Archive for November, 2008
In Cordoba
Nov 20th
So, Cheryle reminded me today that it has been a while since I wrote anything so here it goes…
Right now I am in Cordoba, Argentina. John and I took a 10 hour bus ride to get here last Friday and we have been here for a week now. Cordoba is smaller than Buenos Aires, but still a pretty big city at around 3 Million people. It is known for having arguabaly the hottest girls in the world, which I can personally attest to.
Anyway, so we arrived Friday and met these girls that we had met in Buenos Aires at the bus terminal. My friend Daniella had a car, so they were able to drive us to where we were staying. We got to our hostel (Cordoba Hostel) which we quickly learned was quite a shithole. Probably one of the worst places I have stayed, but lately things that used to bother me are a lot less significant.
We partied with the girls for a few days and on Sunday morning we went with them to Villa General Belgrano in the Sierras of Cordoba (Mountains) after coming home from the nightclub and sleeping for about an hour. That was a really great day as we walked around a bunch, had a nice lunch and went to a river in the middle of nowhere to lie in the sun and listen to music. As you can probably tell not much work is being done this week.
Later in the week we switched to another Hostel as I couldn’t stand the other. We lucked out at Cordoba Backpackers and got a private room which was like an appt with TV etc. Way nicer!
Tuesday was my birthday. We went out with the girls to a really nice steakhouse and probably one of the nicest restaurants in Cordoba. We ate some of the best and biggest steaks I have ever eaten with tons of apps and side dishes (plus wine obv) and the total bill for the four of us was under $100 USD. This place is awsome. After dinner the girls had to go home as they had an exam the next day, but they dropped us off by the busier bars and we went for some drinks. Eventually we ended up at this one bar and started chatting with the bartenders and managers. Within about 30 minutes we made plans to go out with them when the bar closed to a nightclub that was close by. The club was interesting (lots of hippies and mainly rock music), but we had lots of fun and I had a ton of Fernet and cokes (local drink that tastes kinda like medicine).
Anyway, right now we are trying to decide whether to leave tonight on the overnight bus which is much nicer, or party here one more night and wait till morning to go.
This has prob been a pretty boring entry, but I felt like I should throw something up as it had been a while. Also, I’ll try and get some pics up soon, but I don’t have my laptop with me right now.
I Love Buenos Aires
Nov 5th
Everyday my friend John and I sit around and try to come up with bad things about this city, but so far we have been pretty unsuccessful. Here are some of the reasons why this city is so good:
1) Food – The food here is REALLY GOOD, and EXTREMELY INEXPENSIVE. I am really picky about what I eat, but I haven’t had too many issues here. For example, here is one meal I had recently: Caprese Salad (soooo good) + Filet Mignion + AMAZING bottle of wine = $25 USD / person. The equivalent meal in Toronto would cost roughly $150.
2) Women – I have never seen more beautiful women in my life than I have here in Buenos Aires. When I walk down Santa Fe (one of the main streets) I will see more attractive women here in about 30 minutes than I would see in Toronto in an entire year (and the girls in Toronto aren’t that ugly). As I read on one site, even the ugly girls are cute.
Not only are the girls so good looking, they are also really nice and generous. For example, a couple of days ago I went out for dinner with a beautiful girl that I met here. When it came time to pay the bill I pretty much had to fight her for it, and she got really mad at me for paying. She insisted that she should pay. That would never happen in Canada.
3) People – The people that I have met here so far have been some of the nicest people I have ever met. We have been offered free places to stay, invited to peoples’ homes for BBQs (or Asado as they call it here) and much more.
4) Barrios – Buenos Aires has many different areas (barrios in spanish) and all of them have a unique character. You can go hang out at an amazing (and very cheap) restaurant in Palermo Hollywood, walk through the parks of Palermo, go shopping in Recolleta, or head to San Telmo to watch some tango. These are just a few examples, as there is way more that I am missing.
5) Prices – Other than apartments, which can get pricey if you want something really nice, everything else here is so cheap. Here are some examples:
Subway Ride: $0.30
Taxi (for about a 10-15 min ride) – $3
Decent sit down lunch in a relatively nice restaurant – $8
Drinks in nightclubs – $3-$5
Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice 500ml – $1.10
Bus Ride to city 10 hours away – $60 for what would probably be called business class
Tickets to a huge concert with many international DJs and probably 100,000 people – $40
6) Nightlife – All the clubs we have gone to so far are amazing, and everyone is having a really good time. Not to mention, you don’t go out until 2am as most nightclubs don’t even start to get busy until 3am. They go until about 8am.
Anyway, I could probably go on and on but I don’t feel like writing a 2000 word post. I will end this with some pics:
My friend Matias on the grill making us a nice steak dinner
The roof of our current apartment… soooooo nice. There is also a pool, gym and restaurant up on the roof that are out of this pic, but the park is my favorite.
On the boat to Uruguay with some people we met here
Nice area called Puerto Madero
Everyone getting ready to go out for Halloween at Borges Design Hostel
Ciao for now… hasta luego!
What Happened to PAP?
Nov 1st
Ever since Jeremy left it seems like PAP (Poker Affiliate Programs) has turned into a business than being the home for affiliates. Sure, I understand they are running a business, but trying to cover up things by editing posts and pushing companies that have a shady track record like Chipleader just for the money is a really bad idea in the long run. Without people posting, they don’t really have a community.
Last week I was removed from the moderator group over a small disagreement with Jeremy’s replacement, Randy. Randy decided it was better to remove a link to xxhttp://www.pokerstarsmarketingcode.com (which happens to be owned by a real douchebag) in a thread that had to do with PokerStars and the favoritism they were showing to a few affiliates with using domains with pokerstars or marketing code in them. Apparently its ok for one affiliate to do it, but not others. Anyway, since linking to the site is really the only evedince to question Pokerstars about I felt it was important to post this. This is an issue that has really bothered me for a long time, and from talking to other affiliates at conferences I know it is a big one for them too. Anyway, within 5 minutes of this being posted my reply had been edited by Randy. Funny enough at the same time I noticed an IP address from the Cayman Islands watching that thread so I can only assume that he was either protecting a friend/affiliate that does nothing for the PAP community (who is clearly doing something that he shouldn’t) or who knows… maybe he has a boss telling him what to do. Regardless, editing other people’s posts is never a good idea as I have learned from running my own forums.
Anyway, the thing that really got to me was that I wasn’t even notified that I was no longer a moderator, nor even thanked for all the things I did do over the past few years. I have spent a lot of time either deleting/editing threads for people, and resolving issues (UNPAID OF COURSE), but I guess the people at PAP look at this as some kind of priveledge. Oh well, if thats the case then I would rather not have it.
I strongly disagree with the way it was handled and decided it was probably best to just stop posting there all together. I can be very stubborn at times, but I also don’t really like the way the site is going. If I can’t post REAL AFFILIATE ISSUES without being censored, then what is the point of me going there? Not to sound cocky, but it is a great site for new affiliates, but the amount of knowledge I am able to extract from the site has gone down to next to none.
I find that the only thing the site really does for me is wastes a lot of time (surfing forums when I should be working) and creates a lot of stress dealing with certain situations.
Anyway, I am a little hungover in Buenos Aires right now, so this probably doesn’t make much sense, but oh well… I’ll post it up anyway.
Affiliate Tip: Stop wasting your time on forums!