Monday morning in Montevideo

Just another Monday AM in Montevideo. My work day started - well, when I decided to start it. I'm an entrepreneur so that usually means early. I was up about five to have everything ready for something later. "Everything" and "something" just got more and more fucked up as the week droned on....

Of course, it's COLD here. 11c was the temp display on an advertising sign when I was leaving central MVD to come home last night. It was even colder overnight and by morning my 3kg tank of gas was nearly empty. (No really, the 3kg tank of gas - it's what you use to heat, that or wood in a fireplace.)

AMERICAN READERS ONCE AND BLOODY BUGGERY FOR ALL FUCKING FIGURE OUT THE METRIC SHIT, m'kay? hmm???

It had nothing to do with the La Cigale ice cream I had with my friend Maika at Montevideo Shopping yesterday afternoon. I thought - this will be perfect. I'll order the ice cream and then run across to the San Roque and get lactaid-type pills.

No, I'm standing there with my ice cream, starting to eat it and explaining in really graphic detail the symptoms of lactose intolerance. He finally figured out what it was I wanted and he said "we don't carry it."

Yes, I cannot digest lactose in my old age. Gotta have the special tablets and then I'm sorted. Otherwise, well, I'm not so sorted.

Instead we went to Tienda Inglesa attached to the mall to get Yakult. Of course I still ate the ice cream knowing that there still might be hell to pay later. Yakult is shown at the top of the first picture. The first link goes to their Spanish/Portuguese site, this one to Yakult Australia might explain it better. It's like a fermented milk bacteria bomb that is actually good for your stomach.

I decided to go back to Tienda Inglesa during the work week since the place was super-full on a sunday afteroon. I like to explore the crazy crap they import.

This crap isn't necessarily all from Tienda Inglesa but some of it is. It's sort of my breakfast. Ok, so starting at the bottom center, we covered what Yakult is. It fixes your culo. Moving to the left, we have 'Polakitos' - um, not-very-politically-correctly named roasted peanuts - in other words - Little Polacks. In the center we have PanCatalan Tortugas. Or, in other words - hamburger buns. Damn close at least. Above that - sliced ham. Immediately to the left of that is a McDonald's (Uruguay) Beijing olympics collectible glass. For whatever odd reason I think they have five available. It makes no damn sense to me and I ultimately came home with 4, or a set as Americans would think of. Ok jumping to the left past the ham we have bananas. No really, just bananas. Uruguay's climate is not quite temperate enough for banana crops so I think these are from Brazil or they could just as likely be from Ecuador like the ones we get here in the USA.

Off to the right, my two laptops and in between them my HTC phone - Americans know it as a T-mobile Wing. Get the unlock code from T-mobile and it becomes a truly useful device. HTC GSM phones ROCK provided they are unlocked. When I am in Uruguay it has a local number, access to the internet, crackberry-style email ... everything you would expect. It's all hellaciously expensive by local standards but still far cheaper than roaming.

If I used it as a strictly T-mobile device all that neat-o stuff would work but I'd have a thousand-dollar-plus bill at the end of the month. Thus unlocked, I can put a 3rd company chip in the phone and have a local phone number and not get raped.

I have a little 3rd-world-marketed-only Nokia GSM1800 phone the actual T-mobile SIM stays in so that my American co-worker(s) can keep in touch when they deign to. I mention GSM1800 because that's the state-owned network, Ancel - they have truly INCREDIBLE coverage so I know for sure that at two bucks a minute I won't miss that goddamn all-too-rare phone call.

Lastly - a bottle of Salus mineral water. Carbonated of course. Why on earth would one buy a bottle of water if it didn't have bubbles?



Below is the heat source. Or, it's one option. You can get a small electric heater but if you use it constantly it will cost you US$250 a month. Oh and that curtain/metal door thing off to the right in the pic? The goes directly outside. Damn near every room in every house has such a draft leading to the outdoors!



As the morning goes on the expected "visitors" arrive. TCC (Tele Cable Color) is already doing a card-swap on their digital cable customers. Digital cable has gone the way of Europe here. The box is a little Chinese-made (ok that can be safely assumed of everything right?) DVB-C box. Translated - not the same as what the Americans do. Not at ALL.

But yeah a card swap already! Um, duh... yeah launch your system using Irdeto 1 (an encryption system) which has been widely hacked worldwide because its been used for a variety of satellite services. I mean, hacked for like oh... three years?! Every single one of the satellite services using Irdeto 1 moved to version 2 (that's sorta hacked too) or something else and then TCC launches with Irdeto 1. ;) I hope their contract included the first few card swaps.

(Don't even think to ask, please, where I may or may not have learned anything or nothing at all about conditional-access TV systems.)

So then an hour later (maybe less) another 'cadete' (translation - young guy on a motorbike) shows up from Anteldata with a replacement 'splitter' for Rodrigo's DSL. Yes, I know what it's FOR but I'm not going to bore you with it... he sure didn't. He wanted the old 'splitter' in exchange for the new one and a signature. I sign the form complete with UY ID number... why the fuck not, it's a part that costs $1.98?! Having signed I replace the part in the appropriate spot - um, no, still not working.... But he's gone and he didn't have a f'in clue what it was he was delivering nor how to install it.

The problem is still not solved. Fuck it, data still works, if I plug a phone in at the main jack data drops and I can dial 141 for a cab.

141 uses caller-ID pre-registered to the address and the voice basically says "If you're still at ____________(address), need a taxi NOW and are paying cash press 1." You press 1 and a minute or so later the voice tells you the license place number of the cab and whether it will be there in three or five minutes.

When I plug the rest of the house cabling back in, the phones no longer work but data comes back so at least its a consistent problem/solution.

Off I go to work. What "work" is exactly escapes me on many days - I'd been up since 5am doing it remember? But by that time it's 1230 Montevideo time which means 0830 Arizona time so I can reach my co-worker .... or her goddamn voice mail. Her voice mail is precisely what I get so, hell with it, off to the office without any new info for negotiation purposes. Fuck it all, I'll wing it another day.