Hopped up on penguins

My staying power is close to nil, I'll be the first to admit it. Poor neglected blog, remember the first few days, when I couldn't keep away from you? Now look.

Anyway, we did some shit that I haven't told you about yet. Thing one: We went to Ushuia. That's at the very tippy bottom of South America, where it is freezing balls out all the time. And what do they have in Ushuia? Penguins!!! Well, technically not IN Ushuia, we took a boat to an island where we were permitted to walk among the penguins, though not to touch or bother them in any way (assuming that staring, cooing, and incessant picture snapping does not constitute "bothering"). Did you know this about penguins? The man penguin has to make a house for the lady penguins, and if he makes a crappy house no lady penguin will be his wife for the summer. We were shown an example of a crappy house - really just a weak little hole scratched halfheartedly in the ground next to a bush. I imagine the builder to have been around the corner at the penguin bar, wearing a wife beater and grumbling about how he doesn't need those bitches anyway, who wants to sit on an egg for 6 weeks? I wish I'd had a tiny Chevette on blocks to put outside his doorway.

Also, we stumbled upon the Ushuia graveyard, which is like a ramshackle version of the fancy cemetaries on BA, with a New Orleans feel to it on account of all the little shrines to the dead. I envy the guy whose job it is to sit in the little guard hutch all day - I bet he gets a shit ton of reading done, there among the dead at the bottom of the earth. Also, the sun went down at like 11pm.
We took a ski lift up to the foot of a glacier, but did not climb it (not enough time, plus converse one-stars are not the mountaineer's choice of footwear). First time I've been on a ski lift. Can't say I like it. Not one bit. John promised not to rock the chair. I told him it hadn't occured to me he would, thanks, but if he did, I would have to murdalize him. It was worth it for the view and the hot cocoa, though.
Because I can only post a few photos per entry, I am going to devote this post to Ushuia and start a new post for the other stuff. Next up: Montevideo, and good luck gods.

The Tragic Events of 9-11, etc.

We went to go see Oliver Stone's World Trade Center in a rather awesome cheap-seats downtown (7 pesos for 2 movies! They were pairing WTC with, uh, the Inferno or some kind of devil movie, which is somewhat hilarious, though possibly not as good as my United 93/Stick It double feature idea). Outside: typical semi-sleazy movie house vibe (John said he thought it was a, quote, "peeler joint", unquote). Inside: delightfully spooky, cavernous, kinda sticky old theaters that looked like they should be showing aging vaudville stars and fat burlesque dancers, not Serious Films about Tragedies. We could hear the click-click-click of the projector, which showed the movie in that fucked-up ratio that lets you see the boom microphone all the time. Next time, I'm getting pictures. Of the theater, not of boom microphones.

In other news, John and I spent the day on the bikes going to flea markets. I bought the kind of junk I usually buy, old magazines, old photos, old old stuff, and John, though it will shock you, bought records. Poor John is relying on me to translate for him in his quest for good Argentinean vinyl, but I swear I'm just making things worse. Ususally goes like this: "Spanish spanish spanish spanish I had that record yesterday but I sold it spanish spanish spanish explain it to him." And then some record dude and John looking at me expectantly while I go "uhhhhh..." Also at the flea market: a VHS porno entitled "10,000 Anal Maniacs." BWAH!!! I hope, I hope, somewhere out there Natalie Merchant isn't taking that too seriously. According to the box (snort) it's about a music critic who gets More Than he Bargains for when he interviews the members of an all-girl rock band who are also nymphomaniacs. Sadly, none of them were pale things in cardigans with dark sloe eyes.

Also, summer gym hours mean boxing only twice a week for me. Which means I really ought to go jogging. Which means I'm gonna spend a lot of time carping about how it's too hooooot to jog or it's raining or some bullshit, and then saying fuck it and getting some empanadas instead. Slow news week, kids.

Kaboom

If what you were really hoping for, in your heart of hearts, was 23 seconds of John shooting a firecracker off Megan and Adam's balcony on New Year's, I have just the thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbagK_5-22U

Earlier in the evening John sort of hilariously set off a firecracker shitstorm by lighting a little one and tossing it by mistake into the small pile of other firecrackers we had set set out on the terrace. It lit the fuse on the giant kaboom-style one we had and yeah, it went kaboom all right. Lucky for us, our entire stock of ordnance did not go off at once, which would have been deafening and I guess, you know, dangerous, and probably would have left a big burn mark on the terrace.

All in all an extremely pleasant New Year's. I hope y'all had a pleasant one as well, despite living in fire-cracker free cities.

Hoo man, know what my computer hates? Running PhotoShop in hot weather. I hear you buddy, but we've got to eat. Stop burning my wrist.