Dresser: $450

Quietish day today, thanks for asking. Tanya, becky, scott and naiomi came round last night for another in our series of sophisticated dinner parties. at the end of the evening tanya and I finished a game of scrabble we’d started last monday at sita’s basketball game on me pda and we managed a draw. how often does that happen? very good use of the board too…

i bought meself Zuma and downloaded a demo of Text Twist too for the Palm which is grand. (Them there links’ll take you to the online versions which are fun enough too). So when we were walking Mr.A today I could stand outside Safeway and Blockbuster with him playing PDA games whilst sita shopped.

A friend of ours, Val, roped me into playing backing guitar for a song she’s going to sing at the 2005 Santa Cruz Queer Youth Leadership Awards. So today we auditioned at the diversity centre and got through to the next round… I’m doing the translation for the event again. It’s a laugh and all for a good cause. They wanted to know what we’d be wearing for the event and thought it strange we hadn’t the first clue. It’s not till mid april for christ’s sake… i’m thinking a cute little black number… but anyroad, val and her daughter Sage, took us out for lunch at the Walnut Avenue Bistro. Which was well nice… I’m starting to be a bit fussier about me food these days… a mixture of stress, more chewing than usual and old age has brought on Temporo-Mandibular Disorder whereupon my jaw is trying to escape from its hinges so i’m all about nice soft food and small little bites right now.

Young Mr.Craggs has been back in touch after I forwarded him an article from the taunton times about someone impaling themself on the gates of Vivary Park in Taunton. Which has some very similar details to an accident he himself had himself about 10 years ago… and that’s stirred up some interest in these here pages from the bristol, ahem, posse. Gav’s in Melbourne of course, now. I think i knew that…

Mother’s day tomorrow- Thanks for the reminder, Annelise, and me Grandma’s birthday any day now too. Am off to watch Curb your enthusiasm series 3. Couldn’t be collectively arsed to get to the cinema for The Aviator. Maybe next week. Possibly more blogging tomorrow. Got lots of translations to do. Stay in touch, like. Fond regards…

A couple of weeks ago I got thoroughly fed up with WalMart, it’s the nearest supermarket to our house and Guadalajara’s only supplier of Portabella Mushrooms (casi regaladas). It was over a special offer on Heineken, but I digress. Anyroad, I’ve been boicotting it for 2 wks, but I just saw this on cartalk.com’s site and think I’m going to change my tactics….

The following letter was sent to a long-time patron of a local Target store. After receiving this letter, she vowed that she would NEVER take her husband shopping with her again!

January 12, 2006

Re: Mr. Bill Fenton
Multiple Complaints

Dear Mrs. Fenton,

Over the past six months, your husband, Mr. Bill Fenton has been causing quite a commotion in our store. We cannot tolerate this type of behavior and have considered banning the entire family from shopping in any of our stores. We have documented all incidents on our video surveillance equipment.

Three of our clerks are attending counseling from the trouble your husband has caused. All complaints against Mr. Fenton have been compiled and are listed below.

15 Things Mr. Bill Fenton has done while his spouse is shopping:

1. June 15: Took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in people’s carts when they weren’t looking.

2. July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.

3. July 7: Made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the restrooms.

4. July 19: Walked up to an employee and told her in an official tone, ‘Code 3’ in housewares….. and watched what happened.

5. August 4: Went to the Service Desk and asked to put a bag of M&M’s on layaway.

6. September 14: Moved a ‘CAUTION – WET FLOOR’ sign to a carpeted area.

7. September 15: Set up a tent in the camping department and told other shoppers he’d invite them in if they’ll bring pillows from the bedding department.

8. September 23: When a clerk asks if they can help him, he begins to cry and asks Why can’t you people just leave me alone?’

9. October 4: Looked right into the security camera; used it as a mirror, and picked his nose.

10. November 10: While handling guns in the hunting department, asked the clerk if he knows where the antidepressants are.

11. December 3: Darted around the store suspiciously loudly humming the “Mission Impossible” theme.

12. December 6: In the auto department, practiced his “Madonna look” using different size funnels.

13. December 18: Hid in a clothing rack and when people browse through, yelled “PICK ME!” “PICK ME!”

14. December 21: When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he assumes the fetal position and screams “NO! NO! It’s those voices again!!!!”

(And; last, but not least!) 15. December 23: Went into a fitting room, shut the door and waited a while; then, yelled, very loudly, “There is no toilet paper in here!”

Check back for updates on this… ; )

In other news… agaveweb.com/lens and 3 wks to the next road trip to gringolandia…

This will take about 10 minutes if you fancy it yourself… fill in the blanks for 80s lyrics. Slightly US-centric but i’m not bitter. Can you beat 79.5? … Matt, I throw down the gauntlet…

just watched a bolivian film called American Visa review coming shortly in the right hand column… It might be time to move this computer upstairs, i’m writing far too many entries of late…

Me iPaq is famous for its high quality, low light camera… Who was that masked man? That´ll be Fernando. And Javier´s Groucho…

How many times have I been to the Lucha Libre now? I´ve lost count to be honest. I´m starting to get a bit lucha fatigued, maybe cos of the inordinately long queues at the bar and the bloke who managed to tell me he wasn´t pushing in in front of me at the same exact time as ordering 2 beers with his nationally understood Mexican Hand Gestures… Git.

So anyway, I´ve got my computer back and it´s actually running better than ever. Thanks for your support and kind words during this trying time (Annelise & Dad 🙂 ) I spent a large part of yesterday watching progress bars crawl from left to right, but now I´ve more or less got the system as I wanted and can start working properly. It still sounds like a fridge with the temperature dial on -50 ºC though, but I´m going to get the parts on Ebay and after about 200 bucks should have a well behaved lappy back once again.

Alrighty, back to the grind. Hopefully in a few days I´ll be able to post a link to the fruits of my labours, and you can pick out some of the most expensive handcrafted jewellery Mexico has to offer.

PS Flickr tour #5/#6? to the Guachimontones on Sunday, meeting at 9am by the Arcos… Contact me for details!

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.

Bless’em– A storming mixed grill of stuffed pork, sausages, portabello mushrooms, fish, peppers, shrimps (prawns?) and more was ably served by Roberto & Maca last night. Looking and sounding well the lot of them. They’ve even found a barrio in L.A. that doesn’t look like a mall. Right next to LAX.