Heartbroken

This is not whom I love. This is not to whom I gave my heart. My heart is falling into pieces and lies scattered on the floor. I close my eyes filled with tears, tears of anger and wish with what little is left of my heart, of my soul to be all a big, fat lie. I open my eyes and it is still there. My heart is in such excruciating pain I could shout and lose my sanity. Hyne knows I loved you, and I loved you more than anything. I placed my family, PEOPLE beneath you and I would have given everything for you and now you do this? Unspeakable.

It is not a secret for anyone that I love IBM. My first two laptops were IBM ThinkPads. Omi, MY beloved Omi, whom I place above everything and everyone, and who's far more important to me than even my lovely and faithful Nagi, IS an IBM ThinkPad, one of the last true IBM ThinkPads, untainted by the unclean hands of Lenovo, whom I consider a disgusting worm crawling under everything that's pure and beautiful in the world. I have driven both Jules and Shimmy INSANE with my fixation over IBM ThinkPad. Jules wanted me to go "I have no idea, I don't remember", and Shimmy did even the impossible to drive me to the lands of Dell and Mac, and yet I never gave in. I accepted buying Nagi, an Acer Aspiron because I always considered him an assistant, a subordinate of Omi, the brain, the King, The Great, and even said I couldn't care less if Nagi went missing or got damaged during the travel. Omi is my heart and my soul and him I'd care for with all I have. I still think and still believe him to be the best thing that has ever happened to mankind (after me).

Well, first they sell out the ThinkPad and all the hardware part to this "Lenovo" character. It made me cry bitterly in the arms of my friend, mourning the loss of hope in the future. A life without IBM ThinkPad was as bleak as you can imagine it to be. There's nothing worse. I came to terms with the loss, survived, and now this.

"IBM Offers To Move Laid Off Workers To India"

The blow has been too much. It's deception upon pain, upon my hurt, upon desolation. Pay close attention, my dear children: This is the end of the American Dream. 4000 people laid off last month, and the solution is to ship them off to the India, where wages are insultingly low. Of course, it looks tremendously nice: for the worker you offer a job, for the economy, you wipe a chunk of unemployment as if it never existed. For you, well, a substantian cut in the expenses. It's pretty simple, you take the unemployed and place them in a part of the world where you can afford to pay him or her a tiny part of their original salary. Well, things are far cheaper there, you mind, so you don't need the whole $4000 you made in the US, but you can make it with the $100 you'll get for your job... which, BTW, has some differences regarding workload, schedules, and, of course, your rights as worker. BUT you get to have a job in what, well, you've been doing. Ummm, of course, nobody is saying a word about RETIREMENT because, well, ummm... that might be managed according to the local customs, you mind. Oh, and learn to speak, what do they speak in India? Oh yes, is that funny language with letters that look like the spatial writings from sci-fi series. Or maybe, is the Elf language?

The good ol' American worker might be outraged and has all the right to be so. He's being taken away from the land where he has all the rights because, baby, the American is the LOCAL in America. In India, he will become the foreigner, the last one, the mocked one, the minority, the one that has to adjust and against whom the law would judge if a dispute of rights is between a Hindu and him. Locals always have the upper hand, homie! So yeah, it looks bleak for the American being laid off, but what can he or she do? Fuck, people has to work in order to support the family, and there are a lot of immigrant in the world, he or she wouldn't be the first, and.. they make it somehow, right? Right? Yes, they do, honey.

Only also think about this: if IBM secures you the job in India, it's a job you are taking from a Hindu. The Government of India might be counting on those jobs to curb their own problems of unemployment. Countries usually also allow the functioning of this kind of enterprises, and make all kinds of concesions in taxes and so, to create job opportunities for their people. Lousily paid, offering terrible conditions, near to the reality of service-sweatshops, but in the national statistics the question is not: is your job fair? Only do you work or not? The more people you have employed, the better. Now, if the Americans start flowing in, and they don't bring their American money, but take the Hindu jobs, and the Hindu lands, and the Hindu houses, what happens with the local population of India? Gets unemployed. Unemployment will start rising there, and at the same time, there will be more people buying, probably people who has no real idea of what things cost, which will probably promote the rising of the prices, which will give the final push to those who could barely survive to go under the surviving level. Hunger, desperation, inflation AND unemployment... export the crisis to some other country you don't really care, as long as they provide you what you need nice and cheap.

Then comes the unavoidable rising in crime. Yeah, yeah, big cities are so dangerous... wanna see dangerous in one of those "exotic lands"?

This is not a solution, this is criminal and shameless.

From this moment on, I break my bond with IBM. They shall take care of Omi, because Omi is not to blame and he's still perfect, but I want nothing more, ever again, with IBM.

Ficking

I bet you read "fucking" instead of "fIcking", right? And "ficking" is a rather strange word, but precise, never the less. I'm stressed out, truth to be told, and I would love to get the hell out of here, but I can't. Work... well, ain't as much about "work" as about Mr.B. It's still bugging me. Then there's this thesis thing and the tutor's irrational demand to present a daily schedule. Come on, we can't count on him, how are we supposed to do it and keep it? We did a weekly one and he wasn't able to stick to that one either.

We gara read a lot of stuff. I mean, we do get a lot of things, but none of them really fit together to make a decent Diagnosis chapter, and that's getting to my nerves.

So what do I do? I fic. I tried to look for some Supernatural, but nothing I find really fits my needs. Besides, a lot of things are hidden away in impossible sites such as liveournals and so, that only make it into a CSI work to mine out the fic. Then, there's the Wincest everywhere you see, and it's not like I mind, I really love it, but I wanted to read Castiel/Dean. I did found one, in Hungarian, which pleased me greatly, but it was so, so, so POOR! I was gonna sit down and cry bitterly. So I reached for my archives and started readin my own stuff, and ended up working a few (10) pages on "I Dare You To" on the Krumggory first story ("I Dare You To" is a fic in three parts, featuring three different "couples": Krumggory (Viktor/Cedric), Snarry (Snape/Harry) and ... "Drill"? "Braco"? well, Bill/Draco. (hehehehe... Drill, that was a good one!)Currently I'm still working on the first story). Then was making rounds and rounds around "The Peacock", but that kinda doesn't want to come out as I planned. Plus, I didn't realize I had cut all connections to "What Starts Bad Ends Bad".

And so here I am.

BTW, something happened.

Yesterday I bought two pen drives. One tiny one of 4GB (Vassili) and a regular black Kingstone of 8 GB (Bilibin). Kolja accept them with no problem, read them and all, but Omi refuses to acknowledge them. He first asked to install Hyne knows what, which I refused. Then I said yes, but still came with warnings and stuff about not being recognized and lack of proper signatures and Hyne knows what else.

Really, why Omi doesn't want them?

Now, for all, IF you live in Costa Rica, maybe you would like to know this and profit from it. I'll also talk in colones, the local currency. For people who might read this, this is the conversion currency fare:

US$ 1 = C 550 ~
1 € = C 820 ~

Close to my office there's this tiny little computer shop/store where you can't find much. The store's name is "Manía Digital SN). Anyway, I was running out of pen drive space to save my things, so I had to buy PRONTO a new one. I was gonna buy it at UNIVERSAL, which is around 6 blocks from our building and normally takes me 10 to 15 minutes to walk. So I was heading there, at 2.5 blocks from the office, there was this tiny store, and I decided to stop and do a "benchmarking" on pendrive types and prices. I was set on buying something of around 4GB, which was my biggest pendrive at the moment, and it still had space. The people at the store had some of the loveliest pen drives, and the price range was from C 9,000 to C 12,000 for the 4GB and from C 17,000 to C 24,000 for the 8GB. Well, I have not been for a while on the pendrive market, so I had no idea if the price was good or not. I knew that I had a budget for it, and the price seemed fair, truth to be told.

However I went to Universal, because I had to buy DVD +R discs for Laura. There I asked for the pen drives. They had only one type and one brand: Kingstone, black. Most of them were 1GB or 2 GB, which wasn't up for consideration with me. At Manía store the 8 GB Kingstone was the cheapest, selling at 17, 000 colones, at the Universal the SAME pendrive was sold at 46,000. Yes, C29,000 of difference, and let me tell you this: that's money in this country. There are families living monthly from that amount.

Regarding the assitant for Omi, the laptop I want to buy to let Omi rest a little and then have someone to cover for him when I send him to the GBM for pimping, this Acer kid is really growing on me. If I get him, which looks very likely, his name will be Nagi, since I guess I'll get him white (hopefully I can get him white!), and Nagi was usually dressed in white. Besides, Omi and Nagi. ^_^ They make a lovely couple, right? It would certainly be great to have Prodigy on the team along with Bombay.

I asked fro him at the shop, where they said I have to ask for it with two days in advance (so I could get a white one!) and it would cost C300,000. At the Universal it's C330,000, and at RadioShack it goes to C 370,000. Shimmy says I can get him at b-mart for C290,000. I tell you, the price variations are ridiculous. Of course, it's good for us customers, if he have the chance to investigate and "benchmark" as many as possible, but I can't possibly believe the NERV some companies have at charging!

Threat to Omi

Each year I travel to Hungary, if nothing else comes in my way, such as held up vacations or running short of financial means or others on this line. Each year I call Air France and order my plane ticket reservation going over dates, making last minute vacation calculations to see if I can squeeze in one extra day, and then always, always telling the lovely young lady at the other end of the line that 1. I will spend the night in Paris when I'm coming back and that 2. I will take the AF 2694 flight when I'm going because I would like to see Paris during daylight "now this time for real" ^_^. And each time the only moment I lose my smile is when I cathegorically insist that I'm flying through Caracas or Bogotá. All South, nothing North. Put me on Taca, never on American Airlines. It's my thing. I don't care that flying through the U.S. I can carry up to 40 or 43Kg of baggage while goutn through Caracas or Bogotá I'm allowed only to 20 Kg. I don't care for times and schedules or the fact that I have a valid American Visa, which I have used only twice in my life, and it was to, yes, do transbording from Miami to my plane going to Paris. I don't like the Airport, and don't even care to know its name or code. People is rude, from the custom officer to floor sweeping dude. I don't want my passport to be messily stamped without any order, with a seal oozing so much ink it stains several pages. I'm used to the neat Costa Rican customs that orderly open the passport, go through the pages and angle the stamp in such a neat manner that it takes little space, it is nicely visible, the ink is rightly measured, so it doesn't stain and other stamps are allowed in the other pages. Like it should.

I don't like the fact that custom officers look so shabby. I remember the first time I stared in horror at this guy, MORGUE-WHITE, skin so translucent I thought he would glow in the dark, with HUGE tatoos, close cropped bond hair and camouflage uniform worn in almost drunken disarray. I was shocked, and back then I was quite a vision of carelessness myself, I cut my ouw hair and wore baggy, male clothes. (I was in the University, so I was allowed to live my "hippy" style.) Yeah, yeah, ugly guy... whatever... who cares? Well, try not to care when a dude like that glares down at you because you slipped him a Costa Rican passport and you would like to smile and wave your Air France ticket and say: "Worry not. No money would make me stay here..." The flux of mean people actually start at the plane, where the flight attendant SHOUTS at the passangers:

"Seatbelt! Seatbelt!"

Well, yeah, forgive me for being so delicate and expecting EVERYBODY to be like the flight attendants of Taca, Air France, KLM and Malév, who silently walk up and down the aisles with their hands neatly behind their backs and then politely lean forward to the passanger who has not buckled him or herself up and say:

"Madam/Sir, please fasten your seatbelt."

Odd... I can't remember the English word for ... when the airplane leaves the ground. The word always comes to me in French: "decollage".

So, mean people. At the Airport of Miami people bark at you and pointedly ignore you. Not a smile. If you speak to them in English, they will force Spanish on you, and if your speak to them in Spanish, they force English on you. They should walk around with a billboard disclaiming the language they are willing to speak. The stores have NOTHING your would like to buy, and talk about "selection", the same useless Revlon lipstick in EVERY store and the same Disney sweat suit. Coke cans are HIDEOUSLY expensive, and Dude, I have had coke at Paris, so I KNOW expensive, restaurants are STINKY and conveniently located next to the bathrooms, which STINK so fucking much, nor angels or idiots would venture into its stench-soaked guts. You rather wait for the plane and take a leak there than venturing into those torture pits of stench.

So, in a nutshell... through the U.S.? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Never.

Well, more to the point, in today's Washington Post (which is neglecting to send me the full newspaper and is sending me only sections) I came to read this article that says that as a new order from the DHS (the folks that will be now in charge of spying instead of the good ol' CIA), all travelers Laptops will be detained for unspecified time. The contents could be copied and the computer searched away from travelers all they want. This applies also to U.S. Citizens. You know, more anti-terrorist measures. Geez, might as well do as the Chinese and censure the Internet! I mean, what the fuck? They can't do that!!! I mean, loads of people are not terrorists, but they do have WORK files in their laptops, for mostly laptops are carried around for working purposes, and a lot of that information is classified. Financial statements, contracts, sensitive market information, agreements... Just to give you an example: when doing the Roaming agreements, operators keep in secret the discounts they offer to some counterparts. You can know the "face value" fee charged, known as IOT or Inter Operator Tariff, which must be disclaimed and can't be changed, but you can't know the agreements which operators do with each other to stablish a discount or some arrangement based on this fee. If executives have to surrender their laptops at the border, what would stop the DHS from copying the contents and then blackmarketing the information among interested corporations? Or let's go less conspicuous. I'm Company A and Company B is messing with my market share. I take a group of my executives and infiltrate them in the custom office. I have them copy the contents of the laptops of some Company B executives and the CEO (why not?) and then forward it or deliever it to me and my analysts and so, smack Company B out of mah turf... and while I'm at it, take his old turf as well.

I don't keep company secrets in my beloved laptop, Omi, and sure the custom officers would have a hell of a time starting him up, since I still haven't fixed his DIM card problem (but he's such a sweet, he still works for me and does everything just perfect!!! My baby is simply PERFECT!!! ^_^ I love him so much!), but once they get there they will gauge their eyes out due to the brutally large amount of NC-17 slash fics and stories, as well as my ongoing novels, which are, really, so hard to read due to my overly tight-packed style. (A lot of introspection, which makes the reading heavy.) In other words, they would gain nothing by copying my laptop. No secrets and certainly no terrorism, only slash, economics, letters, downloaded legal codes, all kinds of projects and procedures... old homeworks, drafts upon drafts, more drafts, loads of music and the history of Internet searching which will invariably go on a loop of: Amazon.com, Yahoo, Gmail, Google, Cuil, Mail.com, Facebook... and the blogs on Blogger and Freeblog.hu I religiously check. Hehehe... this reminds me of this tee shirt I want to buy. Hyne, I swear, I'm so close to buying it!! (If I can talk Jetty into getting one too, I'll SO BUY IT!!!) The tee says: Get a Taste of Religion, Lick a Witch. For a Lutheran like myself that could be too heavy, specially because I adhere to my Lutheran church for tradition and family reasons, but as I was telling my good friend Márton over the Facebook, God, religion and church are not the same. The last two are man-made. So, why not? Plus, the tee really looks so cool! and it looks awesome to wear at the gym.

Where was I? Oh yes, U.S. customs plotting to take our laptops. The way I see it, this whole "anti-terrorist" strategy has actually achieved the goal of the terrorists. I don't know any terrorists, nor I follow conversations with them, or know what are their goals, but as I look around, what have they achieved? If they did what they did because they hate the U.S., well, now the Government have finished the job for them and made the U.S. unlivable. Would anyone like to go there? No. What sense of security will the population have? Which foreign executive would risk to go to a meeting or a seminar in the U.S. or give information to any executive who would be flying to the U.S.? People travel with their WORSE shoes because U.S. customs are known for ripping shoes off, destroying them and not paying any compensation. Now working isn't possible either? And if you fly in today at 5 am and have to give a seminar at 8 am and your laptop his held up? Then what? When will you get it back? Will you get it back? Are you sure it will be in pristine conditions? Can you be certain it hasn't "developed" some vyrus, maybe files have been damaged... you never know... maybe it was opened, closed and now it won't work. And if it was new and the service won't take it, the warranty won't apply because it has been opened by unauthorized people? You know how it work! This could void a whole fucking lot of very, very important warranties!

The abuse atthe borders isn't something new, and while anywhere else custom officers are nice and polite (you should see the ones at Charles De Gaule! The smile, and are so extremely polite! In last December this lovely Custom Officer paged through my Hungarian Passport when I gave it to him.

- Quelque probléme, monsieur? (Something wrong, Sir?)- I asked.

He smiled and gave it back to me.

- Pas du tout! J'ai jamais vu un passport hongrois. C'est jolie! (Not at all! I have never seen a Hungarian passport. It's beautiful!)) in the U.S. you have to endure being treated like a Jew in the hands of Nazis. Your belongings are destroyed, you are held up and delayed and your humam rights are trashed. This is just icing.

I can avoid it, and I systematically do my traveling through South and avoiding any visits there, whether by job or pleasure reasons. I don't go visiting my friend Roo, who lives in California, and I just make sure my boss don't consider me for seminars in the U.S. I guess I would go to the extent of denying to have my visa to avoid going, and if they send me to get it (can't because I already have it) I might take the morning off, go shopping and then say that it was denied because I .... "popped up on the system as a Nazi Officer sought for war crimes"... or something of the sort. But now, with Omi in danger, when my first thing after getting my boarding ticket and locating my gate (it's always THE SAME, so I don't have to do much locating), the first thing I do is locate a power outlet, hook my beloved Omi and sit either doing some work (because, really, I'm such a natural workaholic), or composing on word the entry I'll publish in the blog as soon as I get in the vicinity of Internet. I can't and wouldn't survive if Omi is taken away from me. Hyne, the first thing I do is carefully unpack Omi from my hand baggage and tell the customs:

"It's my laptop... are you sure the X-Rays won't damage him? It's very, very important for me!"

And then, when he comes up the other end I hurriedly pick him up, kiss him (yes, I'm a looney who kisses her laptop) and carefully pack him back into the handbaggage. I even bother flight attendants when they try to help me put the luggage in the overhead compartment.

"No, no! My laptop is in there, and he stays with me."
"It will be safe up here, Madam, and it will be more comfortable for you too during the flight."
"You can put the luggage up, but the laptop stays with me. My peace of mind depends of that."

I guess I'm not the only one who feels this way. After this, I'm sure I won't be the only one avoiding U.S. customs to avoid the extra pain of traveling, and also to care for what little privacy and personal posessions I have. It's kinda ironic that in a world where all State assets are being "privatized", private individuals are being deprived of their own privacy. "Private" is something allowed only for those who have the capital and political means to afford it. Now, it not only a matter of money, but a matter of corruption as well.