Day 3 in Mexico

We woke up to a gorgeous day, without the crazy wind from the two previous days, and I knew this was going to be a hot one. We rode the scooter all the way to the southern tip of Isla Mujeres and had beef and chicken tacos for breakfast since our B&B owner takes Mondays off for cooking. The small outdoors restaurant we picked was overlooking the sea which looked just like a postcard: shades of blue and green, with fairly quiet surf for the season. We rented snorkeling equipment and plouf! jumped in the water with the fishes. Now here’s a problem: I am stupidly afraid of fishes. I am the kind of person of asks to change table at a restaurant when they sit me near a fish tank. But the little black and yellow fishes all around us in the water didn’t know about my fear, so they quickly surrounded me to see if I was edible. Taking deep breaths to calm oneself is a hard task when one is breathing through a snorkel. But then B., who thought the whole situation was pretty funny, showed me how the fishes run away when you try to catch them. So I found myself actually running after the little guys to make sure they wouldn’t do a staring competition with me right next to my mask.

And then I got over it of course, because there were just too many fishes and they were so beautiful! We even followed a stingray for a while, but I have to say I was glad this one didn’t come up to my face! It is forbidden to wear sunscreen in the waters of this national park because they are trying to get the abused corral back into shape, so of course, parts of our bodies are now as red as lobsters. We rested in the shade, surrounded by the biggest iguanas I have ever seen. And then we had to have fish for dinner, but I’ll let Blork tell you about that part.

We are now cooling off in an air conditioned Internet “cafe”, which is not really a cafe because nobody is drinking and everybody is typing. There are Internet “cafes” everywhere in this small town and the locals seem to use them as much as the tourists do. I’ll probably keep writing in English because I can’t find the French accents on the keyboard.

Tomorrow we leave this paradise and we’re off to the very very hot city of Merida.

Sand in the brain

It’s about 32C. My legs are sore from playing in the waves. I fell asleep in a hammock right after lunch. The air smells of salt and sea weed and it’s so humid our clothing is constantly damp. So we spend most of the time in our bathing suits. B. and I have been riding around Isla Mujeres on a scooter, the preferred mode of transportation on this small island. Whole families ride on them: I’ve seen a father balancing a kid in the front, another one in the back, and a baby in a diaper on his lap, driving the scooter with one hand.

We’ve only been here for a day and a half, and my mind is in complete slowwww mode. The hardest decision we have to make is picking the restaurant where we’re going to eat. In fact, B. is waiting for me to be done, so I’ll leave you here. Man, life is tough in Mexico.

Presque pr�te � partir

Spring Cleaning

The Mafiaboy synopsis is out of my house and in the hands of Telefilm Canada. Light a candle for me…

And now that I have some precious time on my hands, I’m catching up with everything that was left behind, starting with the Blogging Spot Project. Click on the link on the top of the right column of this page to become a true voyeur!

Maybe he just needs to go to Mexico

Blork has the blog blues, and he’s wondering:

What’s up? Are we losing interest? Has the medium of the blog ceased to be the message? Is the blogosphere in decline?

L’amour L’amiti� selon Lelouch

D�s qu’on met les pieds dans une histoire d’amour, c’est sublime et monumental, cela vous donne une �nergie folle et en m�me temps, il faut faire tr�s attention. D�j�, quand vous �tes avec quelqu’un de bien, il n’y a pas que vous qui l’avez remarqu�! Un mec bien ou une fille bien, il y a plein de gens qui le rep�rent, alors du coup, il y a des pr�dateurs. L� on s’aper�oit que l’amiti� ne tient pas la route, l’amiti� fid�le, cela n’existe pas. Si vous avez des amis fid�les, c’est que votre femme n’est pas terrible.

Extrait d’une entrevue publi�e par La Presse.

Dilemmes amoureux

Tiens, je viens juste de remarquer que l’article que j’ai �crit pour le nouveau magazine Virus est maintenant disponible sur le Web. �a s’intitule Les dilemmes amoureux d’une t�l�phile. Et puis non, au cas o� vous seriez curieux, le dilemme n’est toujours par r�gl� (et les noms des �missions que j’�coute ont �t� chang�s…).

Allo ma belle!

Bell Mobilit� lance un programme de recyclage de t�l�phones sans fil, une solution int�ressante au probl�me grandissant des appareils �lectroniques qui sont trop souvent jet�s � la poubelle.

Selon une �tude men�e par Inform, “by 2005, there will be at least 200 million cell phones in use across the country (note: U.S.) and another 500 million older phones may be stockpiled in drawers, closets, and elsewhere, waiting to be thrown away. Within three years, Americans will discard about 130 million cellular telephones a year, and that means 65,000 tons of trash, including toxic metals and other health hazards”.

Sur son Carnet Techno, Bruno Guglielminetti offre une entrevue � propos de ce nouveau programme avec Mary-Ann Bell, v-p au service � la client�le chez… BELL Mobilit�! Vite, pr�venons le Centre Canadien des Aptonymes!

Et puisqu’on parle de pollution, Bruno mentionne aussi dans son carnet que nous sommes en pleine semaine de la v�rification des piles recyclables. N’oubliez pas que les vieilles piles recyclables peuvent aussi �tre recycl�es! Soignez votre karma!

We told you all along: bigger IS better

It may sound like sexual prejudice, but it seems that men’s much-debated ability to navigate slightly better than women applies in virtual environments as well as the real world. […] Microsoft has found that women tend to be about 20 per cent slower than men when working out where they are in a computer-generated world. So led by Desney Tan from Carnegie Mellon, Czerwinski and her Microsoft colleague George Robertson ran tests on volunteers to see if they could improve this. They found that women were just as good as men at virtual navigation when they had a large computer display. […] Female architects, designers, trainee pilots and even computer gamers should be given much wider computer screens, a team of computer scientists from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Microsoft’s research lab in Redmond, Washington, told a computer usability conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, last week.

From NewScientist.com (linked via Wired News)

Mes nuits sont plus belles que vos jours

Surtout avec un oreiller comme celui-ci. Parfait pour ceux qui ont un mauvais rh�me et qui doivent passer la journ�e au lit, non? Vous ne trouvez pas que les plus beaux oreillers sont les plus “rembourr�s”? (linked via Toast)