Latin American Keyboards suck arse

I tried posting from Argentina and Chile without success, mainly due to the stupid fucking keyboards over there. Unlike the layout shown above I normally found the "@" as a THIRD symbol on the 2 key, requiring a fucking four-key-combo to get to it, like I was playing Mechwarrior or trying to punch out a combo on Streetfighter.

Computers seemed pretty rare in South America at first, the only ones I saw for two weeks being a Hostels 486 internet machine and the odd iBook being lugged around by Yank backpackers. Once we reached large cities in Chile however there turned out to be internet cafes on every block. Prices for PC hardware were comparable to Australia, so I doubt anyone could afford them, thus the cafes were always full, 24x7.

One thing I did find amusing was that if we met a local and they spoke more English than was required to rip off Gringos, they tended to be working in, or studying IT. Obviously the languages on the pc's remained in 'English', but these tend to be monosyllabic words that closely relate to their Latin origins and wouldn't be to hard to figure out for the average dirty foreigner. One programming student explained to me that no-one had ever bothered to translate the actual text-books from English, and even if they had labour is so incredibly dirt-cheap in that part of the world it was massively cheaper for students to PAY SOMEONE TO PHOTOCOPY AN ENTIRE FUCKING MANUAL than to buy one.

Most of the region still relies on Satellite TV as their main source of incoming fun (feminism hasn't sunk it's claws in yet so Telly rocks more than I dreamed it ever could, picture Hi-5 girls forced to ride mechanical bulls for their countries honour, multiple times!) and the mobile phone networks are fucked. My sister wasn't receiving calls for about a week, even if the person was sitting next to her hitting re-dial. To add to the insult of paying for such a crap service, when you receive a call both parties start paying through the teeth for the duration. Same with SMS, they just bill the fuck out of everyone they can.