Must Dash? Really?

Due to recent events our building was without gas and therefore hot water for nearly two weeks. This made showering quite difficult. I'm way too cowardly to take a cold shower. Using a variety of containers and a kettleful of boiling water showering was pretty much achieved, albeit quite time consuming.

One task I purposely neglected was shaving. Men hate shaving at the best of times. I'm lucky that I don't need to do it everyday. I like shaving in the shower. The constant hot water is great for softening the bristle and I feel that I'm saving time by multitasking. A rarity for a man.

I've always found facial hair bizarre. I don't know why men wear it and I don't know why (a small number of) women find it appealing. Obviously, some people would look strange without the beards and moustaches that have become their trademark. Imagine ZZ Top without their beards. Not all them in the group have beards, by the way. The drummer, ironically named Frank Beard, doesn't bother.

I think if you're going to sport whiskers then the full combo should employed, beard and moustache. An unaccompanied beard doesn't do men any favours although it never impeded Abe Lincoln and half of the Amish community. Perhaps they too felt that a caterpillar under your nose was just too darned ridiculous. I just can't get my head around having just a moustache. Why would you want a strip of hair on your upper-lip?

Could all the dead people please take one step forward?

It's all so surreal. Did it happen? Was it a bad, yet terribly exciting, dream? Oh no! I've just switched on the TV and they're still talking about it. I officially have terremoto fatigue. It's been almost a week since The Quake that Shook Chile as it's being lazily dubbed by bloggers.
 
In Santiago there is very little evidence that such an event occurred. Yesterday morning a student took me on a tour of his 3 storey, city centre, office building. The inside walls visibly bore the scars of the the big shake. Cracks ripped through the plasterwork which he assured me were purely superficial.

Now that we are in March, the city should be back to it's normal congested self. Congested by people as well as traffic. It's not. Fantastic!! The metro has been practically empty every morning. I was able to do my Jumping Jacks no problem at all. So, where are the people? Are they MIA? Have they not been able to get back from their holiday destinations? Have they all left to do some humanitarian work? No, no and hahahaha!

Off the Sphincter Scale

I took a walk through the rubble strewn streets of my neighbourhood. I encountered people huddled in doorways and on street kerbs with their blankets. Some people had outstretched hands looking for a few pesos to help alleviate their sad situation. It was starting to get dark but children's voices could still be heard. Dogs barked wildly only to be outshouted by the screams of ambulance and fire engine sirens. Breezes caught debris and rubbish and it blew what it could about the streets. It's a desperate time and Santiago is a desperate city.

Yes, my neighbourhood is a shithole. That was Friday. Then to make matters worse, we have an earthquake!

The vast majority of Santiago is a complete eyesore. And, again. I'm talking pre-Earthquake 8.8. Post-quake, it's a little difficult to discern what is actual damage and what is just the natural state of this ugly city.

Heads and Tales

The Japanese call it fat finger syndrome. It has nothing to do with sumo wrestling but rather the keying errors made by financial traders under severe stress. A trader's number pad will have the usual keys 0-9 and also a couple of extra ones for 00 and 000. These extra keys are an invaluable aid in reducing keystrokes and completing transactions quickly in the frenetic environment of a trading floor. Numbers, especially when dealing in yen, can run to 15+ figures. Unfortunately, these two extra keys, 00 & 000, are located beside one another on the keypad. Imagine you want to purchase 100 shares of company X. The price is right and you want to make a quick purchase before the price changes. You pump the keypad twice, 1 & 00, and hit enter. Unfortunately you don't quite make a clean contact with the 00 key and you inadvertently hit the 000 key as well!! You are now the proud owner of 100,000 shares in company X. The financial tickers on Bloomberg, CNN, et al are awash with the news that company X has been taken over by an unknown Far East buyer.

It's an easy mistake to make you mumble to yourself as you sit on the kerb holding a box of your things that had once populated your desk on the 45th floor of Makushita Towers. And anyway, the mistake was easily rectified the next day.

How can you tell when a Chilean is lying?

Their lips are moving.

Harsh? Perhaps. Untrue? I'm afraid not. The opinion of a belligerent Gringo? Well, yes. But also of the Chileans themselves. Chileans just don't trust Chileans.

There are fewer unpatriotic places in the world than Chile. People here don't puff out their chests and proudly proclaim who they are. Sure, they go nuts when the national football team does well but they go equally nuts when their own league team does well. That's more of a football thing. And of course you won't find a sober native during the Fiestas Patrias. That's more of a beer thing.

Some Chileans are almost embarrassed to call themselves Chilean. Obviously, they can't deny it if they were born here and willingly carry Chilean passports and ID cards. This is more evident in the affluent parts of Santiago. Many of them would not consider themselves Chilean and reading the telephone directory they may have a point when you see the glut of Germanic and English surnames. It's a class thing too.