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What’s In a Name?

Posted on April 1, 2005 by Jorge

Learn How to Read!

Sometimes I really hate my name.

Throughout my life my name has been mispronounced, mangled, butchered and horribly castrated (poor, poor name).

For the record, the default pronunciation goes like this (for lack of phonetic symbols, I will just relate it to words you already know. Part of this is because some people do not know how to read phonetic symbols. The other part consists of my inherent laziness)…

Jorge = George

Figueiredo = Figure Aid Oh


Let us go through the list of acceptable pronunciations…

  • Hor-hey – Not so bad because it’s the Spanish way.
  • Hor-gey – Also sort of Spanishy.
  • Ghee-or-ghee – (Note those are hard G sounds) The Russian way.
  • Yoo-ri – Another Russian way.
  • Joh-jee – Korean.
  • Jackass – Term of endearment.
  • Figure Eight Oh – Not bad. The t at the end of eight is better as a d. But I’ll take this.
  • Fig Ray Doh – Also not bad.
  • Fig Lay Doh – A member of Ebay who purchased a monitor from me pronounced it this way. Also not so bad.


Let us now go through a sample of the list of unacceptable pronunciations. I will rate them with emoticons to allow you to understand my pain…

  • Jor-ghee Figdo 😦
  • Jor-oo Flower-ee-doh 😮
  • Ya-hor-gey Fig 😕
  • Hoh-sey Fiji-dehr-oh 😯


That last one was the most recent. The ironic thing is that the person left a message on my home voicemail asking for me, they used that travesty at the end of the bad list. After they left the message, they called me at work, and they pronounced my name right.

Weird.

Filed under: Rants, Spaces Archive | 15 Comments »

Up In Smoke

Posted on March 28, 2005 by Jorge

Take Up Smoking, Win a Prize!

I almost fell out of my chair the other day when I caught the tail end of a news segment about people who are quitting smoking and winning a car.

Yes.

That’s right – A FREAKIN’ CAR!

Apparently, there is a group of these folks who entered some program to help them quit, and the incentive is that they are entered into a draw. If their urine tests show that they haven’t been smoking for n weeks, then they have a chance of winning the thing.

My question is: What about all the people who don’t ever choose to smoke?

You’d think that they would also be entered into the draw due to the fact that they haven’t exposed anyone else to second hand smoke.

Man…

Gotta love modern society…

Filed under: Rants, Spaces Archive | 7 Comments »

Beering My Soul

Posted on March 24, 2005 by Jorge

I Was Canadian

Can someone tell me what happened to the Molson’s commercials? They went from being very Canadian to very…well….not Canadian.

Now, I know that there are many who will argue that Canadians pride themselves on not being American, and that we have no real defining characteristics that make us really distinct (with the exception of the coolest flag ever, and the fact that our National Capital is as secure as a 20 year-old training bra).

Why do I bring this subject up in the first place? Beer. Or rather, beer commercials.

Our beer commercials were much different before the Coors takeover. They were more laid back. More fun. There was far less ego, really. Just a couple of friends having a good time, but not working too hard to do so.

Now, however, it’s as if our beer commercials received an injection of “hypercoolness”. Canadians are portayed as being ultra-cool womanizers (even the women) with unlimited active sex appeal. They dress up in the latest trendy clothes, and they’re smug and over-confident in their top position in the world. Um, I don’t think so.

Canadians, for the most part, should be portrayed as more leisurely (bordering on lazy) in their partying. Oh yes, don’t get me wrong, we don’t sit at home and do nothing (unless the hockey game is on…oh….wait…). We do go to parties. We do have fun. But we don’t have to try to be cool. Our sex appeal is passive. That is, we are magnets, and the fun comes to us. We don’t have to go around pretending to be what we’re not.

We could be proud of our old commercials. Yes, we were definitely portrayed as having confidence. But it’s an ambivalent brand of confidence that made it less abrasive.

Now we just look like pricks.

On the flip side, the Keith’s commercials also need work. Those are just too homey.

Filed under: Rants, Spaces Archive | 2 Comments »

Man About Town

Posted on February 24, 2005 by Jorge

In the spirit of having a title that doesn’t really refer to the body of the message, my dialogue today will have nothing to do with what I wrote as the header. You can thank Shatton for this. He’s a bad influence.

I was trying to figure out what to write today, as there are several things that are on my mind. Of course, in times of need, I turn to Shatton, who had a bunch of headers embedded in his Blog. He is a genius.



Superdickery

Albert sent me this site over MSN the other night when we were chatting. It is the funniest site I’ve come across in a long time. And what is funnier is that my mom owns a good portion of the comic books contained in that site.

When we were kids, my mom bought a big box of comics for us to read. I remember distinctly wondering why the covers of the books were so stupid. I suppose that the comic book industry was trying to get a broad range of people to enter the fold, so they started publishing whatever they could. Seriously, though, if these were published today, there would be plenty of lawsuits flying around.



Abreast – Not the Good Kind

One thing that really gets my goat are those people who like to walk like an army along the sidewalk. You know the kind. They stand shoulder to shoulder taking up the whole sidewalk, and march forward, blabbing on and on and not paying any attention the fact that some poor old lady has just climbed up a tree to get out of their sidewalk-hogging-way.

My new streategy is to treat this like a game of “Red Rover”. I will essentially stick to my route, and not really deviate very much (I tend to walk on the right side of the sidewalk, relative to the direction I am facing). Most people move out of the way.

Stupid people don’t. So they get knocked about like tenpins.

I love when people who get upset about this. They confront me about the fact that I got in their way. I usually politely remind them that the sidewalk is for everyone, and that they should pay more attention and walk in a more reasonable formation, so as not to take up so much room.

Some apologize. This is nice. On the other hand, some people just grumble to themselves, insisting that they have the right to block up the sidewalk.

There is a name for this type of person. My friend Christian shared it with me. The name is ass-cube.



Treated Like Crap

At the place where I work, we have something called “Treat Day”. Every payday, one of four teams brings in treats for people. I remember when I moved to this location, and people had heard that I liked to cook. They were very quick to tell me that it was always better when people brought in home-made stuff, rather than store-bought stuff.

I agreed with them. Nothing is worse than the person that shows up to a potluck (that has been specified as being a home-made goods potluck) with 2 bags of chips or something. The exception to this is if they had a reasonable excuse. You know. Things like…


  • My power was off all night
  • I was abducted by aliens and was probed, and quite liked it


The night before my first Treat Day, I made spring rolls. Filipino-style. From scratch (I didn’t make the Lumpia paper from scratch, but I do know how). I made one hundred of the two-inch long little treats. Pork. Shrimp. Water chestnuts. A whack of ingredients all hand diced and lovingly deep fried in groups of 6.

I really loves showing up to the potluck with my homemade treat, only to see a container of Kirkland cookies from Costco. What effort that must have taken!

Jackasses.

Filed under: Humour, Rants, Spaces Archive | 4 Comments »

Effort-Less

Posted on February 22, 2005 by Jorge

I study Karate (Goju-Ryu for those who know a little bit more than the average bear). I find it to be a great form of self defence, exercise, and mental development.

I also study Capoeira (A brazillian ‘martial art’). It teaches you flexibility and flow, as well as music and rhythm.

I used to study several other martial arts that I will not bother going into, as it will take a while to describe each of them properly (my descriptions for the two listed above are very brief, at best).

Martial Arts, though beneficial for so many reasons, is not right for everyone. For some, it is religious beliefs. For others, it is their hesitation due to what they believe to be lack of ability. There are even folks who just don’t want to due to lack of interest.

My wife, for example, is not one of these people. She has flat out refused to want anything to do with martial arts, and that’s fine. She’s honest about it. Mind you, this won’t stop me from periodically trying to subtly sell her the idea….



Jorge: So, want to do Karate?
Mrs. J: No.
Jorge: Are you sure? It’s awesome. You should do Karate.
Mrs. J: [Getting irritated.] No!
Jorge: Come on, I’ll be your best friend. Come on and do Karate!
Mrs. J: [Without hesitation delivers unholy beating to Jorge which no Martial Art can defend, then walks away.]
Jorge: [Lying in a broken heap, weakly raising his index finger.] Are you sure?


There are two types of people that bug me when it comes to not wanting to do Martial Arts.

The first type of people that bug me are those who are just afraid of trying new things in general, and yet, don’t express this. Instead, they choose to come up with all kinds of excusues.

My favourite excuse usually goes something like this…


Person: Hey Jorge.
Jorge: Yo.
Person: How is Karate going?
Jorge: It’s going well.
Person: Oh that’s great! I’ve always thought about Karate.
Jorge: Really? The dojo I attend is awesome. Even if you don’t go to that one, though, you should still consider it. It’s good for you.
Person: Yeah. I don’t know. I’m not really in good enough shape for it. I’d rather take an aerobics class first so that I can be in good enough shape for Karate…..
Jorge: [Pulls out his own eyes and pours Sulfuric Acid into the sockets, melting his own brain in disbelief.]


What kind of logic is this? I mean, I can understand taking an aerobics class to supplement the Karate would be a great thing. Karate isn’t always the best aerobic workout. However, Karate is exercise. If you go to Karate (or any other martial art), your fitness level will improve by just doing that art!

Usually these same sorts of people give the same excuse if you were to ask them if they are going to attend that aerobics class…


Jorge: [With newly regenerated brain and eyes.] So did you ever make it to that aerobics class?
Person: No. I’m not in good enough shape yet to go to an aerobics class.
Jorge: [Runs screaming out of the conversation.]


The second type that bother me are the people who want the most amount of return from Martial Arts for a minimal amount of work. These people come up with all kinds of excuses as well.

These are the folks that watch Jackie Chan movies and want to do all the moves, yet they don’t take the time to even think about how much effort those moves take.

In my old Capoeira academy, there were a couple of guys that saw a movie called Only the Strong. The movie itself isn’t all that great, but it has some nice movements in it. Not to mention Marc Dacascos, who is pretty cool. Anyhow, these guys came to class hoping to be able to duplicate some of the crazy stunts from the movie.

Of course, they didn’t take into account the fact that they would need to spend every class doing drills and stretching and learning the rules of the Art before they could even think of doing the moves from the movie. Once they found this out, they didn’t enjoy it so much anymore.

It wasn’t as if they didn’t like Capoeira. They just didn’t want to do the work. A lot of people these days are all about instant gratification (I am guilty of this when it comes to buying crap like DVDs) and the easy way out. They can’t handle the wait or the work to achieve the desired result.

So they did what any lazy person would do: they gave up.

I wonder if they went to aerobics class instead…

Filed under: Rants, Spaces Archive, Top 10 | 8 Comments »

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