Translating by Google

A friend sent me a link to watch a video - the short film winner at Cannes 2008 http://en.zappinternet.com/video/nilSqaMboM/HISTORIA-DE-UN-LETRERO-THE-STORY-OF-A-SIGN . I started watching the video and there is a sign in the video that says "estoy siego". Being the ugly American that I am, I only speak,read, and write one language. So I hopped over to Google and fired up the translator. Input = estoy siego request translation from Spanish into English. Response= I'm Mowing. That made no sense to me. I watched the rest of the video and they put in some sub titles. Back to Google to resolve the mystery. Input = estoy ciego (which is different than what is written on the sign) - request translation from Spanish into English. Response = I'm Blind. So siego=mowing and ciego=blind. Who knew? Nice video. I don't think it was a winner, but it is nice. Why doesn't the guy in the nice suit leave money?

Discrimination

I have no eye hand coordination. At the tender age of 10 my parents signed me up for Pee Wee baseball. The first time I got hit in the face with a thrown ball my teeth cut through my lower lip and it took 3 stitches inside and 3 out to patch me up. After that, in addition to not being able to catch a ball, I was afraid of the ball. I was such a crummy player that when the other team didn't have enough players for the game I was assigned to the other team. I always ended up in left field. When balls were hit towards me I would run to the outfield, to get away from the ball. I'd wait for the ball to hit the ground then I would run up, grab it, and throw it to third base. The team I was playing for was pissed because they thought I was trying to make their team lose. My team was laughing in the dugout because they knew I couldn't catch the ball. That pretty much ruined me for team sports. With that background, I never developed eye hand coordination or decent reflexes. Now I sit in my cave with an XBOX 360 trying to survive in on-line play such as Call of Duty 4. The verbal abuse I get is pretty stiff ( I now know what PWND means - pronounced POWNED!!!). I've gotten to the point that I unplug the headset and turn the TV volume off and shout "F" "U" at the other players - they can't hear me. Today my son introduced me to a neat song, it is a song from an XBOX game "PORTAL". If it weren't for my son I'd never hear this song http://vimeo.com/1612411. Why? Well you have to finish the game to hear the song during the credits http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RthZgszykLs . With my eye hand coordinatin I'm lucky to finish my beer, I'll never finish the game. Sometimes life sucks. Baseball sucks. I am glad I have a son and nieces and nephews to enlighten me. I don't think I needed to learn PWND.

Is this good or bad?

During the month of April I signed a contract to have a new deck built on the back of my house. This deck will have a barbeque area, and a screened-in porch along with doors and dog doors so the dog can go to the back yard and do his thing (barking at squirrels and birds). (I only have one dog now, but that story saddens me too much to write). Simultaneoulsy I contracted with the same company to put in a new sliding door. These aren't simple tasks, but the work doesn't require a college degree, or so I thought. It is September, the second installation of the sliding door has just been finished - but there is still some touch up. The deck has been under construction for 3.5 weeks and they are still at least a week from finishing. The workers are nice, they have green cards, their manager is out-to-lunch. It is very apparent that the company has taken on too many tasks and they are struggling to get all the jobs done. There are days that no one shows up to work on the deck. No phone call and the excuses are unbelieveable (The lead carpenter had to take his kids to school so none of the workers wanted to show up). In reality the builders are running to other jobs to help people who scream louder than my wife. Yesterday, the main water line running into the house sprung a leak. Luckily I have insurance for that so the $15,000+ replacement effort will cost me $3.50 a month for another year. The cable for TV and computer has a degraded signal, the company will have to replace all the cable from the street to the house. And the deck builders cut a wire to the back porch light and didn't bother to tell me. That $800 repair (it cost a lot to have someone show up at the house at 10PM) will be charged to the deck company. The builders knew they cut the wire and I found out about it when I called the company to complain about their lack of progress. "Didn't they tell you they cut the wire? They told me?" It has been an extremely frustrating week and I haven't even mentioned the older brother and his inheritance check.