What a Trip

My g/f is leaving town for Hong Kong tomorrow morning. I'm going to meet her there sometime the following week for another week or so. I'll be meeting some more of her family there, and taking in the culture from a local perspective instead of from a superficial tourist point of view.
Although I haven't travelled outside the U.S. in any significant fashion, I'd hafta say this is how I prefer to visit other regions. Many years ago, I visited Mexico with a friend and his family who lived there. It makes the experience more enjoyable and serves as a good way to see thangs as they really are. Mexico is a depressing place, but you can't know how depressing until you travel to a city's outskirts and see poor families living in tin huts made from junk (same as little as 4' high) for as far as you dare to look. It helped me realize that some countries are afraid to take the steps necessary to allow their citizens opportunities. Maybe afraid is the wrong word. Maybe it is intentional, to hold down the masses and keep them under control. I don't know, but either way, it would not take a lot of effort to charge up the Mexican economy if its government would loosen economic controls. The Mexicans that can get ahead are the ones that are able to find work in the U.S., at least along the boarder.
I wonder what I'm going to discover about Hong Kong?

Recent quote from AP

From the AP: "Danforth, a Missouri Republican and an Episcopal priest, commented recently
'I think that the Republican Party fairly recently has been taken over by the Christian conservatives, by the Christian right,' he said in an interview. 'I don't think that this is a permanent condition, but I think this has happened, and that it's divisive for the country.'
He also said the evangelical Christian influence would be bad for the party in the long run."

Ya'think!? This is obvious. It happened when Bush Sr. weakend the Republican Party from 88-92. They lost their way. In the void, the extreme religious right stepped in and started consolidating their power within the Republican Party in the same manner that the Nazi Party took over the Germany government. Then they used their momentum to take over the U.S. Government, and now we have a mess to clean up that will be an embarassment to American generations to come.

Acura troubles again

The trouble with my Acura TL is it now has had THREE Transmissions in under 62,000 miles. THREE! Acura extended all the warranties of all TL owners to seven years, for 2002 and 2003 awhile back. Well, I'm getting full use out of that warranty extension, except...well, I purchased the standard extended warranty when I bought my car back in 2002. Well, with all the little and moderate thangs that have gone wrong with my car, I'm glad I did get the extended warranty. Anyone that doesn't buy the extended warranty for their car are facing higher costs than they may realize. Even on the luxury cars, issues come up. All of my issues are covered, as long as I keep up with the maintenance schedule. Without the extended warranty, I would've had to spend an addition $1500 or so by now. I think I paid that for the warranty, but I don't remember exactly. I know I'm breaking even. It's not to be able to take a car in for repairs and not hafta pay out hundreds of dollars, except for schedule maintenance.
Anyways, three transmissions. I'm told that even my previous transmission was known to have problems, so the dealership expected to hafta replace it again. Supposedly, this new transmission will not have the same issue and last longer than 30,0000 miles.

Vote No on everything in California Nov 2005

Well, we again encounter a No On Everything on California’s Ballet. Again, people who do not represent the state are trying to sneak through their agenda on Californians, forcing their beliefs, limited understanding, bigoted, and power mongering vision on our entire populous.

No on Prop 73: It is being billed as a waiting period prop to give doctors time to notify parents of their underage child’s intent to have an abortion. However, it is very sneaky. It is an attempt to define terms like “Unborn Child” in very unscientific and extremist anti-abortion terms, creating the stepping stone necessary to legally taking away a women’s right to choose in the near future. Even if you are anti-abortion, this bill should scare you! It is an attempt to trick a populous to accept concepts to which the populous is opposed. If they can get away with this, they can get away with anything. Every right taken away from one class of citizens is a right taken away from all citizens. This isn’t about the right to abortion. This is about the right to have a say over one’s own body. To take away that right puts us on the same track as countries like China where abortions are enforced by law. Why are abortions enforced? Because the government’s authority exceeds the individual’s authority over their own body! Even though most of us are against government enforced abortions, we need to realize that government prohibition of abortion has the same result: the government having control over our own bodies. With this right taken away, all other rights are pointless. The government, even with the will of the people, does not have the right to tell any of us what to do with my own body. The will of the people does not supersede the will of the individual at the individual level. Allowing the government to take a person’s right over their own body leads to forced operations, and later, forced implants. If you don’t think this is possible, I will remind you that some of our fellow Americans are currently promoting such government intrusions right now; some who are very overt about their intentions, and some who are very quiet and sneaky, like the writers of Prop 73.

Props 74, 75, 76 and 77 are scams dealing with a governor’s power and money usage to oppose the governor. The point of these props is to consolidate power in the office of the governor and limit the ability of citizens to oppose the governor. The problem that its proponents don’t realize is you can’t keep Democrats out of the White House, or the Governor’s House either. The same power they are trying to grab for themselves right now will end up in the hands of a Democratic Governor sooner or later. As an independent voter, it scares me to have that much power in anyone’s hands, regardless of party affiliation. So, the answer here is No. Remember, Hitler was Germany’s legally elected leader. The Nazi Party was the legally elected dominate Political Power. They snaked their way into power by lying about their agendas and openly consolidating power with the populous’ permission.

Props 78 and 79 are competing props purportedly trying to clean up health care in California. Both are nonsense. No system is better than either of these. Prop 78 is supported by pharmaceutical corporations. Hmm, these are the same guys charging Americans like 100 of times as much for medication here than they do in other countries. Do I trust them? Uh, no. Prop 79 is a response to Prop 78, but a very poor one that isn’t very well thought-out.

Prop 80? Yeah, what’s that about? The regulations on our current power system need to provide sustained power for our populous, but Prop 80 looks like a power grab by someone. Even in its own description, it sounds bad. Who wasted their money trying to promote this prop?

Lunchtime

Well, ever since my company put in the food vending machines, my cost of living has dropped a bit. With the exception of Tuesday (when I meet up with Miriam for a mid-day movie - saw 40 Year Old Virgin for the second time), I’ve spend less than 10 dollars for lunch this week. It’s packaged food, so it’s not the best in the world, but it’s not overly fattening or anything. The reason I stopped going to McDonalds years ago is cuz of the fat and sodium in their food. These items are not nearly as bad and even a lot cheaper. Plus, I'm saving money cuz I'm not out driving around to the local places. Ok, now’s time for lunch.

Leave my jamas alone, you llamas!

So, I’ve learned a tiny tiny bit of Spanish many many years ago. I know enough to at least be able to recognize the sounds that each letter makes, and a few phrases. So today, a Spanish speaking co-worker of mine was asked how to pronounce her name. Her name has the Spanish double-L (LL) in it. But the sound she made for the LL was very confusing to me. She was using a sound similar to an English J. Now, as any student of Spanish as a second language is taught, the LL makes a Y sound, as in the word YOU. Of course, it’s not as simple as that, but generally, it is an equivalent to an English Y sound with some variation in stress, depending on the region.

So, I wasn’t able to let this go. I've been around Spanish speaking individuals my whole life, and never heard the LL pronounced so strongly as J.  I jumped in and asked her to repeat it to make sure I was hearing her right. Again, she pronounced the LL in her name as a J. So, now I’m even more confused. Normally a person knows how to pronounce their own name. After several attempts to get her to say it, I started up with, “Doesn’t the LL make a Y sound?” She agreed, but then said it as a J again, this time only the letter itself. Ok, so now I’m even more confused than before. I asked her to say the common Spanish question “COMO SE LLAMAS?” and it came out of her mouth as “Como say jamas”. I said, “Como say yamas”, and she corrected me, “Como se jamas.”

Needless to say, my main confusion now is how a native Spanish speaker doesn’t know how to say letters in her own language. So, we started into a rather flavorful and light argument about this. It lasted long enough to entertain a few nearby co-workers. She was all, “How are you going to teach a native Spanish speaker my own language. Let me teach you English.” So, I printed a pronunciation chart of Spanish letters with their English equivalents. She was still not convinced. She even mentioned that she spoke Castilian version of Spanish. I wasn’t buying that.

The funny thing is, I know she speaks Spanish as a first language all the time. We live in California, where one can find peoples representative of many Spanish speaking regions. I know she has had to have talked to other Spanish speakers before. But she’s convinced that everyone says the LL as a J. I’m kinda starting to think there are a lot of Latin American’s that say the LL as a J without realizing it, as an accent. I’m not sure that she (or many Latin American people) can even hear the difference between the Y (you) and J (jam) sounds. Very strange. Either way, she still insists on pronouncing as a J. After all, that’s how she’s been saying it all her life. If this is how a lot of people are talking, Latin American television must be impossible for Spaniards to understand.

Ok, so later in the evening, I met up with my friend Dave, who was raised in Spain and has a significant European background. I told him and his Latina girlfriend this story and gave the example of the J sound. He immediate laughed. But his girlfriend said, "Yes, you said it right!" I looked at her oddly. (My co-worker and Dave's girlfriend are from two completely different regions.) Dave looked at his girlfriend funny too and pointed out her error. She wasn't even aware that she was saying the J sound herself. We were both pretty amazed.

Don't Press the Button, whatever you do!!!

President knows how to pick 'em

The President refuses to learn the lesson of error of choosing the wrong people for the job. With his latest Supreme Court nomination, he has shown the same lack of skill for finding the right people to fill posts in government as he did in choosing Rumsfeld and Brown (head of FEMA). He's a very poor just of skill and character. I'm pretty sure he's also very poor understanding the responsibilities of the positions for which he hires or nominates people. His cronyism has hurt and weakened America in so many diverse ways that it is past the point of being a humiliation. He is an embarrassment. Those who blindly follow him are an embarrassment. How can someone continue to blunter so openly and still have an ounce of respect from anyone? Now, it's beyond outright foolishness.

Last Night's Party

Last night's birthday party for Kate was fairly tame as house parties go, but it was a lot of fun. This picture shows Jaime's first ever Keg Stand! Just turn your head 90 degrees to see her Keg Stand properly vertical . :) There was also a permanent batting cage in the backyard. The ball hurling machine wasn't working (or at least their drunk asses couldn't get it to work), so some of the guys switched between batting and pitching. Not smart. I watched as one line drive drove right into the ribs of the pitcher. Funny thang, and funnier that he keep pitching afterwards! lol My buddy Nate randomly meet a girl (Keg Stand Jaime, actually!) who he's only talked to through Myspace and emails before. Must be fate. lol Even with all of this going on, Miriam and I still took off by midnight. I was the double-d, though I don't think either of us had any possibility of getting too drunk.