• Travel Pics: Bariloche & Puerto Madryn

    04Mar
    Categories: General, photos Comments: 0

    Here’s a sampling of some photos from my trip to Bariloche. The bulk of the photos are online here. I went to Bariloche, Chocolate capital of the lakes region of Argentina. My week there was absolutely beautiful. Then I crossed the border (and the Andes mountains) into Chile to renew my passport. The whole trip was full of breathtaking vistas: mountains, lakes, waterfalls, volcanoes, animals. From Puerto Varas, Chile, I went back Bariloche and caught a bus to Puerto Madryn on the east coast. I was able to visit some friends there and also see the largest penguin colony in South America in Punto Tombo.

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  • Who’s Hungry?!

    10Feb
    Categories: General Comments: 0

    Barfy Burgers – 100% Argentine Beef!

    Barfy-Burger

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  • My friend is an undercover wrestler?

    08Feb
    Categories: General Comments: 2

    crystal-cholita-picassa

    Picasa, the google photo sharing site, has a face recognition feature that helps you tag your photos. In my photos I have some from my trip to La Paz, Bolivia to see the Cholita wrestling, Bolivian women in traditional dresses beating each other up WWF style. Worth the trip! Anyways it was funny when Picasa thought one of the wrestlers was Crystal! I wouldn’t be surprised if she was moonlighting as a Cholita!

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  • I finally saw some Fútbol in Argentina

    04Feb
    Categories: General, photos Comments: 3

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    I can’t believe it has taken so long to go to a fútbol / soccer match! But finally I went with some friends to the first game of the season, Boca Jr’s vs. Argentinos Jr’s at the Diego Armando Maradona stadium, which happens to be the smallest stadium in the city. It was a really entertaining game (final score 2-2), though we spent way too much money to sit on the Argentinos side (Boca is the favorite and has the craziest fans). But half the fun is being surrounded by the ardent fans, cheering, swearing, chanting, singing. I want to keep an eye out for a Boca Jr’s / River Plate match, South America’s answer to the Red Sox / Yankees rivalry. That game outta be great. GOL!!!!!!!!!

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  • Lost Book Club

    03Feb
    Categories: General Comments: 0

    In honor of the last season of Lost starting this month, the Flavorwire blog has a list of books mentioned on Lost. I used to listen to a Lost podcast, and the podcasters would freeze-frame the episode whenever there was a book on screen, and then read it and give commentary on how it related to the show (purgatory, subterranean worlds, mysterious islands, biblical themes). Always interesting, but I left the research task to the super-fans. But a lot of the books on this list sound really good, and it makes me wish I could read really fast and also had an English library at my disposal.

    The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares (1940)

    The Moon Pool by Abraham Merritt (1919)

    “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce (1890)

    Lancelot: A Novel by Walker Percy (1977)

    The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne (1874)

    Island by Aldous Huxley (1962)

    Valis by Philip K. Dick (1981)

    The Shape of Things to Come by H.G. Wells (1933)

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  • off with a bang!

    17Jan
    Categories: General, Music, Music Links Comments: 2

    January is turning out to be great so far for music!

    Magnetic Felds – [Realism] Hmm, I love Magnetic Fields, but I’m too excited about this one after the first listen. Realism is Stephin Merritt’s “folk album”, and the sister album to 2008’s Distortion, where he wanted to sound more Jesus & Mary Chain than Jesus & Mary Chain.

    Spoon – [Transference] Back with their 7th studio album, Spoon keeps putting out great stuff.

    Vampire Weekend – [Contra] Will the sophomore album live up to the debut?? I might like it better. Bonus track

    Broken Bells – [Broken Bells] The new project from Danger Mouse and James Mercer from The Shins! Pretty great. (Not allowed to post the link due to web sherrif!)

    Yeasayer – [Old Blood] trippy awesome

    Shearwater – [The Golden Archipelago] Epic. Shearwater started as a side project of Okkervil River, but have continually released amazing records of their own.

    Xiu Xiu – [Dear God, I Hate Myself] Though still not “radio friendly”, this latest record is so much more so than the other Xiu Xiu releases. I like it, and the title is pretty awesome. And I read somewhere that they used a nintendo to make some of the sounds?

    Real Estate - [Real Estate] Good, mellow. Kinda Fleet Foxes-ish but less dreamy?

    Owen Pallett (Final Fantasy) – [Heartland] So Owen decided to drop the Final Fantasy moniker for all upcoming releases. This album uses a lot more instruments than just his usual violin and voice.

    Nana Grizol – [Ruth] I like this album a lot, and the singer is getting compared to Jeff Mangum, though I don’t quite see it. It kinda reminds me of Hallelujah the Hills, from Boston. Nevertheless, it has a definite Elephant 6 feel to it, as it should. Members of this band run Orange Twin Records with members of Elf Power.

    Los Campesinos! – [Romance is Boring] I think they grew up a little with this record. Lot’s of good songs, but less innocent cutesyness.

    Liars – [Sisterworld] More cool hipster music.

    Harlem – [Hippies] Lo-Fi, garage-y, I think you’ll like it if you liked the Girls album last year.

    Moonface – [Dreamland EP]  Spencer Krug from Sunset Rubdown and Wolf Parade gives us 21 minutes of Marimba and drums and lyrics based on his dreams. Offered free or by donation on www.mooonface.ca

    Charlotte Gainsbourg – [IRM] French actress, daughter of Serge Gainsbourg, collaboration with Beck…. So good.

    Neil Young – [Dreamin' Man] Live takes on every song from Harvest Moon, but in different order. 1992 performance.

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  • Kitten Mittons!

    14Jan
    Categories: General Comments: 1

    This clip is from the show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia which is brilliant!

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  • Free Back Surgery

    11Jan
    Categories: General, News, photos Comments: 2

    Well, it’s done.
    wound
    Two months after my minor back pain turned to severe ciatica, I hobbled my way to a Diagnostic Clinic and got an MRI that showed 2 herniated discs / one ruptured. I don’t have health insurance, so I had to weigh the pro’s and con’s of  South American health care versus returning to the states. This weekend, more than three months after the MRI, I got micro-discectomy surgery at Hospital Rivadavia, here in Buenos Aires. The hospital is ugly but charming, public and free, and the doctors are good. They took out part of the disc that had ruptured and has been pressing against my nerve. Not sure what caused it, something in the gym or years of bad posture working in an office maybe, probably both. Now I’m home recuperating, resting, ordering ice cream delivery and enjoying air conditioning. And yes mom, I’ll continue to take my vitamins.

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  • Montevideo & Punta Del Este, Uruguay

    07Jan
    Categories: General, photos Comments: 0

    Meandering across the mighty and murky mouth of the Rio de la Plata, by ferry, I made my second trip to Uruguay last month. Bakersfield’s own Taylor Hurst had been visiting, and got it in his head that three weeks in pre-summer Uruguay was a good idea. So after talking him off that ledge, he crossed over for about a week. Nicole “If you steal my rocking chair you’re going down” Contos and I met up with him in Montevideo. It’s a tame enough town, lot’s of trees. We found an old marketplace near the port that had been renovated into various eateries, and feasted on some Uruguayan asado. A local we met on a bus had insisted that their beef was better than “ours” (Argentina’s) so we had to put it to the test. Viva la Argentina! After 2 nights and a thwarted effort to mingle with the second princess of llamas, we headed east. Bussing up the Costa del Oro, we arrived in Punta Del Este, the beach resort where I would vacation each summer if I was a wealthy Argentine. Loved all the modern boxy houses. Summer is a beautiful time to be at Bikini Beach, or stalking Shakira in Jose Ignacio. We were in town just before the Christmas rush of tourists, and most establishments remained closed. We rented a small Chevy, picnicked on the coast near some caves, visited Casapueblo (designed by an architect friend of Picasso), and generally ran amuck.

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  • A to Z

    18Dec
    Categories: General, Music Comments: 5

    ryan-strawberries
    I am obsessed with organizing my iTunes. Well… I guess my music obsession trumps the organization obsession. If I didn’t download so much music, I wouldn’t have so much to worry about, but still… I can spend hours (hours?) making sure everything is classified correctly by genre, properly labeling track numbers, gathering album art, etc. My friend Justin is similar about his record collection, and I know from experience (of messing with Justin’s on his graduation day) that one should not mess with a audiophile’s vinyl alphabetizing / sorting by release date. My friend April and I had to hide out in a bathroom til he cooled off. Maybe I’d freak out if you hacked my iTunes, but please don’t try it. Perhaps my obsession stems not only from a love of music, but also from my 2 year stint working at a cd shop in college. “Good Afternoon, ‘Strawberries’ Music, Movies & More, How can I help you?” To this day I cannot walk by a stack of cd’s in a store without straightening them out, and maybe alphabetizing just a little.

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