Just so you know, I might not be able to post for a few days. Tomorrow I’ve got to go to the Costa Rican version of the DMV called the “MOPT” to renew my driver’s license. I’m pretty sure that stands for Ministerio de Obras Publicas and Transportación. It’s in a heated competition with the phone monopoly ICE, the insurance monopoly INS, the Ministry of Migración, and the Junta de Agua de Berlín for the award of “Most Bastardly Costa Rican Bureaucracy of 2009.”

To understand the MOPT, imagine a typical DMV in the US, but take away all the efficiency, non-corruption, and human warmth, and you’ll get a pretty close idea of what the MOPT is like. Oh! And add a bunch of so-called gavilanes (“hawks”), which are losers who form lines outside the MOPT branches starting the night before, in order to “sell” their place in line and offer other thoroughly corrupt and bullshit extortionist services to motorists wishing to renew their licenses.

BUT, if I make it out of there in a day or two, I’ll probably be able to relax on May 1st, which we have off for Labor Day! I know that in the US Friday is only “May Day,” so if you’re in the US, then the traditional May Pole can represent “the shaft” that you are getting by having to work on International Worker’s Day.

All this, plus people losing their minds about pig flu, means that I might not be able to get to an open internet café over the weekend. If that’s the case, I hope everyone is well, and we’ll see you next week!

PS – If you did your own music album (see yesterday’s post) and would like to share it, email it to me and I’ll put them all up in a few days. I’ve gotten some pretty great ones so far!

PPS – For some reason, after I wrote the word “weekend,” I got Loverboy’s song by that name in my head. So, I share this classic with you: