Make Blog not Love

With China girl by David Bowie in my ears I thought of putting here some thoughts. So I do.

For example the yesterday’s poster for the stolen bicycle reminded me of a story from the time when I was in college. Well I wasn’t studying much, that is for sure. Unfortunately though, because if I was more clever in the beginning, I would choose a better direction (different subject, type of university) and probably finished it properly. But well, here I am – while haven’t done all those things I am writing these words instead. Phew.

In fact, interesting thing happened just yesterday. I was browsing some sites to gather the complete wisdom of Internet, obviously, when suddenly I encountered an ad saying “there is never too late to start studying”. “How peculiar!” I said to myself. Probably too loud because this girl sitting next to me gave me quite weird look (I was at the coffeehouse at the time). But never mind, I clicked the ad willing to see how it is never too late to start studying and the result did not surprised me at all. The browser said “This page cannot be displayed”. How typical…

Anyway to get back to the story I mentioned on the beginning that related to the other poster, ehm, I already wrote that I know. So when I was in college, there was a dormitory I used to visit quite often to talk to some friends. There were seven people living in two rooms sharing common stuff like fridge or shower which sometimes lead to interesting situations. One of the guys was from a typical czech village where they breed animals like pigs, cows, rabbits etc. and it’s very common that these people bring lots of stuff from home especially during pig slaughtering events or alike.

During one of the first weeks there he brought some huge pile of food and put it into the shared fridge. Well, as most czech people are quite greedy, especially during college years, his roommates simply ate all this food the very next day just before he returned there after school. As soon as he arrived, he went to fridge to have some of the homemade delicious sausages, bangers, salami, cooked pig’s head (yep, people eat it there) et cetera but he surprisingly (for him) found almost nothing.

He got quite angry look and everyone expected that he will get furious about the whole stealing thing and be angry at them. None of it happened. He just sat down and wrote something on a piece of paper and then attached the paper to the fridge. They all went to read it:

He, who ate all my food may think about himself and about what he did!

I hope it will make sense in English too, if not, imagine something else, something funnier.

Via http://www.robandelliot.cycomics.com/webcomics/2004/comic183.jpg

Via http://www.maniacworld.com/missing-bike-no-reward.jpg

Via http://bluntcard.com/images/1247211588horsebook.gif

And yes, facebook surely IS evil!

The inner life of the cell, that’s how Robert A. Lue and Alain Viel from the Harvard university named their short movie. The author of the animation itself is by John Liebler and music from the video was performed by Matt Berky. This piece of work, or I would rather say piece of art, is throughout unique. For an amateur like me especially because of the beautiful combination of audio and video. Warmly recommended to watch and listen:

Link to the original site:

The extended version of the same video that contains spoken comments can be found here. The comments explain individual animated processes. Again, I must recommend this also to everybody, as it is completely non-violent way how to learn something new.

And finally site with a similar topic:

http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/

Just when I thought everything was going well with my car, something bad happened. Well, it’s always like that, I should really really get used to it, but still nothing. So what exactly happened this time?

In our country, there is a phenomenon called “block treatment”, which is basically idea of municipal council how to keep the streets clean. Essentially they organize four times a year a cleaning “party”. They distribute “no parking” signs all over a whole quarter and force people to move their vehicles from the street to somewhere else. Sometimes they do it in a more sophisticated way (i.e. leave some streets available for parking), sometimes not and you end up parking really far from your home.

Then if you do not move your car, a private towing company will arrive and tow away your car to a quite distant part of the town without prior or any other notice. You will not receive any information about this and you must find it yourself. The price for towing service is around $80 plus each day costs you around seven bucks for storing your car.

Few statistical facts:

An average czech salary is around $1000 monthly for common professions where for example IT positions can reach up to $1400-$1500 a month after all taxes. An average cost of few chosen things follows next:

8.8 oz of butter costs $1.2
1 egg costs $0.14
A brand new low end car with basic equipment costs $13.600
(e.g. Nissan Micra, Suzuki Swift, Toyota Yaris, Citroen C3, Peugeot 206+ etc.)
1 US gallon of gasoline (Natural BA-95) costs $6.4 ($1.7 per litre)

Average price for a flat (no matter if new or used) was in 2008 $133.300.

For example current (08/2009) prices for a standard flat 68 m2, worn away 40% (i.e. not new):

Prague – $174.000 (1.233.211 inhabitants)
Brno – $115.000 (370.592 inhabitants)
Ostrava – $63.600 (307.767 inhabitants)

(the values in the brackets represents the total number of town inhabitants for better comparison with towns near you)

Monthly rental prices for 68 m2 40% worn away flat:
(usually not equipped with anything and the price does not include water, electricity, gas or other services)

Prague – $570
Brno – $450
Ostrava – $400

In general, it may happen that they tow away your car even though you parked in a correct place. You cannot complain to the town authorities, since they will tell you, that a private company towed away your car, not them and that you will have to go to court, but if you want your car, you must still pay for it to the private company… Unfortunately czech laws have holes like elephant pits, therefore almost nobody goes through with it. And they know it so the towing business is quite a deal approved by the authorities.

So much for general description, nice, huh? And how was it in my case? Two days ago I was returning home after 14 hours, tired and there was no available spot in my street. Well, it’s not that common (because it’s vacation time), but I though to myself, that maybe people got back already and so it’s full in the evening. So I drove around the block and parked the car in a different street. I totally missed the “no parking” signs (my bad) and also this street was full of cars, so I would never thought they are going to do the “block treatment” the next day (as usually under such condition it is quite empty).

The next day I didn’t go to power yoga in the morning, so I went to work on foot and I found out the car is missing just the very next day. Unfortunately. So I called the local cops since I thought they will know what happened with it. Their website said it is 24/7 service. Well, no one answered my phone. I wasn’t quite surprised, it was evening, so maybe they had a nap or something. I decided to call other cop branch. Nothing as well. So I tried transportation department. Some cleaning lady answered the phone saying “Oh, there is no one. You must call the 158, they will tell you”. The 158 number is the main national number for calling police, but I did not want to use that in the first place, because I thought it should be used for emergencies mostly.

Anyway I called that number… rang ten times, twenty times, thirty times… Bloody hell no one, again, answered the phone. I thought that this is totally ridiculous, because if I was under heavy fire, being kidnapped or my cat got stuck on a tree, I would be really in a deep shit. Never mind, I tried another main national police number, this time for local police – 156. Finally (!) a tired guy answered the phone (ho hooo). I told him I want to verify if my car was towed away. He said he will check. He checked and found nothing, however he put me through to another department, where a nice girl told me, that she also does not have information about my car.

But she asked, whether it was wrong parking in general or the “block treatment” thing. I said the latter. “Aaaa, ok, that’s it!” she replied “there are private companies in charge of towing away cars that block the block treatment events”. I asked how would a person know, that his or hers car was towed away and where to and if they inform the owner somehow. She said they don’t and the only way is to call all the local towing service involved. I just sighed and asked for the numbers. At least she had them. She dictated me three different numbers (one mobile phone and two landlines). I tried the first one, where some answering machine mumbled another number I should call. I did and a guy there told me he does not have my car. So I tried the second company and finally there was a guy who said that they have my car, but unfortunately he is out of town and there is no one to open the gate for me.

At least we agreed on the other day and he kindly remitted the additional daily fee. Well, and that’s basically end of the story. Next morning I asked a friend to give me a lift there, since it wasn’t really close and then I paid and drove away.

Interestingly enough the gate sign said “used cars for sale”. Well at least this clearly explained what happens to cars that people forget to collect or think that were stolen. Silky smooth business.

Bottom line: I generally don’t understand this whole thing. They could just fine you for “blocking” the “block treatment” event instead of towing away the whole car to a distant part of town, because basically what they do is that they drive the sprinkler truck around the street and blow dust all over the place.

I also don’t understand why it is this way, when we have approximately 100.000 – 135.000 of unemployed people every year (unemployed in the long term!), who receive their social benefits for nothing and mostly just abuse the system (meaning they usually never worked before, worked for a very short time or especially do moonlighting jobs while receiving the social benefits as well). They could be the people who clean the streets and maybe then it would look much more like an average German street = clean and no towing necessary anymore.

If you ever come to brno (a small town near Vienna), don’t be too surprised by few things or let’s say events you may probably encounter.

First – you can meet a hood dressed girl who pretends to be mute (hard stunt to pull, I know) and who shows you a note saying that she does not have money for train and needs to get home (the story may vary as well as the crayon color used).

Sounds really sad, right? She does not have money for train so she wanders all over the town and tries to collect few crowns for that trip. I only find quite peculiar that her lack of money and chase after this “charity-fund” lasts for about at least six years now if I remember it right. So she is either pretty out of luck person or the trains got really expensive. Either way unless she is saving for some luxury Orient Express journey coincidentally leading to her home, her asking for money is just creepy way of begging.

Some time ago I met a cross-eyed guy with quite a homeless look. Well he actually stopped me asking if he can talk to me quickly adding “Don’t be afraid, I am normal!” Which kinda sounded funny from a guy of his look, but since I did not want to judge him so quickly, I listened what he had to say. He asked if I am local and then started explaining his story. He allegedly was transported from slovak republic (the one neighbouring czech republic) after an accident by a helicopter to a hospital in brno, where this heartless medical staff left him without money and so he is trying to some for a trip home. Wow, those trips home, right? Anyway I asked how much he needs. He replied a sum that he could easily use to travel through our small republic back and forth even twice. OK maybe not twice, but for example a train from prague to brno costs around 1/4 of what he asked. And even though he claimed to live in a different town, getting to prague and then to the other town would never cost that much.

Well anyway I was interested why the amount was so high and how he came to it? He mumbled that the trains are expensive and that he is sick or something. I said that I am definitely not paying him for a taxi to his home and he quickly answered that there is no need to pay the full amount, that it is enough to pay only something. I said to him that no one ever gave anything for free to me, and I suggested to him, that he should rather go to a gas station and hitchhike, which I still consider as the cheapest and easiest method of travel (in our country) even for a single man.

Hearing that he angrily replied that I am an asshole and he wishes that something like that will happen to me soon and quickly left.

Well, I could definitely imagine myself flying by a helicopter and everything he described, sigh…

However this is not the end of the story. In two or three weeks I ran into him again on a different place. He started with the exact same question (if I am local) and claimed that he is normal and that I have no reason to be worried. Well I wasn’t, instead I laughed and said “Let me guess. You just arrived by a helicopter from Slovakia and need money to get home, right? Oh dude, history is so repeating, but you, you are disgrace to humanity, to decent people that ever might really have some kind of trouble! Instead you will all the money received from good people gamble or exchange for booze. Shame on you.” He did not even replied and I wasn’t waiting longer to find out his other excuses; I just left him there.

So that’s a second local weirdo you will probably run into while in brno.

Then there is a guy who has so called “permanent disability pension”. He walks on crutches and while begging he tries to use his look to evoke compassion. There is only one flaw in his story. When he gets too drunk he kinda forgets that he is disabled and you can see him in a low standard pub almost dancing, waving with those crutches above his head and being very happy.

Lastly you will meet young people with dogs trying to sell you stolen chocolate, washing powder or watch. Only god knows why. Also there are sometimes gypsies selling fake rolex, cameras, electric shavers and similar stuff. Whole chinese-like supermarket under the sun.

Long time ago I also met this guy who said “Hello, my wife is in hospital she had an accident and I need money to buy her flowers”. And because I am always curious I replied: “Oh my! And what happened to her?” He showed quite surprised look and stuttered out “I.. I don’t know. No one ever wanted to know more of this story…” “Sorry, bye”. Yeah, this one was eventually at least honest – in a way of course.

So don’t get fooled or too surprised, it’s just brno…

Athletics (track and field, you know) made me a cripple. Well, not exactly this nice sport, but the approach I maintained for quite a long time while I was training athletics. I did this sport for almost 10 years and I loved that time. Unfortunately now I do not feel the same way, especially because of back problems I have for like 5 years now.

Generally I must say that I still consider athletics as one of the best sport activities to do, mostly because of its variability (you can choose from a really huge number of disciplines and achieve a lot if you choose carefully and work hard), but today I feel that one must be really consistent not only with stretching before and after trainings, but especially with compensation activities.

Let me show you an example. I did high jump for most of my “career” later on combined with discus throwing and shot put. All these activities are one-sided, i.e. the load/weight is during movement on one side of the body only, which normally should not be a problem, because I believe that the body can handle certain amount of weight even in long term, but… But once you turn into the adult category, you start exercising or training with heavier shots (7.25 kilograms), discuses (2 kg) and in case of high jump (or any other jump) doing more repeating to achieve the perfect technique.

(Of course assuming you are not an natural talent, which I obviously never was.)

Well, and sometime before you start doing all these things, some really hard and thorough compensation exercising should take place. I mean I did some compensation from time to time, but for example in high jump the run-ups and jumps from the other side were not that interesting to me since I was clumsy while doing it and it just did not feel right. In shot put it was very similar and I was also dangerous to everyone around if using the other hand. Well and you can think it was even worse in case of the discus throwing…

Anyway, I wish there was a force to made me do all these compensation exercises at least in the 1:1 ratio because that was the time when I first sensed something bad with my back. It was nothing serious, most physicians ignored it and just gave me an ointment or some type of painkilling gel. Later when I was doing seriously only discus throw I started heavy weightlifting exercises and that’s when I first felt the devastating effect of a slipped disc. That was really… not good. Of course that for some time it was OK, but then some bad movement happened and it was done.

Then I suffered for almost three years until I finally discovered power yoga that helped me a lot. I mean there were good months and bad months in the meantime, but not like at least half a year without pain or problems with simple activities (walking for example). I really felt like a cripple and by that time I was twenty-something, studying, so you can imagine what awful stress this was.

I also bought an inversion table, which is basically a thing where you hang upside down being attached only by your legs and your back is quite quickly relieved, your backbone stretched and it simply helps. At least for some time. First I combined this table with regular exercising in the gym, but since I always felt bad after that, I stopped going to the gym and was looking for a replacement. That was when I started the power yoga for the first time.

It took me four or five months to handle all the exercises involved correctly or at least in a way that is close to correct. Until that I always felt pain in my back after each lesson. But as I was slowly improving, it went away! And today, doing this every week for like two years now, I can clearly state that only this exercise ever helped me with my back problems properly. But it really needs to exercise regularly and not lift heavy things in the gym otherwise the back will go bad again.

This brings me back to the title of this post. Why would I never buy a Porsche car? Well one of my friends bought this car some time ago but soon got rid of it. I asked him what happened and why he was not satisfied. He said, that the car is good but really low. Especially doors are placed quite low and he said, that while he was driving around town for business meetings and often getting in and out of the car, he once exited the car so unlucky, that he slipped a disc.

How lucky you must be for something like that to happen… Anyway, now he drives Toyota Land Cruiser and would never buy a sports car again. I think I will go the same direction, even though some Porsche models are really nice with smooth engine sound.

Yesterday was not one of my favourite days. For some reason, even that it wasn’t Friday the 13th, but 14th, everything seemed to go wrong.

It started while I was driving to poweryoga class in the morning. I ran into so many annoying drivers that screwed me up completely. I should get used to it after all these years, but czech drivers can always surprise you with something. Not to mention, that they are not using blinkers, probably to save energy or what, or if they use them, they turn the other way or go straight.

Simply, horrible beginning. Then I arrived to the poweryoga class and had a nice time there (at least something!). Afterwards I went shopping for special CDs for burning audio. I went to my favourite computer store, since I never had problems there – they have an up-to-date website with indication of what is available at the store right now, which I like since I don’t have to waste time going from shop to shop or ordering items via post, which takes forever and the package usually arrives broken or gets lost.

Well, so I was there, asking for those Verbatim audio CDs, which I believe are the same as other regular Verbatim CDs, but I wanted to test them, because the previous ones seemed to get scratched quite easily and then kept skipping some tracks or part of the tracks while playing. Anyway, even that the store dude tried to be quite helpful, he eventually stated, that they don’t have it at the store nor he could find it in the system. Weird, but I could not force him to conjure them for me, so I sadly went back to work.

I wanted to improve my mood by going for a nice food for lunch. In czech there is a phenomenon called “daily menu”, which is basically a selection of one to six meals (differs from pub to pub) available during lunchtime and is usually offered for more or less acceptable price and mostly should be prepared very quickly. Unfortunately not always it is really prepared quickly, accurate or tasty, but in general it is fine.

So we always check websites of close restaurants to see what they have to offer each day and then go for the best choice. Spoiled, aren’t we! Anyway, we decided to go to a quite distant place (+- three tram-stops, which equals up to 10 minutes of either very smelly tram ride or ten minutes on foot), where they had a meal that seemed quite interesting to make me feel better.

Well, we arrived, sat down and waited. Then waiter put soups in front of us while asking what we want. I wanted the meal I chose and which they offered on their website, as I always do. He snapped back that they don’t have it. Even though I knew it was a lost battle, I argued that they mention it on their website, so I would like to have it. He obviously replied, in the same tone, that they don’t have it.

All right, so I asked what do they have. He spitted out two plain sounding meal names, but since we already had the soup there, we went for it. I had a chicken. I received very simply prepared smoked chicken leg (I assumed it was only heated in microwave) with bad quality unsalted potatoes and one quarter of not-so-fresh tomato. Sounds delicious, right? I must add, that until this day, I never had any problems with this place. But this was going to change.

There is another phenomenon known probably only in the czech cuisine. With almost every meal, no matter which restaurant you go to,you receive some bloody garnish which consists mostly of a very old tomato (some piece of it), stale slice of unpeeled cucumber and a piece of cabbage/iceberg lettuce and red cabbage. Sometimes you may experience also beetroot chopped in pieces, corn, beans, pea, carrot.

And in 99% cases it’s not even spiced as it should be (like a salad) plus what’s worse, it never tastes fresh.

One of the well-known czech chefs calls this garnish “cancer of the czech cuisine” and I must say I fully identify myself with this statement.

By the way – garnish is in czech “obloha”, which means not just garnish, but also sky. It is very amusing to see it translated like that in english menus of some lower-standard restaurants.

The food experience was completely in compliance with its look. Simply bad. I mean it was edible, but it was nothing you would like to go to a restaurant for. Even five-year old could cook it (well, heat it, there was not much of a cooking).

So we finished the food very quickly and wanted to pay. The same unpleasant waiter came to collect the money.

Actually regularly employed people do not have to pay with money for food, but use meal tickets instead. These tickets people receive from their employers who endows 55% of their nominal price, so it’s usually advantageous for most employees. There is usually one meal ticket for each working day and its value differs from job to job.That’s another czech speciality I guess.

So he went to collect the money/tickets. I asked for the price and once he replied, I wanted to pass him the meal ticket. Somehow during this process it slipped from my hand and fall on the table. I wanted to collect it again and repeat the process, but he angrily grabbed it from the table and passed a remark “You don’t have to throw it like that”. You can imagine the tone he used.

Of course as it was not my intention, therefore I apologized and said, that it slipped out of my hand as did probably the meal from their website offer. Well I meant it in a good way, but he took it not quite well and walked away pissed off. Well, c’est la vie.

And since I don’t like false advertising and angry waiters (because no matter what I believe that the customer is always right and a smile or at least normal attitude will not kill you), I will never go to that place again. I know it will not change much, but at least I will not support such a behaviour.

So much for my Friday. How was yours?

One of many weird things that you can experience in czech republic (former czechoslovakia) are pensioners. They are everywhere you look – in public transportation, streets, offices, shops… I mean – I have nothing against them, if I had, I would use it, but it seems that it is not that easy to buy some senior-repellent spray these days. Even though you are now thinking that I am racist/prejudices-having horrible person, but believe me when I say, that they can be really aggressive for no particular reason!

It happened to me many, many times in the past and it seems that the situation is not going any better these days. This is what happened two days ago in the second largest city in czech republic:

Two old people (66 and 63 years old) went shopping for peaches on a market place. They were standing in a queue when suddenly one of them started to be angry with the other one (which he later justified by stating that “it took him so long to pick the bloody peaches”). He started to argue while poking him with his walking stick. The other one did not obviously liked it and the whole situation resulted in a bloodshed, when one of them smashed the other one’s head while cracking both the stick and his skull.

When police arrived on the scene, both men were still fighting, but they surprisingly immediately obeyed the lawman’s order to finish the fight (luckily they did not know Mortal Kombat, the video game, where such an order had a completely different meaning, eventually). Still, the skull-cracked one ended in a hospital.

They also wrote, that the case is being further investigated, but this usually means that they are lazy and are going to put it away real soon to keep the stats up or something.

Again, I must say, that this simple story reflects behaviour of most people here, not just seniors, although it is very typical for them.

I am writing a book. Actually not really, but I am trying to. Also it’s not a book but two books.So far I managed to get to page 299. Writing page numbers. Because you know – no Rome can be built on lousy foundations and therefore I am trying to do my best and have a proper basic elements. Like the numbering. Ehm.

But let’s be serious. I am really writing a book about my lousy life. I started early this very millennium, so maybe at the end of a century, I could manage to be like in a half of it. I hope it will be near the winter time, before christmas, so the sales will be higher. But let’s not get my hopes too high, right.

So yes, the first book should be indirectly about my life and most of it is also true! The other one is a kind of mysterious/drama novel slightly inclining to relationships handling. I already have complete plot, most of the characters and I hope I also see the whole point.

Unfortunately for readers of this blog, none of it is in english language. But actually that is probably better, because who would be willing to read this sh*t in a paper form, huh?

I was ordering a new door the other day for my friend’s apartment. I spent some time looking for the adequate one where the size would fit etc. plus trying to persuade the friend not to buy the cheapest one, as doors are things that can last for quite a long time so choosing properly is highly advised, right?

Anyway, after some time I was finally satisfied and so was she and we decided to place the order. It took two days for the electronic shop to reply, but OK, we were not in a hurry or something. What hit me the most was a quite peculiar item on the purchase order they sent us. Among other things it read “handling surcharge” with price that was like one twelfth of the whole door price! I was quite surprised because I did not know what that means.

I clearly stated (and it was confirmed in that purchase order too), that I will arrange my own delivery and installation of the door was also included as an other item (which by the way was interestingly pricy as well). So I was interested what was that for, since they did not mention any details. I immediately called the shop asking about this particular item. Their representative explained to me, that this extra charge is for the whole order processing, loading, unloading, importing the product and some other minor things.

Marvellous explanation I must say. I went mute for some time and as soon as I successfully swallowed some insults, I asked him, whether or not they heard about the term called margin. I also asked why they did not state this bloody condition on their website or during order confirmation. He replied that this is not absolutely necessary, as it can be reviewed on the purchase order they always send. Bloody hell I was pissed off. It may seem as an ordinary issue but I am lately living in quite a stress and I spent really huge amount of time looking for the right shop and the product as well. Well, evidently I managed to fail. Again.

By the way this business behaviour is quite typical for czech merchants. But, why am I surprised? That should be clear to me already… strangely enough as you can see I keep falling for the same shit again and again. Well, not completely as in this case I just told the guy to shove the thing to the place where only Elton John likes to go, but I may not be that lucky an other time.

I realize that this is not the best example of such a con they pull on you in this shitty country, but as I wrote above, it’s very similar and rather typical.

I am only concerned that there are so many other traps like this into which an inexperienced customer may fall and it make me sick knowing that other people can spinelessly rob honest people just like that.

It is no accident that the first thing you will learn while reading a czech travel book is a warning to beware of taxi drivers who can rip you off with an incredible charge. Just a quick look in google can sadly confirm that my statement is still very up to date. The book usually mention also over-charging foreigners in restaurants and pickpocketing dangers, but that’s a completely whole other story.