An inquisitive old fart with a camera
Products, services, marketing, names
I note that the Playstation 4 has landed in Uruguay. Yes, only 850 US dollars! My son was able to buy two last December in the States. He sold the second to a friend here, and got almost all his money back for both (he gave his friend a deal).
The PS3 and Kinect are correspondingly cheaper as well, of course.
The last day has passed. I won’t be going to Brazil to watch Uruguay play England in the 2014 World Cup. I was just so sure I was going to win this Tienda Inglesa giveaway. NOT!
Oh boy, you’re thinking, he’s really lost it now.
I know: shoes with Velcro are not exciting. But in Uruguay, cheap shoes that fit me are exciting. And most of what’s available is size 45 or less. These are 48. And they fit. And they cost under USD 30.
The ones I wanted they had, surprisingly, in 46, 47, and 49, but no 48. They called another store a few blocks away (I thought I’d been in every one in Pando already), and told me someone would bring a pair in size 48. Which they did, though the only similarity to the others was the color.
I have a special disdain for Velcro shoes, our nemesis in our early days of doing school author presentations. Well, not the shoes in fact, but the combination of the shoes and the kindergarteners in the front row who couldn’t stop sticking them and loudly unsticking them. I sometimes felt like screaming at them, WHY DON’T YOU BRATS LEARN TO GODDAM TIE SHOES? But I didn’t.
My neighbor Manuel told me that going to Pando used to be the butt of jokes in Montevideo, since it was popular for its whiskerías (whorehouses) and hourly motels. It’s significant for us because they deliver for free (the stores, not the whores): Montevideo is farther, and through the toll booth.
While in Pando, I found a 20-tube solar water heater with a 3-year guarantee for USD 675. So maybe one day soon I’ll actually get to do a hot baking-soda-magnesium-oil soak in our expensive bathtub.
My excitement today in Uruguay: cheap Velcro shoes. No, really.
I discovered, to my surprise (why?) that our local computer store in Atlántida could get our laser printer cartridges refilled. Prior, I’d been taking them to Tecsys, where they advised that each was good for perhaps four refills, and that the people who did the refills would not refill them if the quality wouldn’t be up to par.
The local computer store also cleaned our printer, which had stopped functioning a few days ago. So the first thing I did on arriving home was hold the “on” button for five seconds to print a test page. It didn’t look good at all: the black test bar was streaky and gray in places. So I took it back, a bit upset.
The owner offered I could return the refilled cartridge and apply the cost to a new cartridge, about USD 90, saying that was the only way to get “new” quality (even though I was sure the previous refills had printed like new). Meanwhile, he showed me that a printed page of text—unlike the printer test page—looked just fine.
At which point I realized I had paid perhaps half (USD 20) for this refill as the others at Tecsys. I’d have to dig out receipts, which I’m too lazy to do, even for you, beloved reader of my drivel. But I know I didn’t pay twenty bucks in Texas.*
So he’d given me a workable solution at a good price, even though in terms of quality I’d essentially gotten what I paid for, which was less quality than I expected. But that was perhaps also more than I needed.
I thanked him for explaining. Ya veremos. We will see.
*Huh—? That’s what you get for not clicking on links 😉
That one produce vendor in the outdoor market, less than 48 hours ago, where you didn’t have to take a number and wait?
Perhaps other people knew something you didn’t.
Our vet suggested a different dog food, one with less fat. She says less fat has solved skin problems of many dogs she knows, and ours is having issues.
The guy who sells the dog food displays it outside his house, fading bags in the full sun—who would buy that, knowing full well everything inside would be rancid? Turns out to be just a display. He gets a fresh bag from inside. Then gives me a refrigerator magnet, and say to call next time: he delivers for free, like many merchants here. I like that. I tell him my name’s Douglas, and there aren’t many of us in Uruguay.
He tells me his gardener’s name is Douglas.
Well, then.
Last Friday, our fiber optic service crapped out. I called AntelData to file a reclamo, a complaint, and learned that service was down for an entire zone. Not much to do but wait.
Saturday I learned that our neighbors had their service back. Sunday we spent a delightful afternoon with a couple of friends with whom we explored northern Argentina a few years back, at our favorite restaurant. Got home: still no internet.
Monday morning, a computer-illiterate Uruguayan friend mentioned entering usario and contraseña, and suddenly it clicked: Antel insisted the correct modem lights were lit. Then I remembered that on my first call, they’d had me enter user name and password, which I did—obviously incorrectly?
So I wondered if what I took as a capital A at the beginning of the handwritten password the tech left months ago, was instead a 4. The passwords are all upper case. LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES LOVE ALL CAPS.
No, not 4.
Then I looked at out ambiguously written handwritten user name, one letter and 5 numbers @adsl… and wondered: was K supposed to be k?
Bingo! In a trice we were back to wasting huge amounts of time glued to the screen.
Easily the most obnoxious character who drives around blaring advertising. He buys old stuff (______ viejos compro=I buy old ________).
The last one, garafas, refers to the propane tanks that you have to buy, but which the company that sells them to you won’t buy back, even though there’s nothing unique to your tank: you swap it out for a full one—which is obviously a different tank that somebody else had to buy from a company that won’t buy it back.
The penultimate, fósforos quemados as far as I can tell, is weird—burnt matchsticks? Obviously I’m missing something here.
The first two? I’ll need some help here….
Finally got my act together to shine my shoes so I could store them in a airtight plastic bag, and hope to keep mold at bay. Which is not an issue with my Brazilian-made shoes.
I don’t mean that as a blanket endorsement of Brazilian products. This is my first time using the new Brazilian shoe brush. Glad I did it outside.
Let’s not forget the real reason for the season: to sell shit. In this case, remote-control dinosaurs. Alas, this ain’t e-gadget-obsessed Tokyo. I waited in line at Tienda Inglesa Atlántida in back of, and in front of, shopping carts laden with slabs of meat, chorizo sausage, cheese and baguettes, the ubiquitous gallons of Coca-Cola poison, plenty of beer, potato chips, plates and glasses for vacation dwellings, deli sandwich packs, a head of lettuce and some tomatoes (RIGHT ON!), but… …not one remote-control dinosaur.
While even the impoverished in the north remain enslaved by consumerism, here the holidays mean time with friends and family. Granted, shoppers in Tienda Inglesa Atlántida aren’t the social equivalent of the unruly crowd waiting for free toy handouts at a Salvation Army in Pittsburgh. Nonetheless, there exists in Uruguay a family “glue” that will trigger a touch of nostalgia in USA-Americans of a certain age.
Personally, though their presence makes my life a little more difficult, and a lot louder, I really do wish for our seasonal visitors a really enjoyable holiday time with their family and friends, playing with a soccer ball or fishing during their endless hours on the beach. I think they understand that a remote-control dinosaur adds little to that experience. I hope so, anyway.