MISH MASH
May 22, 2014
I was so depressed by yesterdays post I decided today will be mish mash day which a collection of random thoughts. First I forgot a very important fact yesterday it was my birthday and I turned 14 or 72 in human years. Then a bunch of bees forced the closing of a highway in Delaware in the US. I don’t know how much you get to see about the election down here in Colombia but it’s so bad they should make a comedy show about it, too bad John Belushi isn’t still alive he could play either one or both of the candidates. Global warming is back in the news but I’m convinced nobody will do anything until the lower East Side in New York is underwater. You know what the world needs it’s to have Bob Marley and Peter Tosh back and a huge concert some place they’ve never had one like Africa or somewhere. You know I’ve come to a conclusion that humans should be spayed just like cats and dogs so you can’t screw up the planet anymore than you have already. Jeff says when he gets done with this book he’s going to do one about me, Flounder which would be a best seller of course. Well I feel better now so I’m going to take a poop and go sit in the window and survey my kingdom the rest of the day. This is Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin (they should rename it Flounder) Colombia.
SAD
May 21, 2014
The news says an overcrowded bus catches fire! This does not even begin to explain the horror that thirty two families have had to go thru. Nor does describe the cause of the fire or why these kids had to die. At the moment the driver who had no license and was transporting gasoline illegally as well as unsafely has been arrested. Unfortunately there is no death penalty in Colombia. The leader or the Christian church who booked the bus has also been arrested. Having a legal driver who wasn’t trying to make a buck on the side would have saved these children from a horrible death. Here’s more when people dialed emergency services they were connected to Cartagena which was two hours away. When the local fire company arrived there truck was something out of a car wreck it had no windshield the driver’s door was missing and the driver side front end had been in a collision recently. The Captain of the fire company said they had been waiting three months for the repairs to happen. People who arrived and tried to help the screaming children were driven back when the gasoline exploded and ended all hope for those still trapped in the bus. No one can feel the horror or sadness that has enveloped this tiny very poor Christian community nothing can be done to remove the horror of hearing children scream as they’re burned alive. President Santos says he going to make new laws for drivers and I say why he would wait so long because nobody cared about this little town because it was so poor. Now everybody wants to help but I’m sorry this will help other children but for thirty two families it’s too late. This is a very sad Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin Colombia.
JEFF IS PISSED
May 14, 2014
Here’s more technological stuff Jeff bought a device called magic jack he had it registered in Colombia. This device plugs into your computer and allows you to make free phone calls back to the US or Canada or vice versa to Colombia. Well the free six months ran out and he needed to pay 29.95 to renew it. So he goes on line does the credit card thing and magic jack says no good. He gets a customer service rep online and tells her what’s going on. She writes back are you sure you did it right and he says yes then she says do it again while I’m online with you. Well Jeff did it still not working she says it his bank he says well he’s used it online to pay bills down here and buy stuff and have it shipped from Amazon. She suggests another credit card which Jeff does still the same. She says it his bank. Well now we have a very pissed off Jeff that ends the conversation politely but you really didn’t want to talk to him right then. So he figures he’ll figure out what’s wrong in the morning when he’s not so pissed. He goes online to his master card account and sees three charges for a dollar each form magic jack that have been approved he also sees one on his checking account card also approved. So he says OK I guess I have to have someone in the US renew the magic jack. In the mean time his wife tries to pay the cable bill online and they find out all there card are blocked which means they have no access to their money which is in the bank in the US. At this point I decided to hide since smoke was rising from Jeff’s head. The reason was now, unless he wanted to pay a huge phone bill, he had no way of calling the bank and straightening out the problem with the bank. Now he has to try and contact someone in the US by email to see if they can renew the magic jack for him so he can call the bank and get this all settled. This is Flounder, and if you don’t hear from me tomorrow it will be because I’m still hiding, saying CIAO from Medellin Colombia.
NEVER A DULL MOMENT
April 23, 2014
Well here goes Colombian politics again. They just reinstated for the second time the mayor of Bogota the second most powerful position in Colombia. He had been ousted for mismanagement which I guess is a nice way of saying corruption. His name is Gustavo Petro and he’s an ex member of M19 a gorilla group that disbanded and decide to be politicians instead (the money was better). This means that he committed violent acts against the government he now works for and by violent acts I mean he’s probably responsible for some fellow Colombians dying. This reinstatement took place after the president had just replaced his replacement. Man you cannot make this shit up. Now nobody knows what’s going to happen but one thing we know for sure is the political gamesmanship and corruption will continue and that means all us Bloggers down here will have plenty of material. This is flounder saying CIAO from Medellin, Colombia
DO YOU KNOW WHAT’S IN YOUR FOOD
April 22, 2014
I wrote about the free trade agreement between the US and Colombia before and how I thought it wasn’t the great idea everybody was talking about. It had a hidden agenda and speaking of hidden agendas look what the Koch brothers and their close friend Monsanto are trying to do know. They want Congress to pass a law so they don’t have to mark their products as containing GMOS (Genetically Modified Organisms) in other words when you go to the store you won’t know what you buying to put in your body. Now Jeff and I are far from being heath freaks or even just health conscience but if GMOs are so great why does Monsanto have to force countries to use them and then hide the fact that a food product contains them. I don’t know how many other trade agreements the US have with other countries where they require the farmers to use only Monsanto seeds. But I do know we are not altruistic country and that we don’t make deals where someone isn’t making a great deal of money from it. Some of my friends up in the US are going to a march in New York City on May 24 to try and stop this there are also online petitions from several groups everything from labeling to a complete a ban. I don’t know about a complete ban I will say this you should be able to choose. On the other side of the coin I know that something will eventually have to be done or the world will face over population and starvation. It won’t bother me and Jeff but it will bother Hari Jeff’s grandchild as well as your grand Children so know would be a good time to stop talking and star doing. This is Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin, Colombia.
SO YOU WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH.
March 31, 2014
Colombia wants a truth commission after the peace talks with the Farc are concluded. The problem with that is like the quote from jack Nicolson’s character in a few good men “You can’t handle the truth”. Now you sit there and say what does he know that we don’t know? The answer is nothing absolutely nothing. Ok how can you say that we can’t handle the truth? By looking at the people who want the commission and they are politicians and the one thing you’ll never get from the politicians is the truth. First they’ll lie and say they are protecting hence the quote above. Then they’ll tell you a story with half truths and years later when it won’t make any difference they’ll let the truth out. But getting back to the quote if all the truth about the Farc’s revolution was to be told you’d would see the influence of organized crime not only on them but on the government as well. Now we know that even the peace talks are all about money and that the truth is none of the negotiators give a shit about the people most affected by the vilolence and that would be the poor people. If the Farc was to go into Bogota and attack the headquarters of a major corporation or bank do you think that they would still be around. No the government would have had to send a major force out to destroy them, but if they blow up a small police station in the country side then they can stand around on TV and say how outraged they are and in reality do nothing. If this was to come out in some truth commission hearing the results would probably topple the government. But what do I know I’m just a cat this is Flounder saying CIAO from Colombia.
BUYING A NEW TABLET
March 29, 2014
My wife Ruby and I and her son john went to the store to buy her a tablet. The she and John chose was made by a company called PC smart. We should of realized when it too the sales person three tries to get one that worked that it wasn’t going to be a good thing. Sure enough after checking everything in the store she got it home and it wouldn’t charge so today she took it back and got one for almost the exact same price by Samsung. Now PC smart is a Colombian company and the tablet was made here unfortunately Colombia hasn’t learned about quality control and using unskilled labor. Sort of like China and Japan when they first started trying to duplicate American products. But once they figured it out and they had all that cheap labor they started making better and cheaper stuff then America could. They now manufacture most if not all the electronic gadgets sold in the US whether it’s sold by an American name such as Apple or not. So what I’m saying I guess is Colombia makes great clothing and furniture but at the moment its electronics leave a lot to be desired. I think that if they keep trying they will get there and maybe they’ll be the next China or Japan. This is Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin Colombia.
SPORTS TIME
March 4, 2014
I think we’ll talk about sports today everything else is way too depressing. In America Baseballs Spring training is in full swing and Jeff doesn’t care. The College basketball season is winding down to march Madness time. Hockey (yes that is a sport) is get ready for the playoff which I think go almost to July same for pro Basketball. And this week there are a bunch of what is referred to as friendlies involving the World cup teams Colombia plays Tunisia. Portugal, Argentina, and others will be pulling there players from the Leagues there in to play for their respective National teams. They have these games so the players can get used to playing with each other since like I said they play in other countries for money. When these teams get to the world cup it’s hard to pick a favorite because some teams are never really seen during the year. Like Japan or Korea so you really don’t know that much about their players and they have a different approach to The World cup because their players aren’t out making millions of dollars playing on European teams. They say Colombia is one of the favorites but right now there best player is trying to make a miraculous recovery from major knee surgery to be ready for the cup. I hope he doesn’t end up ruining his career by trying to come back so fast. The World cup stars in May and we’ll be posting about that and the rest of the sports in the future, that is of course if no one blows up the planet in the mean time. This is Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin.
HOLIDAY? DEPENDS WHERE YOU ARE
February 13, 2014
Tomorrow is Valentine’s day I the US but not here in Colombia which doesn’t mean this is not a romantic country it just means they celebrate it at a different time in this case September. Christmas is not celebrated in a lot of countries because of religious belief but did you know it’s not a holiday in Japan. Labor Day is celebrated in September in the US and may in Colombia and some other countries. Thanksgiving is a traditional American Holiday although Canada has one to at a different time of year. Just about every country has its Independence Day and there all different. It nice to know that you can have differences that aren’t war related. Most Holliday differences are cultural if celebrated on a different day and religious if not celebrated at all. In the US they made a lot of Holidays fall on a Monday such as Martin Luther King Day and Presidents day. In the case of presidents day there used to be two separate Holidays one for George Washington and one for Abraham Lincoln. The Monday after Easter used to be a National Holiday as well. They took away the Easter Monday and gave King is day they took the two presidents and combined them to give an extra three day weekend. The three day weekend wasn’t given to the people because they worked so hard and needed the rest it was given so the banks could take a break and have an extra day to play with your money. Ok that’s all I got this is Flounder saying CIAO from Colombia where they average a Holliday about every twenty days or so.
HOW TO TELL IF YOUR IN COLOMBIA
February 11, 2014
Sorry about yesterday but Jeff’s wife had the flu for the last few days and then he had to go to Medellin to see his eye doctor yesterday. Everything his fine now so here’s a post that some might find funny and others might get pissed, in other words a normal post from me. We’re titling this HOW DO YOU KNOW YOUR IN COLOMBIA. If you get out of a cab and have promised God you’ll go to church 5 times a day you’re in Colombia. If you’ve just seen a fifteen year old 89 pound girl with a pair of 44 double Ds that are so firm you could but a whole cocktail tray on them and not spill a drop, you’re in Colombia. If you look out your apartment window and see fifty buzzards circling your probably in Colombia. If you see a police man talking to a pretty girl or on his cell phone while next store the clerk has to pay a kid 20000 pesos for protection and the cop doesn’t even notice then you’re in Colombia. If you a police man getting beat up by a woman as a crown watches you’re in Colombia. If you walk down a street of beautiful homes and then walk around the corner and you’re in the ghetto you’re I Colombia. If you a seventy year old woman wearing a thong at the pool you are in, hell I mean, Colombia. Some of these things I guess you could see just about anywhere but if you can see them all in one day you are definitely in Colombia. If your President can put you a sleep while he’s talking about a major crisis then you’re in Colombia. Well that should piss of the chamber of commerce; this is Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin.
floundersgreatadventure 