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Overheard

11 posts under this tag.

When one doesn't know how to fuck... 2
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7
 Jul
27

My father, who is very fond of sayings and good phrases (a formist!), surprises one often with some bizarre and rather tactless answer that is however perfectly appropriate. “Stop looking for five legs in a dog1...”, he admonishes, tired of pointless dabbling, pausing to smile and lull you, ”...or tits in a hen”.

A while ago, building a huge and pretty warehouse, he had to endure a terribly inefficient contractor that was however friends with the client. He had a excuse for everything, a but, an it wasn’t my fault, a there’s no way, an it can’t be done. “Look, when one doesn’t know how to fuck…”, interrupts him my father one day, tired of delays and pretexts, “balls get in the way”.



Ahora en el Espanhol original, (llano, claro)


Mi padre, que es muy dado a los refranes y las buenas frases (a formist!), sorprende de vez en cuando con respuestas mas bien bizarras y de poco, digamos, tacto que sin embargo suelen ser perfectamente atinadas. “No le busques tres pies al gato…,” te reganha, cansado de necios devaneos, pausando para sonreir y arrullarte, ”...ni chichis a las gallinas.”

Hace poco, construyendo una bodega enorme y muy linda, tuvo que aguantar un contratista ineficiente pero amigo del cliente. Para todo tenia una excusa, un pero, un no fue mi culpa, un no hay manera, un no se puede. “Mira, al que no sabe coger,” lo interrumpe mi padre un buen dia, cansado de retrasos y pretextos, “hasta los huevos le estorban.”



fn1. “Managers thinking about accounting issues should never forget one of Abraham Lincoln’s favorite riddles: `How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg?’ The answer: `Four, because calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg’.” Warren BuffetWQ, alleged.

tagged anecdotes, droll, formist, humor, original content, overheard, papa, quote collages, quotes, translations, writing

Tarugos 2
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7
 Feb
25

”No, compadre,” le dice mi abuelo a mi papa, “el mundo esta muy cambiado. Los buenos negocios son cada vez mas dificiles de encontrar. Antes salia uno a la calle y luego luego se encontraba uno diez tarugos. Ahora lo encuentran a uno.”
”No, compadreWP,” says my grandfather to my dad, “the world has changed too much. Good businesses are harder and harder to find. Before, one could go out to the street and find ten dupes at once. Now it us they find.”
tagged abuelo luis, droll, formist, humor, mexico, original content, overheard, papa, transcriptions, translations

Star
Four overheards 2
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7
 Feb
13

After an afternoon of sumptuous, unrestrained culinary indulgence, bursting at the seams, a friend of Ureña, one of dad’s best friends, liked to say, in fantastically black humor: ”Ojala hubiera muerto de niño—para no sufrir tanto.” (“I wish I’d died a child—to save myself from so much suffering.”)

”Trabajo que no da para levantarse a las 11[AM], no es trabajo.” (“A job that doesn’t pay enough for sleeping after noon is no job.”) Used to say another, rather too fond of the good life, friend of Dad’s.

People usually said goodbye to my grandgrandmother Aurora—who is now just over a hundred—with a formulaic, yet earnest, “Take care!” To which she promptly responded, ”You take care! I’m over ninety years old, what I want to do now is die!”

”Que puedes esperar Parra,” (“What can you expect Parra”) used to say Ureña jokingly to my father, ”yo me crie con tortillas de sal y chile. Yo no comi pescado, ni leche, ni jamon.” (“I was raised on tortillas with salt and chile. I didn’t get to eat fish, nor milk, nor ham.”)

tagged anecdotes, death, droll, en espanhol, family, favorites, formist, fun, humor, original content, overheard, papa, quotes, spanish, story, transcriptions, translations, wealth, writing

Was that a non sequitur? 2
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6
 Sep
16

From the surprise interview of Sergey BrinWP, Google’s cofounder, at the 2005 Web 2.0 Conference. The notes ↓ here are just to guide you, you have to hear either the clip or the full interview at ITConversations to get how wittyEEM this is.

John Battelle: There’s been a dialogue throughout the conference, Google’s come up once or twice, and I wanted to sort of pin some of the highlights of that dialogue and ask you to respond to them.

One of the first that comes to mind is a conversation I had with Terry SemelWP, where he—I asked him about Google—and he said, very respectfully, how much he thinks the technology is extraordinary, and of course how Yahoo! build their search technology, and so on. But, then he pulled back and said: “Let’s judge Google as what it is. Google is now a portal and by my estimation,”—and I may quote him not exactly word for word—”Google is number four.” How do you respond to that framing?

Sergey Brin: Yeah, and I just wasn’t here to see him, but I read a couple of news stories on points like that, but based on my reading of that, that also’d make us the underdog.

Battelle: Um-ha-ha! Very wise! You knew my next question…

Brin: And… I think that’s where we are. Further I’d add to that if you’ve… you’ve had the pleasure of being at the Google cafe…

Battelle: Yeah…

Brin: I think our food is pretty good, we continuously try to improve it, but in terms of… [laughs] kind of the volume…

Battelle: Was that a non sequitur?

Brin: Well the volume and the quantity we try to deliver if we were to rank among cafes and restaurant chains, I mean, I don’t know, we’re not in the top 100 or 1000 even, probably.

Silence. Laughing uproar.
tagged droll, fun, google, hosted content, humor, interesting people, interviews, overheard, quote collages, quotes, transcriptions, web, webapps

"Ya sabiendo... 2
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6
 Aug
02

...es facil.”

Suele decir mi papa a cada rato y tiene razon. Olvidamos demasiado pronto todo lo que nos costo aprender algo.

tagged en espanhol, mindfulness, original content, overheard, papa, transcriptions, wisdom

Lenguas de jilguero 2
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6
 Jun
20

Tio Victor: Imaginate, ahi en el restaurant de la casa de Liz Taylor el platillo mas barato—el mas barato—cuesta 500 pesos! De ahi p’arriba!
Papa: Pues que te daran? Lenguas de jilguero?

tagged en espanhol, food, fun, humor, original content, overheard, transcriptions

Mis hijos? 2
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6
 Jun
20

Mis hijos? El mas chimuelo masca tuercas, el mas tullido es trapecista y el mas pelon se hace trenzas.

tagged abuelo luis, aphorisms, en espanhol, humor, overheard

No puedes corres 2
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6
 Jun
20

“No puedes corres, quieres vuelas.”—decia la abuela de Toño, mi muy apreciado maestro de frances.

tagged aphorisms, en espanhol, interesting people, original content, overheard, reminiscing, transcriptions

La petite soeur 2
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6
 Jun
19

Yo: Ah! O como te acuerdas de aquello del Principito1?
Chepe: Si! Ay, eso estaria padrisimo. La verdad, yo si hicieran algo asi, yo si iria!
Yo [con la mano en la frente, befuddled]: Queee?!??

1 He aqui el aquello:

Les hommes occupent très peu de place sur la terre. Si les deux milliards d’habitants qui peuplent la terre se tenaient debout et un peu serrés, comme pour un meeting, ils logeraient aisément sur une place publique de vingt milles de long sur vingt milles de large. On pourrait entasser l’humanité sur le moindre petit îlot du Pacifique.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince

Es decir, actualizando los calculos, las aproximadamente 6 billones de personas que hay en el mundo cabrian (holgadamente) en un cuadrado de 80km (dandole poco mas de un metro cuadrado a cada quien).

tagged anecdotes, en espanhol, family, original content, overheard, transcriptions

Poca luz 2
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6
 Jun
19

Tio Tani [por telefono]: Oye char, y tienen luz?
Yo: Ehh… si tio. Claro. Por que? Se le fue la luz? ... Usted tiene en su casa?
Tio Tani: Poca.
Yo: ?

Mi tio tiene esquizofrenia y le cuesta mucho trabajo hilvanar sus ideas con coherencia. Ocasionalmente dice cosas tan incongruentes que son chistosisimas.

tagged anecdotes, droll, en espanhol, family, overheard, personal, reminiscing, transcriptions