I'm the worst blogger ever

Hey everyone. Sorry I havn't been updating. When I get home, I just haven't been in the mood. Not all that much is happening lately, either.

Played in a poker tournament in a place called Gutshot last Tuesday. Good times. Five pound buy in, and unlimited rebuys for the first hour. I only lost 10 pounds, and was there for about an hour and a half. Learned a lot. I'll go back, but not to frequently. Expensive.

I saw Batman Begins on the IMAX here, and it freakin' rocked. The movie is great, and that is one gigantic screen. Not quite as big as I thought it would be, but still totally wicked.

Paris is the weekend after this one. Should be awesome.

Justin leaves on Saturday. I'll miss him, but I GET MY ROOM BACK!!! Oh, the extacy.

Brooke leaves on August 18th. Another bittersweet, planned-obselecene relationship. I don't have any regrets, but it's kind of sad. She wants me to go to Berlin with her next month, but I can't afford it. Paris will be expensive, and I want to go to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. That's the biggest Theatre festival in Europe, for those who don't know. It's a month long, and supposed to be the raging shit.

I'm looking into bikes more. I found a 2nd hand one online that looks really nice, and will be cheaper than the new shitty one I was going to buy. I'm in contact with the guy, and I'll go look at it this weekend. I hope it works out, because I really want to start cycling again. I miss the daily physical activity. I'm too sedentary these days, and I can feel it.

Right. I have 45 mintues to read Harry Potter on my lunch break. Ciao!

Culture and Madness

First, the madness.

The bombings won't end. Not only has there been the second (failed) attempt, but now policemen have gunned down an innocent man in the Tube. Holy shit. Granted, what that dumbass was doing running from the police I don't know. But still, the tragedy is staggering. I thought the 7th was going to be an isolated incident, but now I'm suspecting that the troubles might continue. All the more motivation to buy a bike, I guess. Thank god I get paid on Tuesday.

I would like to take a moment to rant about the dumb fucks who leave their bags unattended on the tube. Besides the signs everywhere and the stupid announcement every 10 minutes to mind your personal belongings, there is the fact that there have been fucking BOMBINGS. Now every time some dumb prick forgets his backpack or leaves a large bag of litter somewhere, they have to stop all the trains and bring in the bomb squad to deal with some books and half a pack of gum. There should be a hefty fine or possibly a swift kneecap-batting for the people who leave their shit behind. And they should be condemned to wear a shirt that reads "I'm the reason you were late" every time they use public transport.

Ok, now the culture.

Paul, Justin, Brooke and I all went to see The Woman In Black. It's a play that's been running since 1996 or something on Drury lane. And it is scary. Fantastic stuff. At first I really didn't like the large group of high school kids who were there, but once all those teenage girls started screaming their fool heads off I decided they were exactly what the night called for.

Quick synopsis: the lawyer goes out to the dead spinster's haunted mansion in the boonies to go through her stuff, and gets haunted by the Woman in Black. Turns out the Woman is haunting because her sister, the dead spinster, took the Woman's son away, and then he drowned. Now she haunts the town, and whenever she is seen a child dies. All this is told by the lawyer who is now an old man and has written it all down. He has come to an actor to help him tell the story, and they are rehearsing the play they will make. Their rehearsals are the story, so every now and then the action stops, the lights come up, and they discuss. At the end, of course, the actor (who has been playing the role of the lawyer) see the Woman in Black, and now his son is doomed. Curtain.

The acting was great. The old man played a dozen roles with spectacular definition. When he's the coachman, I swear his chin grows an inch at least. The lights were cleaver, and the sound design was spot on. At one point there is supposed to be the sound of a rocking chair from upstairs. The sound they used for the rocking chair was a fetal heartbeat. Brilliant.

Being a theatre geek (noticing things like the heartbeat: I'd bet no one else there did) means that bad theatre is torture, but good theatre is made all the better. And this was good theatre.

The next night Brooke and I went to the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. The Proms is some kind of big annual symphony. The big crescendos were fun, but I find classical to be background music. It was a beautiful symphony, don't get me wrong. But halfway through each piece I'd realize I had forgotten I was supposed to be watching the performers and I was just staring around at that fantastic Hall. Good times, but I'm not really a symphony person. If I'm going to watch live music, I want it to rock. Classical is what I put on when I need to think. The Royal Albert Hall was, of course, magnificent. I'd love to see something else there.

Today we went to the Portabello Market, the oldest market in Briton. About a mile long, it's just little stalls set up along a narrow street. Beautiful section of town, and neat stuff. Lots of antiques and jewelry. There was one store that was all authentic medieval weapons. A total SCA wet dream. The guy who runs it is a total dick and won't let anyone inside unless they are actually going to buy something. Granted the place was tiny, but come ON! I just want to look for a minute. I didn't even get to see what the prices were. Ass.

All in all, good times. I'm staying safe and being smart. My Tube lines haven't been targeted yet, and I'm hoping that I'm far enough off the beaten track that they'll stay that way.

Things progress with work nicely. There was more talk about sending me to the Very Exotic Place, and I should know for sure soon. I might even be able to tell you where it is (they made me delete it last time I wrote it here. stupid Google finding my blog...).

Justing leaves soon. I get my room back!!! Patience, patience...


Word.

I'm Still Fine

More bombings today. Not many details, but it sounds like some dumbasses tried to bomb the Tube and failed. The detonators went off, but not the bombs themselves. I don't think anyone was hurt. I am at work, and I'm still fine.

Goddamn cowardly chickenshit terrorists. If that happened in the States, they would have been lynched. I would have helped.

This disturbs me deeply...

This is the dumbest, most pretentious thing I have ever seen. As if I didn't have reason to hate people who drive Suburban Assault Vehicles in the city as it is, now we have :

Spray-On Mud

That's right, Spray-On Mud. For the raging dumbass who wants people to think that he is "rugged" and "outdoorsy" in downtown London in his Mercedes SUV. If you're going to have a large and overblown vehicle to show everyone how great you are, have the good class to buy Bently. No one would ever want to put Spray-On Mud on a Bently.

Anyway.

Justin is coming to the end of his time here in London, and will be traveling to Spain for a week. Since he doesn't want to pay another month's rent for a week or so, he's going to crash at my place. I don't really have much room, but he and Paul had less room when they let me sleep there. So it's the least I can do. I will admit I'm not looking forward to loosing my privacy, though. And since we don't have a common room, I will be. I suspect I will be spending a lot of time at Brooke's and just giving Justin my keys after work so he can get home. As long as one of us is home before the other, it will be fine.

Spent yesterday in Camden Market with Brooke. Not the first time I've been there with a girl, but the first time is was actually a decent date. Afterwards she had dinner with friends, and I went out to bid Bon Voyage to Mark and Phil.

Mark and Phil are two French Canadian friends of ours. They are an absolute blast to hang with, and very well loved by all. There was about a dozen of us at Bar Logic, and I haven't gone drinking with such a large group of mutual friends in a while. Mark and Phil are off across Europe for a couple of weeks, but they'll be back through London soon.

It is an odd feeling. Most of my friends here are BUNACers like me, but they are almost all still students. For them this is a crazy summer trip, and a part of College. They'll go back to their friends and family and tell them all about their Euopean Summer. I'm here as the next step in my life, and I don't really have anything to go back to. As much as a miss home and everyone, I don't feel like my future lies there. I'm starting something great here, and after next month is over I'll have shed much of my initial support network and really be here on my own. I like the though of that.

It's been absolutely beautiful here. I tried to sit in my backyard and read today, but there is something dead in the bushes. I'd recognize the smell of mid-summer dead thing anywhere. Reminds me of growing up in the woods, actually.

Rumor has it that there should be some official word coming down the pipe at work which will have large impact on my future here. Not to be all mysterious, but that's all I can say for now. I'll let you know soon.

Oh, and Randy: LOVED the books. Everyone, run out and buy/borrow/steal from small children The Antipope by Robert Frankin. It's the first book in the Brentford Trilogy, and it's a hoot. A British hoot, at that.

Cherrio!

Chillin' Like A Villan

Hey y'all.

Not much to say. At work, on lunch. Life continues apace.

I got my student loans forbeared. They were going to come due on Thursday (thought I had more time. surprise, surprise!), so this is a very good thing. It's not a Deferment, it's just a Forebearance. That means that I still accrue interest. If I wait the full year to start paying them off, I'll get an additional $900 worth of interest added on. I'm going to start paying them soon, just not tomorrow.

Here's a picture of Justin and I from the Belgium trip last month. I still have to get the good ones of The Netherlands from Paul. That's why you are getting old ones.

Peace!

Brooke and I on the 4th of July

Since Blogger has made it so easy to upload photos, I've gotten much lazier about things. I don't need to write, just post a shot!

This is from the BUNAC 4th of July cruise on the River Thames. It was alright, and really the only 4th thing going on. Here, the only reason that particular date gets any notice is people casually thinking, "Oh yeah. This is the day we got rid of them. Woot!"

Anyway. Went to Windsor Castle today with Michelle, my who took me to Live 8. She flies out tomorrow (Mon), so I was glad I got one more chance to hang with her. She's cool beans.

Windsor Castle was cool. Externally, it's the classic, stereotypical sweet-ass castle. Inside is the opulence one would expect, as well as a lot of cool swords, armor, artworks, etc. Queen Mary's Dollhouse was far-out. Keep in mind that the pictures on that link are from a dollhouse that is about 5 feet tall. The detail was incredible.

I'm going to wrap up Amsterdam here. I had a great post with lots of storytelling, embellishment, and my usual over the top style. Now, you get the condensed version. I know how disappointed everyone is, but I'm sure you'll survive.


We went to a cheese and clog factory at 8 in the morning. Apparently over a million people still wear wooden shoes every day. Most get made in a factory, but we saw one of 6 people left in the world who still make wooden shoes by hand. He looked around my age. And the cheese was excellent.

We also went to a little Dutch town, whose name I forget. It was a little fishing town on a lake, and it's primary income now is tourism. If you look up the word "quaint" in a dictionary, you get a picture of this place. Tiny "dollhouse" building, not more than 10 feet at the roofpeak. Wonderful and peaceful.

I absolutely love the Dutch. They're kind, happy, and seem to have an amazing quality of relaxed-ness about them. There was just something undefinable about the place, like they have it figured out pretty well and they're just waiting for the rest of us to catch up. Maybe it was because there are more bicycles than cars in Amsterdam by a far sight. I really, really want to live there for a while. I'd have to learn the language, though.

We got back and went to the Van Gogh museum. Amazing. Totally fantastic. His whole career laid out so you can follow it through his artwork. I left feeling uplifted and slightly more cultured.

The Heineken Experience sucked. Stupid and boring. And they only gave us 3 half-pints of beer the whole tour. Rubbish. We did make a little video that you can see here . There's no sound worth speaking of, but we're just ranting about how much the tour sucks.

We missed the canal tour with the girls, so we ended up going back to the hostel for a nap. There still hadn't been much sleep. We set an alarm for 9 pm so we could go out again, but the alarm never went off and we slept until 3 in the morning. I was raging pissed that I missed Saturday night, so two David and I went out anyway.

Amsterdam at 3 in the morning is much different. Less people, different atmosphere. Mostly just the long-haulers and people going home for night. We were able to cover more ground without the crowd, and ended up having a great time. I'm still disappointed I missed the choas and awesomeness of the Saturday night in full-swing, but I was pleased at the end result.

Back on the bus again at 8. Stopped at a town in Belgium on the way. More Gothic goodness, and a few more bottles of excellent beer for the shelf. I've acquired quite a collection of fantastic beer bottle labels, all of which will go to my Dad soon. We stopped in France at a dirt-cheap alcohol store, and I got a decent bottle of wine for about 4 pounds. I got to try it first, and the guy behind the taste-test booth was really cool. The beer got drank real quick, but I'm hanging onto the wine for the right time.

Definitely the best part of the trip home was that I was sitting next to Brooke. I was most upset about missing Saturday night because I was planning on spending with her. I don't know if she had similar intentions or not, but I was by this point plotting her downfall. Again, despite the disruption of my schemes, I am quite pleased with the outcome.

I think that brings things up to date. The weather is nice. I've been going out with my roommate Jeremy more and getting to know his friends. Good bunch of blokes, although a little hard to understand when they're drunk and slurring their accents. My own drunken hearing doesn't help, I'm sure. Most of the people I know here leave in August some time, so I need to diversify my social scene.

Bedtime again. I notice that I can be totally exhausted all day, and once the sun goes down I want to stay up for hours on end. Too much of a theatre schedule still in me. I haven't been to any more shows here, either. Must rectify that soon.

Namaste.

Oh god dammit...

I had a LONG post almost finished when I accidentally closed my browser. Sonofabitch! I really don't feel like writing it all again right now. Sorry.

Instead, here's another photo. This is me in front of the Dali museum by the London Eye. It's a little old, but it's the only one I have edited down to size right now.

I appreciate whoever put that graffiti there. I couldn't ask for a better setup line.

Never a Dull Moment

So, for those of you who haven't been watching the news.

There was a series of bombings on the London Underground yesterday morning. At least four on the Tube, and one in a bus. 40-odd people are dead, and hundreds injurded. Had I been on the Tube, I would have been fine. Likley stranded, but fine. It didn't hit my line, which I find surprising. I would have thought they Terrorists would have hit the richer part of London. But they just went after the common, working class people on thier way to work. Cowards.

The office emptied halfway through the day, as people needed time to be able to get home. Since I live an hour away by tube, I wasn't going to walk it. I stayed until the last people were leaving, then went to a pub for a pint. Sat and read The Brentford Triangle . Thanks, Randy!

I wasn't able to get home last night, as all transprotation had been shut down. Fortunately Brooke lives within walking distance of both our works, so I stayed there last night.

BROOKE:

Tall. Dark hair, dark brown eyes. Great smile. Philosophy and something else major. 18. Worked at the Democratic National Convention last year. Working in a law office now, wants to go to law school so she can help the world.

She spent a good chunk of her childhood in London, so this has been somthing of a homecoming for her. It's fun walking around, because she knows the city from the point of view of a nine year old. She is off to Dublin this weekend.

Once I get a photo pf her from Paul, I'll post it. Blogger has made it much easier to post photos, so you will see more.

I think this will be a weekend of rest. Still haven't caught up on sleep properly.

I'm fine

Hey all. If you heard about the explosions in London, don't worry. I'm fine and didn't even know about it until I got to work. We don't know what happened, but I'll let you know when I do.

A Photo for You

Here's Me, Bree, and Karli in Brussles. Enjoy!

A Quick Post

Hey Y'all. Sorry I haven't been blogging lately. Things have been BIG. Went to Canada Day, went to Live 8, went on a 4th of July cruise, and got a new lady. Brooke is great.

Live 8 was amazing. The Who rocked with the practiced ease of Grand Masters of thier craft. And for Pink Floyd I have no words. Indescribable.

Anyway, time for work now. We figured out why the Internet has been down at my house, so I will try to write more tonight.

Peace!