Thanks to Flickr, and specifically El Charro Negro, we heard about a mariachi competition in the centre yesterday and arranged to meet up in La Fuente to go and see the spectacle. It fully lived up to expectations. Each band came and played just one song and then wandered off. Groups came from all over Mexico and most wore the traditional local dress. I still haven’t got the hang of the settings on me camera. Sachiel pointed out that the ISO’s too high on most, I didn’t even know how to change it. Still I’m extremely happy with me zoom lense. Well, the set’s over at Flickr and here are some faves, that will probably end up in the photoblog…

It’s about 15 blocks away and I noticed that although ‘Cus travels forward in a straight line, he’s at an angle of about 15 degrees as he moves. I think it’s time to get his legs realigned. He’s certainly done a fair bit of mileage in the last 6 months or so.

Only 200 pesos to returf the lawn apparently…

There´s this here jewellery site which is a few 100 lines of PHP away from completion. Another work in progress for cosmetic surgery. A translation of a film script, rehoming a domain, Signo Tequila is also in its infancy. And that’s not counting walking the dog, paying rent, cooking up burgers, chasing bouncing cheques, calling landlords and a fair bit of scrabble.

Tis going to be a busy day tomorrow.

…is a nice way to see what people you´d lost touch with are up to and also an alternative scrabble interface. But it´s best when you go to the recently updated bit and see gems like this:

“Monica added “shoes” to her interests.”

Maybe you had to be there…

Despite the neglected state of the film reviews box on this site, we´ve seen a fair few lately. The Simpsons is just like a 90 minute Simpsons episode with slightly more CGI of Springfield (4 stars), but today we saw one of the best comedies I´ve seen in years, Knocked Up. Brilliant it is. There. That´s my review. 5 shining comedic stars.

While we´re on the subject though, Next was perfectly fine aeroplane viewing. The Queen was awful. Awful awful. I was trying to work out who was the most odious character. Sita reckons the Duke of Edinburgh, but I´m still torn between Cheri and the Grieving British Public. I´m glad I missed the aftermath of all that 10 years ago, as two days after she popped her clogs, I was flying to Guadalajara…

Team America: World Police has moments of genius. Idiocracy: nice premise, shame about the film. Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol is a) not as funny as it was when I was 12 and b) really does not do well dubbed into Spanish (Loca Academia de Policía IV) especially the sound effects bloke and Bobcat Boldthwait… Still such are the delights basic cable has to offer at 5 am on Thursday mornings…

…sounds a lot like Lilly Allen, but that´s not necessarily a bad thing:

Martin, Ana´s bloke has been here for the last month or so and today sees him heading back to Belgium. It´s been grand having him around and not just because he bowls as badly as I do… Don´t be afraid to leave comments, Sr. Devos 🙂

In other news, this video is painfully funny and comes from Sita via Notorious Fig…

…and can´t wait for the next series starting in February neither. But… this Lost teaser…is nowhere near as disturbing as Look Around You´s explanation of the Helvetica Scenario. Shudder… I live in fear of Calcium´s Queen Atom breaking loose.

..but since I was talking about camera settings yesterday, note what a difference there is when you take a photo without flash and then with… I’m tempted to do one with Mrs. Bristow…

I was having a fine old time today in Tequila. Sita’s contacts are paying off nicely and we were “gifted” all manner of tequila-related multimedia on everything from mp3s to a set of vinyl records from the 70s. Including a VHS of “Tequileros” which had parts filmed in Columpio, my favourite Destilado de Agave factory.

Anyroad, driving back we noticed there were workers close to the road in the field jimando, ie harvesting and chopping the leaves off the agaves, so I leapt out with my camera and started photoing them. They posed and everything. Naturally, when I got home I realised I had me camera on the wrong setting which has led to some very grainy shots, still it was a great experience. And I’ll not make that mistake again. With highly configurable cameras comes great responsibility it appears.

Here’re me faves (that’ll probably find their way to my photoblog soon):