BA: Roads
09:03:29 MST on Wednesday May 31 2006 #So for my last real day in BA, as I'm taking a Ferry to Montevideo this afternoon I thought I'd point you to a article, in the Washington Post - on the largest road in the world - which is in BA. Now I'm not sure I buy the stat. But the roads are Huge. It reminds me of Tiapei a lot in that way.
And now I'm off to catch a cab to a ferry to Uraguay, should be fun!
BA: Keys and Gas Stations
08:50:49 MST on Monday May 29 2006 #Random Oddnesses:
The keys are skeleton keys. They are not universal - but they definitely compose the bulk of door keys - and are even used on things like padlocks. They are weird, fiddly, and bulky. My other key, a dimple-pin key, looks like normal blank, with little indentations on the flat of the blade, instead of serration on it's edge. It's impossible to tell from looking about how many of the "normal" locks are actually of this design. The whole key situation is just odd.
Gas Stations are also odd. But in this case much more efficient, every station is designed with a continuous entrance from the street with the car driving directly into the pump on an angle and from there around the back of the pumps to the street. No second chances or forgetting which side the tank is on. The throughput per square foot is truely impressive. I've seen stations of this sort in europe - but in BA they are universal.
Age
22:25:19 MST on Thursday May 25 2006 #I feel old, a lot, when wandering the streets of BA. Not truly old - but I feel my age. There are so very many school kids running the streets, young lovers kissing on the park benches, etc. It's an odd feeling. Mostly I feel tired, and pressured and a little bit out of place. It adds up.
I used to say "I don't think I'll ever feel like an adult". And it was true, "adult" just seemed like a silly term, although I did think it likely that something traumatic, like have a kid, might change my perspective. But that didn't happen. Instead I just ignored the issue, didn't think of things in those terms for a number of years. I lost the existential angst, didn't worry about my place in the world. And then one day I'm thinking of 20 year old kissing on the benches as "kids". And of course I'm an adult - it's still a stupid term, but it does have meaning, and I've clearly been with in the bounds of that meaning for years.
I think it's time to start watching out for signs of angst :)
Yoghurt
09:36:23 MST on Saturday May 20 2006 #Yoghurt's one of my favorite foods - but not one that gets much use in cooking, so I don't talk about it much. I'm going to make up for that today:)
I prefer it active culture. I like liquid kefir style yoghurts a lot. And for traditional firm yoghurts I like a cream top.
Lucky for me yoghurt gets a much larger amount of shelf space around here than back in the USA. Unfortunately it is not active culture, and most of it it is way too sweet for me. This is particularly a problem for the liquid yoghurt (which comes in bags!) which is sickly sweet with out exception - having tried 4 types. The least sweet was chalky and pretty unplesant.
Thankfully the very common Ser brand of traditional yoghurt has enough bite. And comes in a Dulce de Leche flavour, which rocks, and dispite the name is not candy sweet. Most mornings a container of that and a pot of tea is breakfast. Though some mornings I throw in some baguette jam and cheese into the mix.
And that is your Argentine yoghurt update for the day.
Discoveries
12:23:07 MST on Friday May 19 2006 #Today I learned that the local grocery store takes US Dollars - and that Argentines pay using them. I had assumed that dollars where also used only for large transactions - and more frequently to price large transactions.
Also the "Luz" switch in the elevator does not turn off the lights. Rather it turns off and on the lights on the floor you are getting off on.
NSA Spying inside America
09:55:45 MST on Friday May 12 2006 #The NSA knows who you've called. They know where you were - as you were at home. So the government knows when you talked, with whom, and where you were. For the last couple of years. Do they really need to have that information ? Do you really want them to have that information?
The question here is where to draw the line. Because if you don't draw it correctly - well you may never get the chance to redraw.
Once again the government is claiming the laws need not apply to them. This is very disturbing as it is mere law that protects you from the state. Law that gives you a right to a trial by jury - or a trial at all.
The laws were written for a reason. The lines drawn in a place. Now is not the time to back down, to redraw the lines. We've done that a lot recently, even knowing the time to redraw is before the line is crossed - not after. However this time around the line crossed does affect you. And everyone you know. No one is exempt. And no one was told.
The government is not following the law (1). And it is spying on it's citizens. When did that become acceptable?
This is line too far - and the NSA needs to be put back in it's box.
Links:
- Original USA Today story
- The sidebar to that story.
- Boston Herald
- Slashdot on Pen Registers
1: And they know it. They refused to get a FISA court order when asked to, because they didn't think they would get one.
BA Cars
09:07:14 MST on Wednesday May 10 2006 #So the traffic here is crazy. And it's also different. I was looking around and realized what I saw and didn't see. The majority of the vehicles are Renault, Peugeot, and Fiat. A decent number of Fords and Chevys. A scattering of VWs. The trucks and busses are Mercedes Benz with a few Fords thrown in. There are absolutely no Japanese or Korean cars. None. The most common cars are Peugeot 505s and Renault 19s -- largely because all of the cabs are one of the 2 and 1/2 the traffic is cabs around here. And there are a pretty good number of Ford "Ka"s. These are all cars that the Japanese make good competition for. It's rather odd.
BA Things.
15:39:42 MST on Saturday May 6 2006 #- Citibank.
- Cafes are Bars.
- Trees.
- Men riffling through the trash. Way to many men.
- 5 a sec.
- Good clothes.
- The exchange rate devalution was Huge. Was 1:1 with us$ now 3:1.
- Beef and Italian food.
- Bad traffic - but not insane drivers (so far).
- Gates and Guards around the big local banks.
- Good cheap wine and baguettes.
- Late nights - 9pm is the right time for dinner.
BA - On the ground
11:41:59 MST on Wednesday May 3 2006 #I landed at 9:30 this morning, local time, in Buenos Aires. Took about 55 minutes to make it to my new pad. After all the formalities where handled, I did some work (WIFI up, Vonage not up) and went out for lunch. The city is bustling and busy with well dressed people. The neighborhood is busy, and full of shops and restaurants and parks. And lunch was ridiculously cheap and quite good.
I think I'm going to like it here.
Buenos Aires
08:58:39 MST on Tuesday May 2 2006 #Today I'm off for a month to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and very excited about it. I leave Santa Fe at at 1pm and get into BA at 9:20 am tomorrow morning. I've got myself an apartment with wifi booked in Retiro - just north of downtown. And I should be good to go - hopefully work will continue uninterrupted only I'll be in the land of gouchos, soccer and beef :)
This should be a fun change of pace. And it rocks, rocks, rocks that I have a job that lets me do this.
Sphere
21:22:24 MST on Monday May 1 2006 #Sphere, the blog search engine launched tonight. I've been using the beta for a while now and the quality of the results is amazing. Very, very good and very very relevant.
Go try it out - and while you are there go to tools and grab the "sphere it" bookmarklet. When you're reading something interesting click and sphere will show you all the related blog posts. It's fun. Here's the result for a news article I was reading on Colbert at the White House Press dinner.
disclaimer: I did a small contract for sphere, so I'm not a neutral observer