That girl I passed on the way to the market last night, you know - the supermodel arm-in-arm with the Latino Elmer Fudd who tripped on the stairs due to an apparent lack in coordination? She was a robot, right? Because that's the only reasonable explanation.

Should I ask blog readers BrianT and Racist Notre Dame to apologize for joking about running in zig-zag patterns...now that I head to work using actual zig-zag patterns?

And speaking of the way to work, what the fuck is up with the stuffed sheep in the door of the tennis shoe store on Animas street? I mean, I know we don't have any customers, but I thought that was a bad thing, not like, a business strategy

And speaking of this place's idiosyncracies, should I be more concerned about the crime and the violence, or the fact that taxis line up backwards and drive in reverse to pick up their fares? On what planet does that make sense?

How about the fact you get in an elevator: The two guys before you press floors three and four. You then press two. The doors then close, and the elevator proceeds first to the third floor, then the fourth, and finally back down to the second. ...Should I just start taking the stairs?

How stoked am I that the Yankees lost? And how bout that game four between Houston and Atlanta? How stoked am I that baseball is bigger here than soc-, er, futbol?

If you're interviewing someone, and they give you a shot that's homeade by the indigineous people of wherever (Venezuela tourism festival), and then they tell you it's an aphrodisiac, is it safe to say they're hitting on you?

Speaking of Venezuelan tourism festivals, how funny is it that they send the one guy who just got mugged at gunpoint in broad daylight to cover the Venezuelan "tourism" "festival"? Is the bureau chief really expecting a story that's not loaded with sarcasm? Does he secretly hate it here too?

Speaking of stories loaded with sarcasm, how the hell am I supposed to write a trend story with out numbers, figures? What do you mean you can't trust any numbers down here? From anyone?? You ask of me the impossible, sir.

My Spanish is...coming along. Venezuelans sound just like Cubans, all mumbled and slurred. No wonder Chavez and Castro are so tight - they're the only two people who can fucking understand each other. Here's my question: Do I try and get better, or do I keep my Spanish as embarrasingly broken as possible? 'Cause every time I say something perfect over the phone, intonation and everything, I have about a nanosecond to feel proud before the source fires back with some ridiculous stream of consciousness at warp speed. It's like it's a competition.

Hey, good thing I also have a nasty cold...

Here's a confession: I was always rooting for the White Sox, between the two Chicago teams, versus all these Cubbies bandwagoners. Hey, Cubbies: Thbbbpttt!!! Yeah, even you, Hole. You grew up in Michigan - try rooting for the Tigers, genius.

Here's a nifty picture I took of the Avila, the giant mountain slopes that enclose the city to the nor- oh, wait, my digital uplink cable was in my bag. Never fucking mind.

I ran a load of laundry at my co-worker's apartment the other night. When I went to take it out, the co-worker confessed she accidentally spilled some bleach over the top of the washing machine, but she's pretty sure she got it all up. 'Turns out the one thing that suffered a direct hit was the one pair of all-purpose jeans I've been relying on for this trip. The one thing.

Now I've got some acid-washed monstrocity from 1987, and I don't know what I'm wearing tomorrow.

Okay, so this is my question: Is God seriously fucking with me at this point? Like, does he take pleasure at watching me fall down/get up/fall down/get up? Or was the jeans incident his way of saying "put it all in perspective it's just a pair of jeans and you could theoretically have been killed on Thursday"?

Or is he mad that I took the advice of my heathen friend Fina, who did Global in Prague a couple of quarters back, who told me to just be as zen as possible, when you start realizing what little control you have over your surroundings. You know, zen's Buddhism, not Christianity, and that pisses God off if you're a rabid fundamentalist like me.

Or is it not actually God and instead some spirit or dead ancestor of some girl I screwed over in college? That's my guess.

Can you tell I have a lot of time on my hands outside of work? How bout that I've been drinking?

Speaking of rage vs. zen, when co-worker #2 asked me on Sunday, "So have you started looking for apartments yet?" when I had just moved into co-worker #1's apartment 15 hours earlier, should I have throttled her and yelled "LOOK, FUCKER, I'VE LIVED IN FIVE DIFFERENT CITIES THIS LAST YEAR - LA, CHI-TOWN, DC, GAY PAREE, AND NOW CRAPTACULAR CARACAS...AND I CAN'T REMEMBER HOW MANY TIMES I'VE LUGGED MY SHIT FROM POINT MUTHERFUCKING A TO POINT MUTHERFUCKING B, SO CALL ME CRAZY IF I'M NOT EXACTLY THRILLED AT THE PROSPECT OF DOING IT AGAIN AND GIVE A BROTHA A CHANCE TO BREATHE, GODDAMMIT,"...or was I right to just shrug and say, "no"?

Do you think it's time for my medication?