Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

Why is it that liars can't stop with their stories, and make them go bigger and bigger, and it explodes in their faces, and yet they don't stop? This happened to a friend of mine, who taking advantage of the fact that she knows some people in some known spheras, started pretending to know them better that she actually does, AND then pretended to know celebrities as well. For a while now most of her friends realized that she is lying up and down, specially when strange things appeared to happen, such as she allegedly getting involved with a singer, but inspite of being in a relationship with him, she never introduced him to us (and we all know the real reason for that, don't we?). In her delusion she insisted he wanted to marry her, but that she wasn't ready (she's over her 50's, at this age is not as much a matter of being ready, I think, but being into it or not), so she kept postponing it. He wanted her to leave her job and join him in his many tours around the world, which was really strange, as the guy didn't have all that many tours. He flew in one day, stayed a few and then left in another, always going to Caracas, which was really strange, because allegedly he came in a commercial flight, and I happen to know the schedule of the only flight to Caracas (it's the one I take, and there's only that one...) Then she flying for the weekend to Italy, to Spain, to Caracas... and there's no way she flies in to Europe on Saturday, and arrives that same day. I mean, I would know, wouldn't I?

Stories were very unbelievable and contradictory before too, as she claims to have had a fiancé in Argentina, with whom she lived, then a couple of boyfriends here and one day she tells me that she has only been with a friend of us, a former lawmaker.

She's suddenly friend and best friend of a lot of celebrities, and so when a rumor circulates about them, she vehemently denies it, claming that she knows him or her so very well and him or her already told her the truth. Same goes with her politician friends. At the begining she knows them for years now and they are all so smart and honest and humble, and she even tells stories nobody believes anymore, but then, as things are undeniable, she starts changing her story, fitting it, until she says she has never supported them (even if she has requested your support at the begining). This happened with the outcoming president, who's a pig of the size of Russia and China together, and yet she did dare to claim that his only interest was the good fo the country, now saying that he's such a good, innocent person, who has been manipulated by his evil brother just because he's a natural son of his father (fact she earlier vehemently denied). 

Her last lie fell yesterday soundly. Claiming to know Ricky Martin personally, she was mad that people said he's gay because he's not, and he has presented her his fiancée, and adorable young lady, lawyer, whom he was going to marry in secret, but that he choose to not clarify the mess because of the bigger market that gave him. Yesterday papers printed the truth: he is gay. So, the intimate friend was right? Specially when nobody asked her whether he's gay or not, because, dude, he's a singer and the only thing people care about is his music?

Now she speaks highly of this and that politician. Now she says she's breaking up with her super-famous boyfriend because someone "send her pictures of him with another woman" (yes, because we all live in Dynasty), now she vouches for the honestly of publicly pointed out dishonest people. Where's the worth of her word? Furthermore, of every word out of her mouth is a lie, why would anyone wish to sit down and talk to her?

I know lies are sometimes necessary, but you must choose when a lie can buy you time or save your ass (after which you must run to cover and make that lie a truth), and when it's just a sport and will blow in your face.

DTRI against China... Again

It's again that topic, BUT I have given you already a light topic to read, so let me be. So I'll do this quick and simple (specially because I'm cooking some fish for lunch), so to get it out of my system.

So here we have China, and China's policies and China's way of doing the things they do. They pretty much keep their population secluded from a lot of information that is completely accesible, free of charge, add to it, for the rest of the planet. They have no access to many social sites most of us can access, and add to it, they can't look for a lot of things we can on the different Internet searchers because their Government consider such information improper. It's almost like they all lived in the office, with no chance of ever getting out of it. Personally, I find it insulting that the Government decides what you can read and what you can't, what's good for you and what's not. It is almost as if no Chinese were an adult, but a nation of children who still have to be closely babysitted, who are not allowed to have their own opinion about anything remotely important.

Normally I would say here that, well, every nation has the Government they deserve, but does anyone, any nation actually deserve to be deprived of adulthood, of the right to chose, decide, form an opinion, as an individual, by itself? But that's me. I guess here the only important question is, are Chinese happy with these measures? Because if they like it, then what would be the damage? Freeing them would be futile, as once they are free they would go back into the same thing. But if they are not happy, then something should be done. What and who are not questions up to me to answer.

Now, back on track. China has been selling their trinkets to the planet, and gotten a lot of devisa and debt from everywhere, to the point that it can posicionate itself as a potential World Power. Lost of goods, fast, at low prices and known all around the world. Of course, not like Chinese products were known to be high quality products, mind you, and even though you may find high quality products (don't ask me, I can't name one), there are so many cheap, five minute goods, that the general opinion is Chinese = risky-goes-bad.

The market is huge, as we all know that, composed of a lot of people, a real lot of people... who, well, are not exactly big spenders because 1. the Chinese culture is more about saving than spending, and 2. they don't have that much money on them. Cheap labor, remember? However, since China is the next U.S.A. (so they say), a lot of companies went there, some for the cheap labor, others to get positioned in this huge market, once it might become bigger spenders with bigger wallets. After all, the general idea is that World Powers are the places where people live the best, right? At least that's the opinion I have about World Power: they are supposed to be a well of wealth.

Anyway, things start happening. They push transnational search engines and companies into their rules. Then they hack them. When the companies complain, said companies are demonized. They go "political" and "don't understand". Dude, really, YOU ATTACKED, YOU ABUSED! How much understanding do you need? But they don't yield.

A report on CNN shows that factories in China are looking for workers but they find none: people in China are finally stepping up to better salaries. The end of the cheap labor? Maybe, maybe not, but if it is, with what will China compete to keep its place in the top of the world? Specially now that it has attacked and insulted the West? I mean, after the attack on Google I'm really not inclined to but Chinese stuff. Okay, they are everywhere because they are cheap. But if the cheap labor disappears, will it continue to be cheap? Hn, good question, right?

Now it also appears that they have attacked Yahoo!. That's really not a smart thing, now is it? BUT maybe it is all a hoax to make China look bad, right? I mean, it could be. Big, bad, mean, losing former World Powers might be attacking their own companies in China to get attention, wreck havoc and blame China. Right. Because highlighting the human rights abuses are not nearly enough, because what happened before and during the Olimpics were not nearly enough. Right.

All I'll point out now is, where is China going? They are turning the West against them, right when they could rise as a World Power, and push us away. Sure, we might not be the biggest market, but we are the bigger spenders, and if your products stop being cheap, and you still have to fight with the stigma of crappy stuff, then how do you expect to keep it up? Will you sell your crap to your own impoverished market? To your own captive market?

At this time China has three options: adjust to the world, the rest of the world (mainly the West), collapse or go Godzilla. It seems it is trying to pull a Godzilla, but if it does, this bunch of Western frmers will receive it with sticks and stones.

Not Everything Must Get New Philosophic Theories Out of Us

Would have never thought it, and had never seen anything like that, but today I found a maggot in my mandarine. My morning mandarine. Ewwwww! A maggot! It was crawling on one of the segments, whitish-translucent with a hideous black head.It was the first time in my life I saw a maggot in a mandarine, and I was one of those children that attacked every tree in the area and ate fruit from the branches, so I have had my fair share of maggots in my life. (As a matter of fact there were fruits such as guayaba, jocote, guava, mamón, that I actually thought for many years that couldn't be bought, only picked from trees.) However, my first thought after seeing the crawling insect was "could the rest be also bursting with these things?" The mandarine, honest, was so delicious I didn't want to throw it away, and so I hoped that my strong-coffee modified gastric juices would take care of any maggot that escaped my teeth and made it to my belly. Then, all in all, it's protein, right?

Since I was so horrified about the maggot, and add to it, I haven't touched my blog in quite a while (so unlike me, I know, what the fuck is wrong wit me lately?), I decided to write about it. Then I started thinking: "Okay, but what should I write? Make an analogy about how things can surprise us and even the healthy looking can hide inside disgusting secrets? Or maybe an analogy about how things that look bad are really not so bad after all, and it's just a matter of how we look at it and how we relate at it? Because why would a maggot in a mandarine make us throw the whole mandarine away now, when in our youth, unless there were hundreds of maggots in the guayaba we would simply pick them out?" Here I stopped myself and questioned suddenly my thinking. Am I Socrates, that I have to derive a theory out of everything? Must I philosophy and infere from the mandarine the mankind or the universe? No, actually my only concern was a maggot in my mandarine, and all other thoughts were just happening.

So what has been going on then? Blogging makes us think in a trascendental way, of demands it from us. But then, nobody is paying me to blog, and I actually write for myself, (honored, though that there's people out there interested in reading my blabbing :-) Thank you for your kindness!), so I am not looking for a counter or anything like it, so why should I, or anyone for that matter, go Deepak Chopra from a maggot in a mandarine? So I won't (though partially I already did) and I'll leave it to you, Dear Reader, to draw any thought and any conclusion you find suiting. For me my conclusion is: the next time I'll eat a mandarine I'll first separate all it's segments, check them out and then eat the good ones.

Coffee or Tea?

Some days ago my friend Joana, from Portugal, wrote an entry about tea-lovers titled Where tea lovers go?. Well, I thought immediately of my friend Dragonfly, who is a real entusiast of tea, and thought this is a topic I can't add to it, because I'm a coffee-person.You are what you are and there's no changing that. My friend Sartassa, who is also friends with Joana, replied to her entry with an entry of her own about her tea-person habits. Wow, that was pretty! In her entry This is to all the tea lovers out there, was simply fabulous, filled with loads and loads of pictures.

Teas are quite cool, because you can get a lot of types and a lot of flavours that range from the bitter to the sweet, from the intense to the soothingly gentle. I, myself, tend often to witch-kitchen around with teas, brewing this or that depending on the ailment I wish to sooth. Ginger, honey and lemon tea for flu, chamomile and peppermint for the monthly pains, peppermint for tummy aches, chamomile for upset stomachs, green tea for a better digestion, tilo for the nerves or to sleep well.Orange and peach teas are awesome for breakfast, apple&cinnamon are crazy for afternoons. At home, with Kari, I'm getting my little "witchcraft kitchen" together, buying all interesting, amazing teas I find, storing them in baskets of beautifully painted tin cans. For me even the aesthetics of keeping the tea, or the coffee are tremendously important. Everything must be aesthetically pleasing.

However, even so I have my tea-habits, I am a coffee-person. I may not drink coffee everyday, I may not drink it at home, but if I can choose between coffee and tea, I go for coffee... okay, except at planes, because teas are often quite the same, but coffees can range from superb brewing of the gods to Nescafé crap (sorry, Nescafé can't be called coffee, though no matter how bad it is, it can't be used to measure the lowest kind of coffee).

My friend Sartassa asked me how do I like my coffee. Well, I like it black, really strong, and from a good brand. I basically drink only Britt, a Costa Rican export quality gourmet coffee. I was a bit worried, truth to be told, about what would I do without Britt in Hungary, once I move back there. Was I going to have to fly over here twice a year, at least to stock up? Well, it seems there's no need for that as Britt offers online shopping and shipping all over the world. Once Kari goes back home we will be trying it out.

I used to dislike coffee because if it's strong, bitter taste when I was younger. I've got into it in the University, when I had to try something to stay awake to study. I still didn't like the taste at the begining, and it wasn't all that good for keeping me up (I kept falling asleep between 2 am and 3 am), but little by little it grew on me. It amazes me that both Joana and Sartassa comment using black tea to stay up. It would never do the trick for me.

The first coffees I drank had plenty of sugar (2 spoonfuls), or where fancy kinds, full of wipped cream, cinnamon, cocoa and so on. Then, as I started skipping the sugar from my tea, copying my aunt, (still do so, I think sugar ruins the true taste of tea), I considered taking the same considerations for my coffee. After all, though Hungarian too, I'm Costa Rican and Costa Rica is a coffee-land, growing one of the best coffees in the world, so it is almost my patriotic duty to appreciate coffee. I didn't take the sugar off right away from it (have never drank coffee with milk or cream), but I reduced it gradually (1,5 spoonfuls, 1 spoonful, 0,5 spoonfuls) until I took it out of it. This happened when I was already working in this company, but some 6-7 years ago. Soon, with my then good friend Skylar, discovered also the absolute pleasure of putting cigarettes and coffee together. There's nothing in life as good as that, particularly if your smokes are Djarum Black, the fancy, extraordinary clove cigarettes, or kretek.

Though Joana had a different idea with this, and so I must detach my entry from hers (because I'm not a tea-lover), I'd like to extend it to others who have blogs and would like to make a small entry (with pics) about their tea habits, and for those who don't, to revel for a moment in their tea memories.

Catching Up!

It ain't an easy task, but I've been catching up with all my letters! Yay! I'm so glad, not only because I like to be on time with my things, but mostly because by reading the letters written to me and reply to them makes me realize not only that the bond among us is getting stronger, but also because I've been blessed with such great penpals!

There's still one particular, very unique and special letter I haven't got to address as I wanted, mainly because I can't get certain things to work as I want them to. Hell, were can one find a decent CD burner! But I'm getting, there, getting there. Other of my secret ingredients of the letter have been successfully collected, so... I'm good to go!

 -- Typical. Now that I PUBLICLY complain about this stupid computer and it's craptacular burner, it BURNS! Well, at least it got the job done. Calendulina, dear, your reply is coming out faster that expected!! ^_~ Oh hell, I guess I just killed the surprise.... but then it wasn't really a surprise either way, right? --

When it comes to letters, then, there are a few things I've been noticing lately about people: they don't relate to letters the same way. (Have I already mentioned that?) Some people send always a little token, a small, adorable present with their lines, others shower you with a lot of deep thoughts, others have a special talent that keeps you ROLLING ON THE FLOOR LAUGHING all the way to the end. I think this last kinf should realize they are so amazingly hilarious and put a warning on the envelope: WARNING!: READ ONLY AT HOME. Dude, you are giving me a lot of trouble at the office! ^_~  (It is really awkward to explain what is so funny in your job that has the entire building laughing - just by hearing you laugh, mind you -) All of them, particularly for their uniqueness, are very close to my heart, but some of them still manage to surprise me. It's fascinating!

My boyfriend arrived here last night and will stay for two weeks and a half, so there's a slight chance that most of my penpalling activities would need to be conducted from the office, or I'll have none done, but still, I am catching up!

Penpals are GREAT!!! Everybody should have at least one.

If I give you a gun and a bullet on your birthday, you promise you'll use it on yourself?

So, there's this guy I know, whom I'll call Dumby, just for the purpose of this entry. This is not his real name, though it should be, and this is not a story based on real life events, this is a real event that happened to no other than me, so any similarity with real events it's not a coincidence: it is fully intentional. If Dumby recognizes himself, he's allowed to stop speaking to me from this moment on, and actually, I hope he does.

So, the thing is that one day, like in pretty much every other occasion, Dumby was bragging about his vast knowledge in... well, I know I should be paying attention, but not even politeness can get me nailed there. In this particular occasion, he mentioned this book, that was so good. He asked me if I had read it, and honestly I haven't. It was some book written by some modern Costa Rican author, and that holds my interest as much as tissue paper holds water. Dumby started at me as if I had calmly admited to have singlehandedly started the Darfur conflict and slaughtered two or three villages, women, children, babies and stock included. I considered it meaningless to explain to Dumby that, well, my literary interests usually involve languages other than Spanish and authors and locations either far North of the American Continent or much Easter, in the European area. But then again, I would hardly put on Dumby' tab to know who the hell is Dostoevsky, less Paustovsky, Bulgakov or Méhes. A Bernard Werber would be hopelessly lost on him.

Anyway, Dumby started talking about the virtues of this book he was refering to, telling me the story, how it was about this guy who had this nickname, lived like this, saw that, reflected on this, that the title of the book comes from this feature of the novel - oh, and it's such a famous book, by the way! Everybody has read it! (yeah Dumby, sorry, I was tremendously occupied with my Festetics) - and how all that reflects so deeply on the national reality and how it makes you think about society and the things that happen here. Wow, it's like a very deep book, and I should really read it. Well, that was too much preeching on the book and Dumby didn't seem like inclined to drop the subject, and since I was stuck with him, I might as well try and pretend interest, make some small talk.

"So, why does the main character has that nickname? Is there a story behind it?"

Dumby got confused, then looked to the other side and meekly said:

"Well, I don't know, I haven't read the book," then quickly and forcefully added "but you HAVE TO read the book!"

So, he was preeching and lecturing over a book he himself haven't read? Talking about how good it was? Hn, reminds me of a journalist in one of those Melanie Griffith movies. I wouldn't waste my breath on Dumby, but one would think that the point of a recommendation is to recommend something that has been experienced. ecommending is a way of giving your word, because you are giving your opinion about something, and the experience others will have when testing what you've recommended will place a value on your words. Sure, you shouldn't give too much worth to the opinion of others about you, BUT sadly the worth of your opinion depends on the accuracy of it, the integrity of it. If you recommend things you actually ignore, eventually your opinion on any matter will be worthless, since how could anyone consider it after it being proved of being based on assumptions? When you form opinions about things you don't really know, your words lose meaning and after that, whatever you say makes no impact.

Cheap Shots

Thursday, like Margie from Radio2 says, "cheap shot to the weekend". Well, is it? I'm technically 2 days behind a hazy deadline with the thesis, which I'm taking the liberty to extend up to tomorrow... hopefully no one will notice, and with all the things one has to do these days, time doesn't seem nearly enough. In the past few days it has seemed to me as there were simply not enough time for anything. Not enough time to write, not enought time to blog, not enough time to tweet, not enought time to sleep, so were is time going? Has someone made 24-minute hours or something? Weekends still come slowly, but other than that time is simply not enough!

Cheap shots, time is going away in cheap shots.

Miracles Happened in the Last Bunny-Ages

Oh yeah, I'm aware that it has been bunny-ages since I've written last, which is so totally unusual from me. Me, the grand, adorable, sweet ol' me, who write more than any other human in the history of... history. Well, maybe I would be surpassed in each count by the delicious, magnificent, one of the kind, Light of Mankind, Karl Marx, but lets leave my crazy fangirling for the greatest minds of the World for some other day. Now, should I summarize my Miracles of the Last Days or something? Not much to tell, save a lot of things that might not be a good idea to dribble on the net, or which I may do... in my Hungarian Blog. Yeah, sorry fellas, I'm just that much of a bitch. But hey! A woman like me, lively and adorable, can't take many risks, right? Besides you know me well, you drop me a line and I'll sit down with you and tell you all the goodies, up close and personal. It's just like I said to a friend of mine the other day: "Honey, I need to do with you something long, hard, deeply penetrating and it's not sex". Yeah, I think my friend wasn't very appreciative, but the long, hard, deep talk we had was so satisfying it made me hate the fact that I've asthma for I longed and craved and yearned for a cig so freaking much I could have killed.

Kill for a cig. Hn. Would you kill for a cig? I think I would, specially if that cig comes with newly fixed, perfect lungs, I can fuck up again.Cigarettes, along with booze are some of those few things that justify the existence of mankind for me. Yeah, I know, spoke like a true addict. Sue me.

A friend of mine, whom I love dearly and deeply, and to whom my heart goes everytime, told me in the past days that things with his current chick are going less than fine. I had never been very convinced about this lady, mainly because I've always sensed her, as little as I've treated her, as supremely artificial. Her gestures and poses have always been more theatrical than real, and that I've always found deeply annoying. It is my personal opinion that people who make a theatre out of their own lives and rehearse every one of their words and mannerisms, those who take poses they've copied from somewhere else, lean upon what they practice and not upon what comes natural to them are people who simply doesn't worth one's time. Those are insipid, empty people, people so unvaluable they themselves realize it so and therefore try to create or borrow value from other sources.

This particular madam put up a show for my friend since day one. The title, from what I gather was "The Pure and Suffering Maiden of The Poor". Red Shoes like, she danced her way across her rehearsed script, tale-telling her ending, anouncing it in the best or worst García Márquez style, in a sad, key missing bolero, which has been slowly reaching its devastating end. Moody turns, poses to pull herself up to the Sacred, Poor Victim of yet another failed relationship that dances over her bleeding broken heart.

My friend, God bless his darling soul, was stricken confused. What had he done? How did they got there? Wait, how come the end is coming... and allegedly he is the one pulling the plug? I sort of can't find the right words to tell him that sadly, he has been taken to a "real life theatre" and was made observe the play, where he is nothing but another piece to establish the heroine's hoped worth. He has been played. He was entirely unimportant, he was merely convenient for the play to unfold for yet another agonizing season, for yet another excuse, for yet another fridge nuking, so that the heroine could feel herself still desired, still beautiful, even if part of her play is to be left to continually establish her victim position, her damsel in distress, her struggling little lady role that survives the break ups, that keeps going. Can only hope my friend can emerge from this unwilling enterprise stronger and as unharmed as possible. Godspeed, Tiger!

On other news regarding the Miracles of the Last Days, I finished reading Tin Star by J.L. Langley, and I'm so glad I haven't bought it like you can't possible phantom. Dear Hyne, what a horrendous novelette! Unstructured, unbelievable (and it's not even Sci-Fi), de-plotted (because if there ever was a plot lurking around in the mind of the author, it was forcefully removed mid way, so it doesn't even qualify as a PWP), hushed, rushed and scrambled. Now, of course when you pick up a J.L. Langley novel you don't expect to find Dostoevsky, but for crying out loud, I have read better slashfic than that! Oh, and I don't mean here some take me off my feet Morning_Hell work (her Fair Games fic have made her win my heart for ever and ever. It's the best Krummgory ever written), I mean plain and simple, no brainer whatever fic I have read that I don't even care remembering. The story is basically something like a cowboy, gay, these days Cinderella-meets-David Copperfield attempt. That gets no one nowhere, with senseless kiddy-like vendettas and threatenings that start out of the blue with the most pathetic of excuses and then get miraculously solved, also out of the complete blue. Oh, and sex ain't nether that good or that detailed, so you better go grab some other book.

Now I'm getting head first in Broken H, which is not a sequal (Thanks Hyne), but part of the same "collection". I'm not feeling the wish to read it, but it has been lent to me, and I kind of feel like I should give it a shot. At least a shot, though the kind of shot I would like to give it it's not the kind I can give it. Pity. In my opinion, Langley should stick to her werewolves, where a lot of her mistakes can be better explained, and leave cowboys to anyone who can better get to them. No one I know, btw.

Better books have lined up on my nightstand, and one particular one is traveling with me these days. I know farily well that, due to my upcomming (sometime) trip back home, I shouldn't be buying stuff, because I'll have to carry it, and I already have way too many things to pack and send overseas, and I haven't nearly finished, however, I'm a self-declared book-junkie (aside from all my other delightful addictions), and the other day I just couldn't help myself as I slid my card for two books: The Picture of Dorian Grey, by Oscar Wilde, and Slostorm (Sun Storm), by Åsa Larsson. Both of them in Spanish, mind you, since I couldn't get them in English. Always prefer to read in English or French, if the original language of the book is one I don't speak, such as, in this case Swedish, except with Russian, which I prefer to read in Hungarian, but that's the way it is. Still a complete stuck up about reading in original language.

The passion, or more like the unquenched curiosity about this book, of which I've heard before but has so far failed to catch my attention, comes after the recent film of the same name. Aside from the fact that Ben Barnes looks positively fuckable in very kama-sutraistic and ilegal sense of the verb, the movie itself rose a couple of questions in me, questions about what was really written into the novel and what was the actual sense behind the words. I don't know if others do this, but this is, for me, a typical case of "literature investigation". Oscar Wilde ain't much of my kind of writer, but this one I gara check out.

The book of Ms. Larsson comes to my attention after it was recommended by a bookstore to me. Dark sinister murder is something that never fails to catch my attention. That's my "sweet prize", and about it I intend to later write long and hard and deeply penetrating...if it fulfills my expectations.

Amazing things lay before me.

Women

To all my Sisters around the world, those who work and struggle, those who don't give up, those who tighten up their teeth and do it again. Those who know when to give it up, when it is futile and decide to rather put their effort in something else that will bring results. My sisters who are proud, my sisters who are smart, my sisters who are cunning. My sisters who cry, who don't deny their feelings but shoulder them, those who live passionately, those who keep secrets, those who love, those who hate, those who are honest, those who are like the vodka: clear but kicking.

To all those who are too smart and too mature and too wise to be girls, those who are too honest, too brave, too decided, too strong, too proud to be ladies. To all those who are real women, I Salute and say

HAPPY WOMEN'S DAY!!

Festive Fridays

It's that moment when the lights dim, the sky is dark, but there are no stars. It's a Friday night and it's a bit chilly. Last week, as I marched from the office, I saw something I had hardly ever seen before: it was the Friday night life of the surrounding offices.

Due to the job we had to do - okay, I had to do -  I stayed late at the office finishing a rather large document so that my boss could check it over on Monday morning. The office was pretty much empty, save by some people I don't really understand what were they doing there. Those typical arrive-late whose projects and tasks seem assigned directly by the CIA, because nobody, really nobody knows what are they doing, nor can they say what they are working on, and in fact, you never see them doing any work. Well, it seemed that two arrive-late needed extra time to spend at the office, which they religiously do, so it seems (perhaps covering up for the late-arrival time?)

Most of my coworkers are busting-this-joint-as-soon-as-I-can types, often escaping away before their time is due. In a discouraging sucession of events they drag themselves through the tight mornings, up from breakfast to gossip, to meetings that are turned into bitching parties, dodgind responsabilities with skills far more amazing than Neo's bullet dodging ones, lunch, bitching-meeting, or short-meeting-to-escape-the-office-early, coffee break and then the Office Break, stellar with last minute marks, engine purring, the car already out of the perimeter. Life is like that for many, and many of them run tired from the office to home, to their kids, whom they might love, whom they might pretend to love but fight all the time, whom they pretend to adore when they really hide their inadequacies behind them, ignore the blatant billboard of their failure and pretend that "it has always meant to be like that". Numb and unhappy with their job because it "demands too much", or " doesn't motivates them enough" when all they do is dodge like the professionals, only to go home to a quarreling wife that sees them as unfaithful, useless bastards, to a husband who fails to arouse them anymore, with whom sex is another obnoxious chose she has to do, to a boyfriend that treats her like a whore, with whom she behaves like a whore, exchanging sex for trips, clothes, money, cars. Home to a quite life locked in a fish tank, home to a tv, home to pick up the phone and talk to the coworkers because they are the only life they have, the only friends. Home to pretend to be such an uuhhh and ahhh because she or he has such a great job at this great company.

I strolled the sidewalk and I saw the same buildings, lit with the room lights, offices made transparent like little doll boxes, mute tv screens with life and late work, overtime going on. In a close restaurant-bar men with their ties on, shirts crumpled from the day's work, women in their office suits, backpacks, messanger bags and purses arround their feet, and hanging on the back of their chairs while the tables cluttered with an array of beer bottles. Relieved, happy voices. A week was finally over, the project was finished, and they were preparing, celebrating the long waited weekend ahead.

It made me realize that our office don't have that. Everybody hurries to rush out, nobody really stays behind to do the job. Teams don't go out for a beer with teh camarades. Life outside the office, away from the office is more important, even if it is just as chocking as that they lead in the office. They dodge. Dodge kids, dodge the husband, dodge the chores, dodge the wife, the boyfriend, the girlfriend, the family, the responsabilities the same way they do at the office.

Today I leave at the regular time. 16:36. I have a meeting with a friend downtown, so I'm not staying late, but last week, I saw the life that could be lived at the office, the life taht could make the difference, and it was hard, it was tiring, it was demanding, but damned if it wasn't festive!

Happy Friday for you all.

Public or Private

In today's world (sort of) and particularly from some years on (mid 80's and particularly harder in the 90's) the growing "economical liberalism" often pushed people to say that "privately owned" enterprises work much better than "publicly owned" enterprises. You probably heard these comments, maybe even made them (in which case, after the financial crisis you should really feel so damned stupid, right?), and the wave of "bitch againts public enterpises" grew to a common place. I won't say that people weren't right to bitch about the long lines and the waiting that turned services such as banks, hospitals, getting your driving license and so on into the capitalist version of the "good ol' socialist queues for bread". Yes, the uncaring, slow, inefficient, "one-too-many-lines-for-one-single-stamp" were the general brand of such services.

People, aware or unaware of the interests behind the complains, bought the line and repeated it until in many places, many countries, many publicly held services were opened to the competition. Private enterprises flooded the markets, stomping in like a bull stampede down a narrow street. A lot of flashy gifts and promos and advertisements and things people had never heard of, and more and more and more making people's eyes widen and shine with emotion, blinded by the sparkle and the shine so they never noticed what was really going on under the glitter.

But when the glitter and the shine wores off, people find out the overly priced services, the twists and turns in the contracts, the "limitations" they weren't used to, and then all the things the private companies are entitled to the abuse they can get away with wwhich isn't even tipified as abuse because "they are a private enterprise and private law is different from public law".

In a particular case I will today refer to banks and what we have experienced here in Costa Rica, really, in a nutshell. I was making the line at one private bank to pay one of my credit cards. The line was not short. When standing in a line in a public bank people often complain about the long lines and the poor service, and how private banks are much better. When I was a teller I used to wish to tell them that if they thought a private bank was much better, I would happily empty their accounts and they could take their freaking money and put it there, see if they like it. (Later on, as a client, I actually said that to a lady in the line behind me. It felt awesome!) This time, however, I was in a private bank and the line, almost bursting out of the door wasn't moving much and wasn't fast. The man before me and I started talking - okay, bitching - and came to the conclusion that public banks are much better.

Here in Costa Rica private banks offer the same poor Customer Care as public banks, and even worse, several of them have gone bankrupt swallowing in the dark waters of good-bye the money of the savers, who will never again see that money (that's a private bank's prerrogative: no one answers for the money lost), charge abusive interest rates (yeah, some cards have basically a 56% annual rate. Oh no, I haven't forgotten the comma) and shady conditions. Promotions that actually apply to nothing you would really do, and that would cost you more than you are actually willing to pay for, and payments set in such a way that no matter how much you pay, you will always owe more and more and more.

So this got me thinking: private banks came into the market as "saviors" and "real good options" that would make you competitive, get you cheap credit, higher interest rates on your savings, and add to it, more and more services that, given the competition, would become cheaper and cheaper; but in real life none of that happened. It has happened also with private health services, where basically private labs and private doctors find you and create you more problems and sicknesses so that they can pump your wallet. Just in my family, in 2003 a private lab decided that I had the chollesterol levels of a 60 year-old man (I was 27). I had to take some pills and change my diet, which really didn't change that much (since I hardly eat) but took on going to Subway much more often. In less than a year those 4-times-the-healthy-level of chollesteron simply vanished. The second time I made the test at a public clinic.

My Mom had started suffering a mild case of asthma, so she went to a private doctor for a check up. The doctor told her that she couldn't breath normally because her nose was crooked and she needed a plastic surgery to straighten it up. Well, Mom's nose ain't crooked, and even if her nose's shape were the problem, wouldn't that have caused a problem, earlier? Let's say "not when she's over 60"? Unnecesary procedures, the promotion of "treatments à-la-carte", more and more plastic surgeons and less general doctors or specialists, basically because that "leaves no money"... is that really better? Is it really better to pay 40% of your salary to some private insurance that would hold you to "pre-existing conditions", or paying nothing monthly but then, when in need, rushing to the bank for a loan and hoping you don't have to sell your kids for slavery if the thing gets more complicated, or wouldn't it be better 9% of your salary for a humble social service that would treat you for whatever you have from a cold to AIDS? (Some people say their doctors tell them, that some things the Social Security can't provide them. Ain't true: the Social Security is forced to treat the patient and find ways for the treatment. May not me the most modern, the most revolutionary, but they have all they need to treat a patient. The doctors who say the Social Security don't have the treatment either are not informed or are looking to do business out of the patient's pain. - to my understanding and based on the information given to me by a source in the administration and a nurse -)

So banks fail, hospitals fail (a private hospital actually "accidentally" killed the father in law of one of our presidents), what else fails? Private employers that abuse their employees? Private contractors, that would cut costs everywhere they can, and basically "there where it can't be seen"?

Public, private, it's not a matter of "ownership", I believe, but a matter of morals and commitment.