LA Fly Away Technology

I was impressed by the solution the airport bus driver found to get a compartment for her stuff. What better and easier than to write it with a pen??



She could've tried to keep some balance for the letters/words... XD

Do you know the names?

I am just back from a 3-day roadtrip weekend a bit far from California, but still within the USA. Somebody knows the names of the places in this photos? Give it a try and leave your answer in the comments... For space geeks (not the Moon), for geeks in general (not Mordor) :P

Where and what are these places??

Nombre desafortunado en Canadá

Sí, Nganha (pronúnciese Engañá... o eso espero!) es el nombre de una oficina de cambio de moneda y préstamos. El dueño no debe saber mucho español... o nunca habría llamado su tienda así! Confianza lo que es confianza, pues que no da mucha ;)

Visto en Toronto, ON / Seen in Toronto, ON:


Explanation: This post is written in Spanish because that is the language in which it is "funny", or intents to... The text on the window, pronounced as a Spanish speaker would pronounce it, literally means "Cheated". Considering this business is a loan and currency exchange office, well... not very trustable! XD

Pepsi Shiso

In Japan, some well-known soft drink companies try introducing new exotic flavors in the market. Last year, it was Pepsi Cucumber... yes, cucumber... I do not have a photo for that one, but you can find it here.

This summer, I could try what is by far the strangest Pepsi I have ever tried. Were anybody to ask me what is the most exotic soft drink flavor I have tried, my answer would be Pepsi Shiso. No second thoughts about that!!



Shiso is a common plant in Japan. The wikipedia article in here. It often comes with sushi. That was my only contact with shiso until I drank this...

The result is a refreshing soft drink which has a weird taste, but I could not say it is bad. I think I would try it again!

あなたはMATLABを話しますか？

I just picked up my copy of this month's IEEE's Spectrum magazine and found this ad in the back cover of the magazine. IEEE is the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers for those of you who do not know. The most famous professional association in the field.

My point is I was really surprised to see that the main catchy sentence was in Japanese... The translation is: "Do you speak MATLAB?" I doubt the average EE guy can understand it. Is it for Japanese people? But again, the magazine is published for all over the world and in English. Any way, it was nice to see that in Japanese!!

My "MIT" Tshirt

Hey there! Aitor raised an interesting question: what the hell was I doing with a MIT Tshirt?! I am a Caltech student, so I must hate MIT!!

Well, the thing is this Tshirt is a Caltech Tshirt, you think it is the standard MIT's coz you have not seen the back yet ;)

This Tshirt was another chapter of the long MIT-Caltech pranks history. A couple years ago, some Caltech students created this Tshirt and went to MIT to hand it out as a present to the new MIT students. They accepted it gratefully and wore them... however, the back of the Tshirt hid a surprise!! This is what wikipedia tells you about that:

"Recently, a group of Caltech students pulled a string of pranks during MIT's Campus Preview Weekend for admitted students. These include covering up the word Massachusetts in the "Massachusetts Institute of Technology" engraving on the main building façade with a banner so that it read "That Other Institute of Technology". A group of MIT hackers responded by altering the banner so that the inscription read "The Only Institute of Technology." Caltech students also passed out T-shirts to MIT's incoming freshman class, with MIT on the front and "... because not everyone can go to Caltech" along with an image of a palm tree on the back."

Too much talking!! This is the Tshirt! ;)

The smallest Hard Rock Cafe in the world

This is the smallest Hard Rock Cafe in the world. It is in Cozumel Island, just next to Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, in the Caribean sea, not too far from Cancun. I was there in November 2008.

Geekiest thing ever...

You think you have seen everything and nothing will surprise you... wait until you see this video!! :)

Instructions for a frying pan

Today, Andrea, my Italian housemate bought a couple of frying pans from IKEA. So far so good... the interesting thing is the set of pans came with a 40-pages instructions booklet!! The booklet is so long because of the amount of languages in which it tells you how to handle your newly acquired frying pan: English, German, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Russian, Chinese and Japanese.

Some gems which can be read in this interesting and useful instruction manual are:

"If the handle feels loose, tighten the screws with a screwdriver"

"The pan gets hot during use. Therefore, always use pot holders when moving the pan" !!

Did you know it gets hot during use?! I was lucky myself to read it... hahaha...




Sorry if somebody feels bad about this post. It just intends to be funny ;-)

Could you tell me what time it is?

Seen in the metro in El Cairo.

El Chiki Chiki

Last weekend when I was in Vienna, Jorge, my travel mate, asked me if I had heard "el chiki chiki". Of course, I hadn't. He told me I had to listen to that song. It was the song which is going to represent Spain in the next Eurovision song contest.

El Chiki Chiki is sung by Rodolfo Chikilicuatre, a character in a famous comedy show conducted by Andreu Buenafuente, maybe the best Spanish comedian in the last 5 years. The song is clearly a joke and some lyrics are hilarious! How could it be chosen for Eurovision then???

In Spain, in my opinion, nobody cares about that festival. It is seen as a contest in which politics and country friendship are more important than the actual song. Therefore, nobody takes it seriously any more. RTVE, the Spanish national television, decided to start a vote in the Internet to chose whatever song people proposed. Songs where uploaded in a website and people just voted. El chiki chiki must have been a prank at the beginning, but people started voting for it and there it is: it has become the Spanish song for Eurovision 2008!



The video with English subtitles is here.

This song going to an international contest representing Spain tells a lot of us as a country :) As that old motto said: Spain is different!

A couple of funny things and a nice panorama

In the coming days, I will post some comments and photos from my trip to Porto (Portugal) at the beginning of the year. But, first, a couple of funny things:

- This poster says what everybody knows and not many dare saying



- Porto was full of "Sociedade de Borrachas"... Translating directly from Spanish it would be something like ("Drunk Women Society")... Some Brazilian or Portuguese can throw some light here ;-)



And the promised nice panorama, Porto from Gaia. Click on the image to see it properly.

Some funny Japanese panels

Continuing with those strange WCs in Europe...

Some time ago, I wrote a post about some very nice and hygienic WCs in Amsterdam. Aitor posted a nice post about the flat-bottom WCs you can find in Germany or the Netherlands. He got "moved" in meneame.com and got thousands of visits in a couple days!

When I was in Berlin, in the toilet in the hostel we slept at, there were some instructions how to use this kind of toilets... What i wonder is, is it necessary to be so explicit? hehe... Judge by yourselves!



What I like the most about these "instructions" is the attitude of the figure on the left. The cap is a key element... The guy spilling out the toilet has his cap backwards, whereas the other guy has is in a more socially accepted forward position XD

Example of civility

Sorry for the picture... No further comments...



31st Aug
Comment on the picture:
Not many people have noticed why I have put the previous picture, and why I asked for your pardon. Therefore, I will finally have to comment on it ;-) Sorry if you got it at a first glance.
The funny or uncivical thing in the picture is that the beach was full with trash bins to put your dog's excrements in and somebody's dog has shitted next to one of them and the owner didnt even care... have a close look... do you understand now? Please, don't let people do that if you are near. Thanks ;-)

The miserable Dutch Summer

Summer in the Netherlands is worse than Autumn in Spain ;-)
My housemate Felipe received this email to encourage him to leave the miserable weather of Dutch Summer! It comes from KLM, the Royal Dutch Flight Company. It is funny even Dutch think that way. Actually, they are right... this weather makes you feel kind of miserable... the highest temperature is below 20 degrees and raining all the time!!!