Help, someone poisoned me
Let me start with the symptoms: nausea, stomach ache, bad taste and hyper salivation. At least I haven't puked yet.

A few hours ago I went out with some friends, in about three hours we drunk two litres of kalimotxo while eating some supper (it has similar alcoholc like beer) in common (that means that I drank around half a litre in those three hours). I explain this trying to avoid comments saying that I'm drunk.
After that we went to a pub after all that and my mate went to the waitress to get the drinks. I had, as usual, a Tanqueray with Kas citron (Tanqueray is a brand of gin and Kas is a lemmon taste soft drink from Pepsi). I was a bit surprised when I got my drink as it was slightly orange and my gin is transparent and Kas is clear yellow, so, as I saw the waitress pour the 'gin' from the distance, I thought the waitress served me orange Kas instead of citron, the problem came when I tasted it. I am sure it was not Tanqueray or any other gin I've ever drunk, it didn't taste like rum, whisky, vodka, tequila, martini or any other spirit I know. It just tasted and smelled strange, but not bad. I could feel the alcohol effluvia when drinking it, but I couldn't recognise it.

We didn't stay too much in the pub and a few minutes after leaving I began with the symptoms described above. I inmediatly knew what happened: I had been poisoned. They didn't use rat poison or cianide, but some spirit they used to refill the bottles. Unfortunately refilling bottles with cheaper spirit is quite common in some pubs and discos in Spain and it even has a name, 'garrafón', and many people suffer its effects each weekend.

I think I'm going to try to sleep a bit, if I can.

[Escuchando: sindrome de altamira - pedro guerra - bolsillos (2:49)]

Update: Thanks to all the people that have mailed me or post a comment about my health, I'll try to answer personally to each one. I'm ok and I'm sorry I didn't update the blog before, but I've spent most of the week resting a bit.
According to the mail you sent me, refilling spirit bottles is quite common in France and the UK too.

Yahoo's PayDirect dies in favour of PayPal

It seems Yahoo's bet in the online banking world has come to an end. I don't know why my mail filter flagged Yahoo's advise mail as spam, so I've just read it their home page.

Here's an excerpt:

We regret to notify you that we are closing the Yahoo! PayDirect from HSBC service, effective November 22, 2004.
You may continue to use your current PayDirect account until November 22, but you will not be able to open any new accounts, nor will you be able to send money to or receive money from a person who is not currently a PayDirect customer. After November 22, 2004, you will not be able to use your account for any new transactions. 'Send money' transactions initiated prior to November 22 will be completed if recipients accept funds within 30 days after send date; thereafter transactions will be canceled. You can still view your account records and withdraw any pending balances until February 15, 2005. After February 15, you can only access your PayDirect account to review past transactions and/or close your account.
The PayDirect service and web site will be completely discontinued on May 15, 2005.

I must say that I have only used their service twice, so it's not a big problem for me, but I wonder what will happen with the personal data they collected about users when they discontinue the service. I suggest every PayDirect user to delete their account using the Yahoo user deletion page so HSBC can't use their data after they discontinue providing the service.

[Escuchando: life vest under your seat - pedro guerra - bolsillos (2:44)]

Car accident witness

As I've spent several hours on the road lately, I have seen a bunch of accidents that happened just in front of my car (last of them occured this afternoon). Being a witness in these accidents I've been thinking all day in placing an on board digital camera like the ones police cars use in the US (although less sophisticated). I'm sure it would help a lot the police and insurance companies to see how the accident took place.

So now I'm facing a couple of problems. First of them is that I don't know if it's legal or not permanetly recording what happens in front of your car, so I'll have to take a look at the local privacy and image laws. Second, I don't currently have a digital video camera that can store at least a couple of hours (the average time I spend on the road) and I don't want to buy anything more expensive than my old car nor anything huge, so I'll have to seek a bit for a cheap one. Suggestions are welcome.

Ps: When I was searching Google Images for policecar camera pics to place in the post I got a disgusting surprise. I thought those sites (I don't mean common pornographic or bondage sites but this raping like sites) were filtered by Google, but I see they aren't.
Photo via:

[Escuchando: Corazon De Tiza - Las Niñas - Arde La Calle Un Tributo A Rad (3:10)]

Creating Gardfield's cartoons from a .gov

I don't know why a .gov site hosts something like that, but I really don't care.
Try it.

[Escuchando: Ahí Estás Tú - Chambao - Endorfinas en la mente (5:29)]

Edit: It seems I have found the reason. It seems to be the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research and I must say that it's a great idea to concern children to sleep in the right way using cartoons as a tool. Check all the other games and animations they have in the site.
They even have a wallpapers section.

Video compilation of the US Presidential Election 2004

Welcome to the Election 2004 video archive. We are a non-partisan public resource for sharing video materials related to the 2004 United States Presidential Election. We welcome submissions from official candidates and their campaigns, journalists, students, and anyone with video materials related to the upcoming Presidential Election.

For example, do you want to see the second debate between Bush and Kerry? Then click here

Among all the videos in there I've found something funny. It's called George W. Vader (special edition)

[Escuchando: kREMA - Las.Cronicas.De.Riddick - (1:48:48)]

Something's wrong when Iran wants Bush reelection

Why would a muslim theocratic state that has been and is a declared enemy of the US would support an ultra-christian, anti-muslim, ultra-conservative, and pro-war president like GW Bush?

What does your enemy always want for you? The worst.
Think about it.

Read more:

[Escuchando: Newroz - Fermin Muguruza - Kontrabanda (4:16)]

[Escuchando: Armagideon Tenoreko Aztarnak - Fermin Muguruza - Kontrabanda (4:27)]

When the commies vote Republican...

I know Russia is no longer the old USSR, but it's surprising to hear the Russian president ask the Americans to vote for Bush.

I wonder what could have made V Putin have such a great opinion about GWB.
- Maybe the fact that both of them started illegal wars after bloody terrorist attacks in their homeland.
- Maybe the fact that both of them have links with oil companies makes them understand themselves.
- Maybe the fact that fraud has been alleged in both the presidential elections they won has something to do with it (Russia/USA).

- Maybe the fact that both of them are using terrorism war as a mean to cut liberties to their own citizens also helped
....

Don't you see too many coincidences between them?

I'm not a visionary but I already knew Florida would have problems with the new e-voting system.
Read the full NYT article here

No words. I don't know what would I do if a girl ever makes me sign something like this.

Blogging, the doggy style
As you know the blogsphere is full of strange weblogs written by even more strange bloggers. But today I found Tucker's blog, which is the first one I see to show us a dog's thoughts.
Nice idea and, like all the weblogs hosted at iuplog is clean, fast and easy to read.

Optimizing content search in our own computer using, of course, Google


It's name is Google Desktop and it's a small extension for Google Search Engine that lets us do searches in our mailbox (Outlook / Outlook Express), AIM conversations, cached webs in the default Web browser, plain text files and MS Office documents from the web browser.

It would be useful if it could make searches among msn messenger/icq, irc log files and Gmail inbox. Anyways, give it a try.

Skinning Gmail
Gmail users keep on developing unofficial tricks and tools to make the use of Gmail even more confortab. There's a step by step skinning guide in persistent.nfo that will allow us to change its appearance. So you'll have your personalized Gmail Inbox screen each time you connect.

Via: Joe Grossberg

Bush as a mediatic icon
I doubt Yahoo Groups publicity (you know, the 'Do you Yahoo?' one) gathered as many people in groups as GWB has done. Let me explain.

Doing a search in any search engine for the words 'against Bush' give out more than half a million results, which are, in most cases groups of people that have joined to express their disagreement against the current US president and ask voters not to reelect him.

If you take five minutes of your time and randomly browse some of the results you conclude that it's impossible to clasify them as democrats or republicans (they call themselves Republicans against stupidity), they can be women, babes, erotic models, a group of knitters or children that cannot vote yet.

After reading some of these comments I get the idea that not only Americans are against Bush but most of the World is and, among them, some people named Bush too.

But probably, the most important anti-bush movements that have grown on the World Wide Web are the ones related to music like Rock against Bush, bands against Bush or Musicians to Oust Bush.

It's curious that a similar search for 'against kerry' only gives out a hundred thousand results that are reduced to catholics and veterans asociations against Kerry.

Try to guess what these numbers mean