Latest Display Tech Fail

You know I collect these...

Kiosk in Baneasa Mall

Technically it doesn't appear to be Windows this time...

On the highway somewhere around Predeal. Ish.

When Number One IS Number One

Every so often in the flotsam and jetsam of the Internet, a particular survey bobs to the surface, being the top things women hate about men. Putting aside for now the concerns that such a list is, at best, subjective because most answers are likely - and even admittedly - different depending on where in the month a woman is asked (yes I went THERE), and that such a list of complaints could even be narrowed down to anything needing less than infinite pixels to display, the majority of answers seem to do with hygiene, most often body hair or nail trimmings, most often being found off its body of origin, most often in the sink. But even beyond this most egregious and malevolent ...er, function of nature (do you beat Fido or Fluffy for shedding? Noooo, just Mister), is the consistent top Number One answer: leaving the toilet seat up.

Surprisingly, I got nothin' for this one.  I quite agree that it's not our best feature. Mostly because it seems permanently partnered with lousy aim. Men place tremendous value, to the extent of lifelong training, on their ability to throw, bat, kick or putt various small objects into equally small places with nanometric precision. And these same men can't aim their own built-in equipment with a fraction of that accuracy. Maybe toilets need points-tickets dispensers like skee-ball machines. Collect enough points via good aim, and redeem them for dinner.

I can joke about all this because I rarely pee standing into a regular toilet. Not only is my aim NOT better for having avoided all that nasty sports training in my youth, but because of my height, there is about an extra meter between me and the bowl. Thus, after the stream in question has left me but before it hits the porcelain pool, the rotation of the Earth has swung the toilet sufficiently eastward to throw off my aim even further.

So, cry the multitude, this leaves the basic question as unanswered as it is eternal: why do men do it?

I believe I have the answer.

At the very least, I have AN answer. And there's nothing theoretical, hypothetical or even far-fetched about it.  I LIVE it and I'm sure I'm not alone. And what's most stunning?  The deviously sinister evil genius behind this motivation for men to pee standing may lie with none other than WOMEN, possibly the very same ones who bemoan men who pee standing! And I now expose this travesty for posterity and the vindication of masculinity for generations to come.

Let's cut to the chase: we're talking about toilet fresheners. Whether they're dropped in, stuck on, hung or sprayed, a universal truth is that no man worth his gender would buy one, much less install one. These devices are right up there with potpourri and lace doilies as items which only females would deem necessary in a domicile. A man could be set on fire before admitting to the possible point of furniture, or forks, let alone items of higher bodily function.  Guaranteed, the only time a man encounters a toilet freshener is if his significant other put it there.

This in and of itself is not so horrible. Any attempt to make us males smell better is laudable, if usually doomed to fail. Certainly, as any midsummer city bus ride will attest, men are quite unable to odorproof themselves, so the ladies might as well take a whack at it. But to introduce a solution that only SEEMS like a solution, but in reality only perpetuates the problem, takes a level of shrewd craftiness that no mere male intellect could brew up. THIS:

...could only come from the mind of a woman. An evil woman at that. And before you wags ask me if there's any other kind, let's just stick to the facts. This toilet freshener releases a dark blue dye with every flush.  You can't hang it on the sides of the bowl, as it won't extend down to the water stream.

Nope, it only works front and center. Perfectly out of the way when a woman sits down.  This is a good thing, as this is usually their only option. Now, on the other hand, your average male has some dangly bits that would line up just about exactly with this blue dye-soaking device if he sits down.  Did I say "would"? Well, I meant to say "damn well surely do"! To be fair, I'm not talking about my normal home situation (and yes, the oxymoron is not lost on me). The photos above depict what awaited me at an otherwise splendid hotel during a recent weekend trip. But because I don't usually expect sabotage in my commodial consultations, I parked myself as I always do.  So, when I got up, ...well, I can't be overly explicit, but here is a reasonable visual representation of my subsequent status:

Admittedly, I may have, once or twice in my younger days, suffered from the condition known as "blue balls", but in this case, as the internet memes say, "UR DOIN IT WRONG". And did I mention that this cerulean crap doesn't wash off right away? Noooo! So, I ask you, which gender stands more to lose by inventing such a savagely subversive atrocity? Or, better put, which gender would derive infinitely more secretly evil glee from it, passively-aggressively ensuring that their number-one complaint about men will remain ever-unsolved and therefore fertile bitching ground?

Yeah, I thought so.

So, even as a reasonably considerate and enlightened example of the species, if I am to be faced with the choice of risking the recrimination of a vertical-stance aqueous dispensation, or to tote a turquoise-tipped tallywhacker for a week, then of course that lid is going up and the cards (and everything else) will fall where they may. Me personally, I'll probably remember to put it down again when I'm done, but I obviously can't promise the rest of my gender to follow suit. Which guarantees our collective place at the top of the survey for the foreseeable future.

Maybe I can learn to clip my nails in the sink instead.

Copyright Crusade Continues

The most-addressed subject in this blog?  Surprisingly, not bad drivers, parkers, or license-tag forgers.  Less surprisingly, neither the pitiable details of my futile personal life.  Nope, by my count, it's copyright infringement... my personal pet peeve, one that really should have been considered in my original decision to move to Romania so long* ago.  As a graphic designer, each instance I encounter is like fingernails against the chalkboard of my creative palette. While it's true I've encountered fewer examples as I go on, it's mainly because I've stopped looking for them.  But odds dictate that sooner or later, an egregious example will come to me.  And so it has, in the form of a FaceBook ad.

So there I was, minding my own business on Facebook, doing any old thing except flirting with young women of course, when the page refreshed and changed, as it does, the string of ads running down the right side of the page.  Against all odds (and self-training), one caught my eye by making me wonder "hm, what's my bank doing in Romania?"  You see, Facebook targets its ads geographically among other factors, so I'm used to ads about Romanian businesses, which are blissfully easy to ignore with my limited grasp of the language.  But this time it was the graphics, not the words, that jumped out at me, combined with the unexpectedness of seeing them apparently involved with Romania. 

So let's cut to the chase.  The ad turned out to be for a particularly lame cellphone retailer, or perhaps broker, as they provide no contact details whatsoever and just generally give every impression they don't want you to find out who or where they are. But here is their page:

and here is my bank:

You see what they did there?

One could argue that the graphic is so simple that odds are many artists could come up with it. But what are the odds they'd also replicate the same gentle curve and the same changed color portion? But of course, flipping it mirror-style and adding nifty 3-D effects makes it all original, dunnit? Oh, I give up. About the only take-aways from this entry will be: 1. I have, with deep shame, provided highly-regrettable evidence that Facebook ads do occasionally work... expect a new onslaught any time now, and 2. I've revealed my account is at Bank of America, narrowing the parameters for the horde of hackers eager to relieve me of my personal fortune.  You know what?  For the average $30.00 in my account, knock yourselves out, kids.

*long, long, LONG

Curent Events

Today's rant is one of those things that got put on my "to-do" list ages ago, and only seemed to come again to the forefront when I was least able to sit and type about it. So back on the shelf it would go, nestled against other permanently postponed items of my mental itinerary such as success and wealth. But today the happy coincidence occurred, and the subject came up at an office where I am well-equipped to type about things.

I don't spend lots of time at this office, but when I do I like to breathe air not so choked with days of second-hand cigarette smoke from the staff or skin-dissolving chemicals from the cleaning crew. So I open the window when I can, common sense permitting of course. During a January blizzard, I probably wouldn't. But today was a typical Bucharest summer day, meaning the air outside was already 30 degress C and climbing. But it was also a good deal fresher than the air in the office, and when you consider the former is metropolitan Bucharest city air, you get an idea of just how bad the latter must have been. So, as I said, I opened my window. Immediately, the chap across the hall jumped up from his seat and apologetically closed his door, explaining that I had created "curent." And thus we come to one of the few remaining (of an admittedly shrinking list but I think this one will stay forever) phenomena of the culture that consistently blow my mind (pun, of course, intended). The Eastern European mortal fear of the breeze.

This concept has already been surprisingly well-documented in several other blogs and forums, so as usual I'll cut corners and just quote them:

• (Roughly translated) "Curent" = movement of air between two or more points (such as 2 or more open windows in an apartment) or simply from one strong point (open windows of the moving train/car). "Curent" is probably one of the greatest Romanian national obsessions. Whatever the historical province you are, if you go by train, it is quite possible that your neighbors in the compartment prefer to endure 50 degrees Celsius + onion odors than to open a window. Similarly for cars without air conditioning, nobody opens the window because you'll "catch the 'curent.'" Same at home. Windows stay closed so that they do not form "curent". And often when you have a headache or toothache, so often the explanation is automatic, "probably because you "took the 'curent.'" 

• Wait until high summer, until the temperature is around 45 degrees, and then board a train. Wait until it reaches full speed [...], then open a window and see what happens. You will be set upon by everyone else in the carriage, who will shout at you for [...] attempting to kill them. Basically, any kind of moving air (known of course to perfectly sane people as ‘a nice breeze’) should be considered curent and therefore lethal.

• Romanians are also afraid of having any two windows open which might cause a draft ("curent") which they say causes death and other illnesses. Romanians would rather die than be exposed to the curent.

• They believe it causes illness, tooth aches or ear aches. You'll often see people walking about town with cotton stuffed in their ears to prevent the 'curent' from entering (sometimes they use garlic). While riding on trains or in cars, it's often seen as a bad thing to have the windows open. For many people, it's preferable to sweat in the uncomfortable heat than get an ear ache.

• It was late august, temperatures over 40 Celsius and everything to the leaves in the trees was completely motionless. I opened the window of the room I was staying in, hoping some air would enter the room and refresh me a little. In less than a minute, my friend’s mother rushed from the other side of the apartment: “CURENT, please close the window!” CURENT, or the draught that circulates when two windows are open, is blamed for almost every ill one can think of. Toothache, headache, cold, flu, meningitis, paralysis - all are apparently the result of moving air.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention, among my personal experiences, my Romanian acquaintance who swore that the frequent earthquakes in the Vrancea area were caused by high winds, and gusty days would find this individual waiting seriously and anxiously for the inevitable tremor to follow.

Granted, views on breezes are universal between East and West up to a certain degree, literally. Opening a window in winter is usually silly. Freezing air, while not carrying pathogens itself, does distract your body's resistance to them and thus the link between cold air and sickness is perceived. But in mid-summer? Common sense and Eastern Europe clearly go on separate holidays. To consider hazardous a calm breeze containing air of 35 degrees C is not only incredible, but irresponsible, particularly when the preferred alternative is to sweat profusely at your desk, risking heat fatigue or at least true sickness from breathing in the same cigarette-smoked air that just came out of someone else's lungs along with who knows what else.

And this last bit may seem like a cheap shot until you've experienced it first-hand: As reported in The Bucharest Herald in April, a Romanian consumes an average of only two tubes of toothpaste and four bars of soap per year. Virtually all the Romanians I know seem (smell?) to be well above that average, which means for the average to be what it is, others need to operate well below it. A short trip on any Bucharest public transit will instantly reveal their whereabouts. And if that's not an argument in favor of opening a window, especially in warm weather, then I truly don't understand it.

EDIT: Just thought of this last bit, which is almost certainly a cheap shot but funny nevertheless.  If Romania is so intolerant of hot wind, then how do you explain Parliament? Har har har.

A Study in Modern Exorcism

A bit ago, Romania made world news in an amusing-but-sad way (any other kind?) by deciding to start taxing witches on their income. Initially, witches responded by attempting to curse Romania's top politicos (by throwing poo in the Danube, as I recall), but this faded quickly as these old dears realized they couldn't compete. Not only were Romania's top politicos already cursed so much that they had plenty to spare which they were only too happy to pass onto the rest of us, which they did, daily, several times a day if possible, but witches were also rank amateurs in terms of experience in polluting the Danube. So, Plan B was simply to state in interviews that their incomes were so small, tax made no difference.  But this got me wondering: Romania is still so deeply rooted in superstition and mysticism, why aren't witches in Fat City, ala Rasputin? This morning I got my answer in the (as usual) least likely of places: the back end of a taxi.

Now, growing up around Manhattan, I knew that one often finds life's answers from taxicabs, sometimes because of really pithy bumperstickers, but mostly because the near-death experience that is a typical NYC cab ride just puts you that much closer to God. But this morning, my taxi-related revelation was as subtle as it was sublime.

I dunno about elsewhere, but Romanian taxis aren't painted yellow. They're rather covered in yellow adhesive vinyl. This probably facilitates selling the car once it's usefulness as a taxi is done (but who would buy a car too beat up to even be a taxi any more?). Equally possible, it allows a cab driver who has been so surpassingly reckless and/or (emphasis on "and") offensive to finally bring down the threat of imminent death upon himself, to scamper into the nearest tunnel, forest, or other deserted area such as the "Romania Anti-Corruption" office, and with a hasty peeling session (think "Johnny Dangerously" Shelf Paper), slink back past their pursuers in a normal-colored car. But I digress.

In most cases I've seen, when it comes to the raised make and model logos on the car, the vinyl-appliers cut a hole in the yellow plastic for them to show through. This is a crude-enough look in itself, but as I now know, quite the lesser of two evils.  This morning's cab had had the individual letters of "PEUGEOT 207" pried off the painted surface (leaving what damage? I'd rather not know) and then stuck back on top of the vinyl. And this was my revelation at the red light.

My graphic-artist eye instinctively knew something was wrong in the scene, like hearing one voice off-key in a choir. Eventually it focused on the taxi, and the bile rose in my throat like a tsun - no, too soon - it just rose, ok? The letters had been reattached with all the care and accuracy of a toddler's magnetic refrigerator alphabet.

Part of me still insists that it's been done so incredibly badly that it had to be deliberate. But I've thought that before about work done in this town which obviously couldn't be so - from street repair (both instances), to bathroom tile installation, to building a shopping mall, you name it. Any and every job you can point to in Bucharest, and probably beyond, of any size, is invariably completed to about 90% and then abandoned. Or as they say around here, "finished." Attention to detail is non-existent to the point of being a negative value.

And THIS is why witches are out of work.

The key is the well-known and proven proverb: The Devil is In the Details.

If you don't bother with any details, in any job, ever, then you have no Devil.  The good witches have nothing to fight, and the bad witches have no source of power. And there it is. Contemporary Romanian workmanship is not criminally shoddy by accident or laziness, but by the realization that foregoing any details in your work is key to protecting your soul. To insist of a Carpathian craftsman that an edge be straight, a corner be 90 degrees, paint be at least one coat, a door meet its frame, or water spring from the tap instead of the wall, is to insist he risk eternal damnation in the hereafter.

Many cultures still suffer civil turmoil caused by their inability to reconcile modern society with ancient superstition. We've got it beat here, for sure! Most Romanians still harbor a reasonable concern for the fate of their souls, and know that periodic sacrifice to their god helps ensure it. Self-denial, pilgrimage and slicing open farm animals are so last century. Today, if you can manage to avoid the surfaces of any door, window, or flooring from fitting properly, or keep any straight edge or corner from any measurement ending in a zero, or reassemble something in nothing approaching its original completeness, preferably "how many pieces broken/missing" in proportion to "how much you were paid to fix it," then your place in Heaven is all but assured.