Friday, December 22, 2006 9:48:02 PM
unemployment, working
Dear Santa,
Hi! 
My name is Lisa Salami. It's a funny name but it fits me really well. You see I work as a saleswoman in a big Super Market at the delicatessen department.
It's Christmas and the store is overcrowded these days and we work overtime and people seem tired and they sometimes speak badly to me and my colleagues and other people and our manager said a week ago that we must all wear a funny hat like the one you wear when you go around.
I tell you, it's really uncomfortable to work with this thing on my head (once it dropped into mustard and then people were laughing at me and manager called me in his office and was asking why I was so careless and sent me in the rest room to clean it up and I felt really badly and I started crying but then Nim (a beautiful girl working into the books department) came by accident and saw me crying and said that I shouldn't be so upset and that the manager is an asshole and she made me feel much better and afterwards we went for a coffee and she told me that she went to university and studied philosophy but it's impossible to find a job if you have studied that thing so she works at the books department.
Anyway, I didn't know what to ask you for this year and that's why I'm so late to write you but I'm afraid that again you won't get my letter (someone must be stealing my letters to you because I've been writing you since I was so little and you never got me any present and that was the reason why Nim and I argued yesterday because she was saying that you don't even exist and that you are just another creation of bastard merchandisers to keep selling their stuff and that you are just another one stupid lie that helps making rich people richer while you just comfort the poor ones and I told her that she was bad and that you are good and that she was telling all these because she had a fight with her boyfriend because he too doesn't have any money and he cannot enjoy Christmas and she told me to shut up and I left and we didn't say a word the whole day today).
Anyway, I thought really hard and I had decided to ask for a fairy music box but something happened and I changed my mind. (Nim got out of the manager's office half an hour ago and she was cursing him and spitting and crying and he called the police and policemen came and he was saying that she stole money from the counter and she was saying that he was lying because he was mad for her not wearing your hat and not doing what he told her to and people were looking and then Nim was crying again and she packed her stuff and looked at me with her beautiful eyes and said goodbye Lisa and my heart was torn apart because she was the best friend I've ever had and she was too proud to stole counter's money and now she went away crying).
So, dear Santa, since you owe me at least 27 presents, I'd like something special for this year. I'd like you to bring Nim back and to show me your big fat ass and take this salami up into it like a man and do this thing you do a little bit different. Like oh oh oh oh.
Lisa Salami
PS: If I were you I'd keep off my chimney.
Credits:
*Images: lighter from here (ask me in person for Santa)
*Retarded child speech scheme from the book "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon
Tuesday, September 5, 2006 7:11:21 PM
personal, working
They have been precise at their appointments. Every weekend. Ever since I got a job.
I call them "migraine smurfs". At first its just a small annoyance somewhere behind my eyes. They must be some kind of vanguard. They check if everything is OK and then they whistle to their friends who swarm my mind. Then I throw my painkillers into the party and the battle begins.
Meanwhile I manage to go for a coffee and see a friend or two (even though they seem a bit fuzzy with all that battle going on inside my head).
Later on my painkillers are dead on the ground having caused several smurfs losses. Yet, smurfs start reorganizing themselves and this is the critical point for our battle. At that point I throw in a second army of painkillers, whisper to their ears that they can be as violent as they wish and I go to sleep. I wanna dream of the mayhem they'll cause. I wanna dream that they'll finish the bastards once and for all.
Meanwhile I'm being a creative General. I'm always on the look for new weapons.
That's how I recruited a Vitamin pack and a Mickey Mouse magazine. I guess it was one let's-hug-the-kid-in-me phase that lead to Mickey. As for the Vitamins, they are old comrades of mine but I won't call for them unless I feel really boned.
Anyway. Just for the record. Mickey was a total failure. I got pissed off by seeing uncle Scrooge's meanness, Mickey's short eyed vision of good and bad, Goofy's outrageous stupidity, Daisy’s bitchiness and all the stupid ethics between the lines. Furthermore the stories were so off-handedly written and with no inspiration whatsoever. Just bullshit to fill the pages.
Vitamins on the other hand seemed to do what they had to do. Thanks comrades. I feel like a 21st century normal human being again. Run on pills. 
Tuesday, August 29, 2006 7:01:47 PM
working
My grandpas were farmers and cattle-breeders. They had their problems. Several bugs might render the crop useless, the work was hard, animals were wild and the working hours long. Yet, they breathed clean air (at least when not pesticiding their crops).
My parents were workers and they had their problems too. Several machines depended on them to keep on functioning the right way and my parents in turn, depended on the good machines' functionality to get their salary. The work was hard, the working hours long and several animals were getting on their nerves (some things don't change) but the air was never clean (and some things do).
Me? I'm a programmer (among other things). Some were quick to state that I didn't follow either tradition. They said that all these nights over mathematics, physics, ancient Greek and a whole other bunch of stuff that I fail to remember led me to a place far away from the (agricultural or machine) dirt.
Coming to think of that again I'm not so sure I betrayed either tradition. More probably I merged them. See, I fight with (programming) bugs and I fight hard and longly just like my grandpas. I'm also vowed to make (computer) machines to function properly and if they don't I get my ass kicked. As for the air and the animals, except for one or two weeks per year I live in Athens (that is a metropolis) so I kept much of the animals , pesticide and the machine dirt tradition in that fields too.
Gee! And they say that Greek youth is estranged from its tradition. Images from
there,
here,
there and
here.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006 12:33:27 PM
Globalization, working
...but it seems that several people have died bottling it.
Coca Cola is what this is about. It seems that Coke doesn't like workers' unions inside its bottling facilities. That's not new. I don't know of any megacorp that does encourage its workers to unite and fight for their rights. Yet, Coke has always been a pioneering megacorp in shaping tomorrows megacorp ethics.
Disliking workers' unions is a thing of the past. Undoing union leaders and organizers is the future. It seems that Coke has a lot more in mind than just projecting its logo on the Moon.
You can find all the info here. If, after reading that, you somehow find the Coke taste a bit weird, do not panic. Just do not drink it. The worst thing that may happen to you is loosing one or two pounds.
(The weird part of the story is that I found this and several other TODOs while just floating around Mr. Stallman's page. Yes, the guy that wrote some of the best (and free) software packages around. Pass by his page. It's impossible to leave unimpressed.)
Sunday, July 23, 2006 8:30:40 AM
Globalization, working
I thought a lot. I searched even more. My old adidas died and I needed a successor pair of sneakers. Yet, I knew they wouldn't be adidas due to Mrs Naomi Klein. So, I went hunting for decent sneakers and I wanted them to conform to 2 conditions:
1. They had to be a make that I knew and wasn't connected with dirty marketing, child labor and all.
2. They had to been made in a country with normal working legislature, that is in normal factories by normal workers that got paid a normal wage.
My old adidas unhappily led my steps to a lot of stores. For the last time we faced together the baffled faces of numerous salesmen and saleswomen. Yet, the outcome was always the same. "No, sir. Everything is made in countries that aren't famous for their working legislature". Gee, man. First class expensive Nikes and the like were made under the same conditions with (way much cheaper) makes that I'd never heard off.
My old adidas were chuckling through their hole and I seemed to be eligible for the sucker-customer-of-the-year contest. It also seemed like this battle was lost...
At last I pointed to a pair of unknown make sneakers made-in-only-God-knows. A choice that left me with some money in my pocket and my old adidas with a permanent giggle.
The devil inside me was whispering to my ear to get an mp3 player with the rest of the money but luckily my eye fell on an article of a local free magazine (LIFO) that said how iPods are made. I said to my devil to go fuck himself and I declared the end of shopping therapy session.
Who made the snickers I'm wearing? I bet an unhappy man or woman. I also bet that he/she didn't put a smile in them and I can't blame him/her for that. Yet, without any smile in them how will I fly in them?Credit: Original
image.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006 7:57:45 PM
unemployment, working, politics, personal
Heard the news? French protesters did win. CPE is dead. I don’t know if they opened champagnes but they certainly deserve it. Bravo guys and gals over there. Asterix would be proud of you.
I, on the other hand, can't say I deserve champagnes. If I was a car I would be running on fumes.
I had another zero meaning job interview today. Depression bit me for good and I wouldn’t want to www my sadness. Dragging her to my sadness is badly enough for one day.
I decided though to avoid medical care (which I hate) and I hope Mulder and Scully will make me feel better. Maybe if I see enough X-files episodes, aliens will abduct me for being a fan of such rubbish and I won’t have to worry about finding a job nor will I make people feel like shit.
Agent Mulder, I really want to believe (that I won't mess it up).
C U
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