Archive for June, 2007
Monday, June 18th, 2007
El Adios de Dos Grandes
Roberto Carlos leaves Madrid after 11 consecutive years (including 3 European Champions League titles), the longest ever period for any foreign player with Real Madrid.
Becks leaves for LA after 4 years with Real Madrid, without ever complaining or uttering a bad word about anyone. Not the greatest player in the world, but definitely a gentleman […]
9 Comments » - Posted in Living la vida española by eric
Sunday, June 17th, 2007
The Yacoubian Building
I look out my window and I see people huddled inside a bar, with others looking through its window. There are maybe 15 minutes left in the match, and Real Madrid is losing at home 0-1 to Mallorca. If they don’t score two goals, they lose the lead and hand the title over to Barcelona.
But […]
No Comments » - Posted in Digressions, Living la vida española by eric
Saturday, June 16th, 2007
East Side, Third Floor
Respek!
No Comments » - Posted in FON by eric
Friday, June 15th, 2007
Voters are Dumb
In this article from The Economist, Lexington explains how most voters are incredibly ignorant when it comes to most issues. Even if voters are generally ignorant about the great majority of issues, this shouldn’t be a problem. That is precisely why we have a representative democracy — so that someone else can do the thinking, […]
8 Comments » - Posted in Essays by eric
Thursday, June 14th, 2007
Crazy Eddie, the Prices are Insane!
I had almost totally forgotten the incredibly annoying Crazy Eddie commercials from the 1980s. But the other day, Martin, Neska, Nina, Diego C. and I were brainstorming for a title to the press release that would come out on Martin’s blog for FON’s launch of new services.
We were trying to come up with something catchy […]
1 Comment » - Posted in Digressions, FON by eric
Thursday, June 14th, 2007
Cucumber Pepsi
I just read in the news that Pepsi is now marketing a cucumber flavored soft drink in Japan. Of course, it isn’t real cucumber, but an artificially flavored substitute. It’s “Ice Cucumber”.
Now that’s news!
1 Comment » - Posted in Digressions by eric
Wednesday, June 13th, 2007
Dreams, Distance, and Home
The last two nights, I have had two unrelated dreams that both relate to home. I use the term home liberally because the dreams relate to three different homes: my present home in Madrid, my family’s home in Maryland and the first house I had lived in in Maryland from the ages of […]
2 Comments » - Posted in Digressions, Friends / Family by eric
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007
Cool New FON Promo Video
All of us here in Madrid have been working really hard to prepare for launching a bunch of new services, one of which involves this cool new video. Some have been preparing all of the technical infrastructure, some the hardware, some the new website and logos, some the fine print, some the logics, some the […]
No Comments » - Posted in FON by eric
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007
Phone Home
There are so many different ways to measure distance, more than just in terms of time zones, travel time, and travel distance. Furthermore, there are even more ways that these different measures of distance combine to distort, amplify or even diminish physical distance. There are airplanes, phones, and emails that diminish physical distance. I can’t […]
8 Comments » - Posted in Friends / Family by eric
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007
David Sedaris: The Stadium Pal
I really enjoy David Sedaris’ books. They are all a comedic mixture of autobiographical prose (and some fiction). My two favorite books of his are Barrel Fever and Me Talk Pretty One Day. The latter is a good summary of how it feels to live in a foreign country when you have trouble with basic […]
