Don't drive in Cincinnati when: it's raining, it's cold, it's snowing, it's sunny, it's dark, it's foggy, it's early, it's late, it's dark, it's hot, it's goign to rain, it's going to snow, the Bengals are/aren't playing, the Bearcats are about to play, the Reds are in town, there's a holiday coming up, there are sales at discount chains, or there's a storm coming. Otherwise, it's perfectly safe to try to drive, just avoid I-75 if you can.
Don't try to play soccer in a rain/snow mix. Mostly because your friends won't be stupid enough to meet you out on the field, and you'll wind up freezing your digits off while waiting for people who aren't coming.
Don't upgrade your OS until the first set of patches has been released. I don't know what that means, but my friends insist it's good advice, and they'd know because they're PC users (jab!).
Order all espresso as "ristretto" or "short" or "corto" or "curto" or "italiano." All lattes in the US should be ordered "without foam," because no matter how vociferously you insist on a clean coffee top, they're going to foam you. But if you insist on no foam, you'll get slightly less, which isn't a bad thing. Foam is the milk that steam has scalded; would you drink a glass of scalded milk?
If the printer/scanner/photocopier is on sale for $39.99 at Target, there's a good reason. Or, there are a number of good reasons. Don't do it, it IS too good to be true.
Nearly everything is cheaper online now, especially if you can get someone else to spring for Amazon Prime.
The dissertation will not write itself, no matter how much you want it to: hint, hint.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Some Random Thoughts
I decided I hate the word "random" way back in the late 90s, when virtually everyone used this word all the time. Only "sketchy" approached it for sheer overuse. But today I used "random" in my title. Sue me.
I was going to make my gmail status read "used to get up around 7, now I get up around 9," but this is my liberal adaptation of a song lyric from the song Mr. Brownstone by the late, great Guns 'N' Roses. The problem here is that the song is clearly about drug use, and I really can't have people thinking I am using heroin, because I'm not. Plus, if I had updated my status to say that, it would have been untrue. I was online today by 6:15 and most days I'm on before 8, at the absolute latest.
This weekend is officially "Student Appreciation Weekend" at my university. When I got the email informing me of this fact, I thought "this sure is a nice gesture, after they've ignored and mistreated so many of us for so long [not me, "us" here is generic]." Yet upon reading through that entire email, I realized that the university's idea of "appreciation" is not the same as my own. In my world, students would be appreciated by the university just because they're students - after all, students are, theoretically, the reason universities exist. Here we're only going to be appreciated by the university, according to this official email, if we go to enough of the athletic events being held this weekend. Those of us who have other things to do (like go to church, celebrate my birthday, and so on) are not going to receive any of this appreciation. We're going to continue being under-appreciated. But it's still a nice gesture on the part of the university, right? I mean, you can win a weekend with an athletic coach, or a dinner, or something. So that's probably pretty nice for some people.
Time to finish editing this chapter.
I was going to make my gmail status read "used to get up around 7, now I get up around 9," but this is my liberal adaptation of a song lyric from the song Mr. Brownstone by the late, great Guns 'N' Roses. The problem here is that the song is clearly about drug use, and I really can't have people thinking I am using heroin, because I'm not. Plus, if I had updated my status to say that, it would have been untrue. I was online today by 6:15 and most days I'm on before 8, at the absolute latest.
This weekend is officially "Student Appreciation Weekend" at my university. When I got the email informing me of this fact, I thought "this sure is a nice gesture, after they've ignored and mistreated so many of us for so long [not me, "us" here is generic]." Yet upon reading through that entire email, I realized that the university's idea of "appreciation" is not the same as my own. In my world, students would be appreciated by the university just because they're students - after all, students are, theoretically, the reason universities exist. Here we're only going to be appreciated by the university, according to this official email, if we go to enough of the athletic events being held this weekend. Those of us who have other things to do (like go to church, celebrate my birthday, and so on) are not going to receive any of this appreciation. We're going to continue being under-appreciated. But it's still a nice gesture on the part of the university, right? I mean, you can win a weekend with an athletic coach, or a dinner, or something. So that's probably pretty nice for some people.
Time to finish editing this chapter.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
This just in:
According to Gmail, Mike Ditka: "If God had wanted man to play soccer, he wouldn't have given us arms."
Me: If God had wanted us to play U.S. football, he wouldn't have given us brains. But at least participants in that sport do their level best to avoid using or keeping those brains into their 30s.
Me: If God had wanted us to play U.S. football, he wouldn't have given us brains. But at least participants in that sport do their level best to avoid using or keeping those brains into their 30s.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
The Best Time To Buy Airline Tickets
That's right, a useful topic for once. After you've gotten over your shock at the fact that I've posted twice in the same month, consider this: the cheapest day of the week to buy airline tickets is, apparently, Wedneseday. Specifically, Wednesday morning, but no later than 4pm if you've got the time. Clearing out all of your browser's cookies may help out if you're trying to convince nasty sites like orbitz and expedia to pull up those lowest prices that you saw the other day, but timing is, apparently, more important than I've been led to believe by some people (http://abcnews.go.com/Business/BusinessTravel/story?id=4519704&page=1&page=1). Here the author asserts that the Wednesday morning theory is just a myth, perpetuated by idiots on the internet. I despaired, reading that, because I had recently blown my chance at tickets for $261 each. I held off on buying them, thinking I should perhaps look at a few other sites before buying, and when I came back to orbitz to complete the purchase, ticket prices had risen over $100 each. This in just a few hours. I cleared the cookies, and tried all those other tricks that people suggest, but nothing worked.
Then I decided that, since $362 was the going rate (a number of airlines listed the same fare, and none of the searches on orbitz came up with that "only a few tickets left at this price" message), I could afford to hold off over the weekend. I checked a couple times on Saturday and Sunday, but no change. Then Monday, again with no luck. By this time, I figured the Tuesday midnight thing was worth a try, so I woke up at 1am on Wednesday morning, and went online to check fares. They had, in fact, gone down for some legs, but only at times I couldn't work with. So I gave up entirely, thinking I'd be stuck with those tickets for $362.
On Wednesday, just after noon, I thought I'd give it one last, desperate attempt, so I did the orbitz search with all my ideal conditions (dates and times I wanted), and presto!, up popped my $261 fares! I don't know why, nor do I care. All I know is that I spent nearly a week looking at fares for this trip, and over that week the cheapest tickets were unavailable from Friday afternoon through Wednesday morning. Then they were briefly available on Wednesday, only to be unavailable again today, Thursday.
Now, I didn't make this theory up, but I now have personal anecdotal evidence to suggest that it may work sometimes. I don't recommend not buying those cheap tickets when you first see them. But I also don't recommend buying the far more expensive tickets immediately, having given up hope. Check out fares the following Wednesday, after you've cleared your cache and cookies, and see what happens. You might just get lucky, like I did!
I found the tip on some websites, thusly:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/587163/the_only_day_of_the_week_to_buy_cheap.html?cat=16
http://static.seekingalpha.com/article/15113-tip-for-best-purchase-time-of-airline-tickets
http://www.petergreenberg.com/2008/03/06/the-best-day-of-the-week-to-buy-cheap-tickets/
Then I decided that, since $362 was the going rate (a number of airlines listed the same fare, and none of the searches on orbitz came up with that "only a few tickets left at this price" message), I could afford to hold off over the weekend. I checked a couple times on Saturday and Sunday, but no change. Then Monday, again with no luck. By this time, I figured the Tuesday midnight thing was worth a try, so I woke up at 1am on Wednesday morning, and went online to check fares. They had, in fact, gone down for some legs, but only at times I couldn't work with. So I gave up entirely, thinking I'd be stuck with those tickets for $362.
On Wednesday, just after noon, I thought I'd give it one last, desperate attempt, so I did the orbitz search with all my ideal conditions (dates and times I wanted), and presto!, up popped my $261 fares! I don't know why, nor do I care. All I know is that I spent nearly a week looking at fares for this trip, and over that week the cheapest tickets were unavailable from Friday afternoon through Wednesday morning. Then they were briefly available on Wednesday, only to be unavailable again today, Thursday.
Now, I didn't make this theory up, but I now have personal anecdotal evidence to suggest that it may work sometimes. I don't recommend not buying those cheap tickets when you first see them. But I also don't recommend buying the far more expensive tickets immediately, having given up hope. Check out fares the following Wednesday, after you've cleared your cache and cookies, and see what happens. You might just get lucky, like I did!
I found the tip on some websites, thusly:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/587163/the_only_day_of_the_week_to_buy_cheap.html?cat=16
http://static.seekingalpha.com/article/15113-tip-for-best-purchase-time-of-airline-tickets
http://www.petergreenberg.com/2008/03/06/the-best-day-of-the-week-to-buy-cheap-tickets/
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Twitter and Gmail
I have recently added a twitter account to my collection of online privacy-invaders. Since few people have heard of twitter at this time, I'll be updating my loyal fans as to my current status by cross-posting my tweets on my gmail status and my blog. Thus,
"Working."
It's true. I have been working a lot. I have also accomplished a little bit, and I hope to accomplish more by the end of the weekend. I doubt that I'll have another chapter mostly finished by then, but I'll certainly have a lot more of the chapter finished, which counts as something, in the greater scheme of things.
Meanwhile, we're all hoping that the entire Sweden national side wakes up an hour late today, only to be annihilated by Denmark. This is so that Portugal's potential win today will have some positive effect on their chances of making it into the 2010 World Cup, which is, at this point, a long shot.
"Working."
It's true. I have been working a lot. I have also accomplished a little bit, and I hope to accomplish more by the end of the weekend. I doubt that I'll have another chapter mostly finished by then, but I'll certainly have a lot more of the chapter finished, which counts as something, in the greater scheme of things.
Meanwhile, we're all hoping that the entire Sweden national side wakes up an hour late today, only to be annihilated by Denmark. This is so that Portugal's potential win today will have some positive effect on their chances of making it into the 2010 World Cup, which is, at this point, a long shot.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Inequality
Is German Bundesliga officially the most interesting professional soccer league, or does it just have the highest attendance? While England, Spain, and Italy are all busily celebrating the victors of their respective leagues, Scotland is gripped by its perennial (and by now, insanely boring) two-horse race between Rangers and Celtic, Holland's Alkmaar celebrated their title what seems like months ago, Portugal's FC Porco remain the only class side in their league, and Marseille are still trying to keep things interesting in France, as they now sit 3 points behind upstarts Bordeaux, with a game in hand and two weeks left of the season.
The reason I think Germany has the highest attendance is that some soccernet writer has been insisting on that fact for years, and I have no statistics that might disagree. Certainly, the large number of bottom-half-of-the-table clubs in most of Europe's leagues means that the top sides have to generate a LOT more interest, if attendance is to remain relatively high, on average. Unfortunately for most leagues, the "coefficient of interestingness" for most sides in most matches remains relatively low. The reason for this is simple: as the rich get richer, the gap between the best clubs and the rest of the clubs in each leagues grows larger and larger. Thus, for example, England's "big 4" currently sit a minimum of 9 and a maximum of 27 points ahead of the fifth-placed side, and the tenth-placed side is a full 40 points behind the side in first. If you threw out the top 4 in England, you'd be left with a fairly normal distribution of clubs, where the only gap between positions greater than 3 points is the 6-point spread between second and third place (really, 6th and 7th place). England is by far the most unequal league, mostly because of the way the top sides have managed to market themselves globally and corner the market even in Great Britain. While attendance for those clubs is always outstanding, the same cannot be said for the lower-side clubs, nor can a full stadium for the latter be compared, numerically, to those of the top 4. And nothing will change this year. We know who will play in the UCL, we know who will make it into UEFA, and by now we don't even care who gets relegated.
A similar situation holds for Spain and for Italy, where there are 2 and 3 big clubs, respectively. While there is typically some small amount of drama among these top few clubs throughout the season, the rest of the league might as well be playing as a different division, for all the drama it contributes to the top clubs. Villareal is a good example: sure, they challenged Barcelona and they beat Real this season, but they stand 27 points behind Barça and 19 behind Real, in fifth place. Barcelona currently stand 41 points ahead of the tenth-placed side, and are over 20 points above third-placed Sevilla. Again, if we ditch the top two clubs, the league almost starts to look competitive.
The dividing line between Italy's top clubs and the rest of the pack is a little less pronounced, at least this season: 3rd-placed Juventus is only a game ahead of Fiorentina. In fact, the biggest gap between positions in Serie A right now is the 7-point-spread between first and second places. If Juventus hadn't spent the second half of the season choking, they might very well be close to Inter's point standing right now, though again this would still place the usual suspects in title contention. In both Spain and Italy, there is no comparison between the numbers of people that can be accommodated by top-tier clubs and the rest of the sides. Moreover, matches between middle-of-the-table clubs in both leagues tend to be hugely under-attended, if the massive numbers of empty seats shown on TV are any indication. Very similar pictures emerge throughout Europe, where there are typically between two and four top, successful, clubs in each league, and the remainder of clubs serve as spoilers and feeders for the upper crust. The Dutch league has broken out of that mold somewhat this season, with the usual frontrunners Ajax and Eindhoven failing to make the top two spots. But it's safe to assume that both of them will fare better than either Twente or Alkmaar in European competition next season, so things will no doubt return to their usual state soon enough.
By contrast with all these situations, Germany's league still has yet to be decided, going into its final round next weekend. The full league gap is only 40 points (between first and last place), compared to the typical 50+ point gap in other leagues. More importantly, at least in terms of excitement and drama, the gap between first and 10th place is only 21 points, compared to 40 in both England and Spain, and 30 in Italy (France 30, Holland 37, Scotland 46 – and this is a 12-team league!!!, Portugal 35). To put it another way, a 10-point spread in Germany nets you the top 6 clubs, whereas in England it gets you 2, in Spain 2, and in Italy 2 (France 3, Holland 1, Scotland 2, Portugal 2). A 20-point spread in Germany encloses the top 9, whereas in England you still only get 4, in Spain 3, and in Italy 5 (France 7, Holland 5, Scotland 2, Portugal 5).
The Bundesliga may not be the most entertaining league to watch (though the attendance figures there might suggest that it in fact is), but frankly, how could we possibly know that, if it is almost NEVER broadcast outside of Germany? The fact that there is only a 3-point spread among the top 4 clubs going into the last week of the season certainly makes things far more interesting to me, especially since I don’t particularly care who wins the league. Fans of Manchester United, Inter Milan, and Barcelona are of course ecstatic that their sides have already clinched their respective leagues, and perhaps rightly so. But those of us who watch the game for the enjoyment of a tight competition, for some beautiful soccer (without diving crybabies who feel they’re entitled to special refereeing treatment), and sometimes to see the underdogs come up big, are guaranteed to be more and more consistently disappointed with things in these top European leagues. As revenues for the most successful clubs increase, their position at the top will also grow more and more secure, making the creation of a breakaway league all the more likely. The only other workable solution, as far as I can tell, is the introduction of salary caps, and I don’t think the Europeans, particularly those involved in the upper-level politics of the sport, are going to be too excited about a level playing field. As a last resort, I can always console myself with the fact that Wolfsburg, last year’s 5th-place club and the 15th-ranked team 2 seasons ago, have given the entire Bundesliga a reason to believe that money is still not the only driving force in the game.
The reason I think Germany has the highest attendance is that some soccernet writer has been insisting on that fact for years, and I have no statistics that might disagree. Certainly, the large number of bottom-half-of-the-table clubs in most of Europe's leagues means that the top sides have to generate a LOT more interest, if attendance is to remain relatively high, on average. Unfortunately for most leagues, the "coefficient of interestingness" for most sides in most matches remains relatively low. The reason for this is simple: as the rich get richer, the gap between the best clubs and the rest of the clubs in each leagues grows larger and larger. Thus, for example, England's "big 4" currently sit a minimum of 9 and a maximum of 27 points ahead of the fifth-placed side, and the tenth-placed side is a full 40 points behind the side in first. If you threw out the top 4 in England, you'd be left with a fairly normal distribution of clubs, where the only gap between positions greater than 3 points is the 6-point spread between second and third place (really, 6th and 7th place). England is by far the most unequal league, mostly because of the way the top sides have managed to market themselves globally and corner the market even in Great Britain. While attendance for those clubs is always outstanding, the same cannot be said for the lower-side clubs, nor can a full stadium for the latter be compared, numerically, to those of the top 4. And nothing will change this year. We know who will play in the UCL, we know who will make it into UEFA, and by now we don't even care who gets relegated.
A similar situation holds for Spain and for Italy, where there are 2 and 3 big clubs, respectively. While there is typically some small amount of drama among these top few clubs throughout the season, the rest of the league might as well be playing as a different division, for all the drama it contributes to the top clubs. Villareal is a good example: sure, they challenged Barcelona and they beat Real this season, but they stand 27 points behind Barça and 19 behind Real, in fifth place. Barcelona currently stand 41 points ahead of the tenth-placed side, and are over 20 points above third-placed Sevilla. Again, if we ditch the top two clubs, the league almost starts to look competitive.
The dividing line between Italy's top clubs and the rest of the pack is a little less pronounced, at least this season: 3rd-placed Juventus is only a game ahead of Fiorentina. In fact, the biggest gap between positions in Serie A right now is the 7-point-spread between first and second places. If Juventus hadn't spent the second half of the season choking, they might very well be close to Inter's point standing right now, though again this would still place the usual suspects in title contention. In both Spain and Italy, there is no comparison between the numbers of people that can be accommodated by top-tier clubs and the rest of the sides. Moreover, matches between middle-of-the-table clubs in both leagues tend to be hugely under-attended, if the massive numbers of empty seats shown on TV are any indication. Very similar pictures emerge throughout Europe, where there are typically between two and four top, successful, clubs in each league, and the remainder of clubs serve as spoilers and feeders for the upper crust. The Dutch league has broken out of that mold somewhat this season, with the usual frontrunners Ajax and Eindhoven failing to make the top two spots. But it's safe to assume that both of them will fare better than either Twente or Alkmaar in European competition next season, so things will no doubt return to their usual state soon enough.
By contrast with all these situations, Germany's league still has yet to be decided, going into its final round next weekend. The full league gap is only 40 points (between first and last place), compared to the typical 50+ point gap in other leagues. More importantly, at least in terms of excitement and drama, the gap between first and 10th place is only 21 points, compared to 40 in both England and Spain, and 30 in Italy (France 30, Holland 37, Scotland 46 – and this is a 12-team league!!!, Portugal 35). To put it another way, a 10-point spread in Germany nets you the top 6 clubs, whereas in England it gets you 2, in Spain 2, and in Italy 2 (France 3, Holland 1, Scotland 2, Portugal 2). A 20-point spread in Germany encloses the top 9, whereas in England you still only get 4, in Spain 3, and in Italy 5 (France 7, Holland 5, Scotland 2, Portugal 5).
The Bundesliga may not be the most entertaining league to watch (though the attendance figures there might suggest that it in fact is), but frankly, how could we possibly know that, if it is almost NEVER broadcast outside of Germany? The fact that there is only a 3-point spread among the top 4 clubs going into the last week of the season certainly makes things far more interesting to me, especially since I don’t particularly care who wins the league. Fans of Manchester United, Inter Milan, and Barcelona are of course ecstatic that their sides have already clinched their respective leagues, and perhaps rightly so. But those of us who watch the game for the enjoyment of a tight competition, for some beautiful soccer (without diving crybabies who feel they’re entitled to special refereeing treatment), and sometimes to see the underdogs come up big, are guaranteed to be more and more consistently disappointed with things in these top European leagues. As revenues for the most successful clubs increase, their position at the top will also grow more and more secure, making the creation of a breakaway league all the more likely. The only other workable solution, as far as I can tell, is the introduction of salary caps, and I don’t think the Europeans, particularly those involved in the upper-level politics of the sport, are going to be too excited about a level playing field. As a last resort, I can always console myself with the fact that Wolfsburg, last year’s 5th-place club and the 15th-ranked team 2 seasons ago, have given the entire Bundesliga a reason to believe that money is still not the only driving force in the game.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
An Insult! This is worse than before!
For those who think I am unaware of current events in entertainment, I bring you Bob Dylan's latest offense against all things that are beautiful: Together Through Life. Bobby D. was never known for his fantastic pipes, as I am sure we are all aware. He was know for his politically astute, thoughtful, introspective, poetic ramblings. He has written some of the greatest songs alive (almost all of which have been performed, and much better, by other artists). And now popular culture has declared that he continues to write some of the best music alive (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8037386.stm). He has topped the Billboard album sales charts in the US and the UK with his latest ouvre.
I'm not offended, he should keep on keepin' on and all that, but for crying out loud, doesn't anyone else think he sounds horrible? Are we all such sheep? I have been told by several people that this new album is good, so I gave it a listen yesterday. I listened to the whole thing all the way through again today. And guess what? It's lousy. It's poor. It's uninteresting. It's a tired Bob singing tired blues in a tired bar and the audience should be tired of this stuff by now.
To Bob's new album I say, "NO!" To all of the people who rushed out and bought it just because he's the Bob, I say "NO!" To everyone else who's still thinking about buying it (more so, now that it's top of the charts!), I say, "NO!" People, we have brains, we have ears, we have the ability to understand and appraise what comes in through the latter with the former. So let us exercise our right to be offended by bad music, and say "NO!" Bob has enough money, he'll eat (drink?) fine without the cash you were going to shell out on this album. Give it to some charity, you'll feel better, someone will benefit, and you can write it off on your tax returns next year.
To Bob, thanks for all the good music from way back when! I'll keep listening to that quality stuff, just don't ask me to buy this new album. I'm not rich, and I'm not an undiscriminating listener, so I promise I won't do it. Sorry. I hope you had fun making the album, though. Seems like it would have been a pretty relaxed couple of sessions...
I'm not offended, he should keep on keepin' on and all that, but for crying out loud, doesn't anyone else think he sounds horrible? Are we all such sheep? I have been told by several people that this new album is good, so I gave it a listen yesterday. I listened to the whole thing all the way through again today. And guess what? It's lousy. It's poor. It's uninteresting. It's a tired Bob singing tired blues in a tired bar and the audience should be tired of this stuff by now.
To Bob's new album I say, "NO!" To all of the people who rushed out and bought it just because he's the Bob, I say "NO!" To everyone else who's still thinking about buying it (more so, now that it's top of the charts!), I say, "NO!" People, we have brains, we have ears, we have the ability to understand and appraise what comes in through the latter with the former. So let us exercise our right to be offended by bad music, and say "NO!" Bob has enough money, he'll eat (drink?) fine without the cash you were going to shell out on this album. Give it to some charity, you'll feel better, someone will benefit, and you can write it off on your tax returns next year.
To Bob, thanks for all the good music from way back when! I'll keep listening to that quality stuff, just don't ask me to buy this new album. I'm not rich, and I'm not an undiscriminating listener, so I promise I won't do it. Sorry. I hope you had fun making the album, though. Seems like it would have been a pretty relaxed couple of sessions...
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Two Weeks at a Time: or, Death By Revision
Either way, it's going to be worth your time just to have a look. Or it may not. Remember how my last entry described our experiences in and of Barcelona? Right, in very cursory fashion. Well, I plan to expand upon that entry by highlighting some of the key events of the following days. Mostly, I'll be talking about our trip through the rest of Spain in as few days and words as possible. We didn't really see or visit the rest of Spain, but we caught some of the high points of Andalucía, which is probably my favorite part of Spain. This is where the Moors set up a rival caliphate to that in Damascus during the middle ages, and single-handedly dragged southern Europe through the dark ages and into the pre-Renaissance. Without these happy Arabs and Berbers, the rest of Europe would have been hopelessly mired in stupidity and ignorance, in part forced on them by a greedy and power-hungry class of ecclesiastical and civic leaders, well into the modern era. Of course, the Moors probably weren't the nicest people to have around in every situation, particularly when it came to religious or cultural differences with their subjects--I wasn't there, so I can't really say what the daily effect on people's life was. I can, however, say that there are no records or historical accounts of the Moors doing anything like what the Spanish did during the Inquisition, and in fact most of the ancient and medieval sources paint a Moorish government that represented almost the exact opposite of the powers behind the Inquisition (despite what the good people responsible for that little publication on the "Cathedral of Cordoba" would have you believe).
So, Moorish Spain. Al-Andalus. We all know that the Inquisition was so successful and so thorough that no Moors, Gipsies, or Jews remained in Spain after the early sixteenth century, right? Anyhow, that's what they say here in Extremadura, so it must be true. I'm pretty sure the Jews, Moors, and Gipsies who converted to Christianity were probably allowed to stay in Spain, but of course their conversion will have changed their blood-line, thereby allowing Spain to maintain its purity. Ok, enough about that, but it's kind of ironic that people still believe this trash, isn't it?
Moorish Spain is magnificent. The Alhambra is nice and everything, but to me, the coolest thing about Moorish Spain is the indoor gardens, patios, courtyards, small town plazas, and parks, all of which, barring perhaps the last two, are really just survivals from the Roman period in Spain. None of these features is entirely typical of the northern half of Spain, where the dark castles and fortified houses of the upper classes offer a stark contrast to the open, gardened, atrium-style house-and-bath complexes of their southern neighbors. Apparently the northerners were forced to adopt a darker and more dismal view on life upon the realization that the weather in the northern half of Spain is substantially harsher and less enjoyable than that in Al-Andalus.
Ok, so the Alhambra is all windows and gardens and decorative plasters, a castle-palace reserved for the head-honchos of the Moorish elite, to be mimicked by anyone who could afford it, but never really satisfactorily copied. The palace in Sintra, Portugal, originally had some pretty impressive imitations of one section of the Alhambra, but after western Iberia was recaptured in the 12th and 13th centuries, most of those rooms were gradually adjusted to fit into a more "modern" style. If you can get to the Alhambra someday, you should check it out. Just don't accept any of the rosemary kindly offered by the nice ladies outside--you can pick your own for free if you really want to, but who wants rosemary, anyway?
Maybe I'm giving the Moors more credit than they deserve. I have this theory that the cities that are really "Moorish" today in Spain were still pretty much Roman cities when the Moors arrived in the early 8th century--cities like Córdoba, Sevilla, Cádiz, and maybe Cartagena and Toledo. If that theory is true (and it must be, since it's my theory), much of what I love about those cities is really just the survival of Roman traditions and ideals. It's probably safe to say that the Moors preserved what would otherwise have been lost forever, at the hands of the Visigoths or whatever the Christians in the northeast of Spain should be called, and I'll even allow for the possibility, at least, that the Moors actually improved on some of what the Romans left behind. Incidentally, I'm not sure what that "left behind" is supposed to mean: surely the Hispano-Romano-Visigoths mostly stuck around when the Moors arrived, eventually mixing with the newcomers to provide a relatively homogeneous group that we refer to today as Spaniards. One of the great things about Spain today is the vast variety the country offers in terms of virtually everything. And that must be due at least in part to the fact that this was a crossroads of cultures throughout its history.
Well, I haven't said much about our trip, and maybe I won't today. It seems that I'm less interested in what we did than in what happened before we got there. I guess that's why I'm an archaeologist and not a sociologist or something like that.
But, speaking of sociology, and more generally of current events, what's the deal with this "swine flu" business? Is it just me, or should we all be mounting class-action lawsuits against the news media? Today's stories on the BBC and CNN illustrate just how far we've come in the 10 or 14 days since this thing hit the fan: we're now referring to this potential pandemic as little different from the standard seasonal flu outbreak. For example, here's what the BBC says in this story (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8030365.stm), "Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova [of Mexico] told the BBC that, based on samples tested, the mortality rate was comparable with that of seasonal flu." Really? I'm supposed to be panicking, or so it seemed three days ago. In fact, some mucky-muck at the WHO told us the most troubling thing about this flu is that it's infecting otherwise healthy young people in Mexico (http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/25/swine.flu/index.html). Yet, for all the hype, according to all the stories coming out today, the death toll is much lower than initially projected, and as tragic as it still is, is largely limited to people who already had serious underlying health conditions (including the unfortunate case of a toddler brought to the US from Mexico for treatment, the only confirmed death in the US attributed to this flu outbreak). I'm not saying this isn't a serious concern, but I do think that the media have done such a thorough job over-reporting a flu outbreak with fewer than 1000 victims worldwide (and just over 20 deaths confirmed!) that now we're all behaving like the poor souls in that movie Outbreak from the 1990s. I'm pretty sure that the annual flu outbreak in the US, and around the world, claims far more victims than this one ever could, and also receives FAR less attention than this one is receiving. If we panic every time a new strain of the flu hits major cities, we're going to have to just get used to panicking, because the flu mutates so fast it seems there's a new strain popping up every day. Why else are we getting new shots every year, and how is it that those shots are largely ineffective on so many strains of the virus? The flu is a major concern, and we should all avoid putting our fingers in our mouths and coughing in each others' faces. But shouldn't we all be taking those simple precautions anyway? It's gross, isn't it? I mean, I've had this cold or cough or something for a good two weeks now, but you don't see me coughing in people's faces, wiping my phlegm all over doorknobs and the like. I'm pretty sure I don't have the new flu, but if I did have it, I don't see how panicking and going on a world-wide crackdown would really help. More realistically, I should probably drink loads of water, get lots of rest, seek medical advice, and follow through on a full antiviral regimen, as prescribed by a qualified medical professional. I'm prepared to panic over all this if it's still in the news in a week, though....
So, Moorish Spain. Al-Andalus. We all know that the Inquisition was so successful and so thorough that no Moors, Gipsies, or Jews remained in Spain after the early sixteenth century, right? Anyhow, that's what they say here in Extremadura, so it must be true. I'm pretty sure the Jews, Moors, and Gipsies who converted to Christianity were probably allowed to stay in Spain, but of course their conversion will have changed their blood-line, thereby allowing Spain to maintain its purity. Ok, enough about that, but it's kind of ironic that people still believe this trash, isn't it?
Moorish Spain is magnificent. The Alhambra is nice and everything, but to me, the coolest thing about Moorish Spain is the indoor gardens, patios, courtyards, small town plazas, and parks, all of which, barring perhaps the last two, are really just survivals from the Roman period in Spain. None of these features is entirely typical of the northern half of Spain, where the dark castles and fortified houses of the upper classes offer a stark contrast to the open, gardened, atrium-style house-and-bath complexes of their southern neighbors. Apparently the northerners were forced to adopt a darker and more dismal view on life upon the realization that the weather in the northern half of Spain is substantially harsher and less enjoyable than that in Al-Andalus.
Ok, so the Alhambra is all windows and gardens and decorative plasters, a castle-palace reserved for the head-honchos of the Moorish elite, to be mimicked by anyone who could afford it, but never really satisfactorily copied. The palace in Sintra, Portugal, originally had some pretty impressive imitations of one section of the Alhambra, but after western Iberia was recaptured in the 12th and 13th centuries, most of those rooms were gradually adjusted to fit into a more "modern" style. If you can get to the Alhambra someday, you should check it out. Just don't accept any of the rosemary kindly offered by the nice ladies outside--you can pick your own for free if you really want to, but who wants rosemary, anyway?
Maybe I'm giving the Moors more credit than they deserve. I have this theory that the cities that are really "Moorish" today in Spain were still pretty much Roman cities when the Moors arrived in the early 8th century--cities like Córdoba, Sevilla, Cádiz, and maybe Cartagena and Toledo. If that theory is true (and it must be, since it's my theory), much of what I love about those cities is really just the survival of Roman traditions and ideals. It's probably safe to say that the Moors preserved what would otherwise have been lost forever, at the hands of the Visigoths or whatever the Christians in the northeast of Spain should be called, and I'll even allow for the possibility, at least, that the Moors actually improved on some of what the Romans left behind. Incidentally, I'm not sure what that "left behind" is supposed to mean: surely the Hispano-Romano-Visigoths mostly stuck around when the Moors arrived, eventually mixing with the newcomers to provide a relatively homogeneous group that we refer to today as Spaniards. One of the great things about Spain today is the vast variety the country offers in terms of virtually everything. And that must be due at least in part to the fact that this was a crossroads of cultures throughout its history.
Well, I haven't said much about our trip, and maybe I won't today. It seems that I'm less interested in what we did than in what happened before we got there. I guess that's why I'm an archaeologist and not a sociologist or something like that.
But, speaking of sociology, and more generally of current events, what's the deal with this "swine flu" business? Is it just me, or should we all be mounting class-action lawsuits against the news media? Today's stories on the BBC and CNN illustrate just how far we've come in the 10 or 14 days since this thing hit the fan: we're now referring to this potential pandemic as little different from the standard seasonal flu outbreak. For example, here's what the BBC says in this story (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8030365.stm), "Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova [of Mexico] told the BBC that, based on samples tested, the mortality rate was comparable with that of seasonal flu." Really? I'm supposed to be panicking, or so it seemed three days ago. In fact, some mucky-muck at the WHO told us the most troubling thing about this flu is that it's infecting otherwise healthy young people in Mexico (http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/25/swine.flu/index.html). Yet, for all the hype, according to all the stories coming out today, the death toll is much lower than initially projected, and as tragic as it still is, is largely limited to people who already had serious underlying health conditions (including the unfortunate case of a toddler brought to the US from Mexico for treatment, the only confirmed death in the US attributed to this flu outbreak). I'm not saying this isn't a serious concern, but I do think that the media have done such a thorough job over-reporting a flu outbreak with fewer than 1000 victims worldwide (and just over 20 deaths confirmed!) that now we're all behaving like the poor souls in that movie Outbreak from the 1990s. I'm pretty sure that the annual flu outbreak in the US, and around the world, claims far more victims than this one ever could, and also receives FAR less attention than this one is receiving. If we panic every time a new strain of the flu hits major cities, we're going to have to just get used to panicking, because the flu mutates so fast it seems there's a new strain popping up every day. Why else are we getting new shots every year, and how is it that those shots are largely ineffective on so many strains of the virus? The flu is a major concern, and we should all avoid putting our fingers in our mouths and coughing in each others' faces. But shouldn't we all be taking those simple precautions anyway? It's gross, isn't it? I mean, I've had this cold or cough or something for a good two weeks now, but you don't see me coughing in people's faces, wiping my phlegm all over doorknobs and the like. I'm pretty sure I don't have the new flu, but if I did have it, I don't see how panicking and going on a world-wide crackdown would really help. More realistically, I should probably drink loads of water, get lots of rest, seek medical advice, and follow through on a full antiviral regimen, as prescribed by a qualified medical professional. I'm prepared to panic over all this if it's still in the news in a week, though....
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Work, As Usual
Many of you will have grown weary of repeatedly reading through the old postings during the past month-and-ten-days' hiatus, so I have finally decided to post a new blog entry. I should point out immediately that there is no way I can cram all of the nothing of the past few weeks into a short posting, so I'm planning to make two, maybe three. That being the case, today's entry will serve as an introductory briefing, which you can read to decide whether you want to read the ones that will (eventually) serve as the body of this very long series of entries. Boring goring zoring loring doring noring foring....
Ok, so here's the deal: Alicia and I did our usual thing in early March - she competed in a talent show at our church, we attended about 500 hours of services and events associated with that "gran concurso de talento joven," and, as always, we plugged away at our various work- and research-related activities. I don't have to tell you how much fun all of that was, so I won't. You can try to imagine it. It will be better for everyone that way. So much for early March. Oh, I also gave a nice chapter portion to my adviser. Turn, turn, turn.
When later March arrived, so did our friend Safa from America (that's the United States of America, as opposed to all of the Americas, which some people think they can refer to as America, even though that makes literally no sense at all. At the very least, they should say "the Americas" or something similar. But I digress...). Actually, he didn't so much "arrive" in the classical sense, since we were in fact forced to meet him in Madrid. So he arrived in Spain and we met him in Madrid. Whereupon we all decided that, while Madrid is a fun and interesting and nice and pleasant city (if you can avoid Madrileños, which is easier than you'd think), Barcelona must be infinitely more interesting, fun, and adventure-laden, if perhaps not nicer or more pleasant than Madrid. After this decision had been made by us, our friend's family rushed us hearts-in-throats to the airport, because I wasn't about to pay 100 euros for a one-way train ride when I could pay half that to fly in half the time. So airport, airplane, Barcelona. We had things perfectly planned so that, by great coincidence (my "planning"), FC Barcelona would be hosting some team (let's call them "Small-Towners In The Wrong League" or "Impish Upstarts 2008-2009") only 2 hours after our arrival in Barcelona. This would, in theory, give us enough time to get settled into our friend's apartment and then take the metro back to the Nou Camp, all before the game even had a chance to begin. MacGyver seems to be the origin of my use of the phrase "in theory." But Homer also gets some credit for asserting that, "in theory, communism works. In theory."
Where were I. Ah, so if things went according to coincidence, then we'd be able to show up at the stadium where one of the great footballing powers performs in time to actually watch them destroy some sorry team that probably won't even be in the first division next season. Right, so as you may be expecting by now, the plane that was supposed to get us there in half the time of a train ride ended up leaving an hour and a half late, meaning we left when we were supposed to arrive, meaning, eventually, that, while we arrived less than an hour after we departed, we also arrived in Barcelona a half hour before the match started. If not for our suitcases and sundries, perhaps we could have adventured it. But I'm not that adventurous, and besides, I had a strong feeling that we might be sleeping on the street that first night, as I hadn't actually been able to properly confirm our lodgings with our host-friend. This could go on and on, but we didn't get to the Barcelona game, we did have a nice place to sleep (ask Safa how awesome it was!), and we eventually had a decent meal for a decent price in what is anything but a decent neighborhood of Barcelona.
We decided to masquerade as silly tourists the following day, and so we purchased the two-day ride-the-open-top-buses-all-day pass to be able to see all these much-hyped Gaudí sights throughout the city without destroying our legs trying to hike it all. I got the idea of doing these open-top-bus tours from my brother, who is usually humiliated by anything that might draw any sort of attention to him, so I decided that if he's willing to do it in Madrid and in Paris, I can break down and ride the trap bus in Barcelona. It was kind of pricey, but I'm not sure I would have made the effort to go to all these different sites in Barcelona without the bus to tote me around (and guilt me into touring even when I didn't really feel like it!).
Let's see. SO, Barcelona at night. If you're interested in what goes on on the street known as Ramblas or in the nooks and crannies leading this way and that through the Gothic district and so on, you'll have to ask elsewhere. It's not my scene, and I'm not really up for those kinds of adventures anymore - maybe I really AM getting old.
Well, that's the first installment. I left all the really exciting things for next time. Or the time after that. It's called "building the suspense," and successful writers use this tool to actually increase their audience as the installments are periodically released. The rest of us use it to drive our readers away by murdering their interest gradually over long periods (Dickens taught me how...)
Ok, so here's the deal: Alicia and I did our usual thing in early March - she competed in a talent show at our church, we attended about 500 hours of services and events associated with that "gran concurso de talento joven," and, as always, we plugged away at our various work- and research-related activities. I don't have to tell you how much fun all of that was, so I won't. You can try to imagine it. It will be better for everyone that way. So much for early March. Oh, I also gave a nice chapter portion to my adviser. Turn, turn, turn.
When later March arrived, so did our friend Safa from America (that's the United States of America, as opposed to all of the Americas, which some people think they can refer to as America, even though that makes literally no sense at all. At the very least, they should say "the Americas" or something similar. But I digress...). Actually, he didn't so much "arrive" in the classical sense, since we were in fact forced to meet him in Madrid. So he arrived in Spain and we met him in Madrid. Whereupon we all decided that, while Madrid is a fun and interesting and nice and pleasant city (if you can avoid Madrileños, which is easier than you'd think), Barcelona must be infinitely more interesting, fun, and adventure-laden, if perhaps not nicer or more pleasant than Madrid. After this decision had been made by us, our friend's family rushed us hearts-in-throats to the airport, because I wasn't about to pay 100 euros for a one-way train ride when I could pay half that to fly in half the time. So airport, airplane, Barcelona. We had things perfectly planned so that, by great coincidence (my "planning"), FC Barcelona would be hosting some team (let's call them "Small-Towners In The Wrong League" or "Impish Upstarts 2008-2009") only 2 hours after our arrival in Barcelona. This would, in theory, give us enough time to get settled into our friend's apartment and then take the metro back to the Nou Camp, all before the game even had a chance to begin. MacGyver seems to be the origin of my use of the phrase "in theory." But Homer also gets some credit for asserting that, "in theory, communism works. In theory."
Where were I. Ah, so if things went according to coincidence, then we'd be able to show up at the stadium where one of the great footballing powers performs in time to actually watch them destroy some sorry team that probably won't even be in the first division next season. Right, so as you may be expecting by now, the plane that was supposed to get us there in half the time of a train ride ended up leaving an hour and a half late, meaning we left when we were supposed to arrive, meaning, eventually, that, while we arrived less than an hour after we departed, we also arrived in Barcelona a half hour before the match started. If not for our suitcases and sundries, perhaps we could have adventured it. But I'm not that adventurous, and besides, I had a strong feeling that we might be sleeping on the street that first night, as I hadn't actually been able to properly confirm our lodgings with our host-friend. This could go on and on, but we didn't get to the Barcelona game, we did have a nice place to sleep (ask Safa how awesome it was!), and we eventually had a decent meal for a decent price in what is anything but a decent neighborhood of Barcelona.
We decided to masquerade as silly tourists the following day, and so we purchased the two-day ride-the-open-top-buses-all-day pass to be able to see all these much-hyped Gaudí sights throughout the city without destroying our legs trying to hike it all. I got the idea of doing these open-top-bus tours from my brother, who is usually humiliated by anything that might draw any sort of attention to him, so I decided that if he's willing to do it in Madrid and in Paris, I can break down and ride the trap bus in Barcelona. It was kind of pricey, but I'm not sure I would have made the effort to go to all these different sites in Barcelona without the bus to tote me around (and guilt me into touring even when I didn't really feel like it!).
Let's see. SO, Barcelona at night. If you're interested in what goes on on the street known as Ramblas or in the nooks and crannies leading this way and that through the Gothic district and so on, you'll have to ask elsewhere. It's not my scene, and I'm not really up for those kinds of adventures anymore - maybe I really AM getting old.
Well, that's the first installment. I left all the really exciting things for next time. Or the time after that. It's called "building the suspense," and successful writers use this tool to actually increase their audience as the installments are periodically released. The rest of us use it to drive our readers away by murdering their interest gradually over long periods (Dickens taught me how...)
Monday, March 2, 2009
Andorra and Back Again
That's pretty much how it felt, anyway. We just got back to Mérida from one of the most interesting and amazing adventures we've had. The good people here in Spain decided that our mid-year meeting should take place in Andorra, so we were forced to travel halfway across the world to get there (it seemed about that far, but was really only 10 hours driving each way...). I was initially a bit confused by the decision to do the mid-year conference for Spain grantees outside Spain, but now that I've actually been to Andorra (and spent some time there - I think I was there in 1990 or so, for a few minutes...), I believe the decision was fully justified. My description of the Andorra visit is going to have to appear in two parts, as I'm right in the middle of an important project for my research and I can't really afford to sit here for half an hour and describe all that there is to experience and enjoy in Andorra just now. Suffice it to say that Rick Steves is kind of a travel snob now, and the more I experience of Europe the less I trust the things he has to say. Don't bother reading up on Andorra from his perspective, it's one of the places he claims he goes "so you won't have to." I say, it's well worth a visit, especially if you're already in Spain, Portugal, or even southern France.
Of course, I have to admit that my experience of this wonderful little mountain principality was heavily tainted by a few factors. One of those is that we were given exceedingly nice lodgings in a hotel I would not be able to afford on my own. Another is that we met many of Andorra's dignitaries and were hosted by these and other kind souls of the place in a way that I am unlikely to ever experience anywhere else. It is also a true fact that Andorra is at least half-full of Portuguese people, which is generally a good thing, as they are almost universally kind, friendly, outgoing, and cheerful. Oh, and they love good coffee, which means the Andorrans must have good coffee, which means I had access to good coffee, which I brought back to Spain in bulk. So I probably didn't experience the Andorra that Rick Steves visited. And I still encourage my readers to consider it a worthwhile destination.I dedicate the remainder of this posting to one of the highlights of our visit to Andorra la Vella. A number of people advised us to go to a place called Caldea, which is Catalán for hot springs or something similar. When we arrived in town, one of the first things we noticed was the building that houses this Caldea, a tall spire of glass pointing jauntily toward the sky. I was originally hoping to sneak in an afternoon of snowboarding on our only free day, but by the time I figured the cost, the number of hours, and the amount of work that would be, it was 3pm and I wasn't feeling much like slamming my body into the icy slopes for the next few hours. I discarded that idea and decided to give the hot springs (technically, it's a spa. That's right. I went to a spa instead of snowboarding.) a chance. And I'm frightfully glad I did. It just so happens that a wonderful human named Lan is a member of the exclusive club that is Caldea. She invited us to accompany her as guests to the members-only section of the health spa, where we were given bath robes, towels, and sandals for flip-flopping around the grounds. We were also each given a free bottle of ice-cold water, which was really the icing on the cake for me.
Caldea is a 3-story indoor hot springs resort. Technically, it only has interesting pools and experiences on two levels, the intermediate floor being basically a large restaurant. Technically, it's not all indoor either, as there are two jacuzzis outside on the members-only upper level and some other pools outside on the all-access level (to which I did not venture). We were fortunate enough to have access to both levels of water wonderland, but after having explored most of the facility we decided that there is really no reason to go downstairs when you can go upstairs. Aside from the foot-scraping lazy river, the grapefruit pool, the saunas, and the huge hot tub, the members-only floor has a Turkish bath feature known as a hammam. As it turns out, this is apparently a feature originally introduced to Spain by the Moors, and is technically a part of the Arabic baths, though I really cannot say what the differences would be between these two complexes. Neither here nor there.
This particular hammam is a large-ish domed structure that looks something like a bread oven from the outside. Upon entering, one is greeted with a blast of hot vapor, smelling heavily of eucalyptus. Once the door has closed behind the visitor, s/he realizes that there is nothing to be seen, and the only sound is that of trickling water. Waiting patiently for the pupils to dilate sufficiently to offer some visibility, one gradually realises that if one had, as one initially intended, walked forward heedlessly upon entering, one would have smashed one's face into a tall column of three inverted cones, one on top of the other. It is down these cones that the deliciously cold water trickles to create the cavernous chamber's only ambience sound. As the darkness is lifted from one's eyes, it becomes apparent that the walls are lined with alternating seats and settees, each of the latter having under it a small opening from which the chamber's fragrant steam emits in a constant plume. For convenience, or perhaps to ensure proper sanitary conditions, each settee is also accoutred with its own water hose.
Sitting in that dark, steamy room, cold water trickling down the central column, skin pressed hard against the hot, (hopefully) clean tiles of the settee, I had the rare, increadibly peaceful, blissfully welcome experience of nearly forgetting my place. Would that it had lasted forever.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
My Foot's All Better!
Seriously, it has been a few weeks or months or whatever since they drilled holes in my bone, and I can officially report that nothing has changed in well over a year. Or was that two years? I can vaguely remember having foot surgery, but that's about it. I do have this interesting scar on the outside of my left foot, and occasionally (like this weekend) the area under that scar aches a little bit--maybe from pressure changes or something, I don't know how these things work. But the point of it all is that I play soccer when I have time, I run and walk all over everywhere, and I generally have no complaints about the metal screw in my 5th metatarsal. I highly recommend it for anyone whose stupid stress fracture refuses to heal, and of course has insurance that covers such things. Don't forget about the insurance, because stimulus or no, I don't reckon the feds are too excited about fixing your fractures just yet (they're going to have to boost taxes a bit more for that to work out...:)
Alicia asked me to mention something about the good people at Carrefour and their amazing pricing system, so I thought that would be paragraph two for today's entry. Yes, the great supermarket chain that has installed itself in many of the locations formerly occupied by Continente here in Spain (I suspect the two chains traded stores across Portugal and Spain, but have no external information to confirm that hypothesis) has a pricing system that is truly worthy of note. See, like many stores, they advertise. So some guy comes around every week or two and jams an advertisement booklet into our mailbox. This booklet is full of all the deals you could possibly want, if you weren't living about a mile away from the place and aware that you were going to have to carry all those purchases across the unreasonably long Roman bridge. Sometimes those deals are so good that we're convinced we must be reading wrong. Most of the time, we're not reading wrong. But when we get to the store (bus passes are nice on those days), we somehow inexplicably fail to read the black and white of the signs, such that items marked "2 for the price of 1" or "2nd item at 50% off" are invariably rung up by our kind cashiers at full price. Thus far, I have been completely unable to convince a cashier that in fact the sign on the shelf reads "ITEM DISCOUNTED." So I leave a lot of stuff at the register. Occasionally, I am informed that those prices haven't gone into effect yet (even though the advertisement is already circulating throughout the city, and the sign on the shelf announces the discount), or perhaps that the sign just hasn't been taken down yet (even though the date on the sign includes today), but usually it's just the blank stare that says "you're obviously not from around here, the price you get is the price that the system assigns, regardless of advertised prices in print." I have never felt that the cashiers are rude or mean about the pricing stuff, usually they're more than happy to send that lady on the rollerskates back to double check the prices. I am starting to think that the company that operates this particular Carrefour store has a couple policies that are at odds with my own view of the world. The first policy is that signs and advertisements will intentionally be sent out before they're in effect and after they're no longer in effect. This allows them to catch those of us who are either real go-getters or too lazy to head out for the sales during the actual sale period, preventing us from capitalizing on the savings advertised. We get there when those prices aren't in effect, and rather than leave empty-handed, we buy what we can. The second policy, one that makes me a little bit more unhappy, is that they very intentionally put signs up over items to which those signs do not apply. They're far better at this than any supermarket I have ever visited, going so far as to confirm that either the size, or brand, or both, of the item advertised is the same as the one over which the sign is placed. Meanwhile, the product actually discounted is two shelves over and two shelves up. They are careful not to put the product's upc or barcode or whatever that number is called on the signs, thus preventing me from even that method of price confirmation. There are a few of those handy pricing machines around, but those only tell you the price for the single item, so you can't (as far as I know) tell if the second item will be discounted or not until you get it up to the register. I generally don't worry about holding up the line any more, I just want to make sure I like all the prices before I pull out the old credit card. My conclusion from all of this is that it's generally less of a hassle to go to Dia or Arbol, which are within reasonable walking distance, for all of life's essentials. If I ever feel the powerful urge to buy some cured fancy cheese or something like that, I have the lady behind the glass case at the deli section chop it up, wrap it, and slap on a price sticker. That way, at least I know how much it's going to cost before I get in line.
Speaking of lines, have I mentioned how polite the people of Mérida are about lines? If I have and you remember it, skip on down to the next paragraph. If I haven't, or you don't remember, read on: this is a good thing. Here in Mérida, unlike literally everywhere else I have ever been, people are kind of polite about lines. I can't even begin to remember how many times I have been sent to the front of a line by someone who just didn't want to get out of the store any time soon. It's quite odd. I have even felt compelled to do the same a couple times when someone shows up behind me in line with only a few items. The other nice things about lines here is that people arriving in a line-waiting situation announce their arrival with the question, "who's the last person in line." How crazy is that? Imagine waiting the crowded waiting area in the Cincinnati DMV for your license renewal or tags or something, and someone comes in behind you and hollers [man that word looks weird] out "who's the last person in line?" It's really quite phenomenal. This happens in banks, in post offices (even where you take those numbers), grocery stores, butcher shops, pretty much anywhere there might be a line. I have yet to be pushed out of the way or line-jumped here. Don't try that in Portugal... We even fight over who's getting into the line first for the waiting room to wait for the second waiting room before getting in line to board the plane (mind you, nobody ever has a big carry on bag in these situations, it's just some innate drive to be on that plane before the rest of the passengers). Well, at any rate, the good people of Mérida, Extremadura, Spain, must be about the politest waiters-in-line or line-waiters in the world.
That ends my line digression. The next topic up for discussion today is when I'm going to get those $800 that are now being promised to me as a means of saving our economy. I'm all for stimulating the economy and all that, but when do I get to have my economy stimulated? My economy isn't a very patient one, and we here in Spain are suffering more than most countries, so where's my stimulus? I'm not mad or anything, but it's about time they showed me some green for all the hard work I've done over the 2008 calendar year. I filed early so I could get that "refundable tax credit" as quickly as possible, and now I'm being told I'll have to wait until June. People last year were getting those things before June, I can guarantee you that. So I ask you, is this a change for the better? Sure, they're telling me I'll get more than I did last year, but think how much interest I could make on the earlier credit last year than I will be able to this year - it almost evens out. Plus, with inflation and so on, I'll bet that the "$800" I'm supposed to get this year (I'm still deeply skeptical about this money) turns out to be less valuable than the less-than-$600 that they actually gave me last year (bonus question: can anyone figure out why I got less than the $600 that everyone was talking about for couples filing jointly?). I guess in the greater scheme of things this is still all George W's fault (it will ALL be his fault until something good happens, don't you think?), so I'll write him that nasty email I've been meaning to send for quite some time. Meanwhile, somebody figure out if they can speed up the refunds a little bit. That way I can get that camera and stimulate the economy. Uh, Nikon is still a US company, innit? Sweet.
Speaking of U.S. companies, why in the world are Levi's so expensive in Europe? I know they're kind of pricey for jeans these days even in the States, but I'm talking 70 or 90 EUROS for a pair of 501s. I know for a fact you can get those for $35 at any department store, and sometimes they're even on sale for less than that. The minimum wage over here is like 600 euros/month. I'd guess the average work month here is 20 days, with holidays and fiestas and all, and if we're being really generous we can say they "work" 8 hours on a work day. So that's 160 hours and 600 euros in a month, which comes out to 3.75/hour. Pretty sweet. Let's convert that to U.S. cash at $1.28 to 1 EU, and we're making $4.8 an hour. I'm thinking they probably get to keep all of that, right? Actually, on that point, I'm not sure. Of course that's the minimum legal wage, which means that in real terms very few people make that little (I've read in a couple places that it's not much more than 1% of the total population in Spain, though I don't know if that accounts for illegal immigrants as well). Nonetheless, that's not an awesome wage, especially if you're looking to drive a car (which drinks gas at aroung 1 eu/liter) and live in a house with electricity (that stuff isn't cheap here, even though it's practically all hydro- and solar power). So if you move to Spain, 1) do it legally, and 2) make sure you've got a job where you make more than minimum wage. I'm just saying...
Anyway, we're off to Andorra in just over a week, at which time it looks like I'll be somewhere between chapters and looking for something to do with my time. If only for the 4 days of the trip. Ok, so I'll take something to work on even for the trip. Man, give a guy a break. It's 4 days. I'll be driving half of that time!
Alicia asked me to mention something about the good people at Carrefour and their amazing pricing system, so I thought that would be paragraph two for today's entry. Yes, the great supermarket chain that has installed itself in many of the locations formerly occupied by Continente here in Spain (I suspect the two chains traded stores across Portugal and Spain, but have no external information to confirm that hypothesis) has a pricing system that is truly worthy of note. See, like many stores, they advertise. So some guy comes around every week or two and jams an advertisement booklet into our mailbox. This booklet is full of all the deals you could possibly want, if you weren't living about a mile away from the place and aware that you were going to have to carry all those purchases across the unreasonably long Roman bridge. Sometimes those deals are so good that we're convinced we must be reading wrong. Most of the time, we're not reading wrong. But when we get to the store (bus passes are nice on those days), we somehow inexplicably fail to read the black and white of the signs, such that items marked "2 for the price of 1" or "2nd item at 50% off" are invariably rung up by our kind cashiers at full price. Thus far, I have been completely unable to convince a cashier that in fact the sign on the shelf reads "ITEM DISCOUNTED." So I leave a lot of stuff at the register. Occasionally, I am informed that those prices haven't gone into effect yet (even though the advertisement is already circulating throughout the city, and the sign on the shelf announces the discount), or perhaps that the sign just hasn't been taken down yet (even though the date on the sign includes today), but usually it's just the blank stare that says "you're obviously not from around here, the price you get is the price that the system assigns, regardless of advertised prices in print." I have never felt that the cashiers are rude or mean about the pricing stuff, usually they're more than happy to send that lady on the rollerskates back to double check the prices. I am starting to think that the company that operates this particular Carrefour store has a couple policies that are at odds with my own view of the world. The first policy is that signs and advertisements will intentionally be sent out before they're in effect and after they're no longer in effect. This allows them to catch those of us who are either real go-getters or too lazy to head out for the sales during the actual sale period, preventing us from capitalizing on the savings advertised. We get there when those prices aren't in effect, and rather than leave empty-handed, we buy what we can. The second policy, one that makes me a little bit more unhappy, is that they very intentionally put signs up over items to which those signs do not apply. They're far better at this than any supermarket I have ever visited, going so far as to confirm that either the size, or brand, or both, of the item advertised is the same as the one over which the sign is placed. Meanwhile, the product actually discounted is two shelves over and two shelves up. They are careful not to put the product's upc or barcode or whatever that number is called on the signs, thus preventing me from even that method of price confirmation. There are a few of those handy pricing machines around, but those only tell you the price for the single item, so you can't (as far as I know) tell if the second item will be discounted or not until you get it up to the register. I generally don't worry about holding up the line any more, I just want to make sure I like all the prices before I pull out the old credit card. My conclusion from all of this is that it's generally less of a hassle to go to Dia or Arbol, which are within reasonable walking distance, for all of life's essentials. If I ever feel the powerful urge to buy some cured fancy cheese or something like that, I have the lady behind the glass case at the deli section chop it up, wrap it, and slap on a price sticker. That way, at least I know how much it's going to cost before I get in line.
Speaking of lines, have I mentioned how polite the people of Mérida are about lines? If I have and you remember it, skip on down to the next paragraph. If I haven't, or you don't remember, read on: this is a good thing. Here in Mérida, unlike literally everywhere else I have ever been, people are kind of polite about lines. I can't even begin to remember how many times I have been sent to the front of a line by someone who just didn't want to get out of the store any time soon. It's quite odd. I have even felt compelled to do the same a couple times when someone shows up behind me in line with only a few items. The other nice things about lines here is that people arriving in a line-waiting situation announce their arrival with the question, "who's the last person in line." How crazy is that? Imagine waiting the crowded waiting area in the Cincinnati DMV for your license renewal or tags or something, and someone comes in behind you and hollers [man that word looks weird] out "who's the last person in line?" It's really quite phenomenal. This happens in banks, in post offices (even where you take those numbers), grocery stores, butcher shops, pretty much anywhere there might be a line. I have yet to be pushed out of the way or line-jumped here. Don't try that in Portugal... We even fight over who's getting into the line first for the waiting room to wait for the second waiting room before getting in line to board the plane (mind you, nobody ever has a big carry on bag in these situations, it's just some innate drive to be on that plane before the rest of the passengers). Well, at any rate, the good people of Mérida, Extremadura, Spain, must be about the politest waiters-in-line or line-waiters in the world.
That ends my line digression. The next topic up for discussion today is when I'm going to get those $800 that are now being promised to me as a means of saving our economy. I'm all for stimulating the economy and all that, but when do I get to have my economy stimulated? My economy isn't a very patient one, and we here in Spain are suffering more than most countries, so where's my stimulus? I'm not mad or anything, but it's about time they showed me some green for all the hard work I've done over the 2008 calendar year. I filed early so I could get that "refundable tax credit" as quickly as possible, and now I'm being told I'll have to wait until June. People last year were getting those things before June, I can guarantee you that. So I ask you, is this a change for the better? Sure, they're telling me I'll get more than I did last year, but think how much interest I could make on the earlier credit last year than I will be able to this year - it almost evens out. Plus, with inflation and so on, I'll bet that the "$800" I'm supposed to get this year (I'm still deeply skeptical about this money) turns out to be less valuable than the less-than-$600 that they actually gave me last year (bonus question: can anyone figure out why I got less than the $600 that everyone was talking about for couples filing jointly?). I guess in the greater scheme of things this is still all George W's fault (it will ALL be his fault until something good happens, don't you think?), so I'll write him that nasty email I've been meaning to send for quite some time. Meanwhile, somebody figure out if they can speed up the refunds a little bit. That way I can get that camera and stimulate the economy. Uh, Nikon is still a US company, innit? Sweet.
Speaking of U.S. companies, why in the world are Levi's so expensive in Europe? I know they're kind of pricey for jeans these days even in the States, but I'm talking 70 or 90 EUROS for a pair of 501s. I know for a fact you can get those for $35 at any department store, and sometimes they're even on sale for less than that. The minimum wage over here is like 600 euros/month. I'd guess the average work month here is 20 days, with holidays and fiestas and all, and if we're being really generous we can say they "work" 8 hours on a work day. So that's 160 hours and 600 euros in a month, which comes out to 3.75/hour. Pretty sweet. Let's convert that to U.S. cash at $1.28 to 1 EU, and we're making $4.8 an hour. I'm thinking they probably get to keep all of that, right? Actually, on that point, I'm not sure. Of course that's the minimum legal wage, which means that in real terms very few people make that little (I've read in a couple places that it's not much more than 1% of the total population in Spain, though I don't know if that accounts for illegal immigrants as well). Nonetheless, that's not an awesome wage, especially if you're looking to drive a car (which drinks gas at aroung 1 eu/liter) and live in a house with electricity (that stuff isn't cheap here, even though it's practically all hydro- and solar power). So if you move to Spain, 1) do it legally, and 2) make sure you've got a job where you make more than minimum wage. I'm just saying...
Anyway, we're off to Andorra in just over a week, at which time it looks like I'll be somewhere between chapters and looking for something to do with my time. If only for the 4 days of the trip. Ok, so I'll take something to work on even for the trip. Man, give a guy a break. It's 4 days. I'll be driving half of that time!
Sunday, January 25, 2009
French Spoken Here
While I was pondering how I might go about changing some of the "Rules of the Game" of football/soccer, I was reminded that FIFA's name is French, and therefore their governance must also be French. I decided I'd be better off tackling the rule changes through UEFA, Europe's governing body, but again remembered that that acronym stands for a bunch of unpronounceable French words. In desperation, I thought of the International Olympic Committee, whose name, at least, is English. But then I remembered that Olympic soccer/football is meaningless, and largely governed by rules set down by FIFA anyway. At a loss for what to do in order to set right the many ills of the world of professional futebol, I cast about to my many online resources: wikipedia, google, fifa.com, uefa.com, etc. To my great surprise, French is not the exclusive official language of any of the organizations I hope to fix. As it turns out, the only reason that they have French names is because they were originally established by Frenchmen in Paris. Using the French-based acronyms today serves only as a reminder that we owe some small debt of gratitude to those original French founders, and so I have determined not to give up on my quest to revise the rules of the game--in English, the language of the world.
As I was arriving at that conclusion, the good people at the BBC told Firefox that I should consider reading this article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7844192.stm
We all knew that the French hate English, or at least that some people in France have a rabid hatred for and fear of the English language way back when they tried to keep McDonalds from being McDonalds. I have personally never had a problem with a French person, even the intramural soccer team that beat us in the final before the game erupted into a "fight" and the organizers cancelled it--we hung out with those French students for a few hours after the game and had a great time. I have even had great luck in France itself: nobody has ever been rude to me (there are far more people busying themselves by being rude to me here in Spain than there ever could be in France, even in Paris), nor have I been tricked, lied to, robbed, abused, snubbed, etc. by any French people so far as I know. I was forced to eat raw beef in 1993, but that's apparently not an insult in France, it's just how they do. I do have a great distaste for the French national soccer team, but that's because as far back as my short memory goes, they've beaten Portugal 1-0 on a pk in major tournaments. They're probably no more evil than any other national side that has beaten Portugal in competition, right?
Having said all that, the fact remains that there are some people in France who, for lack of a more reliable religious system, have decided that the preservation of the French language in the face of the English onslaught is the greatest good that can be pursued in life. So they have invented "awards" with which they deride their compatriots of less Anglophobia, even going so far as to bring legal charges against French companies that fail to adhere to a strict "French-first" policy. Obviously, there must be a far greater group of pragmatic French people, like the business students from Paris and Toulouse who come to Cincinnati every year to study business and improve their English. There are a number of successful French companies on the international stage, and it seems unlikely to me that these would be able to maintain their success in an exclusively Francophone context--at the end of the day, apples to apples, business people around the world are far more likely to know English than French (or any other language, for that matter). In fact, all the evidence available to me at present suggests that the English language has more than its fair share of supporters in France--the numbers seem closer to those in Portugal (where everyone and his brother knows enough English to get by) than those in Spain (where everyone and his brother admits that one of their major failings is that they have just never buckled down to learn English as well as they should). In that context, I appreciated this quote from Jean-Paul Nerriere in the BBC article, "We're just urinating on the ashes of the fire," because, according to the article, "he says the French have to recognise that the language war is lost." The French need English. Heck, the English, and the rest of Europe, need the French as well, if only so they can keep making those delightful Citroëns and Peugots. I have a friend here whose Citroën is an automatic, and the poor thing shifts like the time my '85 Celica's transmission fluid drained out through the poorly-replaced drain cap. Makes for some excitement pulling into the city's 15 roundabouts...
Oh, in other news, we're going to Andorra in a month, for a very few days. The good people at the Commission here have decided that all the Spain grantees should go to Andorra to celebrate the mid-year conference, and though it seems an odd choice for the Spanish Commission, I can't say I'm not excited to go to Andorra.
I'm sure I have lots more to say, but I'm also right in the middle of rewriting this chapter...
As I was arriving at that conclusion, the good people at the BBC told Firefox that I should consider reading this article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7844192.stm
We all knew that the French hate English, or at least that some people in France have a rabid hatred for and fear of the English language way back when they tried to keep McDonalds from being McDonalds. I have personally never had a problem with a French person, even the intramural soccer team that beat us in the final before the game erupted into a "fight" and the organizers cancelled it--we hung out with those French students for a few hours after the game and had a great time. I have even had great luck in France itself: nobody has ever been rude to me (there are far more people busying themselves by being rude to me here in Spain than there ever could be in France, even in Paris), nor have I been tricked, lied to, robbed, abused, snubbed, etc. by any French people so far as I know. I was forced to eat raw beef in 1993, but that's apparently not an insult in France, it's just how they do. I do have a great distaste for the French national soccer team, but that's because as far back as my short memory goes, they've beaten Portugal 1-0 on a pk in major tournaments. They're probably no more evil than any other national side that has beaten Portugal in competition, right?
Having said all that, the fact remains that there are some people in France who, for lack of a more reliable religious system, have decided that the preservation of the French language in the face of the English onslaught is the greatest good that can be pursued in life. So they have invented "awards" with which they deride their compatriots of less Anglophobia, even going so far as to bring legal charges against French companies that fail to adhere to a strict "French-first" policy. Obviously, there must be a far greater group of pragmatic French people, like the business students from Paris and Toulouse who come to Cincinnati every year to study business and improve their English. There are a number of successful French companies on the international stage, and it seems unlikely to me that these would be able to maintain their success in an exclusively Francophone context--at the end of the day, apples to apples, business people around the world are far more likely to know English than French (or any other language, for that matter). In fact, all the evidence available to me at present suggests that the English language has more than its fair share of supporters in France--the numbers seem closer to those in Portugal (where everyone and his brother knows enough English to get by) than those in Spain (where everyone and his brother admits that one of their major failings is that they have just never buckled down to learn English as well as they should). In that context, I appreciated this quote from Jean-Paul Nerriere in the BBC article, "We're just urinating on the ashes of the fire," because, according to the article, "he says the French have to recognise that the language war is lost." The French need English. Heck, the English, and the rest of Europe, need the French as well, if only so they can keep making those delightful Citroëns and Peugots. I have a friend here whose Citroën is an automatic, and the poor thing shifts like the time my '85 Celica's transmission fluid drained out through the poorly-replaced drain cap. Makes for some excitement pulling into the city's 15 roundabouts...
Oh, in other news, we're going to Andorra in a month, for a very few days. The good people at the Commission here have decided that all the Spain grantees should go to Andorra to celebrate the mid-year conference, and though it seems an odd choice for the Spanish Commission, I can't say I'm not excited to go to Andorra.
I'm sure I have lots more to say, but I'm also right in the middle of rewriting this chapter...
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