CC's blog

This blog has moved, please update your bookmarks / feeds

This blog has moved to its own domain: www.chivacongelado.com , the new RSS feed being at http://feeds2.feedburner.com/chivacongelado .  Why?

After starting in MySpace (of all places) almost 3 years ago, I moved the blog to Blogger to take advantage of better blogging functionality.  In March 2007 it was migrated again to Vox so that I could use the more user-friendly interface available there besides being able to post from my mobile device at the time (or so I said at the time).

In reality, I found a pretty user interface, that made very simple to import and display content, but didn't allow for unregistered comments, trackbacks, statistics, widgets, counters, etc., so the conversation didn't grow the way I would have expected.  To make matters worse, even though their import utilities are excellent their export tools don't exist, so my content was literally trapped.  This, as you can imagine, made me a very frustrated user, especially since their customer service just ignored me.

With the help of a couple of friends I was finally able to free my content, and am now hosting in BlueHost (GoDaddy was out of the question after the cvander debacle).  Installing Wordpress was very, very easy and you are now privy to the results.  The old blog will remain in its old place, but will not be updated from now on.  There might still be a couple of tweaks to be done, but pretty much everything is in place now.

Welcome to my home in the web.  Mi casa es su casa. ;-)

Monocle does Mexico

This month's edition of Monocle, my favourite magazine, has an in-depth survey of Mexico (running at 36 pages) that features the best in current Mexican design, music, literature, business, media, hospitality and gastronomy.

It is very refreshing to see such a positive portrayal of the Mexican reality, as most international media tend to take the easy route, focusing only on what's wrong (which we already know) instead of what's right. Highly recommended!

The credit crunch explained

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Via Alt1040.

How to hook up your home theatre, Goofy style

Goofy in How to Hook Up Your Home Theater

Can definitely sympathise with Goofy this time.

Recommended movie: Aavan meren tällä puolen / Kid Svensk / That Special Summer

Kid Svensk - Trailer Suomi (Finsk) Version

Watched this film last night and really liked it for two reasons:

1. Its portrayal of the immigrant integration challenge: the mother, a low-skilled Finnish immigrant to Gothenburg in Sweden in the 1980's, doesn't speak any Swedish and cannot understand her surroundings, and
2. The tackling of the situations a kid growing with two languages and cultures can face: supporting her parents in the local community and being harassed for her background.

I found the movie especially poignant given the current immigration debate in Finland.  Not too long ago, Finns were leaving the country, facing similar issues in other lands to the ones found by newcomers here.

Cross-country skiing

Snow in Eastern Finland
Originally uploaded by Chiva Congelado

After I moved to Finland, one of the things I learned to love was cross-country skiing, so when I was a student and was awarded a small stipend for school achievement, I used that money to buy myself a set of cross-country skis, poles & boots.

Since the past couple of winters have been pretty lousy in southern Finland and I was in Brussels for a year, it had been at least 3 years since I used my skis last time until yesterday. It was, however, like reuniting again with a long-lost friend.

Maybe I should start the Mexican Nordic Combined team? ;-)

Working with interesting people

My work, of which I usually don't talk about in this blog, can sometimes be great, sometimes frustrating but in the end one of the things that makes it worthwhile is the people.

To have an idea, you can check some of their public blogs:

• erkkola.net
• danielgoodal.com
• finlandforthought.net
• artojoensuu.wordpress.com
• digiantique.wordpress.com
• cognitions.typepad.com
• activefreemedia.com
  

Suosittelen tätä meksikolaista ruokakirjaa

Suosittelen tätä meksikolaista ruokakirjaa


Originally uploaded by Chiva Congelado

Monta kertaa olen sanonut että Suomessa ei saa hyvää, aitoa meksikolaista, vaan texmexiä. Kun ei täällä ole laatuisia meksikolasia ravintoloja, suomalaiset ovat vaan tavaneet Santa Maria tai Old El Paso, joka on meksikolaiselle ruualle kuin lohihampurilainen suomalaisille.

Sen takia, tämä kirja on minun puolesta hyvin tervetullut, koska puhuu ruuasta jolla olen itse kasvanut ja löydät siellä melkein missä vaan, ei taco-kuoreista jotka vaan tapasin Pohjois-Europpassa aikuisena.

Helsingin Sanomien arvostelu löydät tästä, ja voit ostaa useimmista paikoista.

Winter

Déjà vu

A man without an abundant experience in politics, a man very different from his predecessors and one of whose parents had been born abroad, runs for the presidency of his country through a grassroots movement, great oratory and the promise of change in big, bold letters.  His campaign imposed his candidacy on his party and eventually clinched the presidency with enormous expectations.  The handover between administrations was smooth and the incoming government met with support from the international community.

I'm not talking about Barack Obama in '09, but Vicente Fox in 00'.  I hope against hope that the sky-high expectations don't crash this time, as the challenges are many.