Sunday Magazine!

Hi There Everyone!

Well, I've got a few things to share with you for a Sunday Magazine. First up, we've got a link to an interesting Slate article about Mexico. It's take is basically that it's interesting to note that the U.S. and Mexico share such a huge border, but that the countries as a whole still "know" very little about each other. It's part of a larger series of articles on U.S.-Mexico relations. Check them out if you get a bit of time.

Next up here's another Slate article, but about something completely different: Limp Bizkit. Now, I hate Limp Bizkit, and I'm pretty sure most everyone else does by now, too. And the author sort of investigates that hatred, but also puts a slightly positive --but only slightly-- revisionist twist on the band. The writing is also pretty great, so have a read!

Now, check out these pictures:
Here and Here.
Don't worry, they're not inappropriate or anything really secretive --although they ARE Canadian-- but they're really cool!

Finally, the following video has nothing to do with horror, although I would still easily classify it as The Scariest Shit I've Seen In A Month Or So:

Anyhow, that should give you a few things to check out if you're having a boring Sunday. Make it a good one, and have a great week!

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A Nice Video, A Chill Song For Saturday Morning

If the EELS video I posted earlier was too intense for you, my friend Brad passed this video on to me:

It's pretty great. PLUS, it's stop-motion fun without all that creepy claymation! Enjoy, and have a good weekend!

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Wake-Up Call

Here's your Rockin' Saturday Morning Wake-Up Call:



And it comes with pancakes and zombies! Man, I love the EELS!

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Call To Arms, Sort Of

This is going to be a weird post.

OK, does anyone know about a music video from a few years back, where the band was on the roof of a building(?) and there were statistics projected onto the sides of other buildings? Or am I completely messed up, creating my own mental music videos?

I could have sworn that this was a video by Rage Against The Machine from the Godzilla soundtrack, but all my searching for such a video has been fruitless.

Has anyone got any leads?

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Sitzblog President Calls An Emergency Cabinet Meeting!

If you're into cupboards and kitchen furniture, then the new post on Gringiticasa is the place for you to be! I put up some pictures of our cabinets for my mom's benefit (she designed them and wanted to see them), but you can check them out, too, if you're into that sort of thing. Just click here. Enjoy!

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New Address, Sort Of

Well, Angela and I have moved into our new house.
That actually doesn't have anything to do with our new address, though, since no one actually relies on the postal service here to deliver letters. So as a result, our house "address" is actually just a description of where the house is. Translated, our possible address might be: "The intersection of the road to Berlin and the road to Llano Brenes." But that's just what you tell the taxi driver. Fortunately, it does get a bit more specific than that if you pay for a post office box, which is what we did.

We used to have a box in San Ramón, but we realized that we were never in San Ramón, especially during their limited postal hours. We also found out that there was a post office in Palmares, so we now have a box here. If you would like to send us a letter, then you are among the very few (thanks Grandma!). And if you indeed break through that letter writer's block, you can send it to:

Ryan Sitzman y Angela Jimenez
Apartado Postal 32-4300
Palmares, Alajuela
Costa Rica

Happy writing!

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Undisturbed

For lunch, I went to the cafeteria at my work. I sat alone, ate my food, and then I took out "American Psycho," the book I'm reading now.

No one wanted to sit at my table with me, for some reason.

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Getting Some Name Recognition

This afternoon I had an appointment to show my car to a lady in Rincón de Zaragoza (de Palmares de Alajuela de Costa Rica). In any case, she was interested in buying it, and someone had given her my number. I went to her house since it was on my way up the mountain to Berlín, but she wasn't there. So I waited a half hour or so, reading in my car. That's not the point.

The point is that her name was María Cristina Rojas (by the way, if you're reading this, María Cristina Rojas, then: "WTF?"). This is significant because she told me last night on the phone that if I was unsure about where her house was, I could "ask around" to the neighbors and they'd point me in the right direction. So I got to the approximate location she'd indicated--a bar seriously named "Fory Fay," which is actually just "45" in English, mispronounced and then subsequently misspelled--and I noticed two old guys sitting on a retaining wall. I got out and asked them if they knew where María Cristina Rojas lived.

"She's been dead for a few years now," one of them replied. Doubtful about having spoken the previous night with a ghost in the market for a 2001 Toyota RAV-4, I asked again.

"María Cristina Rojas," the man asked, "or María Cristina Rojas Rojas?" I told him I was looking for the one with only one "Rojas." "Oh," he replied, pointing, "it's that house over there." Evidently our double-Rojas was the dead one.

How weird that in a country of only 4 million people or so, there can be so many people with similar and even identical names. And that's taking into consideration that people here usually use four names instead of just three.

Another weird fact: my wife is named Ángela Jiménez (well, she's named Ángela Rosa de los Ángeles Jiménez Mora de Sitzman, officially), and while growing up she lived next door to an Angelica Jiménez. And they weren't related.

A final weird fact: There was a family in Berlín that had the customary 16 or so kids, but three of them ended up being named Francisco. Supposedly, while at the hospital after giving birth, their mother had forgotten that she'd already used that name. Twice.

My new theory: I have an archnemesis somewhere out there, and his name is Bryan Sitzman. I'll have to check Facebook.

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Just Stopping By

Dutch scientists recently announced that they'd isolated the least humorous joke on record. It goes as follows:

A: What's up?
B: Man, my freaking back hurts from moving.

According to lead research scientist Lijm van der Sneuhouten, the joke "[is] actually not funny because it's true."

Anyhow, joke's on me, cause Angela and I were moving all last weekend into our new house! It's great to finally be in there, but we're really tired, and things aren't quite accomodated yet. But it's a great feeling. In fact, last night while sitting on the sofa, we both confessed that we had had the same private fear that we wouldn't live to see the day when we'd actually live in the house.

We do now.

In any case, my internet time has therefore been lacking, and to add to that, it's Holy Week here. It doesn't really get into the swing of things until Thursday and Friday, when the country grinds to a halt. So probably don't expect any blog entries then. Curiously enough, though, on Easter Sunday everything is open, so maybe I can put up something then. You can read about this strange cultural phenomenon in a blog entry I wrote last year.

So, I'll hope to post more soon--especially pictures--but in the meantime, thanks for checking in!

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You Can See Haven From Here

Apparently, I live in a tax haven! Sweet! According to the OECD, Costa Rica is one of only four countries that fit that description now. The others are Uruguay, Malaysia, and the Philippines... but we're first on the list! Alphabetize that and suck it, Uruguay!

Now, a serious question: does anyone know how I can benefit--or even better, profit--from this?

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Can You Hear The Tippity-Tap Of A Typed April Fool's Joke?

Well, I feel a little bad, since there were so many nice comments from everyone, but yesterday's post about Angela being pregnant was just a little joke. Sorry, but I couldn't help myself. I did start it off with "Believe it or not," though...

The other two posts--about the rain and Argentina getting its ass handed to it--were (sad but) true.

I also tricked some of my students with one of those "read and follow all the directions carefully" quizzes, where the final instruction out of 25 is something like "disregard all the other instructions and quietly watch your less-attentive classmates go crazy."

I'm not sure if this is as good as the time when I was in 12th grade and I went to work at my dad's clinic with a fake eye bandage that I had colored red in spots with a dry-erase marker. That was pretty good, and it even led him to retaliate by sending a prospective "Mafia Bride" to come to my school and hassle me in the middle of class. That's a true (but long) story for another time, I suppose.

In any case, sorry Paul, but you won't be an uncle soon, and sorry, "Auntie Di," that we won't be able to convince you to watch our offspring for us... yet.

But one day, hopefully.

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Can You Hear The Pitter-Patter Of Little Feet?

Believe it or not, but according to the doctor, the two freaks in the picture above will be parents about 8 months from now!! More information to come, of course, but for now, it's time for a (non-alcoholic) celebration!!

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So Soon, Monsoon?

Today seems to be a day of post titles ending with question marks. In any case, it hadn't rained here in Costa Rica for three months or so, until yesterday. There were some showers, but they weren't that heavy, at least by Costa Rican standards.

(ASIDE: For all my readers in Colorado, you know how it occasionally can rain like freaking crazy there, where the rain makes the air in front of you become opaque, but fortunately it only lasts about 5 minutes? Here showers like that can last for days. END ASIDE)

In any case, I guess that today also marks the official start of the rainy season, a.k.a. the "Green Season," if the Instituto Costarricense de Turismo has anything to say about it. But to Dustin, Sam, Annie, and anyone else who may be contemplating visiting soon: don't worry! The rain is sporadic and is usually relegated to the afternoon until August or so. Then in September it finally stops its latino procrastination and starts to downpour in earnest. So if you're coming in May or June, you'll still be relatively dry most of the time, at least in theory.

But the mold is a whole other story.

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Bolivia 6, Argentina 1?

I know I've mentioned I'm not much of a sports fan, but this caught even my attention. Poor Argentineans! And who knew that Bolivia even HAD a soccer team?!

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