Tuesday, July 22, 2008

too busy to care

Coming back to issue of fake Pepsi products in IKEA. Having not very tailored to receive feedback from customers website it took me more than 20 minutes to figure out how to contact them concerning this issue. Since I love Pepsi as a brand I decided to help them by telling them about threat to their brand. Well... their response was very short. They did not say anything that would mean that they would try to take care of it. They've provided me with some contact info of Moscow office and asked me contact them. They didn't do it themselves. What does that tell me? Does that tell me they care about their brand? Probably not...

Saturday, July 19, 2008

selling water

I went to IKEA today and they had some very little cafe or a restaurant. The options for food were - hot dog (very, very,very bad one) with an option of mayonnaise-mustard souse only, very-very awful piece of pizza and a doughnut (can't say anything - I haven't try it). As for drinks they had production of Pepsi Co. and they had free refills. The problem with drinks was - they all were mixed with water! Can you imagine Pepsi or Mirinda with water? It was so gross! Basically, they've been selling halp-product & half-water for the price of product. I hope at least they've been using filtered water... Although I doubt that.
I wonder if Pepsi company is aware about damage that IKEA is doing to their brand?

Friday, July 18, 2008

toothpaste

I had a chance to try a really weird toothpaste yesterday. It tasted absolutely like toothpaste, actually it had many very great herbs in it. The only weird thing about it was its color. It was very dark brown. After spending many years brushing my teeth with regular while (or white+green, blue, red), this one looked totally weird. I think it would be difficult to sell something like that in the US in the regular grocery store (not in whole foods). The dark brown color just does not correlate with the white teeth that you should get as a result (Although there's no logic. How a color of toothpaste would correlate with color of teeth? There's no correlation at all!).
And how would company-manufacturer even advertise that (in the US)? There's no way you show the paste itself or show someone brushing teeth... would be too scary... brown foam...
But it sells here, people are still more open to difference in color of toothpaste. And I am sure there will be other examples of things like that.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

peanut butter

I still haven't found it here and I'm still craving for it.
Actually, while I was in the States I had a chance to talk to many Americans who lived outside the States for some period. One of the things that they missed a lot while living not at home was PEANUT BUTTER. There's no such thing in my country. (I've heard I can find it in some very specialized stores... but I haven't found it yet... no luck so far)

humor does not travel

That's exactly what one of my professors said and that is so true.
I watched "The Office" yesterday. It was translated into Russian. First of all, some jokes did not sound like jokes at all in Russian. Second, people who was dubbing sounded like they were chained to their hospital beds for at least 1 year. Can you imagine Michael Scott talking like he's about to die? No energy, no emotions, nothing.
It was not funny at all; actually, it was a very sad TV show.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

welcome to Hogwarts!

I've finally received my diploma or certificate that states that I have completed my education. It was packed just like those packets that owls would deliver to students of Hogwarts - in a form of scroll. The only difference - my scroll was red&black - two official colors of the university I have attended.
And this is not the only example of similarity between my university and Hogwarts. There are few more. 1) When it was a graduation day everyone was wearing gowns just like in Harry Potter. The commencement ceremony was just like a scene from the dinning hall of Hogwarts.
2) City where my university is situated also has invisible train! If you get a chance to see it - you are probably very lucky. Although there is rail road going through the center of the city I haven't seen any trains during my first year studying. It was totally invisible, invisible to regular people... and during tornado times you could only hear a train and never see it. Magic!
3) The city itself was magic. First, you would never find it without a map and even if you have a map and talk to educated people they probably would be confused about what city you are talking about. Think to yourself. It's called as the capital of Greece and yet it's not there. It is in the north-west of one Caucasus countries, and yet it is in the States. It's like 9 and 1\2 platform. It's there, but it not at the same time. Second, this city is full of spirits and different magic liquids that exhausted students consume to get through classes. Every night, downtown becomes a place of mass magic with tons of student getting literally out of mind. And once it's 2 am, magic is over. Done. Time to fly home.

Friday, July 11, 2008

confusing English

There are some words in English when you are not completely sure if it's single or plural form of a word. And even if you are sure about that, you never know how you should treat it.
For example, word "media." It's definitely plural form of the word "medium." But if you google for "mass media" you'll find it's used as both singular (mass media is) or as plural (mass media are).
Another word is "news." There's no new as a noun (we do have it though in Russian). But then... is it singular or plural? Should I say "the great news is" or "the great news are"?
I'm in a need of help! So if my dear reader knows, could he/she be so kind to explain it to me?

how much fat is enough?

I remember going to grocery shopping in the US looking for non-non-fat (regular) milk and normally fat yogurts. Unfortunately I could never find anything fatter than 2 or 3%. Today I went to the grocery store here to get some milk. I got 6% milk. It tastes sooooo good. And as for 2% milk it is considered low-fat, while in the US it was almost a normal fat concentration. And 2-3% yogurts are not as popular here as in the US. We prefer something like 5-13% yogurts. Yummy!
For some reason Americans truly believe that fat in milk products translates directly in their fat. They would better look for ingredients instead of percent of fat.

And the great news is: I've got home, got back to normally fat products and started to lose weight!