1. Google “braces“. Or look it up on wikipedia.

2. Attempt to edit the following text, sent to us (today, our deadline) by one of our advertisers:

“Reflection from the prosthetic dentistry

History of the prosthesis it’s more than four thousand years old. The evolution is continuous. The cooperation between the dentist and the patient – to be fruitful and professional - necessary active accommodates and correct, but critical remarks. The target and the goal if the finished prosthesis - in to filling - well be in the part of the patient. The dental technicians work absolute determinative.
One modern dental - technician laboratory have extremely much different functions, be up against many difficult tasks. The technician, under the role (process) used for basic commodity: metals (precious and non precious), ceramics and synthetics.
The technicial developing is definitive. Hi - tech, to days inside this world to. The patient expectations: biocompatibility, function, but more important the aesthetics.

One - maybe best - way to the metal free solution made it by CAD/CAM (computer aided design / computer aided manufacturing) This technology to the framework normally be in use:
cyrkon-oxid
presinterized cyrkon-dioxid stabilized for yttrium

Covering this material the branch used the different ceramics.
Advantage:
Exceptional accuracy
Structure (texture) to the material is absolutely moderate (homogeny)
Biocompatibility
Perfect aesthetics impression

Up to this point we are talk about the background. End off the production that is a hand made. Make it the dental – technician, consulting with dentists, who give the direct information from the patient mouth situation. The teeth colors, structures, shape is personalized, that give for the patient cloudless smiling.”

You are wish my job have!

*UPDATE September 25, 2006* For a fully-detailed account of all the rioting, in the form of an English-language blog written by people who were actually there, check out this link. It has tons of pictures too. 

So, I’ve been getting a few concerned e-mails from family and friends about the recent riots here in Budapest. The whole story starts last spring, when the governing socialist party was reelected by a narrow margin over the right-wing nationalists. While neither party was really very great - the Socialists *said* they would lower taxes, cut spending and government, and encourage foreign investment, and the Nationalists basically said they would repatriate ethnic Hungarians from the surrounding countries, also cut the budget deficit, and declare war on “outsiders” (meaning Gypsies) - the masses spoke and the reds were left to do their jobs. Since then, the government has fired a third of its employees, raised taxes on everyone, and been rocked by criticism about overspending on public works, delays in implementing new subway and tram lines and more. The austerity measures being taken to get Hungary’s budget deficit below 3% (it’s now at about 10%) and thus adopt the Euro as a common currency are grimly tolerated by people in Budapest, and are extremely opposed by the rest of the country, which makes up the Nationalists’ base constituency.

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Today will mark one full year to the day that I arrived in Hungary. To celebrate, we got up early to go to Magyar Posta, aka the post office, to finally pick up my camera flash, which was sent to me from the states oh, about 3 weeks ago. It turned out that because we had insured it, it suddenly became a dutiable item, and the customs office wanted damn near $75 to clear it. Of course, they didn’t tell us about this, or send any notification that it had arrived in Hungary at all, and we had to track it down ourselves (thanks to Mama Agi and E-star). Then we had to have my mother send a fax stating that the item sent was “actually just parts”, with a value not exceeding the dutiable limit, and that they should give it to me or their first born would be locked in the Nikon service center fielding complaints for the next ten years. For reasons unknown, this actually worked, and we headed over this morning to pick it up. Of course, they wanted a “holding fee”. This is how the second world works.

*UPDATE - September 22, 2006*

On Wednesday I went to the Nikon facility to demand action. While at first the same flunky that I’d been dealing with until now tried to brush me off, I was finally allowed to speak with the general director. I was able to convince him to call the European distribution center in the Netherlands, which is apparently still waiting for the “very rare” parts that my camera needs from Japan. I offered to call  both places myself, but their procedures do not allow it and apparently there is no European Service center that will take complaints. However, he did say that he could *almost* guarantee that the camera would be repaired by October 4th. When I asked for that straight out in writing, he refused. Furthermore, because physical damage to the camera was discovered, none of it will be covered under warranty service. The most he offered, or rather conceded when I asked for some kind of compensation for the 3+ months it will have taken to repair my camera, was a discount on labor costs. His estimated total cost of repairs, less the possible fifty bucks in labor: $346.70

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Updates are coming soon. This includes: my current job status, my recent trip to beautiful Montenegro (with a photo gallery), and why I hate Nikon and think they should die. Stay tuned. And if you’re REALLY bored, you can just go back in the archives and have yourself some laughs!

Made it a point this evening, the first free Monday I’ve had in a month, to do something symbolically related to thinking about what happened five years ago this day. So E and I went to the Palace Kossuth cinema to check out United 93, about the last of the four hijacked planes of September 11th, 2001. This post may be old news for those of you in first-world countries who get movies delivered on time, but here in Budapest things move at their own pace.

Anyway, I had skimmed a couple of reviews of the film, mainly to certify that it would not be an “America - F yeah!” rah rah go get ‘em type, which in these cynical days of wasted good will I could honestly imagine. Satisfied to that regard that it was a serious portrayal of the events of that day, I decided to forgo further research and see the thing for myself. I was not ready for what I saw.

About fifteen minutes into the film, I wanted to leave. I think that over these five years we’ve wanted to just forget what happened. It’s hard - damn near impossible - to watch the events unfold, knowing in the back of our minds the inevitable, terrible ending. Although the hijacking itself takes place relatively late in the film, the tension builds at a constant rate, based on our collective knowledge and memory of the sound-bites, images, and unfocused thoughts of that sunny morning. I stayed, biting my tongue and trying to steel myself for the questions that would be addressed as the film went on. As crushing as the ending inevitably was, I emerged knowing that it was important to have seen this film, if only to have one more image of the horror of humanity burned into my conciousness, reminding me that, victims or terrorists, we are still all human.

To their credit, the filmmakers put together an amazing work. No shortcuts were taken, and a careful balance is maintained between sympathy, fear, heroism and faith. We are given just the slightest chance to see the terrorists both as sympathetic and also monstrous, filled with their own fear and clearly driven by it to commit their act. The confusion of the day is also well-demonstrated, by all the flight numbers of what was, is, could be and isn’t a hijacked plane being thrown around by air traffic controllers, military personel and so on. The politics of the film, as well, are played close to its chest; there are no statements or references to the President, for example, that are outrightly supportive or critical, but they could be (and likely are) debated in many a chat-room or editorial space.

Perhaps the only thinning of the plot was in the reconstruction of the events on board the airplane. The question of if, how, and to what extent a struggle occurred to regain control is no doubt timeless, and to tell the truth is pointless to argue. Surely any attempt to fight their captors was heroic - but does this make those on the other flights, who likely and reasonably thought they were being taken hostage and that their safety would be negotiated for, less heroic?

Just as pressing is the question we must ask ourselves: in the same situation, would we have acted differently than any of the passengers portrayed or not, on any of the flights? United 93 deserves credit for tapping our collective subconcious to construct what I at least had already constructed for myself in terms of what really happened. In the end, the details are less important. The horror is what remains.