Men Who Dress as Girls in Costume Parties Are Homosexual

There's a striking, terrifying tendency among men: dressing up as a girl is becoming a popular choice for costume parties. Men paint their lips, wear skirts and tights and sometimes go as far as to put a bra on. Horrible, decadent.

Is that a way of showing off a repressed homosexual feeling? I'm not psychiatrist, but it doesn't look that far from that. A real men would never do it - after all, there hundreds or thousands of options to choose first - and many are easy as painting your lips and wearing a skirt is. It's striking - many of these guys have girlfriends and all, but there's definitely something weird about them. 

What do you think?

For the record, I'll go to this weekend's national costume party dressed up as a crusader. A bit heavy, may spark violence if there are Muslims around but it's definitely more manly than becoming a girl for the night =P

Comments [0]

They Are Not Italian!

There's a rush for European citizenship in Argentina and it's turning ridiculous. As everyone is descendant from Europeans, everyone is striving to get a copy of the magical EU passport - a much higher-prized asset than our 3rd-worldler one.

While I was waiting to get a new copy of mine, I had to hear the announcer calling people as "Jorge Lagos" or "Brian Fernandez"... Aren't those two SPANISH? What the hell is doing Brian Fernandez doing at the Italian Consulate?

These people cling on one great-great-great grandparent who was born (they claim) in Italy to get the right to become a full Italian citizen. They are rejected most times - but the services are dismal now with SO MANY people applying and trying to get one. All these people don't even speak Italian! Or worse - they may even cut the pasta. 

It's ridiculous. Thankfully, the Italians are finally changing the rules - you'll need at least to speak Italian to even start talking about becoming a citizen.

Comments [0]

One TED Talk a Day = WIN

I'm not the kind of guy who wakes up easily. You need a crane to take me out of bed - and MANY shocks to get me out of zombie state. I made up one 'routine' to work around that, and basically it goes like this:

1- Drink 1/2 L of Water Immediately after waking up.
2- Brush my teeth and, without eating anything at all, dress up and go to the gym or for a run.
3- Hear an Audiobook while working out.
4- Hot shower.
5- Big, organic breakfast (usually 2/3 bananas, apples, or some seasonal fruit).
6- Write down things to achieve that day.

And there's more into it - but that's basically how my first two hours of the day look like. As it still got me sleepy sometimes (to my great shame), for a little while, I used to watch one TED Talk every day during breakfast to further inspire me. And guys - there's so much gold in TED that one a day can make a real difference.

When I decided to only turn on the computer after lunch (for the sake of my eyes and overall sanity) I gave up this habit. But I'm thinking of installing it once again - maybe during lunch or at some other point during the day.. It's definitely worth it and I advice you to follow suit =)

Comments [0]

Opportunities Are Everywhere - Just LOOK For Them!

I was accepted to the best Masters in Management program in the world, at a top school in Denmark. Nice, right? It is - especially when I note that I won't need to pay a cent for it. 

I'm just lucky? Maybe a bit - being Italian (as well as Argentinean) certainly helped out with some paper issues. But despite I can't choose where I was born, the rest was just up to me. I got every paper and exam that I needed to assure I would be accepted and then applied. And it wasn't that much: TOEFL, GMAT, some translations and that was it. 

So yesterday, when friends and friends-of-friends where bombarding me with questions and calling me 'lucky' every minute, I just kept saying one thing: LOOK for the opportunities! They are really EVERYWHERE! I'm going to Denmark because I wanted to go to Denmark, but if it wasn't Denmark it could have been Austria, Italy, France, Sweden or some other place. 

You just need to go out and look. And this is just one side of the story - if you are looking for a job, for a girlfriend or for pretty much everything else, the same applies. Opportunities won't come knocking to your door, it's YOU who was to drag and invite them to the house. It's up to you to do what you really want.

(And really, guys, it's not even that hard!)

Comments [1]

"Your throat hurts? Drink Vodka, You Idiot"

I'm starting to like this small, obscure Posterous more than ever. Now, a short anecdote...

Yesterday, at this exciting party, blessed with free drinks, I come across one of my best friends, who tells me 'Mario, my throat hurts. I can't drink, I can't speak.' To which I reply "Don't be a pussy... Does it hurt when you swallow saliva?" "Yes!"...

"Then drink Vodka, you idiot." Vodka, which I usually find disgusting, has nevertheless some throat-fixing miracle-capabilities... It goes back to Easter 2008, when I was traveling across Bosnia and Croatia, the times when I got stuck in a flooded, cold Mostar. With my Malaysian friend Calvin, we kept walking around the city despite the rain and flood and through the icy water without shoes.

Needless to say, the next day I was about to die and closer to coma than to full-life (Calvin, for the record, seemed unaffected), and when I got to Dubrovnik (nice place!), I sat down in this family hostel and tell the guys, amazed to have an Argentinean guest for the first time, "I'm about to die - can you make a tea for me?".

The tea wasn't. The old man, Papa of the hostel owner, told me "No - Not tea. Drink Vodka." Of course I thought he was joking - but he really kept insisting, and started a fight and discussion where everyone in the hostel had something to say. There were pro-Vodka and anti-Vodka camps, but finally the first prevailed. I had to drink that Vodka. I still remember the name: 'Dalmatino', with the the black and white dots the Dalmatian dogs always make us remember. Dalmatian dogs come, and I had never really noticed, from Dalmatia - the coast of Croatia, the other shore of the Adriatic (one being Italy's east).

I did drink that thing after all - and the next day my throat didn't hurt. Really - I was not PERFECT, but at least I could swallow. Lesson: when your throat hurts, drink Vodka.

(This post will be part of a new Inspiration Palace post: "Lessons From Coming Back From the Dead in Bosnia".)

Comments [0]

"They are all Valkyries, Mario, Valkyries!"

That's what my good friend Alvaro told me about Danish girls. And I have to be honest with you - I'm very, very excited to see it for myself! I met many Nordic women so far, but I have never seen so many all together. 

But, mind - for much hot these girls sure will be, I'm still a bit worried. Will they be good girlfriends? All alone in a strange land, more than ever I'll need a nice girl to hug me, cook for me do and all those life-saving things Italian, Greek, etc women do so well. It's when you need that that you realize how important is culture.

Either way, it will be fun to see how it turns out!

Other than that, I'm very disappointed with the ICJ's resolution about Kosovo. While I'm pro-NATO in almost all of cases, I still believe they were completely wrong in accepting the 'independence' of this Serbian province. Shame shame.

Comments [0]

Visit 1000 Cities by Dec 31, 2014

Yesterday, kind of in a random situation, while I was waiting my friend @iharrigue in one of Buenos Aires' many busy corners, I came up with one big idea: I'll try visit 1000 different cities by December 31st, 2014.


While I do have gigantic goals as climbing Mt. Everest and becoming President of Argentina, I needed a more day-to-day goal as Chris' of traveling to every country in the world. While (for the moment) I'm not interested in pursuing that epic, I do think visiting 1000 different cities will be quite fun (and be a charming magnet at the same time).

So far, I'm still quite away from the feat - but I'm sure I can do it. Right now the 'official count' on the Inspiration Palace lists 185+ cities. Moving to Denmark and a few trips will help that list be around 200-250 by the end of 2010. That will leave me all of 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 to see the last 750+ cities. 

Doable? Absolutely. Hard? Indeed! But it will be exciting. More about it in the IP very soon.

Comments [0]

The Football Suicide

There's a tragic anecdote that really shows how crazy people in Argentina can be for football. In one of the country's biggest city, Rosario, there are two big clubs: Rosario Central and Newell's. Their rivalry is among the craziest in Argentina and in the world - you really just can't imagine how wicked people can be there.

Crazy to the point of death - for real. Last June, only days before the World Cup kicked off in Johannesburg and amid rivers of tears, Rosario Central got relegated to the second vision for the first time in almost thirty years. You can imagine that the usual happened: fights, parts of the stadium burnt, death threats to players, coaches, club president, etc... But well, that's part of the football folklore here, it's kind of normal (tragically so!). But one guy went beyond: he committed suicide. 

He was a young, healthy and loved engineer who just couldn't bear that his beloved Central got relegated. While people here (and I include myself) many times think and say "I want to die" after a tragic football loss, it's always a joke or exaggeration - nobody would really think of pulling the trigger. It's kind of creepy, but that's how many people live football.

Disturbing, isn't it? 

Comments [0]

I Get Lost Easily

I really do. In cities with strange, labyrinthic streets as Prague it usually takes me 30 minutes to walk 200 meters. 

But worst: once, when I was in Istanbul, Turkey, I just had to walk straight for an hour or so to get from my hostel to the famous Walls of Constantinople. Of course, I got lost - It didn't matter how easy the task looked like. Three hours or later I was rooming around the Grand Bazaar, kilometers away form the epic walls. 

But hey, it's fun. This alone, beyond showing how disastrous my sense of orientation can become, it also means how easy I take traveling, or how much I treasure the moment. After all, there's just one way of getting lost when you are walking on a straight line: you keep your head up to the sky, watching all the mosques, buildings, and all the magic of Istanbul until you just don't have any idea about where in the world you are.

Comments [0]

Los Guardianes del Universo

Que buena serie. Medio retro el video, pero que buenos recuerdos que trae! Todavia hoy AMO los Caballeros del Zodiaco!!

Comments [0]

About

Quick thoughts, ideas and random bits of writing. A few photos, videos and cool links. More like a stream of consciousness than the (much more serious, for now) Inspiration Palace. Notes in more than four or five languages too.