Memories of Yore

nerdiness

2007-02-19T12:10:00.000Z

Here's how nerdy I am:

What does this mean? Your nerdiness is:
Somewhat nerdy. I mean face it, you are nerdier than about half the test takers.

2007-02-18T22:20:00.000Z

Here's a clip from Gran Canaria, it's all Christina's work. If you'd like to vote for it or leave a comment, here's the link on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc0qebQl2Fk

copenhagen pics

2007-01-31T23:17:00.000Z

Copenhagen

2007-01-30T11:22:00.000Z

Last weekend we took a break and we flew to Copenhagen. Why Copenhagen? Well, last year, I had a special offer from Easyjet, some 10-15 pounds off the next booking, or 25?! I can't remember. I needed to book something by a certain date in order to claim the discount. So I looked at the cheapest destinations we can go to and Copenhagen was one of them. As we haven't been to Copenhagen before and it was a cheap flight even before the discount, why not?

We had to fly at early hours in the day, use night bus and leave our place at 3am. Not that nice as you're tired for the whole day. Anyway, no pain, no gain.

In Copenhagen we started walking around the city and on the main commercial street (I forgot the name now). We walked to see the Little Mermaid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Mermaid in the first day. It was a long walk. We also managed to see some snow there and have some snow fights :-)
In the second day, we decided to take buses to do things quicker. The only walk was following the guard and seeing the change of guard at the palace. It was raining but that didn't stop us and didn't stop about 100 other people that were there to see the change of guard. From there we visited a round church across the street from the Palace. Quite unusual to see a round church.
Then we hopped on a bus and we went to take the tour of the Carlsberg brewery. You have to cross through the Elephant gate ... a gate with the statues of 4 elephants on the side. The tour is quite nice, you learn about the history of beer making in Denmark and the history of the Carlsberg brewery. They also have a collection of bottles. At the entrance they have a Skoll bottle for some reason. Chris noticed it was Made in Romania and it was in romanian. :-)
We also had vouchers for free drinks included in the price, so we ended up tasting the beer (me) and coke (Chris - she hates beer).

From there we took a bus all the way to Christiania: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania
It's an interesting place, a different world. Not much pavement there, not much street lighting, not so tidy, with people setting barrels alight for warming up (like homeless people would do - they make it for fun though as they live there). We also entered a coffee shop and we had a coffee and a hot chocolate. I ordered a beer but the barman said .. No alcohol. The people that we saw there were mainly hippy style.
At some point 4 police officers, all looking 2m by 2m, entered the pub and they started looking around, without saying anything. Apparently this happens a lot, as the Danish government wants to crack down on the area, seen as a centre for drug trade. The policemen were quite scary. The barman started filming with a digital camera, as soon as they got in. I asked him ... why do you film them? Because sometimes they do stupid things, he told me.
Yeap, reading the story on wikipedia, it seems like they had a long hate relationship with the police.
I must say that being there at night, with not much street lighting, was a bit scary. It was mainly the unknown I guess. But then in the pub, they had the Christiania rules printed on the wall. Some of them are:

No Stealing
No Violence
No hard drugs (light drugs you can buy on the streets)
No bike gangs
No guns
No bullet proof vests

So, after reading that, I felt a bit safer. Although reading the description on wikipedia, you learnt that there have been murders sometimes in the commune, but not as many as in the rest of world I suppose.

So that was the trip to Copenhagen. On the way back Easyjet flight was quite late, so we had to take the night bus again and by 2am we were at home. A bit tiring but worth it.

travelling

2007-01-26T14:12:00.000Z

Tomorrow we're getting on a flight to Copenhagen, Denmark where we'll spend the weekend. I've printed already the to-do and to-see list. It promises to be an enjoyable trip, although a bit colder than London.
What else is in the pipeline?

Chronologically:

1. March - a week in Portugal, 4 guys, renting a car and travelling between Lisbon and Porto. One of them speaks portuguese, so we won't have a problem. Just in case, I'm taking my romanian-portuguese phraise book. Tudo bom!

2. Easter - we're planning a trip to Italy, the plan so far is to fly to Milan, rent a car and then drive all the way to Venice where we leave the car and fly back. On the way we can hit: Bergamo, Brescia, Verona, Padova. It's not booked yet, but likely to be soon. 4 days trip.

3. April 21/22 - a short weekend in Budapest, meeting up with my sister and her future-to-be husband. In the heart of Magyar country.

4. 5-7 May - 3 day trip to Munich, Germany. We'll be with 2 friends, one of them german, so again, no problems. Just preparing our stomachs for lots of sausages and beer :-)

5. We also think about a trip in late May, nothing yet decided.

6. End of june - early July - 2 weeks in Romania at my sister's wedding and travelling a bit around Romania. Brasov very likely, maybe even the Black Sea coast, who knows?!

7. For august we're thinking of a trip to Scotland with Lilian maybe when she's coming here. Details not yet finalised.

So it's all good huh? :-)

Ad generation

2007-01-22T11:15:00.000Z

Here's an interesting project, it was a thesis project at at Parsons The New School for Design.
Basically it takes corporate slogans and buzz words, mixes them together to generate new slogans. Then it automatically takes images from Flickr and generates fake advertisements.

The goal of the project is to “show how the language of advertising is both deeply meaningful, in that it represents real cultural values and desires, and yet utterly meaningless in that these ideas have no relationship to the products being sold.”

It's fun to watch.

http://www.theadgenerator.org/

2007-01-11T13:22:00.000Z

I know I haven't written in a long while ... I have a good excuse: Laziness!
Now, I am due to write about my travel experiences in New York and Gran Canaria. I will. I have some pics too.
In the meantime, let me post some pics of me in the office :-)

What's going on?

2006-11-22T16:40:00.000Z

A while since I last wrote. So what's up...

1. I've seen Momix (http://www.mosespendleton.com/), it's a dance group, however everything happens behind a semi-transparent curtain, with the dancers dressed with fluourescent colours against a black background. You get nice visual effects but it gets boring after a while. Nice as a novelty, but repetitive and soon you lose interest.

2. With Marco and David mainly, I've started a business group. We had our first meeting in a pub where we discussed business ideas and what do we want from a business group. We were four people in the first meeting. The result was a private google group and regular business meetings. We also played poker which was fun. :-)

3. I booked the accommodation for New York in a hostel (for 2 nights) next to Madison Square Garden. Very good location. And cheap. Well, sharing with 8 other people. It will be fun. I don't mind that. And straight after that, moving into a 4 star hotel which the company pays for :-). You get the best of both worlds.

4. I've switched from reading blogs the old way to an aggregator. I use SharpReader, written in .NET and pretty happy with it. I've noticed some bugs, but it does the main job. It's quite a refreshing approach.

5. Not much else I guess...

So where will I be travelling next?

2006-10-31T14:33:00.000Z

Well, in early december, New York. Finally the trip seems to shape up. It's confirmed between 8th - 19th of december, but the tickets are not booked yet. I'll have 2 weekends in New York which is really nice. Hopefully there might be some snow too. :-)

Between Christmas and New Year, I've just booked a trip to the Canaries Islands ... Gran Canaria to be more precise. Canaries Islands is a group of islands in the Atlantic Ocean, pretty close to Africa and on the same latitude with southern Morocco. Morocco was the first option, but then, as we couldn't make our minds up in time, it became more expensive then we would have liked. So in the end we settled for Gran Canaria, it's a package holiday as this was the cheapest way to go so late in the game. Flying on the 25th of December, returning on the 1st of January. The temperatures are likely to be around 20-25 degrees, so it will be New Year on the beach.

And then in January, a weekend in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. That's gonna be cold, oh yeah. This is booked.

And I'm thinking of carrying forward 5 holidays for the next year. If you carry them forward, you have to use them before the 31st of March. A trip to Dubai in spring would be nice, to visit Navid ;-). Or something else ... we'll see.

Amazon's 1-Click is Pure Evil

2006-10-25T16:20:00.000+01:00

1-Click is a Amazon solution for shopping with just 1 click. No one else can use as it's patented like it would be rocket science or brain surgery. Well, in fact it's dumb and can catch you out. Basically it adds a button next to an item and if you click that, it does everything in one step: Add To Basket, CheckOut, Purchase, Confirm, Thank you for purchasing! Of course, it only works if you have purchased on the site before and your details are on the file.

It was obviously designed to speed up things. And sometimes it does. But some other times in fails dramatically and it's better turned off. Which you can do from Your Account. Turn the damn patented thing off.

Here's how it can mess up. Imagine you haven't shop in a while and your details are changed slightly. Imagine your address is old. Your transaction completes immediately, you get the "Thank You" and the item is dispatched to the wrong address. You don't get any confirmation, you don't get asked if your details are correct... straight to the "Thank You", please!

And if you're using Amazon's Marketplace (which is a sort of market for 3rd parties where anyone can open up a shop and sell used books), then you're really in trouble. And this is because the order completes immediately, your details are sent to the Seller and YOU CAN'T CHANGE ANYTHING ANYMORE. You can't change you address, you don't have the seller's details (except the feedback others' left). At that point you realise that the seller’s slate is not immaculate, there were problems before with people trying to cancel. And these sellers are not regulated, they can be anyone, provide any quality of service they want. Still Amazon chooses to endorse them, by suggesting you should buy from them on their main website.

However, when you call Amazon's customer support (which by the way, it's all outsourced to INDIA) they'll tell you that they can't do anything about that and suggest you write an email to the seller. Needless to say these sellers operate from their own garages and no one can really know who they are and what they offer.

So there you are, knowing about the problem but not being able to do anything about it. In the end, the seller will send the items to the wrong address. It's an outrageous behaviour towards the customer. Claiming your money back can take months and you might never get your money back.

I am into this situation now. In the end, the frustration gets to you. I have decided not to use 1-Click or Amazon Marketplace ever again. And Amazon is seriously downgraded in my books (no pun intended!). Continue to use them at your own risk!

Monaco pics - part II

2006-10-23T13:59:00.000+01:00

Urban landscape, Monaco

Moi, with the Grand Casino in the back

Moi, in front of the Grand Casino

Formula 1 fans will recognize the famous Monaco tunnel. My fans will also recognize me in the same photo.

Pics from Monaco - part I

2006-10-23T11:48:00.000+01:00

The view of the port of Monaco

Fish in a tank at the Museum of Oceanography, Monaco

View from the top of the Museum of Oceanography in Monaco

Great view of the Museum of Oceanography in Monaco (Jacques Cousteau was the director for a long while)

Moi and Chris, in the Old Town of Monaco, next to the Palace

Change of guard at the Monaco Palace

The streets of Old Monaco Town

View of the port of Monaco, from the road to the Palace in Old Town

Same view as before

pics from Nice

2006-10-23T10:38:00.000+01:00

A nice view over the port of Nice, from the castle on top of the hill

A view of the main beach in Nice, with the Promenade des Anglais next to it, from the castle

Same Nice beach

Same Nice beach again, street level

Me and Chris in the market

Moi, in front of the train station in Nice

Moi and Chris

Moi in front of the main beach

People on the beach, you can see the pebbles (not sand)

Monaco

2006-10-19T10:30:00.000+01:00

On Monday, we decided to take a day trip to Monaco, as we realised it's too close to Nice to give a miss. And indeed, Monaco is located about 18 km from Nice and it's a 18-25 minutes on the train. A return ticket costs 6.20 euros. The train traverses a lot of tunnels that cut into the rocky shores, but in between the tunnels, you can admire the beautiful houses, right on the shores, built on rock, some of them right on the edge of the rock. It's a spectacular sight and I bet prices are spectacular too.
Monaco Monte Carlo train station is an underground station. In fact, it's a tricky one, as the lower level has an exit at the bottom of a rock, while the main exit/entrance is at the top of the rock. But the impression you get is that it's underground.

As you get out of the station, you're struck with awe. It's a very dramatic urban landscape. Because Monaco is basically built on a rock, and in layers, each layer higher than the other, from the sea up into the rocky mountains/hills behind. Everything is packed, the roads are narrow and buildings tend to be high and that can be a bit claustrophobic. It also exacerbates the problem of pollution, because cars transit the little state quite a lot. But the city is very very clean - it doesn't compare with Nice which I thought was a bit dirty.

As you get out of the train station, you walk to the right for a while and sooner or later you bump into the old castle of Monaco situated in the district called Monaco Ville. The castle is in a very good condition, and you can climb to it following a road in shape of an S. Once you get up there, the Palace is right in front. We watched the change of guard at 11.55. It's quick, it takes 5 minutes, but on a Monday there were about 300-400 people watching. I can't imagine what's it like in the weekend.

Next to the palace there's the old town, with narrow streets and a lot of restaurants, souvenir shops (a lot of Formula 1 souvenirs) and other touristy stuff. We had lunch there, a 16 euro menu including a starter (salad, pasta or one of the other 2-3 options), a main course (rump steak, escalope etc.) and a dessert. Not bad for the money.

The Oceanography Museum is just a stroll away from the Old Town and it's a famous place. The famous Jacques Cousteau used to be the director for many years. It's a sort of museum documenting a scientific expedition of Albert I, at the beginning of the century. It was in the north, close to the north pole. And then Albert 2nd followed in his father's footsteps. It's mainly how the museum started. In the basement however they have big fish tanks with a lot of fish from all over the world. They get the water straight from the Mediterranean sea with a system of pumps. From the top floor of the museum you have panoramic views of Monaco.

On the other side, there are steps taking you down from the castle, close to the marina. From there we took a walk to the other side of Monaco, it's a quarter called Monte Carlo. This is one of the 4th quarters of Monaco and it's famous for its Grand Casino (featured in James Bond film .. even in the next one: Casino Royale, which happens to be this Grand Casino in Monaco). Entrance to the Grand Casino sets you back 10 euros, so, as we weren't big gamblers we gave it a miss. Next to the Grand Casino there's another smaller casino with free entrance. It mainly have fruit machines. We wanted to try it out, and here's a funny situation. We only had a 50 euros note left, which was our money for food and bus back to the airport and everything. And we only wanted to spend 1 euro, or 2 euros. We didn't know how many chips we would get for 1/2 euros, but we imagined we could have fun even with such a small amount. Anyway, the guy at the office didn't speak English ... and he gave us straight away 25 chips of 2 euros each. He thought we want to spend all our 50 euros in one go. We tried to explain that all we want is 2 euros. But he kept understanding that we want 2 euros coins. Finally, he gave us just one coin, 2 euro coin and the change back. He probably thought: cheap bastards. Hehe. Anyway. We went to a machine and we were wondering how many games we would get for our 2 euros. We introduced the coin into a machine and we pressed reshuffle. 2 seconds later, it all stopped. We didn't win anything. And that was it. Game over. 2 euros in 2 seconds. That must be the most dramatic spending spree on this trip. How often do you spend a euro per second? If we were to continue at this pace, in one hour we would spend 3600 euros. So, we decided to stop at that point.

We headed back to Nice in the evening, got on a bus that took us to the airport and from there, London was 2 hours away. Au revoir France!

Nice

2006-10-17T12:44:00.000+01:00

Nice is lovely. And I don't mean only the beautiful sunny october days we had there, with 23-25 degrees, in stark constrast with the cold, foggy London. The beach is great, 2-3 kilometers in length (the main beach) and followed everywhere by a long and wide promenade, called "Promenade des Anglais". Presumably because it's swarming with british tourists? It's a great sight on a sunny day with all the people walking, skating, cycling, sitting on benches, watching the sea. With such a lovely weather, no surprise some people were swimming. I refrained from swimming as a strong breeze in the afternoon put me off and the idea of freezing after getting out of the water wasn't very exciting. However, we did lie on the beach enjoying the sun, doing nothing, in a true french style. :-)

The only slight disappointment is that the beach is pebble stoned, not sandy. I was expecting sand from the famous Cote d'Azur. But the colour of the water is great.

And you can see that from the castle on the hill, which offers panoramic views of Nice and of the port on the other side of the city. There are some steps to climb and there's some effort involved, but well worth it, as the views are beautiful. The top of the castle was where the old medieval town was, but in the 18-19 century, it was transformed in a large garden, where nowadays people play football, just relax in the sun, admiring the views or enjoy a coffee in a restaurant up there. There's also a waterfall and a cemetery to explore.

Descending from the castle, you're welcome by the Old Town, with its narrow streets and the buzz of tourists attracted by the many restaurants, souvenir shops, book shops, ice-cream shops and other little shops. It's a lovely area to explore and enjoy. You can buy a french baguette filled with all sorts of goodies for about 3.50 - 4 euros.

As you walk to the west, you bump into a street market, true french style. Full of people trying to buy, people shouting, advertising their own merchandise or inviting you to taste before you buy. The whole atmosphere is a very friendly one, but also very vibrant and familiar. It's no supermarket here, all these people care about their food and it looks like they put a lot of their energy into these home-made delicacies. And that's the feeling ... it's like your grandma was out there on the street trying to sell her home made cookies.

The whole trip to Nice was made so enjoyable by the ever present sun. Not a single cloud, clear and warm days, with a nice breeze that makes it not too hot.

On Monday we decided to take a day trip to the posh Monaco, a 20-25 minute trip that would prove to be an excellent choice. But all about Monaco, tomorrow...

2006-09-19T09:29:00.000+01:00

I've seen Little Miss Sunshine, the film. It's a good film, a sad story wrapped up into what it looks like a comedy, so in the end you keep laughing, but underneath, there's a drama happening in front of your eyes. Recommended!

Not much happening otherwise. I'm gambling at the moment on the stock market, buying gambling shares and hoping that the US won't introduce legislation this week to prohibit online gambling payments by credit cards. To win you have to take chances. To lose ... the same.

I'm waiting for my new PC to be delivered. It took 3 weeks already. Funny ... I sent them an angry email, telling them I don't think they can deliver in the timeframe they mentioned ... 12-15 working days. And asking them to tell me when they would deliver, otherwise I cancel my order and shop somewhere else. I get an email saying that the timeframe is given just for guidance. And cancelling would incur a 30 pounds admin fee. But what do you know ... 2 hours later, my PC is market as "Built" in their system. Surprise surprise! Needless to say it's in that state for 3 days now. I was hoping for somewhat quicker resolution. I start thinking that they just marked it in the system without actually building it.
Customer service is disastrous in this country.

I have to look for a warm destination for christmas ... so far Morroco and Tenerife on my list. Canary Islands might also be interesting. I'm not so keen about Egypt. It's not necessarily the history of bombs, but also I know they have tighter security there. If you want to travel around the country you usually travel with police tailing you. Not fun. And I'm no 007 - I sadly admit it.

2006-09-07T11:26:00.000+01:00

I'm a bit lazy to update this blog, I must say. That's one of my problems in general, an enthusiastic start withers as the routine settles in. So what happened lately?
I've been with Chris to the Reading Festival ... the Reading Festival is one of the biggest music festival in the UK. I didn't know about it, I only knew about Glastonbury. But hey, I never pretend to be anything but an ignorant when it comes to music. I stopped following the music scene for a long time. Now I feed with nibbles provided by friends, lately Maryam who gracefully lent me some music. Thank you!

Reading festival was a 3 day monster festival. And it looked like a monster, sheltering probably around 20-30 thousand people each day. Many many tents and a lot (and I do mean a lot) of rubbish. Everywhere, the litter bins were full, so people were throwing all the rubbish on the floor. I saw teenagers, rockers, dressed in dirty clothes, poor students, booze, guitars and crowds crowds crowds. Reminds me of the festivals in Romania. Just this one was better organised.

In the end we saw Placebo, Slayer and Pearl Jam, the most notable ones and some other little bands that I can't remember now. We went there for Pearl Jam in fact, as Chris waited for 15 years to see them live. Well, I remembered them from the 90s when they were on MTVs with hits like Alive, Jeremy and stuff like that. They were good. Now they're no longer on MTV, no longer commercial, they went underground, but let me tell you, they have a lot of fans.
Eddie Vedder, the lead vocalist, is a very kind person. He's not full of shit like most stars, he's very considerate to the fans, very friendly and you can tell he's a decent person. Judging by the lyrics of his songs and by his autobiography as sketched by others ... he had one helluva childhood. But hey, he seems to have conquered his demons.
Anyway, a good experience the Reading Festival, but I learnt I'm no longer so patient and accepting with crowds, rubbish and student lifestyle as I was when I was a student. Well, even when I was a student there was only for so long I could stand the Sighisoara festival for instance (Sighisoara - a medieval festival, combined with rock, booze and all the shit that spells disaster for a medieval town).

Life has been quiet otherwise. I've been to some films ... now trying to remember them I realise I can't. For me films are really what they were supposed to be ... entertainment. Meaning that for an hour or two, you're just entertained, transported into a different world. And that's it. An hour or two. Then you come back to reality and you soon forget about it. The intrinsic value was that of entertainment for the duration of the film. No point in hanging on to it and remember it and talk about it for ages. That's why I'm not good at remembering films. For me it's entertainment "now and here".

The latest toy is the stock market, I've invested some money and in a month and a half so far I've made about 1500 pounds. Not that bad actually. Of course today everything was down and I'm losing money, but it will recover. It's not an investment for faint hearted.

What else ... I was looking at flights to and fro Romania. Only one company, Wizzair is introducing so far flights. And only one from London to Bucuresti Baneasa. So it's totally useless for me. Some other flights to Arad and Targu Mures, but not from London. From Barcelona and Milan. Nothing to Cluj.

2006-08-18T10:13:00.000+01:00

One other thing that I've started recently was to invest my money in the stock market. London Stock Exchange. So, I invested in 3 companies and right after confidently putting my money into them, their stock plummeted. It's not a comfortable position, because you're expecting to make money, not to lose them. But that's the stock market, it's a long term investment thingy. And overall, on the long run, it outperforms other means of investment, like dull saving accounts.

And of course, I have a special fund for speculative investments. And let me tell you that right after the terror allert, that foiled bomb plot, what did I do? I invested into British Airways, as everyone was chickening out and their shares were free falling.
6 days after buying, I sold and made a profit of 105 pounds.
If I had waited 2 more days, I would have made 600 pounds. I'm pulling my hair out at the moment. But still, it goes to the archive of successful stories, just that it could have been roughly 6 times more successful had i had some more patience.

2006-08-16T11:03:00.000+01:00

As I didn't write anything lately, a lot of things happened lately, so I hope I'll earn your pardon without necessarily begging for it. I moved place, I can be found in New Cross now. New Cross is much better than the previous area, Elephant & Castle, a very cosmopolitan area (I wasn't the only white there, but barely), quite a rough area where regularly you could see signs "Someone was murdered here 2 weeks ago, we're appealing for witnesses". Well, living on the edge, a tumultuous youth. Nah, it's not as bad as it sounds. I lived there for 2 years and nothing happened to me there. But it was time for something quieter and lower profile. Enter New Cross.

I have 2 train connections to and from London Bridge, from New Cross and Deptford train stations. It's 5-8 minutes to London Bridge. From there, tube for about 5-8 minutes more, 2 stops on the Northern Line and I'm in the City. The City is a one square mile area in the heart of London. Door to door, it takes me about 30-35 minutes, once you start to account for delays, walks, etc. Not bad.

I also took a week in Greece with Chris, her uni friend and her uni friend's sister. The trip started with some glitches on the way ... we forgot one bag at home, so had to return to collect it. Then we got hit with extra 18 pounds, ticket difference as we landed in the 1st class on the Stanstead train. I wouldn't pay as the only difference between 1st and 2nd was the number and the pretence of more comfort. But a little scum ticket controller followed us after we left the train, threatening us with all sorts of crap. I decided to pay as we were late for the flight and he had our return tickets. Wanker!

We should have guessed by then that the trip will be pigmented with all sorts of misunderstandings...

Now that I got your attention... let's talk about something else... :-)

Ok, so Athens was good, we were driven around and showed places by Chris' uni friend. We stayed at her place. Athens is a crammed place but it's mainly made of houses, no more than 2 storeys, not the 13-storeys block of flats that sometimes sore the eye in London or other places, signs of a forgotten era.

We went to Acropolis, Parthenon, unfortunately it was cordoned off. It's all due to the minority of irresponsible travellers (or locals) that like to immortalise their names on pieces of national heritage, that all the old landmarks are cordoned off, you have to see them from a safe distance. So you guessed it, my name is not on the Parthenon. :-)

We also walked a bit around Athens which seems a bit crammed, the space being used very pragmatically.

On a monday morning, waking up at the early hours, squinting, we took a ferry boat from Pireus which holds the honour of being Athens' port. The 6 hours journey to Sifnos was boring at least. I also hated being in a smoking lounge. Which leads to one of my most serious complaints about Greece and greeks. They're heavy smokers and they smoke like old locomotives from the Industrial Revolution. Almost everyone there smokes and sometimes without consideration. I looked in the smoking lounge, there were mothers with little kids. How can they keep them in that smoky place? There's a sort of ignorance about smoking, with people lighting up while you still eat. There's a need of a major shake-up. The price of a cigarette packets being 2.80 euros doesn't help either. It's very affordable. In the UK it's 4.50 - 5 pounds. That works out around 7-8 euros per packet. And from next year, London pubs and restaurant will be smoke free as a ban will be enforced.

Sifnos is an island part of the Cyclades group of islands, along side Mykonos, Santorini, Milos (Venus of Milos anyone?). It's a rocky and dry archipelago, not much vegetation, which is also the case for southern Greece (I would assume). All the houses are painted in white, with narrow streets and people sometimes just lying on the porch enjoying what (I'm sure I'd convinced you by now) must be the national hobby: smoking.

It's still a touristy place, but not yet discovered by the cohorts of mass tourists coming down on a dirt cheap package deal and pissing on the place. Most tourists there were greek.

There are some sandy beaches, narrow though, but still ok. There are also some rocky shores where you can dive, even enjoy a bit of snorkelling as I did. The sea is very salty, much saltier than the Black Sea and Atlantic Ocean, for some reason. Hopefully it's not because people piss more in the Mediterranean :-)

Unfortunately our program wasn't an exact overlap with the program of our greek hosts. They were mostly waking up around 1pm and going to bed at 3am, after a bit of clubbing, or the pretence of it. The lack of adventure was also a major difference, as we were hoping to explore every corner of the island while our hosts were more conservative, choosing places they knew already. We soon fell off grace with each other over the differences. The last days unfortunately were quite tensioned and we were thinking of "how the hell can we get out of here".

Morale of the story: Always travel with people with the same travel ideas, same expectations roughly. Alternatively, go on your own! :-)

Some pics from Greece are coming up.

The food in Greece is good, the greek salad with feta cheese is omnipresent and other delicacies. The food is a bit fat. No wonder the greek men are the fattest in Europe, according to statistics.

Ok, enough about Greece. Once coming back, I realised I had to go again to the gym. Said and done. Me, Chris and Roberto we're all subscribed by now to a local gym, quite good, new equipment, air conditioned, no smells. We'll see how that goes.

We've also seen 2 films, as we felt bad about not using our film cards. We saw Cars and Monster House, both animation films. Cars is a very good film I thought, I liked it. Recommended. Monster House is an animation horror film. It's not for kids, although being an animation film. The animation I thought was very good, especially when it came to people movement and facial expressions etc. but the film failed to impress me much.

That's about it for now...

2006-07-27T15:05:00.000+01:00

Last weekend I moved ... I contacted a guy with a van who was advertising on a website. As discussed we came on sunday, mid-day. A shabby van, eons old, but the guy was cool. He offered to help, he was a big man. Nigerian, studying business management and making an extra buck on weekends by working as a removals van driver.

Who else helped me pack and carry on the day? Well here's the list: Marco, Roberto, Chris. I thank you very much, it all went smoothly because of you.
During the process a local kid helped too carry stuff. But also in the process, someone stole my chair somehow. I couldn't find it, although I was searching on all floors (there are 13). Well, in the end I gave up searching, consoling myself with the idea that I will need a new one anyway, the old one had the leather ripped in one place. The disappointment was when I came back after moving and I found the chair at the rubbish bin. Such sick people, stealing some other people's things just to bin them. I didn't take the chair from the rubbish bin if that's what you're thinking.

The rest was cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning. Chris did an awesome job by herself, helping a lot. We even hired a cleaner for 3 hours for the new place. Her name was Valentina, from Macedonia and had a degree in economics. 3 hours for 30 pounds.

I also started investing on the stock market. As soon as I put my money in, the stock that I bought plummeted. Well, these are the joys of the stock market. Anyways, it's a long term investment and in the end I'm sure it will pay off more than the interest I get from the bank.

And tomorrow flying to Greece, Athens and the island of Sifnos for a week, to unwind and forget about everything while roasting on the beach, swimming, snorkelling and generally not giving a damn.

back

2006-07-19T22:29:00.000+01:00

I've neglected this blog for a while and my excuse is that i had too many things on my mind. So what happened in the meantime, briefly as I don't want to bore you with my problems (hey, it's my blog, i can do that)

1. I was about to purchase a flat but the deal fell off as the landlady called me, after 5 months of impatiently waiting for the conveyance to finish, that she wants 5K more. I said no straight away. I hate to deal with muppets.But since i was planning to leave this place, i started to look for a place. Which leads to number...

2. Looked for a place in the New Cross (SE14 - SE8) areas. Found a place, tomorrow we're signing the contract and I'm moving on sunday. I'll be sharing with mister italiano, roberto.

3. Went to Romania to my cousin wedding where I must admit that I didn't do much for 2 weeks. Ate, drank, slept, talked to my parents, watched the worldcup ... which leads me to number...

4. Focused on the world cup, I had a website for score prediction. I must admit that I didn't win. I could have, but it wouldn't have been fair. The world cup absorbed all my attention and energy for a month.

5. Started packing, cleaning the flat, throwing away things from my current flat. It's amazing how much junk I gathered around me and that's because I hated throwing things away. The philosophy was ... don't throw away but keep it, you never know when you would need it again. In fact, I never needed these things again. Even more, I forgot that I even had them. So in the end, they were just taking space but as good as inexistent. So now, I've started throwing things away. And it's such a relief to throw things away, I feel the relief indeed. I'm sure a part of it has to do with the fact that I'm thinking that I'll have less things to move on sunday. But it's also being simpler. Do I need all this shit around me? And the answer is NO! I don't.Having less stuff also makes you lighter, more agile which is always good before you settled down somewhere "for good".

That's it for now.

goodbye tarom

2006-06-13T10:17:00.000+01:00

For those of you not familiar with Tarom, it is the Romanian national airline. It is also one of the worse airline I have ever travelled with. It's full of communist monopolistic attitudes towards passangers. They feel they're doing you a service letting you travel with them. They have no respect for travellers and they change their travel conditions as they see fit. "If you don't like it, you can cancel your travel with us" they tell you.

The stewards are so rude. I remember last time I travelled with them, one steward was explaining the meal menu to a passanger in front of me. I didn't catch exactly all of it and I asked her ... so what's on the menu... She answered, irritated ... What?! You didn't hear? I just told the other passenger...
I have stopped travelling by Tarom and hope never to travel with Tarom again.

1st of January 2007 is the date when we will all say good bye to Tarom. That's because Romania joins the EU and will have to sign the EU open sky agreement, allowing any airline to operate wherever they want in Romania. Tarom can't survive competition. They lose money now! In the face of low cost airlines they face total collapse.
It's an excellent news for customers!

Don't get me wrong, I love my country, I'd like to have the most competitive national airline in the world and the best economy in the world. But, at the same time, I hate being treated like shit. Prehistoric companies ought to die. And in a globalised world, people have to choose for the best options, no matter what nationality.

So goodbye Tarom, have a painful death. I spit on your grave! :-)

2006-06-06T10:33:00.000+01:00

A guy is going to his emigration interview, wanting to leave the country and emigrate somewhere else. The officer asks him:
- Why do you want to leave your country?
- Because of homosexuality!
- Really? How come?
- Well, during the Nazi rule, homosexuality was absolutely forbidden, punished by death. After that it was punished by prison time. Now it is permitted and even encouraged by law. I want to emigrate before it becomes compulsory!

Pro-Bono or Anti-Bono

2006-06-02T17:52:00.004+01:00

Have you ever heard of the Bono Probability Positioning System? BPPS? Well, it's an automated system that uses webcams in Dublin, facial recognition and Google Maps to give you the probability of locating Bono, the lead singer of U2. Here it is: http://www.stunned.org/bono/googlebono.htm
Quite funny!

But, as I was in Dublin last week, I really did spot Bono. Or did I?! There was a guy, looking like Bono (well, I've never seen Bono live) and he was staying in front of a pub and everyone was taking his pictures with camera phones. Was he the real Bono? I concluded NO to myself, he wasn't acting like a celebrity (he was enjoying the crowds and celebrity too much for that). Anyway, I took pics of the "fake" Bono for you to judge for youself.

So, now you know! What do you think? Is he the real Bono or a fake Bono? :-)

da vinci babble

2006-05-26T10:56:00.000+01:00

I managed to see the Da Vinci Code on wednesday. Having read the book before, the film didn't come as a surprise at all ... it's more or less exactly like the book. So it wasn't a film to be surprised by. Instead I could focus on the act. I must say the disappointment came from Audrey Tautou, a very good actress otherwise, her roles in Amelie, Les Poupees russes and The Dirty Little Things were good or very good. One of the explanation I could find ... she wasn't very comfortable with her English role and that affected the whole performance. Or maybe she was nervous acting next to Tom Hanks? Anyway, Tom Hanks performance was mediocre at best. So nothing much to say there. The best actors were Ian McKellen as Teabing and Paul Bettany as Silas, the albino.
I also don't like that much films shot in the dark (no pun intended) ... where everything is so dark. Harry Potter was like that too. Yucky!

What else? Ah well, tomorrow I'm flying to Dublin for the long bank holiday weekend. Let's hope the weather is not as shit as in the last week (with the exception of yesterday afternoon).

the wonder of the internet

2006-05-22T22:36:00.000+01:00

The internet is so big.
Besides being true and sounding like a 1st grade sentence, this has some interesting implications too. In the same way a language vocabulary is big ... but mostly irrelevant, as people use only a tiny fraction for daily verbal communication ... in the same way, the Internet is used by people in a very limited way. So here's how I use the internet. Next thing ... ask yourself how do you use it. You can even spam my blog with comments about your usage.

1. I use it for email
My primary email used to be Yahoo, but then I switched to gmail. It's leaner, it's more usable, more searcheable, it checks itself. I still use yahoo but not so much - it's also blocked at work.

2. I use it to read news
My two news feeds are
http://news.bbc.co.uk
http://www.hotnews.ro
One being news about my current living place and adoptive country, the other news about my real country.

3. I use it to keep in touch with some people, social networks, groups, forums.
Social networks I use www.orkut.com and that's it.
I use groups.yahoo.com for groups to keep in touch with old friends, colleagues and other people I know.

4. I use it for instant messaging although I only talk to very very few people
I use yahoo messenger - main one.
And I use msn - secondarily.

5. In the category reference I use mainly
www.dictionary.com
www.wikipedia.org - fantastic and one of my favourites!

6. I use it to keep this lousy blog on blogspot

7. I use it to search for info
www.google.com - no other search engine
I also use groups.google.com to search for solutions to technical problems I have at work because if you have a problem, it's likely someone else fixed it before you somehow.
www.multimap.com - to find my way around London

And that's it.
What else would you recommend?

long time no see

2006-05-21T19:53:00.000+01:00

I didn't feel like writing recently. Don't know why ... spring must have something to do with that.
What have I been up to?
I've started organising the football again, on saturdays, last time we played in Hyde Park and it was a good one. For the foreseeable future, we'll stick to that.
Still no news about the flat. Solicitors are the scum of the Earth. But I'm sure it comes as no news to you all.
I'm sick, so I've been restrained to my own flat recently. But the weather's been shit, so no loss there.
No new film, planning to see Da Vinci Code, although I heard it's shit, so not too keen on that. Also planning to see X-men 3 soon.
And finally ... I think I'll be going to Greece in July. Yupie. Athens, Mykonos, Crete, still to see, I'm not in charge here, more like a baggage :P
And yeap, the world cup is round the corner, I'm preparing a football fantasy site, I'll let you all know soon.

2006-05-11T15:41:00.000+01:00

Did you notice that the posts here keep shrinking? So did I. Must be the nice weather coming up.
Anyway, I saw Mission Impossible 3 yesterday. It's entertaining, keeps you interested and you don't feel it's too long (although it's 2 hours and lil bit) mainly because it's full of action. It's full of gadgets too. It's not too bad for this sort of films.
Da Vinci code and X-men 3 are both coming out this month.

2006-05-08T14:26:00.000+01:00

The weather was dissapointing this weekend, so instead of going to Brighton, we digested french films. And they weren't bad. The films in question are Lemming and Russian Dolls, they're both good films and my opinion of french films improved with these two.
Also a bit of Borough Market and seeing Cold Mountain and The Claim on DVD. Nothing much really. On wednesday, there's another film, Mission Impossible 3. Back in the film "business". :P

An excellent film

2006-05-05T10:19:00.000+01:00

I don't say that often, on the contrary, usually I find films that other people enjoy very much to be missing something (e.g. Ice Age 2). Moreover, I always think that I haven't seen a good film in a long long time. Not anymore! Everything changed this wednesday and all due to a quebeqois film (french canadian) called C.R.A.Z.Y. I knew the film was good as it scored 8.5 out of 10 on imdb.com which doesn't happen very often with many films. As I hadn't heard anything about this particular film, I was a bit sceptical.But in the end it is a very good film. It's a normal every day life film, that's why maybe it's so great, because you can relate more easily to it. It also has different stories: a story of a relationship between father - sons, a story about accepting/denying homosexuality, a story about modern christic figures, a story about a "normal" family. It's all wrapped up in a layer of delicious humour which makes it a very enjoyable film to watch. Very recommended!

2 films on DVD

2006-05-02T18:29:00.000+01:00

In the old times, when people had some secrets, they would go to a mountain, find a tree, carve a hole in the tree, whisper their secret in the hole and cover it with mud, so no one could ever find it.
Nowadays we have blogs and no one really cares anymore.
It's strange that some people in fact choose to make a film about it, that's their own hole in the tree. Instead of covering it with mud, they cipher it so that it becomes a metaphor, no longer a secret spelled out clearly and release it out for the wider audience.

These 2 films then come out on DVD and maybe someone like me, manages to watch them in a weekend ... the titles could be "In the mood for love" and "2046".

I must say they're good but overdone. They're very slow and you end up wondering when the heck will they ever end. When they do, you burst in a cheer of relief.

eine kleine gay fuhrer

2006-04-27T12:48:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I went to see a musical called The Producers. Well, it was supposed to be quite famous and very humourous. And it was. I don't know about famous, but hilarious it was. Imagine seeing a gay Hitler, a crazy german soldier still in-love with the Fuhrer singing Deutschland uber Alles, pigeons giving the nazi salute, in a play put on stage by some crook producers wooing old ladies and dreaming about a carefree escape to Rio with their millions. Well, on the stage is much better and so funny. I'm not a fan of musicals on tv (I think it's a bad idea), but in a theatre, live, listening to the live music and seeing the live performance of actors - it's altogether a different experience. It was worth departing with 30 pounds for the performance.

What else is new? Well, I am so stressed about the appartment ... I think all solicitors are a pain in the arse, they must do nothing all day, how can a letter take weeks to arrive to the other solicitor? All morons ... they're like black holes, everything disappears in them and you don't know what they're actually doing all this time. I'm not making sense here, that's because all my frustration is very hard to put in words.

My tv died (sounds like one of those stupid 3 word sentences when you learn a new language - not anymore, after this comment hihi - I'm so smart). Such a lamer, dying on me like that, all of the sudden. Well, one oddity is that this tv (and many others) can't be turned on from the buttons that they have on the actual tv. It's only from the remote. From the buttons on the tv, you can only turn it on (which means put in "stand-by" mode - waiting for the remote) or off. How strange! So, if the remote happens to die on you, or let's say the batteries go flat during something really important on the tv, you're screwed. Who designs these things? They should definitely get the Nobel prize for the most user unfriendly design ever. Anyway, even with the remote, it's not working.With my limited understanding of electrical devices, I really hope it's a blown electrical fuse, that's easily replaceable even by a twat (smile to the camera Ciprian, we're talking about you!). So, I might have a go at DIY-ing. At one point this era!But how can the bastard die on me right before the world cup? Sacrilege!

Well, the plan is to go to Toast for some cocktails tonight, maybe a walk in the park too, and even a french crepe (not crap, please) perhaps. Maybe this time we'll see John Lennon in that place. Ah yes, this comment always pops up when talking about Toast, because it's the place where M&M allegedly (they'll kill me for this "allegedly") saw Paul McCartney one day. Well, if we have enough cocktails, we'll see them both. I mean ... they'll soon hang out together again anyway, if you know what I mean. :D

images from brussels

2006-04-25T00:28:00.000+01:00

The European Comission building, we stayed at a hotel really close to it

Unfortunately the weather was brusselian and we had to admire the view from under a 5 euros umbrella that we had to buy locally.

We had lunch on one of these narrow, cobblestoned streets ... lovelay!! :-)

The Atomium, the pride and landmark of Brussels...

Brussels' got the balls...

From Atomium looking to Little Europe, an open air show with miniature representation of different cities/towns around Europe.

And here it is ... the miniature Big Ben and Parliament, overlooked by the Atomium...

How life would be in the skin of a 6 foot tall grumpy ogre...

But beside everything else, Brussels is a city of chocolate ...

... where chocolate bunnies sing!

O Sole Miooooo....

Helping Science @ Home

2006-04-21T17:16:00.000+01:00

I must say I'm the type of person who thinks science is a great thing. There are many reasons for that. One would probably be that, as a kid, I was reading a lot of sci-fi, I was part of a sci-fi club and with another 5 or so friends I've organised a RomCon (Romanian Sci-Fi Convention) in my home town when I was in highschool. Wow, some memories, huh? I also used to write sci-fi short stories, winning a second place in a contest back in Romania in highschool.

But also my background is in maths and computer science, which is science. I also liked physics although I always had a complex about not being good enough there. Also liked chemistry - that was before I went to highschool and realise what a nightmare it can be.

And to read about new science discoveries is great. Have a look at www.newscientist.com for instance.

So, in true support of science, I undertook two small initiatives that you can too, if you truly support science. Here they are:
1. Yesterday I signed the People's petition. It's about supporting medical research in the UK. That is research that uses animals too - responsibly. Many people might argue with that. However, if they discovered they have cancer for instance (touch wood), many people would suddenly change their view on things and they would love to have a cure at hand at any cost. Research is vital for us. Of course, it has to be done responsibly and the UK has one of the most controlled research legislation in the world.
Here's the petition: http://www.peoplespetition.org.uk/

2. The second thing that I've done today was to donate spare CPU cycles to science. In particular to the Folding@Home project: http://folding.stanford.edu/. This is a distributed network that tries to understand the folding of proteins which might help providing cures for different diseases like cancer, Alzheimer's Disease and others.
All you have to do is download an application that runs in the background, with low priority and this application is given computational work to do by a main server at the Stanford University. So in the end, there's a network of 200,000 computers around the world, all provided by donors, working to solve different computational models. There have been some nice results and papers published in the domain, due to this initiative. So it's not in vain and it's helping science.
I wasn't a participant in the SETI@Home program, which functioned (and maybe still is) in the similar way, but with the purpose of searching for extra-terrestrial intelligence, by computing the huge amount of data that Earth is bombarded with from space every day. I think that's pointless because the chances of discovering something like that are too slim.
But scientifical research is different and in this area there have been results from this program.

mounting debt

2006-04-20T16:42:00.000+01:00

I got convinced and bought tickets for the Reading Festival for Sunday27th of August. It's a bank holiday. So, in preparation I'm listening to Pearl Jam intensively. I used to listen to their first album Ten, back in the 90s when it was big on Mtv. Ah well, it's been a while...

Tragedy struck yesterday when I checked the matches programme for this year's World Cup. The final is on the 9th of July. I went pale when I realised I will be on a flight from Budapest to London exactly at the time of that match. :~*( I can't believe it. It's a nightmare.
But not if I can do something about it.
I changed the time of flying, so I'm still flying on the 9th, but in the morning, 11 o'clock. So I will be able to see the final in the UK. :-) Hurray!

The price difference was 25.50 pounds, but hey, it happens once in 4 years... so that makes it 6.375 pounds per year. Dividing by 365.25 -> 0.017453798767967145790554414784394 pounds per day. I guess you'd agree with me that we can safely cut some decimals there. So, in the end it's costing me 1p per day over 4 years. Geez, I can't believe it's so expensive. I was expecting something less when I started the calculation. A life of debt awaits me for the next 4 years. Sigh!

But given that I've changed the booking to watch 90 mins of football... let's calculate how much every minute costs. A staggering 0.283p per minute. But if we divide by 60 and ignore decimals from the 3rd onwards ... it's just 0.00p. Not to mention if we have some extra time and/or penalties. So in the end it's nothing really. It was a good decision.

za trip to Bruzzelz

2006-04-19T11:13:00.000+01:00

On friday morning my alarm went off at 6.15 and I must say I wasn't very happy with that. It's bank holiday for crying out loud. Yet my backpack was already prepared and Roberto was already on his way to Waterloo where we were supposed to meet up at 7. Living so close to Waterloo is so convenient, I could wake up just 45 minutes before the meeting time.

I jumped in a bus and in 10 minutes I was in Waterloo. Once there I realised I've printed a lot of pages about Brussels, Bruges, the confirmation email, all except the Eurostar booking number which was vital in getting the tickets from the automatic ticket machine. So we had to find a phone, connect to the internet, pay 1 pound for 15 minutes of browsing, access gmail (I was afraid the BT phone-browsers wouldn't handle the gmail ajax very well, but they did). That was stupidly well spent 1 pound.

With the code, we got our tickets, we got through the barrier, with the British "officers" that x-ray the luggage for automatic weapons speaking a dodgy English. Well, they are cheap workers from Poland. Globalisation is a fantastic opportunity for polish workers to learn English!

The trip to Brussels was un-eventful, except for some 4 English "beauties" next to us speaking incessantly "Oh, she got married? I didn't even know she had a boyfriend! Oh, have you seen Brad Pitt's armpits?" And shit like that, at 8 in the morning. Unfortunately the X-ray polish workers took all our scissors, nail cutters, knives and automatic guns ... so we could only visualise mentally different ways of killing the bitches.

The hotel was very nice, a 4-star hotel with twin beds (did I mention twin?) not double bed (twin folks) ... so don't you think that me and Roberto slept in the same bed. It also had a tv with a lot of channels, the room was big. It also had a sauna which we used one evening after walking all day.

It was also located right next to the European Commission and the European Parliament - which by the way were empty as it was Easter, and for Easter, european politicians dose off at their own homes.

We walked all the way from the railway station, Bruxelles-Midi, to the hotel, a long walk. We had our first laugh after we checked in the hotel and we went to a local restaurant near by to have something to eat. We said ... ah, we don't want to eat, just a coffee and a croissant. "Impossible, it's too late" said the guy speaking "like zis!". "Impossible, it's too late for breakfast. 2pm is already too late for breakfast". It was cracking to see this religious approach to breakfast. If it's 2, it's too late for breakfast and it would be sacrilegious to eat a croissant at any other time except breakfast.

We had to accept the ruling as it came from Brussels, and everything that comes from Brussels is good and quickly implemented into law! For a split of a second we thought of taking our case to the Human Rights Court which happens to be in Brussels ... but nah. We ditched the croissant. I bet it wasn't that good anyway! :-)

The weather in Brussels was crap though. It's not just the weather in London that proudly deserves this epithet. It even rained, and we had to buy 5 euro umbrellas and sightsee Brussels with umbrellas. But otherwise Brussels is nice, an interesting, sometimes "out-of-place" combination of new and old, with cobble-stone squares and medieval churches staying next to modern building hanging the european flag. If you were to describe Brussels (and maybe Belgium?!) in couple of keywords, they would be:

1. Waffles - geez, so many waffles, everywhere, at every street corner, everyone selling them to armies of wafflo-maniacs

2. Chocolate - Belgium is the choco-land, no doubt about that. Every street has at least one chocolate shop, each of them boasting of drawing their roots from the early years of 1500 or something similar. And the chocolate is very good and cheap. Yeah yeah, i ate some, kill me now! :P

3. Cobble-stone - phew, this is nice, but if you have a car, or high heels, it's a nightmare. And I remember when driving through Belgium some years back, they have cobble stone motorways too. Well, not many, but still. Phew, get a grip Belgium!

4. Beer & chips - yeap, it's not just Britain and Germany. I expected Stela Artois to rule though, but I found they had a more popular local option called Jupiler which I haven't seen before in the UK or anywhere else.

Eating out in Brussels is very easy, there are some nice narrow streets full of restaurants, one next to another - I confess I can't remember the name of the street, but it's close to the Grand Market (or whatever it's called :-). And they have competitive deals. For instance ... we had a 3 course meal for 12 euros and 12.50 euros. That included a "Soup of the Day", which was very nice soup by the way; then the main dish, Chicken with some mushroom sauce and chips or Roast beef and chips - quite nice. In the end we had dessert too. For 12 euros, it's a bargain.

We also visited the landmark of Brussels (as I consider it) - it's the Atomium, a large scale representation of an iron atom, with electrons as big steel balls in the sky. We got into it, used the escalators - it's not much to see really. It costs 7 euros, something like that.

But what's nicer is the Little Europe, which is very close to Atomium. It's an open air 'museum' showing miniature version of famous cities and buildings in Europe. Big Ben and the UK parliament is there, the Eiffel tower is there, the greek Pantheon is there and many many other stuff. It's a nice overview of nice places in Europe, places you can add to your "to do" list. Don't miss it if you go there. Well, except if it rains, as it's in open air.

In Brussels they speak mainly french, although the official languages in Belgium are flemish (a sort of Dutch) and french. But Brussels is mainly french speaking. That's not the case for Bruges, which is less than an hour away from Brussels by train, going west. In Bruges they mainly speak flemish. But worry not ... most people in Belgium seem to be speaking both languages, flemish and french, they might study both in school. And they also speak English, which is a nice surprise, because not many french speak english, so it's interesting to see french speakers speak english. If you speak english, you won't have any problems in Belgium.

Bruges is very nice, much nicer than Brussels, although it's unfair to compare them as Bruges is a small, laid back town, although vibrant and full of tourists. But the tourists mostly invade the town centre, which is specially designed for tourists. But the other parts of the town are really quiet. The contrast is very nice, because you can have the best of both worlds. We also saw a very very nice photography exhibition in a church. Portraits of people around the world, mainly from developing countries. Very nice, I even left a testimonial in their guest book, that's how much I liked it.

But Bruges is lovely, well worth a visit, and it's full of tourists as everyone seems to agree on this one.

We had a nice late lunch outside as the sun was out too. It was more expensive than in Brussels, due to the army of tourists that compete for seats, but it was nice.

The meals out are very very long in Brussels, in a latin tradition. You go there and spend 2 hours, so be ready to have a bag full of topics to talk over lunch. It's all very relaxed, you don't feel pressured to eat as quickly as you can and free the seat for the next customer as some places in London sometimes make you feel. Don't be surprised if lunch becomes dinner before you know it and you're still in the same place.

We left Brussels early in the morning too, had a baguette in the railway station and then just dozed off, on and off on the Eurostar. All in all, a very good escape, I wish the weather was a bit better though. Ciao!

huray, huray, it's a bank-bank holiday

2006-04-13T20:16:00.000+01:00

Yeahhhh ... 4 days of holiday. Beautiful!

However, for me they might be more unpleasant than normal working days, especially tomorrow morning when I have to wake up at 6 at the latest, ah comon, 6.30, let's negociate ... ok, I have to wake up early, so that I make it at Waterloo at 7am (sigh!) to meet this other globetrotter Roberto. Yeap, after being drunk for 2 days celebrating Berlusconi's loss of power... (nah, I'm kidding about him being drunk part)

So tomorrow morning, 7am, Waterloo, get our arses on Eurostar, destination Brussels ... Funny thing today, I tried to check my Eurostar reference number as it's supposed to be 8-letter reference and mine is 6!!! (sheesh, I foresee a cloudy future tomorrow morning, touch wood!) ... and when I typed www.eurostar.co.uk I was taken to the french version of the website. I type www.eurostar.com - same thing, the page I get is in french. My, have I woken up in a parallel universe where the french have won the last battle? (well, let's be generous here ... any battle?!). I quickly put my wits to work and I delivered this message:

"Why do I type www.eurostar.co.uk or www.eurostar.com and I'm taken to a website which is in french without an option to switch to English?
Is it a new marketing technique to encourage more English to learn the beautiful language of Voltaire? How can I use Shakespeare instead?"

to their support team. Thanks to this latest state of the art technology called "email", I got my own message back in their reply, so this is the exact message I sent. Now, I don't want to spark a religious war here on who's better, Voltaire or Shakespeare ... no one could care less anyway, as it's not about football.

The reply came prompty and from a human operator named David. It's a nice surprise, given that other companies blatantly ignore your emails but they proundly put links on their website saying "Contact us".

Well, the guy tried to teach grama how to suck eggs in that he explained to me what cookies are ... well, I'm a software engineer dude, I eat cookies every day (actually I don't anymore since my dentist said ... either you quit or your teeth will). The end of story is ... it couldn't have been cookies, because I have never accessed their website before from work (not to mention setting my default on french - who in the right mind would do that? answer: a french) and my settings on the browser doesn't allow other parties to set cookies for different domains than their own.
And especially that I delete my cookies and offline content every month or two - since I can't view page sources in IE because of that (sigh!).
He also lectured me about how to delete the cookies.
Of course I didn't delete any cookies and of course that 5 minutes after that, without me doing anything to my browser, the site was magically back and working as expected.

Could this be another french trick in their quest for world domination?
It could well be.
Or I can also imagine a geeky hacker smirking somewhere in a dark room, not having left that room for 35 days in a row and with an uptime of 2 years, 45 days, 5 hours, 20 minutes and 6 seconds sharp. 7 seconds now...

Anyway ... another funny thing that happened today ... we were lunching and talking bollocks as usual (oops, excuse me, can I say bollocks online?) and somehow the word "Romanian" came into the conversation.
Automatically a woman next table, 45-ish, with a heavy eastern european accent said to us : "What do you have to say about Romania?" like she was a bit upset, a how-dare-you sort of question. We were all confused for a second or two ... this was highly unconventional. We're in England for God Sake, you don't just go talking to strangers just like that. You wait for someone to introduce you. Sweet heaven!
Quickly I recovered from the shock and I said simply "Nothing." The woman said "Ok" and that was it. Most likely she was a romanian. Duh. And then I remembered that very close from where we work there's a company called "Black Sea Company". It could have some romanians aboard.

So that's about it folks, I wish you a happy escape, fingers crossed for some sun or mid-finger raised for rain, as the forecast is rain-rain-rain and some sun right about the time that we're supposed to come back to London. Ah well, we'll probably hide in some dodgy tavern and indulge in pleasantries with Stella. Stella Artois.

2006-04-09T13:27:00.000+01:00

What happened this weekend?
I've been to A place in the sun Live (www.aplaceinthesunlive.com) exhibition, not because I want to buy in the sun, but for testing the market, for business :-)
To my surprise, the show was saturated with companies wanting to sell properties in Bulgaria. Bulgaria was the main attraction, it was everywhere, from advertising in front of Excel (all the ads were about Bulgaria) to so many stands trying to sell properties. Well done Bulgaria!
There were also 2 romanian small stands somewhere in a corner, 2 companies from Bucharest. So few, so few comparing to Bulgaria. They're way ahead in this game.

I've also seen a demo of an interesting Vita-mix blender (http://www.vitamix.com/household/international/UKchoice.html). Very impressive, I was almost about to buy one, but then the price is 399 pounds. Ah well, I'll travel for that money...

I've also managed to see 2 films this weekend. One is "The inside man" with Denzel Washington and Jodie Foster - quite good and entertaining. The other one is "Firewall" with Harrison Ford - it's a bit boring. Both films are about robbing banks, but in different ways. It's interesting how the bad guys in both (although in one of them the notion of bad and good is very volatile) are british and speak with a british accent.
Actually it's simple ... they play on the simple human psychology ... whatever is different, foreign is bad, is a threat. The unknown is a threat. So, they choose people from abroad to be the villains while the good old americans save the day.

2006-04-08T10:13:00.000+01:00

The shiny new passport is here!

Hello world with less visa requirements!

2006-04-05T22:18:00.000+01:00

With the works on Wembley stadium awfully late and with public services being seriously overcrowded, you'd think everything takes ages to get done. But, if anything is efficient in this country, it must be the passport service. Less than one week after I sent my documents, I got my supporting documents back. That would be my romanian passport! Hurray, I can go to Brussels as planned, no matter what. Well, of course, I can't say "no matter what", but the passport won't be an issue.
My new shiny british passport is supposed to arrive one of these days too.
The service was supposed to take 2 weeks, but hey, they've done it in less than that. And I've heard from other people that it is like that. Heil to the passport people! :-)

My friend George recommended "Ice Age 2", I'm so keen to go, but I promised Chris that we would see it together, so it will have to be after Easter.

What else, what else? Nothing much, caught up with a friend from Symbian, we were colleagues when I used to work there. We saw Arsenal drawing with Juventus in a goal-less match. A poor game, but Arsenal is going through. Who's gonna win the champions league? Well, it can only be ACMilan, Villareal, Arsenal or Barcelona. Where would you put your money? Hmm ... I think I'll go with Barcelona.

Of Travel And Commitment

2006-03-30T10:47:00.000+01:00

David, the ozzie, sent me an email recently. He's in Chile, the bastard! :-) How can some people be responsible, work their arses off, support the capitalism in their progressive countries (as opposed to the 'Axis of evil' gang) while others care-freely travel the world and laugh in your face (by email!). Well, the world is unjust, we need another Marx to dream about another utopia, one that would free man from work, the ultimate slavery.

Ah well, if it's not clear by now, I envy him, travelling like that in South America ... he plans to go to Brazil too and then come to London in June. Where I hope he's thinking of staying for a while, find a job ... girlfriend proved to be more difficult last time. :-)
He also promised to start blogging about his adventure. Hopefully he will, he has a great sense of humour and he goes on for ages, so that would manage to fill my idle time at work.

About the ceremony to become british. I was one of the few white people there. I'm not judgemental about that, it's just the fact. Most of people were from Pakistan, Bangladesh or African nations. I was the only romanian. Other nations representatives: one person from US, one from South Africa, one from Brazil, 2 from Colombia. We had to register, we got a sticky name tag which we had to stick onto our cloths ... so that we wouldn't forget our names when we had to shout them out loud.

There were 3 people at the control centre, the table before us delivering the blah blah. One was a council representative, dressed ceremoniously, in a purple robe with something dangling from her neck. Didn't pay much attention to that. She said something about life in the UK, in the council, the regular stuff, democracy, respecting each other, things we all know. There was another master of ceremonies, carrying a huge metal stick ... huh? Careful with that mate, you don't want to hurt anyone now do you?

His only intervention was when they entered the room saying Behold the representative of blah blah... some unforgettable words no doubt.
After that, each one of us had to say "I " out loud and individually, not in a chorus. As you can imagine, most names were unspellable, but hey, that's diversity. D-I-V-E-R-S-I-T-Y. And then we had to chant in chorus, the actual allegiance to the Queen and pledge of faith to the UK.

Once that was done, the national anthem was supposed to be played. There was a small technical problem, they couldn't get the right anthem, twice another song came out. And this is when the master of ceremony had the second intervention saying "Oh, they changed it and didn't tell us anything about that". Funny. That's what I like about this country. People take the piss. I imagine if that happened in the States, it would be high treason. Everybody would put their hands on their chests, deeply absorbed in a trance-like state of national pride, no smiles please ... this is serious matter.

That was it, your status changes in about an hour. You're no longer "Others", you can go to the "Us" queues at airports. What else? Ah, yes, you can register on the Electoral Role so that everyone on the Internet can find your address with a click of the mouse. Cool, ha?

2006-03-28T16:48:00.000+01:00

This is the 100th post in my blog ... hurray ... and also today is the day I've become british citizen.

2006-03-23T17:32:00.000Z

I got the letter about the ceremony - swearing alleagiance to the Queen. It's on 28th of March, in 5 days. That would be the day I become british. Now there are two options available.
1. Swearing alleagiance - which means "swearing by almighty God"
2. Affirming alleagiance - which removes every references to God, available for atheists
I chose to affirm the allegiance, I want to leave God out of it - just to avoid sparking wide protests in the Middle East.

Yesterday I've seen the Pink Panther, a silly comedy. If you're too serious when you see it, then you're going to think it's crap. You have to get into the silliness of it, embrace the silliness, breathe silliness, fart silliness ... you got the point! I managed to laugh really hard at some jokes, while others were not that funny. Hey, since I have an unlimited card, it was for free, so I can't be a harsh judge here, right?

Today I bought www.traveldiyplus.com - the idea is to transform it in a business later on. On the moment still working on the idea. It's going to be about travel ... and ... Well, I can't tell you more without killing you afterwards.

Since it's been so dull lately, let's finish with a joke about men. They're such pigs, aren't they... pfft!!

So a guy has to choose between 3 girls whom he wants to marry. So the test is to give each girl the same sum of money and see how they spend it and then decide.
The first girl takes the money, goes out to beauty salons, hair-stylists and comes back
- I wanted to make myself more beatiful for you to enjoy me more, because I love you so much.
The second girl goes out, buys a plasma screen, the latest playstation, a bunch of games, beer and wine.
- I wanted to buy the things that you like, so you can enjoy yourself more. All because I love you so much.
The third girl takes the money, she invests it on the stock market, makes a good profit, returns the money + the profit.
- I wanted to show you I am responsible financially and I make you not just happy, but richer too, because I love you so much.
The man thinks for a while and then he goes and marry the one with the biggest boobs.

2006-03-22T11:28:00.000Z

My first experience with a dentist in this country. He was very nice, very polite and friendly, he talked to me about my dental situation, explaining what my options are and even telling me that I should change my diet and eat less sugar. Which I'm going to do!
It's a surprise, because doctors in Romania don't work like that. They don't tell you about technical problems, they usually make the decisions for you, they don't tell you about consequences. They're usually too busy making money and they seem more interested in making you come again for their service, instead of trying to prevent some problems by simply informing you of choices or prevention options.
It also seems a standard practice to apply local anasthetic, so you don't feel anything ... not even your lip, for 3-4 hours afterwards.
So I'm pretty pleased with the doctor. The total cost was 74 pounds, quite expensive compared to romania. The breakdown was: examination (25 pounds), x-ray (10 pounds), silver filling (39 pounds). I'll probably be able to claim back on my insurance policy about 65 pounds.
However he delivered some bad news about the state of my teeth, so I need to go back on monday and maybe even more. But I'll cut down sugar from my diet.

The list of film I've seen since last time ... Sylvia, The Aviator, The proposition, Frida. Tonight we're going to see a comedy for a change ... The Pink Panther. So it's looking good.

I must also admit that I've started solving sudoku puzzles, it's addictive, an easy way to kill time I guess.

And last, but not least, I've finally managed to book the sports hall for football this coming saturday, 11am. Yupie, finally some football after a long time of inactivity.

The revenge of the dried apricot

2006-03-17T11:31:00.000Z

Tragedy struck today! One of my tooth fillings fell off. Arghhhh! I hate when these things happen because
1. Going to the dentist is not fun
2. Going to the dentist is not cheap
3. Finding a good dentist is not easy
4. Claiming back on my dental insurance is not straight-forward
5. It would be the first time I go to a dentist in this country, before I used to fix my teeth whenever I was in Romania, but this time I can't wait until June
6. I have to!

It happened while eating dried apricots in the morning. Now, apricots of all things! I would understand if it was meat ... there would be a suble moral lesson in that: Don't eat your fellow Earth inhabitants. But what's the lesson in eating apricots? What? Not eating apricots? Nah, it would be too blunt and unpoetic. It has to be ... don't eat in the morning. Because I usually don't. I skip breakfast and I eat lunch at 12. But today I innocently thought I should have some bananas and apricots in the morning. Innocently?! INNOCENTLY?! This is divine punishment for my weakness.Well, shit happens. And if you eat a lot of apricots, shit happens a lot. No pun intended?

Enough with the crap.

I also booked everything for the late may bank holiday, a trip to Dublin, road testing my shiny new passport, which I don't have yet. I wonder if it's true that Ireland is populated my dwarves dressed all in green and drinking Guiness all day. Don't be silly! No one can drink Guiness all day. So it can't be true!Well, it's St Patick Day today, so what a better gift than a trip to Dublin ... well, for the end of May.

2006-03-16T11:54:00.000Z

Last night I've seen Tsotsi, the Oscar winner for best foreign film of the year. It's very good, it has something humane in it that reaches out to audiences. In the same time it's nothing big, nothing holywoodian about it. It's a simple story about a simple guy and maybe because nothing is big, nothing is exaggerated, maybe that's why it's so touching and humane and credible. Anyway, it's worth having a look. It's a message a hope in the middle of a sad decor that would normally have a sad effect on the viewer. The film deserves the Oscar.
In the weekend the plan is to see among other things Y Tu Mama Tambien, a mexican film with that guy from Motorcycle Diaries, I can't remember his name and too lazy to look it up now.

The big destination for the end of the year is narrowing down to Caribbeans or maybe Central America. I found some tickets to Jamaica for 400 pounds and a cheap caribbean airline: http://www.liatairline.com/Now, I have to read more about the area and come up with a 3 weeks itinerary. Jumping from one island to another sounds fun. That's unless a tornado happens to sweep the region at that time. Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed for tornado not happening, what else? Duh.

I'm hungry ... lunch break is here. :-)

2006-03-14T14:09:00.000Z

I've been thinking about travelling again. Actually I've been thinking about booking something early for the coming Bank Holidays. The Easter bank holiday is already booked, I'm going to Brussels + 1 day in Brugges. For the late May bank holiday I'm thinking of Dublin, 3 days in the capital of Ireland. It's gotta be good. The flights are so cheap, around 33 pounds (inclusive of tax). We'll see, but I'm very very tempted.

I'll also be left with 15 holidays for this year. I was thinking of 3 weeks, from 16th of december to 7th of january, that would be 12 working days, going to a warm destination. I was looking at Australia, but for that part of the year, it's ridiculously expensive. Most tickets are 1000-1200 pounds. Way too expensive if you think that you can normally find tickets around 600 pounds.Any other possible destinations? Hmm ... don't know, it's gotta be in the southern hemisphere as I need sun and warmth. :-)
Other possibilities: Singapore, South America (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru), Central America (Costa Rica, Bahamas, Mexico), California, Cambodia + Vietnam, New Zeeland (although I think the flight would be expensive as for Australia), Africa (Morocco, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Namibia). The list is too long :-)

2006-03-13T16:15:00.000Z

The wednesday film club which i organise went to see Syriana last week. Yeap, on wednesday, that's why it's called "wednesday film club". It's wednesday because Orange has a special offer: 2 tickets for the price of 1 for its customers. Anyway ... Syriana is a film that keeps your brain active, wondering what the heck is going on and who are all those people. At some point I felt so frustrated as I couldn't understand the relationship between all the characters in the film, yet they were introducing new characters. You also need to know about the history of the region in order to understand some parts of the film. I was expecting more though.

Next wednesday, the club is going to see Tsotsi, the Oscar winner for best foreign film this year.

In the weekend ... more films. The world's fastest indian is quite a good film. Anthony Hopkins makes it shine. He said this film was refreshing for him. No sex, no violence, no guns, no killings. Sounds boring, huh? Well, that's what I thought too, but the bubbly character keeps you entertained giving the film a delicious humour which saves it from the cold shoulder of the viewer.

I've also seen on DVD 2 older films: Adaptation with Nicholas Cage playing a double role. Quite good. Also Birth with Nicole Kidman, quite interesting too.

On Sunday we went to see "The hills have eyes". It's full of gratuitous explicit violence which makes your stomach gurgle in disgust. There was a comical aspect too, but not from the film. During the view, they suddenly turned the lights on. We were all wondering WTF, when a guy comes in to tell us that we need to evacuate the building. We did, and once in the street we realised the funny side of it and the lack of respect for the customers. No one told us anything. We decided to go home, the film was for free as we had unlimited cards, but the poor people that had to pay for the film... We still don't know what happened.

Today, nothing much happening, the plan is to go to the gym. I've started again going to the gym last week, this would be the 4th time. I really need to go to avoid becoming a vegetable. I would also like to go swimming, but I'm so lazy... I've also taken decisive action in organising football again, but the sports hall is all booked during the weekend. I might be able to book it starting at 11am, but that's usually an impossible hour for many of the joyous drinkers indulging themselves in the regular friday binge.

2006-03-08T11:18:00.000Z

What's up doc? *chewing a carrot*

Some reasons to be happy. I started to go to the gym again, on Monday was the first time. It was brilliant, I felt so energetic afterwards and alive. I was mostly on the cross-trainer, just a little bit of running, not much. I have to take it easy at first. It's so weird how human mind works. I read in the same day, for the first time, about the Sudden Adult Death Syndrome (also called Cardiac arrhythmia). It's a heart problem that can hit you any time and it kills in minutes. It's a sudden killer. It mostly occurs in healthy fit people as exercise can put pressure on heart. However, it is believed to be a genetic problem in the heart, but hey, we don't know if we're genetically flawed or not, do we?
And reading about something like that just before going to the gym, it's not helping. It's curious to see how the mind thinks and how it worries and explores the darkest corners of possibility.

Finally, after 6 months of suffering, I got some sense out of travelselect.com. I told you about not getting a refund for a ticket for Thailand that I bought in September. They kept saying they haven't got my tickets back and can't proceed with the refund. I believe this is shit as I'm entitled to a refund by the Sale of Goods Act anyway. Some possibilities I was ready to explore were ... cancelling the transaction with the credit card, complain to Trading Standards, take them to the small claims courts, complain to ABTA.
The techniques they were using:
1. Saying they haven't got the tickets and always trying to transfer me to a different department
2. A manager was never available
3. Not replying to any emails at all
Finally today I got hold of a customer service guy willing to help and, in the end, he said I would be refunded in 4 weeks. Isn't that outrageous? After 6 months of waiting. I suspect they lost somehow the tickets as I have proof from Royal Mail that they were delivered (recorded delivery, remember?).
Anyway, try to avoid lastminute.com and travelselect.com - they're absolutely shit! If you have a problem, you're on your own!

The bad thing is I slept miserably tonight and I have a terrible ache in the back of my neck, I can barely turn the head. Not to mention if I drop something, I might have to fingertip-search it on the floor. Or maybe I could use a mirror! A-HA! Problem solved!

Tonight the plan is to see Syriana and explore the implications of running out of oil. Oil and conflict go hand in hand and the world seems oblivious to the fact that it's a limited resource indeed. We'll see if Syriana tells us something new.

2006-03-06T14:01:00.000Z

This weekend, on the 4th of march, it was my birthday. 29 year old I am now. Shit, depressing! I think next year I will definitely have a mid-life crisis. People say to me ... what mid-life crisis at 28-29? Well, it all depends how much you live in the end. If you live 56-58, then it's definitely a mid life crisis.

I didn't want to organise anything, but then Ali, M&M dragged me out for a coffee, where I was also very embarrassed by the candles they put on the cake Marco cooked. There were a lot of people around, none of them looking bluntly, but surely everyone noticed. Anyway, it was a nice day out, we ended up in a pub having a drink and that was it.
It wasn't anything I organised or planned. It's worth mentioning because other people might say that they weren't invited. Usually when I organise something, I invite everyone. But this time, it was nothing to be invited at. I might organise something though when I get my citizenship.

And since we're talking about that, a Home Office guy called me on saturday, for my birthday to tell me that I was successful in my citizenship application. Now I don't know if it was just coincidence or they did on purpose. The guy said ... oh, it's your birthday today, what a coincidence, happy birthday! Hehe ... so I reckon they did it on purpose. Well, it was nice of them.
The next step is to get the official letter, then swear allegiance to the Queen and that's it.

The weather was very nice on saturday and sunday, sun was out, you could have felt the spring coming hadn't it been for the merciless wind. On Sunday we went to Greenwich, visited the area, the Royal Maritime Museum, the Royal Observatory and then 2 films at West India Quay Cineworld cinema.

The weather man, with Nicholas Cage was the first. It's very good, I enjoyed it very much. After seeing the trailer, I thought, hmm... it's going to be boring. But it's such a nice insight into the human psyche bogged down in the trivial little big problems of life. All narrated with a humourous spin that manages to cook a comedy from what it would be otherwise tragedy ingredients. Recommended!

Good night and good night is Clooney's film about the communist witch-hunt of the 50s, conducted by an american senator. The film is a bit weird, you have to pay attention because the key of the film is in the details. The whole point of the film is in the dilemma: should I speak against the inquisition or not. After that the film goes straight and very abruptly for a clearly spelled moral about the role of the TV in a modern society. It lacks twists and it's more of a documentary as the characters are not very well contoured. Anyway ... I'm not a critic, I must be missing something, I'm sure.

snippets

2006-03-03T14:35:00.000Z

Well, the A2 poster finally arrived, it's good but too bright. I need to correct it in Photoshop and print it again :-) But not just yet.

Bowling yesterday was very good, we had fun. To my disappointment and dismay, I only managed to win one game, Alireza snatching 2 games. Edyta? Well, she was there too :-)

I'm thinking of going to Brussels (maybe take a day trip to Brugges from there by train) in the April bank holiday 14-17. I'm looking into that. Roberto is interested too.

I've booked my ticket to Romania from June 24 to July 9, for my cousin's wedding.

Found this great website that gives you a comparison of flight prices on different websites (eg. ryanair, easyjet and many more): http://www.skyscanner.net. It's a fantastic tool for weekend escapes mainly and the best feature that I always wanted is that it allows you to search for any destination, ordered by price. That's because most of the times I don't really care where I'm going (as long as it's not somewhere I've already been) but I only care about cheapest flights and many times picking the cheapest destination. Great website!

2006-02-28T17:17:00.000Z

I wrote a while ago that I ordered an A2 print on jessopsphotoexpress.com. Well, after 2 weeks of no-action and staring at the same "Your order is being processed", I decided to write them an email to their hopefully-attended customer support email box. Well, they responded promptly saying that they cannot find my order in their system and they're talking with the software company. Geez, not another screw-up!
This is because I still haven't got my money back for the ticket I cancelled in october. Can you imagine? I sent an threatening email to lastminute.com telling them my last minute of patience is running out and I will claim back my money via the credit card company, complain to ABTA, complain to Trading Standards and sue them in the small claims tribunal. No response so far! Can you believe it?
There's something very wrong with the economy and companies. Of course, everyone knows they only care about providing value to investors and gaining more and more profits. It's always been that, but in recent times it's all got worse. Banks report record profits of all times while they give their customers the middle finger. Gas and electricity goes up like it never did before. Council tax is the spiralling stairway to heaven or to heart attack!
It seems to me that the UK economy is desperate to attract investors from abroad, from all over the world, to support the economy, all in the detriment of the UK consumer that has to foot a larger bill than anyone else.

Anyway, there's a film going this week to see Clooney's "Good night and good luck" on wednesday, a repeat of the successful get together that I organised last wednesday to see "Walk the Line".
On thursday it's bowling, so far only moi, Alireza and Edyta, but hey, it's not quantity we're after here.

more films...

2006-02-27T12:51:00.000Z

Even more films that I saw...

Date Movie - a total fiasco, it's supposed to be funny, but it's grotesque and I didn't laugh much. Not worth spending money or time on it. Total crap! IMDB rating: 2.9/10

The fog - a horror about ghosts coming back for revenge. It's not that scary but it's ok. Nothing special though. IMDB rating: 3/10

Lucky number Slevin - a tale of revenge and gangs. The story it's a bit unrealistic and ridiculous at points, especially when describing the gangs involved. But the idea and story is not bad and the film has enough twists to keep you enjoying it. It's worth a go. IMDB rating: 6.2/10

Capote - an egotistic writer catches himself out when trying to write about a murder. He writes a tremendously successful book, but it all comes with a cost in the end as he's left psychologically changed by the experience. The transformation is a bit unexpected and the whole point of the film. Recommended! IMDB rating: 8.1/10

The Lady Vengeance - a tragicomedy made in Korea. Tackling a tough subjects which hasn't been explored that much in western films: women in prison, children abduction & murder. It has some comic moments to, as to soften the message or to remind the public how ridiculous everything is. For me, it was also an exploration of the death penalty. It's good, but different. IMDB rating: 7.7/10

On DVD, some older films:

Existenz (1999) - sci-fi. Hmm, it was ok. It's difficult to make a very good sci-fi, because sci-fi need to work much harder to transpose the watcher into the different world of the film. It's a slower build up and the line can be easily crossed into the ridiculous. This film tackled the theme of computer games and how they can change societies and people, although they might seem harmless now. IMDB rating: 6.7/10

Memento (2000) - This is a very good film, the old subject of revenge from the perspective of a person that doesn't have long term memory. The technique is also very interesting, and at least for me, innovative. The film presents goes backwards, you know how it ends and then you slowly find out how it all get there by seeing a little more in the past. In the end, not everything makes sense and there is place for thinking about it more. All in all, a very good film which is reflected in the IMDB rating: 8.6/10

2006-02-22T17:17:00.000Z

Today my colleagues had shafted me, volunteering me for a 3 hours conference call with the bosses from the States on a new business they just bought over there. They voted that I should be on the call. And I wasn't even present.
I hope I scared them by telling them I don't know these people, I could say on the phone:
"Who's this Bob geezer, he keeps talking bollocks for half an hour".
Bob being the big boss.
I hope they got the message, I don't want to be stuck in a 3 hours conference call.
But at least we had a laugh.

Maybe I should write about the job. That would be funny. Usually we have fun here. The frenchie and the brit are going on an English language course. Not me! :-)
The brit is of indian descent but was born here, he's on the course to improve his English vocabulary and writing skills. He's from East London and speaks with the well known eastern London "innit". E.g.: Shitty weather, innit?!
Yeap, weather is the perennial topic in England. Or football.

Tonight it's film night, Walk the Line. So far it's moi, Chris, Alireza, Ivika, Roberto, Kaisa, Leo, Edyta that said they would be there. We'll see. It's a good start.

2006-02-21T18:03:00.000Z

So bird flu is almost upon us. I was wondering ... what happens if in a chicken farm, a chicken or a turkey accidentally sneezes? The others must freeze, shivers down their yummy breasts, before starting to jump up and down in panic. What happens if the same turkey sneezes more afterwards? It's easy to imagine ...

Well, at least in Romania we're somehow safe (just that I don't live in Romania). While we do eat chicken, the national meat must be no doubt pork. Allegedly there's a historical explanation for that.
Romania was raided by the turks back in history. So what?! Well, turks are muslim and they're forbidden from eating pork. So everytime they raided us, they use to take everything except the pigs. It's not as tragic as natural selection because people soon realised that and started to rear pigs instead of chickens. You can almost imagine the frustration that must have caused in the invading turks.

There's also the habit of killing the pigs for Christmas. Well, what did you think? They're not reared for their linguistic skills!
This annual slaughter is so clearly expressed in the following joke:

The pig talks to the donkey.
- Donkey, you're so dirty. And weak. Look at you, you're abused every day. Look how many stuff they make you carry! You must have such a shitty life...
The donkey, visibly irritated, turns to the pig:
- Is it my impression or you're not the last year's pig?!

Ok ... enough of that. Back to serious stuff. Bird flu. So far it seems to have affected swans. Swans (or some swans) are said to be mute and only sing before they die (thus the expression "a swan's song"). But with the flu, do you think they sing?
I would imagine they have stuffy nose and cough while swearing at the bloody winter flu. But everyone usually imagine they will make it when they have a flu.
They have to know for sure that they're gonna die in order to sing. What if they sing and then they recover from the flu?! What would everyone say? There would be outrage for sure.
So, using this logic ... they must postpone singing until the last minute when they're very sure they die.
It begs the question ... what happens if you slaughter them? They have to realise ... shit, it's a knife. Oh my god, it's coming for my neck! ... I'm fucked ... La-La-La...

I'll stop it here, it's silly already!

2006-02-20T10:09:00.000Z

Friday we've seen a show called Jump, a bunch of hilarious koreans combining martial arts with jumps, dance and humour. It's hilarious, you don't want to miss it, I couldn't stop laughing at points. A great show, highly recommended! M&Ms have seen it twice, they liked it that much :-)

Films ...

Hidden - a french film, cute and shocking at points, makes you think after it's finished. It's not bad, surely better than many other films that I've seen recently. Recommended!

Final Destination 3 - quite ridiculous sequel. It's just taking the piss, yawn yawn!

Aeon Flux - sci-fi idea wrapped around Charlize Theron as a sexy futuristic assasin. Badly done though, idea not new, holywoodian bla bla of grandeur and liberation. Disappointing!

March of the Penguins - very good documentary, nice photography, cute scenes, very nice. Recommended if you like documentaries or Morgan Freeman's voice!

Casanova - this is a good film, I was a bit skeptical before seeing it. It's not easy tackling subjects that everyone thinks they know about because the public wants twists, wants to be surprised at every corner. This film does it and I was impressed by it. I didn't think it would be that good. Recommended!

Fun with Dick and Jane - a comedy in the unmistakable Jim Carrie style. It manages to squeeze laughs and it's nice to watch especially if you like the silly Jim Carrie humour.

2006-02-15T17:37:00.000Z

I've ordered a big print (A2) of a picture that I took in Thailand ... actually I posted it here a while ago; it's a picture of a shy girl standing by a door. I've ordered the print at Jessops, 14.95 pounds for A2. They also do A1 and A0, but A2 is huge and enough for now, I'm so curious to see how it looks like printed in such a big format. I'm even thinking of applying for this year's Schweppes Photographic Awards. Nothing to lose, eh?

Tonight we're going to see Hidden, a french film, a thriller that apparently went very well with the critics. The title in french is Cache. I hope after seeing it, I won't speak like zis! Also in the pipeline ... Aeon Flux and Casanova in the weekend!

At the moment I'm still recovering from yet another shitty cold, I had fever yesterday and a splitting head ache. At some point I was thinking ... shit, what if it's malaria which I might have caught in Thailand. But checking now, I just realised that the incubation period for malaria is between 7 and 30 days normally. So in theory I'm off the hook. Now let's worry about something else, bird flu?

Someone told me the other day about a Brokeback Mountain sequel, out of curiousity I did a search on google to see what's this all about. Well, I couldn't find much, except a lot of jokes ... you won't believe how silly some people are. From the search titles..
-George Bush To Star in Sequel to ‘Brokeback Mountain’
-Bush and Cheney to Star in Brokeback Mountain Sequel
-Gore to Star in Brokeback Mountain Sequel…Alone
Now ... not that it’s not funny, but why does it have to be always about US politics?! How about:
-Tony Blair To Star in Sequel to "Brokeback Mountain"
-Tony Blair and Bush ...
-Tony Blair and Chirac
-Chirac and ... hmm, anyone else really

How about this joke as a startup point for a sequel to Brokeback mountain...

A hippy dude gets on the bus and takes a seat next to a young nun. At some point the hippy guy asks her to have sex with him.
-I can't, I'm married to God, the nun replies.
When the nun gets off the bus, the bus driver who happened to overhear the conversation, tells the hippy guy:
-Hey, I know how you can have sex with her. Every tuesday night she goes to the local cemetery and prays alone. You go there one night with a white sheet on your head and tell her you're God and she should have sex with you.
All set.
The hippy dude does just that. The nun is scared but she says that her virginity is her most precious valuable; she can only have anal sex. The hippy agrees and off they go to have some fun. After everything's finished, the hippy dude takes off the white sheet and cries out jubilantly:
-Haha, I'm the hippy dude!!
The nun takes off her veil:
-Haha, I'm the bus driver!

So watch out kids, cemeteries are no playgrounds!

PS: Lucky me I said God and not the Prophet or Muhammad, otherwise there would be protests and flag burning team building exercises all over the Middle East.

2006-02-13T23:37:00.000Z

Nothing much on the horizon in the last days, maybe because in the winter the male ciprian doesn't leave its natural habitat to go travel. So the horizon is unchanged, overcast.

But the good news is that I've won the lottery again. Can you believe it? After just 2 weeks? This time it was 10 pounds. I tried to work out the rule ... first 8.90, after two weeks 10, if it's an arithmetical progression, it will take me 34965.0349 years to become a millionaire. But that would be just one million, probably seriously devalued by then. So let's redo the calculations with 15 millions...

I've managed to see some films too. I've seen Woody Allen's Match Point. I don't know if it's just me but whenever I think of Woody Allen, the first thing that pops into my mind is The Chatty Hunter. As in that Orange advertisement that's showed before every film, with Patrick Scwayze (God have mercy on my spelling) trying to make a film called the Silent Hunter. Anyway...
It's an ok film, but maybe just because Woody Allen is in the credits. Or maybe if you want to smile happily whenever you recognise some places in London where it was filmed ... like the Big Ben and so on. I personally think the main character is not very well defined and it's really difficult to understand why is he doing some of the things. The truth is ... psychological dilemmas are really really difficult to transpose in a film. In a book it's easy ... you just talk about it for 400 hundreds of pages until the readers feel like, themselves, they're ready to kill, just to get it over with.

I've also seen Proof with Anthony Hopkins and Gwyned Paltrow (?! how's my spelling - it's too late to check!). It's a deja vu that brings back flashes from "A beautiful mind", it seems like mathematics is a sure way to start flying over a cuckoo's nest (and to think that I've studied that in university and i have a degree in computer science and mathematics - scary!!). So the mad mathematician is there, but unlike the guy with the beautiful mind, this guy managed to have sex at some point in his life as he had a daughter - which you all know what it implies (well, maybe not some of you young mamas! sic!). The subject starts very promisingly, the trailer looked nice, but then it all dies out like a mathematician's ... compass.

I've also seen Ray, an older film and it was good, a good film ... not fantastic, but quite good, i liked it. But you know about that one, right?

good-bye Lilian

2006-02-07T09:59:00.000Z

We said good bye to Lilian, she's going back to Brazil tomorrow but planning to come back as soon as possible. Good luck Lilian and see you soon! Sao Paolo is as cloudy and gloomy as London, so don't you be tempted to stay there, ok?! :-)

Here's the website of a romanian guy I met about 2 years ago here in London, a photographer, we don't keep in touch that much lately: http://www.just-looking.net/. His portofolio is very nice. I should go out with my camera more often.

A bowling game is coming up soon, Alireza suggested it, so it might happen either this week or the next. I still can't explain the poor performance in Thailand ... maybe it was just playing Away while I'm used to play at Home.

Boring tuesday ... bleah! But don't let me put you down, think about it and you'll see that you can put yourself down easily!

Cheers!

what's up doc?!

2006-02-06T10:57:00.000Z

On thursday I went to see Katie Melua. No, it wasn't a private audience or a promiscuous encounter as I’m sure most of you think, but a gig at Royal Albert Hall where I was just a pair of two eyes lined up in the crowd and sitting in between Adam and Navid - nothing sexual though I can assure you! The show was brilliant and her voice was very good. Not to mention her physical appearance, but let's not descend into vulgarity here. We're talking about art! It's a show recommended if you like blues or jazz. I have both her albums, you can borrow them if you ask nicely. Of course, the other condition is that I know you.

Sunday was reserved to a movie marathon, my brain a bit roast at the end. Two films in a row are ok, but three is pushing it a bit. We've started with "The Chronicles of Narnia, the Lion, the witch and the wardrobe and when will this title end?". It's not as bad as I thought when watching the trailer, as it's all building up slowly and although you do start laughing hysterically when a beaver starts talking or a horse just turns its head to the rider and says "I'm tired mate!" ... it's still a good film. It's for children, unlike the Harry Potter and the never-ending episodes which is so dark and scary that I'm surprised it was approved for children to see it.

We continued with Chicken Little and what a laugh that is ... it's about a little chicken (duh!) who wants to conquer the world (so it's really easy to identify with the character :-), but the film is guaranteed to crack you up, unless you're absolutely hopeless. Who're we talking about?!

The ending was with a heavyweight ... Steven Spielberg's Munich, a very disturbing film that is not recommended to be batched up with comedies or children films. It's a controversial film, but only because when saying anything about Jews, Judaism or Israel you're threading on thin ice. If it was about IRA, ETA or some "Blow me up Scottie" group, I don't think it would raise so many eyebrows (a maximum of two, anyway!).

Have a blasting Monday!! Huh?!

anti-islamic cartoons

2006-02-03T15:06:00.000Z

Two of the pictures that have sparked outrage across the muslim world after being published initially in a Danish newspaper and then republished by many newspapers across Europe. They outraged muslims, some of them threatening reprisals, kidnappings, boycott of european products and even Jihad.
Coming from an ex-communist country I have to tell you ... the freedom of speech is one sacred human right. Too many people take it for granted.

For the full list of photos go to http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/698

long time no read

2006-02-03T13:07:00.000Z

Hey, it's been a while and a very stressful and busy while that was.

This is an update to tell you that I won the lottery!! Finally, after so many dreams and longing. And guess what ... I kept my old job still. Most people quit their job when they win the lottery. Not me, ah-ah! Loyalty! A word that doesn't ring many bells nowadays! It was the Euro Lottery and I won 8.90 pounds.

Enough said!

I've got an Unlimited Movies card from www.ugccinemas.co.uk which allows me to see an unlimited number of films, any time i want, for a flat fee of 13.99 a month. Not bad at all. The only problem is that they tie you in the contract for one year. Ah well, let's call it a social-psychological experiment. Maybe after one year of intensive film watching I'll live in my own little world with witches, lions coming out of wardrobes and vampires fighting werewolves for supremacy over my cortex.

I'm also looking into getting a mortgage and filling my citizenship application. After I get my passport I really want to go to New York ... what's the best time to visit New York? :-) I always wanted to see New York. After all ... if I can make it there, I can make anywhere, right?

Cheers!

cirque du soleil

2006-01-19T23:45:00.000Z

Clown (definition): A person who runs from the drama of his own life.

Now this is a tricky definition, wide as the infinite river of life. Oh, please, stop with that bullshit.
Clowns are happy people and they don't suffer from any modern problems like denial, neurosis. And as long as they're funny, everybody absolutely loves them.

The clowns in the Cirque du Soleil however were a bit disappointing, as the whole show in fact. But it was disappointing because I built up great expectations about it and I worked myself up for months. And then it all disappears in smoke, paper flakes, 2 hours and 46 pounds.

But otherwise the show was good, it's just by constrast with my expectations that it failed. I would recommend it to everyone and don't think they would be disappointed.

Allegria is an old show, put together in '94 ... a lot changed since then eh? It took nature millions of years to change fashion, it takes us couple of years and a dotcom crash to be different.
The story that was hidden behind the show, because there was one, was as elusive as my entry in the blog today. What's this all about anyway? Clowns, meditation on the passage of time, stress? Well, who knows? I'm only here to ask questions, not give answers... hmm ... like philosophy, hmm, like Allegria, hmm ... like life itself. Pff... what a holywoodian ending! Ta-Da!

this weekend

2006-01-16T10:34:00.000Z

We went to see Stomp on friday evening in a new theatre which I didn't know it existed. It's called Vaudeville Theatre, it's on the Strand, close to Enbankment tube station. I must say the show was very very entertaining, a combination of mute humour with percussion ranging from really soft one to ear-blasting. And trust me, these guys can drum, bang, shake anything, squeezing rhythmic sound from objects that you wouldn't think of. Imagine match boxes, buckets, brooms, kitchen sinks, big barrels and even cigarette lighters being used to create sound, rhythmic sound. It was very entertaining and very well spent 14.50 pounds. It's still on sale an londontown.com if you want to go. Recommended!

On Saturday we started with Memoirs of a Geisha at the electric cinema. First about the cinema, it's a cinema without the usual chairs, but instead with comfortable leather armchairs with plenty of space (as if you were flying 1st class - not that I ever did!!) and feet stools. You can buy drinks inside. It's beautiful! And of course slightly more expensive than you're average cinema experience. Who was there? Marco, Maryam, Lilian, Roberto, Christina and moi. A happy bunch.The film ... hmm, I don't know, I thought it was a bit too slow flirting with boredom at points. It was hyped up a lot and maybe I had great expectations. And great expectations are easily disappointed. But the photography of the film was very good I thought. I was a bit annoyed with the poor diction of the actors in the film, at points not being able to understand what they were saying. Very annoying. I think I need to read the book.

In the evening we went to the MUIL event in Legion, Old Street. A lot of people were there and it was fun in the end, even managed to dance a bit. Not a lot. But got the chance to talk to many people whom I haven't seen in a long time. And also kicked off the idea of starting to organise football matches again in the weekends.

A quiet sunday at home, watching Kill Bill 1, revisiting 21 grams and Tai Won Mein for a chinese dinner and here I am again, monday and hating it. But hey, life moves on, right? Friday is just around the corner. Not to mention Cirque du Soleil which is tomorrow :-)

faces of asia

2006-01-09T23:15:00.000Z

2006-01-03T14:09:00.000Z

For more about the trip to Thailand, have a peek at Carmen's version of events. Just follow the link on the right hand side, the one that says "Carmen's blog". Enjoy her pics too!

Thailand - chapter IV - last one

2006-01-03T14:02:00.000Z

We left Koh Samui to head to the other coast, to the Andaman sea, our destination being Krabi, Ao Nang beach to be precise. It was to be our last destination in Thailand where we were to spend about a week, including Christmas. We were desperate for some sun as we had depressing clouds and rain above us most of the time. We were off to a flying start when we caught 2 hours of burning sun on the ferry from Samui to the mainland. We roasted in the sun with indulgence.
The coach to Krabi was awfully late and we reached Krabi town quite late in the evening. We negotiated with a van to take us to Ao Nang and off we went.

The accommodation in Ao Nang was already sorted by Carmen and Ake and boy we were glad to see we were staying in some very nice apartments, right in the heart of the commercial street and literally metres from the beach. We were paying 10 pounds a night per person, but it was money well spent.

From Ao Nang as our headquarters we went on couple of adventures. One was kayaking to Railey beach and then off to Poda island. We were kayaking for one hour and ten minutes on an moderately agitated sea. We had 3 kayaks, Carmen and Lucia paddling in one, Roberto and Ake sharing another one and me, myself and I paddling on my own. It was a tiring experience and at some points a bit scary as you were praying for the wind not to pick up. My one person kayak was even more difficult to control than the 2 persons one and it was an easier prey to the waves for sure. On the way back we were paddling against the current and it took us more than 2 hours. It was a very nice experience though.

One other day we took an organised tour and we went to Phi Phi. We went by speed boat, bouncing off the waves with Carmen shrieking OHH OHH for each wave :-) She worked out a system to, allegedly, put less pressure on the joints and back when the boat was bouncing. Needless to say she was the only one complaining of back pains the second day! We did some very nice snorkelling that day, we also saw the Maya Bay, the bay where they filmed The Beach. Lovely place Phi Phi islands. I wish we had more time to investigate and explore it properly. We also visited Bamboo island where we did some snorkelling and took some nice pics. The island looked like it wasn't uninhabited, the only visitors being dropped off by speed boats for 40 minutes before flying off to the next destination on the list. Yeap, that was the feel of the trip, rushing from one destination to another, always knowing that someone on the boat was counting down the time you still have to enjoy. Anyway, it was nice.

Then of course we lay on the beach, at Railey, Poda, Ao Nang, the beaches were lovely and the water so warm and nice, in stark contrast with London. Bygone!

The place was full of scandinavians, all of them happy happy to escape the nordic cold no doubt.

We also embarked on a culinary trip of discovery trying a new place every evening, from the fancy places to the improvised food stalls by the side of the street. Places that I would have been probably afraid to try if I hadn't been with locals! :-)

Unfortunately in the last days I caught a really nasty cold and I even had fever, so I wasn't enjoying it that much. Trust me, being in the sun, on the beach, with fever, it's no fun at all.
In the last days we took another kayaking trip, in the opposite direction from the first one, this time going along the coast. It's amazing how empty the coast gets once you leave the tourists territory. You can find really nice gems, desolated spots which you don't have to share with anyone. The only drawback being you can't take them with you either.

These were sunny days, the days when you love Thailand and the inspiration that took you there. Cloudy days and rain you can forgive in a place like London, but in Thailand it's really blasphemy. Thailand really glitters in the sun and it's a total different world when the sun shines.

We left Thailand on such a sunny day, regretting and wondering when and if we're going to see it ever again. The flu I was carrying and the stubborn coughing made my journey less fabulous. Nevertheless, I can't complain about Gulf Air, it was a pleasant experience and I would fly with them in the future. The cold that awaited me in London didn't make the things any easier. Getting back in the London pace and thinking about work and going to work every day still proves very problematic for my psyche that's still wearing sandals and shorts. No worries, it's all a matter of getting used to!

2006-01-03T10:35:00.000Z

Today all the newspapers scream Murder on the front page. The latest victim, a British backpacker and the reason I mention it here is that she's been raped and killed on the New Year Eve, in Koh Samui, an island in Thailand that we visited 2 weeks ago. She was last seen on Lamai beach, the beach where we were staying.
Lamai is a rather quiet beach, not very much happening there, especially at night, not many lights on the beach at night. We were walking there at night many times! So sad :-(

Temples and royal palaces

2006-01-02T17:04:00.000Z

Happy new year 2006!

2006-01-01T14:22:00.000Z

A happy new year to all the readers! Let it be a better year with more ticked resolutions than the last one! You do have resolutions for 2006, right?!

Thailand - chapter III

2005-12-31T12:10:00.000Z

We flew to Phuket, which is an island on the Andaman coast, the wealthiest of the islands of Thailand and the destination of choice for many western tourists. It was badly hit by the tsunami a year ago, but it was all reconstructed.

We arrived quite late and we had no plans. We quickly decided that the best way to find accommodation at that late hour would be in Phuket town (I'm not sure if we were correct, since Phuket town is a town, very very few tourists in there, mostly locals), but it sounded like a safe bet with more alternatives than the beaches. We arrived in a deserted bus station where all the touting sharks tried to offer us a taxi or everything else. We refused and we headed away, not knowing where we're going, the priority being to find accommodation. We found some nice thais working in a DVD shop that guided us to a guesthouse.

That's one thing I liked, normal people and even sharks were quite eager to help and quite genuine in their help. Sometimes people working in shops would guide us to their competition if they couldn't give us something we asked for or they were out of stock.

We found some cheap accommodation, not very pleasant compared to what we had before or what we would have in the next days. We were glad we found something.
The second day we rented an old jeep for about 8.70 pounds a day. We got some petrol and we started rolling, the plan was to visit the famous beaches on the west coast of the island, Patong and Kamai being two of them I can remember. All the day was spent travelling from one beach to another stopping at interesting places.

Unfortunately the weather was cloudy and 5 minutes after we paid for relaxing chairs on the beach, it started to rain. We waited hoping it would end soon, but it didn't. So we had to move along. In the end we returned to a beach which we skipped in the morning as it was slightly out of the way and we had a break from the rain and some moments to admire the sea. We had dinner there at a fancy restaurant and we headed back to Phuket town.

In Phuket town once arrived, I had a panic attack thinking I lost my passport. I was literally panicked, imagining all the problems I would have to get back home and in the UK. It was serious. Then the guy with the car told me I will have my passport back soon. They took my passport as a guarantee but I couldn't remember this detail.

The second day we took the coach across Thailand to the other coast, going to Koh Samui, in preparation for the Full Moon Party on the 16th of december on Koh Pha ngan. A 6-hour trip in an aircon coach. Not too bad.

In Koh Samui we were awaited by Carmen and Ake and as we took an open back taxi-van, going to Lamai beach where they booked accommodation, it started to rain. So lucky, we were thinking!

And that was all our time in Koh Samui, either cloudy or plain raining. We stayed in nice bungalows with a 24 hour internet and creperie right across the road from us. The Lamai beach was 2 minutes from where we were staying, but to no avail.

On one day, me and Carmen were brave enough to rent 2 kayaks and start paddling on the sea, not very far from the shore. It was quite courageous of me as I was having the flu. I think it was my first experience kayaking and it was cool. That was until the wind picked up and the wave increased in height. The kayaks became harder to control and they picked up water, which made them even harder to control. We were battling with the waves, trying not to end up perpendicularly on the direction of the waves, but trying to face them. Of course it was a precarious situation and at one point, a bigger wave flipped Carmen's kayak. No problem, she's a good swimmer, she started to push the kayak ashore. I went to get her paddle from her and I took my kayak ashore and then started to swim to her and we both took the kayak back ashore. Rescue mission successful. Baywatch here I come!

Needless to mention my utter disappointment when I learnt that the Full Moon Party has been cancelled due to bad weather and the beach in Koh Pha Ngan being washed by high waves. Noooo, not another fiasco, the weather was enough. There was no boat to Koh Pha Ngan on the day and the rumours had it that there were 4 metres waves in Koh Pha Ngan. Utter disappointment!
Later on, I discovered that the situation was quite bad in Koh Pha Ngan and that 4 people lost their lives to the waves.

We left Koh Samui with a sense of relief ... don't get me wrong, Koh Samui is absolutely beautiful, the beaches are very very nice, all it need is some sun! :-) There was a glimmer of hope as he learnt that in Krabi, our next destination, it was sunny. Well, we weren't holding our breath, we've heard that before. However, we all thought no one could be so unlucky. And in actual fact, we were very close to vindication. But we didn't know that at the time. All about Krabi in the next chapter.

Some pics to illustrate the content. First pics are from Phuket ... notice the dark sky!

This is a taxi boat, very popular everywhere in Thailand (where there's sea silly!)

Moi in Phuket!

The next pics are from Koh Samui ... first pic is the beach next to where we were staying. High tide!

The beaches when we left Koh Samui ... notice the clear skies, we got some sun on the ship and some the first sun burns. Yupieee!!

2005-12-30T11:27:00.000Z

That's how a petrol station looks like in a northern part of Thailand.

The service is included...

And that's how the pump looks like ... yeap, it's petrol in there alright!

Still pumping...

And that was our rented Ford, a very nice car and contrary to first impressions, the fuel consumption is not bad at all. It's a beauty to drive, especially if it's raining and you have to climb a muddy road and you have 2 metres visibility. Ah, and of course I was driving without my driving license on me! What an adventure that was! :-)

2005-12-29T22:56:00.000Z

Sis, skip this section or do not read it out loud :-)

A brief intermezzo in the Thailand story just to mention that I'm sick as a dog, I skipped work on the 28th, went to the office today, not sure about tomorrow. My father just told me on the phone that I could develop pneumonia and that I could die, told me to go see the doctor and take antibiotics and other scary stories including a story of a doctor that died of flu because he ignored it. Not to mention a lot of remedies...
Oh well, he managed to scare me a bit so I'm going to take some antibiotics starting tonight to avoid any lung complications.
Parents, always using that old Bogey man story to get what they want. And incredibly, it still works!

Thailand - chapter II

2005-12-29T22:46:00.000Z

We returned to Bangkok from Chang Mai by train and we had couple of days to explore Bangkok alone before flying off to Phuket where our southern adventure would start.

Bangkok is a very big, busy and polluted place. Pollution was indeed very frustrating as we travelled in tuk-tuks many times. Tuk Tuks are very like motorcycles with an open back for carrying passengers. They're quite cheap and you can negotiate with the drivers, which is quite recommended before you set off on the trip, otherwise you can be asked to pay ridiculous amounts once you reach the destination.

Bangkok also has a Sky Train or BTS, which is a sort of surface train travelling suspended on concrete pillars, travelling above the traffic, thus the name Sky Train. I guess it's an easier alternative to digging the ground to have a tube line. But unfortunately, although modern and very convenient, the Sky Train only covers small portions of Bangkok.

Another feature of Bangkok is the love for huge malls. You just get in one and you find all sorts of shops on many levels. I guess it all has to do with the fact that they have ridiculously high temperatures during the summer season and they like shopping in aircon environments. The look is very modern and the malls make the most part of Siam, a very commercial district.

We travelled around Old Bangkok mostly, visiting wats (that is temples), the royal palace, the Golden Mountain temple, seeing the reclining Buddha, we also went for a thai massage (which I didn't enjoy very much, at points being quite painful, or ticklish, or being concerned that the woman would impair me for the rest of my life by trying to crack every bone in my back), we played some bowling (and I'm ashamed to say that I lost, despite all the preparations I had in London!!). We also just lazed around the swimming pool where Carmen works, enjoying a bit of sauna too. We also visited a very touristy area of BKK called Khaosan, where you could buy anything and everything. There were even signs on the street selling UK driving licenses, student cards and other illegal stuff. DVDs everywhere. The land of the copyright-free.

Thais are very friendly people, overly friendly as we discovered. Our first contact was at a corner of a street where we stopped puzzled to look for a zebra crossing. A guy next to us just asked us if he can help us. I was a bit reluctant, thinking he's trying to sell us something, but soon enough we realised he was genuinely trying to help us and also exercise his English. Touting is one thing I hate and we got a lot of it in Thailand, but this time, the guy was just friendly. I was impressed.
After walking for 5 minutes, another guy stops us and asks us where we’re going and shows us on the map all the attractions, suggests we should take a tuk-tuk and doesn’t understand our desire for pure walking.
After another 5 minutes another person stops us and forces us to listen the same story, the same story all over.
Needless to say it was happening every 5 minutes and it stopped to be funny anymore! We couldn’t waste all day talking to nice thais full of good intentions. So I came up with a solution … we don’t speak English! And when the next guy approached me I replied in Romanian “I don’t understand”. The guy was relentless “Where are you from?” in English. Of course this is a tricky question as you might be tempted to reply without thinking. But I continued to say things in Romanian. The guy gave up soon enough and I saved 10 minutes of good intentions and time wasted.

I must say I didn’t like Bangkok too much, it’s too crowded, too polluted, everything London is but worse. I was looking for something else, something more relaxing. Furthermore, Bangkok is not for walking and everyone will think you’re absolutely crazy if you want to walk around. No wonder our minds were set on the sunny south! Little did we know about all the twists laid ahead of us. But all about that in the next chapter!

Thailand - chapter I

2005-12-28T12:23:00.000Z

3 weeks and I forgot already that winters are cold and your best escape is a thick layer of cloth. My body forgot too and the shock was terrible when I arrived this morning on Heathrow, a bone chilling -3 degrees at ground, in stark contrast with the 35-38 degrees that spoilt us for the last days in Thailand. I was carrying a ravaging flu too, breaking the silence every 5 minutes with a cough. Air-con was my sworn enemy.
But what a trip it was. 3 weeks and couple of days in Thailand, seeing Bangkok, Chang Mai, Pai, Phuket, Koh Samui and Krabi, travelling by airplane, train, bus, car, jeep, open back vans, tuk-tuk, boat, speed boat, kayak, inflatable boat with twists that weren't in the plan and fighting the european flu that followed us all the way. Bugger!
First a "thank you" to Carmen and Ake, our hosts and co-travellers. Thailand was friendlier and less confusing with them. Kopunkap guys!
The other participants were:
Lucia - ex-university colleague, living in Austria, stayed with us for 2 weeks only
Roberto - italian friend of mine, living in London, stayed all the way, he was in charge of safe keeping the european virus and carrying it around :-)

We arrived in Bangkok on the 4th of december. It was hot and we liked it. We didn't like that everywhere there was aircon and it was set to Freezing-cold. Thais love aircon, the colder it is, the better. We couldn't understand it as it was all we were trying to avoid by running away from Europe. Well, it wasn't the only thing we couldn't understand. We couldn't understand where Roberto was too!!
He was coming with Kuwait Airways via Kuwait and I was thinking maybe he decided to stop and enrol in some holy jihad movement and wave goodbye to a life of office slavery.
We finally met him after 3 hours and he told us Kuwait Airways lost his luggage. After getting some compensation from the airline and with the promise that the luggage will be shipped to Bangkok soon, we left. We left by car as Ake and Carmen were waiting for us. We even managed to do some shopping, changing our trainers for sandals and Roberto buying all his other necessities that were in Kuwait.
It was a huge market, very busy, I forgot the name now, but apparently it's a hardcore experience even for thais to shop in there. We did it while jet lagged. Too bad we can't put it on the CV.
We flew to Chang Mai the second day at 6 o'clock, no rest for the wicked, especially if jet lagged. Chang Mai is in the northwest part of Thailand, in a mountainous area, quite close to the border with Myanmar (Burma), which was quite evident after a while from the number of military checkpoints on the roads. Which roads I must say are very good, surprisingly good, I was expecting mayhem, maybe same level with India. Yes, my acknowledgement of my ignorance skyrocketed those days and even now, writing this, I still feel a bit embarrassed.
In Chang Mai we rented a Ford 4WD and we set off north, even closer to Burma, to a place called Pai. It's a nice place, where backpackers and adventurers hang out. You can do a lot of stuff around Pai.
But before reaching Pai, I said ... let's bunjee jump. I was the one pushing for the idea, not knowing it's going to be my nemesis. We went for it, Roberto was in too and the bugger jumped. From the ground level it all looks so simple, a walk (pardon, jump) in the park. However, once I was up there, I knew I was made for office life. It was absolutely terrifying, my pulse racing, my knees shaking. My body suddenly remembered I am afraid of heights. And I didn't jump.
The jokes that followed for a week were well deserved. But it was a lesson in self-knowing. It's amazing how you reshape yourself depending on the perspective.
A word of advice ... whatever you do, however high you climb, don't look down.

In Pai we found a very nice and clean guesthouse, charging us 7 pounds per night, for all 5 of us. We couldn't believe it. We called it our headquarters for 3 days.
The most interesting thing we did in Pai was white water rafting. That's rafting in an inflatable rubber boat on a river, all day long, paddling for 40 or 45 km. The price was outrageously cheap for that. It was great, the river was crossing the mountain, the jungle, at places it was quite turbulent, pumping some adrenaline in our blood. We even did a bit of swimming in the river, where it was quiet; we did some mini climbing on a waterfall, ate in some jungle huts and all in all had great fun all the way. A very nice experience, highly recommended.
We learned that the our guide was making 150 baht a day (or was it 250?!), that's roughly 2(3.5) pounds a day. We left a tip and the guy was very happy about it. Happy happy how thais would put it! The superlative in Thai is formed by repeating the adjective. So "happy happy", "cute cute", "good good", you got the idea!
We also visited a cave near Pai, on bamboo rafts. Interesting experience. On the way back we had rain and the mountainous road became really muddy, a hazardous driving experience. And I was driving! And then there was fog too and we were moving with the speed of a slug. The fun part of course was that I was driving without a driving license, I had forgot it in Bangkok. Ah, what the heck, it's Thailand!
And then in a treacherous slope it all came to a halt. The road was blocked by cars that got stuck in the mud and couldn't move. We contemplated a night spent in the jeep, not a pleasant prospect at all.
It was fun to see all the thais in the street, trying to find solutions, trying to work together but lacking a decision maker. Until someone in a military uniform showed up and they all obeyed. Ake confirmed that this is the thai way, they all expect someone in a uniform, be it military or police to solve the problem of decision making.
Finally, there was a small gap in the blockade and I had to drive the jeep without sliding it into a truck. We did it and we slept in our beds at the guesthouse that night. It was fun though!
Carmen and Ake flew back to Bangkok and me, Lucia and Robert took the train back to Bangkok, it took all night but we wanted to try it. But Bangkok is a different chapter all together.
Below some pics to illustrate the story...

From left to right: Carmen, Roberto, moi, Lucia

At the bunjee jumping place ... Carmen, Ake, Roberto, moi

This was our porch at the guesthouse, next to the river, we used to go there and have a chat in the evening or in the early morning, planning the day ahead while having a tea and bananas, provided for free, by our hosts

On the rubber boat, at the end, after 40 km of paddling

This guy was our rafting guide, quite a cool and funny guy, too bad he wasn't speaking english, although he pretended to understand some. We left a tip, mostly coz we were outraged that he made so little a day.

Me and Roberto playing table tennis at a guesthouse/restaurant where we stopped to have lunch. As you notice, we're both professional players and moving so fast around the table that the camera barely could catch us, those traces of colour are us.

It's HO HO HO time

2005-12-02T11:25:00.000Z

It's a nice sunny day, like whispering to me ... go C.i.p.r.i.a.n, see if I care, we'll have so much fun without you! But there was rain too in the morning, so I can relax knowing this is still England. Hopefully I won't have signal on my mobile in Thailand, otherwise Marco will text me every time there's the slimmest shadow of a sun in the sky: "Once you're gone, the sun is up!". :P
I don't think it'll happen, he's too busy with the new appartment. I helped Marco and Maryam yesterday with a van trip carrying stuff from the old Streatham to new shiny Islington. The place is quite nice ... I'm looking forward to some BBQs in there ;-)

Less than 24 hours to departure for Thailand... just a reminder that I haven't packed yet. And the time is short.

Tonight I'm going to Mariana's birthday party, in Guanabara, a brazilian club in the heart of London (Does London have a heart? ;-). Mariana, I will only stay for dinner, I can't stay too long.
Okay then ... it's time to hug, blow a kiss in the air and wish you all a Merry Christmas HO HO HO ... unless you hear from me before that. Of which I'm not sure at all!

Oh ... don't you just hate those bloody reindeers...

2005-11-30T13:41:00.000Z

3 days to departure for Thailand!! Yupiee! In preparation for the flight, I watched yesterday on National Geographic (I have video on demand - sic!) for 3 hours "Air crash investigations"! It's amazing though how safe an airplane is. But it's also amazing how a simple maintenance oversight or the smallest of pilot errors can cause an airplane to crash. Indeed, flying is one of the safest way of transport. And that is because it is the most dangerous way of travelling and the industry has invested a lot in safety. Remember, if a plane crashes, you have better chances to win the lottery than to stay alive.
But hey, I'm flying with Gulf Air, they only crashed twice so far (brrrr) and arabs are very experienced pilots, right? Quick learners. Self teaching themselves probably. Bygone!

But until tomorrow, there's always today! And today we're getting wasted and the company is footing the bill. Yeap, we're celebrating a new release and we're going out for a drink and for dinner at a thai restaurant. If we find the way...

frustration

2005-11-29T11:23:00.000Z

Only frustration today, it seems, and my advice to you ... avoid Travelselect.com, avoid Lastminute.com and avoid Etihad airlines. After 3 months I still didn't get my refund. They're saying they have to get the money from the airline in order to give me back my money. It's appalling, because as a customer, I am entitled to a full refund if they change the details of a flight. And they did just that. Money back, in full, no quibbles. Those are my rights, but quibbling is what they do. So avoid them!
Unfortunately it's too late for me now, so I have to go through the credit card company to get my money back and to complain to the Trading Standards. I hope they will fine the bastards.
Arghhhhh!!!

pics from the saturday party

2005-11-28T11:29:00.000Z

Me, myself and EYE ... the pink headphones are Ivika's (NOT MINE!!!)

Me, myself and Eye reloaded (in a Uh-Uh familiar posture!)

Ivika and moi

Me and Alireza, trying to shock the audience

Alireza, and a defiant me

Roberto and me, trying to kiss the camera ... and getting ready for Thailand

Ivika and me, in a maternal scene

Using Alireza's glasses

Alireza, moi and my gal, Christina

Mihai and Angel

weekend and busy times ahead

2005-11-28T10:43:00.000Z

Ancient Persia at the British Museum on friday was a bit disappointing. I don't know why, I tend to believe it wasn't the exhibition itself, but me. It was a friday night, after work, I was with friends, my mind was somewhere else. I didn't have the patience required for an exhibition. I believe exhibitions fit well on sunday mornings, when your brain allegedly fresh after a good night of sleep, can focus on the intellectual challenge laid ahead. But the pizza and the drinks in All Bar One afterwards were very good. Motto for the day: Superficiality at its peak!

On Saturday, big meeting at the Legion in Old Street, a lot of people turned up, despite the cold. It was a night of fun, chatting, drinking, making fun, meeting some new people, taking pics while drunk ... I might post some here when I get them :-)
At this point, although I hate doing this, I have to name and shame someone for the unbelievable rudeness that evening ... it's David the german guy. I was talking to him, being friendly and asking if he found a job, I knew he was looking for a job for quite a while and I was curious if he found some. And he rudely replied that he had a job all this time, with his books, but now, he's also an employee! ?!? So, you have a job, I said, a bit confused! To my surprise he shouted at me: "Are you stupid? I told you I had a job all this time, but now in addition, I'm also an employee". Clear as mud.
I left him to his anger and it's surely not someone I will speak with very soon. I can't believe how arseholes some people can be.

On saturday I also did some shopping, buying a backpack, not a very big one, so I really need to carefully plan the available space. I'll be definitely travelling light ... I might buy a backpack from Thailand if I have tons of souvenirs to smuggle back.

Sunday was mainly for chilling, a quiet lunch with Christina and Lilian and then watching a film at home.

I'm contemplating the busy week ahead, it's amazing how my week before departure is going to be absolutely packed (No rest for the wicked, eh?!) ... meeting one of my father's friends, meeting friends, going out with work colleagues to celebrate the latest release, helping Marco move, going to M's birthday party on friday, flying to Thailand on saturday morning. Stress, stress, stress!

2005-11-25T11:13:00.000Z

A priest, a rabi and an imam walk into a pub.
The bartender exasperated:
- What is this, some kind of joke?

Yeah, british humour. Dry as a Chardonnay 1974, for connoisseurs only!

Under the slogan "Know other cultures so you can make fun of them", we're going today to the British Museum as they have an exhibition about ancient Persia. I'm kidding of course. About the "making fun" part. Persia is a land, a history and a mythology I don't know much about, very much infused with a romano-greek vision of the world. "Cogito ergo sum" - I think therefore I am ... the essence of the greek philosophy. Phew, I know it was Descartes who said that, but it reflects well the spirit of the greek philosophy. Very logical, constructed on carefully crafted inferences.
But enough with this philosophical hocus-pocus jiggery-pokery...

In a recent divine revelation, a new bright idea downed upon me ... I'm thinking of making this blog a paid service. For the mere amount of 3.50 pounds a month, you can read about me and my beautiful mind, world, etc. Lovely innit?
But enough about you ... let's talk about me!

I need to shop for a backpack for thailand this weekend. Don't know where to start ... hmm ... any suggestions anyone? It's gotta be a medium backpack as I hate to carry too many things. If it impedes motion or makes you gasp after 5 minutes, it's too big. No, I don't need a purse, thank you! Backpack, BACKPACK!

Just 8 days to departure! Itchy feet!

harry potter and the goblet of plonk

2005-11-24T11:08:00.000Z

We went to see the new Harry Potter film featuring a goblet of fire. Fire that changed colour, depending if you feed it methane for instance, that should make the flame blue. In stark contrast with a dragon's breath which would be redish. And there were some dragons in there, oh boy there were, allegedly imported from Romania.

Oh dear, oh dear...

It was funny, when they mentioned the romanian dragons, 4 pairs of eyes (that would be: Mariana's, Lilian's, Christina's, Alireza's) turned to me, glitters of amusement in each pair. I waved to them as saying: it's all true, we rear dragons in our back gardens. And they do spit fire too.

To be honest, I'm tired of the Harry Potter series, it's an episode a year, same thing, same decor, the novelty worn off. And, I caught myself thinking during the film, this is something writers do these days, they get a cash cow and they milk it dry. It's a sign that it's all about money. It's so easy to stick with something that did the trick before rather than reinventing the plot every time.
Or maybe it's a sign of the modern neurosis we're all suffering from, being obsessed with the same repetitive imagery flooding our brain unconsciously, clearly a sign of the uncurable trauma of being alive. Take that!

transylvania

2005-11-23T13:43:00.000Z

If you want to learn more about Transylvania, here you have some links:
Transylvania on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transylvania
Maramures, my region:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maramure%C5%9F_region
Baia Mare, my town:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baia_Mare
Cluj-Napoca, the town where I've studied:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluj-Napoca
A virtual photo tour of Transylvania:
http://www.stanford.edu/~ssabina/trt/tr/e01.html

BMG

2005-11-22T11:23:00.001Z

Interactive shows involve getting the public to participate in, either by clapping, singing along, cheering or other forms of non-violent energetic expression. But sometimes it involves singling someone out, bringing him or her on the stage and use that person to make the rest of the crowd happy. Although you shudder at the idea of how embarrassing it must be, you think it could never happen to you. Until one day it does. For me, yesterday was almost that day. Boy was it close!

Yesterday, we went to the Blue Man Group show at the New London Theatre, Chris managing to get two tickets on her student card (before you start with the epithets, it wasn’t anything dodgy, every student could buy 2 tickets on their student card). The price of 40 pounds a ticket was quite steep I thought, but with a student card, it was only 20 pounds, quite a nice discount. It was a good opportunity to see something new, a show recommended by most people that heard of BMG. And that's because Blue Man Group, although big in the States, they're not that known in the UK. I think they've featured in an Intel tv advertisement, but that was about it, this tour being their first exit from their traditional turf - the States.
Unfortunately there was a small catch for students ... we had to sit in the first 3 rows and, to our surprise, we had to wear some blue waterproof plastic covers. Phew, later on, we found out why and it was yucky!

The show is quite interesting, although very much in the american tradition of working up your audience until they scream your name out loud. There were many americans in the audience too, most of them expats probably. The show is a combination of music (mainly percussion), colour, light, comedy, pantomime and unexpected little amusing events. It was funny, although in the first row, sometimes our vision was impeded slightly. And sometimes our heart was in our mouth, as they started to pick random people in the rows next to us, to do tricks with. It was the closest I could get to the stage, being in the first row and having people next to me being selected and made fun of. Sort of :-)

The plastic covers proved very useful when they started to spray banana mash into the crowds. We could feel the smell of banana even when we departed. But having a plastic cover was mostly an anxious experience, because we didn't know when they're gonna spray something towards us, so we were ducking and covering all the time. In the end in wasn't too bad, although the thrill looked like a punishment for using your student card and getting a discount. Bad bad students!!

In the end, it was an interesting experience, definitely something new and original, although I don't think it was worth 40 pounds. Well, maybe just once, so you can tick BMG on your list of "done that, got the t-shirt". We didn't get the t-shirts though. Cheapo students!

Granada - pics

2005-11-21T16:43:00.000Z

Alhambra is really the pearl of Granada, a pearl of Moorish architecture. Here's one picture I took this weekend. Some more pics from the same trip you can find in here.

If you're planning to go to Alhambra, it's easier to book the tickets online, as the queue for tickets collection is far shorter than the other one. We stayed in the queue for about 20-30 minutes.

Unfortunately the light wasn't too good for taking photographs, as you can see.

Granada

2005-11-21T11:51:00.000Z

Granada lies in the heart of Andalucia, the southern part of Spain, being the capital of the province with the same name. The name comes from the fruit pomegranate, in Spanish called "granada". It's a lovely town, at the foot of Sierra Nevada mountains, which we could see covered in snow at the top on saturday as we were making our way from the airport to the town centre, the coach fare a mere 3 euros. The airport is quite close to the town, which is quite a blessing, especially if you're trying to fit as much as you can in a weekend trip starting on saturday morning and finishing, to your regrets, on sunday evening.

It's a relaxing destination, nothing too adventurous, a place to chill more than anything else. Unless you're going for skiing into the Sierra Nevada. But the town is lovely and the pace is much more into the lower ranges of the spectre. Comparing it with Barcelona, this would be more of a place to retire and enjoy the quietness of Sierra Nevada's casting shadow. But maybe that's very subjective, as Granada is a top university town, the 3rd in Spain, or so I read online about it. Or maybe it was the impression because I didn't bump into many english speaking tourists, most of the people wandering around there were spanish, either locals or tourists from around Spain. Part of it could have been the mid-November cold, with 11-15 degrees Celsius, which still doesn't compare with the bone chilling 0 degrees that greeted us in London.

The main attraction in Granada is without a shadow of a doubt the Alhambra. It's a lovely Moorish complex of buildings, with lovely architecture that leaves the european traveller surprised and enchanted. We're expecting to see the majestic Renaissance style buildings, an architecture made to impress by its sheer proportions instead of its refine detail. The arabesque architecture impress by its peaceful layout and the impression is one of philosophical and artistical retreat rather than suggesting a fortress carved to keep enemies at the gate. The only dissonant thought, at least for the modern mind, is thinking that it was all built by christian slaves living in appalling conditions. Ah well, history has darker corners than that, for sure.

We had nice meals, outside, on terraces, which in the end proved too much and too cold as we were frozen by the time we were not hungry anymore. The prices were quite high I thought, charging full dish price for what it proved to be tapas in our humble opinions. But hey, the food was good, the desserts were nice, although I didn't like the pastry too much. It looked much better than it tasted.
Another thing which I didn't like too much about Granada ... I thought it was quite polluted, I could feel the smell of exhaust everywhere, it wasn't that nice.

All in all, Granada was a lovely destination, it comes highly recommended, although I think the best time to visit would be in the summer, when the terraces are warm until late at night. Or perhaps in dead winter, for winter sports lovers, as Sierra Nevada is so close. It's a destination we wished we had had more time to explore. I'm sure it'll end up on my travel plan again in the future.

2005-11-17T17:50:00.000Z

Brief update of today:

1. My alarm didn't go off (forgot to set it, duh), so I was 20 minutes late at work. No harm done!

2. I was wrestling all day with a very erratic problem that lies either in our code, ATL, MDAC, SQL Server or anywhere else. It drives me crazy and I didn't make any progress despite trying everything I could think of. Sigh!

3. I had a big Pizza Picante for lunch, since our boss is in the States, we can afford to go to places where it takes longer to have lunch :-) Boy it was good on an empty stomach!

4. Had tea, coffee, diet coke, fanta, snapples, mr. Tom, but still no glimmer of hope for item no. 2

5. I'm going to gym with Marco today and then somewhere to eat and drink ... just to make sure we don't deplete our resources of body fat all of the sudden

6. I'm reading The DaVinci Code at the moment, the writer clearly masters the art of suspense, however some of the arguments in the book are childish and inaccurate.

7. I have a problem on my computer at work, I run out of virtual memory ... yeah, too many windows open. It's very annoying, and most of the times it takes out the network adapter, so I have to disable it and enable it again (after I close some windows). That's the most annoying part, as I can't browse or read emails.

PS: War without France would be like ... uh ... World War II

2005-11-16T22:31:00.000Z

CENSORED DUE TO OBSCENITY AND ADULT EXPLICIT CONTENT.

2005-11-16T11:39:00.000Z

I think I'll love it in Thailand and that's simply because I love smiling people. It relaxes me to see people smiling instead of the usual londoners' frown or impassible faces not deeming yourself worthy of a single glance. I went today at the Thai embassy and got a little preview from the lady that returned my passport, now embellished with a colourful visa for the Thai Kingdom. The smile made it a pleasant experience, although beforehand I thought it was slightly chaotic. We were supposed to hold on to our numbers and get service nicely, in order. Until a lady mumbled something in Thai and everyone who could understand Thai suddenly made a dash for the desk and formed what you could call a queue, if you were generous. I said to myself ... I know this situation, I'm eastern european, all bets are off. And I dashed for the desk myself. It was a separate desk for passport collection and I got it in 2 minutes, a sigh of relief as I left the embassy. So long smiling lil people!

18 days to go to the departure for Thailand ... but hey, who's counting! Right!

To share some of my concerns with you ... my job is on the line here, because of this blog. I'm sharing too much with you all. You're witnesses to my procrastination and to my little tricks.
So here's another one: I am supposed to go to work on the 23rd of December, for half a day. I only have 14.5 holidays left for this year. 23rd of December is on a friday. Now imagine that, going to work for half a day, right after lunch, on a friday. It has "Madness" written all over it.
So I've deliberately ignored it, and I over-booked my holiday. I'm coming back on the 28th, as 26th and 27th are Bank Holidays in the UK.
So the Chrismas will be in Thailand. Making snowmen and having snowball fights. Yeah, right! Probably sweating my arse off... literally sweating! In case you didn't know, Bangkok is the hottest city on earth!!! You heard me!
So touchdown is on 28th at 5 in the morning. Yawn! And I'm supposed to go to work on the 28th at 9.30. Am I mad or what? Don't answer that, it was rhetorical...
But the beauty of it all ... I'll be the only one working between Christmas and New Year Eve. Working! Got it?!
That's unless my boss discovers this blog and fires my arse as he should!
Now you see how my job is on the line because of this blog? Somehow this makes it more exciting ... yawn!

2005-11-14T11:40:00.000Z

I hate to deliver bad news, but another weekend had passed by and we're one step closer to the big system shutdown, one of the most important phases in our lives, which we all try to avoid thinking about and pretend it's not coming towards us with the same speed we're approaching it too.

However, in the meantime, we indulged in the pleasure of the senses with an iranian dinner on thursday, kebabs being the only pronounceable things on the menu. But it was good and it was all sprinkled with some of my delicious jokes which made everyone but Charles laugh. He winced, he sighed, he rolled his eyes and then covered them with his hands in disbelief. My sense of humour is a bit twisted and sometimes people are so embarrassed that I find myself laughing out loud. It's subtle sadism, "killing me softly with a ... joke".

Friday would have been such a quiet day, if it hadn't been for me accidentally flooding the people below me when I forgot about the water in the bath tub. Two big black mamas (Can I say black? Are we live?) knocked at my door 10 minutes later complaining. Instantly my brain switched into deceiving mode and I told them that in fact it wasn't the bath tub overflowing, but a pipe leading to the bath tub had burst and a plumber was on his way. When they told me they had called the Council, I knew I was safe. I would probably hear from them in two years, asking me if the pipe was still leaking. I'd be in Bahamas by then, sipping my ice vodka with lemon. That's if I win the lottery. I'm counting on that. Fingers crossed!

Saturday it was a day to party and we started in Porterhouse by partying in English style: with pints in our hands. We left for El Barco Latino, anchored on the Thames, near Temple tube station. El Barco Latino is still there but nothing happens on it, the boat was actually called Katharina or something like that. And there was a black private party (Can I say black?). However, one woman at the door let us in for free. I think they were afraid they wouldn't get too many people that night and they still wanted to have some sales at the bar. So that's how we ended the only white people in a sea of black people enjoying hip-hop and RnB. It wasn't our choice of music, but after some more alcohol, we started undulating shamelessly on the dance floor. We left early as we didn't like it that much.

On Sunday I had a nice coffee with Roberto in our regular meeting place in Leicester square. Well, it used to be regular. We chatted about Thailand as we're both going and we both can't wait. We took a photographic tour starting at Photographers' Gallery - we always use to go there after coffee. They missed us, we joked. Then we went to the National Portrait Gallery where they had the Schweppes' Portrait Awards for 2005. Very nice, don't miss it if you like photography.

And finally, this morning, I endured the blistering cold in front of the Thai embassy to get my visa for december. I applied, left my passport and a ridiculous amount of 25 pounds and I'm supposed to collect it in 2 days on wednesday. Ah, the perks of being a romanian citizen! And there are more perks like these, I can assure you!

fiesta havana in photos

2005-11-11T16:12:00.000Z

Thanks Kaisa for sending me the photos and thanks for having the camera there to witness to my daily insanity! Sorry folks, I am insane, but I'm too old to change now!
This must be the funniest photo in the history of mankind (womankind is not present, have a look for yourself!!). Me and Bjorn simulating a french kiss with a shocked Andrew in the background ... I think he thought we'd go through with it :-)

Oh Bjorn, get a life mate! And Kaisa, let me kiss that camera...

Me and Roberto. I was obviously dehydrated from so much alcohol...

DISCLAIMER: Contrary to popular belief, I'm not gay, so please don't ask me out!!

repetitive stuff ... repetitive stuff ... repetitive stuff ...

2005-11-10T11:12:00.000Z

Life is repetitive, repetitive I tell you, repetitive life it is, oh how repetitive life can be ... did I mention how repetitive life it is?
That being said, there's no surprise I'm at work again, just after sipping some coffee which I try to convince myself every morning that it's not good for me, waiting for lunch like a coyote for a dying ... hmm ... for a dying anything (it's surprising how open minded coyotes are about their diet) and remembering how yesterday evening we did the same thing like a week ago. Is that repetitive or what? I went to the gym with Marco and then we met Christina and went for a dinner and a pint. To be absolutely correct to actual facts, I had two pints: Guiness and Hoefgarden (or something ... german/dutch spelling is not my strong point ... my strong point is, as we all know it, my intelligence, only surpassed by my christianic modesty and humility).
Marco said he has a surprise in store for us and he didn't want to reveal the place we're going to. I thought, my, I love surprises, and when he took us to a Fish & Chips shop, it was a surprise alright! But hey, after coming from the gym, you can be generous with your intake of fatty foods. To be fair to him, it was a shop that we wanted to visit a while ago and it was supposed to be one of the best fish and chips shops in London. Boo hoo! It wasn't too bad actually, but it's not something to do every day, unless you're training to become a Sumo wrestler.

So here I am, sitting at my desk, thinking how repetitive life is, coming to the same office every day, being a little piece in this well oiled mechanism called society. Phew, I need to pull a sickie soon! :-) I'm so relieved Marco's not my boss, every day would be a sickie then! ;-) No pulling needed! Yeah, we're sick when we get together, but hey, it's just for you sane people to look at us and appreciate life more by saying to yourself "Geez, thank god I'm not like them". So, long live the sick people! Even the terminally ill ... well, for a while! Actually we're good at heart ... but you don't wanna hear that sloppy story!

What's the plan for tonight? Ah well ... thanks for asking! We're going to a persian/iranian restaurant in West London. We'll probably be about 10-15 people. The ridiculous thing is they don't sell alcohol on the site, so we have to take our own bottles. So let's stay in the letter, not the spirit of the law, ok? The iranian cuisine is abundant in meat, very very heavy stuff, it needs to be diluted with a red wine ... now if I knew enough about wines I would say ... a Cabernet Sauvignon 1976 ... but I don't, so any red would do. Blasphemy! as my french colleague would put it... We zon't zrink vine to get zdrunk like in zis country. Yeah yeah, french are so much more virtuous than everyone else. Wha'eva!

Q: Why do the French smell?
A: So blind people can hate them too!

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate the French, but it’s so funny to make fun of them :-) (my try to save the political correctness of this blog)

Of travelling...

2005-11-09T12:48:00.000Z

Travelling is good for you; it expands your horizons ... literally! And it's a nice way to get out of the daily cycles and the daily habitat where it’s so easy to feel bogged down and claustrophobic. When you get out of your turf, there's a feeling of liberation, there's a feeling of getting out of your own skin and there's a feeling you're a free man, wind in your face and world being your playground. Travelling seems like a universal panacea for the office dweller, bored out of his wits, counting the slow decay of monday into tuesday, tuesday into wednesday, you know the drill...
In actual fact it's all in your head, psychological stuff to keep busy psychology students for a long time and be awarded life long contributions to the field of psychology when they manage to figure it all out.

My immediate travel plans include Granada in 2 weeks, a weekend trip ... I quite fancy weekend trips as it doesn't eat up into your holidays and it's still a nice way to have an initial feel about a place. And then you can go back and explore more passionately if you like it. Then it's Thailand in december, 3 weeks, including the Christmas. This is planned and almost written off already, cost-wise, I mean. I have some other plans for the next year, but they all float in the fluid abstract ideas-land, we'll see how many actually materialise.

But I have one plan which is more ambitious than all the others and dwarfs them all by far, one that needs careful thinking and planning, one that has the potential of changing the course of your life for the better, but at the same time, it has the potential of getting your knickers in a twist – if you’re wearing any. I'm thinking of taking a year off work at some point and travel around the world. It's easier said than done and we all know that, but for me it's even more difficult.
I've always been quite focused on my career and always absorbed in my little ambition of career progression, and always used to it going upwards and even more upward. It didn't go down so far, although there were some glitches along the way. Nothing too serious, just a company or two going bust, like they always do when the faintest smell of recession is in the air. Taking a year off might sound like a serious downfall in my glorious path to Rome, or the Rome of my ambitions.
It's also about money, I'm usually a saver, saving money and used to have a constant flow of money into my account. Absolutely hating having to dip my hand into my savings. A year off travelling would be a serious dip, up to your elbow perhaps?

But then you have to look at it all from a different perspective. Think about being old and looking back at your life and thinking ... there were so many things I could have done when I actually was able to, and still I didn't do them. And now I have an extra pile of cash, what's the use?! You have to find the right balance between saving money and spending it, between living your life to the fullest here and now and catering for future needs.

There's one zen story about a prince looking for the secret of life. So he goes to this very wise king, living somewhere very remotely, as in every story. And the king tells him ... take this tea spoon, pour some tea in it and wander around the castle to see the beauties that I have accumulated in my life. But be very careful not to spill a single drop, otherwise you'll miss the whole point. The prince goes round the castle, always looking at the teaspoon, so scared not to spill it. When he returns the kings asks him if he saw any of the beauties of the castle. But of course not, he was too focused on the teaspoon. Do it again, but this time look at the beauties, for Buddha's sake! The price goes around, gawking, fascinated by the castle. And when he returns, there was not a single drop in the teaspoon, he spilled it all.
The moral of the zen story is a simple one ... keep a balance between enjoying life and being focused on what you really want to achieve long term in life.

Travelling for a year has the potential of changing your take on life altogether, but it also depends on how you travel ... if you're too focused on the teaspoon you'll end up ticking countries and places on your TODO list and retain nothing long term, the only result being an unjustified injection of pride into your ego.

All in all, it's the sort of journey you can look back from the end of the tunnel and say ... yes, I'm proud I've done it, it's such a good memory and I would be someone and somewhere else if I hadn't done it. Of course, you'd say that from a tropical island, surrounded by babes in bikinis, sipping your Bacardi Breezer 2040 edition and enjoying your first years of senility.

Now, waky waky, back to work!

drinking regulations in the UK

2005-11-08T18:01:00.000Z

WARNING: Boring topic ahead.
FACT: The drinking licensing laws change this month, with effect of 24th of November. It will mean that pubs will be open 24 hours. Of course, the pubs that have applied for the license.

I feel obliged to tackle this subject, I don't know why ... it's not about me, I do binge drink sometimes, but just because the threshold for binge drinking is set too low. I've never lost conscience after drinking, I've never forgot what I've done the night before, I've never had problems getting home. And I don't drink like there's no tomorrow.

I like the liberalisation of drinking hours because I believe in free choice, and this country is already a nanny state. The only positive things come from Brussels, a bit of arm twisting of course. The answer to problems is education.

The problem of drinking and laxation of drinking laws is turning into a big national fuss. The main problem is a problem of getting used to. People are used to drinking fast and fitting as many drinks as possible in the shortest amount of time. Everyone fears the new drinking license regulations because people will still do the same, out of habit, drink very quickly but not just for 4-5 hours but for the whole night, and day, and night...
But it's physically impossible to do that, there's only a limited amount of alcohol you can drink before you get in a coma and you DIE! Surely there will be problems during the transition period, because it's not easy to change years of getting used to, overnight. These are laws that will pay off in time. And how?

If people pace their drinks ... their kidneys actually have a chance to do some work of flushing the alcohol. But they can still drink all night, right? Well, yes, but at some point money runs out, as England is not the cheapest place to have a pint. It's a bit cynical, but yes, for some people it's the only stop ... money running out!

One important thing with 24 hours drinking laws is however that people will leave pubs at different times, not all together. Because at 11.30 everyone is on the streets, drunk, making their way home or to the next club, a colourful mix of people, it's just a recipe for disaster. And everyone who's been on the streets of London or any other city in England at 12am knows this very well. It's quite a chaotic view. With the new laws, decent people can still drink decently and leave home more safely, because they don't have to mix with the bad elements.
But what if people stay there all night and same thing happens? Well, some people will still leave early, as they have to catch the last tube, the last train, the last something ... so there will still be that mixture of drunken people on the streets at that time. But now you have the option of staying a bit longer in the pub until the mass of commuters flushes out the streets of London and then walk casually to the night bus.

Another good thing is that in time, some other places might stay open late, like restaurants, cinemas, etc. offering a choice to the free-choice-lovers or to the poor insomniacs. And in time people's mentality will change for the better, the alcohol might stop being the forbidden fruit ... which might actually prove excellent news for the british sex life. And also will help Britain lose the first position in the top of the rates of teenagers' pregnancy in Europe.

It's all good mid-long term news for John Doe!

that time of the month

2005-11-07T23:01:00.000Z

If I had a "that time of the month", then this would be it!

We bid farewell to Sebastian in Bella Italia, with nice italian pasta and unidentified (probably italian too, who cares?!) red wine, the biggest gathering of friends and people I know in a long time. A part of my brain was singing "Another one bites the dust", Sebastian returning home to Germany (uber alles?!) ... another part of my brain singing "How many roads must a man walk down / Before you can make some friends that don't leave every couple of months and leave you to your misery"... phew, that's my weird part of the brain! Like I have any other!

Sunday brought aching problems, the least of which was watching, in a smoky pub, Chelsea lose to The Wankers (sounds like the name of an american football team, innit?) and then Sir Alex saying "Bollocks" on live TV (I knight thee not!). Knights do it, even the bees do it...

Monday was a day to bury bad news, as I had even more bad news from Maracana, bad news from work - problems and stuff you don't want to bog your brain down with - the travel agents telling me they haven't shipped my tickets yet (how about shipping them to Thailand and I'll collect them there?!).
In the evening I went to the gym ... and it was good, I thought ... what a nice change! It's good to release all that frustration in a very constructive and healthy way (thank god we can't buy guns in this country, he said under his breath). And then he had to ruin it all. Yes, my good old buddy, in case you need a refresh of memory, point your browser to this.

He was there and the irony of life struck me like a jilted lover, as he caught me naked in the changing rooms, just before jumping in the shower. He probably saw my buttocks in all their splendour, and I was clenching my fists ready for a fight as he passed me. I was shivering expecting a slap on my derriere, but to my sigh of relief, it never came. And then I noticed again he was sneaking glances at me in the shower everytime he was passing by. Luckily for his future DNA, he didn't say anything and my forgiveness knew no boundaries. I must have been a king in a previous life ... or maybe a royal jester ... although I don't think you get to be the same thing twice. And I'm a jester now!

Why do all these things happen to me? Why do all these things happen to me NOW?

The answer my readers / Is a blow job in the wind / The answer is blowing in the breeze.

Somewhere on a beach preferably ... out of sight ... know what I mean?

Good night wackos!

sunny friday

2005-11-04T11:59:00.000Z

It's a beautiful day in London, sunny although cold, but most importantly ... IT'S FRIDAYYYYYY!!!! I don't have much work to do today, just draw some diagrams and check an installer. My boss promised that next week we start the development cycle for the next release... sheesh ... no more idling, or so you think!

Yesterday it was gym day with Marco. I discovered that once a week is not enough for going to the gym. That's because I was feeling so lazy, and if I don't do some sports or some physical intensive stuff for a while, I end up in a state where I lack energy entirely, I'm a vegetable. And it's so easy to be lazy in that state and it's so difficult and painful to get out of it. When I do something energetic, gym or other stuff, I feel I am a bit tired, but still full of energy. The vegetable state is disgusting, I don't want to end up there again.
I also discovered I have a bit of residues from my allergic asthma, as it was harder to breathe under effort, although I didn't feel it when I breathed normally. It's a bit frustrating as it means my pulmonary tract is still clogged.

Afterwards we went to a turkish place in New Cross where Christina was already waiting for us, for about 25 minutes. She's a sweetie, she didn't say anything bad to us. It was a long way and I underestimated how long it takes from E&C to New Cross by bus and then walking.
But the restaurant was very nice, food excellent, so it wasn't surprising that the place was absolutely packed. This is my second turkish restaurant (proper restaurant, not kebab shops) after Gallipoli in Islington and I start to think very highly of the tuskish restaurants and cuisine. I'm waiting for Marco to write a proper review in his food blog which you can find in the links section on the right hand side.

Ok, that's it for now ... we're going to the pizza place today for lunch, yummy ... that doesn't happen too often because it takes longer to be served, but it's very nice. Italian cuisine is so so so good ... hmm ... actually since I'm starving like I am at the moment ... let me rephrase ... any cuisine is so so so good! Hmm ... let's leave out McDonalds' and other fatty food places though! Have a great weekend everyone!

Of work and people

2005-11-03T12:08:00.000Z

I have a mild hangover from yesterday's pub quiz with free drinks and food provided by the company. Unexpectedly, we weren't the bottom of the list either, although not far from it. That's not to say we're stupid, let's use a more diplomatic term here ... mentally challenged!
Nah, that's not it ... we had some organisatorial problems in our team, with 2 of us, me and the frenchie, arriving late, after the quiz started, another guy arriving even later and our boss arriving when they were footing up the score. It was also frustrating that they were general English knowledge questions, most of them ... eg. What's the name of the actor in the ‘70 series Name-That-Rings-No-Bells. I still managed to impress everyone by being the only one to answer correctly:

1. What's the capital of Slovakia - no pressure Ciprian, you're the only eastern european here, all eyes on me. It's Bratislava, duh!

2. What's the name of the element with the symbol Co in the periodic table - Cobalt!

At this point I should introduce you to my colleagues here; it's a small team, bear with me. I'll only use initials, just in case some of my readers happen to be part of this wizz-team.

B. - he's the boss, handling some management and also being lead developer. He's a nice chap; sometimes when the deadlines are tight he snaps, but he's cool. He likes to keep the distance a bit, maybe to be able to fire my arse when he discovers this blog! He's also a Liverpool fan and a coffee drinker trying religiously to convince everyone else to drink coffee!

moi - I'm the second developer, a bit of a sarcastic joker, thinking that every crisis can be solved with the right joke. Being a Chelsea supporter is a guaranteed source of banter with B. and C. below. Usually I have the upper hand as Chelsea tops the premier league at the mo. Tea drinker by default, flirting with coffee lately...

C. - head of QA, the only one born and bred in England out of the four of us (he's of indian descent). In the last couple of weeks, the other boys have added Lina after his name, to suggest he's too effeminate. Their arguments being he moans about everything, he drinks alcopops, he still lives with mom, maybe some others, I don't enjoy this bullying. I talked with him, he doesn't enjoy it either that much, although he puts his smiley face every time and tries to be brave. He's a Liverpool supporter too (for reasons that escape my understanding really) and a tea drinker. He's a talkative guy and he's my favourite character in the bunch.

F. - QA boy, french, so not surprisingly I've added a lot of jokes about the french to my portfolio recently. He "speakz like zis" too! He doesn't know or care about football and he's always left out of our banter about football. He's easily freaked out under pressure and the first one to pull his hair out when the shit hits the fan. I don't understand that, I thought the french were cold blooded! He has a thai girlfriend and he's a coffee drinker, the most prolific of all coffee drinkers out there, probably.

This is our main team. Now couple of random facts about it, in random order:

1. The QA boys do some development too, although they seem to suffer from an inferiority complex.

2. I'm the youngest of the team, at 28, the others being 31-32. But age is irrelevant.

3. We always have lunch together, a chance to catch up and most of the time it’s C. that starts up an endless topic … the latest being on how the drug companies do not act in the best interest of the sick people, just try to make profits and they all collude together to that end

4. I'm based on the 2nd floor with Operations people, the rest of them based in the basement, at least in the QA cycle. C. can't wait for the QA cycle to end and join me on the 2nd floor, he doesn't like the basement.

The extended team includes Ch., a south african like B., he's a support guy, technical though ... very funny guy and politically incorrect, which makes it even funnier. He was involuntarily funny yesterday when he couldn't answer correctly the question "How many colours are there on the South African flag?". It was almost as funny as F's reaction to "Who was the maid of Orleans?" ... I turned to him instantly "Joan D'Arc" and he goes "No no no, she wasn't a maid, all she's referred by is -virgin-". Guess what ... the answer was "Joan D'Arc".
P. was also part of the team, as product manager, but then she left for another department when the company decided that the product manager should be someone in the States. She lived for a while in the States but didn't like it that much, so she came back. English, she was the one to answer most questions.

We used to have a sales guy too, but he was sacked for not meeting his sales quota or being too lazy, or whatever. He had a romanian gf and he could say "Ce mai faci" to me every time, with an accent so horrible that I was "Excuse me?!" for 5 seconds before realising it must have been something in romanian. (Ce mai faci? means How're you?)

That's it, lunch in 10 minutes, how time flies when you do something that you like. I love my job!

2005-11-02T13:51:00.000Z

Just to soften the melodramatic effect created by the previous 2 postings...

Yeap folks, just another fabulous day at work, counting the minutes to the end ... a phone conference call with the Big Boss from the States in 10 minutes, a non-interactive channel where you have to listen and applaud. At least we'll all be in the basement, mute the mike and indulge in sarcastic comments about the CEO, company, americans and, why not, the french... The only upsetting thing ... the conference is supposed to be 2 hours ... how the heck can someone boast about a company for 2 hours. I thought it's something only Fidel Castro can still pull off...

Anyway, by the end of it, it'll be 6pm already, we have a pub quiz with free drinks and free nibbles at 6:30pm. My only ambition in the quiz is to have more free beer than the average employee ... screw the quiz ... our team can lose for all I care. I did mention I'm a team player, right? :-)

2005-11-02T11:59:00.000Z

How many times did you live in the present, in the "here and now" how some mystics might put it? Can we live in the present really, or do we have to come up with compensative mechanisms to keep ourselves sane and sound?
We tend to do that, always knitting the present in exciting new shapes, always on the lookout for eye pleasing greener pastures. We remould the reality to make it more appealing. It's not just a job for poets, it's a defensive mechanism to allow us to put up with stress and boredom and we do it every day. We're a pack of defensive mechanisms that we constantly improve upon and perfect all our life.

Whatever kills you not, maketh thou stronger...

And our brain gradually becomes a stack of ever growing filtering layers and, in turn, we become ever number and number. Suddenly we discover that we've lost our joie de vivre and we don't even know at which turn in our life it's happened. Childhood becomes a distant memory, we vaguely remember once we could laugh and cry from the heart, now we can think about it and try to emulate in thinking, but we soon discover it's too strenuous an effort and we risk to shortcircuit our brain alltogether and end up in the sanitarium. So we stop thinking about it ... que sera, sera! It's all part of the maturing process, but no one asked me if I wanted to mature ... I don't! Please turn back the time!

self portrait - the dark side of the moon

2005-11-02T11:14:00.000Z

"There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark."