Stuff

Ice cream in the shade in Ajijic, Jalisco

I’m not looking for sympathy here, and I know it doesn’t sound like hard work, but eating out, sight-seeing and cocktails every evening soon takes it out of you. It’s been a really fun week between Easter with its attendant activities and barbecues and travel, even fitting in an hour or so of lucha libre, but it’s time for a break of sorts. I could probably have handled it all before I turned 31, pero ya no…

Anyroad, yesterday Sally, Minnie and I did the obligatory Chapala, Ajijic trip, this time with added open house visiting goodness. There’s photos if you click around enough after clicking the photo above. Some very nice, newly-built places with jacuzzis, lake views, and neighbours from Ontario that won’t cost you much more than 275,000 of your Earth dollars. I’ve still yet to manage to drive back home from the chapala/airport road without taking the wrong turn off though and touring either the netherparts of Central Guadalajara or the Perifery delights of Gwod’s ring road. One day… It doesn’t help that if you want to get to the house you have to follow signs for cities hundreds of miles away like Puerto Vallarta and Nogales neither… Eeh well.

Sita’s had some great news on the academic/ financial front, email her for more info. Suffice to say we should be able to stay in MX longer than originally planned and we’re celebrating tonight. Not sure where yet though. I think the only place I could really handle would have to be an oxygen bar. And not if it’s even slightly crowded. Sometime this weekend we’re also going to celebrate by buying a lovely new kitchen bin which won’t overflow once you’ve put an avocado skin and a water bottle in. And Sally’s treating us to a microwave oven too so we can enter into a glorious new age of nachos and cheese, quesadillas and baked spuds. Thanks Sally & Martin : )

Also this weekend, time to stock up on DVDs again. Though I’ve just got myself season II of Monkey Dust which is proving to be as ascerbic and entertaining as ever. Any recommendations? (comments below, preferably recent releases or Mexican classics, cheers). Proof (2006)’s been getting good reviews, anyone seen it? It’s got my tocaya in it, Gwyneth Paltrow…

Alrighty, regards, I’m off to do my election sloganeering. The best one I saw yesterday was “He’s not a liar, He’s not a cheat, He’s Alberto Ramirez”, your candidate for Tlajomulco or some such.

And your pun for the day: Da Vinci Code II via B3ta

Best social engineering in a spam email title ever? That’ll be the one I received today titled: “Look at this email” flogging some stock market scam.

Genius

Next time we get to L.A. we have to pass by The Bunny Museum… Apparently Martin had a crash-course in rabbit feeding before Sally came over here. One day he reported they hadn’t eaten their food. On closer investigation Sally discovered two highly non-plussed lagomorphs staring at a food bowl full of ultra-absorbant litter tray pellets. Hopefully they’re ok…

Apparently it’s hot in Puerto Vallarta. Who’d’ve thunk it? And Sita’s been on the sweinesmaltz (spelling? It’s some bizarre teutonic lard product) at the German restaurant there again.

Erm, the car’s back in action. And I got a “Special Rate” so I come back again. Hopefully I won’t be back any time soon. I watched my subtitles on the film I translated yesterday. Thrilling it was. There were a few typos. desings, not designs for example… but overall it’s a great feeling watching your electronic endeavours going out into the world. I’m going to get a copy too.

And the Lucha Libre is really happening through the miracle of blog-mail. Whereupon you blog who you want to ring you and they call you. Cheers, Carlos, See you in the Fuente. Mine’s a Campo Viejo…

EDIT: and here’s something I cooked up today between watching short Uruguayan films, website overhauls for nutritionists and translating. It’s a Flash intro for a friend’s site who moonlights as a DJ. I didn’t have any of the original files for the graphics so they’re a little low-budget and ripped from teh intarwebs but the fly sounds are from an open source audio site and I mashed them together all on my own. I’ll never get my head around actionscript though. Stop (); It’s all practice…

Have you seen the photos from yesterday yet? There’s a nice one of the girls… They all hightailed it over to Puerto Vallarta this morning, if the bus left at 9ish, they’ll probably be there by now. Unfortunately they left the camera, but luckily we’ve got Sally’s photographic memory and fine line in well-observed anecdotes…

I’ve had a great weekend, all in all. Tlaquepaque’s changed a lot since I was last there. For the better… We even managed to pick up the premium tequila that Sita promised to the winner of her feedback questionnaire which saves me a trip to Tequila. The car’s getting sorted out at the mechanic’s today so hopefully we’ll be mobile again soon. Me and this other bloke had to jump start it and it wasn’t having any of it. We had to push it about 500 metres on the flat before we gave up and they went for the tow-truck. I’ve already racked up 10,000 steps on the pedometer and it’s barely lunchtime…

Hopefully tomorrow’s Lucha Libre time again. Sarah & Mark, give us a ring as I’m not sure I’ve got your numbers.

And today’s link:
I Hate Cilantro – an anti cilantro community
In ’98 I couldn’t stand the stuff. And I wasn’t sure about guacamole neither. How things change… (Coriander in the queen’s english, btw)

Quick post before heading off for the historic centre and Tlaquepaque. Last night we had a fantastic meal in Santo Coyote, perfect place for visitors to this fair city. Here’s a quick impromptu slideshow from there. 5 Stars. It’s going to be a permenant fixture on the restaurant list for our guests from now on. I’m uploading the pictures as I write, so check back in 5 minutes (it’s 11:15 now) and it should be there…

I drove out to San Martin de los Flores expecting to see scenes like this, along with all the fun of the Passion… self-flagellation, stigmata, special Easter empanadas etc., but couldn’t see anything. It’s in a pretty dodgy part of the city and the car’s been playing up of late so I considered parking it facing down the hill so I could push start it if need be but no… just turned around and drove home. I made the right decision though cos it’s not starting again. Might just have to keep the car running tomorrow when we go to the airport to pick up Sally and Minnie.

I got a few more cars looking like their surroundings pix, but I like this one best of a shop looking like tree tree looking like shopfront on my wander round today. I added a picture of our beautiful kerb a couple of posts down too. Might have to get a few purple swirls on that too. There’s hardly any traffic around and a fair few people wearing their sunday best on a Friday and it was nice to wander round Santa Tere with hardly anyone around.

After my commission-free plug for skype, here’s one for FireFox:
Firefox Flicks: Wheee!

Nothing major to report today. Plus ca change… Yesterday we had a wonderful time at the immigration office. It was actually relatively painless, people there actually smiled occasionally despite taking forever. I’d rather officials with a sense of humour and a longer wait. The woman who finally handed over our papers actually said “You go, girl!” in English when Sita told me to sign some forms. Anyroad, after a siesta we went out with Sarah and Mark on our Guadalajara Cantina Tour ™: La Fuente, La Maestranza, El Rincon de la Doña, Tacos then El Archivo (after Option A was closed). So a latish night and a lazy day. I bought water from Juan the water man, with his daily cry of “oooowwwwooooooaaaaaah!” and doorbell ringing. I did some translation this morning and then took the house apart looking for the video camera to no avail. It’s a mystery that one. Sita’s been booking all manner of Puerto Vallarta related things for next week. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it, but there’s a chance of Lucha Libre on Tuesday instead. and I don’t do well on the coast when the humidy’s high.

Some young scamps came round painting the edge of the pavement (sidewalk) and asking for money which was fair enough. I’d been worrying our pavement wasn’t quite white enough of late. But what we could really do with though is a peripatetic plumber. I finished watching Bandidas (I fell asleep yesterday during it), review to the right and Firewall from a couple of days ago. Chinese takeaway for tea and that’s about it. Tomorrow shall be a cleaning and photography day i feel. And thanks for the Skype apologist comments I’ve every confidence in your promises 🙂

I saw this nice little animation about what Skype is and how you use it. I got the English accented one, maybe ‘cos of the settings on my computer, or maybe it’s just standard issue. Anyway, if you haven’t got it yet, you need:

• A computer, Mac OS X, Windows, Linux
• ANY internet connection (ideally broadband, but dial-up’s fine too)
• a microphone (cheap from Radio Shack or Target or Tandy o Gigante) or maybe your laptop has one built in somewhere…
• Speakers/headphones
• OPTIONAL: A USB webcam for the full-on Livin’-in-the-future-OMFG!-I-can-like-totally-see-you-talking-on-my-screen
  experience

Then you head over to skype.com, download the appropriate version and follow the simple instructions. Add contacts, such as “gwynfisher” and you’re away. No excuses now. You know who you are. And are generally Mac users, strangely…

So back to the minutae of my life, let’s not forget what this blog’s all about after all…

This is our letter box where we receive our bills and letters from banks, credit card agencies and Interpol addressed to Carmen Malagon (previous occupant shrouded in mystery… apparently wanted by every financial institution in Jalisco. When the phone rings, if it’s not someone requesting a song for the Top 40 Radio Show whose number’s one digit off of ours, it’s a bank trying to catch Ms Malagon by surprise. I’ve told them she doesn’t live here anymore, but they’re determined to catch us out and have her answer one day…)

Here’s our spanking new barbecue, $10 or 5 pounds 70 pee from Soriana. Note the charcoal is actually charcoal, practically log-sized pieces. None of your oh-so-dainty briquettes in Mexico, nosiree. Gert big chunks of trees they be. And I didn’t even use parafin nor firelighters to get it going. It’s nice to be BBQing again and it keeps me away from the interwebs and channel 40 for a while. Only the onions (‘campay’) were bought for cooking, the rest are objets trouvés from the fridge/freezer defrosting session.

Yesterday evening was going to involve doing some filming for Propaganda but we’ve misplaced our video camara. Which isn’t good but it will turn up somewhere. It’s a big house and though we’ve few belongings there’s a couple of places still to go. Jose’s sort of on his Semana Santa break so the plan is to go and film on Thursday and if we’re lucky there’ll be lots of people nailing themselves to crosses and whipping themselves. Seriously. Some people go to doctors who tell them whereabouts on their hands they can ‘safely’ put nails through without smashing your bones apart. Then they use sterilised nails and hang from crosses (using string). And I thought Easter was all about eggs and bunnies. You live and learn…

Last night I ended up going out for the gig with F. which was good fun. They’re called Los Fancy Free and involved new wavey dance punk songs. They sound better live than the tracks they stream from their site, but all in all it was a laugh. I’ve not seen that level of showmanship in a frontman in a while…

Today I started off watching ‘The Saint and Blue Demon Vs. The Monsters’ (mini-review to the right) which was my first Santo film. I’m going to have to watch more and there’s over 40 of them. What else? Well we drove over to Chapalita’s art market where people come to sell their paintings on Sundays, which was pleasant after that Home Depot to pick up a grill and some plants. then home. Ooh, and I defrosted the freezer so the front lawn was covered with snow for a while which looked a tad incongruous.

Feliz cumpleaños Dad! Skype us when you get back from walking Jed,

Cheers

Quite a late one last night and hence a late morning too. After watching streaming episodes of News Radio (90s Phil Harman US Sitcom) on WinAmp for a bit and copying my favourite tracks from DJ Randall’s 80s mp3 CD I headed off to downtown to pick up some DVDs, I got Crash (The oscar one, not the JG Ballard adaptation), Bandidas (Salma Hayek and P. Cruz are cowgirls), Firewall (Harrison Ford pushing his acting skills to the limit again) and Final Destination 3 (which I watched this afternoon (3 Lulus)). I ambled over to the park had a banana milkshake in the shade, then got the wrong bus, then got the right bus.

I didn’t see Sita till late in the afternoon cos she’d been off on a tequila tasting (called a Cata) followed by jewellry shopping (the cheap stuff). She swears she didn’t swallow a drop though, and spat it all out in an expert stylee. And who am I to question her? By all accounts it’s a fascinating process, shame she’ll not guest write for this blog. You’ll just have to wait for the dissertation in X years time… This evening we had a head-to-head sudoku contest. Sita won all three (the first on a technicality mind). Did I mention I won the Scrabble yesterday, though, in Chop?

Right now it’s 10:25pm and Fernando just rang to see if I’m coming to this gig or not. I’m tempted but still a little groggy. I’m going to toss a coin in a minute and see where that takes me. Sita’s already decided she’s not going anywhere… But I’m buggered if this saturday evening is going on the record as sudoko, watering the lawn, and cauliflower soup…

Ed’s got some envy-inducing shots up of his travels round the bottomest parts of Latin America on his latest entries. I recommend you head over there. Although the tag line “This week I lost my towel” needs work…

Things going well as per usual as we cruise on into the weekend. Jose & Fernando are coming over for a few chelas before heading off to the pub. Possibility of a gig tomorrow evening.

Have I mentioned it’s getting hot round here… gotta go sita’s just arrived.

Today’s mission, should you choose to accept it, etc…. Lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles with it. Then with your right hand draw a figure 6 in the air. Like it or not, your foot will change direction.

Had an early start today getting the materials together to extend the visa a bit. They only gave us 30 days, not the usual 180 so we have to apply for more. Shouldn’t be a problem and I’m fairly used to forms after all last week’s fun and games. When we tried to start the car afterwards, though, it wouldn’t do anything at all. The lights worked, the radio worked, and we’d only been gone 30 mins. We got a push start from the peeps who’d just washed our car (maybe water got into the battery???) and we took it home. When I turned the engine off something (possibly the fan) kept going for 40 secs or so. Anyone any good with car problems? and while we’re at it, the water’s on the blink again. Occasionally the street’s water pressure is too low to get it to the tank in the roof, and the pump has never worked. We had a couple of water free days, this weekend I might replace the pump and see where that gets us.

I’ve been configuring zencart today to work in Spanish. I’m not linking to it cos it’s just for testing, but agaveweb.com/zencart is where it’s at. Also on the geekery front, the google pagerank for this page just hit 4/10 which is where I was before switching blogs. This makes me happy… Thanks to all of you who’ve linked here/ blogrolled me, much obliged.

Translated version of https://agaveweb.com/
Shoved my site into google translate, and apparently, Estamos en contacto! means “We are in contact with the enemy!” (see blue text halfway down the page)

Books that come with endorsements from Oprah’s book club tend to receive very little of my attention, rightly or wrongly. Luckily I saw a clip of the author being harassed by Oprah for passing fiction off as fact and then striking him off her ‘approved list‘ so I mentally peeled the sticker off and dived right in.

23-year-old James is admitted to a drug rehab centre in pretty poor shape, covered with a colourful selection of his own bodily fluids, missing his front teeth and with a hole through his cheek. He’s been at the chemicals for a good few years and has hit rock bottom. The book takes you through his six weeks at the centre at breakneck pace in first person, present tense and it’s hard to put down from the very start. I have to admit there is one section I didn’t read though; When he’s having root canal work done with no anaesthetic I had to skip a few pages there. Rest assured what I pictured in my head had to be worse than whatever he actually wrote there. Jesus…

You find yourself admiring him for his rebelliousness and steadfast refusal to follow the 12 steps and the self-delusion necessary to follow them. For someone who’s at his lowest ebb, he presents a heroic character. He is resolute and uncompromising, obviously quite a contrast to his former self. Despite not following all the rules in the center, he makes progress and even offers others a chance for the same salvation.

This story is about personal choice, responsibility and offers a logical, braver and God-free alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous. Whether it’s all true or not only matters if you’re reading it as a self-help guide. As a literary work, it’s deserves to be up there and above with Dave Egger’s A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius another first person memoir with interludes of fantasy.

There’s a site that’s looking to find the most beautiful word in Spanish. I’ve got several for the list, which, while maybe not beautiful, are lyrical and pleasing in other ways. Here are a few of my faves. Spanish is such a great language, especially the Mexican variety.

Huitlacoche — it’s a black fungus that grows in maize that is specially harvested for pricey tacos/ quesadillas

Esperpéntico- An adjective that roughly equates to grotesque in English. It’s all about holding up a deformed mirror to society and describing the distorted view in order to better criticise it I came across it in my undergrad degree course in 20th century Spanish theatre.

Pendejadas- Acts performed by a pendejo (idiot/wanker/fool). Stupidities.

Olvidarse- In Spanish you can absolve yourself completely of guilt when you forget things. ‘Se me olvidaron mis llaves” is a common way of saying ‘I forgot my keys’, and literally translated means ‘My keys forgot themselves at me’. Brilliant!

Antojitos- Mexican (bar) snacks. Antojo is a wish, antojitos, little wishes, or things you just fancy nibbling. I’m fond of pretty much any word with the diminutive ‘ito” ending. Guerita, guapita, casita, abuelita, chiquitito, cosquillita.

To turn a noun into an assault/ explosion/ crash you tend to shove —azo on the end. So you get: bancazo- bank robbery, avionazo- a plane crash, and tequilazo- a night of binge drinking that did you no good at all, or the economic crisis when agave prices went through the floor. Fun for all the family.

Ajijic, Jocotepec, Zapopan, Tlaquepaque, – local places with names more colourful than Taunton, or Downey for example…

In French my favourite’s pamplemousse (grapefruit) and in English, it’s a toss-up between ‘arse’ and serendipitous. If you fancy sharing yours comment away 🙂

And broadband. Even if you don’t know “Omi” check out all the other videos to see her and her little brother dance to hipster indie beats.
Fair play- It’s a little dodgy posting pix & videos of kids on the interweb and our mates have taken down the video. Which is a shame, but completely understandable. If you’re ever in Central/North California, look out for toddlers dancing to the likes of Spoon and Art Brut, you won’t regret it…