Little Paris Overlooked
Bucharest got featured on the Where I've Been Blog. Scroll down the page and read the mistyped/misspelled description at number 5:
Five Overlooked European Cities
I'd like to note that once more some non-Romanians have a good idea about how Romania could be promoted better abroad. It only seems natural that the Twilight craze would be well exploited in homeland Transylvania.
I still haven't seen any of the movies!
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| Christian Nasulea - 02.02.2010 | |
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The Rroma Beauty Pageant
Last year, as our concert going habits were proliferating, one of us (not me but I'm not saying who) came up with the idea that we should also go to a concert where we could explore that all-too-present music genre called manele.
The principle states that no matter what you do you should try to do a good job doing it so we found out there are two big manele concerts throughout the year. We had to attend one of them. The months passed, we missed the one in autumn (Toamna Manelelor), so when the posters started showing up for the world-famous "Miss Piranda" we had to make good on our plan.
The amazing thing is that besides myself, Bogdan and Cipri we managed to talk 5 other people into joining us for the show. I'd like to congratulate everyone for their courage, endurance, stamina and resolve.
Getting back to the show, Miss Piranda, as you might guess, is a beauty pageant which doubles as a two-day concert bringing together the biggest names of the musical genre. We enjoyed the music of artists such as Babi Minune, Florinel Pustiul, Jean de la Craiova and Florin Salam. The experience was quite traumatic so I will be brief and I will limit myself to only a few notes about the show.
- The venue, Sala Polivalenta, was not heated. It usually is so I can only assume that heating is an option the organizers of an event can choose to pay for or not.
- The sound system was very poor quality and it seemed the only objective of the "sound engineer" was to make everything loud (and distorted).
- There were no lighting technicians. There were no projectors following the people on stage. Practically the dominant light that shined on the artists' faces came from two floor level projectors mounted on the front of the stage. These made everybody's noses cast shadows on the ceiling and made the general atmosphere resemble that of a "bodega de la gara" (EN: slum bar by the train station).
- We witnessed the worst playback performance in history when Romeo Fantasticul (manelistu' porno) started talking to somebody off-stage while his vocal track was still playing. Even when he was trying to follow the song his actual voice didn't match the one on the CD.
- I think some of the artists like Jean de la Craiova and Florin Salam are actually talented singers but I cannot say for sure as the sound system was too bad.
- To put the appraisal of the concert part to rest, I've been to kindergarten Christmas parties that were better organised.
- Most of the contestants in the beauty pageant were not of rroma origin.
- A few of the girls were absolutely stunning.
- Contestant number 9 weighed as much as any 3 other contestants put together. The announcers explained that she was there because she had been the girlfriend of one of the big stars. I guess we could give the event a few extra points based on the fact that they're not promoting extreme stereotypes of anorexic girls as role models. On the other hand the waves rippling through her body during the belly dancing trial were probably one of the things that traumatized us most.
- The only criterium that seemed to be used to determine which of the girls got eliminated after a specific trial was the opinion of a guy in a striped sweater with a big belly, I'm guessing the organiser.
- To my huge disappointment many of the people who bought tickets to attend the show were caucasian.
We only lasted about 3 hours. However, let none say we never gave a chance to exploring the culture of our co-inhabiting nationalities.
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| Christian Nasulea - 01.02.2010 | |
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Mensa Slovenia Skiing Weekend
Early in December Mensa Romania received an invitation from Mensa Slovenia for the "Mensa International Skiing Weekend" to be held at the Vogel Ski Hotel in Bohinj in the second half of January. Upon hearing the word skiing I became immediately interested.
Fast forwarding through the events that actually lead to my taking part in the adventures to come, Thursday morning, the 21st of January, saw myself and fellow mensan Radu leaving Bucharest, heading for Slovenia. Radu drove through Romania, I drove through Hungary and 18 hours later, around 1 am, we arrived in Ljubljana. We experienced a bit of the night life, slept for a couple of hours and visited Ljubljana by day on Friday.
We got to the Vogel Ski Hotel on top of the mountain well within the cable car closing deadline, we got cleaned up, rested for a while and went on to interact with the other mensans. The discussions were engaging and culturally enriching, there were games to be played and fun to be had.
We skied for most of the day on Saturday. The weather was as beautiful as you can ask for on a skiing day, the sun shining bright on a clear blue sky, highlighting the cold and the clouds below us. Just after mid day the Mensa International Grand Slalom Open was held, with three categories: women's skiing, men's skiing and snowboarding. It was all in good fun and everybody seemed to enjoy the competition, the weather and the company quite thoroughly. I won first place in the snowboarding section and, although there were only four of us competing against each other altogether, I am still very proud of the achievement.
More fun and games were to come during the evening as well as a presentation of a study by Serbian mensan Goran Tomin about the link between intelligence and depression. After the presentation an award ceremony for the Grand Slalom was held. On Sunday we woke up, packed our bags and skied some more. In the afternoon every mensan left for home or other destinations.
Besides the fact that the entire adventure was very enjoyable it also helped me understand a lot more about Mensa and what it is really about. When I decided to take the test and signed up for membership I did it only because I was looking for another badge of honour, another decoration, I wanted to add another little line on an already extensive resume. As I approach the end of my first year as a member of the organization I now believe that I got more value from membership than just the shining Mensa badge.
Mensa is meant to bring people together based on a very simple criterium, that of IQ. It's meant to provide members with contacts of other people with minds to match. It's not meant to be an ivory tower where bright minds can lock themselves away and shun the rest of the world nor is it an organization focused solely on the intelligence of its members. Rather, it's a means of bringing people together to find new ways and new purpose to put all that intelligence to use. It is a way for people to interact, work, learn and have fun.
I left Slovenia with one question in mind: what should Mensa Romania's first international get together be about?
There are a couple of albums on Picasa worth seeing:
Ljubljana and Beyond
Bohinj Skiing Weekend
If you don't know what Mensa is give www.mensa-romania.ro a try for some answers.
If you're interested in becoming part of Mensa the next test will take place on April 11th in Bucharest.
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| Christian Nasulea - 28.01.2010 | |
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Snow Driving 101
Thanks to the recent weather covering most of Eastern Europe with snow I've had quite an adventurous trip driving from the mountains to Bucharest this morning. I'm probably in for an even bigger adventure as I head out on a 2500 km drive to Slovenia and back this weekend.
In light of all this I thought it might be a good idea to write down a few pointers about driving in the snow and on snow-covered roads.
The Basics
The first thing one needs to bear in mind when driving through ice and snow is that the main force acting upon a car is inertia. Think of your car as a big brick. You can use your acceleration to apply an impulse that can change the brick's movement vector slightly in a particular direction. Your breaks serve to slightly increase the amount of friction between the brick and the road.
One needs to always consider the movement vector of the brick and the total amount of friction that can be applied in order to shorten the movement vector. You can also consider the movement vectors of all the other bricks on the road when planning your own movements but this is more complicated and would probably be better left for Snow Driving 102 or 201.
Principles and Pointers
Plan ahead.
You should base your calculations primarily on the natural deceleration rate of your car, rather than assumptions related to your breaking capacity.
Lines created in the snow on the road by other cars passing before you will often have a bigger influence on your heading than your desire to steer the car in a particular direction.
Thick banks of snow on the side of the road can wreak havoc if you stray onto them.
Use straight bits of road with light traffic to gently apply the breaks from time to time. This causes your break discs to heat up and melt the snow that gradually builds up on them. If you don't do this your breaks will become useless after a while. Some smarter cars do this automatically.
Plan ahead!
Massive amounts of snow will gather behind your wheels, sometimes forming solid blocks of ice, and will negatively affect your steering. The same ice blocks will often be responsible for your car being unable to get back on the road if you don't choose your parking spot well enough. Stop and clean from time to time.
Always carry snow chains and use them when it gets too tough.
Carry a shovel with you at all times. I prefer the full-sized ones rather than two-piece car models. They'll save your back.
Did I mention "PLAN AHEAD!"?
After making you read all this stuff I should mention that I'm in no way an expert driver and I've had no formal training to do this. I've just done a lot of not-so-clever things over the years and learned a lot from my mistakes.
If anyone wishes to add to the list of pointers please use the comments below.
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| - 20.01.2010 | |
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Slope Value for Money
Today I went snowboarding in Busteni for a couple of hours. I initially went to Azuga filled with hope for good snowboarding conditions on really steep slopes but the gondola was undergoing maintenance for the day.
Getting back to Busteni, I have to note that again the slope was far better than the one in Predeal. I don't know what they do but they do it well. If only it wouldn't cost so damn much.
Which brings me to the point of this post. Here's the economist in me having a field day.
I spent 80 lei on ski trips today and 85 lei yesterday. This means that Predeal was only 6.25% more expensive, while the total travelled distance was 3.81 times bigger. So, for only 6.25% more money I was able to ski 14 times in Predeal in lieu of 6 in Busteni for twice as much time and nearly 4 times the distance.
Photos here.
Map and altitude profile below.
You can compare the altitude profile to the one in my previous post.
Ski lift costs based on Busteni 5+1 pass and Predeal 1/2 day off-season pass.
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| - 19.01.2010 | |
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Ski Day 8
After an early working start this morning (5:30 am) I decided to call it a day around noon and go skiing in Predeal. Due to spring-like weather conditions I had a two week break from skiing which made today all the more exciting as it was like a big dose of a highly addictive drug that was long overdue.
There wasn't a lot of snow but there weren't a lot of people either. In a few hours on a half-day ski pass I managed to go up and down the mountain 14 times for a total of 56 km.
Besides practicing my carving style I spent most of the time tinkering with all the new toys attached to my new helmet.
You can see a few snapshots taken with my HTC in the Ski Day 8 Picasa album.
The map and altitude profile of today's many ups and downs might also be interesting to look at.
I've called this entry "ski day 8" because this is the 8th day since the beginning of winter, including the days spent in Bulgaria, that I've managed to get out on the slopes.
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| - 18.01.2010 | |
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New AV Helmet
This week I finally put together the components for my new, increased security, snowboarding helmet. I spent more than an hour in customs on Tuesday morning clearing the forms for the import of the Giro Remedy helmet that is the base of it all.
The point of a helmet in sports these days isn't just to save your life, although I was recently reminded quite violently of this aspect, but also to make the whole sporting experience more enjoyable.
As a result, my new helmet now has an embedded bluetooth audio system that links up to my mobile phone. This means I can answer a phone call and talk to someone without taking off my helmet and without using my hands. It also means that I can have my phone act as an MP3 player and listen to some 8 gigs of music while I'm snowboarding or skiing. On the audio side the BT system also supports a secondary hard-wired audio connection that could be used for instance for a two-way radio attached to the top of the shoulder armour.
I've been using an Action Camera attached to my helmet to film things for a while now. Unfortunately, after several bigger incidents, although the Oregon Scientific ATC3K itself survived many of its attachment components were irreparably damaged or simply destroyed. This meant that I had to attach the much simpler no name action camera I got from Maplin's to this helmet instead. Let's just hope it will be able to handle the pain.
See you on the slopes!
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| - 17.01.2010 | |
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Flat Mate
I would like to argue that the word flatmate should be taken off the politically correct, socially acceptable word list.
What's the deal with this concept anyway? Is flatmate the opposite of bumpy mate or tilted mate or sharp mate or variable mate?
If it's the opposite of bumpy mate are we supposed to use it to distinguish between our male and female colleagues, or what? Where do we draw the line and, actually, aren't all classifications based on rack-size discriminatory and unacceptable?
If it turns out to be the opposite of sharp mate it's even worse. Without the "benefit" of gender-based differences it's simply offensive to everybody.
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| - 14.01.2010 | |
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Weekend Life
Life as it gets captured by blog-like media has many interesting faces to it. Take this second weekend of the year 2010 for instance.
Saturday morning 6:03 am: answering the annoying wake up call of my alarm I dropped out of my bed in Bucharest to pack my bags for a long and interesting day.
Saturday evening 7:44 pm: after several changes of plan throughout the day I rushed out of the house, in costume, and headed to Sinaia for the long party to come.
Sunday 2:35 pm: I noticed the 5 early snowdrops freshly picked from our garden sitting in a tiny vase on a kitchen shelf and realized just how messed up the world weather is.
Sunday 10:22 pm: After giving the petrol station attendant my best wishes for the new year and engaging in energy drink - related small talk I realized how blessed I must be to be able to enjoy life in a small town at least for a couple of days every week.
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| Christian Nasulea - 10.01.2010 | |
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Flowers and Claws
It's very nice to be in the presence of a pure, beautiful, young flower, to bathe in the light it shines and feed upon its relentless warmth, only to then suddenly, out of the clear blue sky, be faced with a row of long, sharp claws, talons and fangs.
Then I realized that flowers, like all living things, develop and adapt to circumstances in their environment. Looking back it struck me that those talons and fangs had grown as a response to nothing more than my being an ass many moons ago.
I was surprised and perhaps I should have been sorry but I was glad. For the prettiest of flowers would do well to have the claws it needs to keep would-be aggressors at bay.
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| Christian Nasulea - 08.01.2010 | |
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