Chien mechant

Seems like everyone’s gone or is going to the beach. Anyroad, not complaining, I’ve had my fair share of holidays of late. Still waiting for various projects to materialise. Next week should be busy if the people who’ve said they’ve stuff for me to do give me stuff…

So today I played a lot of Scrabble, getting back in the 1000s again. There’s a shake-up of the SOWPODS (UK/international -USA version) allowed words in a month or so so that’s going to throw me off for a bit if they mess with my 2-letter words. I’d like to put in a request for “Zot”, Sita assures me it’s the sound anteaters make and it must have been an oversight when they wrote the dictionary.

Also got inspired by a comment on this flowery photo saying that they look like Trollz so I did meself a photoshopped hybrid monstery thing:

And also I started buggering around with the e-commerce plugin for wordpress. Seems alright, i’m having some issues with permalinks and .htaccess, but nothing insurmountable. They hard part is thinking of products. Vaguely considering some framed photography with frames from Tonala. Very, very much in progress here don’t be surprised to see an illegible mess…
And if things stay quiet this week, then I’ll be rejigging this blog page yet again, cos I can’t get it to display right in (accursed, plagues be upon it) IE 6.

Also planned this week, making a bit more of an effort to find Jesus in San Martin de los Flores on Friday. This time I’ll have a map…

Other stuff… Spanish phrase of the week, courtesy of the taxi driver from the airport: Una lluvia mojapendejos. A type of rain that only idiots* would get wet in. Ie. short and sweet.

* insert regional slang of choice here. Twunt for example…

…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]

…when you recognise more than 50% of the following Internet People:

Not quite as many people turned up as planned, but all the more for me’n’jose… And there’s more than enough for an arrachera and salsa themed breakfast in half an hour or so… Did a fair amount of recording last night, am trying to find the best way to embed audio in PF’s Blog. Anyroad, as per usual the night descended into plumbing the depths of YouTube where I chanced upon this totally chingón video of Senser in their prime. All together now, check a check it out, check it out, check it check it out, bring it bring it on, bring on, come on, come on!

I met the band on a ferry coming back from France when I was 19 or 20 (12 years ago) and shared a few beers with the lot of them. Kerstin Haigh, the female vocalist had just shaved her head… And I can vouch that they’re all lovely folks.

Hope you like the new look blog. I’ll try to fill it with suitably dynamic and interesting content to justify the makeover. I’m at sixes and sevens a bit at the minute, not knowing what the immediate future holds in terms of living arrangements and professional pursuits so I thought a change of blog interface would be a nice start to get me back into the swing of things before starting on a site for a Tapatian hospital and Andy’s furniture place. I’m going to try and resurrect the photoblog too.

New Year’s Eve was smashing, an excellently catered evening round Meg and Matt’s. It wasn’t even spoilt by the lads’ team losing the boys vs. girls Scene It, interactive DVD movie quiz thing. Yesterday was also fun what with a bbq in the afternoon for James’ b-day and then chillin’ and snoozin’.

Eh well, time for another coffee, to finally unpack and get this show off the road in general.

Well, if you can fit more into 3 weeks that we did with my folks, then you have my admiration. From Ajijic to Zacatecas we did pretty well what with sight-seeing, gastronomy, celebrations, social events and even cultural “stuff”.

Yesterday we planned to go to Magdalena to see the opal mines, but the Guachimontones in Teuchitlán proved to be a full day out in themselves. They date from around 1,500 BC and since no writings have been discovered are a fairly mysterious bunch of ruins. For the equinox (incidently, clocks go forward tonight I think, well they do in the States anyroad, and Mexico tends to be in sync just to harmonise business hours…*EDIT* nope, 1st of April…) there’s going to be all kinds of celebrations over that way. Get there by heading out of Gwod towards Tequila on the carretera libre and taking the Ameca turn off, then about 2km after Tala turn off right at the Pemex, and follow the signs to Teuchitlán and beyond up into the hills. We’ll definitely be back if only to try taste the wares at the pulqueria on the way to the site…

So, here’s a very public MUCHISIMAS GRACIAS to Mum and Dad from Sita and me for what I hope were mutually beneficial holidays giving us the chance to see no end of places we certainly wouldn’t have had the funds to visit and all in the finest of company. Have a lovely time with Sally, Martin, Atticus and the buns and we’ll skype yas soon 😀

In addition to the hour+ of slideshows set to music DVD (available from all good record shops) everything’s backed up over at Flickr… Tulum and thereabouts here and then Weeks 2 and 3 (Ajijic, Tlaquepaque, Tonalá, Zacatecas, La Quemada, Tequila, y mucho más…) here.