Remember the "dancing fountains"?

Yes, I'm talking about those in Craiova... Here is a movie with it! More movies on www.youtube.com
Search for "craiova" and "fantana".

Food for thought: How many things did you come up with that you want to change? Have you realized anything yet?

Hi! Would you help me manage my business?

It happened to me more than a few days ago in Bucharest, while I was heading for a meeting. As I stopped to buy me some ice tea, the shop assistant asked: “What kind would you like?”
“What kind do you have?”
“Unfortunately it seems that I only have green tea…”
“Perfect”, I say
“Oh…” he couldn’t hold back his surprise at my positive answer. “I usually have a lot of problems with this”
“?!”
“You see, I am the owner of this shop and I always have problems with the suppliers, because they bring me lots of ice tea during the winter when I cannot sell it, and during summertime when everybody asks for it, they say that they cannot match the demand. So I always have shortages.”
“So tell them that you’ll stop buying from them if they don’t start supplying more in the summer and far less in the winter”
This was when I realized how bright this guy actually was, “Oh, I could do that but it won’t be enough to scare them and they’ll just tick me off”
“So talk to some other shop owners. You’ll see that they all have the same problem”
“Hmmm! That’ll be four fifty please.”
As I paid and walked away I thought to myself about the weird things that I get to live once in a while. Then, more or less serious, I was contemplating on the possibility of killing myself if I ever get to see him in the Fortune 300. Of course these were all jokes, but this happening lingered on in my memory and I decided to go check up on him and see how he is doing. As I stopped there yesterday I asked for some ice tea.
“What kind would you like?”
“Do you have anything else except green tea?”
“Of course” he said “We have peach, lemon and red!”
“Oh, so it seems that you managed to solve the ice tea issue, right?”
As he looked up to me, I saw the spark in his eyes… He had remembered me.
“Yes, thank you. How are you doing?”
“Fine thanks. How much do I owe you?”
“Four fifty please.”

Food for thought: (this was “fed” to me by a very dear friend) Are you able to write down the names of all the people in your life that really matter?

I say "YES" to Romania!

Urban culture… This is one of those phrases that I’ve always known, but never quite grasped the full idea of it. Urban culture… Every city has some elements of culture present within its boundaries; these elements are all referred to using the phrase “urban culture”.

There are two moments that I have lived and that inspired this post: a short movie that I’ve seen a while ago that showed a fountain in front of a something-bigger-than-three star hotel that “danced” elegantly on classical music. The title of that movie was (among many others available on DC++) something like “you’ll never see this in Romania”. At that time I thought to myself: “Another one of those fucking ‘critics’ that are sure that they live in the crappiest country on the face of the world, but don’t have the mind, heart, balls or anything else to make it better”. The presence of these particular idiots is one of my biggest frustrations; but at least I will try to open their eyes (when I meet them) every time I get the chance.

The second moment was some time ago when I was in Craiova with my loved one. As we were walking through the town on a random evening, we stopped to see the city's newest part: it's center. I had already heard that they have built some wonderful fountains there, but I was not ready for what was to come. These are only some pictures that I took, but if you want to experience the full greatness of what's happening down there, go and see it!

I spent the rest of that particular evening contemplating on all those things that I could think of and that seem impossible to become reality (whether it's Romania or me, humankind or Africa, the US, Afghanistan, the EU, basketball, soccer, tennis and so on).

Food for thought: Think of something that you presume would be imposiible to achieve and then do your best to transform that into reality. How long did it take you to succed? How nice is this new reality?