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?

I’ve been a bit poorly of late. Nothing serious, but nothing pleasant neither. Normal service to return tomorrow hopefully… And who knew Pedialyte actually tastes OK?

The title’s a Father Ted reference, just for the record… Anyroad, another lovely meal at Goa last night, Guadalajara’s only, premier Indian restaurant. The menus there on Flickr if you click the picture and go a few slides forward or back… No Kingfisher lager, but the Chilean Red’s very drinkable. And there’s a chance I’m doing their website in a few weeks time… César, si se te antoja un curry apúntame a la lista y vamos. Te invito unas samosas vegetarianas.

Through skype’s pixie magic I phoned me grandma this morning, we hadn’t spoken in months and it was lovely to chat. 8 minutes, no less, which is probably the longest call I’ve ever had with her on the blower. Bless her, she’s not been out of the house in 3 weeks and sounded a bit out of sorts but I think the call cheered us both up. Email me with your phone number if you fancy a chat, anyone. Or as I’ve mentioned, download skype and live the free internet telephony dream.

Tango’s remade that balls-bouncing-down-a-San-Francisco-street ad with fruit. In Swansea no less, and if the website mentioned below isn’t some kind of viral marketing scam, then they’re more upset about it than the usual goings on round Town Hill, like joy-riding, drug-dealing and armed assaults…

The Community At Large » Tango Bravia Commercial

Ok after reading this paragraph the Swansea site’s a hoax:

Meetings

Our next meeting will be happening on Sunday, April 9.

The main topic will be the launch of the Swansea North Yodelling Club. We’ll be taking on our friends from our twin city Güttstag Nord, Austria. We hope this is the start of an annual event celebrating two nations with great choral heritage.

We hope to see-oo-ee-oo-ee-ooooo all there!

Everyone is welcome to come. If you’d like to attend a meeting but haven’t done so before please read the Contact Us section of our site to find out how to get to St. Martha’s Parish and what’s expected of those who want to participate.

Why not learn how to yodel before you come?

Blimey I on bert’s phone. Might explain later, just testing the system… RSS…

*edit* OK, I shall explain just had a long chat with bert and he mentioned his mobile phone could handle RSS feeds and now he’s got my blog on his phone. It’s one of those days for technological firsts.

So César, Sita and I are off to the Indian place again this evening- see you there? And while I’m at it, thanks for all your comments. I’m indebted for you for noticing those broken links. Much obliged and it’s nice to have it all delivered with the perfect english of a graduate of the Red Dwarf Academy of Language.

But I bought skypeout credits and can now call UK landlines for 2p a minute and the States for 1p from my computer. How cool is that? Victims today: Chris in Bristol, Bert in London, Beth in Taunton and apparently (sarita’s signed in on my account right now chatting away to) Tanya in SC, CA.

More websitery: www.borke.com.mx is more or less ready to have the text shoved into it and stocked up with products. Then they’d like some huge banners designed to decorate their Puerto Vallarta lot.

I’m doing a bilingual Wedding planning site for someone from San Jose, CA. Details soon and hopefully I’ll find out tomorrow some details about a place that needs a site that does hair extensions and paints nails and suchlike. I’m dusting off the pastel palette in photoshop as I write…

Further to comments in the post below, does anyone know how to say touchpad in Spanish? Fernando? César? Cuquis? José? or Arturo? It’s the thing laptops have that you push your finger round to move the mouse. You know where to write…

To the right, one of dad’s photos that just popped up on Flickr presumably of their walk with Jed, Mum, JG and the Russlings. Más bucólico no hay…

Speak Spanish? Looking for affordable, quality daycare / primary education for your offspring. …and live near Plaza del Sol in Guadalajara? Well you may want to check out Centro Educativa Nueva Era’s spanking new site. Another fine product from the offices of plaza bonita.

If you thought getting domain names and hosting sorted out is easy, you’d be right. However, just you try it if your domain ends with .MX (the mexican .uk). I’ve made more phonecalls in the last 2 days than in all my time here… You can either pay with PayPal (I hate PayPal) or in a bank and then fax the receipts in to the hosting service. Sometimes Mexico is right up there at the cutting edge of it all, and other times it’s like some Kafkaesque third-world state. Mind you, so’s the UK. Still all appears to be v.well now.

Came across an interesting (somewhat subjective, but hey ho) site this morning with animal noises in different languages (on the University of Adelaide’s Engineering page (¿?)) This bloke didn’t get all the English noises right, “lap lap” is the noise a drinking dog makes apparently, so there may be a fair few mistakes. But it features the classic Cock-a-doodle-doo versus ki-kiri-ki cockeral noise conundrum so I’m happy. Neither really do justice to what is self-evidently “rackalackaooey”, to coin a word.

Alright back to work. My mouse forgot itself at me at home I forgot to bring my mouse to work and now I have to spend 7 hours fiddling around with a touchpad. Arse. NOT good for graphic design, even with the nimblest of fingers…

It’s like they know me…

Your horoscope for May 16th 2006: Taurus

Long lost relatives in Mexico will be trying to get in touch. A canine friend will want to be fed and will be unable to contain his excitement upon seeing you. Cards figure in the day. Italy beckons. Someone with a three letter name will make you a hot beverage. Cats related to Postman Pat with one letter off and he who summoned Mephistopheles will make brief appearences but appear indifferent. Stroke them and they will wish you well. Upper middle class children will continue to request bassoon scores. Humour them. And finally, cider will bring you good luck today and every day. Cheers!

Have a grand day, Beff, and muy feliz cumpleaos from Guadalajara.

Free calls to all landlines and mobile phones within the US and Canada – Skype Blogs

So if you live in the US or Canada you can call normal landline phones through your computer free gratis and for nothing. Tres cool.

So on Saturday we went to an Indian restaurant called Goa or somesuch with Victor, Jana and Sarah and it lived up to expectations. It’s only been open a few days but I fully expect it to do well. Tell your friends, it’s on Lopez Cotilla and on the Minerva side of Chapultepec … Apparently it’s nigh on impossible to import curry powder into the country so they have to get visiting friends and family to supply the restaurant. The owner also runs an Indian goods shop (clothes with little mirrors and that kind of thing) so there’s fairly frequent visits. Presumably curry powder would put drug sniffing dogs at the airport completely out of action for a few weeks so the dishes were lightly flavoured but very tasty. The wine’s a bargain too. I asked to ramp my dish up to vindaloo which they did using chilis instead of the powder but it was very effective. Afterwards onto La Bodeguita del Medio for Bertha’s birthday. Bertha’s a spanish / French teacher and Sita might be taking classes with her soonish, anyroad she had a nice bunch of friends and we had a grand old time singing along to Chan Chan and other cuban clasicos.

Sunday started off very dubiously. Some translation and then (cos our cable tv came back after 4 days) surfing whatever was on while my headache receded. I watched El Santo in Operación 67 which outbonds bond with a fraction of the budget (3.5 lulus). Little Nicky, if you like talking dogs, you’re in luck (2.5 Lulus) and Misery (5 Lulus), no review required… Towards the end of the afternoon we headed off to Victor and Jana’s where we were plied once again with fine wine and fine food before heading to a free concert in Zapopan where no less than Lila Downs was playing. I can’t say I was overly familiar with her music beforehand, but now I’m a convert. Photos of the event flow like wine over at Flickr. She does updated versions of Mexican classics and is something of a feminist icon round these parts. And france apparently. I’m getting to work on her back catalogue today.

Click for non-distorted bigger version.

Me dad just sent me a picture of the view from the attic in our house in Somerset. The neighbours have a new “sun house” it appears. And they should probably shut the boot of the car before it rains… Nice panoramic shot. The lawns looking a lot greener than ours right now.

Another late night last night… I’m off for a nap. If I forget to post about the curry next time, remind me…

Potassium was as far as we got in GCSE chemistry under Nigel Magg’s tutelage… Brainiac goes one step beyond:

Thanks to Mark Wilton-Jones‘s handy little guide and coding, I’ve put a new section on the right for you to swap between stylesheets. I’m not sure how it affects the loading time of the page and if there’s an public uproar, I’ll remove it. Also the new title picture:

is not perfect, and I’ve realised that IE users (Why, oh why?) can’t deal with the PNG transparency. Another quirk I just noticed with explorer is that if your screen resolution is less than 800 wide, the sidebar disappears south. So I’ll be rejigging all that soon enough. Sita’s not keen on the font for G and W neither, so it simply has to go… enjoy it while it lasts… Them buttons are made for clicking…

Last night Sita made ‘plans’ to go to the cinema with her mates, but the advertised film they wanted to see wasn’t there so they ended up in a bar in Zapopan. Jose, victor and me went straight to La Barba Negra for beers and blues, since we don’t excuses to hit the bars. Jose’s had one hell of a week, he’s another one who should blog. Well, he does have one for his excellent poems but I reckon the world would like to know more about a week that ended with someone cycling away from his block of flats firing gunshots in the air and shouting “Arriba, Sinaloa”. Comment below to petition Jose to set up mividaesunatelenovelamalaybarata.blogspot.com …

Today we’re going to an Indian restaurant. Yep, in Guadalajara. It’s brand new and supposedly has curry… it’s been 9 long, curryless months and expectations are high… Shall reveal all manana…

Seems like everyone else is doing this meme so I’ll have a go too. I expected a high linguistics score, but not 100%… I’d put biology on a par with dance too. And drama should NOT be on the list at all… Otherwise, not a bad little quiz. Someone should make a What’s your perfect university quiz. Questions like: Do you like incessant rain? Do you mind living in a glorified bomb shelter that is admittedly within driving distance of a gorgeous beauty spot? Which sounds better: Mature student or Ma-choo-er? Would you happily swap Channel 4 for S4C? …. University of Wales, Swansea it is then…

What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3)
created with QuizFarm.com

Haven’t seen HTML like that in a while, sort it out, QuizFarm.com…

It’s been nearly 3 weeks since I watched a new film. That’s how busy I’ve been. Shame it had to be Mission Impossible 3 though. Rating from me, barely 3 lulus and from Sita, a solid 3 lulus. It’s one of those overwhelming action films which never stops. Time bombs in people’s heads that can only be defused by near fatal electric shocks… Impregnable fortresses… exotic locations… and guns, guns, guns. This is normally just my kind of thing, but it was layed on so thick it was hard to take it all in. Shellshocked I was when we left. In the first 25 minutes I was hoping there was going to be a theme running through it where the Cruiser reprised all his past acting roles. Early on he’s mixing a drink, a la Cocktail, then riding his motorbike at dawn, a la Top Gun. Then I lost track. The next film should be more sedate. Or X Men 3…

It was the last part of a nice evening out trying contemporary Mexican cuisine at a new (3 yrs old or so) restaurant in Avenida Mexico. Thorougly recommended, it’s called something like Polibio 131 and was the third deserted, but high quality restaurant we’ve been to in 7 days. Make sure you order desert. They come drenched in rompope…

This morning I’ve been doing the translations for the Queer Youth Leadership Awards again. United States of America readers can help the cause sending a not-so-virtual postcard via this link. It’s a petition to the US gov. to get them, if not to actually allow gay marriage, then to stop them changing the constitution to prevent it for ever. Baby steps… Spanish speakers need to start reclaiming some of the epiphets that go around in the language. I’m translating queer youth as jóvenes gay and it doesn’t have the same connotations yet. To work, mis cuates…

Yesterday was Mother’s day in Mexico. It’s a huge thing. First off, everyone made their excuses and left work at middayish to head off to crowded restaurants all over town. No one was without roses they’d either received or were about to give. In Gigante the usual musak was replaced by someone urging everyone to buy mother-related goods (tortillas, white wine, cleaning products…) and businesses closed up early. I didn’t even have to stand on the bus home for once. One of these days I’ll post about Mexican phrases involving the word “madre”, but first I want to dig out El Laberinto de la Soledad, cos Octavio Paz has some pertinent things to say if I recall correctly.

Last night I barbecued again cos Sarah was coming round for some webdesignery advice. For some reason it didn’t turn out that well. I should pay more attention in the meat isle to what I’m buying. In fact they should have pictures of what your meat should look like when you’ve cooked it on the labels, to help men choose whether they want arrachera or milanesa… Never mind. Sarah brought us a bottle of diamante negro tequila, which is potent but fragrant with the agave. As a digestif it did a good job of cutting through the culinary dubiousness we’d eaten.

My Aguascalientes photos got linked to by an Aguascalientesian (made that word up, hidrotermico?) and he let me know. Which is nice, so in the spirit of reciprocity, here’s a link to his blog.

And finally, just for Sarah who can’t make embedded video play on her laptop, here’s a “mamada” I saw on the internets about Star Wars’ emperor on the phone… You come for the self-absorption, but you’ll stay for the lo-res comedy…

Cherry coke, indeed.

So a latish night round ours. Jose came round and we had a few tequilitas. At one point he came up with a brilliant Mexican saying. It’s like God giveth and he taketh away only much more cynical: porque “Dios aprieta, pero no aplasta…” *EDIT* It’s actually: “Dios aprieta pero no ahoga”. *EDIT* I’ve been trying to think of a decent way to translate it, but for now you’ll have to make do with: God squeezes but he doesn’t *EDIT* strangle *EDIT*… Context would be something like, So my dog died, my car was broken into and then my house burnt down, but, because Dios aprieta, pero no aplasta, I got a 3 dollar tax refund. Anyway, I liked that. Jose’s a veritable mine of Mexican dichos.

I hope my translation skills improve before I tackle the latest QYLA bios… Comment away your better translations…

*non-music-lovin’-mp3-listening-peeps stop reading now*
Q Magazine’s got a new podcast which is great because Q is not on the shelves even in Sanborns in Mexico. Now I can have a taste of what’s going on UK side in new albums. This month’s has an interview with someone from Keane a review of Gnarls Barclay, and Snow Patrol’s latest and a storming cover of REM’s Orange Crush. AND it lasts just the same time as it takes to get from my house to Plaza Bonita on the bus. Good times…