Business travel and some most welcome guests
Ack, yeah, I know that my site was down for over a day over the weekend. It totally sucks. Thankfully, everything finally came back online, and without any data loss. Not that that’s stopped me from increasing the rigor of my backup plan by about two notches, natch. Yay for weekly rsyncs. But I digress.
I’m back in Phoenix again on business travel (see my previous musings on the topic), and hopefully I won’t get sick again this time. Naturally I was seated next to a guy who had a pretty bad cough on the flight in. I think I’m just fated for these kinds of encounters. And technically, I’m not in Phoenix, but in Scottsdale. It’s hard to tell the difference out here, because all the little cities just run into each other in a huge mass of ridiculous desert suburbia. You can only see so many road-side saguaros before you start thinking, “Really? That’s all you’ve got?”
There was a stroke of luck today though. Coming back to the hotel after work, we couldn’t help but notice that an entire bus load of hot Mexican chicks was checking into our hotel. Their luxuy bus had wrap-around advertisements painted all the way around, with the prominent text “Las Chicas Cazarones” next to an alcohol bottle (tequila?) on one side. So I think they’re in town for an alcohol promotion gig or something.
These chicks (and I can call them chicks without being offensive because that’s what the bus proclaims they were) were swarming the hotel. I didn’t take a single elevator ride with fewer than two hot chicks along with me, and they’re also occupying rooms on either side of me. They’re checked into this hotel for the entire week that we’re out here on travel. And judging by the skimpy clothing they were wearing during their off time as they checked into the hotel, well, let’s just say I’d love to catch them coming back from a gig wearing their official uniforms. I imagine the cleavage will be in play.
The big travesty here is that not a single one of them that I tried talking to speaks English, and alas, I don’t speak Spanish. Damn language barrier. Maybe it’s just as well. If they did speak English, they probably would’ve found it awkward when one of my coworkers was literally thanking God for this fortunate occurrence, out loud, in a cramped elevator … with two of them in it. At least one of them smiled at me.
So business travel does have its ups and its downs.
May 20th, 2008 at 06:36
I was afraid you were above otaku-dom like this. It’s good to know you’re a normal nerd in some ways.
May 20th, 2008 at 10:28
Otaku-dom? I’m not seeing any mentions of anime?
May 20th, 2008 at 13:40
Otaku, as in its more general definition of “nerd.” Japan has train-otaku, military-otaku, game-otaku…
May 20th, 2008 at 14:06
I’m still not seeing it then …
May 21st, 2008 at 07:58
“General nerdiness”, then?
May 21st, 2008 at 17:50
Chicas isn’t “chicks” in Spanish. It’s “girls,” you offensive dolt!
May 21st, 2008 at 18:39
And if I knew how to speak Spanish, I’d have known that.
May 21st, 2008 at 21:32
You do realize that pretending to not speak English is a prime way to dodge dolts.
May 23rd, 2008 at 08:27
“Chika” is a fairly common girls name in Japan. Yes, it’s pronounced the exact same.
And, yes, I feel obligated to inform any person I find who is named such.
May 23rd, 2008 at 08:29
Also, I feel that this articale is good link, given the blog’s topic.
May 23rd, 2008 at 13:04
And in Japanese, “chikan” means something akin to “pervert,” or at least “subway groper.”
May 24th, 2008 at 20:22
[...] Recent Comments Business travel and some most welcome guests [...]
May 24th, 2008 at 20:34
Lee Kinkade: Not speaking English is also a popular reason that people sometimes appear to not speak English :-P
Drinian: Mmmm, subway gropers …
May 25th, 2008 at 03:56
They have special women’s-only cars, I’ve heard, but I live in a city of 1.8 million and have ridden the train plenty of times and have yet to see a women’s-only car. There are stickers saying where to line of for them in the event they start existing, however.
Lee:I doubt that English has a higher percentage of stupid than any other language, but I haven’t seen any statistics, so you may be right.
May 25th, 2008 at 21:40
I think the subway cars are only designated as such during rush hour, right?
May 25th, 2008 at 21:51
So if you’re a Subway groper, be sure to do it off-rush-hours?
May 26th, 2008 at 02:42
It’s something that only works when everybody is packed in like sardines, so that it’s not obvious if it’s intentional or who did it.
Like anything else, though, the Japanese have (NSFW) found a way to monetize this phenomenon. Yes, that is a subway-groping theme club.
What was this post about again?