More…

Improve your photography in 60 seconds. Or slightly more if English isn’t your first language. They range from the obvious to the spurious to the useful (The composition bit was handy). Anyway, just sharing the joy.

Sita’s back and a bit jet/sociology lagged, we went out to Coscafe in Chapultepec last night, which was a novelty. Nice food, youngish crowd, gabachos aplenty.

Also started the sign up for possibly my penultimate Flickr PhotoTour, to Tequila. Ah the possibilities. Talking of which, someone used a photo of mine in their blog. Always makes me happy that.

Am deciding between the following films while Sita has a nap, London to Brighton, El Guardaespaldas 2, Madeinusa, and Venganza de una dama, having made my weekly pilgrimage to Santa Tere market… If you subscribe to my RSS feed, are at your computer right this minute and possess lightning fast typing skills you may just influence my decision in the comments 😀

via BoingBoing: 70 per cent of respondents said they feared US officials more than terrorists or criminals. Well, you know my thoughts on this…

Have a look at this lovely site, I’ve mentioned it before, but now it’s rehomed at forgivenessletters.com. The idea is people send in their anonymous letters asking for forgiveness and they get published in a blog stylee. Then the best ones get included in a book. I’m curious to see whether this will take off. It was a chance to include one of my favourite poems too. Catch it before it’s updated…

Yesterday we went round Amour Fou for a BBQ which was grand and to return 21 Grams and Ghost Dog. Lovely crowd of people there as always. Today, we’re off to t’cinema I believe…

Ooh, and we had our tree lopped for the princely sum of 40 gringo bucks. I got the angle wrong on the “after” photo so it doesn’t look like much cos there’s another tree behind it. Needless to say the tree “surgeons” just climbed the tree with a machete hacked about like crazy and then drove off with the branches in tow. One out of two for Health and Safety ain’t bad… They seemed sober anyway.

I’m well behind on my film reviews. One of these mornings… I highly recommend Sunlight (2007) by the way, see it in all its glory in the cinema if possible.

because of cloud cover and lack of organisation. But this photo from Tapatian photographer, pleautaud makes up for it a bit: see it in large for amazing detail. I don´t think you have to be a Flickr member to see it…

Posts in my native tongue to return “pronto”…

Estaban dos nios jugando fútbol en un parque en Guadalajara cuando uno de ellos es atacado por un feroz perro “Rotweiller”.

Pensando rápido, el otro nio arranca rápido una tabla de una cerca y le da un golpe en el cuello del perro, matándolo instantáneamente.

Un reportero que se encontraba cerca observa la escena y corre a entrevistar al valiente nio mexicano y escribe en su libreta:
“VALIENTE FAN DE LAS CHIVAS SALVA A SU AMIGUITO DE LAS FAUCES DE AGRESIVO PERRO”

a.. Yo no le voy a las chivas, replica el pequeo héroe.
b.. Perdona, como estamos en Guadalajara asumí que le ibas a las chivas.

Entonces escribió: “VALIENTE FAN DEL ATLAS SALVA A SU COMPAÑERO DE TERRIBLE ATAQUE”

a.. Tampoco le voy al Atlas le dice el nio…
b.. Asumí que estando en Guadalajara le irías a las Chivas o al Atlas. Entonces, ¿A quién le vas?
a.. Le voy al América le dice el nio…

Entonces el reportero escribió: “CHILANGO MANIATICO ASESINA A INDEFENSA MASCOTA DE FAMILIA JALISCIENSE

It doesn’t half take it out of you, being ill. I’m way past the worst of it but still have a slightly green tinge to my complexion and all the abdominal muscles I used recreating scenes from The Exorcist on Saturday night are aching like buggery right now. Still that’s one more strain of gastroenteritis to which I’m now immune, and one more torta ahogada vendor to strike off my list of suppliers… I made it to work this morning and got a fair bit done but when the internet disappeared I came home to carry on working.
Anyway I’ll try to stay clear of the subject just in case you’re eating, or thinking of eating.

Friday night we went out to Polibio again with an increasingly drunken band of folks. Had the same dish as last time and t’was delicious. Saturday was spend on web designery and paying bills in TelMex and Oxxo. TelMex have a handy machine that puts your balance on the screen and then you feed it bank notes/bills until you’ve covered your debt and then it spits out a receipt. If you’d like to collect Mexican swearwords, hang out in that area for half an hour with a notebook and you’ll hear more variations on chingar than in your average cantina, as everyone from business types to little old ladies try to get the machine to accept their money… Jose came round early evening for a photo trip to El Retiro and other barrios. I’m not sure how I’ve managed to be here without seeing this really old part of town. Definitely worth a visit. The light wasn’t perfect for the photos but there’s a few nice shots I’ll publish to flickr presently. Then we had a swift pint in La Fuente, then the aforementioned torta ahogada and tostada de lomo in La Alemana. We headed back and Sita had made cookies. I’d complained to Jose that there are no bars in Santa Teresita (the barrio next to where we live) nor El Retiro so he set out to prove us wrong by taking us to a bar called El Oso not far from our house. There was a football play-off going on there and one of the clients at the bar’s son/nephew/summink was the goal keeper and the atmosphere was grand. Unfortunately at this point I started to feel ill, and after demanding to go home things got worse. We watched the Eurovision Song Contest on telly on the Spanish Channel, TVE, I already knew who was going to win because of Flash’s blog, but Sita didn’t so there was some tension. It’s not the same without Wogan prattling on, but the fact a Finnish glam/death/metal group walked away with the prize was fantastic. Ireland’s entry “Every song is a cry for love” coincided with my first bout of gastric unpleasantness though. Coincidence?