At the feria

Wannabe world traveler?

I’ve documented many times the overwhelming assault vehicles that Germans (and some others) apparently feel essential for navigating the wilds of the Americas. And to be fair, I personally know one who has made thorough use of its off-road provisions, in the Andes and elsewhere.

Mostly though, I see them parked in the dunes or supermarket parking lot. And those closeups often reveal fascinating evidence of wide-ranging travel.

As in, you know, suggesting maybe the vehicle was actually in those places at one point.

Enter the Pathfinder.

Nissan Pathfinder — Which to take more seriously?

But first, an acknowledgement that a subset of Uruguayan drivers think stickers filling the back window comprise the essence of awesomeness. The vehicle below presented itself a few minutes later. Shooting through the windshield with the camera on my phone, I felt badly about the poor image quality … until I remembered there was nothing remotely interesting there to examine in greater detail.

So, the Pathfinder. First thing to notice are the wheels on the left. Their apparent offset could be explained by perspective, but no, you had to be there: through whatever misalignment, the car was driving somewhat crabwise.

Then there are the stickers. Most prominent, a person on camel. Let’s see, Africa, eh? Or am I jusr cheating based on not one, but two, sticker outlines of the continent? So has this vehicle been to Africa (maybe twice?). Uh, no. Look 10:00 from there (with your ancient knowledge of analog clocks) and spot the Route 66 sticker. So this vehicle has traversed the southwestern United States? Uh, no.

Then on the window to the right, another camel, and then a dog peering through what might be a shrapnel hole. And then a cross motif, and … hmmm. Will I apologize that you can’t clearly see more? Uh, no.

By the way, no intent to denigrate the juggler, whom in this case I hardly noticed. Though considerably less novel than I’d prefer, unsolicited traffic light performers here are often quite impressive.

100 reasons not to live in Uruguay

This will be a little obscure to someone who hasn’t actually suffered through daily life in Acodike’s Uruguay. Gas for cooking (“Supergas”) comes in metal gas bottles sold by many vendors. All have phone numbers, and will bring gas on demand for a slight charge. And of course everyone has a cell phone, so anyone can phone anytime, anywhere, and have replacement gas within a few minutes.

However, one company thinks we still live in the 1990s, and has its drivers – apparently on commission, based on their wasteful repetition and overlap – drive back and forth endlessly, with a tinny and piercing version of Beethoven’s Für Elise screeching at high volume. Yes, the ice cream truck “music,” but not tempting you once a day. No, just driving up and back every street, occasionally turning the noise off abruptly, which makes it no less jarring. Not every truck is the same, and I’ve heard as many as three different ones in the space of a couple of hours.

Everyone (above a certain level of awareness, with the bar set pretty low) hates them. But they just persist with their noise pollution, because es lo que hay – that’s how it is.

Today – blissfully! – we have reached the afternoon without their intrusion. From being an acoustic hell the last few days, Uruguay suddenly seems like a nice place to live again.

The inheritance confirmation

One of those old emails that was just too good to get rid of. (So, yes: out of the trash and onto the blog 😉

On Mar 18, 2018, at 12:03 PM, Notification <creditagricolebank@yandex.com> wrote:

ATTN:

It is about your inheritance payment here in our Credit Agricole Bank of Egypt,
somebody call Mr. Allen Roland Jr came to claim your inheritance fund this
morning and said that you authorized him to claim the fund and that he is
your new Next of Kin.

He has provided the whole documentation as to prove that he is your next
of kin, the fund so the fund is yet to be transfer to his account. So that
is the reason why we contacted you to find out whether you are still alive
because he said to us that you are dead yesterday.

Reply to this email below ASAP
Email: kolazakicreditagricolebanking@gmail.com

Mr. Kola Zaki
Administrator Department

Regards,

Mrs. Daina Williams
Form: Secretary Officer
Credit Agricole Bank of Egypt.

Re: Attention
To: kolazakicreditagricolebanking@gmail.com

Yes, this is to confirm that I am dead yesterday.

Spotted on the intertoobz

First, this incredibly pompous and self-righteous hilarity:

bullshit mainstream media

We tell you what to think. You can pretend it’s your own idea.

And why trust us? Because no one tells us what to write. Because they don’t have to. Because we already know what they want us to say.

Meanwhile, shopping for a travel accessory on Mercado Libre:

opiniones

Needless to say, I ordered it immediately.

Shipshape

I’ve always liked autumn. “Back to school” was an exciting for me as a kid. New clothes! New faces! New things to learn!

Autumn here is familiar: crisp air, blue sky, bright sun (and a few sort-of-almost-colorful leaves). But northern hemisphere signals persist, and part of me thinks it’s spring cleaning time: focus on clothes, tools, organizing nooks and crannies, passing on unused items.

One morning my little tinkering-space caught my attention. It was trivial to cut a shelf in half to make cans more organized, but what a difference in terms of quickly locating nails and screws. Then it occurred that I had measuring tools scattered in different places. Since most projects start with measuring, I consolidated them:

Now, in the space of a few inches, I have two types of carpenter’s square, calipers, folding rule, measuring tape, and bevel gauge. All that’s missing is the framing square, which remains elsewhere because of its size. Bring it on!

Of course, none of my most recent projects — painting ironwork, pressure washing, disassembling a decrepit table, re-wiring a kitchen stove, reorganizing the patio and repairing masonry — has required any measuring at all. But the next one will, for sure.

Or at least the one after that.

Autumn morning

Reduce, re-use: yes; recycle: no

A little over a month ago, I began drinking sparkling water (agua con gas) instead of wine.

I love the vastly reduced clink-clank of bottle recycling, and the cash savings will certainly buy a little sushi, but I didn’t feel good about the single-use plastic water bottles from the supermarket. Given tightening purity standards in China for recyclables, many municipalities up north have gone from making a little selling recyclables, to paying much more to send them to a landfill.

I don’t know the status here. I don’t know if plastic is really recycled, and if so, where (but they seemed serious about it last I checked, seven years ago). But then I remembered how we got drinking water before I installed filters: the water guy who comes around every Monday morning.

He brings pressurized bottles like the one on the left. Total waste is reduced from a bottle with three types of plastic, to a little piece of plastic wrap. Plus the water stays fizzier because the bottle is pressurized. Also it costs less. And the delivery guy is friendly and helpful. For example, after starting delivery only a few weeks ago, we were out last Monday morning. We returned to find six bottles of water at our doorstep, to be paid this week, no problem.

So how many times can these pressurized bottles be re-used? I have no idea. However, this is one delivered today:

Notice the phone number. Phone numbers in Uruguay no longer begin with zero. In fact, they haven’t since late 2010. So, chances are these bottles have been around a while.

I like that.

The scoop

We haven’t gone out for ice cream this summer, and Syd mentioned vanilla with walnuts and maple syrup, and seeing as we had the latter two ingredients – and the weather being insufferably hot – I procured the former.

I think it’s been eight years since I used the ice cream scoop we purchased here. It was a piece of crap then, and now, even on ice cream fresh from the store, it was even more a piece of crap:

Yes, digging into relatively soft ice cream it bent completely back. Instead of going back to the drawer, it now goes to the trash.

This is, unfortunately, all too typical of products purchased in Uruguay. We discovered this early on, of course. However, as a followup, I’m happy to say that those new garden tools mentioned in that 2012 blog post are still going strong – I used them both today!

Startcoin, stopped

A few years ago I started paying around with cryptocurrencies. I’m not sure what got me onto Startcoin, but it was probably during a particularly frothy period where a gimmicky 20-something took to YouTube to present himself as an expert and this was The. Next. Great. Thing.

Some time ago, an exchange warned me to move my holdings to my own wallet, since they were delisting it for lack of activity. Duly noted – recent global 24 trading volume USD 2:

Think that’s bad? Here’s the most recent 24 hour trade data:

Of course if there’s no trading, no nothing, it’s kind of hard to connect with the network to update. This was a few days ago:

This is today:

I’m almost half way there! How exciting! Maybe when I’m up to date, I can transfer my few dollars worth of Startcoin to one of the two exchanges that still list it (why?):

Then I can place an order to dump my stake and watch the price dive – a true market influencer? I doubt I’ll ever get there. Still, it’s fun to watch. Of the thousands of cryptocurrencies, 95% or more will follow this trajectory into complete worthlessness.

By the way, this “investment” was not with real money – I long since recouped my capital in fiat currency. This is playing with froth.