I mean, who doesn't know the word "gringo?" NB: there are other annoying things, I'm just stuck on the language right now. I've never taken Spanish, but I recognize the words for "thirteen," "whitey," and "wife." (Okay, I have learned three other Romance languages, but still.)

Seriously that's just stuff you should know from living in the world.

My niece speaks Spanish and Portuguese (and English), and the Peace Corps keeps trying to send her to Francophone countries, and she's all 0.o -- whyfor make her learn a new language? But if they have too many Spanish speakers, that explains it.

I have decided today will be a better day than yesterday. I have started it off with cake.

Also, NPR had an interesting report about a study of failed assassins, and the conclusion of the study was that these guys are just like the kids who shoot up schools: they do it to be famous. They are depressed and feel like nonentities, assassins are famous, ergo be an assassin! There's almost no real political content to the act at all, apparently.

So the answer is to stop publicizing the names of assassins and mass murderers. That's my solution, anyway.

And stop paying attention to Sarah Palin, because she's just a troll.

I'm so a Cancer that there's no way I'm now a Gemini. I call shenanigans.

Besides, when people working with the BCE/AD calendar switched from Julian to Gregorian, didn't they go back 10 days? So that would account for over a third of the alleged zodiac sign slippage right there.

The switch made dates skip forward, not backward. In the UK it was September 2nd, and the next day was September 14th. And then Faction Paradox purchased those missing days from George III and gave him a woolly mammoth, of course.

...I might be learning history from unreliable sources.

Sarameg, if your trunk line goes out, keep an eye out for Hardison. I bet he'd love Charm City anyway.

Target fails. no application from me. moving on.

Seriously that's just stuff you should know from living in the world.

When I went to Mexico with grad school, I could not believe that I had classmates who didn't know Spanish words like pollo and queso. I mean, seriously??? I couldn't translate anything but menus, but I was ALL OVER the menus!

OMG, I am so starving and now I want Mexican food for lunch. And I still wish I could find the bean-and-cheese roll breakfast thingie I had there. I guess I could recreate it here, of course, especially with increased access to Portuguese sweet rolls.

I knew an adult Montreal native who didn't know the French for bus (protip: it's really not very hard), so I'm less surprised than I might have been. However, gringo's just about an English word at this point. Wife I can see not knowing, and numbers higher than ten. Not gringo.

I had been thinking about watching it because Matt! Saracen!, but now maybe not. It sounds awful.

Yeah, gringo is an English word.