It’s an uncommon pastime for me, as I tend to relegate habitual TV to the mindless. I don’t even own one of those infernal contraptions. Nonetheless, on this particular occasion, I managed to find myself in front of the idiot box when something very creative grabbed my full attention.

What a clever advertisement.

The rich visual treatment was in National Geographic documentary style: exotic locations, ethnic garb, facial diversity. The audio track using a live orchestra to set a mysterious mood, introduce excitement by drum beat, and build a miniature epic crescendo. Well-cast voice over with a compelling script presenting the intriguing proposition.

If a person had never heard of Brand X or Brand Y, both of whom competed in manufacturing Product Z, nor had that person ever heard of seen that product before in their lives was asked to compare the primary products of the two brands, which product would they prefer?

This new Whopper Virgins campaign is an innovative evolution on a long tradition of direct comparative advertisements.

Last century, the boob tube brought The Pepsi Challenge to the world. The golden age of radio brought hilarious shows like The Bickersons, sponsored by the Philip Morris Nose Test. In 1930, Sears ran one of the earliest known comparative ads in print, touting their tires over specific competitors.

Burger King is adding their name to the history of advertising with Whopper Virgins by doing what’s not been seen before. Instead of trying to convince people to make a choice between products they know, the company makes a greater effort to actually seek out people who have never experienced, seen, heard of the brand, the product, or category. Total virgins.

The carefully-crafted aura of scientific explorers at the remote edges of rural humanity seeks to frame the advertised results as being untouched by influences, natural and pure. Hence, we’re to believe that all things being equal, people love the taste of the Whopper over McDonald’s Big Mac.

It’s not hard to believe. Mickey D’s slaps a minuscule disc of meat into a fryer. Yech! If nothing else, Burger King grills their bigger portion of ground beef over an actual flame to impart a little smokey char flavor while allow the fat to drip out. Whether you’re a burger fan or not, the difference should be clear.

But what Burger King attempts to say is that product knowledge and brand attachment are meaningless for taste. It’s an interesting pitch.

While it’s likely that the full, actual results probably do show most tested persons did indicate a preference for the Whopper, it’s also probable that we’ll never the finite details tabulating exactly how much of a difference there was. For example, it’s entirely possible that 40% chose Burger King, 35% chose McDonald’s, and 25% did not register any distinction.

One might go so far as to speculate the country folks were being polite in selecting the least worst food.

The masterful stroke of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the creative agency behind the campaign, was to go the extra mile in filming a pseudo-documentary with “behind the scenes” action showing some character development, tactical planning, and a non-scientific cultural exchange of gastronomical diplomacy.

What’s the impact?

You feel like you’re watching trustworthy people conduct a fair test. You see rural farmers dressed in traditional clothing mystified by first sight of a product we’ve been conditioned to believe common.

You come to agree the unbiased results heavily indicate the Whopper is the decisive favorite. You feel good watching the epicurean ambassadors of America go off the beaten path to share one of our treasures with folks who’ve never had the opportunity.

And so you don’t feel they’re elitist, the film closes with the American team enamored with eating delicious food they‘ve never seen before made by the villagers.

A superbly executed comparative advertising campaign.

But that never stops hack writers from click whoring with made-up instacontroversies to stir up a bees nest over whether the ads are “exploiting indigenous people” as though the very phrasing had any relevant meaning whatsoever in this context.

These types of cranky nutjobs actually compare this to putting a gun to the head of starving people, a notion which would indicate the pundits are completely and utterly batshit insane. The drivel and nonsense spewing forth from their acidic reactionary tongues shows they’ve never been to the places shown or talked with the rural people shown.

All the people in the video work hard, love their lives, have plenty of food, and enjoyed the experience unlikely to come again in many of their lives. It seems clear to me some of the bizarre commentators haven’t ever visited the Hmong or been around farmers in Maramureş.

The thing is, my friends, is I generally expect overreaction by fringe elements out-of-touch with reality, usually because they care too much about rescuing others to bother getting their information right about the situation they cavalierly thrust themselves in the midst of.

What I’m not quite accustomed to yet is Romanian reaction.

It’s not that I’ve never seen chest-thumping national pride cause uneducated Romanian youths to lose all perspective over a joke before. Just you try approaching a sports bar in cartierul Astra la Braşov while wearing a Hungarian football jersey, waving a Turkish flag, proclaiming sarmale sucks, and gesturing provocatively in the crotchular vicinity, while urinating on a Dacia 1310.

But the supposedly educated marketing and advertising bloggers? Lemme tell ya, these guys are out to lunch.

Take, for example, the hysterical insecure bleating of the hoi polloi with an inferiority complex pretending to be business professionals over at Marketeer.ro — which I noticed happens to use a nationalist green as its dominant color much like Noua Dreapta, Partidul Pentru Patrie, and Partidul Noua Generaţie (PNG-CD), though I’m sure it’s merely ill-advised coincidence.

These kids are totally out of sorts, jumping up and down like someone just called their favorite dollie ugly.

The original poster, Doru Panaitescu, starts off by stepping firmly in a big, steaming pile of cacat with a seething claim the video was shot in a Calaraşi village with a disproportionately high percentage of Roma inhabitants. Grabbing factoids from thin air, the racist implication clearly being that the hated ţigani are in some way to blame for inferred degradation of the mighty and honorable Romanian pride.

Hogwash!

Of course, he’s later corrected by the simple fact that the Whopper Virgins video featured “Transylvanian farmers” from Maramureş, just as Burger King truthfully stated all along. Sorry, Vadim Tudor, there was no grand conspiracy to inflect harm on overly nationalistic Romanian youth. No secret filming locations to undermine national confidence. No need to get one’s patriotic BVDs all in a twisted bunch.

The piece at Marketeer continues with efforts to bolster the self-importance of Romania, while dismissing Thailand as nothing more than a jungle and Greenland as some kind of ice cube. The author goes out of his way to belittle the other countries by somehow insulting their natural terrain, although CP+B and BK never made any such innuendo.

I love Romania but let’s get real, people.

In the commercial, the specific countries were essentially irrelevant to the point they tried to make, so much so that Romania is not even verbally mentioned, whereas the insecure writer at Marketeer somehow feels the need to awkwardly claim Romania is superior because it has… history. Does he mean to say Thailand and Greenland do not have history?

The blog spouts more drivel about the village with apparently too many ethnic minorities, even though it’s irrelevant. Then, there’s brief, non-academic generalities about fast food. And then half-hearted, mealy-mouthed, suggested about a possible protest demonstration, as if that will do anything other than point out the absurdity of participants.

It’s nearly laughable, really, except there’s a small bundle of like-minded folks egging each other on in the comments with inflamed reactions such as labeling this advertising as “cultural rape” and a few raised fists shouting for some kind of boycott initiative.

If these people represented the future of business professionalism, then Romania would be a joke.

One typical comment, from Misha, expressed disdain that mighty and glorious Romania be included in an American television commercial that also showed Thailand and Greenland. She’s upset about jungles and glaciers, you see. Her only conclusion is that since she is from Transylvania and does not recognize a Transylvanian accent in the video, therefore Americans suck.

That’s teachin’ em, Einstein.

Someone else thinks “we” should buy Burger King an atlas. It’s a little hard to grasp the deep intellectualism of this proposal, but I gather the idea is to show BK a map so they can learn where Romania is… even though they were obviously already here.

And then you have silly ideas like threatening to send emails to Burger King with a link to the “World Without Romania” beer commercial on YouTube, as if the corporate executives watching video on their iPhones will be driven to tears and buy lots of Ursus afterward.

No matter that the video was clearly produced only to create brand loyalty among Romanian nationalists in the first place, by appealing to insecure desires for recognition and exploiting a sense of lacking self-identity. The rest of world outside of Romania basically never saw it.

Why do these people decide to feel insulted? You’d have to make a very strong effort to feel slighted by the commercial.

Don’t worry, children, you can always get together with your angsty teen friends to make a video response. But it’s your own fault if you ultimately end up taking a really funny concept and creating it in a way that pretty much sucks.

Since that didn’t work out too well, if you promise to stop crying and sniffling then I’ll let you make fun of rural cowboys in Texas. That’s sure to perk you right up and make you feel you “got even” with someone. Although I do hope won’t mind when I laugh right along with you. Afterall, there’s nothing for a mature person to feel insulted over.

Quit your hypersensitive bitching and bellyaching. If you’d shut your pie hole long enough to catch your breath and stop hyperventilating, you might remember that none of this is about you. Or about Romania. It’s only a televsion ad. Aimed at American audiences. About selecting a hamburger. And making that choice because some people living in far away rural places who have no idea what a burger is might choose the same burger the advertiser wants you to buy.

I suppose there will come a time when perhaps a few of those people will realize how silly their reaction was. Hopefully those poor fools will change their perspective and come around to a more nuanced understanding of life around them and their place in the universe.

Anyone can say something stupid when they don’t think about issues before speaking. A great many people have done so.  Just not me.

In the broader picture, I tend to see wisdom in some of the comments posted to an advertising blog I read, where the more enlightened thoughts were about how overly defensive reactions of the few can mar what is ultimately a creative way of showing those differences that makes us all the same.

There was a Halloween sugar overdose in late October.  A full month later came the unending amounts of turkey during Thanksgiving.  Then was a 30-day mad dash to put lights on the house and presents under the tree for Christmas.

Somewhere along the line, my perceptions improved.  Or the adeptness of soulless marketing shills.  Either way, I noticed that increasingly Christmas would “begin” immediately after Thanksgiving, as every shop in town immediately through up their decorations the very day after Thanksgiving as if to psychologically induce passers-by to empty their wallets for Christmas beginning immediately.

Later in life, I witnessed a change that was definitely new.  Some brazen store marketers would cross the line and beging putting up Christmas decorations a week or so before Thanksgiving, as a way of planting the seeds for the big After-Thanksgiving-Day Sale… which later became known as Black Friday (while a financial etymology, it nonetheless suggests the death of Xmas joy at the hands of blindingly overcommercialized saleshouting).

Last October, in Houston, Texas, I shook my head in disbelief as store after store rolled out the Christmas lights and other Santa-oriented decorations.  Before Thanksgiving.  Before Halloween. Yes, apparently, folks should be buying crap made in China for a full 3 months these days, just to keep up with the nonexistant Joneses of our TV-driven imagination.

But here in Romania, it’s the opposite situation.

Christmas is unable to be disturbed by Halloween or Thanksgiving, since they do not exist here.  And the merchants are only still at the beginning stages of overhyping the buying public into a comatose state of consumerism.

And yet, change creeps in.  Only, it is from the other direction, my friends.  Witness the encroachment found at a local grocery store in cartierul meu.

Uite.

They cling to the preposterous notion that Americans and other anglos are somehow captivated by a fictious character from 19th century Irish literature, namely Dracula.

While it may be fascinating for depressed 13 year old teenie boppers, I can assure you the rest of us don’t care at all.  Attempts to solicit commerce from adults by associating Romania with vampirism will be a sad failure netting a handful of bozos.

And yet it continues.

In the United States, the typical wine buyer has never heard of Romanian wine.   The few who have encountered it generally did so during the Halloween season at retailers promoting thematic oddities, such as a cheap Dracula wine and a subpar line of Vampire wines (whose ridiculously shallow owner eventually abandoned Romanian grapes altogether, to further fatten his purse).

Extending the farce, one can purchase from wine distributor Dracula Wines (a company so successful they apparently feel the need to run Google text ads on their website to make an extra nickel).

Romanian wine is, in effect, a joke to Americans.  Nice job, people.

Amazingly, it gets worse.

In Houston, I made a nuisance of myself by asking every grocer or liquor store I strolled into whether they carried Romanian wine or could special order some Palinca.  Nearly all were dumbfounded.  Romania makes wine?  What is pah-lean-kah?

However, at a Spec’s store in November, a chipper employee promptly responded in the affirmative and directed me to this tragic deposit of unsold “Halloween wine” gimmickery.

It’d be easy to justify paying more for a decade old bottle of wine, if it were given a rather rustic look compared to a standard bottle of wine.  Like treasure unearthed from a long-forgotten cavern below some WWII wreckage.  Everyone seems to admire its charm, wondering what you paid for it, and how it tastes.

Neither of which I’ll tell you. Buy your own.

If you (or someone you know) have money, there’s still time to seize an opportunity to establish what could be one of the wildest night clubs along the Danube. High revenue, low cost of living, relatively cheap labor, and a surrounding population hungry for something cool.

Imagine a terasa with dozens of tables spread across the grass. Three (count ‘em: 3!) stories of indoor baruri for upscale clients sipping on exotic cocktails and admiring the beautiful view of the riverside port. Throw a live DJ up top in the loft for entertainment.

With just a minimum of promotion, it’d be a sensation drawing Romanian and Serbian tourists from all over. Run the lethargic teens through a crash course in real customer service protocol and you could have a cash machine on your hands.

I suppose you might have to spread a few peanuts around to the local cops and small pond politicians to keep spirits high. And, yeah, sure, you’d need to get your hands a little dirty at the outset to polish the place up. But someone is going to do it.

It could be you.

Some moments it seems Romania could have a long-term economic disadvantage when I read about Austrians buying the banks, Dutch buying the breweries, Czechs buying energy concerns, British buying the property, French buying the car manufacturers, Swiss buying the ice cream makers, Germans buying the insurance conglomerates, and so forth and so on.

Rather than build lasting commercial empires, I worry about a future where Romanians have already sold everything like an international rummage sale when the economic games have only just begun.

Will the macro point of view be one where Romania only exists to be drained of its’ wealth potential? It’s a vampiric scenario to think of so many Romanian companies having their profits siphoned outside the borders.

From there I get to ranting about how various foreigners are taking possession of historical treasures, the radical absorption of massive amounts American culture through the entertainment and food/beverage industries, the rapid influx of retail brands from Hungary, the loss of seaside tourism to other parts of the Black Sea, and more.

When I rarely, if ever, hear about Romanian-owned companies exporting Romanian brands to the outside world, those are the times when I wonder what is happening to Romanian culture? It is really disappearing before our very eyes?

I hope I am overlooking some obvious and substantial enclave of Romanians who take pride in ownership, build some great businesses, brave the economic wars of entering new markets, and bring some of those profits back home.

A new generation of Romanian business leaders who don’t salivate over the exit strategy of quickly selling out to the nearest stranger with sacks of cash and then blowing it all on some wildly lavish escapism.

A bumper crop of serious entrepreneurs yearning to construct stable empires to hold.

Romania needs such iconic figures who breed successful outreach strategies enabling the nation to compete in the European Union and internationally without simply becoming a wilted plop of resources to be leeched.

Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Ukraine all represent logical markets for exporting Romanian-made products and Romanian-performed services sold under Romanian brands of Romanian-owned companies. There’s a ready audience right across the border just ripe for the taking. Do it.

While I clearly do not subscribe to the completely xenophobic or isolationist philosophies of Romania’s more, er, colorful political figures, I am unequivocal in my observation of a huge imbalance between foreign ownership and Romanian ownership.

The long and painful history of the Romanian peoples should not end with indentured servitude. Ba nu.

To lighten the mood, I’m hypocritically quite overjoyed to report on my latest findings in international commerce happenings here in the central economic hub of Bucureşti, colloquially known as the hot buzzing zona Rahova.

After much longing and despondent searching since prior excursions to the wilds of Sofia, my intrepid scouring of the busy Sector 5 streets has revealed someone finally imported the unbelievably fantastic Zagorka lager of Bulgaria into Romania.

Time to get on the clue train, you hip kiddies. Be the first one on your block to be super marfa. Ask about it at your local store (just like I incessantly badgered mine). Amaze your friends with your new-found sophistication by tipping back a glass of deliciousness.

Noroc!

Without being forced to register for anything, you can get both your hands dirty right away searching for properties that meet your interest. There are an impressively robust number of parameters you can access to refine your search to deliver some fairly specific results.

For example, I was curious to find new apartment construction in Braşov which featured air conditioning (an amazingly rare thing). To do that, I access the filters in the right hand column.

Clicking on Braşov, the site indicated my choice with a green checkmark and then filtered out the other cities. For other filters, you just rinse, lather, repeat.

For some of areas outside Bucureşti, the number of results to be found are a little anemic. I gather this is largely due to the realities that most of this sort of development is happening the capital with a slower pace of growth in other major cities.

But what I was most impressed by was the fact that Rez.ro makes the effort to identify and present the construction initiatives across the country. A less-visionary group would have clung to the folly of myopic focus on Bucureşti exclusively. Instead, they’ve made a smart move to be inclusive.

So, once I’d been given a list of search results matching my criteria, it was time to take a look at the respectable number of details provided by Rez.ro’s online database. If the construction company makes the general property information available, then Rez.ro shares that with you.

For some properties there is more information than others. In my case, I could read some of the marketing information about the apartment having spacious design, energy-efficient storm windows, a phone jack in the bedroom, and other little data niceties.

One of the first things I wanted to do was click the thumbnail images for the property. Instead of popping up a new window (because we all use browsers like Firefox to block annoying popups, don’t we?) which might result in new tabs for some of us with 90 tabs open, the website developers made a very intelligent decision to simply overlay a layer right on top of the existing page.

Although Google does not have quality satellite photos of Romania (except decent quality in Bucureşti), people like Martin have implemented a system to overlay the location of the apartments on top of Google Maps in order to give you a good approximation as to where precisely the development is going on in your town.

As you see, Google’s images aren’t so hot for Braşov. But, if you know your own city, then you’ll recognize the location and immediately know where it’s located. Of course, Rez.ro will benefit in the future when Google updates their satellite photos to the “quite okay” level of detail available for Bucureşti.

For registered users, you can start/join a public bulletin board discussion about the property or even save it in your own list of ‘favorites’ which is basically a watch list you can use to keep track of apartment complexes you are interested in (or to keep up-to-date on the competition, if you’re in the real estate game).

Unfortunately, if you aren’t registered you get a rather unfriendly message.

Hopefully, Rez.ro will review little annoyances like that in the future. In this case, instead of a penalty message, the user should have been invited to sign up along with a short bullet list of reasons why (“what have you done for me lately?”).

From the details page, even unregistered people can email property details to someone, contact the property developers with your sales inquiry, or click for a list of the individual apartments inside the particular property in order to find a particular one.

Let’s say I want to be on the 3rd floor (not too high in case the elevator breaks, as the Romanian ones invariably do) but not on the lowest levels where you get lots of noise from passing cars and foot traffic.

Remember, my American friends, in Romania, the first floor is not called the first floor. It’s called the parter. And “etaj 1″ is the second floor…

Ah, here we go. Etaj 2, with three rooms, and rather sizable 108 square meters (approx.1162 sq ft).

Clicking for more details shows me the building has four floors, which means someone will be living above me. One and a half baths means I can direct guests to the toilet that isn’t cluttered with bathroom malarkey.

Oh, look, a floorplan layout! Say, that looks relatively swanky in my book.

I hope Rez.ro has someone tasked with getting higher resolution images, because I’d like to see that floorplan a bit larger. Sometimes getting timely cooperation from property developers can be like pulling teeth, so I’m happy to see they have anything at all.

Since I haven’t won the Romanian lottery, how would I go about paying for this comfortable living space? Well, Rez.ro has the pertinent information broken down for you with a nice financial review of what the terms are for your particular apartment.

And that’s what’s ultimately motivating this website. I’m sure you’ve been wondering what kindly soul dreamt up such a great system for researching new apartment construction in Romania. Quite simply, they’re hoping to make a buck by helping you finance your purchase.

CreditLink is the driver behind the wheel here. From what I gather, they’re essentially playing the role of mortgage broker. They’ll help you get organized for a loan application, then work with several major lenders in order to get you approved. For their blood, sweat, and tears necessary to make sure you get that beautiful apartment, they pick up a fat commission.

Everybody wins!

I think CreditLink has a real winner on it’s hands with Rez.ro. The work being done by folks like Andu and Martin should have a big pay-off down the line. This is one of those great projects that borrows good ideas from other countries, then localizes them for the Romanian market.

Someone’s gotta do it. And these people have done a fine job indeed. I think it’s absolutely great that someone put together a solid plan based on a vision of what can be done here in Romania. Combine that with some quality execution and you get Rez.ro, a website you can easily recommend to friends in the market for new apartments.

Martin indicates an English version will be arriving in March.

In my mysterious past, I’ve had direct experience with exactly what it takes to create and market a complex, profitable, online real estate system which had previously never been seen before in the United States. Therefore, I am quite certain a large amount of work has been poured into Rez.ro and what its’ potential for long-term valuation might be.

There are a number of ways in which CreditLink can further monetize the value of this web application, but they’ll have to keep a steady hand on the wheel to determine which opportunities should be passed over, for fear of driving away users, and which revenue streams should absolutely not be overlooked.

I hope they continue to refine the system, add new features, and invest in the human resources necessary to dramatically improve the quality and amount of content. Content development and cooperative partnerships will improve the user experience, provide alternate revenue streams, and drive the core mortgage brokering business.

They’ll also need to keep a very close eye on scalability, because any poor performance of the site will become part of the brand. It was running very fast when I first tried it a couple weeks ago, but today it was noticeably slower.

You can easily forgive that because they’re the only game in town as far as I know. However, when the competition arrives trumpeting some shiny new website, you don’t want to be known as that old slow site.

In the meantime, congratulations to whole team behind Rez.ro for their efforts to develop a truly innovative player in the Romanian real estate market. I’d rate CreditLink’s Rez.ro as a strong example for other companies to follow the lead of and for other industries to view as a role model.

The Romanian real estate industry has begun evolving.

Stand proud in recognition that such venues remain sufficiently mysterious enough to give you that rush of adrenaline that comes from taking great risks to eat like the native.

Valid for the purist seeking authentic experiences in any city, town, and village. Braşov is no exception to your guiding principle of avoiding chains, franchises, and other tainted commodity establishments while visiting strange, far-flung lands at the outer realms of the known world.

Leave the guidebook at home and go get lost.

You may find the very purpose of your life was to set out as the intrepid explorer who would unwittingly discover the thrills of being the first alien to unearth a quaint little pastry shop and to shed the light of publicity upon it.

Most often, you’ll find it conveniently buried down a quiet, dusty street surrounded by bloc apartments filled with suspicious residents who peer out from behind protective curtains anytime their sixth sense signals the alarm that a foreigner has breeched the cartier perimeter.

For example, you just might stumble upon such a hidden gem while larking about the Florilor neighborhood of Braşov, Romania, in which case you’d be ruffling the feathers of the cloistered neurotics busily spying on your radically unfamiliar walking style in the vicinity of Str. Branduşelor, Nr. 50 A.

Like a sweet-toothed moth drawn toward the bakery’s light, your subconscious detects the cheerful colors of handcut vinyl stickers spelling out words you don’t understand as they slowly lose contact with the glass and find their edges peeling.

As your ciliary muscle relaxes, shelves upon shelves of pasteries reveal themselves to you. Language is no longer a barrier to comprehension. Step closer, stranger, and witness the menagerie of flavors unknown.

Sweet bread, the length of a forearm, smothered in chocolate may beckon. Perhaps the siren song of pastry shaped like polish pretzels will dance in the air. Then again, the sugar-dusted puffs stuffed with Turkish Delight may prove irresistible.

Of course, any red blooded American will recognize the unmistakable patriotism of apple strudel which has the honorable distinction of service as Official Pastry of Texas initiated just days after former Texas governor George W. Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq four years ago.

Thoughtful photographers will survey all the various options on display before meditating deeply over the consequences of any given choice. Chaos theory clearly states that in such extreme circumstances space and time will crumble in the vortex of singularity, thus provoking bliss (academically referred to in Latinish flanc cu caşcaval).

Whatever the outcome of your particular adventure into the vibrant lives of kiosk food salesmanship, you can look forward to bragging to your friends and family about your predilection for cavalier approaches to comestible consumption.

A giant among mere men, you know no fear.

Never, but never, devolve into self-defeatist second guessing about why the woman behind the counter got upset by your taking pictures of the little shop. Or how it was absurd she would not divulge the name of the company despite it being painted on the outside of the building.

Don’t worry yourself trying to make sense of what her motivation could have possibly been for insisting you speak to the owner (whom she had no idea when or if he would ever come next) in order to verify the street address so you could publicize the yummy goodies on the dark and scary internet.

Instead, focus on the positive speculation about whether the merchants likely kept the money local by hiring their neighbor Mihai to defend them once you belatedly find out the company was suspended by national authorities concerned about the dramatically unsanitary conditions used to prepare the very pastry you ate.

I think Apple is making a strategic mistake with respect to their pricing in Romania. Granted, I understand revenue models vary and, often times, one of the more profitable routes is to sell fewer units at higher margins.

But these are temporary times of new opportunity for Apple to gain marketshare while Microsoft’s horrid Vista product reveals itself to be the flop that it is. A moment in time where people, in larger numbers than previously, say to themselves, “you know, I should dump this Windows junk, but what is my alternative?”

Apple knows they must strike while the iron is hot which is why they’ve launched a barrage of mildly humorous adverts (and hilarious ones in the UK). The bigwigs in Cupertino are hip to the crack in Redmond’s armor. Bill Gates’ team has really blown it this time around.

It’s a full-court press and the Apple war chest is being put to very good use as the company bobs and weaves in the ring, jabbing away at chair-throwing opponents.

In the United States, Apple has worked very hard to tighten its’ belt and compete on price. There’s been an outdated cliche about Macs being expensive, but that old wives’ tale hasn’t been true for years.

The fact is plain: feature for feature, Apple products are highly competitive on hardware and simply blow the doors off when talking about software.

It’s a better machine, a better experience, and a better bargain.

Surely, thought I, Apple must be sensitive to the economic realities of Romania’s significantly lower income levels and make their best effort to offer their products as far down as they dare, during this momentous opportunity.

Heck, with the typical income having skyrocketed to a mindboggling $544 per month, I thought the Apple prices in Romania must be, at least, roughly the same.

Bzzzt!

Not only is Romania in the Middle East actively subsidizing the American invasion of Iraq and the looming British (by proxy) invasion of Iran, but it would seem they’re being asked to compensate for low computer prices in the US as well.

Let’s take a look at how blatantly obvious the situation is, shall we?

Starting at the entry-level, Apple offers the Mac Mini which is designed for people who want to use their existing PC monitors, keyboard, and mouse. Just upgrade the box to this little doozy.

It’s a stylish piece which makes considerably less noise than your typical PC and takes up dramatically less space in your home or office. It’s dual-core platform packs a punch strong to enough to handle most people’s requirements for a computer such as email, web, video chat, watching movies, editing photos, composing music, home-networking, et cetera.

For many PC users looking to convert, this might be the right package for them. It’s priced quite nicely in America even after taxes for, say, Houston. How about Germany or Romania? Not so pretty.

Wow! Romanians are asked to pay an extra 33% than their American counterparts, even though they make substantially less income on average. No doubt this will curb popular adoption of an otherwise great product which should perfectly fit many Romanian pocketbooks, if not for the gross oversight.

What if you’re just buying your first computer? Or what if you’re sick of your nasty old monitor and the rollerball mouse that hardly works? Well, Apple has a solution for you: the iMac.

It’s a highly stylish feat of engineering where Apple designers have essentially placed a very powerful computer on the back of an LCD flat-panel monitor which takes up very little room without any need for a big clunky PC box.

There’s a gorgeous 20″ monitor available with a built-in, high quality webcam already included. It does everything you want like creating your own movies, burning DVDs, video games, and pretty much anything else with nearly effortless ease.

This marvel of machinery is very well priced in the US market, even after Seattle tax rates. Do the myriad of zillionaires in Romania get the short end of the stick, again? You bet they do.

The financially-burdened peasants from the west can get the same computer for only 75% of the price charged to wealthy Romanians living in their lavish castles in the sky.

It’d be better to take a train to Germany and come back home to Romania. One might have expected the opposite to be true, but apparently Apple isn’t interested in Romanian marketshare and has ill-advisedly given up on a nation fiscally forced to pirate Windows 98.

Naturally, one becomes a little more nervous when taking a look at something higher-end like the drool-worthy 17″ MacBook Pro laptop.

This is no mere lil’ notebook computer, but a high-powered, mobile unix workstation dripping with OS X ease-of-use glory. It has all the extras you might expect in a top-of-the-line laptop: illuminated keyboard, Firewire, DVD burner, Bluetooth, Wifi, built-in video camera, dual-core processors, and much more. It’s thin, weighs nothing, looks gorgeous and is totally silent.

This is serious professional grade gear and yet the price still beats comparable machines from Sony, Dell, Toshiba, and whomever.

Well, it’s a good price in Los Angeles. But not in Romania.

It’s the same behavior all over again. Romanians are asked to pay a 33% premium over the American price. Think about it in raw dollars… it’s a bonus of US$1,123. Well over a grand? There is no reasonable explanation for that.

Folks, for that kind of money, I can take a flight all the way from Bucureşti to the far west coast city of Seattle with only 2 weeks advance notice. The flight stops over in Schiphol airport and you’ve got some flexibility to keep your itinerary efficient or to maximize your layover so you can stretch your legs for many hours and enjoy the town.

Are the executives responsible for European sales ignorant and incompetent? Could it be some matter of disrespect for the potential of the Romanian market? Or is it just possible that Apple enjoys robbing Romania?

You tell me. With the chance to spend two half-days (or longer!) in Amsterdam plus visit Seattle, America’s best city, why on earth would I bother to buy higher end products at the Romanian Apple Store?

Cue the sound of crickets.

Mihai Panaitescu, a Romanian designer from Focşani who is attending school in Italy, developed this winning concept car design for French automaker Peugeot. In his design notes, he believes the car, Flux, will serve to bind the human with his natural surroundings rather then insulate. He goes on to imagine the car would be powered by hydrogen fuel cells and be constructed with very light-weight materials such as plastic and aluminum (aluminium).

Peugeot is actually going to construct the automobile as a prototype to show off at the prestigious Internationale Automobil-Ausstellungen auto show this September. They also plan an award ceremony in Geneva to honor Mihai and others in October. And they’re cutting him a check for nearly eight grand, according to C|Net.

Not too shabby.

French toymaker Norev plans to profit from the sale of scale-model diecast collectibles of the design. Even Microsoft gets a cut of the action as they announce their intention to incorporate the car into one of their video games for the Xbox. A whole list of other contest partners stand to benefit in various ways from Mihai’s creation.

Mihai Panaitescu’s Flux concept was chosen as the grand winner from some 4,000 submissions. Check out the second and third place winners. From there, you can explore some of the other interesting designs on your own. Or take a gander at Mihai’s graphic design using Star chips and other Romanian brands.