Simo

Last week (2 weeks ago? I dont know) I went to a computer science expo here in Madrid called Simo. It was getting a lot of press so I figured it must be a really big deal. If nothing else, it was big. However, it was more of a consumer electronics expo than "computer science". Maybe half of the big booths I saw were for cellphone companies. The most interesting things I saw were the LinEx and xbox360 booths. LinEx is a linux distribution based in Extremadura, which I heard plenty about before from a couple of my classmates that have developed for it. It was one of the biggest setups there, with some 50-75 computers all set up running LinEx. The xbox booth was interesting because of the reactions it got. People would walk up, touch the controller a little bit, see how the car or whatever would wiggle and then walk away. They seemed completely disappointed with the incremental graphical upgrade the same old shit got. All in all, it wasn't too bad; spent the whole afternoon there and it didn't cost me a dime. I got in free because a friend of my cousin Manolo was working one of the booths.

Photos:



Booth babes. There were prettier ones with more interesting costumes, but they were surrounded. I was not willing to shame myself by getting close enough for a photo.

Happy Eat Day

I forgot about Thanksgiving until a couple days ago. It trust the flesh of fat birds is tasty as always. Enjoy it, because you know what happens tomorrow. That's right, it'll be Xmas. Not Christmas, but rather the sick marketing dildo version of the same thing, the one that you'll be forced to sit on if you dare step into any environment where spending is possible. Here we have no such barrier so I've already seen xmas decorations start going up in stores. So hurray turkey day! May the tryptophan in your blood fortify your defenses.

What are you guys doing anyway? I know Jacob and Kelly have gone home, I assume the same is true for the rest of you. Informing me!

"Cero para Zapatero"

So I went to a protest Saturday with Alex, Ana and my aunt and uncle (who drove in from Toledo for the occasion). The reason for the manifestation of some 1.5 million (or 406,757 or 375,000, depending on the source) Spaniards in the streets of Madrid was to protest an education bill called the Ley Orgánica de Educación being put forth by the Socialist government. It's a pretty hefty piece of legislation with some 1,700 amendments and if there's something Spaniards seem to hate it's new laws (especially unconstitutional ones).

The demonstration itself was pretty calm. Lots of families and students. Part of the bill is about making religion courses ungraded. So, of course, a bunch of religious types got involved including bishops and priests and such. I went to Catholic schools all my life and never believed any of that shit, but that didn't mean I didn't need to know about it. In Spain, where the vast majority of the population is Catholic and the Catholic church has had, of better or for worse, a huge impact on the history and culture of the nation, everyone should have some working knowledge about the theology. Besides, the best way to cure someone of a religion is to teach them all about it. At least, that's what worked for me.

So the protest was supposed to be nonpartisan but when you have a Socialist government "attacking" religion (even though many other things were included in the bill), mostly conservative types are going to come out. So that made the whole thing kinda lame. I saw a minimum of pot-smoking students with dreadlocks (yes, on white people. I guess it's cool here) waving the republic's flag (Spain is not a republic, and the idea that it should be is a left-wing idea). The few that I did see probably left after a few idiots with bullhorns alienated them by spouting right-wing rhetoric.

Ah well. So here're some more photos:

I just noticed the weird blue bubble on the side of this photo. OMG A GHOST!

Words Go Here

"Haven't updated in a while, been pretty busy, blah blah blah"

It's pretty much true, but it's not that I've been too busy to update this thing, but that some things that have happened in the last week I'd rather share "in person" (ie, email or IM). Ohhh..Brien's mysterious private life. Not really, just hilarious stories that might lay waste to newly formed friendships if someone here read them (yes, somehow people have been finding my blog and can read English well enough to be offended). I hate censoring myself, but it would be bad form to reveal myself to be the heinous bastard that I am by broadcasting "secrets", my unfair judgements and cruel thoughts on medium as public as teh intarweb. It doesn't seem to count for much that that process of full disclosure I humiliate myself as well. That's the funny part.

Anyway, I hear there's a new little Schoonover in the world. Jake's an uncle now! Congratulations!

Also: Kelly, that is the most awesome beer commercial I have every seen. Though it made me crave fish more than it did beer. Oh well.

Well, that's all for now. I'll make my next post more interesting. I dunno, I guess I'll try to talk about my recent experiences in a general sense. Maybe draw some broad conclusions about Spanish culture? Whatever I do, this shitty "livejournal" style post can't happen again.