Hueva total mañanera y porqué no me gusta el redondeo

Pues llego al Seven a comprar un jugo (elaborado con 25% jugo de verdad!) y al pagar, me preguntan si le entro al redondeo. Le digo que sí al cajero, pero oh sorpresa, ya no es donación al Hospital Universitario.

Al preguntar por el nuevo programa, me enseña un ´díptico (lo que sea) de un lugar llamado ANSPAC. Inmediatamente saltan a mi vista las palabras "moralidad" y "familia".

Le comento (amablemente pero con mi voz de hueva mañanera) que es un lástima que estén donando a una institución moralina, a lo que se defiende que ellos no deciden. Es un comentario, no espero que él pueda hacer algo. Total, este mes yo no voy a redondear en el Seven.

Subo a mi lugar, y claro que busco ANSPAC por internet (I Google!). La página confirma mis dudas y temores. Un extracto:

La Directiva Nacional ha escogido para nuestro ya tradicional concurso anual la elaboración de un TARJETERO, en el cuál se sugiera un propósito que contribuya a nuestra superación, apoyándonos en alguna frase célebre o texto de la Biblia, que nos ayude a alcanzar nuestras metas.

El TARJETERO deberá estar formado por 24 tarjetas (dos para cada mes del año) y cada una de ellas debe contener una cita o frase de apoyo, con un propósito definido para trabajar en una tarea específica.

Te invitamos a participar, utilizando toda la creatividad y la capacidad de expresión que te caracteriza como mujer ANSPAC.

Que pinche horror, y luego tan temprano en la mañana, jajajaa.

I (heart) Google

I love Google.

There aren't enough words to express my love. I can't live without it. I worship at the altar of Page & Brin & the Googleplex and all those people who make my life better (kidding...not)

Does anybody know how to sort results by date rather than relevance? I can do this with the News, but not with the Web results. Just wondering.

Since I saw Rod Stewart day before yest, let's sing to the Goog:

Have I told you lately
that I love you?
Have I told you
there's no one else above you?

You fill my heart with gladness
Take away all my sadness
Ease my troubles,
that's what you do


Laugh, but it's true.... and I'll be posting odes to Wikipedia and Imdb next.


Today's other musings:
Espresso and coffee n' go don't go together.
How long until pharmaceutical companies develop medication for procrastination? and how will the marketers motivate people to stop procrastinating on "talking to their doctor?"

Leer para Creer y el Efecto Mariposa

This is straight out of Ripley's believe it or not, but sadder. I don't think it happened in Mexico back in '95, but we had squatters or "posesionarios", didn't we? Funny how all these things converge, and a lot of it is somehow related to oil and Iraq.

Some homes worth less than their copper pipes

Rising metal prices have rendered some foreclosed homes worth less than their plumbing, and theives are stripping the vacant abodes of copper, aluminum, and brass to fuel a lucrative overseas trade.

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2527885420080401

It may sound like leftist drivel, but the reason commodities are rising is (in part) 'cause oil is so expensive. Take corn. Some people are trying to use corn-based ethanol since oil is $100+ bucks a barrel, and that creates more demand which results in more expensive corn. Also, most fertilizers used today are oil based, which keeps raising oil demand and therefore oil and corn prices.

It's a sick little loop, inflation. I had an Econ teacher who used to explain it by tellling us about the time the lady who sold "semillitas" at the stoplight raised her rates since sugar was up. He told her semillitas didn't have sugar in them, to which she replied, "Ah, but I use sugar in my coffee".

Invading Iraq has not lowered oil prices as anyone can see. And invading Iran is not the answer either. Thank God Bush is on his way out, but I'm not too sure about McC at this point. It's possible that if he turns out to be a manifest destiny freak, the current geopolitic tension and iraqui insurgents blowing up oil pipelines will seem like the good old days.

So, everything is related and the butterfly effect is real. My primary obsession, as most of you know, is getting all the (right) facts and reading them correctly in order to see the Big Picture. I'm reading the Black Swan right now and Taleb sort of goes against that. Although maybe I need to finish it first. Anyway, I ran accross this random piece of news and wanted to share.

American Propaganda: subtle, insidious, sugarcoated, focus-grouped, and market-tested.

Weekday Update

Haven't written in forever, since my workdays have been too hectic recently, and I've been just way too burnt out at the end of the day. Sort of forgot my promise to myself, to just do it (just write) and let things flow.

So I apologize to myself, and to whomever might be reading this out there.

I have seen some cool movies recently, read some good books and listened to some mind blowing music, so I'll write about that instead of moaning about the economy or my job or whatever.

First off, Cafe Tacuba last Friday was awesome! Impressive, mind bending, and looong. Three hours worth of music, and they still had enough songs for three more. The Arena really does have great acoustics, and you can see the stage perfectly from wherever you're seated.

Ruben Albarrán, who's calling himself Cone Cahuitl these days, is a demented dancing elf with a bratty punk sneer, but he's capable of crooning sweetly when the occasion so requires. He's cool, groovy, hip and square.

Meme is my hero, he's a musical genius! His geeky demeanor and his robot dance have completely won me over. So has have his improv skills. And his lyrics. And his keyboard and synth and programming. Meme rules. The Rangel brothers are also the coolest, and their bass and guitar are not to be taken lightly.

It was the best concert of the year so far, and I'd say I won't see better in 2008, but I already have my Radiohead tix so maybe I'll declare a tie.

We're going to Rod Stewart tonight, my mother's idea, so I expect I'll be listening to her sing Handbags & Gladrags, et al, all spring.

April also has the Smashing Pumpkins, Groove Armada, Sasha & Digweed, Plastilina Mosh and Los Amigos Invisibles, all in all a pretty good month. Aand Ennio Morricone and the Orquesta Roma Sinfonietta are coming in May with Musica per il Cinema!

Haven't read much fiction lately, I started the Name of the Rose but got caught up in all the work related Business/Economics non-fiction. I'm in the middle of the Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It's counterintuitive but it's also not. I'm not sure yet if I can believe in what he says or it's just a lot of smoke. Problem is his theory isn't really the kind that will go down in parts, heh.

I also have a tall TBS (To Be Seen instead of To Be Read) pile, which includes There Will Be Blood (I knowww!!), The Lion in the Winter, Gone Baby Gone, The Assasination of Jesse James, and The Maltese Falcon. I can always see a comedy but I haven't found many good ones lately.

Oh, one thing. How come they completely ignored Sean Penn and Into the Wild at the Oscars? Really, that was insulting. Hal Holbrook? What about script, photography, direction, Eddie Vedder's music? Emile Hirsch? It's awful that movies like Into the Wild or Once get such limited releases when the Meet the Spartans is at every multiplex. It's one of the few redeeming cultural offerings Monterrey has, so called indie and international (Non USA) releases.

The gentle taste of a graceful lady

This is when I'm really sorry I quit American. You can't find Kasugai gummy candies with muscat juice here! Hey Rocco, if you read this while you're there, get some. But the ones that say they have "the gentle taste of a graceful lady" on the bag. I love the way the Japanese use English idioms, heh.

Why we should fear a McCain presidency... or English bloke thinks McCain is Bad News so how come Jon Stewart doesn't?

Why we should fear a McCain presidency

McC has the potential to be a worse president than Bush.

I can't believe I just wrote that, but at least that's what this British bloke over at the financial times wrote yesterday. I quote:

The problem that Mr McCain poses stems from his ideology, his policies and above all his personality. His ideology, like that of his chief advisers, is neo-conservative. In the past, Mr McCain was considered to be an old-style conservative realist. Today, the role of the realists on his team is merely decorative.

Anatol Lieven is a British journalist and policy analist. He studies U.S. global strategy and the war on terrorism (war on terror is incorrect!) at the New America Foundation in Washington.

His writing reads moderate, he calls forth valid examples. Being inmersed in American MSM, we may think he's got a Cassandra complex, but then again, Cassandra's prophecies were true, were they not?

Lieven has studied so called American patriotism and he wrote a book about it, America Right or Wrong. He calls it an optimistic "civic creed" rooted in respect for America's institutions, individual freedoms and constitutional law. The American way, the American thesis.

But every thesis has an antithesis, a soft, dirty white underbelly. In this case it's "a jingoistic, militaristic, Jacksonian nationalism that sees America as the bearer of a messianic mission to lead a Manichean struggle against the savages."

"I’d institute a policy that I call ‘rogue state rollback’. I would arm, train, equip, both from without and from within, forces that would eventually overthrow the governments and install free and democratically elected governments"

So said by McC in 2000. Walmart meets the CIA. Wasn't this precisely what they did in the the seventies and eighties with guys like Bin Laden? Gave them weapons and carte blanche to make war on nations the U.S. didn't feel like sharing their toys with, for example Russia?

So despite his Senatorial efforts in campaign finance, environmental law, budgetary overspending, the Abu Ghraib scandal, McCain has a potentially very dark side. He may not start wars for Chevron / Blackwater / Halliburton, but he can retaliate against a perceived slight.

And these Manifest Destiny types are dangerous anytime, anywhere, but I think there couldn't be a worse time for this type of Commander in Chief.

Information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive ... That tension will not go away.

-Stewart Brand

This (Mamet word)-er could be on to something

David Mamet turns over to the dark side, and what it could mean for the Democrats come November.

David Mamet: Why I am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'

Basically, Mamet picked up some economics texts and realized the liberals' weakest link is, (drum roll here) ....the economy. Stop the presses.

No one listened, maybe because a) No one reads the Village Voice anymore, b) this came out the same week as Spitzergate or c) We're still wrapped up in Obama vs. Hillary and Obama's race speech. Take your pick, or maybe all three.

Some liberal media outlets/personalities dismissed it, but it didn't really cause headlines. Nine days later, someone over at the WSJ connects the dots, and writes about Mamet, Tom Stoppard and liberal autonomy.

David Mamet's Revision

Daniel Henninger, the author, does not Repubicanly dis the Democrats as touchy feely, granola hippies or anything like that. He does remind us that the Dems still have that early twentieth century distrust of big business and love of big government. And I find myself agreeing with him. With a Wall Street Journal editorial.

This is a case where the party has not evolved with the times, and it's ended up losing because of it. I do too distrust big business, but you don't accomplish much by shunning them. And that's kinda what they do, shoving their fingers in their (blue) ears and going nyah-nyah-nyah. You welcome Big Business, you work with them, you police them. You don't have to be their doormat.

And if more Americans realize that in the current economic climate, well, let's just say this is good news for John McCain. Especially if he can capitalize on the Republican business sense reputation while distancing himself from Bush overtones of cronyism. You think it can't be done? I for one wouldn't underestimate Karl Rove.

But all is not lost for the Dems, at least not yet. Obama has close ties with the University of Chicago, those heathen F.A. Hayek worshippers. And his policy people are rumored to be academic yet pragmatic economists who prefer to tinker with an existing system rather than make dramatic sweeping statements à la Big Idea loving Clintons.

The Audacity of Data: Barack Obama's surprisingly non-ideological policy shop. The New Republic

If somehow they can doll up their ideas enough to get the voters to pay attention for a bit, maybe have Jessica Alba present them, they may just win.

A Dear Ben letter

Read this! ----> Dear Ben: Seriously, Next Time, F*** Wall Street

What the average American probably thinks about Ben Bernanke, Bear Stearns, and Wall Street.

I think she gets some important facts wrong, but the sentiment is valid. Why should the Fed (which she equates with U.S. tax payers) have to bail out a bank that dug its own grave? When the buying power of the minimum wage employee is at a 51-year low? Really? You want to help Gordon Gekko?

Well, it's good to take a step back sometimes and ponder the alternatives to chasing our own tail all day. Life will go on, even if banks default.

And who really agrees with Ayn Rand anyway? the woman went on for about 50 pages on the evils of communism in Atlas Shrugged! For that alone, she irritated the hell out of me. Yes, freedom is paramount!! We get it, you don't need 50 pages of vitriol, we're not morons.

And for the record, just to annoy my Republican friends, Cuban schoolchildren are waaay more literate than Americans. And they have better healthcare. Also, it's important to note what George Carlin once said, that American's have sold a bunch of their freedoms for the illusion of safety, since 9/11. But that's a whole other kettle of fish.

Everybody wants to be the Underdog.

Pues ya están doblando las campanas y diciendo que Hilaria va a ganar, que va a barrer en Pennsylvania y en la convención le va a quitar la paleta a Obama.

Peroooo.... no tenemos acceso a números reales! No confío en Mainstream Media gringo. Están peor que el Nyse que se dejan llevar como borregos y están desconectados de Joe & Jane Sixpack.

Razones por las que Clinton no barrerá en las Pennsylvannias

4.2% de la población de Pennsylvania es latina, un grupo que tradicionalmente apoya a Clinton.

10.7% de la población del estado es negra**. Philadelphia es "The City of Brotherly Love". A poco van a dejar morir a su hermano Obama?

Ahora, hablemos del voto duro de Hilary, las mujeres y los blancos. O más bien, las mujeres blancas.

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/42000.html

De acuerdo al último censo,

51.4% de la población de Pennsylvania son mujeres.
85.7% son blancos
77.5% son mayores de 18 años.

Puedo deducir entonces que 34% de la población de Pennsylvania son mujeres blancas mayores de 18 años. Deduciendo solamente, con estos tres datos. No va a ser exacto pero por ahí andamos, antes de que empiezen a gritar que no estoy controlando para otras variables, etc.

De este 34%, no todas van a votar, a pesar de que la primaria de este estado es abierta y no tienes que estar registrado con ningún partido para participar, solamente ser ciudadano y estar en el padrón electoral.

Aparte, yo descontaría a las mujeres de 18 a 3o o hasta 35 años, porque ellas no son voto duro de Hillary. Hasta pueden ser simpatizantes de Obama. Con qué nos quedamos? un 28-30%? De una población de 12 millones 440 mil 621 personas... entonces estamos hablando de unas 3 millones y medio de mujeres? Y cuántas van a votar? La mitad? menos?

Uno de los problemas que tienen los demócratas es la falta de disciplina, la falta del "voto duro" que los republicanos sí tienen. Como el PAN, jajaja. Pero Obama ha salido adelante porque ha construido buenas bases, trae una estructura firme que es lo que les ha faltado al partido de los burros en los últimos años.

Ya se que estas son unas proyecciones muy, pero muy burdas, y que estos porcentajes no garantizan nada, y que realmente pocos votan, pero bueno, son indicadores.

Recuerden que a Hilaria no le va muy bien cuando se proyecta tan oronda y segura de si misma. Cuando parece que va a morir y se pone a chillar, es cuando viene de atrás y gana. De alguna manera se le olvida y vuelve a perder.


You got no fear of the underdog, that's why you will not survive - Spoon, the Underdog


** (no les choca eso de "African-American"? Tan PC que ya ni es verdad y a mi punto de vista hasta llega a insultar. Como si negro fuera algo malo)

Who dares to say my elixir is piss? who says dis? .. .Microsoft senior VPs do

They criticized Vista. And they should know

Ooohhh, BURN!

Mike Nash, a Microsoft vice president who oversees Windows product management.

Jon A. Shirley, a Microsoft board member and former president and chief operating officer.

Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft's senior vice president responsible for Windows.

They all upgraded to Vista and then had issues with their software. Nash bought a laptop with a "Windows Vista capable" logo, which turned out to be false. He can't run applications like Microsoft Movie Maker (who uses that shit anyway?) or the full Vista either.

“I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine,” he says.

There is a class action lawsuit going on by people who bought "Windows Capable" machines, which is marketing bullshit. So internal Microsoft emails where requisitioned.

So, we come to our Sweeney Todd moment of the week...

Bill Gates: "Who dares to say my elixir is piss? who says dis?"

Bill's VPs: We do. We have opened a bottle of Vista's Elixer and we say to you, it is nothing but an arrant fraud, concocted from piss and ink.

Even the Mac vs. PC ads aren't this funny.

Desde cuando eres tan sabio kux?

Mi hermano tiene casi 20. Le llevo seis años. Me saca como veinte centímetros. Todos saben que nos llevamos muy, pero muy bien. Pero es mi hermano menor. Por lo tanto lo puedo mangonear, pendejear y pedirle favores y cubiertas ya que él hace lo mismo conmigo (menos la mangoneada y pendejeada). Para eso estamos las hermanas, y los hermanos, mayores.

Desde cuándo eres tan sabio kuku? Siempre he sabido que eres muy inteligente, incluso brillante. Sagaz, burlón, tímido, noble, egoísta, honesto, no confiable, leal, arrastrado, amigo y muchas otras cosas. Pero ahora podemos agregar... SABIO.

Kuku says:
aver a lo que yo he aprendido en esta hermosa vida es que existen dos tipos de amigos
1. con los que sales, te la pasas con madre pero les viene valiendo 582094582 kilos de verga si se te cae un brazo por descomposicion espontanea (muy usual en los paises sureños de africa)
2. los que estan contigo cuando te da por chillar como jirafa en celo LO CUAL SIGNIFICA que tu tmb tienes que ayudarlos en sus problemas de weba que usualmente oscilan entre "mi crush no me pela" y "mi mama no me comprende"

Kuku says:
hermana mia a estas alturas deberias saber que lo unico que se le puede decir es "----, te estas lastimando al posponerlo y deberias decirselo a ------ de una vez u olvidarte de el" <--- no te pelara pero cuando ella sola se desapendeje (snaps out of it citando a mi amiga de la infancia cher) ---- volteara y dira "xochitl fuiste tan buena conmigo te quiero y te debo la vida"

Kuku says:
aveces traes ganas de hechar a andar el cerebro y darles un consejo filosofal de como salir adelante en esta vida y lograr el nirvana al mismo tiempo ...

tambien podras admirar como te tiran al leon ya que su dolor de muela es mas improtante que tu tesis acerca de la cura a la desnutricion en niños africanos de 10- años ... oooooooooooooo... aveces no.

Y despues de varias practicas puestas a prueba y error me di cuenta que... lo unico que quieren es HABLAR y se sienten mejor hablando contigo que con la pared porque es menos patetico -.- y porque tu puedes decir "si" cada 5 mins y basicamente con eso podrias satisfacer sus necesidades basicas de gemir por su descontento con la vida

Liberal Manifesto

This was too good to pass up.

I agree with the text, but my hipsteur sensibilites recoil from such earnestness. I was like that when I was 17, thank you very much. I got beaten up for it. I got Paxil and Zoloft and all those wonderful drugs for it.

I especially love the What Would Jesus Do bit, since I'm more of the What Would Tyler Durden Do persuasion. I know I signed a social contract with moi to let myself believe but I still guffaw every now and then. Cynical Me says, "Dontcha just love self appointed liberals? And all those people willing to die for their beliefs? They think they can still beat the right!" Sorry!

I'm fatalist/pragmatist/realist. Then I repent and realize that at the end of the day, being cynical is the easy way out, and only hope can carry us through. It would help if words like hope hadn't been hijacked by Oprah and her crew.

I'll be good tomorrow, I promise.

Liberals believe in clean air, diplomacy, stem cells, living wages, body armor for our troops, government accountability, and that exercising the right to dissent is the highest form of patriotism.

Liberals believe in reading actual books, going to war as a last resort, separating church and hate, and doing what Jesus would actually do, instead of lobbying for upper-class tax cuts and fantasizing about the apocalypse.

Liberals believe in civil rights, the right to privacy, and that evolution and global warming aren’t just theories but incontrovertible scientific facts.

Liberals believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment that (1) prohibits another Bush from ever occupying the White House, and (2) prevents George W. Bush from ever becoming baseball commissioner before he does to our national pastime what he did for America.

Liberals believe in rescuing people from flooded streets and rooftops, even if they’re too poor to vote Republican.

Liberals believe that supporting our troops means treating our wounded vets like the heroes they are, and not leaving them to languish in rat-infested military hospitals under the outsourced management of incompetent cronies who think they’re running a Taco Bell franchise.

Liberals believe in pheromones, sex ed, solar panels, voting paper trails, the common good, and that, no matter how fascinating a story it may be, a president should never sit around in a state of total paralysis reading "My Pet Goat" while America is under attack.

And above all, liberals believe that it’s time to come together as a country and put a collective boot in the ass of shameless conservative fearmongers, hate merchants, and scapegoaters who are sucking the freedom out of all our souls.

You are the music while the music lasts.

-T.S. Eliot

It's strange that words are so inadequate. Yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath, so the lover must struggle for words.

-T.S. Eliot

Just

Gender Wars

Ufffff, como diría Rusty.

¿Cómo será la persona privada de Hillary?

¿Será una sumisa de closet?

¿Se sentirá liberada al ceder control a alguien más, después de muchísima lucha interna?

Esto es o muy misógino y anti-progres, o al contrario, es demasiado progres.

En todo caso es muy privado para discutirlo aquí.

Dijo la chica que escribió y dirigió un corto sobre juegos sexuales y de sumisión.

Estúpida, estúpida Hillary.

Estúpido, estúpido Ohio. Lo mismo Texas.

Ahora de aquí al 22 de abril para las primarias de Pennsylvania.

Ahora Billary anda diciendo que esta competencia puede terminar en un "shared ticket". En el Early show de CBS, dijo, “Well, that may be where this is headed, but of course we have to decide who is on the top of the ticket.”

Y luevo dijo que como ella ganó en Ohio ella debe ser la candidata presidencial. Ajá, sip. Obama tiene más delegados que tú, logró 11 victorias al hilo, pero como tú ganaste un mísero estado, debes ser la candidata presidencial, y Obama el vicepresidencial. Ya basta con su idea de que alguien le debe la presidencia. Bill le debe una disculpa, no la Casa Blanca.


Cambiando de tema, llevo dos días con una canción de Footloose en mi radio mental... Let's Hear it for the Boy!

Hmmmm, ¿qué significará?

Soy Woody Allen, neurótica en exceso.

Estoy en ese exquisito punto justo antes de dar el salto al vacío... Ya he tomado la decisión, falta la ejecución. Tengo mariposas. ¿Y si la respuesta es no? Pues no es el fin del mundo. ¿Y si no capto la respuesta? Pues tampoco puedo pasar del suelo, ¿o sí?

Quisiera una señal, un sí inequívoco... pero luego no sería interesante el asunto (dizque)....yo puedo vivir con eso.

Will someone pleeaase friggin comment? The suspense is killing me.