Stuff

See, it’s not all work, work, work here in Mexico. As some of you more alert readers have probably already surmised…

Tomorrow we’re meeting up with my Mum and Dad in Cancún airport, hiring a car and then heading off to Tulum and who knows where else. Providing I can find a power supply to recharge my camera occasionally, there’ll probably be a photo or two in the offing of white sands, blue sky and increasingly sun-burnt británicos. And one gorgeously tanned Chirlandesa…

Positively shaking with excitement right now, it’s going to be grand to see me folks and whisk them round some of the most beautiful places in the world. Read all about it next week.

In more mundane blog news, somewhere down there on the right there’s a new section: “I googled… “sun-burnt brits”… and all I got was this lousy blog”. Well that’s a widget to see what the latest search terms arriving at the blog are. It seems most people are looking for the defunct Parque Metropolitano de Guadalajara pages. But that’s another story.

Well, have a lovely week everyone. I’m thinking of doing a podcast about just that, asking random strangers in Spanish (and probably in cantinas) what they’re planning for the weekend every other week. Snapshot of a bar culture type thing. We’ll see. So many silly little projects, so little time. What are you doing this weekend? Immortalise it in the agaveweb blog comments… 😀

Part of the kitchen renovations recently executed in AgaveWeb’s corporate headquarters was getting rid of the rustic tilty-gallon-water-bottle-holder thing and replacing it with a cheap plastic pump. Unfortunately, they really weren’t thinking about the terrorism-obsessed foreign markets when they manufactured its packaging.

Spanish word of the week: Bomba. Pump. It also means bomb, for the record…

Other news, Ana’s taking us all to (a?) Temazcal this afternoon, for aromatic steam baths… Actually, I’m coming along for the ride and shall give the baths a wide berth and wander off into the country side with me camera. Steam baths are too far outside my comfort zone.

Also tomorrow morning, I’m doing the voiceover for the Camino Real trailer I was working on last year. Sound booths and everything. Should be a laugh. Though I can’t stand the sound of my recorded voice… Hey ho. I’ve more or less finished with a ton of translations too. It’s been a heavy few days…

In every one of the “Top 10 things you shouldn’t do with your blog” type posts you see, number 2 is usually “stop updating regularly” or “start a post with ‘sorry I haven’t blogged in a while”… Anyroad, that said…

Sorry I haven’t blogged in a while. Service might return to normal on Thursday. Tengo un chingo de chamba.

Last night Sita and I dined in Pierrot (Justo Sierra 2355) which was billed as a French restaurant, and I have to say the food there is fantastic. It nudges out El Sacromonte of my top 3 Guadalajara restaurants (La Matera and La I Latina still stand). As per usual it was pretty much empty at 8 o’clockish because only gringos eat at that time on a Friday night. I saw a stack of reservations for 10 pm which is a more normal time to eat round these parts.

The prices are relatively high end, most main dishes are around the 150 peso mark, but they’re worth every centavo… There’s a good list of wines from Chile, Spain and Mexico and the menu’s in French, then Spanish then English. We ordered starters of Fromage (Quesos, Cheeses) and Jamón Serrano (“Special Ham” apparently) which were definitely specially imported. One of the cheeses was a fierce little number but there was also brie, gouda and goat cheese. Then the main dishes arrived. I went for the steak, almost ordering it Término Azul, but chickening out at the last minute and going for rojo, rare, instead, and young Sita plumped for the lomo (pork). They brought it and transferred it to the plate and then piled veggies and spuds all over it. It was probably one of the best meals I’ve had in this fair city. Sita’s was none too shabby neither.

If you come to visit us in Gwod and we don’t take you there then you can rightly take offence…

Thank you very much, Sally and Martin, for sponsoring last night’s gluttony. Extremely appreciated, many thanks…
[tags]Pierrot, restaurant, review, gluttony, steak, guadalajara, jalisco, mexico[/tags]

…like when you have your hair cut (or so I’m told). So I was in the mood for rejigging things, and thus, BEHOLD! “Un inglés en Guanatos”‘s latest encarnation. It’ll probably change some more because I’m using an out of the box template (called “I feel dirty”) with some minor revisions. Anyroad, hope you like it. Since my other blog now has the agave theme I thought I’d do summink completely different with this one.

Thanks, Paul and Jesse, for weighing in on the various redesigns.

So last night I went to the Lucha Libre again with Anel, Claus and co, this time in a different arena. We travelled there in the back of someone’s pick up, which made it all the more authentic. It was pricier, mind, the cheap seats were 80 pesos a pop. Still sterling entertainment as always.

Erm… I put up some shelves in me office making use of me new hand drill. I just wanted one of these but every where I went they said they didn’t make them any more and how’s about one of these. Okay, says I and now I’m ready to make holes all over the house. The next project is a new kitchen counter and with my brawn, Daniel’s DIY know-how and my shiny new drill, we’ll be there in no time.

Tonight after deciding there’s bugger all in the cinema (Perfume, Kilometro 32, Blood Diamonds and Borat have all just come out), we’re going to stay in and watch the new episode of LOST and some more Bones… But before that, Sita’s folks are treating us to a birthday meal somewhere. So many thanks in advance, Sally & Quito.

There’s more translation stuff in the works for next week… and I want to investigate an e-commerce plug-in for wordpress. Then my parents’ grand entrance to Mexico on Saturday and our week in Tulum y ¡mucho más!

Also, I’m trying to think of a pithy description of this blog for the upper right corner “about” bit… any ideas?
[tags]lucha libre, redesign, wordpress, templates[/tags]

After making Nourishing Nutrition a fully WordPress-generated site I thought I’d treat agaveweb.com to a “pimping” to use the vernacular… it now features all kinds of rounded corners/ reflectiony jiggery pokery and has some social aspects. I’m chuffed I got the translation calculator to survive the transition too.

Anyroad, spanish-speaking or not, I’d appreciate your thoughts… Click thee hence to: agaveweb.com 2.0

Nb. spanish speakers, once I work out if i’m using tú or Ud I’ll sort that out… and there’s little bits here and there to tran

…about whether the the snap.com preview things currently popping up all over the intertubes are a good or bad thing. Here at agaveweb we value your opinion, cherish your patronage and are forever buggering around trying to make reading this rubbish less painful. Please be so good as to click either the Polls tab above or THIS HERE LINK that says POLLS! in block capitals and make your feelings known. Swift action will be taken according to the results. Don’t be intimidated by the 100% “marvellous” results. Cos that was me checking the system worked.

One vote per IP address now and enjoy the AJAX AJAX. Thanks in advance for your valuable feedback or “retroalimentación” in dubious Spanish.

Here’s a pic of where I’m blogging from these days. Just decorated it with some prints from around these fair shores and a Big Lebowski poster (or “Identidad Peligrosa”) from Amour Fou your friendly neighbourhood video rental shop. 20 pesos no less.

We’re back from the land of the unpronouncable names and Nahuatl for “the place of the fishermen”. Try navigating around with names like Tzintzuntzan and Ihuatzio. Very good scrabble scores all round. It’s an incredibly beautiful area, which I won’t attempt to describe I’ll let the photos do the painting of thousands of words. Suffice to say it’s an unmissable part of the United States of Mexico abundant in flora, fauna, cuisine and even lightning and rainbows. Here’s the Flickr photo set of the Michoacán pix and here’s some of me faves:

In other news, i just noticed that me dad done gone and went and gotten himself a blog.

Via b3ta: They’ve remade the “I’m a PC” Mac adverts with Mitchell and Webb for the UK audience. Some are word for word versions of the US ones. Some aren’t… Also here’s Biff out of Back to the Future singing all the questions he’s asked.

Anyroad, we’re off to the hills today along with most of the population of Gwod who are having their puente weekend. As ever, more photos than you can shake a stick at on Monday/Tuesday. A bientot…

Monica had to go back to LA yesterday to check on her mum who took a turn for the worse with her Lupus. Hopefully things’ll stablise/improve a fair bit and Monica can come back in a couple of weeks.

My favourite searches ending up at Agaveweb for Jan 2007:

“gate.com sucks” – have to agree
“safeway coinmaster” – perennial favourite
“take away restaurants in bristol” – ¿?
“roggy mcgee” – Sita’s cousin’s dog
“para abrir un restaurante que necesito ademas de las sillas” (To open a restaurant, what do I need? other than the chairs…”) Good luck, mate. Tables for one thing.
“como superar los miedos a la oscuridad” (How to overcome fear of the dark). That one probably went to Mi vida regida por el ridiculo though, what with the theme of darkness, fear, darkness, fear… I’d recommend changing the bulbs to increasingly low wattage over a period of months and starting a diet rich in beta-carotene post haste.

Have some oranges.

Ever eager to boost the number of pueblos mágicos we’ve visited, we’re off to Patzcuaro this weekend. Allegedly about 3 hours away and “hidden high in the mountains of Michoacán” if Wikipedia’s to be believed. It’s a bank holiday on Monday… Día de la Constitución or somesuch.. Jana and Victor know a grand place to stay so there’ll be six of us living it up there. Good times…

The weather here’s taken a turn for the nippy. It even rained yesterday. Not part of the plan at all. Anyroad, today the idea today is get some lesson planning done for tomorrow and maybe go to the torture exhibition if it’s still on.

Also I’m enjoying the music of this young lady found via Pat’s blog in Providencia, Guanatos, Jalisco, Mexico.

Have a photo of Las Cabaas in central Gwod. Used to be a hospice, y’know…

has now finished so I find myself browsing my various web feeds and here are the highlights:

Why can’t you buy cashew nuts in their shells?
Balloons, balloons, balloons. Balloons!.
Mavis Beacon’s typing tutor this ain’t.
Jon Stewart doing what he does best.
Possible engineering project for my new office.
Jeebus knows what myth they were busting here.

And this one reminds me of coming to the states and getting looks for not clearing up my table after eating in fast food establishments. Good to be reminded I’m not the only one. I do now though. Promise. And I was at Starbucks today again. Really must stop doing that especially given the extremely good coffee and wifi available at La Estación de Lulio and Mondo Café or many of these independant coffee shops.

And finally links to some other peeps on the photo tour. We’ve some suspiciously similar photos… de Eliazar, y El Charro Negro,. Can’t believe I missed out on the “abrazos gratis”…

Once again, don’t forget snap.com will show you previews of any links when you hover over them. And if you’re sick of that particular effect, click on the “options” at the top right of the bubble to turn them off completely.

On the photo tour, Eliazar told me a new (to me) Spanish phrase: “Dependiendo del sapo, así es la pedrada“. The stone you throw depends on the size of toad. I’m not confident enough to use this phrase yet, but I think it means something like you have scale what you’re using to the problem you’re facing. There’s no point in throwing a small stone at a large toad, nor a huge stone at a tiny toad… Maybe…?

If anyone reading can give an example, I’d be glad to see it commented. Even the usually excellent WordReference.com draws a blank on this one… A search for sapo gets you:

sapo m Zool toad ♦ LOC: fam (despotricar) echar sapos y culebras, to curse and swear:

Which is another one I’d not heard, “To throw toads and snakes”, to curse and swear… or better still, “effing and blinding”.

Yesterday after Tonalá, dining, decorating and skyping the world we were going to have our subjunctive class, however we ended up watching about a dozen+ back-to-back episodes of Bones on DVD. Strangely apt after driving past the new (¿?) Jaliscan Forensic Science Building on Lazaro Cardenas. CSI Guanatos indeed… Now there’s a series I’d like to watch…

Some of yesterday’s purchases… a metal agave thing, DVD shelf, and shining star things.

we made for Yoda the kitten way back in university in Swansea… I say for Yoda, but it was blatantly for us. Make your own cat TV with a cardboard box, cellophane and a long stick. Nowhere near as cruel as this though, not even close:

.

I think March of the Valkyries would be a better soundtrack than “Under the Sea”…

Well, that was a lovely afternoon wandering round the city centre of Guadalajara (Guanatos to its denizens) and meeting likeminded souls. While sipping Coronas con sal y limon in La Fuente El Charro Negro and Eliazar turned up with cameras in tow and we decided to go off snapping shots of the centre, from La Fuente to Las Cabaas to San Juan de Dios. A couple more Flickreros joined us in the cabaas and we watched life unfold in San Juan. I hope we can do it again some time. Thanks to everyone for coming, looking forward to your photos…

Here’re some of my faves:

Then we had dinner at La Divina Tentación, a v. nice restaurant, though we got there at 8 and left at 9:30ish and were the only customers there. Outnumbered 3 to 1 by waiters. Good food and not hugely pricey. Recommended…

Today Sita and I went on a lightning trip to Tonalá where we bought more trinkets to decorate the homestead with, including a copper agave thing (photo one of these days…) which we bargained down from 300 pesos to 200, then came back to a shiny clean house thanks to M & D’s Herculean efforts. And a rug which “really ties the room together…”

Later today: giving a private class to Monica and Daniel on the delights of the subjunctive mood. In Starbucks, for our sins…

I’m quite chuffed indeed with how today’s project went of updating the look of nourishing nutrition, a health and nutrition site for a mate of mine, Jenny, in Santa Cruz, CA. It now features WordPress as a content management system and should be much easier to update. It also looks prettier thanks to basing it on an open source template and adapting it to the corporate branding.

Last night sita and me went to see Children of Men (again). Fantastic film that definitely bears a second viewing thanks to the rich visuals and nuanced acting. And big explosions… Today, hopefully round Anel & Claus’s for some kind of barby. And tomorrow the Flickr meet up. All continues to be well…

according to El Informador which I found via Living Without Borders which in turn I found because they got wind of the fototour and have complimentary things to say about my flickr photostream. Bless em. If you’re surfing in from there for some reason, then yes, in all likelihood it’ll be a Spanish speaking event, but there’s always the universal language of photography and beers. I’d have posted a comment over there but they have comments disabled. Anyroad, all are welcome. It’s nothing too formal and none of us know each other outside of Flickr commentaries and the occasional Flickrmail.

Anyroad, got to go. The home made pizza’s burning. Pizzas No’tardamos aren’t open on Wednesdays…

Blimey, 5+ peeps have signed up for the photo tour on Saturday along with a few maybes. If you’ve happened upon this blog, understand the language and have a camera, come along on Saturday at 1 – 1h30 to La Fuente cantina, Calle Pino Suarez in central Guanatos for a few hours wandering the streets snapping photos and cotorreando. Or post-photography chat in Los Famosos Equipales (Juan Alvarez 710) around 4pm. César, ¿te late?