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Dinner party an unparallelled (sp?) success.

I ended up making shepherd’s pie based on an old family recipe I found on the world wide wibbly web, with a few adaptations. During my research I found out that I was actually cooking cottage pie, since shepherd’s pie is made with minced lamb not beef. You live and learn. Anyroad, it was well nice and I got to use the Salsa tipo inglesa I blogged about a few weeks ago. And it goes pretty well with tequila, who’d’ve thunk it?

It wasn’t all put together as last minute(ly) as I’d feared because Sita’s first Tequila class only lasted 2 hours, not 4. It was just introductions from the 15 or so people there and reading a few powerpoint slides. So we had time to nip over to Waldo’s Mart (the 99 cent store across the road, well, 13 pesos including VAT) and stock up on extra forks and stuff. It looks like all the people Sita was hoping to interview for her project are coming to talk in her class. Saturday classes run from 10 to 2, there’s no way I could have hacked that yesterday. Sita is made of stronger stuff, it appears.

Next Saturday it’s a field trip to the town of Tequila where there’s a festival of some description going on, I might have to come along for that one. On Friday night we’re going to a Thanksgiving dinner with some teachers from the American school, which’ll be a laugh. Tuesday evening another mate of mine’s coming over for tea and bickies. So the social scene is picking up nicely. The employment scene is also starting up gradually. Jose’s got a few leads, and there’s another gringo graphic designer in the area whom I might be meeting next Friday. Voluntary work appears to be easy enough, though. Sita’s off to staff a creche for the women’s rights organisation today in the town centre. And I’m expecting translation work from the Gwod Metropolitan Park people any minute.

Dcp_4151bAgaveWeb.com is crawling along, I’m a bit stuck for what to do with the site and need more inspiration. I was playing with rounded corners, first using CSS, then giving in and going back to the dark age of tables. I’ll work something out… Jed themed maybe? A lengthy flash animation of a black tail in bracken, then Jed jumps out, frisbee in mouth into a puddle. The muddy water splashes the camera and a menu pops up with options…. No that has nothing to do with Agaves. I’m open to suggestions…

We planned to see Harry Potter yesterday but Sita was too knackered after a late night and academic stuff, so we watched War of the Worlds on DVD instead. Maybe today… keep your eyes on the “Media Box” on the right for my two cents. Harry III was my first review for this website… June ‘04 seems like a while ago. Well, it was…

and finally, here’s a video currently doing the rounds on the interweb of GTA playing grandma. More non-sequitur-riddled-posts coming soon…

Quick post before ADVENTURES!

Typical that a mountain of work falls on my lap just before making plans to go sightseeing this weekend. I stayed late yesterday doing as much as I could for various people. There’s graphic design, websites and translations all on the go and today we’re driving to Zacatecas. We’ve got someone looking after the house though. With a big stick. All you English-speaking, net-savvy burlgars. So there… Posts and pictures will be forthcoming but there may well be blog silence for a while… We haven’t got any decent road maps of the area north of Guad, so we may end up in Aguascalientes if the navegation doesn’t go to plan. Anyway, as per usual, you’ll read all about it here. Have a lovely weekend all : )

Oh and Feliz Cinco de Mayo if you’re in the States right now. It’s not a big deal in Mexico itself. Wait for September…

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Aldo’s photos from Tuesday coming soon…

Film Review: Ghost Rider (2007)

Went to see The Fountain last night too… Slowly catching up on films. Anyroad, here’s my take on Ghost Rider…

GriderGhost Rider (2007)

A comic book adaptation whose premise lured me into the cinema on my own on a Monday afternoon…

Nicholas Cage is in his element (fire) playing ‘Johnny Blaze” a motorbike stuntman who gets royally ripped off after selling his soul to the devil. Instead of ending up in hell, or whatever (I never got the hang of the Terms and Conditions chapter of the bible in divinity classes), he ends up turning into the devil’s collector of souls, or the Ghost Rider, a nocturnal fiery skellington on a bike who makes life thoroughly miserable for naughty people.

Eva Mendes is his love interest who is dull throughout despite plunging necklines and necking a bottle of wine in a restaurant. Wes Bently is the devil’s son who, together with some wholly ineffectual and cack-handed fellow demon-goons, is trying to either take over the netherworld or create hell on earth or just gorge on souls. Not wholly clear again which. They’re meant to be evil since they have no problem turning bikers into dust, including, gasp, a lady and some interloper who was ‘just 3 weeks from retirement”. However they have no decent dialogue, don’t kill anywhere near enough people and, most importantly, lack imagination in their modus operandi for dispensing souls. Not worthy adversaries for Johnny B. and I don’t know why the devil couldn’t just get rid of them himself with a plague of boils or whatever…

There’s a strong sense of déja-vu not uncommon with this type of B-movie. The carnie scenes are straight out of DIRE Batman Forever (1995) where Robin gets his pitiful back story. Also, DIRE Little Nicky (2000) has the same Satan’s-offspring-want-to-take-over-the-world nonsense. Any werewolf film you care to mention probably deals better with the subject of nocturnal transmogrification and the consequences on your love life/ work/ friends… Crossroads (1986), about the karate kid duelling with the Devil’s guitarist, Steve Vai covers much of the same ridiculous Catholic ground… So what rescues Ghost Rider from being a directing-by-numbers clichéd bag of arse? Well there’s a few things…

Sam Elliot (the cowboy in The Big Lebowski) seems to take the whole thing in his stride and effortlessly conveys a mythic element to the proceedings. He’s not exactly stretching his acting abilities but gives the film his much-needed seen-it-all, world-weary attitude. The Ghost Rider abides… Nick Cage plays up Johnny’s quirks well and you warm to his special brand of stupid, making you believe that it’s not impossible for your head to periodically turn into a grinning, flaming skull. But it’s the CGI and the sound effects that carry the film. If you go to see this film it’s probably because you want to see an overly anorexic biker dispensing fiery justice and so it’s entirely a good thing that for roughly a third of the film, you’ll be watching just that. The sound effects left me with tinnitus for half an hour after leaving the cinema- it’s like sitting in the central reservation of the M5 motorway for 2 hours with someone lighting a gas boiler next to you- whump!- from time to time. And all in all, it’s a superior summer blockbuster delivered early.

In summary then, though far from intelligent, nowhere near dark enough, and clichéd to the point of plagiaristic it’s a big, brash, loud and eminently watchable piece of theatre.

You’ve done the fototour, now buy the T-Shirt…

Flickero T-shirt

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…