Flobits

This is a story about two brave men: Ion and Gheo (short for Gheorghe, but I thought of sparing the non-native speakers). They are two Romanian peasants living in a remote village, working the land and rearing animals, pretty much copy-pasting their life from one day to another. Until that day, when Ion decided it was the time to go to the livestock market to sell his cow.  And, as he couldn't go alone, he asked his neighbour Gheo, who had nothing worth mentioning to do that day, to come along. The business was bad, however, and at the end of the day they came back home, carrying the poor cow with them, as they could not sell it. And because of this, the conversation between them two was somehow low, even for the peasants expectations. "You know", Ion began the to break the silence, "what if we were, for instance, some Scottish peasants, not Romanians? What would we talk about?"  "That's an admirably good question, indeed. We'd probably...

I like jokes that involve cultural differences. Of course, I like those that make me laugh. Whether or not they cross the boundary of the politically correctness I don't quite care. Jokes are meant to make people laugh and they exacerbate some cliches to achieve that goal. What really is funny is that the same ethnic jokes are encountered among different peoples, depending on who's telling the joke: Romanians vs Hungarians, Dutch vs Belgians, Germans vs well, pretty much everyone, French vs French, English against Scots, Irish, Welsh, Aussies, well, pretty much everyone, and so forth.

To sweeten up the bitter taste of another Monday, I've thought of writing a few more words about my mother in law. You've already been acquainted to what kind of person she is.  In short, she was always the type to refuse anything that didn't belong to her, no matter what. And she conducted such an immaculate behaviour throughout her life. Throughout her life, indeed, except for that damned day, when she robbed a bank. Now, if you imagine her storming into a bank, pointing a gun at the security guy (who gets bored to death for eight full hours), screaming something like "I'm a bad ass mother, fucker, don't make any stupid mistakes and take me to the bitch!" you're only half right. But here's how story goes.

"Colin, no! Stop, don't do that". " Hm, dad again, he'll calm down, let me pretend I didn't hear him." "Colin David, I told you to stop, right?" "Oops, he's using my biblical name, I'd better not go any further" .

You won't believe what happened this year at one of the carnival parades. I've told you already about the carnival feast and so, now it's time for a bone-chilling tale. We live in the largest city of Holland ...that doesn't have a train station. Maybe to compensate for it, or maybe for the forty-odd thousand inhabitants, we have our own local parade during the carnival. And this year we decided to attend it. The weather was bitchy as hell, alternating from some short sunny moments to rain that turned to hail and sleet, but we didn't care, cause we wanted the little one to see the affluence of silliness in its prime. We didn't wear any costume this time, we preferred to be watchers only, but let me be clear on this, as it seems confusing. By "no costumes" I meant no parrot-like carnival outfit. We DID have clothes on, though. Which made me congratulate myself when I saw a few shivering girls wearing short pants or skimpy skirts and no stockings or ...

     "Holy Mother of God, this woman is driving me crazy, she is indeed! I don't know what else to do, I've tried everything! But she keeps playing with me and my heart. I've even started to neglect the Principality's duties! Ludwig! What am I doing wrong?"      This was one of those evenings when the prince had yet another love attack. And like any other occasions he needed to talk to Ludwig, who'd been his advisor for many a year.      "Don't know, sir, you've done a lot so far", mumbled Ludwig, trying to sound convincing.      "Look, am I the King of Liechtenstein or not?"      "You are sir, you are the Prince".      "Tomayto, tomahto, Ludwig, you're not being helpful with these subtle remarks."      "Sorry, sir, I only meant ..."

"I feel like the king of Liechtenstein" . I don't recall who coined this phrase for the first time, I wished it was me but it wasn't. It came up at work, a fertile soil to have your frustrations validated to a high degree. It must have been one of those cases when you work your ass off and you get the job done well and everybody appreciates you, boss included, and the next day the project is cancelled. ... And the castle's crumbled and you're left with just a name I found that hilarious at the time. I even imagined other scenarios in which you'd be "the king of Liechtenstein", like trying to get closer to a woman who's been roaming your night and day dreams. And then she agrees to go out with you and she's telling you how much she likes you and she'd like to be with you. You're the king! But "you know, I have a boyfriend and I want to give our relationship a second chance". ... of Liechtenstein.

Have you seen Midnight in Paris ? If you haven't, please rush to it, don't know if you can still find it in the cinemas, but it you don't, by all means, get it and watch it. If you are a Woody Allen fan you'll like it at least because of that. If you're not, you need not worry, as this is not a typical Woody Allenian production (as if I knew what such a production should look like :). Moreover, since you read this blog it means that you have very fine tastes and you're automatically excluded from Owen Wilson circle of fans. That shouldn't worry you either, as his role was chosen with utter care so that he couldn't mess up anything in the film. I do not want to spoil the surprise but I'll have to reveal the plot, just a little bit at least. No details, just the gist of it. The film begins with the presentation of a typical rich family from the US, visiting Paris for several reasons. The woman (there are a few, but only one to be thus referred here) ...

Please don't get your hopes high when reading the title, I'm still blogging, I will not stop writing (applause, thanks!). Instead, I will try to decipher one small secret of the Universe. Curtains. Dutch curtains! As a new resident of The Netherlands you get to have visitors from your mother land, a few times a year. Of course they'll all go to Amsterdam to see places and habits difficult to imagine for a normal (mostly male) individual. And when they come back they have only one thing in their mind, when to return to the places of great and sweet dissipation. Anyway, as all good things come to an end, they must also complete some other tasks, which appear to have a compulsory character: walking around in our neighbourhood. And almost always, the summary of what they've seen comes down to this: lovely flowers in the gardens, no matter how the houses are, they are all well garnished with beautiful plants in a euphony of colours. But, "I cannot understand how could...

Hello everybody, this is my first post, my daddy wanted to write something about me, but then he thought it would be more credible if I myself wrote it. It's about how it is to be a kid, almost one year old. And you know what? My dad was damn right, I mean right (I need to mind my effing language), I am a far better writer than him. What do you mean by "This doesn't say anything"? Anyway, I'd like to take you to a small journey in my life so we'll get to know each other better. I will not insist on my little things I am so fond on, like licking and biting remote controls or chewing on cables, and all that in a total oblivion to the hill of toys I could play with. I will not tell you how much I enjoy my parents telling me their favourite joke "Nooo, you're not allowed to do that", although this is one of the top moments of the day.

I've been very busy recently, that's how you didn't get any posts yesterday (no, I won't stop writing, sorry to bring that so bluntly). But now it's quite late so brief I'll be, no need to thank me. So what I've been busy with? If it's Wednesday, it's tennis day. And you know how it is in sport, one thing leads to another and, before you know it, there are a lot more activities to do than you'd planned. Needless to say, all those activities take place AFTER the game. So I had a full evening, very rich in educational exercises. Right after the game, we decided, for once, to go for a beer. Unlike all the other occasions in which we went for exactly the same approach, but that's only boring details. And we know from the Fundamental Law of Beer,   that a beer is not a beer, two beers is a beer. Besides, these moments come along with a great deal of confusion: how will I drive home? Well, you know that this problem occurs only in the very begin...

You know, every end of October, beginning of November, the proud possessors of a car begin the preparation for the winter to come. I'm not sure how it was done 5-10 years ago, but nowadays everyone seems to be in need to change their tyres. For the people who live in Holland - good news, it's not compulsory for your car to have winter boots on. It would be ridiculous anyway, as winter and summer are about the same in the Netherlands, 10 degrees difference at max. You'd think that there's no stress at all, but things are slightly different. In Germany, the law is  not that permissive and the car that goes through the German territories must be equipped  for the winter.

Finally, Monday again! What a good day it is, especially since I stopped working on Mondays and I shifted the shitty feeling to Tuesday, but that's another story :). Last week I got the courage and made the confession about my young years. As a reminder, you can find it here . I also made some statements there that were left as homework. You cannot imagine how thrilled and moved I was after having got your reactions to that. Your very positive reactions that is. I could never imagine such a great interest in maths and the hunger to unravel its mysteries. I wish I could hold them for myself only, but I really can't, I feel bound to share them with you all. So here's the gist of the reactions to my poll question: "Shall I go on and prove that all cows are the same colour and horses have an infinite number of legs? What about Achilles and the tortoise?"

Hi, where's everyone? Oh, here you are. It's time we got to know each other a little bit more. Before I go any further, please pull up a chair (this sounds delicious in Romanian!) and take a seat, for I have a confession to make. Please do not get judgemental, remember, let he who is without sin cast the first stone! It's about sinning indeed, those sins of youth and not necessarily of loins, too. And I'm not talking either about whatever heavy drinking that led to total waste (that happened to some friends of mine, ahem!), no sir, I'm talking about the choice I made some years ago, when going to university. And when, from all possible combinations, I chose to study maths! Let's not stir too much inside the reasons that animated me back then, but take my word that years of troubles as a student pay off as a teacher. A MATHS teacher! It's a genuine delight to run the slaughterhouse as you like it. Now, you may be lured to think that mathematicians are s...

Warning: This post should not, under any circumstances, be read by children under the threshold of not-believing-anymore in Santa, grandparents included. Christmas is gone, we all got our gifts from the loved ones as well as from our employers :D. We also struggled to find the best for our beloved family, friends, acquaintances and so forth. Quite often we get it right, other times we just don't. But, whatever happened, keep it mind that it takes two to make a present a success. It's the giver and the receiver who need to get in tune with each other, as we will see it in this story (of course based on a true one, what else? )

"Joy to the world, the lord has come, joy to the world...",  The Professor was singing and humming in an obviously joyous voice as he lit up his pipe and began the preparations of calling this an year.  "Almost there", he thought, "a few more test papers to grade and off I go, let the Christmas start". He wished for a white Christmas in the beautiful city of Copenhagen but chances seemed slim.  The test paper was an easy one, he didn't feel like getting anybody in trouble (as he'd done it for the past years, but somehow the buzz was gone :) ). "Given a barometer, how could one measure the height of a skyscraper?". It's trivial for anybody trying to pursue a career, however petty, in physics. The answers were good as well, all indicating the best known method: measure the pressure at the ground level, then at the top, convert the millibars in metres and that's it, we have the precise height. 

A juggler, driving to his next performance, is stopped by the police. "What are those machetes doing in your car?" asks the cop. "I juggle them in my act." "Oh, yeah? Says the doubtful cop. "Let's see you do it.” The juggler gets out and starts tossing and catching the knives. Another man driving by slows down to watch. "Wow" says the passer-by. "I'm glad I quit drinking. Look at the test they're giving now!

Airman Smithy was assigned to the army induction center, where he advised new army recruits about their government benefits, especially their GI life insurance policies. It wasn’t long before Captain Brown noticed that Airman Smithy was having a staggeringly high success-rate, selling army life insurance to nearly 100% of the army recruits he advised. Rather than ask about this, the Captain stood in the back of the room and listened to Smithy’ life insurance sales pitch. Smithy explained the basics of the GI life insurance policy to the new army recruits, and then said: “If you have the GI life insurance policy and go into battle and are killed, the government has to pay $200,000 to your beneficiaries. If you don’t have GI life insurance, and you go into battle and get killed, the government only has to pay a maximum of $6,000. Now,” he concluded, “which group of soldiers do you think they are going to send into battle first?”

Oh buoy, eye have scene sew many spelling miss steaks published on internet and eye do knot understand why wood someone knot ewes a spell checker, as it comes four free with the pea sea.  There's know whey ewe wood bee taken buy surprise buy any treacherous words anymore and it dozen take any moor thyme to Finnish what ewe kneed to, as any miss steak is showed strait a weigh.  Weather eye am write ore wrong has know importance,  butt make shore yore frays gets cleaner and error free :)