R.I.P. George Carlin, 1937-2008

Shit
Piss
Fuck
Cunt
Cocksucker
Motherfucker
Tits

(He was right, the last one never made any sense).

To the bartender who works Wendesday afternoons at The Max Canada

Go fuck yourself!

Are you retarded?

Do you really think you are too cool for school with your 1991 style grunge haircut, musical selections, and shitty attitude?

Do you really think you are helping yourself (and more importantly the owners of the bar where you 'work') by refusing to accommodate the polite request from the nine of us who were the only patrons present (besides your douchebag buddy) that you turn down the music to a level low enough to allow normal conversation?

Do you really think I wouldn't find out about the sneering and jeering your ugly face expressed after I turned around?

Do you think I was bullshitting you when I said that I really like Sonic Youth (but please turn the stereo down for the nine of us, your only customers, who just want to be able to have a conversation, please, especially since we are the only ones in the bar)? At least I would have the taste not to play the 'Washing Machine' album, dumbass.

Well, no worries. We won't be back.

los gringos jóvenes

It's almost 8 a.m., the hour I was waiting for, to go to the post office. You see, I often wake up early, unable to resume sleep, and it seems that this is doubly so while on vacation here in Mexico.


We plan on going here (and hopefully other places also) today:


Yesterday we went here (among other places; full disclosure- the place revealed in this photo is very close to our hotel...)


(images might be f'd up... Blogger's automated image insertion is taking way too long on this thing... might have to fix em later...)

we´re here

... in D.F. (Mexico City)... Everything is fun and exciting and crazy... I´m on the annoying Hotel computer and I can´t upload any pictures with it and I need to go back to our room... so maybe more later.

we're leaving today!

1. I don't know why I've been so lazy about blogging lately. I guess I was preoccupied with grading final exams and then getting final grades in. Then I was worried about making final plans and preparations for our trip as well as writing an article for a call for papers due June 1st, and (in theory) interpreting at least a little bit because, you know, money doesn't grow on trees.

2. So, today, in about five hours, Holly and I are leaving for Mexico for two weeks, for what should be an excellent vacation.

3. Perhaps, then, as we hit up the many fine "cybercafes" (there must be a better term for them, no?) during our trip, I'll blog some more. Perhaps not.

I thought this was pretty funny...

Thanks to Wired's Gadget Lab blog for bringing this to my attention.

Rock Trivia

We won last night. By six points. I'm told that's "a lot" in Rock Trivia. For real.

Let's cut through all the bullshit re: immigration.

No big surprise here that these are not my own words, but anyway, here is a quote from a recent posting on Alternet. Here is almost but not quite the entire piece:

Enough with the "my ancestors did it the legal way" argument! Of course your grandparents came here legally 50-300 years ago; no real immigration laws existed at that point. Unless you were a criminal or Chinese (re: Chinese Exclusion Act), once you landed in America, you were legally here. Sure, there were ethnic groups in the early 20th century that entered illegally due to the racist immigration quotas against them. So what did the American government do when 1.2 million of these immigrants were found living here illegally? Well, something that would be called amnesty today.

The 12 million that arrived at Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954 mostly stayed put for only 4-5 hours before they were dispersed to other parts of the country. Only 1-2% of immigrants were turned away due to insanity, criminal offense, or medical reasons.

So yes, most of the "grandparents waited in line and came here legally" after some hours, compared to the minimum of 10 years it takes a U.S. citizen today to petition for a married son or daughter (and twice as long if the married son or daughter is from Mexico or the Phillipines). And immigration laws forbid (not), if you petition for your child, grandchild or niece/nephew when s/he is 12 and s/he is well over 21 by the time her/his priority number becomes current, s/he is no longer eligible in the same category!

The strict and rigid immigration game of today cannot be compared to simply boarding a ship and landing in America like most ancestors of U.S. citizens did in the yesteryears. Therefore, please, no more family histories of legal immigration from an era when legal/illegal didn't matter. It is irrelevant and nonsensical.

Amen to that! Or, as Robert Orben put it: "Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian."

That is not to say that there may not be valid debates to be had regarding our immigration policies, but there is no reason to be smug just because you were born in the U.S., and there is no reason to think that your ancestors came here "legally" if such a concept did not exist when they came here.