The easiest border crossing yet… The only question they asked was how long I’d been in Guadalajara and whether I’d got Montezuma’s Revenge. Bizarre… Still I prefer questions about my gastrointestinal health to the usual barrage of interrogation they usually give me. On the plane they didn’t have any customs forms in English so they gave me a Spanish one, which in my sleepy state I filled in in Spanish. The customs bloke read it and saw “Country where passport issued” was Inglaterra. He crossed it out with a red pen and wrote “Mexico”. I despair at the US educational system and their Spanish teachers…

There was banks of fog at LAX so we ended up landing in Ontario Airport and hanging around for half an hour then flying back to LAX, so we got in a bit late. However I managed to sleep through both take offs, both landings and even breakfast so it’s all good.

Sita’s got a lovely little apartment here 5 minutes from Trader Joe’s so I’ve been working on various websites and keeping myself to myself. Later today we’re Downey bound. Strange internet setup here that varies between blisteringly fast and zilch and my lappy won’t connect because of lingering issues with the IE7 beta thing I stupidly installed 6 months ago… But all’s well. Intermittant blogging to follow, cheers!

Practically Orange County as it happens…

What’s the duty-free limit on tequila again?

Working like a demented aichtee-emeller today, the microdosis apothecary site‘s now brimming with products and crappy pictures. Among them Hierba de Sapo (Toad Grass, or Eryngo), Essence of Umbilical Cord and Shark Cartilage (sp?). None of them will cure my lifetime affliction of sneezing when I see bright lights or eat strong mints. However, I’m happy to hear that I’m not alone! I am merely one of 25ish% of the population who suffers from (bit strong that, how’s about ‘experiences’) Photic Sneeze Reflex. Apparently it’s only really an issue if you’re a fighter pilot… All these years I’ve been overstimulating my trigeminal nerve without even knowing it. I bet Annelise is the only reader of this blog who’s heard of that particular ganglion…

I’m not at all sure about this microdosis malarky. Granted, vaccines are often small amounts of the thing you’re trying to gain resistence to. But I’m 99% sure you don’t feed anaemics blood to get them going again. Still, I’m just a humble hispanist so what do I know?

Pinguino Frog’s put up some more film recommendations, in Spanish, but he’s usually right on the money. If your Netflix queue needs livening up with some decent cinema, hie thee hence.

Alrighty, back to work. Hasta pronto…

To use a Californianism, I’m totally psyched! I’ve been a fan for quite a while. Guadalajara’s suddenly getting world class concerts. There was The Strokes the other day, and Franz Ferdinand, Slayer. And soon, Lila Downs, Julieta Venegas and er, Toto, coincidentally enough. Ooh, what to wear?

Here’s some photos from this afternoon’s wanderings round Zapopan with Victor, Jana & Megan. If you’re in the area and fancy seeing some world class photography of the low points of 2005/06 then the exhibition on now at the MAZ is highly recommended… The slideshow below uses a new fangled javascript thing, fingers crossed…

The strangest weather’s going on right now. Huge bolts of lightning arcing across the sky, no rain. And thunder that’s setting off car alarms. Feels very apocalyptic. We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto…

A couple of parties last night saved me from my French accordion evening. Even met some nice Germans. I spent a lot of the night speaking Spanish with immediate English translation and learning the occasional German word. None to beat schadenfreude nor “kartopelkopff” (phonetic), my all time favourites…

When I got home I watched part one of Steven Fry on manic depression. Looks to be a very good series that, recommended. And then Mock the Week. Jo Brand is certainly looking her age, yet that milky milky bloke (Hugh Dennis/Punt?) looks the same as 10 years ago…

Today I’ve been slaving over another ecommerce site. It’s looking as good as it ever will right now as the stock catalogue pictures of flowers and suchlike are very pretty. Unfortunately I’m going to have to replace them with 114 dubious images of which this one to the right is representative. So it’s downhill from here… I reckon they should splash out on some new pix, as it looks all too amateurish with these representations. Mind you I’ve never really been in the market for diluted dandelion droplets, so who’s to tell…

“Ir viento popa” To cruise along. Popa means the stern of a boat and if the wind’s (viento) coming at you that way then you’re making good speed. I’d not heard this phrase before but it was in a review in today’s Ocio (events listings magazine). Ocio itself means leisure, hence non-social scientists’ chide to sociologists, “Ociologos“.

Another word I liked, new this week, is “Sonsacar”, primarily for the alliteration of the S. Wordreference.com has it as:

sonsacar: verbo transitivo
1 (una información) to winkle out: se lo sonsacó a María, he coaxed it out of Maria
2 (dinero, un regalo, etc) to wheedle

But the times I’ve heard it here in Mexico, it seems to mean to lead someone astray. As in when you’re dragging someone away from their studies to take them on a pub crawl… They may protest “No tengo ganas” (I’m not in the mood), then you answer “Pues, las ganas se hacen!” (You create your own mood).

Ganas is a tricky one to translate… Depending on the context it has all kinds of meanings. I find translating it over literally as “urges” delivers the meaning well albeit in a semi-comical form.

No tengo ganas: I haven’t got any urges. (I’m not up for it).
Se me quitaron las ganas de comer: My urges to eat were taken from me. (I lost my appetite)
Tengo ganas de ver esta pelicula: I have urges to see this film. (I fancy watching this film)

As you can see, the day-to-day translation you use when living in a foreign country is a completely different system to formal translation…

Plans for tonight? Well, I wanted to go to the cinema, but there’s bugger all on. Even “Serpientes Abordo!” isn’t playing in the local megaplex. A cursory glance at the paper shows that over round the Pabellon Frances there’ll be live acordeon music at 5pm then later in the evening an “Electro-French” DJ… Let’s call that Plan F. Tomorrow at 5pm there’s a free tequila tasting (Cata) but at 7 I’m off round V & J’s for a sophisticated soiree of repartee and fine foods, so maybe not… Ay, so many options. I can feel a night of scrabble coming on…

Okay, maybe I’m 8 years late with this post. But holy crap what a film! And then some… I though Crash was powerful and complex but it seems puerile and crass next to this. Damn, damnity, damn. 5 Lulus and no mistake. Nice one, Tony Kaye, Ed Norton & co.

It dawned on me yesterday that I generally write me blog with a lot of piratisms. The personal pronoun ‘me’ instead of ‘my’ fr’instance. Makes sense, given the number of pirates from the West Country…

Anyroad, I’ve been working like a good’un the last couple of days. Between fixing OSCommerce to work on the latest version of PHP on the server, actionscripting away at the Flash site which is now weighing in at around 2.7meg, even knocked off a Sp-En 900 word translation last night. And still had time for a bit of scrabble and played a fine few games last night on SINGLE mode. There are various options for choosing your opponents. Which dictionary you’re going to use. SOWPODS is the one for Brits, Aussies, Kiwis and the occacional Canadian and TWL is the American one. Then the type of game you’ll play, VOID, where the computer checks your word is valid and if it ain’t then you get another go, SINGLE, where you can put any word you like unless you’re challenged by the other player, and if it’s not valid you miss a go and variations on those themes. And of course the length of game. Anything from 3 minutes a side (which I can usually do, but need my caffeine) to 1hr. Anyroad, I prefer VOID but last night had a really enjoyable 5 SINGLE games with DrJen, an Australian. SINGLE can be a bugger because I have the American words stuck in my mind from playing on my PDA and so you think everything’s hunky dory then you’re challenged and you end up losing. Surely ‘oafing”s a word… apparently not, though. Anyroad, I’ve still got a 4 figure rating at the end of the day so all’s well and that…

Not sure what today will bring, but I’m guessing my laptop will feature prominently. I still try to get out even if it’s just to get tacos or coffee. Maybe a jaunt downtown. Back to LALAland in the v.near future for a week or so I’m going to enjoy walking while I still can…

Kitten CanonSept 19th: Talk Like a Pirate Day. Me timbers.

I also have to recommend Penn and Teller’s Bullshit series which has found its way to google videos. Your one-stop shop for libertarian and atheist common sense diatribes. Very handy to have if you recently cancelled your cable for example… Avast, me hearties.

Very difficult to light, and probably not for sale any time soon in the European Union…

Yesterday was grand for many reasons, I discovered a new Sunday market and a 2 new cantinas (1 that opens late, La Cava), watched El Santo Vs. Los Jinetes de Terror at a private screening, shouted at los of Luchadores in the Coliseo, had excellent tacos from 3 different places, hung out with sound peeps from Friday’s shenanigans, went to a part of town I’d never been to (Atamejec, i think), and even got some work done in the morning. Go me!

Anyroad, back to the Flashing… the adobe/macromedia kind, that is.

Another good night… Suffice to say today I’m not answering the phone nor checking my mail… Let alone going on the trip to Tequila with the Alemanes. R & R is very much in order.

I even danced. And I never dance… A v.v. fun party last night and no mistake. Even spoke a fair amount of French which was pretty impressive considering the decibels. Fave bit: jumping around in the kitchen to Cafe Tacuba’s Ingrata with new found mates.

Today has been low-key, but all the same I just had a successful meeting about various sites’ progress and have another one in the offing for a herbal organic homeopathic remedy online store, which should prove interesting… On the way back from the office I saw Los Arcos (huge Tapatian monument) was open and went up the 80 odd stairs to have a gander at the city from above. It was free except for the 1 peso binocular machine things. I now understand where they’re hiding the 4 million odd inhabitants. I took a few photos with my PDA while listening to podcasts on it (that little gadget never ceases to amaze me). I’ve said it before but Gwod doesn’t feel like a city. Just wandering along today I met three people in the street that I knew.

So tonight we’re meeting up here for a few chelas (tinnies) before seeing what the centre has to offer. After the grito de dolores “Mexicanos, ¡viva México!” there’s another fiesta hosted by some Germans we’re going to crash if I have the stamina, as like I said, I’m on a pretty punishing schedule between designing stuff and socialising and I’m starting to feel my 31.666666666 years… More “news” as and when it happens.

And not for producing evil smiley ads.

Some of them even start screeching at you when you mouse over them these days. There must be a firefox extension to nuke them before they load…

Today’s been a pretty successful day of template adaptation for the design site. Still lots of bugs and things but I really feel I’m learning the ropes pretty well through experimentation and the odd quick google for ‘How in flipping hell do I get such and such a button in Flash to stop pissing around and do what I want’. here’s the before and (still heavily in progress) after. I’m told that Flash has come a long way in terms of accessibility but that’s something I’ll have to leave for later. Right now this would not pass for web design in the US or UK and would leave you ready to be sued. Just like Target. Also as pretty as the site is, it weighs in at 2 meg plus of download, which strikes me as somewhat de trop for the dial-up centric Mexican audience they’re going for. To get it indexed by search engines will be a nightmare. And it comes in all guns blazing with muzak which I’ve never been fond of. Even if you can choose which muzak you want at the bottom of the page. I’ll stick to HTML with the occasional flash element… even still the customer is always right. And I’ve got 3 Flash-based projects on the go.

Plans, you ask? Well, there’s meant to be a soiree tonight courtesy of Pocilga Beat, let’s see if that comes to summink. Always glad to meet new people in this sprawling metropolis. People are slowly adding themselves to the list for nocturnal boozing it up tomorrow in the streets and culminating with the cry of independance at 2am in the centre and fireworks and all that. My camera’s not too clever when it comes to night photos, but I’ll risk taking it in case I get another chance at a photo like this one:

So that’s tonight and tomorrow. Saturday, shall be a day of rest and web design. Sunday, if Javier is to be believed, shall be a Lucha Libre outing. Javier & a handful of Germans are watching an El Santo film, then heading off to the Coliseo and I’ve been asked along. I rarely plan 4 days ahead, but i hope that comes to fruition. La vida es buena.

I omitted to blog that lately my scrabble scores have gone through the floor, but that changed last night when I was on a roll. I finished watching The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) around 1am, then thought I could have a quick game before bed. One turned into 20 (these are 5 minutes a side games) and before I knew it the dawn was threatening to break and I realised I’d be knackered the next day. Also I’d slipped back to the wrong side of 1000. At least I’m not like the freaks who play scrabble first thing when they get up. I wait at least an hour… Anyroad, I took the opportunity to try and ring New Zealand where it was 8pm though, but Anne and Stu weren’t in…

So I’m a little fragile today and need a siesta of the highest order. Back to the film though, T3BOME was excellent. If I find myself with a spare moment I’ll rush off a review. 4.5 Lulus, I reckon…

Today: honing my Flash skillz on Intangible ready to do some template adapting for these peeps and that’ll be all before an early night. I’m thinking 8:30…

I think I remember this bloke as a kid drawing Paris buildings, he’s come a long way…

It reminds me of Borges‘ short story, Funes el Memorioso (spanish, english, english wikipedia entry). Borges’ fictional encounter with a man who is blessed/cursed with a memory that remembers everything in minute detail even the position of the clouds at a given moment.

Plans today: Redesign bloody agaveweb with me new corporate branding…
Explore the possibilities offered by this legally dubious web 2.0 website that appears to have everything, after a quick test with Senser, Black Box Recorder, Bomb the Bass and Art Brut…