Need for Blessed Fridays

Finally the Blessed Friday has come to our lives. The day when you can finally summon those beloved four letters of the most loved acronym ever: T.G.I.F. Week after week we don't get tired of saying them, because we simply never get tired of Fridays. For Hell's sake, they even made a Restaurant around this very concept! And don't we love it. ^_^

Unlike any other regular Friday at this time of the day, I'm sitting now at a Subway surfing the net with the unique aid of our beautiful assistant, Nagi, may Hyne bless his digital soul. Stuck in my faded conbat green cord bag next to my trusty journal, he's with me now, preparing for a long day, long meetings with friends and the time in between spent among us, doing what we do best: search the net and work on the thesis. Yes, I can do that with Vonnegut or Azrael, but there's nothing better than doing it with my faithful, trustworthy, beautiful Nagi-kun. Unlike you would think, no, I'm not bailing out of work, nor have I been sent on sickdays or anykind of "leave", but more like I had to come to the Sabana Norte building because the technicians need their broadband and equipment to treat Azrael, who received Wednesday his brand new winchester (hard drive, but can you blame me for rather using such a lovely name if I can?), so he had to be set ready to work, and comply to my desires.

Naturally Mr.B had to make sneaky remarks, on the line of "well, yeah, that's the excuse now", while frowning his nose and acting as if he were 6. Well, he is, only he forgot to tell his horrid body not to age.

I have no need to tell you how good this feels right now: a break from the dull of the office, even though now that I have talked to B's Boss, Mr.D, I'm much happier because I finally realized I do have a job to do and I finally understood my tasks. Hell, I've even spread out a new Post-It Mental Map for the job! It's amazing, the hard part now is to land it on a .doc, but the .ppt will be a piece of cake! ^_^

My plans for tomorrow are hectic because I can't remember whom I was supposed to meet. Needless to say that I didn't wrote down any apointment in my PDA, so there you go. Today I have a dinner with Li and Sunday I have Supernatural with Vic. Was I supposed to do thesis job with Mile tomorrow? Hn, I do have to press her for the 2008 and 2009 data analysis, so I can load it into the chapter and keep the tutor over his head with job.

Plans, plans, plans... days become a series of tasks to do and tasks to cross.

Broadcast Co.s want to kill "Free"

It's kind of ironic that in English the word "free" means both free as in freedom, and "free" as in you don't have to pay for it. So Mr. Malone, from Liberty Media (another big irony) has pledged alliance to Mr. Murdoch's camp and raised their banner: "INTERNET CONTENT SHOULD NOT BE FREE ANYMORE". Yeah, actually anyway you put it, it sounds Hyne-awful. Then again, can you actually say that Internet Content comes free to you? There's an Internet Access that must be stablished, and unless you happen to find a laptop with WiMax or WiFi laying around, functional and in a hotspot, you have to actually to put some money into it. Get the computer, but then I guess that's not something that has anything to do with the Internet. You gara subscribe into some Internet profiding plan, but then again, what does that has to do with the Internet, right?

Being able to acces your e-mails, the news you read, the blogs you like, the forums where you participate, the online stores where you shop, your friends across the world to marvel how you have to rush, at 17:00 hours your boyfriend to bed because he's in a timezone where he's already at midnight, and he really should be hitting the bed while you greet your dear friend and human memory back up, who is in Japan, taking his breakfast and rushing to the Go Tournament; all them require you to do a payment. If not you, your parents, your partner, or your company does it, but someone has to lay down the dough so you can step in.

It doesn't surprise me that these ideas come from these big corporations, which by default believe that the only humans worth of having their rights respected are that infamous 20% that owes the 80% of the wealth in the world, and the rest of us are cockroaches. "No money, no rights" seems to be the general message given out. And if you have no money, you can't access to those minimal things modern life requires.

If we take the meanings of "free" given by the English language, we could say that the Internet will stop being free in all of them. It's not only a matter of having the money to access it, but certainly, the more money you have the more you can manipulate the content uploaded. Something like what happens in China, only it will be Corporations banning content (which isn't called Censorship, by the way), and deciding what can the mass know. Well, the dreams of the 90's, fueled with big yeppie hopes has finally collapsed. Bye-bye Global Village and hello to the pay tolls on the Information Super Highway. People under the lucky 20% of the population are no longer entitled to know, research, get the data or even have an opinion, but for a fee, they can have Mr. Murdoch's opinion. That isn't as bad as it sounds, now is it, Mr. Malone?

Finally, as an exposure of the Fantastic Capitalism, for all those stupid proletarians that believe that the State must go because they buy the bullshit Liberal Speech of enterprises, it has finally become more and more evident that companies are out there to squeeze you out of your money. They want your taxmoney to stay alive and pay millionaire bonuses to their top executives, who have sent the companies sliding down the sewer. They want you to buy their cars, but they won't give you a job to be able to pay for it. What are you supposed to do? Join the Mexican Drug Cartels? Now, since the big companies can't pay enough for advertisement, the already fat capitalist pigs of broadcast companies want to take YOUR money so that they can still be the richest s.o.b. they have always been, swim in champagne, dress with money and drive gold cars while you are trying to make it somehow by the end of the month.

Funny how this very situation reminds me of that of France in the end of the 18.th century. Maybe Mr. Murdoch and his acolytes should be careful and make sure they don't cross paths by any chance with Madame Guillotine.

Self-Help and Easy-Read Makes Assholes

I won't argue the fact that there are loads and loads of crappy books out there. There are LOADS of shitty novels and crappy essays, but the absolute worse books ever printed, ever conceived are the "self-help" and the "management for managers" books. They are even far worse than this novel I had the disgrace of buying and reading: "Province of Hope", which only good feature is the dude on the cover. That's bad. So anyway, there's this Mr.B, who thinks that it's actually a very normal thing at work to stop all activities, because there's this super-duper important thing to be done: put a "title" above a listing (even though for the one who reads it's perfectly clear what the fuck is going on), print out ten copies, bond them and put them on his desk. My Hyne... really a very, very important job to be done... wow.

The motherfucker has the habit now of always asking you, before he actually starts to talk about "job", about how you are feeling, what was your weekend like, and such personal stuff. It's not like he's interested, and you can see it, smell it: it's part of some strategy communicated in some Business book, designed for managers to be "successful", or on one of those $2000 three-day seminars where they get thick binders, a pen and sat in an airconditioned "conference room", staring at the carpet, the long draperies and spending the day looking for the coffee breaks and the lunch break.

Yesterday I was still a bit upset about an argument I had with my boyfriend, and so, when he summoned me to his Glorious Presence, I was less than gleaming.

"How you doing today?"
"Fine." I said shortly. Really, I thought it was enough to let him know it was time to drop the bullshit and get down to business. Ha.
"With that face?"

I rolled my eyes for myself. Talk about empathy, right.

"Trunks was killed by Cell."

That's my standard get-out-of-my-hair answer.

"Hahahaha! What does it has to do with anything?"

Being presented with the limitless stupidity of this motherfucker, I leaned forward so his tiny brain understands that I AM TALKING TO HIM.

"It's my answer to 'I don't wanna talk about it'."
"Why? Something wrong?"

Okay, I'm at loss here: does anyone, and I really mean ANYONE!, please you, stranger reading this entry, friendly crybernaute stranded here, if anyone at all has ANY suggestion to make this asshole understand the "direct speaking", please, PLEASE let me know.

I'm positive he's so accomplished with his behavior, after all he's applying the teachings of whatever book sold for $40, those of hard cover and glossy jackets, big letters and two-page chapters full of pointers for "managers", because today a manager is not a smart person, but only some asshole who pretending not to have time requests everything to be given to him in "bullet format". Short, filled with graphs, few numbers and seasoned with some amusing success of failure story. Management must be the chronical stage of ADD, for what I see.

Finally, I feel compelled to make a Public Service and let people know, particularly all the dumbasses that think they can become successful by reading a book, here's the thing: the only "business" in the business books is in the selling of them to all the dumb, gullible idiots who run to buy them. It's a hoax, you get it? A HOAX! Then again, if you are as stupid as to get one of those books and believe it, you deserve to be stiffed.

Season of Rain, Skirts and Stockings

Today in the afternoon the sky broke loose and it poured. Well, this is Costa Rica, and when it rains it floods. I had told Kari about the rain in here, and he has told me he has never seen rain like the one I describe. Water up to your ankles, getting wet in every single occasion at least to knee high. Well, like I said before, it is time for skirts, skirts, skirts. I don't have a problem with that, but the thing is that I've been looking for my stockings and I just can't find them. Sure, I've a few panty hoses, which I hate, but I can't find my stockings. Something tells me I left them in Budapest. Gara ask Kari, just to be sure. That was swell, though, to leave my stockings home. What was I thinking? What am I supposed to wear now? My spider web panty hoses? (Yes, I do have spiderweb panty hoses and stockings.) Or the flame ones? Maybe the striped ones... Or maybe I should go bay to that Sex shop in San Pedro and look for the wool colorful Rainbow Bright stockings. Oh yes, that's one of the many pleasures that come around with the rainy season.

I know we are slowly getting to the International Female Fetiche topic: shoes, but why not to stop a moment at this quite underestimated piece of garment, the "stockings". With the blissful magic of stockings, you can protect your legs from cold, bugs, scratching plants (you know, thorny or those that can get you skin allergy), not to mention that opaque stockings are a blessing when you are too lazy to shave or (like me) you're afraid that the cold and moist in the air could resent your skin and get you those unsightly and painful red spots.

Many women don't like stockings or panty hoses because they find them uncomfortable and constricting. Well, I believe it's all a matter of finding the ones that fit you well. Soft, elastic... I prefer them thicker but less constraining. Stockings I favor over panty hoses because they fit my legs better. They come in one size, not ten thousand like panty hoses, so you can pick the color and don't worry for the size, or fighting with two sizes because you are in the very border and you hate it when they are too tight around your thigh or too baggy around your ankles. That's never trouble with your stockings.

The problem with stockings, for many, is that they tend to roll down and slide, which is why supenders were invented. They could hurt you if the hooks are too hard or too rough. I'd say check the hooks, make sure they are silicone, but the silicone doesn't touch your skin. Those that have "ribbon tails" siding the hooks are great. Then the elastic hem can be too tight sometimes, but the more you wear them, the more they stretch and they won't hurt anymore. Some people put them in the freezer over night and that helps too.

One other thing I like about stockings is that usually when a panty or a stocking ruins it starts on one leg only. With the panty hoses you have to throw them away, which is a bitch because sometimes some colors are hard to get, or seasonal, of Hell knows what. With the stocking you can save the good one for when another of the same color ruins, you still get a pair of your favorite color without having to hit the stores and go searching for the color you want and getting rows and rows of aweful colors like peach, papaya and hideous blues and cheap thin "blacks" or putrid small town mass-goer white.

Then again, really, one thing you should always know about stockings is that they shape nicely your legs and bring them out. They look good and make you look fantastic, not only warmer and protected.

Dreams

"What do dreams mean?"

That's a question that has a place in everybody's mind, or almost everybody's mind. The very word "dream" is often related with some utopian state which people wishes to achieve, even if that's not likely to happen. People "dream" about becoming rich and famous, or finding their "One" and getting married, have a family and live happily ever after. Some dream about getting laid with some extraordinarily beautiful person, or get to lay over 1000 people, getting power in the company or in the political life. Some "dream" about getting away with murder, either figurative or literal speaking.

Some people think that dreams are the gates of foreseeing, and that the future can be told from properly decyphering the message bottled in the hazed webs of dreams. Others take the psichoanalytical approach and believe that dreams tell you things about themselves. Burried traumas and dark secrets.

I believe dreams to be a sort of mind-gate where you are receptive to many things, both about yourself and about the outer life.

Today I read Dragonfly's entry, where she spoke about her dreams often being nice. Well, my dreams are hardly "dreams", but pretty much most of them are nightmares, and even the nice ones are nightmares. (Yes, I believe in dreams I'm a natural born Gothic Writer.) My dreams often depict gory scenes like beheadings, brandings, body carvings, and even live burials.

Unlike a friend of mine, Pilar, who has been killed in her dreams, I've never been killed, even though I have been buried alive (once). I, however, have often killed people in dreams, some of those murders being particularly enjoyable.

The matter of my dreams often find their way to light through my writings, delievered from the prison of my psyche and into the chaotic, murky land of words and the jumble of other many minds. How many of you do that? What do people do with their dreams? build up some "dream-journal", or maybe someone even compose a grimoire or a "book of shadows" with it? Do people ignore them or vivisect them to find the key to their inexisting happiness? The usual code used for reading dreams, where birth is death, death is marriage and marriage is birth. Where the falling of teeth means problems and the falling of hair means betrail.

I've dreamed of people who have died, who mean the world to me, who could make me walk into Hell to seek their deliverance, gamble with my own salvation to secure theirs, be ready to give up my chances to give them a second chance, just to see them happy. Fuck, I'm such a Dean...

I dream of people in my past too. Dead or alive. For some strange reason, some of them appear usually at this one floor, dark wood house, where the painting, something between light sky blue and aqua-green is heavily chipping away leaving an overwhelming amount of darkened old wood exposed. The air is moist, carrying the scent of mouldy beams. Naked walls and amateur made doorframes in thick wood all over, no ceiling as the beams of the roof are visible, cracks here and there let the air and the cloudy sky light come through. Rooms open to other rooms, some around one huge mainroom, and others opeming from other rooms. There's not one hallway, but only room after room, after room. There's no outside, even if there are windows. The outside is a huge greyish whiteness, much like the sky when it's about to rain.

I didn't expect to find him, Dmitrij, in there. Long hair, blond and ... curly. His hair has always been flax, but here he was, tall, slim and sporting long curls around his face. There was contempt, both from me and from him. Our glance said everything. Annoyance, resentment, anger, thirst for revenge, or in my side, the demonic desire to make him fall and suffer again. Tie him down and lash his face, his eyes with his own belt until the flesh of his eyelids thins to a bloody veil, and the muscle is gone, rendering him forever blind.

However, aside from shared thoughts we could both hear even though they were never spoken, we never got to torture. Well, he has never been prone to it. I'm the Dungeon Master, and have always been. Thoughts flew from my mind to his and viceversa, carrying hateful, disdainful messages.

'can't get rid of you, can I?'
'you are a nightmare'
'can barely stand the sight of you'
'why don't you just go away from my life'
'you are a hurtful bitch, you do know that, do you?'
'go away, smoke away, die'
'monster'
'of all people, why didn't you commit suicide?'

Hate, wrath brought us somehow to a kiss. A kiss to a caress, a caress to fall on a rackety cot and go at it. Sex fueled by dispair... amazing. can't even begin to explain the monstruous pleasure you get from something like that. Whether such things only live in "dreams", in the depths of hate invested nightmares, whether they reveal an unfinished business, a latent desire or the thirst for acts that would prove to be morally criminal, my nightmares, no matter how tortuous, how tormenting, are... exquisite.

Religion

I won't spend much time on this, for there's not much to say anyway. I just heard, thanks to Yahoo! about the "Bible Bill", according to which a congressman, if I'm correct came up with the idea of making 2010 the "Bible Year". Okay, first of all, the idea is kind of stupid, but then again, the US is famous for inventing all kinds of "year themes", so why not? There have been worse ideas aproved. The thing is that all kinds of non-christian organizations came up protesting for it. This reminded me the case, not long ago about a town in the US where some non-christian group wanted to put a sign of their religion on a square where each year a Christmas tree was set up. Permission was denied and these people took it to the court.

First of all, a country, and as far as I know every country in the world, has an OFFICIAL RELIGION. Costa Rica is catholic, just as Hungary. So, I guess the US also has an official religion, which I'm sure is christian. Whether Anglican or Catholic, I can't say. The thing is, in all countries there's an official and many minor religions. Sure you have the freedom to practice whatever religion you wish, or don't practice any at all, but the country still holds itself to one, and that's the one it might decide to honor, period. And that's good. Why? Not because then they are "minimizing" or "bullying" other religions, but simply to keep a certain order. After all, really, all we need now is an arrange of christian, muslim, jew, wicca and satanist signs everywhere.

There's an official religion, just like there's an official language and an official economical and political order. Streets won't be marked in every available language, nor a king will be chosen for those who believe in monarchies, so no multi-religious crap will be followed.

Fuck it, people. Live with it.

Bleak Future

News, again. Well, just a little bit. I'll try to think about something funny later to compensate, or at least post a few pictures of half-nude men... or something to get you back in the "right mood".

My mailbox continues overflowing with mails and mails of newspapers. Though I used to look at them annoyed, now I look at them with a certain sense of nostalgia. Hyne knows how long will we have the priviledge of getting the news for free before selfish imperialist pigs such as Mr. Murdock starts robbing our cents and turning information into a luxury commodity (which, btw, will finally destroy one of the milestone conditions that support the "free market" model upon which all those incredibly STUPID liberal, neoliberal, neoclassical and monetarist "economists" base their "theories", and therefore their "politics").

Among the news, there was this one in CNN about the bleak future the Fed was forecasting for America. Rounding up the figures, 10% unemployment and 3% fall on the GDP. For the non math-speaker, one out of ten people who could work will be unemployed. Also, from each $100 of goods produced last year, this year only $97 will be produced.

Now, if you do the maths, it's funny, because you lose 10% of the potential working force, but lose only 3% of your outputs. Okay, maybe we should see how many people were unemployed last year and take that percentage from the current 10%, but either way, even though the output is reduced, it is expected from the remaining labor force to suck it up and put in for the lay offs. (That, or "hopefully" the amount of costs cut off with the lay offs will hold up that much.)

Well, either way, figures are not looking quite Sexy. Then again, wake up and smell the coffee if you haven't: the world is neck deep in a crisis. It's time again for Al Capone and Charlie Chaplin movies. However, before you panic and let your eyebrows and mustache grow to Chaplinesque or Pattinsonesque proportions lemme introduce you to a few interesting facts known only to those properly initiated in the secret and dark arts of "Economics", a powerful and secret Covenant ruled by deep mysticism. I know, witches and wizards are childplay and goofy stuff compared to our monstruous Craft.

First of all, you must know that we are always right. As it is known, the job of economists is divided in two very important and corelated tasks: the first task is to forecast what will happen in the future. The second task is to explain why things didn't happen as we said they would. So, before you go counting your workmates and try to calculate who among you will be laid off, who will have to suck it for the extra work and smash your little head trying to figure out how to survive with no job, Mortgage-zilla breathing down your neck, Card-zilla around the corner and cuts in gas, coal and nuclear energy killing you softly, you must ask the Fed's Council of Evil, what was the base for the calculations. Oh, and don't let them impress you with fancy names and waving of banner-like databases you can't actually catch a glimpse of.

First of all, anyone can "fancy-speech", it doesn't mean they know. As a matter of fact, a lot of dunderheads use fancy speeching to conceal the fact that they know absolutely nothing about anything, less about what they are supposed to be talking.

Second, check the way the indexes and the numbers were calculated. No, you don't need to have a degree in Advanced Maths or Nuclear Physics, for fuck's sake, you are calculating how many people will lose their jobs, how much less will be produced, not splitting the atom or making anti-matter! Sure, there are all kinds of wicked formulas and ways to get around things, BUT the milestone behind forecasting is:

1. What has happened before? How people/enterprises/global economies reacted? Take the "effect" and apply it to the current situation.
2. What things exist now that didn't then and how could they react?

Look, the calculus itself is really fun. It's like playing that game "The Serf": you have a nice little "town" with a way of doing things and then you suddenly add this "happening" and things start changing, so you calculate how will they affect the town. Now, since you have to harness it somehow in a math formula, because that's the toys we play with in this game, you have to come up with a few suppositions and then try and guess stuff based in some kind of "notion". Well, ask the Fed Council of Evil, which kind of suppositions and notions did they use and why. Did you know that if you change those suppositions and notions, the results could change? Oh yeah. Can become worse, can become much, much better... and then, all the little bits and thingies they threw into the big math pot. Some are very insignificant, others are very important... who decides which are which? Who decides which things (variables) go in and which go out? Go and ask them.

Look, we all know that things will go pearshaped, and truth is that if the Fed goes saying stuff like that, it will become worse, because people will think THEY are that 10%, or they will be part of that 10% and enterprises will think that THAT falling out 3% will be them, so, with that in mind, they peobably will try less harder to keep the head above the water, will get depressed and give up at the first sign of problems. And all for what? For some crunched up figures that might or might not be right?

Crosscheck the numbers, question, investigate, undust your calculating machine and make your own figures. See who is right, and don't let them beat you down.

must share

It's a must.

On the other hand, I recently learned from someone completely unattached to my work circle, that a certain "lady" whom I used to know, who used to be a boss and for a brief period of time lost her "status" (but regained it by going to the asses that could give it to her) has a quite funny nickname. She's known as "la perruna", or "the bitch-like". Well, she is a prepotent bully, who wouldn't waste a second to stomp on anyone underneath her. It's amusing how many of her former subalterns have grown above her head, gotten from under her and rose to higher positions. As much as she can, she stays away from their "influence", for she knows she has generated so much resentment she will be squashed. However, can't she see she won't be able to run forever? Or does she thing that after more than 20 years stuck in the first level of chieftenship, just above the common proletarians, she will now somehow rise and get higher?

How delusional can people be?

Le Figaro: "Now Americans Will REALLY Have To Reduce Their Gas Consumption"

So yeah, maybe French and Americans don't really like each other, but this headline (freely translated, capital lettering for highliting, entirely mine), I must say, made me smile. Indeed, for years and years we've heard all this baloney about "the need tto reduce contamination" and "the need to reduce our dependance of fossile fuels" and such stuff. Maybe you hear it in CBS or CNN, and in the break for advertising you are rushed head first with "Get your brand new Hunday for only $189 a month". Then again, 16 year-old children get to have a car. There's no way to identify yourself in the US unless it is with your driver's license. So, in order to be an identifiable person, you must have a driver's license, for which you have to learn how to drive, with which, at the end, you'll end up buying a car. So, stop for a moment and think: if you are a foreigner in the US, in order to be recognized, you need to have your passport (the document, not the scotch) and your green card or a visa or some sort (valid visa, you mind). But if you are American, and you are in your own country, it is not nearly enough to be born there to be aknoledged: you have to learn to drive in order to become someone. I mean, I'm Costa Rican, I was born (of course got a birth certificate and the whole shebang) and when I turned 18 and was legal to drink, smoke and vote, I made a line at my local Civil Register Bureau and got, free of charge a plastic card that up to this day works as my I.D. So in Hungary. Me was born, me got birth certificate. Me turned 18, went to my local municipal bureau, made a line, paid no fee and got my ID (which back then was a booklet, and now is a card, so I'll have to change it soon... not to mention my picturein my Hungarian ID is abhorrent).

So, the point it, the Government, my country is not forcing me to learn to drive in order to be aknowledged as a "citizen". I am a citizen because I was born Hungarian/Costa Rican. Period. Having or not a driver's license doesn't make me more or less than my peers. Well, not in America.

Now, I'd like to make a small observation here: it's not only the matter of a lot of advertising and a lot of "peer pressure" being put on American people to have a car, but it's the whole attitude towards cars. The Government is pretty much expecting you to drive, or why else to enforce the driver's licenses? And what will you drive? Your shoes? Your marriage? Gimmie a break. You are to drive a car. To ensure you do so, most city plannings are created thinking about cars and pleople with cars. Trying to get to work, lets say, with bike, PEDAL bike, not a motorcycle, is, well, in most cases something worthy of a Mr. Bean joke.

"To work? With a bike? Who are we? Armstrong? Hahahahahahahaha!!!"

And it's not so much for the effort of biking for miles, but the danger of rolling down those streets packed to the brim with cars rushing at 100+ Mph, which could squeeze you easily into a blurred spot on the asphalt. So, how is this "reduce your consumption of gas" going to work? You certainly can't change jobs to some office closer to home, because, let's be honest, there's a CRISIS out there and you need to claw into your job in order to support yourself, family, car and credit cards. So, that's not viable. You can't move closer to your office because there's people in your home who work somewhere else, or goes to school, or anything, and maybe you reduce your gas consumption, but they increase it, so No. If you have two jobs or more, you won't change them for them to be closer, or resign to have only one and use less gas, because, dude, you have two or jobs because you need them, not because you are doing them as hobbie. Then, even if you could move, do you think the current market could buy your home? At the fair price? And then, are you sure you could afford something sort of like that somewhere else? Yeah, I thought the same. So, again, No. Could you, maybe, use the "public transportation system"? Okay, let's break this into "boxes".

Box #1: You must LOCATE the public transportation portions that could take you from home to office and back. Or from home to office to office to office to school to home... or whatever route you normally follow in your trusty Rusty, Herbie, Jhonny, or whatever you call your car, if you do. Grab a map, Sunshine, and start planning. Oh, no GPS for public transportation, it's 100% Old School.

Box #2: You must SCHEDULE your plan. Yes, public transportation doesn't go straight to where you want to go, unless you take a cab, so you must locate the stops, the parts where you must go on foot from one stop to the next, and consider the time it takes you to do the entire travesy, so you know when you have to leave from one place to reach to the next. Note: Public Transportation can be unpredictable without notice. A 20 minute trip can become a 2 hour journey.

Box #3: Since the times have changed, you probably need to WAKE UP EARLIER, which means that maybe you'll be up at an hour when you weren't before, when everybody was asleep, and you'll be using water, electricity, gas and so on. And if there's more people in your place who may not have to wake up so early, then these things will be running longer in your household. Sure, everybody takes his or her own shower, BUT usually people use the same light, see the same tv, cook in the same pan, drink from the same coffeepot... so, if you must turn on the light for one person, turn on the tv for one person, make coffee for one person, you are using more electricity as a household, not to mention, that all the things you normally did in your car you'll have to do at your home (make up, tie, get your morning coffee...), which means even a longer usage of electricity per person.

Now, what does that have to do with anything? Well, electricity can be generated from several sources, that range from hidraulic, eolic, solar to fossile fuel (gas). Now, I made a bit of research on the matter, for the US, and it happens that, okay, for 2008 the use of petroleum and petroleum coke for generating electricity barely made the 1,11% of the whole. So, maybe there's no sudden threat or inflating the petroleum generated electricity when the demand of electricity per household goes up. Interestingly, though, in the U.S. the 48,52% of the energy comes from coal (not the cleanest source), followed by 19,61% of nuclear. Cleaner, maybe, I'm not a nuclear physicist, but I do can spell Chernobyl. So, leave the car in the garage and put some pressure in these two? Milk them more? Because the the hydroelectric souce makes up only the 6, 04%.

Here's the link for you to cros check if you wish. (The percentages are based on a simple calculus I ran, so download the info in Excel and diy.) Energy Information Administration (EIA)

Box #4: Because there IS a "box #4", okay, you manage. Locate the bus, metro, tramway, cab that can help you make your routes, schedule them, wake up early and light with candles, drink coke, eat Cheerios, don't watch the tv... whatever. All "buts" saved and hammered safely. So, you get on that proverbial "public transportation", and... what about the swine flu?

Oh, I know, problems never end, specially if I'm thinking them. But what's my point? My point is that so far all "solutions", as we all know, have been fake and just to keep up the pretention of "offering solutions". However, as things stand right now, there are no solutions. Electric cars are the solution? Yeah, and how are you planning in charging them up? With coal? Or you'll just slide a Plutonium rod up some slot? (Yes, I'm aware of how obscene that sounded.) And in the middle of a crisis, with carmakers begging for a bail out, people losing their jobs everywhere, wages being cut in any possible way, money running short, banks ravaging wallets worse than the Turks back in the Ottoman Occupation, where is going people to make it to change their old gas slurping Chevys for some hybrid or an electric car?

There's no way you could pull this out the way things are now. New city planning is required, more human cities, where you can walk to the local convenience store, your kids can walk to their schools, you can get to your office with one bus in 30 minutes or less. Ensure security, so your kid can walk freely and play in the street without being shot in the head and you can walk anywhere you want, alone or with friends, family without being afraid of getting robbed, raped, kidnapped or killed. For this specific segment of today's rather long entry, I chose the picture of this young rapper kid, Dolla, a 21 year-old child from Atlanta, who was murdered at a commercial center in Los Angeles, where he arrived to record his first album.

Driving a car doesn't save you from getting gunned, but doesn't make you feel safer? So, will you give it up? Will you take it from your child? Look at this boy, yes, of legal age, but look at his young face and dare to tell me he was due to die. This could be your kid. This could be you. This could be your nephew.

Cars and the consuming of fossile fuels are tied to a lot of things, the U.S. is pretty much wired up tight in gas, so when politicians come up with plans to reduce the gas consumption, they should sit and think about the implications, about how deep and how far runs the gas in the veins to today's America, and then think on a way to tackle all potential problems, so they have an answer for when they head up, and not just a bunch of motions to delay the bill, and crisis here and there lashing the backs of so many Americans just to fan the ego of one politician out of touch with reality.

Eye Spa, Mind Yoga, Soul Soothing

You know, a blog shouldn't be only about sharing your thoughts and believes and stuff like that, and telling the world how much you loath this or that person, but it should be a place where you share stuff you like. So I thought I'll share a few pictures I like, which my friends have sent me. Unlike you'd think, they are not all about Supernatural.

Enjoy.

Degas - Dancer. He's definitivelly one of my favorite artists of all times.

Mucha - The Moon. My favorite artist, irrefutably.

Lalique - Peacock brosch. Without question my favotire jewelry maker and, let's call it "pret-a-porter" artist.

Guitar player - I don't like guitars, but some guitar players I like.


... I told you I like some guitar players... even if they don't shave, which I suddenly find so arounsing...

Unfortunatelly I can't find my recent pictures of Hyperion, so I guess this will be it. You see, there's not much "Supernatural", but more like "Lots of Natural" in stead. Not like anyone would be interested in checking out the Supernatural boys now. Sorry kids, pubic hair and guitars beat you every time.

(Yes, that's young Jensie. Doesn't he look just cute? Wouldn'y ou just eat him alive? More Sammy than our actual Sam. ^_^ Hell, this is why I love this kid!)

Skirts and Rain

It's "winter", it's the "holy shit, we are drowning in here" season, when rain pours down to generously on us it stops being generous. It also means that it's the "skirt season" for me. I know, "winter", which normally is related with cold, and it is cold in here too, is usually paired with trousers rather than skirts, but years of experience have told me that skirts and dresses are a girl's best friends in this unholy season. So, while the sky opens and pours free water on us, I'll be out there running in flowing skirts that range from "above thigh" to "just over the ankle". It's good, you know, because I happen to have more skirts than trousers, specially if you take in consideration that I just had to discard one of my pants because they don't fit me well anymore (it narrows too much on the ankle and looks too 80's for my liking), and then the 70% of all my trousers are, well, jeans.

There's a question lurking in the minds of the unfaithful, who can't see the rain-skirt relationship here. Well, for them I'll explain it simply. Probably you've seen or experienced that when it rains you tend to get wet. Even if you have a nice, big umbrella, and believe me, I have a HUGE TENT fro umbrella, truth is that your shoes and your pants tend to get wet. Unless you are so freaking, abnormally tall that your pants don't reach your heel, then it hardly happens to you, but for most of us, when it rains, the hem tends to either be dragged in the rain water or sprinkled with it with each step, which eventually ends up soaking the hem, and then the moist starts creeping up your legs. If, Hyne forbid it, there's rain AND wind, which is a usual thing in Costa Rica (not to mention the regular 5 to 10 cm of water covering the uneven sidewalks) the water is hit against your body quite evenly, except maybe a smaller portion of whatever the angle of the umbrella can cover. So getting wet up to the knees is quite common.

Men have to deal with this and probably stay all afternoon in the office sitting in wet pants, and I really feel sorry for them. Hyne knows I hate that feeling. However, God has granted me with the higher priviledge of being born female, which comes also with the universal right, all over the world, to use just about anything I want.

Even though you can find long skirts, and I have my fair share of them, skirts come in all sizes and we can actually wear them to go to the office. A skirt over the knees comes perfect in these days because then the only thing getting wet are my legs, and skin can be dried no problem with a towel (Note to self: get a small towel for the office). And even if it is longer, you can always gather it up with one hand. If it gets wet you don't have to take it off to dry it in the bathroom with the impossibly uncomfortable hand drier, but your can hold up the hem and be done with it.

Pair your skirt with boots, flat shoes, high heels, you name it, combine it with any top you want and you will still look like a million bucks. So yes, do you ask me about why do I put on my skirt for the rainy season? There's your answer.

As for the "mosquito" question, stockings. ^_^

Angels&Demons

This weekend I did one of my favorite things: I went to the movies with a dear friend of mine. It has been quite a while since last time I went to the movies with any of my friends, and that's something that shouldn't take me so long to do. I'm not really what you'll call a "movie-freak" who would see about anything and everything that comes out on screen, but I certainly like to go, either alone or with my friends, and enjoy a good time. That's after all, the point of all movies. Then again, with this friend of mine we didn't go to any movie either, but a VIP movie theatre where, as usual, I enjoyed the movie with a Heineken and some California rolls. (Note: I gara start asking something else, because those rolls taste too much like vinagre.) In case you are wondering, we went to see Angels&Demons, and no, we don't really recommend it. Sure, the movie was full of interesting questions, such as the idea of maybe Pope John Paul II being victim of murder, but all in all, it was plain. For it to hold some interest, you should not see The DaVinci Code before you see this, or you'll be frowning because, dude, Brown kills a Silas in TDVC only to pull another one on A&D. BUT if you don't see or read TDVC first, you are at lost about who the hell Robert Langdon is. So wha do I recommend? Don't waste your time with this movie, unless it's a "must choose" between this movie and, lets say, 17 Again or High School Musical. It is bad, only it's not as bad and it's not that much of an insult for the average human intellingence.

I dunno how the translation was in other languages, but the Spanish subtitles told a different story than what was said. Can't really vouch for the English-Spanish translation, for I hardly pay any attention to it, but when it came to the French and the Italian it simply sucked. It's a good thing I've some level of knowledge of French to actually understand what was said, but, for instance, I've no formal education on Italian language, and even so, I found unspeakable mistakes in the translation. Sure, that has nothing, really to do with the movie itself, which is still crappy and way too foreseeable to be honestly enjoyed (no matter how sinful Ewan McGregor looks dressed like a priest), but if you are a Spanish speaker, currently located somewhere in Latin America, I advise you to rent the movie and put on the English caption.

I know it's not quite usual for me to go missing for as many days as I did this time. These days, from Friday up to today were days of strong and deep meditation, where I turned mostly to my journal and blotched my fingers with ink spots, wrote my heart out, even though many thoughts remained in my mind, locked away either with hate and anger, or with simple contemplation. I marveled again in the solace a blank book like a journal can give to one's soul. There are a lot of things that require calm thinking from me in these days, matters concerning my future and things like that. I won't deny it, it tremendously pisses me off to have to deal with someone as utterly shallow, phony, prone to self-serving speeches and full of futile curiosity as my mother-in-law. Each time she comes into my mind, a single scene from Neon Genesis Evangelion plays in my mind. Little Asuka stares through a window and you can hear her father and her stepmother talk. The stepmother doesn't like her and she tells her father:

- Don't forget I can stop being her mother anytime I want.

This single line mutates in my head as I replay it over and over until it becomes:

- Don't forget I can stop being her daughter-in-law anytime I want.

This weekend I also took the chance to indulge in a bit of reading. Mom fished out for me a copy we have of of one of Vonnegut's books, translated to Hungarian, but even that's better than nothing. The book itself is a translation of Slaughterhouse 5. I must say, I'm enjoying this writer's work even if I already read his biography and know he walked away from writing saying that "writing was a job", and turned to drawing, painting and sculpting. Oddly, my choices go the other way around. In Slaughterhouse 5 Vonnegut goes crazy, chopping up the book, writing himself into it, and making strange decisions he follows through.

The translation, for me, it's a bit strange, for I'm not really used to read the free speaing, profusely cursing modern American style in Hungarian, so suddenly finding words such as "motherfucker" translated to Hungarian, rather literally, proves to be shocking.

I've not finished the book yet, but I've already decided to build up my Vonnegut collection at home, only I'd require all books to be in English... to avoid unnecesary shocking. ^_^

Black Fingers

Irregular black spots on the tips of my fingers. Sometimes they reach my nails, which I simply don't bother polishing, unless I were to paint them black, which I don't. The degree of the spots are directly correlated with the amount of writing I've done that day. Handwriting. And well, also a marker about the flowing quality of my pen. Spots not only appear on my fingers, but around me as well. Walls and floors splashed around in an amateur imitation of Pollock. All papery surfaces around are marked with gibblerish, scrapping and scratching from trying every now and then to make the ink run. Old spots, fresh, dark and sticky fall on the old ones, fading away, worn out from the constant hand-washing and hand-cleansing the swine flu forces us into. Alcohol gel the worse enemy of the spots because it takes them out much easier. I have had spots on my fingers from one day to another, that much the ink has sunk into my skin, that much have I written.

Those who know me probably know that I've a "few" fountain pens in my "rather reduced collection". Yes, in this I'm just like my Grandpa, who keeps a wooden box filled with cartidges and pens. So many pens he simply doesn't make it to the once in the bottom. There are loads of pens of all kinds that range from high class Mont Blanc pens to inexpensive Inoxcrom and, like we say in Costa Rica, "marca patito" ("little duck" brand, which means some probably fake brand). I never really invested on a Mont Blanc, pretty much considered it out of my range, so I have always concentrated on Inoxcrom, a very good and fairly inexpensive brand, sometimes entertaining other brands and other styles, playing around with more executive, formal looking pens. (I even got the Nox case, with a wood-bodied fountain pen.) So, mainly all my pens are plastic and rather informal looking. I've vibrant neon yellow Carioca pens, small pens, green pens, white pens, turtle pens, cow pens, tulip printed pens, violet pens, pink pens... you name it.

Seeing my blackened fingers, my beloved boyfriend gave me for my birthday my very first Mont Blanc fountain pen. Well, I haven't used it yet because my birthday is still to come, you mind? However, he made me think about my fingers. So, should I be ashamed for my messy hands? Because they are not white and pristine? Because they do not look like the hands of those who take care of them all day and so do nothing? My hands are not idle hands, and if they are to show who I am, my ink spots, like the spots of a wild cat, talk about my trade, my calling: I am a Writer. Journal writer, novel writer, poetry writer when I feel like it, letter writer, fic writer, slash writer, a crazy little vonnegutian when it comes to mix images and pen-traced drawings and doodles with my words. Words are my life, words are my soul, the scraps of my mind, the shards of my personal philosophy, my emotional and intellectual nourishment.

Which are the pieces of your soul? Which are the blocks that build your emotions and trigger them? What's your craft, your calling, your coven? This is my craft, the pen and paper my tools, and the spots on my fingers are the brand of my calling. This is my trademark.

Fresh Coke Anyone?

Hell, I'm starving... well, not "starving", but more like inhumanly thirsty for some coke. I do have a can in the drawer, BUT that's my "emergency-emergency" can.

----

So I started writing this entry a few hours ago. Since then I went to the store, the pretty one because the closest one is astonishingly dirty, and I like my coke and crackers PLAIN, not liberally sprinkled with dust, and aged to perfection past the expiraton date before being put on the shelves. Call me unoriginal, traditional and dogmatic, but I like my food "fresh". You see, usually you find the "gracefully aged to dated" products in Chinese stores, where broken stuff are magically held up together, spelled to look "okay" by the gods of these people. The spell, however, is spacebound, because usually as you walk out of the store, the goods rot, break, fell apart, stop, spoil, or any other natural, organic or mechanical procedure that taked the good from good to "waste of your wage". Well, Chinese stores are not the only ones, for this store in the corner is ran by Iranians. But I don't want to be xenophobic on the topic.

As I remember, and this is a piece of information that could aid many currently living or working or studying close to the Mall San Pedro, there's a small store somewhere behind the Z Tower, before reaching the corner of Spoon (a coffeeshop), where you COULD buy soft drinks, water, candies and daily things. I stress the "could" because truth is that you wouldn't really want to. You see, I'm a big fan of chocolates, particularly American chocolates, and usually the ones I like are the harder to get, here. So, back a few years, before I fell in love with Reese, I was all about Butterfinger. I was willing to go to any extent to get it, even buying them old at the store in the mall, just to have them. Well, those "any extent" didn't include the man from that certain store assuring me he had some "somewhere" and then DIGGING elbow deep in a glass counter filled with a lot of crap from old chocolates to pencils, flu medicin and nails. And when I say "full", I mean it was all crammed up in there, and the only way to get your arm into it was by pulling stuff out. All small cavities between things were crammed with grey, greasy, sticky dust and cobwebs. Things got interesting when I saw against the glass a dead cockroach covered in dust and cobwebs getting slowly mashed by the movement of things as the Butterfinger bar was searched.

"Oh... uh... I changed my mind, thank you!" I said and rushed away.

It never ceases to amaze me the degree of messiness acquired by some people, and the best of it, that many of them PRETEND to be liked by a broad audience. Well, I don't know you, but I prefer to buy and eat in clean places. I don't like eatng in a restaurant were rats and cockroaches run around among the clients and the waiters. I don't like to buy my food and stuff in stores that keep everything dusty, spoiled and generally dirty.

This messiness can translate also to poor job. Poor customer service, crappy ensambling, crappy times of answer and crappy solutions. Our company, inspite of all old people and unions could say, is CRAPPY, and people know it, but they don't care, almost as if they've got their jollies out of being outrageously criticized. Our health care is crappy, private medicine is craptacular, with doctors that would diagnose only expensive illnesses and squeeze as much as they can from the patient before it dies.

I have another one for you. At the office I was asigned an HP Compac piece-of-shit laptop. He was known as Nyikolaj Rosztov, later on Azrael, when the demon in it was bigger and more in possession than the machine. Our techs could do nothng against Azrael, so we called HP to demand the warranty for this p.o.s. The dude, a nerd-meets-nerder looking, smelly, never-fucked-anything-but-his-own-hand tech came, said that they covered only hardware, but wouldn't replace the inner mouse (which Smelly Bastard fucked up even more than what it originally was), nor will see why the printer rejected the laptop... printer being HP too. It was decided that Kolya would have his hard drive (did you know that in Hungary they call the hard drive Winchester? ^_^ Well, you know now what would be the name of my next lap top. Or can I rename Omi "Dean" and Nagi "Sam"?) replaced. That was April 22nd. It was said it would be replaced on April 23rd or in five days max. I'm working on a No Name laptop, an HP as well today. Whenever I called the HP people, they promised me that by the end of the week they would replace the winchester. Over and over. Promise after promise.

I e-mailed mad that nothing was done, and then, using my evil contacts, got to a manager at HP and I demanded action. I've got a promise: "We will be installing the new hard drive by June 1st. I'll let you know if something happens and we have to delay".

Okay, No Name is lended. It is NOT my own laptop. Okay, I'll name right not No Name as Vonnegut. I'm having a big Vonnegut moment anyway, so might as well have a name. Anyway, this is not HP letting down Individual Customer Me, it's letting down Corporative Customer, Our Institution. When a company selling posters on Amazon delayed my order two weeks, I wreck havoc royally. Now...

ATTENTION TO ALL COMPUTER AND LAP TOP BUYERS:

DO NOT BUY HP EQUIPMENT. YES IT COMES WITH "WARRANTY" BUT SIT AND WAIT TO SEE WHEN WILL THEY MAKE IT GOOD. IF THEY CAN LET DOWN A CORPORATION, A STATE INSTITUTION, WHAT WOULDN'T IT DO TO YOU?

Don't get fooled by Fergie, Shrek characters and all the people HP is using to advertise. Take my advise: if you want a laptop (which is my area of "expertise") go for IBM, even if they are such motherfuckers as to ship American workers to the India to pay them less, go for Dell, even if they are such sons of a whore that don't let women grow in the company. Go for Mac, go for Acer, go for Sony. Personally I can vouch for the exceptional quality and durability of both IBM and Acer. I've worked so far with Lanix, Dell, Toshiba, HP, Compac and Sony aside from the afore mentioned. Add to it, I can vouch for the customer service of IBM and GBM. They have NEVER let me down. They keep their promises and move sky and earth to do what it takes to get your computer right. Add to it, IBM ThinkPads, just like lovely Acers go the extra mile and keep working nice and fine for YEARS there where other laptops had long died.

But above all, avoid HP like the swine flu. It's even worse.

Short Comments

Unlike some people who prey on bloggers to post their entries as "comments", and so generate long, almost Proust-like volumes as "comments", I'll actually write today a very, very short entry, mostly because I've no time.

There's an article that has kept me thinking. Yesterday I read in the news that Health Care centers seek to voluntarily reduce costs. I wonder one thing: how will they do it? If they lay-off people, they can attend less patients. If they decide to "cut superfluous consultings", who will decide what's important and what's superfluous? Because, I don't know you, but I certainly don't go to the hospital to amuse myself, and maybe a case of, lets say, migraine is not nearly as bad a diabetes or cancer, but fuck if I'm not suffering for it, and if I pay for the service, I'm entitled to get it. So, how is this going to happen?

Today in Costa Rica the news said that our Social Health Care Institution, CCSS, is low NOW on epilepsy medication TOO. The purchase has to be done, and it may take some days. So, epileptics, no seizures! I can't help but wonder if this is also a "miracle" of the CAFTA. After all, now it is illegal to make or purchase generic medicines, and, well, none-generic ones are very expensive. Our social care is slowly depleting, left dry and penniless and all those who requiere medication, treatment have three choices: 1. get fucking rich and pay for it, 2. remain poor and die from a sickness that could be treated, or 3. turn to the world of crime where you can break into farmacies or get medication through a black market similar to that of the cocaine. Then, naturally, you can go also kidnapping people to get ransom to pay for your medication (like the 24 hour kidnappings, so usual here), or any other kind of crime. After all, it's no longer like in the old days. Today crime does pay, and it pays a hefty amount.

Thank you, Capitalist Pigs.

Blah Wekend

I'd love to say that this was a peaceful and quiet weekends where I've got to rest and recharge with new energy, but it wasn't really so. First of all, I had plans for my Saturday, and they came crumbling down thanks to one lovely bank. Okay, okay, I didn't start my day on time, and I was delayed by: 1. trying to finish a letter in time, 2. babysitting my nephew, and 3. Skype-ing with my boyfriend. The day's tasks included going to the Post Office to mail a letter, which didn't happen because I've got there five minutes late. I was to go to the Banco Nacional to do a payment for the Oriflame account, which did happen... with a lot of difficulty, and then to go to the UCR and check on some material about artisanal fishing. This last one didn't happen due to the second task.

You see, I checked on the website of the bank which branches would be open and close to home. There was one that was supposed to be open from 9 am to 1 pm. Was it? No. Unlike in the website, on the door it said that it was opened from Monday to Friday. Hyne, if I would have been a cashier in a bank with that kind of schedules (from 8 am to 3 pm), I'll still be working there. So, I had to go to another branch. This one was in this commercial center. It opened at 1 pm, and since I arrived at 12:40 I thought I'll be one of the firsts. Big mistake. The line before the bank was DOUBLING the length of it. They didn't open at 1 pm, as they were supposed to, but later, and allowed in just some customers, so that the bank wouldn't look crowded, letting the rest of us standing there. Wel, for someone who stood in the queu fifteen minutes before the actual opening hour, I was let in in the FOURTH batch of customers. Inside you could sit, but it's not like at home in the Raiffeisen or any other decent bank. Oh no. In here it looks worse than the public health center. Add to it, for amusement you can watch Animal Planet, the only place where that disgraceful "Crocodile Hunter" seems to keep living. Hell, and here I thought I would no longer be bothered by his assholeness. Why can't they keep dead people dead?

After two short hours, and a hell of a starving, I finally managed to get through with my three minute transaction. I was too tired and too annoyed to get on two buses all the way to the UCR and try and find something usable about "artisan fishermen" when truth to be told, why in the fucking hell would we need any of that stuff when we have experts and we have read enough material already?

So I went home, popped in Henry and June and relaxed, slept and did nothing.

Thing is, people, there's a sad fact: private enterprises are shit because unless you are a big muckety-muck, they won't even talk to you unless it is to squeeze money from your pockets. Public enterprises, on the other hand pretend to be the non-plus-ultra because they are "State owned", so they are like "of the people", and so they think they can treat you like crap.

They are all disgusting.

Greed

I can't say I'm disappointed or deceived at reading in today's CNN e-news that Rupert Murdoch is seeking to put a pricetag on e-news and charge for it. As a matter of fact, the thing that will be charged is "content", which is a far broader concept than just news. It's not only that you'll have to pay to get the news, but you'll also have to pay for anything you'd like to get from the Internet, from anything that belongs to the companies of Mr. Murdoch and any other person who decides to go charging for content. To put it in plain, content is music, images, videos, text, make it a novel, an article, a clipping, a comment, you name it. Everything that happens on the Internet, everything you use the Internet for are basically, or can be labeled as content.

The article says that Mr. Murdoch argues that the Wall Street paper does so well because it charges, so other papers (such as CNN) should as well. The same article argues that truth is that the people who pay for the Wall Street News belong to a different group than the rest. They are rich and their relationship with news are different. The thing is, however, that this is just an example of what capitalism is about: they take something like the Internet, that was built on the idealistic concept of "free information for all", the so called "information highway", but then as people get more and more hooked on it there come the big, fat, capitalist pigs and want to take their share from it. So they can't squeeze that much money from advertizing due to the financial crisis (which was forged by these same greedy pigs), and so they want to reach into the pockets of the people (because tapping their taxmoney to pay astronomical bonuses to their top execitives and to their "foreign partners" (because, really, no one believes that) is not nearly enough now).

So yes, your "right to know" is no longer a right, but the priviledge of a few. Sure, they have a payroll to pay and laying off their staff is not a feasable solution, but I'm wondering, wouldn't be a solution to lay off part of that fat higher level, where no real job is done, only alleged "decision making", and, of course, heavy duty lobbying.

As things go, I wouldn't be surprised if America became the first place where air started to be charged for. The land of dreams and opportunities has become the land of desperation and abuse.

Today's Lunch

Event Organized by the "Comité Latino Americano de Profesionales Adeptos al Relajo y el Ocio", L.AM.P.A.RE.O.