Part of the Queue

Pain pain paiiiiiinn!!!!!

2010-06-08T13:55:00.002-04:00

After months without posting I have decided to throw in a post as a therapeutic tool to deal with a dry socket.

I got my left wisdom teeth removed last week and it is something I would not wish on my worst enemy (but perhaps I would on Maná members).

The few hours after the surgery were an ordeal. I sat on the couch, overdosed on Vicodin, only to feel the most ridiculous pain I've ever had to endure. I threw an Haitian curse at my parents for having me. I cursed my dentist, his staff, their families and their pets. I was ready to die.

Then Ojos suggested taking Ibuprofen between my Vicodin dosages, and life was bearable again. I recovered my senses. Vicodin would put me out, make me feel like in a Trainspotting scene (I imagine Underworld music on the background), ibuprofen would carry me through my next dosage. And life was happy.

Then over the weekend I started to perceive a bad taste from the back of my mouth. I don't mean just bad-I-forgot-to-brush-bad taste, but really really bad I-just-got-McDondald's bad taste.... then slowly came the pain... and then the over the phone confirmation: I have a dry socket.

I have spent the last few minutes (or hours? can't really tell on this pain) googling on the condition and trying to appear productive. Optimistic articles say oain can last for a week, others mention up to 6. As my dentist appointment approaches I write this hoping it will provide some sort of relief, even if it's only the vent.

I don't know why the CIA hasn't tried this as an interrogation technique. Just extract a lower wisdom tooth, and let the suspect scream in excruciating pain. If I was f***ing dying on Vicodin (I mean, House M.D. takes it, it is DA SH*T), can't imagine how would it feel with no pain killers.

Then, to add some fun, take out the clot so a dry socket develops. I guarantee a 99% success rate in obtaining useful information for law enforcement (I leave the 1% in case someone like Sayid Jarrah actually exists).

Robo Pac-Man!!!!

2009-11-11T09:26:00.002-05:00

This is the best robotics project ever. Kudos for these guys!!!!

Link to their project: http://pacman.elstonj.com/

It happened

2009-10-14T14:29:00.003-04:00

Ojos got a nice job, its corresponding visa, and was accepted to two US top-20 MBA programs. This has several implications.

Great ones:

Ojos will keep kicking major butt in her already successful career.
Ojos will keep moving towards her ultimate goal of World domination.
This automatically qualifies us for the famous DINK status (yeeeeeeey).
We got a nice Honda Fit Sport 2008 so Ojos can drive to work and we’ll finally be able to have some weekend escapes.

Not so great ones:

The IRS hates us DINKies. As such, we have to claim as fewer allowances as possible in our paychecks, so Uncle Sam doesn’t jump on our income when we make our taxes next year.
I don’t cook as well as Ojos. I mean I’m a great cook because, as Robert Rodriguez says, “not knowing how to cook is like not knowing how to fuck”, but just not as good as she is. We don’t have the time for experimental stuff now.
We’ll have to change our December vacation plans, giving US Airways more money in the process.

All in all the balance is absolutely positive. We completed this successful transition 6 months into our marriage. Keep it coming!

I want my rain back!!!!

2009-10-14T14:10:00.002-04:00

Nostalgia.

These past days have been rainy in CLT. The problem is that it isn't a real rain like in Mexico. It’s a little, tiny, light, but abundant rain… that has the additional quality of lasting all the freaking day.

It kills me. In Mexico it’s always a heavy as hell rain, but it only lasts a few minutes, couple of hours maximum. Several theories have been made around it:

Being a land of Machos, rain plays along and hits hard.
Radioactive elements of Mexico City’s share of the atmosphere create a heavier rain.
The presence of Tlaloc.
English were stupid for establishing a city in the middle of the forest, where rain is light, tiny and lasts all freaking day and I was stupid for coming here.

Whatever it is, I don’t entirely like it.

Thanks for stopping by… I promise to write something worth reading one day.

Evolution

2009-09-22T13:54:00.002-04:00

It's always been clear to me that playing and appreciating tennis is the ultimate sign of evolution :)

Great image found in the signature of some folk who posts in MensTennisForums.com

It's Happening

2009-08-26T11:21:00.002-04:00

VAMOOOSSS!!!!!!!

Ya casi.

Updating

2009-07-17T09:47:00.003-04:00

Since life keeps happening whether you blog or not, here is a small list of updates...

1) I'm moving in two weeks to a brand new flat in South End, near Uptown Charlotte and Dilworth. It is basically 1 block from my current apartment, but the community has nice advantages: you can borrow a bycicle to go places (handy when you don't have a car), the interior design is awesome, we'll have a mini second floor, and we'll have many neat restaurants at less-walking distance.

2) Ojos is applying to MBAs. She will kick ass as usual.

3) The NC Music Factory opened at Charlotte, featuring "The Fillmore." Having a Fillmore here guarantees some decent concerts in the World Capital of Boredom (it's actually not that bad but the nickname sticked). First decent concert will be Collective Soul, August 28th.

4) I still haven't bought a car. Basically becaue I don't want more debt in my back (I'm still fighting the credit card debt from Mexico)... but sometimes I just want one so bad. For instance, each time I go to Wal-Mart, each time I think about going to Atlanta for a weekend... or Myrtle Beach! ...

Coming soon in the next post: something worth reading.

Events, events, events…

2009-05-03T22:43:00.002-04:00

Life has been quite eventful in the last weeks, reason for which I haven’t been able to blog. Taking advantage of the unbearable lightness of Sunday, I’d like to post some of the stuff I’ve been doing lately.

1. Rent a car and drive to IKEA to buy a drawer for the bedroom and a nice bench for my beautiful 40’’ LCD HDTV.

2. Go to ByDesign to buy our living room!!!! It is a fantastic white leather sectional with an additional armless chair. It bloody rocks:

3. Right after IKEA and ByDesign, drive for 3 hours to Fayetteville, North Carolina to catch a gig of my favorite band: Collective Soul. It’s been almost 8 year since my last Collective Soul concert (July 5th, 2001 @ Teatro Metropolitan, Mexico City).

They played a very very very good set list with almost all of the big ones (they left Precious Declaration out), 3 songs from their upcoming album (Ed Roland said it would be ready for September) and a couple of not-that-famous ones and the newly famous Tremble for My Beloved from their 1999 album Dosage (it is newly famous thanks to Twilight… it is the only good thing out of that crappy movie –which I didn’t see, but I know it’s crappy-).

My wife got me a Dean Roland’s set list. Nice souvenir.

The only bad thing is that since it was a town festival, not all of the people was a lot into the concert… but once we got to the front rows it was a great atmosphere. A couple of action shots:

And the other bad thing was the 3 hour drive back to CLT… but it was well worth it :)

4. Kings of Leon!!!!!! Yeah!!!! First KoL gig for me and Ojos. It was brilliant, even though the place wasn’t full (illiterate southeasterners) and the acoustic of the place wasn’t great. Other than that, it was a great concert.

Here’s the setlist:

Crawl
Taper Jean Girl
My Party
Be Somebody
Molly’s Chambers
Fans
Milk
Four Kicks
Charmer
Sex on Fire
The Bucket
Notion
On Call
Cold Desert
Use Somebody
Slow Night, So Long

Encore
Closer
Knocked Up
Manhattan
Instrumental
Black Thumbnail

Brilliant! They only missed California Waiting.

A bad action shot here (we had all the lights pointing to ourselves for some reason):

And 5.

We just received the CDs with the official wedding pictures!!!!!!! (By Enkuadre… hire those guys if you’re getting married around Mexico City).

Now comes the titanic task of choosing 200 pictures from 2000… but it promises to be a lot of fun. I’m of course creating a Picasa Web album for those!

Well… that’s it! thanks for stopping by.

Got a direct message from my fave band

2009-04-17T12:52:00.008-04:00

Thanks, Tweeter :P

Whatever, they claim to follow back all of their fans. I told them they weren't in my case, and Dean Roland from Collective Soul sent me a direct message to prove me wrong.

It doesn't matter if I ended up looking like an idiot. It still is a direct message from my favorite band, isn't it?

BTW, this end of month looks great:

April 25th - Collective Soul @ Fayetteville, NC
April 30th - Kings of Leon @ Cricket Arena, Charlotte, NC

Have a nice weekend!

Let Me Google that For You

2009-03-25T10:32:00.004-04:00

Ooooooooooobviously, there will be a post about my wedding, marriage and stuff. It was wonderful and married life has been great so far.

But that's not the subject of this post... "Let me Google that for you" is.

I'm sure that you know a lot of people who simply WON'T google and instead, they ask YOU how to do something. Let me Google that for you is a great educational tool so people will stop bothering you and start asking Uncle Google, who knows all answers.

Quick example. John Doe wants to know what a prompt in MicroStrategy is. Instead of googling it, he decides to ask Coller.

=======
John Doe says:
Coller. What is a prompt in MicroStrategy?

Coller says:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Microstrategy prompt
=======

John Doe will now get his answer and will -hopefully- learn to google stuff. Amazing!

Now go and use it.

mBanking - Telcel + Banamex

2009-02-10T14:28:00.003-05:00

Y powered by Gemalto =)

Aquí algunas notas del lanzamiento:

El Universal

CNN

Invertia

Este amiguito me quitó el sueño de 2006 a mediados de 2008, cuando dejé México y el mundo de Telecom y las SmartCards por mi nueva vida gringa y el mundo de BI.

La solución es sumamente segura y la facilidad de uso se garantiza por medio de SIM Browsing, tecnología que permite usar el servicio hasta en los teléfonos más piñatas del mercado.

Así que los que están en México: corran y úsenlo!!! Pero ya!!!!

Y felicidades a los de GTO.PA

Mario Bros, cumbia version

2009-01-31T17:42:00.005-05:00

Update: Here's this great band's MySpace...

My cousin sent me the link to this video. It simply kicks ass. These guys are legendary.

Just try to ignore the first seconds with the idiotic hosts announcing the band... it's well worth it!

From Windows Live Writer

2009-01-30T00:25:00.001-05:00

I’m experimenting Windows Live Writer, a desktop client for blogging from the Empire. So far the experience has been pretty solid: an open platform that can be used for blogging not only in Live Spaces, but also in Blogger (hence this experiment), WordPress, among others.

It features a nice architecture that allows the use of plugins. The following picture, for instance, is from my PicasaWeb account and I’m inserting it using the Picasa Link plugin. It basically loads your albums and images to a side bar so you can choose the one to insert from there.

Another plugin is for Live Search maps. Here is where I live (or how it was some time ago… MSFT apparently had some delay on the pictures, when compared to Google Maps):

And everything is done with a few clicks. It even loads your template! It’s a true WYSIWYG.

It’s really surprising for a Microsoft product. Besides, the latest version of Messenger finally respects my decision of having Firefox as my default browser and doesn’t try to use IE when I click the Hotmail icon.

Recommended piece of software. Only thing I’d add is to load my tags (it has some tags providers but I don’t use any of those… I just want my bloody regular tags).

Download from here

Salsas in the US

2009-01-26T20:12:00.004-05:00

Hot sauces are a basic ingredient of Mexican food. Arriving to the US I found they had different varieties and classifications for hot sauce.

The classification normally has the following levels: mild, medium mild, medium hot, hot, very hot, extremely hot and some places have one called infierno.

It looks complex at first! Especially for Mexicans who just arrived to the country... you want salsa, but you remember that in Mexico "extremely hot" usually means something crazy, like habanero or mashed dried chile de árbol... very hot stuff.

Well... no more suffering and wondering... after trying all the salsas they serve in different quasi-Mexican restaurants like Chipotle, Sandía, Cantina 1511 and Jolina, among others, I have prepared the following table to illustrate how salsas in the US correspond to how hot that salsa would be in Mexico:

If you ask for mild.... you'll get mild
If you ask for Medium mild, you'll get mild
If you ask for Medium hot, you'll get mild
If you ask for Hot, you'll get mild
If you ask for Very Hot, you'll get mild
If you ask for Extremely Hot, you'll get mild
If you ask for Infierno, you'll get mild

There you go, now you can have any salsa in the States and know EXACTLY what to expect!!!!

Alcohol and Programming

2009-01-21T21:24:00.005-05:00

From XKCD

Dream House (Heineken Ad)

2009-01-19T17:07:00.003-05:00

I'm so having one of these rooms in the future!!!

How many countries can you name in 5 minutes?

2009-01-11T21:57:00.006-05:00

I didn't like my score... it was 60. My girl is gonna do like 200 or something crazy like that (click on the image if you'd like to take the test).

60
Created by OnePlusYou - Free Dating Sites

The interesting part, though, is not the test, but how I got there. I was peacefully browsing through blogs when one of them led me to one made by a girl from the same company I work for, everything fine up to that point, in the end it's a 1600 people company (minus the folks they fired last week... stupid crisis), the surprise was to find a comment from Renán, from Gemalto, there. That led me to his blog, and ultimately to the above referenced test.

Renán is a talented engineer in the smart card world (my ex-world :P to say it in a way) and last year he got the chance to transfer to Paris, where he now lives a life full of glamour and crossaints (it's expensive to have anything else for breakfast).

I highly recommend his blog, Renan à Paris! He uses the same high-level prose and complex sense of humor that made lunch time a better time in my Gemalto days.

Converting to Metric

2009-01-09T22:54:00.004-05:00

I have a difficult time explaining the metric system to yanks... and thanks to this Mich's post (that by accurately describes the Windows 7 beta) I found this beauty from xkcd.com (click on it to enlarge)
:
I must confess I never thought of "reference points" as a means to explain the metric system, but it actually makes a lot of sense.

2k8 / 2k9

2009-01-05T22:16:00.003-05:00

I'm back to harsh reality (in which I have to work and live in a small southern city)... its welcome couldn't be any more violent: my bags didn't make it to Charlotte yesterday, and when they did, they delivered them earlier than I told them, so now they are at the concierge office that opens from 9 to 6 (or to say it in a different way, when I'm not home and I can't collect them).

I realized that I would never write the traditional last year review if I waited until my rage against American Airlines gave in. So here it is:

2008 turned out to be the most eventful, busiest and craziest year of my life (my life isn't eventful, busy or crazy so this recap will be seen as rather ordinary by many of you... well... if anyone reads it anyway):

- January: a new experimental position is created at my ex-employer and they somehow decide I was the man for the job. In the few years I've been working I learned that when your job description if diffuse, your objectives don't exist, and you are supposed to cost less instead of generate more, you have two choices:

Run
Hang in there, sneak into the first available open position

I opted for the second one, and lost two months seeing how things got more and more kafkian, which takes us to:

- March: I applied and interviewed for my current job. All the process was held in Mexico and I was told to wait a couple of weeks to get news. In this same month, I bought THE engagement ring.

- April... this one is special

19th: Board plane to Dubai (hey! there had to be something good about that role)... ATL-DXB... 14.5 hours...

24th: I get the offer for my current job, in the US of A, location to be determined. I decide to negotiate it a bit (it worked).

25th: I proposed!!!! This was by far the best day of the year... 4x4 ride on the dunes, camel ride, dinner in the middle of the desert and yes for an answer. It doesn't get much better than this

From Dubai Baby!!! (and engagement baby!!)

- May: I keep negotiating and accept the offer... it's official, Coller moving to the US. I turned 26.

- June: Wedding place hunting at full throtle (in Mexico you need to book at least 10 months in advance to get the right place at the right date). Visa arrangements start.

- July: I got my Visa (made a nice short trip to Monterrey to get it done faster), got the place to marry, and I receive my one way ticket to DC.

- August: Can be summarized in one word: boot camp. While remembering how to study, I got to re-visit DC calmly (my previous 2 trips there were pretty short), meet a bunch of great guys who were also starting in the company. I attended the qualifying round of the Legg Mason Tennis classic.

- September:

US Open baby!!!!! Murray vs Melzer was the best match I saw(Murray went all the way to the final, beating Nadull in the process but losing it to Federer)

From US Open 2008

My location is defined: Charlotte, NC. Second financial center of the USA (Bank of America is based here and Wachovia was -and their new owners, Wells Fargo, are setting the East Coast HQ here).

I start renting an apartment in Uptown Charlotte (with appliances like fridge, microwave, washer and drier included) at a rate I'd get a small room with shared bathroom in cities like LA, NY or SF (I'm trying to stay positive about Charlotte).

- October: My fiance comes, we go shopping and semi-furnish the apartment.

- November: My fiance comes again and we go to Mexico for thanksgiving.

During these months I also get to see my first NBA match in a good while and my first NFL match ever. In early December I go to see both teams again :P

December: I completely unplugged myself for the last two weeks, went to Acapulco for Xmas and stayed in Mexico City to receive 2009. Ate an awful lot:

Quesadillas (from Etén, a street in Lindavista -actually the street where I lived- , you are highly encouraged to go)
Birria
Pozole
Flautas
Turkey
Apple salad
Seafood, tons of seafood!
Chilaquiles
Paella
Tacos
Quesadillas from Tres Marías

I somehow missed tacos al pastor though...

- 2009: American Airlines manages to lose my bags for the 3rd time in 6 trips. They deliver them one day later when I'm not home and leave them at an office that is open exactly when I'm not home.

But it will get better... I'll get married and bring my girl here... and I'm pretty sure it doesn't get any better than that :)

Other things:

Loved Juno, Nick and Norah's infinite playlist and Wall-E.
Read a lot of Kafka, Chejov and ... go ahead, crucify me, Harry Potter (first 3 books... stopped because my fiance didn't have the 4th one at home)
Traveled like a freaking idiot for the third straight year. Kept my gold status at Sky Team. Will lose it with the travel ban imposed by the company =(.
I'm sleepy I can't remember much more...

I'm back in town...

2009-01-04T22:38:00.004-05:00

After 2 weeks in Mexico (one at Acapulco, one at the city) I'm back to Charlotte, a much more uninteresting place hehe... but hey! they pay in dollars.

Well, since I bought my ticket with American Airlines I was sure something wrong was going to happen. For some reason, the CLT-DFW-MEX leg was flawless. I even started thinking of using AA more frequently... but then, in the return trip today, my bags didn't make it to Charlotte with me (and therefore my toothbrush, deodorant, and a bunch of other things).

I have used AA in a total of 6 trips and they have managed to lose my bags in 3 of them!!! 50% effectiveness!!! I just can't believe these guys!!!!!

1st time I was returning to MEX from Trinidad & Tobago, via Miami. The bags arrived 2 days laters, with a tag from JFK (the bags were sent to New York!!!)

2nd time they cancelled my Santo Domingo - Miami flight and sent me to San Juan and then to Orlando where I took an AeroMéxico flight to MEX. The bags stayed at San Juan for 1 more day, and I received them 1 hour before taking a cab back to the airport for a flight to France.

Why does American Airlines hate me? Any ideas?

Mi Vieja Mula ya no es lo que Era...

2008-12-10T21:23:00.003-05:00

Uno de mis Simpson-moments favoritos... nomás porque sí

Y la recreación argentina que está en youtube... también nomás porque sí

Coller officially declares...

2008-12-05T23:24:00.003-05:00

That no decent bands ever stop at Charlotte.

Here is a list of the recent and soon-to-come concerts in the Queen City, I highlighted the worst ones:

New Kids on the Block (what? they still exist? and people pay to see them?) 10/30/2008
3 Doors Down (pffft) 12/12/2008
Neil Diamond (I'm not that old) 12/12/2008
AC/DC (maybe 20 years ago... not now) 12/18/2008
Eagles (not bad but I insist... I'm not that old!) 1/14/2009
Elton John and Billy Joel (I respect them... but c'mon now! What's the average age in this place?) 3/7/2009
Robin Williams (that's it, I'm leaving, I closed the browser before taking note of the date)

Last summer was good, so I haven't completely given up on this place... the city got The Cure and Stone Temple Pilots... but of course I wasn't living here back then.

My hope now is Atlanta... 4 hours drive... I'll check the dates and post if there's anything interesting over there.

El Universal y el Plagio

2008-11-21T00:39:00.008-05:00

Estaba viendo un artículo (malo, por cierto) de El Universal cuando empecé a notar que las imágenes eran algo raras.

Como esta:

Y esta otra:

El zoquete que hizo la nota puso links directos a las imágenes que se robó de otros sitios... seguro lo hace siempre... pero esta vez se topó con un webmaster decente. Se trata del Webmaster de Cracked, al que felicitamos.

Kudos for him!!! El Universal owned!

Bobcats & Panthers

2008-11-17T20:03:00.004-05:00

Para algunas ciudades no hace falta tener equipos deportivos locales porque tienen gran cantidad de atracciones: conciertos de música decente (en lugar de conciertos de country), bares, universidades, gente de todas partes y un largo etcétera.

Ese no es el caso de Charlotte. En Charlotte el fin de semana gira en torno a una sola cosa: Las Carolina Panthers. Todo el mundo -todos, sin excepción- se visten con jersey del equipo los domingos y las conversaciones de lunes no tratan de ningún otro tema que no sea el partido.

Lamentablemente para la ciudad la temporada dura 4 meses (5 si su equipo se cuela a playoffs) y el resto del tiempo sus domingos pierden todo sentido.

La ciudad también cuenta con un equipo de basquet, los Bobcats. Pero apenas tienen 4 años de existencia y ninguno de ellos ha sido digno de mencionarse (terminaron 20-63 la temporada pasada). Supongo que cuando tengan una buena temporada empezarán a despertar sentimientos y habrá identificación con la franquicia. Sólo espero que para ese entonces no hayan decidido mover al equipo a algún otro pueblo sureño sin chiste.

Ya que vivo aquí, decidí adentrarme en el mundo de los equipos deportivos e ir a ver a los dos equipos locales: Charlotte Bobcats (NBA) y Carolina Panthers (NFL).

Primero fui a ver basquetbol... me gusta más:

- Los jugadores no descansan cada 10 segundos.
- Abajo del tablero se golpean todo el tiempo sin necesidad de ponerse una armadura encima.
- Los estadios son cerrados y sin frío.
- La cerveza es más barata.
- Y es lo que jugaba en primaria, secundaria y prepa (nunca coordiné para el futbol).

El juego fue contra los New Orleans Hornets que curiosamente antes jugaban en Charlotte. De hecho los Hornets eran mi equipo favorito y tenía que lidiar con el hecho de que compartían división con los Bulls por lo que Jordan los aplastaba 4 veces por temporada 4, más otras 3 si pasaban a playoffs.

En fin... por alguna razón extraña los Bobcats jugaron bien y ganaron... y Michael Jordan estaba en la banca del equipo. Como dejé de ver NBA mucho tiempo, he decidido apoyar a los Bobcats. Así no tendré ninguna expectativa y no me imporatrá que pierdan miserablemente.

Y apenas ayer a ver a las Panteras. Como jugaron contra los apestosísimos Detroit Lions conseguí boletos a buen precio (lower level por 30 dólares). Me gustó la atmósfera del americano, la gente por lo general está ebria antes del medio tiempo, y en ocasiones están cheleando en la fila para entrar. El partido estuvo cerrado, 31-22, así que obtuve buen valor por mi dinero. Lo único malo es que la forma en que está construido el Bank of America Stadium hace que haya sombra.

SOMBRA!!!!!! Sombra para un estadio que se usa de septiembre a diciembre y en el mejor de los casos Enero!!! Me parece sumamente estúpido, dado que la temperatura ayer llegó a estar rondando los 5°C.

Como conclusiones de este ejercicio puedo decir que los gringos del sureste se emocionan más con el americano que con el basquet, aunque todo, desde los boletos hasta la comida y la cerveza cuesten más.

También concluyo que prefiero ver basquet y que se me verá más en la Time Warner Cable Arena que en el Bank of America Stadium (y definitivamente más que en el Lowe's Motor Speedway).

Aunque aún así pasaré más tiempo en el Samuel Adams Coller's appartment brought to you by Heinekken (¿¿¿qué pex con los patrocinadores en absolutamente todos los edificios donde se juega algo???)

Geeky Halloween?

2008-10-31T23:51:00.004-04:00

Un beneficio más (además de tener ventanas en el edificio y un lugar propio) de que el cliente al que te toca ir tenga un depto. de Sistemas con influencia y poder:

Imagen oficial Halloween 2k8

Mis primeros dos muebles!

2008-10-19T20:22:00.004-04:00

Cortesía de Wal Mart, y de la visita de Ojos a Charlotte este fin de semana =)

La mesita ya está en mi recámara, al lado de la cama inflable, y el escritorio + silla está en lo que vendría a ser la sala.

No fue sencillo: se me olvidó comprar un desarmador... luego fui a un CVS a las 10 de la noche, para descubrir al volver que no era de la medida adecuada... terminamos yendo a las 12 del domingo por una caja de herramientas y armando el mueble a la hora en que Ojos tenía que estar llegando al aeropuerto.

Aquí la foto de la victoria, una vez que derrotamos al escritorio:

Lamentablemente sí llegamos a tiempo para su vuelo y vuelvo a estar fianceé-less =(, pero con muebles!!! e internet en casa (lo contraté luego de resignarme a que mi vecino nunca arreglará su cochino router que no sale a la red desde hace un par de semanas).

Shopping @ Charlotte

2008-10-12T21:15:00.006-04:00

1. En Bed, Bath and Beyond (fui a comprar la cortina de la regadera porque está de flojera eso de secar todo el baño luego de bañarse) encontré mi siguiente compra:

Tendrá un lugar privilegiado en mi sala.

2. En Wal-Mart descubrí el pasillo "Latin Foods" (sabor latino! sangre india caliente!), donde además de haber Valentina, Jarritos, Pozole en lata y tortillas, está la nueva masa de maiz que promete terminar con en monopolio de MASECA:

MASA-BROSA!!!!

3. Este no es de shopping, pero caminando por la alberca de mi edificio (o sea güeeeeeeey) no pude notar la advertencia tan gráfica que usan para evitar que la gente se eche clavados:

Está súper gore! seguro el administrador es fan de Tarantino

Famous Quotes about Procrastination

2008-10-04T21:41:00.002-04:00

"The sooner I fall behind, the more time I have to catch up."
Anonymous

"Procrastinators: Leaders of Tomorrow"
Anonymous (but available on a t-shirt)

"Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week."
Anonymous

"Procrastinate now, don't put it off."
Ellen DeGeneres

"I'm going to stop putting things off, starting tomorrow!"
Sam Levenson

"If a thing's worth doing, its worth doing late."
Frederick Oliver

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."
C. Northcote Parkinson (1958)

From Procrastinus

Don't Mame! (se pronuncia dount meim)

2008-09-30T20:53:00.003-04:00

Hoy mi hermano me hizo el día con este pequeña foto cortesía de http://hazmeelchingadofavor.com

Gran hallazgo, la preparatoria tecnológica Steve Jobs en Joquicingo, Edo de México.

Con razón

2008-09-29T20:30:00.001-04:00

Welcome to Charlotte...

2008-09-21T18:30:00.005-04:00

El viernes se confirmó finalmente que mi nueva casa es Charlotte, NC... como no sabía nada de la ciudad llegué sin ninguna opinión y con la información básica (que es normalmente la que uno encuentra en Wikipedia):

Es la ciudad 19 de los EEUU.
Alrededor de 1'700,000 habitantes en su Metro Area.
Buen clima (entre 11 y 22 Celsius promedio, la más baja en diciembre es de 2, la más alta en verano es de 31).
Es casa de Bank of America, Wachovia y Lowe's.
Lamentablemente, es la casa de NASCAR, el horrible serial de carreras en el que los autos sólo dan vuelta a la izquierda en óvalos. Ugh, asqueroso. Y todo en la ciudad gira en torno a NASCAR aparentemente.

Llegué anoche y salí a caminar por el barrio donde está mi hotel (al sur de Uptown Charlotte). El lugar es gracioso. En primer lugar es una zona llena de latinos, por lo que se pueden encontrar giros como el "Topless Carrousel" donde invitan a los latinos a ver "chicas" y beber "cervesas" ... así con 's' en lugar de 'z', ire usté:

Y a unos pasos pude cenar unas enchiladas verdes (acompañadas de un agua de horchata) de muy buen nivel en un legítimo restaurante mexicano llamado "El Grande". Además tenían rocola con corridos, cumbias y canciones del tri jajajaja... me sentí como en la provincia mexicana.

Hoy ya me fui a la parte interesante, Uptown Charlotte. Usé el sistema de trenes llamado LYNX, que tiene un total de UNA línea UNA (la azul, le ponen color para no confundirla). La zona me gustó bastante, tiene una arquitectura interesante y tiene los estadios de los Bobcats (NBA) y de las Panthers (NFL):

Acá una vista de Uptown Charlotte, las dos torres son la de Bank of America y la de Wachovia:

Por cierto que la zona era un desmadre porque estuvo Barack Obama frente al City Hall. Se calcula que hubo unas 20k personas... la fila estaba bastante larga:

Y por supuesto la ultraderecha ~~yunquista~~ republicana se hizo presente con speeches y fotos contra el aborto. Se ganaron una larga serie de mentadas de los Obamistas (¿se les dirá así?).

Como era domingo había pocas cosas abiertas y me regresé temprano... pero de entrada, Charlotte se ve mejor de lo que suena... ¡a ver qué tal!

Mañana: a sacar citas para ver departamentos, adquirir un plan de telefonía celular (el iPhone lo compré usado), ir a Bank of America a ver si me dan una tarjeta de crédito vs. un depósito y si da tiempo darme una vuelta por la zona de la University of North Carolina, Charlotte Campus (UNC-Charlotte), donde en teoría hay buenos departamentos, más baratos que en Uptown, sin estar lejos de la civilización.

iPhone + homelessness

2008-09-12T11:58:00.003-04:00

Mi resistencia al consumismo fue poca: me compré un iPhone... y tengo que decir que el aparato es una belleza. Una vez liberado gracias a Quickpwn hay tantas cosas que agregarle que uno termina usándolo 30 de las últimas 48 horas, incluso para tareas que podrían realizarse más fácilmente usando una laptop.

Por el momento ya tengo:

Facebook
Emulador de Nintendo + unos 15 juegos (tengo mis quejas sobre el control, que no me permite avanzar demasiado en Punch Out!, juego que solía terminar en unos minutos en mi infancia)
Light Saber (con sonido y todos los colores)
SSH ... desde donde podría resetear mi webserver y ser como Maddox, si tan sólo tuviera un web server
Cantidad de feeds y aplicaciones basadas en localización (ese feature del iPhone es la neta)

Gracias al iphone (con ayuda de Samuel Adams) me he olvidado de que no tengo todavía jefe ni ciudad para irme a vivir (y por asociación, ni depa ni coche) ni SSN (hoy se cumplen 4 semanas y no llega el maldito). También me ha ayudado a olvidar que llevo 5 semanas viviendo en un Extended Stay Hotel, que es algo así como un hotel 3 estrellas en el que sólo limpian el cuarto una vez por semana.

Bueno, suficiente, ¡voy a ver qué más puedo hacer con el iPhone!

Genius

2008-09-06T21:21:00.002-04:00

Aprovechando el momento político...

US Open baby!!!!

2008-09-04T16:16:00.004-04:00

Bueno el sábado pasado me fui a ver partidos de tercera ronda del US Open 2008.

La idea era quedarme en NY un par de días para admirar la ciudad (tiene más de 15 años que no la piso). Sin embargo los hoteles, aún en las zonas más piñatas, no bajaban de $300 la noche. Los hosteles no tenían para las noches que quería (o para una sí y la otra no) y además eso de dormir con el pasaporte en el trasero para que no te lo roben no es de mi agrado.

La solución fue Amtrack. Los trenes están feos y hacer los dos trayectos de más de 3 horas en un día está de mega flojera pero ni pex... el US Open es el US Open.

Vi los siguientes partidos:

Sam Querrey vs. Ivo Karlovic (ganó Querrey en 3 sets)
Andy Murray (aka "el único británico que juega tenis a un nivel medianamente decente") vs. Jurgen Melzer (ganó Murray en 5 sets, luego de perder los dos primeros)
Lindsay Davenport/Daniela Hantuchova vs. Elena Vesnina/Vera Zvonareva (ganaron Lindsay y Daniela fácil... 5 y 1).
Gael Monfils vs David Nalbandian (ganó Monfils en 3). Nalbandian es un caso interesante. Cuando está en forma le gana sin muchos problemas a Nadal y a Federer, pero normalmente le está entrando durísimo a las donas de Krispey Cream y entonces sus resultados apestan el 90% de las veces.
Kei Nishikori vs David Ferrer. Ferrer es 4 del mundo, pero el japonés de 18 años lo agarró a palos como si se hubiera dado a su hermana y le ganó en 5 sets. Partidazo.

Ahora unas fotos:

Hantuchova for the masses!!!

Hantuchova & Lindsay

Murray

Todas las fotos están AQUÍ

Para morir en paz:

1) Ver un GP de Fórmula 1 fuera de México
2) ~~Ir a un Grand Slam~~
3) Sembrar un árbol
4) Escribir un libro
5) Ver a Collective Soul una vez más

Tough Babies

2008-08-22T15:56:00.004-04:00

Siempre me ha gustado leer The Onion, suelen ser graciosos y atinados en sus parodias, y creo que la noticia de la semana pasada ha sido lo mejor que he leído en los Iu Es Ei:

Aquí el artículo completo.

Las mejores frases:

"You'll notice a difference after just one use," said Michelle Baker, head of new product development. "Whether it's your newborn's more hardened appearance, the way he now approaches people with guarded skepticism, or just that look on his face that says, 'Oh wait, maybe life isn't all hugs and kisses and rainbows. Maybe I need to get my fucking act together.'"

In 2003, Fisher-Price unveiled a new adventure play set containing 85 easy-to-choke-on pieces, and in 2006, the Walt Disney Company introduced an interactive DVD entitled Baby's First Brush With A Cruel And Unforgiving World.

Es grande.

Ardor

2008-08-21T17:35:00.004-04:00

Me da mucha risa ver que todos los medios gringos están ordenando el medallero por total de medallas (oro + plata + bronce) en lugar de ordenarlas por total de medallas de oro...

Además, el 55% de los participantes en la encuesta de NBC están seguros de que importan más las medallas totales que las de oro:

¿No que ganar era lo único?

Ya saben señoritas...

2008-08-13T20:45:00.005-04:00

Amiguita, "si quieres evitar una agresión sexual...

No uses ropa provocativa...
Cuida tus miradas y tus gestos...
No te quedes sola con un hombre, aunque sea conocido...
No permitas familiaridades de tus amigos o parientes...
No admitas pláticas o chistes picantes..."

La verdad es que no había notado el potencial cómico del panfleto oficial de la iglesia católica mexicana (Desde la Fe) hasta que vi esta nota.

Al autor, sacerdote Sergio Román del Real, le recomiendo considerar hacer stand up comedy si algún día decide dejar su profesión actual.

La nota completa tiene otros jocosos pasajes que deleitarán a todos con su humor:

"El pudor es reservar para el ser amado esos incentivos sensitivos y placenteros que llevan a tener hijos."

"Cuando exhibimos nuestro cuerpo sin recato, sin pudor, lo prostituimos porque provocamos en los demás sentimientos hacia nosotros a los que no tienen derecho"

Además, redondea su artículo con una foto de la siempre púdica familia Rodríguez de Zacatecas:

Jajajaja no puedo parar de reir. ¡Son unos titanes!

....

......

........

¿o qué? ... ¿era en serio?

Tennis Sunday!

2008-08-11T00:26:00.003-04:00

El autor, luciendo su playera Threadless modelo "SublimI'mawesomeinal" (que es la sensación en todas partes) y la gorra de su ex-empleador.

Había considerado ir al Legg Mason Tennis Classic que arranca mañana acá en D.C... pero los precios se me hicieron ridículos y absurdos (sí, las dos cosas), así que desistí. Sin embargo, anoche me enteré que se podía entrar a la quali por sólo $10 dólares.

Al 99% de la población a la que le vale madres el tenis, le cuento que la quali es un pequeño torneo que se juega el fin de semana anterior para que varios jugadores que no tienen el ranking suficiente para entrar directamente se agarren a raquetazos por cuatro lugares en el draw principal.

Así pues, me fui a la estación Ness UDC, de donde salía el schuttle gratuito, y me fui a ver tenis todo el día.

El primer partido que vi no fue en el estadio, sino en una pequeña cancha al lado donde se puede ver la acción de más cerca. Fue entre Ramón Delgado de Paraguay y Kevin Kim de EEUU. Delgado sacó el partido en 3 sets luego de ir uno abajo. Se puso chido el desmadre porque las personas que viajan con Ramón son bien escandalosas, los demás "hispanics" (me caga esa denominación) nos unimos a sus gritos y los gringos del público respondieron apoyando a Kim.

Delgado (Paraguay)

Luego me fui a comer y a esperar la práctica de Marat Safin y Tommy Haas. Había más gente esperándolos que viendo los partidos, la mayoría fangirls de Safin... pero... nunca aparecieron los jijos.

Así que volví a cancha central para ver el segundo set de Devvarman (un tenista indio -de la India, duh- que no sabía que existía) vs Soeada (un japonés que no sabía que existía). El indio ganó en 2 sets cerrados: 7-5 y 7-5. No me gustó que ganara porque se dedicó a pasar pelotas mientras el japonés fue más agresivo. El tema es que la agresividad no sirve de nada si no tienes tantita constancia... ni pex.

De ahí me fui a ver entrenar a Luis Horna de Perú con Alejandro Falla de Colombia. Ambos top 100. Horna en especial ha tenido participaciones destacadas: sacó a Roger Federer de Roland Garros en el 2004, ganó hace dos años el abierto mexicano y tuvo el placer de saludarme cuando Perú fue al Tec a jugar la Copa Davis contra México (que por cierto sigo sin entender cómo perdieron contra nuestro apestosísimo equipo en esa ocasión).

Lucho Horna (Perú)

La tarde cerró con el partido entre Wayne Odesnik y Nicolas Mahut, dos jugadores del top 100 que seguramente estarán en el US Open y que probablemente ganen uno o dos partidos por allá. Fue de lejos el mejor tenis de la jornada. Odesnik es un zurdo norteamericano que juega bastante defensivo, Mahut en cambio fue más agresivo. El partido lo ganó Mahut en 3 sets (4-6 6-4 6-4).

Mahut (Francia)

Fue una buena tarde. Un pequeño adelanto de lo que me espera en el US Open, al que asistiré el 30 de agosto =). La verdad es impresionante ver tenis profesional, le pegan durísimo, juegan mucho a las líneas, la pelota pasa escasos milímetros por encima de la red y los jugadores llegan a casi todo, sacándose pelotas que están a punto de botar por segunda vez y convirtiéndolas en tiros ganadores.

Incluso estos jugadores que no son de la "élite" le pegan muchísimo mejor a la pelota de lo que yo jamás podría soñar en pegarle

4 horas 4

2008-08-09T19:05:00.002-04:00

... para solicitar un SSN.

¡¡¡¡¡¡¡Se pasan!!!!!!!! Estoy seguro de que ni en mi querido y tercermundista México pasan estas cosas.

Tengo los pies destrozados, porque OBVIAMENTE no había sillas disponibles en su oficina de 2x2. Pero bueno... en 2 semanas tendré un SSN, y con él podré sacar una tarjeta de crédito, y con eso finalmente existiré en este país.

First week @ DC

2008-08-08T10:17:00.003-04:00

So... Miscellaneous impressions of my first week:

The Certification course is not difficult, but it's an awful lot of information. For that reason, I haven't got out of McLean and Vienna.

I passed the first exam of 3

All the USA is about this week is this ad:

I'll definitely go to Georgetown and get drunk tonight

The most important point, I'll live in either San Francisco, Toronto or Charlotte.

Skype rules. Daily calls to my fiancee for only 1.24 dollars so far.

One way ticket (to heeeellll and back!)

2008-07-24T13:42:00.003-04:00

The Darkness rules!

Well whatever... that's not the reason I'm posting... The reason is I just got my one way ticket:

United Airlines Flight 818 to Chicago, and then United Flight 1244 to D.C. It's a shame Mexicana stoped service to Baltimore airport, now I'll have to pay for my food either in the airport or in the plane.

They booked and paid my ticket before I could tell them I preferred Delta... sad story... now it's almost a fact I won't reach Gold status with my Air France card (valid in SkyTeam airlines like KLM, Delta, AeroMexico, Alitalia, among others...).

I also got my 30 day of corporate housing arranged, car rental (shared with other 2 guys). Now I only need to know where the hell am I gonna live after that, and we're all set!

Llegué a Monterrey

2008-07-14T10:31:00.003-04:00

... y la fila del Starbucks (que en apariencia era del tamaño de la de Corporativo Polanco, donde normalmente salgo en máximo 7 minutos) tardó 30 minutos.

Hay dos posibilidades:

- La gente es lenta para ordenar.
- Los empleados son lentos para ejecutar la orden.

Sea cual sea el caso la conclusión es la misma: los regios no son tan fregones como se creen.

Mañana, informes sobre la fila en el consulado...

Wedding Date

2008-07-09T13:41:00.004-04:00

So... we closed the contract for the place we'll marry in (and paid it, ouch).

Feb 21, 2009

According to Wikipedia, the following relevant stuff happened on a February 21:

362 - Athanasius returns to Alexandria.
1804 - The first self-propelling steam locomotive makes its outing at the Pen-y-Darren ironworks in Wales.
1848 - Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish the Communist Manifesto.
1893 - Thomas Edison receives two U.S. patents for a "Cut Out for Incandescent Electric Lamps" and for a "Stop Device"
1925 - The New Yorker publishes its first issue.
1937 - Initial flight of the first successful flying car, Waldo Waterman's Arrowbile.
1948 - NASCAR is incorporated. (NASCAR sucks)
1953 - Francis Crick and James D. Watson discover the structure of the DNA molecule.
1960 - Cuban leader Fidel Castro nationalizes all businesses in Cuba.
1965 - Malcolm X is assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City by members of the Nation of Islam.
1995 - Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.

And the following characters were born:

1794 - Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Mexican president (d. 1876). SUCKS!
1929 - Roberto "Chespirito" Carlos Bolaños, Mexican actor. SUCKS AS WELL!
1979 - Jennifer Love Hewitt, American actress. Woohoo!

Not bad.

Ir o esperar?

2008-07-04T13:00:00.005-04:00

Resulta que un día después de que arranque mi nueva carrera en DC estará Collective Soul en Baltimore, MD:

Está del nabo porque Ojos y yo tenemos un acuerdo. Tenemos que ir juntos a ver a CS. Sería su primer concierto de CS aparte.

Pero por otro lado llevo 7 años 7 esperando otro concierto del maestro Ed Roland y cía.

Entonces... ¿voy? ¿o me espero unos meses más?

Forth

2008-07-01T18:05:00.004-04:00

The Verve está por sacar su nuevo álbum titulado Forth. En lo que sale tenemos dos cosas de ellos:

Sonnet Live from Glastonbury!

Y un track exclusivo que se baja de acá

Travis también ha anunciado su EP y habrá disco a fin de año!!!! :D

Mejor miéntenmela!

2008-06-25T15:12:00.004-04:00

Según una filtración a REFORMA, así luciría el nuevo jersey de las Chivas:

Ojalá no sea cierto, porque es la peor playera en la historia de las Chivas. Espantosa. Una basofia. ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡Mejor miéntamela Vergara!!!!!!!!!!

Time for HUGE changes

2008-06-17T14:20:00.005-04:00

In 3 months my world has changed more than in the past 2-3 years. It's been crazy:

- I'm engaged.
- I accepted a new job offer in a different company
- The job is in the USA (I'm following Mich's steps!)

As for the marriage goes, we've been looking for places like crazy, and we have changed plans like a zillion times (civil wedding before/after, wedding in march/february/april, in Cuernavaca/DF, 150/200/250 guests). It's a crazy process, but you don't understand its beauty until you live it.

I'm feeling great, but can hardly wait to have everything closed:

Date
Place
Food
More important, DRINKS
Music
Church
Judge
Paperwork
Invitations
Presents (will people be willing to buy me stuff from Macy's over the internet?)
# of guests, which inevitably will leave our parents very mad because we won't have room for "Aunt Chelo", who they haven't seen in 20 years but must be invited because 1) lent them money many, many years ago or 2) Took care of granma/granpa or 3) Invited our parents to her daughter's wedding, even though they didn't even know her name.

And at the same time, there's de job part:

The final location (i.e. the place I'm supposed to live in for the following some years) won't be decided until I complete a training program in D.C.
Knowing such location is absolutely necessary for my fianceé's transfer
TN Visa paperwork
Remember technical stuff (after almost 3 years of using Word and PowerPoint)
Furniture!!!!!
SSN
Large list of etceteras
Get a place with a garden for Janker Vom Ocampo (my dog)

I'm feeling uncertain, but hey, you can't really progress if you don't leave your confort zone at least for a while.

Engagement! (or Dubai - the relevant part)

2008-05-13T22:43:00.003-04:00

It was around 3.30pm when the guys from Arabian Adventures picked us up at the hotel. We drove around 40 minutes south of Dubai, and entered the Dubai Desert Preservation Reserve.

The first part of the safari was a dune ride. Fun stuff, it's like a roller coaster =)

The thing in front of us is sand, we were like 85° to the ground

After that we were supposed to have dinner with everyone in the camp, but I had arranged something different with Arabian Advantures: a camel ride.

But where did the camels take us? Well, to a perfectly arranged Arabian carpet in the middle of the desert, with candles, a torch, a barbecue and the staff ready to serve dinner =)

Then we had dinner (delicious food: lamb, chicken, beef, gravy, rice and middle eastern entries).

Then the stars appeared, and under such a perfect setting I asked the mother of all questions. Getting an "are you serious?" as a response. I took it as a yes, and put her the ring... =)

THE ring baby!!!

It was basically the best day of my life.

2 days later (we were so tired that we took a day off and stayed in the pool) we had breakfast at the Burj Al Arab, which was expensive but nice. Once you reserve (and pay) they let you visit the public areas of the hotel, which are truly spectacular.

Then we went to the beach, and afterward to Jebel Ali, a new residential zone, to board a Cessna Caravan 8 seaplane and take an aerial view of the city.

Magic day, magic trip, magic person to share it with... it can't get any better than this! I bet!

Now the expensive and stressful part is coming, but I'm currently high on life and hardly thinking about it.

Dubai - the irrelevant part

2008-05-13T22:00:00.006-04:00

I spent 10 days in Dubai last month (4 working, the rest on vacation). My now fiancée joined me for the vacation part (finally having hundreds of thousands miles in my Flying Blue card paid off!).

Even if it's largely influenced by the US and the UK, the place still has some peculiarities:

1. Camel milk. We weren't brave enough to taste it:

2.In the Emirate Malls I kissed Ojos, a security guide told us to not do it again and gave us a "courtesy policy." It's so stupid I took picture:

"No kissing or overt displays of affection"

3. In Dubai, they are absolutely obsessed about facial tissue (i.e. kleenex). Taxis have from 3 to 4 open boxes, in the Burj Al Arab they put them (in a box made of gold of course) in every table, and in malls they have facial tissue vending machines!

4. There was a mosque next to the hotel, with huge speakers, waking us up at 6am every single day.

5. Corona was present!

6. Since there is no snow in the desert, they decided to build a closed ski station in the Emirates Mall:

7. And to close. Hummer limo, anyone?

It was an interesting experience, worthy of the 3 hour flight to Atlanta + the 15 hour flight to Dubai.

I love Alternativo

2008-05-08T17:30:00.002-04:00

VH1 Latin America started a 1-hour daily video show of 90's alternative music... Collective Soul, Pearl Jam, Live, INXS, Nirvana, etcetera. It was like being back to those times when MTV was a good channel (from 1992 to the moment in which they ran that Spice Girls video for the first time, it was all downhill from there).

Wait...

I just realized that was eleven years ago. I'm old!

Couple of random thoughts

2008-05-08T11:29:00.004-04:00

1. Gemalto (my employer) was mentioned in James Gosling's blog. It is a 3 lines note about a contest the company is making, but anyway, it's nice to know that James regards Gemalto highly, which in itself is sort of an achievement for the company =).

For those who don't know James Gosling. here's the link to his Wikipedia entry.

2. Today's Dilbert is one of the best ever. Here's a link to it.

45% Geek

2008-04-17T11:02:00.003-04:00

I was killed (or saved, depending on the audience) by all those Matrix, LOTR and Star Trek questions.

45% Geek

Stupid Warning

2008-04-10T13:42:00.003-04:00

Todos los elevadores en Sao Paulo tienen la siguiente advertencia:

"AVISO AOS PASSAGEIROS:

Antes de entrar no elevador verifique se o mesemo encontra-se parado neste andar"

o lo que es lo mismo:

"AVISO A LOS PASAJEROS

Antes de entrar al elevador, verifique que el mismo se encuentra detenido en este piso"

Me pregunto quién sería el baboso que atravesó la puerta cuando el elevador estaba en otro piso. Además me pregunto si ganó una demanda, lo que habría obligado a todos los edificios a poner esta advertencia tan estúpida.

Independientemente de eso, la compañía que programó el elevador debió hacer caso a la primera ley del desarrollo de software e interfaces hombre-máquina:

"El usuario es un estúpido"

Excelentes comerciales!

2008-04-09T20:26:00.006-04:00

Lo dicho. Los comerciales gringos son superiores jeje.

Estos son de Ameriquest Mortgage Company. They rule. ¿Habrán quebrado por la crisis hipotecaria?

Pido una disculpa de antemano por los riffs de Green Day que se escuchan al inicio y al final del video. Estoy consciente de que Green Day apesta, pero no es mi video y por lo tanto no controlo su contenido.

La oficina debería estar en la Anzures

2008-04-04T14:31:00.003-04:00

En Polanco no pasan cosas como esta:

UPDATE: No estaba ebrio, padece otitis:

It has the Chivas brand but...

2008-03-28T16:31:00.006-04:00

Buying food I came face to face with the official Chivas Tequila!

Would I drink it?

I'm leaning towards no. The bottle rocks anyway!!!

Great Movies!

2008-03-24T19:20:00.003-04:00

Last week, being holy week and everything, I went to the movies twice. I watched Juno* and Cassandra's Dream**.

Juno is the best comedy I've seen in a very long time. The main character is hilarious, dialogues are clever, humour is just as I like it: sardonic and corrosive. I'm a big fan.

Cassandra's Dream is the second straight London-based non-comedy film by Woody Allen. It rocks. I think it captures human nature perfectly, and shows that the line that separate us from being criminals is extremely thin. However, I think that Match Point (the first London-based non-comedy film by Woody Allen) is even better (this opinion might be influenced by Scarlett Johansson starring it).

* In Latin America, they decided that a movie title should somehow resemble the script. For that reason they named it "Juno: Crecer Correr y Tropezar". They always do that shit you know? like in Kill Bill, La Venganza and Cloverfield, Monstruo

** Named "Los Inquebrantables" in Spanish. What a freaking crap! When you think they have reached their top level at making stupid translations, they come up with this!!!!!!!!

Well, the point is that it's the first time in a while that my Movies Top 10 is modified (twice, in the same week). Here's it:

1. Pulp Fiction
2. Kill Bill
3. Reservoir Dogs
4. Trainspotting
5. Requiem for a Dream
6. Pi
7. Match Point
8. Cassandra's Dream
9. Juno
10. Star Wars. The Empire Strikes Back

Yes I'm a HUGE fan of Tarantino.

Sobre Mexicanos en las FARC

2008-03-15T16:42:00.005-04:00

Cargaré con el riesgo de ser calificado con uno o varios de los siguientes adjetivos:

- Fascista
- Nazi
- Panazi
- Panista de mierda
- Hijo de [inserte el nombre de su empresario de preferencia aquí]
- Reaccinario
- Cachorro del imperio
- Vendido
- Imperialista

y daré a conocer el coraje que me da que, con el treinta y pico por ciento de impuestos que me retienen cada mes, le paguen servicios de educación superior a personajes que HACEN PROMOCIÓN A ORGANIZACIONES TERRORISTAS Y HASTA TERMINAN EN SUS CAMPAMENTOS. Nos enteramos de unos cuantos, quién sabe cuantos desaprovecharon la educación que les dio la universidad que sea y terminaron de parásitos revoltosos.

Lamentablemente es muy difícil controlar estas cosas, y es preferible su existencia a no tener a nuestra máxima y excelente casa de estudios. Pero me da coraje.

Que vaya y chingue a su reputísima madre Lucía Morett, y que sus jefes dejen de decir estupideces.

Y arriba las invictas Chivas =)

Martina Hingis

2008-03-12T19:37:00.003-04:00

Why Piero admires Martina Hingis? Because she used to play like THIS:

1. Chase Championships 1999. Match point vs Venus Williams:

2. Australian Open 2001. VS Serena Williams (6-2 3-6 8-6)

Best regards from Bogota =)

GuardaContactos Telcel

2008-02-07T19:18:00.000-05:00

Ya está en producción mi primer hijo!!!!!

Luego de un año de preventa (2006) y otro año de tortuosa implementación por parte del poderoso equipo de delivery (2007), ya está Up & Running el respaldo de agenda telefónica.

Aquí el login en http://www.ideastelcel.com/utilidades/guarda_contactos/guarda_contactos.html

Y aquí el servicio ya andando (la verdad es que tenemos interfaces más lindas pero a Telcel le gusta lo feo y ni modo):

NOTA: Obviamente sí aparecen los celulares, sólo que los borré de la imagen por ser información confidencial.

¡Ahora corran y úsenlo!

<>

Chillones

2008-01-30T08:30:00.000-05:00

Luego de destazar por 3-0 a los Pumas, las honorables y poderosas Chivas Rayadas de Guadalajara sacaron un desplegado en diversos diarios de circulación nacional:

Pero al parecer los Pumas se pusieron a lloriquear y ahora la federación aplicó una multa contra Chivas (también contra el coach de Pumas por insultar durante su lloriqueo).

No puedo creer que sean tan chillones, y que los federativos sean tan idiotas. En Estados Unidos ya habría un juicio por aplicar censura a lo estúpido.

Chillones.

Voy a intentar obtener los demás desplegados. Recuerdo uno contra el América que decía "En su nido, sólo nuestros huevos" jajajajaja.

Slide Away

2008-01-21T20:29:00.000-05:00

I entirely forgot about this Oasis song. Just heard it again when I put "Stop the Clocks" into my car stereo.

It's a bloody beautiful song:

Now that you're mine
We'll find a way
Of chasing the sun
Let me be the one, that shines with you
in the morning, I don't know what to do
two of a kind
We'll find a way
To do what we've done
Let me be the one, that shines with you
And we can slide away

Rock Band Game

2008-01-16T09:33:00.000-05:00

Not the XBox - PS3 one to start with.

I got this from Michel's blog. The idea is to "create" the name, album name and album cover of your band. Instructions are:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4.Use your graphics programme of choice to throw them together, and post the result.

For me, the results are:

NAME: Haematococus

ALBUM NAME: What we repeatedly do

ALBUM COVER:

It's important to say that the album cover is very crappy because "my graphics programme of choice" is MS Paint. I hate graphics and everything related to them. So I use Paint.

I used the Oasis font because Oasis rocks.

From South France with love...
Me

No sé en qué pensaban...

2008-01-14T08:57:00.002-05:00

... pero los organizadores del evento al que fui a Florianópolis reservaron en un hotel localizaco en la Calle del Marisco "Rua do Marisco"... y el restaurante del hotel se llamaba:

Maricota!!!

¡Así es! Estuve en la calle de los Mariscos comiendo en el retaurante Maricota

Ah sí. Y ya me dí a entender en portugués! Bueno... en portuñol. Isso cara!!

Patrulla Navideña

2008-01-03T14:22:00.001-05:00

Ayer iba con Ojos a ver a mis H.H.H. Suegros y a despedirnos de su hermano que regresa a sus estudios en los inhóspitos territorios yankees. En el camino nos cruzamos con una patrulla que tenía un bonito árbol navideño colgando del retrovisor:

Polis navideños

La foto se ve del nabo porque no quería que la "autoridá" me viera tomándoles fotos (uno nunca sabe cómo va a reaccionar la tira).

El punto es que el espíritu navideño llega hasta la "autoridá" y brindo por ello.

Yaris on Ice

2008-01-03T14:18:00.000-05:00

Hoy salí de mi departamento dispuesto a llegar temprano al trabajo. Sin embargo, al subirme a mi pequeño Yaris me encontré con lo siguiente:

Hielo!!

Tuve que pasar los limpiadores, luego un trapo, y eventualmente un cepillo como de escoba. Todo infructuosamente. Terminé saliendo tarde y manejando despacio hasta que el hielo se fue y pude manejar normalmente.

¡¡¡¡Y no vivo en un pueblo lejano!!!! Vivo rumbo a Toluca sí, pero en los primeros 5 km. de la carretera. Frío del mal.

Obviamente llegué tarde. ¡¡Demonios!!

2k7, 2k8

2008-01-02T13:19:00.000-05:00

2k7

Relationship with in-laws got to its lowest point ever, bouncing back unexpecteadly in December.
Moved in with Ojos was by far the highlight of the year. It has proved to be the best move I've ever made in my life.
Lots and lots of travelling... Río, South France, Central America, Kingston, Santo Domingo Montreal.
Lots of credit card debt, dealt with thanks to the december money rush -yey!-
Year ends with a big proffessional change... technically a promotion, but I'm waiting $$$for it to feel like one$$$ before I formally call it that way.
I miss my dog, who couldn't move in with Ojos and Me (since we live in an apartment).

2k8

More lots of travelling... but to more interesting lattitudes (apparently)
New team, new boss, new challenges. And a new job if the promotion doesn't feel like one ;-)
New steps towards marriage, including saving as much as possible.
Posting more interesting stuff than this.

Xmas presents list (bonus)

Very cool black shoes
Very nice shirt
The Simpsons Movie (Spider Pig, Spider Pig...)
The Simpsons Seasons 1 & 2 (now I have 1,2,6,7).
Pulp Fiction soundtrack (Giiirl... you'll be a woman... sooon).
Paris Hilton for men fragance (it smells better than it sounds).
1 nice and 1 ugly tie. The nice one by my in-laws.
Among others.

Jamaican beer and Durango Tequila

2007-12-07T21:09:00.000-05:00

Kingston is the second most horrible place I've visited (only topped by Port Au Prince, Haiti).

There, I got to taste Red Stripe beer:

Red Stripe beer is a lager brewed in Kingston. It is light, but tasty. Not special, but not offensive.

What else I got to see in Kingston? Well, in John R Wong Supermarket (nope, no Wal-Mart or Target crap there, John R Wong is THE REAL DEAL) I decided to go to the liquor section. To my dismay, the only available Tequila was... [sound of expectation]

DURANGO!

Durango??? What the heck is that????

Then I decided to read the label... bad idea. Tequila Durango is bottled in some city in Minnesota, USA.

4 weeks left...

2007-11-24T01:05:00.000-05:00

to close de business year... and I'm lacking 60% of my forecasted billing!!! =(

If you happen to be my client, please:

Sign that damn Acceptance Test Plan

and/or

Sign that damn contract

and/or

Send me the damn purchase order

And get a free beer in my next visit to your company!!

Procrastinate Safely

2007-11-16T17:56:00.001-05:00

Thanks to another blog (which I don't even remember) I fell on workfriendly.net ... and I have to say it takes the Piero's "Internet Service of the Year Award".

Why? Well... how many times has your boss appeared over your should right when you are on some other blog, buying concert tickets, checking your personal email, modifying your hattrick team, or doing anything else that definitely doesn't turn into money for the company that pays you? 50 times a week? probably more?

Well... workfriendly.net helps you to procrastinate freely.

For instance, today I was browsing in fsmex, an aviation related forum that I thoroughly enjoy. Had my boss appeared over my shoulder, he'd have seen this:

Instead, thanks to workfriendly.net, he'd have seen a dull Word document. Dull enough to be confused with a Functional Requierements Specification or a response to a Request for Proposal.

All you have to do is to enter the website of your choice and it will be turned into an ugly word document. So ugly you'll perceived productivity will skyrocket!

It's perfect. Use it.

Cya soon.

Quinceañera Chiva

2007-11-01T15:00:00.001-04:00

La verdad es que tengo sentimientos encontrados sobre esta foto:

Quinceañera chiva

1) Es admirable su amor por las sagradas Chivas Rayadas de Guadalajara, el equipo más grande de México. Realmente da gusto ver este nivel de compromiso con el único equipo del mundo que lo merece.

2) Sin embargo, transgrede la barrera del buen gusto. ¡¡¡Es ñerísimo!!!

En fin. Arriba las Chivas... hoy y siempre.

Xmas Present Suggestion

2007-10-29T22:38:00.001-04:00

If you're planning to buy me a present, this is the top choice:

Bad Motherfucker Wallet!!!!

You can buy it @ BMF Wallets (BMF, of course, stands for Bad MotherFucker)

Hate List update

2007-10-26T13:30:00.000-04:00

Hate lists are evolutive stuff. Things come, things go. This is the first update to my Hate List:

Leaving the hate list:

1. TACA. They now serve pretty decent free food, and I've found their legspace to be very comfortable against, say, Copa.

2. Copa is now part of SkyTeam. For that reason I'll keep the silver status in Air France!

3. Guatemala airport. Very nice update!

Joining the hate list:

1. Sony ET for replacing The IT Crowd with some crappy animated series.

2. Stupid iPod auto synchronize feature, which deleted my iPod after connecting it to another computer.

Items I hate even more than I used to:

1. Andrés Manuel López Obrador

2. Maná (damn I can't believe how much I hate Maná!!!!!!)

El ranking oficial de Cervezas Centroamericanas y del Caribe by Piero

2007-10-23T18:03:00.001-04:00

10. Port Royal - Honduras. Está muy fresa, pero la otra opción se llama "Salva Vidas", así que no pueden culparme por beber esta. Port Royal y su casi imperceptible sabor se llevan el décimo.

9. Pilsener - El Salvador. También está fresa, pero al menos su nombre y su botella son decentes.

8. Toña - Nicaragua - Es una XX Lager. Suficiente para sobresalir en la región sin ser particularmente recordable.

7. Victoria - Nicaragua (no confundir con la Victoria de México). Fue una sorpresa. Sabor fuerte, con presencia, en una cerveza clara (pero no taaaan clara como una Sol -yuck!-)

6. Prestige - Haití. No estoy seguro de esta mención... Pero imagínense en una zona de guerra: un guarura inmenso fue por ustedes al aeropuerto, los hizo firmar un documento en el que se hacen responsables de su muerte si salen sin él, en el camino al hotel ven 5 tanques con soldados de la ONU y pasan por 3 retenes. Además, el man de la recepción no habla inglés, obviamente no habla español, y tu jefe francés tiene problemas para entenderle en... ¡francés! Entonces, llegas al bar y pides una cerveza. ¡Obvimamente te sabe bien! Nunca sabré si realmente es buena.

5. Stag - Trinidad y Tobago. No es dulce como la Carlsberg, tampoco es amarga como la Heinekken. Es una clara bien hecha con un sabor para hombres (5.5 grados baby!!).

4. Gallo - Guatemala. Al menos en Guatemala se esfuerzan un poco más en diferenciarse (no es "yet another pilsner central american beer"). Esta tiene algo más. La versión oscura que venden en Superama es recomendable también.

3. Bucanero (Fuerte) - Cuba. Como su nombre lo dice, es fuerte... sabor robusto... muchísimo nivel. Además la puedes comprar y beber en la vía pública mientras maldices en silencio la propaganda castrista (y ahora chavista también) a 35°C. Enorme.

2. Imperial - Costa Rica. Me recuerda a la Victoria de México (que es buena). No la tomo desde 2005 pero la recuerdo con cariño. Y desde hace unos meses la venden en Superama (este fin voy por un six!)

1. Presidente - República Dominicana. Esta es la mejor Pilsner de este continente que he probado. De color claro, pero con personalidad en el sabor. La recomiendo ampliamente... Soy fan.

Realmente sólo recomiendo las 5 primeras. Si las entremezclara con las mexicanas quedaríamos así:

1. León
2. Montejo
3. Presidente (featured here)
4. XX ámbar
5. Pacífico
6. Imperial (featured here)
7. Bucanero (featured here)
8. Indio
9. Victoria (la de México)
10. Gallo (featured here)
....
Somewhere here (10-15) iría la Stag.
......

Notas importantes:

- La cerveza panameña es una basura, pero si ya están ahí, pidan Atlas o Balboa (las dos saben igual, no sé por qué el nombre distinto) por encima de Panamá o Soberana (las dos saben igual, no sé por qué el nombre distinto).

- Todas las cervezas aquí listadas están por encima de las gringas. Sí, también por encima de la Miller.

- Pero no de las canadienses. Prueben Alexander Keith's si van.

3 Notas 3 sobre el concierto de The Cure del domingo

2007-10-23T17:06:00.000-04:00

1) Robert Smith se puso bien cerdo... ire usté (no es del concierto pero así se veía):

(aun así tocó y cantó genial, no sabía que su voz sonaba tan potente en vivo)

2) El concierto estuvo poca madre (aunque faltó Friday I'm in Love que es mi favorita personal)

3) Pude notar que una gran porción del respetable era de edad considerablemente mayor que Ojos y yo. ¿Cómo lo noté? aparecieron los encendedores en las canciones lentas. La verdad es que desde el concierto de Bridges to Babylon de los Stones, todo lo que había visto eran celulares. Ver encendedores fue como viajar en el tiempo.

What are you passionate about?

2007-10-08T20:24:00.000-04:00

Reading Ojos' blog I remembered I can easily get hyped with tons of stuff. She says I'm "passionate", I think I have a problem with defining myself and what I like.

In the last 2 years I've been passionate about Scam Baiting (2 months), near death experiences (1 week) and anti-peje activism (6 months). However I could hardly say these were real passions.

There are also politics. I've always liked them. But I don't think I'm passionate about them...

After giving it some time, I think I only have 3 passions:

Tennis
Formula 1
Commercial Aviation (I recommend MAYDAY, awsome TV Show!)

Commercial Aviation is actually giving me a hard time. At 25, is it too late to leave everything behind and learn to fly*?

Whatever, at this point it should be obvious for you that I'm lacking inspiration...

* Learn to Fly is a great song by the Foo Fighters

?

2007-09-28T01:36:00.000-04:00

Llega Piero a Guatemala...

Camino al aeropuerto observa que la gente está como loca, sacando la cabeza de las ventanas de sus autos, gritando, tocando el claxon, y la gran mayoría están ebrios.

Sabiendo que eso no es normal entre semana, decide preguntar al taxista:

PIERO: Disculpe ¿hay alguna fiesta nacional o algo?
TAXISTA: ¿Pues que no sabe que CARLOS ganó el LATIN AMERICAN IDOL?
....
....
....
PIERO: Chale

En ese momento... mientras un automóvil pintado con la leyenda "Ganó Carlos" pasaba a su lado... Piero supo que estaba lejos, muy lejos, del primer mundo.

T-Shirts I want to own

2007-09-18T11:20:00.000-04:00

The shipping fee, and the incompetence of DHL representatives in charge of taking the items out of the airport without increasing their price in 50% because of taxes, make it impossible for me to buy them (click to view bigger):

1. Binary People. A geeky classic:

2. Animated Retro Table Tennis Shirt:

These 2 are from ThinkGeek (stuff for the smart masses)

3. Procrastinators: Leaders of tomorrow (this one rocks hard!)

And finally, #4. "Shakespeare Hates your Emo Poems".

These 2 are from threadless (nude no more).

Angry Little Girls

2007-09-11T14:16:00.000-04:00

Soy muy fan de Angry Little Girls!!!!!

http://www.angrylittlegirls.com

Muestra (dar click para agrandar)

Memory Flight (starting today)

2007-09-05T18:57:00.001-04:00

Well, I have started my flight memory, taking advantage of a business trip to Sto Domingo (where I'm right now, drinking a Presidente beer by the pool).

I'll have this banner in the website, with miles and hours flown:

It links to the complete data (including airplane models, registration, airlines and stuff).

I can't help thinking my fascination for aviation is getting creepier and creepier.

Best regards,
Me

Links para perder productividad

2007-08-29T16:57:00.001-04:00

Luego de bajar ilegalmente y escuchar el nuevo álbum de Collective Soul, Afterwords, quedé deprimido. Me parece un álbum "bueno"... a secas... débil... nada que les permita obtener nuevos fans, ni complacer a los actuales y mucho menos recuperar la gloria de antaño.

Para aliviar mi depresión me puse a ver otros blogs y links interesantes. Recuperé algo de mi ánimo, pero perdí horas valiosas de trabajo y ahora tendré que quedarme hasta tarde.

Con el ánimo de hacer pasar a mi audiencia por lo mismo, les dejo los links:

1. El Blog de Rulo. Sí, el locutor ex-radioactivo (ahora Reactor). Muy buena prosa, interesante y gracioso (recomiendo el tag "things that make you go 'chale'"

2. ¿Por qué me retiré del vicio? Aquí caí por leer el blog the Enrique y el de las Trendy Procrastinators. Es muy muy bueno y muy extenso.

3. Leyendo Churrumais, llegué al blog de Plaqueta. También es un gran blog (aunque perredista).

4. Airliners.net Los nerds de la aviación disfrutamos de esta cosa. Para los que no son nerds pueden saltárselo o checar las fotos más populares de todos los tiempos, donde hay muy buenos shots.

5. TheOnion.com Es un noticiero falso que se burla adecuadamente de la clase política y sociedad norteamericanas.

6. Pearls Before Swine. Es mi comic favorito junto con Dilbert. Es justo mi sentido del humor. Lo que hago (y recomiendo ampliamente) es dejar que pasen un par de semanas sin verlo para darme unos 20 minutos y leerlos todos juntos. Generalmente lo hago regresando de una larga, tortuosa, frustrante y aburrida junta en Telcel... es una buena terapia.

Collective Soul - Hollywood - Video

2007-08-24T10:21:00.001-04:00

Helo aquí. El primer video del Afterwords de Collective Soul, Hollywood.

La canción es bastante pop para la historia de CS. Pero me parece buena. El video también me gustó, excepto en la parte en la que sonríen como si fueran de Mercurio, Menudo o una de esas cosas.

Nota: Hay que darle play, no inicia solito.

Ya no puedo esperar por el disco. Aunque falta ver cómo lo voy a conseguir.

Lista de Súper (for moving in with girlfriend)

2007-08-19T23:33:00.001-04:00

Como uno de mis dos lectores sabe (creo que no le he dicho a Mich), estoy próximo a mudarme con Ojos. Cuando eso pasa uno debe comprar una serie de cosas para sobrevivir. Cosas que uno siempre ha visto en su hogar, pero que nunca se ha percatado de que deben comprarse, como si se hubieran generado de forma espontánea...

Desde luego no se incluyen en ninguna proyección financiera, y por tanto se van directito a la tarjeta de crédito.

Lo relevante de todo esto es que nunca fui al súper de tan buen humor y tan ilusionado como esta vez.

Como dato cultural y para apoyar a quienes estén por hacer su lista de súper pre-mudanza, aquí está un resumen de lo que compré:

Ganchos para ropa
Pinzas para ropa
Escoba
Recogedor
Trapeador
Sacudidor (con estática)
Cepillo para el baño
Destapacaños
Cubeta con una vaina para exprimir el trapeador sin agacharse
Bolsas de basura
Lavatrastes marca Dawn *
Maestro Limpio multiusos *
Maestro Limpio para baños *
Kleenex
Detergente ACE *
Ariel Hidroactivo *
Downy (suavizante de telas) *
Papel higiénico Charmín *
Servilletas Charmín *
Extensiones (este es especialmente tricky, me siento orgulloso de haberme acordado)

Desde luego faltan cosas para cuidado personal y utensilios de cocina. Estas dos categorías deben comprarse con el absoluto consentimiento de la pareja, pues deben ser "bonitos". Nadie espera belleza en un destapacaños o en un recogedor, así que puedo comprarlos. Pero los utensilios de cocina son una cosa completamente distinta.

* Artículos de P&G, empresa donde Ojos labora. Si uno va a llevar a procterianos a la casa, es IMPERATIVO que los artículos de la misma sean de dicha empresa. Los procterianos son seres pasionales en lo referente a la defensa de sus marcas.

Cuando vaya por los artículos de cuidado personal, estos serán desodorante Old Spice, pasta de dientes Crest, jabón Camay (o Escudo o Zest), shamóo Pantene (o Pert o Head & Shoulders o Herbal Essences o Daily Defense)

Mi madre y su novio nos regalaron un juego de cuchillos y un mini-capuccino-maker de baterías que se complementa bien con nuestra sumamente classy cafetera.

Cambiando abruptamente de tema, ayer jugué muy buen tenis gracias al overgrip y al reencordado de mi Yonex RQS11 (la raqueta oficial de Martina Hingis). Esa raqueta es tan buena que se merece un post aparte.

Go to hell, Amazon and Target

2007-08-17T11:26:00.000-04:00

I tried to purchase the latest Collective Soul CD (Afterwords) from Amazon (featured by Target).

After filling the form, the folowing message came up:

"This item can't be shipped to the address provided"

Bastards.

Will Piero be able to purchas an Afterwords CD from Mexico??? Will he need Michel to buy @ Target and wire him the money?? Stay tuned.

My Flight Routes - 1993 to Date -

2007-08-14T11:02:00.000-04:00

I found a nice service: My Flight Memory, which is basically a personal flight log. It has a lot of fields you can fill apart from origin/destination like Airline, Airplane type, Airplane registration, cabin class, among others.

In order to honor simplicity, I didn't include every single flight, I just posted the routes I have travelled since I care (1993 when I did MEX-MAD). In total, I've flown 53 routes since 1993. 95% of them due to my job =).

Here's a map (click on it to view properly):

What that bunch of lines and airport codes mean is that I've flown 53 routes that I won't list here because it takes time and nobody cares anyway. The map looks like crap because most of the time I fly in central america / caribbean and thus most airports are too close to each other.

Even when nobody cares, I can post simpler data like:

AIRLINES USED

#	Airline
1	Mexicana
2	American Airlines
3	Air France
4	Copa
5	United Airlines
6	Continental Airlines
7	Aeromexico
8	TACA
9	TAM Brazilian Airlines
10	Iberia
11	United Airlines
12	Interjet

And AIRCRAFTS USED

#	Aircraft
1	Airbus 320
2	Boeing 757
3	Airbus 319
4	Boeing 737
5	Airbus 300
6	Boeing 777
7	Boeing 747
8	McDonnell Douglas-88
9	Airbus 340
10	Airbus 318

And I'll throw some others of my own:

BEST VISITED AIRPORT - Paris De Gaulle (Panama takes over if you're in shopping mood)

WORST VISITED AIRPORT - Port Au Prince (special mention to Guatemala - La Aurora)

BEST AIRLINE(s): Air France and AeroMexico

WORST AIRLINE: A no brainer. American Airlines is the WORST airline on Earth by FAR

BEST AIRPLANE: Boeing 777 (AeroMexico and Air France)

WORST AIRPLANE: Boeing 747 (Air France and Iberia): no individual screen for a 10+ hour flight should be considered a murder attempt. Honorific mention to the A300 flown (of course) by American

Best looking crew (before feminists start complaining, let me say that this statistic is confirmed by male and female coworkers): TAM Brazilian Airlines by far.

Ban Comic Sans

2007-08-08T09:59:00.000-04:00

Ban Comic Sans!!!!

The following extract was taken completely from bancomicsans.com, a website putting special emphazis in the alarming growth of the Comic Sans typefont usage.

"Since its creation in 1995, the typeface Comic Sans has enjoyed immense popularity among numerous digital type users including librarians, human resource managers, Powerpoint presenters, and Disney advertisement designers. The typeface has recently become so popular in fact that it has attracted the attention of several important typographic institutions, most notably the Foundation of National Typographers. A recent study by the FoNT foundation reveals some remarkable trends for the fledgling face."

Comic Sans usage projection

"These projections are based on a scientific survey of long-term type usage trends and include a standard margin of error. The report finds that Comic Sans usage has steadily increased since 1995 at a geometric rate and is well on its way to becoming the most universally used typeface surpassing even Helvetica and Times by approximately 2018. Even more astonishing is the typographic event horizon predicted for the year 2027. The FoNT foundation has determined that according to these trends the only typeface anyone will use by the year 2030 will indeed be Comic Sans. "

Should this trend continue, we are in the risk of seeing the following changes in our fragile world:

Comic Sans Dollar by 2022!

Or:

Comic Sans Hollywood Sign!!!

This is absolutely UNACCEPTABLE!!! Please join the effort of eliminating Comic Sans from Earth:

- Do not use Comic Sans for publishing.
- Do not use Comic Sans on corporate templates.
- Do not use Comic Sans on business material: business cards, restaurant menus
- More over, a bunny will be punched every time you use Comic Sans:

I'm not part of this movement, but I absolutely support it. Join them at their MySpace site.

Now you know what to do. Boycott Comic Sans today!

Regards,
Coller

10 years later... it's just not the same!!!

2007-08-05T23:56:00.000-04:00

Today I played Basketball with Giles and Silveyra, my 2 best friends from high school.

Back in High School we used to play up to 3 hours of continous basketball. Today... we only managed to play 1 hour (and we had to take breaks at minutes 20 and 40). I play tennis every saturday and really thought that was keeping me in good condition... Reality, horrible reality.

Not only my body suffered with age... but also my game. After scoring with one of my traditional "Pieranchos", Silveyra told me "I remember that move, but at a completely different speed!!" LOL, I'm slow and rusty now.

BTW, Giles and I defeated Veyra and Rich 21-18. As a rematch, we have decided to play against poverty in Somalia in 2 weeks.

Travis Concert

2007-08-03T09:43:00.000-04:00

Travis performed at the "Sports Palace" yesterday. Tickets were a gift from Laura :) and Enriqu e joined us for the gig.

It rocked.

At 20.30 Jumbo started playing. They were... uhm... well... they were there and played. Yeah, that's a good description.

But at 21.30 Travis came to scene, walking through the crowd to reach the stage on boxing robes (with Rocky background music, of course). The band was really cool to the crowd. Francis Healy makes a great frontman: good voice, good guitar skills, cool attitude. The band is very fan-oriented, they even left a message on their website's forum thanking all for the gig!!

This is the first time I step into a concert (well, taking out that Belanova one) in which I know less than 3/4 of the setlist. But Travis sounds so good live that I didn't care!

The played everything they were supposed to: All I wanna do is rock, Turn, Why does it Always Rain on Me, Side, Flowers in the Window, Sing, Closer, Beautiful Occupation,
Love will Come Through, Selfish Jean... AMAZING!!!! They also played an AC/DC's Back in Black to finish a nearly perfect more-than-2-hour-long gig.

The band playing "Flowers in the Window" during the encore

SETLIST

Selfish Jean
Eyes Wide Open
Writing To Reach You
Love Will Com Through
Big Chair
As You Are
My Eyes
Pipe Dreams
U16 Girls
Beautiful Occupation
Quicksand
Side
Re-Offender
The Line Is Fine
I Love You Anyways
Driftwood
Good Feeling
Closer
Sing
Battleships
All I Want To Do Is Rock
Turn

Encore 1:
Happy
Baby One More Time (yeah, the Britney Spears' one)
Slideshow
Blue Flashing Light

Encore 2:
20
Flowers In The Window (acoustic)
Humpy Dumpty Love Song
Why Does It Always Rain On Me?
Back In Black

Simpsonization

2007-08-02T16:33:00.001-04:00

I entered Simpsonize Me and uploaded this picture (due to its high contrast):

And it came up with this:

Is it a good Simpsonization? Please let me know.

Collective Soul - Afterwords - August 28th

2007-07-24T12:38:00.000-04:00

Finally a release date and album cover!!! Afterwords is coming out on August 28th.

It sucks to be a Collective Soul fan in Mexico, because they'll only have hard copies for sale at Target, an American supermarket that doesn't ship to Mexico through their website. And as for downloads, I bet it will be only be in iTunes, which means I'd need an American Credit Card (and by American I mean billed INSIDE the USA), which of course I don't have.

Sum up that there's no chance they're coming back to Mexico anytime soon and you get the conclusion: "it sucks to be a Collective Soul fan in Mexico nowadays".

Of course I can always beg Michel to buy it at his nearest Target shop and wire him the money... Mich? :-P

Collective Soul is also touring with Live and Counting Crows. If you're Yank, you should go... 3 great bands for ~50 dollars.

Sentencia

2007-07-08T22:08:00.000-04:00

El viernes llegó la sentencia de divorcio de mis padres. Abracé a mi madre y la felicité. Realmente me alegra, aun cuando es sólo un simbolismo -pues tiene ya 4 años en esto-.

El sábado, sentado junto a Ojos a la mitad de una fiesta -para celebrar el evento- la leí de nuevo, y me llegaron las preguntas. Años tarde:

- ¿Es normal irte, así sin más, luego de 23 años y con dos hijos -uno menor de edad- para ni siquiera intentar acercarte en 4 años?

- ¿Qué tiene que pasarte para hacer eso? ¿una near death experience o algo así? ¿tendré la oportunidad de saberlo?

Y luego fue el miedo...

- ¿Es hereditario? ¿estoy destinado a perder la razón así?

Y entonces me dí cuenta de que sólo me dejó las malditas dudas. Triste herencia.

My Results from The Simpsons Personality Test

2007-07-06T10:34:00.001-04:00

You Are Mr. Burns

Okay, so you're evil...

You have big plans to rule the world, and you'll destroy it in the process if necessary!

You will be remembered for: the exploitation of the masses

Life philosophy: "One dollar for eternal happiness? I'd be happier with the dollar."

The Simpsons Personality Test

I kind of agree.

Structured Procrastination

2007-07-06T00:21:00.000-04:00

Often... very often, I post here in order to avoid more important things (like a functional specification or a RFP response).

I didn't know it was an identified behavior called Structured Procrastination.

YEY!!!

What is Structured Procrastinarion? John Perry defines it as the art of making a good trait out of putting off important things to do.

What's the key? Identifying top priorities that 1) Seem to have very clear deadlines (but actually don't) and 2) Seem awfully important (but aren't). That way you can do less important, yet more interesting things and be recognized as a valuable member of your community.

The whole article by John Perry is here, and I got it from The Trendy Procrastinators Blog, where I got thanks to Kike's blogroll.

I'm going to stop procrastinating and get back to finish that Functional Specification for Mobile Banking. But first, a nice reflection:

Visit despair.com!

8 things you didn't know (and didn't want to know) about me

2007-07-02T20:29:00.000-04:00

OK I couldn't resist to post this either. The thing goes like this: you post 8 unknown facts about yourself and your readers are supposed to do the same on their blogs. It's like mail chains -that I hate- but this time I couldn't help it. Here I go:

1. I hate Mana. I'd rather listen to El Puma.

2. I watched every single episode of Mexican soap opera "Mirada de Mujer".

3. I like Gilmore Girls. Not because of them really, but because I find the dialogues smart and funny -you may start making fun of me now-

4. I love dancing Salsa. I'm not very good (Ojos has made me a fairly good dancer), but I like it.

5. I'm a capitalist pig. I voted for Calderon and would do it again. PAN is the party that most suits me.

6. I miss programming (not enough to work on that again, at least not under mexican employment conditions, which are terrible for programmers).

7. I'm a huge fan of Martina Hingis. There was a time in which I maintained a website dedicated to her. I'm a regular poster at hingis.org

8. Even though I studied Computer Science, and that most Computer Engineers will crucify me for this, I think Microsoft software is overally GREAT (except for the media player).

Los Pejefanes preguntan, Juárez responde

2007-06-26T16:43:00.001-04:00

Robado del Sendero del Mesías

6 Airports in 3 Days

2007-06-17T17:06:00.000-04:00

1. Santo Domingo "Las Americas" International Airport (SDQ), Friday 5am (GMT -6)
American Airlines (the worst airline in the planet) announces the cancellation of their flight to Miami (that would eventually take me to Mexico). I was listed for the afternoon flight, meaning I'd get to Mexico around 9.45PM, and I didn't want that. After negotiations with AA staff, they offered me to take a Santo Domingo - San Juan - Orlando - Mexico route that would put in Mexico at 7.30pm. Enough time to finish packing and take my 11.30pm flight to Paris.

2. San Juan International Airport (SJU), Friday 7.20am (GMT -6)
I got to San Juan around 8.20 local time after flying in business class for the first time in my life. Unfortunately it was in an American Airlines' business class, which is like any other airline's economic class. After clearing inmigration and customs I left my bag and proceeded to my next flight (to Orlando).

Half an hour before boarding they announce the flight was completely full and they'd give $300 USD to the first five volunteers willing to spend 4 hours of their life waiting for the next flight. I volunteered, but sadly, not fast enough.

3. Orlando International Airport (MCO), Friday 1.00pm (GMT -6)
First time in this airport. It's some sort of a Disneyworld extension. Fat yanks with Mickey Mouse ears all over the place. A Disney store every 20 meters and a Burger King in every single terminal (5 BKs total). I decided to have a Whopper, no onions.

I was relieved to know that the final flight was going to be operated byAeromexico. A much better airline than crappy AA.

At that moment something terrible happened, my laptop stopped working. I could only use it (still do) on "safe mode". And that made my doubt of my luck. At that moment I called our travel agency to push my Paris and Marseille flights one more day. At the end it was ok because I got to see my brother before and right after his surgery.

4. Mexico Benito Juárez International Airport (MEX) Friday 19.30 (GMT -6)
Home sweet home. It had been an awful day. After spending my whole day in airports and airplanes I was home for the following 24 hours. First thing I did was rush to see Ojos.

5. Paris Charles de Gaulle International Airport (CDG), Sunday 7.10am (GMT -6)
Short stay at home it was. I spent Saturday morning at the Hospital following up on my brother's surgery. Everyting turned out to be okay so I went home to finish packing and took Ojos to see my brother.

My flight to Paris was OK and we arrived 14.10.

During the flight I watched "Music and Lyrics" with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. I found it cheessy and predictable. I spent the rest of the flight knocked (don't know if I was tired or the movie was really that bad).

6. Marseille International Airport (MRS), Sunday 10.15am (GMT -6)
I arrived to Marseille at 17.15 and rented a car (well, my manager did) and drove to La Ciotat
where I'll spend this week at a Seminar. I just took dinner and I'm off to (try to) sleep. Damn Jetlag

So that's it. 6 airports, in a less than 3 days span, and I'm a tired man.

Landing at Tegucigalpa

2007-06-14T21:43:00.000-04:00

For sure, the scariest landing I've experienced was at Tegucigalpa (Tonconting Airport).

For those who haven't lived the experience, let me describe it. It starts with the plane approaching to a mountain, it then turns left to approach the runway... and keeps turning left while it goes down... and then after some seconds... the thing is still going down and turning.

5 seconds before touching ground it finally stops turning left and lands. It's a unique experience.

To illustrate it, please find below a footage of an American Airlines Boeing 757 (largest plane that can land there) taken from a nearby mountain. Enjoy.

Diversity

2007-06-08T01:03:00.000-04:00

"True diversity comes from people who look different". That seems to be the slogan for any NYSE-listed company. Being diverse means you hire some latino, asian or black person once in a while.

I hate to enter the "about" section of any corporate website and find something like this:

From this kind of pictures I also understand that true diversity makes people smile like idiots.

And for some reason, most companies need to come up with a "Diversity policy" that says something like:

"Diversity is both embraced and encouraged at [INSERT COMPANY NAME]. We strongly believe in the value of diversity in the workforce. We are committed to providing an environment of fairness and equitable treatment of everyone, regardless of race, religion, color or creed. Embracing individual uniqueness brings creativity and vitality to our environment BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH" bottom line "we hire black, hispanic or asian ppl once in a while"

New Collective Soul album!!!!!

2007-05-24T16:54:00.000-04:00

I'm a HUGE Collective Soul fan. They're my favorite band since 1994 when "Hints, Allegations and Things Left Unsaid" came out, with Shine as their first mainstream single.

It's been a long run since! and 13 years leater they're coming out with their seventh album. I'm very excited!!!

The first song is "Hollywood" (which BTW is also the album title). Here's a video of the band playing it live:

First I thought it was too much pop. But since the second time I heard it I've been hooked. Collective Soul bloody rocks!

Cuando Brozo era Brozo...

2007-05-07T09:50:00.000-04:00

Gracias a una entrada del blog de Mich, caí en prauprau.com, una bonita colección de videos de los tiempos de Víctor Trujillo en IMEVISIÓN.

Fue sensacional toparme con la Beba Galván en sus inicios, con clásicos cuentos de Brozo como "La Verdadera Historia de Alicia Pacheco", "Anselmo y Greta" y "El Gato con Botas". Todos grandes, enormes, sublimes... "lo más" dirían en la Argentina. Me impresionó ver cómo ha cambiado Brozo en voz, talla, peluca y hasta nariz.

También me topé con "La cascarita del siglo", aquel partido en el mundial del 94 entre los equipos de Ponchito y Brozo, formado por los mencionados personajes y comentaristas de TV Azteca...

En fin... una agradable experiencia que recomiendo ampliamente.

Como menciona Michel, falta el cuento de "Los 3 Reyes Magos". Si alguien lo encuentra ¡¡por favor repórtelo!!