The Romanian Dream » something is wrong

Equilibrium

Mircea — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 22:20:27 +0000

I was listening to the radio (92.5FM) while driving the other day. As everybody has to make a living at some point the commercials started. Normally I wouldn’t pay attention to them, but since I was waiting at a rather long red light (http://www.bellevuewa.gov/trafficcam/cctv004.asp) I found myself listening. Wait, it gets better

The first commercial was for laser assisted liposuction. Cutting edge stuff for the narcissistic fatso. Exercise? Eating correctly? At least reading the damn labels on the ultra processed food we’re buying? Nah.. We don’t have time for this. Just aim the nice laser at me and suck the fat like there’s no tomorrow. Suck it. Now, if everybody would have the money the “laser people” are asking for, we would definitely eradicate obesity from the face of the Earth.

The second commercial was for McDonalds. It was advertising some cheap Coke that you can buy with some crap menu that they have. The commercial made some sense, I guess, if you were into this fast food shit or if you cannot afford anything else. We are, after all, in the middle of an economic crisis (do not go in the parking lot of your favorite mall if you want to keep living with this apocalyptic image).

Now, each commercial on its own made sense. They were trying to sell you something and were managing (more or less) to get the message through by using pleasant sounding people and light, joyful jingles. The really disturbing fact is that they played one right after the other.

Now what am I supposed to understand if I am listening to the radio? Is this a tactic? Are they just dumb?

After the traffic light turned green and I started accelerating on the interstate ramp I remembered the words of my math high school teacher (who was also a bit of a philosopher): “for everything in this world there are pluses and minuses so everything reaches a stable state, an equilibrium”. If you look at the commercials like that, one was the plus and one was the minus. The radio people had grouped them together like this to prevent an unstable state. Maybe they knew something. Maybe the time-space continuum would have been torn if only one commercial of these commercials was played.

Group Death Cooperative

Mircea — Wed, 19 May 2010 03:35:53 +0000

I’ve written about the American Health System before: http://theromaniandream.com/blog/2010/02/01/taboo-%E2%80%93-american-health-system/

It’s not that my naivety level has suffered any major changes lately, but my experience with my health care “provider” (aka Group Health Cooperative) is a surreal one.

Lately I have been having some mild pain in my right hip and I went to have it looked at. After a somewhat short visit at the primary care physician I was referred to orthopedics and physical therapy. The first surprise came when scheduling the PT appointment. The time I have to wait for someone from PT to consult me from the moment I made the appointment: 3.5 weeks. That’s not surprising considering my previous experiences, but 3.5 weeks is too long. But wait! After the visit to the orthopedics, I found out that I need an MRI for them to be able to tell what’s wrong. I attempted to schedule that today and the happy event will take place on the 20th of July. That’s about 9 weeks, or if you want it in months: more than 2 months. I’ll say that again: 9 weeks! What kind of health care is this?

What do you suppose will happen in the following 9 weeks if there is something fundamentally wrong with my hip? Do you think that the way these guys choose to provide medical services is at least flawed if not absolutely moronic? Do I need to say that this is for an insurance that’s supposed to be one of the bests that there is, at least in these area?

At least, back home in Romania, if you have the money and you are willing to shell it out for a quality medical service you can do that. Think about this for a second and you’ll see how wrong the system is over here on so many levels.

That being said, I’m officially giving the longest finger to the nice Cooperative and I’m looking forward to switching to Premera, where hopefully things will suck less and I will manage to get some bang for the buck the insurance company gets.

Mail Labels

Mircea — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 04:13:25 +0000

I usually care about my privacy. This means protecting my personal data from falling in the wrong hands, whenever I can. One of the situations in which personal data leakage (and after that the tons of spam or the identity theft) can occur is when you are throwing away things that have your full name and address on them. That’s why I carefully shred all things that fall into this category. One special item in this category: postal package labels. Usually I peel off the sticker that has my name and address and shred it. I recycle the box.

Now, in the building I live there are two areas in which you can throw away trash: one for things that can be recycled and one for common/normal trash.

Why am I telling you all this? Of course, I’m building up to something extraordinary, not, that I have to share. The other day I was taking out the trash, the common one, and while I entered the disposal area I notice a cardboard box, the dead carcass of a postal package. Setting aside the fact that it was disposed in the wrong location, it had the destination name and address on it. What followed were 5 minutes of continuous chuckling. Here is why:

To protect the innocent soul that doesn’t know how to recycle (not that I give a damn about recycling, but since everybody is doing it I don’t want to be the bastard that kills the polar bears) I have censored out most of the stuff on the label, except the funny part. The fine’s gentleman’s name was: *** ***alertporn. Yeah, you’ve read it right, it ended with alertporn. How the heck does one get to have such a funky name and not recycle? Anyway, right now, I know that the building I live in has someone who can alert us all on porn

30 Days

Mircea — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 04:48:27 +0000

30 Days is a show created by Morgan Spurlock, the guy who made the Super Size Me documentary/self torture movie. The idea is that this guy, or somebody else, is adopting a different lifestyle for 30 days (for example living on minimum wage or trying anti aging ‘techniques’ or some other crazy thing).

The problem is that the person who tries to do this usually hasn’t done his homework (or is incredibly dumb).

For example: in the pilot the guy lives on minimum wage, but still goes to the emergency room. I mean… c’mon, do you really think that someone who barely has money to eat can even dare to dream of health care?

Another example: the guy takes his woman out for a low budget dinner for her birthday (yeah she is also into this ‘experiment’ and it’s her birthday… lame). They pay more than 20$ for the dinner and end up taking the cab because the bus they need stops running at 6:00 PM. Now suppose you had shit. Would you do your homework and know when the last bus is? What about paying 20$+ for a dinner. Hell, even I know a great Chinese restaurant where 2 people can eat a great meal for well under 20$.

Yet another example: In the episode about anti aging, the dumb guy who experiments with all sorts of steroids and drugs is send in the begging of the show to have some of his sperm collected and preserved. Now what does that say about the supplements and drugs you’re taking? To us, the people with the IQ greater than 80, it’s a clear sign that it is possible to become infertile if you’re doing that to your body. Now, this dumb brick of a person, goes ahead and after 20+ days have passed is outraged that his sperm is now useless and he’s no longer able to procreate. We on the other hand are relieved that this specimen won’t be able to have more kids (he and his wife already have 3!). Our joy is short lived, as the effects of the drugs/steroids will go away if he stops taking them.

So, in conclusion, it’s an interesting show, but before doing stuff like this do your goddamn homework.

Depressing Gas Station

Mircea — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 15:05:59 +0000

One of the most depressing gas stations that I’ve seen (both here in US and in RO):

In case anybody wonders this is in Hoquiam, WA. The gas station seemed to fit into the background created by the city.

Trash

Mircea — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 07:51:07 +0000

We all know that keeping the environment we live in clean is everyone’s responsibility. What most people seem to forget is that it takes very little to litter compared to the time needed to clean it up. Back in Romania it was almost impossible not to see litter almost anywhere: on the streets, in the commons area of the building you were living, in the woods, everywhere. This was a normal state and it seemed nobody did anything to change it.

Well, today I’ve run into something that reminded me of this state of “normality”. Only this time it is here in the US. Overall the area I live in is clean – but if someone litters you will see that it can literally take a few weeks for that litter to be picked up. So the key, you see, is not having extensive cleaning crews, but not littering in the first place.

Anyway, here are two images that brought back some sad memories to me. What makes it ever worse is that they are taken exactly near 2 hospitals.

Dodge: The Wimp’s Car

Mircea — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:56:58 +0000

Take a look at this Dodge ad (if you didn’t see it during the Super Bowl or on recently on Hulu):

What is wrong with the marketing people from Dodge? Who would want to buy/drive a Dodge Charger after seeing this pathetic commercial that seems to be the malefic creation of a zealous feminist? Is happiness (look at the faces of the guys in the ad – hahaha) really reduced to the car you drive? Well… yes, if you are are willing to put your underwear in the basket.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Mircea — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:45:43 +0000

First, watch the trailer here: http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2620588569/

Now that you saw the trailer, couple of questions:

How can your life be fantastic if your neighbors are not fantastic? I mean, something being fantastic basically means that it is perfect. If something disturbs this, it’s not fantastic.

Another thing, if Mr. Fox’s life is fantastic, why do they feel the need to also mention that his wife is fantastic? If his wife was not fantastic, would they even dare mention something about his fantastic life?

Last, but not least, he’s called Fantastic Mr. Fox right? Could he be fantastic without a fantastic life?

Conclusion: A trailer full of redundancies and contradictions. He might be fantastic, but the trailer to the movie sure isn’t.

Taboo – American Health System

Mircea — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 05:05:54 +0000

Introduction here: http://theromaniandream.com/blog/2009/07/17/taboo/

Today’s topic: American Health System

To put it short the system is as crappy as it seems viewed from outside the US. Even crappier.

Health care is a business in the US. It’s not about the patient anymore. It’s about the profits of the Health Care “Provider”. Anything and everything will be done to save every cent they can. On paper your health insurance might be great, but when you need something the story you are told is completely different.

To give an example: Lately I’ve been experiencing some ankle pain. I made an appointment to have it looked at. It took “only” 2 weeks from the moment I made the appointment until I finally got to the doctors to see it. How does that happen? Or is the “let’s schedule you in 2 weeks maybe your pain goes away until we see you” principle at work? To put this in context: I have one of the best health insurances available here. At least available for the “masses”. Hundreds of dollars flow into the health care providers pockets each month for them to take care of my health. How the heck is that possible?

To give you another absurd example: Somebody suffers an accident and needs urgent care. Hospitals have what the call “Urgent Care” or “Emergency Rooms”. Kinda like what you see in the movies, NOT. What do you think it’s the average time you spend in one of these special rooms? I’ve never heard of anyone spending less than 3-4 hours. Even heard of cases of 8+ hrs. How the hell is that urgent? I thought that if you have a problem that needs urgent attention, you’d receive urgent attention. And what do they do? Make you fill a mountain of paperwork and ask the same questions over and over again.

So, in conclusion: Health care, pfff… I don’t want to think what you go through when you don’t have insurance.

I’m not saying that the system back in Romania was perfect, but at least over there money could and would get you immediate attention. You would solve your problem and go your way. Health care in US, pfff…

Shallowness

Mircea — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:27:13 +0000

Here is the ultimate expression of shallowness:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Shore_%28TV_series%29

Enjoy

http://www.mtv.com/videos/jersey-shore-ep-4-fade-to-black/1627937/playlist.jhtml

Who would want to watch this dumbed down version of Big Brother? And Big Brother was a dumb show to start with. 3 f’n million viewers per episode.