Early Resolution

Early New Year's Resolution: I will post a selfie and regret it the next day.

Check =D

Fireworks

Caught some fireworks on the way home, after an improvised trekkie gettogether =D

Uh oh

Started the ritualistic unpacking of the gifts today. Get 'em out of the packages, try on everything and see that it fits, toss the plastic bags and stuff. Took the shrink wrap off the cologne... and it started dripping. Uh oh.

Seems the bottle took a pretty mean hit and cracked. Good thing it cracked and didn't smash into 3 pieces.

Spent all of the afternoon looking for a good replacement bottle. Supermarkets, wal-mart, I went everywhere... not a single one. Incredible. Not one store had a glass bottle, jar, or container that was airtight and not 2 gallons too big. Finally found a sauce bottle that was just about the right size and it would have to do. Only thing I need to do now is plug the hole to kill the evaporation factor.

The big problem? My whole bathroom smells like this stuff now. And the smell is not going away anytime soon.

Tamales and eggnog

Tamales and eggnog... I am going to hate myself in January =)

Holiday bullfights

Played video games for most of the day, and then at night I watched more of the holiday bullfights.

Now, before anyone gets on a rant about how awful bullfighting is, I should point out ours are a bit different. Kinda backwards in fact. See this reference video for a better idea of exactly where the fun is in our bullfights.

If anyone's curious, they're streaming every day starting at 0300 GMT, here and here. Which one works depends on the day of the week, since streaming alternates between one site and the other.

A sugar high gives you the strangest ideas

Of course I tried on the socks I got for Christmas.... the very next day in fact! =D

Presents time

Christmas Presents time... yay

Seasons greetings

You can't really tell a story without people, big and small, who helped make 2010 the year it was...

So to everyone out there who became a part of this particular story, Merry Christmas....

Present wrapping day

Present wrapping day

Gonna learn...

Hello, my name is Mario and I suck at drawing.

A pencil is a writing instrument. And the pencil universe as I know it ends at HB. Beyond HB, from what I know, is a giant abyss where people fall off the edge of the planet and into space. I once heard of 2B and even 7B, but from what I hear Stephen Hawking is still trying to figure out how to prove their existence.

Tell me to shade, and I'll have no idea. There's such a thing as shadows and stuff like that?

And don't even get me started on proportions. I can turn Marilyn Monroe into Spongebob without even blinking.

But, I promise in 2011 I'll get better at it =D

Team spirit

Five years. That´s how long they waited to win the national soccer finals. They never seemed to get it quite right, until this year when they finally made it, and in the last seconds of the championship game.

Guess the owners of this shopping center were so thrilled by the win, they actually took down their flag and put up the team's.

$250 saves the day

My computer at work broke last week. Some electrical wiring problem seems to have burned it out. So I decided to give my Motion M1400 a try as a desktop replacement. I took it to the office, plugged in the monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse. And so far, I haven't missed my desktop PC. Not to mention I have a whole lot more desk space available without a huge metal box on top of it.

Who would have thought, an old $250 thing nobody wanted on Ebay would come to replace my $800 state of the art PC, and actually do a good job at it.

Alone in the dark

"No sir, I didn't see you playing with your dolls again" xD

Fruitcake and eggs

One of those unusual holiday breakfast combinations

Highway christmas lights

Highway christmas lights =)

Waiting for Steam

Steam was unusually slow today, seems it had to install some kind of an upgrade. Anyway, I was waiting for Left 4 Dead 2 to load... in the end the wait got so long I actually had to get a book to read.

Mind the barrier

I've always been one for freak accidents. Always the one that never smashes into another car at 50 mph, but manages to hit a steel post while parking in an empty lot. Or gets his windshield cracked by a pebble that flew 10m across the lanes on the highway.

I was riding home today and came to one of those automated traffic barriers that swing up and down. I've gone past it at least 50 times this year. But this time I somehow managed to lose my balance a few inches before it, and as I went left to balance out, I happened to nick the barrier with my arm.

Evidently, these things aren't padded just in case someone should nick them with his arm.

The barrier went bong and bounced up and down a bit. I stopped to see that I hadn't broken anything, and then got out of there pretty fast, before any of the 50 bystanders waiting for the bus could think of a wisecrack.

Am I hurt? Only my pride for the moment.

And the weather outlook is

And the weather outlook for today is, cold. It's been really cold these past few days. It's stopped raining (still drizzles a bit at sunrise though), but the temperature is not going up.

Most people think that here since we have no formal winter, we don't get cold in December. Actually we do, weather patterns are global. Sometime around the middle of December it starts to get colder at night, and by Christmas if you don't have an extra blanket, you'll be waking up at night for sure.

How cold? The capital averages about 16 C during the day, and in some parts it can get down to below 10 C during the night. It might not seem that bad, compared to other places I've been where by this time of year they're looking at 10C from sunrise to sunset. But when you spend 11 months a year at 18 to 20 C, you notice those 2 o 3 missing degrees.

And I actually found myself taking the car to work nearly all of last week... because it was too darn cold in the morning. On Monday I decided if cold was an issue, I was going to be waiting until january to ride again. No way... a jacket fixed the problem, for the time being.

More like Christmas every day

Even the christmas bargain shops on the street corners are back...

Hasn´t changed a bit

Found an old photo on Panoramio I had taken near the university... about 8 years ago. Today I decided to stop and take a look at the spot on my way to work. Hasn´t changed a bit.

Christmas Shopping

One of those fruitless holiday shopping days. They've been pestering me at home for like 2 weeks now to make a list for this secret santa thing. So I finally got around to it today. Seeing I had way too much stuff from Amazon on there, I decided to take a look at the local stores in case someone just couldn't figure Amazon out and needed locally available gifts.

Spent all afternoon looking around town, had to wait at least 20 minutes for a parking spot at the mall, and picked up all sorts of flyers and clutter along the way. And I thought I was going to get ahead of the christmas shopping crowd by going this weekend.

And in the end, nothing. Sure I got a whole list of ideas for that secret santa thing, but on the other half of the deal which was to buy the rest of the gifts I needed, I came out empty handed. Amazing, but there's just no good stuff available in stores. None of those gifts that you see and you just know they're perfect for someone. Checked the music stores, bookstores, stationary stores, everything you can imagine... and I just didn't see anything that clicked in my mind.

I probably need a couple days and a few more laps around town to start to see potential gifts. Good thing I've got about 2 weeks left to shop.

Tamales

First hallmark of the holiday season here: tamales. Somewhere around the start of december people hit the local markets in search of cornmeal, pork, lard, chicken, peas, rice, and banana leaves... well, not exactly banana leaves but something like that. You season the cornmeal, make little cakes, stuff them with your favorite meat combination, put in a prune and a couple raisins, and maybe an olive, and wrap them up in the leaves. Boil for a couple hours, and here's what you end up with.

When do you eat it? Any time. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee break... it's all good.

There's about 50 of them sitting in the refrigerator right now. And I'm almost sure that by the 25th, there's not going to be any left.

Are they something like mexican tamales? Sort of. Only in Mexico they wrap them in corn husks and use different fillings. Over there you can find anything from beef to berries inside. Over here we only fill with beef, chicken or pork... and maybe beans, but no berries.

Rolling fishbowl

I've seen some pretty fun publicity stunts this year. Seems everyone was short on cash and they had to get creative in order to get people to buy stuff. One day I was waiting at a stoplight when I saw this huge number "5" crossing the street, chased by a giant "%" sign. The other day I saw 2 guys on bikes riding down the street, towing billboards.

And today I was driving home and this thing went past me. A fishbowl on wheels with an artificial beach inside, towing a jetski. I wonder what they'll think of next.

Wipe your feet

Here's one of those ideas you see somewhere that somehow, nobody's come up with yet. Saw this one at a beach a while back, and the idea stuck with me ever since.

Problem with construction sites is that everyone has to make their way back to the office at least 15 times a day, and it seems the one thing everyone manages to do perfectly is track mud into every single corner and hard to reach place in the office.

Well, not on my watch. Step into the square, turn the valve, and twin jets at 40 psi will get every speck of mud off before you can track it anywhere. Add a 30 foot long walk to the office on top of a gravel walk, and you'll be dry before you can even think about getting my floor wet.

They didn't get it quite right though. I told them like 50 times: when you pour, I want you to stick 2 plastic brushes into the pour so the bristles stick out. In the end, they got the pour right, but they forgot the brushes. Darnit.

Let the holidays begin

Ok, now that we're all good and weighed in, and nobody's pacemaker got fried... let the holidays and the food begin... =D

Add another one to the list

Yeah, well, the holiday spirit kind of got the best of me this time... and I just had to add another Playmates set off Ebay to my collection.

Closest to a tricoder I could find

In the end I finally gave in. Curiosity got the best of me, and I just had to have a digital scale that had the potential to kill you if you wore a pacemaker while you stepped on it =D

After weeks of waiting it's finally here. I'll finally be able to figure out just how good riding to work every day has done me.

Teleton continued

Just another closing day at the Telethon.

Teleton 2010

Got to do some event photography today. This weekend is the annual telethon, one of those old fashioned events that you view on TV, call in, and make a donation. This one in particular is held every year and raises money for the local children's hospital.

Just as I was getting there, I realized I had left my ID badge on top of my desk. I phoned in to see how critical it was, and sure enough, it was critical. So I either had to rush back home and get it, or face having to wrestle with about 500 people for a place to sit and no backstage access. Guess which won out in the end...

Tis the season, now.

Ok, now, tis the season.

Shame on you if you're one of those that put up your decorations in November... and even more if you simply didn't take them down last year =D

Rain #2

Or is that November 31st... it should be November 31st, or at least my head wants it to be November 31st.

More rain today. And not only more rain, it was cold too. That's the worst combination, when you've got that open-refrigerator air and on top of that it's pouring down. It's supposed to clear up by tonight, so I'm hoping to see clear skies tomorrow morning.