San Juan 09

Before the weekend I attended San Juan. It was quite a strange San Juan to say the least.

Things all started off quite well. Unlike last year were me and the missus spent the whole evening sat on our own, this year we knew people and got to have a bit more fun.
After some time on the beach I went for a little walk, spotted some other friends and doubled the size of our party.
Things were going quite well. The main problem at the beginning of the night was the DJ failed to show up and we didn’t have any music. In fact I didn’t hear much music this year on the beach. More of a fact is that that the beach seemed less busy then last year.
Also I discovered that this years effigy that was to be burnt was of a flame. A flame!? Who burns a flame effigy?
Things took a slight change for the worse at midnight. Just as the fireworks were set to go off and the time when everyone jumps in the sea to wash away evil spirits, two friends of mine and Sams, who are also a couple decide to split. This meant that most of the girls in our original group, being more then slightly drunk disappeared angry/teary/sick for some time.
This meant that my big moment of diving in the sea at midnight and getting more then 6 foot wetter* then last year went unnoticed and unphotographed. Sorry.

Anyways, here are some early photos from a very quiet, sociable, beach party.

Just arrived

Have a nice day

Being prepared is the key

When two become one

Killing time

Parties carry on until dark

Like I mentioned, unfortunately there are no photos of everyone in the sea as I splashing about and the missus was with an upset friend, but imagine me in this photo but a litter wetter and you get the idea.

How I looked before getting wet

Next year I think I’m going to head to one of the other beaches as I hear they have some music and DJ's there.

Here is the slidey show. [source]

*Also I felt quite ill with a cold and sore throat for the next few days.

Pre-Noche de San Juan 2009

Another day, another fiesta

Today is Noche de San Juan.

For those that were reading last year, you can skip much of this but you shouldn’t as you their might be a quiz afterwards.

The bases of this fiesta is it is the shortest night of the year. [source]
I don’t see how the longest day of the year was celebrated two days ago and the shortest night is celebrated today. I thought the two would come hand in hand? And originally thought that it was to do with John Baptist’s birth but that only applies to Venezuela apparently?

Tradition suggests that people have to jump over a fire three times and jump in the sea to cleanse my body.
Which is fun.

Tradition also suggests that you celebrate the night with friends, getting drunk and having BBQ’s, bonfires and parties on the beach until the sun comes up, which isn’t long seeing as it is the shortest night.

And it’s because of these many traditions that Noche de San Juan is by far my favourite fiesta in the whole of the year.

Last year me and the missus, having not been here long and knowing no one had a semi-ok night.

This year we actually know people and I am much looking forward to this years noche a lot more.
Although I doubt I’ll take a tent down this year. But at least my house/fridge stocked with beer is only a few minutes away so I will always have some cold beers near by.

Should be good.

PS it’s good to see some people getting an early start. Personally I’ve got a bit of work to do, perhaps take a quick siesta and have something to eat before I start.

The early bird catches the good spot. 

Happy noche de San Juan.

Dentistry, a cavity in my wallet

So I was at the dentist today and what is it about dentists that make them look for unnecessary work?

Today I went in for some simple work to be done. It wasn’t a check up and it was my first appointment but it was pretty much straight forward.

I know that dentist want to be careful when treating teeth but the dentist took THREE xrays, none of which dealt with my treatment, just as a precaution and found ZERO problems with those xrays.

Then at the end, without asking me he went and started some polishing.

The cost of that polish and three xrays was more then the cost of the treatment that I went in for.

What made it worse was that the polish was the most uncomfortable treatment I have ever had done and I’ve had a few teeth out.

Also what’s the deal with them and trying to force as many different instruments in to one persons mouth? Is this some sort of “dentist game” where they can score points.
I’m sure at one point today I had a few fingers, a sucky thing, scraper, mirror, a few other noisy things and who knows what else? I always keep my eyes closed at dentists. The less I know about the instruments the more comfortable I feel.

I’m guessing on today’s appointment he must of scored about 12 points with what he had shoved in my gob.

Well at least it’s only 6 more months until I get to go through it all again.

One of those plinky questions: Dreams

What's the last dream you remember having? What do you think it means?

From Plinky.com

I can’t actually remember my last dream.

I remember when I was a little kid I asked my mum what she dreams about? She said mainly the Bible and nothing much.

I thought that was a bit weird.
1st) she isn’t at all religious.
2nd) Adults are boring. Not having dreams. What rubbish.

But now I find myself dreaming less and less.
I hear a lot that dreams are supposed to be ways of your brain strengthening memories. I wonder if this means that I am getting more and more forgetful?

So seeing as I am a boring adult that has no decent dreams I’ll talk about one of my worst nightmares.

That scene in Dumbo when it gets drunk and starts hallucinating. Well that whole dream-esque scene pretty much freaked me out as a kid and I’ve never watched that movie again.

But it appears I have selective fears as I am not scared of elephants or alcohol. Just animated pink elephants.

But seeing as I completely side stepped the question, if you want to leave a dream in the comments section I’ll give it the once over “Robbie dream interpretation” interpretation.

Opera Unite

For days I've been trying to figure out what Opera.com/Freedom is?

Opera claimed it was reinventing the web. But left no other clues.

Today it announced Opera Unite. A Opera browser with built in file sharing. 

Sounds pretty simple but when you start using it and sharing you realise what potential this has.

With Opera Unite I can share folders from my computer, host my own chat rooms (does anyone use chatrooms anymore?) and anything else developers can think of.

My favourite thing about Opera Unite is that people I wish to share folders with DO NOT need to have Opera themselves.

For example, you can use Firefox/IE and still view files on my laptop RIGHT NOW.

So if you want to see pictures in my laptops Photo folder, go here 
laptop.moirob.operaunite.com/photo_sharing/

If you want to not only see but also listen to what music is my my music folder go here (I should mention that the Media Player service I am using here only reads mp3. Most of my music is in aac/mp4 so you might not see much.) 
laptop.moirob.operaunite.com/media_player/

You can also leave me a note or see if I am in my chat room and say hi. 

And all this takes place on my laptop. So as long as the laptop is on you can see this. (I've set my sharing to public but of course you can keep it private -only you/your username can access, i.e from a different computer or you can have it password protecte)

And this is only the beginning. Once the developers get hold of this who knows what over services will come?

The best part is when you share.
Amongst all the other fantastic reasons to download Opera, fast, reliable, feature packed, resourceful, always innovative now there is one more reason. Being able to instantly share and connect with friends and family around the World straight from your laptop. For free. No charges for hosting a server or downloading a browser.

I don't give it enough love to Opera here as I would like and it deserves to be recognised more around the World.

I think everyone should go try Opera Unite. See how simple it is to use and to share content and connect with anyone, plus simply how much better it is then other browsers. You won't look back.

(Opera Unite is a free internet browser available on Windows, Mac and Linux)

Tapas and gig

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of my mum, the missus parents and a friend visiting.

We decided to go out for a tapas and to see a gig for a local band, Not to Fall.

Teaching my mum how to be photographed without blinking

I can do the non-blinking perfect. The missus not as good

And then on to the bar. La Playazo, despite having really good live music nights, suffers from being on the furthest side of town. Even when you think you’ve reached the edge of Nerja, this place is even more further down the beach.

At least the walk along the beach before and afterwards is nice.

The band, Not to Fall, setting up

Things started off a bit quiet.

Keep it down guys

Then things started to pick up

“This song goes ‘Ooooooh,oh-ohhhhhhhh lalalalalalalaaaaah eeeeeeeeeeeee’”

‘Ooooooh,oh-ohhhhhhhh lalalalalalalaaaaah eeeeeeeeeeeee’

Nice dancing face man

Then things got really out of hand when. First there was the unison crowd wave

Wave everyone, wave

And I started some pop and lock/robot dance mash up

Bam. There it is

So a good night was had by all

Thanks to these guys, “Not to Fall”

Flickr set | tapas and gig

San Isidro 09

Last month I went to my second San Isidro festival. Incidentally this was the first festival I went to last year when I first moved out to Spain.

San Isidro means quite a few things to old locals, to me and many yoofs it means a piss up, parade, party and the start of the summer.

Here’s some photos from this year.

As always there were many animals

Of all shapes

And sizes

Plenty of well dressed people

 

Of all sizes

Some people cheated and got the Party Truck to the main fiesta area

While others danced

It was very thirsty work

Although for some it was much harder to not sit and watch but instead join in with the parade. Good work A.

Where’s yer horse?

As always the whole slideshow. [Source My Flickr]

 

Opera 10

I’m a big fan of Opera 10. Opera if you don’t know is a fast, safe, standard compliant, innovative and featured packed internet browser.

Personally I could give many reasons why you should try out Opera but you’re the best judge (although this page here that Opera uses to show of some of its HTML code does quote Brass Eye’s Drugs episode with one of its news stories, which is quite amusing and top marks. CAKE is a made up drug. Don’t do it.)

And they’ve just released their beta of Opera 10.

So I thought I’d show it some love.

Go download it and try it out.