Just some thoughts and stories

-- Whenever I'm strolling through the city I always see things that would make nice gifts for my friends and family. I'll often see a unique item and think about how happy it would make someone else, because that's just the kind of guy I am.

However there is so much trill shit here, that I'm not sure who to give what, then one day while thinking about people besides myself, it hit me. Why not just buy a collection of trill items and have all my kinfolk play a game of Yankee Swap/White Elephant for the gifts.

The idea is still in the beta stage, but I'm thinking it could be a grand time as everyone I'm close with will get the chance to Yankee Swap for a gifts ranging from Boca jerseys, Maradona posters and hand-crafted mate gourds to shit like a grain of salt that says "BsAs." Keep in mind that the whole write-your-name-on-a-grain-of-salt phenomena doesn't exist in Buenos Aires, so if you end of with that gift you're really get shafted with a bootleg BsAs grain of rice.

The only qualifications for the Buenos Aires Yankee Swap gift exchange extravaganza are that (a) I have communicated with you since I've been down here and (b) you have g-mail. And to accommodate my friends all over the world (I see you Eric Gobright) I'm thinking of hosting the extravaganza in a neutral setting like Portland (for obvious reasons) or Ed's house in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

-- Last Sunday while I was strolling through the San Telmo Market with my friends, some lady who heard us speaking English asked us if we were backpacking through South America. We told her we were actually studying here and then tried to force more small talk with us.

After telling us she was a flight attendant who was on 24-hour layover, she told me she was from Scottsdale, Arizona. I shrugged and told her that I'm also from Scottsdale and then she lost her mind.

She told me she lived in Gainey Ranch (a particularly lame part of Scottsdale) and then she suggested we take a picture together.

She busted out her camera and hugged me as I made the smile you make after you've been annoyed for the last 90 seconds by some stupid bitch flight attendant who happens to be from the your hometown, which you really don't like to begin with.

Then she asked everyone within a five-foot perimeter for a pen, because she was steadfast on sending the picture to my parents. After she bothered six people, I stopped humoring her and told her it was OK and I could just remember the moment.

She finally got her hands on a pen and I gave her my e-mail address because I told her my parents don't have e-mail addresses (which is partially true).

She then blabbered to me some more and brought up her husband, who she twice referred to as "Mr. Wonderful." Then after annoying me for another couple of minutes, the woman, who appeared to be 55-years-old, gasped, looked me straight in the eyes and asked, "Oh my God! Do you know where there is good graffiti in this city because I love taking pictures of graffiti?!"

I firmly and promptly crushed her and let her know there was a museum with a South American graffiti exhibit, that featured the most amazing graffiti I had ever seen, but the exhibit ended a week ago.

Finally I freed myself from her clutches, looked at my friends and then broke my streak of not using excessive profanity as all I could manage to say was, "Wow. What a stupid cunt."

-- Few of you will actually believe this, but yes I'm actually trying to reduce the amount of profanity I use.

-- I finally figured out how "House" is created. They just steal ideas from "South Park," the other day on "House" a girl pooped out of her mouth; there was a whole episode of "South Park" about this. Then tonight the show opened with a kid being strangely abducted and left on his front lawn in his pajamas with his ass bleeding, blatantly ripping the episode where Cartman is anally probed by aliens.

-- The other day I met this cool Chilean girl who had about 9 million tattoos, she had multiple neck tattoos (although none as dope as "Ra Boogie" or "Black Jesus") and she had "SOXR LIFE" tatted across her knuckles. This was the one tattoo I asked about, which stems from my love for "WHIT EBOY," and she told me she didn't want "SOUR LIFE" because she didn't want people judging her from that particular tattoo.

If it weren't for the excessive tattoos and my knowledge of her abortion history I probably would have gotten down simply for the fact that she started the night by playing "Da Rockwilda" and then phased into a De La Soul and Blackstar medley.

-- I kick myself everyday for not going to the show advertised at the top of this post. Gertrudis and Perrovaca translates into Gertrudis and Dogcow and JESUS FUCKING CHRIST I just watched their YouTube, why didn't I go to this?!

-- I'm pretty used to manifestaciones these days. As I walk up the subte exit and hear the drum banging I now just hope for some excitement and am usually disappointed. It's gotta be a pretty big let down when your manifestacion only warrants nine riot police officers.


Here if the riot police tumbler I spoke of in a previous post.


-- I was quite proud of my Spanish skills the other day. I figure any schmohawk can ask, "Dónde está el baño?" But it takes some real skills to bullshit the hostess of a nice restaurant and tell her your looking for friends, then use the bathroom and pull the ol' fake conversation on the cellphone trick as you walk past her on your way out.

--Now it's time for other peoples' stories...

These are my two good friends here Matt and Erasmo.



They both live together in a homestay with a mother who runs one of the larger breast milk cartels in Buenos Aires. They tell me that every Saturday morning there are six to ten women sitting in their family room pumping their breasts for milk.

They also told me their refrigerator has a whole shelf full of breast milk. I constantly suggest we have a party and sneak all the breast milk as if it were our parents' liquor cabinet in high school.

Plus I want to become a oenophile of South American breast milk to the point where I can decipher a woman's age and ethnicity from one sip.

--- Recently Matt, who I would describe as the chillest kid ever, if I used the word "chill," got robbed three times in one week.

The first time someone stole his $130-peso binoculars out of his backpack, which sucks because now he has to buy new binoculars for Birds.

The second time someone tried to rob him by coming up to him and saying, "Tengo un machete dame su plata (I have a machete, give me your money)." Matt acted like he didn't speak any Spanish and refused to give the guy anything. The best part of the story is that the robber didn't realize machete is the same word in Spanish and English.

The third time Matt was by himself slack-lining in the park, this is Matt's new favorite pastime. Then three guys came up and joined in for a minute. Then one of the guys gained interest in Matt's ear buds which were hanging from shirt collar. Matt was reluctant at first, until the guy lifted up his shirt to reveal a gun in his waste.

Then the other two guys came up to Matt and took everything out of his pockets.

Somehow Matt remained cool the entire time and then began haggling for his stuff back, he ended up getting his wallet back after they took all four pesos out of it. Then he started to mock them as they went through his backpack.

He told me clearly pointed out how worthless everything in his backpack was to them. "This is a towel. This is a notebook. This is a book in English, you can't read that," Matt told the robbers.

In the end Matt only lost his iPod and cell phone, which he never activated any ways.

-- Matt is cool enough to the point where I respect him even though he goes to Providence and doesn't know who God Shamgod is. This is normally a mortal sin in my book. He also came to Buenos Aires without a camera and obviously has no intentions of photographing any of his trip.

--He also is anti-cell phone since he never used the one he had and he has no intentions of buying a new one. He uses the ideal concept of everyone sticking to their original plans and being where they say they are going to be. I really wish my friends back home who have a cell phone, but refuse to ever pick up calls (cough Andy and Spicker) would adopt this practice as it would cut out the frustration of calling them.

Matt recently replaced his binoculars with an monocular which he now always keeps in his front pocket and uses like a cell phone. If somebody is not where they are supposed to be at the arranged meeting time, Matt will pull out his monocular and search for them.

-- There's too much about Erasmo to recount, but he recently found some Rastas in the park and then went to their apartment where two people spent five hours dreading his hair. He is also trill enough to the point where he can pull off carrying a purse-like bag.

-- Finally this is the last blog I'm writing with FF3. I just wanted to thank Firefox, but now it's time to move on to the future.