Happy New Year

It would be ignorant from me to just wish Happy New Year, considering that the readers of this blog come from more than 50 countries, so here goes:

• Chinese (Cantonese) – Sun nien fai lok
• Chinese (Mandarin) – Xin nian yu kuai
• Danish – Godt Nytår
• Dutch – Gelukkig nieuwjaar
• Farsi – Aide shoma mobarak
• French – Bonne année
• Gaelic – Aith-bhliain Fe Nhaise Dhuit
• German – Gutes Neues Jahr
• Hawaiian – Hauoli Makahiki Hou
• Hebrew – Shanah tovah
• Hindi (Indian) – Nav Varsh Ki Badhaai/ Naya Saal Mubarak Ho
• Indonesian – Elamat Tahun Baru
• Italian – Buon Capo d’Anno
• Japanese – Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu
• Norwegian – Godt Nyttår
• Philipino (Tagalog) – Maligayang Bagong Taon
• Polish – Szczesliwego Nowego roku
• Portuguese – Feliz ano novo
• Romanian – La Multi Ani
• Russian – S Novym Godom
• Spanish – Feliz Año Nuevo
• Sudanese – Wilujeng Tahun Baru
• Swedish – Gott Nytt År
• Turkish – Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun
• Welsh – Blwyddyn Newydd Dda

Disclaimer: Collected from all kinds of websites with almost no chance to verify, with the exception of the five languages that I speak. Thank you for understanding…

AND LET’S NOT FORGET CZECH: STASTNY NOVY ROK 

January 2008: Huge Healthcare Changes

As of January 1 there will be huge changes in the Czech healthcare system. Patients will pay fees for every visit (doctor, emergency room, dentist…). There will also be fees for every doctor-issued recipes, there will be a per-day fee for one day in a hospital.

The government wants to stop the huge money wasting process in healthcare – in relation to the first two named measures. It is a widely known fact that people waste tons of medication(s), or that they visit a doctor with every little thing they should be able to help themselves with. Plus thousands of elderly people only visit a doctor to make it a social event that contributes to the structure of their lives. The Czech healthcare system is rather socialist to a large extent and this has to stop otherwise it will collapse. The idea that some people still cherish that having a health insurance means that they don’t have to care and that they will get everything for free when something happens is way off.

So as of Tuesday there will be either vending machines selling special coupons, or checks, or people will pay in cash to the nurse who will issue a piece of paper [still undetermined, how to call these] confirming that the patient has indeed paid.

If you ask me, one issue has been omitted from the healthcare reform. Some categories of irresponsible people ought to pay EVERYTHING. If you go skiing and you injure your head as a result of NOT wearing a helmet? No insurance, you pay for everything. Do you drive while intoxicated and crash into a tree? Forget insurance. It is the same with property insurance, why should a body be any different? 

Beautiful Mandy Moore Speaks Czech

Apparently, while filming the movie Chasing Liberty in Prague, Mandy Moore learned some Czech pickup lines and put-down lines. Those who know me know that she is so my type. So that’s why I am posting this….plus it is related to the Czech Republic….

New Year Celebration? 250,000 Foreigners

More than 250,000 foreign tourists should celebrate the New Year in the Czech Republic, Novinky.cz news server reports. There are around 90 thousand hotel beds in Prague and the no-vacancy rate now is about 99 percent, hotel owners calculated…

The question is, however, how many come for the atmosphere of Prague or Czech mountains and how many come because of cheap alcohol prices and for the possibility to celebrate drunk in the streets with bottles of champagne…

The prices in Prague are expected to skyrocket. Some of them did already.  A .3L glass of beer that normally costs 30 CZK (a little over 1 euro) might cost even 100 CZK (more than 3 euros), the Novinky.cz server reports.

I think I will celebrate at a party in a club in Brno. And when I wake up on January 1, I will only count eight work days to my Canary Islands vacation.

Hitman Had A Wrong Target. Twice!

A few weeks ago a driver working for the CEO of the Sazka state-run lottery company was killed as he was getting out of the company Bentley in Prague. The police now caught the killer and they found out the Russian hitman picked a wrong person to kill. Coincidentally the real target lived nearby and he TOO had a Bentley. His own.

Talk about bad luck? It gets worse…

The investigation shows that the hitman did the same thing (mistake) once before! Shortly before this murder he stabbed another man in downtown Prague, mistakenly thinking that the victim was a Russian businessman that he had been after.

The killer is in custody for murder one and one attempted murder…

I think he is in a way lucky to be in jail… For two botched jobs I think his clients will go after him…

By the way, the cops caught him on December 23. So if you thought police investigators take a break one day before Christmas from catching criminals….

The Czech Mentality In Action

Today I went to a fitness slash wellness center that is located in a hotel but does not belong to the hotel. The hotel itself is closed for the holidays and it opens tomorrow.

It is 12:40 p.m. and the wellness opens at 1 p.m. I am trying to enter the hotel lobby. Sorry, the hotel is closed and the wellness center opens in twenty minutes, the receptionist says. She has to guard the empty hotel.

It is fifteen below Celsius outside. Can I wait here in the lobby until the wellness center opens? I ask. The door to the center is about twenty feet away.

No can do, the lady replies. We are closed. You could wait in the front office of the wellness center, if they let you in.

I step outside and I spend the next twenty minutes outside the front entrance in freezing-cold weather, while the lady gets back to doing nothing in an empty lobby of an empty hotel…

The Amazing Race In Giving Birth And Having Sex

It happens every year and I am sure it will happen on January 1, 2008 again. News stories about babies being born one second after midnight, or at least one minute, at 12:01 a.m., or as we write here – which looks cooler – 00:01.

It is pointless and many pediatricians condemn it. You can’t count seconds in such cases, they say. There is no way you can determine the birth as if it was a 60-meter sprint. But even maternity wards in the Czech Republic have to compete for clients in order to have more money from health insurance companies. Plus, they say it improves reputation.

I have a friend who does not participate in the celebration of the New Year. He does not do fireworks, he does not open a bottle of champagne. He and his girlfriend like to have sex around midnight. And he likes to tell stories how he is the first Czech to have orgasm in the new year. Once he made his girlfriend mad by telling the story that she yelled back at him I wish I could say the same thing, or at least that I am second…

Vaclav Klaus Is A Chicken

President Vaclav Klaus refused to meet in a televised debate with his only opponent for the 2008 elections – Jan Svejnar. Klaus is nominated by the senior coalition party ODS (Civic Democrats), while Jan Svejnar is nominated by the most popular opposition party, the Social Democrats.

Klaus says that one debate can not make a difference. He also said that a future president should be a famous person whose opinions and views become apparent and well-known over the years. Which is not the case of Jan Svejnar, Klaus said. In a letter to the Chairman of the Social Democrats Jiri Paroubek Klaus wrote (my translation): I understand, Mr. Chairman, that you would be very glad to take the advantage of a TV debate with me to introduce your candidate who is virtually unknown. Go to the TV debate yourself and introduce your candidate.

Klaus is the most conceited and self-wise politician I know. Whenever he does not agree with somebody he talks about false, false and unfair little words and he feels like his personality would not shine in a your-turn-his-turn televised debate. He hates when a TV host interrupts him.

Czech presidents are elected by the Parliament. Klaus does his math and all he has to do is convince lawmakers. He does not care about normal people because a direct televised confrontation would definitely do its job even in case there is no direct vote… Klaus often appears arrogant on TV and Jan Svejnar would definitely, pardon my French, kick his ass. At least on TV…

Do Not Shoot The Bear. Let It Kill You

A Slovak hunter might go to jail for shooting a bear. The man took part in a legal deer hunt when a huge bear emerged from the bushes and ran towards the hunter. He shot the bear twice in obvious self-defense.

But you need a special approval from the Ministry of Environment to shoot a bear. If you do it without the paper, it makes it illegal.

Here is the Slovak government at work. Of course the law applies to bear HUNTING, not for shooting in self-defense. So next time a bear comes to a valley farm, which bears often do in Slovakia, and it runs towards the owner’s kid who plays in their own back yard, the farmer must scare it away with a pitchfork??

Today Is The Golden Sunday

The last three Sundays before Christmas Eve are Bronze, Silver and Golden Sunday… on these days stores are open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. so that the procrastinators can get their gifts even one day before they are to be unwrapped under the tree… I had been circling around the local mall parking lot for twenty minutes, just to get out, to shop for three minutes and go home.

According to last year’s statistics Czechs spent 250 billion on gifts… this year the record will be broken…