Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Robert Goulet Dies

Robert Goulet died today. Boo hoo hoo.
I love this commercial and now I'll get all misty everytime I see it.
When you're old like me and you see all the old timers you grew up seeing on
the Mike Douglas show or Carol Burnett show you know that you're too, starting to er well (get old too). What ever happened to the variety show? They don't exist anymore. We have Dancing with the stars and American Idol but no variety shows. It's either singing or dancing. No funny skits, followed by a band or solo artist. The closest to a variety show are the Leno and Letterman shows really. Ah the good ol' days. I think we've outgrown wholesome stuff. I think really that if there were a variety show I'd be bored. Gimme the gore of E.R. or the CSI's.


This always cracks me up when I see it. I don't know why it makes me laugh. Maybe it's the way Goulet moves.

Friday, October 26, 2007

WHISKEY - TANGO - FOXTROT

Went with some friends to a bookstore. I saw this on display and cracked up over the title. My friends didn't get it. I said, "Whiskey - Tango - Foxtrot". Don't you get it?! Them, "NO". I had to explain. "Whiskey = W Tango = T Foxtrot = F
W T F = WHAT THE FUCK"
(And if you look at the photos inside you will be saying, "What the fuck!")


Sunday, October 21, 2007

3rd Graders

A teacher is explaining biology to her 3rd grade students. "Human beings are the only animals that stutter", she says.
A little girl raises her hand. "I had a kitty-cat who stuttered", she volunteered.
The teacher, knowing how precious some of these stories could become, asked the girl to describe the incident.
"Well", she began, "I was in the back yard with my kitty and the rottweiler that lives next door got a running start and before we knew it, he jumped over the fence into our yard!"
"That must've been scary", said the teacher.
"It sure was", said the little girl. "My kitty raised his back, went 'Fffff, Fffff, Fffff'... And before he could say 'Fuck off!,' the rottweiler ate him!"

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

I'M NOT DOO KAIN!


Well today I had a "special" little experience. One of our technicians comes up to me and asked me, "How the hell do you pronounce this name?" as she's pointing to the surname Duquesne. I whisper to her "DOO KAIN". So she goes out and says, "DOO KAIN - Doo Kain". No answer. So I get up and go round to the other end of the office (it's sort of L shaped) and holler out in a French accent, just in case. "Doo can - Doo can". Then repeat "Doo Kain - Doo Kain". All of a sudden a Puerto Rican lady speaking broken English comes up and says, "I'm Irma DOOK KEZ NEE". I was tongue tied. I said, "You don't pronounce your name Doo Kain?". Her, "No we're Puerto Rican". All righty then! What do you say to that? We really are a strange hemisphere. Only in the "west" do you ill pronounce city names and now obviously last names. Some of my favorites are the way the New Mexicans pronounce Madrid, New Mexico (City between Albuquerque and Santa Fe) they say Mah Drid. Mah being pronounced as the way you say Ma in Mary. Then there's all the French names pronounced all wild western. Eeesh. It's almost creepy. When I went to the U.K. I heard every other town and city and street name pronounced differently from the way we pronounce it here in the states. Like Elgin, or Montrose, or Beauchamps (in England it's pronounced beecham). What's your favorite oddly pronounced name?

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Reverse discrimination or something like it............


Today I had a colleague, (another fellow non Spanish speaker. There are 3 of us.) who had a horrid episode with a Hispanic American physician. She called his office to find out the kind of medications a mutual patient is on, (because he didn't know what he was taking.) The doctor was transferred the call by his secretary and immediately started speaking in Spanish to our technician. She said, "Dr Espinoza, sorry I don't speak Spanish. I'm Jan from Dr White's office. We need to know what medications Mr Velez is on." And the doctor berated her by yelling at her, "YOU DON'T SPEAK SPANISH! AND YOU WORK IN THE HOSPITAL?!" I CAN'T BE BOTHERED WITH YOU!" And he then slammed the phone down on her, without giving her the information. They were disconnected. Dr White was too pissed and busy to call back to give the ass hole a piece of his mind.
I was mortified. I felt bad for her. It ruined her day. I get this too on occasion. Sometimes a patient asks me if I speak Spanish. I'll say no. And they'll say, "NO? Porque no?". Like it's my duty and responsibility to speak Spanish in America. I learned some before traveling to Spain. I learned it well enough to not have any problems. I can make appointments in Spanish and do that well. Anything else, it's translator time. But how and why some arrogant, pompous ass people think it's a moral obligation to know it, is well..... FUCKED UP! I am not a technician, but if I worked directly with people as a nurse or technician, I would learn it on my own and pay for it. It's people like the doctor who are fucking up the order of things in our country. They made it so easy for people in their community to not learn English. The communities all have one of everything for the non English speakers. A butcher, baker, florist, clothier, pharmacy, doctor, lawyer you name it. And people like me can walk into a Mexican fruit market and ask where the coriander is and they look at me like QUE QUE? Shit. Does no one know what the fuck coriander is anymore? Do we all have to call it cilantro from now on? Can I not speak English anymore? Stop the madness!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For those of you who think I'm a racist and a bigot. Piss off. What's racist? Exactly what? NOTHING IS. So don't send me your shitty stupid stuff in my in box. Post it on comments so that everyone can see how flaky you are. You know who you are. Well now that that's off my chest. Coriander is not a word like buffet or Hors d’Ĺ“uvres which was adopted since English America didn't have them in their daily life. But do we have to say DU JOUR? Why can't we just call it soup of the day? Du jour on American menus is just plain dumb. I'm not anal about bi or tri lingual signs or anything. I'm just peeved about people being offended by my speaking English. It's become ridiculous already. So ridiculous that I'm not understood by people at Dunkin' Donuts because I have such a thick CHICAGO accent. When I asked for a "cup o' decaf, little bit o' cream, no sugar" last month. They just stared at me not understanding me. I couldn't help but be sarcastic, "What's the matter, don't you understand my Chicago accent? Is it that thick?". I was born in Chicago, so my accent is not mixed with anything else. I more or less have that William Petersen, Gary Sinese thing going. And that's soooo hard to understand when your from ____________________ fill in the blank country. Well gotta go now. Gesundheit you all.


Post script. I loved my trip to Spain. And I loved how easy it was to learn it after being there for three weeks. The people, music and food was just awesome and wonderful. The Mediterranean (southern) part was my favorite. Hell who wouldn't like the sunny warmer part? But I'd never expect them to know English so for 8 months I learned the Berlitz Spanish for travellers. My gripe is those who live in the U.S.who loathe speaking or learning English. Those who just want to sit back and take because someone told them that they could. Ignorance should not be bliss. For those of you planning to visit or move to the U.S. to live or stay awhile, I have three words for you......Berlitz and Rosetta Stone.

These Guys Give Me the Vapors

 
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