Duuuuuuuuuuuuude!

I'm... flabbergasted. Yes, I'm flabbergasted. (I'd say gobsmacked, but since I heard one of the Harry Potter kids use that expression, I find it nauseating, so I refrain from employing it.) It's not a secret for anyone that Nyikolaj has been less than perfect lately, and that last week it has been hell all over trying to get it to work right. Well, let's not mention that after reporting it fucked up on Thursday, (March 19th), I had to RE-report it with the same problem, PLUS extra problems on Tuesday, (March 24th) because the technician (some Jorge) kind of forgot to come and FINISH HIS JOB!! Oh yeah. He entered the computer remotely, fucked it up inside, claimed that all Kolya's problems were due to the conflict between the Operative System and the PRINTER's driver (one hell of a driver) so he ripped off the printer, and made a mayor disaster inside to 'puter to the point where the only thing I could use from it was... the iTunes.

It took Mr. J forever to reappear. I must say, I was wary, because he had destroyed Kolya, and on top of it, I had the Ever-So-Bright Mr.B pushing and pushing his agenda, of me moving to Vista because according to his endless wisdom, all my problems with Kolya came from the fact that I was using Office 2007 on XP. Listen Buddy, try and get this: VISTA IS NOT THE SOLUTION! For crying out loud, Nagi-kun came with XP and Office 2007. The people who had Vista in the office moved back to XP. Currently he's the only one with Vista. Hell, if he likes the layout so much, he should get himself an Apple. Guess he's too much of a loser to go that far following a logical sequence of thought.

Anyway, I was leaving early on Friday, which is the day Mr. J came to finally format Kolya. I had to leave it up at the Director's office, and made him promise to come today to format my pendrives. Dude, the work ain't done until I say it's done. The Outlook is still giving me a headache and I just need all viruses erradicated. Well, guess what? Today in my mail I receive two e-mails from IT claming that the reports are closed, the problems are solved, thank you very much. Well, hell no, homie! I wrote back, and told them, that the problems are not solved just yet. The lady asked me what NEW problems I had now. No new problems, sweetheart, only I'm waiting for that motherfucker to finish his job, as he promised on Friday.

"Oh, sorry, sorry! Then I'll reject J's report and sent him back to you!"

I was ... flabbergasted. The asshole DARED to close the report when he hasn't finished his job! Well, not with me. And if he's not coming by the end of today, they'll gonna hear from me over and over and over and over.

No Time

Yes, I know, long time now. I bet even Carrie has written in her long lost and long forgtotten lj by now, probably even finished her twincest, Weasley-cest fic... which I'm dying to read, BTW, and so on. Well, sorry, but I was so fucking busy like you have no idea. First of all, I've had work to do at the office, and spent the whole fucking week trying to compel Nyikolaj Rostov to cooperate with the cause inspite of a huge virus eating up its guts. It didn't so much, as he started closing up word and power point due to "fatal errors" when I was just writing, alt-tabbed to somewhere else and then back, and lately particularly when I requested him to save the document, so I can keep all the changes I've made on it. It even erased the file I was working on. Yep. Good thing I'm a "version-freak", so every day I create a new copy of the same file to work on it. If someone remembers my files, they are all named whateverisinthisfile_v001.01.1.1.2.3.1.4.9. Yeah, some work of art, I know.

I miss Carrie. It has been so long since we talked, since we saw each other, and I really miss going with her to Goyi, or to Bill's, and Hyne knows I want to go with her again to Friday's and have some potato skins and mudslides. Hell, I miss drinking with my friends, gossipping a little and telling each other fics and all kinds of slashy tales!!! Hyne, I have the best friends in the world, I tell you. And it's not only because they are my friends, but more like they are my friends because they are all so insanely great, all in their own way, which makes them all the more enyojable!

Interestingly, this week, inspite of me loving me friends like bonkers, I haven't been able to see them, even though I wanted to meet with Víctor to see some Supernatural, and I also wanted to go see Laura and Ale to catch some booze. However I have been so tired lately, with my mind working in loops. For once, I have been working on my own working plan. Yes, I have to make it or I'll never get one, and I need to do something when I'm at the office. Add to it, I'm the only one, who can make sure I get to do a job according to my job-profile. So yeah, I've been working on that. Have also been getting, when I can, into the analysis of the yearly bahavior of the network. It bothers me that my own boss can't understand the work that goes into analysis.

At home I've been working on the necklaces I'll give to my friends, and honestly, I've been getting better and better. I promise I'll do a picture of them and post it for you after I gave it to my friends, so you can judge my work. There was one necklace that took me a lot of time to complete. It's a blue one, for which I just couldn't find the proper matching beads. I tried it out three times and two times I had to undo my work until the third time I nailed it and made it happen. I don't really like making matching earrings to them, so for the last two I made some earrings quite different, yet with a kind of "feeling" that relates to the necklace, and also to what I believe to be the personality of the friend getting the piece. Hopefully they like it. ^_^

I still gara deal with the packing, for I'll be flying home this weekend, and I have just done my luggage once. I still have to review and re-pack, prepare a full list of stuff (which I should make permanent), and go over step by step. ^_^ Good thing is that my "traver documents" pack is done. Ticket, taxes, passports, ID, public transportation pass, Hungarian SIM card, Budapest and Wien maps, plus the copy of the reservations of the hotels in Wien and in Krakow. I've packed books, CDs and some clothes, but I still have to recheck and pack jewelry, extra shoes, toilettery and asthma pumps. I also have to collect the gifts I'm giving to my friends and my in-laws, which Kari considers a waste of time, but I happen to know better. Gara get the presents of the boys and also the present of the birthday boy.

Yes, traveling, even when you go home, is a hassle. However, I'm happy I'm going home, even if it is only for two weeks. Hopefully soon I'll be able to go back home forever.

Things are going along the plan, others are getting stale, still in a moment of movement, getting stuck, but I try not to lose my patience. Kari told me yesterday, that he found it amazing I kept fighting for my thesis after all that have been happening. The shameless corruption and small-mindedness of some around it, that seek to pull some profit from our work, and yet stop it for pety reasons. Well, I can't let go of it, my life and my future depends on it. I can't let go.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to wash my hair and go on with the packing. Hopefully I'll see you tomorrow and write to you.

I'm Handy

My friend Dragonfly sent me over a few pictures she took when I was learning to make necklaces at her place, and so I've decided to share them with you. Well, not exactly "them", but one of them. Yes, I know you can't see me, but I believe I have very particular hands, and if that doesn't help you, there's still my trademark green cord on my right wrist and the Swatch watch on the left. The pretty necklace you see in steel tones was the model I was using to guide my work and match the length. That beautiful thing was made by Dragonfly.

Yesterday I finally started my "blue" proyect, which is the necklace I'm preparing for another friend of mine. This is the first one I'll be doing entirely on my own and I has me a little bit nervous. I've made my best at getting the right coloured beads, but the store where I use to go is not very asorted, so I had a hard time finding the right beads. At the end, when I started working on them it happened that they didn't match really, and the smaller ones are far more transparent than I expected them to be. Bummer. It doesn't look bad, and it actually looks as if the necklace had some frosting on, but I wanted them rather to blend and create a different visual pattern. Oh well, I'm left to my own devices.

I've been thinking that I'd like to work more on these things, and perhaps this year make the gifts of all my girlfriends with my own two hands. This means, of course, to practice many other techniques so, not everybody end up with the same type of necklace from me. ^_^ It means also to stock up on more beads and material. Perhaps even get my own pliers instead of always snitching away Dad's. ^_^ Or maybe not, after all, in less than two years I'll be flying back home, and I don't think that carrying hardware would be such a good idea. Then again, maybe I'll have to took around there and see if I can get the same tools and goods.

We shall see, we shall see. Well, the first birthday on the row is that of Roo, so maybe I could work a bit on that and see how it comes out.

My mom wears my stuff. ^_^ Yesterday she told me her friends admired a simple blue-and-green necklace I made for her last year. It makes me happy to see her happy.

Yeah, Right

AIG again. So they say the can't give back the whole $165 million (odd, wasn't it like one BILLION USD when the story started to circulate?), because around the 56% of it was paid to foreign associates. Well, isn't that convenient? Place the money there where the Government can't reach it. They didn't meountion that before, odd, isn't it? Well, I believe the Government should deduct the entire amount from the bail out, claim it back with taxes or something and cut the influx of money into the company.

They should be thorn into pieces, sold and given to all taxpayers.

The Printer of Hell

Dude, I came today to work, and my laptop, Nyikolaj, was working as bad as ever. If I was working on a Word file and for ANY reason had to go to another app, such as Microsoft Outlook to check on my mail, or my Internet Brownser, or Excel, or iTunes... you name it, the whole thing SHUT THE FUCK DOWN! It has been doing this for a while now, going as far as to shut down when I'm working on it and decide to SAVE the file just in case it decides to pull some stunt on me. So I dutifully called the dudes at I.T., you know, the ones that ban the FB and the iwiw because these are Social Sites and Date Sites, and cut the Google Talk, the MSN, and the Skype because, really , they have nothing better to do. Well, I actually called them by Thursday, and it was not until today that I actually received the call from some guy who had problems, and I mean real existential problems at speaking my name. Come on Dude!! (We then had a conversation on Animé, since I found out I can connect with him there, BUT he wasn't able to name a single Saiyan's name, and that includes Bardok, Kakarotto's father, and Raditz, Kakarotto's brother.)

So, he gets remotely into Nyikolai... and he fucking messed up the whole shebang. No Internet, no internal e-mail service, no word (at all), no excel (like it had never existed), and he decided the problem was that the driver of the PRINTER was fucking up the entire thing. So he's coming tomorrow to FORMAT my laptop. That's just swell. I didn't know that a printer could be so deadly. Shall we call the Winchesters? You know, just in case the driver is possessed or something...

A Day with Dragonfly

Once again I'm loosening my rhythm of publishing, but yet once again, I'm living rushed weekends, with my Saturdays becoming my big "do all I couldn't do during the week because I was locked at the office" and my Sundays becoming my "reservoir Saturdays", when I manage all I couldn't manage on Saturday, assuming all places are open for what I need. (Naturally, I usually leave for Sunday the things that doesn't requiere me to go to stores and places that close on Sunday.) Then again, sometimes things fell a little off place and you have to reschedule your tasks and programs in order to keep things going on. Saturdays and Sundays have only 24 hours each and some times the amount of things you have to do are so, that you would actually require three or four of them to get everything done. So when can I sit down and write? By the time I'm finished, all I want to do is lay back, watch some TV and sleep, so, of course, I end up not writing anything in any blog. Any of the four. Trying to wrap your mind around any language becomes too much of an effort to do anything.

My program for yesterdays included running up to the Post Office to sent a letter, which I ended up not sending (will have to wait until tomorrow), and go to Dragonfly's place to learn how to make necklaces. If I had time, I planned to go cut my hair, but I didn't. My hairdresser works up until four on Saturdays, six on weekdays except one week day which she takes free, but I never know which days is that.

Yesterday I spent a good chunk of my day with Dragonfly, talking, meeting her family, learning a nice technique to do necklaces and eating all the great food she and her sister did. We had this meeting planned for weeks ago, but there was something coming in between, and Ihad planned to learn more about making necklaces in order to be able to do my friends' gifts myself, and get them soemthing original and made with love, and not just some piece bought in a store that they can find in every corner. There's a certain beauty in handmade things, I believe, and the fact that you get something made by someone, thinking of you, it makes it almost magical.

I have always loved the necklaces Dragonfly makes, those she wears, those she sales and those she gives to her friends and family. She, knowning my passion for green, has provided me with most of my green collection, including my beloved shamrock necklace, which I make sure to wear for each Saint Patrick's day.

While I was at her place,I learned that she and her mom are as crazy for the Cherry Coke as me, which is awesome, bacause in this country most people dislike it. It made me feel like I had arrived to some cool secret place where I could be understood. However, the cherry-coke was the tinest and smallest of details that warmed my heart in this loving family. I must say, I was so taken by the sweetness of all her family, her father's quiet smiles and gentleman ways, her mother's love and care, her sister's shy sweetness, her cousin's outgoing personality that invited you, lured you into deep, pal-friendship. It was all good spirits and laugher, from a family so handy and so active! The goodness of their hearts was breatheable everywhere in that lovely, homely house.

Her mom was there with me and talked to me making sure I didn't feel alone or badly hosted, and only left me alone when I was so engaged making my first necklace that it was evident I wasn't gonna be able to pay attention and I needed to concentrate. But even so, from time to time she came checking uo on me and makimg some small talk, which makes all the difference when you are a guess at a house. She showed me a few handmade creations she has done and talked to me about the newest crafts in town. How she was learning this and that, something called "telar", which produces a kind of woven fabric much thicker than what you can normally create with needles. She told me, just like Dragonfly, that her family has a thing, an inherited hability to do arts and crafts. They knit and crochet and embroid. The father isn't an odd one in this talented family, for he makes furniture. Dragonfly told me that all her furniture, in her room was made by her father. I couldn't be more impressed. She has such a beautiful dresser and a small table for her stereo... In a family, particularly a family of the socio-economical level of ours, a middle class household, a handy family can make the difference. The home also becomes so much warmer, things are so much more cherished and taken care of, when you know how much love and hardwork was put into building the dining table, and crocheting the tablecloth on it, when you know the hands that gave form o the dishes and the food on it. It's not only a matter of economical questions, but also a matter of value, of love and of care.


I also learned something else about Dragonfly: she's an order "freak", which I LOVE!! I couldn't help but stand in AWE watching all the cool things in her room and the way she orders everything and keeps her things in perfectly matching boxes, and all her beautiful necklaces and earrings, which she made herself, hanged so beautifully, unlike mine, all tangled and locked up in boxes. (Have been thinking on getting small bags and back them all up individually to keep them from tangling.) Looking at her room, as well as at her house, I realized once again that you don't really need big spaces, because you can always fit in smaller places too, assuming you are tidy and you keep your things ordered. Big places, actually, only aid you to have a bigger mess.

Well, I was impressed, but above all, I would like to thank Dragonfly for teaching me some of these lovely arts and crafts! ^_^ I love having friends like Dragonfly!

That's Swell, AIG!

This will be short, but will say a lot. Please look at this:

The head of the insurer A.I.G. told a House committee that he had asked employees who received bonuses to return half the money.

Swell, isn't it? They gave away 1 BILLION dollars in bonuses, but only ask people to give back half. Good, how about the Government requests them to give back the half of the bailout? I don't know for you, but for me it's clear: "Give back the whole thing, Liddy!"

A Certain "Plan Escudo" in Costa Rica

So, our Government came up with this brilliant idea of preparing a "Plan Escudo" (Shield Plan) to get ready to face the crisis. One would think it's a great idea and these people, this Government should be patted on the shoulder for it. Well, hold your horses, homies! This is no other thing but yet another scheme to protect the interests of a few in prejudice of a whole nation. It is indeed advertized as something that will be oh-so good for the population, but truth is that it seeks to finally demolish our social guaranties. People could be fired far easier and without being paid as much as today or with no payment at all (and there's no unemployment social aid in Costa Rica, so make the numbers), work conditions can be changed at will (the will of the enterprise, you mind), and so wages can be subject to reduction. It is all sold under the shady label of "flexibilidad laboral" (labor flexibility), which pretty much means that the employer can do as it sees fit.

Though in the past years the labor conditions have deteriorated terribly in Costa Rica, this will finally give legal support to all abuses committed by the employers. You have to actually be very thorough to find that clipping today (thanks Hyne I do not give it up!), but last year, November 13th a Nicaraguan worker died due to the highly unhealthy conditions in which it was made work by the Hotel Rui. Of course, Hotel Rui had nothing to do because it outsourced the contruction to some other entreprise. Of course. Poor Hotel Rui, however, has been so unlucky that it has outsourced with a lot of enterprises that commit serious abuses against its workers. This Nicaraguan guy and his coworkers live in unsanitary conditions, among LOADS of dirt (and I mean even sewer dirt too), in very tight places. So, this man got sick and died. Other 1500 workers have gotten severely sick while working in the building of this hotel.

Bad, isn't it? Well, read the article I linked up there and you'll see more. If you can't read in Spanish or are too lazy to do so, worry not, I'll give you a bit of highlights here:

1. Employers take from the wage of the employees the 9% they have to for the Social Security, BUT they either never inscribe them, and therefore they remain without social insurance, or they report a salary 50% lower.
2. Working conditions are so rought many workers can't take it and are forced to leave. From their proportional payment, they hold back this 9% allegedly, to pay it to the Social Security.
   
3. Workers receive very reduced portions of food, often made in situ, under unsanitary conditions and served in dirty dishes and cuttlery.

Often these enterprises hire immigrants because it's easier to abuse of them, because they don't know the law (well, nobody, as a matter of fact), and they fear being deported. A case I know well is that of the cleaning ladies of our building. It is actually a shame that this Institution allows such abuses against workers. Most of these women come from Nicaragua, and have still their families, their kids there. In here they are made work with dangerous chemicals and wearing no protection. Once they cleaned my office while I was still here, and I, at a bigger distance from the chemicals, suffered a fit of asthma. The supervisor tried to tell me that it was nothing, and that the girl got the products wrong, but I was having none and told her to used only water in my office. Later on, one of the girls came and told me many of them have gotten sick for the product, but the company did nothing to change it, and instead claimed they were problematic and fired them without paying them a dime. This cleaning company holds up their wages for months, and doesn't care that they have no money even for getting the bus to come to work. The harrass them and if any of them starts befriending one of us, she' sent to another building or fired.

There have been cases of girls fired that never even got what the company owed them. Naturally the company holds back the 9%, but none of them has insurance.

This all happens inspite of the existence of laws and institutions created to protect the workers, so I wonder, what will happen in Costa Rica when the Shield Plan gives finally the green light to all the abuses committed against workers that are being denounced today and that the law fails to process?

Addendum to "Belly Matters"

It is an archaic conception to think that you are what you eat, but I believe in today's society it fits people properly. When you have loads and loads of options to feed yourself, what you chose to eat is what you choose to be. So, if you choose junk food, you are junk. If you choose to eat nothing, you are nothing.

What do you choose to be?

A friend of mine commented that entry through the Facebook, and I'd like to add her comment here because her remarks are very to the point.

« I love this note. So many people are obsessed about being so skinny that their ribs stick out, as do their collarbones and shoulder blades. As someone who is definitely not a toothpick, I appreciate this post. Marilyn Monroe really is one of the most beautiful women in history and she was a size 12 (in today's measurements). »

Well said, my dear! As for "size 12"... my goodness! I'm an 8-9! Guess we still gara put some meat on our bones! ^_^

A Little Shamrock to All

Happy Saint Patrick's Day to all! ^_^ My Hyne, I've been expecting this day so much! Not like they do anything to day, but I just love it. ^_^ If I could I'd put a picture of shamrocks as background for the blog, but this blog is too smart for me. I do not wish to change the black either because it's so nice, not to mention the lovely way in which it pulls out other colors. I just have to love black, though then again, I totally love GREEN, and I'm sure you all know about it by now.

Back in the days when I had an lj (livejournal. Google it), I remember there was a community for people who loved red, but there was no community for people who loved green. Well, as a matter of fact, there was no community for any other color, but red. Anyway, how many people like green? Other than the Irish, you mind. Not many people. Once I heard that 75% of the population liked blue, but green fades pretty much into oblivion. Save by the Irish, who have embraced it. ^_^

You know what would be cool? Green coke and green chocolates. I'd like that. Maybe for next year I'll bake a few cookies with shamrock shapes and cover them with some green glaze. That would be awesome!

Anyway, today I dressed in green and put on some of the green jewelry pieces my friend Dragonfly made for me. My very own four leafed clover hangs from my neck, my newest bracelets from my right wrist, and matching green earrings. I changed my walpaper in Nyikolaj to a field of shamrocks, changes my MSN design to green, my picture to shamrocks and my handle as well: Shamrock Faerie. It's all in the spirit! Even my lunch is green! I made some rice with green peas to go with my fish. It can't get better than that, now can it?

I'm becoming so forgetful. I have this thing I'd like to tell you about and I keep forgetting it. Old age, I guess.

So, I don't know if you have ever kept one, but back in the day I used to keep a virtual briefcase with yahoo, where I saved a lot of important documents (important for me), and to which I could have access any time I needed them, provided that I had Internet connection. Well, yahoo sent us not long ago an e-mail, that our briefcases have to be evacuated, everything saved into computers and stuff, because after March 31st they are whipping the whole shebang clean. Sad, really, because a virtual storageroom is quite useful. You can place in it whatever thing you can consider, that may be crap for some people, but that you'll die if you ever lose it. Bills, those "e-mails" that can save your hide, an advance of a project you have been working on for ages and that really, really, would turn out to be very bad if you lose, your notes from a meeting, your notes from class, your tests, exams and such, the draft of a novel, versions of some fanfic you are working on, experimental images on which you are working, schedules, accounting listings and balancesheets, designs... you name it.

Now, with the thesis, well, I've become rather paranoid and scared of losing the entire thing. From time to time I make sure Omi has a copy, Nagi has a copy and so does Vassili. However, I just want to make sure, even more, that I am not exposing myself to the losing of our work, so I started checking for other options.

There's always the old-school solution of saving the documents in your e-mails, but I was looking for something additional. I was looking for another virtual briefcase. I can't say I've found it, but there's this Google Docs thing. Rather primitive, if you ask me, as it works only a few formats (.doc, .ppt, .xls, .csv .txt), but it does the job. I realized that this works like some kind of "sharepoint" (or cherpoin, as my ever so enlightened coworkers refer to it), but the only problem is that the one person I'd like to share the documents with has no gmail. Go figure. Well, after discovering this, I believe I'll have to talk to her and introduce her into the world of gmail and then talk her into using this space for us to work the thesis together. Sounds like a good plan, doesn't it?

Belly Matters

Saturday was a kind of "something" day for me. I work up at 5:30 hours in order to attend all the things I had to do, among them write two letters, one for my boyfriend, one for my uncle Jón, talk with my boyfriend on the Skype, run to two different teller machines to get my money, to run into a bank, buy USD, go to another, make an extraordinary payment (no the regular payment of the credit card, but an additional one. Yes, I do that), run to a third bank, pay another credit card, return two DVDs (Day Watch and Night Watch. Awesome. You ought to see them together!), go to the post office and send the two letters I wrote, and then run to Pavas, where I was to meet with my dear friend Li for lunch, at noon exactly, and then see if I can sell some books I don't need, get some pictures printed out and go back home to work on the theorical framwork of our thesis.

Amazingly, I made everything, got to lunch in time, and the only thing I couldn't accomplish was the thing with the books. I didn't know you can't only sell them in weekdays, and after 17 h. And let me tell you this: the neighbourhood ain't something I'd like to visit more often. Either way, I feel very, very accomplished. There's nothing as cool as completing a task list to satisfaction. ^_^

As I was walking toward the bus station home, I suddenly realized everybody around me, particularly every woman around me, young or old, from the seven year-old to the seventy year old, they all had the same thing: rounding out bellies that stretched against their clothes. First I thought maybe I was just focusing on the ones with "the belly", but as I looked around, everybody had this distinctively disgusting belly going on. It looked as if they had hid a pneumatic under their shirts. It was flaccid and ugly. Not the kind you get for being normally thick, but the kind you get for living and unhealthy life. I wondered whether it was the bad choice on clothing that made everybody look so bad, and if they had no mothers, like Roo would say, so nobody stopped them before walking out of the house looking like that.

Thing is that we live in a sick society where people are either stuffing themselves with loads of greasy junk that might kill their hunger, but certainly kill their bodies, or people that plain torture and kill their bodies following all kinds of mindless fashion statements that requiere them to be unhealthily thin. I've always said that these models, these people look like the survivors from Auschwitz, but I guess I have to be more graphic at depicting what I mean.


Hopefully people start finding it shocking. Hopefully people stop saying that THAT is beautiful and recover their senses and go back to the healthy.

The body is not meant to prounce around with only a thin layer of skin over the bones. The body has meat, blood, fat, bones, skin, internal organs, hair and the whole shebang. The thin has not always been the ideal, and it is not the ultimate sign of beauty. You are not prettier the thinner you are, you are pretty for who you are. Don't stuff yourself with al kinds of garbage, or that's what you'll become and what you'll look like. I know I'm not the healthiest people on town, but for Hyne's sake, people, do try to eat well! Eat as much as you need, without eating as a recreational activity, and when you eat, try to eat good things. I'm not proposing to ban fast food, but try to do some cooking. Prepare your lunch the night before, don't be ashamed of carrying your own food to work. Try to have some cereal, some veggies, some sort of meat or animal product... cheese, eggs, drink plenty of water, or tea, or juice. Don't try to be skinny, but be who you are.

I thought I'd show you a picture of a woman known for her beauty and desirable body. She has gone down in history like the most beautiful woman of the world. Ms. Marilyn Monroe. No one can deny she was one beautiful woman who seduced and captivated the world. The eternal bombshell. And if you pay close attention to her, she wasn't a toothpic, but a beautiful, curvy woman full of forms. Could you say she's fat? Could you say she looks bad? She had a little belly to her, which you can appreciate in several of her movies, and her shoulders and arms were soft and full, fleshy, not sticks.

What I'm trying to say here is that you can look good in your own, healthy body, you don't neeed to torture and kill yourselves over fashion, nor dress it if it doesn't fit your body. You don't have to stuff yourselves with crap either. Fashion statements change every few seconds, but your health is for ever (sort of ^_^).

Placa con Pica Pica

Como que me está dando la jodiona por escribirles en español, ¿no? Pues tampoco se crean que me queda tan comodito, ya que cada vez que me paso a escribir en la lengua de Gabriel García Márquez me tengo que volver a acostumbrar a la distribución de las letras en el teclado hispánico. Mae, no es por nada, pero ¡qué cochino sancocho se me hace con esta cosa! Diay sí mae... así está la vara.

Pues resulta y sucede que a esta tierra azotada por los malos políticos y peores presidentes, le está dando la temblorina. Y mae, ¡no me mi'haga la barba en seco! Que tampoco son teblorcillos ahí de 2-3 en la escala de Richter; sino de 5-6. Volvemos también a las jodederitas de 200 réplicas al día, temblorcitos bastante seguidos, pa'que no les falte, y meneoncitos serios. Gracias a Dios que nadie ha resultado herido, no hay pérdidas qué lamentar, como pasó ahora el 8 de enero, con el temblor de Cinchona, pero igual. La gente se vé en los pasillos, en los parqueos, y casi-casi que haciendo olla en el parque de la Sabana. Pues sí, los miedosos somos muchos. Vienen las preguntas y comentarios de rigor:

- ¿Lo sintió?

No, y es que créanme, hay gente que no los siente.

- Estuvo fuerte.
- Esa cosa sonaba horrible.
- Yo solo ví donde esa atarantada salía corriendo...

Y luego la discusión de cómo estuvo exactamente el temblor. Que si se hizo para un lado, si se hizo para el otro, que cuándo fue la parte más fuerte, que si fue profundo, o superficial, de Golfito o de Heredia... Pues ahora oyendo las noticias (Telenoticias por el 100.7), resulta y sucede que los meneos de ayer y antier son producto de nada más y nada menos que la inquieta Placa del Coco. La misma plaquita tectónica que se puso a hacer loco con la Placa del Caribe allá por 1991-1992 y nos tuvo con temblorcitos fuertes todos los meses y una buena ración de temblocillos de "poca monta" diariamente. Mae, es que si a todo tico le dieran un colón por cada temblor que se tiene que bancar, en ese año se hubiera acabado la pobreza en Costa Rica.

Pues bueno ahora no es con la Placa del Caribe, sino con el Bloque de Panamá que se nos ha puesto a hacer loco. Mae, no es por nada, pero ¡qué pega! ¿Eso significa que volvemos a los temblores diarios? Menos mal que para Semana Santa me desaparezco dos semanitas, porque la verdad es que no estoy yo para estos trotes. De verdad, si no es la corrupción y el descaro de los políticos, es la madre naturaleza. Como que mi abuela tenía razón: ya está aquí el fin del mundo, porque esto, de verdad que es el acabose.

The Value of Looks

It certainly feels good to let go and talk your head off, steaming out all the stuff that bothers you. Well, in my case, "type down", for I'm better at writing then at talking. It's an interesting thing abou myself, I believe, which obeys to the fact that all in all, no matter how much I smile and get along with others (or not), befriend and commit, I'm a loner. And once a loner, always a loner. A wolf crying to the moon, roaming the woods.

Yesterday I went home with a colleague of mine who hasn't so far given me a ride. The conversation we had was like an epiphany for me, realizing not only that I wasn't alone in certain appreciations about another colleague of ours, but also finding out other things I had not particularly paid attention to. Some topics have been developped in other blogs and journals, and so here I'd like to talk about the "self-conscious" matter.

So, we have this colleague, who goes around constantly making a point out of how hot she is. Yesterday I heard that she swears she looks like Nicole Kidman when she's naked. Well, she tells that to people who has noticed her legs are bowed... People laugh at her because she insists she's perfect, and goes around bragging that she has such a flat tummy... and at the same time lovehandles round out from her sides. She uses pictures of herself sunbathing for MSN avatars... while in the office, and tells everybody in the most coarse vocabulary, how hot she is. Then, of course, goes offering up herself to men, and laughing says that "if you don't show, you don't sell". Only one comment for this:

"If you behave like fleamarket, second hand good, that's what you'll get from life. I myself, behave like one of those very exclusive collector's items. I don't sell, I don't show. People who is REALLY interested find me, love me, value me and keep me in their lives. If I were a good, I'd be using the anti-marketing."

Anyway, I always thought she was joking or trying to boost up her self-confidence. She's not ugly, but she has no butt, has far smaller breasts than mine, and they sag, dresses poorly, applies make up as if she would have tried doing it in a kinder garden and never succeeded. However, what really makes her unappleaing is... herself. Vulgar and unreliable. So I just filed the whole thing as joking or an attempt to find some value in herself when things go pearshaped. Well, it seems she flaunts around telling everybody still long enough for her to tell him or her what a hottie she is. Dude, if you are hot people notices it. If you have to tell them, it's because you are not.

So, this other colleague and I were talking about the matter, and suddenly we realized that due to the fact that this woman is so terribly unreliable, and well, so vulgar, she actually has no other assets, nor has tried to develop any real positive features. Given the way she behaves, her only value is her... well... her alleged "hotness", which resumes to blond hair, blue yes, white skin and... thin (if flaccid) complexion. This made me think about people who bet to such flimsy things.

Looks are gone after a while, or they stop being fashionable. Besides, it is said that the beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I'm sure a lot of people would think my Kari is less than attractive, and yet I blindly believe him to be the hottest piece of man born to this drabble Earth. Okay, yes, I have had hotter men, yet still, for me Kari is Adonis reborn. (And truth to be told, he has a killer body and the most amazing blue eyes mankind has ever seen.) Others might say he's far more horrible than smacking your mother. (Costa Rican saying.) Same about me, and same about everybody. For instance, I believe that Brad Pit, Angelina Jolie, Scarlet Johanson and Leonardo Dicaprio are ugly. And I mean, "I admire their courage for staying alive despite the way they look" ugly. For me Karl Urban and Naomi Watts are beautiful. Others would say I'm out of my mind.

Looks, the way she plays them, are hardly for oneself, but for others. It's a value that depends on the appreciation of others. If I think I'm beautiful, who else do I need to think so? I think it and that's enough. I don't need reafirmation from others, either by getting it for free as voluntarily given compliments, or by asking for them. But when you do, you are playing your worth and placing it in the hands of others.

When it comes to the worth of someone, people should really go for things that matter: honestly, kindness, dutyfullness, wit, brains, reliability. People should go for the things they can take care of, keep, nourish and make grow. You do not need to be born smart in order to be smart. Sure, some people have a special "ease" at learning and understanding, but every human being has been programmed to learn, so go ahead! Cultivate your mind. Cultivate your soul by smiling, by making your environment better, by helping those who need help, by doing your job honestly, happily, as it should be done. Cultivate your name, your word, your reliability, so people and you yourself know that you can be trusted. Wear your responsability not as a burden, but as a banner that fills you with pride.

Find joy in the joy of your peers. Find joy in the small joys of life, live fully, not each minute, but each experience, savour it, embrace it, learn from it and share the fruits of your life, of your gifts with your surroundings.

China?

The other day my father was going on and on about the great world potence China would soon become, and rejoicing of the end of the "yankees" at the hand of the Chinese. For five seconds flat I made the attempt to talk some sense into him, but failed and decided not to pursue the road towards enlightment with him. You see Dad is one of those people who likes to pretend to be oh-so-smart and thread theory after theory with the shreds he gets from here and there. No real knowledge behind his words, only the desire to figurate. Yes, I know, cruel thing to say, but that's his case. It's better to be clear with it.

Before the turn of the millenium the theory of China rising above the world as the First Potence of the future clogged the textbooks, and made the delight of thousands of development theory volumes. The basis behind this hypothesis were the large size of China, the way it managed to stand on its feet so fast after WWII, and its ability to produce obscene amounts of goods at insultingly low prices... and sell them so cheap it gara be a mistake. Now, I'm not an expert on Chine-istics or Asianistics, nor an expert in development, for I have spent waaay too much time working different areas, yet walk with me a few steps, now would you?

China's productive explotion comes, thanks not only to the large amount of labor force it has, but also because it's cheap and some. Well, Honey, you can't get cheaper than slave labour, now do you? No wages to pay, no social security, no vacations, no union rights, no breaks, no schedules. Buy them once and you have them for ever and ever and all eternity. Add to it, if there's one thing Chinese goods are known for is it's bad quality. It is indeed improving in a few industries, but still: it's not quality products. If you think it isn't so, please, do mention ONE Chinese brand known for good quality. And I don't mean that Great Wall car or Lenevo computer you have that has turned out to be so good. I mean a real, honest, world wide known quality product.

If China's strenght is its bulk production, tell me how will it survive during the crisis? People will have less money, and they will cut back expenses, going for the basics: food and shelter. Indeed they'll prefer cheap clothing and low cost goods, but even so, they won't demand as much as before, and if the goods are of no good quality, their demand will sensibly decrease since people will prefer (if they are rational or behave with a certain degree of rationality) to purchase durable things, so they reduce their expenses in an incertain future. Yeah, yeah, I might be just theorizing there, but please look at the news: China's exports fell back around a quarter compared with this same month last year. Import ain't doing any better. Enterprises around the world are trying to cut costs back in order to survive. They are doing lay offs to shave some expenses from the payrolls. Will Chinese enterprises do the same to shoulder the drop in the income? Okay, and how exactly will laying off slaves reduce the costs?

Unless they are sitting on loads of good money, that they are planning to release soon for their grand entry and take over the control of the world, all logics say they are sinking just like the rest of us. Add to it, what are they falling back onto?

Some talk of a Red China, communist ridden, but please, care someone to explain this to me? Because last time I checked my "manual for communism for Dummies", communism is about the equal treatment of all people. In the communism people own and share with others the tools of work and the fruits of their labor. People are all equals, no masters, no owners, but all proletars. So, how come a communist country has slaves? How does slavery and slave labor survive in a communist country?

Censored Internet for a whole country, open corruption, open and flagrant violation of human rights. Is this the way a First World Power looks like? Where are we? Went back to the Ancient Age? Hell, well, don't wake me up at least until we reach the Middle Age, would you?

No, I don't see China as a World Power, nor I wish to see it. This is not a country to become a Power, but a shame. Why are we letting this happen to these people?

Day Watch

After dreaming and wishing so much for it, yesterday I finally had the chance to see the sequel of a Russian movie that got to me (and not only due to the undeliable beauty of Alexei Chadov, who plays a secondary role in the movie): Nochnoy Dozor, or as it known in English: Night Watch. I believe somewhere in here there must be an entry about this movie, from the time Shimmy and I went to the VIP movie theatre (where else?) and watched it. Both of us were sucked into the beauty of the movie, and the whirlpool of the plot. I had heard since then of the infamous Dnyevnoy Dozor, a.k.a. Day Watch.

Well, I certainly wanted to see what happened to Anton, the main character and his son, Yegor.

First of all, if some asshole tells you that he doesn't remember if Kostya was in the movie (vampire character played by Alexei Chadov), said asshole hasn't seen the movie. Kostya, to my delight, was all over the place. To my dismay, at the same time, some ASSHOLE in the costume department thought it would be so funny to dress him up just like Emmet would, from Queer As Folk. Oh well, everybody knows that Russians are not famous for their ability to dress or put on make up tastefully. (Yes, that live bear on the guy's head is his hat, and he's wearing it inside... where that lady, dressed up like a whore, is wearing nothing but a strap of fabric thrown over her neck...

The movie is a nice sequel to Night Watch, yet you see no real shift in power, as the end of Night Watch suggests. There are a few interesting stories wowen into the general plot. The romance developing between Anton and Svetlana, which is pathetic, but if you have ever gone out with a Russian guy you will roll in the floor alughing because, yes, Russian men are THAT phlegmatic-looking, while in reality they are the opposite. Sveta's character does little to win over the viewer, and portrays an annoying type of woman, who always become a kind of "victim", gets sad, depressed and swallows her sorrow. Olga, on the other hand, the Owl witch, comes in getting your attention and winning your heart. She's strong, clever and over all, fun. She's the real partner to Anton, both as colleage and as friend.

The story swirls in plots, murder of "Dark Others", the incrimination of Anton as a "Truce Breaker", the story of the Chalk of Fate and then there's Yegor's desire to get back his father, Anthon, Anthon's wish to have his son in his life, and the stories of Kostya. On one hand, the strange love affair that develops between Alisia and Kostya, and on the other, and for me the more beautiful, de desire of Kostya to become human again, a wish for which his father hides his son's license to feed.

When you watch a movie with a message like that, you can't help but wonder. The people who go watch these movies, usually would like everything to become one of these creatures, and in these stories, these creatures would do anything to be human again, or plain be human. Is it that everybody wants what they can't get, or they plain want what they don't have?

Then the typical geeky question comes into my mind: if I were an Other, which side would I choose? Light or Dark? Well, this ain't even a question. Like a Malfoy sorted into Slytherin even before the Sorting Hat touches his head, I wouldn't be even asked, just shown the way towardss the Dark Side. Dude, I don't even like Coke-Light! Then, what kind of Dark One? Would I be a vampire? Well, I certainly do not feet the profile of a werewolf, you mind? I'd be probably some kind of witch, most likely an empath, though I'd love to be a telekinetic, just like Nagi. ^_^ If I were a shapeshifter, though being a wolf would be cool, I think I'd turn into a dragon, Medieval type, or the ones you saw in Reign of Fire, not the Chinese type. But if it has to be a "real creature", I'd be either a cat or a crow.

The next question in my head is what my friends would be? These are my answers, to those I can somewhat guess:

Shimmy: Dark One - Wizard - telepath-pyrokinetic - tiger
Víctor: Dark One - hunter - mirage raiser-time bending - cat
Vega: Dark One - guardian - telekinetic - mirage raiser - bat
Mora: Dark One - guardian - hipnotizer-pyrokinetic - bat
Alix: Dark One - witch - telepath-ghostwhisperer - fox
Carrie: Light One - healer - empath-telepath - sparrow
Roo: Dark One - seeker/hunter - dimension walker - mirage raiser - cat
Laura: Ligh One - guardian- time bending - snake
Milena: Light One - healer - telekinetic-teleportation - firefly
Dragonfly: Light One - caretaker - telekinesis-time bender - dragonfly
Gitta: Dark One - caretaker- angel-flying - dove
Jeka: Dark One - hunter/warrior - seer-teleportation - hound
Emő: Light One - hunter/warrior - pyrokinetic-mirage raiser - fox
Kari: Light One - guardian - seer-time bending - owl
Malachite: Dark One - hunter/warrior - seer-pyrokinetic - horse
Jules: Light One - guardian - telepath-teleportation - wolf
László: Light One - wizard - telekinetic-empath - horse
Márton: Light One - wizard - seer-telepath - goat (^_^)
Marc: Light One - hunter/warrior - flying-pyrokinetic - wolf
Skylar: Dark One - sorceress - time bending-telekinetic - asp
Vikike: Light One - guardian - empath-teleportation - hawk

But, by all means, if you have a different opinion, do let me know. ^_^ Then again, from what I see, my friends can easily make a war, or at least a battle. From what I know of them, what I see in them is a great force, they are unmatched in these qualities, so I'd say, if they ever got to fight each other it would end up in a slaughter, and all of them dead. ^_^ Good thing they are not doing so!

Los Hijos de la Chingada del WebSense

Sí mae, otra vez en español. Y no crea que no, me cuesta, porque tuve que pasar el teclado de húngaro a español, y pregúnteme si sé donde carajos están las cosas. Mae, es que es como cuando uno empieza a usar la compu por primera vez, ahí con dos deditos picando, picando a ver dónde están las cosas.

En fin, la queja del día de hoy, es por lo cabrones que son los maes de TI. O sea, te quitan el Facebook, que la verdad, ya ni falta hace, te quitan el iwiw, que ni saben lo que es, cabrones no lo pueden leer porque está en húngaro, te quitan el livejournal, el youtube... pero mae, ¿¡¡qué es eso de quitar TELENOTICIAS!!? ¡Maes, carepistolas, tengan fundamento! ¿Cómo le van a quitar a un cristiano las noticias? No hay respeto. No contestan los reportes, qu'es que tienen muy pocos técnicos... ¡Sí Güili! No tiene 5 minutos para mandar a alguien con un cable de Internet más largo luego de que viniero a quitar el inalámbrico. O sea, no importa, aguantate la incomodidad de tener que brincar suiza todos los días por tres meses mientras te traen un cable dos metros más largo. Y uno llame que llame como idiota. Claro, luego de que trasciende que una se puso SOLITA a reacomodar el cubículo a ver si sale el fucking cable y llega a la portátil (que por default debería conectarse por inalámbrico, tal y como lo ha estado por un año y pico), entonces sí.

- ¿Diay 'chita? Ya le traía yo el cable.

Di, yo se lo recibo y ahí quedará, arrollado en una caja para cuando se ocupe. Y sorpresa, sorpresa, que yo por maldosa lo medí, y el hijueputa cable es del mismo tamaño que el otro. O sea, yo para nada medí, y para nada especifiqué que uno de dos metros no me alcanza, que necesito uno de cinco porque se tiene que ir rodeando la pared desde la salida del cable hasta la portátil. Es que les CUESTA la tabla del 0, de verdad. Pobrecitos.

Y encima de todo, llegan, entre la bola de tarados se dividen las labores y una bola de comemocos especializada se dedica a prohibir cosas del Internet. Que el Skype, que la conexión por voz en el Google Talk... y lo mejor es que los sonajas son tan, pero tan ágiles que lo hacen hoy y mañana vuelve a funcionar por como treinta minutos. ¿No me creen? Métanse en el Facebook tipo 7 de la mañana. La página levanta, entras, todo pura vida, pero za tipo 7:30, 8 se vuelve a caer, y se vuelve a dar cuenta que siempre no se puede.

Ta bueno, que digan que es para que la gente trabaje y no sé qué otras playaditas, pero no. No hay prohibición o bloqueo de Internet que impida que acá el que viene a robarse el sueldo se lo siga robando. Qué carajos va uno a trabajar cuando una de dos: o no le dan brete para hacer, o le toca parir monos breteando en ocuyectos, cuya principal característica es que son tan jalados del pelo, tan irreales, irracionales e ilógicos que uno los hace con los ojos cerrados para no ver la cochinada que lo ponen a hacer. Mae, ¿qué clase de brete es dedicarse a hacer cronogramas y rehacerlos una y otra vez? ¿Qué clase de brete es pasarse respondiendo notas, o Hyne no quiera, dedicarle un día a responderle a Miley Rojas? ¡Mae, sia tan carebarro! Seguro no conocen a gente como Pollito, cuya veintiúnica labor en esta vida es pasarse hablando por teléfono con sus amigos, o andar paseando esa panza tan vulgar que tiene por todas partes a ver a dónde cae para echarse unos chismecitos y un café.

La moral laboral, la eficiencia y la calidad del trabajo, así como el aprovechamiento de las horas no se hace bloqueando sitios, en especial bloqueando sin saber bloquear, o bloqueando a diestra y siniestra sin siquiera revisar o usar un poquito la jupa: se hace creando un ambiente adecuado, teniendo gente responsable, trabajadora, que está por vocación al trabajo, no por la plata, y botando a la bola de lampareadores robasueldos. Bueno, cierto, se queda el instituto con como ... 300 trabajadores de los 15 mil que tiene ahora... aunque por mi parte yo diría que se queda con... 5 personas, no 300.

A eso hemos llegado.

I like Brian Caufield

The problem with the news is that you can't get a good perspective from one paper. What do you do? You sign in to more than one. The donwside? You wake up every day to a mailbox full of e-mails from newspapers and magazines. Well, maybe I'm still on the lucky side, since I receive e-mails from only five sources: Washington Post (my personal favorite), New York Times, Forbes, Le Figaro and CNN. CNN is nice, because it brings you the news in little chunks and sends only one e-mail. Le Figaro follows, with one e-mail per day, but for the love of Lafayette, can't they put some order in that paper? Two articles of Sarkozy and the rugby results in the middle. Have they heard about "sections"? Washington Post, and specially Forbes shower me with TONS of e-mails daily. I've tried, but I can't make Forbes understand that their "Lifestyle" magazine IS NOT OF MY LIKING!!! The life of the rich and famous do not hold any interest for me, nor I care to know which is the most expensive house, yacht, watch, car or any of those. Unlike a lot of people, which I tend to call "asshole losers who can't concentrate on their own life and reality", if I can't afford it, I don't waste my time with it.

Anyway, there's this segment of Forbes I love, because it's 100% Telecommunications. Gossips, tips, news, speculation... it's a trip!

Anyways, I was going to delete today's Forbes mail after reading the headlines (as usual), when one article suddenly teased my interest: Apple and Qualcomm are the only enterprises (so far) that haven't resourced to lay off. Well, that triggered my curiosity and I went reading. Well, the article was very cut to the chase, short and simple and lacked the gusto, the flavor one gets used to when reading the novelette-like articles of the Post. However, it was interesting.

I was going to book the article and the reporter as a dry, talentless piece of work that thanks Hyne did not took the life of a tree for printing, when I reached the last paragraph. That one made me smile with it's sour, mocking sarcasm. It suddenly made the entire thing have sense. Yeah, yeah, Apple and Qualcomm are doing good. Interesting that Qualcomm seems to be "hiding" something fishy, such as, perhaps "small scale lay offs disguised as getting rid of X or Y because they no longer hit the measure the company wants"? That's just hypothetical, of course... nothing proved on that, nor are any of us telling that's the case. Then again, if you read between the lines, you can read a few interesting stories.

So Apple is holding up. Yeah. Kepp the 'puters pricey, keep them like there was no crisis, like there were still a market, and who knows? Maybe the Mac-groupies will stick to the company and keep it up and working. Mr. Caufield ends his article with an interesting: "lets all hope Apple keeps to get going as they are, so we will all have a job during the crisis... selling fruit to the Apple employees". He even took the time to research the best corner to set up a stand for that.

^_^ I believe I'll continue seeking Mr. Caufield's articles from now on.

Simplicity

I was looking at this picture in one of my prior posts, of the movie "Bad Seed". The story is basically about this little girl whose greed makes her extremely mean. She uses for her advantage all kinds of social forms and ideas, pretending to be a perfect little girl, while she won't think twice about murdering anyone who gets in her way. In the end, the message is that the girl is genetically twisted, unable to be anything but evil and use the pretending to cover for her sociopath crimes. After the credits, as way to put the people at ease, and as a joke, the mother takes the girl by the arm, yank her to her lap and spanks her soundly.

I remembered that scene now and it brought a thought to my mind: it's amazing how people seek only the easy solutions to everything. Nobody tries to somehow deal with the girl, make her understand, stop her from resourcing to any means to get what she wants, but in the mind of everyone the basic and calming thought is that you can "spank her good". What's some spanking to a murderer? And this question brought further: what's some bailout for institutions, enterprises, banks, economies that will not change their ways. A little berating, some restrictions, maybe give them the money, maybe not, but basically let the whole thing go down the sewer, let them continue being the same bad seeds they have been so far.

Talk to them and make them "promise not to do it again"? Please. Banks gave away their share of bonuses and premiums out of money they could have used to bailout themselves.

Solution? 1. Pay attention to what happens, 2. cut back dangerous behavior on the bud. Don't let them run on the profit rush. Don't let greed take over the economy again.

Pistachios

Take the bag, open it, eat one and I dare you to stop... stop anytime before the bag is empty. Yes, I know, you can't. Neither can I, and I tell you, I'm not much of a nut person. So yeah, I'm nuts, but I'm not nuts about nuts. Peanust are fine, and peanut butter only if inside a Reese's pieces. I hate almonds in all their forms and varieties, pecans are not one to take my breath away, nor hazelnuts even though I like to eat them from time to time because they look like brains; and I like chestnuts only as mashed cream. But pistachios...

Let's start with the fact that they sport my favotire color: green.

Early in the morning, I come to the office talking on the phone with my boyfriend the last 100 mts, since the system manager decided AGAIN to close all verbal communication forms thought the Internet, and yet I want to hear his voice everyday. Yes, you gara be in love to do that.

So we are talking, mainly me bitching about the thesis and our ever-so-adorable-and-understanding tutor, Hyne bless his soul, and eventually things turn to: "Let's meet online". Well, when you have to deal with monthly calls from Hungary to Costa Rica and vice versa, you do want to ensure the "financially healthier" choice. Well, my boyfriend was about to fix himself some lunch (yes! he can ... well, maybe not Iron Chef Hungary in the kitchen, but he does know his beginer's way around the stove!), and so we agree to meet around here when he's finished. Phone placed on the receiver, and I'm left to my devices and find my own food. Sure, I could pick up the phone again, dial and have Bagelmen's deliever me a bagel with butter, toasted and two regular cokes, or maybe go to the seven-eleven and pick some bread, some yoghurt, some coke (I actually have to replenish my coke reserve. It's depleted, truth to be told.), some Raisins Kellogg's Komplete and Hyne knows what else can I dump in the cart before hitting the exit. Never, never send a compulsive buyer alone to the seven-eleven. We can spend an average medium-low family's monthly food budget on one breakfast.

However, due to the world crisis and the food crisis that stroke down months ago, and will strike again soon, plus all the banking crisis, the bailouts and the growing unemployment, I decided to have breakfast from what I have in the office, assuming I have something. I found a bag of pistachios on my desk, and first I thought "what a drag. This will be a poor breakfast". I opened the bag and that was the end of it. I did found in my food drawer all I need for a wholesome oatmeal (the one with pear pieces. Haven't been able to find the one with apple and cinnamon, my favorite, or the one with peach), which I did started to prepare, you mind, but I just couldn't lay off the pistachios.

The rhythm with which you eat them borders maniac behavior. You compulsively reach for more and more, peeling the hard shells off, risking to get your tips nipped by the clamping shells, and fiddlesticks, getting them nipped! (Fiddlestick: for those whose English is poor, it's the name of that long, straight arch like thing that people use along with the violin to play the violin. In this case, fiddlestick replaces an "f" word I don't want to use. Yes, I've been watching The Skeleton Key again.) There's hardly pause and therefore there's no way you can multitask while eating pistachios. When you are with the pistachios, you are only with the pistachios! You may really like to do something else, but both your hands are engaged in a fierce battle to free the green, salty, tender nutty trapped in the armor of two clamping pale shells.

It is a battle for the pistachio, for the taste and for the joy.

At the end, well, I had a very nice breakfast put together: oatmeal, tea, Everess beverage, Reese's Pieces... you can't ask for more... and yet I had to finish my pistachios. ^_^

What drives YOU nuts?

May I Take Your Order?

Monday, first say of the month. Try calling Oriflame's line to place an order, and Hyne will forgive, to do what I have to do today: place TWO separated orders! Lines are collapsed and everybody's calling. The nest of vipers falling on top of each other to get the little chances of getting this or that product. Well, that's what I call poor logistics. They should be avoiding these agent-stampedes. Add insult to injury, I'm upset that my sister-in-law hasn't been able to pay her order. The excuse? The girl who bought her the blush had a car accident and couldn't go to classes on Friday, so she couldn't collect. Does she think I'm stupid? Or is she that dumb? I told her there was a commitment to clear the account before the end of the month, so I don't fucking care what she has to do to get the money, she has to clear the account. Any rational, decent, responsible person would pay the order from their own money and collect later. I mean, that's what I do, and that's what I had to do.

Money is a tough topic with me, so from now on, her orders are placed only if they are paid in advance. She already owes me $48 for a game she ordered for her brother, and on top of all, hasn't been able to get the game from the Aeropost counter. If she's waiting for me to pay her the fee, she's sourly mistaken, but if she's not taking it out, and I'll have to, I'll sell that fucking game. Probably to her brother, and ask his mother for a price raised enough to cover the loss for the sell as well. I can't believe the way in which she's able to abuse the people who is out there to help her. You know, people like her, so irresponsible, should never be left to have kids.

My nephew hasn't seen his mother pretty much over 2-3 weeks. He's 4 years-old. You ask why? She sent him over to her mother, away at the coast. She was supposed to pick him up last week, but she had a fight with my brother and so the kid remained another week away. Well, with such a fucked up mother, no wonder my nephew is turning out to be such a fucked up little maggot. Irresponsible, uneducated, uncivilized, unable to control himself, prone to temper tantrums, unable to form social bonds... He's 4 years-old and he's already a human mess. I pity him. His life is going to be hard and unfulfilling. Truth is, and I do not want to fall into blasphemy, but this is the truth of my thoughts, it would have been better for him never to be born, or to be given away at birth. No human being should be put through the things he's being put through. No one should be exposed to such an invasive amount of bad influence as he is. And it's a shame, because he is really a smart kid, only he finds no support, no guidance for his interests.

My tasks of the day include doing a $1000 transfer to my father's account, paying one of my credit cards, pay the cell phone... pay, pay, pay. Hyne, I do not like these days.

Among my other tasks is the checking of my April schedule, which I have to fit with my boyfriend, which is proving interesting, since he things that we STILL have a month for that and I think that we ONLY have a month for that. But hey, you know me! I like to plan things ahead and have everything nailed down and perfect. (As a matter of fact, not working on my december trip is killing me, BUT I have to first arrange my finances before going into that thing.)

Work is... work. Get this and that done.

Thesis is another headache. Changes done, still gara print out the copies for the tutor and myself. I just want this thing going, moving and getting ahead. This is my ticket home.

It's not that I have neglected you

It's more a matter that I have been venting my rage on this blog, since English is quite an easy language for, me, but in the best interest of a lot of things, among them my very own relationship, I decide to save entry after entry as a "draft" rather than publishing them for all to see. Yep, it ain't all honey and milk, but I guess you all know that.

My uncle Jón sent me recently a package full of pictures of Iceland. Boy, if that's a beautiful place!! Eggs are of all colors and have spots on them! Ain't like our golden or white eggs at all!

Today, I'm doing a little work on the thesis, arranging the methodology and the theoretical framework, since our tutor wants to see what's in the methodology IN the theoretical framework. Why? Ask him. Oh well, as long as we have the work done soon, and I can move my chips around to change my fate and get the fuck out of this joint, and move to Hungary for ever and ever and all eternity and live happily ever after, which is a FACT because it can't be any other way in Hungary.

I'm reading the news and all that crap about the banks and the hefty payments they do to their executives and big heads, plus the Madoff case and how it goes rippling through the economy. When I see these things I would like to have one of those utterly idiotic monetarists of liberals before me, and ask them to explain me what went wrong in there. Sure they will start the crap about the "hand of the State" in the matter, but what fucking State intervention was in the Madoff case? And what kind of shit are they blowing about the banks when the crisis over came by their greediness, not the State intervention, and it was THEM asking for it! Yeah, go preech now your stupid ideas of free market and "down with the intervention" when the banks keep asking for second and third and Hyne knows if there's a fourth bailout lining up. No, truth is that the market, the economy doesn't go like in the books. If they care to pay close attention, there's a thing called "supositions", among them the famous Ceteris Paribus, remember? Well, all those assume there are ideal conditions that will NEVER occur in real life. Or is it in any liberal theory that in the middle of a crisis and banks calling the Chapter 11, requesting BILLIONS of dollars to keep up are, at the same time giving away BILLIONS in bonuses to their top executives?

Wake up and smell the coffee.