitting on the shore of a lake. Suddenly, the cat slips into the lake, so the rooster starts laughing like crazy.
The morale of the story is: When there's a wet pussy, there's a happy cock!

Adi's wedding

2006-07-30T21:53:00.000+03:00

Yesterday I attended the wedding celebration of my coleague Adi. I'm not much into big fests around weddings. I liked this one because there weren't hundreds of people and lots of noisy and crowdy. It was cozy, friendly. I loved that about it. Also the people were really nice and full of life. It seams I'm just fine with places where I know almost no one. I remeber the banquet at the end of university. I felt something similar here, just that there I knew more people. Even so I managed to have quite a good time there. I've met some people around my age and we had quite fun conversations. We even covered topics like politics, economics, E.U., career, etc. Adi, Laura and Adi's parents were great hosts. I really felt like a VIP there. I guess each one of the guests felt this way, as they were always making sure everything was alright. Very nice indeed. Thank you for that.

So, the party was good. Me and the others I met there, were actually among the last leaving. We had such a good time, that I got home only early in the morning, when outside was almost light. Today I kinda had a hard time recovering. Damn it was a long night. I am indeed very happy for being part of this. Thank you Adi for the invitation and for the good time I had there. Also, I want to wish you, once again, lots of happiness, love, passion, and a strong long-lasting marriage. Good luck. ;)

A water lily in my own garden

2006-07-30T21:41:00.000+03:00

It is really amazing how this little fellow blossomed right here in my garden. I was really shocked to see it. It seams that the little pond my father made is more and more alive. Also, the fish inhabiting the pond seams to enjoy the companionship of the beautiful water lily.

Men's European Junior WP Championship 2006

2006-07-29T15:30:00.000+03:00

This year, Oradea hosted the Men's European Junior Water Polo Championship. Even though I really wanted to be part of the organizing committee as a volunteer, I just couldn't. My working schedule was too tight these weeks to do anything else. Sadly I didn't even had the time to attend more matches in this event. The good news is that I did manage to go yesterday and see the semi-finals. Croatia got to this stage as well, and I was really happy to be there to support them. They were playing against Hungary, which had lots of noisy supporters in the tribunes. I haven't seen many Croatian supporters though. Just a few girls (hot, as usual for Croatia) and some others. I guess the most noise was made by the team waiting on the bench. The game was very tight and very good olso. Sadly they lost. I was really sad and dissapointed, especially that Hungary was quite favoured by the referees. I'm not much of a polo fan, but still I find it a very interesting sport. I like it way better than football (soccer). I was not expecting to see this, but I do belive that it is quite an agressive game. I think it's quite easy to get hurt there, and the goalkeeper must have stoneskin, as that ball cames at really high speeds. It is a very cool game. Too bad it's not that popular.

Today were the finals of this event. Croatia played against Spain... and lost :(:(:( And then Serbia & Montenegro against Hungary... Serbia is, for the sixth time in a row, the champion. They put up a very good game. Romania was also participating (d'oooh!), but lost yesterday against Italy, so we're not that cool. I heard we have quite a good team though... Well luck is also part of the game. ;)

I want to congratulate Croatian team for the good games they did, the Serbian team for winning the championship and also the Romanian team for being Romanian :) I do hope you'll get to see such a championship as well. It's quite nice. :) Meanwhile I wish you all a cooler weather :)

P.S. the picture above was made with my new Panasonic TZ1 digital camera. IT ROCKS!:)

Do we really need this shit?

2006-07-26T14:21:00.000+03:00

I was reading this article about some study that UNICEF has made, regarding the way Romanian parents are educating their children. The study presents that a considerable percent of the parents still use beating as an education method. And they condemn that! Fuck that! I was beaten by my parents when I was little, but I do know that was for my own good. How else can you educate a child if you don't slap their ass when they do wrong. They say that communication is the key. I agree, it is... in a perfect world! Not here, where the child goes next day to kindergarden or school, or just out to play, and meets all the other kids that are not really educated by their parents. That's where the educated children learn the bad things and start doing it. I think this is the problem! Not me slaping my kid, but the others not doing so... It's not ok. I was around my old neighborhood a few weeks ago and I've seen all this little kids with all kinds of scars on their heads, arms and legs. How can a parent be so irresponsible to let those children play in such a dangerous way. That's a REAL problem. Not me education my kid in an old school way. UNICEF, stay the fuck out of this, and focus on these REAL issues of the Romanian society.

Another stupid thing that I read today is that 65% of the Romanian families still swaddle (wrap tightly in cloth) their babies. UNICEF and other wise enlightened scientists say that this affects seriously the child, both physically and psychologically. That's crap!!! I was swaddled. My parents couldn't get diapers for me. Hello! I'm ok! I don't have physycal or psychological injuries. Not me, and not the other billion of people growing up this way. I'm sure it's all ok to swaddle the baby, especially if you can't afford the diapers or you don't have access to it. What you gonna do? Stop eating so you could get diapers? This is bullshit! All this "sanitation" of everything that a baby/child/adult touches I believe actually destroys our imunitary system. We are made to survive this world. We used to survived using old fashion sanitation also. I think all this "worrying" for the hygiene is actually the reason why so many people living on the north-american continent are suffering from asthma or other stupid diseases. This really pissed me off.

Do we really need this shit? Do we really need this kind of mentality? Do we really want to join EU? Can we really afford that now?!

Other blogs... Other bloggers

2006-07-26T12:28:00.000+03:00

Today I had a few free moments for myself. I got to read the news (for the past few weeks), read some mails and reply to some as well, and also read some blogs. Dude! What's up with these people? Everybody's writing philosophically. What the hell, man? I don't want to read complex, metastatic, Freud like paragraphs.

I want to read stories. Funny stories. Or cynical opinions. Or about happy/unhappy moments. I don't want to read philosophy. If I'd want that I'd buy some books. Dude, it's perfectly ok to express your feeling or thoughts about life. But do that in a way that people could easily read. Don't write long complex and poorly translated posts about some feelings that could be simple... very simple!

I'm sorry if I offend any of you, my dear readers, but it's just the way I feel. Obviously one has the right to write what ever one pleases, but still that doesn't make it cool for me. I do support freedom of speech and expression. But I also support the freedom of understanding and enjoying reading. :P

Weekend update

2006-07-24T18:05:00.000+03:00

After a hell of a week, a nice, relaxing weekend followed. I did like this weekend as it was new, different. My parents left town on Friday evening, right before I got home, so I was home alone. That's not much of a deal, as I'm not 16 anymore, so I would break down the house, host parties and go wild. That time is long gone... I'm an adult now... responsible! :) :) Bullshit! I'm not really responsible when it comes to fun, but even so, no more parties like those at my place.

I did something else which was really cool, though. On Saturday, even so I had to work as well. I managed to find some time for myself. I started to clean up my computer's hard drive of junk and organize my files. I never realized it's such a mess there. Yes, it is still there, even so I worked for la 3 hours on it. I haven't got to finish up. I haven't done such a clean up in ages, as I didn't have much free time and energy for this. It was quite fun, as I found nice files that I haven't read/seen in a while. Then, around 9:30 pm, me and Flaviu went to this nice exhibition/fair, where people from all around Romania and some from the Republic of Moldavia were exhibiting their work. I can't translate the name in English as I really can't find these words: "Targul Mesterilor Populari". Even so, it was nice to admire the ceramic pots and wooden tools. Later that night we went out, and it turned out to be a "boys night out". I had loads of fun... and drinks :P We crashed at my place from where we left on Sunday.

On the next day, Relu, Georgi and I went for a day out fishing. This was really cool. I haven't been fishing in ages. We went to Talpos, which is a small village right next to the Crisul Negru river. Sadly Relu was not feeling very well. He felt dizzy and sick all day. In the picture above you can see Georgi feeding him. It think is one of the funniest pictures that I've got with Relu. He looks really strange in this one.

Helped by Petrica, a local, friend of Georgi, we got to this nice place, on the river shore, where we sat, ate and fish. He gave us all the tools needed, and also taught us a few tricks. It was so much fun. Alltogether we managed to catch 46 fish... most of them quite small, but still delicious. I had the "honor" of taking off scales, and to clean them inside and outside... Georgi's aunt that paid us a short visit also helped us with cleaning and also told us a way to cook the fish. as we really didn't know how to do it. She told us to put salt in a frying pan and put the fish over... well that didn't come out as we were expecting. It just spoiled some really good fish. So Petrica and his wife helped us one more time. They gave us flour and oil and showed us how to cook that fish. Damn it was delicious this time! Too bad Relu couldn't eat any. As a desert we also had a water melon, which was also amazing.

Overall it was an amazing day even though I was dead tired when I got back home at around 11pm. I got to get out of the city, relax, spend some quality time with my friends, and to do something different. Too bad Flaviu couldn't come as well. Besides Relu feeling sick, another bad thing about this day was the fact that my digital photo camera took a nice bath in the river, so now it's not functioning properly anymore. I'll have to get a new one, and I already know what's gonna be next... This wonderful Panasonic TZ1, with 5 MegaPixels, 10x optical zoom and 2.5 inch LCD screen, is my future digital friend. I'll let you know when I manage to get the money needed for this beauty... around 330 euro... plus taxes :P

Monopoly sucks!

2006-07-23T23:25:00.000+03:00

I'm not thinking about the game when I write this lines. I think about the real life monopoly. There are people/organizations that still take advantage of this. It's not fair and it's not good for the economy and society. It destroys opportunities and creates limits in long term development.

Soft-Scape, the company that I represent does also IT service and consulting. Many of our clients are transporters and customs commissioners. Well this week the Customs administration have changed some software that they are working with. This meant that many of my customers have to get it so they could work. This is where my company comes in and makes sure everything is done properly. Well this is where the shit began. They have offered this software for free (obviously) but never said that if you want to print your work (which is crucial for it to be done) you also need some add-ons for that particular software. Well these add-ons were only given to a company (competion, of course) which started selling them. That really put me in a bad light, as my customers were all needing it and they couldn't get it unless they paid another company. This sucks! Why is that? How can you think this way? Especially that the other company, even though it's older than mine, do not provide quality services and therefore many of our clients dumped them and asked for our services. So they suck! But still they got those add-ons (freely) and I didn't. I really belive this is bad and not fair. Obviously I managed to get* them (*to be read "steal"), but only after some of my customers had to pay for them. This kind of monopoly is really bad. I am so pissed about this... :(

Smoking? It's not worth it...

2006-07-23T23:13:00.000+03:00

About two weeks have passed since I have quit smoking... I have to confess that I have still smoked a few cigarettes since then, but only when drinking or being wild... Since I had quite a lot of fun during the past two weekends, I have also drank and smoked... I know! Bad me! I do want to say though, that I haven't smoked at all during the workdays.
This makes me want to share something that I feel. Smoking sucks! For many reasons. I have identified the things that really makes me believe that is way better as a non-smoker. These are: you stink when you smoke, smoke stinks like shit; it costs lots of money; you bother the non-smokers around you; it damages your health.
Today I was out fishing with Relu and Georgi. Amazing day. I'll write another post about it. What I want to say here is that I realized that feels amazingly well not smoking. It's so cool. I feel fresh. I don't keep my hands busy. I'm not stressed that I can't smoke in the car or in other places. I don't litter. I don't have my pockets full. I can really enjoy fresh country-side air. I'm lovin' it! It's really not worth smoking. I encourage all the smokers to stop doing it. I really do not recommend that anyone would ever start! Let's all stay fresh and be really cool!

Weekend. Remeti. Fun. Relaxation

2006-07-16T23:46:00.000+03:00

The title of this post describes very shortly what happened. What really gets me excited is that I got to relax. I got to chill and have fun and think of nothing. Well almost nothing :P

As I was saying in the previous post me and my friend, Flaviu left Oradea on Friday evening, by car, to join Popi and his friends in the Remeti for a wild weekend outside the city. It was indeed wild. We got there around 11pm ready to party. They were already quite friends with Bachus, but still in the mood for more. :) We got to the fire, outside, had a few beers, a considerable ammount of fun and something to eat. Really nice welcoming. :) Thank you Popi, Radu, Cristina and Lili. It was quite odd somehow to go there as they were too couples and we brought no girls with us. I really believe I won't do this again, but it was such a hurry the whole departure and no existent plan, so it just happened this way. Even so, we had an amazing time there. The guys were great and the girls also very nice and kind. Thanks again.

So, back to the story. On Friday we didn't stay up long, as we were all tired, and after a quick chess match with Flaviu, we both went to sleep. The cabin was really nice and not very expensive. We paid around 50 lei(14 euro)/room/night, so that took something like 7 euro/person. Which is ok :) By the way, the words "which is ok" are starting to bug me badly. I use them all the time. I even got Popi to say that all the time. Which is ok :) The people hosting us were so nice. They are a nice family with 2 kids. One of them, the older one, is a smart, well behaving, polite, but a bit shy boy. Very helpful and nice. The other creature was a mess. Dude, that kid was about 7 years, but he might be the most unpolite, rude, egocentric, selfish, mean and harmful kid I have ever seen. I don't think I've ever heard a person at his age talking so dirty and offensive. This is what I really disliked about this family. Anyway, in the end, after some more or less agressive chats with the imp, we managed to level somehow and in the end I guess I got his respect. But that was hard to earn. It's not that I needed, just that I think it's nice, normal, ethical to respect the ones older than you and to behave your age, and not like an ol' future less ingnorant drunkard. This kid actually opened up a nice discussion regarding the future of Romania. Interesting.

Saturday was also really fun. All day we drank beer, walked around a bit, played some rummy, cooked some food and basicly did nothing. Well not really nothing, as I had a few hours on the phone with different clients but still was much more fun than staying home. We laughed a lot and had a great time. Even if I'm speaking for myself right now, I'm quite convinced that everyone had fun. We took about 400 pictures this weekend. I am still shoked - which is ok. I will upload what I consider interesting on my online photo album, so you could check them out as well.

Today we decided to Stana de Vale, a place about 30 km from Remeti and around 95 from Oradea. When I think of 30 km I think of maximum 1/2 hour. Dude! The road was so bad, that we had to go with like 5-10 km/h. I didn't even know a car can go so slow. DAMN! I was so pissed as I had to take the car through all that pain. Man, the road looked like tomahawk missles charget nuclearly hit the way. I don't think I've seen so many holes in my hole life as I've seen on these 30 km. This really pissed me off. I mean we haven a beautiful country, which never stops to amaze and surprize me. And the stupid government doesn't take advantage of that. How can you even think of letting a road that connects directly two (or more) beautiful, well known, places in this part of the country, in that condition. Man, this road is what Hummers are made for. Idiots. It took us 2 hours to go 30 km. Fuck man! Somebody has to do something about that road. It was really stressful to drive all that time and try to avoid holes and strangely inclined terrain. But it was an experience, as Popi says. And quite a good one :)

We got finally to Stana de Vale where we took some more pictures. There I also visited my father's paintings exhibition and we've seen some really nice cars. Today there was a rally cup in that area. Sadly, we didn't get to see any of it. The really sad part was that it was raining quite badly and no sign of stopping. We didn't get to walk around that much, so we just had a few sandwiches, a few pictures and headed back to Oradea.

I'm convinced that I didn't manage to show you how much fun and good time there actually was, but maybe if you will see some pictures (not uploaded yet), you'll have a better view of the moment. I loved this weekend and I really enjoyed the companionship of these cool people. Thank you all of all the fun. I really do hope we'll get together again for such a trip.

Now, I go to bed as tomorrow it's gonna be another hell of a day. Cheers and good luck with everything you do. Buh-bye! ;)

Catching up...

2006-07-16T22:42:00.000+03:00

Phew! It's been about 9 days since I last posted on this blog. The past two weeks were TOO much. :) I'm not sure I got to mention this, but about two weeks ago, my dear friends and boss, Sanyi, left the country and headed to the USA. Well, since then all things are different, as I have much more stuff to do and much more responsibility. I do appreciate all the help that my colleague, Adi, is giving me and I wanna say thanks for that. I couldn't do it without him.

Now to sum up what happened in the past weeks. Well, after getting licenced in marketing, I had this wonderful weekend with my friends. We went out, we had barbecue, got out of the city and celebrated. It was an awesome weekend. I even got time to rest a bit, so I could start all fresh and ready on Monday, at work. Well I started ready alright, but not really fresh. I was really feeling like I needed a short holiday. Just that I don't see it coming in the next few weeks.

This last week was almost horrible. At work it was a total mess, especially on Thursday and Friday, when the smart ass administrator from the Oradea Customs, had to change the firewall on their sever and therefore all our clients that do paperwork for import/export were forced to change they way they worked as well. I don't wanna get into details. It's just that I've been, together with Adi, very busy trying to fix all the mess created. I still haven't succeeded, but I do hope that tomorrow will be the last day to think about this shit.

Anyway, on Friday, I was almost dead tired. But my salvation came around. My class mate and friend Bogdan Popa (further refered to as Popi) invited me to join him and his friends on a weekend in Remeti. That's a magnificient place in the Carpathian Mountains, about 90 km from Oradea. I was convinced I wouldn't make it, but finally I managed to get things done in a way that made it possibile for me to go. Not much time for preparation or nice invitations, so I just called Flaviu, knowing he's free and left town around 9:30 pm on Friday. What happened there, I'll write in the next post. :)

Oh! I forgot to mention...

2006-07-07T14:01:00.000+03:00

I made a deal with myself about two weeks ago, that if I manage to get the licence I quit smoking. I promised myself to do this... And I also told my friends and family about it. Sadly I tried this so many times. Over the past two years I have quit smoking 3 times, but never really managed to get rid of this habbit for good. "Bad habbits die hard"... So, in order to be even more determined to do it properly this time, I make a commitment to you as well, my dear readers. I hope I won't let you down.

So, starting with Monday I will stop smoking again. I appologize to those who will come in contact with me next week. I bet it won't be very pleasant for them. :P

Today is the day (2/2)

2006-07-07T12:54:00.000+03:00

Well actually yesterday was the day... today it's just the next day. But it's still cool to say that I finally finished the forth education cycle in my life. This is SO cool. I'm done with the university. I finally graduated and got my licence.

It's such a relief... I can't belive it. I was so stressed lately, especially during the past week. But Now I'm done. I can finally focus on my work and on myself. :)

So what next?

- party really hard this weekend :)

- get back on track with my job

- have my well deserved holydays

- masters... maybe :P

- traineeship

That's the plan. We'll see what comes out of it.

I want to thank all of you that supported me: my family, and my friends (Relu, Flaviu, Ana, Georgi, Crys, Sanyi, and many others). Also I want to say a big thanks to all of my colleagues at the university for helping me with exams, advices and support. You've all been great, especially you Bogdan. And in the end, would come the professors that have been very supportive (D. Coita, I.Pop Cohut, A. Dodescu, A. Tomescu). I couldn't have made it so far without your help.

My favorite Yahoo Emoticons

2006-07-05T15:51:00.000+03:00

I started using Yahoo IM very much in past few months. And I start to like it a lot actually. I have even started to use more emoticons than usual so I thought I should select the ones I love the most. Here they are :)

>:p	Phbbbbbt!	:-w	Waiting	@};-	Rose
8-}	Silly	:-o	Surprise	:)]	On the phone
>-)	Alien	b-(	Beat-up	:">	Blushing
:-@	Chatterbox	\:D/	Dancing	;))	Hee Hee
:-??	I don't know	/:)	R. Eyebrows	%-(	Not listening

I hope you like them as much as I do :)
P.S. The exam yesterday went quite well. I can hardly wait to see the results today. ;) Thanks for all the encouragements I got lately. You rock! :)

Today is the day (1/2)

2006-07-04T11:09:00.000+03:00

Hello, I'll have to keep this post short, as I still have a lot of work to do. As I was saying the a while ago, I managed to pass all my exams and now I have to only get the licence. Well, today is my first exam in a series of two. I have the written test today, and... if I pass this one, I'll get to attend the one on Thursday. I didn't get much time to study, so I'll have to rely on my luck and my analyzing capacity, so I could write some stuff on that paper. Hopefully I'll get it done, properly. So... wish me luck. I'll be back soon with the results... whether they are good or not. Cheers!

A weekend full of concerts in Oradea

2006-07-03T11:17:00.000+03:00

Yep, it has been a long weekend. Somehow, I'll always hate the memory of this weekend, as I spent most of it studying for my license exam. Not much fun on this part. And I hate it even more as it was a very animated weekend in the old Oradea, and I couldn't attend much of it. Anyway, there were some really cool parts which I happily joined. It all started on Friday, when the largest telephone company in Romania, Romtelecom, held a free concert here. Well the bands sucked... BIG time! But it was fun anyway to attend such an event, as it's been a while since the last time I was in such a place. Too bad that most of the cute girls were not there... I mean except for kids and high-school rebels and some parents there was nothing much to see. :(

The next cool thing happening this weekend in Oradea was a three days event called The Oradea Fortress Celebrations. This happens every year, but this year was really cool. Starting with nice costumes and music, and ending with the traditional mix of concerts, "mici" and beer, it was a nicely organized fest. As I said, sadly, I couldn't attend much of it, but still I enjoyed the concerts held on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday evening I initially joined Relu and Georgi for a short refreshing walk, which was everything but short, as I got home around 1 am. The Iris band, one of the most popular bands in Romania, threw a hell of show, with really really nice songs. It was really fun. Sunday, also I went out, even though I didn't plan to. Back to the fortress, for another magnificient concert of Phoenix. I even forgot how cool these two bands were, and how cool the Romanian language sounds put nicely in a good song. :) I loved it. Last night it's been also very long, as I got home around 3 am. Damn! That was late! :P Especially thinking that I'm way behind schedule with studying and that today I had to wake early to get to work.

Now, even though that my eyes are almost falling, I am happy that I had such weekend nights. It was cool. Too bad Matt couldn't stay longer to attend those. Man, you would have loved this.

What is the internet for?

2006-06-30T21:34:00.000+03:00

This is one of the funniest online video I have ever seen. I love it. Check it out!!!

Monopoly pay back time!

2006-06-30T21:25:00.000+03:00

The next two days (Monday and Tuesday) were not so great for Matt. Sadly I was working at least a few hours a day, and we was kind of boring. Sorry about that, man. Even so, we got to do some fun stuff. I taught him how to play Romanian Rummy, so on Monday evening we had two rounds of it. In the first round my mother joined as well. We had a lot of fun.
Then on Tuesday we got to go to the pool for a few hours. That was very relaxing also. Matt was telling me that he doesn't think that there are such places in Canada. Maybe we could open a business there. :D You know, make some money. It is inded a great place to relax at. So after we fried a bit, we got back home and started playing Monopoly. This was my payback time. I guess it was one of the longest monopoly game I have ever played, but also most exciting. We played for over 4 hours and in the end I got to own pretty much everything. Well that was a view! Even the bank was broke. I had all the money ($16335) and most of the properties, as Matt was holding hard with the Greens (Pacific Av. area) and the Pinks (St. Charles Av. area). You know, when you play Monopoly, the wheel tends to turn quite unexpectedly. Well this game it kept on turning. I was at least two times almost bankrupt, and so was Matt. It was a hell of a game. Thanks Matt for the opportunity.

Sadly, the next day, at 7:00AM, Matt left Romania. :( I was really sad for him leaving. It was so great meeting him again. He is indeed a great guy. Thank you Matt for the visit, and I hope you'll return some day so we could visit other places around Romania. Take care, my friend.

Bears Cave

2006-06-30T21:05:00.000+03:00

Damn this week was full. I can't belive it. I couldn't get the time to write about what else happened while Matt was in Romania, visiting me. Anyway... So about this Bears Cave. Is that a cave full of bears? Or maybe it's a cave owned by somebody named Bears. Well the first option is more close to reality. It is a cave indeed, in Bihor county, Romania, discovered back in 1875 by accident, where were found about 154 cave bear skeletons. This species of bears was extinct around 12000 years ago, during the last ice age.
This is the place where Matt and I, together with Flaviu and Ioana (Christina) went on Sunday. It was so cool. We woke up early in the morning after just few hours of sleep. We took all the passengers form their beds and left the city behind. It's not a long drive, just about 90Km, so in no time we were there. I was shocked to be required to pay besides the entrance fee (about 1,5 EUR), also a photo fee(about 4,5 EUR). WTF is that? I mean why do I have to pay to take photos? Anyway. We paid and got inside. The guide started telling us about the cave in Romanian, so I had to translate to Matt. Man, that wasn't easy. The guy was speaking quite fast and my English, definately got worse since I last spoke it. Anyway, after about 45 minutes minutes of cave exploring and 200 photos later (we definately took photos for that money) we got out. Then we realized again how hot actually was outside. I've understood that inside the cave it's a constant temperature of +10 degrees Celsius, no matter the season. Well outside there were at least 30.

Ioana felt the urge to pick up flowers once we got outside. Flowers that we've called weeds all day after. It was so much fun. But she seamed really happy having them. The whole way back she was blabbering about the way I was taking turns on the road, as the little plastic bottle that she used for putting the flowers in waters, kept falling. I am sorry that the road is not straight, Ioana. :)

So we left Bears Cave, with that nice feeling that you've seen something beautiful. Well that was short, as we came across this nice museum.

It was amazing. This nice family was hosting freely a state of the art museum in their own house. It was full of old stuff. And I mean really old. Stuff dating from even before World Wars. Starting with traditional clothes and soldier helmets, continuing with tools for gardening or woodcutting, and ending with really old fireplaces and spindles, this whole museum impressed us to the bone. We even found a jack (cric) for the wagon, made out of wood. And a chain made out of wood. Wow! That was cool! We were thinking how the hell did the creator made it. It was a chain with it's rings put together, but without cutting or glueing the wood. Amazing. Too bad Matt didn't felt like joining us, as he took of he's shoes, and he was too lazy to put them back on. We were speechless when we came out.

Once we got back to Oradea, we felt like going to the pool. So we went. Too bad it was closing about 1/2 hour later, so we had to change plans again. We went back to Felix where we were supposed to meet Relu and Georgi, but, sadly we could not set up the meeting properly, so we couldn't find them. We had a nice sandwich though :)

Once we got home, around 8pm, we were so tired that we didn't felt like going out anymore. So we just hanged around and played monopoly. Obviously Matt won. I couldn't believe it. He was so damn lucky! :)

Oradea sightseeing

2006-06-25T21:11:00.000+03:00

It has been a long Saturday. I woke up quite early, taking into consideration that last night we got home very late and got to bed even later. We had breakfast and we went to Baile Felix. We shown Matt the water lilies and other things around this place and then we went for a chess game at the Thermal Hotel. You know, those big chess pieces I've mentioned before. It was cool. Until I lost :P Nah, it was great all the way. It wasn't easy for him to beat me anyway. He needed a lot of focus :)

After that we went back to Oradea and met up with my friends Relu and Georgi to go for a tour. We saw the old buildings from the center of the town, the Theatre, and an old synagogue. It was very cool to find out more about it and about the Jews beliefs. I tried to translate to Matt as accurate as possible whatever we got from this old man who was kind enough to tell us a few words about that building and about this religion. The building was nice also, but kinda left to fall apart as there weren't enough money to make it look good. Too bad. In front of the synagogue, in the picture to the right, you can see a white tent. Well that's where it was hold an event which we also visited before the synagogue: "The Days of the Romanian Carpet". I don't know much about carpets, but I really don't think those were traditional carpets. So it wasn't much fun.

After the short religious enlightenment, we went to visit the Fortress of Oradea. Well it's a nice very old building. Quite large, dating since around the year 1000. I hope he liked this also.

Later, we went out. Well it was a hell of a night. We had so much fun, and so many laughs. Amazing. Around 4:30am, after a long night of going through different clubs and pubs we decided to go to eat. That's when the real fun began. Matt needed to take a leak so he embraced the nature. Literally! We still don't know what he stepped in, but it sure smelled like sh*t. We were sitting at the table, together with Flaviu and Ioana (well Cristina, as Matt knows her) and we were laughing like crazy. You should have seen the look on Matt's face. He was really worried about smelling so bad, but still, laughing with us. I really believe that he stepped, up to his waist, in some sewer drains or something, because it was sure as hell stinking bad. I am happy though that he didn't hurt himself. Just got seriously dirty. I can't find my words right now to describe the whole story, but I do hope that Matt's gonna present it on his blog with more details. We got home very late that night. Around 6:00 AM, just well for a few hours of sleep, to get ready for the next day, when we were to go to the Bears Cave.

Matt's coming

2006-06-24T13:42:00.000+03:00

My team mate from the Croatian AIESEC MC is in Romania. This is a very thrilling news. Well it's not actually news, as he's been planning to come for a while now... I'm really happy he decided to come here and I do hope he's gonna have a good time. Sadly he won't see much of Romania. Just Oradea, my hometown, and maybe some other close by places. Today I went to pick him up by car from Timisoara. He arrived by train, from Belgrade. I hope he brought pictures :P I loved Belgrade. My friend Flaviu has came with me to pick him up as is a long way and I didn't feel like going alone. There we've met Codruta, another dear friend of mine and had a nice souvlaki. Well it wasn't the usual souvlaki I know, but it was very good anyway.

Tomorrow I'll take Matt to see the water lilies I mentioned in the some previous posts. So I'll be back tomorrow with more news.

101 years old man was sexually harassed

2006-06-23T12:16:00.000+03:00

I'm shocked. During my news break I read this incredible article about an old man, August K., from Berlin, Germany who was sexually harassed by a hot blonde. He is 101 years old, and is a former movie director in Germany. The blonde "attacked" him in an elevator, rubbing herself to him and touching his (yuck!) ass. He called the cops. Maaaaan! She must have been insane, and definately he's both stupid and impotent. What are the chances that at 101 y.o. to be picked up by a hot blondie?
Anyway, if there are any blondes that would like to "attack" me this way, I promise I won't press charges. I won't mind, and I might help :P Just let me know ;)

Personal DNA

2006-06-20T11:00:00.000+03:00

I was reading Ivna's blog today, while really in a bad mood. Good part is that it cheered me up. She generally has this effect on me. :) She's always optimistic when in comes to the others :) So, this cool post I was reading led me to this cool site where you cand find out your own DNA according to your personality. So I took the quiz and this is what I've got:

If you feel like reading more about my PersonalDNA report, just click here. I even invite you to speak your mind about it. ;)

Don't forget that you can always get your own "personal profile" at this link. Enjoy!

Bribe and Football in a "news break"

2006-06-14T14:22:00.000+03:00

I generally have what I call "news-breaks". These are moments when I just read newspapers online, in order to relax a bit, have a few laughs and think of something different than work (or in this case study). So today, while reading the news I came across two funny articles. One about bribery in Romania and the other about some women that hate football.
So what's funny about these two subjects, you may ask. Well bribery is not funny. It's common in Romania which makes it even less fun. I hate that you have to/can bribe policemen, administration, doctors, taxi drivers, anyone. This is not good and not fair. So, after other anti-bribery campaigns that were ran in Romania, the government comes up with a new one. This one is funnier somehow, as they want to print 0 (zero) lei bills which tell people about the lack of morality of bribery. I think it's a wonderful idea. I just hope that no one will try to bribe someone with this bills. haha!

The anti-football women protest I find it also really funny. Some women from Spain started this and then their friends from UK became solidary to the cause. Fighting for "a Football-free England", they invite you to "rise against the World Cup tournament". It's so funny. They said they got sick of not getting enough attention from their hubbies and of the fact they can't watch their favorite soap operas. I don't like football that much but I still watch some important games. So for me it wouldn't be the greatest loss. But the point is that this whole freedom of speech is getting beyond limits. I mean we all have the right to do things we love. Guys love football, so what? There's nothing you can do about it. You wanna watch soap operas, buy a new TV or wait until the championship is over. It's not like it lasts for years. Also guys respect the women's need for shopping, gossip and shoes.

Study time

2006-06-14T10:39:00.000+03:00

Hard times are now for me... I have to study for my last exams and prepare properly for the licence thesis and exams. It's more difficult than I thought, but it'll be just fine. It's just that it takes a lot of time and energy.

This is why I won't have much time to write on my blog. Even so, I'll try to keep it as updated as possible.

So, wish me luck and stay tuned. :)

Sunday out... in Felix Spa

2006-06-11T22:25:00.000+03:00

There's this really cool and famous (in Romania at least) thermal baths resort right near my hometown, Oradea. It is the biggest of its kind in Romania and it's called Baile Felix - Felix Baths/Spa. Felix in Latin means happy so these would be the happy baths. It's a really nice place. I went there today with my friends for a walk and some fresh air. It was nice, really nice. :) I also took my camera with me so I could catch a few moments and to the right you can see some of the coolest. I'll try to explain a few things to you.

I'm not religious but I love beautiful buildings. And that church over there is really nice. Entirely made of wood, it was disassembled, brought to this marvelous place and reassembled. Quite a lot of work. This is quite amazing in this part of the world. There are a lot of churches. Here in Felix Spa I've seen at least 2 and in the surrounding area there should be at least 3 more. That's quite a lot taking into consideration the area we're talking about.

In one of the pictures we have a frog on a water lily. I don't know how many of you knew, but Felix Baths's thermal water lilies are in a natural reservation and protected by law. Other water lilies like this in their natural environment can only be found in Egypt.

And the last thing I want to tell you about tonight is the large size chess "table" that the Termal Hotel is offering for use, free of charge. You can see us playing in the pictures. It was so much fun playing chess with such large pieces. It doesn't give you a very good perspective of the table and situation, but it's still very cool.

So this is what I was doing this Sunday sunny afternoon, when I should have been studying. But hey! A little bit of mind relaxation it's just welcomed in this moments. If you ever feel tense, and there's a sunny day outside, I strongly recommend you to catch your breath in this marvelous place.

Damn University!

2006-06-09T12:32:00.000+03:00

The damn, piece of shit, university of oradea is fucking me up again. After my hopes regarding my graduation this year rose to the point where I almost thought I'm gonna make it... here comes this bad news. I have some exams left-overs from previous years... so they have this remaining exams session next week. One week for all the exams for all the forth year students. Anyway, it should be achievable. But there are two big problems rising for me:

1. I'm still not cleared up about my exams situation I was writing in a previous post. They still haven't figured it out if I passed or not certain exams which I'm SURE I passed.

2. I have 4 out of 5 fucking remaining exams set on next Thursday. How is anybody supposed to do something like this? I have exams from 9:30, 10:00, 12:00 and 15:00. Damn! I still don't know how am I going to attend the second since the first one will definately take longer than 1/2 hour.

Dude, this sucks! It ain't fucking fair! I know I know. Life isn't supposed to be fair, but still. This is really shitty. And that's not all. If they still haven't figure it out with my grades situation, I might have a few more. And take a wild guess when! No, not on Thursday, but on Tuesday... at the same time, 5pm, in two different places. This is gonna be so cool.

So... fuck the university and the narrow minded people that set up this exams schedule.

European Adventure

2006-06-09T12:27:00.000+03:00

Ok. It's in Romanian language only. Sad! But it's still the coolest online game I have ever found. So I guess you're still asking yourselves "what's this all about?". Well simple. You get an avatar which "travels" around europe and asks your questions about the places he gets to. Nothing special till now. The cool part is that in order to answer these questions you have to search the web and read about those places. So you get to find out really interesting things about Europe, and maybe, plan your future trips even better. I strongly recommend this game to anyone willing to learn more about Europe. I'm lovin' it! :) Oh! And also there are prizes to get which makes it even more interesting. Read more on the website.

Learning about the place you live in...

2006-06-07T14:24:00.000+03:00

Today I had to make this little big project for school so I needed to research a bit regarding the geography and demography of my hometown, Oradea. So wikipedia and google were once again besides me in this moments of despair. I was shocked how many things I never knew about my town. A few weeks ago, actually I was walking around downtown and while looking all over the place I realized that I know nothing about the buildings, the history or the culture of the city. I was ashamed, so I told a few friends that we should do a sightseeing one weekend to learn more about this, indeed beautiful place. That didn't happen yet, but today I am even more determined to do thing. I found out today that during medieval times the 0 meridian was considered to pass right through the heart of this town, so all the maps in that era were mentioning this. Nowadays just some maritime maps still recognize this place as the center of the world.

Now I can say that I was born in the center of the world, just that I missed it by a few centuries. :)

There are a lot of unique things about this place. It has also quite a long history as the first documents mentioning its name dated since the year 1113. I know you'll say it's bad luck. Well it didn't have actually lots of luck as it suffered many damages during the pass of times as many people have tried to conquer this place and sometimes they have obviously succeeded. I don't see this as a bad thing though. Through this the culture and population of this place has ben enriched and developed so there's a good side of it. I was impressed to read about the evolution of the population. Check this out:

year 1910: 69.000 (Romanian: 5.6%, Hungarian: 91.10%)
year 1920: 72.000 (Romanian: 5%, Hungarian: 92%)
year 1930: 90.000 (Romanian: 25%, Hungarian: 67%)
year 1941: 98.621 (Romanian: 5,17%, Hungarian: 92,08%)
year 1966: 122.634 (Romanian: 46%, Hungarian: 52%)
year 1977: 170.531 (Romanian: 53%, Hungarian: 45%)
year 1992: 222.741 (Romanian: 64%, Hungarian: 34%)

year 2002: 220.732 (Romanian: 70.4%, Hungarian: 27.5%)

Obviously there are also other ethnic groups but much smaller. The next in the rank would be the gypsies (Rrom) which have 1.2% of the population. I wouldn't say that this is good, but we gotta accept them too. We are very culturally open, right? :P

I would love to write more about this but now I gotta get back to study as the time passes too fast. I will return with more info and eventually pictures of my lovely hometown. Meanwhile, in case you want to visit, let me know. I believe it's worth it.

Cheers!

Thank you readers

2006-06-07T10:06:00.000+03:00

When I started this blog was mainly because I wanted to put some thoughts one next to another so I could keep them somehow safe from forgetfulness. Now, just one month later, watching the statistics I realized that over 250 unique visitors from over 20 countries around the world, have visited at least once my blog. I was not expecting this, so I just wanna say thanks to all of you who read this blog, to all of you who returned to read more and all of you who even posted links to my blog on your own. I hope I won't let you down. Cheers!

Love or Friendship?

2006-06-06T23:14:00.000+03:00

I've got this amazing quote from a good friend, of mine, a nice girl from Constanta... It said "One day Friendship and Love met. They introduced themselves one to the other. Then Love asked Friendship: "If I exist, what's your role in life?" And Friendship answered: "I leave a smile where you drop a tear".
Touching isn't it? I was deeply impressed. :)
Thank you Bubulici for this wonderful words!

Another nice quote...

2006-06-06T16:03:00.000+03:00

I was browsing through TV channels on Friday afternoon until one moment when I came across this old looking movie. It was interesting so I stopped. The movie was Moonstruck (1987) starring Nicholas Cage and Cher. It is a really cool movie, definitely worth watching. Sadly I didn't catch the beginning of the movie, just some of the middle and the end. Even so, I was lucky enough to get this quote which is SO cool. Check it out:
Ronny: "Loretta, I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn't know this either, but love don't make things nice - it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and *die*. The storybooks are *bullshit*. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and *get* in my bed!"

666 - The Mark of the Beast

2006-06-06T11:08:00.000+03:00

Today is the day 666. It's the 6th day of the 6th month in the 6th year of this millennium. Ain't it funny?

So I googled "what does 666 mean?". 6,310,000 results for this words. That's a lot. :) Anyway, I found two sites saying pretty much so I'll just take it as real. They say that the Bible, written 2000 years ago, describes "the beast", the devil, under the number of 666. "666" - the mystical sequence of number that causes many to catch their breath and recall verses from the Bible. The sequence of numbers representing one less than perfect (777). But what does it mean? When will it happen? Could it happen today?

What does 666 mean and can a name be calculated from it? Strangely, the answer is a resounding "yes". The Hebrew alphabet does not distinguish between characters and numbers like the modern day English alphabet. For any given letter there is a numerical equivalent. Using the table above you can calculate a numerical value from a word by adding the numerical value of each letter in the word (click the image for a full size view of the table). What does "Jesus" calculate to? 888. One more than perfect (777).

As stated above, many believe that the numerical value - 666 - represents one less than perfect (777) and further support this by the fact that "Jesus" totals 888 (one greater than perfect). Others believe that it represents a numerological value of the Beast's actual name. Some claim it's merely a representation of some sort of number based system that will be implemented to buy and sell products.
UPC barcodes, when first introduced, caused many to speculate that the tagging by the Beast was about to begin. Decades later - no evil tagging was initiated. But today, a new method of identification sounds strangely similar to the warnings given in the Bible and many people are beginning to panic.

If you want to read more about this just check this webpage. Enjoy the 666 day! :)

Marriage...

2006-06-04T12:47:00.000+03:00

My colleague from work, Adi, has got married yesterday. Yeah well, he made the step. So me and the boss, Sanyi, we were invited also to the big event and were also happy to be part of it. But there were some moments which kinda got me thinking.

I never attended marriages in other countries so I don't know how it goes there, but here there is this lady representing the state, which asks you if you want to take each other. I'm referring to the legal part and not the church wedding. Anyway, this lady yesterday was really fast, which was good as we didn't wait for long speeches, but that bad part was that she was TOO short! Like "Citizen X, do you take citizen Y to be your lawfully wedded wife?" "Yes" "Citizen Y, do you take citizen X to be your lawfully wedded husband?" "Yes" "I declare you husband and wife. Please sign here." Nothing more. I was expecting informing people like "dude, are you really really really sure? :P ". Just kidding. It was alright. :) But also strange was seeing this guy, who is also my age, taking this big step in his life. Well this got me the creeps. It really freaks me out the idea of me standing there and saying that "I do", and knowing that "That's all folks!". Dude!

So this way, in case he's gonna read this blog someday, I just wanna say that I'm truly happy for them and that I wish them a "happily ever after" life story :)

New age clubbing...

2006-06-04T11:18:00.000+03:00

I'm not into clubbing that much anymore... there are several reasons for that happening. One would be the style of clubs in my city. I'm not much impressed of them. I only like a few and even them are less than I saw in other places. Anyway, the one that I've visited last night was a mess. Actually I even know the owner and he invited me several times to his new club. Well, dude! That place kinda suck. Last night for instance, lots of things went wrong there, but let me tell you the whole story.

I got there around 10:30pm. I was in quite a good mood, taking into consideration that I was tired like hell. I was supposed to meet some friends and go to a place I always liked called "Joy". But last night they picked this "Club 45" thing. We went there and quickly realized that the place is almost empty, without mobile coverage and with a heavy smell of mold. We sat down, had a beer and all of a sudden the the lights go out. They kept us there for about 10-15 minutes in dark, with no music or lights. I felt like in the "Ceausescu era". Maybe they forgot to pay the bill and then they switched to the neighbor's energy supply... :P

After they fixed the problem, I was hoping that people would start coming and eventually, they would start dancing even if the music was a big disappointment. But no, that wasn't gonna happen. I guess last night was the shortest night I ever spent clubbing. At 0:15 I was home, in bed, with my laptop, reading. A hell of a night...

I've got a new favorite quote ;)

2006-06-01T10:45:00.000+03:00

Today I decided I should open MSN messenger just to see what's new... I don't use it as much anymore, so it's good to check it out from time to time. Anyway, I am happy I did it, as I found this awesome quote: "I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves". Strindberg said that and I think it's awesome. :)

Mystery solved

2006-05-30T22:16:00.000+03:00

I was saying my last post that I got this message from an old friend of mine... Well she became my new mystery girl as I couldn't remember whom she was actually. Not until tonight. It took me a while to find out "who's that girl". But now I know. And I am very happy that she wrote. We haven't spoke to each other since highschool... So for about 7 years now. Such a long time. It's so interesting how life separates people and, sometimes, it just gets them back together. At the same time, I love and I hate that about life. But now I'm happy for meeting my old, old friend. Thank you Dana. :)

True... True...

2006-05-30T13:18:00.000+03:00

nuI guess you've already heard about Hi5.com. Well it really does connect the world. For instance, an old friend of mine just sent me a message telling me some things we used to do in the past, but without telling me who she really is. So it's up to me to guess now, which is totally cool. While checking her profile out, I ran into her journal, which sadly has only 3 posts, but one of them is awesome. I read it several times and now I decided I have to post it here as well. I still haven't got her permission for this, but I do hope she'll be alright with it. You can see the original post here. The text bellow is translated so it might not be 100% accurate. I'll do my best to maintain the "spirit" of the quote.

"...We have time for everything...to sleep...to run from here to there...to regret what we've done wrong and to repeat the mistake...to judge the others and to forgive ourselves...we also have time to write...to subedit what we wrote... to regret what we wrote...we have time to make projects and not to respect them...we have time to have illusions and to rummage later in their ash... we've got time for ambitions and diseases, to blame the destiny and the details... we have time to watch the clouds, commercials or a certain accident...we have time to chase off our questions...to postpone our answers...we have time to crash a dream and reinvent it...we've got time to make friends, and lose them... we have time to get lessons and then forget them... we have time to receive gifts and not understand them... we've got time for everything... there is no time for a little tenderness... when we are about to do it - we die... I have learned that you can't get somebody to love you... all you can do is to be a loved person...the rest...it's up to the others... I learned that no matter how much I'd care, the others might not care at all... I've learned that takes years to gain trust, and just a few seconds to lose it. I've learned that it does not matter what you've got in life but whom you've got. I've learned that you can get on and your charm is useful for about 15 minutes... but then, you'd better know some things... I learned that you don't need to compare yourself with what the others can do, but with what you can do... I've learned that it doesn't matter what happens to the people, but what I can do to solve it out... I learned that no matter how you'd cut, everything has two sides... I learned that you need to break apart from the loved ones with warm words, because it might be the last time you see them... I learned that you can continue for a long time after you said you can't make it anymore. I've learned that there are people that love you, but they don't know how to show it... I learned that when I'm angry I have the right to be angry, but I may not be evil... I've learned that friendship and true love continues to exist even over distance... I learned that if somebody doesn't love you as you wished they would, doesn't mean that doesn't love you from all their heart. I've learned that no matter how good your friend is, from time to time they will hurt you, and you have to forgive that. I've learned that it isn't always enough to be forgiven by the others, sometimes you have to learn to forgive yourself. I learned that no matter how much you suffer, the world will not stop for your pain... I've learned that the past and circumstances might have an influence on your personality, but you are responsible for what you become. I've learned that if two people fight, it doesn't mean that they don't love eachother, as well as the fact that if they don't fight, it doesn't mean that they're in love. I learned that sometimes you have to point the person and not their actions... I've learned that two people looking at one thing they might see something totally different... I've learned that no matter the consequences, the ones that are honest with themselves go further in life... I've learned that your life can be changed in a few hours by people which don't even know you... I've learned that writing and talking can calm soul pains...I've learned that it is too hard to figure it out when to draw the line between being nice, not hurting people and stand up for your opinions...

... But more than anything, I've learned to love so I could be loved..."

Thank you for this wonderful lines...

Drink and Drive Record in Lithuania

2006-05-25T13:43:00.000+03:00

I'm still shocked. I just read this news about the this Lithuanian guy caught drinking and driving by the Police. The drunk bastard was barely keeping the car on the road when the police pulled him over to check him out. The policemen tried several times the breath tester before believing the results. Well the guy had an incredible amount of pure alcohol in his blood: 7,27 grams per liter. That means he had 18 times more alcohol than the amount allowed by the Lithuanian law. If you think that's not that much, check this out: a 3,5 grams/liter concentration can easily kill a normal human being. The guy had over twice that amount and still driving. DUDE!

Photo session at a drink

2006-05-25T11:03:00.000+03:00

Yesterday, soon after my mood rose, me and my friend (and boss) Sanyi went for a drink downtown. I also took the camera just in case there are some opportunities to take cool photos. And it seams there were some. We took over forty pictures, but just some of them are worth mentioning. So here they are. I think they look quite well. The sad part is that they don't present the bright side of our society. Even so, we can't turn our back to this reality and we do have to accept it. Whether we like that or not.

Crna macka, beli macor

2006-05-25T10:54:00.000+03:00

A.K.A. Black Cat, White Cat. I don't know how many of you have seen Emir Kusturica's movie. It's an amazing movie. Last night I was just coming back home from swiming and my friend Flaviu has sent me an sms telling me that there's a gipsy movie on TV about some wedding. I guess he knows I love these movies. Then I realized that it had to be this movie. As soon as I got home I tuned on that tv station (it wasn't even set, as it generally sucks) and layed on my bed to watch it. Sadly I only caught the end of it. Even so, it was really cool to see it again. I strongly recommend it to anyone who don't mind reading subtitles, as I doubt many of you will understand the words. I guess they are serbian, but more like a gipsy serbian. :) Enjoy!

Keeping Promises

2006-05-24T10:53:00.000+03:00

Moment: still morning. Location: Office. Mood: Pissed!!!
I hate that people just don't keep their promises. It sucks! I mean, don't fucking promise something unless you wanna do it and you know YOU CAN do it. Why bother otherwise? If you say something and then never do it, you just piss off people, lose credibility, look like an idiot. I hate this about people.
I also hate people that are always late. The same shit. Don't say an hour if you can't make it by then. It just sucks waiting for others. And, in the end, how dare you keep the others waiting? Are you some sort of a fucking all-rights president? Noooooo! You're not.
So just keep your damn promises and be on time, for crying out loud!
Mood: Much better, thank you Aziz. :)

Eminescu and Shakespeare in the same poem (RO)

2006-05-23T16:29:00.000+03:00

I love you atat de tare
Incat I believe ca mor,
You are so incantatoare
Oh, my dear, cat te-ador.

When I go la brat cu tine
Ma simt very magulit
Ca are looking toti la mine
Oh, I'm so, so fericit.

All ar fi atat e bine .
But you see, nu-i chiar asa
Caci I tell ce simt in mine
Dar tu smile si smile intr-una

And I think ca spun traznai.
Please don't face pe nebuna
Si mai look in ochii mei.

Understand? I love you draga
Cum the hell sa-ti mai vorbesc
You are totul pentru mine
And I want sa te-ntalnesc.

But is difficult, vezi bine
Caci your mother is pe faza
Si din five in five minute
Carefully te controleaza

Top 10 Trends for 2006

2006-05-23T14:54:00.000+03:00

8:30. Morning. I get to the office. There's some really imporntant short meeting I need to have with two of our colleagues. I was unable to react properly as I was almost sleeping... It ends before I actually realize that I haven't said much. Even so, I was happy with the verdict. I turn on my computer waiting for the water to boil so I could have my salvation: coffee. Meanwhile, I read the news. Politics. Day-to-Day life. Celebrities. Health. IT. bla bla bla bla. And then I find this little (well not that little) article about the top 10 trends in 2006.
According to the Scala JWT, the oldest advertising agency in the world, globally there are 10 trends that are definately influencing the way we live our lives this year, and in the future. So here they are:
1. Sex without apologies. The pornographic age has come and now there's no need to say sorry for being caught in a bad (sexual) position. The sexual incidents of the celebrities are now reason for fun and not for shame.
2. Miming fame and reality. The line between fame and reality is thinner and thinner... And the media is getting it even thinner. The TV has brought the people to the point where nobody can say it's real or not. We are all intoxicated with false truths.
3. Beyond time in India and China. The two largest countries in the world have gone beyond the big numbers, cheap labor and outsourcing centers. People started apreciating those two countries not so much for their gold or jewels, or the interior design, but for the philosophy, for the attitude towards the day to day life, for the spiritual equilibrium. Lately people around the world tend to be more and more in favor for spiritual development.

4. No brakes. With all the connectivity and communication systems around us there is no way to take a brake nowadays. You can be reached even in the bathroom, in the train or in the plane... even in your bedroom while... sleeping :P

5. Natural disasters and eco-science. A couple of years ago we were convinced that we got to the point where we can control the environment. Well that was a bad guess as the Tsunami in December 04 and shortly after Katrina hurricane demonstrates. These to natural disasters made us realize that we are still guests on this planet.

6. Living with the Islam. The muslim religion has very different points of view in terms of cohabitation, women emancipation and separation of state administration and religion. Therefore there will be more and more problems regarding the mentioned reasons.

7. Addicted to personal control. In each sector, consumers are expecting to have more and more control and decision making, as the interactive technology gives them this chance. The remote control, ATMs, WiFi, are helping users to save up energy and time, while the consumers are expecting more power and more ease of use each day, for each products. The brands are hardly keeping up with our expectations.

8. Brand non-fidelity. People are beginning to cheat on their old favorite brands. Consumers are no longer interested so much in brands as in products and gadgets. The fact that the competition is very strong and the information travels really fast, it's giving the marketing specialits huge headaches. It's very hard now to keep your product on top.

9. Virtual mobility. Due to pollution, traffic jams, agglomeration, people will slowly give up physical traveling in favor to virtual traveling. Faster. Cheaper. Comfortable.

10. Epidemic fear. The globalization and mobility has lots of advantages. But as anything else also disadvantages. It favors the spread of different pathologic agents. The medical scientist are trying to keep up with "the next epidemy", while not thinking as "if" but as "when". Another big issue is presented by the WHO (World Health Organization) as the "globesity".

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.

I love my country!

2006-05-23T12:31:00.000+03:00

Dear Romania,

"There are some countries without the world would have a completely different face than the one we know today. We can all imagine how the world would be without USA, Great Britain or Italy; a world without hamburger, corporations, U.N. and the list could go on. But how many of you have tried to think of a world without Romania?" I just quoted from a small presentation I've watched these days.

I loved and I love my country, but still there are so many things I never knew about it. You should watch the presentation at the link above and you'll see what I'm talking about.

For instance, I never knew that the father of cybernetics or the inventor of fountain pen were Romanian. I also didn't know that the second spoken language in Microsoft is Romanian, right after English. I found out that the grandfather of baseball was actually a Romanian sport.

I was remembered that Nicolae Paulescu was the inventor of insulin, that Henri Coanda invented the jet plane and also that we are the first civilization creating a happy graveyard.

Man, we have a wonderful country. We are hospitable, friendly and fun. We ROCK! Come to Romania. It shall be "simply surprising".

Of course we have downsides as well. Everywhere around the world there are cool parts and bad parts. All countries have them. But still, with all the strange things, bad laws and greedy politicians, I DO LOVE MY COUNTRY!

With love,

Me. :)

The end of the journey...

2006-05-21T13:36:00.000+03:00

Well here I am after another 4 years of studies... Well more or less... I would definately say 4 years of learning, 4 years of experiences, traveling, work but not actually studying... I have studied for school also, but only before the exams (or after :P). Never during the year... I don't regret for not being much involved in the university life these four years... I don't regret not attending lectures and not being up-to-date at all time. I am sorry though that I haven't got the chance to know my colleagues better or to develop those "forever" connections. Even so, our lives lay ahead of us now, and I'm pretty much sure that if there's need for a connection, there'll be a connection.

The good part is that I had fun this years and that I do realize that the University actually offered me the opportunities I had. I am happy that I chose this University.

Today, the 21st of May, was the official last time, even if we still have much to do. We have left some exams (some more some less) and then the final thesis for the licence. But still we were all happy on this wonderful sunny Sunday, that we are done with this 4 years.

Good luck to all the students having the licence exams comming up (including myself) and also congratulations to all my colleagues. Thank you Cristina, Bogdan and all the others that have helped me when I needed that.

Reasons to keep the blog silent...

2006-05-18T22:56:00.000+03:00

I don't have much time to post these days. I'm very stressed with the exams at the university. We didn't start yet, but soon we will and now all the papers and projects need to be turned in so I could go into the exams and then my thesis exams. Also I need to start working on my Thesis paper as soon as possible. Dude! There are less than 2 months left now. I need to graduate! :(
Wish me luck!

Love Sick (Legaturi bolnavicioase)

2006-05-17T23:01:00.000+03:00

It's the third Romanian movie that totally impresses me this year. We actually make good movies, man. First Romanian production I saw this year was "Filantropica" which totally impressed me in terms of story, film, situation. Also the second one, "The death of Mr. Lazarescu" was amazing. Even so, not all my friends enjoyed it. We were watching it at my place and some of them fell asleep :P... Well, their loss. I loved it!
And now this one. Love Sick is actually a sick movie in certain ways, but really good directed, and the actors, even so I haven't seen most of them so far are acting beautifuly.
Here's the synopsis of this last movie:
"Love. It just happens. No rules. It may look sick, but it’s deep and it hurts. For everyone, Alex and Kiki are just two good friends. They happen to be two girls experiencing another kind of love. For their family, Kiki and Sandu are sister and brother who sometimes fight. They happen to be lovers. Love Sick is about their stories."
Lovely. This is one of the three Romanian movies participating these days at Cannes Film Festival. Even if it doesn't get any prizes or such, believe me! It's worth every second of it! Enjoy! :)

How to make better dirty pictures?

2006-05-16T13:09:00.000+03:00

Beware. Some links here might lead to explicit adult content. :)
I was searching for some online blog directories and from click to click I found this guy's website. Mickey's Guide to How to Take Better Dirty Pictures ... is awesome. I always loved pictures and even more taking pictures... Sadly I don't know much about photography, but this guy knows for sure what he's talking about, and he obviously takes great pictures. Lots of tips there, but here are some of them:
1: Concentrate. Good photos don't happen by casually snapping away...pay attention to every detail as you shoot.
2: Shoot a lot. Remember, the photos are free, now that digital has replaced film. You may find it weird to throw out 9 out of 10 photos, but even the best pros only use one out of ten shots. In the end, no one needs to know what it took to get to those 15 great photos.
3: Be prepared to lead or be lead by your model. A shoot can go either way and you have decide early on. A tough call... you have to see if she can take direction from you or just go wild, while you try to keep up and capture the action. Just like sex.
4: NEVER show her the photos as you shoot... NEVER. Show her the first test shot maybe..(she may insist)..but after that it's like letting her look in the mirror... and she'll get very uptight.YOU have to be in control of the photoshoot.
5: Don't confuse the photoshoot with sex. Be professional, leave your clothes on, don't touch without asking. If it's your girlfriend or wife, save the sex for after... you'll be plenty hot.
6: Be flexible under changing circumstances. You may start with one idea, but as you start shooting, things can take on a life of their own...go with the flow.
7: Shoot fast...don't stop for long. If's she's getting into it, you don't want to break the mood.
8: Review the photos calmly in the light of day...(the next day). You'll be more objective after a few hours. After you've edited and found the best ones, make a few nice prints for your model.
9: Cover your ass. Be sure you have a signed photo release. Don't have one? Google "photo releases" and print one. Be sure you record the age of your model, and have a copy of two forms of I.D. showing her age. Take a photo of her holding the I.D. next to her face, be sure you can read the birthdate and name. Be sure she signs the release before she leaves the studio ( house, location, whatever). If you have to get one later in the mail, it may never happen, and you will NOT have the rights to use those photos, regardless of any verbal agreement. Yes, this includes your wife or best friend!
10: Study other photographers. Start with mine. Look at the galleries and you can see a pattern, the above notes will become obvious. Don't like my photos?...look hard at someone else's work, (Bob Coulter, for instance) and see if you can spot a consistant, useable approach to apply to you work.

BONUS Tip: Keep it fun!

When the University fucks and you can't fuck back...

2006-05-16T09:59:00.000+03:00

I am terribly pissed right now. I hate Romanian education system, and I hate the University of Oradea. You can't imagine what just happened to me. Yesterday I went to the uni to see when the exams start. And what do I find? A god damn list with all the 4th (last) year students which still have not passed exams. I search for my name and I get an 8 bullets list with exams which I KNOW FOR SURE that I passed, starting with the 2nd year. I nearly fell off my legs. WTF!? I can't believe that they are telling me now that I still have to pass these pieces of shit, while back then they told me I gloriously passed. How do you call this? In Romanian we say: tzaaaaaaaapa!
So, today, early in the morning, after a non-sense lecture (yes, I attended it... well...half of it), I went to the secretary's office and asked about my grades. They told me I was out of the schedule for working with the students. I was so pissed that I said "I'm within my working hours, so could you please help me out so I could go to work". Well she smiled, to my surprise, and asked me about my problem. I told her and she started searching through the files and folders of the students. Guess what?! She found out that she was mistaken when she wrote those lists with names and exams and that I actually passed quite a few of those exams. The easy ones, obviously. Even so, I have a few which are grade-less. Yes, you are right. The difficult ones are the ones without grades... How can that be possible? I understand a fail grade, but not a grade at all? Very frustrating. So, with a big fucking smile on her damn face, she told me that I'll have to talk to the professors.
Well that's gonna be fun. And what am I going to tell them? "You know, remember me? Of course you don't. Well I have a genuine problem. I need my grade back. What grade? Well that one which you stole from me you... you... jerk!"
Did I say how pissed I am? Well I'm very, very, very pissed. I hope the situation will come out to a good end, 'cause otherwise I can say a big buh-bye to my graduation this year.
I like the "you might be a redneck" joke so here are some, which I came up with right now...
You might be a redneck if you can't read the damn grades and write them again on a piece of paper. You might be a redneck if you tell your students they've passed and then 1-2 years later watch them searching for you down the hall ways to see WTF happened. You are for sure a redneck if you, as a professor, can't keep an evidence of the grades you give. I might be a redneck as I tolerate this kind of mentality.

Darn education...

Words of Wisdom

2006-05-15T12:41:00.000+03:00

"The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death! What's that, a bonus?!? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then go live in an old age home. You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, then, when you start work, you get a gold watch on your first day. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You drink alcohol, you party, and you get ready for High School. You go to primary school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back, you spend your last nine months floating with luxuries like central heating, spa, room service on tap, then you finish off as an orgasm!! Amen"

by George Constanza

Prom Ball Output :)

2006-05-15T11:17:00.000+03:00

"And so it is, just like you said it would be..." Like a friend of mine had a comment on my previous post, I do agree that we were trying to celebrate something while we can. Just to be sure that we had at least the fun if not the diploma. :)

Well I was expecting it to be worse actually. It was quite fun. I got there around 8pm. Some of my coleagues were already there, so it was just fine. Shook some hands, met some friends (girls mostly :P) and we got inside. The place looked nicely arranged and the food as well looked quite cool. Only later I realized it wasn't the best ever... but still it worked. We weren't there for food. :)

Everybody was nicely dressed. Some of them more interested in impressing than the others, showing off their haute couture. :) Quite funny.

Then after around 200+ people poured inside, and the thousands of glass clinks stopped, everybody started sharing their past 4 years... Then I realized that actually I didn't miss that much. They had fun, they have nice friendships, but still, they didn't have the really cool cultural shocks, time pressured projects and events, the chance to meet over 80 cultures from all around the world. So, we're even at least!

The bad part was that I realized that I really don't know my coleagues. So many of them I actually don't remember seeing or meeting. That's sad... Anyway. I've met quite a lot of them. At least all from my specialization, marketing.

Damn... there are so many cute girls... that's actually what is the sad part of not attending classes and lectures. :)

So we took some pictures, which I hope I'll get as well. Bellow you can see two of the pictures I have already got. The others I'll post on my online photo album.

The picture above presents my highschool class mates (me, Alin Birta, Anca Broinas, Lajos Szengyorgy, Radu Mester, Cristina Popa). We were the only ones present at this ball, out of 25 people. It was a bit sad... We missed the others :)

Also, I had the plasure of meeting a very old friend of mine. That would be Crys. It was nice to meet her at the second event of this kind, after highschool. Good to see we're still good friends. And still young and sexy :))

Ok, now to end the story somehow, I need to say that I only left the place "early" in the morning... at around 7:00AM, a bit dazed and confused, not sure that if things will be alright or not with the exams, but still happy that I finally set up the ground for my thesis with my professor, Dorin Coita, whom, by the way, was the funniest professor that night.

I went pick up Flaviu, have a shower, a hot, strong coffee, take the car and go to work. It was a really strange day and I was tired like hell... I haven't got any sleep (except for a few minutes in my chair, in the office :P) earlier than 2:00 am the next night. But... It worth the effort. It was really nice to meet those people, catch up, laugh and dance a bit...

Prom Ball today...

2006-05-11T15:53:00.000+03:00

Well, it seams today is the day for the Prom day. Tonight we'll have the much expected (by some) University Graduation Ball. We're not graduate yet, and we'll not be graduate till the mid july, but we're celebrating now.
I never got this. How can somebody celebrate something that didn't happen yet? Imagine your parents celebrating your birthday a year before you were born. haha! That would be SO funny. :):):)
So, as you can see, I'm not as excited as my coleagues might be. But hey, let's party anyway, right? WTF, man? :)
So, I'll get back tomorrow news from the big event.

Cheers!

Knock, Knock... :)

2006-05-11T15:48:00.000+03:00

Person 1: Knock, Knock

Person 2: Who''s there?

Person 1: Cows go.

Person 2: Cows go who?

Person 1: No, silly! Cows go moo!

How deep can you go?

2006-05-11T10:55:00.000+03:00

Here comes another really cool advertisment that promotes this nice little Manix lubricant gel. So, now anything goes :)

Six feet under...

2006-05-10T16:37:00.000+03:00

I love commercial ads. I love advertising. So I find it very interesting to browse through sites related to those two interests of mine. Sometimes I find really cool ads for really strange firms. Like this one. It's a company from Berlin, Germany that provides funeral services. And they say Germans are not funny. :)

I'll post from time to time other commercials like this one. So if interested, come return from time to time. :)

Motto of the day...

2006-05-10T13:04:00.000+03:00

If somebody's laughing, laugh with them!
If somebody's singing, sing together!
If somebody's working...
... let them work!!!!

My name is Apple. Adam's Apple.

2006-05-10T10:43:00.000+03:00

At the first glance, this would normally look as an apple...

But after a closer look, you might as well notice that it resembles to Eva's Pear :)

A little bit of gipsy music...

2006-05-10T09:47:00.000+03:00

I wanted to post this yesterday... But for some reason I couldn't access my dashboard on blogger.com. So I'll just say it shortly today.

I was so bored of my old music yersday. So I started digging inside my music collections and I found this really funny mp3 with some gipsy music. The band is called Ternipe and the song is Muro Shavo.

I generally hate "manele" (narodnjace - i hope i spelled it correctly) and this kind of music. But this one is too cool. I listened to it several times to my colleagues complete desperation. I strongly recommend you to get it and listen. I don't understand the words either, so if anyone has a translation I would love to get it as well. :) Anyway, the song is "shukar" and very "mishto" :)

Enjoy!

Dude! He is father of 1000 !

2006-05-08T14:51:00.000+03:00

I have a shitty day... I couldn't sleep well last night so I don't feel very energetic. Especially that it's monday also. Just a another manic monday :)

So instead of working, guess what! I read stuff. Just kidding. I also work, but now I in a break and I was reading today's headlines in papers. And there is this section called "Incredible!" where they say about this guy in Germany, which, according to the "Der Spiegel" Magazine, recently became father of his 1000th child. He's 56 and has children all around the place: Paraguay, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Moldavia.

Incredible, right? Well that's not all. The guy is also in a constant fight (since 1998) with the paternity laws in Germany, as he's not able to "accept" the 1000 children as his own, due to some restrictions the german law presents. A man in Germany can only accept a child as his own when the mother agrees and there is no other man revendicating the paternity of the child.

Now I'm confused...
1. Why would a man want to be the declared and fully responsible father of 1000!?!?! DUDE! Men don't dig this, as far as I'm concerned. I don't think we love babies THAT much! I wonder WHO else does?
2. Why wouldn't the mothers accept that guy as the father of the children, as this is the way to ensure an EU Citizenship for the child... so, maybe a better life. I'm pretty much sure all mothers in this countries would want that for their babies... depending on the consequences this implies of course.
3. How irresponsible can a man be? 1000 kids? Dude... Imagine how much sex does that guy has. I mean to get 1000 women pregnant needs a lot of work, even in 56 years (well let's say 40).

And now the big question: How the fuck does he manage to get all these women into bed. I want the recipe!

The Golden Fish - for Romanians only

2006-05-05T16:19:00.000+03:00

The University of Oradea is blogging!

2006-05-05T13:22:00.000+03:00

Yep! It is. I've seen it doing it. Actually I just ran into it's blog today, while searching for other bloggers in Oradea. If you wanna check it out go here.

Did you click on that link? If you didn't yet, don't bother. Actually the whole blog sucks. The only 3 posts are from August 2005, while one of them is the wonderful message of the Rector.

I wanted to write a bit more, but I gotta go now. Duty calls.

Cheers!

Sad Lifes, Sad Stories

2006-05-05T10:14:00.000+03:00

I went on the balcony of our office today to get some air. It's a sunny day, birds singing (at least in my imagination :P)... I like it outside.
So as I said, I went outside and looked around. Well it wasn't much till the whole nice surrounding turned sad as I saw this little kid sleeping on an old mattress, with some dirty blanket on him.

It is pretty darn sad to see something like this. I mean the poor kid was sleeping there, right in front of a block entrance. People were walking around him and having that awful "I pitty you" look on their faces. Very sad! I wander what his story is. And I wonder how did he get that mattress. And how comes nobody does anything for this people.

Yep! Welcome to our prosperous, future EU country.

I found Ivna's blog! :)

2006-05-04T19:36:00.000+03:00

It seamns that I'm writing a lot today. But I did found something cool. I found my best Croatian friend's blog. I always thought she had an old MSN blog, but now there she is, with this new blog :P Click here to see it.

Yeah, that's not cool enough. But what's really cool, she has this nice picture of the two of us, while we were on Bol, Croatia. Really beautiful. So I'm gonna post that picture right here, together with this other picture of Bol. :)

Thank you Ivna for the amazing times on Bol and for everything else you've thought me, shown me, done for me. Hugs and kisses.

This is me and Ivna

And this is what's called "The Golden Beach" on Bol. Very interesting.

Goodbye Monopoly$!!! Welcome Tiles Rummy!

2006-05-04T19:11:00.000+03:00

I don't know how many of you know what "Remi" means. If you are Romanian, I'm pretty much sure you know. But you're not, you might wanna check into "Rummy". I just found out myself it's called this way. I google searched for "Remi" and didn't find much but from link to link to link I got to this page, which links to this page: Romanian Rummy.

So, me and my friends dropped the popular game of Monopoly$. We used to play it a whole lot! We loved it. But for different reasons, one of us would always get frustrated when we played. So now we switched to something new. Well that would be this "Rummy".

I'm not going to explain you all the rules or try to describe you the game. You can read about it at the mentioned links. I just want to say a few things about it. It seams to have almost as many versions as poker. We started playing one version, really easy, with pretty much no big rules. Then, my mum comes in with a whole new version which is waaaaaaay more complicated, more stressful, but also much more fun. Then some other people tell us their own versions. Anyway. The version we'll stick to is my mum's.

So lately me and my friends (Relu, Georgi, Flaviu) are wasting entire afternoons (and nights) playing this game. We're like insane. I wonder for how long this euphoria will last. Anybody wants to join in a championship? We're up for it!

Finally a template I kinda like

2006-05-04T18:19:00.000+03:00

Yes, I managed to create my own template for my blog. It's no rocket science with nothing spectacular except... it's mine. :) For now it's alright, but I am considering changing it in the future. :)

So, I hope you like it. I kinda do. ;) Awaiting your comments.

Kiss

Vice Tax Starts Charging Today

2006-05-02T10:05:00.000+03:00

Dear smokers, drinkers and friends of those,

Today is a sad day in Romania. A few months ago the Government (the Health Ministery) decided to introduce this "vice tax" and today it becomes effectual. What does that mean? Well it means that they introduce a quite big charge (30%). They say this way the Romanians will drink and smoke less... So this means that a pack of cigarettes will cost with 1RON more and a litter of pure alcohol will cost with 7RON more... (1RON = approx. 0,29 EUR)

Even sadder is the fact that this is not the only rise that the bachus friends and smokers will encounter this year. The Ministry of Health thought in its wisdom that they should rise the prices up again in July with another 25-30%. This will be definately fun.

So, many of my friends already pilled up a few boxes of cigarettes and are all saying "we gotta quit smoking". Well, we'll see about that. They say that for vices one will always have the money, even if will cut other things. I do hope that we'll all quit smoking, but what about drinks? Why can't we have the famous cheap Romanian beer anymore?

This sucks dude!

BAMSE - the most powerful bear in the world...

2006-05-02T00:03:00.000+03:00

I was chatting with a friend of mine these days... And somehow, I don't recall exactly the context, but Bamse came up into subject. I don't know how many of y'all have ever heard of such thing. But I did and I loved it!

It was middle 90's, in Romania, when they were publishing this kids magazine. It was about this cute little bear (you'll say I'm nuts) which was the strongest bear in the world, if he was having some of his "special" honey made by his granny. If you wanna read more about this, just go here. Or if you understand swedish just click on www.bamse.net, since this is the official website.

Anyway, the cool part is that it's really fun. I mean I remember buying all the issues and piling them up after reading them over and over again. It was a really cool magazine.

And since we were talking with my friend about our common childhood friend, Bamse, we obviously got to the Ninja Turtles and the Sandi Bell TV series. It was very nice to remember... and got me really nostalgic...

So thank you Andy for this cool memories. I will give you that turtle cup next time we see eachother.

Now I'm over and out. I go to sleep 'cause the weekend is over, rest is needed as the week is starting up.

Another sunny weekend...

2006-05-01T19:22:00.000+03:00

I loved this long weekend. It would be SO cool to always have 3 days free weekends :) Or at least during the summer. When you can sunbath, have a beer on the balcony, or go for a picnic somewhere...

The past two weekends we TOO cool. So much time for rest, and sun, and friends, and fun, and... some other things :) I loved it...

This whole week has been rainy and shitty here, in Oradea. Actually I guess it was a shitty weather all around Romania. But the cool part is that today it's sunny and warm again. This means that we have some chances of sunny weather this weekend.

I really want some more sun! :)

I just hate this fucking templates....

2006-04-27T18:20:00.000+03:00

I just realized how much I hate these templates... Damn! This sucks so bad!

I'm just gonna build my own strange, doubtful, personal template. How can you people live with these standard ones? I can barely read the damn posts on this colors.

Duuude! :(