Being a long-time and proud member of the "Russian Jews United" group on Facebook, I have found the following message waiting in my inbox today:

Single? Need a fresh start?

Try:
http://www.rajeusa.com/rajemate/survey.php

Nice service for nice people.

Gary Linkov

Well, Gary, I don't believe we've met, but that's really...nice. Thank you.

"I am single! I do need a fresh start!", I thought.
Nice people?? That is me!!

With thoughts of beautiful Jewish girls with rich daddies, I immediately clicked on the link and landed on the "RAJE" homepage:



Wow! That's a lot of details just to start. Okay:
RAJE: Last name?
Bitz: Bitz.
R: First name?
B: Pasha.
R: Hebrew Name if any?
B: Hmm, Hebrew name? Mmm, Pasha? No, mm, ahem, I don't know! Please let me date Jewish chicks!!
R: Ethnicity (Ashkenazi / Sephardic / Bucharian / Gorsky)?
B: Woah, that's specific! You're really not for mixing them up, are you? And Bucharian is like a whole category in itself? Do they pray westwards? And what is "Gorsky"? I searched Delver, which is the limit of my knowledge, and didn't find anything. Do you mean to ask whether I'm the dead Soviet spy? Well, I am not!
R: Would like to date only (Doesn't matter / Ashkenazi / Sephardic / Bucharian / Gorsky)?
B: Look, I don't really want to restrict myself. As long as the father is really loaded, I mean. Well, what the hell, I like trying out new stuff. Gorsky!
R: Are you a Cohen?
B: No. Are you a Cohen?
R: Practicing Judaism (High holidays only / Some Shabbats / Kashrus / Other)?
B: Practicing? I don't need to practice baby, I'm already GOOD. But I like the way you American Jews make everything sound cool. Kashrus. Doesn't sound like "can't eat anything" at all!
By the way, RAGE, how come you don't ask me if I'm a boy or a girl? Do you sort of assume I am a horny male? Nice.
R: Would you relocate?
B: Hell yeah!
R: Do you want to move to Israel?
B: Move to Israel?? What? I am marrying you for the Green Card baby! No Israel. I want the dollars!
R: Hair covering after marriage?
B: What? Hair covering? Where? That's a little personal, don't you think?
R: Kipa?
B: Nope.
R: Tzitzit?
B: No. Wait! I have a kipa somewhere! I use it about once a year or so. Though it's usually kind of sad and involves someone dying.
R: Jewish education?
B: Oh yeah! Betzefer Mitzpe!!!
R: Describe in words, your family's religious background if any?
B: In words? Okay. My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. Their parents are Jewish too. They say they had to get really good grades in school because back in the USSR they would only let a few Jews into University. I don't remember anything particular about religion. But seriously - your father will LOVE me. I am sure. I'll pretend I like McCain!!!
R: Personality traits:
(Insecure/Nervious) B: Aren't we all? Jewish, remember?
(Argumentative) B: Hmm, not really.
(Intellectual) B: Hell yes, I am a regular Karl-fucking-Marx!
(Low maintenance) B: I see where you're going. Lets say 100K a year from your father will do. I don't need much.
R: Reference (non-family)?
B: Oooh, you're taking this seriously. It's like I am applying for a job. Okay, okay. My army commander, good?

Flixwagon is bloody cool!
Allows to broadcast video directly from your iPhone. The moment you tap "stop" on the iPhone it's up on the web.
Killer.

The Chinese team dominated the 2008 Olympic Games, winning 51 gold medals, 15 more than second-placed USA.
But the Chinese are not the only ones celebrating. Great Britain finished 4th in the medal count, winning 26 total medals, 11 of which gold.
This is the best achievement by the British team since 1912. Impressive. I've decided to find out how exactly did they do in the 1912 Olympics, held in Stockholm, and found out some very interesting stuff.

The football gold medal for Britain required a 7-0 thrashing of Hungary in the second round, a 4-0 victory over Finland in the semis and a 4-2 victory of Denmark in the final. Not very convincing scores in those times as Finland was also defeated by the Netherlands 9-0 in the third-place match and Russia beaten by Germany 16-0 in the consolation tournament.
Finland, by the way, was represented by its own team, without actually being an independent state at the time but rather the Grand Duchy of Finland, part of the Russian Empire. Interestingly, the Finnish team won 26 medals while the Russian won none.

The tennis competition that featured separate (!) events for indoor and outdoor, saw the British win 6 medals total, including a gold and a silver in the mixed doubles indoor event.
The shooting team won another 9 medals, none of which in the “running deer” events, which did not include shooting at actual running deer, but rather at deer-shaped targets with 3 circles on them.

But no medal was as satisfying as the silver medal in the tug of war event. Yes, tug of war.
5 teams signed up for the competition, but the teams from Austria, Bohemia and Luxembourg failed to appear, and so, for the first and only match, Great Britain represented by the City of London Police clashed with the local Stockholm Police. From the Wikipedia article:

The bout consisted of a best-two-of-three contest. The competition was held on July 8, 1912. In the first pull, the Swedish team steadily pulled the British squad across the center mark. After a five-minute break, the second pull was started. In this one, neither team gained the victory through pulling the other across the line, but after a prolonged stalemate a couple of the London men succumbed to exhaustion and sat on the ground, disqualifying them and giving the Swedes the victory.

Tug of war went on to be contested for the last time in the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp.
Those were the days.

Getting away
I'm taking some time off, finally, in the end of September. Been busy the last couple of days thinking up stuff to do and see.
I'll start with a week in Paris (never been), then going to Oktoberfest in Munich (long time dream come true! River of beer here I come!), then to my Brother's in Vienna, then probably move to the warmer south of France and Spain, hopefully do a trek in the Picos de Europa National Park.
Anybody knows of good stuff happening in October in those areas? Also, what are the best places for trekking in Spain?

In the Future Everything Will Be on the Internet
Some tips on planning your travels on the net:
The abundance of budget airlines makes moving around inside Europe on a plane the best option for anything but the shortest trips. Wikitravel have a good list of all the different companies (there are many!). Ryanair, easyJet and AirBerlin have the largest networks. My personal favorite is AirBerlin. A flight will cost you the same or less as the train ticket for almost any destination. Few tips:
1. Besides checking out the biggest three, check also the local budget airlines for the country you're flying to/from. They tend to have the best price. For example, the Spanish Clickair is usually the cheapest for flights to, from and inside Spain. AirBerlin is best for Germany and Austria.
2. Weekends (Saturday-Sunday) are much more expensive, fly mid-week.
3. Check out prices for the day just before and right after the date you wanted, sometimes there are dramatic differences.

A good place to see railway ticket prices and schedules is the Rail Europe site. The national railway sites themselves tend to suck and not show the actual ticket prices.

Airline ticket comparison sites always used to be slow and give shitty results. SideStep which I didn't know about before, works absolutely great, searching the discount airlines as well and giving the best tickets really fast. It also works great for car rentals. Speaking of which, easyCar which I think is the same company as easyJet, are almost always the cheapest and they have really great deals.
easyJet? easyCar? What I really need is easyWoman and easyLife.

A good site to see bus schedules and prices in Spain is movelia.

On a side note, it's really hard to find high quality information on stuff that doesn't cost money, like places to visit, stuff to do, trekking routes etc.
What comes up in searches is either commercial tour operators, very limited information from travel guide publishers (like Lonely Planet) that just want you to buy the book, or information in the local language. Wikitravel, which I thought will really close this market once and for all is actually pretty pathetic and has very little information. I sense a niche here. Hmmm.

Ever wanted to find out what is the search volume on Google for a particular term?
This is very useful for market research, playing around with start up ideas and specific products and features for the web, and plain old curiosity.
Here's how to do it:
Setup a Google AdWords account (20 seconds) and go to "Campaign Management -> Tools -> Keyword Tool":





Tons of useful information to be enjoyed.

Just found a cool feature on CafePress: you can place your Google Analytics tracking code on your CafePress store. Sweet.
Found under "Your Account -> Manage Shop -> Update Tracking Information".

Also, new design - Chuck Norris shirts on Bitzwear.

Update: this wasn't clear enough - before typing in the tracking code in CafePress you should create a website profile for your shop, using the "Add Website Profile" in Google Analytics and typing in the shop's URL (e.g. www.cafepress.com/your_shop). Then paste in CafePress the code generated by Google Analytics.

Before: Best movie ever on IMDB??
Plot: Dark as Batman should be.
Acting: Michael Cane, Garry Oldman and Morgan Freeman - spot on, as always. Heath Ledger - bloody good.
The girl: Maggie Gyllenhaal - WTF?? Suffice to say, I'd almost prefer to have her brother Jake make out with the Joker, Brokeback-Mountain-style, then her. Only good thing is she Spoiler (rhymes with "cries").
The action: Yes!
The bad guy: Oh yes!
Annoying: Look, visitors at the Cinema City: do not laugh as morons when the Joker tells a joke. This is not Die Hard. He's a *sad* clown.
Bottom line: Better than Godfather? No. But motherfucking good.