Thanks
Following Ovi’s example, I’ll try to compile a post to thank my friends for random small things. Some people might be terribly surprised to find themselves on this list (assuming they even read the blog, which I doubt for the most part). Well, don’t be… it’s these small things that sometimes matter so much. I tried to also put family members here, but I couldn’t, because you just can’t thank your family for small things. Everything they do is huge in so many ways. So here we go:
Thank you…
Radu, for that time when he asked me to help him program that game
Cata, for teaching me how to play whist
Tudor B., for inviting me over to show me some tricks in Photoshop
Andreas, for that time he took me for a walk in the cemetery
Mona, for letting me take pictures of her
Ovi, for giving me his battery charger
Anca, for that walk in the park..and the cake
Ana B., for dancing with me that night
Ana S., for asking my opinion about her tattoo
Mario, for that phonecall
Sandra, for the “Bad Guy” teddybear keychain
Nicole, for always passing the ball
Silvia, for her colored hand-made cards
Viv, for the egyptian eye she drew on my hand in highschool
Tudor PM, for asking me to help him with that script
Gogu, for sometimes letting me win at Need for Speed
Random girl in the metro, for asking me about my xkcd tshirt
Livia, for the letter she sent me long ago
Misu (wherever you are), for giving me my first Queen CDs
Rax, for offering me tea that evening
Angi, for showing me the “Easter Egg” on the LotR DVD
Daniel, for coming with me on that long drive
Georgiana, for the critique on that text of mine
Justin, for letting me play Halo on his XBox even though I sucked
Trevor, for making me stay on the CCDC team
Irina, for the hacker gloves
And the list could probably go on, but I’ll stop here for now. Thank you all!

Note: Image from ( http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AGVe9K2hrnE/SbMzP9yvpVI/AAAAAAAAAnY/iU8WBjZ1WKg/s400/Deep+bow.jpg )
How to prevent super-bugs (medical, not software)
Norway does it right. How?
Read it here.
It’s almost disturbing that solutions like this have been explained, tested and proposed for years, but are still being ignored. Thumbs up for Norway!
Real men
Although TC from TMuscle.com already wrote an awesome article about this, which I have previously referenced here, I will try my hand at this in yet another written angry rant.
I am so sick of “real men”. I don’t know who is to blame for this plague. Whether it’s the media, the arts, the growing stupidity, the technocrats, in all honesty, I do not care, but this is really ticking me off. Real men, everybody has this broken perception of what a real man should be. I mean we all know it right?
First of all, real men do not show feelings. They probably are assumed to not have them in the first place. If your manly heart vibrates to a song, to a nice piece of art or to the big eyes of a kitty, it’s time you punched yourself in the face and chugged a pint of beer to bring yourself back on track, because real men don’t have feelings.
If I write a blog (do real men even have blogs??) post about Santa Claus and throw a little bit of sentimentalism in there, I get sneers from every other male stumbling on it. If I dare at any point show emotion in say, a blog post, a facebook status or anything of the like, I get stamped as “emo” (or similar). No, you moronic wool-headed lummox, I’m not emo, I’m HUMAN. Sometimes I feel happy, sometimes I feel sad and sometimes I fell really pissed off, like now. They’re called emotions and just because you can’t deal with them and need to suppress them doesn’t mean everyone does the same.
Actually, let me stop here and correct my first point. Real men do have some allowed emotions, most important of which is anger. And because real men are suppose to be angry, they need to show it. A real man swears, a real man is violent, a real man breaks the rules, because everyone knows rules are for woosies. This translates into everything a real man does. Real men don’t listen to girly music, they only listen to angry music. Real men like action films.
“Real men drink harrd”. Yup, you know it. If you go to some party and you’re not doing shots of everything, all at once, usually being very vocal about it and ending the whole thing with a huge burp, you’re not a real man. Real men get so drunk that they need other real men to help them get home. That unless they’re true alpha males and decide to drive their drunk ass home, because they can – they know they can!
Sometimes, real men, after they get drunk, go out clubbing, but don’t make the mistake of thinking they go there to dance. Oh no no no, real men don’t dance, are you crazy? That’s for women and girly men. They go there to drink some more and of course to search for “real women” (I’ll talk about these some other time), that grind. Now in case you don’t know what grinding is, you’re not a real anything, stop reading my blog, you’ll make me look bad in front of my ever-so-important online friends.
“Real men” train. They lift big weights and drink big protein shakes. No, they don’t have diets, diets are for women. They just lift and “take protein”. Now you are definitely never going to see a “real man” in a yoga or pilates class. Real men don’t need THAT kind of crap, it’s too easy. Sure, there “cores” are pretty much non-existent and never trained and they have the posture of a terrified cornered cat, but that’s ok because real men need to get back aches every now and then so it keeps them toughened up.
Yeah, I could go on for hours and hours, but let’s cut the crap. “Real men” as our society likes to call them, are male-like creatures with suppressed emotions, no respect for others (especially no respect for women), no real friends, no true direction in life, no ability to appreciate the world or themselves and as far as I care filled with fear and unhappiness, with no future and no power. You will always find them in packs, they don’t survive by themselves. They shadow and plague the image of masculinity, of real “real men”.
Real real men are nothing you would expect them to be. They can externalize emotion and they do. They allow feelings to fill their hearts, because they are not afraid to deal with that overwhelming sensation. They respect women because they understand the ways in which they are different and they don’t fear the power that women have, because they know that they have their own (and they are equal). They love arts, they’re not afraid to listen to music that is not angry, to watch a drama or to read a love story. They’ll even read poetry and some will maybe write it.
Real real men do what they want to do, not what others pressure them into doing because they have the courage to be different and the strength to suffer the consequences of being different. They take care of themselves and their loved ones. They’re loyal and they care.
Real real men talk about their problems and ask for help when they need it. And they have close loving people in their lives to give them that help. Real real men can be happy and they usually are.
Unfortunately real real men are a dying breed and I’m afraid we don’t yet fully understand how much we actually need these men and what a disaster it is that we are seeing fewer of them everyday. By the time we’ll figure out something went wrong, it might be too late to make it right again. But don’t worry, real men will help us out… as long as we have beer to give of course.
2010
Damn, 2009 was hard. Really really hard. I mean if there is one word that characterizes this year for me, it has got to be “tired”. Last year got me soooo tired, that after a three week vacation I still wake up in the morning with the energy of a drunk hamster. I’ll optimistically try to blame it on jetlag, but I’m not really fooling myself with that. Anyway, glad 2009 is over, I’m not going to lie.
Then, it was really weird as far as people went. First half of the year, everyone was fighting with everyone. I wasn’t talking to two of my closest friends. Two other dear friends of mine were having an all out war of sorts that I somehow got caught in the middle of last Christmas. But eventually, after a lot of hard work, slowly things fell back into place and by the end of 2009 smiles replaced frowns and laughter replaced shouting. Cool! It still doesn’t make any sense, but at least now it’s all good.
Then there’s the rest of the world of course… if it’s not “the economy” it’s the swine flu. Oh and global warming, wars, hunger, disease and political BS… the usual. Will it ever end?
And other bad and good things happened in 2009… it had its share of love and hate, good times and tears.
A sad thing was the passing of my grandma… losing your grandparents suddenly makes you feel a whole lot older. But, such is life..
All in all, I wouldn’t call it a year like any other, there’s definitely a shadow floating with it, but I don’t want to call it a bad year either. After all, many good things happened in 2009 in all aspects of my life. I guess it all balances out really in some complicated universal equation… or something.
**
Well, I generally hate “New Year resolutions”, but this time I might make an exception. After all, a new “Year” is as good as time as any to stop and think about where you’re going with your life. So, 2010 resolutions? Yeah I got one: slooooow doooown! Spend more time to enjoy the world around me, the moments, the people. Live, stop running.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve tried to do more and more with my life. I interpreted “carpe diem” as a need to do something each moment. I think I was wrong… For the first time ever, this year I am going to try to do less. There’s a famous quote among bikers that says “Never ride faster than your guardian angel can fly”. Well I’m going to take that and give it a small change… “Never live faster than your guardian angel can follow”.
And I’m working on a plan for my resolution. I know what I want it to be. So maybe, by December 2010 I will have reached this objective. You see, the problem with these resolutions (and the main reason why I hate them) is that people don’t do them right at all. These “resolutions” are really just ideas. They are high-level concepts, not plans. Saying “I want to be a better person” doesn’t really mean anything practical. There’s nothing implied in that. What exactly are you going to do that will result in you being a better person??? You got no idea, but you set out to be a better person. Fantastic, see you next year. That’s why people fail to achieve their new year ideals, because they only come up with the concept, but not with the plan. Anyway, I’m building my plan… and it looks like I’m getting somewhere.
Well that’s that for now. Happy New Year everyone and my sincere and deepest thanks, hugs and love to all the important people in my life (you know who you are!) for putting up with me, for being there when I needed them and for all the love they share. I would be nothing without you and you know it.


