Stuff

While you’re waiting for something worth reading in these pages, have a stare at this…

My latest favourite song:

I don’t know if it’s a cover, a single or anything, but it’s catchy and fun. Fair play to ’em.

Other news in brief, Friday was tequila tasting, Saturday wine tasting, today 2nd hand camera lense testing & catching up with a mate from GDL. In between all that I’m upgrading blogs to the fancy new 2.5 wordpress platform and getting my photoblog off the ground again with a different taxonomy and some ajaxy goodness. Shall announce it soon enough. Back to Y! mañana, but I’ve found a few shortcuts to get there and back quicker…

And it has some very fancy Flash gallery options. Think I’ll stick to Flickr and Picasa locally though.

Alameda, CA

Early stages yet though, but it could be very hand if you need to quickly shop something on a friend’s computer.

Quick post before the weekend… a lot of readers of this blog probably already know Scott and Becky. If you’ve found the time to check up on my latest posts over here, you may also wish to spend time over Scott’s site, Wigleaf.com which is rapidly becoming the place to publish your microfiction and chameleon car videos.

Happy Easter in a day or two, and have a picture of the blossom from the cherry tree outside in the interim…

Flash recently alerted her readers to the existence of cow magnets. Which I think is delightful. I’m pondering ordering the Bessie Bovine explains all educational package (ages 6 and up)… Nothing worse than Hardware Disease… particularly relevant for Michael Eavis and his surfeit of tent pegs apparently.

So yesterday we wandered over to Berkeley Marina, a place I’d been before back in the dark old days as a NGO program manager for various conferences. It was nice to reclaim it as a site for walking and photography rather than learning about sustainability and human resources. We wandered along the lengthy pier and then had a Flip This House marathon evening with the remains of Meg’s surplus wine from the night before.

This morning we helped shift a few boxes for T’s move-in over in Oakland and discovered the delights of Zachary’s pizza and I had my first ever go on a Nintendo Wii. This afternoon, we’ll probably get out to enjoy the sunshine somewhere local and stockpile vitamin D for the deskbound coming week.

In Taunton’s local rag, The Gazette, there’s a first for local small-town journalism. At the time of writing, they managed to publish a headline for an Easter Extravaganza without resorting to spelling it Eggstravaganza. Which I think is laudable and without precedent. Maybe they’re moving upmarket or have just hired a new staff writer…

Sita bumped her foot in the middle of the night somehow and wasn´t up for driving to SCruz, so I chauffeured. Here´s a 3 shot panostitch of the redwoods. Click the pic for different sizes. I´m considering printing this poster-sized.

Yeah, this is an advert for Microsoft, but it’s funny and stars Amy Sedaris…

Office 2007 is a pretty good product too…

This photo still looks a little odd to me, having learnt to drive on the right side of the car… Also, please note the cleanliness of his fur after a visit to his usual L.A. stylist.

Made it back in from LA a couple of hours ago. Lovely to see the in-laws as always. Also on the way down all the thousands of acres of fruit trees (cherries? apricots? peaches? ) were in blossom and it was stunning. 2 days later and there was less of it, but Sita was driving so I could wave my camera at them. The less blurred ones are over at Flickr.

Also I liked the art display on our traditional visit to the 99 cents store,

Gursky’s photo there sold for $3.3 million a few years ago.

Yesterday I went to Home Despot to pick up turf, but since it’s got a very limited shelf life they only have it in the mornings. So I had a wander round the area and took an a bunch of photos that I’m preliminarily calling “If life gives you girders, make irn-bru“. Here’s the link to the pix. And here’s my fav:

This morning I went to get the turf and practiced pronouncing the Americanese for it in the car, sod, pronounced sard. Here’s the b4 and after:

You may also see notice new bushy fern things which were advertised on craigslist.org for free, heather or lavender, the beginnings of a honeysuckle and solar lights which may stop working once the walnut tree gets its leaves on and casts the entire endeavour into shadow…

I feel like I should be writing more about the Australian songstress from a few posts ago because I’m now getting about 50 hits a day with people looking for her or the lyrics to that there song, but I’m going to hold steady with more what-I-had-for-breakfast posts despite this new found popularity amongst Summery Aussie-Pop seekers.

The above picture is one of the dozens I took at the Filoli Centre on Sunday and features W. , my second cousin (I think) we finally got a chance to visit I & Y on Sunday and had a lovely time seeing Spring in full effect in the well-tended Californian version of Hestercombe.

Still exceedingly busy making an infinite number of revisions for an exciting new website, details soon… and have finally finished many pages of translation for GOJoven.

We started the 2nd series of Life on Mars last night with L & Josh and I made a cottage pie to accompany it. 70s British Cuisine at its best. If the first 2 episodes are anything to go by it’s going to be even better than the first. When ever I see DCI Hunt, I think of Mario’s description that “no tiene madre“… Storming stuff.

Atticus had an upbraiding this morning. I went to the garden centre to see how much turf cost and took him with me, on the lead obviously. I was standing in the entrance of the garden place, trying to get someone’s attention to ask whether or not they sold the stuff, when a trainee postman and his supervisor went in there. Atticus started barking at the postie, as per usual, but ‘Cus couldn’t move from next to me. And the supervisor goes “Sir, control your dog” to me. And I just looked at him trying to work out if he was joking or not. I couldn’t decide and said “You’re joking, right?” and he goes on about harassing the postal worker. And I just told him “The dog’s on a lead, I’m in a public area, and you’re having a laugh. I’m moving on, but only because life’s too short to deal with this kind of crap.” There. I’ve vented. If you can’t deal with a 25-pound dog barking at you, from 5 yards away, on a short lead, in plain daylight, I reckon you’ve chosen the wrong career path. Here endeth the lesson.

Shall probably go to Home Despot instead… because there’re less feckless posties in that one’s car park.

Yep the 3:17 vowel-consonant ratio means it´s Saint David’s Day again. Have some daffs from the garden.

Here’s the promised photo of Sita, F and some day-glo pizza (issues with white-balance…) from Friday night.

Then last night at about 10.30 after the Oscars and just as we were about to watch LOST, I got a phone call from Fernando, a good friend of ours in Guadalajara. Which was great and I asked where he was and he said “Fuera de tu casa”. My first instinct was to think ah, Calle Garibaldi, Guadalajara. He says no… tu casa. So my next thought was he was outside his house in GDL, because often in Mexican Spanish you refer to your own house as “your house” as in “mi casa es tu casa”. Then he gives up explaining and says “Just go outside, pinche Gwyn” and sure enough, he’s there in the flesh outside our house in Alameda. I was stunned. Turns out he’s here for a week on Hewlett P related business in Mountain View down the road and had flown into Oakland airport (15 minutes down the 25mph road) and called by on the offchance. Bless him. We’ll meet up again sometime later in the week when everyone’s not knackered. But I still can’t believe he showed up last night. Fair play, Cala. Chido verte, gracias y nos estamos viendo!

¡Salud!

Am listening to Radio 2 while translating and chanced on this song by Gabriella Cilmi. Best thing I’ve heard in a while. I ‘spect everyone’s already well aware of her by now though, but things move slowly here in the Alamiddle. She’s from Oz apparently.

YouTube keeps deleting the videos, but this should work:

*EDIT* The album’s out at last (10th March 08) Here’s the link to Amazon.co.uk and .com and there’s an exclusive video there too:

*EDIT* Lyrics have also recently appeared online here:

Ohh watching me, hanging by a string this time.
Ohh easily, the climax of the perfect lie.
Ohh watching me, hanging by a string this time.
Ohh easily, smile worth a hundred lies.

If there’s lessons to be learned, I’d rather get my jamming words in first so, tell you something that I’ve found, that the worlds a better place when it’s upside down boy.

Which is nice cos I couldn’t work out what she was singing about for a bit…

because of cloud cover and lack of organisation. But this photo from Tapatian photographer, pleautaud makes up for it a bit: see it in large for amazing detail. I don´t think you have to be a Flickr member to see it…

…doesn’t affect me because I’m freelancing again.

So I went out yesterday to investigate the local area and was a little underwhelmed. Jack London Square is a fancy collection of shops by the docks and on Sunday there was a farmers market but nothing to really rival Guadalajara’s Sunday tianguises. I contented myself with some pictures of the railway (railroad) and substations. Here’re a couple:

Tettinus in potentia

Liquid windows

Meanwhile in Guadalajara, the Flickreros are going to free Lila Downs concerts, planning a nocturnal tour of the city and a day out on the Tequila Express. I keep telling myself it’ll all still be there when we get back there. I’m having one of my Jack from LOST post-island evenings…

Just before the RSI crippled me. It was an interesting time to be contracting there, what with layoffs, buy out offers, general meetings and the like, however the job was not the most challenging I’ve ever done. On a par with tomato picking, I’d say, back in the old country. Maybe I can get out and take the occasional photo again now, it’s been a while. I’ve a couple of other projects on in the meantime and another interview next Thursday.

I finished stage 1 of the landscaping yesterday. 8 little solar lights and plenty of shade loving cover plants and aromatic ‘erbs. Next stage will involve turfing or mossing but first the neighbour’s going to rebuild the fence and gate so it may take a while. Try and spot the 15 differences between the two photos below…

I’m off to see if I can find the latest issue of Q or Word because I’ve not heard any decent new music in a while. Any recommendations for albums, readers? Portishead’s new one’s coming out in April, but other than that I’ve no idea what the kids are listening to these days. Comes with getting older I s’pose. I even listen to Radio 2 online which can’t be a good sign.

Wish I’d thought of this. Non anglo readers may need this to explain it. We were on the French again last night trying to think of the word for donkey, in a mirror image of the Manuel/Basil burro/butter conversation. âne , according to the internets. And thanks, Martin, for your online French tuition. In Spanish.

Alright, more frequent posts from now on because I’ll have 3.5 hours extra a day where I won’t be commuting. Hasta pronto 😀

… So while Sally, Martin and Sita were taking longer than usual at mass I took the dog for spin and then got me guitar, tripod and camera out to violate the copyright of another Levellers classic. Despite public demand here it is:

Can any French speakers out there remind me if copine means girlfriend or friend who’s a girl. That’s been worrying me too… I was going for the latter, obviously, in my comment response in the last post. Back when I still spoke French I think the slang du jour was “julie”… Now there’s another good Levellers song…

…mais jolie, n’est-ce pas?