Still a bit too quiet on the web design front, although I think I could probably do a series of lectures on the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. Were it not for my crushing fear of public speaking… Anyway, I just sent off my business card to the printers. 100 will be ready on Saturday. So don’t tell me about any spelling mistakes please. On the actual card, my phone and address aren’t blurred. Both sides are shown in the pic. Hopefully I can drum up some interest, but 10% commission to anyone who finds me a client 😉
Had a nice little ‘Dia de amistad y amor’ yesterday. I cooked belgian endives au gratin. Which aren’t cheap becaue they’re grown hydroponically round here. Probably cheaper than roses mind. Just. Anyroad, it turned out well nice and Sita provided the postre. Obdulio made an appearence in the evening on the way back from his sisters’ with more ideas for the propaganda multimedia experience. No word from my folks of late. I think they’re in Spain, but they keep making an appearence on Skype. So it’s either cyberghosts or one of those burglars who checks their email while going through the family heirlooms.
Many congrats, Ms. Butler on the Davis thing. We’re v. happy for you- nice one! Plenty of black sheep round that way, I’m sure. Sita’s told me also about Atticus’s latest escapades in Downey via her mum. He’s got them running around after him at 4 am which can’t be something to encourage. If you’re reading, Asparagus, cut it out.
The photo above is the humming bird one with the moon shopped into the background to give it some depth. Is it convincing? Comment away as per usual. Cheers- g
Un par de jours sans bloguer- toujours rien a declarer. Still having nowt to write never stopped me before. Sita told me off for writing ‘me and jose went’ instead of ‘jose and I’ a couple of posts ago, so here we go with some of my writing tics. I got an A in my GCSE English Language and I was a TEFL teacher for long enough to know which rules I’m breaking on a daily basis. For what it’s worth, it helps to read this blog with a slight somerset burr. Top 10 Grammatical Rules I give short shrift to:
10. Subject/ Object pronoun difference. Bert’n’me couldn’t be arsed.
9. Using the subjunctive in conditional clauses. If I was you I’d use more sugar.
8. Ending sentences with prepositions. Hot, sticky climes are summink I’ll not put up with.
7. Capitalisation. some days not. Other days yes.
6. Spelling. Some words I can’t spell first time with and not having a spell checker to hand, I’ll just shove in more letters until it looks right. N.B. doesn’t necccasserilly always work.
5. Overcompensation for Americanisms. It’s been an ongoing battle against MS Word for it to recognise English spelling as default. Not just things like colour, centre and Yours Sincerely (instead of Sincerely), but the subtler ones like travellers (with 2 Ls) and realise (with an S). For me, no words end in -ize.
4. Sentence fragments. Quote from the Simpsons. Lisa has made a grammar robot:
Lisa: Almost done. Just lay still. Linguo: Lie still. Lisa: I knew that. Just testing. Linguo: Sentence fragment. Lisa: ‘Sentence fragment’ is also a sentence fragment. Linguo: Must conserve battery power.
3. Overuse of ‘…’ … Not antigrammatical, but surely bad grammar… Just how my brain works I’m afraid… In conversation I’ll do the same… trail off each sentence into mumbling. So that’s what they’re there for…
2. The Jean Teasdale school of parenthetical asides (and consequently where to put the punctuation.). ?
1. Starting every other sentence with I. Well, it is a personal blog called self-absorbtion central, and I know not everyone wants there actions engraved forever in hypertext on teh internets.
So there you go. If you notice any others, feel free to comment them if you find yourself with nowt better to do today. Happy birthday Ms Butler and Valentine’s to the rest of you. Happy B-day Guadalajara too, 464 today!
Friday Jose and me went round his pseudo-uncle’s office for his music sharing group thing. I brought a mix CD made with low qualityish MP3s which was frankly a bit embarassing to follow J.S.Bach’s organ music with, but hey ho. It’s impressive how listening to high quality organ music drags me back to Taunton School and the enforced chapel in the morning. And pretty far removed from Wellspring’s wurlitzer. Anyroad, made for a nice change and afterwards I watched Kill Bill 2 into the early hours. Yesterday I rambled into town snapping any cars that looked like where they were parked. And the occasional anatomically correct cow pinata. Grabbed some ‘new’ DVDs, Capote, Requiem for a Dream, American Visa and (just to get the bargain price of 4 for 100 pesos) The Wedding Crashers (I think Monica said it was a laugh…). Back to the house for a nap then Jose appeared and we went scouting for a location to do some more poetry/filming stuff. There’s a modern art museum I hadn’t even heard of in La Plaza del Arte, with lots of sculptures and suchlike outside which should be perfect. I used one of the pictures to update pinguino frog’s propaganda 10 page a bit. I don’t know if it works in Explorer though, as i mentioned earlier… afterwards, off to Jana and Victors for a meal that included such treats as mandarin, fennel and baby spinach leaves salad, couscous garlic and chicken. And brownies. House prices weren’t mentioned which is an excellent sign for any dinner party. Avian flu, requiem for a dream, scrabble and suduko kept us chatting mind.
Today lazy as you like. This site was down for some reason earlier. Hope that’s not a recurring thing. We’re off to Sarah’s for her birthday later. she’s cooking summink for us. Which should be grand. I’ve been listening to a few new podcasts of late. For webdesign, there’s this english nerd and his mate talking about design issues at boagworld.com that’s really informative, then NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me is now available for download, rather than streaming which is tidy, and then there’s a fledgling podcast, Total Pod Catastrophe which is v. promising. I think I’ll shove one on now and do the dishes, before a starbucks coffee and off round young Sarah’s. Happy 28th, if you’re reading, Sarah 🙂 . Aquarius?…
You’ll be ecstatic to hear that the hard drive’s fine. It’s still something of a mystery what happened there. The reinstall is far from perfect but I think it’s cos I installed the beta version of IE7 and that wrought all manner of unholy things upon the registry. I’m not the only one on teh intarwebs that can’t use Explorer anymore. So that’s quite a shot in the foot for Microsoft. I’m a Firefox user because I have no choice… Maybe one day they’ll get round to writing a patch so i can reinstall IE. At least I have some DVD backups to show for all my troubles… Ah whatever, enough tech-ery.
Do you live in the Unaitid Esteits de Gringolandia? If so you can see what your house is worth and your neighbours’, have a look at this site here: www.zillow.com. Walking the line between the entertaining and the downright scarey. While it’s spot on for the greater L.A. region, it’s a bit more hazy in the Pioneer Valley…
Erm what else? Sita’s doing the tequila thing, i’m on page 10 of my camino real essay, erm, went out with gringos, koreans and a mexican for an italian last night, possible music club thing with jose and co tonight, sarah’s for a meal on sunday… that’ll do for now. I’m reticent to post entries when there’s no photos to go with them. so that’s yer lot for now. Thanks for the comments- Spam free for 16 days!
The good thing about working in an office with tech savvy folk is that they understand when you phone in saying your computer is sick and you have to nurse it back to health. ‘Llevalo al doctor’ they said, ‘es tu bebe’… So i went to the doctor to check on their prices and they said it would cost around 50 bucks to back up the hard drive, then whatever to replace it. Now, my computer was refusing to start in safe mode even, so i did a scan in command prompt and sometimes it found errors, sometimes not. So I tried a reinstall of XP. It kept saying it could’t find key files on the install CD so I just skipped them. Now it appears to be working fine, but to be on the safe side, I’m backing up my important files (5 DVDs so far…), doing a thorough virus check, and then I’m going to try a reinstall again. Then maybe go to work this afternoon… ah PCs. This evening up to 16 people from Sita’s old Spanish course may be coming round so while I watched progress bars snail across the screen i did a bit of a spring clean… last night was the Grammies and scrabble, for anyone interested… Cross yer fingers everyone for the little hard drive that could…
Sita introduced me to Cash’s music only 5 years ago and I knew little about his story. This film whetted my appetite to know more since many reviews say it only hints at the real darkness in his life. The Spanish title is Johnny y June: Madness and Passion. I wholeheartedly agree about the passion aspect, Joaquin Phoenix is nigh on perfect as Cash from his stance, speech patterns to his on-stage persona, but we only see flashes of the madness (a few amphetamines too many, a Zeppelinesque outburst in his dressing room and a mano-a-maquina with his Massey Ferguson). The relationship with June is very well developed- and though not knowing much about June- I can only say that it’s a perfectly believable love story. The music throughout is well chosen and this morning I woke up with Ring of Fire echoing around my mind (which makes a pleasant change from ‘Can’t get you out of my head”…). If this doesn’t spark yet another Cash revival I don’t know what will. Fantastic performances all round, a great soundtrack and a gripping story make for a very memorable film. I hope we see a sequel as the closing credits’ ‘They toured for 30 odd years then died” doesn’t really do justice to the rest of this incredible man’s journey. Next time I’m near an English language bookshop I’ll be looking for the autobiography to find out more.
It’s nearing the end of a marathon three days. On Friday evening Sita was involved in some kind of field “research” as part of her Tequila Diploma course from the Universidad de Guadalajara. She and a dozen or so classmates went on a University-sponsored pub crawl around Guadalajara which took in El Sin Rival, La Fuente, La Maestranza and Los Famosos Equipales to name but a few. Because some of us have to work for a living I arranged to meet up with them at the end of it all at 8 in Los Equipales. I got there at 7:30 so I could have a chance to catch up a bit, after looking like the lonliest gringo in el centro historico for 90 minutes or so and a couple of their speciality drink, nalgas alegres (rum, grenadine, orange crush and a splash of wine and ice) they phoned the bar to say they’d be there soon. And what a happy bunch they were too. Dr. Jaime (pictured) is the bloke who gave us the masterclass on Mayahuel and friends way back when, in the picture he’s holding a popular botana (bar snack) called viril. It looks innocuous enough, but it is sliced, marinated bull’s penis. I tried it once 8 years ago, Cesar told me what it was and I didn’t believe him. I spat it to the other side of the bar when I realised he wasn’t joking and still have occasional nightmares… anyway, back to the bar… I had a fine old time chatting with everyone while we were plied with free tequila-based drinks, eventually we all decided to move on to a more salubrious atmosphere and ended up in a bar with a cover band doing Green Day, Pearl Jam, Lenny Kravitz and suchlike in Chapultepec somewhere. It was a great evening all in all, nice to be out with such a friendly crowd. I hope they invite me along on more of these scientific field trips…
Que mas? Well Saturday morning, after another fry-up, we got our stuff together browsed the map of Jalisco and decided on Tapalpa instead of Mazamitla. Sita had been grilling her Mexican colleagues on the best places to visit in the mountains and Tapalpa was highly recommended. It’s recently been awarded the status of Pueblo Magico (Magic Town) which means it’s officially recognised as a lovely place and gets cash thrown at it to entice the likes of Sita and me. It only took a couple of hours to get there along a toll dual carriageway which goes down through what looks like a dry lake then we left it to take the winding road up the mountains. Before entering the town we saw all kinds of signs for parapenting. There’s powerful thermal currents and steep cliffs to jump off. Me Dad’s into all the parapenting lark and if we haven’t been deported or bankrupted by October I’ll definitely take him there and have a go myself too. You know you’re in the town because your average driving speed drops to 5 mph as the streets are inexpertly cobbled. It brought back fond memories of the exhaust pipe making a bid for freedom in Puerto Vallarta at new year, but luckily the welding job held up nicely.
We went to the tourist info place and found the last room available at Hotel Hacienda, very nice if not too well sound-proofed and went for a wander round the town. It’s very well conserved. I couldn’t make much progress with my cars that resemble where they’re parked because all the buildings were painted the same colour, off-white and ox-blood. There were a couple though… and . We had a coffee and watched the local fresas playing with spud guns (I think) and soaked up the atmosphere. Then we fired up the altima and went off first to see the reservoir where there’s an odd mix of cacti and pines, then over to see the Piedrotas (big stones). They’re a little like the tors in Dartmoor, but less wide spread. They’ve been there a fair while and the Otomi indians used them as handy chopping boards for human sacrifices. I should also mention that the air was gorgeous. It’s not something you notice if you haven’t been living in a city of 4 million odd where 80% of cars don’t have catalytic converters and there’s a fairly cavalier attitude to forest fires, but it was a refreshing change. We drove back to the pueblo and had a swift pint in front a TV with Chivas vs. Tigres on. At half time we had a nap and then out to hunt down a Spanish tapas bar/restaurant that Sita’d spotted earlier. Ole, Ola, or some such title.
We got a table on the balcony and the undivided attention of Omar, the waiter there. We had some fantastic food (I knew when I started this blog that a lot of it would be about eating habits…) cheeses, jamon serrano, lomo, chicken, cake… and took our time. There was a v. talented couple playing acoustic guitar for ambience. When they played Obladi by the Beatles though, i took it upon myself to make a request, Cavatina (theme from The Deerhunter/ Take Hart’s The Gallery), which they didn’t know. A bit more wine later, I asked for anything from El concierto de Aranjuez or Recuerdos de la Alhambra, and fair play they knew both of them and did perfect renditions. Omar told us about the area, his views on tequila (reposado and anejo are mierda, apparently, full of chemicals and bourbon contaminants), his mate who got his parapent mangled in an updraught and just managed to save himself with a back-up chute, and the history of Tapalpa. He recommended we con our way into the country club to get decent views of the volcanos and after brekky the next day we did just that. After that we took the non-toll road back to Gwod and had a bit of a rest until the evening when Victor, Sarah and Jose came round for the Superbowl and pizza. By the end of it I was starting to vaguely understand the game but I’ll not be making a habit of it. Also, the superbowl is famous for its adverts in the states (it’s what usually makes it bearable), we just got local ads for banks and mobile phones though. I had a look at a few of the American ads on google video, and don’t think I missed much… T’was another late night though, today should be a lot more tranquil. i think we’re going to see the Johnny Cash biopic tonight, and I’ll probably be out with me camera again this ‘avo. I’m glad I have today off work because of the Constitution holiday or summink, cos, as I may have mentioned before, I’m not as young as I used to be. So all in all, a solidly entertaining weekend peopled with friendly folk and gorgeous countryside, life is good.
In other news, we’ve decided on Mazamitla for this weekend’s getaway, 90 minutes drive south of Guad on the other side of Chapala. Pictures will be forthcoming. Whether you like it or not 🙂
but I’m quite impressed with Internet Explorer 7 and all its taggy stuff. They’ve obviously learnt a lot from good old firefox, tags, search boxes, floating windows, and better RSS support. It’s faster to load and has slightly more screen real estate. It doesn’t look as sleek though as FF though and I’ll keep with FF on general principle…
Well today, I’ve done the first 4 pages of my history assignment and I’d forgotten quite how rewarding it is to write essays. Might post it later… we’re still in the mid 16th century i’m afraid.
Well there’s 20mins to go and i’m not sure i’ll be writing much more for today. Always finish before you run out of ideas is the trick with essays. That way when you start again, you’ll have something to write. So I’ll start slowly packing up me stuff. Let us know what you reckon to the lucha pix. Suggestions for next time etc… and I’m still up for the virtual busking, comment yer requests
Oh what a night. I’m a convert. I’m not sure of the names or who won or many other trivialities, but i do know that I smiled the whole way through. It’s like panto without the nagging suspicion you’re going to be dragged up on stage and made to sing the birdie song because you have a birthday in January, and it’s a lot better, natch.
I took tons of photos, at first, furtively, then getting more brazen and using the flash a bit, then they told me I needed a permit which you have to get in advance, so i watched for another 20 minutes, then sneaked another picture in. A lady came up and told me I’d be escorted out if I continued so that was that. I’m definitely going back and getting a permit next time so I can take some proper ringside pics. The place was packed and full of hardcore fans with their gimp masks and all. Something I’d not seen before in mexico was the class warfare. The people in the cheap seats (3 bucks) were chanting for the rudos and the folks where i was (6 bucks) turned around and chanted ‘pobres’ (poor people) back at them. There was a fence in between… Shocking… Besides all the action there were vendors selling beer, chicharron (deep fried pig fat/skin), pizza, crisps, fags and of course, masks. It was a great spectacle, I can’t believe I’d never been before.
Well, Sita, Jose, Jana, Victor and Cesar, you missed a treat, but I’m well up for going again. Oh, how I spoil you with options for seeing the pictures… first off there’s a Flickr Slideshow, Flickr thumbnails then there’s an all singing, all dancing, Windows Media File (4670k) (Recommended, broadband especially).
Some bright spark has converted all the series of QI (Stephen Fry & friends) to MP3s so i’ve been listening to them non stop. I love how what started as a harmless panel game has gradually descended into a primary school classroom with Fry as the teacher and the rest of them misbehaving. What other country could this format work in?
Channel4.com – IT Crowd Not quite sure what the benefits for C4 are, but many thanks all the same. Channel Four are streaming episodes of new Graham Lineham comedy The IT Crowd. And it’s got Chris Morris in it. It’s a cross between Father Ted, Black Books and The Office and is rather good. Click the link for the download page. Righty, I’m off to see Satanico fight Loco Max. On my own… cheers
Here’s the line up for the lucha libre this evening. Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks aren’t billed, but we live in hope. I’m sure EL HOMBRE SIN NOMBRE won’t fail to entertain… and if all else fails, there’s Strongbad
ARENA COLISEO: Martes 31 de Enero 19:30 HRS.
LUCHA ESTELAR: DOS CARAS JR., DR.WAGNER E HIJO DE LIZMARK vs TARZAN BOY, REY BUCANERO Y UNIVERSO 2000
LUCHA SEMIFINAL BLACK WARRIOR, SATANICO Y LIZMARK vs EMILIO CHARLES, HIJO DE PIERROTH Y HOMBRE SIN NOMBRE
LUCHA ESPECIAL VIRUS, TONY RIVERA Y STUKA vs OKUMURA, DR. X Y LOCO MAX
SEGUNDA LUCHA LEONO, TRUENO Y DANGER vs RAMSTEIN, MESALA Y CALIGULA
PRIMERA LUCHA RAYOS TAPATIOS I Y II vs POLVORA Y VAQUERO
So Sunday morning I awoke, stretched and started peeling spuds for a tortilla cos we’d been invited round some friends of Victor and Jayna’s for brunch (desalmuerzo?). Lots of Yanquis teaching in the American School of Gwod were round there and had brought such delights as waffles, pancakes, olive tapenade and bacon. T’was very nice and I got to explain what I was doing in MX. It was nice to say, Well, I’m not teaching English… Afterwards, V&J came round for a nice cup of tea and a sit down and agreed to come to the lucha libre on Tuesday… Sita missed out on all of this ‘cos of grant applications, Spanish revision and other trifles. I wandered off to Santa Tere to see the market being taken down, try and find some more ‘cars that resemble where they’re parked‘ and hunt down a cantina (La Taberna de Mou). Success on 2 out of 3; Moe’s Bar is still too elusive and I did walk for a fair while.
The evening was pleasant enough, with the leftovers of Sita’s recreations of tequila based dishes from Saturday and we watched El Matador, which is an American film set largely in Mexico D.F., and was pretty good. I rang Jose today to check he’s still up for the lucha libre and he is. He also wants to make a cortometraje mini film about some idea he’s had or other and is coming round to pitch it this evening. More news about that as it happens…
Sita rang me at work to say she’s got shunted by an SUV when she was waiting at a red light. Had a miserable time of it because the SUV was driven by a hija de la chingada miserable woman. Sita and the altima are unscathed, but it sounds like the slanging match they had wasn’t much fun. Bless her.
Cars come in pretty much the same colour in most countries, but in Mexico, the same colours are used for painting houses. It’s natural to suppose that if someone buys a red car, then they’re likely to paint their house red too. Maybe. I’m not sure if this is statistically significant but there’s a selection up on Flickr, click any of these photos for a look. Anroad, my latest quest is for shots of chamelon cars, that try and blend in with their surroundings…
Still a bit too quiet on the web design front, although I think I could probably do a series of lectures on the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. Were it not for my crushing fear of public speaking… Anyway, I just sent off my business card to the printers. 100 will be ready on Saturday. So don’t tell me about any spelling mistakes please. On the actual card, my phone and address aren’t blurred. Both sides are shown in the pic. Hopefully I can drum up some interest, but 10% commission to anyone who finds me a client 😉
