A former latin american exile writes about life..

Ok so I gave up a comfy boring life to go live in South America. Lots have suggested that I write about my experiences, so here it finally is.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Whip it good. In court, no less.


80's wonder-band Devo is suing McDonald's over a happy meal toy.

Only in America would a band whose only play is on VH-1 sue over something in the now. I'm hard-pressed to think what they are protecting...

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Monday, June 23, 2008

computers say the darndest things

I was using a macintosh FTP software called Fetch to backup a website. My backup was rather too complete... explaining how this filename appeared in the list would just be boring.

It said "Getting head as binary data"

Indeed.

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Friday, June 20, 2008

400+ arrests for mortgage fraud

It's way too few. Everyone that signed a liar loan (state your income, then they don't verify it) or took cash back, every straw buyer should get arrested.

I suppose I shouldn't bitch much. From a personal point of view this is causing a price adjustment in the housing market that was long overdue, and with any luck will actually lower the national average credit score.

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China's ready for the olympics :)



Given the tone of the rest of the sign, it should say "Please fuck off..." rather than "...leave off..." - but it might give closeted homosexuals from, say, Idaho the wrong idea.

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Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Jon and Kate plus 8 - voluntarily watch bickering on cable TV

Daaaaaaaamn. These two are a piece of work. Philadelphia area family because thats where Discovery Communications is based.

I actually was contacted years ago by the Discovery producers when an ex and I went to Vermont to civil union! I think in shopping for the justice of the peace someone was getting a finders fee for an out of state couple and I seriously talked with them, getting to the point of seeing a faxed contract. It was ALL ABOUT us being a spectacle for them and nothing in it for us. We read the contract and decided - this is a great way to sign up to be a forever-repeated freakshow for middle America. PASS!

But this Philly area couple with a set of twins and a set of sextuplets (that's EIGHT kids or a worst case of what can happen when one messes with fertility drugs)... it's almost painful to watch them. The two are VICIOUS.

If Jon and Kate finally ever divorce it's going to make incredible reading on thesmokinggun.com. Kate is great with the kids but the way she treats her husband - she needs some dalmatians and a fur. Again - VICIOUS.

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Mexico vs. other countries in central/south America - I'm seeing the difference

Ok, the difference started to hit home when my friend R from Uruguay told me specifically he did NOT want any part of visiting Mexico on his trip to the southwestern USA.

Having seen Costa Rica, Uruguay, Argentina and Mexico in the past seven months... I'm starting to "get it."

Living in Phoenix, I see Mexican TV. No, not just the local channels that are in Spanish but the full feed of Mexican cable channels through a satellite service. Phoenix, Los Angeles - even as far north as San Francisco... the Sky signal hits all those places although the further north you get the poorer the signal quality gets.

I got home this evening and decided... damnit, I get all these US and Mexican channels, may as well USE the Sky box for awhile tonight seeing as I've just paid the bill for the service - and it's not cheap. To get BBC World you have to subscribe to the full package.

BBC world does a whole 20 minute segment on the battles between the drug cartels on the border vs. the MX police. So I was curious and knew that the local news channel probably had the live feed of the local news from TJ.

And it was this evening I started to "get it." To buy a gun in the USA is trivial. Techincally it's a big crime "delito"/"felony" under the Mexican legal system to bring guns and ammunition into Mexico. But apparently a large quantity of Americans smuggle them into Mexico for re-sale.

It's obvious why... crossing from Mexico to the USA you can be subjected to everything from car disassembly to x-rays to whatever. USA to Mexico? Odds are, you just drive across. No examination of papers, nothing. You absolutely positively have to have MX auto insurance and they don't check for it. Supposedly further into Mexico there are checkpoints where papers ARE checked but in the border area - not so much.

So that's the information I put together between BBC and my own experience.

Then I switched to the Tijuana local news. The government of Baja California has a steady stream of advertising about how they are improving the police despite all the officers killed in the last six months (eight at last count). The news stories just from today were super-graphic with gun battles etc.

In Costa Rica, Uruguay, and Argentina - the government has good control over its territory.

Now, this doesn't stop me from exploring northern MX. I even take my car, GPS navigation makes Baja much less scary! I figure... if my number is going to come up, it's going to come up. It's largely sightseeing because there are some incredible views between Tijuana and Mexicali on the MX-2 toll road. But I only travel during the day and I keep a close eye in the rear view mirror.

I make DAMN sure all papers are in order for both sides of the border and don't take any stupid risks. The views are worth it!

But then contrast that to the other three countries. Far fewer battles between the police and anything. Argentina is the most risky but its orders of magnitude less. Uruguay? Damn, the country is organized based on France. One feels really safe. And Costa Rica is a whole different economic critter than the other three - CR has a BIG middle class so there is less crime pressure and the police presence feels a bit like in the USA. The capital city is dangerous in parts but the coastal areas - provided you use common sense - are super-safe.

In Mexico I would never drive at night. Ever. Argentina - less likely but its more for reasons of traffic safety. (Hell, even during the day... the Argentines are INSANE behind the wheel!) Uruguay? I would not think twice about driving at night. Safe, but you might have to give small gifts to the highway police if they stop you. Costa Rica? Depends. In San Jose probably depending on the neighborhood, in the beach areas probably as well. The beach areas of CR - your biggest danger is drunk drivers. Long distance travel in CR at night - probably not. The country is quite mountainous and while distances between locations are relatively short... the roads are difficult to navigate even during the day where they pass thru the mountains.

But definitely after the 3rd variation on the GobBC police commercials during the TJ local news... I was starting to understand why R didn't want to go into Mexico. It'd be depressing.

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Giving away the store

On the way home from work I stopped at the supermarket to buy dinner. I used to buy for weeks at a time but my habit changed living in Uruguay.

The person in front of me was buying wine. It's faster at that time of day to use the "self" check-out... and the guy tried to show his ID to the woman in charge of the four lanes of "self" check-out.

I noticed there was an out-of-order sign on the terminal used to control the four check-out lanes where she would ordinarily do whatever on that touch-screen to "authorize" his wine purchase. (Those outside the USA - we have stupid laws that set the legal age at 21 and huge penalties for stores and the employees themselves that sell to someone under 21.)

She told him she would come back when he was ready to pay.

Um, he had two items... but she disappeared to go do something else and the "self" checkout lane terminal said it required authorization to complete the transaction. She finally came back over after a minute or two and did the "employee override" button.

The size of the screen made it very easy to shoulder-surf the all-numeric user-ID and password which was something ludicrously easy to remember that corresponded with the company's internal store number (which prints on all receipts).

I doubt that I will try to use that user/password combo for myself but I can't believe that's their plan B. I bet that most of the stores in that chain use something equally guess-able given that most technology deployments have the user ID and password as the weakest link. The screen changed colors and one could do price adjustments or whatever before resuming as the "customer" and completing the transaction.

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US elections 2008

It's been interesting to see things start to polarize now that it's pretty much a given that it's Obama vs. McCain.

A US election is based on fear, hysteria and car bumper stickers. I use the term "car" loosely since most McCain bumper stickers are on the giant vehicles like Hummer, Chevy Tahoe, etc. - i.e. the driver's ASS is planted in a seat that STARTS at the top of my car's ROOF.

But no matter how many of the republicans are sitting on my face, I'm voting for Obama.

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Monday, June 16, 2008

Roomba vacuuming robot

In a word... Wow. The thing does a better job than my upright vacuum cleaner and its possible to sit on my ass and remote control it.

The jury is out on total cost of ownership.

Unexpectedly - Shaggy is not afraid of Roomba. I have a long way to go though to make my apartment Roomba-friendly - your place already has to be pretty much clean (free of clutter) for the robot to do its job.

I'll be curious to see....

* Will Roomba zap a hard disk it passes by
* Will Shaggy decide that Roomba is another pet and thus mark territory?
* Will Roomba survive my style of housekeeping, or improve it?

The thing ran for about 45 minutes after I charged it 12... well 8 really... hours. There was still plenty of power in the battery, I was just tired and had it go back to its charging station.

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Sunday, June 15, 2008

Ambien + blogger -> last three posts LOL / Uruguayan currency

Holy crap. Well, at least the mileage on my car was the same last night as this morning :-) Just goes to show that when you take the CR pills (Mom and I joke that CR stands for chewable) because it knocks you on your ass faster - that you really should log off after you swallow.

(And yes, I deliberately wrote that sentence that way. Thank god cyber-sex hasn't provided a way to exactly make that happen although who knows...)

Upon waking up this morning I re-read that and it sort of makes/made sense at the time.

Now that I'm back in the USA for a full 24 hours, I *think* I've finally gotten all the foreign coins out of my pocket... between that and the left over paper money I've got 36 bucks in Uruguayan currency hanging about. Since the dollar is tending to fall against the Uruguayan peso I'm betting the money will keep its value or gain a precious few percentage points. But I'm also a realist: whatever value the money adds/retains will get eaten up by price increases!

Oh wait, that's really 46 bucks... I put about another ten bucks on my Movistar account to move my UY phone number expiration date far enough into the future so it still is active for my next trip. It's so cool to be able to just change the chip and the GPRS parameters on the phone as the plane lands :)

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Saturday, June 14, 2008

And the POINT of all this cryptic crap is:

A sample from Forevergreen says:


"People used to dream about the future. They thought there was no limit to progress. They dreamed of a clean, bright future, where science would make everything possible, and everybody better off. But somewhere along the line that future got canceled."


Frankly, world business conditions and politics have already caused cancellation of the future for many. But dammit, I'm going to be selfish. I don't want mine canceled.

I just have to tell it like it is.

Those of you who know me, I'll get you links ;) to the appropriate tracks so you can hear 'em in context and tell the rest of the story on the phone. I had quite a lesson in both humility and in (unfortunately) following that gut instinct NOT to trust others.

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We live in the short term and hope for the best

If it sounds vaguely familiar its a Scottish band that never escaped obscurity. Finitribe. The song? Forevergreen.

Why on earth does it interest me? Well, three reasons...

(1) somehow by coincidence I'd gotten hold of this cassette tape whilst I was 13 years old and delivering newspapers to make spending money....

(2) "We live in the short term and hope for the best" --- that was the utopian vision of that track from years ago.
If that wasn't what the whole goddamn last week was about, I just don't know how else to describe it....

(3) Somehow it connected the dots to Enya's Orinoco Flow track. I know its years later but in the timeline of my life its all a mishmash... Because damn it, I had to take a phone call from Venezuela in Montevideo. And that phone call underlined that "We live in the short term and hope for the best" is total bullshit.

Yes... utopian visions can be total bullshit.

The lyrics by themselves do not do it justice.

FOREVERGREEN

"People used to dream about the future.
They thought there was no limits to progress."

"And in warmer seas are new realms of pleasure!"

"They dreamed of a clean, bright future,
where science make everything possible
and everybody better off."

"A weekend, if you wish, in Hotel Atlantis!"

"But somewhere along the line that future got cancelled."

Moving on a linear express
to a levitation disc
to Technopolis Town
Which is evergreen, this is forevergreen
From a lap top via a satellite disc
A Buddhist gong is sent to catch our fish
Under the ocean in our sea
Out with the mean, in with the green

"Teletopia...Technopolis...Marinopolis...Aquatopia... Seatopia...Aeropolis...Alice City...Geofront..."

The sun is rising on a linear express
there is a smell of sweet success
Fuzzy logic, there is no no life on a cloud
It's time to be proud
Fuzzy logic, there is no yes
Intelligence here is under duress
No sound, there is no wind
In our big wonderland

"Now being built, Millenium Tower out at the sea of Tokyo Bay,
soon to be followed by Aeropolis, another tower city, 6000 feet tall,
whose inhabitants commute vertically, by elevators through the clouds.
They lead the West in computers, robotics, superconducters and new material."


Moving on a linear express
to a levitation disc to Technopolis Town
Which is evergreen this is forevergreen
Evergreen, forevergreen
Evergreen, forevergreen

"We live in the short term, and hope for the best" "Glad you came"
"And hope for the best" "Glad you came"


I've shamelessly snatched another description of the track from here:
'Forevergreen' is a song by Scottish indie/techno band Finitribe, released in 1992 on the One Little Indian album 'An Unexpected Groovy Treat'. It was released in many different remixed forms as a single and is their most famous tune, although it did not chart anywhere and the group is willfully obscure to this day. Culturally, it belongs to the early-90s pre-dot.com 'Wired' magazine techno-virtual reality ambient William Gibson's 'Neuromancer' transhumanist fractal crop circle pre-X Files UFO-obsessed goatsucker Schwa-inspired etc, although it was a joke at the expense of all these things.

Musically it's a dated but charming techno-pop song, similar in style to the earlier work of labelmates The Shamen, but thankfully without Mr C. The lyrics - 'moving on a linear express, to a levitation disc in technopolis town, which is evergreen, this is forevergreen' - are a sardonic reflection on the pagan-techno-utopianism of the times; Finitribe's political sensibilities were much more down to earth than their contemporaries, such as The Shamen again. At a time when the latter were bleating about the shamanistic consciousness of the metasphere (cf. 'Re:Evolution'), Finitribe were moaning about hubris. Their previous album, 'Grossing 10K', had contained counterblastes against McDonalds and consumerism in general, all of which is forgivable as the band were and remain Scottish, both genetically and as a state of mind.

The song contains a list of futuristic construction projects, read in a Californian voice, which are or were genuine developments in and around Tokyo and Oita. 'Alice City' was to have been a large drum-shaped underground city which could generate its own power with special magnets, whilst 'Aeropolis' and 'Millenium Tower' were plans for massive, imposing skyscrapers which resembled something from the Imperial homeworld Coruscant, the latter by Sir Norman Foster. All of them would have been opening just about now if the Japanese real-estate crash hadn't led to them all being cancelled. Each would have housed 30-40,000 people; presumably they would now have to be armed with missiles.

'Teletopia' is an exception - it was a government programme dating from 1985 to create 'new media' cities, with digital telephone, cable lines and wireless communication. It is apparently still in operation and has been quite a success.

The song is packed with curious samples, inlcuding no less than Foghorn Leghorn. It opens with an English lady announcer whose monologue, revealed in full in one of the 12" mixes, read:

"People used to dream about the future. They thought there was no limit to progress. They dreamed of a clean, bright future, where science would make everything possible, and everybody better off. But somewhere along the line that future got cancelled."

The recurring 'and in warmer seas are new realms of pleasure' is an item of dialogue from the narration for General Motors' Futurama exhibit from the 1964 World's Fair, perhaps the last time people actually did used to dream about the future. Five years later the future happened, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, and now most people do not dream about the future at all.

The album from which 'Forevergreen' came was plastered with excerpts from 'The Name of the Rose', 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service', old Yosemite Sam cartoons and others. 'People Used to Dream About the Future' is now a fashion label; their website offers both a t-shirt and a sweatshirt.

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Thursday, June 12, 2008

Orinoco Flow - the reality

Wheee what a dose of reality I got over a crackly phone connection between Venezuela and Uruguay.

I really can't go into detail as to the content. If it were me in Venezuela and someone else in Uruguay - I'd have delivered the same message from VZ to the person in URY under the circumstances.

But one associates Venezuela with (well lets forget about the pre-Hugo Chavez "por que no te callas" days) Enya - y'know, that ethereal Irish singer with way more panache than that twat Sinead O'Connor.....

So the call initiated from somewhere near the Orinoco River - nearer than I was in any case. The content had nothing to do with Enya's lyrics:
Let me sail, let me sail,
let the orinoco flow,
Let me reach, let me beach
On the shores of Tripoli.
Let me sail, let me sail,
Let me crash upon your shore,
Let me reach, let me beach
Far beyond the Yellow Sea.

From Bissau to Palau - in the shade of Avalon,
From Fiji to Tiree and the Isles of Ebony,
From Peru to Cebu hear the power of Babylon,
From Bali to Cali - far beneath the Coral Sea.

From the North to the South,
Ebudæ into Khartoum,
From the deep sea of Clouds
To the island of the moon,
Carry me on the waves
To the lands I've never been,
Carry me on the waves
To the lands I've never seen.

We can sail, we can sail...
We can steer, we can near
With Rob Dickins at the wheel,
We can sigh, say goodbye
Ross and his dependencies
We can sail, we can sail...


Um, no... for goddamn sure we had dependencies. The picture I got was rather more like this:



We live in the short term and hope for the best clearly is not the answer.

I'm sure you've no idea what you're looking at - it's the power grid diagram surrounding that oh-so-romantic Orinoco Flow (it ain't all fuckin' jungle... French Guyana and Northern Brazil have to get electric power from somewhere....) - and I was getting 765 kV worth of information.

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Monday, June 09, 2008

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.

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Sunday, June 08, 2008

connecting everything

Love it!!!!! Literally. A co-founder (in English means: can't fire him) of Broadcom got NAILED for a whole damn alphabet soup of drugs!

I personally would not have believed, one year ago, that his dealer invoiced his company and they just paid for his stash. However, having recently figured out some advantages of incorporation - fuck YEAH today I would.

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Friday, June 06, 2008

VERY busy GSM phone day in Uruguay

Both SIM's on their GSM 1800/1900 networks worked well.

Movistar (and Ancel...) Their switches do not appear to be programmed consistently for acceptance of international calls. For absolutely certain, both SIM's pass any credit test.

However dialing the USA today while in various places in Montevideo both Ancel and Movistar were inconsistent. In some cases a call would not go through dialed as +1-npa-nnn-xxxx. Two seconds later it would go through dialed 001 etc. like on a landline. However, assuming that 001 etc was correct - nope. Other places on either net worked as +1-npa-nnn-xxxx and failed as 001 etc.

Fascinating stuff, hmm?

Local calls went thru dialed as 02-xxx-xxxx no problem.

Coverage here is (and really always has been) very dense with general strong signal and almost no dead spots. I can hear my phone manage to get a radio channel before an international call doesn't quite go through.

And NO, I wasn't born stupid. For every minute of international call via cellular there's about an hour via Skype.

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back in Montevideo. Open 24 hours? No...

I had a variety of menus to choose from this morning when trying to order breakfast. (I'm not at a hotel...)

So there were a stack of paper menus near the phone. Nearly every place delivers in Uruguay provided you are willing to navigate the phone system.

Actually the phone system is quite good - but the one in this house is.... unique. Right now ADSL (or internet or DSL as Americans know it) works but none of the phones have dialtone. So to dial out you have to use cellular.

From my observations... to use cellular during the day for, say, a 20 minute call - for the same price you could hire a prostitute to give a great blowjob. Assuming you were interested in women.. Gotta tick the no box there. Whooops a pun ... "no box" mwahahahahahahaha.

So I call three places by cellphone. No answer at 1, the other "24 hour delivery" places start delivering at 11 am.

AND THEY HAVE FUCKING BREAKFAST ITEMS ON THE MENU!!!!

So I'm waiting for this fucking plumber to get here (whole other story really) and have no choice but to dash to the corner to grab a sort of breakfast. I really don't care for bizcochos. Or rather, thats not true: They taste great but they are 100% fat. Just NASTY 100% fat. Like krispy kreme.

So I get rolls and mortadella. Diet coke. (This raises eyebrows at 0915 but I give a shit WHY?) I run back. I meet the plumber. He fixes the problem.

Es asi Uruguay.

Yesterday was nearly the same - buying a lp-gas heater for the house was rather stressful. Not because the heater was out of stock but because ANCAP (the national "fuel" monopoly) had the "garrafa" (small fuel tank). They could sell me a new, small one (the big ones are sold out at this time of year!) and the ceramic heater.

However after I paid - a Soviet process, get this:

Ask for tank and price of ceramic heater. Get a quote. He is expecting me to walk away because it's more than a quarter of most people's monthly salary. Surprisingly without hesitation I accept. Anything I buy in Uruguay can either be left at my friend's house or he can re-sell it. This is reality. So when I'm told its a hundred bucks for a tank and a ceramic heater - hey, it's a way smaller tank BUT such is life....

Ok gotta run will finish later

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

this does not add up

Ok so I'm sitting here in the Dallas airport where these three hasidic jewish girls just sat down. They are all dressed in the usual dowdy clothes - I thought it was like four of Warren Jeffs' wives or something. And then they all sat down and the smell hit me.

THEY REEK LIKE WEED!

Torah, torah, torah, 420 torah! L'chaim!

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Sunday, June 01, 2008

Listening to the Scottsdale 5-0 on police radio

I live in the South part of Scottsdale, Arizona. It used to be the core of the town but now its sort of ghetto in spots. I make a point of listening to their radio system that's based nearest my home - it's the most interesting.

Facts that I've overheard:
Not carrying a drivers license? They will ask you enough questions to try to match you up against a database. And I don't just mean here in Arizona - it's nationwide. I don't know that I've heard 'em do any Canadian lookups but they get information at all hours of the days and nights from other states. Your height and weight are two numbers, then when your eye color matches that narrows the search, your name narrows the search, and eventually you exist or don't. If you don't exist they will do a social security number search. They do it intelligently though - it's impossible to tie that SSN to any identity because the results get flashed back to the mobile data terminal in the cruiser.

Pulling out of a bar? If there weren't undercover folks in the bar (or assuming the bartender didn't just rat you out because they for sure do - and should) your license plate number is VERY likely to get run, more so near closing time. ANY reason to pull you over comes back over the radio - you'll get stopped. If the report came from a bartender the police cruiser density on the street at any given time appears sufficient for them to track you. You will get pulled over, your car will be towed, you will go to jail etc.

I haven't quite figured out the scoring system that I hear. Occasionally the dispatcher will return a score of some sort about the person. Not sure if high score = safer and low score = haul 'em in.

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YSL SOL @ 71

Yves Saint-Laurent died tonight at his home in Paris.

He will be missed.

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AT&T customer "reprimanded" for posting exec customer service number

...i.e. one of the few they don't have answered in India.

Many AT&T wanna-be customers (god only knows why...) received empty bags instead of phones. When he posted the telephone number of the AT&T office of the president in a heavily moderated AT&T customer non-service site...

That number is 877-734-0766 -- and FUCK YOU AT&T I will not take it down. Just change it. The consumers will get the new one and 'round and 'round it goes.

"
Hello,

We'd like to ask that you not post contact info for the Office of the President in posts or PMs until an AT&T moderator can PM you. Failure to follow moderator directions can result in loss of posting privileges.

regards
"

I LOATHE the AT&T deathstar. They kill everything they touch and providing customer service cannot possibly be even the 10th or 20th priority in their business plan. I personally stopped doing business with them FOREVER in 1994. CIAO!

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