Without a Traceroute

Argentina is very large. This seemingly obvious fact has been vividly demonstrated to me over the last few days. I’m heading north, planning to visit Bariloche, before crossing into Chile and heading for Santiago to resume the urban/hacker part of my trip. In order to avoid a 400 USD flight from Ushuaia to Bariloche, I thought I’d give the bus a try.

From Ushuaia, I caught a 12 hour bus ride to Rio Gallegos, then a 4 hour layover followed by a 14 hour ride to Perito Moreno (a town that, confusingly has the same name as the glacier). My camera was stolen from the luggage rack above me while I was asleep. Conclusion: I hate buses.
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I saw this ad a few days ago in Ushuaia. Apparently there was a city council election there back in November (either that, or they’re starting pretty early for next year). Two things about it caught my eye. The first, is if you’re going appear in a photo on your political ads, you should try to look like a friendly, honest, guy. To achieve this effect, it helps if you’re not actively making the Shifty-Eyed Dog look in your photo.

The second thing I noticed was the overexuberant use of exclamation marks in the headline, which reads “Ahora sí!!!” (Now yes!!!). This is decidedly not standard Spanish exclamation point use (¡No!), nor is it really standard English usage. Of course, advertisements and signage have long adhered to their own standards for punctuation, everything from the grocer’s apostrophe to the humorously misplaced “quotation” marks used for emphasis. Nevertheless, I’m inclined to agree with this recent Guardian piece pointing to the Internet as the source of an exclamation point resurgence.
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