The Beach of Peter Twister

The End of University Era

2007-09-09T19:45:00.000-04:00

Ok, here's what's been going on last semester:

Internship

On December, since I wasn't getting any internship for the summer, I suscribed for the grade exam on March. However I finally did get an internship at Agrosuper during January and February. I never thought I would ever work in a company that produces something that has wings, it was like a dream made truth. The problem is that I didn't truly studied for the exam.

Grade Exam

Now I had no problem with that: it's not so difficult, and it can only be qualified as aproved, failed, or distinguished, or at least I thought so. A few days before the exam I learned that this exam was actually 20% worth of the final career score, so here is what I planned:

I'd do the exam, and if at the end of the designated time I think I did it fine, I'd present it. Otherwise I wouldn't answer the answer's sheet, I'd fail, I'd do it again on August and no consecuences of a terrible exam on my final score. It was this second option the one that turned out to be, sort of...

Short story: I got aproved with a mediocre score, had to write several letters to the "Director de Docencia" asking to become failed and resign to the result of the given exam. They finally accepted me to do it again, but they created a new regulation: if a student aproves the exam, he can't do it again if he is not pleased with his score. So I did the exam again at the end of July, I'm waiting for the result.

Grade exam study group

The Advanced Finance Topics Issue

My good friend J.A. strongly encouraged me to take Advanced Finance Topics, a very interesting course where I would learn a lot. It was only when I already took it and went to classroom that I discovered that all of my classmates were the very best students of my generation, and I saw how all of the students who were getting worse score than me were quitting. Soon I became the worst student of the class, I refused to quit and had a glorious fail. So this semester I'm having only one course, the last one I need to graduate.

The struggle for the AFT's exam.

Others

I suffered the process of the Proyect Evaluation course, I still don´t quite understand how such an easy proyect ended being so unpleasant; I built a robot for Industrial Robotics course; my group almost went bankrupcy but ended in an incredible success at the International Business Game course; and did "Deportes Remolino" (Twister Sports) for the last time with J.A., who is currently in China.

My invention and me.

The design.

My simulated company's patrimony+dividends' evolution.

What's comming this semester

The fact of not being graduated and still having a course is frustrating my job search, so I decided to do something with my large amount of time: "Deportes Remolino Solo", french and german classes, and sax playing.

My new sax and me.

Unpunished Crime

2006-12-20T20:00:00.000-03:00

OK, I've been busy studying and stuff, but now I'm free (or unnemployed, whatever) and I have lots to write about. I'll start telling something that happend in the middle of November:

It was friday, my sister was celebrating her birthday, and I was at home wanting to do something, so I called Luciano. The only available party that night was at home of an australian friend who lives in Brazil district, a place far away from our homes and from safety.

Luciano: Brazil district? Man, I want to party, but I want to live too.
Twister: Comme on, we have nothing else to do, and it will be an adventure just to get there. Come to my house and we'll go from here, my sister told me that it was OK if ONE friend of my comes to our place for a while.

After about 20 minutes I manage to get out with all of my friends, and Teto, the only car driver that night, decided to go home, and Migo and Nari decided to go back with him.
So, Luciano, Guada, Ratita and I took a bus down street and got out at the intersection of Alameda and Brazil.

Apparently, when Luciano and Guada felt free, they began to run, and then they realized that I wasn't running with them. They went back and found me unconscious on the ground. Once I got conscious, they had to explain me about 5 times what happened, because at the moment not only I couldn't remember anything, I also couldn't retain what I was being told. Fortunately, no permanent damage. The conversation went something like this (as I've been told later):

Luciano: Do you remember your name?

Twister: Yes, I'm... Pedro.

Ratita: So, are we going to the party?

Luciano: Party?! Man, Guada is all injured and the one who knew where the party is has temporary memory loss!

Ratita: Pedro, do you remember where the party is?

Thank You Pinochet, Good Bye

2006-12-13T00:06:00.000-03:00

It was March 6th, the chilean left wing leader Gladys Marín died. The government (of Ricardo Lagos Escobar, left of course) declared 2 days of national mourning, even when she went underground to cooperate with terrorism and divided chileans. But the chilean right respected all of this, considering she was an important figure to many people.

How different things were for general and president Augusto Pinochet, who died this sunday 10 of december of 2006 at 14:15 hours! Since the news were known, the chilean left (wrong) expresed their misrespect by making a spontaneous celebration of thousands of people at Plaza Italia. Not even barbarians (those viewed as the incarnation of uncivilized behavior) celebrated the death of an enemy!

The government of Michelle Bachellet (you guessed, left) refused to declare national mourning of the expresident, and only allowed to honor him as an ex-commander in chief of the army, explaining that Pinochet is someone who divides the chilean people (just like Gladys Marín). She had previously declared that it would do violence on her to declare national mourning on someone who is involved in violations to human rights, perhaps she ignores that it does violence on many of us to have as president someone involved in acts of terrorism.

So, anyway, 60,000 people waited about 6 hours in line to see Pinochet for the last time, and here is the ceremony at the Military School:

The defense minister Vivianne Blanlot, the only lefty on the ceremony, was not welcomed by the crowd (Bachellet refused to assist), the people said "¡que se vaya!", ("go away!"), "¡ministra de defensa, eres una ofensa!" ("defense minister, you are an offense!"), or "Dónde está, no se ve, la guatona Bachellet" ("where is she, we don't see her, the fat Bachellet").
The people shouted all the time phrases in favor of Pinochet, like "chi-chi-chi, le-le-le, viva Chile Pinochet", "¡gracias Pinochet!" ("thank you Pinochet!") or "¡duelo nacional!" (demanding national mourning).
There were many speeches, from his wife Lucía, his grandsons, the present comander in chief of the army, but everone was surprised by a grandson named Augusto Pinochet, captain of the army, who expressed honestly and freely his political views of his grandfather. He'll be probably expelled from the army for thinking differently than the present government (that's right, welcome to the chilean democracy!).
The commander in chief of the army, general Izurieta, did not jeopardized himself, eluding speaking of the great work of Pinochet, probably following orders from Bachellet. The people called him "¡cobarde!" ("coward!") and "¡lacayo!" (kind of servant or slave-of Bachellet of course).
A three volley cannon salute took place. Suddenly, a crowd of journalists entered, unwelcomed by the crowd. Journalists (specially foreigners) are the ones responsibles for Pinochet's bad image: they only told one side of the story, the left (wrong) side. People shouted at them "¡digan la verdad!" ("tell the truth!").

To what level has history been changed? Some people can't even remember what they said or think about the situation:

Can a revolution and a civil war be stopped without blood splitting? Making Pinochet responsible for "the missing" or the deaths of that time is like making Roosvelt responsible for the death of german soldiers during WWII. Gladys may have got 2 days of national mourning, but only Pinochet got the attention of all the world. He received a country in ashes in the edge of civil war, and returned the pacified stable democracy and stable economy that we have today.

Thank you Pinochet, you were our best president! You can rest in peace now, away from the hate of the ideology of hate, you have our gratitude.

Back in Chile

2006-10-08T17:25:00.000-04:00

It´s been some time... well, I've been busy. Here's what's been going on all this time:

Welcome party at my new department in Santiago.

Welcome barbacue in Rancagüa.

Mountain clases.

My german friends Milena and Julia.

We went to Vallecito for some basic training.

Then we climbed the "Cerro La Cruz".

Our mountain teacher, Ernesto Olivares, who has climbed the Everest, the Lotse, and the Kilimanjaro among other mountains, and made an expedition on zones of the Antarctica that no other human beings have ever been into.

The top at last!

Flying with Line (Denmark) and Tiina (Finland).

Spent the national holidays at Pichilemu, at the cabin of my good friend Victor Guadalupe (Guada).

J.A. and Milena explained us their new religion: The Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Milena, what the heck are you doing with Guada!?

Line came to see us with her danish friend Ula.

Drinking chicha. Viva Chile mieurdau!

Vero (United States) really wanted to learn to dance "cueca". No estar borrachous!

Julia became the garbage-eater-green-goblin.

Me, after a shot of pisco.

Teto, just being himself.

Good Vibrations!

Milena taught us the deadly art of Mortal Kombat.

Hipólito Guadalupe placed the firs rock of this house shouting "esta es una casa descente!" ("this is a descent house").

Europe In 21 Days

2006-08-03T18:24:00.000-04:00

It has been some time, it took me nearly 2 weeks just to upload about 200 pictures. Finally, here it is, the mega-post-of-the-bloody-death.
Here is the story of the trip I made in July, making use of a train ticket that allowed me to travel in Europe freely for 21 days.

I got out of the Netherlands on July 8th in the morning torwards Köln (Cologne), and the first thing I noticed wasthe huge Cathedral.

Then, I found some curius statues on the "Hohenzollernbrücke" (a bridge next to the central station), and began to walk by the "Frankenwerft", in the west coast of the Rhein.
Suddenly, some kind of bar-cycle appeared in front of me:

After a afternoon walking around Köln, I headed to Braunschweig to meet Max, and watch the Germany vs Portugal match with his brother, his girlfriend, and the girlfriend of his brother.

Victory for Germany!

After that, Max took me out to celebrate in the streets, and showed me some of the city, like the cathedral and th castle of the Lord of Braunschweig.

Hello ladies!

Yeap, I like Germany.

The next day, the Football World Cup Final took place in Berlin, so I went there, were Mario, a friend I meet in Edinburgh waswaiting for me. Chamulón failed to arrive at the station that day, so I didn´t see him in the whole trip.

Michael Jordan´s trainers.

We went to a show in front of the Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburger Tor) where the German team thanked the public for their support:

After that, Mario showed me the city:

The Holocaust memorial.

The last remaining piece of Berlin´s wall.

The Reichstagsgebäude (Parliament Building).

Government Building.

More of the Reichstag.

House of the Cultures of the World.

Bellevue Palace.

The developers of the "Cañonero" american truck decided to make a car!

Siegessäule, or Victory Column.

A small break with some of Mario's friends.

Charlottenburg Palace.

We were going to watch the final outside with the crowd, but there was no splace to sit down, and we were tired for all that walking, so we end up watching it at Marios' friends' place.

The next morning, I went with Mario and his friends to Leipzig, and again he showed me the city.

The Justice Palace.

The church where Johann Sebastian Bach learned to play the organ.

There used to be a beutiful old cathedral in the place of that ugly silver building, but the commies said "we don't need religion", so they destroyed it. Some people managed to save some sculptures showed in the picture below.

Some europeans are shameless!

Faust in the Mädler Passage.

A break at the top of the City-Hochhaus building, to enjoy the view:

The Völkerschlachtdenkmal (Monument of the Battle of the Nations), that commemorates Napoleon's defeat at Leipzig.

That night I took a train to Munich:

Another Justice Palace.

The Frauenkirche (Cathedral of our Blessed Lady).

The New Town Hall.

The Old Town Hall.

Isar River.

Maximilianeum home of the Bavarian Parliament.

Friedensengel.

The Englischer Garten.

Staatskanzlei.

A monument for the fallen soldiers of WWI.

The Hofgarten.

The Residenz.

The Theatinerkirche.

I bought an autenthic bavarian hat.

The Hofbräuhaus am Platzl beer hall.

Geneve, Switzerland:

Zurich:

After a (hole) day in Switzerland, I took a night train to Paris, and headed torwards the Louvre Museum:

The Louvre's main entrance. It's forbidden to take pictures of many things, specially the paintings.

The Louvre MPalace was built over the medieval foundations of The Castle of the Louvre.

Le Grand Palais.

Le Hotel des Invalités.

École Militaire.

Champs de Mars.

Palais de Chaillot.

Yes, you guessed, La Tour Eiffel.

That night I met Peter and his girlfriend, both from Serbia.

14 July, Bastille Day!:

Le Arc de Triomphe.

Jacques Chirac.

Notre Dame Cathedral.

Charlemagne.

The Chateau de Versailles.

After Paris and Versailles, I decided to go to the Normandy coast, so I arrived at Caen in the night, where these guys showed me the fireworks that took place that night.

Caen's WWII memorial.

Then, I went to Cherbourg, where I took a bath in the northern sea.

Later that day, I went to Bruxelles, where I found a carnival:

The Palais Royal, and the Place Royale.

Brussels' Town Hall. The architect killed himself jumping from the tower when he found out he made it asymmetric.

I was about to take the following picture of the Manneken Pis, when a strange guy came along, trying to be friendly, he made some soccer-kind-of-trick and hugged me. When we went away, I took the picture, and when I put the camera back into my bag I realised my wallet was missing. It was sort of comic when I tryed to explain an almost-don't-speaking-english-cop that I needed to block a credic card urgently. So I decided It was time to go back to Delft for some rest.

Once I was recovered, I headed torwards Italy. I took this picture in the way, in Salzburg, Austria:

Finally, after 24 hours in the train, I arrived at Venice:

Piazza San Marco.

From there, I took a night train (where I met 2 very nice argentinian girls) to get to Caserta, where Giovanni lives. He was taking an exam, so his father picked me up. His famili was so nice with me! His brother speaked spanish, and he made me a tour in a ducati motorcycle, it was awsome!

The Great Palace of Caserta.

After the tour, and some great pasta, I went to Naples, where I met Roberto and Salvatore.

Hi guys!!

The view... it's like a paradise on earth.

The big island on the back is Ischia, home of Salvatore.

Castel Nuovo.

Here the guys invited me a baba, a delicious napolitan biscuit. Just then, we met Giovanni.

The Castel dell'Ovo. I wanted a picture of us all, but the guys kept telling me "no way man, you can´t give your camera to anyone else". Roberto took the picture, How did we this? Magic.

Roberto had to go, but Giova and Salvatore invited me a true napolitan pizza, la vera pizza: Pizza Margherita, composed by mozzarella chesse, pomodoro (tomato) and basil, representing the red, white and green of the italian flag. Impossible to find it anywhere else, the rests of the pizzas are imitations.

Thank you guys for everything!!

After spending the night in Giova's home, I headed to Rome.

The Colosseo.

Arco di Costantino.

La Piazza Venezia.

The Pantheon.

Piazza Navonna.

Castel S. Angelo.

Piazza S. Pietro, Cittá del Vaticano.

Palazzo di Giustizia.

Piazza del Popolo.

I had to arrange some things regarding the ending of my staying at Delft in some days, so after Rome, my trip was a kind of race.

Firenze:

Pisa:

Monaco:

Nice (I almost witnessed a murder in this place):

Once all my businesses were finished, I still had time to visit a couple of nearby cities.

Hamburg:

Hannover:

Well, that was Europe, that was my trip. It was great while it lasted. ]Next target: The United States of America.

Simpsons go bizarre

2006-07-07T08:13:00.000-04:00

I've already been in Germany, Switzerland, France and Belgium. I've been unable to meet Chamulon, and my wallet was robbed yesterday in Brussels. I'm now in Delft and I can't tell for sure where am I going to go next. I'll publish the whole travel later, in the mid time watch this:

Simpson intro

Real Simpsons

Parody

Bender

X-men vs Simpsons

Homer vs Magneto

Homer vs Storm

Bart vs Wolverine

A Time To Say Good Bye

2006-07-03T08:03:00.000-04:00

On Thursday 29, a goodbye-barbecue took place, since many people was going back to their home countries on Friday. Among them were Max and Roberto; Lars also leaved, but on Sunday.

Delft's Park, where the barbecue took place.

Few of us undestands why the dutch beer (we like to call it "driver beer") has german-like names ("Bavaria").

Jesus Christ Max, Lars! What are you doing with that beer!?

Oh, it's Lars' belt-beer-opener.

ALL NIGHT LONG! Bye Lars! Have a good return on Norway!

Don't get scared, it's just a camera!

No more beer for us, man.

Get the perfect smile with Pepsodent.

Bye Max! See you in Germany!

I found my french "tocayo": Pierre (on the right).

Bye Roberto! See you in Napoli! Good bye hot chick, see you in heaven!

The World Cup 2006 Eighth Finals, Here in Delft

2006-06-28T10:43:00.000-04:00

The lasts days I've done almost nothing but studying and watching the world cup in the sports center of TUDelft.

Sweden vs Germany:

Sweden 0; Germany 2.

Portugal vs Nehterlands:

Portugal 1; Netherlands 0.

Australia vs Italy:

Italy 1; Australia 0.

Salvatore went back to Italy.

Bye Salvatore, tell me if you ever go to Chile!

What the hell... it's Che Guevara!

Spain vs France:

Spain 1; France 3.

During the Sweden vs Germany match, we laughed so much with this:

The best red card ever

During the half time break, the Veronica (lingerie) dutch channel shows "Hotshots", some kind of female world cup:

Sexy soccer

Damnit, you'll have to watch it here.

Unfortunately, this is the only example I could find other than the trailer above:

Sexy soccer

A Brief History of the United States of America

2006-06-17T07:13:00.000-04:00

If you can't watch this, click here.

I don't agree with everything on this video, but I do think that this theory of fear is an interesting idea about US' society.

Max's Birthday Party

2006-06-07T05:03:00.000-04:00

Monday 5 of June was Max's birthday, which he decided to celebrate the day before. I didn't wanted to post about this until I got some very good pictures from Lars' professional high speed camera.

Happy Birthday Max!

Hi Danielle

I'm the Green Goblin!

Suddenly, Max decided to appeal to everyone to participate in a Rockwurst competition. What is a Rockwurst? It's a german device that allows/force the drinker to drink all the beer of a bottle very quickly. How does it work? It fits in the opening of a bottle of beer, and it has an aditional tube that allows air to get freely into the upper side of the inverted bottle, allowing the atmospheric pressure to push the beer downwards.

Here is Johan (Sweden) before his first try:

Here is Johan after his first try:
What happened in between can't be shown, in the name of Johan's honor.

Here is the absolute winner: Max. But to be fair, he is german, I bet his mother fed him with beer instead of milk.

Giovanni got the second place:

I got one place before the last one:

Then, the side effects came along:

The Movies Conspiracy

2006-06-06T07:10:00.000-04:00

When I registered at the Delft City Hall, I got a couple of tickets for the "Filmhuis Lumen", so on Saturday I went to the cinema with Max and Lars to watch Syriana.

I found it entertaining, it's about a conspiracy around the oil industry. However, like in 99% of the movies that are inspired in real facts, the director (or producer, or anyone with power over the film making) tries to "prove" his point, show the world the way he sees it, or imprint the story with his personal opinion. In order to achieve this, these movies are rich in half-trues, fact twistings, and lies.

Here are some of the lies this movie uses to criticize the US government and the US oil industry:

In the movie: The CIA uses islamic terrorist to make attacks on chinese oil refineries, to make sure that the US gets all of the oil and China gets nothing.

Reality: Almost all of the terrorist objectives are US.

In the movie: Prince Nasir Al-Subaai, next in the line to become Emir of a country in the Persian Gulf, wants to reform his country: give rigths to women, modernize his country, sell oil to China and therefore assure prosperity to his people; but he sais that by doing this, he'll become a "bad guy" to the eyes of occident: he'll be called communist, suffer embargos, etc.

Reality: The Kings of the arabic gulf are criticized for exaclty the opposite: living in ridiculous wealth and maintaining their people in misserable poverty and life conditions. Instead of being pushed and influenced, they have a big influences in US presidents and politics, because they have a huge power over the world's economy.

Here are some ways movies have being used to influence people:

War movies and espionage: The idea is very similar to the gladiator shows in the Roman Empire: to prepare the stomachs of the population for brutalities of war, and make it popular in order to prevent a lack of volunteers, by glorifying violence (e.g. Saving Private Ryan). An extreme case may be the spy movies (e.g. James Bond): poeple associate a glamorous life with spies, instead they must spend years of silent infiltration, only to be caught, tortured, mutilated and killed. However, sometimes the purpose is to protest against war, and the movies show only bad aspects of the war (e.g. The Thin Red Line, most of Vietnam war movies). I think it was Stanley Kubrick who said something like: "war movies shouldn't be about the good or the bad things of war, but about the good and the bad".

Cold War movies: They confront US and russians, generally in sports or any sort of competition: the goodies win and the baddies lose. The goodies are from the country where the movie is produced, and the baddies are from the other country (Rocky).

There are many more. I'll just recall one more particular example:

U-571: This movie shows the heroism of the american sailors who captured the Enigma encoding german machine of the U-571 german submarine. It is a true story, except for one detail: these sailors were not american, they were british.

ACTUALIZATION:

I've just remembered one of the saddest examples of this theory: Andres Wood's "Machuca". I have to say that I've refused to watch this movie, but I have listened to people: " bla bla,... this must never happen again, buuu, buuu...". I heard that in one scene a soldier stands in front of a child who looks communist, and then he fills him with bullets from his machine gun... WHEN THE HELL DID SOMETHING LIKE THIS EVER HAPPENED???!!! Andres Wood recognized himself that "this is not the official history of anything", but people just keep ascociating this movie financed by our left government with reality. This movie is just a lie, communist propaganda.

I can hardly tolerate communist idealists idiots!

2006-05-29T19:55:00.000-04:00

At TUDelft, numerous lectures about diverse subjects take place, and are open to anyone who wants. Some of them are in english, so I took a look at them, and this one called my attention:

From the uper introduction, I was expecting an impartial analysis of the remainings of the hazardous influence of neo-marxism around te world in general, and in south america in particular, by Dr Eric B. Ross.

Instead, I found a Marx lover. Dr. Communist took an hour and a half to kiss Marxs' ass. He had read the complete written work of Karl Marx, he was absolutely indoctrinated.

Before I write about the things he said, I want to emphasize that this man is a doctor in anthropology, is the kind of communist that has a good education, hence I assume he belongs to the group of "the intelligent communists". In the following lines, I'll try to describe some of the "arguments" I can still remember that he used to criticize capitalism: (This is not literally what he said, just the ideas I can remember)

* Capitalism is constantly changing without control or direction. Communism attempted to give direction to human kind.

That is because history is the result of the actions of all individual humans, who are free. This attempt to give direction to human kind is nothing but an attempt to take control over the world, not very different of Hitler's dream.

* Around the world, the land production in the underdeveloped world has changed from food to things that can be selled to the developed world, like flowers that must be so perfect that they no longer seem natural. In Uruguay, food production has been switched to production of pig's food to sell to the Netherlands... yes, think about that the next time you eat pig's meet.

The world's food production capability is much greater (I think 4 times the F.R.) than the food requirements, and humans have other necesities rather than just food. What's wrong if there are people willing to pay for perfect flowers? Does this guy want a law against perfect flowers? He is just a control freak who can't let people live their lifes the way they want. About Uruguay's production, nobody forced the uruguaian people to sell pig's food, if they did it's obviously more convenient to sell pig's food, and with the money they get they can get not only food, but also clothing, housing, health, education, etc.

* If you analyse the aid given to the underdeveloped world by the International Monetary Fund and the InterAmerican Development Bank, the money does not go to feed the poor people, but rather to finance businesses.

Give a man a fish and he'll eat that day; teach him to fish (and give him money to buy a cane) and he'll eat every day; more over, he'll sell fish, expand the business, give job to other people, etc. I thought this was pretty obvious for someone with a PhD. I guess I was wrong.

* Revolutions are peacefull in essence: the violence in the russian revolution was caused due to the destruction of Russia by the capitalists nations during the world wars.

Oh, yeah? try to convince the Romanov about that. Oh, wait. All communist revolutions are violent, or do you think you can go to a business owner and tell him "Would you like to give away the work of your whole life to the people, so you won't have anywhere to live in or from?" Do you think he is going to answer "OK, it'll be good for the cause"? The only means to achieve communism are theft and, if necessary, murder.

I wanted so bad to take the word and say something, but I knew that I would probably make a mess. Not being happy with this, latter I got the idea to write him an e-mail. Since it would take me too long to refute all what he said, and since I know that indoctrinated communists don't listen to logic or reason, I tried to appeal to his emotions:

"Dear dr Ross:

I attended the lecture you offered on Speakers this monday about Karl Marx. I must confess, I was expecting another kind of lecure: an impartial analysis about Neo-Marxism in today's world. However, I think I still have some valuable points of view to offer given my condition, which I'll explain init's moment.

I'm very sorry I didn't talk about this on Speakers, but I was afraid that, inthe middle of my passion, I would say something inconvenient. Again, I justwant to offer my point of view.

I must say I disagree with you about almost everything you said on your speech, I think you got wrong conclussions from distortioned facts, for example, when blaming capitalism for the lack of jobs of color people in the US: I think racism is not intrinsic to an economic system (except in the caseof fascism and nazism), it depends on the attitude of each person. I could discuss for hours every detail of your speech, but I think I have a much more important issue to offer.

At some point of your speech (and forgive me if I'm inaccurate) you talked about how someone was talking to Marx about economic facts and figures, and he answered "look at the people, get to the ground". As far as I could learn, you have lived in the United States, studied Marx work, analysed facts through the world that support you critic of the capitalist system and, correct me if I'm wrong, never lived a revolution? maybe never lived in a communist country? So I think I can "flesh things up" a little bit.

I'm a citizen of the Republic of Chile, (as you probably know) my country has suffered, and is still suffering some of the consequences of a communist government that took place between 1970 and 1973 and that tried to drag the country to a communist constitution through a revolution. I must say, it was not a "utopia", and it was not peaceful. The families of both my father and my mother lost almost everything they had, the result of the work of not just decades but generations, from one day to another, and they were lucky they didn't got murdered in the process. To make my point clear, I will now describe four stages in the chilean economic system that took place from the 60's to the present time:

1.- The 60's: In this period, Chile was mainly an agricultural country, with asocial structure that was very similar to the middle ages: land owners that provided the workers not only work, but also food, housing, sometimes even education for their children, and the promise of assured work for him and his children once they became adults. It was not fair if you ask me: the one who was borned poor died poor, and who was borned rich died rich, but ironically the result was very similar to your utopia: most of the production was food, everyone received what they need, we lived in peace and harmony, and a verystrong feeling that joined us all: we were proud of being chileans.

2.- 1970-1973: In 1970, a communist president was elected with a little bitmore than one third of the votes: Salvador Allende. Communist propaganda and an agricultural reform had took place in the previous years. The communist and socialist partys wanted to change the situation described in the previous paragraph, and started to expropiate the lands of the landowners to split them and give them to the workers. As this process began to take place, many workers began to lose patience and take the situation in their own hands: they took control of farms, made "courts of the people" to judje the landowners, and asked them to leave their home and their lands; if they refused, they offen burned his house with him and his family inside. My parents saw their friends of their childhoods now willing to murder the people who took care of them. The workers didn't know to manage farms, thus, the production of food decreased (a lot); the (communist) government freezed the prices and artificially raised the salaries, so suddenly there was almost no food (or anything, like toilet paper) available, the scarce available food was reserved for the members of the communist party. The government also began to associate with terrorists, Cuba and Russia, and began to bring weapons from this countries to supply the terrorists. There was violence on the streets: armed gangs of red helmets cutting the heads of the peatons, many important authorities were murdered (including the army's commander in chief); the civil population was claiming the army for intervention, the country was divided andon the edge of a civil war. Finally, the congress declared the government inconstitutional, thus general Pinochel proceed with his duty and took control with a state strike.

3.-1974-1989: General Pinochet declared a state of siege, and finished with the communist insurrection. There were violations to the terrorist's human rights. You may found easy to criticize this situation, but from the local point of view there were not many choices: the destiny of 9 millions of chileans were at stakes. He soon realized of the convenience of the capitalist system and in 1980 the chilean people aproved the new proposed constitution. The country took a huge step: the economy grew, the unnemployment was insignificant, the country modernized, there were opportunities: for the first time in Chile people who were borned poor could become rich. At the end of this period, Pinochet offered the chilean people to give away his power and return to democracy, and the people accepted. Pinochet received a country in ruins and violence, and returned one rebuilt, peaceful and prosperous.

4.-1990-2006: From then until now, we've been living in a relavitely prosperous democracy, but the working class has been continously indoctrinated: the professors of the public schools are all communist, like artist and actors. Therefore communism is still in people's mind, and people have been electing presidents that are more and more from the left, who have done nothing but stop the economic development and the erradication of poverty and unnemployment by increasing taxes and regulations. The wounds of the past prevail, people still does't trust capitalism; unlike the US, if someone succeeds, he is seen with eyes of untrust and hate.

I fear that in the next decade caos will arrise again in Chile. Communist revolutions cannot be peacefull, because they're based on an ideology of hate against anyone who has more than the rest, and nothing good comes out of hate. Communism promotes robbery and murder. It also tries to put absolute control of a country under the hands of one man, enslaving the population."

I soon got an answer that was encoded in a system communists use to distortion the truth and said their terrible ideas with pretty words, so I decided to use my experience in talking with commies to write a translation, of each sentence, in square parenthesis:

"I won't reply to your many points [I can't refute the logic of your main ideas, so I'll concentrate on stupid details]. But, I have visited various "communist" countries; all of them have achieved notable things in the face of great odds, but, as in the case of Cuba, never had the opportunity to realize their full potential [I have seen many communists countries that were succesfull on being communists, but I'll be damned If I had to live like those lost souls, so I've lived in capitalists countries, were I can earn more money and live like a human being]. Chile, however, was not even such a country. It didn't have a revolution. Allende was a socalist --not a communist-- who was freely elected [I don't understand the way democracy works; I think a president is an elected king; I don't know about the executive, legislative and judicial branches; I don't know that the president must respect the law and the constitution, therefore I can't understand why you talk about a revolution if Allende was already president]. But, we know that, even before those elections, the U.S. was already plotting to subvert his government, should he eventually be elected [If anything bad happened, it was fault of the evil capitalist USA]. Chile, at the time, was obviously far more advanced that most of its South American neighbors, but there was great inequality and poverty; and Allende did begin to remedy this [Someone told me this lie, and I'm too stupid/lazy to understand/read your e-mail or learn about the truth about chilean history]. I was nearby, in Peru, when Pinochet bombed La Moneda and Allende was killed and a fascist government was installed [I know better than you because I saw the bombing of La Moneda on television; some guy told me that Pinochet was the bad guy]. And it's shameful that, years later, you should condone that [You are a bad person because you haven't been indoctrinated and don't think like me]. Whatever else you may think, Allende stood for the interests and aspirations of the most deserving majority of Chile's people [I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, because I don't know that Allende was elected with a little more than one third of the votes, even when you told me so]."

This guy is amazing: he is trying to teach me about my own country, about things that he know nothing about. I don't know if I want to laugh or cry, I feel insulted. That's why I wrote him again:

"Well, since you are trying to teach me about my own country, I will take the time to reply to your points.

1.-OK, so some communist countries have achieved a good health system and education for free, but are their populations happy? What if a cuban has a dream, let's say, he wants to be an aviator? The central govermnet will probably say to him "sorry, you'll be a taxi driver" and give him no chance to try to achieve what he wants. These people can hardly be happy because they have no freedom. Otherwise, how do you explain the hordes of cubans who are willing to cross an ocean infested of sharks in a bathtub, while the developed capitalistic countries receive wave after wave of immigrants?

2.-Chile DID have a revolution, my parents lived it, I thought the point was clear, but I'll have to explain it. The socialists and the communists were allied, and they were both willing to achieve power through violence; Allende received weapons from Fidel Castro, and tried to completely destroy private property by expropiating everything that was private. Allende was freely elected... with a 36.2% of the votes. Once he got in power, he began to give weapons to left groups to begin a civil war and destroy the constitution. If you don't think that is a revolution (communist or not), then I don't know what your idea of revolution is.

3.-The US contribution to the chilean crisis is insignificant compared to what was made by Allende and his followers: the former was limited to support atruck drivers strike.

4.-Allende achived nothing when trying to erradicate poverty, rather, he transformed almost everyone into poor people. It was Pinochet who made this possible.

5.-Allende was not killed, he killed himself. The communists said he was murdered by Pinochet to discredit him, but now even them recognize that he committited suicide.

6.-Pinochet was not fascist: he didn't persecute people of a certain race, religion, or even the way they think (proof of that is that during his government you could see in Chile communist magazines), rather, he persecuted people who were trying to begin an armed revolution, who committed terrorist attacks and assasination.

7.-Allende stood for the interests and aspirations... of 36.2% of the chilean people. You clearly never saw the protests of the women with their cooking pots for food to feed their children."

To what he answered:

"Please. I really don't want to get involved in a debate with you."

Translation: [I answered to your first e-mail because I thought I could win a debate against you, now that I realize how much your arguments rule and how much I suck, I'll pretend that I don't want to get involved in a debate with you; your efforts were in vain because we, communists, don't listen to the voice of reason and logic].

If this is how smart are the "smart communists", imagin how stupid are the average ones... . I don't feel very comfortable speaking so bad about a person who doesn't have a public life, but this man was asking for it by talking with no caution about things he knew nothing about. Some communist chilean expelled from Chile tells this kind of "citizens of the developed world" that Allende was the good guy, Pinochet the bad guy, and they think they know it all. They know nothing, they make me sick!

Tolstoi's War and Peace

2006-05-22T09:09:00.000-04:00

Following JA The Observer's advice, when I came to the Netherlands I brought with me Tolstoi's War and Peace, which I finished before my trip to the UK.

The book is great, although Tolstoi continuously presents his theory about history and it's great characters. This theory is in part true, but it's exasperating how much does he pauses the plot and insists in this, one time after another, specially at the epilogue, when there's more theory than story.

Take that out and the book is great. The plot follows three fictitious russian families: the Rostov, the Bolkonski and the Bezujov through the napoleonic wars (from 1805 to 1815).

This book touches the subjects of death, love, the search of goals through life and it's meaning, life's disappointments, the truth about eroism in war, combat leadership, practice and theory, and administrative responsability.

The combination between fiction and reality is very well accomplished, since fictitious characters participate in historic events but don't influence them. In this way is very easy for the reader to distinguish fiction from reality.

The autor also provides historic introductions at the begining of some chapters, which helps the reader to understand in a better way the background of the plot and also allows him to learn history.

This book earned the Twister's Choice for best book of the (19th) century.

Roberto's Birthday and Scarface

2006-05-15T12:25:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was an important day: it was mother's day, Roberto's Birthday, and the Grand Prix took place in Barcelona. So we decided to have launch together, offered by Giovanni and Salvatore. Lars, Max, and of course Roberto also came to our place.

Salvatore and Giovanni cooked some delicious "sea fruits" with pasta, salad and some fish. We had also south-african, italian, and chilean wine. Then, for dessert we had capuccino icecream and cake. Unfortunately for Giovanni, Schumacher arrived on second after Alonso this time.

After the race, we celebrated Roberto with "espumosa".

After everyone was gone, in the afternoon, Giovanni invited me to watch Scarface (which I had never seen before) in his room (dvd's and videogames can be realy cheap in the Netherlands). So I brought my leather couch to Giovanni's room; we kind of looked like this:

The movie was great. Here there are some memorable lines, and some images:

"This is paradise, I'm tellin' ya. This town like a great big pussy jus' waitin' to get fucked." (Tony to Manny)

"In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the woman." (Tony to Manny)

"You tell your guy in Miami -- your friend -- I kill a Communist for fun, but for a greencard I'm gonna carve'm up real nice" (Tony to Manny)

"I neva fucked anybody over in my life, who didn't have it comin' to 'im, you got that? All I have in this world is my balls, and my word, and I don't break 'em for no one, jou understand?" (Tony to Sosa)

"Orders? You giving me orders? Amigo, the only thing in this world that gives orders is balls. Balls. You got that?" (Tony to Frank)

"Every dog has his day, huh, Mel?"

"Whattaya lookin' at? You're all a bunch of fucking assholes. You know why? 'Cause you don't have the guts to be what you wanna be. You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fucking fingers, and say "that's the bad guy." So, what dat make you? Good? You're not good; you just know how to hide. Howda lie. Me, I don't have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth--even when I lie. So say goodnight to the bad guy. Come on; the last time you gonna see a bad guy like this, let me tell ya. Come on, make way for the bad guy. There's a bad guy comin' through; you better get outta his way!"

Say hello to my little friend!

How jou like that, eh!

Man! After that, I seriously considered to buy the latest version of "Grand Theft Auto". Seriously.

U.K. Tour and Koninginnedag

2006-05-08T05:37:00.000-04:00

I must warn you: lots of things happened, so this is an extremely large post. There are also lots of photos that look like shit because of unavoidable negative light conditions.

First of all, a couple of images that shows the reunions we usually have around the F1 racing and italian dinners.

Giovanni, Lars, Camilla and Max.

Watching the San Marino race in Max's. Try to guess which is Giovanni's favorite team.

Parting in the Netherlands:

Koninginnenacht:

The night before the Koninginnedag, a celebration known as the Koninginnenacht (this time, April 28) takes place. My friends and I decided to go to Den Haag. They went by train, but it's so close that I decided to go by bicycle.

I was expecting some party in a particular place, but I found people and party everywere in the city. Only then I could visualize how heavily populated is this country.

It took some time, but we finally meet with Giovanni and Salvatore.

There were some awesome babes, unfortunately, I couldn't get better images.

Koninginnedag, Amsterdam:

Since April 30 was sunday, this year the Koninginnedag was celebrated on April 29. We decided to go by train to Amsterdam (where all the dutchs go on this day), but since I had to prepare my bag for a longer trip, I arrived late to the station, where Giovanni and Roberto decided to wait for me. I packed clothing for seven days, my camera, cheap food (pasta, ham sanwiches, coke, milk, bread and jam) and personal hygiene tooling.

A nice view on the way.

The train was realy crowded with orange people. I learned later that in this day, nobody pays the train ticket, because it's impossible for the ticket checker to walk through the wagons with all those people.

Once we were there, Giova and Roberto began to look for something orange to buy and wear:

I suggested to go to the Museumplein (you can check it on the map) because it's a great place to sit and stay, and a perfect place for a concert. I was right.

Wow, check out that babe! Later in this place, I got separated from Giove and Roberto: they had to go back to Delft, and I had to stay (I had tickets for the UK and Warsaw).
Instead of the very nice, quiet dutchs, who wouldn't kill an ant, that I was used to see until now, here I found a crowd of crazy perverts with crazy orange hats, it was really cool.
On the celebration of the national holidays, I would expect traditional food, music, dance and clothing. Instead, the dutchs wear orange cow-boy hats and dance with tecno-music.

Fedde and me.

A couple of dutch guys (Fedde and Kees) invited me a beer, and offered me an alcoholic conversation, which I accepted. They explained me that since germans and french refuse to learn english, the dutchs are forced to learn english, german and french. Fedde speaks also latin and greek, that is a total of 6 languages (in school, he is not studing to be a translator). Many other dutchs friends joined the conversation later.

Since there was no place in any hostel, I had to sleep in the Vondelpark. My dutch friends told me that I would usually got arrested if I was caught by the police, but because there would be so much drunks drifting around this night, I had nothing to fear. The night was a little cold, but I was prepared for that, I brought with me lots of clothings.

The next day there were still events, but no crazy parties anymore.
I saw this really cool game, (10 euros the ride) similar to bungy jumping. The participants gets microphones, so everybody can hear their screams.
I can still hear the screams of a couple of dutch girls, whom you can see in the picture below, after their ride, haha.
Later, I went to the mall, where they were giving away orange candys for free. In the evening, I went to the Shiphol airport, which ended being a great place to sleep: it was warm, and it was possible to lay down across the seats. The next morning (monday, may 1st) I was ready to go.

Girls Conclusions:

Dutch Girls are very beautyfull. I think the average is 4 stars (see The Tucker Max Female Rating System).

The United Kingdom:

Edinburgh, Scotland:

When I got out of the plane, my watch ran out of battery, so I depended from my mobile phone, which was also running out of battery, which was a problem because the U.K. has a different king of electric fit. Edimburg is really cool: lots of castles and tradition. Everithing on this city yells "this is scotland, we are proud of being scotish".

East Princes Gardens.

National Gallery of Scotland, entrance free.

Edinburgh Castle.

I entered this place and bought a scarf as a souvenir. The traditional clothing is very expensive: the skirts cost at least 50 punds (1 euro = 0,7 punds). The weather was great.

I left my luggage in a hostel called Calledonian Backpackers, close to this church. I thought The Netherlands was an expensive country, but the U.K. is even more expensive.

Edinburgh Castle.

View from Edinburgh Castle.

Castlehill Lawnmarket

Scotish music next to St Giles Cathedral.

The Palace of Holyroodhouse.

College of Edinburgh.

My souvenirs: a key ring and a scarf.

In the evening I made a lots of german friends in the hostel: they invited me to drink vodka with orange juice and play "UNO".

Girls Conclusions:

Here, the girls are not so tall as dutch ones, and tend to be less thin, however, they are very nice in personality. Instead of being blue eyed blonds as the dutchs, the scotish girls are browned haired and eyed. I give the average scotish girl 3 stars (see The Tucker Max Female Rating System).

Belfast, Northern Ireland:

The day I arrived Belfast (May 2nd) it was raining really bad. I think I had never seen so much water falling from the sky in such asmall period of time. Thus, I couldn't take any pictures. I made friends with an australian, a japanese, and three US'. The australian taught me how to sucsesfully use the U.K. electric fit to recharge my mobile phone and my camera.

There wasn't much to see in Belfast, even the souvenirs sucked. However, the hostel was very cheap.

The City Hall.

The clock Tower.

Girls Conclusions:

In Belfast, the girls I saw were, in average, fatter than scotish girls, though there were notable excemptions. Sometimes they are red haired, but this girls are still not common. I give the average girl 2 stars ( see The Tucker Max Female Rating System).

London, England:

London is amazing, there is so much to see that, fearing that Warsaw could potentially be as boring as Belfast, I decided to sacrifice my flight to Poland in order to stay more time in London.

Deciding what to do in St James's Park.

Westminster Abbey.

Protest in front of the Parliament.

London Eye.

Right after I took the picture above, I was waiting for the green light to cross the Westminster Bridge, when a motorized cop stopped at the crossing, I didn't undersand why. When the light turned green, I stepped forward and the cop yelled me a "Hey", so I stepped backards and, confused, saw Tony Blair passing through in his car.

I did what I could to get a good picture of the Houses of Parliament.

The englished liked me so much that they decided to create a meal after me!

The Imperial War Museum.

Southwark Cathedral.

Tower Bridge and the HMS Belfast.

Tower Bridge.

Tower of London.

I walked the whole afternoon with my 15 kg bag on my back to see the Tower Bridge, so at the end it was late, and I was very far from any park. In London the weather was so warm that I had decided to sleep in St James's Park, where it's allowed to.

Swiss RE Tower.

St Paul's Cathedral.

Royal Courts of Justice.

Statue of Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding, responsible for the British victory in the Battle of Britain, WWII.

Finally, I made it to the park, and slept much better than in the park in Amsterdam, since it was not very cold. The next morning I decided to take pictures of the places I failed to because of negative light conditions, and go to a couple of museums. London has some of the bests museums in the worls, and they are for free!

Old Admiralty and the Horse Guards Parade.

Guards Memorial. The U.K. has 5 Foot Guards regiments: Grenadiers, Coldstreams, Scots, Irish and Welsh.

The Buckingham Palace.

Admiralty Arch.

Trafalgar Square. Unfortunately, Nelson's Column was under maitnenance.

Horse Guards.

Houses of the Parliament.

Then, I entered the Imperial War Museum, wich was amazing. If I had more time, I could had spent a hole day in there.

Interiors of a submarine replica.

The trench experience of WWI:

Later, I walked a lot again, to see the British Museum:

The age of enlightment.

Rosette Stone.

The museum's central court.

After that, I walked even more torwards the Marble Arch and the Hyde Park, which is huge, more than 2 square kilometers:

Italian Gardens.

Kensington Palace.

South Flower Walk.

There are lots of squirrels in this place.

Albert Memorial (front) and Royal Albert Hall (back).

Wellington Arch.

WWI memorial.

Since the Hyde Park is closed at 20:45 hrs, I had to go back to St James's Park. The next morning I was resting from all the walking next to the park's lake, when I heared some military march and a crowd following some red uniforms: it was the ceremony of Changing the Guard of the Buckingham Palace, which takes place at 11:30am.

After the military marchs, the band played some themes from the Beatles, like "Yesterday" and "Michelle".

I coudn't leave without souvenirs. I bought the metal soldiers in Trafalgar Square at 5 pounds each. Then I went to the Luton Airport to spend the night and catch my flight at 4:00am.

Girls Conclusions:

The average english girl is very nice (personality), but is not very beautifull at all. However, it's common to se concentrations of very beautifull girls (4 stars) once in a while, because it's a big city with a lot of people. I give the average english girl 1 star (see The Tucker Max Female Rating System).

At the end, of the seven nights I spent in the trip, I spent 2 at hostels, 2 at airports and 3 at parks. The night that I didn't spend at hostels, I tried to sleep 8 hours, but I only succesfully slept 4 hours. Man, I should write a book about homeless travel!

When I was back in my room in Delft in the morning of saturday, may 6, I was so tired that I lied on my bed. I thought: "mmmh, I could really use some sleep, but it's midday, I'll never going to fall aslee.... zzzzzzz".

Liebt Gunther

2006-04-24T12:09:00.000-04:00

Gunther on Vimeo

Good Bye Old Neighborhood

2006-04-21T07:35:00.000-04:00

During my stay here, in the Netherlands, my sisters have moved to a bigger appartment in Santiago, in Providencia with Tobalaba, with 4 rooms and 125 square meters. Ah, I'm going to miss my old 20-square-meter-appartment, but mostly my old neighborhood in the center of Santiago, in Portugal with Diagonal Paraguay. I wrote a poem about it:

Each time I come by
At the end of the day
The drifters say hi
Show me the money, they say.

Strange women appear
When there is no sun
With a manly voice they appeal
Would you like to have some fun?

Oh, the drifters drunk and drugged, the rats, the smell,
The trasvesty's compliment when it's very late.
A girl almost got killed in that alley, people tell.
Was that a girl, or was it an ape?

Amsterdam, the "Sin City"

2006-04-18T07:56:00.000-04:00

I waited a long time for good weather conditions to go to Amsterdam by bicycle, but it just kept raining and windy. In the midtime, I succesfully managed to cook manjar (or dulce de leche: milk candy). Oh, and also I bought a pair of wooden shoes in Den Haag.

But I got bored, and besides, the weather is too unpredictable, so I decided to go on Saturday 15 anyway. If there is rain or wind, bad luck. So I woke up at 6:00 AM, had breakfast, prepared a bag with lunch and elevenses for the way, and went out.

I don't have any map with detailed bicycle roads, so I tought the best idea was to try to follow the main highway.

Going out of Delft. So far, everything going right.

The problem is that the bicycle road got separated from the highway in a complete diferent and independent direction, and the signs available were incomplete due to multiple roads constructions, so I just looked at the sun to get orientation and headed torwards northeast. You can imagine how many times I ended in a nowere-ending road, having to go back about 500 meters to find the right way.

The Netherlands is a highly populated land, with more than 400 habitants per square kilometer, so I saw houses and buildings almost all the way.

Wow, a green spot!

I had the wind against me, but it was insignicant... at the begining. It got increased gradually, so when I was close to the Schiphol airport, next to the Westeinderplassen lake, the wind was a big problem. The constant effort to maintain a certain speed for several hours, combined with the fact that my breakfast was "economic", and that I hadn't had lunch yet, began to make some effect on my body and I began to feel weird at 2:30 PM. So at about 3:00 PM I decided to stop, sit, and have lunch. When I saw my hand shivering as I hold a glas, I realised that I needed more energy; after lunch and some rest, I was ready to continue.

To enter Amsterdam, I had to cross this very big forest.

Since I had no map of Amsterdam, I tried to reach the city center following my instincts, were I could buy one. Then, suddenly, I saw this: (the Rijkmuseum)

Cool, I've just found a place to sleep for the Koninginnedag (That's right, there is no place left in the hostels for that day).

I bought a map clode to this place: Leidseplein.

Ah, damned camera. If you look carefully, maybe you can see Poseidon among the people.

What is this? A castle? A palace? No, it's just the mall.

Sorry Martin, I didn't see the red square, but I did found some evidence about it.

The cetral station.

At about 10:00 PM, when I decided to return to Delft, it began to rain (there was no wind anymore). Due to it, I was not able to take pictures of my return travel. This time, since there was no sun in the sky, I had no reference orientation, but fortunatelly I could find better signs that guided me by another return path (after some hours looking for them). Still, I had problems close to Den Haag, when I was dunked to the bones, because there were no signs pointing the way to Delft (it's a small town). When I arrived at my apartment, the wake-up-alarm of my mobile phone rang: it was 6:00 AM (almost 24 hours on the bicycle!).

Finally, the path I followed looks something like this, without counting all the wrong ways I followed and the turns while being lost. I'm not sure about the route, since during important portions of the way I was not sure where the hell I was. The going-path is in blue, and the return-path in green:

Travel tickets for Europe: ready.

2006-04-07T08:50:00.000-04:00

OK, I've bought the tickets. This is the idea:

On April 30 I'll go to Amsterdam for the Koninginendag (birthday of the Queen). Then, since the hole week will be holidays, I'll go to Edimburg, Belfast, London and Warsaw, flying by EasyJet.

Then, after my last exam, I'll travel freely by train using a Eurail pass between July 8th and 28th. I'll most likely travell every day, sleep in the train, and return periodically to Delft for food.

However, I think I'll also go to Amsterdam one of these days by bicycle.

The Alphabet of Manliness

2006-03-31T06:43:00.000-04:00

That's right, MADDOX wrote a book.
It's called The Alphabet of Manliness.
It's already available in Amazom.

Maddox Kicks Ass!

2006-03-27T08:01:00.000-04:00

I've finished reading all of Maddox posts. Here are some links to the ones I liked the most:

Lies Girls Have Told Me

The real "Instructions for life"

MORE Lies Girls Have Told Me

Composition of a woman's personality

Suicide isn't so bad, give it a chance.

Twenty-six things a perfect guy would do,and other propaganda disseminated by misguided women.

A tribute to real men.

Attention women: until your farts startsmelling like cinnamon buns, quit bitching.

Yes, it was April Fool's last week you morons.

Interview: Ricardo Lagos Escobar

2006-03-27T06:41:00.000-04:00

Twister: Hello everyone, I would like to introduce Ricardo Lagos Escobar, who has just finished his presidential period.

Ricardo: Thanks Twister, it's very nice to meet you.

Twister: Well, I wish I could say that, but the truth is that I think you suck.

Ricardo: Hahaha!

Twister: I mean it.

Ricardo: Oh.

Twister: Man, your government sucked!

Ricardo: No, it didn't! I did many good things for Chile.

Twister: Oh yeah? Name one that didn't involve having expensive and fancy dinners with other presidents around the world.

Ricardo: What can I say, I don't like to work; and when I do, I pretty much suck at it.

Twister: If so, what have you done for a living during all your life?

Ricardo: Easy, I take money from the people who do work, it's call taxes. Man, I made people pay me for living in their own homes!

Twister: Territorial taxes? But they're unconstitutional! The constitution says people must pay taxes over rents, not over patrimony!

Ricardo: The constitution and the laws are not important to me, I can violate them if I want because I control the Justice Courts, and the Legislative Power is powerless. Proof of that are the unpunished violations of me and my party to the law and constitution during decades to get millions in oversalarys to pay brides to the congress, the use of justice to get revenge against the armed forces (my enemies), the creation of unfair and ridiculous taxes to finance my political campaign, and to place my party's candidate in the presidency.

Twister: And what about all the millions spent for the educational reform? I mean, you spent all that money and the education in public schools is getting worst by the year, there are students who are finishing school and barely know how to read. What the hell were you thinking when you aproved this project? And how can you achieve such a high aproval from the people after all of this?

Ricardo: Well, it's pretty obvious that if people got smart, then they wouldn't vote for me or my party, so I spend millions on making them stupid. Also, everyone knows that most of the poor people prefers to vote left, so during my government I got very busy making people poor by creating and raising taxes. I also got a lot of help from the publicists of he communist party, they're experts in brainwashing, so if anything I did went wrong I could always blame it on Pinochet or Lavin. It's pretty much what I have done in all my life, fuck things up and blame it on my adversary, ha ha. As you can see, all this strategies have worked perfectly: I achieved in making people to vote for Michelle, a stupid cumminist terrorist, instead of Sebastian, a very smart candidate who could have got Chile out of the underdevelopment!

Twister: Jesus Christ! You're so doomed to hell!

Ricardo: Doomed to hell? I own hell! I'm the devil,

Aaaagggghhhh!

Twister: The devil! I knew it! Fuck you!

(I punch him in the face and kick his ass all the way out).

Party and Karaoke with Euroavian guys

2006-03-24T08:40:00.000-04:00

Well, lately I've done little besides studying, just a couple of parties.
First, a week ago, Fly In took place, and a group of EUROAVIA members from other countries of Europe came to TUDelft for a week, they visited some companies, and at the end they were invited to the Orange Party:

Lisiero (half spanish, half dutch), Fran (my spanish neighbor), me and Thomas (dutch, speaks spanish).

Yesterday night, the EUROAVIAns celebrated the Bloed cup, a karaoke competition against a group of guys that is actually building an airplane (they've been working in this for 10 years, since they have to fulfill all the safety regulations).

Vino que causas el mal del mundo, causante de mis tormentos: Que haces ahi afuera? Porque no te entrai pa'ca'entro? (chilean wine, Misiones de Rengo).

EUROAVIAns singing "I'm horny". They wanted Karen to sing it, but she refused.

Barbie and Ken singing "Barbie girl".

Medow singing "what's wrong with you".

Giovanni and I, getting prepared for our turn.

Karen and Ken (I don't remember what did they sing).

The airplane-builder-guys, singing "Always look on the bright side of life", of Monty Python.

An EURAVIA chick, imitating Shania Twain.

Thomas, Giovanni and me, about to start the song.

Ready?

We sang "'O Surdato 'Nnammurato", a typical napolitan song:

Staja luntana da stu core
e a te volo cu' 'o penziero'
niente voglie e niente spero
ca tenerte sempre affianco a me.
Si' sicura 'e chist'ammore
comm' i so'securo 'e te.

Oj vita, oj vita mia,
oj core 'e chisto core,
st stato 'o primm 'ammore,
'o primmo e il ultimo sarrà pe' me.

Quanta notte nun te veco,
nun te siento in fra sti braccia,
nun te vaso chesta faccia,
nun t'astrengo forte mbraccio a me?
Ma, scetannomi 'a sti suonne,
me faj chiagnere per te.

Oj vita...

Scrive sempre e sta' cuntenta,
io nun penzo che a te sola.
nu penziero mme cunzola
ca tu pienze sulament' a me.
'Acchiù bella 'e tutt' 'e belle
nun è maj cchiù bella e' te.

Oj vita...

The rest of the photos have little illumination, and is not possible to understand them. There is a video, but unfortunately it's weight is 20.2 megs, and the limit supported by vimeo is 20 megs. If I find out a way to reduce the video's lenght, I'll publish it here.

ACTUALIZATION: Here it is (thanks, JA):

'O Surdato 'Nnammurato

A day wich will live in infamy

2006-03-13T08:16:00.000-04:00

Reading www.elmercurio.cl the other day, I learned that the mortal rests of General Bernardo O'Higgins, our beloved founding father, were being moved from the Military Academy to the new "citizenship square", by wish of Satan..., I mean, Ricardo Lagos. The process and ceremony had lots of problems, and for some hours O'Higgins was left either on the ground or in a military jeep, with no honor.
When O'Higgins was on the ground, at the same time, the new elected president, the Encarnation of Evil.., eehh, Michel Bachelet was giving an award to Bono, because he said that in Chile there were violations to human rights, please. Is someone else asking himself what the hell is going on? A millionare musician is given an award for saying something that all of us chileans know, while O'Higgins, who bled and risk his life (as all his soldiers) to free us from the spanish domination, is forgotten on the floor with no honor.

Hey, hear this, there were violations to the human rights of some terrorists communists who betrayed their country, tried to make a civil war and destroy most of it to convert Chile into communism, maybe they deserved it. Where is my award? Is Bono better than me, or any other chilean? Hell no, and there is no way he is better than O'Higgins.
Seems like Maddox was right: "Unless you're rich, nothing you have to say will ever matter".

Do you think that's the only blasphemy of our socialists and communists chilean fellows? Remember they named a terrorist faction after another chilean hero, Manuel Rodriguez. (Yes, the Frente Patriotico Manuel Rodriguez, or FPMR).
And in honor of Arturo Prat, who fought to the death for his country, a group of socialists actors represented him as a homosexual. Are they shameless? This people died for you people, and this is how you treat them? This is "The payment of Chile" (El pago the Chile). Man, I feel shame of my own country, I think I'm going to live in Australia.And for me, I've been asked for more pictures of girls, but lately I've had to study a lot, and to get pictures of girls I have to get out of Delft, wich means I have to pay an expensive train ticket. Although most things are much more expensive than in Chile, I've realized that most of things related to computers costs half the price of Chile. For example the game Medal of Honor in Chile costs $50.000 pesos (about 80 euros), and here I found it at 15 euros (less than $10.000 pesos). I've also found this powerfull HP Pavilion at about 1200 euros (about $750.000 pesos), which in Chile costs something like $1.400.000 pesos (about 2200 euros), so I've decided that I won't leave Europe without one of this babys, even if that means that I'll have to eat shitty food for six months.
Oh, yeah, I remembered, I tryed to find a job, and I've found out that here it's very easy to found one, and that they can be very well paid (between 2,5 to 9 euros per hour!), however, the law here says that I'm not allowed to work because I'm not from the European Union. Yes, you've heard right, I had to pay thousands of euros in visa, residence permit, not to name the very expensive airplane ticket from Chile (about 1000 euros), to live here just for 6 months as an exchange student, and I'm not allowed even to wash the dishes in a restaurant a couple of hours a day. Crap.

The exchange students from the EU don't need a visa, don't even register in the city (even when they should, just to pay about 20 euros), they travell in this low costs airliners, have no problem to work, and they even receive about 100 euros per month! I receive nothing, not even the chance to make a honest living! The only chance for me to get a job is to find someone willing to give me a "black job", and I have to find that person in Delft, a small town in the Netherlands, so you can imagine what my chances are. Worthless.

And what about the EU exchange students who go to Chile? They dont get a visa, so after 3 months in Chile, they travel to Mendoza (Argentina) for a day, and problem solved. Nobody needs a work permit in Chile. My EU friends tell me "Yes, but think about the USA, it's so much worst there". Hey, I have a friend who went to California as an exchange student (Vicho, went to Santa Barbara), and he had no problems to find a white job in the university itself!

I got the message, Europe doesn't want foreigners, they don't want me here, so I'm never coming back. If you want to see Europe, don't go for exchange, just go for the summer and buy a train ticket valid for a month. If you want an exchange experience that's usefull and not so expensive, or are you thinking about moving to another country to make a honest living because you're tired of all those suckers in the chilean government, go to the US, or Australia. Europe blows.

Den Haag, Dutch Chicks and Leiden, also Dutch Space

2006-02-28T11:25:00.000-03:00

Well, a lot has happened, and for the same reason I haven't had the time to make a new post until now, just when most of you are coming back from vacations. OK, here we go:

About the girls, Delft (where I am) is a small town, the Technic University has only engineering careers, and it uses a considerable proportion of Delft's surface (about 20% I think). In other words, there are no women in Delft. In the aerospace engineering faculty (where I study), the proportion of female students is lower than the one of the dutch navy.

Analisa (italian) studies in Leiden, a university that is composed mostly of female students, and my italian friends wanted to go to visit her at her new room, of course I wanted to go also. However, they wanted to go in the afternoon, and I decided to go earlier in order to se Den Haag in the morning, which is in the way to Leiden. This, because the cost of the ticket to Leiden (go and return) is 7,5 euros, and I have to make my money more efficient.

DEN HAAG:

This is the dutch parlament building.

Another very old church.

The chilean embassy, nothing special, very disapointing.

The international court building.

The beach and a wharf with watch towers, restaurants and shops.

A very nice hotel next to the beach.

The view from a tower of the wharf.

Another perspective of the hotel.

LEIDEN:

Later, at about 5 pm I meet with my italian friends.

The way to Analisa's building.

After having dinner, we went out for some drinks with some french guys.

We heard about an Erasmus party next week, on friday (february 24), for foreign students of Leiden University (here, most of events are called Erasmus), so we came back.

Because of the cold, the dutch people doesn't go out a lot, and they do most of thing earlier: launch at 12:30, and so on. The only place were there is activity during the day are the commercial streets, usually called "marktstraat" or something similar.

At least, the party started!

It started a little slow, but now it's very crowded.

A very nice dutch girl dancing for the audience.

Another dancer girl.

There am I, right of the girl, climbing to the stage.

O yeah!

Peter Twister rules!!

The poor inocent girl couldn't handle the thrill of dancing with me.

Yeap, my dancing knowledge is proving to be very usefull.

Analisa, me, Roberto and Giovanni.

Our norwegian friends (Lars and his girlfriend).

At the bottom left corner, Max (germany), at the top left Phillip (france). You know the rest.

The next day, back in Delft, there was this carnival that I missed. My italian friends went to Maastrich, were the biggest carnival takes place, but I didn't go because it's so dam expensive just to go there and return: 30 euros.

I'll ask Giovanni for his photos of Maastrich, so you can see what is it about.

Then, on monday, I went to visit Dutch Space, where I saw the ERA, a robotic arm for the International Space Station.

This is one of the two connectors ERA uses to dock with the station and to catch the cargo.

The cameras that ERA uses to see it's targets.

Solar panels built at Dutch Space.

The back of the solar panels.

A sun simulator, to test the panels.

Well, that's all for now.

Euravia, Party, and Rotterdam

2006-02-13T11:45:00.000-03:00

After some days "getting around" in the Aerospace Faculty of TUDelft, I made some friends at EURAVIA, an association of students that try to build networks between Europe's aerospace engineering students (Translation: they reunite mostly to party arround Europe). They invited me to the Kusk Bar; at the beginning it was not very crowded, as you can see...

Don't be fooled: the girl (Marcia) is the girlfriend of a EURAVIA guy (Ivor, white shirt). In the Aerospace Engineering there are less women than in the dutch navy.

More people arrived! These guys drink very fast, and since they made a deal to obtain beers at 1 euro each, everybody wanted to invite me a beer!

The next night, we went to the TUDelft version of "Miercoles'po", a wednesday party for foreigners. It was crowded to the level of "unpleasant". Here I am with Giovanni and Carlos, the guys who live with me.

Another napolitan friend arrived: Analisa. Here we are, cooking pasta again. Then, we decided to go to Rotterdam, Analisa, Roberto and Salvatore need (cheap) bikes.

We found this old building called Stadhuis, and a statue for the fallen of the WWII.

Here everything is expensive, we couldn't find cheap bikes, so we kept walking, and we found the cube houses and a street market.

Here is the market, and the Cathedral of Rotterdam (St. Laurenskerk).

The cube houses (Kijkkubus).

We entered for 2 euros.

Also there was a book to leave your signature, or whatever you want. A spanish guy wrote "the guy at whom you had to pay is a lame".

Peter Twister was here!

We continued our way.

And we found this old harbor.

Hey, that's the famous bridge Erasmusbrug! (Here, everything is called Erasmus).

It took us some time, but we arrived. After having lunch, and 2 hours of more walking, the guys got tired of not founding any cheap legal bike, so they decided to return to Delft, but I wanted to keep fooling around.

A beautiful sunset at another old harbor near the Wereldmuseum.

A nice old dutch boat called Costersche.

I got into the Parkheuvel, and I found this old mansion.

I can see the Euromast from here.

Now, I'm nexto to the Rotterdam's World Trade Center, it's getting dark, and I'm tired, I think I'm going too....

But first, I think I'll try this Haagen-Dazs icecreams. Mmmhh, this is delicious.

I've arrived at Delft

2006-02-07T09:52:00.000-03:00

I've been a week and a half here, and I finally found a way to acces my photos from a computer.
After I arrived at the Shiphol Airport, I went by train directly to Delft, were I stayed 5 days at the Museum Hotel (very expensive, never again). In these 5 days I went out and started to walk arround the city.

This in the Zuidwal, in the border of the historical center.

Delft has lots of churchs, this is a catholic one.

This is a central block, were I found a sculpture of a very ugly cow.

This is the center of the historical center.

Another church.

The same place, diferent view.

This is what most of the streets of the historical center look like.

No description required.

Suddenly I discovered this windmill, fully functional.

I entered for free, and I got this view.

Another view from the windmill.

Near the ugly cow's culpture, I heared a very loud music, coming from a very crowded bar. Some guy invited me to enter, and I did so.

And everybody offered me a drink. It was some guy's birthday, and there were free drinks!

I got a russian friend who didn't speak english. His name is also Peter!

This is one of the mucisians.

Some hot dutch chicks.

Peter fought in the WW-II. He tried to teach me a dutch soccer team song: "Ushka, ushka, lalala..." I don't remember it very well.

Finally got my university room.

This is the tallest building at TUDelft.

Eating pasta with my italian friends. from left to right: Giovanni, Roberto, me and Salvatore. All of them are napolitan.

After a week walking here and there, I bought a bike. Behind it's the university library.

Commercials

2006-01-23T00:50:00.000-03:00

Just some commercials I wanted to show:

Hey, it's like Napoleon said: "Power is based on the appearence of power."

View this clip on Vimeo

Girls: men aren't dificult to understand, Sprite will explain it to you.

View this clip on Vimeo

Dudes, this is the price we have to pay...

View this clip on Vimeo

I've always prefered US chicks...

View this clip on Vimeo

Which one would you choose?

View this clip on Vimeo

Luciano: this one is for you, it's your dream came true...

View this clip on Vimeo

Finally, a gift from Axe, I hope you enjoy. To play, click here.

And by the way, if everything goes right, I'll be posting from the Netherlands from January 27 for 6 months. I promise photos of dutch chicks.

Oskar. Corvette Captain. Bismarck.

2006-01-17T19:11:00.000-03:00

In May 18, 1941, the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen, comanded by admiral Lütjens, weighed anchors at the Baltic sea giving begining to the Rheinübung (Operation Rhin), a plan created by admiral Raeder which pretended to concentrate the currently spread fleet of german battleships in the Atlantic in order to be able to use a naval taskforce strong enough to defeat the allied convoys' defenses. However, in May 26, a group of 15 british Swordfish airplanes from the Ark Royal aircraft carrier succesfully damaged Bismark's starboard helix and the rudder, marking its destiny: in the morning of May 27 the Bismarck was surrounded by the british Home Fleet, comanded by admiral John Tovey, wich proceeded to bomb the german ship. The surviving german sailors scuttled the Bismarck at 10:40 hours, to prevent it from being captured.

The Bismarck under attack

The british managed to rescue only a part of the german sailors on water, the presence of enemy submarines forced a quick retreat. Later in the day the Cossack destroyer received the order to come back, but the only survivor they found was a black cat over a floating table. The cat had a necklace with a medal with the inscription "Oskar. Corvette Captain. Bismarck." next to a broken cross.

The Cossack's officers discussed for hours about what to do with the cat: "He is a nazi officer and he must be arrested" said the engine comander; "But he must be treated with dignity" said a deck inspector. During the assembly Oskar escaped, entered the kitchen, and stealed a piece of meat. After a week, he had explored the hole ship, and had hunted several rats, which he gave to the cooks. When there was combat, Oskar took cover under a bed, and he joined the night guard until dawn. One day the crew improvised a war council and gave him england citizenship and the rank of ensign. He also got a new medal: "Oscar. Royal Navy. 1941."

After 5 months, in October 24 of 1941, the Cossack was sunk by the U-563 in the north of the Atlantic, over 120 british sailors died. But Oscar was rescued with the rest of the survivors by the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, were he found a new home, and a harder-to-find-kitchen. One day the Ark Royal docked at Gibraltar, were he got out of the ship along with the crew, and suddenly disappeared. Some sailors feared the worst, and others thougth that maybe he had gone with a female cat from the port. After two days he was found wounded and dirty, and was sent back to the Ark Royal for recovery.

Just then, the Ark Royal was commissioned to a mission at the Maltese island, were it was sunk by the U-81, comanded by captain Fiedrich Guggenberger, but only one of the 1663 sailors died.

The U-81

The Royal Navy high comand considered that three sunk ships in one year was enough -after all, he was a black cat- and, after being portrayed for the National Marine Museum (lower photo), decommissioned him and sent him to The Home for Sailors, Belfast, were he had the same rights of any retired officer until his death in 1955, when he was buried with honors.

Trip to Uruguay

2006-01-13T18:49:00.000-03:00

Sorry for my abscence, I've been out a while. My friends and I decided to go to Punta del Este, Uruguay, for the new year.

Luciano, me, and our foreign friends from the hostel in Montevideo.

The Centenario Stadium!

I wonder why a city smaller than Santiago has much bigger monuments.

Sunset at Piriapolis.

We reunite with our car-travellers friends at Piriapolis.

They had to pay a bribe to the argentinian police in the way to Uruguay, and they got a receipt!

Punta del Este, here we are!

My God... Martín, get the hell out of the car, so we can take this babes!

Luciano and JA, teaching the uruguaian people about the chilean culture.

Punta del Este was so expensive that at new year we spent a homeless day: no sleep and no food in 24 hours.

This is the drink, these are the players, this is the Chivas' life.

Luciano enjoying our extremely cheap champaign.

Punta del Este's unorganiced, disordered and time unnacurate fireworks.

Party at the street!

Hey, I love you too, babe.

When you're homeless, any place can be your bathroom, and anything can be your breakfast.

A Buenos Aires guy proposed Luciano to be the boyfriend of the redhead.

Luciano and I decided to explore the "natural beauties" at the beach of La Paloma.

Uruguaian chics partying at La Pedrera.

We founded this cheap camping in Punta del Este.

It was near this unfunctional bridge. Mmmhh, delicious dulce de leche icecream!

The Great Observer, having success with this Paraguaian chic.

We are surrounded by beautyful chics! Here they are like atoms: they are everywhere!

Luciano, having beer in his mate.

This babes definitively have Peter Twister's seal of aproval!

Mmmhh, seems like we're not being very discrete.

Wow, look at that atom!!

Atoms, and more atoms!

When I came back to Santiago, the first thing I did was to slap the first chilean girl I saw.

Damnit, Luciano! Always forgeting something in your bag!

Martinoco, feeling funny inside.

J.A., you've lost so many barely-used-solar-protectors, that by buying new ones you'll raise the hole uruguaian economy!

Rodrigo's phrase: "I'm a negatively electric charged dipolo, looking for an atom to join."

Partying at La Perera again, in my final uruguaian night.
What is this? Make up for free?

I'll regret this, but the temptation is too big... sorry, I meant four big temptations.

Well, it's the price I had to pay.

Hey, Luciano could't resist temptation either.

Want to marry? Elvis can help you!

Well, that's it. Finish, finito, kaput, sayonara, aur revoir.

Need a gift urgently?

2005-12-23T19:25:00.000-03:00

I know what you're thinking, it's almost Christmas, you need to buy a present, and you don't know what. Well, search no more, here you'll find some answers:

There is no better gift than a stupid Military Antique. Here you can find incredible and useless stuff, such as:

Here's another option: visit The White House, they have an amazing gift shop with t-shirts, buttons, and other stuff about lots of themes, such as:

Guantanamo Vacation!!

You can find the same products with this pro-USA themes:

You can also find bumper stickers such as:

In this site there are lots of more stuff, here is a compilation of some other products and gear theme:

P.D.: Check out the last additions to my blog: links to the blogs of Beño, Daniel, Benedicto XVI, Manuel Contreras Jr, Master Yoda, Han Solo and Saddam Hussein; the good-evil certification of the Gematriculator, and the quizes to test how evil you are and what political extreme do you belong.

Merry Christmas 2005!

2005-12-20T00:09:00.000-03:00

We era just a few days from christmas, Jesus's 2005th birthday, maybe that's why he is dancing of happiness:

I would like to thanks Mr. X for facilitating me this animation.

I don't know if you are catholic, or even christian, but I bet you can't wait for santa's arrival. I can't blame you, I dream with this all the time:

View this clip on Vimeo

At this modern times, it's vary easy to contact Santa at his blog. You can also do so with God at God's blog 1, and God's blog 2. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any Jesus blog.

Before I end this post, I want to give to you, visitors of my web page, a christmas present, enjoy it.

Elections 2005

2005-12-15T14:11:00.000-03:00

Last sunday, december 11, 2005, I went to excersise my right (and my duty, even though I think it should be just a right and not an obligation) to vote. The line was huge, and I waited 1,5 hours; "Calamar Vampiro" describes better the situation, since he voted in the same school. Resuming, this is what I found when I arrived:

When I finally reached my room ("sala 155"), I showed my credentials, voted, they made me mark my thumb with tincture, and told me "you are ready". I asked "but were should I place my thumb's mark?", "nowere, you're ready" the guy answered. I asked again "but then, why did I have to mark my thumb for?", and the guy answered: "pa' puro cagarte" ("just to fuck you").

At this times, everybody is wondering about the results of the elections and the future of Chile, everybody but me, since I KNOW the future of Chile. It's not difficult to guess, since in Chile, just like in Macondo (100 Años de Soledad), time goes roung in circle ("el tiempo da vueltas en redondo"). If adding 1+1 is too dificult for you, I'll show you the obvious future:

Richard Lakes, 2005

Michelle, your socialists powers can defeat the Cristian Democracy Party...

At the end of his government, Ricardo Lagos is consolidating his empire of evil after he re-wrote history, changed the national emblem, and controlled the comunications media, with the help of whichs he placed Michelle Bachelet as his successor.

Michelle Bachelet, 2006

Then, Michelle will be free to turn Chile into a socialist-communist totalitarism. Of course, she hasn't the capacities to do so, she is just the puppet of Lenin's clon.

Tomás Hirsch, 2011

Then, tomás Hirsch will be elected, and the revolution will bring caos and pain, and the few democracy-and-capitalism-lovers left will be slaughted and burned to ashes.

But don't lose all your hopes, a hero will arrise and rescue the country once again...

Pinochet is Back

JA and JP Letelier are the same!!!!!111eleven!

2005-12-13T00:55:00.000-03:00

I've discovered the truth, the real identity of JA, the great observer!!

Find out for yourself...

I'm Pedro Remolino

2005-12-08T21:14:00.000-03:00

Pedro Remolino (or Peter Twister) gets around...

With this video I hope you understand why my friends call me Remolino.

JA, the great observer, said "I'd like people think I'm gay rather than they see me doing this crap".

View this clip on Vimeo

Ricardo Lagos and Democracy

2005-12-06T17:00:00.000-03:00

There are a lot of things about Ricardo Lagos that I don't approve, but here I'll limit myself to denounce the barbarisms he tells in his speeches. I will not translate his literal words because I want to be faithful to the truth, and if I'd published both original and translated text, this post would be too long.

There are a lot of Lagos' words that deserve to be questioned, but most are unrecorded one-day-declarations (lots of them are about what democracy means, at least for Ricardo Lagos). There are a lot of registered speeches (about 530), and it took me a lot of thime to select the worsts. Of course I didn't read all of them, just the ones that I thought could be the worsts.

Discurso 12 Agosto 2003 Mensaje al país al dar a conocer Propuesta en materia de Derechos Humanos "No hay mañana sin ayer"
(dijo 4 veces democracia)

"El quiebre de nuestra democracia se produjo en medio de tormentas crecientes que el país y sus líderes no fuimos capaces de controlar."

I wonder in which way he was trying to control those storms when the socialist party (of which Ricardo Lagos was member) voted in unamimity in favor of the armed (violent, warlike) way to reach to the power.

Discurso 21 Mayo 2003 (dijo 6 veces democracia)

(Respondiendo a jóvenes en las tribunas: "En un rato más voy a referirme exactamente a los puntos que están señalando. Lo que están diciendo es inexacto... Democracia es que ustedes puedan estar en las calles gritando, mi amigo. ¡Para eso luché!").

Wait a moment, Ricardo Lagos fought to destroy democracy and implement a comunist-socialist constitution, long before Pinochet.

Discurso 18 Agosto 2004 Celebración del Día de la Solidaridad, Santuario del Padre Hurtado (dijo 0 veces democracia)

"Por eso hemos definido políticas para llegar a ellos, que son insuficientes y que requieren la participación de todos. Por eso me parece tan importante lo que planteó el padre Moreira, de cómo hacemos para incorporar a muchos más y cómo hacemos para que ésta no sea tarea sólo de autoridades, no sea tarea sólo de jóvenes. Y aquí en el Hogar de Cristo, como en otras instituciones, ustedes han generado espacios de participación a todos. Y por ello vamos a trabajar en las tareas que usted nos señaló en ese tercer punto respecto del tema tributario. Quiero ser bien directo aquí, el tema tributario tiene dos caras: cómo hacemos una tributación que sea justa, para el que tiene más aporte más en beneficio del bien común, y cómo hacemos también incentivos para aquellos que quieren aportar lo puedan hacer y pueda haber, entonces, un compromiso.
Cuando hay un incentivo tributario, si el privado pone un peso, el Estado pone un peso cuarenta, en tanto lo puede descontar de los impuestos, porque es un incentivo tributario. Asegurémonos bien que cuando se pone ese peso, el peso cuarenta que se pone con el resto de los chilenos esté también bien puesto."

Beautiful words, but pure lies: when the proposed law about donations was finally launched by the President, it was mostly about political campaigns donations, and about the rest of donations it said that if anybody wanted to make a donation to charity or sports, a part of that money is taken by the government and redistributed on charity institutions selected by the government. As a result of this unfair regulation, charity donations have been reduced a lot, that's the way Ricardo Lagos wants to fight pooverty. And by the way, The "Hogar de Cristo" still pays aggregate value taxes (IVA or "Impuesto al Valor Agregado") to the government in order to help the poorest of the poor.

Discurso 18 Noviembre 2004 Al dar a conocer el Informe de la Comisión Nacional sobre Prisión Política y Tortura (dijo 0 veces democracia)

"Al leer este Informe, tres preguntas nos recorren una y otra vez:

La primera: ¿Cómo explicar tanto horror? ¿Qué pudo producir conductas humanas como las que allí aparecen? No tengo respuesta frente a ello. ¿Cómo explicar que el 94% de los detenidos señalen que fueron objeto de torturas? ¿Cómo explicar que, de las 3.400 mujeres que entregaron testimonio, casi todas señalen haber sido objeto de alguna violencia sexual?"

Of course, it can`t be explained, it's ridiculous. All of those people are obviously lying, just as it's instructed in "the manual of Marigella", which all comunists terrorists posessed: everyone who is detained must declare he/she was tortured.

Discurso 6 Marzo 2005 Al morir Gladys Marín (dijo 2 veces democracia, en 3 párrafos pequeños)

"Gladys Marín fue una luchadora ejemplar y consecuente con sus ideas. Luchó porque hubiera espacio a la democracia, porque hubiera libertad y más justicia.
El duelo decretado por el Gobierno es una expresión de nuestro respeto a lo que ella encarnó y a los miles y miles que en democracia la siguen. En consecuencia, creo que hoy día, más allá de las banderas de cada uno, están las banderas de Chile y por ese Chile mejor por el cual Gladys Marín luchó."

Gee, I thougth Gladys, as president of the communist party, fought for communism, that is, for a totalitarian regime in which the State makes all the decisions of people, reducing them therefore to slaves.

Discurso 17 Septiembre 2005 Firma de la nueva Constitución Política de la República de Chile (dijo 8 veces democracia)

"Este devenir se vio interrumpido de manera trágica el 11 de septiembre de 1973. Como señalé hace dos años, el quiebre de la institucionalidad democrática en un país jamás se produce como un rayo que altera, de pronto, sin previo aviso, un cielo que hasta entonces permanecía apacible y sereno; por el contrario, se produce en medio de tormentas crecientes, que los países y sus líderes no son capaces de advertir a tiempo y de controlar con eficacia.
Ese quiebre hizo que la República se apartara del norte de su permanente aspiración de creciente democracia y consiguiente ampliación de las libertades. Todos conocemos hoy la real magnitud del sufrimiento que provocó la violación masiva de los derechos humanos. Cualquier acto constitucional en ese contexto, como es comprensible, carecía de la legitimidad histórica necesaria que toda Carta Fundamental requiere. Ese Chile no podía perdurar, y no perduró."

I'm sorry Ricardo, but the Constitution was created by Pinochet, not you, even if you change a couple of details of it. Therefore, all the good things of Chile that has lasted this long, even when you try to destroy them, are part of Pinochet's Chile.

Finally, the worst of the worst:

Ricardo Lagos' declaration at the oficial ceremony of sign the law proyect of the new "Región de los Ríos" at Valdivia, wednesday 19, 2005: (before an ecological pacific manifestation)

“Lamento que un acto de unidad vaya a ser perjudicado por ustedes, que no entienden lo que es la democracia. No me van a venir a enseñar a mí, señor… Esto es un acto de unidad de todos los valdivianos. Pero, déjenme decirles una cosa: no callé cuando hubo dictadura y ustedes no me van a hacer callar a mí, al Presidente de Chile”.
Absolutely contradictory. No coments.

Colonel Miguel Krassnoff

2005-11-29T15:49:00.000-03:00

This is a very serious subject I wanted to write about, because it shows a situation that should concern the chilean people, and that everybody should be aware of. It's a story that shows the injustices of the chilean's justice power, and the political hate's influences over it.

The first time I heard about Colonel Miguel Krassnoff was years ago, maybe close to the year 2000. He appeared at television entering the courts, because he was being judged for human rights violations during the military government of General Augusto Pinochet. I heared that he was part of DINA's circle of power, and that he murdered Miguel Enríquez, maximum leader of MIR ("Movimiento Izquierdista Revolucionario", or Left Revolutionary Movement); I immediately imaged Krassnoff torturing Enríquez to death in a dark room in a DINA's quarter ("Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional" or National Inteligence's Directorade). I mean, look at him: he is a colonel, caucasian, he absolutely seems like "military establishment", besides he has a russian last name, and look at his bad-guy-face: he just seems evil.

Later, I learned the truth. Here is his true story:

The father and the grandfather of Krassnoff were white russian military, belonged to cosac nobility, and were both hunged at the Moscow's Red Square in 1947. His mother succeded to escape to Chile with his months old baby, and she believed she had found for her and her son a secure shelter against comunism. Years later, Miguel succeded to enter the chilean Military Academy, against the will of his mother. Then, the crisis of Allende's comunist government arrived, and then, the military strike.

It was 1974, Lieutenant Krassnoff (26) and other three army members were driving a car, clearly not prepared for combat, when they accidentally see Miguel Enriquez, leader of MIR, walking on the street and entering a house. Krassnoff and a soldier went to knock the door, and before they could do that, the soldier heard a machine gun being charged at the other side of the door and he pushed Krassnoff to the ground, saving their lives. The soldier runned to get some help, and Krassnoff stayed in a heavy shooting. Miguel Enriquez died abandoned by his comrades.

The heroic behavior of Krassnoff made him earn the medal of Personal Braverty (medalla al Valor Personal), which hadn't been given in Chile for acts of war since the War of the Pacific.

The comumists and the socialists, who hold the political power at the present, hate him. Krassnoff now is victim of their revenge: he is considered part of DINA's circle of power, but at the time he was just a 26 year old lieutenant, and the number of people who declared being tortured by him is more than 1000 (that is, 2 each day, during his service at DINA). When asked about the reasons for the denounces on him, he said: "My mission at DINA (an assignment that he didn't choose) was to heard the declarations of the people who were detained, and always before I started I showed my credential and told them my first and last names. Besides, the Manual of Marighella, guerrilla instructive, orders all the detained to declare themselves tortured".

When for his merits he deserved to be promotedto general, long before his detention, his superior told him that he couldn't promote him for political reasons, then he decided to retire from the army. All the people who have known him said that he is the most correct person they've ever met, the most professional officer, an example of husband and father. When asked about, he aswer "I've never tortured a person, neither has people been tortured in my prescence". Krassnoff was sentenced to 10 years of jail.

Read more about his story (in spanish) here, or about the shooting with Miguel Enríquez here.

Falta de Criterio

2005-11-22T10:58:00.000-03:00

Este post lo escribo en chileno porque este es un problema que sufrimos los chilenos: la falta de criterio de nuestro gobierno, autoridades e instituciones varias. Quiero invitarlos a que manifiesten aquí aquellos agravios sufridos a causa de la estupidez del sistema. Aquí van los míos:

1.-Necesitaba conseguir una traducción oficial de mi certificado de nacimiento al inglés, para lo cual debía acudir al Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores. El jueves tenía algunas horas libres entremedio de clases, así que partí, total no me puedo demorar tanto en UN trámite. Llegué inocentemente con mi certificado y solicité mi traducción... "¡No!, primero debes legalizarlo en el Ministerio de Justicia, y luego denuevo en el Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores". ¿Legalizar un certificado? ¿Para qué? ¿Para certificarlo? En fin, ya había perdido como una hora en llegar y hacer cola, claramente no me alcanzaba el tiempo para hacer 3 trámites partiendo de cero, así que volví a la U: viaje perdido. No sabía hasta qué horas atendían en estas oficinas públicas, así que al día siguiente partí al M. de Justicia tan temprano como me fue posible: llegué a las 15:00 hrs, estaba cerrado, otro viaje perdido. Ayer fui más temprano, y para resumir más la cosa, hice cola para pagar, luego para que una señora le pusiera un timbre, luego fui al M. de Relaciones Exteriores, hice otra cola para recibir otro timbre inútil, y finalmente una cola más para la postergada traducción del certificado: "Son $7000 pesos, y estará listo en 5 días hábiles". ¡¿Quéeee?! ¿Por traducir una miserable hoja que yo podría traducir en 20 segundos? Más encima es un documento mega-estandarizado, ¿por qué se necesita un traductor? todo podría estar en una base de datos de manera de obtener la traducción tan fácil y rápido como el certificado original, pero no, sería demasiado eficiente. Todavía recuerdo las colas de gente desesperada, nadie entendía cómo pasaban horas esperando un trámite sin sentido.

2.-Cada vez que hay un incendio, Carabineros de Chile manda a algunos de sus camaradas a impartir el orden en la zona y ¿Pasarle partes a los bomberos por estacionarse mal? No sólo a ellos, también a cualquiera que haya hecho lo mismo para ayudar a los bomberos en su labor, o por su desesperacion por salvar a sus familiares o sus pertenencias. Sin comentarios.

3.-Todos sabemos que estamos sufriendo de sobrepoblación de universidades. Casi no hay técnicos, que las empresas están necesitando con desesperación, y en cambio aparecen más y más universidades y carreras sin futuro. Hoy, de todas las personas en la educación superior, el 69% son universitarios, el 19% estudian en institutos profesionales, y el 12% en carreras técnicas, es decir justo al revés de lo que se necesita. El gobierno, en su afán por informar erradamente a los postulantes a universidades, publica los sueldos promedio de los profesionales por carrera, pero no por universidad, así que Fulanito al entrar a estudiar ingeniería en la universidad del Guachalomo jura que tiene el mega-futuro asegurado. Es más, nuestro gran líder y presidente, Ricardo Lagos Escobar, en toda su sabiduría, ha intentado conseguir más y más recursos para financiar las carreras de universidades privadas y, para lograrlo, ¡cortó el financiamiento a las carreras técnicas! Resultado: los universitarios siguen aumentando, ahora en un ¡170%!

El Cachafaz Tango Bar

2005-11-16T15:24:00.000-03:00

At last, I had the opportunity to visit this place. But this time I invited two beautifull foreign girls (a canadian and a german chic) and my friend Luciano (this is what happened when I made the same invitation to a local girl -I just don't get what's wrong with them, but I don't care anymore-), and they loved it! (at least the girls did). Of course, I had to teach them how to dance tango, which I did gladly since I got the chance to practice it. I love Tango! There is not much more to say, so here I have some photos and videos:

View this clip on Vimeo

For more information about this great place, visit El Cachafaz Tango Bar.

Stressed?

2005-11-04T13:35:00.000-03:00

This animation reminds me the friends I have who study computer engineering (or programming), jajaja. The fact is that most of my friends and I are constantly "in a world of shit", overwhelmed by exams, homework and projects. For example, I didn't sleep last night, and not because I "got lucky" precisely.

But this is not over, just when I thought I could have a break and sleep, I discovered that I'll have to re-correct some exams. Since I don't have much time right now, I'll just show some images about the subject that may help you if you have the same problem.

Read the instructions carefully.

Be aware of the dangers!

John Rambo

2005-10-30T18:27:00.000-03:00

I want to dedicate this post to one of the most memorable characters in the history of movies: Rambo.

Most people may think it is just another banal action movie, but I think it's a movie that denounces important socio-political situations.

Rambo I:

John Rambo is a Vietnam war veteran, who can't forget the war and who lost most of his friends in it. He arrieves to a society that doesn't understand the hell he lived, and that rejects him, fears him. He feels very lonely, so he walks hundreds of kilometers to a small town in Alaska, to meet his only living friend, only to find that he died of cancer.
Shocked by this, he walks with no direction, and is arrested by the Sheriff Will Teasle, who doesn't want him in his town. That's when Rambo starts a war for his freedom...

I'm not breaking any law.

Taglines:

When Trautman (the colonel) meets Teasle (the sheriff), they have little conflict with each other
Trautman: Why are youchasing him? let him escape, he'll be arrested in two months washing cars in Philadelphia, and nobody'll get killed.
Teasle: I have to do my duty, I'll get him.
Trautman: Rambo is an expert in deadly combat, medic, helicopters and guerrilla. He would eat things animals would find disgusting.
Teasle: Are you telling me that 200 of our men against your boy is a no-win situation for us?
Trautman: You bring that many men, just remember one thing.
Teasle: Oh yeah? What?
Trautman: A good supply of body bags.

The great final

Colonel Trautman: It's over Johnny. It's over! Rambo:"Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don't turn it off! It wasn't my war! You asked me I didn't ask you! And I did what I had to do to win, for somebody who wouldn't let us win! Then I come back to the world, and I see all those maggots at the airport, protestin' me, spittin', callin' me a baby killer and all kinds of vile crap! Who are they to protest me?! Huh?! Who are they?! Unless they been me and been there and know what the hell they yellin' about!" Colonel Trautman: It was a bad time for everyone Rambo. It's all in the past now. Rambo: "For you! For me civilian life is nothin'! In the field we had a code of honor. You watch my back I watch yours. Back here there's nothin'!
Movie theme lyrics:

It's a long road When you're on your own...

Rambo II:

Col. Samuel Trautman takes Rambo out of jail for a new asignment: rescue POWs (prisioners of war). However, back in Vietnam he finds out that the operation runned by Gen. Marshall Murdock is a farce, that he doesn't matter the people who gave it all for their country: once he rescues a POW and heads for the recovery zone, he is abandoned to his luck, and is capured by the vietnamese forces of Capt. Vinh.

Where the hell is the helicopter going?

Lt. Col. Podovsky: Your countrry has abandoned you, stupid amerricain

Murdock: Do you honestly think somebody's gonna get up on the floor of the United States Senate, and ask for billions of dollars for a couple of forgotten ghosts?

Co Bao: What means that you're expendable?

Rambo: (talking from the vietnamese radio)"Murdock, I'm coming for YOU!"

Taglines:

“They sent him on a mission and set him up to fail … but they made one mistake … they forgot they were dealing with Rambo”

Murdock: "Colonel are you sure Rambo's still in balance with the war? We can't afford having him involved in this mission and than crack in the pressure of that hell."
Trautman: "Pressure? Let me just say that Rambo is the best combat vet I've ever seen. A pure fighting machine with only a desire - to win a war that someone else lost. And if winning means he has to die - he'll die. No fear, no regrets. And one more thing, what you choose to call hell, he calls home."

Rambo: (talking to Murdock) Mission... accomplished. You know there's more men out there and you know where they are. Find'em. Or I'll find you.

The great final
Trautman: John where are you going?
Rambo: I don't know.
Trautman: You get a second medal of honor for this.
[Rambo looks over at the rescued POWs]
Rambo: You should give it to them. They deserve it more.
Trautman: You don't belong here why don't you come back with me?
Rambo: Back to what? My friends died here, let me die here.
Trautman: The war, the whole conflict may have been wrong but damn it don't hate your country for it.
Rambo: Hate? I'd die for it.
Trautman: Then what is it you want?
Rambo: I want, what they want, and every other guy who came over here and spilled his guts and gave everything he had, wants! For our country to love us as much as we love it! That's what I want!
Trautman: How will you live, John?
Rambo: Day by day.

Rambo III:

Col. Samuel Trautman travels to Thailand, to recruit Rambo for an operation, once more. But Rambo is living a peaceful life, living with Tibet monks and fighting for money. He doesn't want another war.

So, Trautman goes alone to Afganistan to help the good and brave people of the Thaliban to fight the evil Russians, who talk about terrorist while they wipe out a whole country, and whose bombardments kill civilians every day. But he gets captured by the russian forces of Col. Zaysen. When Rambo is informed of the situation, he decides to go to Afganistan to rescue his friend.

Col. Zaysen: I'll find this man (Rambo) and I'll kill him.
Col. Trautman: Don't worry, he'll find you.
Col. Zaysen: He alone will fight my whole army and kill me? Who do you think this man is, God?
Col. Trautman: God would have mercy, he won’t.

Gee, I love my explosive arrows. Hey, ruskie, don't forget your hand grenades...

"They want us to surrender, I have no choise... but to fight. "

Aaaaaaaaahhhhhh.....

Cabooomm!

Juan Antonio's proposal

2005-10-26T17:08:00.000-03:00

Relevant Actors:

This happened a night of April (I think), in a pub/disco at Vitacura, near Luciano's. There we were, JA, Luciano and me waiting for Jackie and "Girl":

I hate chilean girls. Their men selection method is anti-Darwinist. Don't you think Twister?

AAAhh, I need a drink! I'll get somthing from the bar.

(unknown guy, looking at JA's empty chair)

Excuse me mister, may I use this chair?

I'm sorry, but that's the chair of my friend JA. If you take it, he may get angry with you.

(seeing the stranger) Who are you??!! Why are you taking my chair??!! It is my chair!! (taking his coat off... in order to leave it on the chair) Dou you have a problem??!!

I'm s.. s.. ssorry, I didn't want to b.. b.. bother you, aahh I have to go now (walking away very quickly).

Then, Jacky and Girl arrived.

Hi! (every body: hi).

(watching at the until then unknown friend of Jackie)
Hi.. aahh ... mmhh.. I.. I.. I have to go now, for a moment, to say hi to some friends over there. I'll be back in a moment (thinking "yeah, sure").

(completely drunk, talking to Girl)
Who are you??!! What's your name??!! How old are you??!! What are you doing here in Chile??!!

(said something I don't remember, in a very bad spanish)

Gee, you should really improve your spanish, specially your "spanish R" pronunciation. Now, try it again, with this tong: grrrrrr.

(trying hard, but unsuccesfull) ggggghhh.

(even more drunk, talking to Jackie)
Would you marry me?

YEEEESSSSS!!!!

WHATTT???!!!
Ok, ok, I think I can give you the ring that keeps my car keys together...

I can't believe what I just did!

Ok, if we are going to get married, we should start to get to know each other. What's your favorite color?

We don't have to marry now, you can be my back up: if none of us has married when we're 33, then we'll get married. Well, you'll be my second back up: a back up for my back up. And my favorite color is purple.

What?! WHY do you like PURPLE?

I don't know! What's your favorite color?

NOT PURPLE!!

The End

Victor Bout

2005-10-24T20:30:00.000-03:00

He is the world's largest arms dealer. Here is his story.

Victor Bout was born January 13 of 1967 in Tajikistan. He attended the Soviet Military Institute for Foreign Languages in Moscow and then went to a Russian military college, earning a degree in economics. He speaks six languages fluently. He served in a military aviation regiment until 1991. Two of those years he spent
in Mozambique, at the end of that country's civil war. Retired as a lieutenant
being 25, when the Soviet empire collapsed, bought three Antonovs russian military cargo planes for US$120,000. Nobody knows were he got the money.

Now he lives as a free millionaire man in Moscow (the Russian goverment is
skeptical of the charges against him), has been linked to at least 60 planes, his companies have 300 employees and operate in four continents. In 2003 he gave an interview to Peter Landesman, published by the New York Times Magazine:

''I woke up after Sept. 11 and found I was second only to Osama.'' The truth, he said, was much bigger than his personal story. ''My clients, the governments,'' he began. Then, ''I keep my mouth shut.''
Later he said, ''If I told you everything I'd get the red hole right here.'' He pointed to the middle of his forehead." ...

...C.I.A. and MI6 agents on the ground in Africa first picked up Bout's scent in the early 1990's, when his fleet of planes began crisscrossing the continent. In the early days, they transported gladiolas; later, frozen chickens and then diamonds, mining equipment, Kalashnikov assault rifles, bullets, helicopter gunships and even, Bout says, U.N. peacekeepers, French
soldiers and African heads of state. The names of the men Bout came to count as his personal friends and customers included Massoud, Mobutu, Savimbi, Taylor, Bemba. It was not until the summer of 2000 that the N.S.C. realized it had stumbled on not only the most prolific arms trafficking operation in Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan but probably the best connected (and protected) private-weapons transport and brokering network in the world.

¿How does an arms dealing empire start? This is what happened in 1993:

Business really started to boom when he began filling his
planes with South African gladiolas. ''Vic bought a day-old flower for $2 and sold it in Dubai for $100,'' Chichakli said. ''Twenty tons per flight. It's better than printing money." ...

...By 1997, Bout's operations had expanded to an abandoned airfield in Pietersburg, South Africa. He built a refrigeration facility in South Africa to freeze and store chickens, which cost a little over $1 a kilo in South Africa and sold for $10 in Nigeria. ...

... Starting in 1995, Bout expanded his air-freight operations to Ostend, Belgium, and later to Odessa, Ukraine. Eleven years earlier, Ostend had been a transit point for weapons in the Iran-contra operation, leaving behind a comfortable precedent and logistical mechanisms for arms traffickers. So did Belgium's lax arms-trafficking laws. From Sharjah and South Africa, and now from Ukraine and Ostend, Bout did indeed tap
into what Africa and the Middle East needed. But it wasn't gladiolas and frozen chickens.
Most people think that controlling arms shipments is merely a matter of international diplomacy. That may have been true during the cold war, when traffickers were often subcontractors of the superpowers, feeding the proxy conflicts Washington and Moscow wanted fought. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the exclusive club of arms brokers metastasized. Some brokers still work at the behest of governments and intelligence agencies. But most are now entrepreneurial freelancers who sell weapons without regard for ideology, allegiance or
consequence. They have only one goal in mind: profit. ...

... On the evening of my third day with Bout, the phone in my hotel room rang. A voice said, ''I understand we have things to talk about.'' At first I was taken aback, even amused, by the melodrama. But the voice was coldly sobering. ''Tomorrow, 1700 hours,'' the caller said. ''Go to the McDonald's on Pushkin Square. Buy two cups of coffee and sit at a table. I'll find you.'' Then
he hung up.
At 5 p.m. I went to the McDonald's. It was vast, multitiered and crowded with Russian teenagers. Techno-pop was playing loudly. It was the perfect place for a private conversation.
I put two coffees on a random table and waited. At 5:02, I looked left and right into the crowd, then turned back. A man in his early 40's was in the seat across from me. ''Thank you for the coffee,'' he said.
The man didn't identify himself, but his knowledge of arms trafficking and its various players was expert. He told me that Bout was merely the public face of something much larger and that I was just getting through the surface and that
to go further was very dangerous.
He alluded to two assassinations that had taken place 10 days before. Both victims were executives of a huge air-defense contractor involved in export of antiaircraft weapons and other systems.
He said to imagine the structure of arms trafficking in Russia like a mushroom.
Bout was among those in the mushroom's cap, which we can see. The stalk is made up of the men who are really running things in Russia and making decisions. Looking from above, he said, you never see the stalk. Earlier, in Kiev, Grigory Omelchenko, the former chief of Ukrainian counterintelligence, had said that traffickers like Bout are either protected or killed. ''There's total state control.''
Said E.J. Hogendoorn, the former U.N. arms investigator: ''There was the sense
that there were bigger and murkier forces involved in this. Bout's being protected by highly influential people.''I began to understand why Bout was both eager to
talk and reluctant. Cornered by multiple governments, selling off his assets and hounded by the press, he wanted to complain that he had merely become the fall guy for a criminalized -- and quasi-legal -- political structure much larger and more significant than Victor Bout. But if he revealed too much, he said, he would be perilous.

The interview is much larger, and so are the stories about him. It is also known that every single armed conflict on the surface of the earth has one person in common: Victor Bout. You can find the complete interview at:

http://italy.peacelink.org/

disarmo/articles/art_2385.html

That's the way local girls are...

2005-10-20T16:17:00.000-03:00

The day before yesteday I really wanted to visit a place I've heard it's great: El Cachafaz Tango Bar. It's a place were you can watch a tango show, eat, and of course, dance tango. So I asked the girls I'm actually dating if one of them would like to go to this place, but not one of them was available that night, so I decided to ask it a local girl I know, an old friend of mine.

I called her, and proposed to teach her tango dancing on Tuesday night (the show started at 22:00 pm), she accepted with excitement, so I made reservations at El Cachafaz. On that day I had a test at 18:00 pm, so I spent the hole afternoon at the university dressed formal in a black suit, and carried my shoes and perfume in my bag, so I could go directly from the campus to pick her out. I even got borrowed the car of my good friend Juan Antonio, the Great Observer.

I arrived at JA's department at 20:00 pm, and I called the girl, to tell her that I was just going to pick her out, but she kindly told me: "I'm sorry, but I feel a little tired tonigh, so I won't be able to go out with you".

¿Can you believe it? She could have called me to tell me before, so I could at least ask someone else out, but It was too late then. So I ended up drinking wine, watching the local news in "mute" and talking about nothing (the video is a little heavy):

View this clip on Vimeo

Aloha!

2005-10-19T17:07:00.000-03:00

Welcome to my blog. I've already wasted lots of time at the creation of this, and I don't have much more left. Anyway, I've always hated introductions. So anyway, visit my blog again in a close future, when I had posted something else.