from the edge of the deep green sea

This post, like many others, was inspired by a post at the Fusil De Chispas, a Costa Rican blog worth reading.

The whole insanity can be explained this way:

1. Costa Rica was having presidential elections
2. National polemic arises when church and state separation idea is introduced sometime before the elections.
3. Some priests advice their sheeple to “remember” who are ones behind this plan and to never vote for them for anything in the future (dirty, dirty move).
4. The whole idea of separation of church an state goes to hell as most of the people behind it that were initially in favor, back off.
5. Catholic leaders who sent their threatening message to sheeple go unpunished.
6. Costa Rica has a new president, Laura Chinchilla, first woman president in CR, by massive victory.
7. Laura is named “favorite child” of the virgin mary by some dumbass who has religious power in Costa Rica.
8. (BTW, does this religious leader talks to the virgin personally in order make such announcements? Once more, we have a pathetic little man playing god).
9. The Catholic Church is aiming to receive MORE money from tax payers.
10. Are your fucking kidding me?

So here is where we stand. One would think that with the plethora of recent sexual abuses hidden by the Catholic Church, this institution would grow weaker and weaker. But no, not here.

And I don’t know about you, but I’m sick to the bone of watching the catholic church acting as if they were the shit and should get something the taxpayer’s money. Why you, catholics? Why not the protestants, the evangelics, the mormons? What makes your made up fucked up religion so much important than the rest? Aren’t you being unfair? Isn’t this….umm…what do you call this…discriminatory?

All I know, catholic church, is that if your savior did indeed existed, he would barf and puke in disgust to see the fucking marketplace you have turned into by using his name. I really do not expected that much from an institution that on one hand advices their followers to steer clear from alcohol, drugs, and rock ‘n roll and on the other hand owns a large share of stock from the Costa Rican beer company – oh the sweet, fermented irony.

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.

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 just read an article about the Romería in another blog. After reading it, I was green with envy. Why didn’t I write t first, WHY!?!?!? Here it is:

http://conejos-suicidas.ticoblogger.com/2009/08/romeria-cartago-el-negocio-catolico-sin.html

Enjoy!

Yay – I have something to bitch about and guess what? It’s not about religion – w007!

I read a message in Tweeter that highlighted an interesting video. I saw the video and instead of having this guilty feeling because there are people who do not have enough to eat, I felt enraged and sickened to the bone. If I were a real ninja, I would have flipped out and kicked everyone’s ass in the video, including the director and the writer for loading this load of bullshit on the Internet. Dwarf pron would have made better use of the Internet than this shit.

The description from the video is the following:

Synopsis: This film is about the hunger and poverty brought about by Globalization. There are 10,000 people dying everyday due to hunger and malnutrition. This short film shows a forgotten portion of the society. The people who live on the refuse of men to survive. What is inspiring is the hope and spirituality that never left this people.

Please watch the video and then come back.

Yeah, this video is for you. For the moral person who pays taxes to support families that procreate at a faster rate than bunnies fucking with Viagra. For you, the person who has chosen to live at a slow pace and raise a family with caution so that you can give them a good life. Don’t YOU feel guilty because these people lead a shitty life?

I don’t know if in-between the mellon-collie music that would make Chuck Norris shed a tear (of pain of course, that accent makes anyone cry), you noticed something about the family in the end:

Am I the only one who sees the problem here? The problem here is not that there is not enough food, but rather that these women cannot keep their legs closed for crying out-loud. You have a table filled with empty mouths (about 10 kids from what I can tell in the video) and one in the oven and these people wonder why they are miserable?

Is it so wrong to control human birth? I am not saying to follow China’s model of only 2 kids per family, but rather have some record of how much someone makes vs. the number of kids they have. If they are below poverty levels and they are popping out kids like puppies – CLOSE THE DAMN FACTORY!!

We control animal growth by neutering dogs, why can’t we do the same with human beings? What’s that? We’re not animals? Right, we’re so much civilzed than animals:

Ah yes, and to top it off:

Did you see that? Even though they are eating shit, they never lose faith and pray to the almighty. See now you should really feel like a complete turd should be reaching for your checkbook to help…dumbass.

And I’m not sorry for being an asshole about this, I could easily be a two-faced bitch and comply with everyone’s expected “ahhhhh” and “poor souls”, but let’s wake up – uncontrolled human growth at poverty levels is what is fucking everything up. Think about it.

Sorry Zapone, I don’t mean to keep spinning on the religion topic but these things come at me w/o me looking for them – for shizzle.
Some fellow from Twitter posted the following today:
“the most influential atheist of the world admits god exists”
To which I was like “oh shit, we lost Dawkins“.
Fortunately, it was not Dawkins, but someone called Antony Flew, which as we all know, is a fucking nobody.
What made me laugh, was the page where this originated from (I know I am contradicting myself in the commandments of not linking to what you don’t like, but this is priceless):
http://idyanunciad.com/?p=1146
First off, I think the religious group in charge of the web page should pray to their god in order to find a web designer who does not lack a sense of aesthetics (or is blind, I still can’t tell). I mean, come on, what the hell is this? An angel giving us the middle finger?

Secondly, if you read all over the article, it claims that Flew has found empirical scientific evidence stating that DNA is so complex that there had to be a supreme being who made this all possible. I applaud this observation…as a matter of fact, I have created a chart that explains the complex scientific process by which Flew managed to reach this observation:

As my good friend Matt Johnson puts it in The Violence of Truth:
Why is it that anything on this Earth

We do not understand

We are pushed down on our knees

To worship or to damn?
Those are the rules of religion

Those are the laws of the land

That’s how the forces of darkness

Have suppressed the spirit of man
And then it hit me…this idiot is now part of the bullshit religion that thinks that they are based on facts: intelligent design. Don’t even get me started with this, if you think they have grounds for anything they say, then maybe you should be praying to the Flying Spaghetti Monster instead. And, if you are looking for intelligent design, then look no further than your freakin’ desk:

Whenever I want an opinion that is outside my area of expertise, I contact someone who knows what he/she is talking about.  This only makes sense – you will not want to get a house appraisal from your friend who practices scuba diving, you would not want to get computer purchasing advice from someone who mastered in geography.  So…that being said, can someone please explain to me why the fuck are catholic priests writing sex education guides?

Of all the people in the world, the ones who are not having sex (or so they claim), who most likely had some kind of messed up sexual encounter that lead them to choose a path of celibacy, are now teaching kids about sex.  NO NO NO and FUCK NO.

These guides should be written by field experts, not by people whose meaning of “sex” is boinking the altar boys.  As a matter of fact, the priest that was recently found to have a girlfriend (big scandal) should co-author the stupid guide – he ‘might’ know a thing or two that his celibate colleagues are completely ignorant on.

I would not be as pissed about this whole ordeal if at least what they were writing made some kind of freakin sense.   The article where I grabbed the information that follows is from La Nacion, sent to me by Pablo.

Here are some of the brilliant ideas that these assholes are trying to send to our kids:

the use of birth-control mechanisms such as the condom and the pill are FORBIDDEN

Did everyone get that?  STOP having protected sex, start boinking everyone without condoms and let’s all help spread HIV and the shitload of venereal diseases – yes let’s do that.  Oh, but these shit-for-brains have it all covered, this will never happen because (get ready):

sexual relations should only happen during marriage, everyone should be celibate until then

What time are these people living in?  If they think their stupid writings has more power than a stampede of horny adolescent hormones, then they are in for a treat.  And just when you thought they could not pull a anything stupider, they show this full-house of ignorance over insanity:

the guides recommend not talking about sex with your kids until adolescence.

Yeah, let’s just avoid that shall we?  I mean, if we don’t talk about it, it doesn’t exist right?  What’s the worst that could happen?

You know what the problem is with this people?  They are so pissed that their stupid religion imposes chastity rules that they want everyone else to be miserable as well.  This is NOT them caring for the well being of everyone.  This is a greedy, self-centered tantrum so that no one else can be happy.

Think of the catholic church as the chubby kid in 3rd grade that told on everyone when there was mischief – the little bitch wanted to be part of it, but since she couldn’t, she spoiled it for everyone.

I really don’t know what other tales of stupidity are hidden behind the pages of this despicable book of dipshits, but I am looking forwards in reading it. 

It is often said that a herd of buffalo is as fast as its slowest buffalo. This means that the efficiency, safety, and well-being of an entire buffalo herd can be compromised by one sole member. In Costa Rica, in terms of services we have been moving as slow as a turtle high on pot. See, for whatever reason, we are big fans of monopolies here: the company that deals with telecommunications, the insurance company, and the company that services Internet needs are all government owned and have zero competition. Zero. Zip. Nada.  We like monopolies so much that even our beer company is a monopoly.  And we are happy about this.  We have 5 beers that are made from the exact same materials yet we are fooled into believing that there is variety.  Bullshit.

A world without competition is a world in which no motivation exists to push forwards and innovate. Why on Earth would you care if your customers are happy with your service if they have nowhere else to go? Where is the striving force that tells your employees to push forwards and try to be the best?  There is none, because they are the best.  And they are also the worst.  And the customers are the only ones that suffer from all of this sick, twisted, and self-diluted mentality of ‘progress’.

I double triple fuckin’ dare you to try and obtain a new cellular line here in Costa Rica.  You will have to go to the National Institute of Electricity (ICE), make a big ass line, be greeted by a bureaucratic employee who hates his/her job, and who will inform you that you forgot to bring requisite ‘X’, which no one pointed out when you inquired.  And even if you had ingredient ‘X’, you’d be on a queue to request a telephone line.  I know there is no point of comparison, but I can’t say I don’t envy the simplicity of walking into and AT&T store in the United States and walk out with a telephone line 5 minutes afterwards.  No lines, no stupid prerequisites, no bullshit.  And if I don’t like AT&T, I’d give T-Mobile a shot, and so on.   Ah, the beauty of competition – if ONLY.

A big issue a while back was when the president of our country, who lacked the balls to make a decision, turned the whole decision of approving CAFTA (Central America Free Trade Association) into a referendum.  One of the big turning points for some people was the fact that it would allow telecommunication companies to offer their services in Costa Rica.  I swear I heard an angelical chorus when I heard it.  But long after CAFTA was approved, we are still stuck and it’s not gonna happen in one day.  AFAIK, foreign companies will have to rent out ICE’s equipment to see if it’s worth coming into Costa Rica, so don’t hold your breath to wait until we have some sort of decent telecommunication here.

And this brings me to @celera, a “high” speed Internet service offered by ICE, where the only requisites are having a telephone line and have no urgency at all to use the Internet.  I went to ICE’s offices about a month ago and requested the service.  Today is February 13th and nothing has happened.  I’ve called 3 times and they’ve been giving me a lame excuse every time I call.  The latest being that no new installations will take place until they adjust the new speed settings because they are understaffed.  Understaffed?  I think it’s more ‘overstaffed with lazy motherfuckers who don’t give a rats ass about performing because no one will fire them”.

Thinking I’ve had enough of this bullshit, I called Amnet last Saturday.  On Monday a representative visited to sign the contract and today Friday I am getting cable modem.  I would say “HA!, take that government, up yours!”, but unfortunately 50% of the bill I pay goes to the government, so it’s actually the government saying “HA HA Grumpytico, regardless of what you do, all your money are belong to us.  For Great Justice!” (sorry for the cheesy Zero Wing reference, could not resist).

Even though this will cost me more because the cable modem service depends on Cable TV option (+$25), I don’t think I regret my decision.  If you Google Costa Rica’s National Newspaper, La Nacion, and query for the term @celera, you won’t find any news articles on how good the service is.  You would instead find an assload of letters from dissatisfied customers.  Furthermore, many of these letters are from customers wannabes like myself, who are dying to give them money but due to their inefficiency and lack of self-improvement will never see a fucking dime from our end.

So here are my 2 cents, another complaint that will not affect the situation, because, just like Bruce Hornsy sings “that’s just the way it is – some things will never change”.  The good thing about this hate building up is the fact that everyone wants ICE to go down in flames.  When, and if, any competition comes into the game, they will most likely get a plethora of customers and that will be a day in which I will sit with a Gin an Tonic in my hand watching ICE go down with a big fucking smile on my face.  Until then, godspeed, my fellow frustrated Costa Rica Internet users.

First off, my most sincere apologies for not writing anything at all for a long time.   I talked a bit about this with my friend Doug Puneta, and I came to the realization that I had not bitched about anything for so long because I was not in Costa Rica.  Yup, it is sad thing to think that all the frustration comes from living in this country.  Before you blast the comments with “well, if you don’t like it get the hell away from here id you don’t like it”, understand that I like Costa Rica.  But as beautiful as it is, it’s also a place where stupid shit happens that is bound to piss the living crap out of you.

During my two weeks of absence, I came back only to find the following:

• -Some dudes from BANHVI got together to have dinner and discuss how to alleviate the housing problem in Costa Rica for poor families.  The irony?  The restaurant dinner bill was around $1,400. 
• -Aspiring politicians have used the donations for the Earthquake emergency as a medium to gain popularity by going about and handing them out as if they were the ones that brought it.
• -Still a month after the Earthquake, there are people living in tents because the CNE (fuckasses that deal with National Emergencies worse than Bush) has not been able to find a place for them
• -Canal 7 (local TV channel) found several donations for the Earthquake victims being SOLD on various locations
• -People are still being robbed and slaughtered left and right and nothing is done to prevent this
• -It takes approximately 45 days to get an Internet connection from the government owned telecommunications company (I will bitch about this on another post)

Not bad for 2 weeks huh?  But my happiness naive bubble was not burst by these news when I arrived to Costa Rica.  As soon as I stepped on the plane from Fort Lauderdale, I get this loudmouth moron sitting behind me that speaks on his telephone to make sure everyone hears how important he is.  It’s amazing how many of these idiots are loose in the US airports:

The Annoying Cow from grumpytico on Vimeo.

To top it off, this behemoth king of annoyance started singing “I’ll be there” when we were landing (we made 2 attempts since it was so damn windy). The rest of the passengers found this amusing and funny.  I just sat there wishing I still had my butter knife so I could stab this fucker right at the throat.

Grumpy transformation…complete.

I had to take a break from work to bitch about this.  Yet another topic of controversy that is around after the Costa Rican earthquake a while back is that a local newspaper published some horrific pictures about [let your imagination fly].

See what I wrote in the paragraph above?  There are some things some you should take note, especially all the bloggers and twitters that have been bitching about this for days (BTW, about time to let it go):

1. You cannot tell what the source is
2. You cannot tell what the picture is

If you read this, then by mere statistics you are a lazy son of a bitch who would have just let it go and would go on with your business.  But if I wrote what the actual article was about, the source, and the picture; guess what I am doing?  I would be promoting that which I abominate – get it?   And wouldn’t that be fucking ironic?  Helping that which I am bitching about?

Also, for the love of whatever the fuck you deem sacred, DO NOT LINK TO THE FUCKING SOURCE!!!  See, in the “Internets”, Google has a super secret sweet formula that it uses to find the most relevant results based on the web page’s page rank.  Even tough this formula is as secret, it is a well known fact that Google uses the number of incoming links to find out your page’s relevancy with what is being searched for.  Did you catch that?  No?  Hold on, let me put it clearer:

INCOMING FUCKING LINKS

So all of you posting the URL on your blogs, on your Twitter accounts, and so on are actually HELPING that which you bitch about.  So when someone googles:

Costa Rica Earthquake Victims

You are actually helping the despicable newspaper to rank in the first results; where MORE people will find the image you wanted no one to see.  This means that they generate more traffic, hence generate more revenue and can guarantee to keep writing all these stories that you fucking hate.   Again, isn’t that fucking ironic?

So, if you don’t like something, be discrete, don’t fall prey to what these types of media want: FREE PUBLICITY.  I know what they did was not right, but hey – who are we to judge?

I am not saying that you should not bitch – you should, that is what freedom of speech is all about.  I am just saying that you should just be smarter about bitching – understand the consequences.

There, I can go back to work.

BTW: The Google Search above is used as an example, I don’t know if they rank high on that query and quite frankly I could not care less.