Arjewtino.com, which first began as a small, personal online diary experiment over at , is now one-year-old.

I launched my blog on July 31, 2006, with about me yelling at a deaf guy during a softball game. In my defense, the guy was British.

My very first blog entry. Click for better view.

Over the ensuing 12 months, I wrote some pretty awful crap that entertained you guys, attended well-documented blogger happy hours, made some new friends who I would now consider inviting to my wedding, met some bloupies who sometimes scared the be-Jeebus out of me, and uploaded dozens of photos of myself to make all of you swoon.

More one-year blogiversary trivia:

Number of posts: 175 (109 on arjewtino.blogspot.com; 66 on arjewtino.com).
Number of visits: 56,119
Number of pages viewed: 98,173
My favorite blog post to write (tie): Opening Day and How to Eat for Free in DC
Most read blog post (thanks to Wonkette): The Virginia DMV is anti-Semitic
Most commented-upon blog post: Suck it, Brazil! Er, I Mean, Mexico…! (72 comments)
First DC blog I ever read:
My favorite uploaded photos: and Special Ed
My favorite video uploaded to my blog:

My strongest blog influences: , , and Blogger happy hours I was too chicken to go to:
Blogger happy hours I attended: 11
Blogger happy hours I co-hosted: 5
My biggest fan: The Princess
My most consistent reader: Baby Bien
Funniest commenter I’ve never met: Platypus
Angriest commenter: GoPats
Friendships nearly lost due to Alyssa Milano:
Biggest help setting up my blog: Roosh
Money earned through blogging: $2.26
Money spent on blogging: $49.80
Times I wished I had an anonymous blog: 4,307

If this list sounds familiar, that’s because .

As a one-year birthday present to my blog, I installed a couple of new plugins, including Top Commenters and Most Commented Posts, both of which you can see on the right-hand sidebar below the blogroll.

A friend once asked me what a blogger happy hour was like. I told her it was like being in an episode of 90210:

We all meet at the Peach Pit (Science Club), Brandon Walsh (me) makes sure everyone has a good time, Donna Martin (you) drinks too much champagne and can’t graduate (drive home), and in the end we all learn a valuable lesson (hangover) or get vomited on by Shannen Doherty (INPY).

And Friday night’s happy hour, I think, was like that “Donna Martin graduates!” episode where everyone at West Beverly rallied around Tori Spelling’s pre-implant breasts to make sure she graduated (I believe the episode, considered the greatest of 90210’s nearly 300 episodes, even sparked a cult following similar to SNL’s “More Cowbell” and Saved by the Bell’s “I’m so excited!” shows.)

But in this case, Donna Martin was Roosh and “graduating from high school” was “leaving for South America”. We all came together to give him support, buy his book, and tell him what we really thought of him.

I’m not sure which bloggers could fill the roles of David Silver and Joe E. Tata (Nat). I’ll let you decide.

For more 90210, I mean 20036, recaps, go here:

Roosh



Kassy K
INPY

They’re synonymous with “vagina bundles” in England and would protect me from evil Guatemalan thieves. But they’re still fanny packs and I’m pretty sure would stop talking to me if I ever owned one.

If I were to wear a fanny pack, though, it would be this one, recommended to me by Gen, who lives solely to see me in humiliating situations:

Aside from the Brazilian, German, and British flags, I think it’s awesome. If anyone wants to buy it for me, the Buy It Now price on eBay is $2.99 plus shipping.

Exodus is a powerful word. It signifies rebirth, movement, and lots of sand.

To my people (the Chosen kind), Exodus means an escape from a pissed off Egyptian suffering from a severe inferiority complex. And matzo balls.

To Google, Exodus is the number-one ranked Web site of a ministry that wants you to believe “freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ” is possible. The ministry fails to share its views on leprechauns and unicorns but implores you to seek help for gay Tooth Fairies.

And to the great city of Vancouver, Exodus is the name of a paintball team that seems to take its man-child activity pretty seriously.

To me, though, Exodus is the theme of our next Blogger Happy Hour, named such to honor the departure, or “exodus”, to South America of my favorite DC-area-based, minimalist-themed, pump-and-dumping blogger, Roosh.

Often, exoduses, or exodi, are events accompanied by a conflicted sense of nostalgia and fear. I find myself overwhelmed by Roosh’s self-enriching goal to travel yet dread his expected plowing of my birth country, Argentina.

You don’t have to know Roosh to come to the happy hour, though. Come alone, with a friend, or your entire kickball team. As always, I’ll be there playing patty-cake with my three co-hosts (I hear VK loves “Down by the Banks” and “Miss Lucy”).

How much do you know about Guatemala? I mean, how much do you really know about El Pais de la Eterna Primavera?

Sure, you might be smart enough to remember that it’s in Central America, but could you pick it out on a blank map? You know Guatemalans speak Spanish, but can you name one of the dozens of Mayan languages still spoken there today?

You know they love soccer and Jesus (not necessarily in that order) but do you remember a time when the national team ever played in the World Cup or the Son of God did NOT molest Scott Bakula?

You might have heard that but do you know that often this feeling is merely envy masquerading as hate because mi gente have been known to ?

It’s ok to admit you don’t know much about Guatemala. I didn’t either until I spent an entire week traveling within its borders. I spent time in Quetzaltenango, also known as Xela (“Adams Morgan Chick”, you ignorant slut, it IS pronounced SHELL-a by Spanish-speakers), visited Antigua, the country’s tourist-infested version of Disneyland, swam in the soothing waters of Lago Atitlan, and got robbed during a six-hour trek through Panajachel, Solola, and Chimaltanengo.

Here’s what I learned, in pictures:

Chilling on a hammock in a restaurant/bar is a great way to reflect on how calm your stomach is at the moment and how much it’ll hurt later after you eat seemingly safe food like bread.

Gallo Cerveza : Guatemala as Budweiser : United States. Now you can take your SATs.

Guate children learn how to ride motorcycles early.

The Guatemalan National Soccer team needs a better field if it ever wants to qualify for the World Cup.

The team also needs better players.

Watching Argentina lose 3-0 to Brazil in la Copa America final in an Antigua bar, after writing on one’s blog about how Brazil can suck it, and bragging to everyone for days about how much better el abilceleste team is, does not feel good.

Erecting a sign warning people not to litter lest they receive a Q50 fine (about $7) is a sure-fire way of ensuring the place will get littered.

Chicken buses, despite the danger of getting robbed, are fun. Especially when you squeeze seven or eight people in a row designed for four passengers.

The volcanic hot springs in Las Fuentes Georginas are soothing and warm. Unless you accidentally swallow its sulfur-laced water. Then it burns.

I didn’t know this, but Christ is coming to Guatemala.

Lake Atitlan, especially San Marcos, is a beautiful place.

Guatemalans love Jew gas.

Getting off a horse named Lucia, after galloping around Lake Atitlan for nearly two hours, makes my ass look juicy.

Hotels sell condoms and tampons for Q30 each ($4).

Bus service stations are brutally honest. This is the Guatemalan equivalent of the White House displaying our President’s likely IQ score on the South lawn.

And, finally, Guatemalan police will write up a police report for you if and when you are robbed. It might take them 11 hours and they might need to wait for the Ink Store to open, but you will get the report.

was wrong: Guatemalans love Argentines. Especially our money.

My otherwise amazing week-long trip to Guatemala with The Princess (more on that tomorrow) was capped off Friday night with the discovery that my wallet was stolen. An online check of my bank account activity confirmed my suspicions — somewhere between Panajachel, Solola, Chimaltenango, and Antigua, sometime during the six hours it took us to travel the seemingly insurmountable distance, at some point while riding four different chicken buses, someone lifted mi billetera out of my backpack.

The thieves were good, too, since my backpack was on me or near me at all times. Maybe they took advantage while I took a Dramamine-fueled nap, or when chatting with the locals about my trip, or while teaching Mayan children some English phrases.

And they were fast. By the time I was able to contact my bank and credit card companies, they had spent about $2,000 on a shopping spree of what appeared to be mostly electronics and gas.

My credit card company urged me to file a police report since they would be investigating my fraud claim.

The Princess’ guidebook to Guatemala, on page 278, gives the following advice when reporting a robbery or theft:

After a theft you may need a statement from the police for your insurance company. Tell them: ‘Yo quisiera poner una acta de robo’ (‘I’d like to report a robbery’). This should make it clear that you merely want a piece of paper and aren’t going to ask the police to do anything active.

Read that last sentence again:

This should make it clear that you merely want a piece of paper and aren’t going to ask the police to do anything active.

Of course not. Why would I want the police to help me in any way?

After canceling my bank cards, The Princess and I took a rickety tuk-tuk at 8:30pm to the “mobile police unit” in Antigua, a dingy bungalow where two police women told us to sit down and someone would come by in “diez minutos” to take my info. (Everything in Guatemala takes ten minutes.) They continued to watch telenovelas on a mini-TV, so I decided to take time to read their Jesus-themed motivational posters plastered on the wall. My favorite one read:

“If you’ve lost money, you’ve lost a little; if you’ve lost friends, you’ve lost a lot; but if you’ve lost your faith in God, you’ve lost everything.”

A police-sponsored tuk-tuk finally sputtered by and picked us up, taking us to a second police station near Antigua’s bus depot. This location was called Politur and, I was told, specialized in crime against tourists.

We walked into the stone building and met a young police officer who asked me where I was assaulted. I told him I wasn’t assaulted, that I only wanted to report a theft. He tentatively took out a nubby pencil and began taking notes on a piece of previously used scratch paper.

He asked for my passport and wrote down my name. Then he wrote down my date of birth. He stared at it for 30 seconds. What incredible police work could he be doing so soon, I thought, what astute display of crime-solving could he already be up to?

“Treinta-y-dos años!” he shouted with glee, after carefully divining my age.

“Si, tengo treinta-y-dos años,” I replied.

He continued for several minutes scribbling down information before I told him all I wanted was a police report. He called who I assumed to be his supervisor. A middle-aged man walked in and began to ask me the same questions his underling had already asked.

I asked him for his name as politely as I could. He proudly swept back his jacket to reveal his name badge barnacled on his clay-brown shirt.

“Jorge,” he replied. “Soy el Director.”

I turned to the officer taking down my information and asked him for his name. I expected him to reply with a similar, authoritarian-sounding honorific as well, like “Agente Oficial Perez” or “Señor Agente Dominguez”. Instead, he smiled broadly and answered simply, “Sebastian!”, showing the same zeal as a Boy Scout who’s cooked his first marshmallow.

I explained that all I wanted was an official-looking document showing that a theft was committed against me. They looked at me like I had requested to meet the Pope.

We need a voucher from the bank showing that this crime was committed, Jorge explained.

I don’t have a voucher from the bank, I told him. The crime happened because I’m telling you it happened.

You’ll need to come back tomorrow, Jorge said.

I can’t, I’m leaving for the U.S. All I need is a police report.

Well, Jorge answered, the printer’s out of ink.

The Princess had to stand up and walk away because she thought she was going to laugh so hard.

Out of ink, I thought, I can’t get a friggin’ police report because they’re out of ink?

We’ll have it for you tomorrow, Jorge added, come by at 8 or 9am.

It’s 10pm, I thought, is the Ink Store opening at some point in the middle of the night?

I thanked them for their time and left. A couple of police officers gave us a ride to our hotel room in the back of a police truck, eliciting some stares from passers-by near the market.

The next morning we returned at 9am. The police report wasn’t done. Jorge walked by me without even a “Buenos dias”. Sebastian, now in civilian clothes, said “Hola” and walked out, ending his shift. I sat down at the same desk as the night before, in front of a new police officer, and asked for my police report for the robbery.

Ok, he said, taking out some scratch paper. Where were you assaulted?

The police report I eventually received:

The Politur station in Antigua:

Politur’s fleet of tuk-tuks:

Because we’re not Guatemala, Argentina beat Mexico last night 3-0 in la Copa América semifinals to advance to the tournament championship against Brazil – a rematch of the 2004 fiasco.

That final game, which I watched three years ago with a gazillion Brazilian fans at Marx Café in Mt. Pleasant, made an atheist out of me. I watched a 2-1 Argentina lead in stoppage time evaporate as Brazil scored the equalizer in the 93rd minute. The 93rd fucking minute! After my friends – who I warned not to razz me at that crucial moment – left the bar, I went home and cried.

You can’t have it both ways, kid.

Seeing my country line up in soccer’s “overtime” for penalty shots causes a dread matched only by my fear of coconut. (Seriously, that stuff is disgusting, how do you people eat it?) We all saw what happened last year in the World Cup against Germany.

The sting of that loss, coupled with my disgust of Americans’ obsequious worship of the Brazilian team, makes me absolutely sure that this Sunday, when the two South American futbol giants meet again, Argentina will win. Unless the ball is five times bigger than my head and the players are made of plastic.

Photo credit.

The Argentina-Brazil rivalry has been unmatched internationally since their first match in 1914, which we won 3-0. The teams have played each other 88 times, with Argentina winning 33, Brazil 34, and including 21 ties. Red Sox-Yankees seems like child play comparatively.

The Copa América, for those who don’t know, is the oldest surviving international football competition in the world, held for the first time in 1916 in Buenos Aires (won by Uruguay). Argentina is the most successful team in its history but hasn’t won a championship since 1993.

Click for a better view.

I’ll be watching the finale in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, with The Princess and her host family, which, I’m told, hates Argentina. Imagine that! who hates Argentina! How odd.

And when los Albicelestes hoist up that trophy, I might cry.

Vamos, vamos Argentina,
vamos, vamos a ganar,
que esta barra quilombera,
no te deja, no te deja de alentar!

When I was a kid, my dad told me the only thing he wanted from me was to “not grow up”.

I didn’t listen. Neither, it seems, have “my campers”.

I spent my summers in college working long days at Camp Sharwood in Woodland Hills, California, singing songs, playing patty-cake, and doing arts and crafts with hundreds of kids. These kids, though, have since become adults. Real, live, full-fledged adults. Who are on .

My campers, who used to call me “Radar” (part of the fun was having the campers call us by our nicknames; I called myself Radar because I loved the show M*A*S*H), are on the popular social networking site and are forgetting that, to me, they’re supposed to stay sweet and innocent forever.

These “adults” are the same kids whose hands I once held when they were too scared to ride a rollercoaster; the same kids who I taught how to hit a softball; the same kids who I read bedtime stories to when I babysat them; and the same kids whose scraped knees I would bandage when they fell down.

Instead, I see pictures of them on Facebook going on beach trips, graduating from college, going skydiving, getting drunk, and hanging out with friends – all things my friends do.

But they’re just children, I thought as I accepted each of them as Facebook friends this week, how can they be kissing boys?

Here is one of my favorite campers, who thanked me for giving her the courage to ride the Matterhorn at Disneyland, wearing a bikini saying “We’re the shit lol” in one of her photos.

They’re only kids.

Here’s another camper who’s now taller than me who I used to entertain with impressions of Mike Myers’ SNL character of “Simon”.

They play with toys.

Here’s another who is now a 6’2” man-giant and who describes his occupation as a “cop killa”. I used to take him to the “emergency room” whenever he overreacted about being hurt.

They wet their pants.

Seeing these kids – er, adults – again brought back memories: The boy who threw up on me while we watched the Batman show at Knott’s Berry Farm. The girl who showed me during a night of babysitting a video of her being born. The ADHD kid who ran away and who I had to haul back to camp over my shoulder. The time I temporarily “lost” a kid at Raging Waters. The “Final Shows” we put on to entertain the kids’ parents.

But my favorite memory is the story of a 6-year-old boy (I wish I remembered his name) who was so shy when he started at Camp Sharwood that he wouldn’t play with other kids, kept to himself, and stared at me without saying a word whenever I talked to him.

I encouraged him slowly without pushing him and after a week or so, he became much more social. After a few weeks I noticed he started combing his hair slick back like mine. At the end of the year, this boy’s mom came up to me and asked, “Are you Radar?”

When I told her I was, she hugged me and said, “You have no idea what an impact you have had on my son.” She went on to tell me how shy he once was but how happy he had become since meeting his “favorite camp counselor”. She added that every morning, she combed his hair but he wasn’t happy until it looked “just like Radar’s”.

To me, that kid will be six years old forever.

Below is a group picture of Camp Sharwood counselors. Can you find me? Click to enlarge.

I’ve got a I have to own up to. I love .

These simple, undemanding, even-a-caveman-could-play-them online games created by the Internet travel company are as addicting as blogs, Gene Weingarten’s , and fantasy baseball.

They were created by Orbitz in 2005 to promote its travel service. Apparently, it’s had an effect on me since I’ve used it to buy airline tickets at least a half dozen times that I remember.

Some of these games are downright ridiculous. In , for example, you are supposed to toss a “family member” down an icy street and maneuver him onto a circle where you are awarded points. I like it better when it was called curling.

In another game, , you have to jump on a trampoline and dunk a basketball. This takes the brain power of a potato.

Here are my top five favorite Orbitz games:

When I went on a cruise with my Papi, Hermanita, and Hermano, my favorite part was playing shuffleboard. I, of course, beat my brother every time, which made him cry like a friggin’ schoolgirl. This Orbitz Shuffleboard might be the most challenging of the Orbitz games, which is like saying I’m taller than a dwarf.

Blue and I used to play our own version of paper football with sugar packets when we waited for our food at Denny’s as teenagers. Our natural competitiveness often led to full-out brawls.

This one is actually the new and “improved” version of one of Orbitz’s original games. Updated or not, it’s just too easy to smack the ball out of the park. Kind of like in softball.

This one is one of the most addicting Orbitz games. I can’t tell you why. But hand a beanbag to someone and tell him to toss it, and he always will. It’s in our nature as human beings to want to toss bags full of beans.

This game is strange but at least I can say it’s original. You toss these little blue men that look like old bananas from one virtual island to another. You need some pretty advanced knowledge in geometry and physics to get the jumps right, so make sure you bust out your scientific calculator.

Courtesy of MLB

If we do nothing else noble or heroic in our lives, men at least adhere to one rule: Never Go After Your Friend’s Wife or Girlfriend.

We can add another one: Never Go After Your Friend’s Celebrity Crush.

Alyssa and I (can I call her Alyssa? No? Ok, Ms. Milano and I) first met 20 years ago when she was signing autographs at the in Canoga Park, California. She was there with Scott Valentine, who played Nick from Family Ties, and who I was told was some sort of teen heartthrob. Mallory must have been hard-up.

I waited several hours to have Alyssa Milano sign my 8×10, black-and-white headshot of the only girl whose Teen Beat photos and posters ever graced my wall. I finally got to the front of the line in front of Mervyn’s and there she was. Alyssa Milano. Samantha Micelli, 15 years old (three years older than me), and gorgeous.

I had had plenty of teen crushes before. The Childlike Empress from The Neverending Story. That girl who played Annie in the movie Annie. My mom’s friend. But they all paled in comparison to Alyssa Milano.

She asked my name and I think I said the right one. She started to sign the picture, writing something like “Best Wishes” or “Meet me in the food court in 15 minutes” when I began to realize this would be the last — and only — time she would be in my life.

No, no, it’s going too fast, I thought, Scott Valentine wants to leave, Alyssa is a golden goddess, no, just wait, shut up, Nick, give me a second.

Mustering a level of courage I could never display with the cute girls in my class, I opened my mouth and asked Alyssa Milano for one favor, one memory that would comfort my acne-plagued, height-stunted teen years: “Can I have a hug?”

Oh, somewhere angels sing and saints are praised; somewhere beauty’s revered and the poetic lines of man lionized. But never was a place so perfect as that one, where the words that Alyssa Milano was about to utter so exalted and venerated: “Sure.”

She leaned in, placed her right cheek on mine, and squeezed. Not like the girls at school who got “grossed out” when they touched me. She gave a soft moan, I closed my eyes, and it was over.

I said thank you and left the mall. That memory never left.

So when a friend recently told me how he and Alyssa Milano started chatting through her baseball blog, and then forwarded me e-mail threads as proof, and I read where she said how funny he is and how great his blog is, and how she might come down in August and she coyly wrote “maybe we’ll have to meet up for a beer and a hot dog at the game”, I seriously considered ending the friendship. I think my exact words were, “I want to dismember you.”

Never has a prank worked so well.

INPY had me fuming all day, going so far as to forward seemingly real missives from Alyssa Milano’s own personal e-mail.

—–Original Message—–
From: Alyssa [mailto:]
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2007 11:39 AM
To:
Subject: re: Who Knew?

He let me “in” on his prank later that night when I threatened to disown him as a friend. Part of me was naturally relieved. The other part was sad that my chance of possibly seeing Alyssa Milano again when she visited in August was gone. I even had the whole conversation planned out:

INPY: “Alyssa, this is Arjewtino.”

Alyssa: “Nice to meet you, Arjewtino.”

Arjewtino: “Oh, we’ve already met.”

The rest, as they say, would have been history…

Thanks .