Crisis and Clothes

When I was at the UCR in 1994 a text in a book said that the lenght of women's skirts moved with the economical cycles. Longer skirts for the crisis-struck years and shorter for the good years. The graphic seemed funny and the correlation between the two seemed to be quite symetric, but then again, I'm not going to spend my professional life by tape measuring my skirts and those in the fashion magazines. Besides, some things didn't add up.

This theory went forgotten until today I read in the Washington Post an article tying the crisis to yet another item of clothing, only this time it wasn't to skirts and their lenght but to men briefs. The article said that the sale's of briefs or men underwear are sensitive to hard times, this because when the hard times strike men try to make their briefs last longer. Now, if you think about it, it's not such a strange thing: in a crisis people will try and stretch their pennies, nickels and dimes. What makes some things more sensitive to income restrictions or the idea of a bad economical period ahead are the way people relay to things, how important and needed they are. We call that "elasticity". There are several elasticities, depending what's the "changing" element you measure the change of the quantity of the purchased good. So, in the end, not only your husband's or your boyfriend's briefs tell you about how deep in the crisis we are, but also many other things. Just pay attention to the things you put in your cart the next time you go shopping for the groceries. Maybe less of those "lean cuisine" boxes and fancy teas and things, more of the basics. Flour, sugar, rice, simpler, less perishable cheese, milk, margarine rather than butter. Less cadies, more oatmeal, less bottled water because you use more the one flowing from the fawcet.

At the same time, you know, when you are going more frugal in these crisis times, if you stop to think for a minute, you realize that you can be happy and get all you need with less. You don't need all those products, you don't need all those brands and all those things because you can make it with less. Crisis is bad, but perhaps we could lift something goof from it: consumer rationality.

Being wastefull and lavish can bring us to personal crisis, hole up our finances, but then, what does our compulsive buying, irrational consuming habits do to our environment? Well, it can pulls us all together into crisis... like it did it now. So, can we take the chance and the lesson and bring it with us for the happier, richer times to?

Handbag Caddy

I guess it happens to some men, but it often happen to us women, that we constantly have to find a place to put our handbags. The back of the chair is one favored place, save that it's one of the easiest places to lift it up from. Then even if we were willing to take the chance, some places don't have a propper chair back because either the chairs are couch-like (like at Leroy), or they have no back, like the stools at many bars and discos. Men have this amazing hability at packing all they need in their pockets, which sure make women think that: a) they must have Mary Poppins pockets, or b) they walk around with one key, one credit card, one ID and a state-of-the-art ultra thin mobile. (The trick is, and I know this because now I have a boyfriend, that men actually pack into their wives and girlfriends and girl-friends' purses... the sneaky bastards.)

Then again, I must admit that sometimes I try to man-up myself, and carry around the strictly necessary things, and that's when the plot thickens. After all, what us women need? Our cosmetics bag filled with at least one lipstick, one chapstick, one eyeshadow, one eyeliner, one compact (hopefully mirrored, so you don't have to carry a mirror), alcohol gel, hand cream, comb, hairband, hairpins, a tiny parfume (samples work wonders! Use them!), one blush (if you use it), panty liners, pads or tampons, headache pills, period pills... and this is The Basic Kit. Because you may want to ad eyebrow clippers, nail clippers, earrings (a change of earrings can make the difference for that sudden change of plans. Large hoops for the sexy look and studs or a small dangling pearl for the solid, business-look), concealer, foundation, contact lens case, contact lens liquid, eyedrops, face cream... you name it. Well, I want to see the magician who can put all this in a pocket. And then, if we add to this our wallet, our keys, mobile, PDA/planner/filofax/agenda, notepad and pen or notebook, umbrella, water bottle, chewing gum or box of peppermint candy, half a chocolate bar and an iPod... well, we do need a purse.

When it comes to work, we usually manage to put our purse somewhere in the office, whether in a drawer or on a corner of our desk, on a shelve unit, some furniture... If there's really no other chance, we place put it on the floor, but as much as we can, we avoid doing so. But what happens whe you have to attend a meeting? You won't put your bag on the table because that's not proper, and sometimes meeting rooms are so uncomfortable you can't hang your bag from the back of the chair or the arm of the chair, because either everybody is sitting too close to each other or they are walking behind you and dumping your bag on the floor, or twisting it and turning it until it's contents rain out onto the floor, with your rather expensive Blackberry leading the fall. So what can you do? Well, thanks Hyne someone already thought of that, and invented the Handbag Hanger or the Handbag Caddy (also known as Purse Caddy). This thingie is some sort of hook that can be twisted into a flat shape (like you see in the picture) which you can store in your bag, and when you need to place it somewhere, you just twist down the wire part and place the decorative wide piece on the table, the hook underneath and you can hang your bag from it. Ain't that just cool?

The first time I saw it, Rose and Cyn flapped theirs out of their bags at a meeting. Hooks down, shiny millefiore squares framed in chrome-like metal on the table and their handbags, otherwise too big and in the waym went underneath, hanging close to them, entirely at hand to fhóish out phones, agendas, pens and whatever they needed, and yet keeping them comfortably seated without protuding bags anywhere. Needless to say, I had to have one, and now I do. This piece is not too extended, for I have not seen it in many places, nor have I seen other women or men using it, but hopefully it will. At the same time, things like a simple handbag caddy give me hope. In a world filled with "the only people with the success guarrantied are the ones who speak English, so you too purchase this no-pain-no-effort 16 CD program for just $19.99 a month for a year", and "it's not your fault that none of the diets you've tried worked! Get out super-revolutionary system and loose a pound a week!", and "tired of all that work in the kitchen? Sweat not! But our revolutionary cook-it-all and get a dinner in a snap!", and other stuff of the sort, there are shy, quiet inventions that are really good, that do not look forward to stiffle people, and deliever what they promise. It's not another sweeper that pretends to do the same thing the old sweeper does "but better", only to replace it in a few months or years for another that claims to do it even better, while the first one did it just fine. Truth is, ladies and gentlemen, that us women need our purses, and through the time we all struggle with the question of where to put it without exposing it to robbery, risking forgetting it, having it soiled, kicked or accidentally stepped over, or bumbing into people, or plain and simply, representing a source of discomfort. This invention is a relief, and if you don't believe me, look at women around you, trying to place their bags safely.

I'm happy with my handbag caddy. ^_^

Muse

This time a matter common to creative, artistic people comes to my mind: the Question of the Muse. The ideas rolling around in the world about Muses are often too romantic and unrealistic. They are imagined as some sort of perfect, beautiful creatures treasured for the loving inspiration they are capable of evoquing. Through the ages a lot of people had aspired to become a Muse, but they hardly really understand what being a Muse entails.

A Muse is not necessarily a person, but it can be an object, a place, and era, and it's not necessarily perfect or beautiful. A muse doesn't need to inspire love or be admired, only to sparkle up an idea for a story, a painting, a sculpture, a musical composition... The misinterpretation comes often from the popular literature filled with romantic "thought" and propaganda. Artists in love, or even artists eager to please someone, who worked around the apraising of the Muse, in an attempt to heighten their image, making it often into something the very Muse is not. A Muse can be the sparkle, like a plateau from which the thoughts, the ideas of the artist take off, can be the mid flight, requiring the artist to make the begining of the idea and the end, or can be the end result. Can be a simple component in a much bigger scheme, or a particle. the Muse might not be the whole person, the whole place, the whole time, but just a fraction of it.

It is little known, but the Muse can be negative. Something or someone that ignites hate, sadness, indignation. A writer writing about some despicable person has a despicable Muse, but this is an idea many often don't get, because the idea of the Muse is the idea of perfection to acquire.

Realizing this sheds a different light to June Miller and her relationship with Anais Nin and Henry Miller. She did became their muse, just like she wanted to, but for Henry Miller, she became a negative Muse, a flesh can full of disgusting features, ill manners, ill behavior. In his novel, Tropic of Cancer, he depicted her as a hateful creature that lived to leech, to spread her disease on those around her. Nutting attitude, never ending lies and poisoned fooling around for money.

Anais on the other hand, infatuated, desperate to burry herself in the world of beauty and ethereal moves, elevated her far high into the depths of surrealistic castles, offering her a few paragraphs in her House of Incest. There the Muse took the form of a rocking, loving child, paying tribute to the hips of her beautiful Muse.

None of them satisfied June, who believed that being a Muse meant her lies to become a book that would make them true. And yet she was a muse, a fine muse for wonderful pieces of XXth century literature.

On The Defense of Men... Again

I guess it is part of my fate, as a feminist, to walk around defending men from the attack of rabid females. I can't just wrap my head around the idea some people have that women should debase men, just as retarded men (and some retarded women) debase women. First of all, and i want this to be perfectly clear, being a feminist doesn't mean that I believe women to be better or superior to men, BUT that I believe that men and women are EQUAL. Now this "equal" word is quite hard to understand for some (many, many, many). By now women are stating harder that they can do any job men can, and also that we are capable at performing at high positions, and hold high offices and manage, be CEOs, CFOs, AGs and even Presidents and Prime Ministers. But do we earn this by taking it away from men? I don't think so. This is not a Summ Zero equation.

But let's not go into the labor sphere, but the personal sphere. Then again, though I addressed this topic before, the topic comes back thanks to three ladies: Gitta, who wrote in her blog an entry titled "Protected Men", where she pretty much said that women are entering every aspect of life, priorly reserved to men, men are being pushed out and left to oblivion. Like I stated before, lets obliviate the "labor part" and concentrate on the "choice".

The other two ladies, Rosario and Cynthia, were happily commenting that marriage should never happen because people are in love, but only when the guy has enough money to buy a comfortable life for the woman. Needless to say that I oppose this idea, and then again, here we have the core concept of "choice".

Though our choices form us as individuals, choices do not define our gender. The gender is something you are born with and is part of who you are, but not the determinant element of your whole being. Let's keep in this in mind, shall we?

Lets ask ourselves, what is a man? A man is a person, a human who has been born male. In every aspect is equal to it's female counterpart, known as woman, save in the organs needed to reproduce the species. Both have one brain, both are capable of thought, both have feelings, both are capable of communication, both have the need to communicate. Both laugh, cry, smile, whine, shout, burp, frown... and so on. Both can solve a math excersize and learn a language, read a book, play a sport and just about anything you can think of.

Through the feminist revolution, as women broke from their socially imposed chains and proved that they can work shoulder to shoulder with men, what did men lose? Were they not able to do a given job because women were doing it? No. Men can still choose to be engineers in spite of women chosing to be engineers. Women are still being paid less, in average, than men for the same job, and it's nto because they are given a differenciated wage, but because in many companies women are given less chances for promotions or chances to get "points" that would make their wages bigger (business trips, seminars, time to study, because, you know, women "get pregnant" and are not a "good, reliable investment" in that sense). Of course, that could make a capitalist pig to choose women over men, because they are "cheaper" and "easier to manipulate". This doesn't mean that women are pushing men out.

The idea should not be about who does the job, but about everybody having the same chance to do the job. A man shouldn't feel different about his choices just because women can make the same choices. On the other side, men should have the same chance to do whatever job and whatever activity us women choose to do. There shouldn't be "man jobs" and "woman jobs", just jobs. Men should be able to be secretaries, assistants or even stay home dads and househusbands, why not? They are just as people and just as human as any woman who chooses to take any of those paths. Why do we have to deny these from men? Are they not equal to us?

This brings me to the "role of men" in a relationship. Sure, I'm not an authority in the matter of "relationships", but even so, I can't believe that I, as a former bed-hopping one-night-stander, have a better understanding and a far deeper appreciation of men, than that of women who have spent significantly more time with men. First of all, why should men have a role and women have another role? Shouldn't a relationship be about equal shares? Why is a man expected to protect and provide, and the woman to serve and care? Can't a man care and do chores? Can't a woman provide and stand out and defend her man?

The idea that there's a given "role" is what, I believe, fucks up the whole thing, because as individuals we don't have the same "gifts" and "tendencies" and, regardless of the gender, one partner might be more fit for providing and the other more fit for caring. Just think about gay couples. In a gay couple, you've two men or two women, who does what? The one who is more fit. Does that make the other one less of a man or less of a woman? No. People don't go "genderless" or change their gender because they don't "act" the way they are supposed to in the frame of society. So, if gay couples remain man-man, woman-woman, why should it be any different for straight couples?

When Rosario was proudly telling how she showed a friend "the right path" because her friend was about to get married but she realized she didn't love her boyfriend, and so Rosario told her that getting married isn't about love but the money the guy has, reminded me of the "other role" many women expect men to fulfill. Cynthia goes on the same line. Both Rosario and Cynthia seem to take great pleasure in lecturing me about milking money from my boyfriend, making him pay absolutely everything, which I find utterly hideous and unbecoming. The question that rises here is: are men organic ATM?


Yes, in the female subculture many see men as walking wallets, that must be exploited. Something like women's very own RPG where you walk these passages killing other females and loting on men to get their "stash". This is the world of golddigers, where the women who preys more on men's money is the hero. This is the world where all little girls want to grow up and be Ivana Trump. But are men's only value in the size of their accounts? Is the worth of a man measurable by the figures he makes? Because if women want to be valued by their personality, their thoughts, their capabilities, their true selves, shouldn't men, as our very equals, be valued by the same paramethers?

I don't want to be with a man because he can buy me all the Swatch watches I want and take me to travel here and there. I want to feel the PRIDE of being able to give myself what I want and what I need. The man I am with, should be great just by being himself. I don't need a man to support me, or at least I shouldn't: that's what "work" has been invented for, and that's why we have fought and struggled, and why so many of our sisters died for.

Truth is that sexism works both ways and either way is wrong. Women are to slaves made to serve men and replace their fists around their dicks and so men are not income sources to be pounded for the things we want but are not willing to work for, which must be kept "oiled" with nookie. Lets stop objectifying each other! Please, they are our friends, our brothers, our sons, our fathers and grandfathers, why can't we love them for who they are? Why can't we respect them for who they are? And foremost, how can we demand their respect when we do not return the courtesy.

Some women are not different from the men who mistreat us, who see us as bounty, as property that can be sold, bought or used, abused and destroyed at will. But why do they think they have the right to do to men what we do not like done to us?

I think a lot of people don't like humans to be equal because they life to exploit these irrational, unrealistic differences. This rises one last question, which I leave to all: does it mean that the people who relay on these fake differences are actually the ones uncapable of developing themselves, growing up and fulfilling themselves in the ways they pretend "the others" to serve them? Are they the flawed ones? I think they are.

::: Rest :::

An old acquintance of mine, Guitarcrab, tweeted me. He mentioned that the Twitter was still weird for him, and seemed quite stupid, like everthing that was fashionable on the net. I found passion inside me for American Football and while I was watching yesterday's match Shimmy Gin tweeted me the basics of the game. I started following the Girls of the Playboy Mansion, the original ones: Holly, Bridget (my favorite) and Kendra. I do these little things and read about my friends, read about Dragonfly falling in love again so fast and so strong she worries me because I don't want her lovely, golden heart broken again by someone who can't realize he should be so grateful for the attention such a magnificent, loving, caring woman is bestowing upon him. Follow snipets about Supernatural, a series I love, and a 5th season I'm waiting like crazy.

But Roo called me today and we talked for over an hour and I realized not only how far I am from her, but also that I haven't rested. What do I do to rest? Watch a movie? No, I actually read. Read books. That soothes be and make me feel better. That's how I actually rest.

I'm Lovin' This Game

New York Jets vs Baltimore Ravens. The game has been fun, specially as the 4th quarter closes up and the adrenaline pumps up hard just like the muscle and the bone. There's not a minute of boredom, as the teams push each other through the yards looking for the touchdown.

I thought I wouldn't like it since I'm more into Rugby, but the game is awesome. It's still strange see so many players who are rather big instead of slim anf fit, but American Football does find a position for everybody, not only the sport and fit kind.

The game was an interesting match, led by Baltimore since the first moment, and up to the end of the second quarter it made me think that New York was a bag of pussies. The Knicks suck, and it seemed so did the Jets. Well, the Jets actually took the pre season to test their new quarterback, Mark Sanchez. I wouldn't say he did well, but then again, the whole Jets was bad. However, after Flacco left the game, the Ravens remained pretty orphaned, and pretty much relayed on the shabbiness of the Jets to keep up the score. However, the Jets tightened up and got quite close. 23 to 24. It wasn't so bad. Now I'm waiting for the next game. Next Monday Vikings vs Texans.

I'm loving this game!

Boycott: The People's Last Weapon

Looking around in Twitter, since I haven't walked into these news in the papers I receive (should I wonder why?), I read today, for the first time about the Whole Foods Market issue. Must say I'm outraged. The issues with them are many, and you can read of them here: Whole Food Market: What's Wrong With Whole Food Markets? At least some of them.

The store advertises itself pretty much as all th best things put together. Healthy food, humane treatment of farm animals, ecological conscience, ... but theie CEO, John Mackey is anti-union. Well, he's libertarian, which pretty much means, he believes the market not only knows better, but whatever direction the market takes is the best, and no one should interfere. He openly claims that unions promote problems in the company. Well, many people today have no idea what's like to have a union, a REAL union, but those who do, or those who still got the chance to get their hands on those old Economics books where the Union part hasn't been edited (out), would know that the Union is that one way workers have to make sure to get good working condtions. Unions don't come to antagonize with the management unless the management is set on exploiting and abusing workers.

So, aside from fishes filled up with mercury, and monopolistic practices, and lying about the "small farmers" they support, and the "organic" nature of their products, and all the lies they pile un in the holy name of money, there's this thing they don't even try to cover, though they keep lying about the morale and the working conditions they impose on their workers. So, the base line is that they treat farm animals humanly, but HUMANS don't deserve the same treat?

Workers can't do a thing, but buyers can. Sometimes we feel that it has no point in voting because elections are arranged, no matter how many Jimmy Carters line up and say that it has been all gone down in the frame of fair game, and yet you know and you can't believe how people do nothing, how far up corruption runs, and how useless out little vote in democracy weights. Sometimes we feel we can't do nothing because no matter how many protests we organize, how many letters we sell, how hard we scream, how high we hold our banners, nothing changes, but there's one thing we can still use to make a difference, and that's to refuse to give our money to those we do not agree with.

We can do something to avoid the "next energetic crisis" hitting us by replacing our ful dependant transportation, by reducing our use of electrical power. Walk more, bike, use the public transportation to go to the office, do more things during the day, take advantage of natural light, unplug all those electrical things you don't really use all the time. Unplug the TV, the DVD, the chargers... you don't really need them all day, now do you? Unplug the computer, or replace it with an energy efficient laptop. Replace lightbulbs, organize every once in a while a nice "candle light night". You can save water, you can reduce your consumption of plastics, you can help recycling by also chosing recycled products. You can save your things, reuse then, thinking before you buy a new one if you actually need a new one or whether you can still give use to the old one.

You can also decide you won't condone the abuse to animals, our planet and other people. Listen. Learn. Think. Refuse giving money to those who will stick it in their own pockets instead of sharing them by fairly paying their workers. You can help promote human values, by learning the philosophy of the companies you buy from. Don't worry, this is a capitalist market, and like all those neoliberals say, this "perfect market", left to its own devices, will always provide plenty of proper selection. Our nickels and dimes are our power because no matter how little they look compared with their millions and billions and trillions, they actually need our pennies and nickels and dimes to keep their millions from smoking away.

Deutsch: Now or Never

So I've decided that it's today or to-never, and so it had to be today. Got the book out of the case, the CD in the CD-Rom, and in the first minutes of the day, after talking to my boyfriend, I completed my first 15-minute German lesson. So far so good. This is my n-th attempt at learning German by myself, which is mainly due to my stubborn idea that I really want to do it by myself, or otherwise I'll end up bored out of my head and piling up a debt in class fees I really don't need. aNow, do not misunderstand me, I'm sure the Goethe Institute is awesome, but truth is that so is the Alliance Française, and I poured into the AF truckloads of money in course payments and books only to hate each day I went because it was so damned boring I ended up totally unable to conjugate irregular verbs. (Then again, for some strange reason, I kind of actually can... now... is it due to the Alliance or my readings?) So I was thinking, why to go through all the ordeal with German? I know myself (I know I bore easily), and I know the way I can take off with a language: give me the basics, and then give me a book, give me a TV channel, a few movies, some Internet sites, and soon you'll have me babling around, first quite horridly, but if there's something I don't have is lack of confidence or shame. Mistakes do not make me back off.

The book I already have it: Seine Grosse Liebe, a book I chose once upon a time because it was the only one which title's I understood: "Her Great Love".

My plan currently is simple: complete the 15-Minute-a-Day plan, not jumping ahead, but maybe listening to the lessons twice a day to engrave it in my brain better. When I feel I've advanced enough in this, I'll start checking my old books, with the bit of knowledge I will already have, in order to intensify the flood of information, so I get more tools, because, really, 15 minutes daily for 12 weeks are no way to get a decent foundation for a language. I am not stupid, nor I expect the knowledge to painlessly and effortlessly download itself into my brain. I have no Neo complex. My objective is to be able to read short texts in German, and be able to speak a tad more fluently by the time we go to Vienna in January. No, I do not set for myself irrational goals, like being able to read and fully understand "Das Kapital". However, on a mid term I would expect myself to read Seine Grosse Liebe for december of next year.

Teaching oneself can be quite a hard task, specially because you might have the tendency of granting yourself too many permits, skipping days and lessons, but also can be quite cool, for you don't have to wait the whole class to catch up, or try to catch up with a class that runs at 10 thousand verbs per hour and you have not a clue yet about how the freaking conjugation is done. You have all the time in the world to stop and mull and research and get it right, and then all the freedom to fly as fast as you wish, as high as you can without the dead weight of dunderheads that can't get in their puny brains something too simple just because they are too lazy to even try.

It worked for me (in a way) with English, though the base for it I've got it from lots of useless lessons paid to lots of language academies (okay, just one) and the idiotic highschool teacher that spoke the Charlie Brown version of English. (Years later we learned that she actually didn't know English...) Hopefully it's working with my French, which has been pimped up and pumped up by readings, TV5 Monde and the always adorable Air France Flight Attendants, God bless their beautiful hearts and beautiful... rest; as well as my promenades through Paris, where live, crispy, beautiful French was poured upon me like the sweetest rainshower.

Now German is next, even though I haven't finished with French, nor can I say the same about English, but those two are set on the way.

Fuel, The Key of the Next Crisis

Every Sunday I receive the local financial paper wrapped up in a plastic bag, held with a rubberband. So much care is really unnecesary due to the poor quality, the parcialized, liar articles it contains. Why do I receive it? Because it's a courtesy, I don't have to pay a dime for it. The paper belongs to the "La Nación" group, which means that it works 100% for the current Government and their personal interests. This is how last week they published a note badmouthing our company with data that's beyond false. Other than these, the paper's other articles are weak, involving little research.

This week the paper has an article where the newest director of the INCAE says a new crisis is to come by 2012, and that this new crisis will be due to the fuel. Okay, lets say it will happen this way. This director, Lawrence Pratt says it's because we have reached the end of the oil reserves, and that it will be incredibly hard to find anymore oil. I think that's something that the world should have known since a while now and that it should have been working on. I believe at some level it is working on it now, but the desperation of the market and people to get cars and travel with cars at any costs is what's pushing the boundaries here.

Pratt, talks that it's time to work on locally producing fuel, looking for alternative sources of fuel, and mentioned "biofuel". I can't believe that someone would dare to bring that up. First of all, if an inminent fossil fuel is coming, the first step, for me, would be to take people off the fuel consuming things. Reduce the number of cars circulating, promote other ways ot transportation, such as electric cars and electric urban trains, replace the taxi lot with electric cars, introduce telenetworking in more places or promote jobs closer to where people live so they can either walk there or bike their way to the office.

Biofuel, in my opinion, should be the last place where an economy should go because the danger exists that the production of food would sensibly decrease in order to produce inputs of biofuel. Less sugar, because it goes mainly for biofuel. Even if the biofuel can be produced from a byproduct, what would pay more? Same with corn. Soon farms of edibles will be transformed because, let's be honest, in a world hooked on fuel consuming things, what will be more profitable, food or fuel?

Maybe it's because I don't have a car, but I do travel often with planes and I need them fueled and afordable to go home, but I believe that it's more important for me to eat, and eat healthy food, real food, than getting a car fueled and provoking traffic jams. However, some people, MBA's probably, don't seem to think the same way. Well, that's what produces crisis.

Thinner

That was the title of the first Stephen King novel I read. My friend Alix gave it to me sometime in 1994 before I went to Hungary to study. I made the stupid mistake to lend my book to a friend, and so I never again recovered the book. However, this book has little to do with today's topic, which is more about something I've mentioned before (like a lot of the entries I do): people's obsession with getting thin.

Yesterday I went to the Paseo Las Flores to buy my boyfriend's birthday present. Since I ran into a friend of mine, Víctor, on the net, and we haven't seen each other on a long while (since I stopped watching Supernatural at his place because I already saw the entire season and I already had all the episodes), we decided to meet there and spend some time together. In spite of being gay, Victor does look quite straight from time to time, and yesterday, clad in a blue T-shirt and cargo shorts he looked quite lovely and quite heterosexual. (That is until he lets his inner gal out to play, mind you.) We went around, here and there... he wanted to window shop but I wasn't really in the mood. Anyway we walked around, stared at every food place in the food court until we decided to leave the food court and go for Ichiban.

As usual, Ichiban means "sushi". I had the most amazing Age Roll, which was a delicious sushi concoction wrapped in tempura... and it was hot. Either way, I got full with it. Amazing, I tell you. Set on eel sause, nice and thick, filled with all teh good things in life. Awesome. After studying the menu for the longest time ever, Víctor, again, leaned on me to choose his sushi. In his case I went for the Philadelphia Roll. It was good, known and fun, though not half as delicious as the Age Roll. That one was to die for. We wrapped up the whole thing with a shared Koroke, which are potato hash browns with salmon, and quite spicy.

Through all our staying Víctor mentioned a hundred times how fat he was. I didn't understand what was he talking about. He looked wonderful. Yet he went on and on about what ha pig he has become, and how he was going to try these "magic pills" that took away his desire to eat ($30 for a month and a half of miracle maker), but he wanted also to try this new body cream by Nivea (My Silouette). He has gone to the gym but left it, then took some pills and left them, did a diet and left it... so why does he keep trying? I honestly believe he looks good. I mean, if I were a gay guy or if where straight and I were single I would probably date him (well, if he were straight and I were single I would still be running away from relationships, like I've done before Kari, but sure we would have "a thing" going on steadily).

After we finished our rolls, he said he wanted to eat more. I couldn't even THINK about food at that point. Sure, I'm not a reliable "food measure paramether" for I eat very little, but still, when I asked him if he was really hungry, he said he wasn't, but he was such a pig that he wanted to eat more. Now, why would he say something like that? Such words sound to me like he wants to punish himself, and that's why he tries to get slimmer, though no level of thinness will ever be enough for him.

The same thing I see with Cynthia and Rosario at the office. Though Rose is more demure about it, Cynthia does put up a show out of trying to get thin, though she is already thin. If anything, I'd say she needs to put up a little bit of weight to round up her form, which has become something of a stick with melt down skin. Both of them talk ill of themselves when they indulge into something "fattening", and then go eating so early (probably too starved to hang on for a few more hours) and what they eat is salad. I'd say there's nothing wrong with dieting or doing excersize and stuff if you enjoy it, but when you hear Cynthia say over and over that there's nothing better than "eating", you start thinking that there's something off in the picture.

Why does she do something that makes her feel bad? Why does she denies herself of pleasure? It's not like she enjoys or craves something illegal. So why? Talking to the three of them you see a patron in their behavior. They crave a partner, a "boyfriend" or the aproval of their current boyfriend or husband, and this is what they need to get an image of themselves, a positive, aproved image of themselves.

But is punishment the way through which they become appealing or acceptable?

The three of them live in a horrible place, a horrible life.

Organized: A Way to get the Hang of It

Truth to be told, I wouldn't really think of myself as "organized", since I do have "messy spots" here and there, and I'm not as tidy as Dragonfly or my Aunt, or even my mom, for I leave usually a small "chaos space" for leasure (even though sometimes it takes the leasure out of the leasure and just makes a small knot of chaos), but then it seems I am. I'm organized compared to most of my coworkers, and therefore I've been entrusted with several things (double sided tape and stuff of which there's only one piece) because someone must make sure not to misplace it. I'm undoubtfully more organized than Kari, so I'm the one putting up the schedule for the three weeks I'll spend at home.

When I organize, whatever I do organize, I work in in big chunks first, "boxes" if you would like, and this is how, after turning the big blocks around, I kind of put my "skills" to other uses, and so I started organizing mentally Kari's place. I realized that the current outlay ain't bad, but rather good, if you know how to use the space. Kari dislikes it because he finds in it lots of dead spaces, but I think I have just come up with a fantastic solution, and add to it, a lovely outlay more in concordance with my liking. Still gara see how it works out, but I'm so excited!!! ^_^ I home to arrange and decorate. Wiiiiiiiihiiiiiiii!

I'm one happy Bunny. ^_^

Us, Economists

A friend of mine sent me an e-mail filled with economist jokes. Some of them are hard to explain to someone who has no knowledge of economics (okay, most of them) and some are shamelessly taken from the lawyer-bunch (two of them). One of them is "Why sharks don't attack economists? Professional courtesy". I was wondering why would anyone say such a thing about us, and then I remembered that there's "us" and there's the "libertarian", the "liberal" and the "Chicago Boys" bunch. To say that I dislike them is a HUGE understatement. Anyone who thinks that everything can be solved by the market should be put to sleep, like a rabid dog, or a mad cow.

Here we have this nice Crisis. Guess what? The oh-so-free market was the one that pushed us there. All the brainless Chicago boys, the Milton-Friendman wannabes, the "free market, so that the PERFECT COMPETITION can prevail" major imbeciles, that really, how did they even got their degree?, they all pushed and cheered and lobbied for THIS. Because the Government internvention only creates chaos. These are the ones who told people that "private social care" is better, and while in a small country like Costa Rica someone who's sick can go to the local hospital and be cured, in the U.S. with all their money they can't be sure if they can AFFORD medical attention. But hey, free market makes it better.

So, back to the Crisis, we have all these enterprises that ran the stockmarkets and broker houses and especulated about the future, and bought, and sold and made a whole lot of money over the nothing. They let their suppositions blow up a bubble and didn't care to take precautions, but went in for the money, in for the money until it couldn't hold it up and it came crumbling down. But who crumbled down? The little people.We all saw it, didn't we? Suddenly, when things went pearshaped, it was EXPECTED that the State, the Government bailed them out of the hole they had get themselves into. In an "effort" to reduce costs and become lean and good, they started laying off people, reducing work times, moving people in full time jobs to part time jobs, and then, what was the first thing they did with the bailout money? Pay those huge slices of "executive pays".

So let me see if I get this correctly: the market is good and keeps everything in balance and brings everything to its best possible state, and all the Government does is spoil things and make them inefficient, BUT when the free market collides because no theory any neoclasical, neoliberal or Chicago-Dumb can think of has the core element of all markets, CORRUPTION and UNFAIR PLAY, THEN the Goverment MUST bail them out, but not the entire market, only that upper layer of exceedingly paid pigs, and then, when they get their money and are safe in Liechtenstein or Rio, then you leave the market to save itself, make jobs and all going back to the way it was.

Wanna see some fun things? These big-paycheck executives often sign very protective contracts, where they are secured big bucks (like in the Hall story), so even if the enterprise goes down (like Citi), they'll be paid the big bucks (like Hall), because "it's in the contract". Doesn't that tell you something about the "free market" and the trust in the "invisible hand"? It does to me.

Another Way to Pull Profit From You

The more I read about the Facebook, the more I dislike it. I can't believe that there's someone who actually believes to be entitled to the information of everybody. It's not one of those "blog-through"/"forward-through" info you get, maybe in youtube from a Michael Moore wannabe putting up some documentary, with all kinds of conspiratory data. No, this is sipped through the Washington Post. This time our trusty lil' paper tells us that Facebook, that cyberservice that started as a way to get to get in touch with your old friends, has bought an application (from what I understand) called "FriendFee". What this does is basically get into all your accounts in the net and tell everybody what you are doing. The "selling line" is that you won't have to do it manually, but what if I don't want everybody to know? What if what I write in the Twitter I want it to stay in the Twitter, and what I write here I want it to stay here? What if I don't want everybody to know what I do? Well, that's not a choice anymore. It seems that the profile sites decide for you what do you want to do with your data, and that's making them richer, selling your data to advertizing enterprises for their own profit and your annoyment.

But the FriendFee does more than tell everybody what you are doing on all your networks. This basically spies on you. Hooks up on you, follows you from account to account, to the web all the places you visit on the internet make, jumpling from the FB profile to your Twitter, your LJ, your blogs, e-mail accounts, MySpace, LiveSpace, your search engines (you know that you can tie up your Google and iGoogle to your gmail, and so your Yahoo! with your Yahoo account), keep track of everything you look for, from "cats" to "witchcraft", "genocide", "money laundry", "S&MB porn" or whatever strange thing you have looked up for for whatever reason. Then again there are worse things than all your dirty little secrets being displayed, because if they can get into your e-mail accounts, read and broadcast your blogs, post in your profiles and Twitter account, what wouldn't they be able to do with your banking accounts? What couldn't they do with your work accounts?

Not every data should be available to everybody. I think people should have the right to decide what to share with a few, what to keep for themselves and what to share with the world, and I don't believe that others should have the right to decide that whatever thing that goes cyber is fairplay for broadcast.

So, after much bitching I decided to close my profile forever and for good. Well, guess what? I just did and I received an e-mail telling me that my account has been deactivated, but that "I can reactivate it anymoment I want". Excuse me? Yes, they don't kill your account, they keep it "in case you want it back". That probably means that they keep the account alive, sucking in the information forever. Well, that's only natural, after all, they need the "clients" in order to sell data to their other clients. This is too intrusive and unrequested... FB, LEAVE ME ALONE!!

They don't believe I, or anyone for that matter, have those rights. Our rights in the cyber world stops where the corporations find it suitable. There are no "Human Rights" for the cybernaute.

Art Nouveau

Is Art Nouveau comming back to town? I do hope so, but the chances of it are slim. It's not a secret for anyone that this is my favorite kind of art, and that if I could would make and design everything into this fabulous style. To say that I love it is an understatement. I simply adore it. I find it so suiting to my style, my desires, my likes and my loves.

Today I was talking to my boyfriend and the topic of conversation stranded again about the Óbuda apartment he owns, and about it's location and decoration. I think he's scared about me going all bold an particularly "expensive". For the first time I saw a layout of the apartment. I was shocked to see that he was planning to move the kitchen right before the living room. Then again, I have not seen one Hungarian flat or house with a decent, normal distribution so far... maybe only my aunt's place. I was trying to find a way to place the kitchen outside the traffic area, because, really, I don't want people entering my home through my kitchen, but given the impossible layout of the place, I've made peace with it... for a while. Meanwhile that kitchen must look pristine 24/7.

Another matter on the table is decoration. Though there are not many pieces of furniture in there I've a hard time already making peace with. There's a couch living set that... dude, "leather". That screams "careless, unconcerned, immature bachelor". Why men like leather furniture? It smells, sticks to you, makes you sweat, makes you slide constantly, makes more noise than regular upholstery, and if the sole concern is that it's easier to clean, Hell, what the fuck are you expecting to clean off that couch? So sacrificing comfort and style for messiness? Like that would happen. Then, there's a dresser... which used to belong to his mother. Goner.

Rule number one: you can't start establishing your own space, your own style with the handoffs of other people. If they match your style, sure, but these are NOT a place to start, when you are heading off fresh. Now, unlike many would think by now, I do have an idea of "budget", therefore I work in the lines of "main pieces" that would create the core of the style and around which little by little one can work and add more with time. On my side, I'm a passionate Art Nouveau, and related "turn of the century" styles. From here to some Art Deco, everything is fair game, but I do seek to stablish some reserved minimalism, maximizing of the space and decluttering as much as possible (though that's a challenge considering all my books and tchotchkes). So, I'm envisioning natural materials, lots of wood and wicker, flax and hemp, multifunctional, fold-back furniture, after all, the space is small. ^_^

A Murano Heart on Mother's Day

Today is mother's day in Costa Rica. I was supposed to go pay my bills but everything is closed, or should be, so I don't even bother going nowhere. Will have to run into a bank sometime these days before one of my cards goes bonkers on me and reaches "beyond due-days". I might be kind of crazy spending sometimes, but I'm very conscious about the pay dates. However I've work to do, related with the thesis. Hopefully my thesis-mate will be calling me during the day to work out details about the second chapter in order to conclude it and get on the third.

As most Saturdays, I woke up early to talk to my boyfriend, but today, while I was doing that I was also making my mom her present. Hell, hope he didn't feel offended because I wasn't paying him that much attention, though I tried (to pay him attention, not to offend him!).

The necklace I did to my mom was a pendant necklace with a medium "Murano" sky blue glass heart I've got at the local bead store. To make it a but more special I laced the necklace chain with small blue beads. The style is that of a rather short necklace, something of a choker, but it doesn't sit tight around the neck, but rather hangs down a bit resting the glass heart three fingers under the small hollow spot at the base of the neck. I loved doing it, it was fun, but the most important thing is that my Mom liked it.

"I love it! And I love blue so much!"

I know that. My mom has given me blue things for birthdays and Christmas regardless of the fact that blue is not my favorite color, but green. I guess mom forgets, and so she picks things she thinks of pretty, and being blue one of her favorite colors, she often picks blue things because she saws them as the most beautiful things. ^_^ This makes those blue things special for me, and that blue beautiful for me.

My mom is great. ^_^

Happy Mother's Day to all Moms out there, real moms, surrogate moms, adopted moms, spiritual moms and also my Aunty Zsuzsa too!!!!

I'll try...

Okay, okay, I'll really try to in-blog-up myself and write shorter entries, I won't promise anything, but I'll try.

I'm not getting the hang of the Twitter the same way Shimmy is. He's slowly moving into the 140-character area, and as I see his tweets and those of his followers and followeds, they are pretty much public-SMS-ing through the Internet. Is this the point of tweeting? I honestly really seek to mini-blog, writing down a short sentence or something of the sort, and most of my followed ones do the same. However some people do "overshare" by putting on stuff like: "I'm eating", "I'm washing my teeth", "I went to answer my phone", or maybe only "chatting" in near-real time.

I'm working on my thesis mainly mentally, which really doesn't account for much unless I type it down, which I always think I'll to tonight, tomorrow, tonight, tomorrow... My mind is not in the right place to handle those issues. I open the file sometimes, and I read the chapter we are working on, but nothing comes to me. It's so frustrating. Instead, now my head is filled with new developments for my "theory", narrowing down a few variables, harnessing the parameters and finding my way to build something coherent that can explain something. It makes me feel so good. However I've a question without answer: how can I get my theory heard by the community?

Don't Imagine It, Know It

Today has been a hot day, and not a "hot day" in a good way, or "hot" in a figurative way, but rather in the "For fuck's sake, someone turn the heat off" kind of way. Well, at least my contact lenses, and therefore my eyes didn't suffer. The sad thing was that I ran out of coke, which is something very, very bad, particularly in such a sufocating day. In moments like these the expression "last coke in the dessert" takes a whole new aproach.

Aside from this, I've found myself some work, which is awesome. I'm working on the checking over of the Roaming Out fees, which some major jackass scrambled in here pretty (in)decently. Then again, that's what happens when you leave the job to ignorants and show offs. You can either aly back and comfortably comment that "people should be ashamed" or "that's what happens in the Public Sector", or "it's due to all that influence traffic and connections and friends-of-the-right-people" and so on. However I believe there's also more, at least a metaphore. After all, what happens in the job-sphere is not so different from what happens in the social familiar or even personal sphere. The thought came to me when I was thinking about the tendency of some people I happen to know to "imagine" someone and living out of that rather than knowing that person.

Of course, a lot of people get to a job or a position because they have performed certain favors, or because someone wants them to keep their trap about some secrets (position as payment), or simply on buddy-buddy bases, regardless of whether said person is good for the position given to him or her. Well, now think about your friends: there are people who are not trustworthy, who would betray you at the first available moment, who badmouths you behind your back, who ridicules you, mistreats you, steals from you, and either you up up with is or work around it, but you don't cut said person out of your life because he or she's so funny, is part of the group, everybody likes him/her...

Lemme tell you a small story of my life about this: when I was in the University, I had a group of friends: Lau, Mile, Iva and I. The four of us were always together, sat together and did all studying and team work together. Mile, Lau and I worked our asses off, but Iva always lagged. Either she worked some, and all she did was copy from the boosk, so one of us was always stuck with redoing her part, or she "dictated". I disliked Iva a lot, particularly because she constantly tried to get things out of us, and I felt like she didn't see us as friends but rather as pockets for her to pick. By the end we managed to shake her off (basically by me starting the "revolution" and picking Adry to a group rather than Iva, and Mile and Lau quickly backing me up). Years later, as I got paird up with Mile again for our never-ending-never-advancing thesis, we both realized that each of us thought that Iva came with one of the other two, and so we put up with her, while in real life, she sneaked into our group and pretended to be a friend. She was one we tolerated for wrong reasons.

Do you have people like this in your life? I bet you do.

But then, aside from the people we tolerate because they have one good quality we like, or because we think they do, there's the people we keep because we imagine them to be something and never really bother to check whether the actual person is like we imagine them to be. Interestingly, the less confident someone is, the less someone believes in him or herself, the more prone it is to fall into this trap. Why? Because people with little self-confidence, little self-esteem, tend to pull away from reality, and that makes them invent a world where even people is invented. This is the case many abused wifes who don't see their husbands for what they are, but they imagine them loving and sweet and concerned. Other typical cases are when someone picks a lover based on some feature: beauty, wealth, wit, sexual skills, connections, party spirit, fun, popularity, and then imagine all the features he or she would like to see in that person and ignore what the person really is.

The girl who imagines her funny, laughing boyfriend to be educated, classy and kind, ignoring he's coward, drunken and trecherous. The boy who imagines his busty, popular girlfriend to be clever, loving, freethingking, independent, witty and ignores she's a liar, clingy and a golddigger. I know it's so sweet to live in a fantasy, but not facing reality is an entreprise bound to be destroyed. Whether people like it or not, face it or not, reality always catches up, but if you don't face it you'll be bound to fall over and over into the same mistake, suffer it over and over reopening the same wounds on your soul until they get infected and kill your spirit.

People who imagine their lovers instead of loving them are the ones who wake up one day next to a stranger. That's the day reality catches up with them. Happens also with friends, when you want a friend to have you back, to share the same taste, like the same things, but it happens that you are only acquintaces and you want so much to find a friend taht shares you likings that you are willing to fabricate it, and pour it into the shell of any person willing to stay with you long enough. Reality catches up when the differences become abysmal and you feel betrayed by the other person. But who betrayed who? The person who didn't keep the charade or the one that set it up? Funnily many people say that the one breaking the spell in the one that "lied and pretended to be something he or she's not". But did said person lied or did we lied when we set up the illusion?

Each time reality catches up, provoques deception in the person who's fantasy has been broken. Lovers, somehow do not hurt as deep as a friend, since the lifetime of a friendship is usually longer than that of a relationship, but when the imagined person is one's family, deception can be devastating. However, there's one other person people can imagine: themselves. This is the people who don't see themselves, are afraid of who they really are, and so they invent this fantasy about them being beautiful, successful, loved, popular, smart, classy... There would be things these people could actually do, but they either are too lazy, forget how to do it, or deep down don't think they are capable of. People who imagine they have a model-like body, but do nothing to get their body in shape. People who think they are oh-so smart and educated, but never do anything to actually be it, people who pretend to be popular and loved but never move a finger to be so. People who constantly imagine to be younger, leaving behind all those years they will claim to be later on. People who don't own up to what they are.

These people are submerged in constant failure, broken dreams, desappointment, depression. It becomes heavier and heavier, weighting upon them until it kills them. This is the one lie, the one spell you may find harder to escape, specially because as you get older you feel more and more engaged, more and more tied up to your lie, you feel like you have invested so much in it, and you can't start all over again. After a life of lies, who can you start clean suddenly, and explain to everbody that "that wasn't you"?

Whether people lie to themselves, or for others or if it is a complex composed thing of lying for oneself and for others, I won't get there. I'll leave that question open for everybody to mull over it. My final thought for this topic is: Reality catches up, and though dreaming and fantasizing makes our life rich, we shouldn't live in them, nor force others to live in them... including ourselves. Reality can be harsh, bugt in the end is more benign that fantasies, because you can actually work with it and make it better.

Behold the Rising Economical Power

You probably know it as "China", but I call it "where are the Huns when the world need them". Truly feel like getting on a horse myself, grab a bow, some arrows and wreck havoc, see if they can find me a "Mulan" to stop me. Hell, it makes my blood boil. On one side of the scope we see China going global with fierce determination. Hosts Olympic Games, gives away money to countries, buys up IBM's hardware business (and totally fucks up the fabulous IBM ThinkPad, which will always be the love of my life), and pushes hard and strong into mobile telecommunications with 3G and 4G solutions through Huawei. This company has gone from unheard to popping up everywhere like a really bad case of swine flu. Before you notice it the red eight-petal lotus flower will be flooding everything like spam. Then again, people are buying, so what's the damage in that?

Now the New York Times tells us that the "land of opportunities" for the American graduates is in no other place than China. Too much unemployment, so go get a jobb in Beijing or Shanghai. Add ot it that this country holds the biggest part of debts in the world. China as the big World Wide Creditor. But what else do we know of this country? How about this: built on forced labor (like in Xinjiang, North West of China), repression of freedom of expression, bullying of the population and particularly activists, censoring of the Internet, near-slavery working conditions, among others. Let's not get into topics such as the forced pregnancy terminations to which the subject women who have more kids than "they should", the still degrading way they look at women, and so on. However let's pull out another topic, published today in CNN: Children snatching. Yes, I guess everywhere you can see that same problem, the human trafficking, selling kids, women, men. Babies and toddlers for adoption, the rest for slave labor, sexual slavery or even for "spare parts". In this article, however, the case is od babies taken away from their families, probably sold to rich families. According to the article, baby boys sell for as high as $1200, while baby girls sell for around $200. Hell, Persian cats are sold for more.

The article continues saying that the parents of these kids have turned to the police, but the police does nothing. Not even with videocamera recordings of the baby snatching. If I were prone to thinking ill, I'd say that's because the police is neck-deep involved in these snatchings. However, why is there no justice for these people? They are not rioting, they are not protesting, they just want their kids back. However police seems effective to search, locate, tail and arrest activists without any actual incriminatory evidence, or they are good at closing a square like Tiananmen, to avoid protesters. They can protect hermetically the interests of the Party, but they won't move a finger to protect their own people. It's almost as if people were nothing but labor bundles that must be squeezed dry, work to the bone, and they can be stashed in whatever little, dingy place.

It suddenly changes the way you see all those videos about mistreating cats and dogs, from which they make food and coats. It's suddenly not so radical, because after all, that's the way they treat people. Now my question is: is this still the "land of opportunities"? And if this is the new Global Economical Power, what will become of the world? Furthermore, how far can they keep it up? There's just so much you can do on slave labor in a world like this, specially because if they slump the world into slavery, who will have money to buy what they sell?

Beware, beware, the Huns might soon be there.

Miau-Mew!

There's an advertisement I love a lot, about cat food, that shows different people with other pets and how myserable they are due to them. The guy how has to get up from bed when he just wanted to turn for the night because he has to take the dog out, dog which is barking like hell. The kid who can't go to play because he has to change the water of the fishtank. All the while people with cats are shown enjoying their lovely, furry, adorable, ever so beautiful cats. As a fervent Cat-Lover, I absolutely relate to the ad. (I won't buy Hyperion that brand of cat food, though. He has Cat Chow, though from time to time I like to surprise him with a can of Whiskas, lox. ^_^ He totally worths it.)

A lot of people in Costa Rica simply hate cats, which is totally unfair. They call cats disgusting, when the cat baths often, things a dog doesn't. They call them noisy, when the cat's voice ain't half as loud as the dog's barking or the parrots heinous strident shrieking. Hungary has more cat-lovers, which is just another reason to love my homeland more. (Ok, I love Costa Rica too. It has cat-lovers, like Shimmy Gin ^_^. His Tisú rules!!) I don't really like any other kind of pet. I find dogs disgusting because they are smelly, noisy, dependant and their hair is coarse. There are beautiful dogs, though, like the Husky and the Irish Setter, but I really, really hate the fact that they drool so much. I remember once I shared a piece of food with our old dog, Lobo and his drool was all over my chop sticks. Wasn't so bad, but I really, really prefer to share my food with my cats: they don't drool over my food. They are clean.

I don't like fish because you can't interact with them. Besides they are not pretty. Their eyes are ugly and they have no real face, and if you touch them they feel icky. Birds don't really look at you and they have weird faces too. Their legs are too thin and don't really do much for the body. Maybe I'd love a falcon, because it's more sturdy, more harmonious, but birds are not really my thing. You have to keep them in cages, clean their cages... and they are smelly. Besides they can harm you. No, not in a Hitchcock way, but they can nick you or pinch you with their beaks. That's not fun.

Cats are fun in every way. I won't try here to sell the idea of cats to people who don't like them, but I want to share why I love them.

First of all, cats are BEAUTIFUL. It's just so hard to find one ugly cat! Well, I've seen them, so I know they exists, but the largest part of cats are all just beautiful. The very idea of "cat" has always been associated with beauty. Cat-like women are hot, mysterious and wanted by all, like Catwoman. Cat-like eyes are the most beautiful kind of eyes anyone can wish for. Add to it, they have such a soft, lovely furrrrr!!! Oh, I love cat fur =^_^= I like also the way they smell. I love to hug Hyperion, kiss the top of his lovely head and sniff him up a bit. He's such so delicious!

They are not noisy and their voice is so lovely. They don't mew out of the blue at everything, but mew to get your attention when they see you, if they feel like getting something to you and they can't get it any other way. Cats catch rodents... well, those who do. Hyppie doesn't share those inclinations: he's a pacifist PETA kind of cat. =^-^=

Cats groom themselves, and when they have enough space (not locked in a tiny apartment), they clean after themselves. They burry their own mess. Have you seen a dog looking for a place to do its business and then clean it up? Well, cats do. Cats are independent, and this is the feature I love the more about them. Cats are for people who like functional relationships, where they don't step into each other's business. Cats are not a substitute for a clingy, dependant significant other, some needy someone that can't do anything for itself. Cats manage their own lives, run arround, have their own businesses, visit the neighbours, eat here and there (Hyppie's friends, Miska and Millie come over to eat, and I'm sure Hyppie also goes over for a snack), excersize, but then come home, mew at you, rub up, purr, curl on your lap and share their happiness with you.

Maybe I love cats because they remind me of me and the people I like the best: independent, calm, happy and looking for happiness, enjoying every minuto of their life, either at hunting or sleeping, ruled by their will, but easily working around and adjusting to their environment without giving up their nature.

Cats are just the best.
=^-^=

Schools: Bye-Bye Books, hello Internet Clippings

This one is about news, or more like headlines. If I recall correctly, it was the New York Times (that paper going bankrupt anf selling several floors of its HQ building... yeah, that one), that contained an article about the education system incentivating the teachers to leave the books and use more information from the net in their classes. I would like to know who thinks that's a good idea. I certainly see no good in it. It might work in research, but it's not the best path to walk down when it comes to education. Lemme explain you why.

Books, particularly textbooks fulfill several important functions in our lives and in our education. Unlike the Internet, they are a constant source of reference that can't be altered or "hacked" as easily as a site in the Internet. It's easy to use, simple, and also easy to reference. A mistyped word won't send you to a different book, and add to it, usually all book include a table of contents that helps people get an idea of what does it has. Books are stable, and unless you jump from edition to edition, they usually contain the same information. That allows professors and educational teams to study several textbooks, compare them and choose those which prove to be better and fulfill the requierements of a given educational curriculum. These books are also checked up by editorial houses, and often even by scholars and education specilists, who make sure the information contained in them are right and proper for the given age for which they are being intended. (Young children don't really need all the gore from history, now do they?) But are internet articles, Wikipedia information, or any other source, whatever other source in the net, checked up by someone? Does someone make sure everything on the net is right and proper? We all know anything goes online, you can't guarantee the truth or quality of what you read. A textbook can often make it up for a not-so-good teacher, and we all know there are plenty of not-so-good teachers and down right mediocre teachers who rather bully kids with tests and hard questions for which they don't have the answers, than admit they have no idea what should they be teaching. But if you leave the teacher to the Internet, how can the student make sure he or she is really studying facts? Truth?

Books also help stablish an order in the study material. Books make sure that year after year all students go through the same subjects, so that no kid is stuck learning several years in a row the exact same topic. That actually happened to me. I was forced to study for eleven years Costa Rica's history, which helped me only block the entire thing out until up to today I know nothing. Yes, that was before the Age of the Net, but back then teachers used xeroxed pages, and left the books behind, or changed a good textbook collection for several versions of the same thing.

Then, when you give a kid a book, the kid can page forward, look into things that haven't been talked over at class and maybe something triggers his or her curiousity and sends him or her on a "little research party". Sure, they might not be many, but what about these kids? I was one, and I remember reading parts from what was left behind, sad because we didn't get to study it in class. However it gave me the push to take off by myself and read other things. But in a cacophonic ocean as the Internet, where can a child find guidance?

If books have worked so well these past years, why should they be replaced? Government can subside them, make them affordable or even make them available for free to the students. You don't need any hardware, any handset or equipment to read a book, you don't need to tangle yourself into any bill, make it electrical bill, phone bill, internet bill, any bill to read a book. All you need are your eyes, or your fingers, if you are blind and need a Braille book. With the Internet is another story. Either articles will have to be xeroxed, and all those copies must be paid somehow, must likely by parents, or the computer, the internet bill and the jump in the electrical bill will be a requierement to go to school. For the middle class family maybe that's not a surplus, but what about the low income families? Those where the parents have to take many jobs to suppor the family, or can't because of the crisis and no one is hiring, and money at home ain't enough? Would kids have to make a line at the local library, and let's hope that's a safe neighbourhood, spend time waiting for a computer, and hopefully that goes for free, and then that it wouldn't take all their time. But then there's a time when a kid can study, and really, how many of us prefered to study at night? Could these kids do that? Will the printing of the material for school be for free? And could a kid concentrate at the computer on homework and don't go rather playing online?

A lot of kids grow up stupid already thanks to the ongoing monotone, boring teaching style that goes running in circles, but throwing books away in favor of the Internet is the last step into absolute, massified stupidity around the world.

-books are still the best, most convenient way of studying.

Attitudes

First of all: "Hell-O dear Anne! (Fayes_dreams, if I remember your handle correctly ^_^). Do these entries interest you too, or only the ones "politically incorrect", where I bitch about the Government? I'm never clear with that." Yeah, had to send that message, because the messaging system ain't working as well as I would like it to. (FB being a major pain in the ass, if you know what I mean...)

As you may have guessed, today's entry ain't about who did what and how was it reported in the newspapers I receive, but rather about people. Yeah, kind of in the same line of earlier entries about the people that "overshare" and stuff like that. This topic comes to my mind after doing a friend a favor and digging up a little bit about a chick he's interested in. At the begining this girl we call between us "Margarita" (she loves margaritas), seemed to be quite a lovely, interesting girl. A bit too fast and "out there", going after my friend like the end of the world is scheduled for tomorrow at 6 a.m. and she really, really needs to squeeze in as many lays as humanly possible or like my friend was "The Bachelor" and her whole life depended on getting some nookie with him. I did liked, though, that she sent him links to videos of Costa Rican trova music performers, because I know my friend is very Costa Rica centric and he appreciate such things. Add to it, it showed interest in the national culture and appreciation for the home-made art. Throwing the "trova" to it, because she didn't send salsa or cumbia, speaks of what could be taken as a bohéme spirit, and that's always nice, specially to counter a bit my friend's rational, numeric thinking with a bit of laidback, dialectic thought threading.

I would have kept rooting for Marge, but then my friend sent me the link to her blog and I started disliking her a bit. In her blog I discovered that she's nothing but a self-centered, commonplace thumbling spoiled brat, what we call here, a fresa (strawberry). I guess you know the type: they go around pretending to have such a difficult life, filled with so many responsabilities, because they have like a public image they have to take care of, but nobody understands them, only those who belong to the same circle, and they have to go to these exclusive clubs, and attend all kinds of receptions and charity balls, and political dinners, and foundation receptions and so on... Her spoiled brat attitude showed up soon enough spiking up her carefully prepared storyboard, where she evidently picked up the pieces from her act that would make her look like a "thinking entity", lend her the right bohéme flare to trick my friend. Right, the day the Gossip Girls start wearing sandals, tie-dye shirts, braids and flowers. Tell tale sings are, for instance in her blog profile, where her interests as "me, me, me, me and me", and where one blog goes playing the victim with lines like "I gonna close this blog because I'm so into Twitter... but I already said that and all my many, many friends begged me not to, hahahahaha!", and the other goes like "Oh, I know I'm spoiled, but I'll always deny it, but people discriminate spoiled brats like me, and they are so unfair to us, and I would like someone to tell me what's so bad about being a spoiled brat, which I'll always deny. hahahaha!".

When I finished reading that I stood up from my desk (I was at the office), went to the bathroom, scrubbed my eyes with a wire sponge, a wire brush and loads of acid and then went back, put on the Soviet anthem and read The Communist Manifesto to remind myself of a safe, nice place where people act normally. I reminded myself of nice things such as the Medieval Age, where people were burned as witches and kindoms were taken over by destroying people in the most brutal ways known to men.

I guess it's beyond mentioning to say that spoiled brats are very discriminative of other people. Well, they are "spoiled brats" and that's what they do, but like it always happens, when there is a kind of discrimination, there's also reversed discrimination. People react, deal with it. I've nothing against people who discriminate or reverse discriminate, as long as they don't get in my way, so if a group wants to discriminate others for not being spoiled (basically) and another group wants to discriminate spoiled ones, hey, be on your way and live long and prosper. However, when you are A or B, own up to it. It's not honest to say: "yes I know I am B but I'll always deny it", just live with it, own up to it. And, please, ho, don't go saying that there's nothing wrong with being what you are when you are dead set in denying it. Evidently you despise that lable. If you really thought it was a right thing, nice and clean with nothing bad, wouldn't you just stop denying it?

You can't go denying you are Jew, but keeping the whole ritual, or denying to be vegetarian but eating only veggies. Just own up to it, whore.

Decaf World

The first thought of the day comes almost in an unstopable way: "T.G.I.F.", sometimes (most of times) comes tied up with a "I'd love some potato skins and chicken wings with Jack Daniels' sauce". Early or late, it doesn't matter, because it's Friday, and yes, you have to finish this or that, and hell, you gara make an Olympic run for it, because you are out of time! No more weekdays to pull your job from one to the other, and Hyne if it would have been good to skip that seminar that took all day yesterday.

A friend of mine, Luis, sent me a Hoops&Yoyo e-card yesterday. Hyne, if it is a lovely card! It was one of a series of Office+Coffee cards, which are a recurrent topic in their cards, and which I love so much, even though I'm not the biggest coffee drinker in town. (Well, this weekend I plan to buy myself a water heater pitcher and some Britt coffee, my fave brand, and we might see how things come around next week!) This card was about "decaf", something just as silly as alcohol free beer or canabis free cigs, or cigs with reduced nicotine and tar, or sweeteners without sugar. The thing is "what's the point?".

Little by little the world is cuttering up with fake copies of everything that we like, wrapped up in so much publicity it becomes dizzying. So yeah, some people like coffee, but it hurts them, so there's decaf for them. Diabetics can't eat sugar, so there's aspartame (which is a poison) and sacharine and all that crap. Now explain to me the cigs and the booze. Then explain to me why perfectly healthy people would consume no-sugar or decaf? And who is the abnormal animal that drinks decaf with no-sugar, and Hyne forbids, while smoking a nicotine low cig. You don't take the sugar out of the sugar, the smoke out of the smoke, the booze out of the booze or the coffee out of the coffee, and yet there are industries build and profiting out of make-believe things. There's butter that's not butter, and Hyne knows how many other things.

If we pay attention, we have these "decaf tendency" taking over in every aspect of life. There's a lot of people hired to do a job they are not qualified for, or people with a given expertise poured into a completely different area, when there would be expert working in that given area, far more qualified to do the job. Labor-wise speaking, this is called "being flexible". I call it being a "decaf professional". Want more? Coz I can give you more. How about that cell you buy that does ten thousand different things and its actually good for nothing? Because they stuck the PDA into the phone. So, can the genius behind the idea tell me how am I supposed to write down an appointment being talked over that same phone, at that precise time? Then there's a camera crammed up into the phone and that's cool, but it has low resolution and sometimes is a pain in the ass trying to get your pictures into a computer. Oh, and let's not get started with the computers! Lets not go over a certain brand that hires whatever celebrity availables, real or animated chops the head off and has them talk about oh how wonderful their new laptops are, but said laptops don't even worth the cardboard they are packed in because they fail constantly, the touchpad reacts to your aura, not only to your touch, has compatibility problems with printers of the same brand, can't stand a language change, which isn't downloaded, but comes among the facilities of the OS... and when it comes to the OS, the biggest decaf of all, two words: Windows Vista.

Problem is, by the way that I see it, that we live in a world where people has been systematically taught to never be satisfied: nothing is ever enough. Without goal or purpose, people need new, and fancy and "better". But is "better" better? Or it is simply a hell of an advertising campaing? You don't really need "better", you need "right". Does your computer work for you? Is it still functional? Then keep it. You don't need the new sweeper sold on TV when you have a perfectly good broom or hoover that has been doing the job magnificently all these years. You don't need "healthier" sugar or coffee, or coke, or booze, or suplements. If you want to be healthy, LIVE HEALTHY. Eat fresh vegetables, maybe even grow them in your backyard or in a pot, but you don't need to follow the trends, specially when the trend in healthy goes one day leaning to this and then leaning to that. You don't need to be toothpick skinny, you gara be you and live with it.

Be real, don't be decaf.