New Phone

(0114) 074 192 2479

This is my new cell phone number while here in Romania. Call me if you want to meet up. I am planning to go ski in Vatra Dornei after New Years, but I will be at home for most of the other time. I am leaving on Jan 12th, and I would love to meet some old buddies from middle school or highschool. Just call.

Romania, the land of ...

• ... change, because I just got back from the gym. A pretty nice facility, with weights, treadmills, big ass pool, tanning and massage. 16 visits for a little less than $20. Life is sweet.
• Dr. Pepper. YES, they have the infamous Dr. Pepper, who sits in my fridge right now. I will come with a pic to prove it pretty soon. Alas it's 30 cents a can, it's still DP, in Romania!!!
• supermarkets. Since last year they have opened a gazillion little super markets / grocery stores. They probably have the variety on the shelves of K-mart displayed on a tenth of shelf space. Sometimes I don't want to get something because I destroy the beautiful merchandise symmetry.
  
• cops. Radar detectors are legal, but cops know how to outsmart them. They hide the popo car in the bushes and turn the radar gun on for a few seconds just for those that look like they're speeding. The sad part of the story is that they did just that when me and my dad were driving from the airport, and now my dad is driver-licenseless. Yes, he was driving 70mph on a stretch of the road that looked exactly like any other highway, except that it had five houses on the side, hence a speed limit of 30mph. For three months he will experiment with the train system, I guess.
  

the end is near

This was outside of the chemistry building about a month ago. Now it's cold, windy and quite desolate. Finals are coming up, grading abounds and the times are just crazy. I can't wait for all this to end and to go home to Romania and hang out with my parents for a while.


More campus pictures that I don't have time to post somewhere else.

betty

Betty is my car of course, and she just passed the age of 100,000 miles. I hope she has about twice as much to go, as she is japanese breed and very healthy. Actually, I had to fix some things this week after my 2000 mile trip to Arkansas and back.

The Aristocrats

If you were never offended by a dirty joke then it's time to see the Aristocrats. The documentary is named after an improv joke that's been circling the comedy scene since the 1900's. The idea is simple: you have to say the most offensive, vial, disgusting, wrong, and downright sick things that can ever pass through your mind. Here's a version of the Aristocrats by Eric Cartman of South Park, CO. WARNING! - if you are underage or easily offended by foul language just get the fudge out.

Apparently this joke is never performed in front of the audience and it is rather used as a skill meter by comedians. In the documentary more than 100 entertainment figures put a spin on this joke. What's amazing is not the sheer number of versions of the joke but how different they are and the fact that you can see the creative juices flow right in front of your eyes. Leave your kids at home and head out to the independent film theater near you. Or, if you can wait till January when the DVD comes out, pull out your slippers, make a cup of earl grey tea, adjust your spectacles, cross your legs on the couch, turn the movie on, and be an aristocrat.

financial analysis #2

It's the end of another month so here's the breakdown:

From Jul 22nd to Sep 9th I spent $2890 as follows:

• 11.74 % food
• 1.33 % clothing
• 2.46 % entertainment
• 35.51 % utillities
• 5.18 % car insurance
• 11.09 % transportation
• 7.18% household needs
  
• 5.49 % computer
• 3.28 % education
• 1.72 % health/hygene
• 15.03 % other

By far utillities dominate my expenses. Food is not too bad this month, and transportation is a little higher because of gas prices and my trip to Canada.

personality test

Here's my personality:

ENTJ - "Field Marshall". The basic driving force and need is to lead. Tend to seek a position of responsibility and enjoys being an executive. 1.8% of total population.

Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs/MBTI)

The most brilliant theater play in the world

is just 2 minutes long. I am not kidding. Listen to this episode of "This American Life" and skip to 25:30 . I am still laughing out loud by myself. Just brilliant!

"Preparing boys for girls"

I finally grabbed a copy of the series "Freaks and Geeks" and have been recently savouring each episode. For those less familiar with the greatest show on the face of the Earth, "Freaks and Geeks" reveals a deep analysis of high-school adolescence hidden under the covers of another cheesy teenage show. Don't be fooled by the apparent geekiness of the movie, but pay attention to the outstanding acting (especially Neil and Bill), excellent character building and unexpectedly good film-making.

I really didn't want to talk about my questionable past-time activities on here, but today I heard on NPR a very thoughtful commentary by Gwen Macsai that relates in a odd way to the subject of "Freaks and Geeks". In "Preparing boys for girls" the commentator looks at the abysmal differences between her childern: on one side stand her two boys who have only four emotional states: happy, sad, mad, and hungry and on the other is her daughter who displays a wide range of complex drama-queen like emotions. How can a mother teach her simple four-state males about the hyper-emotional females that await them? The straight answer is: she can't, but it's still fun to listen to her blurb.

Music flavors

I just remembered that a few months ago I signed up for audioscrobbler, a program that tracks all the songs I play on Winamp and makes a webpage with the history of my music. So I guess this is the music I have been listening to lately.

Living expenses

It's a slow Saturday morning and I have nothing better to do than being nerdy. I was curious to see how much it cost me to live in Boulder for a month and a half and what did I spend my money on. I tallied everything up, I looked at my receipts and and my credit card statements and here's the conclusion:

Between June 13 and July 22 I spent a total of $1845 which was broken up as follows:

• 15.24% food
• 3.20% clothing
• 3.25% entertainment - going out, beer, movies
  
• 29.10% utilities - rent, cable, electricity
  
• 4.34% insurance - car
  
• 0.51% transportation - gas + bike expenses
  
• 18.08% household - furniture, appliances, cleaning supplies, etc.
  
• 15.10% computer - monitor, dvd, memory
  
• 0.00% education - books, texts
  
• 0.44% health - medicine, hospital visits
  
• 7.78% other
  

I surely spent too much on food, and it looks like the expenses on the household will be high until I get all the stuff that I need for my apartment. Also, the computer expenses were a little steep this month because I needed to make a serious upgrades to my 4 year old beast. Will see what happens next month.

Branding Romania

I have recently stumbled upon Branding Romania, a place where people share ideas about the most effective way to change Romania's image abroad. Being here in the States for four years I can say that most people bring up a slightly negative third world country image when they hear about Romania: ugly people with sad faces, bad teeth, russian-like brutality in language and actions, Dracula, and tiny but very serious gymnasts. Fortunately, since I have come to Boulder I saw the other side of the fence, that is an American community where people know a lot about Romania, its culture and centuries old traditions.

Last weekend, for example, the Romanian festival took place down on Pearl street. Yes, an entire festival with food, dances, clothing only from Romania was the main weekend event in Boulder. It turns out many Americans find the energetic dances and unusual Romanain songs extremely interesting. I guess it's just like bagpipe music which some native "green men" might not find that exciting, but which I love very much.

The Romanian festival was organized by the Romanian American Freedom Alliance, a handful of Romania-enthusiasts (both American and Romanian). I think that RAFA's actions are the most compelling argument in building Romania's image. I haven't seen anywhere in the US people so open and knowing so much about Romania's geographical location, its problems with joining EU or even knowing the detailed stories behind some "doina de jale" traditional Romanian songs. Now, that's changing Romania's image!

Mountainbiking trip - Sourdough trail

Markus against "Lefthand" reservoir

Like almost any other day here in Boulder, today was "active" day. This time I went mountainbiking with Markus and a couple of his buddies. We went up in Ward on the Sourdough trail. Although my bike and other equipment is not up to the highest standards I had a lot of fun going up some steep and narrow trails. This time I couldn't help taking some gorgeous pictures so if you go to my website you can check them out in the Photos section.

I finally had time to take some pictures of my new Boulder home. Check out my homepage under the Photos section. Yesterday I went climbing with Zack, Oscar and some other chemistry people and it was a blast. Today I ran 6 miles and it fealt great.


Tantra Lake - my home in Boulder

My famous hummus 

Romania living in the middle ages

Yes, I am back alive in the blog world. Boulder is awesome, summer work is enjoyable but more about that in a future post.

A recent article in the New York Times brings about a very careful analysis of the most recent case of Eastern Orthodox fanaticism. I understand that people have spiritual needs but is religion belief the grounds for killing people? Hell NO. I hope that so called priest and those nuns stay in prison for a long time to show that there is a clear separation between religion and state.

sitting right on the 40th parallel 

In the Flatirons 

Vlad cu basca 

Dragos and Vlad