by Tracy Parks, Go There

Tons of new stuff popping up on the Southside, especially in the gay market.

Two nights ago, Picnic restaurant owner Luis held a fiesta to celebrate Revolucion Day and their anniversary. Great crowd for 2 for 1 margaritas and a special menu of delicious Mexican food. Huge hit!

Last night, I went (albeit late but had stopped by earlier in the day to take pics) to the opening of Casanovas, a new show bar and discoteque on Constitucion and Cardenas. Nice crowd at 2am, creative shows, costumes. Drag, gogos, etc. Excellent sound and light system made the crowd really want to dance. They got this place together FAST. A few weeks ago, they hadn’t done much…the result is great! Check it out in my blog .

Chuy, who owns the taco stand (and has or 20 years!) in front of Los Amigos, on the street…. where the new Industry was slated to open Nov. 28 says it won’t happen…. maybe not at all.

There is a ton of competition right now and more bars/clubs opening daily. Bars with simple, clear concepts and good prices are busy. Same for restaurants. High end stuff, not doing as well. Maryanne, from Apaches, summed it up well, “When new biz owners come to town and ask my advice I say, “keep it small, keep it simple”. Seems to work well for her and partner Endra and biz partner Andre. They are jammed, not just for happy hour, but nearly every hour until 2am. Great spot. Classic Vallarta. Same goes for Fridas…. the most consistently busy bar in town right now, often to capacity on the slowest of nights due to their fair prices, friendly staff, and great jukebox.

A downtown gay bar will open this Friday, Sin Fronteras (No Borders). It will be a cowboy bar. I’ll give you the exact location soon. It’s in the new construction at the south end of Centro. I like the concept and sexy owner, Miguel, used to be a waiter at Green Chairs and has tons of energy. I met him last night and turns out, he’s my neighbor too.

Divas recently held a slave auction to help with the ongoing fund raising for Gib’s treatments. Top bid went to handsome David, waiter at Fridas. The community continues to pour out our support for Gib. You’ll see donation jars at many of the bars.

The line ups have already started for Cafe Bohemia. Owner Sol and Chris are up 20% already over last season for November. GREAT JOB!! A great example of the small, simple concept.

Speaking of Sol, look for him to join forces with the newly re-opened Palm (hey, check out their nearly nightly line up of 8 strippers!) to launch a new cabaret show. This should be exciting for those fans who miss seeing Sol’s performances (outside of the nightly ones he does at his cafe …hehe). Recently he was spotted trying to send a shot to actress Helen Miram, dining at his restaurant. She declined. Ask Sol to do his imitation of her asking for her “privacy.” He also danced with “Ellen Degeneres” who turned out to be my friend from Chicago, Julie. They do resemble each other and Julie played along well, doing her best job to fool the crowd. Must have worked, it hit the PV Mirror the next week.

Rumor is Kim Kuzma is doing impromptu appearances at Garbos, wowing the crowds with Bob on piano. You never know when she’s in town. Too bad she isn’t here permanently. I think she should do early evenings at the Palm. 8 to 10…? Or have her as a regular at Garbos… I’d sure pay a 50 peso cover to see her!

The recent private anniversary party at Anthropology was a huge hit. NICE JOB Jose and Roger! Thanks for a fun night! Several hot strippers from all over were brought in for this event.

The amazing traditional, folkloric dancers are in the southside Park Lazaro Cardenas on Fridays at 7:30 pm (except this Friday, they are traveling). If you haven’t seen them, it’s one of the best things I’ve ever seen in Mexico, let alone Vallarta. Don’t miss it. FREE! Costumes will blow you away. Super talented, this troupe finished its version of “Bolero” on Friday night to a standing ovation, packed crowd in the new amphitheater.

The crowds are rolling in for the Fever Parties. Latin Fever and Vallarta Fever are both happening over the US Thanksgiving Weekend but many of them are already here. Should be fun!

Chuy, waiter at Apaches bar and the most entertaining character on Olas Altas (and one of the sweetest), will celebrate his birthday with a big party this Monday, Nov 24, at the Palm. Don’t miss it.

For Photos and more…

Original Article

by Garett Rogers
It appears that Google has been working hard on a new human translation service that will hopefully make it easy for people to request translations of a document from a human. The new service, called Google Translation Center (the link still doesn’t work), appears to be volunteer based, but it would make sense for it to evolve into a service that could make translators money. Talk about avoiding the question:

Are Google Translation Center’s translators paid or are they volunteers?
We provide Google Translation Center tools to all translators.

Currently, the service has been released under Google’s Trusted Tester program that lets friends and family members of Google Employees take new services for a test drive before public release. Usually things like this FAQ and Learn More page are secure behind the trusted tester system, but for this service they are still accidentally public.

It makes sense to publish some documents in multiple languages — but what if you don’t speak anything but English? Upload your document to this new service, choose a language, select a translator, and wait. If the translator you selected accepts your request, your document is on the road to being available in the language you specified.

If you are a person who knows more than one language, Google Translate Center makes it easy for you to find documents that you can help translate. Google gives the translator the tools he/she needs to make a high quality translation.

It will be interesting to see if this type of application will gather any kind of momentum. I would think that it may have some difficult gaining momentum because of the limited number of people that will likely make use of the system, and also the small number of translators willing to offer their time free-of-charge. What do you think?

Garett Rogers is employed as a programmer for iQmetrix, which specializes in retail management software for the cellular and electronics industry.

Children of the Dump was formed in 1998 (at that time called Feed the Children Vallarta) with the mission to help the poor children living in and around the city dump in Puerto Vallarta; specifically to help them GET AN EDUCATION. Our goal was to get them to school, keep them in school and help them learn so that they would have an opportunity for a better job and a better life.

Initially we were concerned with helping the children living in the dump go to school with clothing, a shower and supplies. Then we were concerned with helping the children in the school with their concentration and learning so we decided to give them a healthy breakfast as they entered the school. Next was after school training in Math, Computers and English for those who showed interest and promise. Finally we became involved in operating day care centers for the children of working mothers.

MORE INFORMATION:

• WEBSITE: School of Champions or http://childrenofthedump.org/
• TEL: 52 044 (322) 158-8815
• EMAIL: arthurefumerton@yahoo.com
• DONATE with PAYPAL

VIDEO: This video was shot and produced by Fox of Café Roma, Puerto Vallarta, June 5, 2008.
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