Recommended Reading

Now in paperback.

Here are $2bn. Can I have some respect please?

Yesterday I went shopping for food supplies and I have used my powers to send an important message to the Italian government.

On a bottle of cooking oil I found a certain message which made me alter my entire shopping approach. The message read: "Imported from Italy".

Now, I am no fan of economic programs such as "buy American/Romanian etc", but because the media in Italy is currently balking at the entire Romanian people, I have decided that at least for the time being, I will spend my money on a cooking oil made in a different part of the world and not in Italy.

Today, I have checked some statistics and found out that Romania's trade deficit with Italy was just a hint above $2 billion. (2007 figures from the UN)

Now, my €3 for cooking oil might be less than peanuts to Italy's exports to Romania BUT someone talking to the Italian government should keep in mind, that if everything else fails, we could try to convert the trade deficit in image surplus.

Just repeat after me: "Here are $2bn. Can I have some respect please?" :)

The Sound of Marketing - The Crisis

Listen to "Yesterday". It's about love, sorrow and sweet regrets.
Doesn't it sound familiar? It's about the crisis.

"Yesterday,
All my troubles seemed so far away,"

Tick --> This one applies to our days

"Now it looks as though they're here to stay,
Oh, I believe in yesterday."

Tick --> This one applies to our days

"Suddenly,
I'm not half the man I used to be,"

Tick --> This one applies to our days, the marketing budgets etc

"There's a shadow hanging over me,
Oh, yesterday came suddenly."

Tick --> This one applies to our days

And, because I'm positive that you all know the song, here's a "rare" studio recording of it.

The Economic Crisis, MS approach

This is how the crisis would have looked on a Windows PC.

"In my view, what we now have will be a fundamental economic reset" (Steve Ballmer, Microsoft)

From blogged

PS: The figures are words written in hexadecimal.

Update: for lazy texters, the figures are

437265646974206372756e6368

4f766572666c6f77

536361726564

45636f6e6f6d79

5374726f6e67204272616e73

507269636520456c6173746963697479

536869656c6564

Coffee Will Save the World

The 7.2 million tons of coffee used yearly worldwide could yield around 1.3 billion liters of bio-fuel. This means that a car could drive with this gasoline for about 260 million kilometers, or 338 times the distance to the moon and back.

I always knew coffee can do magic.

via guardian

Thirsty

From BucharestMornings

Last night I was so thirsty that I could not get back to sleep. Weird but true :)
So, around 7:30AM I was in Piata Victoriei (governmental buildings and business centers) taking pictures.