capitalism *is* fun :-)

As usual, I went out to have dinner at my favourite restaurant. I was out of luck … my favourite table which has absolute privacy, was taken. So I took what I found. Great … I was in the middle of everybody. I started looking around out of boredom. It’s a rare ocassion to see grand-scale expression of stupidity.

Some guy next to me was flashing his Blackberry to make sure everyone notices him. At one point he was almost waving his hand in the air with him. Grow up. Learn to sit and eat in a restaurant. I assume he was celebrating the recent corporate job he just got, along with his Blackberry.

Some girl was taking photos of herself next to a BMW X5 which was on display. Come on! How low can some people get? I bet that by the time I am writing this post, she is the hottest girl on Hi5 with those photos. Or not.

In less then 6 months after I bought my car, it was already on YouTube … and it wasn’t me who made the video. Have some respect for privacy people. I am really not happy to see myself and my car on YouTube.

Ania mentioned me about the EarthHour. The idea is to get as many people as possible to turn off the lights for one hour. Well, for one thing, this can raise some notice but that’s it. Get to it people

I am not sure what exactly are we going to accomplish. Is this the best we can do for our environment? Turning off the lights for one hour a year, and prettending that we are actually saving the environment makes the same difference as switching from Pepsi to Coke. Home electricity usage amounts for a very small amount of the total electricity used on the planet. Most of it comes from clean and renewable technologies so the impact is insignificant.

While this subject has been brought up, and contrary to popular beliefs, a lot of time and effort has went into research on how to reduce carbon emissions, using modern technology. Part of rebranding and reshaping the company that I own, is to make it have a zero carbon footprint. We aim to achieve this through our offering of free, revolutionary and simple to use technology to reduce greenhouse emissions.

How about if everyone would use one hour to think and develop ways to reduce greenhouse emissions, instead of turning the lights off? We did it. Complex challenges have simple solutions. And we just found one

I was surfing the Chevrolet website, looking for some information on the upcoming 2009 Camaro, when I noticed that they have a section on biofuels and other alternatives. The page on E85 Ethanol is a very interesting lecture and shows the support of the company, for this great biofuel.

The best line I have heard in months: “Penguins are arabs of the bird world. Sitting on top of the arctic oil.”

I have spent most of the weekend drinking and having some good time with Dan. This is something cool to read.
Why do girls think that if they are beautifull, that is something that entitles them to marry rich guys? Let me tell you a thing or two.

If a girl doesn’t get married between the ages of 20 and 25, panic sets in after she turns 25. Whenever I see a single girl over 25, I start thinking : “Dude, I think there is something wrong with that chick”. Whenever I see a single girl over 30, I start thinking: “Dude, there is something wrong with that chick”. Let’s assume the number of girls equals the number of men. More, let’s assume the number of beautifull girls, equals the number of rich men. As a man, I have 20 years (between 20 and 40) to get married. As a girl, she has only 5. That reduces her chances, down to 25%. There are also girls that are beautifull, rich and smart. That would again cut her chances in half, to 12.5%. Again, I could consider brains, career, etc as qualities in a girl, and overlook beauty. That would again cut her chances down in half, to 6.25%. If I also factor in that a rich guy could be gay, not intending to get married, etc … the chances drop to 5%. Any investment banker would tell you that if you have 5% chances to make a profit, and 95% chances to loose, you shouldn’t invest. Market economy, girls

Think of a beautifull girl, as being a bottle of good wine. Once the bottle is opened, and stays open for several years, and several other man sip from the bottle … would you take the remaining of it’s content and consume it entirely or buy it? No. Like any smart man, you would take your sip, and move further.

Further on, with crude oil at $110.21, we should see some more democracy being soon introduced, to petroleum producing countries. Watch out Iran

There I was stuck in traffic, driving home from a business meeting, and eating up huge amounts of gas, when a corporate slave friend of mine calls. “How’ya doin?” … I am watching TV!!!

It was Thursday, 16:10 PM … and he was watching TV? How can you do that, if you work for a corporation? Watching TV at that time. Corporate world is going down the drain. How can they let people do that?

Next time you are after hot stock tips … watch out
It’s a great advertisement about the research department at Morgan Stanley, apparently made by Dean Witter.

Our most precious resource.

I was having a late night chat with a good friend. In capitalism, my good friend has a high position with one of the country’s largest mobile operators, and yet I do all the long calls. It’s sad, but that’s why I like capitalism.

Let’s move further. There are 2 kinds of “time” system in capitalism. Shareholder time and employee time.

Shareholder has days from 1 to 365 when it resets. It has hours from 0 to 24, when it again resets. Every hour and every day is good to play golf, watch a movie, get some sleep, go out, and so on. There isn’t “late”, “early”, and other adjectives we use when mentioning time, to emphasize the serious trouble we are in.

Employee has seasons. Months. Weeks. Days. Even the day is divided in working hours …. and well, whatever there is left (if any), is called lunch, evening, morning, etc. He has weekdays, weekends, days-off, etc. Every single minute has a lot of meanings.

Let me give you an example.

Employee: This minute is to late in the night, and he should go to bed because tomorrow is Monday and has to wake up early because they have some anual report they must finish by the end of the week.

Shareholder: This minute I feel like smoking a cigarette

Observe the difference. Not a single word to emphasize time.

It’s why employess have complex calendar softwares, Blackberries, watches, alarm clocks, etc, while a shareholder simply has a sandglass to enjoy the passage of time quietly.

Capitalism surely is fun

and we just got a huge Starbucks opening at the local Mall. It has 3 floors and an awesome view from the terrace on top of it. Expensive (compared to local purchasing power) as expected. Good thing is they take credit cards. The last Starbucks I visited in Bucharest, didn’t. Shame on them. The bad thing is you are not allowed to smoke inside, only on the outside terrace … and it’s a bit cold to stay there. I hate this ‘non-smokers’ crap all over Europe. What’s next? RFID chips in our ears … like cattle?

I couldn’t stop laughing on this. A turbine to generate power when the toilet is being flushed. This should compensate for the price of a gallon of gas increasing everyday. It’s recommended that you hold yourself after you see the gas prices, until you reach your home and put your ass down on your turbine fitted toilet. The savings in eletricity will help you offset oter costs, somehow