If Marcos can do it, so can you. Please vote!
Marcos goes skydiving
Last Saturday, Luis, Lola, Gabriel and myself went to the appropriately named town of San Marcos, TX in order to jump off a plane at 11,000 feet of altitude.
Four brave souls.
Unfortunately, my car decided to break on our way there, so we had to give up and turn around… for the moment.
Undeterred by the seemingly clear sign from above, we went again on Sunday. It was a little bit warmer than Saturday and very sunny. The people at Skydive San Marcos were awesome and we were up in the sky within the hour. Lloyd is the guy I was literally strapped on for my life. He very coolly explained and got me through the whole process.
Fantasy Football
We’re trying to put together a Fantasy Football group using Medio Tiempo’s system. I’ve never seen it or used it. It will be a free, just for fun (i.e. bragging rights) ordeal. We need sign up by the league’s start on Friday night, I think. If you’re interested let me know ASAP.
Of course, we’re talking about the Mexican Torneo de Clausura 2008.
To Air or not to Air?
I had it all planned.
Then, George walks over to my desk. George and I have this interesting thing going on: I talk him into buying Apple stuff (rather successfully) and he talks me out of buying Apple stuff.
He explained to me why I shouldn’t get a MacBook Air. Unfortunately, he’s right in all accounts.
After a little digging, for $300 less than the Air I bought a regular MacBook (white).
Compared to the stock MacBook Air, I got:
- A faster processor (2.2 GHz instead of 1.6 GHz)
- Twice as much memory (4 GB instead of 2 GB)
- Larger, faster HD (120 GB instead of 80 GB)
- Built in SuperDrive (instead of no optical drive at all)
- 2 USB ports instead of 1
- User-replaceable battery
- A Firewire port (instead of zero)
- I can later replace the hard drive for something larger, easily.
I sacrificed:
- The coolness factor of the MacBook Air
- Backlit keyboard
- Multi-touch trackpad
- 2 pounds
- Bluetooth 2.1 (I only get 2.0)
Sure, if I traveled a lot or had to carry the machine everyday, then the smaller and lighter Air wins a lot of points. But that’s not the case. My MacBook should be in tomorrow.
Thinnovation
There’s a small chance that the effects of the Reality Distortion Field will subside just enough to steer me towards the cheaper, more featured and yet comparativey huge MacBook between now and the time when I can order it through Amazon… but it’s a safe assumption that the wait was worth it. Meet my new computer: The MacBook air.
The amazing flying kid
Arturito and Debbie sitting in a tree
As you can tell from my last post, my cousin and former La Guarida dweller Arturo Karakowsky got married to the beautiful Debbie Forkowitz last Sunday. This was their religious wedding, as they held their civil wedding a few months ago (and I had the distinct pleasure of attending as well).
This wedding was unique because it was held right here, in the Live Musical Capital of the World, even though neither the groom nor bride were born here, but it’s the middle ground where both went to school. It also means that I was one of the few locals (a minority in this party) and had a house full of guests. It was cool and sort of surreal to see so many people from Monterrey at bars that weekend and especially at the rehearsal dinner and wedding banquet.
Without further ado, I leave you a link to a few photos I took. Feel free to email me any photos you’d like added to the album. Also, I took some video of the traditional dancing at the wedding. Since Arturo weighs around 40 Kg, he could really fly. Sadly his best acrobatics were not captured in my videos, as I was too busy throwing him up.
Family visit
As you can see in the photo, my parents and Moi were in town last weekend for Arturito and Debbie’s wedding. I will post something about that sometime in the future.
Above: two boxes of Noche Buena beer (2008 edition), one box of Carta Blanca Edición Especial (which came out recently and I’ve never tried) and one bottle of Tequila Herradura Reposado. My parents think, apparently, that this is the only way to get my friends to hang out with me.
They’re right.
Paradise Now (review)
I finally saw the controversial movie Paradise Now. I even wrote a lengthy (unfinished) post about it. However, due to the highly explosive (pun intended? I can’t help myself!) topic, the review needs to be very carefully written and that’s a lot of work. So I won’t finish it. I’ll summarize it though:
It’s a good movie. It’s very well done. It’s well acted. It’s entertaining and it’s educational. It is also very careful about what it shows and what it leaves out. This is not a documentary, so it’s unfair to expect a balanced viewpoint. In reality, this movie is by design anything but balanced (and that’s completely valid): It shows the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as seen from the eyes of two young guys from Nablus that get recruited to carry out a suicide bombing in Tel-Aviv. As such, the movie depicts an important part of the whole picture. But only a part.
What worries me (as seen through the ancient all encompasing prism) about this is that a lot of viewers don’t really know enough about the topic and will draw conclusions based on this incomplete picture. Even more worrisome is that many of the viewers that tend to watch this type of films, international artsy non-Hollywood foreign films, love to feel wise and knowledgeable even when they aren’t; so they are extra quick to form their own, strong, final, knowledgeable-sounding conclusions. And they’ll be happy to spread them, you know, in order to feel wise and knowledgeable.
As a side note, the tagline used in the poster is “From the most unexpected place, comes a bold call for peace.“. It makes no sense to me how it relates to the movie. Can someone explain that?
What do you think?
Five years online
The MKX® is five years old as of today. That’s a whopping 35 years in dog years.
The world was a very different place back when we started: No Facebook. Only monochrome iPods. A world in which Britney Spears was a wholesome young role model and presumably still a virgin (yeah, right). Even the Ugly Nun wasn’t famous yet! How did we ever manage to live like that?!
Yes, it’s been a wild ride and everyone in the team is thankful for your loyal readership. Have a happy 2008 and let’s share many more adventures.