from the edge of the deep green sea

Presidential elections in Costa Rica are mere days away from happening. At this point, I’ve been absent from the presidential debates and other political events that could raise awareness on what their plans are. While I try to figure out on whether I should vote or take a sharpie and draw a picture of a penis and vote for it on the ballot (yes, I quite frankly believe a random johnson is a better candidate sometimes), I can’t help but ponder on what these people could offer to make Costa Rica a better place. This post, as offensive as it may be to some, is about those ideas. On how one man whose alter ego is known as Grumpytico, can make Costa Rica a better place

Drugs, sex, and rock and roll

This one is easy. Legalize pot, just do it. Counterpoints to this idea would be that pot is a gateway drug, and that could be, but so are alcohol and cigarettes, which are available to anyone and can cause a physical addiction whereas pot doesn’t. The difference between those 2 and pot is that the government can profit from taxes sold on those products. So just legalize pot. If you have ever smoked weed you know it’s nothing, and if you have never smoked it, then you are not entitled to an opinion.

What good can come from this? Government can make money from pot taxes and my friends could get quality pot whenever they wanted. If you are my nephew/niece and you are reading this: “Drugs are bad…mmmmmmmkay?”

Let’s all help the poor

Poor people are always mentioned during the pre-elections. Every candidate has a master plan on helping those who don’t work and procreate like rats to have a better life. This is one of the points for which I won’t vote for Otton Solís. His magic plan involves giving poor people lots of money and taxing the living shit out of those who make money to help them. Nice thinking, dick-wad – you are basically punishing those who work and rewarding those who do jack shit.

Am I saying that we should not help the poor? No, I am just saying giving a bunch of money to someone who is poor is not going to solve the problem. In order to help the poor overcome their condition is to educate/train them in some way so that they can actually have good jobs. Create incentive programs for all the junkies and people who live at or below poverty levels to become better people somehow. Be tough on parents who won’t let their kids go to school because they send them to be beggars on the street. Try to attack everything that annihilates all people’s chances of becoming better citizens at the root. Giving them money is like covering a pothole with asphalt, and we know how well that works in this country.

Separation of Church and State

The government should be spending the money that is destined to help the Catholic Church in something else (see above). The Catholic Church is LOADED with money, they can build their sanctuaries and pedophiliac torturing devices all by themselves. I’ve touched this point plenty of times here, so I won’t dive into details.

Abortion

When a woman cannot have a choice on whether to have an unwanted baby or not, we have lost our right to choose. Of course this does not mean that every pregnant woman should abort, it’s just about giving people a choice. There should be a limit on weeks of pregnancy that this should be allowed (unlike Cartman’s mom who wanted to abort when the kid was 10 years old – you need to be a South Park fan to get this one .

Anyhow, allowing women to choose gives them a better chance of having a kid when they are ready. And sometimes being stupid, horny, and drunk at a party is not the best ‘ready’ there is.

Families can have as many kids as they want – if they can afford it

This one is delicate, as it may quickly fall into the same pattern in which China only allows one family per kid and then some families let their newborns die of they are not male. All I am saying is that if a family has a child and they are living under conditions which would make it impossible to sustain another child, then either the dad or the mother (or both) should be neutered (I know this is the term for dogs but I was too lazy to look for the one that applies to humans).

This may seem crude, inhumane, and downright disgusting. But if you have not seen it on T.V., I urge you to go to any community that lives below poverty levels and try and find a family with less than 2 kids. What do you think will happen to those kids? Chances are, they will not go to school, end up selling drugs or mugging people and procreating like rabbits.

Same-Sex Marriage

Gay people should have the same chance straight people have when it comes to being miserable, so let them get married if that’s what they want. Catholic Church doesn’t like it? Who gives a flying fuck? It’s about time the Church goes away. Denying a right to any person due to his race, sexual orientation, or eye color is wrong, period.

Organ Market (could not think of a better name for this, sorry)

Let’s see…someone at a hospital is in a waiting list for a kidney transplant. This person is loaded but will die soon enough if the transplant is not received on time. On the other side of a country a healthy person has to feed his family, was laid off, and has no money at all, he has nothing…except…except an extra kidney – ch-ching!

Yes, it is immoral and deplorable but works both ways. The organ donor recipient gets to live and the person in dire need of money gets a shitload of dough…oh, and the donor gets also the shirt above, it’s a mega win.

Criminal Punishment

This one is as easy as pie. If you murder someone, you will be put to death. If you steal, you will rot in jail. I don’t see why this is so difficult to modify in our Constitution. Fishman, a candidate who for a political party that has being tied with various incidents of corruption, bestows upon us the magic formula: hire 2x cops, double their salary.

This is as effective as washing a rotten tooth with twice as much toothpaste and twice the times you normally would. The teeth is rotten, and just like these criminals need to be taken out of our society, it needs to be pulled out.

If you are a cop, and your job is to put bad people in prison, how would you feel if the fucker you caught is freed after months, or even days after the apprehension? This would demoralizing, demotivating, and worrying as well (will this criminal that I put behind bars look for some kind of retaliation?).

So, Mr. Fishman, your formula is as stupid as the naive idea that somehow you had a chance in hell to represent this country someday. We need severe laws with severe punishment. Society has give you a chance since you are born to be part of it; if you decide to blow it all away by violating the integral laws that make up this society, then you should be secluded from it; and trust me, you will not be missed.

Animal Rights

Stray animals are constantly being tortured and killed by unscrupulous people that are practicing to become serial killers and rapists. Where does the government stand in all this? It doesn’t. Check out this jewel (Spanish, though just by watching you will understand):

If you ever owned an animal, you know how loyal, caring, and ever-loving they can be. Having random idiots torturing them without consequence makes my blood boil. If this were to me, I’d also put the death penalty on these fuckers (via a live event in which the idiot would die in the same way he/she tortured the animal, we can even charge admission for this….fuck I think I am really sick ).

These animals are defenseless and I believe that they should be protected by incorporating some kind of amendment that would make the torturing of animals a crime.

So there, it all boils down to legalizing pot, sending the Catholic Church where it belongs (hell), legalizing abortion, opening the market for organ sales, putting some balls on crime sentences, legalizing same-sex marriage, protecting animal rights, educating the poor and finding a job they can carry out.

Now let’s see which of the candidates have something like this on their agenda…. …. … Yup, seems like I’m voting for dick, I’ll go get my sharpie.

Ah, nothing like good ol’ HSBC hatred to get me started writing again on the blog. HSBC takes immense pride of being the “local bank of the world”, but that is not as good as it may sound – allow me to elaborate.

See, I live in Costa Rica, and HSBC bought the mess of the bank which was formerly know as Banex. Regardless of what name they have, they do an incredible job as being the worst bank in the world. Given that my local Costa Rican bank is as shitty as it gets, going to an HSBC branch anywhere in the world will be like going to my local Costa Rican bank, which always turns out to be a nightmare.

While on a trip to Brasil, I needed to get money out of an ATM to get to the airport. After I managed to explain this in Spanish to the Portuguese-speaking taxi driver, he took me to an HSBC ATM. I entered my PIN, opted to get $100 out and the ATM kindly replied: “Insufficient Funds”. I thought that was weird as I had barely used the card. I tried my Banco de San José (BAC) card and I was able to get my money. I immediately stopped using the HSBC card as I thought was messed up.

Today I logged in to my online account and I find that I have more than $5K available on the fucking card. So why, oh why, did the card refuse to get money out of my credit card? This is something I expect the bank representative to explain this for me. Here is the receipt from the bank and my statement as of today on the background (click for bigger image)

So there, that is why “the local bank of the world” might not be as good as it may sound.

New Year’s Eve…gotta love it. Drink and be merry, the one day in the whole world in which alcohol immunizes us from all evil, no harm is done on this day. We make lists on how much we will change, whether it being losing a few pounds, getting married and living the long forgotten dream or simply being a better person.

Well congratfuckinglations to you. It’s amazing how you have managed somehow to still be alive in this jungle. I don’t mean to rain on your parade (I actually do), but how about these New Year’s Resolutions:

• Bringing this guy’s daughter back from the dead
• Bringing this family’s my daughter back from the dead even though she lived for 3 FUCKING MONTHS (Spanish link)
• Bring this widow’s husband and son back from the dead.

Not your average New Year’s huh? Even though we have this urgency to feel good and leave everything behind, we need to focus on the facts:

1. As much as we would like for it to happen, the Death Penalty will NEVER EVER happen in Costa Rica.
2. We will continually be abused by deviant motherfuckers who give a rat’s ass about your life, your mother’s, your sister’s and everyone that has an impact in your life.
3. We continually pay an abnormal fee in taxes that goes to sponsor an inefficient corrupt system in which an elite branch foresees their own benefit against the well-being of the country they swore to protect.
4. Our life expectancy is a mere statistic waiting to bring the average down by being shot in the face for the fact that you own a car that someone else wants.

I’m not trying to be Debbie Downer (OK, maybe once more I am), but really, the way things are going is no time to celebrate. Fuck your parade, your carnival, your resolutions – if you celebrate and continue to do so, then you are not only being naive but you are also the typical Costa Rican who awaits someone who makes everything better for you (and yes, I celebrated this New Year’s Eve and wrote this entry perhaps as a reminder on how full of shit I am).

Happy Fucking 2010, we are all fucked.

I don’t know if you have realized this lately, but music has been sucking donkey balls for the decade or so. Future generations will undoubtedly listen to LadyGaga, Kanye West, Black Eyed Peas, and all that which is now called “music”. These generations will then try to recreate all that they deem as music and the cycle will continue. In other words, music, as you and I have known it, is utterly fucked in the ass.

But fear not, my dear friends, as there is still hope. See, some musicians out there still believe that music is something to be studied, something to create art with. Sadly, these musicians are seldom noticed and they fade away with the same intensity by which they managed to ignite that small spark that caused some attention towards them.

I’m going to cut to the chase right away – I think that the best album this year is by Dredg and has the name of The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion. Trying to create something better than their last album, Catch Without Arms, seemed like a highly unlikely task, but man, they did it and excelled in every way possible.

This album is very complete, the lyrics are very well crafted, and the music is completely mind-blowing – I guess this is what happens when people who studied music actually create music.

My favorite song right now is Information, it’s a completely emotionally driven song that starts off very peaceful and calm to end up in an amazing tour-de-force dementia:

Other songs get straight to the point, such as Saviour, which starts off kicking ass left and right with the guitar riff that has is trademark to most of their songs. Quotes is also on my list, extremely soothing and with a brutal chorus.

Give these guys a try, you might hear something that is not present in most of the songs present today – musicians.

BTW, my friend María and I met Dredg right after their NYC gig and they were extremely cool. They were really were amazed that someone from Costa Rica would fly over to NYC just to see them, very cool cats!

María, Gavin Hayes, and Me

Dear HSBC,

I would like to start this letter by going straight to the point: FUCK YOU.

Ok, now that we have that clear, let me explain the many reasons why I detest you and the only reason why I keep using your stupid ass services.

First off, out of the blue you are forcing people this year to update their data on your databases. If people simply fail to do so, you close their accounts. And if people do update their data, you also close their fucking accounts. Happened to me while on a trip after wasting 30 minutes of my life at your bank. I submitted all requested information only to find that a week after my bank account and credit card had been frozen.

The funny part about this that the ONLY motherfucking reason I use your bank is because I have a VISA that covers my medical expenses when I travel if I buy the ticket with it. And suddenly, I’m far away with a VISA that does not work – in other words, you left me without traveller’s insurance, assholes.

Needless to say, I could not access my online account and it was blocked after 3 attempts to log in. Today, I got my pin back and when I am at your page I read the message that now, we, your fucking customers, must use your virtual keyboard. If you were attempting to create a feature in your online page that cause people to scream obscenities to their computer screens, kudos, my friends – you have excelled in creating the worst user interface EVER:

Whoever thought of this idea show have have their testicles removed and shoved down their throat. And whoever implemented the numeric keypad, well, what can I say:

I guess that’s how they count up in Stupidville. Also, if you press the “shift” key, is there some kind of visual that lets the user know what’s going on? Of course not. So now, when I am trying to change my password, not only does it take me 10x the time that it did before, but now it’s 5x easier to make a typo. Aarrrggghhh!!!

And I know what you are thinking, you are doing this to be more “secure”. Right, and did you even stop for a second to think how annoying this would be to the end user? This about does it with me and your shit-for-brains bank. I’ll call AMEX and see if the offer some kind of similar traveller insurance. I will only get closure from this sickening relationship once I send you all to hell, but I believe you are already there and you drag all your customers with you.

Oh, and yeah, I almost forgot: FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU!!!!

I’m on hold right now with HP Customer Support, I’ve been on the phone for 20 minutes (and counting) and I’ve been transferred THREE times already. I’ve been patient and I’ve been tying not to scream at the person on the phone. Allow me to elaborate.

On April 21st, 2009 I bought an HP Pavilion HDX16-1140US computer from Amazon. After using it for 7 days, I felt the computer was not for me, so I sold it to a friend here in Costa Rica. I get a call about 3 months later telling me that the computer won’t turn on, she brings it over and it’s pretty much dead.

I call HP and ask them to have it serviced in Latin America. They say “yes, as long as there are parts, we’ll service it” and they give me a LATAM phone number. I call the next day and they tell me “no, you bought it in the US, you must service it in the US”, which is 100% bullshit (Apple honors their warranty ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD).

So I’m told that I should call them back once I am in the States so they can send me a box for return and I’m like “ok, I’ll call you”. A friend of mine is traveling this Thursday and I thought I’d send the computer with him and end this nightmare.

Once more call with HP and this is their final say:

Since you bought the computer through a reseller, you will need to contact them, so they will receive your computer and have it serviced through us.

What? Are you telling me I waited THREE FUCKING months in vain waiting for HP to tell me they are not responsible for their shitty computers and their joke of a warranty? And then the representative has the nerve to tell me:

“You have to understand sir, that we cannot honor warranties when items are sold through a reseller, if you had a company…”

At that moment I interrupted and told her “please don’t BS me, Apple sells their computers through Amazon and they honor their warranty, unlike you”.

So this is my hell, I’ve wasted so many cycles trying to get this fucking joke of a company to honor their motherfucking warranty and I am tired, frustrated, and completely done for with this.

My next step is writing an Amazon review so that buyers can be aware that when they buy HP products from Amazon.

Bottom line: avoid HP products at all, not only do they break after 5 months of usage but the company that manufactures them fails to take responsibility for their crappy products.

Oh, and to answer the question:

What do HP’s warranties and the Easter bunny have in common?

Well, they both are figments of your fucking imagination.

BTW, I did not made the image for this post, someone beat me to it.

Update October 20, 2009 08:33: Amazon informs me that they cannot honor the warranty, that I have to call Hewlett Packard.

Update October 09, 2009: Reading this post again and again, I ‘ve reached the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, I went a bit too far with the whole ‘no-encore’ issue.  For what it’s worth, it was a great show and I had a great time thanks to the music and the great company.  I’ll leave the post, but I really don’t despise these guys as much as my drunk self did yesterday

——-

I like when big bands come to Costa Rica.   Iron Maiden, Depeche Mode, and that’s about it.  What I don’t like is when bands come here, treat people like shit, and expect to get away with it, and that’s exactly what happened tonight at the Depeche Mode concert in Costa Rica.

It all started pretty damn good, Depeche Mode playing some good songs off their “Songs of the Universe” album…I was pretty psyched and loved every song in the setlist.  Somewhere along the way, the sound got fucked…the only thing that could be heard was the speakers they hear for guidance.  After that, 15 minutes of silence when the band came back and did Personal Jesus, some other songs, and then took off.

Regardless of how bad we screamed and shout (and by we, I mean the whole fucking crowd) they did not come back again on stage.  This is the FIRST concert in my life where this has happened, and I can only interpret it as a big FUCK YOU to all of us who were there to listen to their synth-pop bullshit.

Where the fuck is my “Behind the Wheel”?  My “Just Can’t Get Enough”?  I really don’t care at this point, for all I care they (Depeche) can shove these songs down their gerbil’s throat in their sphincters.  It’s not the fact that the they did not play these songs, it’s the fact that they though that this audience was not worthy of an encore.

“It’s an English thing”, you might say, but fuck no.  Muse, Bloc Party, they’ve saved the best for last and they’ve shined on their encores when I’ve seen them live.

And here comes Depeche Mode, a dying band thinking they are the shit and can give us the “fuck off, no encore for you” treatment.  Well, Depeche, regardless of what was the reason that motivated you to pull that shit on us, FUCK YOU.  You have disappointed us all like no other band.  I can’t believe I was hyped for 5 months to come across something like this.

I guess the guilty partner for this stupid ass entry was the fact that I recently acquired a Karaoke machine… Well, ~20 years after I heard some of these songs, I heard them again. And now I sit down, and I play them, and I stand in awe with admiration for what they were and what they are still are today.

These songs were good back in the day, and they kick ass today as well. I guess what I am trying to say is, FUCK YOU modern Spanish music, you could have learned a lot from the past, gained the perspective of what’s passionate, not what’s the only thing that sells. I despise you, modern Spanish pop music, and while I listen to what was really passionate, I flip you the middle finger – you and your Paulina Rubio- Stefan-Shakira-Arjona can burn down in the deepest pits of hells.

Here is a small list I compiled, apparently my drunk self deems these as some of the most influential :

No Puedo Más – Yuri

Pure radio porta, no question about it. But for fuck’s sake, download this song and listen to it from start from finish. You can feel emotion, you can feel her wearing down while demanding what she wants. And you hear…what’s this thing…oh yeah, PASSION. I don’t give a shit about whether or not Yuri is happy, but she made her message loud and clear. Your rocked Yuri, when you were yourself before becoming a  J.C. zombie – come back, Satan and myself miss you.

Volcán – José José

I’ve tried to sing this song in the Karaoke machine and have failed miserably. Who’s the madman behind these lyrics? “Yo que fui tormenta, yo que fui tornado, yo que fui volcán, soy un volcáaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan apagado”. If I could sing 1/2048th as cool as this motherfucker, I’d be the coolest cat. Once again, this dude had passion inside out, and no matter how many 20 year old chicks you bang, José José – you own in every aspect.

Me Llamas – Jose Luis Perales

If there’s a heaven, this guy has the golden ticket – all of his songs are about some lover destroying his life – there must be some truth behind the lyrics.

If there is one voice I remember while growing up is Perales. Song after song, melody after melody, I swear that I recall this guy singing in my parent’s car stereo when I was 4-years-old. Little did I know that these songs were about some horny chick betraying our favorite Spaniard singing friend. If you were anything like me, I was only hoping to meet this skank who “se pinta la sonrisa de carmín” and smashing her face onto the sidewalk.

This guy has so many good songs that it’s impossible not to credit him (IMHO) as the most influential songwriter of the 70s/80s.  I dare you to find me a drunk who does not know the lyrics to: “ayer se fue, tomó sus cosas y se puso a navegar, una camisa, un pantalón vaquero, dónde irá? dónde irá?”.

Amor Eterno – Rocío Durcal

The musical arrangement on this song is fucking brutal, pure Mexican mariachi in spirit. Add 2 ounces of Rocío Durcal’s amazing vocals reaching unbelievable highs with a pint of the melon-collie message from the song (the song is dedicated to her son, who died while cliff-diving in Acapulco) and you have something that will last a lifetime. If you can go about listening to this song’s lyrics:

“Obligo a que te olvide el pensamiento
Pues siempre estoy pensando en el ayer
Prefiero estar dormida que despierta
De tanto que me duele que no estes”

without feeling a knot in your throat, then you are not human (or just simply can’t understand Spanish).

And that, my friends, is what I praise as the best latin music. It’s not about getting music samples, a beat, some idiots playing instruments and making money. It’s about creating something that will withstand the harshest tests of time, about showing some passion in what you do.  It is NOT about being a fucking whore and just shamelessly selling your vagina for a  dime or two (Stefan, Shakira – I’m looking at you two).

I really cannot think of anyone who can compare to the majestic masterminds who either interpreted or wrote some of the songs in this post in modern age. And it’s a true shame that these generations will never see latin music for what it stood for, for what it meant, the spirit it conveyed, and the passion it transmitted. What a fucking shame.

Take a look at this cover page from “Catholic Echo”, a magazine that probably makes more money than your average porn Costa Rican magazine:

What was your first impression? If you are like me, then chances are you thought: “JUST WHAT IN GODS NAME IS THAT THING!?!??!”:

My last post dealt with a story published by La Nación, on how much money the catholic church gets from the government. Well, a lot has happened ever since. The first event occurred when shit for brains Cartago archbishop urged all of his sheeple followers to not give any kind of support to all those that “denied god”, referring to any anyone running for office who was in favor of the separation of church and state. Yes, that is right ladies and gentlemen, these fuckheads are now telling all their stupid followers who to vote for. If that doesn’t make you angry, take a look at this picture (stolen from La Nación):

Am the only one who feels an uncontrollable urge to walk up to this clown and bitch-slap him? One of these days…POW… straight in the kisser…

Anyhow, it so happens that this dumbass ignored a detail in our constitution that mandates that no clergymen can incur in any type of political propaganda, which is exactly what this moron did. As expected, the church backs up the mistake this moron committed (what, the catholic church trying to cover something up, really?).

Not only did the priest violate an article of our Carta Magna, but he also violated one of the primordial teachings of Jesus Christ himself:

DON’T BE A FUCKING DOUCHE!

A link in Ameliarueda.com has an interview with Max Esquivel, magistrate of the TSE (The Supreme Electoral Tribune – my apologies if my translation sucks donkey balls). Basically, what the archbishop did was indeed deemed as illegal – BUT, there is no sanction against the crime. Isn’t that something? What’s the point of having something illegal if there are no repercussions against the offender?

All in all, every time I read these stories and even the sermon given by the stupid priest, I look like this:

First off, I am delighted to see the press giving attention to these details. I think the catholic church in Costa Rica perceived itself as untouchable giant due to its “sacredness”. Nonetheless, the vast array of depraved acts committed by its members has brought the giant’s credibility to the ground. The behemoth has lost support, has lost money and if you play close attention to the lies they are telling, the dirty acts upon which they are trying to stay alive, it only wreaks of two things:

Fear and Desperation.

They know that they will lose more followers if they are not the official religion in Costa Rica. Less followers = less money. Without the government sponsorship, they will also have to take care of all their expenditures, which I’m pretty sure they can handle but it will hurt them where it hurts the most: their wallets

Reading Twitter comments on this situation is mind-blowing. Lots and lots of people are happy and looking forwards to this change, and everyone frowns upon the dirty deeds the church recurs to while it tries to stay alive.

All I have to say to the church is: enjoy our money while you can, because very soon, your temples of lies, mistrust, fear, arrogance, and impertinence will crumble to the ground – just like the faith of your exploited followers – good riddance!

I am really trying to avoid anything religious, but unfortunately, it seems I have a better chance of winning the lotto. If I go outside my house, I’ll find stashes of paper in my front gate revealing how it’s going to be the end of the world and I should repent. Or just yesterday, I am reading through Twitter and Will posted this beauty:

Government aid to the Church increases by 450%

HA, touché Grumpytico, the church had a card up their sleeve and was going to spend some of that money for charity!

See? It’s impossible to steer clear from these things, the church is always there to bust my balls 24/7. You don’t have to be an atheist to despise what’s going on. Anyone with half a brain will be able to understand that this money is not being spent as it should. And of all institutions, the church should be the one with a fucking conscience and should stop being a greedy little bitch.