Bogdan Coman’s blog

I was not happy enough for the last two days after I found out that the Romanian-born poet and novelist Herta Muller had won the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature, so I had to go back to Earth and find out today that the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace has been awarded to backbone free Obama.
First I thought I probably didn’t catch much news this year, but c’mon! After that I thought it’s a joke or that because of the current economic crisis the Nobel Foundation ran out of money. I went and checked the announcement of the Nobel Foundation, it was all true, the reaction people have had to the announcement confirmed me “the news”.

I thought I was somehow familiar with what Alfred Nobel intended the Prizes to be awarded for and because I didn’t see the connection for a politician, the President of the biggest empire today, to get this prize, I tried to find the excuse.

From Alfred Nobel’s will:

shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind. The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows… and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.

If it would be for us to judge after what Obama did in the precedent year, 2008… well, he was in campaign for the entire year :-). Is this year’s Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Obama’s presidential campaign?

Some context. Because of the economic mess we are in and because many economists are saying that the only way out (especially for US) is to start the World War III, we may actually see it happen. Two weeks ago, the leaders of US, UK and France have held a joint press conference to warn Iran to ‘come clean’ on something they already did/didn’t do/hadn’t to, which is a sign for big trouble. China is the number one oil and gas importer from Iran, go figure.

What struck my mind was that in this context, the best thing the Nobel Foundation could do would be to work proactively and to award the peace prize to the (leader of the) most aggressive country in the last 65 years. How can Obama now declare war to anyone when he was awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize for his vision? It’s just like stipulating in a contract some of the clauses he engaged to during his campaign. After all, he may very well lead his empire for 7 more years. What would be the world with no new wars for 7 years?

The Nobel Foundation’s press release quotes (I highlighted the key words) :

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons…

I think the contract I was talking about is present in the last part of the press release:

For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world’s leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama’s appeal that “Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.”

By accepting the prize, Obama signs the contract in the name of the most powerful nation. Unfortunately, life taught me that people without backbone are extremely dangerous, as they don’t care much about contracts. I guess we’ll have to see. Anyway, with this prize, they killed just another myth… and created a new one.

Starting with tonight, for the rest of my life, I will look just like Tom Cruise in “Top Gun”… or like Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter, depends of the budget.

There are more than 24 hours since we’ve learned about Michael Jackson’s death. I don’t know if he will have the biggest funeral that I will ever see, as he is an international star and the people left behind may have other concerns after his death, but I know he’s the biggest icon that our generations were lucky to have. He was an innovator, musician, artist and entertainer. I think his death is bigger then Elvis Presley’s, Lady Diana’s and Pope John Paul II’s, all together.
I’m not going to write on his career, as I’m sure you already know or you can easily find out. Instead, I want to comment on what everybody’s asking right now… Why did he die?
We can wait for doctors and police to tell us, after the investigations will end, if it was suicide, drug abuse, lethal disease, murder or natural death, but the real reason is that we killed him, the stupid humans that are buying tabloids and watching TV channels like CNN, BBC, ABC, FOX, etc, etc. I would see no problems with this, if this kind of media was to make him big, just like they did for example with Britney Spears. The tragedy with Michael Jackson is they had no merit in his achievements. In the early ’80s, MTV had to “endure” a lot of pressure and to wait for Thriller to be released in order to air Michael’s music. Why? Well… because he was afro-american.
As we all know, he was just rehearsing for his latest tour when he died, supposed to begin in a month. Why was he going to return to live performance since he didn’t tour in more than a decade? Well… because he was broke, as the above media is saying.

Why the hell did the man, for which some invented the word “megastar”, get broke? Fancy brains will speculate that “he spent too much”, “he lost money with lawsuits”, “he spent on building the Neverland ranch”, “he hired too many bodyguards”… or that he was no financial genius. Not true at all. After having such success you don’t have to be a financial genius not to get broke. He loved luxury, that’s true, but this is not the reason either. I think the reason is that he got sucked.
Many people in his entourage sucked him… (they had what, as the attitude he used to show in concerts and video clips is betraying some big balls ) :
- his producers/promoters (I just saw some of them interviewed… they were not giving a shit, as probably they were not sucking him for long time already)
- many of his “friends”
- Sony
- his financial advisers
- his family (with distinctive merits to his father)
- the children’s parents (and Thomas Sneddon) that tried to (some did) obtain millions from him, accusing him of child molestation
- the scandal newspapers and journalists (Martin Bashir anyone?)
- all the shitty TV stations. They are actually sucking him hard as I write this. One hour ago, on CNN, “Larry King Live”, was having Usher between his remote guests, on what was promoted as a tribute show to Michael Jackson. After 10 minutes into the show Usher asked “why are you guys discussing about his addictions? I though we are going to pay him a tribute…”. Larry King thanked him right away for coming in and let him know he will be invited again soon. WTF was that? Of course they continued the show with the same shit, as this is bringing the masses, and the masses are bringing the money.

In the hood
Frame him if you could
Shoot to kill
To blame him if you will
If he dies sympathize
Such false witnesses
Damn self righteousness
In the black
Stab me in the back
In the face
To lie and shame the race
Heroine and Marilyn
As the headline stories of
All your glory — from “Tabloid Junkie” (Michael Jackson)

Why every known figure that’s being asked right now is saying how much he/she loved Michael Jackson and how close friends they were? Then, if you all loved him so much, why did he say he’s feeling lonely? Couldn’t you share the pretended love with him? Was he not referring to people around him? Ohhh, no, this is exactly what he was referring to. Check the interview bellow for more details.
I think Michael Jackson was the most sucked man ever. He didn’t know about that (or maybe he loved it… after all, who wouldn’t? ), as he was living in his own fantasy (another reason for the people around him to see only his money). He was a stupid genius, an expert not only in creating his music/shows, but also in surrounding himself with enablers… enablers that had a great contribution in killing the golden goose. As Debbie Rowe (the mother of his first two children) and John Branca (one of his lawyers) said, we can easily reproach him he didn’t know how to choose people around him, or he didn’t think for himself… but I’m not sure if he was to do that, he was going to create what he created. In the beginning, his achievements were due to himself (99%) and to the greed of his staff (1%). Gradually that 1% increased by gathering the greed of media, and in the end destroyed him, more then 10 years ago. When there was no media, artists were creating till the last day of their lives. Just think about Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Mozart, Beethoven, Einstein, etc…. I can add here tons of geniuses that continued their work on the death bed. After today’s aggressive media occurred, it’s easier to find a genius that didn’t die in his bad, than to find one who was happy with his life till the end. When are the human’s genes going to change in order not to have demand for the actual type of media? Probably not soon, as we are trapped in with it… and the more stupidity we want to receive, the more stupid we become.

On the other had, Michael Jackson was loved, he gained the love of millions of people, his fans. Thanks Michael!

Off topic - Yesterday we found the answer on how many people it takes to get the internet down. Just one, Michael Jackson! In three hours after his death, some of the biggest internet businesses went down: Google News, AIM, Twitter and many more. Everybody was searching/discussing about Michael Jackson’s death.

And for all of you who are questioning his sexual orientation or skin color, please wash your brain, again, with the following interview:
Living with Michael Jackson, Take Two - it has 9 parts.

Rest in peace Michael Jackson! You left the building at the right moment. You were a Bad mother fucker! A prayer to Michael Jackson’s three children he left behind!

Michael Jackson - They Don’t Care About Us (Prison Version)

Michael Jackson - Childhood

My charming and extraordinary wife created for me the following video for our today’s wedding anniversary
The background song, “Praying for time” by George Michael, has the lyrics I like the most. The three black cats in the video are: Michael (12 years old), Miorlau (7) and Megan (1).

When playing Starcraft (I used to do it when in university, what a time we had…), typing “show me the money” in the chat room is considered a cheat, as it gives you a bonus of 10.000 minerals and gas
In real life, especially during this financial crisis, you can scream “Show me the money!” as hard as you can… you can beg, try to have sex for them… no one will give you anything. Working hard might be a solution, but before even considering that, lets see how we got here and where we are going from here.

First of all, after I spent some time trying to understand why is the economy melting down and why people’s savings are going down the toilet, I came to the following conclusion: is all because human nature is naturally too greedy. Brilliant, right?

Okay, now lets talk “facts”. This is a case against the fiat monetary system as it is today, and not necessarily against the lack of regulations the government was supposed to impose on the banks, as if there would be no fiat monetary system, there would be no huge government, central banks or financial institutions too big to fail. (I will illustrate the story with three quotes from the movie Watchmen (2009) that I’ve seen last night and that I’m considering one of the best movies ever)

Lets say there are some guys controlling the financial system, let’s call them “bankers“, there are some guys that wants us to think they are are controlling the financial system, let’s call them “politicians“, and there are some guys using the financial system, let’s call them us “slaves“.
Politicians are the representatives of slaves while the bankers are taking care of slaves’s savings (if they keep them in banks as cash or under some other financial forms). Since they are all humans, they are all greedy (TBD). So they all together tried to come up with a plan, to have some more money without working for them. The main problem was that any plan they were to produce, wouldn’t work if they were all aware of it, so politicians and bankers started a plan without letting slaves know about it.

The plan went as follows:

1. How politicians made money without working for them
By using what’s called lobby (in some countries they are calling it corruption), bankers did convince the politicians to remove or not to implement some “stupid” rules that were preventing them from lending the slaves with more money they actually had in their treasuries (mainly from deposits) and to play in a reckless way with the investments they were in charge of.

2. How bankers made money without working for them
By being able to lend more money than they had in their treasuries and to give loans to everyone who asked for one, the bankers were able to create money out of fin air (also known as electronic money), so they gained more income from the interests they were receiving for the increased number of loans they started to offer.

3. How slaves were screwed made money without working for them
Slaves were able to buy bigger houses, powerful cars, afford longer trips, eat fancy food, retire earlier, etc., just by getting lower interest rates, on longer terms and unsecured loans from the bankers.

And they lived happily… until last autumn (2008). Why did the happiness stop?… Simple, because the slaves got so much in debt that they couldn’t even afford to spend money on the water they were flushing the toilet with.

Nite Owl II: What the hell happened to us? What happened to the American dream?
The Comedian: It came true. You’re looking at it.

(more…)

Mai hahaha, mai hehehe, nu ma gandeam ca “traim in Romania si asta ne ocupa tot timpul” a lui Mircea Badea este reala luata ad-literam. Adica, suna bine, iar daca traiam in Ungaria probabil as fi putut lejer sa spun: “traim in Ungaria si asta ne ocupa tot timpul”, nu? Deloc adevarat. De cand am lasat Romania pentru Canada, am inteles ca pot sa renunt lejer la partea cu “ne ocupa tot timpul” si sa pastrez doar “traim in Canada”. Nimic de adaugat dupa. Cum o fi sa poti infiinta online o firma intr-o zi, sa iti faci online toate platile, toate decontarile la sanatate, toate impozitele, sa vezi orele si minutele la care in urmatoarea luna autobuzul va opri in statia din fata casei tale, daca o femeie naste sa primeasca regulat acasa vizita unei asistente medicale, daca vrei sa dai o atentie la doctor sa intri la parnaie…? Cum o fi sa vezi ca altii pot? Iti zic eu cum e, e umilitor sa fii roman, asa e. Evit sa le spun celor ramasi in tara de diferenta, pentru ca pe langa faptul ca poate n-ar intelege, s-ar putea sa invidieze aiurea, da na ca citind aici or sa afle

Imi spuneau in Romania: “stai tu linistit, ca o sa ajunga sa-ti fie dor pana si de praful si poluarea de aici”… ori nu numa ca nu mi-e dor de nimic, ba chiar urasc mai mult ca cei ramasi acolo nu au cum sa evolueze, poate pentru ca multi nu stiu diferenta. Singurul lucru pe care il urmaresc de aici in legatura cu Romania este emisiunea lui Mircea Badea, care, cu exagerarile lui cu tot, probabil ca taie din fasa orice tentativa de dor de neam prin propriile lectii de viata pe care le preda unui popor plin de creiere spalate si castrat de cel putin 5 ori in ultimii 65 de ani (’45 Groza, ‘67 Ceausescu, ‘90 Iliescu, ‘96 Constantinescu, ‘04 Basescu). Chiar, ar trebui sa scriu un post despre cei pe care ii vad eu ca au ajutat la ideea de “roman” si unul despre acele lepre ordinare care au stricat “smecheria”… desi cred ca cei din urma sunt prea multi si nu merita timpul.

Sunt multi romani carora traiul in Romania le ocupa tot timpul asa ca au roit-o. Sunt foarte multi atat in Europa cat si aici (diferenta e ca acolo unde sunt, multi din cei din Europa sunt considerati tigani, iar astia de aici rusi). Culmea e ca romanii astia dezradacinati, ai dracu sa fie ei, nu gandesc ca cei de acasa. Ei s-au oprit de mult sa spere ca se va schimba ceva, stiu foarte bine de unde au plecat iar multi au plecat pentru ca au coloana vertebrala, nu ca n-ar fi avut dupa ce bea apa (…nu ca a pleca de sarac e o rusine). Astia sunt oameni adevarati, si n-o zic doar pentru ca m-am alaturat lor, ii invidiam cu mult inainte ;-). Pacat ca amintirile din tara ii fac pe multi sa fie circumspecti si retrasi cand e vorba sa “vorbeste romaneste”, dar la o adica nu strica nici precautia.

Nu vreau ca textul asta sa fie privit ca unul pro-emigrare, ci poate mai mult ca pe o refulare personala.

On our way home from The Bourne Ultimatum, we (I and my wife) were amazed by the video editing style, so we decided that we should have the movie when it will be released for sale, and we thought that it would be a shame if the film editor, Christopher Rouse, would not get an Oscar for this. Well, he did get one.

As I’m a film fan, I will try to create a yearly top, with the “must have” movies. Most of them would be box office movies, since we don’t have easy access for the artistic and low budget ones. Also, because when it comes to movies everyone’s a critic, I will try to hold most of my opinions.

So, the 2008 movies that I like most and I want to have (the order is not random ;-)):

RocknRolla - don’t want to spoil anything, so I will just say that you have to be crazy and have guts to do a comedy like this.
Taken - I recommend this movie for when you fill like revenging or fighting someone that you don’t have access to.
The Dark Knight - If I consider Jack Nicholson as magnificent in playing Joker in the 1989 “Batman”, I’m stunned by Heath Ledger’s performance from this Batman.
Slumdog Millionaire - this is to me the best movie from 2008 from the film making point of view.
The Wrestler - great movie in the way it’s transmitting the feelings and defining the characters.
Kung Fu Panda - very funny animated movie for grown-up people, that’s drawing lots of ethics
Australia - I’ve seen this movie from the first row seats… and it’s a loooong movie. Although, very good adventure and love story.
Seven Pounds - I love Will Smith’s acting performance from this movie (I would give him an Oscar for this one, though he’s not even among the nominees). He’s having like a constipated figure for the entire movie :-).

As for love stories (although I’m not a big fan), I liked to see and I would like to buy the 2008 movies: PS: I love you, Wall-E, Zack & Miri Make a Porno, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and, of course, Twilight. DiCaprio’s movies were very good too: Revolutionary Road and Body of Lies.

Although I’ve fallen asleep during Sex and the City and The Spirit, I can say that I regret none of the movies I’ve seen in 2008 and that the quality in general was very high. I hope that the economic crises will not affect the budgets in the near future.

I’m maintaining a list with what I consider as open mind videos that are sustaining and explaining different theories about controlling one of “God’s creation”, human beings. As I will watch more interesting videos, I will add them to this post. For now, please check bellow. (more…)

“Wall Street Lays Another Egg” is the best article that I read, so far, about all the financial/real-estate/banking crisis that just started. It’s a long article, written by a smart guy, Niall Ferguson, in easy words to understand. (more…)

Seeing me fckd up when I was overwhelmed by the tasks/customers that I had to manage, a colleague of mine pointed me to “The website is down: Sales Guy vs Web Dude” video ( www.thewebsiteisdown.com - by Josh Weinberg), which I found out as a very good pill for stressful situations.

Later Edit

Second part ( The Website is Down: Excel Hell ):