No tip?! No tip!

Car to the airport was booked to pick us up at 4:30pm. At 4:40 I gave the company a call to ask where the heck my car is.

- It will be there in 2 minutes.

5 minutes later the car showed up. No traffic jam  on the way to the airport (the first time it happened!) and we got to the airport really on time. Since 6 of us was sitting in the car, the boys wanted to get out as soon as they could, so the one sitting at the door got off the car while I was paying the driver.

- Credit or cash?
- Credit.
- Excuse me, how do I lift up the seat?
- Pull the lever, then fold it, then pull it again, and lift up the seat. It will be $80.
- How was it again? It got stuck.
- I was gonna do that, but I cannot do everything at the same time, and I'm parking on the road, and I wanted to move to the sidewalk - said the car driver arrogantly while he handed over my receipt to sign and struggled with the seat. He was actually really rude compared to what you expect from a limo driver.
- There you go - I hand over the credit card receipt.
- No tip?
- No.
- In America, you usually give 15 to 20% tip you know!
- In Europe you need to earn your tip, and if you show up 15 minutes late you call the customer to inform him, and you don't use a tone what you just did. Thank you, have a nice day!

Halloween: First contact

Since I graduated from primary school I don't really like wearing costumes. It's fun to see though how Americans go crazy for the sake of Halloween. Obviously the most common crazy characters are:

1. Pirate
2. Witch
3. Rapper

In this order...

It is certainly a unique experience to see Indian guys (people from India and not native Americans) dressed up as a pirate. For ladies the mandatory choice is obviously to dress up as a witch. And I didn't know that a rapper is a scary person, but my only experience is through MTV and not real life. There're not too many rappers in Europe. The some out there suck. And I'm not really into rap music. Anyways. So yeah. Rapper. Well, what can I say... Whatever (in a way as Squidward would say):

Breakthrough: why americans are so fat

I figured it out why. There're only 3 causes only:

1. Hamburger: Yepp, this is not the healthies food on Earth we can all agree
2. Deep fired stuff: They bread and deep fry everything they can, even burgers in some places

3. Appetisers: Every time you go to a restaurant you'll order appetisers. Which is deep fried breaded onion rings, cheese sticks etc. Just eating the appetisers makes you full, and after that comes the main dish (entrée) which would be enough for 2-3 people.

Even if all they eat is processed food with artificial flavouring, ingredients etc. should not make them fat. The problem is mainly with the calories these things contain and the size of portions. Easy as 1-2-3 :)

It is still summer

So it is middle of October, but the Sun still shines, temperature is around 25-27 degrees (Celsius, I will never be able to get used to Fahrenheit). It is like early September at home. The only difference that tells me it is turning to winter is that it is getting dark earlier. Round 7pm it is already dark. Apart from that I would still be able to lay on the sun at the pool... Nice

UPATED: iPhone is evil

Disclaimer: No, I don't have any iPhone, and yes I never going to have one I think.I made up my mind before I came to learn the following fact, that I never have an iPhone.

IPhone is an evil gadget. It turns people into unsocial zombies. It has a built in device that forces people to use their iPhones if they are idle. The usage can be anything. Checking emails (no you don't have any new emails), checking old text messages anything. But if you sit in a restaurant for example, and some of the people have iPhone, they will start swiping their fingers on its sleek touchscreen immediately they sat down. Meaning they don't participate in any conversation and they isolate themselves completely from other people in the group. That is why I think it is an evil device. For some reason people having an Android or BlackBerry phone don't share this symptom. So it must be something that is unique to iPhone users.

Evil, evil device. 

Update: I found this brilliant illustration that explains very well the nature of this problem ;)

RE: I walk too loud

I talked to the property management how things are going. Apparently the beam is giving up, so they will handle the problem (not only with just an extra layer of carpet but reinforcing the foundation). And the work will be done from below. Lucky me :)

Ah yeah, and they had the apartment vacuum :) Thanks God I was lazy to do that on the weekend!!

I walk too loud

Sunday afternoon - noon. I was watching TV after lunch. A property manager came, telling me my downstairs neighbour complains that I walk too loud. Well I'm a big guy (210 lbs) and I'm aware of that but I never jump or something in the flat (means apartment ;)). So I felt kinda surprised.

Anyways, she stayed in my apartment and asked me that I go down to check out how it sounds until she jumps upstairs. So yeah, ceiling creeks and you can hear someone jumping. I met my downstairs neighbour as well, he told me that my walking (carpet is about 2.5-3 cm thick (meaning a bit more then an inch), dude!) "walked" (waked up by walking in one word ;)) him up yesterday afternoon when he tried to have a nap. So I told the property manager that I did hear her, and then I did my walking and she went down. She told me I'm a nice guy so it is not really a complaint that I'm loud or something. Anyways I'm getting an extra layer of carpet in the living room.

What can I say? This is what you get when the only thing made of concrete in your building is the staircase outside and everything else is made of wood and paper ;) That's why we don't do that in Europe :D

vs.

And I did learn something: in case I move out from here, I should always aim for the highest floor available ;)

Hey! How're you doing?

I have no idea whether I should answer this question or just say: 'Hey! How are you doing?" :S