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February 28, 2006
El cine
With the Oscars® rapidly approaching, it's time to discuss going to the movies in Mexico.
First, it should be said that the range of the theater-going experience is broad. They have theaters where they serve sushi and cocktails, and they have old spaces that are like warehouses with fluorescent tube lights as the only illumination. Some offer seats that are like recliners you have in your home while others have old creaking metal beasts with wires that stick up through the upholstry to rip your pants and give you quite a pinch. You can see the latest Hollywood crap or an interesting documentary from France.
The top of the line theaters are run by Cinépolis, and are a special deluxe brand known as "VIP." These are the ones where you have barcalounger-side service for food and drinks. The tickets are slightly more expensive than the regular cinemas, and the food isn't cheap, although overall, things like popcorn and sodas at the cinemas here are not as ridiculously expensive as they are in the United States. For example, a large popcorn at a theater chain that is comparable to the major ones in the United States, is $28.00 MXN, which is roughly $2.68 USD. It also isn't as enormous, though.
The regular Cinépolis theaters are still quite nice, and seem pretty much like the googleplexes of the United States, with all the amenities and at times a few more (like capuccino out of a gas-station style machine, variations on popcorn like caramel-coated), but a little cheaper. The VIP theaters are $90 MXN (around $8.60 USD) at the most expensive, and the "plain" Cinépolis tickets are $44 MXN (around $4.20 USD). They run matinee discounts like you're familiar with in the US, but on Wendesdays, all day, tickets are half-price. Films are usually shown in their original lanuage with subtitles, and only a few of the bigger ones are dubbed into Spanish. When this is the case, the fact is noted on the marquee.
One thing I really appreciate about theaters here is that the screens are almost always normal size, and by that, I mean big, not what is becoming normal in the United States, where you have 25 theaters crammed into one location and the screens are squeezed down into the approximate size of a garage door. I have been to one screening here that was on a relatively small screen, but this was a film series that shows old and more unusual films for very cheap prices (like $2.50 USD).
Then there are older theaters that are not as new and shiny as the Cinépolis theaters and their rivals, but that were built in like the 70s and 80s. These are certainly decent theaters, but they are a little worn at the edges. There are several theaters that pre-date those, and these run from well-preserved to wacky.
In all these older theaters, the experience is interesting, and sometimes very disappointing. You certainly see things you'd never see in a Mann Theater. For example, we went to one theater where you could buy a bag of homemade potato chips in the lobby from behind a small display counter that, despite its size, still looked barren because they offered just these chips and a few candy bars. The woman attending the counter was actually sitting at a table in front of the counter smoking a cigarette and chatting with a friend when we passed through. That was in the place with the fluorescent lighting in the theater. Last night we went to see Transamerica in a theater where they show one film in the afternoon and another at night. It was done up in earth tones from the 70s (although those have never gone out of style here in Mexico), and three times during the film, a huge notice stretched across the screen that was burned into the print and read, "BAFTA SCREENING ONLY! NOT FOR SALE OR RENT." Tonight we went to see North Country, and the theater actually had ushers with flashlights. About halfway through the film, the house lights came up and they turned off the film for a 5 minute intermission.
In these slightly-less-modern theaters, one consistent thing really annoys me. After the film ends and the credits start to roll, they just switch off the film and turn up the lights. Nobody really seems bothered by this.
I'd like to close with a request of you folks: Would you be so kind as to add comments giving the ticket prices for movies where you live? I know you folks in California are being taken to the cleaners, whereas Mr. Allen can probably still afford to see a recently released film at the Arcadia for a fraction of that cost.
Thanks!
Posted by crispy at 10:57 PM | Comments (8)
February 27, 2006
For Those Who Don't Know
Because one never knows who is going to show up at the blog nor how they got there, I thought it might be helpful to give some background on myself and why I now live in Mexico. If you know me already, or if you're just damned tired of hearing me bitch about how the United States sucks now, you can skip it.
I'm a 36-year-old guy from the midwestern United States that does nothing in particular and is married to a guy named Shawn. We lived in the United States our whole lives until 2005, when we decided it was time to leave because we no longer wanted to endure the growing divisiveness, the continuous scapegoating of minorities , the silencing of dissent, the selling out of individual liberties for the empty promise of greater security and the disturbing self-censorship of the media. And that's just the stuff that is going on inside the borders of the country. We also wanted nothing more to do with the never-ending war and the torturing of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and the secret prisons in eastern Europe, where people are being held without charge because the government doesn't have to follow the constitution outside the nation's borders. That is not to say that the government has really bothered to uphold the constitution at home either, given the revelations about the president's domestic spying program.
But we were not only at odds with the government, but also with most of the people there. The fact that a majority of Americans inaccurately believed that there was some connection between Iraq and the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and that Iraq had weapons of mass distruction although none were ever found suggested that most of our fellow citizens would just believed whatever they wanted to believe, despite any evidence to the contrary. The fact that the country is barreling headlong into authoritarianism (the United States now demonstrates all 14 characteristics of fascism) and that Americans seem to be welcoming this change is very sad. There were just too many things going too much against our way of thinking, so we left.
I had been studying Spanish for the previous three years, and while I am far from fluent, I knew enough to be able to get by in a Spanish-speaking country. We decided to give Mexico a try because we had heard many good things about it, and we had always enjoyed our time spent in the border cities. After a 12-year hiatus in the heartland, we both were longing to be back in a large urban area, and Guadalajara, the second largest city in Mexico, has several great cultural opportunities as well as the second-best climate in the world (after the Canary Islands, according to National Geographic Magazine). Waking up from their "perfect dictatorship" where one political party ruled for 71 years through a relentless program of electoral fraud and voter suppression, it seemed Mexico was just ending their dark period of authoritarianism while it was arguably just beginning in the US.
Many people suggested before we moved that we would face greater prejudice against us in Mexico as gay guys because it's perceived as such a "macho" country. It is important to note that in April of 2003, Mexico passed a federal law prohibiting discrimination based on several factors, including sexual orientation. No such law is even under consideration in the United States, where the popular trend is for politicians to accuse gays and lesbians of causing the collapse of modern society. And although an occasional macho guy might joke about gays as a source of amusement, at least here in the city, we have yet to see anyone demonstrate the level of hatred against minorities that is so visible in the United States. This is not to say that discrimination does not happen in Mexico, because it does. It is especially prevalent against the Indigenous, transsexuals and women. Yet it seems that here there is more widespread understanding that such discrimination is wrong than in the United States, where often people go to great lengths to justify their right to be jerks to other people.
In December of 2005, we arrived in Guadalajara, and it has been great so far. We currently live in the municipality of Zapopan, which is part of the metropolitan area of Guadalajara, in Colonia Chapalita Sur. The purpose of this blog is multi-faceted - to provide information about living in Mexico for those who might be considering moving here, to give people a chance to know the real Mexico and not just the stereotypical image of it that one gets in the media, to keep in touch with our friends and family back in the United States, to discuss the application of classroom Spanish to a practical setting, to share the occasional photograph of funny product packaging, and as seems to be occasionally necessary, to defend our values and choices.
Life isn't easy anywhere. But for us, it's a whole lot better in Mexico. You don't have to be wacko left-wing bleeding-heart liberals like us to read this blog, although it might make it easier to understand why we'd much rather walk a mile to pay our electrical bill, go through elaborate steps to avoid crippling diarrhea and occasionally run out of water than live in the land we left behind.
Posted by crispy at 02:35 AM | Comments (5)
February 22, 2006
Wild Parrots
Wild Parrot in Tree
Our friend Larry that you've read about on these pages as someone with great advice and excellent Spanish is also a painter and photographer. He took these photographs of the wild parrots that wander through our neighborhood every day to eat things from the trees.
Wild Parrot in Tree
These are Lilac-Crowned Amazon Parrots, one of the favorite parrots to have in captivity. On any given day, you can walk outside and see a number of them (usually at least ten) in the trees like this.
Wild Parrot in Tree
Their average adult size is 13 inches, and each wing is 7-8 inches long.
You have to be a little careful around them, as they drop the shells from the nuts and sticks from the tree as they eat.
Wild Parrot in Tree
They are not at all spooked by people walking around, even though they are wild birds. After their meal, they fly off somewhere else to do who knows what, but to see a bunch of wild parrots in your trees for even just ten minutes a day is quite a trip.
Posted by crispy at 03:27 PM | Comments (4)
February 20, 2006
Illumination
Living Room Rack, With Fluorescent Lighting
I added fluorescent strip lighting to the metal kitchen rack in the living room and it makes it look a little more stylish or something.
Fluorescent Light Tube on Mounted on Rack
These light fixtures are supposed to be mounted with plastic clips that you screw into the wall. Since I can't screw the clips into the metal of the kitchen rack, I tied the clips on with wire trash bag ties. Classy, I know.
And this towel that I had on the rack so that the things I had drying on the top of the rack would not drip all over Shawn's papers looked kind of cool lit up from beneath, so I took a picture of it too.
Towel Illuminated by Fluorescent Light
It reminds me of the Mr. Roboto video.
Posted by crispy at 07:13 PM | Comments (0)
February 18, 2006
A Saturday Walk in February
Close Up of Cascading Flowers
The photos I posted before were not so interesting, but they do show the immediate neighborhood in which we live. I had to walk to Plaza del Sol to get something for Shawn this afternoon, so I thought I'd take along the camera and snap a few of the more picturesque things along the way.
I don't know what kind of flowers these are, the blue and white ones, but they are really beautiful. They are on vines that cascade over the brick wall of this house on a corner. The photograph below shows the wall from across the street.
Flowers Above, From Across the Street
If anyone can identify these flowers, that would be cool. I'd like to get some for our balconies because they are just so pretty.
The plants flowing over walls theme is big here. The shot below is of a bougainvillea around the corner from our apartment.
Bougainvillea on Calle Santa Prisca
And here are some others, of mixed colors also cascading over a wall.
Mixed Bougainvillea on Avenida Tizoc
These are very popular as they grow quickly and flower throughout the year.
Red Bougainvillea on Avenida Tizoc
There are also a fair number of trees in our neighborhood, like these that line the street and offer much-appreciated shade for afternoon walks.
Trees Lining Sidewalk
A lot of the trees are fruit trees, like this one that is either an orange tree, a mandarina tree, or some similar variant.
Orange Tree on Avenida Tizoc
The next photo is of a monument, which I presume is to the Pre-Columbian cultures indigenous to Mexico, but I've never stopped to see if there is anything in this park describing the monument. There are so many public artworks and monuments in this city that you end up just taking a lot for granted.
Monument in Glorietta
If you need to get away and have a relaxing day at the spa, we have one of those too, just a few blocks from our place.
Piedraviva Spa on Avenida Tizoc
These are the street signs that are often located in places where they cannot be seen even when you're walking along. In our neighborhood, we have a lot of indigenous names like "Popocatepetl" and these two.
Street Sign, Calle Teotihuacan
Mural, who apparently sponsored the signs, is a good local newspaper.
Street Sign, Avenida Xochitl
The architecture in this neighborhood is not your typical old colonial stuff like in el centro historico. It tends to be a bit more modern. Sometimes you will find a mixture of completely different styles in the same house. This is a garage door for the house in the subsequent picture.
Garage Doors, Chapalita Sur
Big House, Chapalita Sur
Although this is not a true example of dry masonry frequently seen around here (there is a little bit of mortar visible), it shows how walls in olden times were built with big rocks and smaller rocks.
Not Quite Dry Masonry Wall
And this one, well, it's just for Rudholm.
Telcel Office, Chapalita Sur
Posted by crispy at 05:34 PM | Comments (4)
Go Soak Your Head...of Lettuce!
Two Important Water Bottles For the Casa
All vegetables that are going to be consumed need to be "disinfected" with a solution of bleach and water (or other solutions manufactured for this purpose) before consumption. I suspect that this is not always necessary, but to be safe, you do it. You only have to get sick once to make this a procedure you don't question.
The only time that I have been sick here, it was not due to eating vegetables that have not been disinfected. But I do know that you just don't drink the tap water here, and since a lot of the produce comes from very local sources and are very fresh (I get my produce at markets, not supermarkets, whenever possible), it is likely that any cleaning it has received is with that water. At times, you'll get produce with dirt from the field on it, and you'll use tap water to clean that off. Therefore, if you clean your vegetables in tap water, you want to kill the microbes in any tap water that remains, so you disinfect your vegetables.
To do this, you prepare a solution of bleach and tap water. The bleach kills the microbes in the tap water, and it will kill those that might be on the vegetables. The formula is this: 1 teaspon (or capful) of Clorox® bleach to 4 liters of water. A gallon of water is 3.785 liters. The bottles of water you get here are labeled in liters, but they are a gallon, so you get almost four liters in these large bottles as seen above. As it's not going to kill you to have your solution a little strong, you can just use a capful or teaspoon of bleach for 3.785 liters contained in such bottles.
As long as your container is sealed, you can mix this solution up in advance for whenever you need it. Then, when you need it, you pour the solution into a bowl and then place the vegetable(s) into the bowl for two minutes, stirring it around a little to ensure complete coverage.
When the two minutes is up, you take the vegetables out of the solution. At this point, depending on what the vegetable is, I might rinse it with potable water (NOT the tap water...I have nearly made that mistake on a few occasions) to get the bleach water off. Or you can let the vegetables air dry, because the bleach will evaporate out before the water does, and will not stay behind in a solid form on the vegetables. If the vegetables are something that we're going to eat very soon or without cooking, as in lettuce for a salad, I will wash them with potable water. I have accomplished this by putting potable water in another bowl, then soaking the lettuce and finally draining it in a colander. However, now that I have a salad spinner, I use a spray bottle that I bought, spray down the lettuce in the spinner, spin it, spray it down again and then spin it once more. If the food product is like an apple, that we're going to eat later, I just let it air dry.
Should you forget the proper procedure, the directions are on all bottles of Clorox® bleach down here in Mexico. You won't find them on Clorox® bottles or on their website in the US. And there are other brands of bleach available, but you have to be sure to get one that has the proper chemicals for disinfecting surfaces, food and water. Alternatively, you can use a product they market here that has iodine in it for this purpose, but Joseph has told me that it makes your food taste funny, so I have not tried it.
It is important too to wash down any surfaces that you've used with bleach water (or a similar product) too, and for this, the ratio is one tablespoon to a gallon of water. This is not only something one should do in Mexico though; all you gringos on el otro lado should do this too in order to prevent cross-contamination with your cutting surfaces and knives. But I don't have to tell you that, right?
The question will arise, "Do you have to use potable water for boiling vegetables, or things like pasta?" The answer is no. Boiling the tap water for 10 minutes will kill the microbes, but so will adding some vinegar or lime juice. You don't have to add much at all - less than a teaspoon. If you're short on time, this can save you the time of boiling the water for 10 minutes before putting your vegetables or pasta in it. Plus, if you're going to be boiling something for more than 10 minutes in the water, you can just skip all that entirely.
And to answer in advance a certain reader's comment about how this is more inconvenient than is using vegetables in the United States, I assure you that after natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina or 8-point earthquakes, when water supplies are compromised and the most powerful government in the world can't seem to give the necessary assistance to its own citizens, despite the fact that they can spend billions on bombing other countries that have not attacked you, people in the affected areas should use this same exact procedure.
A note of thanks goes out to our friend Joseph, who taught me all about this stuff.
Posted by crispy at 01:13 PM | Comments (8)
February 17, 2006
The Champagne In His Natural Environment
Shawn In Bedroom
Posted by crispy at 02:49 AM | Comments (4)
February 11, 2006
Look Us Up Sometime
For all you Google Earth enabled folks (which is FINALLY out for Macintosh), you can find us at: 20° 39' 30.14" N / 103° 24' 10.82" W.
Posted by crispy at 03:47 PM | Comments (5)
On the Street Where You (We) Live
Across From Our Apartment
As requested, some photos of our neighborhood. They're not very interesting though. I snapped them on my way to do laundry at the laundromat across the street and didn't want to leave my clothes unattended to go do a more thorough expedition. This shot shows (from left to right) the laundromat, the paper store, the beauty salon and the little store that sells phone cards and candy bars. The shadow of the tree that you see in the street is from the big acacia that shades our balcony.
Looking Down Calle La Ermita
This is to the right of the previous photo, looking down the street that now serves as a detour for a very major street. We get loud traffic at all hours of the day from here.
Looking Up Calle La Ermita, Westward
Our apartment building is on the other side of the road pictured here, off to the left.
A House on Calle La Ermita
This is a house viewed from the street on La Ermita, just to give you some idea of what the places look like right around us.
Posted by crispy at 02:54 PM | Comments (4)
February 10, 2006
It Holds Stuff
Our "Entertainment Center"
I'm not overly delighted with the look of the thing, but hey, it will work, at least for the time being, to prop up our new printer/copier and our television set...when we get one.
The Ever-Sexy Side View
It's two stainless kitchen racks bought from Sam's Club (that's right, I bought something at the source of all evil, but I figured it might help out Ellyn Rucker) and joined together with a little creative adjustment of one of the shelves. We owe Joseph and Larry for that bright idea, which worked out rather well.
It does seem a little dormroomesque, but it's so hard to find something you like when you have no car to go comparison shopping easily. I'm thinking of putting in some Dan Flavin style fluorescent installations behind it and along those side walls. Or maybe I should just go hardcore with the look and put a Kitchen Aid and big stainless bowls on there.
It reminds me of the old priavteI days when we used one of those for our modem rack. Yeah, modems. I said it was the old days.
Posted by crispy at 03:01 PM | Comments (3)
February 09, 2006
An Open Letter to Proctor & Gamble
9 February 2006
Hello!
I am an American that moved to Mexico in December. Before I left the United States, I fell in love with the Tide-to-Go stain remover "markers," and they were such a hot item that I could only find two to bring with me. Now that I'm here in Guadalajara, I cannot find them ANYWHERE. I realize that there is a different branding down here ("Ace" instead of "Tide"), but there do not seem to be "Ace-Para-Llevar" removers of manchas either.
I have looked in Mexican stores, I have looked in American-owned chains like Costco and Wal-Mart, and I must admit, I've even haunted dark alleys in hopes of finding a black market for those babies because I NEED MY FIX! I spill a lot of stuff on my clothes and more often than not, this happens in a restaurant, where it is just not appropriate to take off my clothes and soak them to try and get out a spot of chiles rellenos or a smear of mole.
I have written to the Mexican branch of P&G but I fear that they will not know what I'm talking about. Granted, my Spanish is not all that great, but when I try to describe this product to the folks down here, they look at me like I'm talking about a lost city of gold or a tortilla with the Virgin Mary on it; they are incredulous that such a miracle product could exist. Yet I know they do - I've seen it! I've used it! I have seen the future of impeccable cleanliness in fabrics and its name is TIDE-TO-GO!
Please, please, please tell me where I can lay my hands on more in Mexico because I'm positively desperate. I cannot imagine that you would deny this portable miracle to the world when it would be so simple to make it a nicer, cleaner, fresher-looking place with Tide-to-Go stain removing markers.
Thank you for your assistance in this matter. I eagerly and messily await your response.
Chris Coen
Posted by crispy at 07:13 AM | Comments (3)
February 07, 2006
Water
There are a lot of things that I use on a daily basis, but I don't understand how they work. Luckily, it isn't important to know how they do what they do as long as they go on doing it. Yet it's amazing how much you learn about plumbing and how quickly you learn it when you suddenly have no water in your apartment.
Within the first few days of our living here, we returned home one night and found that we had no running water at all. I have since come to be a little more relaxed about these things, taking a cue from the Mexicans here, who seem to possess an amazing ability to go with the flow. But at that time, having heard reports before we left about how the water or power can go out in big cities in Mexico for weeks at a time, I was seriously concerned. Sure, you have to rely on bottled water for drinking anyway, so it wasn't like we were going to die of thirst in the apartment. Still the idea of not being able to shower, wash our hands or have a working toilet worried us.
Back in the United States, if this happened, I'd immediately pick up the phone and call the local water utility to find out what was going on. We had been in Mexico long enough for me to know that it would not be that easy. Even if I could figure out where to call, I'd have to deal with them in Spanish over the phone, and that prospect terrifies me even now after having done it several times. Then there is the fact that the problem might well be within our apartment building, and quite frankly, in Mexico, one hopes that is the case because then you can actually take it upon yourself to fix it and get it done. The sidewalks all over town that look like bombs have hit them attest to the sad fact that public facilities are inconsistently maintained here.
The most sensible place to start was in our apartment building, but we do not live in a large apartment building with hundreds of apartments. We share the building with seven other units, and they are all occupied by families. Most have either young children or old folks, and some have both. You don't just go around knocking on people's doors at 10:30 pm here. Miguel Ángel, the guy that serves as sort of a building manager, lives right below us, but I know that he has a couple of small kids. I didn't want to be the obnoxious new gringo waking them up just because some thing completely normal was going on.
So doing what I always do here when I have some unexpected problem, I called Joseph and Larry to ask them what the proper procedure was for dealing with such a problem. Joseph was kind enough to explain to me how nearly everyone gets their water in their home plumbing to me, and I thought you all might find it informative also.
The water from the city only runs a few hours a day here. This does not mean that you can only shower or wash your clothes during that time though. The water from the city comes on and as necessary, fills up a big cistern under the building, which is called an aljibe. I don't know how big an aljibe usually is, nor do I know how big the one is that services our apartment building. However, I have since read in several places online that ones for homes usually hold a week's supply of water. In order to give everyone running water, the tried-but-true method of gravity is used. The water from the aljibe is pumped up to a smaller tank (or in some cases, multiple tanks) on top of the building which is known as a tinaco. This holds considerably less water than the aljibe, but it usually is black and has the added benefit of heating the water slightly before it gets to your water heater, saving you a little cash on gas.
The tinaco usually has a device like the tank on a toilet, which has a floater that goes up and down with the water level in the tank. When the floater gets down to a certain point, it turns on the pump that brings water up from the aljibe, and so theoretically, the tinaco should never be empty. Yet just like the tank of your toilet and the valve operated by the floating ball in there, it is hardly a high-tech device, and often it gets stuck or otherwise doesn't probably turn on the pump when it should. In this case, one usually has to jiggle something to get it working again. This is a frequent cause of your water running out, but it is also possible to have the pump from the aljibe to the tinaco go bad, or to have the line between the two break.
Joseph asked us if we knew where that stuff was on our roof, and of course, we didn't. Our options then were to either go track it down with a flashlight, go bother Miguel Ángel (and Joseph joined us in thinking that wasn't the best idea), or to wait until morning and see then if we had running water. If at that time we didn't, it might be serious enough to warrant going to see Miguel Ángel, but at that time of night, when we didn't have any pressing need for it, we decided we could hold out for water until morning.
We retired to the balcony and chatted a bit, then started reading the books we were working on. Soon, we heard a noise in the kitchen and came in to check on it. I had inadvertently left the faucet on in the sink, and water was coming out of it just like normal. Since that night, we've only had that happen again once, and we suspect that Miguel Ángel (or someone else that knows how to deal with the pump) sees that there is no water, goes upstairs to jiggle the necessary component and after a few minutes' wait, everyone can go on with their routine.
The incident did reinforce a valuable lesson that we are learning about living here: calm down. Always have a good book around that you can read, or batteries in the radio so that if you have to just relax on the balcony and listen to music for a while, you can. Even with something as basic as water, things just seem to work out in time if you wait long enough. Such "inconveniences" give you a great excuse to just relax and enjoy life for a while.
Posted by crispy at 03:47 AM | Comments (4)
February 05, 2006
Just a Fad?
A friend and reader of this blog recently commented on the paucity of recent entries, despite my finally getting Internet access in the apartment. He claimed it was a clear sign that the "blog fad" was truly over, but I assure you, that is not the case.
While I would like to say that I've just been too busy to write, that isn't the only thing involved. When I had infrequent access, involving taking the laptop to places with wireless and uploading things I'd written elsewhere, it was a little easier to get time on the laptop itself. Now that the Internet is available at home, Shawn and I compete for use of the machine itself, and I don't do longhand drafts that I type up later. I am a direct-to-digital kind of guy with my writing. Maybe if I had a "manual" typewriter around, I'd use that, but it's just too painful to write long pieces by hand. I am considering buying a second, smaller machine for Shawn's use, as he merely browses web sites and does email with it, but that's still a low priority. We still don't have a couch or a television, despite the fact that our cable has been installed.
Additionally, I try to keep my entries interesting to you all, as I know it's time-consuming to follow a blog. I don't want to repay the kindness you've shown me by being a reader with some boring digital recreation of my daily shopping list or a lengthy diatribe on the condition of the sidewalks here. If you are taking the time to read this blog, I feel like your time should be spent learning something about the country that is important, or at least interesting. As it is, I already feel guilty about writing this entry, which is merely a tedious apology for not being more productive.
Yet there remain several things I'd like to tell you about, from how the water supply works to the ongoing circus of the presidential campaigns. I ask that you please stay tuned, watch for updates (we are syndicated with RDF, so you can track us with your RSS news aggregator), and post comments or send me email about what you'd like to read about on these pages. But please don't lose hope, and please don't send Chuck Norris to kick my ass. I have enough to do without having to provide entertainment to celebrities.
Posted by crispy at 12:04 PM | Comments (5)