Saturday, January 6, 2007

All the same...

"No matter what men do, no matter how old they are, no matter what country they're from, they are all the same," 'Tonight Show' host Jay Leno declared one evening. Look at the man checking out Latvian President as she walks by... Source here.

Latvian Highway: You call this progress?

There’s a well-known Russian anecdote about a police officer with a wife and new baby. The young officer can’t make ends meet on his paltry government salary, and he explains his worries to his chief. The chief relents, ordering his secretary to give the officer “a 30 kilometer-per-hour speed limit sign for one month only.” To readers who have not personally dealt with Baltic policemen, some of them will readily take bribes. The joke’s intended audience would understand that the policeman would use the 30 kph sign to issue fines which he would personally pocket. A practice which many suspect is still going on in Latvia. An entire summer of Latvian road construction was recently followed by the placement of 70 kph signs on the new roads. Whatever explanation the state wishes to provide—indeed, there is a bump—most aren’t buying it. Local drivers are convinced it is simply another way for the Latvian police to fill their pockets.

Car Plates from Latvia

Latvia sells the right to write ANY word on car plates to people who can pay for this.
Usually as you can see on the pictures only guys with expensive cars buy this. You can find more successful photos here.

Latvians laugh about Microsoft Windows Vista

Microsoft had some problems convincing the world that the software company’s newest operating system will arrive on time and is an improvement of XP. In Latvia Microsoft is facing another challenge, when they have to convince the population. In Latvia the name Vista have a completely different meaning.
In Latvian Vista means “hen” or a “not so cool woman”. "The name of the new operating system is well known in international communication and means a vision, a view, a perspective," said public relations manager for Microsoft Latvia, Ilze Nagla. Fortunately for Microsoft there is only about 1.3 million people in the world who speak Latvian. It is therefore doubtful that Microsoft will change the name, as Honda did with their "fitta-model" based on the Norwegian meaning of the word (A rather vulgar expression for the female genitalia).

The definition of "Urlas" from Wikipedia

Urla is derogatory Latvian slang term, referring to all men and women aged 17 to 30 who are believed to be criminals or possess agressive habits.
The term is mainly used by Latvian middle class teenagers, and the meaning is similar to the British slang word Chav.
Typical urla fashion items include sport shoes or vinyl shoes, athletic wear, and leather jackets. A shaved head is believed to be essential for urlas. Also very common atributes are old BMW and other ~15-20 years old automobiles which usually become spots for gathering together. Urla`s musical taste can be described as a passion for anonymous electronic dance music with very monotonous rhythm, but popular MTV stars are quite popular among them too. Most popular alcohol in this comunity is cheap beer in 1.0l or 2.0l plastic bottles with high [9%] ethanol percentage or cheapest beer from 0,5 glass bottle packages.

Be aware of them!

Thursday, January 4, 2007

What we can find in Uncyclopedia About Latvia

Latvia or The Land of The Setting Sun is probably the biggest and most powerful country in the world, being only insignificantly smaller than the Galactic Empire. It's the strongest contentor to Honduras when it comes to the definition of BANANA Republic.
Geographically, Latvia is located on the planet Earth. The extensive northern coasts of Latvia are washed by the Baltic Ocean, and it has terrestial boundaries with some small satellite countries, like the Republic of Afracans (an important supplier of toilet paper), Russia (a rich source of vodka) and others.
Latvians can be easily recognised by their names, which always end with an ending. This also applies to the Latvian language, which is second oldest language in the world (nobody remembers the oldest one). Latvians like to sing, drink beer, eat ridiculous amounts of hard-boiled eggs, grow long hair and dominate the world. They also tend to have 6 toes on one or both feet.
This and a lot more of really really serious and important information about Latvia you can find here! Check it out!

From Riga to rivets

Take a good look at those Levi’s brand jeans you’re wearing. See those rivets that help prevent the pockets from ripping off? If you’re amazed by the genius of those rivets, you have a Jewish tailor from Riga to thank.
Levi Strauss, an immigrant from Bavaria, founded Levi Strauss & Co. in 1853 in San Francisco. Among his customers for fabric was a Jewish tailor named Jacob W. Davis (1834-1908), who had immigrated to the United States from Riga, now the capital of Latvia. Born Jacob Youphes, he changed his surname to Davis when he arrived in America. Davis ran a shop in Reno, Nevada. Davis, according to a history of the first blue jeans posted on the Levi’s Web site, had a customer whose pockets frequently ripped. The tailor hit upon an idea: reinforce the pockets with rivets.
The reinforced pockets worked and soon many in Reno wanted work pants made by Davis. To protect his idea, Davis teamed up with Strauss to obtain a patent.
Strauss hired Davis to oversee production in his company’s San Francisco facility, a position Davis held until his death in 1908. The Davis family still is involved in the garment business.

Minox was made in Latvia

The famous Minox miniature “spy” camera was developed and manufactured by Latvian engineer Walter Zapp in Riga, Latvia. The first production model was even named for the city.
Zapp created the camera in 1936, but the first commercial model—the “Riga”—was made in 1938 and carried a “Made in Latvia” marking.
Walter Zapp wanted to create a portable camera that would fit easily into the palm of the hand and yet take high quality, spontaneous pictures. The Minox subminiature camera, in its various models, was for years the world’s most widely used spy camera . Considered a marvel of technology when it first became available, the camera was originally produced from 1937 - 1944 in Riga. It used film one quarter the size of standard 35 mm film, with 50 frames loaded in a cassette.

We pay pay pay...

After joinig EU in May 2004, Latvia faced EU fines over sugar surplus. Latvia had to eliminate its excess stocks or pay a fine into the EU budget, under the Commission regulation.

“As is usual before every enlargement, the new Member States were required to ensure that there was no speculative stockpiling of agricultural products, which would upset the balance of the entire EU market,” said the Commission.
Producers had to prove to national government that stocks had been destroyed and the government had to provide evidence of elimination to the EU until March 31, 2006. This statement faced discussions and up to this moment the situation has reached the point, where Latvia has to pay fine, unluckily, because we had more than 10,000 tonnes of sugar surplus. This fine is approximately 3,1 million Lats. More over, just recently European Commision came up with new calculations of approximately 880 156 Lats, which will have to be paid as fine for meat, vine and garlic surplus in Latvia before joining EU.
Probably EU will come up with more fines...and Latvians just pay pay pay...


Recordsman in Latvia

Latvia has the dubious honour of holding the record for the world’s drunkest person. A few years ago an unnamed vagrant was found unconscious by the police and rushed to hospital where his blood test revealed an astounding 7.22 parts per million of alcohol. Before this man was saved by law enforcement, the medical community had agreed that 4 parts per million was a lethal dose for any human.

Flying Latvians Known Worldwide

Company Aerodium became known after the 2006 Torino XX Winter Olympic Games closing ceremonies, because Aerodium Latvia helped to produce the part of the show that featured flying acrobats. Aerodium Latvia is a company based in Sigulda, Latvia, which owns and runs the first vertical wind tunnel in Eastern Europe. The vertical wind tunnel (VWT) is located near Sigulda, the most visited tourist area in Latvia. The company built the biggest mobile vertical wind tunnel in the world especially for the Torino show. The tunnel blows a wind stream of 200 km/h within a diameter of 3.7 meters. See what they are doing here.

Latvian discovery in Egypt

Latvian scientists in Egypt have discovered the original entrance of Djoser’s Pyramid, which could provide the answer to how the pyramid was built. The entrance to the 5,000-year-old pyramid was discovered using a 3D scanner. Historians said the entrance was walled up when rebuilding mastaba into a pyramid, but the Latvian scientists discovered that the original entry was only partly covered. The discovery carries great importance, as it knocks out current theories and allows us to restore Djoser’s Pyramid, built by Egyptian architect Imhotep. Besides Latvian expedition had managed to discover three new galleries with human bones and numerous ceramic objects. There were also discovered eleven other galleries with the bodies of governor Jossers family in sarcophagus.

Christmas Knavery

Christmas time is harvest time for supermarkets and different other shops. This is not only because of approaching Christmas and New Year. This is not only because everyone need to buy presents and food for their festive boards. It is true that flow of people at this time in supermarkets is "huge", and it is one of the reasons why supermarkets have this great profit. One other reason why profit is so great, is that supermarkets cheat on their clients.
We have got used to different campaigns like "Buy two, pay for one" or just ordinary discounts for different products. Good cheating example is supermarket chain "Maxima", which is known in all Baltic countries for sure. Before the New Year's celebration, when people buy champagne and small dressings like those sweet, colourful champagne cherries, there was a campaign in "Maxima"; one cherry pot costs Ls 1,29, but if you buy two sweet colourful cherry pots-then each of them should cost Ls 1,19. But cashier's check does not show any discounts and people at this time have so many things to buy that they do not follow on numbers that are punched out on these checks. To tell the truth, this is not the only knavery case-those who understand latvian and russian languages can have a small anti-advertisement and commentary tour here

Sour Milk

Milk “Lāse” is a high-quality milk. Latvia’s best raw milk is used for the production of “Lāse”. Thanks to contemporary production and packaging technologies, a sealed carton of “Lāse” can be kept at room temperature for up to 6 months. No preservatives are used. Milk “Lāse” is produced with various flavours; it contains natural vitamins. A pack of “Lāse” is environment-friendly and convenient to use.
Really? Interesting what is that thing they put in that milk so that it can be kept at room temperature for up to 6 months??? Doesn't this already demonstrate that this is not a purely healthy product? Ok, maybe it can be kept unopened at room temperature, but evidently it is weird when just bought in a shop on one of the first days of 2007, this "fresh" milk with expiration of validity marked May 17, 2007 spoiled coffee, because it was sour.