I’ve officially given up on the Tapatian Scrabble Association

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)

You turn your back for 10 minutes, then the next thing you know your kitchen and other parts of the house change colour.
We’re in two minds about whether to leave it white or paint the same colour on the door area. Comment if you’ve really nothing better to do…

Eureka! As in I’ve done it, not found it… Gwyn’s Blog- Self-absorption Central now has an RSS feed so I won’t have to change to a more modern blog engine after all. Thank you to Mensink.nl and hostsave.com for your help along the way.

What’s an RSS feed? Well, click here for a detailed explanation from WiseGeek.com. It’s something Flash asked me about a few posts ago and I said I’d look into it… so if you’re using firefox (and if not, why not?) you can add a “live bookmark” by clicking the orange icon on the bottom right of the window. That’ll add an entry in your bookmarks folder called ‘Gwyn’s Blog- Self-absorption Central’ and have the last 10 posts always listed.

There’s probably more to it than that, but I’m just starting up with this new fangled technology. I’ll try not to post too often about it. Business as usual will resume tomorrow…

Your Oscar Bingo Cards
All kinds of new plans for the future were discussed this weekend, unfortunately lack of anonymity prevents me posting them here. So the only ‘news’ to post is that i went to Berkeley yesterday for a change, bought some 2nd hand books at Moe’s excellent bookshop on Telegraph came home & watched a video with young sita. Today has been spent researching XML and catching up on a bit of TV… Nathan Barley, Fry and Laurie and Look Around You. Nothing too dynamic really.

I applied for 1 job and 2 gigs today… The job is for temping with more localis(z)ation stuff with UK English for which I’m eminently qualified. The gigs are for web design stuff which I’m qualified for but competing with hundreds of other people locally and internationally in the middle of a deepening economic disaster. Fingers crossed one of them’ll bear fruit.

Also picked another radish from the garden and took some pix…

Righty, off to Starbucks for a coffee. I just received my latest $5 from filling in surveys on how much I hate US Cable TV at epoll.com …

Photos on flickr from yesterday’s refreshingly dog-less walk. Gorgeous Autumn weather we’re getting now…

So much to post about last week, so I’ll probably end up not writing anything so just in case, highlights included: putting the world to rights with Roberto, fine eats and DIY with Martin & Sally, painless tax filing with Sally’s accountant, catching up with lots of friends and family, Guelaguetza (sp?) oaxacan restaurant in central LA, Frolf with Matt (FRisbee goLF, although I’m told only newbies call it that as it sounds far too precious), red zinfandel comparative tasting with Meg, boozing with Liz, and hassle-free immigration and dog repatriation. and more I probably forgot. So that’s that for now, on to what inspired me to blog today.

Toilet repairs.

So the downstairs toilet wasn’t filling/flushing right, so I had to repeat the DIY shop experience I had in Santa Cruz a few years back when I went to buy a replacement part. I spent a few minutes explaining what I needed with hand gestures and everything, a flapper thing basically, and the bloke got what I was after. It’s called a flapper. Today I went to Santa Tere to a Tlapaleria (DIY shop, more common than the Spanish Spanish, Ferreteria) and had the same conversation in Spanish. Turns outs it’s called un Flapper. Things they never teach you at school…

Atticus is settling in. He’s going to be sleeping in my office to keep him from barking at the various sounds that occur during the night here (road sweepers, door-to-door salesmen, Ralphy Gutierrez, peripatetic mariachi bands, etc.) He met Juan, the water bloke today and barked away at him. (Bonafont’s just hiked the price up to 23 pesos a garafon and I think Atticus sensed that…) but I’ll forgive him anything after his exemplary behaviour on the plane and in the airports yesterday. As I wrote that he started barking up a storm again… ah well.

For proper blogging, there’s always M & D’s travelogue over at ChiliCatInLa.blogspot.com they’re in Oaxaca… And that’s all for today, glad to be back home again and looking forward to catching up with the Guanatos crowd and seeing all the semana santa shenanigans. Hasta pronto!