The Zummerzet County Gazette, Taunton’s local rag is shoving the occasional video up on its website. Deathly dull each one, but 10 out of 10 for effort. So the this year’s Pullitzer for investigative journalism seems assured for “Are children watching too much TV?”…

In other news, Flickr PhotoTour #3 is in the planning stages. I’m not organising this one, I put up a poll to help Laura who’s in charge. Tlaquepaque’s looking like the favourite right now. It’s a shame, but the more imaginative suggestions were vetoed because they’ll look better after the rainy season (probably October at this rate…). Still Tlaquepaque’s got lots to offer photographically so it’s all good.

I’ve not posted since Saturday so here’s a summary: Saturday morning I walked to the Tianguis Cultural trying to find T-shirt printing shops on the way to no avail, took a few photos along the way:

Then in the afternoon went to see Spiderman III with Sita which is an overlong mess of a film, see the review here. After that, barbecued arrachera and Jose came round, then later Fernando, Ana and their dog, Tuna, whom Atticus tried to have his wicked way with. Makes a change from Jose’s leg…

Sunday, tranquilo, shopping, interwebbery, and checking out a new dvd rental place, Sala B, nearby which has a fine selection of films and no website. Yet… Grabbed An Inconvenient Truth (also reviewed) and Sita went for the truly, truly DIRE Sex and the City Season 4. One of these days I’ll publish a rant against that particular crime against good telly.

Monday, shopping for books, groceries, this that and t’other then making pizza from scratch and heading out to the airport for M and Sunny D’s triumphant return.

Today is still unfolding… websites, translations… stuff…

Out of interest does anyone reading have a Canon Rebel XTi, and if so, what’s the standard 18-55 lense like? I’m researching my next digital SLR camera purchase…

When we went to Tequila on Sunday, Sita noticed a book on display “taken from the new Town History Archive”. This was news to us. So we went back yesterday as it turns out they opened this archive about 6 months ago after months of painstaking cleaning, sorting and databasing of a huge amount of documents that had turned up in various unused rooms of government buildings around the town. Some were in pretty wretched states because of centuries of storage in dank, wormy cellars.

They make for interesting reading once you get your head around the handwriting, antiquated abbreviations and general damage. Added to that, they were big on saving paper and the writing from the other side tends to bleed through to the other. None the less it’s a minor miracle they’re legible at all… The lady in charge of the archive was incredibly helpful and spent a good few hours tellings us about the history of the archive, how to use the database and even read some of the documents to us. I’m currently uploading the video of her reading one of the documents to YouTube, check out my YouTube Channel to see if it’s there yet…

One document from 1705 or so was a letter signed by all the neighbours of a drunk landowner complaining about his behaviour and addiction to the aguardiente (firewater (probably from sugar cane rather than agaves)).

Another team of researchers are looking for evidence that Jose Cuervo isn’t the oldest tequila maker in the world after all, despite their slick promotional video’s claims… I hope they find it, they deserve to be taken down a notch or two…

Anyroad, long story short, there’s a wealth of info that’s going to help young Sita flesh out the remaining chapters of her PhD thesis, and we’ll probably be going back and donning latex gloves many more times. Which is a good thing and no mistake. At least they don’t make you wear hairnets.

After carne en su jugo, a torta ahogada and an on-the-house margarita in our favourite eatery we went round Columpio’s to drop off the photos and a few UK coins. They’d just finished cutting the tips off the agaves in their fields (which I think has to do with concentrating the sugars in the heart of the agave) and were in full swing roasting agave pias. The owner invited us in for drinks but we had to decline as it was getting late (past Atticus’s feeding time) and so we promised we’d be back again in the near future. “Qué Dios les bendiga” he wished us as we drove off through the beautiful agave-studded landscape…

The importance of learning a second language… or even just a few useful words.

Locals in Toledo, Spain heard an American screaming for “Help” in English and thought he was shouting “Pepe” over and over again. It wasn’t until some multilingual German passers-by heard him that the fire brigade was called and he was fished out of the river Tajo after 3 hours of rope action. He was fine by all accounts afterwards and treated for hypothermia.

Help is “Socorro” just for the record. As in succour. A bummer actually, cos I can’t pronounce my double Rs in Spanish… I’ll probably alternate it with ¡Ayúdame! (Help me!) when I’m stuck down a hole.

Daniel’s gone for the weekend, but according to a search “Fördern” might well be Help! in German. Please don’t sue if it isn’t mind…

Just played my first game with the new SOWPODS Scrabble dictionary. I managed FE and ZA just now and still lost. So to play ZZZ, you’d need the Z and two blanks… I won’t rule it out. My scrabble rating’s through the floor at the moment, in some ways that’s OK cos the pressure’s off, but I enjoyed my time in the dizzy heights of the 1100s.

I’d like to know what these new words mean mind:

New 2-Letter Words
FE JA KI ZA

New 3-Letter Words
AGS AHI AKA ALF APO APP AUA AUE BES BOI BRU CAA CAG CAZ DEG DIF DOF DOY DUH ECO EDS EMO EVO EXO FAA FAE FEG FES HOM IGG IWI JAI JOL KAK KIS LOU MEE MIC MYC NEG ONO ONY OUS PAV PLU REO SAV SIF SIK SOM TEC TEX TIX UMU URP VAG WAI WOF YAD YAE YAG ZAS ZEP ZOL ZZZ

Wordlist via: TileFish

Courtesy of Monica: The Random Kitten Generator… and while we’re on the subject, why not visit the Infinite Cat Project for all your recursive feline needs.

I’m looking into more local options, but I reckon this looks rather nice on a T-Shirt… CafePress want to charge 5 bucks p&p (or s&h as they say in gringolandia) but I’m sure I can do better than that in Santa Tere…

Yesterday I went to see Hollywoodland with young Sita, and there’s some new brief reviews over on the film review page and then Chili’s for supper. You’d think an American chain restaurant impersonating Mexican cuisine wouldn’t do too well here. Wrong. It’s all about the PORTIONS. I still feel vaguely full.

Lots of traffic arriving at this blog searching for “300 Sparta animated gifs” … I hate to disappoint so Pssst here’s one…

Monica and “OC” D are heading back to the Bay Area tomorrow to fill up on ethnic food before May’s constant stream of visitors. And I think we’re heading to Tequila. Someone comment tomorrow at around 11am GDL time to remind me to pick up the photos on the way out. Many thanks…

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.

This handy little video gives a beginner’s guide to RSS. Anyroad, I was struck by a photo of the Panteon from a couple of days ago and how much it looked like the RSS icon, I swivelled it a bit and hey presto, subscribe with this artesanal feed icon:

Edit 1: D’oh, just when I’m publicising it my permalinks are down, probably to do with having 3 blogs on the site. Our technicians are working on it…

Edit 2: Our technicians fixed the problem at 09.56 hours Mexican time. Despite not having a clue how to manage the .htaccess file.

Edit 3: Have a load of other one click links to add this nonsense to your favourite feed reader:

(but stop using bloody America On Line, please)

have already got their heads round how to do this…

Sita, Monica and I nipped over to Tequila again this afternoon. We planned to look up the Columpio folks and give them some photos from last time and some UK coins but I left them on the table when we left, so that’ll have to be next time. We’ll probably be back within a week though as there’s some new archives that Sita’s just discovered. Luckily I remembered me camera. Have an eyeful here of the set. And again, here’s me 3 faves:

Just for the record, the tequila museum’ll set you back 15 pesos, unless you’re a student or over 60, and Mundo Cuervo (a state of the art tequila manufacturing theme park) is MX$100 including a tiny little margarita at the end of the tour and a few samples. It’s a good introduction to all things agave but was a bit too slick and corporate for my tastes, it lacks the enthusiastic-newcomer feel of La Cofradia and olde worlde charm of Columpio. And there’s the whole Hair Net Issue…

PS… 6,066 photos / 27,657 views … 😀

… but here’s a video I found via VivirGuadalara.com for people who want to see the cows, but suffer from attention deficit disorder: Cow Parade #1 and shorter but equally frenetic Cow Parade #2 de Guanatos, Mex. Just because you have the tools to edit videos like this doesn’t necessarily mean you should use it. Or you risk it looking like a Kenny Everett sketch from 1983

Now I’m definitely off to Tequila. With my camera. And no dog. Might reach the 6,000 photos uploaded on Flickr benchmark today…

It went brilliantly. Obviously it took a while for everyone to turn up, gringos first (myself included) then Mexicans, which meant I’d had 3 beers before we headed off… But I was well impressed with the turn out- 12 Flickreros. El Charro Negro beat me to the T-shirt idea and was already wearing his self-designed Flickrwear. Once we got chatting, everyone seemed to have at least one friend in common (in the real world), and they were all a lovely bunch of people. And generally all sporting fearsome looking expensive cameras (I want one…). Don Charro also had a pinhole camera mind (today’s international pinhole photography day, folks). So the Panteón was looking its usual faded best, we just timed it right because on Tuesday it’s shutting down for repairs for as long as it takes. I hope it opens in time for the Day of the Dead (though this year, I fancy going to Michoacán for that)…

After a couple of hours in the Panteon, we ambled to a gothic church then back to the market, then the cantina La Cava again then back home to feed the dog and have him pull me round the block a few times. Sita and co of course weren’t around when I got home since they were off in Chapala at some high class country club, paddling, sunning themselves and barbecuing with Hugo y familia. I’m sure Monica’ll blog something about it in the near future.

So I started a thread in the VivirGuadalajara forum for everyone on the tour to put links to their photos from yesterday. Here’s the link to my FotoTour Set in the meantime, and here are some of my faves:

Today, another trip to Tequila… I’m considering forgoing the Jose Cuervo tour and just taking Atticus to see the Agave fields. He’s very big on UNESCO World Heritage Sites…

…for tomorrow, we photograph.

If this takes off, I’m going to get T-shirts printed…

… but no time to write. Been busy putting this together today: early stages, etc… agaveweb.com/shop (I’m not putting an active link in just yet, don’t want it indexed before the actual domain). It’s, er, very Santa Cruz…

(Keane, last night, doing their thing…)

and it’s not April Fool’s… interesting article via boingboing.net

Atticus is the black sheep of the family…

* EDIT * Saturday 10am: If it’s too good to be true. It usually is.

She’s hilarious… I have nothing to add.

SFTLOP (Sorry For The Lack Of Posts) this week, I’ve been busy and then some. Several translations, proof readings, Santa Cruz’s latest drive to get people fit, other site updates and wooing potential clients have been keeping me out of mischief. That and the CRUSHING heat… Only 6-8 weeks or so to the rainy season and it can’t come soon enough…

I’ve watched a few more films this week, Pixar’s Cars, The Curse of the Yellow Flower, and last night, once again, Herbie- Fully Loaded. Reviews coming when I get a chance.

Further to Annelise’s comment a while back asking about the quality of Mexican desertsdesserts *edit* I blame my English teachers in Taunton School…* . They’re great. The most common type is a creme brulee type affair called flan, and a local variation on the theme called a jericalla. Delicious. Especially when made by Hugo’s wife, Patricia…

But there’s also quite a range of other cakes and stuff prepared by local pastelerias. In the interests of investigative journalism, we grabbed some on the way home from Pasteleria OK 4 blocks from our house after an Indian meal in Goa.

There’s a chance I’m doing a site for a local pasteleria too. I’ll take my payment in strawberry tarts.

Tonight we’re going to see Keane in concert. It’ll be a change and I know a fair few of their songs. I know they’re not everyone’s cup of tea but there’s a fair few of us going and it’ll be a laugh. I’m prepared for it to not be as good as mi Shakira all those months ago, but I’m ready to be surprised.

Two days to the Tapatian Photo Tour, 1pm Saturday starting in La Cava, Pino Suarez and Herrera y Cairo, details here…

I’ve added another bell/whistle to the blog. If you’re commenting for the first time (go on, you know you want to), you receive an email thanking you and inviting you back. I’m not sure if it’s working, so if you’re new to these pages or have been lurking for years without commenting, try it out and let me know if it’s operational. Thanks 🙂 I found out about the comment-relish plugin via the good people at the WordPress podcast .

Dad’s posted some great Grandma pix over at Flickr. I keep thinking of happy times with my grandparents and might just write another post on those one of these days.

And that’s all for now. I’m signing off and moving my computer to a cooler room, it’s 9:45 am and the sun’s starting to leak into my office. Even Atticus has sloped off into better ventilated rooms…

It’s very tricky to photograph jet black dogs in very sunny conditions, especially when they never look at the camera… Sita and Monica photograph well though. And they pampered Mr. Cus to bits yesterday afternoon with special Barbie-Princess-themed “Champú para perros”. He enjoyed it more than the photos appear to show…

After all that fun, Jose came round and made his trademark dish: Bocado de Cielo. It’s billed as a lasagne with tortillas instead of pasta and jumbo prawns instead of meat. But actually, every lasagne ingredient goes out the window and is replaced with chilis or manchego cheese and other stuff, and what you end up with really has nothing to do with lasagne. But is delicious. Jana and Victor came round too and showed us some of their photos from Ecuador. A good night…

…if their recording studio only had a $9.95 microphone, a cheap guitar with rusty strings and a singer they pulled off the street…
Link to mp3 here… (the embedded version slowed down the whole page, so so much for that…)

…The rattling noise is the microphone tumbling around inside the guitar on 3 tracks… And the singing, well, that’s as good as it gets I’m afraid. Here’s the original on YouTube in case you need reminding that it is actually quite a good song.

Here’s the equipment:

And while I’m posting, here’s our friendly neighbourhood bucket-o-fruit-and-chile-powder delivery bloke: