So now that’s 3 successful Fototours. We started off at 10:30am in Tlaquepaque’s town centre and ambled over to the Centro el Refugio. There;s a torture exhibition on at the minute and we all went in but cameras weren’t allowed. An inauspicious start, but the building has plenty to offer photographically. The torture implements were suitably grim and well presented. What stood out most was man’s inhumanity to woman, that the Spanish inquisition employed much worse things that the comfy chair, and that out of a lot of nasty ways to go, being strapped upside down, legs apart and slowly sawn in half has to be about the worst. It takes a while to die from it because the blood runs to your head or something. Anyway given that I hadn’t had breakfast yet it fair took my appetite away for an hour or two.

Next up was the Pila Seca administration building where we took the first group photo and admired the bright orange arches while the temperatures slowly rose and shade became non-existant. Wandered around the boutiquey overpriced craft shops and into the ceramic museum where they had some nice miniature scenes of mexican life. Then on to sample fresh tejuino and ceviche tostadas from El Cables, street seafood purveyor bloke, and finally a few cold beers in the Parian. Lovely. The next tour will be governed by whether it’s bucketing down with rain or not. The rainy season is estimated to be 2 wks away and I, for one, will greet it with open arms…

Here’s my favourites from yesterday. All the photos of Tlaquepaque and Gwod from yesterday are at Flickr… or click the “more” link below for a Flash slideshow.

Read More “Tapatían Fototour #3- Tlaquepaque”

And I did not sleep well… nevermind.

Have another photo of Atticus, since I’m saving my energy for getting to Tlaquepaque and am not up to posting much.

One many new words I learnt today was Palomear.

A paloma is a dove or pigeon as you probably already knew thanks to crimes-against-music like this. And in Mexico, a paloma is a tick (or check mark I think in US parlance) because it looks like a bird in flight, I presume. As drawn by a 6 year old.

So palomear, to tick. At least I think so because the other option “to devote a great deal of time to raising pigeons” really didn’t seem to work in the context of a technical manual…

So thanks to a translation I’m working on I’m up on the latest vocabulary for preventing electrostatic discharge (ESD) and also learnt that crocodile clips are Caimán clips round these parts… It’s the little differences…

in other news:

¡Feliz Cumpleaos! Little Sis

Saturday was a late night what with the short film competition screening at Amour Fou and all the following festivities for Carlos’s birthday. Then yesterday, after watching Atlas get thoroughly thrashed by Americas, we went to La Cava for a drink or two and some of us had botanas which included pig feet and marinated pork scratchings…

Kinky were playing in the Plaza de Liberación for free. They’re a first class band, well known throughout Latin America and, increasingly, Gringolandia. You might know them from such popular tunes as “más y más” and my personal fave, “Canibal“… They rocked. Then everyone came back to Casa Garibaldi for biscuits Mezcal, and M & D were back too from Chihuahua, which is their new favourite place in Mexico.

I’m going to be well busy this week with various projects, so either there’ll be scant posting cos I’m too tied up, or possible lots of it cos I’ll be sat at the computer all day… Tune in later to find out which…

All photos from yesterday’s Kinky antics here.

Just made a compilation CD of some of my favourite movie choons:
Hope this table survives the cut and paste from word…

I missed off tons, but I’ll make another one one of these days…

You weren’t anyone yesterday in Guanatos if you weren’t carrying your own weight in flowers…

Last night we went to the Estadio de Jalisco (another No Camera place) to watch Atlas vs. Americas. 3 – 3 it was, so quite an exciting match in terms of goles, if not stellar gameplay. It’s been 10 years since my last football match, same place, same team (Atlas) and made a grand night out.

Somehow I fell asleep at 8.30pm last night and woke up at the crack of dawn today. I feel vaguely like I’ve stumbled off a transatlantic flight. Anyroad, plans for today: get the Flickr t-shirt into production (a fellow FlickeRo recommended a quality place for around US$15 a shirt), some translation, take M & D to the airport, see Atlas play someone or other in the football stadium with Sita and the Amour Fou crowd and probably a siesta… Not necessarily in that order.

Oh, and Tony Blair’s bowing out? About time too…

The Zummerzet County Gazette, Taunton’s local rag is shoving the occasional video up on its website. Deathly dull each one, but 10 out of 10 for effort. So the this year’s Pullitzer for investigative journalism seems assured for “Are children watching too much TV?”…

In other news, Flickr PhotoTour #3 is in the planning stages. I’m not organising this one, I put up a poll to help Laura who’s in charge. Tlaquepaque’s looking like the favourite right now. It’s a shame, but the more imaginative suggestions were vetoed because they’ll look better after the rainy season (probably October at this rate…). Still Tlaquepaque’s got lots to offer photographically so it’s all good.

I’ve not posted since Saturday so here’s a summary: Saturday morning I walked to the Tianguis Cultural trying to find T-shirt printing shops on the way to no avail, took a few photos along the way:

Then in the afternoon went to see Spiderman III with Sita which is an overlong mess of a film, see the review here. After that, barbecued arrachera and Jose came round, then later Fernando, Ana and their dog, Tuna, whom Atticus tried to have his wicked way with. Makes a change from Jose’s leg…

Sunday, tranquilo, shopping, interwebbery, and checking out a new dvd rental place, Sala B, nearby which has a fine selection of films and no website. Yet… Grabbed An Inconvenient Truth (also reviewed) and Sita went for the truly, truly DIRE Sex and the City Season 4. One of these days I’ll publish a rant against that particular crime against good telly.

Monday, shopping for books, groceries, this that and t’other then making pizza from scratch and heading out to the airport for M and Sunny D’s triumphant return.

Today is still unfolding… websites, translations… stuff…

Out of interest does anyone reading have a Canon Rebel XTi, and if so, what’s the standard 18-55 lense like? I’m researching my next digital SLR camera purchase…

When we went to Tequila on Sunday, Sita noticed a book on display “taken from the new Town History Archive”. This was news to us. So we went back yesterday as it turns out they opened this archive about 6 months ago after months of painstaking cleaning, sorting and databasing of a huge amount of documents that had turned up in various unused rooms of government buildings around the town. Some were in pretty wretched states because of centuries of storage in dank, wormy cellars.

They make for interesting reading once you get your head around the handwriting, antiquated abbreviations and general damage. Added to that, they were big on saving paper and the writing from the other side tends to bleed through to the other. None the less it’s a minor miracle they’re legible at all… The lady in charge of the archive was incredibly helpful and spent a good few hours tellings us about the history of the archive, how to use the database and even read some of the documents to us. I’m currently uploading the video of her reading one of the documents to YouTube, check out my YouTube Channel to see if it’s there yet…

One document from 1705 or so was a letter signed by all the neighbours of a drunk landowner complaining about his behaviour and addiction to the aguardiente (firewater (probably from sugar cane rather than agaves)).

Another team of researchers are looking for evidence that Jose Cuervo isn’t the oldest tequila maker in the world after all, despite their slick promotional video’s claims… I hope they find it, they deserve to be taken down a notch or two…

Anyroad, long story short, there’s a wealth of info that’s going to help young Sita flesh out the remaining chapters of her PhD thesis, and we’ll probably be going back and donning latex gloves many more times. Which is a good thing and no mistake. At least they don’t make you wear hairnets.

After carne en su jugo, a torta ahogada and an on-the-house margarita in our favourite eatery we went round Columpio’s to drop off the photos and a few UK coins. They’d just finished cutting the tips off the agaves in their fields (which I think has to do with concentrating the sugars in the heart of the agave) and were in full swing roasting agave pias. The owner invited us in for drinks but we had to decline as it was getting late (past Atticus’s feeding time) and so we promised we’d be back again in the near future. “Qué Dios les bendiga” he wished us as we drove off through the beautiful agave-studded landscape…

The importance of learning a second language… or even just a few useful words.

Locals in Toledo, Spain heard an American screaming for “Help” in English and thought he was shouting “Pepe” over and over again. It wasn’t until some multilingual German passers-by heard him that the fire brigade was called and he was fished out of the river Tajo after 3 hours of rope action. He was fine by all accounts afterwards and treated for hypothermia.

Help is “Socorro” just for the record. As in succour. A bummer actually, cos I can’t pronounce my double Rs in Spanish… I’ll probably alternate it with ¡Ayúdame! (Help me!) when I’m stuck down a hole.

Daniel’s gone for the weekend, but according to a search “Fördern” might well be Help! in German. Please don’t sue if it isn’t mind…

Just played my first game with the new SOWPODS Scrabble dictionary. I managed FE and ZA just now and still lost. So to play ZZZ, you’d need the Z and two blanks… I won’t rule it out. My scrabble rating’s through the floor at the moment, in some ways that’s OK cos the pressure’s off, but I enjoyed my time in the dizzy heights of the 1100s.

I’d like to know what these new words mean mind:

New 2-Letter Words
FE JA KI ZA

New 3-Letter Words
AGS AHI AKA ALF APO APP AUA AUE BES BOI BRU CAA CAG CAZ DEG DIF DOF DOY DUH ECO EDS EMO EVO EXO FAA FAE FEG FES HOM IGG IWI JAI JOL KAK KIS LOU MEE MIC MYC NEG ONO ONY OUS PAV PLU REO SAV SIF SIK SOM TEC TEX TIX UMU URP VAG WAI WOF YAD YAE YAG ZAS ZEP ZOL ZZZ

Wordlist via: TileFish

Courtesy of Monica: The Random Kitten Generator… and while we’re on the subject, why not visit the Infinite Cat Project for all your recursive feline needs.

I’m looking into more local options, but I reckon this looks rather nice on a T-Shirt… CafePress want to charge 5 bucks p&p (or s&h as they say in gringolandia) but I’m sure I can do better than that in Santa Tere…

Yesterday I went to see Hollywoodland with young Sita, and there’s some new brief reviews over on the film review page and then Chili’s for supper. You’d think an American chain restaurant impersonating Mexican cuisine wouldn’t do too well here. Wrong. It’s all about the PORTIONS. I still feel vaguely full.

Lots of traffic arriving at this blog searching for “300 Sparta animated gifs” … I hate to disappoint so Pssst here’s one…

Monica and “OC” D are heading back to the Bay Area tomorrow to fill up on ethnic food before May’s constant stream of visitors. And I think we’re heading to Tequila. Someone comment tomorrow at around 11am GDL time to remind me to pick up the photos on the way out. Many thanks…

via BoingBoing: 70 per cent of respondents said they feared US officials more than terrorists or criminals. Well, you know my thoughts on this…

Have a look at this lovely site, I’ve mentioned it before, but now it’s rehomed at forgivenessletters.com. The idea is people send in their anonymous letters asking for forgiveness and they get published in a blog stylee. Then the best ones get included in a book. I’m curious to see whether this will take off. It was a chance to include one of my favourite poems too. Catch it before it’s updated…

Yesterday we went round Amour Fou for a BBQ which was grand and to return 21 Grams and Ghost Dog. Lovely crowd of people there as always. Today, we’re off to t’cinema I believe…

Ooh, and we had our tree lopped for the princely sum of 40 gringo bucks. I got the angle wrong on the “after” photo so it doesn’t look like much cos there’s another tree behind it. Needless to say the tree “surgeons” just climbed the tree with a machete hacked about like crazy and then drove off with the branches in tow. One out of two for Health and Safety ain’t bad… They seemed sober anyway.

I’m well behind on my film reviews. One of these mornings… I highly recommend Sunlight (2007) by the way, see it in all its glory in the cinema if possible.

This handy little video gives a beginner’s guide to RSS. Anyroad, I was struck by a photo of the Panteon from a couple of days ago and how much it looked like the RSS icon, I swivelled it a bit and hey presto, subscribe with this artesanal feed icon:

Edit 1: D’oh, just when I’m publicising it my permalinks are down, probably to do with having 3 blogs on the site. Our technicians are working on it…

Edit 2: Our technicians fixed the problem at 09.56 hours Mexican time. Despite not having a clue how to manage the .htaccess file.

Edit 3: Have a load of other one click links to add this nonsense to your favourite feed reader:

(but stop using bloody America On Line, please)

have already got their heads round how to do this…

Sita, Monica and I nipped over to Tequila again this afternoon. We planned to look up the Columpio folks and give them some photos from last time and some UK coins but I left them on the table when we left, so that’ll have to be next time. We’ll probably be back within a week though as there’s some new archives that Sita’s just discovered. Luckily I remembered me camera. Have an eyeful here of the set. And again, here’s me 3 faves:

Just for the record, the tequila museum’ll set you back 15 pesos, unless you’re a student or over 60, and Mundo Cuervo (a state of the art tequila manufacturing theme park) is MX$100 including a tiny little margarita at the end of the tour and a few samples. It’s a good introduction to all things agave but was a bit too slick and corporate for my tastes, it lacks the enthusiastic-newcomer feel of La Cofradia and olde worlde charm of Columpio. And there’s the whole Hair Net Issue…

PS… 6,066 photos / 27,657 views … 😀