koolthing

I am still in a bit of a daze after the numerous 3:00-5:00AM phonecalls last night. Jason was stuck in Amsterdam, and called after his "date", the ex called screaming something about Wells Fargo (I have to investigate today), and the usual US blunder calls ::oh, I am so sorry, what time is it there? - they always say, with this ridiculous insincerity:: I am always tempted to turn my telephone off, but I really can't because of the time difference, and I do get emergency calls in the middle of the night often enough to warrant keeping the phone on.

Today the house is being shown again all day, so I had to vacate very early to avoid a repeat of Tuesday morning. Several very large espresso drinks later, I am on the move to Central Station to get started with the day's business. I sat at the tram stop for close to 40 minutes, and was reassured by numerous Dutch that the public transport is the best in the world and the trains are always on time. I was humble and quiet for a change and derived a strange satisfaction from watching their irritation grow as we waited and waited. After an hour, I finally gave up, and walked away, tram number 5 is not coming anytime soon.

In an attempt to put the time to good use, I tried to get caught up with some current reporting about Clear Channel and Univision Communications' proposed deal. I shudder when I think of some of the ramifications of deals of this magnitude. From living in a socialist country, and seeing how the monopolies operate here, I can't believe the public's interest can be served by the concentration of power over such a large market segment. I want to spend some time this afternoon looking at what statistics are publicly available on the web.