basque

i don't remember what i said about basque stuff, but it's really cool. i'll have to go and clarify when i can. but i have 1 minute on this internet session.
so i'm back from north country, and headed to the east coast tomorrow.
valencia, alicante, and benidorm, maybe.
will eat oranges.
bye

san sebastian

hola, my bitches.

i'm in san sebastian now. it's fun. it's "basque" here, so R's are sometimes G's except after C and sometimes Y. no, ok. i don't really know what's going on. but it has this "moorish" or "islamic" or "middle eastern" influence. it's fun. but more important than that is the ocean! i see ocean again! i love it.
we're gonna stop by the surf shop to see how the waves are. then, hopefully, i'll get to surf.

check out the main page of this pension (hostel) http://pensionsanlorenzo.com/ for a pic of where we are (kind of). we'll be looking for surf on the bottom of the picture (east), then maybe way past the top (much further west).

keep your fingers crossed for some surf videos of me. enough of this silly bullfight videos.

going to the barber

not much time for more than a hello.

i'm in seville and will be heading to granada this afternoon. tomorrow, it'll be the alhambra and then a bus back to madrid. the next day, san sebastian and the possibility of surf. video will be up if i can.

seville seems much more of a touristy town than madrid, at least the parts of each city that i've seen. seville is peppered with waikiki-type touristy shops. and bull shirts EVERYWHERE. same bull from two posts ago. everyone is selling it but, strangely enough, no one is wearing it. at least not the locals. maybe like the crap hawaiian tourist stores try to peddle to tourists?

spain update numero uno

hola, bitches!

Chairmanlau.com brings the bullfight to you!

so i went to this bullfight. it was ridiculous. here's how it works:
1) the bull is introduced, and it runs around, trying to kill people (5.38MB).
2) it runs around and more, trying to kill that damn pink cape! then gets stabbed by a guy on a horse. (10.1MB) (the horse is blindfolded, probably so it won't get spooked. poor horse gets knocked really hard.)
3) the bull gets stabbed more by these other bowling pin looking things (6.29MB). "picadors", i think they're called.
4) the matador comes and does the cape thing, then delivers the final blow (2.42MB)! (look how deep he buries the sword!)
5) finally, the poor bull falls and dies. (2.31MB) guy with the sword and lots of help wins. nice job, sancho.

repeat all steps 4 or 5 times, and "ole!" you've been to a bull fight!

FUTBOL

then the soccer game. it was ridiculous. it was real madrid vs. valencia. valencia is in first place, and they are awesome. but, of course, real has rinaldo and david beckham. valencia ended up winning. there were 80,000 people at the game, AND I WAS IN THE 7TH ROW! just look how close we were (917KB). (paz was two rows in front of me). other fun facts: the beer was the cheapest thing on the menu at the stadium, and at halftime most people bust out sandwiches and have a snack.

valencia scored one of their goals on this penalty kick (8.73MB). notice how quiet the crowd is after the goal.

ok. so everybody thinks that david beckham is so great. well, after seeing the game, i think he's a big pansy. ok. he's quick and, yes, he's pretty. i'll give him that. and being married to a spice girl? awesome. but in this game, he sucked. he had a handful of nice touches, but then committed a lame foul toward the end of the game, when his team was already down a man (somebody got red-carded earlier). so he gets a yellow card after the foul for bitching and whining too much. THEN, he keeps talking, and gets a red card himself! so his team had to finish the game two men down. selfish, immature, and lame. if you want someone to like, check out my new favorite player, raul, real's captian. he's mature-acting, collected, quick, dangerous, and scored the only goal for real. and i think he's a pretty good-looking fella, too. and another thing. his name is Raul Gonzalez Blanco, but he's so bad ass, the back of his jersey just says "raul". it's like if kobe was badass enough to have "kobe" instead of "bryant" on his jersey. but he's not. he's lame, too. quit your whining, bryant!

salidas

ok. that's it for now. but here's a picture of a happy eric (though a bit tired and a little homesick) in front of the big statue of don quijote (929KB).

hola!, bitches!

you don´t know how hard it was to write that html code using this stupid spanish keyboard.

words i know:
¡servicios!
¡cervezas!
¡peligro!
piso mojado (thank you, first hall)
¡paragua!
¡zapatos!
¡pantalones!
¿donde estoy?

as you can see, i still can´t order food. but at least i´ll have shoes and pants in the dangerous rain, while shouting, ´where am i?!´

more later

¿su madre!

Hola!

hi guys.
i'm heading to spain today. tonight, actually. i'll be flying away from this place and, a few days later, i'll be watching bullfights, soccer matches, and maybe even surfing along the way.

i've been told that there's a bunch of internet cafes, so i might even be blogging. maybe.

i've printed out the surf maps for the Mediterranean, Cantabria , and Pais Vasco. Some of the spots look pretty good. if i can find a board and wetsuit to rent, you might see some pics of me surfing.

i've also grabbed the 'intro to spanish' language labs from my old highschool. they'll help me pronouce well, but might not have the english translation on them.

i don't really know what's gonna happen, but i know it'll be good. either way, i'll be back just in time for my birthday. pretty good birthday present for myself, huh?

wish me luck. hope that i packed enough underwear. and hope that i can use the time to figure out what i want to do with my life. and get ready for a good birthday week (ala mark phillip) upon my return.

battle rappers club

so here was/is the dream:

- take some lessons from my new favorite internet source (eHow): Survive a Freestyle Rap Battle
- start a club at the local high school.
- get the already-existing hip-hop dance troupe to perform at the battles.
- make it become a state-wide and even national event.
- take my team to the US national battle rap championships.
- have crappy documentary/reality TV show on us.
- be a cast member on the The Surreal Life
- beat up omarosa and hang out with mini me.
- die happy.

BUT, the deadline to register a club passed. so i'll have to find a new path in life.

db problem nonsense solved.

about the DB error from last post:

The upgrade requires you to grant the mt_user of your DB all the permissions you can (instead of the handful the installation instructions tell you to grant the user).

To do this, i opened up MySQL Administrator, selected "User Administration", "mt_user", "Schema Privileges", "mt", moved all the privileges to the "assigned" column, then "apply changes".

Then try to load .../mt.cgi, which will lead to the upgrade stuff.

then we dance.