Ah, goa, goa, goa, goa, goa , goa

You turn your back for 10 minutes, then the next thing you know your kitchen and other parts of the house change colour.
We’re in two minds about whether to leave it white or paint the same colour on the door area. Comment if you’ve really nothing better to do…

So on Saturday we went to an Indian restaurant called Goa or somesuch with Victor, Jana and Sarah and it lived up to expectations. It’s only been open a few days but I fully expect it to do well. Tell your friends, it’s on Lopez Cotilla and on the Minerva side of Chapultepec … Apparently it’s nigh on impossible to import curry powder into the country so they have to get visiting friends and family to supply the restaurant. The owner also runs an Indian goods shop (clothes with little mirrors and that kind of thing) so there’s fairly frequent visits. Presumably curry powder would put drug sniffing dogs at the airport completely out of action for a few weeks so the dishes were lightly flavoured but very tasty. The wine’s a bargain too. I asked to ramp my dish up to vindaloo which they did using chilis instead of the powder but it was very effective. Afterwards onto La Bodeguita del Medio for Bertha’s birthday. Bertha’s a spanish / French teacher and Sita might be taking classes with her soonish, anyroad she had a nice bunch of friends and we had a grand old time singing along to Chan Chan and other cuban clasicos.

Sunday started off very dubiously. Some translation and then (cos our cable tv came back after 4 days) surfing whatever was on while my headache receded. I watched El Santo in Operación 67 which outbonds bond with a fraction of the budget (3.5 lulus). Little Nicky, if you like talking dogs, you’re in luck (2.5 Lulus) and Misery (5 Lulus), no review required… Towards the end of the afternoon we headed off to Victor and Jana’s where we were plied once again with fine wine and fine food before heading to a free concert in Zapopan where no less than Lila Downs was playing. I can’t say I was overly familiar with her music beforehand, but now I’m a convert. Photos of the event flow like wine over at Flickr. She does updated versions of Mexican classics and is something of a feminist icon round these parts. And france apparently. I’m getting to work on her back catalogue today.

And not for producing evil smiley ads.

Some of them even start screeching at you when you mouse over them these days. There must be a firefox extension to nuke them before they load…

Today’s been a pretty successful day of template adaptation for the design site. Still lots of bugs and things but I really feel I’m learning the ropes pretty well through experimentation and the odd quick google for ‘How in flipping hell do I get such and such a button in Flash to stop pissing around and do what I want’. here’s the before and (still heavily in progress) after. I’m told that Flash has come a long way in terms of accessibility but that’s something I’ll have to leave for later. Right now this would not pass for web design in the US or UK and would leave you ready to be sued. Just like Target. Also as pretty as the site is, it weighs in at 2 meg plus of download, which strikes me as somewhat de trop for the dial-up centric Mexican audience they’re going for. To get it indexed by search engines will be a nightmare. And it comes in all guns blazing with muzak which I’ve never been fond of. Even if you can choose which muzak you want at the bottom of the page. I’ll stick to HTML with the occasional flash element… even still the customer is always right. And I’ve got 3 Flash-based projects on the go.

Plans, you ask? Well, there’s meant to be a soiree tonight courtesy of Pocilga Beat, let’s see if that comes to summink. Always glad to meet new people in this sprawling metropolis. People are slowly adding themselves to the list for nocturnal boozing it up tomorrow in the streets and culminating with the cry of independance at 2am in the centre and fireworks and all that. My camera’s not too clever when it comes to night photos, but I’ll risk taking it in case I get another chance at a photo like this one:

So that’s tonight and tomorrow. Saturday, shall be a day of rest and web design. Sunday, if Javier is to be believed, shall be a Lucha Libre outing. Javier & a handful of Germans are watching an El Santo film, then heading off to the Coliseo and I’ve been asked along. I rarely plan 4 days ahead, but i hope that comes to fruition. La vida es buena.

I’m still a fan actually. 2 become 1 still hits the spot… Ginger Spice was my fave. I was so young, with so much to learn.

This breaking news comes via alt1040.

Meanwhile, here’s some photos from yesterday’s wandering round town: