You might think you are so cool when you blog about whatever goes through your head, but people have done it before you since times immemorial. Bucharest, for example, is filled with Real Time Bloggers (or RTB) and you may find them really easy by going on any public transportation vehicle (or RATB).

The RTB is easy to recognize. He or she (let's call them it) has old and discolored clothes, smells really bad and, most importantly of all, can't shut up. It will tell you its entire life story and any (if any) thoughts that it has had in the last 15 to 20 years. It will tell it whether you want it or not, usually hitting end tape and repeating itself in about 30 minutes which is, by the way, the average time someone spends in public transportation to get to one place to the other in the city.

Now, you might think that this has nothing to do with any network (aka web) or logging (since it is all verbal), but if you spend some time researching this you will notice that they are everywhere and they pretty much say the same things, so they have their own network and they are saying the same thing from their own unique perspective. So it's exactly like blogging.

Also, don't confuse them with beggars. Beggars smell worse, they ask for money and they usually make sense. They are the real life equivalent of spam or commercials. And everyone would like to click them really hard, but they are afraid they will catch some virus or some other malware.

The interesting thing is that they don't really talk to each other and in the winter, when their publicistic careers peek, there is one on each single bus, trolley, tramway or subway. If one leaves the vehicle, another one comes. So they have a very efficient way of disseminating information, unlike web bloggers who, being relatively new to this business, still wait for others to come read what they had to say and sometimes flock on the same information highway.

I also tried to add an image to this entry, however, no doubt due to their experience in blogging, couldn't find one. They probably don't have any contact with our own, new and untrusted network, and prefer the more advanced technology of 3-D smellovision.

So, quit being so full of yourself. Blogging may be the oldest profession in the world, for all you know. You're not special!

Yes, at last another one of the World Sucks series. Here I am tackling globalisation, yet not the concept, but the buzz. People that somehow are against globalisation are the ones that have actually already accepted defeat. They see the franchise epidemic and high level political and economic games as the cause, not the symptom. They are nothing but fork and torch villagers trying to kill the beast without really understanding the cause of everything. They are especially wrong since they try to kill a beast much stronger than they will ever be.

And the cause is... not dr. Frankenstein, but statistical discrimination. It is the thing that makes shops disappear if they don't give to most of the people most of what they want, that puts people that don't behave like the majority into ignorable categories, the thing that doesn't come from high up to affect us, little people, but comes from very little people to affect the higher ups.

I am talking about statistics. Once you have enough objective data you can draw conclusions based on hard mathematics, conclusions that you know are not biased and that have true meaning. It tells shop chains which are the most financially effective customers and what exactly choose to buy, it tells media conglomerates which are the people which will be most inclined to see their shows, exactly what they would want to watch and how much they are going to be influenced by commercials in order to buy products, it tells politicians which is the biggest part of the electorate and what they could be told in order to elect them.

The effect of this is statistical discrimination, or the oppression of the minority groups that don't "fit" into the whole data schema. That's why you will not get the products you really want, you will not see the shows you want to see or the movies you crave or the books you need. That's why you will see young people asking you about every day things like some vegetables you used to find when you were a child and now nobody knows what they are. They do know about some exotic fruit you've never heard about, too, and they are willing to pay ten times the price of normal fruit for the privilege to eat it.

It starts with small business, it extends to media, then to art, then to politics. Before you know it, you can either do what everyone else does or be ignored. Does it sound like 1984? That was a naive view of the world, where the actual oppressors were a very small minority, where democracy was a dream. No, the actual oppression comes from the majority of people, the idiots watching today's TV shows, eating popcorn at European Gigolo and Scooby Doo the Movie. And it all starts from you, the little people.

Every form of discrimination in this world, either good or bad (yes, there is good discrimination), is statistical in nature, but most bad ones are determined by bad entry data, like all Gypsies are dirty or all black people are thieves. This time there is a growing mother-of-all discrimination, one that starts with perfect data, ends up with the perfect solution and leaves just about everyone that matters out of it.

The only option IS globalisation, the only possible solution for the people that want to do something different is to get together, through the Internet, through the disappearance of borders, nationalities and local law, through the dismissal of all things that separate people of the same type, because the oldest and most effective method of ruling other people is divide-and-conquer. Because no one is special for being American or Romanian, these are just stupid inventions, based on geography or past connections. Each person is special for their own reasons.

Globalisation is not the cause, it is the symptom. It is the opposite of localisation, or keeping something for yourself in a single place. Globalisation is the crucible of sense: you now get to decide what is important and what not in the whole world! And the problem is not high up, it's down with you, it's your decision.

Fight stupidity; elect common sense; choose diversity; create AND consume what others create just don't limit yourself to consumption alone; say the things you mean, not the things others want to hear; fight for your right to party, but think of the people who want to sleep; do what you like, but consider the others.

This has to be the coolest site ever! It is specially created for the cut hair of Britney Spears. You can now buy it for a measley 1,000,000.00$ (that's a million). I hope some charitable person buys the hair, divides it into one million tiny pieces and donates each one to a voodoo priest.

Anyone who knows me knows what my stance is on this. School is something, religion is something else. There are a bunch of (traditional) ways to teach religiousness to a child, in the home as well as in church, special camps :), etc. I see no need for a religious education forcefully imposed on children inside the school, especially in a country that is not that religious. Where is the separation between state an church here?!

Yes, I know that the statistics say 85% of the population of Romania is orthodox, but that's only in name. True, active, church going religious people belong to distinct demographics like old people, some women, or people in the country side. This new surge of religion in Romania is nothing but a scam! Yes, nothing more than a marketing move.

And yet, here it is, a law that (again) makes religion one of the compulsory classes in Romanian schools. If you don't want religion, the parent must write a letter to the school requesting for it to be replaced with "moral-religious education", whatever that is.

So, what if I don't want any religion for my kid? I consider religion, especially organised religion, nothing more than a ploy to prey on human stupidity and fear. I want to raise my child away from superstitious crap. Let him watch Jesus on TV, the same as Ghost Busters!

Let me analyze what I should do in order to insure that my hypothetical offspring is not getting in school an education that contradicts that at home. First step: write the letter that places him in a special class of "moral-religious education". What that essentially does is place the child in a different group, a ready prey for ridicule or any kind of discrimination. Then he sees that in his group there are only the people that consider religion ridiculous, while in the other (larger group) there are the religious kids along with the ones that don't care about it one way or the other. So he will immediately feel the pressure of being in an apparent minority. This is a clear case of discrimination any way you put it, yet they intend to make this a law. What kind of crappy legislators do we have?! AND, after all this, I only managed to get my kid into a less religious class, probably with a priest or highly religious man as a teacher.

What would these religious people think if we were to add a compulsory "God does not exist and religion is stupid" class? They would shout much and high about discrimination and the right to choose and the local decision of allowing religious symbols or education in schools. Yet they have no problem with refusing the right to choose of atheists. Religious hypocrites? what a shock!

Here is a link to a discussion from 2004 about the legality and ethics of compulsory religious classes and their content.

Today Orange Romania had organised a concert in their brand new "Concept Store". A Concept Store is exactly what it says it is, a place where they sell you an idea, the idea of buying and using Orange phones and subscriptions. Therefore everything that takes place in that store is directly linked to image and marketing.
Well. today they blew it, royal style. 15 minutes before the start of the concert (Coma was going to perform, they are this extremely cool Deftones meets Linkin Park via Tool band) they announced that the concert was not going to take place due to complaints from the neighbours. What actually happened is that some greedy idiots thought they could get some money from Orange because they lived right above the Orange Concept Store. Well it didn't work, but the funny thing is they announced the cancellation of the concert after keeping tens of fans out in the cold while watching them through the glass doors of the place. And these were only the ones that got there earlier. I got there about 30 minutes before the announced hour for the concert so I was amazed to see a couple of suits staring at us from the other side of the glass and doing absolutely nothing about it. Then the cancellation news came.
The band members were devastated, the fans disappointed, Orange made complete fools of themselves. But will this ever reach the news? NO! There is no rape or murder involved, no political scandal. Just a few ordinary teens were completely stepped upon in the name of Orange Corporation Choppers!

"Hey!", you will shout, "You are Romanian, what do you know about the American mind?". And you would be right. I don't know much about the American mind, but I do know what I see on the news and in the movies. And three movies I've recently seen opened my eyes even more.

First of all This Film Is Not Yet Rated talks about the MPAA and the way they enforce the ratings on movies. You might think that is not so important, but each rating brings with it a different possible audience size. There is a huge difference between the last two ratings R and NC-17 because an NC-17 movie doesn't get picked by distribution companies, nor does it reach into theaters.

What does that mean? It means people in the entire USA see nothing but what the MPAA deems "decent". Statistics show that in the last 50 years they mostly rate R violent movies, no matter how violent, while NC-17 are films which involve sex or even the manifestation of sexual pleasure. Do you think that has any connection with the fact the average American is a violent and militaristic puritan? Interesting enough, the MPAA "council" is completely secret. Movie directors get answers like "your film is NC-17 and we don't tell you who we are and why we rated it like this". Also, check out how the MPAA is financed by the biggest 7 film studios in Hollywood, which own 95% of all movie industry in the US and belong to conglomerates that own 90% of the entire US media!

Another interesting fact is that in that council there are two religious representatives, which brings me to the next two movies: Jesus Camp and The God Who Wasn't There.

Jesus Camp is a pretty famous documentary, because it was mostly comprised of filmed video footage and there were almost no comments in it, yet it spun a lot of controversy. Fundamentalists praised it and so did Anti-fundamentalists and atheists alike. It showed how children are entranced and then conditioned to believe in Creationism, to actively oppose abortion (when they are children), to support Bush and to think that they must act as soldiers that bring America back "under God". This camp teaches the Pentecostal religion, maybe only an extreme version of it, but what is majorly important in this religion is the Rapture. The Rapture is the second coming of Jesus, which will quickly take all true believers to Heaven, then end the world. Maybe even reformat the hard drive. 22% of Americans are Pentecostals who believe Jesus will come during their lifetime. Why wonder Americans don't really care what happens to the Earth? A major Pentecostal preacher is a weekly counselor for the White House and, interviewed in this movie, said that if Evangelicals vote, they determine the outcome of US elections. Pretty scary stuff. Even more scary is the fact that they are a big religion with between 40 and 80 million adepts and no one can do anything about this child brainwashing that they do in this camp (and a lot of others, I guess). David Byrne, from Talking Heads, said in his blog that he saw no difference between this camp and the extreme Muslim madrases training people to blow themselves up.

The God Who Wasn't There starts off like an atheist movie that proves most of Christianity is copied from other older religions, including details, and that average common sense makes believing in a religion like this kind of stupid. The special effects and direct attacks against religion made me think that this is an extreme in itself. Atheists turned anti-theists and throwing everything they have at poor people that believe stuff like that. This until the guy admitted he was a Christian Fundamentalist until the age of 15, when he actually decided everything he was taught under threat of eternal damnation was plain stupid.

OK. Back to the main point. Now I understand more about the American Mind. I understand how a nation that created the ideas of secular state, individual freedom and freedom of faith can also be hard ass conservatives, God fearing and warmongers in the same time. How most American morality is ridiculously naive when concerning sex while in the same time the US is producing the most adult content in the world. I realize why some of the Americans I talk to are really smart and funny people and others sound like rednecks from old Westerns, why US science is the most advanced in the world while in the same time regulated by people following 1st century morality.

Therefore I highly recommend seeing these films. Eye openers.

Agent Smith from Matrix once said "I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it" and that made me like him instantly.

He described perfectly how I feel whenever I exit the subway or bus at Unirii and go towards the tramway 32 station. It's only 100 meters, maybe 150, but you have to fight your way through a river of people, a lot of them smoking, then wait for the green semaphore light a long time while smelling all kind of interesting flavours, then try to get in the tram without being rubbed away like a pencil trail by people who don't really care if they touch you or not.

If you are lucky enough and it's winter time, maybe before some holiday or another, you get to smell the homeless people who decide that either it's too cold outside and camp in the tram, either that you have to give them a holiday present and start begging and singing and other things which basically mean they also move or crawl, thus evenly smearing the air with their fetid stink.

Telemarketing is already embedded in the western popular culture, but in Romania, we didn't have it until recently, and only very rarely. Usually they didn't want to sell stuff, but to poll opinion. So I was immediately annoyed when a authoritative male voice started to talk to me about increasing the money I get from my insurance. That annoyance increased when the voice continued "if you want to... bla bla bla, press 1". They didn't even bother to put a human to give the phone calls, it was all automated. Swearing at a machine would have been ridiculous, so they took away the only possible emotional outlet. They have denied my anger!

So of course I resorted to THE BLOG [lots of echo here] to shout my frustration! But since I have worked with telephony in my days, I thought "wait a minute, there is a solution". I could strike back. First of all, I would install an answering system that requests the user to press a key. "If you are a telemarketer, fuck off, if you are a human being, press 9". Then add the tone of the key "1" and repeat the message. But then again, why would I bother, for one lousy telemarketer? Because they took away my outlet! I want it back, damn it!

I've just remembered that I had to write a long overdue blog entry about the dogs of Bucharest. Bucharest is an old European city, meaning that it grew with the needs of the people, starting from a little village and becoming Romania's capital. A lot of things happened here, like the world wars. During the war a lot of pets were left homeless and ownerless and became street mutts. That created in time a large population of dogs, living in packs, having their own territory and so on and so on.

Now, fast forward to the Basescu era. This guy was so frustrated that Bucharest was not looking like most western European capitals, that he focused on transforming Bucharest, starting with what he probably saw while he was abroad. That meant getting rid of dogs and boutiques and street merchants, amongst other things. Well, I went for a small tour of Europe a while ago, and I didn't like it. All the cities were barren, like lifeless stone deserts, where you could only pay a lot of money for the smallest amount of food or walk aimlessly looking at old buildings. Basescu wanted to turn Bucharest into this.

A lot of people were for this getting rid of dogs business, while in the mean time, animal lovers were crying against it. In order to truly make a decision, one must know what the dogs of Bucharest are like. Most of them are very friendly, they let people pet them, while begging for food or attention. They are not wild animals, but liberated pets, and they act more like pets that way. Some of them, organised in packs, tend to become very territorial, defending their turf with loud barks and sometimes (when the human doesn't get it) with bites. Because of this kind of behaviour, most Bucharest dwellers agreed with the dog removal. But most dogs were having a very adapted life to the city. They had families, ways to get food that included being nice to humans as well as hunting and eating rats and, don't laugh, a culture of their own. I do say that because I have watched them behave and along with their natural instinctive behaviour and the stuff they learned during their life, they also exhibited learning and teaching abilities. I have seen mother dogs showing their pups how to grovel or how to cross the street and avoid cars.

But what does this say about us? That we want to destroy what we fear and don't understand. Even the more aggressive dog packs would not attack a human that doesn't provoke them and that faces them. A simple trick like walking backwards (and not trying to show the human superiority by kicking dogs or by throwing stones at them) would have left even a 20 dog strong pack barking, but not biting. And this kind of aggressive dog behaviour can be immediately fixed in each particular case. No, instead we chose to "nuke" the dogs, making us worse than the most bite happy mutt pack out there.

No dogs means also no life on the streets, no puppies except the ones in pet shops (the expensive ones that you have to buy because they have a pedigree and that get sick really easy), more rats. In some of the western countries that people like Basescu so blindly admire, dogs are being used in anger management programs in prisons. Taking care of an animal, just looking at a friendly, uncomplicated creature that craves your attention, gives us something that fights off anger and rage. We have enough rage in Bucharest, alright, but the dogs may soon be gone.

It appears NASA has used the metric system extensively since 1990, but now they've decided to not use anything else. NASA finally goes metric, so what a good oportunity to rant this is.

How about the funding? In 2002 the entire NASA funding was less than 15 billion, in 2006 it reached 16.5 billion. The total cost of the war in Iraq is 350 billion and climbing, with an estimated 600 billion in 2010. The International Space Station seems lost in bureaucracy limbo, and this site suggests the highly inflated figure of its cost reaches 100 billion. So what does that mean? That we could have skipped the Iraq war altogether and build six space stations instead? I am sure this is not the case. Because actually building six stations instead of one would have used only once the cost of design, aproximately the same people and each part would have been built cheaper than the ones before. Critics say that the cost of the ISS goes well above the first cost estimations and compare it to MIR, which has cost only 4.3billion. Well, that may be true, but doesn't that mean that we could have skipped the war in Iraq altogether (well, actually not all of it, Kuweit still had to be liberated) and build over 100 MIR stations?! Or finance 30 years of NASA budgets!

Well, had to be done. I feel much better now. Thank you, I will pay for the damages.

A couple of weeks ago I bought myself some ear plugs, the kind that you stick into your ears, they expand like a sponge, and filter all but the loudest or low frequency sounds. At the time I was half ashamed of my reasons for buying it; first of all I planned to use them in bed, when I wanted to read and my wife wanted to browse the TV channels; second of all I wanted to filter out chit-chatting women and teensters from the tramway or buses. Yeah, I know, I sound like a grumpy old man, and that was the reason I was half ashamed of doing this.

However, now, after testing this new gadget and finding new applications every day, I am happy I made the purchase. I can read on my way to work in total silence, even with people talking and laughing as hard as they can in order for others to notice them, or people listening to music so loud on their headphones that you can't escape the sound even if moving further away. These babies even filter out the manele ring tones, spat out loudly by the latest model of cell phone.

Today I was especially glad I had my plugs on, since I boarded a bus that had the radio on. Pop music, silly monotone dance rhythms, loud and useless commercials that are even more spammy than spam email for the single reason you can't close your ears... they all went away. I now have that smug feeling of superiority about my ear plugs as I have about TV after getting Internet broadband and only downloading what I want and refusing to gulp all the idiotic programming the popular stations feed us.

Ear plugs rock!

It's easy! Write a lot of bullshit about how to get rich quickly using simple steps and with no effort. Explain in an 8 part article that says absolutely nothing how putting AdSense in your blog can increase your income. Tell everyone about it, making sure they know they will earn a huge amount of money just by reading your blog entry about getting rich. Explain how people earn lots more money than your six digit figure from blogging, but they don't share their secret for success, only you do. Then just enable AdSense in your blogspot account and see money pouring in! It's easy, simple steps, no effort... bla bla bla

Well, I just had to say something about the video of Saddam Hussein's execution. But I'll try to be brief and focus on only two things: the censorship applied to the official video and the US comments.
First, the big row shouldn't be about Saddam at all. Whatever he did, why he did it and how harsh a punishment he deserves is an internal Iraqi affair, and their... democratic history... leaves to be desired. It's not like they know how to behave in a dignified manner, anyway. No, the problem is the censorship on the official video. Somehow, they realised that how they did the whole thing was wrong. They got it! It was wrong. But, in their typical governmental greed, they removed the sound, clipped the video, and spun the story as they could to actually make them look good.
The second issue, the US government made a statement that said they would have done everything in a different way and that it all boils down to the inexperience of the Iraqi government. But they were referring to the leaked video! So what they actually said, publicly, is that they had more experience in limiting media access and manipulating public opinion. Which, of course, they do, but that's besides the point.
Both these situations show only one thing: shamelessness, the lack of shame, on the part of any government. It's beyond 'power corrupts', it's all about the corrupted seeking power and getting it, wrapped in a nice 'democratic' package.

There is no statistic that I know of that calculates the percentage of "media leaks" in situations like this or Abu Ghraib, etc. In other words, a formula that could estimate the actual number of cases based on the number that were recorded on tape and made it to the public. But my guess is it's similar to fossiles. Only a small fraction of dead animals fossilise in order for archeologists to find them. Such leaks show a trend, rather than exceptions. They also help "them" to become more "experienced".

Ok, I am not the greatest child lover in the world. I don't want any children, not even to have sex with them. But when I see sites like this: 'Santa Claus does not exist' school tells stunned kids I can't help myself reply in anger.
Does anyone realise that while telling nice stories about Santa, or God, or Halloween or whatever, one is actually lying? When I read the above mentioned article, I immediately replied in irony that kids should believe in Santa and other increasingly idiotic things we usually are told when we're kids. And the list grew immediately to a stagering dimension. I stopped myself, censored some of the things I've written and sent the reply. I am curious if it will ever be published on the said site, as I've noticed that UK sites, including BBC, only publish the moderate or expected responses, especially if you mention you're not from the UK.
How did you feel when you found out Santa is not really a real person? Didn't it change not only the way you see Christmas and the world, but the trust you had in your parents? I am almost 30 and I remember the day when my dad told me an obvious lie and I realised, for the first time in my life, that my parents do lie to me, as opposed to what they've said to me in the past. A lot of the things I've been told during my childhood have been lies, and while there weren't bad lies, nobody desiring my harm in any way, they shaped the way I saw the world afterwards.
Every time such a fairy tale bubble burst, I felt more out of touch with reality, more insecure, sadder, disappointed. Don't do that to your children, no matter how obnoxious they are. So they don't let you sleep well, don't punish them by giving them false hope you just know will break their heart when they realise they have been fed with lies. Beat the crap out of them, it's safer, it hurts less.
Of course, I have no idea how a kid would develop if you told him everything. It is a frightening concept, but does one really have the right to shape one's reality as they see fit just because they don't like the one they live in? "Yes, daddy is going everyday to a shitty job, hating his shitty life, wanting to die, but lacking the courage to end it all." Would such a notion push a child to suicide or to a real life, one that is different from the one his dad hates?
There is no such thing as political corectness. Politics are about the acquisition and application of power. Will you give your child the option to apply his own power of the brain to his own chosen life or will you maim him in his infancy, by feeding him false information, seeding his mind with lies that will never go away, no matter how much he tries as an adult?

And as a small Christmas article that makes sense, check this out: The Real Story of Christmas

Have you seen the movie "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu"? It is a Romanian movie about a guy that is taken from hospital to hospital in order to fix what seems to be a slow cerebral hemorrhage. Wonderful moment when, in the very end, the man is still living, but in a very bad state, and the movie ends. Because the title does say it all.

As a divine retribution for accusing the holidays of sucking, my wife had a car accident. Some female driver hit her while on the designated street crossing area. She is fine, thank you all, but for a clavicular fracture. This specific injury means that she can barely do anything by herself and I have to tend to her until the bone fuses together or she has surgery (I'll know for sure on Sunday, December 24th, when I take her to the hospital again).

Ok, back to mr. Lazarescu. As in the movie, the medical establishment is a dirty, underfunded, disorganised piece of crap. When I got the phone call, Maria was already at the hospital, waiting for treatment. The emergency hospital Floreasca was partially closed, due to reconstruction, and the only entrance was covered with signs that said "Access forbidden to visitors!". I was a visitor, but it was the only way in, so I phoned my wife and asked. I was supposed to enter through there.

I found her holding her right arm with her left, in obvious shock and pain, waiting... for what? She just had her radiography taken to her shoulder and they sent us to another section of the hospital. There they asked what has happened, and my wife explained that immediately after the hit she couldn't see well, and that she was afraid not to have a head injury. So they sent her back to the radiology room.
[small paranthesis] The woman doctor indicated we should go right, then right again, to where the rotating door is, in the middle of the wall. That was her female for first door on the right. There wasn't any revolving or rotating door anywhere![end paranthesis]
I was told to wait outside the radiology room until the male nurse would call us in. I waited, seeing three people appearing out of nowhere and entering in, before I got the nerve to ask the guy there "excuse me, is there a name calling, an order number system, or people just enter?". "People just enter", he replied apathetically. So I took Maria, pushed her in, to finally get her head scanned. All this time she held her injured arm with the other, no one even considered doing anything about it, even if we already had the radio image of the clavicular fracture.

Then we went back to the previous room where a doctor interpreted the scans, then sent us to another section, the one where they actually do something. We waited there as well, at least another half hour, in front of a door which said "we are in the middle of hospital reconstruction, we only have limited support, we prioritize people, do not enter, do not open the door, etc". Already knowing the drill, I opened the door and entered, taking Maria with me.

The actual fix was to make a figure 8 bandage around her shoulders, to keep the bones together. Then they sent us again to the radiology room, to see how well the doctor did, then we went back. All this was done without anestethic, even if it didn't hurt too much, and the only shot they gave her was an antitetanos shot for a little scratch on her leg.

You have to imagine this so called hospital, with rooms that had building materials in them and the whole facility smelling like a zoo. This is not a metaphor, I've recently been to the zoo, and the neglected reptile cages smell exactly how this hospital did. Maria reached the hospital at around 16:40 and we left at around 21:00, this being an «emergency» hospital.

The doctor also prescribed us some medicine, because they didn't actually have a farmacy there. So we had to take a cab, look for a farmacy, pay for the medicine, get back, take her home, etc. I then inquired on how will the insurance company (ING Bank, btw) cover this, since it wasn't her fault (it was determined by the police that it was the driver's fault) and we had to both miss work, pay for medicine, go to the hospital now and then by using a cab, etc. It appears that the insurance, which we dutifully payed for at least 3 years now, doesn't cover anything but the spitalization cost. No spitalization, no fucking insurance. More so, in order to take some sort of compensation from the driver, we must actively sue her, go through courts and so on.

Let me make a short synopsis: car accident, hospital, 4-5 hours spent for 3 X-rays, an antitetanos shot and a bandage, no insurance coverage. If my employers weren't good human beings (as most aren't) I would probably be forced to either neglect my wife or lose my job, and in order to somehow fix it, I should actively sue the driver and (without a job, maybe) go through courts, pay a lawyer, etc., which I don't really want to do anyway, since the driver didn't actually intend to hit my wife, she was just incredibly slow!

Did you like the movie? It's a nice holiday piece. Fuck!!!!

The funny thing is, Floreasca is actually one of the good hospitals. No doctor asked us for extra payment, each doctor or technician actually wanted to help, I am sure whatever they did, they did good work, but they do it in such a misguided, unfunded, disorganised matter. I mean, do I actually need to scan a bone, create a picture of it, carying it all around the hospital in order for another doctor to see it in the next room? It's like the middle ages in there!

There is this saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. None of the people involved in this story had any bad intentions, but we still got screwed!

Update:

Maria doesn't need surgery. Phew! We've changed the bandages to a more manageable type that is also adjustable in case it is too tight or too loose. We are going to the doctor's on January 2nd for another check. Then on the 3rd I am going to work X(. Anyway, I was going crazy sitting in the house all the time, helping Maria up and down, etc. (you have to appreciate me not going into the sordid details), so I guess it will be good.

Thank all the people that showed genuine concern over my wife's state and I hope you had better holidays than my own. ;)

Update 2:

X( We went to the doctor's again. It seems that the bones didn't fuse together and it mostly because the last bandage was too thick and thus ineffective. So Maria was right after all, she always is a good judge of character, that Petre doctor that made the bandage last time was all talk and nothing else.
More than that, it's not that she doesn't need surgery, is that after 4 weeks of observation we will know for sure. Doctors are certain it will heal, eventually, but the whole process gives me the creeps. I'll keep you posted here until she heals (or gets off my back! :) just kidding.)

Update 3:

Another visit to the hospital (with yet another doctor) was close to personal hell for me. The entire facility was packed with old sick people sitting in queues. This might not mean a hell of a lot to others, but I really hate these kinds of things. The only thing I hate more is being very hot. Sure enough, when we left from the radiology section to go to the actual doctor we reached and even more crowded room, which had the air conditioner turned to hot and with no open door or windows. Being very crowded, Maria went in and got out almost immediately. The x-ray looked better, the bones seemingly fusing. So the doctor send us home, told us to return in three weeks. Then we will know more. :-/ Well, at least there are some good news.

Earlier today I went to the family doctor (in Romania this is a doctor that is assigned to our family... and other thousands of others X( ) to ask for a medical break for Maria's work. I had to fought off sickly old people again in order to get to see the doctor, but after all I only had to take a paper in and return with another paper.
Of course, it wasn't going to be so easy. Apparently, the doc is supposed to give me a paper for the orthopedy department, they will give me the medical break letter. However, I need to take there yet another document to attest that Maria is hired somewhere. Why the hell would I need the papers for a medical break if she wasn't hired?! I say this while trying to ignore that if I weren't around Maria would have to make one trip to the work place to get this latest paper, then go to the family doctor to get that paper, go to orthopedy, etc.
Getting to the orthopedy department reserved a special surprise to me: it was going to open at 14:00 hours. Of course, it was 8:00 and I went there especially in order to find the family doctor who worked mornings and get to work immediately after. So that would have meant another trip for Maria.

Update 4:

Ok, last update on this post. Maria is now (1st of February 2007) ok. Her bandages are off, she is painfully using her hand and she goes to kineto and physio therapy. We had to pay around 50 euros to be able to do that now and not after a few weeks (with the other people waiting to get well, but without money) and, of course, that's not a sum that will be covered by the insurance. The medical insurance actually payed for nothing at all. Isn't that great? Fortunately, the driver agreed to pay us the medical expenses so we won't sue. We wouldn't have sued anyway, I think. Although for my avid readers I might have started a whole Romanian legal system series :)