dongle shopping
Because i am in new place i need to sort myself out some internet. I am going to go dongle shopping later to see how that will be as an internet fix...
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Budapest
Budapest is a great city. We got in on Saturday night and after a quick shower and change went out for the evening. Budapest seems to be a place where people stay out all night, grab a bit of breakfast in the morning and then heading off to bed. So we headed out for dinner and a few beers before heading to a night club with a beach area on the Danube. Sadly the pissing rain meant the outdoor area was closed, but inside was good enough. We ended up leaving there about 6 before heading back to the flat for a few hours sleep.
We woke up late and not feeling on top of the world. Budapest is famous for its baths and spas and our plan was to head to the Széchenyi Spa, the most famous of the Budapestian spas, to relax and try and shift the hangover. The baths were perfect for that. They have a load of different different pools ranging from icy cold to hot, some with special minerally water (at least i hope they were special minerally pools - they smelt a lot like urine), and mostly with normal water. Throw in steam rooms and saunas, a few pools with a circulating current built in and a sort of mini lazy river in one of the outdoor pools and the impressive neo-baroque buildings and you have the best baths i have ever been to. Admittedly that is in a list of 1, but i find it hard to believe there are many better baths around the world.
After that we walked around the city for a bit before grabbing a bite to eat. The rest of our evening was fairly sedate. We had a few glasses of wine and sat around talking. When we got back to the flat we were treated to a show from the lady in the flat opposite. She had a very nice shape to her and apparently did her laundry in the nude on a Sunday night with the lights on and the curtains open. She spent a long time jiggling around, bending over to carefully hang up each item of clothing. And at one point put on a pair of pants, but instead of lifting her feet up to get in to the pants, she bent over from the waist with her legs straight and back to the window and slowly pulled them up. They clearly were not what she wanted though, as she immediately took them off, again avoiding any leg bending to remove the pants. It was quite the eyeful. She was either very naive, very confident with her body(which she had every right to be) or (and the way she put on and took off the pants seems to point to this) enjoyed the idea of men watching her whilst she wandered around naked. And if that was what she wanted, we were happy to help out...
Monday was a day of touristy wandering around the beautiful old city, before heading to the airport to catch a flight back in the afternoon.
Budapest is a great city. We got in on Saturday night and after a quick shower and change went out for the evening. Budapest seems to be a place where people stay out all night, grab a bit of breakfast in the morning and then heading off to bed. So we headed out for dinner and a few beers before heading to a night club with a beach area on the Danube. Sadly the pissing rain meant the outdoor area was closed, but inside was good enough. We ended up leaving there about 6 before heading back to the flat for a few hours sleep.
We woke up late and not feeling on top of the world. Budapest is famous for its baths and spas and our plan was to head to the Széchenyi Spa, the most famous of the Budapestian spas, to relax and try and shift the hangover. The baths were perfect for that. They have a load of different different pools ranging from icy cold to hot, some with special minerally water (at least i hope they were special minerally pools - they smelt a lot like urine), and mostly with normal water. Throw in steam rooms and saunas, a few pools with a circulating current built in and a sort of mini lazy river in one of the outdoor pools and the impressive neo-baroque buildings and you have the best baths i have ever been to. Admittedly that is in a list of 1, but i find it hard to believe there are many better baths around the world.
After that we walked around the city for a bit before grabbing a bite to eat. The rest of our evening was fairly sedate. We had a few glasses of wine and sat around talking. When we got back to the flat we were treated to a show from the lady in the flat opposite. She had a very nice shape to her and apparently did her laundry in the nude on a Sunday night with the lights on and the curtains open. She spent a long time jiggling around, bending over to carefully hang up each item of clothing. And at one point put on a pair of pants, but instead of lifting her feet up to get in to the pants, she bent over from the waist with her legs straight and back to the window and slowly pulled them up. They clearly were not what she wanted though, as she immediately took them off, again avoiding any leg bending to remove the pants. It was quite the eyeful. She was either very naive, very confident with her body(which she had every right to be) or (and the way she put on and took off the pants seems to point to this) enjoyed the idea of men watching her whilst she wandered around naked. And if that was what she wanted, we were happy to help out...
Monday was a day of touristy wandering around the beautiful old city, before heading to the airport to catch a flight back in the afternoon.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Budapest trip
I did find my passport in the end. I had to tidy my entire room to find it and after searching the obvious places like on the floor under piles of clothes, under the bed, or under piles of post, i moved on to less likely places - in shoes, inside clothes and finally moved on to sifting through the couple of bags of rubbish waiting to be thrown out. Where, of course, I found it in the middle of a newspaper - the obvious place for me to have put it??? It was quite the relief to find it after all the increasingly worried searching and finding it in such a stupid place amused me too.
So my trip to Budapest could go ahead. I was going to Budapest for a weekend away with friends. One of the friends and I decided we would try and get there in an interesting way than flying and so we came up with hitch hiking from Brussels to Budapest and then fly back on the Monday. We gave ourselves 3 days to do it and the plan was to try and get to Munich the first night, Vienna the second and then ideally getting a ride on a boat (hopefully stowing away - how could stowing away not end in excitement? But most likely chipping in a few Euros to the crew of a boat or something.) on the Danube to Budapest. Before we left all sounded pretty doable with a lot of potential for adventure on the way.
We caught the Eurostar over to Brussels on Tuesday night and had an enjoyable evening there. A little too enjoyable though, meaning we set off more hungover and later than planned on Wednesday morning. We had looked up some hitching advice on the web before we set off (Hitchwiki is a useful site, which, somehow, we didn't find before we went.) but had no advice for best places to hitch out of Brussels. The Eurostar ticket allows you to travel anywhere in Belgium after Brussels so we decided to head to the Belgian border to a smaller town where finding the right road out of town would probably be easier. We decided on Liege. We arrived in town and went to the tourist information office at the station to see if we could get a map and advice on the best road for getting out of town. The bored looking woman gave us a map and suggested we walked across town to near the entrance to a motorway going Northeast. It would involve walking along by the river and according to the map, Liege is the premier tourist destination in Wallonia. It all sounded pretty pleasant. But if that is the best city in Wallonia, then Wallonia must be fucking shit. It is an ugly, concrete city. The river front is one eyesore after another. The only nice old building we saw was abandoned and graffiti covered and about to be turned in to a carpark, if i understood the sign on it correctly.
We got to our recommended hitching point and stuck the thumbs out. Almost immediately a guy pulled over, but it turned out it was just to tell us we shouldn't try hitching there, we should try back over the other side of town by the station. It had been about a half an hour walk across town and it was already getting on so we waited for him to go and then carried on hitching where we were. It took a while, but eventually Vincent, a business man heading back to his office, pulled over and said he would give us a lift to the next service station on the motorway, where it should be easier to get a lift. It wasn't. We stood for about an hour getting nothing so started asking the truckers if we could get a lift with them. Apparently, they are only allowed 2 people in the cab so we would have had to split up if we wanted to go with truck drivers. So back to thumb out at the services. Finally a car pulled over. It was a couple of Liege University students heading back to Luxembourg, where they lived. It wasn't really the right way but it was at least South and nobody else had been stopping so we got in. Gilles and Duarte were cool guys and spoke good English so we were able to have a decent conversation. They very kindly dropped us at the HI youth hostel in Luxembourg before heading on home. Luxembourg city is great. I knew nothing about it and was very pleasantly surprised. Set amongst steep sided hills with good looking old buildings at the top and bottom and rivers winding through the town it is a very good looking place. We went out for a few beers and looked up places to hitch out of town before an early night.
The next day was equally unsuccessful in terms of hitching. The recommended spot in town didn't have anywhere for the cars to stop so we took the other advice on hitchwiki and caught a train to the Luxembourg German border and walked over the border to a German motorway services. Where we stuck the thumbs out and had little luck again. One guy pulled over but he was only going to a town not to much further East and we wanted to go further if possible so turned him down. Next, Kirsten, a very attractive young woman driving on her own pulled over. Our German wasn't very good so we started with "Parlez-vous Francais?" She said no so we followed with "Do you speak English?" Again she didn't. "Sprechen sie Deutsche?" Which she did, what with it being Germany and all. And after realising how stupid our question was we had to sheepishly reply "Oh, we don't really." A combination of our bad German and her, much better than she first admitted, English allowed us to find out she wasn't even going as far as the guy before but we were unlikely ever to be offered a lift by somebody so attractive again so we got in. After an all too brief journey she dropped us in a small town, where we found it impossible to hitch out of. So we caught a bus to the town the guy who offered us a lift earlier was going to. Again no hitching joy so we caught a train to Saarbrucken. Which did have an autobahn going through it but the on ramps were poorly situated for hitching and again got no lifts. So by this point it was Thursday evening. We were supposed to be meeting our friends in Budapest on Friday and we were still on the border between Germany and France. It wasn't looking good so we started looking in to trains, planes and buses, but they were all pretty expensive or already booked up so we needed a great days hitching the next day if we had any chance of spending some time in Budapest. One piece of advice we found on the internet was just to go up to people as they were filling up with petrol and ask them for a lift then so we planned to head out to a autobahn services early the next day and see how that worked.
We got out to the services by about 9 the next morning and were initially unsuccessful. The services were right by the border and not many cars were stopping. It took about 2 hours but we did get a lift with Mark, another business man returning home from business in Paris, who drove us very quickly down the autobahn in his fancy German car to the next services near Homborg, where we had been informed it would be much easier to get a lift. And indeed it was. There were a lot more cars pulling in. We were taking it in turns to ask the cars as they pulled in for lifts and it is definitely the best way to do it. They get to see you are not weird and there was quite a lot of "we would help but..." Some were just "No" straight away, but the majority were pleasant about it. We also picked up the German (and French - autostop) word for hitch hiking. I am not sure of the spelling but it is basically tramping. (Wir trampen nach Budapest - if you are ever in Germany hitch hiking to Budapest.) This was the start of our hattrick of hitches where we asked 3 people in a row and got 3 lifts. I approached a guy (who I hope was a used car salesman. He certainly looked like one) as he started filling up and he spoke no English and after i said we were hitchhiking he pointed in the car and i noticed it was full of people so no room for us anyway. I went back to stand with my friend. But as the guy came out after paying for his petrol he came over and motioned for us to follow him. He opened the boot of his estate car and pointed in to the boot, which had 4 tyres in it for some reason. We bundled in to the boot and had a cramped ride over to near Mannheim.
My friend got us our next lift from Bavarian mountain man Markus, who was returning from a course in Bonn to his mountain home. He had a load of junk in the back of his car we had to move before we got in, which included one of those Bavarian hats that have the feathers in and used shooting targets from his hunting practice. It was a shame he wasn't wearing Lederhosen, but when the car started up and the CD player started up he was listening to German accordian based oompahpah music, which was very pleasing. He didn't really seem to know where he was going and at one point when he had to choose between 2 different autobahns he asked me to get his map out. I did and while merging with traffic he leaned over to have a look, taking his eyes off the traffic and driving oblviously quickly towards the back of the breaking car in front. Fortunately my friend in the back noticed and was quick witted enough to warn Markus in German. "Acthung Markus! Actung!" got his attention and we narrowly avoided an accident. He drove us a good distance and dropped us at another services past Stuttgart.
That was 2 people asked and 2 lifts in a row, so we were going to be a little selective about who we asked for our hattrick hitch. And almost as if heaven sent, what looked like a priest pulled in to fill up. He's a man of God so he surely can't say no was our thinking. Father Josef turned out to be a Benedictine Monk with very little English, but he agreed to take us nearly to Munich. He also turned out to be the most agressive driver i have ever been in a car with. It was pissing down with rain at this point yet he insisted on tailgating the car in front until they pulled over. He did have 2 crosses in the car and clearly had God on his side so we felt safe. Unfortunately because of the language barrier we didn't find out much about his monkly duties but did find out he was allowed to climb to the top of Ulm cathedral, which normal people weren't.
We were trying to stick to the really big rest stops but Father Josef dropped us off one stop too early unfortunately, but it was still pretty busy. We saw the only other hitch hikers we met on our travels here. It was 2 women, 1 of whom was very attractive and wearing short shorts and a tight top. They were using the thumb out method of hitching and almost every car going by was stopping and offering them lifts. Much more successful than our attempts. So if you are hitching in the future my advice would be - try and be an attractive woman rather than a slightly dishevelled man and you will get a lot more lifts. We were still asking people and got a lift with Andreas to the next big services along. He turned out to be a jet powered remote controlled plane salesman. They cost at least 15000 Euros each. We asked him what sort of people buy them and he said they are toys for the stupidly rich.
By this point we were at a services to the south west of Munich and wanted to get in to Munich and out again going South East towards Austria. We were getting offers of lifts in to Munich and up through to the North of Munich but not the direction we wanted. My friend went up to one guy as he was getting out of his car and getting ready to fill up. They had a bit of a chat while he filled up and then as they finished talking he looked down and looked annoyed. He then spent the next 20 minutes walking around on the phone and it wasn't until the towtruck came to tow his car away that we realised he had been distracted while filling up and put diesel in instead of petrol. Very embarrassing but not so bad as by the time we realised, we had decided to head in to Munich and catch a train to Salzburg and were just about to get in to Martin's (a watch salesman from Holland working in Munich.) car who drove us to the train station in Munich.
As we were trying to buy our tickets to Salzburg a Mongolian lawyer, whose name escapes me at the moment, came up and had a group ticket to Salzburg, which she kindly invited us in on meaning our journey was pretty cheap. We got in to Salzburg at about midnight and went straight to bed. 520 km hitched and some interesting people picking us up. It was a good day!
We were hoping to arrive in Budapest by Saturday night and that the good hitching form would continue in Austria. We headed out early again and got to a gas station near the entrance to the autobahn by about 9.30. Apparently gas stations in Austria also double as pubs and the one in the gas station we stopped at was impressively busy for 9.30 on a Saturday morning. One of us was asking the patrons for lifts while the other stood with a sign trying to catch a lift from the passing traffic. The Germans were a lovely friendly lot but the Austrians were a bunch of bastards and we didn't even get a sniff of a lift. We admitted defeat after a couple of hours of fruitless attempts and ended up catching the train to Budapest and getting there early Saturday evening...
I did find my passport in the end. I had to tidy my entire room to find it and after searching the obvious places like on the floor under piles of clothes, under the bed, or under piles of post, i moved on to less likely places - in shoes, inside clothes and finally moved on to sifting through the couple of bags of rubbish waiting to be thrown out. Where, of course, I found it in the middle of a newspaper - the obvious place for me to have put it??? It was quite the relief to find it after all the increasingly worried searching and finding it in such a stupid place amused me too.
So my trip to Budapest could go ahead. I was going to Budapest for a weekend away with friends. One of the friends and I decided we would try and get there in an interesting way than flying and so we came up with hitch hiking from Brussels to Budapest and then fly back on the Monday. We gave ourselves 3 days to do it and the plan was to try and get to Munich the first night, Vienna the second and then ideally getting a ride on a boat (hopefully stowing away - how could stowing away not end in excitement? But most likely chipping in a few Euros to the crew of a boat or something.) on the Danube to Budapest. Before we left all sounded pretty doable with a lot of potential for adventure on the way.
We caught the Eurostar over to Brussels on Tuesday night and had an enjoyable evening there. A little too enjoyable though, meaning we set off more hungover and later than planned on Wednesday morning. We had looked up some hitching advice on the web before we set off (Hitchwiki is a useful site, which, somehow, we didn't find before we went.) but had no advice for best places to hitch out of Brussels. The Eurostar ticket allows you to travel anywhere in Belgium after Brussels so we decided to head to the Belgian border to a smaller town where finding the right road out of town would probably be easier. We decided on Liege. We arrived in town and went to the tourist information office at the station to see if we could get a map and advice on the best road for getting out of town. The bored looking woman gave us a map and suggested we walked across town to near the entrance to a motorway going Northeast. It would involve walking along by the river and according to the map, Liege is the premier tourist destination in Wallonia. It all sounded pretty pleasant. But if that is the best city in Wallonia, then Wallonia must be fucking shit. It is an ugly, concrete city. The river front is one eyesore after another. The only nice old building we saw was abandoned and graffiti covered and about to be turned in to a carpark, if i understood the sign on it correctly.
We got to our recommended hitching point and stuck the thumbs out. Almost immediately a guy pulled over, but it turned out it was just to tell us we shouldn't try hitching there, we should try back over the other side of town by the station. It had been about a half an hour walk across town and it was already getting on so we waited for him to go and then carried on hitching where we were. It took a while, but eventually Vincent, a business man heading back to his office, pulled over and said he would give us a lift to the next service station on the motorway, where it should be easier to get a lift. It wasn't. We stood for about an hour getting nothing so started asking the truckers if we could get a lift with them. Apparently, they are only allowed 2 people in the cab so we would have had to split up if we wanted to go with truck drivers. So back to thumb out at the services. Finally a car pulled over. It was a couple of Liege University students heading back to Luxembourg, where they lived. It wasn't really the right way but it was at least South and nobody else had been stopping so we got in. Gilles and Duarte were cool guys and spoke good English so we were able to have a decent conversation. They very kindly dropped us at the HI youth hostel in Luxembourg before heading on home. Luxembourg city is great. I knew nothing about it and was very pleasantly surprised. Set amongst steep sided hills with good looking old buildings at the top and bottom and rivers winding through the town it is a very good looking place. We went out for a few beers and looked up places to hitch out of town before an early night.
The next day was equally unsuccessful in terms of hitching. The recommended spot in town didn't have anywhere for the cars to stop so we took the other advice on hitchwiki and caught a train to the Luxembourg German border and walked over the border to a German motorway services. Where we stuck the thumbs out and had little luck again. One guy pulled over but he was only going to a town not to much further East and we wanted to go further if possible so turned him down. Next, Kirsten, a very attractive young woman driving on her own pulled over. Our German wasn't very good so we started with "Parlez-vous Francais?" She said no so we followed with "Do you speak English?" Again she didn't. "Sprechen sie Deutsche?" Which she did, what with it being Germany and all. And after realising how stupid our question was we had to sheepishly reply "Oh, we don't really." A combination of our bad German and her, much better than she first admitted, English allowed us to find out she wasn't even going as far as the guy before but we were unlikely ever to be offered a lift by somebody so attractive again so we got in. After an all too brief journey she dropped us in a small town, where we found it impossible to hitch out of. So we caught a bus to the town the guy who offered us a lift earlier was going to. Again no hitching joy so we caught a train to Saarbrucken. Which did have an autobahn going through it but the on ramps were poorly situated for hitching and again got no lifts. So by this point it was Thursday evening. We were supposed to be meeting our friends in Budapest on Friday and we were still on the border between Germany and France. It wasn't looking good so we started looking in to trains, planes and buses, but they were all pretty expensive or already booked up so we needed a great days hitching the next day if we had any chance of spending some time in Budapest. One piece of advice we found on the internet was just to go up to people as they were filling up with petrol and ask them for a lift then so we planned to head out to a autobahn services early the next day and see how that worked.
We got out to the services by about 9 the next morning and were initially unsuccessful. The services were right by the border and not many cars were stopping. It took about 2 hours but we did get a lift with Mark, another business man returning home from business in Paris, who drove us very quickly down the autobahn in his fancy German car to the next services near Homborg, where we had been informed it would be much easier to get a lift. And indeed it was. There were a lot more cars pulling in. We were taking it in turns to ask the cars as they pulled in for lifts and it is definitely the best way to do it. They get to see you are not weird and there was quite a lot of "we would help but..." Some were just "No" straight away, but the majority were pleasant about it. We also picked up the German (and French - autostop) word for hitch hiking. I am not sure of the spelling but it is basically tramping. (Wir trampen nach Budapest - if you are ever in Germany hitch hiking to Budapest.) This was the start of our hattrick of hitches where we asked 3 people in a row and got 3 lifts. I approached a guy (who I hope was a used car salesman. He certainly looked like one) as he started filling up and he spoke no English and after i said we were hitchhiking he pointed in the car and i noticed it was full of people so no room for us anyway. I went back to stand with my friend. But as the guy came out after paying for his petrol he came over and motioned for us to follow him. He opened the boot of his estate car and pointed in to the boot, which had 4 tyres in it for some reason. We bundled in to the boot and had a cramped ride over to near Mannheim.
My friend got us our next lift from Bavarian mountain man Markus, who was returning from a course in Bonn to his mountain home. He had a load of junk in the back of his car we had to move before we got in, which included one of those Bavarian hats that have the feathers in and used shooting targets from his hunting practice. It was a shame he wasn't wearing Lederhosen, but when the car started up and the CD player started up he was listening to German accordian based oompahpah music, which was very pleasing. He didn't really seem to know where he was going and at one point when he had to choose between 2 different autobahns he asked me to get his map out. I did and while merging with traffic he leaned over to have a look, taking his eyes off the traffic and driving oblviously quickly towards the back of the breaking car in front. Fortunately my friend in the back noticed and was quick witted enough to warn Markus in German. "Acthung Markus! Actung!" got his attention and we narrowly avoided an accident. He drove us a good distance and dropped us at another services past Stuttgart.
That was 2 people asked and 2 lifts in a row, so we were going to be a little selective about who we asked for our hattrick hitch. And almost as if heaven sent, what looked like a priest pulled in to fill up. He's a man of God so he surely can't say no was our thinking. Father Josef turned out to be a Benedictine Monk with very little English, but he agreed to take us nearly to Munich. He also turned out to be the most agressive driver i have ever been in a car with. It was pissing down with rain at this point yet he insisted on tailgating the car in front until they pulled over. He did have 2 crosses in the car and clearly had God on his side so we felt safe. Unfortunately because of the language barrier we didn't find out much about his monkly duties but did find out he was allowed to climb to the top of Ulm cathedral, which normal people weren't.
We were trying to stick to the really big rest stops but Father Josef dropped us off one stop too early unfortunately, but it was still pretty busy. We saw the only other hitch hikers we met on our travels here. It was 2 women, 1 of whom was very attractive and wearing short shorts and a tight top. They were using the thumb out method of hitching and almost every car going by was stopping and offering them lifts. Much more successful than our attempts. So if you are hitching in the future my advice would be - try and be an attractive woman rather than a slightly dishevelled man and you will get a lot more lifts. We were still asking people and got a lift with Andreas to the next big services along. He turned out to be a jet powered remote controlled plane salesman. They cost at least 15000 Euros each. We asked him what sort of people buy them and he said they are toys for the stupidly rich.
By this point we were at a services to the south west of Munich and wanted to get in to Munich and out again going South East towards Austria. We were getting offers of lifts in to Munich and up through to the North of Munich but not the direction we wanted. My friend went up to one guy as he was getting out of his car and getting ready to fill up. They had a bit of a chat while he filled up and then as they finished talking he looked down and looked annoyed. He then spent the next 20 minutes walking around on the phone and it wasn't until the towtruck came to tow his car away that we realised he had been distracted while filling up and put diesel in instead of petrol. Very embarrassing but not so bad as by the time we realised, we had decided to head in to Munich and catch a train to Salzburg and were just about to get in to Martin's (a watch salesman from Holland working in Munich.) car who drove us to the train station in Munich.
As we were trying to buy our tickets to Salzburg a Mongolian lawyer, whose name escapes me at the moment, came up and had a group ticket to Salzburg, which she kindly invited us in on meaning our journey was pretty cheap. We got in to Salzburg at about midnight and went straight to bed. 520 km hitched and some interesting people picking us up. It was a good day!
We were hoping to arrive in Budapest by Saturday night and that the good hitching form would continue in Austria. We headed out early again and got to a gas station near the entrance to the autobahn by about 9.30. Apparently gas stations in Austria also double as pubs and the one in the gas station we stopped at was impressively busy for 9.30 on a Saturday morning. One of us was asking the patrons for lifts while the other stood with a sign trying to catch a lift from the passing traffic. The Germans were a lovely friendly lot but the Austrians were a bunch of bastards and we didn't even get a sniff of a lift. We admitted defeat after a couple of hours of fruitless attempts and ended up catching the train to Budapest and getting there early Saturday evening...
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Olympic fun
I am enjoying the Olympics so far. The 4 x 100m relay won by the Americans yesterday was the most exciting swimming race i have ever seen. What a come back on the final leg by Jason Lezak! And Rebecca Adlington winning the 400m freestyle was also very exciting. Thanks to digital telly and the internet you can watch almost anything. I have been watching some of the more obscure sports - I found archery strangely compelling to watch for a sport where the competitors spend most of their time stationary. Wind surfing was very disappointing though.
I also caught a bit of Judo before work this morning and I wasn't very impressed. From my point of view, it seemed to be two men grappling a bit, falling on the floor and then starting all over again, with points very occasionally being given randomly to either competitor. I am sure if you have a knowledge of Judo it becomes a lot more watchable but i won't be heading to any Judo meets in the near future...
I am enjoying the Olympics so far. The 4 x 100m relay won by the Americans yesterday was the most exciting swimming race i have ever seen. What a come back on the final leg by Jason Lezak! And Rebecca Adlington winning the 400m freestyle was also very exciting. Thanks to digital telly and the internet you can watch almost anything. I have been watching some of the more obscure sports - I found archery strangely compelling to watch for a sport where the competitors spend most of their time stationary. Wind surfing was very disappointing though.
I also caught a bit of Judo before work this morning and I wasn't very impressed. From my point of view, it seemed to be two men grappling a bit, falling on the floor and then starting all over again, with points very occasionally being given randomly to either competitor. I am sure if you have a knowledge of Judo it becomes a lot more watchable but i won't be heading to any Judo meets in the near future...
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Shower Scene
I was tidying my room last night trying to find my passport, which, rather than putting it somewhere safe and sensible, I think i threw on my floor in my bedroom. I have yet to find the passport, which is somewhat worrying as i am supposed to be off to Budapest next week, but did stumble across the journal i tried to keep on my road trip around the US i did after University. It was a welcome distraction from tidying so i read a little of my time in New York. One moment i had entirely forgotten made me smile when i read about it.
I was staying in a hostel in Chelsea and the shower i was using only had hot water available making it unbearably hot to stand underneath. Rather than trying to find another shower, which is what i think i would do now, i tried to make the best of the situation and showered by catching the scalding water in cupped hands and then throwing it on myself. Impressively half assed improvisation I thought. I don't remember the incident but I can't have cleaned myself very well washing like that. Why didn't i just wash my hair in a sink or something?
I was tidying my room last night trying to find my passport, which, rather than putting it somewhere safe and sensible, I think i threw on my floor in my bedroom. I have yet to find the passport, which is somewhat worrying as i am supposed to be off to Budapest next week, but did stumble across the journal i tried to keep on my road trip around the US i did after University. It was a welcome distraction from tidying so i read a little of my time in New York. One moment i had entirely forgotten made me smile when i read about it.
I was staying in a hostel in Chelsea and the shower i was using only had hot water available making it unbearably hot to stand underneath. Rather than trying to find another shower, which is what i think i would do now, i tried to make the best of the situation and showered by catching the scalding water in cupped hands and then throwing it on myself. Impressively half assed improvisation I thought. I don't remember the incident but I can't have cleaned myself very well washing like that. Why didn't i just wash my hair in a sink or something?
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Useful Japanese Phrases for Visting Japan
My Dad is off to Japan in the next few days and for some reason the Japanese phrases provided in the guide books are pretty rubbish. So I wrote him out a list, which will hopefully be useful to him. And possibly to others so I will put it up here too...
Hai (hi) - Yes
Iie (ee yeh) - No
Ohayogozaimasu (oh hi oh go zye mass) - Good morning
Konnichiwa (con knee chee wah) - good day
Konbanwa (con ban wah) - good evening
Oyasuminasai (oh yah sue min ah sigh)- good night (going to bed)
Sayonara (sigh oh na rah) - good bye (formal)
Dewa Mata (day wah mah tah) - good bye (less formal)
Watashi wa Walter Rawley desu (wah tash ee wah ….. dess) - I am Walter Rawley
Yoyaku shite imasu (yo yar coo sheetay immass) - I have a reservation
Hajimemashite (hah jim eh mash tey) - how do you do
Dozo yoroshiku (doze oh yoro sheek ooh)- please to meet you
Summimasen (sue mee mass en) - excuse me
Gomennasai (go men ah sigh) - sorry
Gomennasai, wakarimasen (wah carry mass en) - sorry, I don’t understand
Mo ichido itte kudosai (mo ichi doe it tay cooed oh sigh) - speak more slowly please
Eigo ga wakarimaska? (eh go gah wa carry mass ka) - Do you understand English?
Eigo ga hanashimaska? (eh go gah han ash ee mass ka) - Do you speak English?
Daijob deska? (die jorb/jobe dess kah) - is it ok?
Daijob desu (die jorb/jobe dess kah) - it is ok
domo arigato gozaimasu (dome oh) - Thank you very kindly
arigato gozaimasu (go zai mass) - thanks a lot
arigato (a ree gah toe) - thanks
O genki deska? (oh genkee dess kah) - How are you doing?
Hai, genki desu (hi genkee dess) - Yes I am well
_ _ _ _ wa doko desuka? (wah doko dess ka) - Where is the _ _ _ _
eki (eck ee) - Train Station
Toire (toy reh) - toilet
Yubinkyoku (you bink yock oo) - Post Office
Depato (depart oh) - Department store
Takushi - taxi
…… o kudasai (oh cooed ah sigh - can I have ….. please
When you are in a train station and you want to go to Hiroshima, for example, just show your JR pass to the JR ticket sellers and say
Hiroshima o kudasai - Hiroshima please
Kore wa ikura deska? (kore wah ick oorah dess kah) - How much is this?
ashita (ash tah) - tomorrow
Kino (kee no) - yesterday
Kyo (kee yo) - today
Food
Kore wa (ko reh wah) - This
oishii desu (oh ee shee dess) - is delicious
oishii deshita (oh ee shee desh ta) - was delicious
(you don’t necessarily need the kore wa though)
When walking in to a shop or restaurant, all the staff will often shout “irasshaimase” which translates to welcome or come in and apparently requires no response although a “konnichiwa” type hello always seemed to go down well.
Numbers
Ichi - 1
Ni - 2
San - 3
Yon - 4
Go - 5
Roku - 6
Nana - 7
Hachi - 8
Kyu - 9
Ju - 10
Numbers for ordering food
hitotsu - 1
futatsu - 2
mittsu - 3
yottsu - 4
itsutsu - 5
muttsu - 6
nanatsu - 7
yattsu - 8
kokonotsu - 9
to - 10
Kampai! - Cheers!
Ordering food
Ringo futatsu o kudasai - 2 apples please
Hoto kohi mittsu o kudasai - 3 hot coffees please
Beeru - beer
Jusu - juice
Hotto kohi - hot coffee need to ask for hot otherwise you get cold
Cha - tea
Okonomiyaki - meat and vegetable pancake
Pan - bread
Sandoicchi - sandwich
Sarada - salad
Sukiyaki - meat and veg in a sweetened soy sauce
Yakisoba - chow mein style dish
Yakitori - chicken pieces skewered and barbequed. Choose carefully though if you don't like gristle, fat or skin because some of them are just bits of those on a stick.
My Dad is off to Japan in the next few days and for some reason the Japanese phrases provided in the guide books are pretty rubbish. So I wrote him out a list, which will hopefully be useful to him. And possibly to others so I will put it up here too...
Hai (hi) - Yes
Iie (ee yeh) - No
Ohayogozaimasu (oh hi oh go zye mass) - Good morning
Konnichiwa (con knee chee wah) - good day
Konbanwa (con ban wah) - good evening
Oyasuminasai (oh yah sue min ah sigh)- good night (going to bed)
Sayonara (sigh oh na rah) - good bye (formal)
Dewa Mata (day wah mah tah) - good bye (less formal)
Watashi wa Walter Rawley desu (wah tash ee wah ….. dess) - I am Walter Rawley
Yoyaku shite imasu (yo yar coo sheetay immass) - I have a reservation
Hajimemashite (hah jim eh mash tey) - how do you do
Dozo yoroshiku (doze oh yoro sheek ooh)- please to meet you
Summimasen (sue mee mass en) - excuse me
Gomennasai (go men ah sigh) - sorry
Gomennasai, wakarimasen (wah carry mass en) - sorry, I don’t understand
Mo ichido itte kudosai (mo ichi doe it tay cooed oh sigh) - speak more slowly please
Eigo ga wakarimaska? (eh go gah wa carry mass ka) - Do you understand English?
Eigo ga hanashimaska? (eh go gah han ash ee mass ka) - Do you speak English?
Daijob deska? (die jorb/jobe dess kah) - is it ok?
Daijob desu (die jorb/jobe dess kah) - it is ok
domo arigato gozaimasu (dome oh) - Thank you very kindly
arigato gozaimasu (go zai mass) - thanks a lot
arigato (a ree gah toe) - thanks
O genki deska? (oh genkee dess kah) - How are you doing?
Hai, genki desu (hi genkee dess) - Yes I am well
_ _ _ _ wa doko desuka? (wah doko dess ka) - Where is the _ _ _ _
eki (eck ee) - Train Station
Toire (toy reh) - toilet
Yubinkyoku (you bink yock oo) - Post Office
Depato (depart oh) - Department store
Takushi - taxi
…… o kudasai (oh cooed ah sigh - can I have ….. please
When you are in a train station and you want to go to Hiroshima, for example, just show your JR pass to the JR ticket sellers and say
Hiroshima o kudasai - Hiroshima please
Kore wa ikura deska? (kore wah ick oorah dess kah) - How much is this?
ashita (ash tah) - tomorrow
Kino (kee no) - yesterday
Kyo (kee yo) - today
Food
Kore wa (ko reh wah) - This
oishii desu (oh ee shee dess) - is delicious
oishii deshita (oh ee shee desh ta) - was delicious
(you don’t necessarily need the kore wa though)
When walking in to a shop or restaurant, all the staff will often shout “irasshaimase” which translates to welcome or come in and apparently requires no response although a “konnichiwa” type hello always seemed to go down well.
Numbers
Ichi - 1
Ni - 2
San - 3
Yon - 4
Go - 5
Roku - 6
Nana - 7
Hachi - 8
Kyu - 9
Ju - 10
Numbers for ordering food
hitotsu - 1
futatsu - 2
mittsu - 3
yottsu - 4
itsutsu - 5
muttsu - 6
nanatsu - 7
yattsu - 8
kokonotsu - 9
to - 10
Kampai! - Cheers!
Ordering food
Ringo futatsu o kudasai - 2 apples please
Hoto kohi mittsu o kudasai - 3 hot coffees please
Beeru - beer
Jusu - juice
Hotto kohi - hot coffee need to ask for hot otherwise you get cold
Cha - tea
Okonomiyaki - meat and vegetable pancake
Pan - bread
Sandoicchi - sandwich
Sarada - salad
Sukiyaki - meat and veg in a sweetened soy sauce
Yakisoba - chow mein style dish
Yakitori - chicken pieces skewered and barbequed. Choose carefully though if you don't like gristle, fat or skin because some of them are just bits of those on a stick.
IT
My flat mate works for an IT consultancy company. They have just started a cricket team and i went along to their practice last night, which was a lot of fun. While we were in the pub afterwards, talk turned to work, as it invariably does when colleagues are drinking together and their IT department was mentioned.
I hadn't thought about it before, but imagine how geeky the IT department for an IT firm must be...
My flat mate works for an IT consultancy company. They have just started a cricket team and i went along to their practice last night, which was a lot of fun. While we were in the pub afterwards, talk turned to work, as it invariably does when colleagues are drinking together and their IT department was mentioned.
I hadn't thought about it before, but imagine how geeky the IT department for an IT firm must be...
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Monday, May 12, 2008
The Quo
I went to watch Surrey play cricket yesterday. It was a lovely, sunny day and perfect for an afternoon of cricket watching and beer. While we were watching we noticed a woman sitting a couple of rows in front of us and her tattoos. One was a rose, another was the name Alec in a heart, but my favourite was her Status Quo tattoo on her left bicep. I like the idea that anyone could like the Quo enough to get their name permanently and prominently tattooed on to their arm.
Although I would prefer it if the reason for the tattoo was that she liked things to remain the same...
I went to watch Surrey play cricket yesterday. It was a lovely, sunny day and perfect for an afternoon of cricket watching and beer. While we were watching we noticed a woman sitting a couple of rows in front of us and her tattoos. One was a rose, another was the name Alec in a heart, but my favourite was her Status Quo tattoo on her left bicep. I like the idea that anyone could like the Quo enough to get their name permanently and prominently tattooed on to their arm.
Although I would prefer it if the reason for the tattoo was that she liked things to remain the same...
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Hot Town
The weather has been great for the last couple of days and so to make the most of it i went to a pub with a nice beer garden for a few drinks after work. I was meeting a couple of friends there and went straight from work to the pub. My friends stayed later in work than planned so I got to sit around and wait for an hour and a half for them to turn up. Which was fine as i am enjoying the book i am reading (Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson) very much at the moment. It was very busy in the beer garden and so, in order to keep my table while i went inside to get another drink, i left my book, my bag and some of a pint on the table. It was not enough though and i came back outside to find a woman sitting at the table. She was cool about it being my table, but her and her friend/special lady friend wanted to stay until my friends turned up. One of them was high on something and they were both pretty pissed and it all resulted in a fairly unusual conversation as we discussed their lesbian rape film idea they were hoping to film. We also touched on the subject of why men like the idea of lesbianism and one of them tried to suggest men like lesbians because they like the idea that two women are going to be closer emotionally because they are more similar than a man and a woman. I told her i was fairly sure it wasn't that...
That killed the time until my friends arrived, at which point they left the table. After a couple of beers we then went to meet my friend's slightly crazy but entertaining Uncle for a quick drink in another pub and finally headed home for sushi.
Sunshine, a good amount of strangeness, a few beers and some nice food. It was a good evening.
The weather has been great for the last couple of days and so to make the most of it i went to a pub with a nice beer garden for a few drinks after work. I was meeting a couple of friends there and went straight from work to the pub. My friends stayed later in work than planned so I got to sit around and wait for an hour and a half for them to turn up. Which was fine as i am enjoying the book i am reading (Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson) very much at the moment. It was very busy in the beer garden and so, in order to keep my table while i went inside to get another drink, i left my book, my bag and some of a pint on the table. It was not enough though and i came back outside to find a woman sitting at the table. She was cool about it being my table, but her and her friend/special lady friend wanted to stay until my friends turned up. One of them was high on something and they were both pretty pissed and it all resulted in a fairly unusual conversation as we discussed their lesbian rape film idea they were hoping to film. We also touched on the subject of why men like the idea of lesbianism and one of them tried to suggest men like lesbians because they like the idea that two women are going to be closer emotionally because they are more similar than a man and a woman. I told her i was fairly sure it wasn't that...
That killed the time until my friends arrived, at which point they left the table. After a couple of beers we then went to meet my friend's slightly crazy but entertaining Uncle for a quick drink in another pub and finally headed home for sushi.
Sunshine, a good amount of strangeness, a few beers and some nice food. It was a good evening.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Alan Sugar
I was watching the BBC news this morning before heading out to work. There were doing a piece on the rising knife crime among young people. They had Alan Sugar (entrepreneur and star of the tv hit The Apprentice.) on to give his opinion on the subject. Before he started he said how annoyed he got when people who didn't know anything about a subject harped on about it. He then proceeded to harp on about a subject he new nothing about. And then plug his show that is on the telly later tonight.
Interviewing someone, ideally a celebrity, who knows nothing about a subject seems a particularly popular way to do the news at the moment. Perhaps Alan was making that very point with his opening statement. And then again, perhaps not...
I was watching the BBC news this morning before heading out to work. There were doing a piece on the rising knife crime among young people. They had Alan Sugar (entrepreneur and star of the tv hit The Apprentice.) on to give his opinion on the subject. Before he started he said how annoyed he got when people who didn't know anything about a subject harped on about it. He then proceeded to harp on about a subject he new nothing about. And then plug his show that is on the telly later tonight.
Interviewing someone, ideally a celebrity, who knows nothing about a subject seems a particularly popular way to do the news at the moment. Perhaps Alan was making that very point with his opening statement. And then again, perhaps not...
Friday, April 25, 2008
breezy
As I walked to the station this morning I nodded my usual greetings to the couple of people i see most mornings. As I continued my walk I noticed it was a lot breezier than normal around my willy. I looked down and noticed that not only were my flies undone but there was flesh visible through the zip. I need to dress myself better before leaving the house.
As I walked to the station this morning I nodded my usual greetings to the couple of people i see most mornings. As I continued my walk I noticed it was a lot breezier than normal around my willy. I looked down and noticed that not only were my flies undone but there was flesh visible through the zip. I need to dress myself better before leaving the house.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Last Action Hero?
As I was watching the second half of The Chronicles of Riddick last night (which somehow gets 6.3/10 on imdb.com despite being utterly rubbish. Commando is only worth a 6 according to the imdb community - fairly conclusive proof that people are idiots.), I was wondering what happened to good old fashioned musclebound action movie heroes? Back in the 80's you had Sly and Arnie leading the way with a string of enjoyable movies. Even the shit action stars (Dolph and Jean Claude) were entertaining. Who is there nowadays? The Rock, Jason Statham or Vin Diesel are all i can think of. Which is certainly not the most impressive of lists. The fact that Stallone is still able to make action movies despite being ancient is an indication of how poor the current crop is.
I want more 80s style action movies.
As I was watching the second half of The Chronicles of Riddick last night (which somehow gets 6.3/10 on imdb.com despite being utterly rubbish. Commando is only worth a 6 according to the imdb community - fairly conclusive proof that people are idiots.), I was wondering what happened to good old fashioned musclebound action movie heroes? Back in the 80's you had Sly and Arnie leading the way with a string of enjoyable movies. Even the shit action stars (Dolph and Jean Claude) were entertaining. Who is there nowadays? The Rock, Jason Statham or Vin Diesel are all i can think of. Which is certainly not the most impressive of lists. The fact that Stallone is still able to make action movies despite being ancient is an indication of how poor the current crop is.
I want more 80s style action movies.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
testicle game
A few weeks back a friend and i came up with a very enjoyable new game and it is called the testicle game.
In order to play the game, all you need are two people with testicles and a reasonably hard ball - a cricket ball or hockey ball will do nicely. (You will also need to be able to trust your opponent if there are no spectators.) You and your opponent then stand 5 or 6 feet apart facing each other. One person starts holding the ball (you can decide who starts using whatever system you prefer), while the other person closes their eyes, puts their hands behind their back and pushes their crotch forward. The person with the ball then takes as long as they like to gently lob the ball at their opponent's testicles. The contestants take it in turns throwing the ball until someone catches one flush in the balls and drops. The last one standing is the winner.
It is a simple and very enjoyable game. As you stand there with your eyes closed waiting to possibly get hit in the testicles, not knowing when it is coming, the scared anticipation is something special. I would advise you to try it at least once just for that. If the ball hits anywhere other than in the testicles it doesn't hurt at all. The real joy comes in the direct hit which will invariably drop a man. Everybody enjoys seeing a man get hit in the groin with a ball (making it an enjoyable spectator sport as well) but seeing a ball you have thrown arcing perfectly in to your opponents pods and then watching them crumple to the ground cradling their crotch is both highly amusing and satisfying.
Get involved and give it a go...
A few weeks back a friend and i came up with a very enjoyable new game and it is called the testicle game.
In order to play the game, all you need are two people with testicles and a reasonably hard ball - a cricket ball or hockey ball will do nicely. (You will also need to be able to trust your opponent if there are no spectators.) You and your opponent then stand 5 or 6 feet apart facing each other. One person starts holding the ball (you can decide who starts using whatever system you prefer), while the other person closes their eyes, puts their hands behind their back and pushes their crotch forward. The person with the ball then takes as long as they like to gently lob the ball at their opponent's testicles. The contestants take it in turns throwing the ball until someone catches one flush in the balls and drops. The last one standing is the winner.
It is a simple and very enjoyable game. As you stand there with your eyes closed waiting to possibly get hit in the testicles, not knowing when it is coming, the scared anticipation is something special. I would advise you to try it at least once just for that. If the ball hits anywhere other than in the testicles it doesn't hurt at all. The real joy comes in the direct hit which will invariably drop a man. Everybody enjoys seeing a man get hit in the groin with a ball (making it an enjoyable spectator sport as well) but seeing a ball you have thrown arcing perfectly in to your opponents pods and then watching them crumple to the ground cradling their crotch is both highly amusing and satisfying.
Get involved and give it a go...
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Hair
As I was standing in front of the mirror this morning getting ready for work I noticed I had something stuck between my teeth. I pulled it out and found it was a thick black curly hair. I had not been noshing anyone and am fairly sure i am less flexible than i was when i was a teenager and i couldn't do that then, so i have been wondering how it got there. I hope i am not feeding myself pubes as i sleep.
I have just had the unpleasant thought that if i am sleep feeding myself pubes, then presumably, very much like a cat, I could end up with a pubic furball in my stomach that would need hacking up. What a revolting idea.
As I was standing in front of the mirror this morning getting ready for work I noticed I had something stuck between my teeth. I pulled it out and found it was a thick black curly hair. I had not been noshing anyone and am fairly sure i am less flexible than i was when i was a teenager and i couldn't do that then, so i have been wondering how it got there. I hope i am not feeding myself pubes as i sleep.
I have just had the unpleasant thought that if i am sleep feeding myself pubes, then presumably, very much like a cat, I could end up with a pubic furball in my stomach that would need hacking up. What a revolting idea.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Hitchhike
I got to tell my hitch hiking story over the weekend. It is my best story and so thought i would put it in this blog. It is quite long but does involve blow jobs and drug taking...
Two of my friends were walking the Appalachian trail and I was living in Savannah, Georgia at the time and so planned to join them for three weeks of their hike. The first week of walking was fun but the combination of scrambling over the annoying Pennsylvanian rocks and trying to keep up with their punishing walking pace left my right ankle a little worse for wear. Our plan was to head across to New York for a bit of sight seeing and relaxation once we reached Delaware Water Gap and so, rather than walk the remaining thirty miles and damaging my ankle further, I decided I would hitchhike there and spend a night in a hostel, while my friends would continue walking and meet me there the next day.
I had walked a different section of the trail before and had hitchhiked a few times. It is normally fairly easy to get a lift and everybody who had picked me up previously had been nice and friendly (although there was a wolf in one of the cars but that is another story). The first couple of hitches were pretty standard - a college kid picked me up first and then a couple of teenagers. Neither of them could take me very far though, so I still had most of the way to go by the time I reached Hwy. 209N.
That was where the fun began. I got out my sign with my destination written on it and stuck my thumb out. After about fifteen minutes, an old, beaten up builders van pulled up. The driver told me he was going to Delaware Water Gap and could take me there but he would have to make a couple of stops along the way. Stopping was no problem for me so I thanked him and climbed in. I noticed he was drinking beer and not wearing his seat belt but that is pretty standard in certain parts of America and so didn’t worry me. He introduced himself as Troy. He also had his three kids in the van, who were strapped in to a bench seat he had bolted to the floor in the back of the van. They were Katie, who was three, the enjoyably named Silus, who was two and little Troy Junior, who was still a baby.
After the introductions, I explained why I wanted to go to Delaware Water Gap and what I was doing walking the Appalachian Trail. He then took the opportunity to tell me “I can’t trust you because you’re a stranger but if you’re any trouble I’ve got these.” At this point he took his hands off the steering wheel and waved them in my face. He finished this already disturbing sentence off with “And I’ve got a gun under the seat.” Troy was clearly a people person and to put me further at ease he decided to tell me about almost getting in to a fight on the Appalachian Trail with some people hiking the trail. Hikers are generally not aggressive people so by now it was pretty obvious he was a bit odd. He was taking me where I wanted to go though and how bad could it be?
A couple of miles up the road we made the first of the stops. It was a building supply place where he was returning some unused supplies. Before getting out of the car he said "Watch the kids will you?” which seemed strange as he had already made it quite clear how much he trusted me, but went on “I'll be watching you and don't go under the seat." so I knew where I stood. He then went in to the store for about five minutes and definitely wasn’t watching me unless he had x-ray vision. I didn’t go under the seat though.
He continued to make various stops and each time it was something different - pizza, soda, cigarettes, aluminium foil at one point (?) and some more beer. And each time he asked me to watch the kids before getting out. It was a hot day and inside the van it was unpleasantly warm so waiting around wasn’t much fun.
The stops kept coming and really didn’t seem that necessary so I started to ask "Are we going to Delaware Water Gap next?" "Just a couple more stops." was the usual reply.
While we were stopped at a gas station, Troy saw a friend of his, who came over to have a chat. At one point Troy said to this guy "She's trying to take everything man, all for a little domestic disturbance." That and a couple of other things he said made me think he might have been on the run with the kids. I could be wrong about that and wouldn’t want to smear his good name unnecessarily. He had talked about his house on a lake in a gated community and his good relationship with his Costa Rican wife previously. Finish the story and you can make your own mind up.
We got to a town and I saw signs saying it was three miles away to Stroudsburg (Delaware Water Gap was a further two.) so I knew we were getting close. I was somewhat surprised when we pulled in to the car park of an adult store but Troy was quick to explain… He knew a woman who worked there who would give him a blow job for $15. "Watch the kids- I'll be back in a bit." He told me as he got out of the car.
Sitting in a stranger’s van and watching his kids while he is inside getting a blow job is an unusual experience. Katie was the only one of the three kids who could talk and she was starting to get annoyed by being cooped up in the back of a hot van for so long and so started to complain.
"Where's Daddy?"
"He's just gone inside for a bit."
"Where?"
"You can ask him when he gets back."
"Let me out"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because your Dad says so."
"Why?"
"You'll have to ask him."
"Let me out."
And so on until Troy came back after about fifteen minutes. He was unpleasantly sweaty and carrying a hard core pornographic magazine when he got back in the car. Before we set off again he told me about a potential money making opportunity. Apparently there was a guy inside who would pay me $50 if I showed him my penis while he masturbated. Troy told me he had done it before and it was easy money but I politely declined. He then tried to encourage me to do it by telling me a rambling story about how the guy was an idiot and Troy had previously managed to steal his wedding ring without him knowing about it. Again, I turned down his kind offer. It was at this point I should have got out of the car and walked away, but I didn’t. After all, how much worse could it get? Troy set off again and combined the twin tasks of driving and flicking through his latest magazine purchase admirably. Instead of going down the freeway, which is what the sign we had seen suggested was the way, we turned down a country lane. This didn’t look right so I asked "Is this the back way to Delaware Water Gap then?"
"One more stop and we'll be there." was the predictable answer.
Before telling me about our next stop he quizzed me to make sure I wasn’t a policeman. My dishevelled walking gear, week of beard growth and English accent were enough to reassure him I was not about to arrest him. And so he let me know our next stop was going to be his drug dealer’s house where he could get a good deal on crack, if I was interested. We continued on in to the country and pulled in to a drive way in front of a single storey wooden house. There were other houses around but nothing particularly close.
It seemed that there had been some previous trouble between Troy and his drug dealer, because instead of getting out of the car himself he told me "Go and knock on the door and ask for Sean - tell him Troy’s here."
"Why can't you go?"
"Because his wife doesn't like me."
I didn’t like it but Troy was clearly a bit unhinged and he apparently had a gun under his seat and I was in the middle of nowhere. So I nervously got out of the car and knocked on the screen door.
“Yeah?” was the shouted response.
"Is Sean in?"
"Who's asking?"
"I'm Will. Troy's here. He wants to see Sean."
"I don't know no Troy."
I relayed this back to Troy who shouted back, "Tell him I'm Jimmie's brother."
"Tell him to come in." was the reply from inside the house. Troy clearly didn't like this, but after a bit more back and forth - his excuse was he had the kids in the car and so couldn’t come in, Sean said "He's got to come in."
Troy finally did go in and I went back to the car to endure more complaints from Katie. Troy came out a few minutes later and walked over to my side of the van. "Hey, would you drive the van for a bit?"
What do you say to that? I chose “Sure.” So I got out of the van, walked around to the driver’s side, checked out that it was something I could drive and we started off. I imagine it is fairly unusual to hitchhike and end up driving the ride you get in but I have done it. But when you consider the logistics, it was clear I had to be the one driving. Although he could drive whilst reading porn there was no way Troy could have driven, read porn, made an aluminium foil crack pipe (Ahh, that was what it was for) and smoked crack all at the same time. (And all with his 3 children in the back of the van.) We drove along the country roads with him giving me seemingly random directions. I had no idea where we were so I kept driving and turning when he said turn. At one point he told me to pull over and once we had stopped he offered me the pipe.
“No thanks- I don’t want to try it. It’s too addictive.”
"That's what my wife said and she's fine. She only does it when I want her to." Troy reassured me, but, even after such a convincing argument, I still said no and so started driving again. After some more turns we came to sign saying that at the t junction up ahead, Stroudsburg was three miles to the left. Troy said “Turn right.”
This clearly wasn’t right so I pulled the van over and said “I need to get to Delaware Water Gap. I need to go left.”
Troy had clearly been thinking and let me in on his new alternative plan... “I tell you what. We’ll pick up a couple of hookers and we’ll get a hotel room for the night.”
I saw an immediate problem with his plan. "Who's going to watch the kids?"
“The prostitutes" he replied, as if it should have been obvious - Of course, how stupid of me. After once again turning down another bizarre suggestion from Troy, I grabbed my bag, got out of the van and walked the five miles to Delaware Water Gap slightly scared Troy was going to drive by and shoot me. Fortunately he didn’t.
And that was my hitch hike. Slightly scary at the time but entertaining looking back on it and at least I made $50 out of it… I mean, at least I got a good story out of it.
I got to tell my hitch hiking story over the weekend. It is my best story and so thought i would put it in this blog. It is quite long but does involve blow jobs and drug taking...
Two of my friends were walking the Appalachian trail and I was living in Savannah, Georgia at the time and so planned to join them for three weeks of their hike. The first week of walking was fun but the combination of scrambling over the annoying Pennsylvanian rocks and trying to keep up with their punishing walking pace left my right ankle a little worse for wear. Our plan was to head across to New York for a bit of sight seeing and relaxation once we reached Delaware Water Gap and so, rather than walk the remaining thirty miles and damaging my ankle further, I decided I would hitchhike there and spend a night in a hostel, while my friends would continue walking and meet me there the next day.
I had walked a different section of the trail before and had hitchhiked a few times. It is normally fairly easy to get a lift and everybody who had picked me up previously had been nice and friendly (although there was a wolf in one of the cars but that is another story). The first couple of hitches were pretty standard - a college kid picked me up first and then a couple of teenagers. Neither of them could take me very far though, so I still had most of the way to go by the time I reached Hwy. 209N.
That was where the fun began. I got out my sign with my destination written on it and stuck my thumb out. After about fifteen minutes, an old, beaten up builders van pulled up. The driver told me he was going to Delaware Water Gap and could take me there but he would have to make a couple of stops along the way. Stopping was no problem for me so I thanked him and climbed in. I noticed he was drinking beer and not wearing his seat belt but that is pretty standard in certain parts of America and so didn’t worry me. He introduced himself as Troy. He also had his three kids in the van, who were strapped in to a bench seat he had bolted to the floor in the back of the van. They were Katie, who was three, the enjoyably named Silus, who was two and little Troy Junior, who was still a baby.
After the introductions, I explained why I wanted to go to Delaware Water Gap and what I was doing walking the Appalachian Trail. He then took the opportunity to tell me “I can’t trust you because you’re a stranger but if you’re any trouble I’ve got these.” At this point he took his hands off the steering wheel and waved them in my face. He finished this already disturbing sentence off with “And I’ve got a gun under the seat.” Troy was clearly a people person and to put me further at ease he decided to tell me about almost getting in to a fight on the Appalachian Trail with some people hiking the trail. Hikers are generally not aggressive people so by now it was pretty obvious he was a bit odd. He was taking me where I wanted to go though and how bad could it be?
A couple of miles up the road we made the first of the stops. It was a building supply place where he was returning some unused supplies. Before getting out of the car he said "Watch the kids will you?” which seemed strange as he had already made it quite clear how much he trusted me, but went on “I'll be watching you and don't go under the seat." so I knew where I stood. He then went in to the store for about five minutes and definitely wasn’t watching me unless he had x-ray vision. I didn’t go under the seat though.
He continued to make various stops and each time it was something different - pizza, soda, cigarettes, aluminium foil at one point (?) and some more beer. And each time he asked me to watch the kids before getting out. It was a hot day and inside the van it was unpleasantly warm so waiting around wasn’t much fun.
The stops kept coming and really didn’t seem that necessary so I started to ask "Are we going to Delaware Water Gap next?" "Just a couple more stops." was the usual reply.
While we were stopped at a gas station, Troy saw a friend of his, who came over to have a chat. At one point Troy said to this guy "She's trying to take everything man, all for a little domestic disturbance." That and a couple of other things he said made me think he might have been on the run with the kids. I could be wrong about that and wouldn’t want to smear his good name unnecessarily. He had talked about his house on a lake in a gated community and his good relationship with his Costa Rican wife previously. Finish the story and you can make your own mind up.
We got to a town and I saw signs saying it was three miles away to Stroudsburg (Delaware Water Gap was a further two.) so I knew we were getting close. I was somewhat surprised when we pulled in to the car park of an adult store but Troy was quick to explain… He knew a woman who worked there who would give him a blow job for $15. "Watch the kids- I'll be back in a bit." He told me as he got out of the car.
Sitting in a stranger’s van and watching his kids while he is inside getting a blow job is an unusual experience. Katie was the only one of the three kids who could talk and she was starting to get annoyed by being cooped up in the back of a hot van for so long and so started to complain.
"Where's Daddy?"
"He's just gone inside for a bit."
"Where?"
"You can ask him when he gets back."
"Let me out"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because your Dad says so."
"Why?"
"You'll have to ask him."
"Let me out."
And so on until Troy came back after about fifteen minutes. He was unpleasantly sweaty and carrying a hard core pornographic magazine when he got back in the car. Before we set off again he told me about a potential money making opportunity. Apparently there was a guy inside who would pay me $50 if I showed him my penis while he masturbated. Troy told me he had done it before and it was easy money but I politely declined. He then tried to encourage me to do it by telling me a rambling story about how the guy was an idiot and Troy had previously managed to steal his wedding ring without him knowing about it. Again, I turned down his kind offer. It was at this point I should have got out of the car and walked away, but I didn’t. After all, how much worse could it get? Troy set off again and combined the twin tasks of driving and flicking through his latest magazine purchase admirably. Instead of going down the freeway, which is what the sign we had seen suggested was the way, we turned down a country lane. This didn’t look right so I asked "Is this the back way to Delaware Water Gap then?"
"One more stop and we'll be there." was the predictable answer.
Before telling me about our next stop he quizzed me to make sure I wasn’t a policeman. My dishevelled walking gear, week of beard growth and English accent were enough to reassure him I was not about to arrest him. And so he let me know our next stop was going to be his drug dealer’s house where he could get a good deal on crack, if I was interested. We continued on in to the country and pulled in to a drive way in front of a single storey wooden house. There were other houses around but nothing particularly close.
It seemed that there had been some previous trouble between Troy and his drug dealer, because instead of getting out of the car himself he told me "Go and knock on the door and ask for Sean - tell him Troy’s here."
"Why can't you go?"
"Because his wife doesn't like me."
I didn’t like it but Troy was clearly a bit unhinged and he apparently had a gun under his seat and I was in the middle of nowhere. So I nervously got out of the car and knocked on the screen door.
“Yeah?” was the shouted response.
"Is Sean in?"
"Who's asking?"
"I'm Will. Troy's here. He wants to see Sean."
"I don't know no Troy."
I relayed this back to Troy who shouted back, "Tell him I'm Jimmie's brother."
"Tell him to come in." was the reply from inside the house. Troy clearly didn't like this, but after a bit more back and forth - his excuse was he had the kids in the car and so couldn’t come in, Sean said "He's got to come in."
Troy finally did go in and I went back to the car to endure more complaints from Katie. Troy came out a few minutes later and walked over to my side of the van. "Hey, would you drive the van for a bit?"
What do you say to that? I chose “Sure.” So I got out of the van, walked around to the driver’s side, checked out that it was something I could drive and we started off. I imagine it is fairly unusual to hitchhike and end up driving the ride you get in but I have done it. But when you consider the logistics, it was clear I had to be the one driving. Although he could drive whilst reading porn there was no way Troy could have driven, read porn, made an aluminium foil crack pipe (Ahh, that was what it was for) and smoked crack all at the same time. (And all with his 3 children in the back of the van.) We drove along the country roads with him giving me seemingly random directions. I had no idea where we were so I kept driving and turning when he said turn. At one point he told me to pull over and once we had stopped he offered me the pipe.
“No thanks- I don’t want to try it. It’s too addictive.”
"That's what my wife said and she's fine. She only does it when I want her to." Troy reassured me, but, even after such a convincing argument, I still said no and so started driving again. After some more turns we came to sign saying that at the t junction up ahead, Stroudsburg was three miles to the left. Troy said “Turn right.”
This clearly wasn’t right so I pulled the van over and said “I need to get to Delaware Water Gap. I need to go left.”
Troy had clearly been thinking and let me in on his new alternative plan... “I tell you what. We’ll pick up a couple of hookers and we’ll get a hotel room for the night.”
I saw an immediate problem with his plan. "Who's going to watch the kids?"
“The prostitutes" he replied, as if it should have been obvious - Of course, how stupid of me. After once again turning down another bizarre suggestion from Troy, I grabbed my bag, got out of the van and walked the five miles to Delaware Water Gap slightly scared Troy was going to drive by and shoot me. Fortunately he didn’t.
And that was my hitch hike. Slightly scary at the time but entertaining looking back on it and at least I made $50 out of it… I mean, at least I got a good story out of it.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Self Facilitating Media Nodes
I work near shoreditch in London. It is an area full of people convinced they are the epitome of urban cool. This morning on my walk from the station to work i saw a man in trendy clothes riding a blue bmx that was far too small for him and then another trendily attired man riding a unicycle.
Excruciatingly hip I'm sure...
I work near shoreditch in London. It is an area full of people convinced they are the epitome of urban cool. This morning on my walk from the station to work i saw a man in trendy clothes riding a blue bmx that was far too small for him and then another trendily attired man riding a unicycle.
Excruciatingly hip I'm sure...
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
job description
Working as a recruitment consultant I see some amusingly poor CVs and some odd job descriptions. The one i was sent this morning was the best i have received so far...
"Dear Sir/Madam,
We would like to introduce ourselves as a trading company in Iran. We want to establish a company in London and we need a manager for our office. As you are a recruitment firm in London, we will be glad if you can help us. In the below you can find some terms about employing of a manager. You are kindly requested to introduce and send us 4 or 5 CV’s and we will choose one of them. Please let us know about the result and all of your terms as soon as possible.
Terms:
1-The manager should be feminine.
2-She should be middle age
3-Her nationality should be English (even her parents)
4-She should come from medium to high class family.
5-she should have 3 years experience of being a manager or 5 years experience of being a Trade manager of a company.
6-She should mention the reason of leaving her previous job.
7-She should be familiar with the internal bazaar of England. Such as: 1-food products 2-handicrafts.
8-She should be educated
9-If it is possible she should give some evidence about her developments in her working process.
10-She should have high social behavior. And have a good and suitable appearance.
11-She should be able for trading job (importing and exporting goods from Iran or vice versa)
12-Be sure that she doesn’t have any miss background
13-She should love Iran.
I am looking forward to hearing from you soon."
I am looking forward to hearing from them soon too.
Working as a recruitment consultant I see some amusingly poor CVs and some odd job descriptions. The one i was sent this morning was the best i have received so far...
"Dear Sir/Madam,
We would like to introduce ourselves as a trading company in Iran. We want to establish a company in London and we need a manager for our office. As you are a recruitment firm in London, we will be glad if you can help us. In the below you can find some terms about employing of a manager. You are kindly requested to introduce and send us 4 or 5 CV’s and we will choose one of them. Please let us know about the result and all of your terms as soon as possible.
Terms:
1-The manager should be feminine.
2-She should be middle age
3-Her nationality should be English (even her parents)
4-She should come from medium to high class family.
5-she should have 3 years experience of being a manager or 5 years experience of being a Trade manager of a company.
6-She should mention the reason of leaving her previous job.
7-She should be familiar with the internal bazaar of England. Such as: 1-food products 2-handicrafts.
8-She should be educated
9-If it is possible she should give some evidence about her developments in her working process.
10-She should have high social behavior. And have a good and suitable appearance.
11-She should be able for trading job (importing and exporting goods from Iran or vice versa)
12-Be sure that she doesn’t have any miss background
13-She should love Iran.
I am looking forward to hearing from you soon."
I am looking forward to hearing from them soon too.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
oof
My friend just e-mailed me. He was sitting watching tv when a mosquito landed on his crotch. His slap a mosquito when it lands on you instinct kicked in and resulted in a painful blow to the right testicle.
Haha. He hit himself in the testicles. I like stories about people getting hit in the testicles.
My friend just e-mailed me. He was sitting watching tv when a mosquito landed on his crotch. His slap a mosquito when it lands on you instinct kicked in and resulted in a painful blow to the right testicle.
Haha. He hit himself in the testicles. I like stories about people getting hit in the testicles.
Stag
I went on a stag do at the weekend and it was tremendous fun. We went to Llangollen- north wales. It seems a nice place. There is a river running through it, hilly surroundings, an amusing taxidermy shop with a wide array of ugly, scary looking stuffed animals and a nice riverside station with a steam train to go sight seeing along the Dee valley. On Friday night we drank in the nice old pub we were staying in and it was a fairly quiet night. On Saturday we went to an outdoor centre in the morning and did an hour racing mud buggies around a track and then an hour mountain quad biking, which was enormous fun - very, very enjoyable. Good hilly scenery and pissing around on quad bikes is a good combination. One of my friends managed to turn his on its side quite impressively after trying to get the back end out. He was lucky it didn't roll all the way over but as it was it was very amusing. His face was a treat as he realised he was going over. Then we went back to town and started the drinking watching the rugby. A slightly ropey curry and a hotel bar playing drinking games was the rest of the stag evening. Any nice pubs were too busy for us all to get a table so the weird unpopular hotel bar was the best bet. It had all sorts of crap hung from the ceiling- a pram full of wombles, pitchforks, scythes bed pans, bikes and other random stuff. The toilets were downstairs. To get to them involved going along a poorly carpeted corridor which had a load of empty, slightly decrepit rooms off either side. The sort of place a serial killer would have been proud of. But it was a fun evening. Even though the owner of the bar was a tedious man who enjoyed talking at his clientelle about his art and the website he sold it on.
And then on Sunday I got to spend 3 painful hung over hours driving back from north wales.
That is my first Welsh stag of the year. I have another one at the end of next month so i can see how North Wales stags compare with South Wales stags.
I went on a stag do at the weekend and it was tremendous fun. We went to Llangollen- north wales. It seems a nice place. There is a river running through it, hilly surroundings, an amusing taxidermy shop with a wide array of ugly, scary looking stuffed animals and a nice riverside station with a steam train to go sight seeing along the Dee valley. On Friday night we drank in the nice old pub we were staying in and it was a fairly quiet night. On Saturday we went to an outdoor centre in the morning and did an hour racing mud buggies around a track and then an hour mountain quad biking, which was enormous fun - very, very enjoyable. Good hilly scenery and pissing around on quad bikes is a good combination. One of my friends managed to turn his on its side quite impressively after trying to get the back end out. He was lucky it didn't roll all the way over but as it was it was very amusing. His face was a treat as he realised he was going over. Then we went back to town and started the drinking watching the rugby. A slightly ropey curry and a hotel bar playing drinking games was the rest of the stag evening. Any nice pubs were too busy for us all to get a table so the weird unpopular hotel bar was the best bet. It had all sorts of crap hung from the ceiling- a pram full of wombles, pitchforks, scythes bed pans, bikes and other random stuff. The toilets were downstairs. To get to them involved going along a poorly carpeted corridor which had a load of empty, slightly decrepit rooms off either side. The sort of place a serial killer would have been proud of. But it was a fun evening. Even though the owner of the bar was a tedious man who enjoyed talking at his clientelle about his art and the website he sold it on.
And then on Sunday I got to spend 3 painful hung over hours driving back from north wales.
That is my first Welsh stag of the year. I have another one at the end of next month so i can see how North Wales stags compare with South Wales stags.
What would Jesus do?
I was watching the news yesterday morning as i got ready for work. They were reporting on the finding of a child's body buried in concrete in a care home in Jersey and the suggestions of wide spread cruelty to children. Their interview subject was a Jersey vicar. And on live national television he said we should treat people who mistreat children as it suggests in the old testament - we should hang mill stones around their neck and throw them in to the sea. Obviously, mistreating children is wrong but this seems a little much, particularly coming out of the mouth of a man whose religion is based on the teachings of Jesus. I am fairly sure Jesus was against tying mill stones around people's necks and drowning them. But I could easily be wrong - I am sure a vicar would know more about it than me...
I was watching the news yesterday morning as i got ready for work. They were reporting on the finding of a child's body buried in concrete in a care home in Jersey and the suggestions of wide spread cruelty to children. Their interview subject was a Jersey vicar. And on live national television he said we should treat people who mistreat children as it suggests in the old testament - we should hang mill stones around their neck and throw them in to the sea. Obviously, mistreating children is wrong but this seems a little much, particularly coming out of the mouth of a man whose religion is based on the teachings of Jesus. I am fairly sure Jesus was against tying mill stones around people's necks and drowning them. But I could easily be wrong - I am sure a vicar would know more about it than me...
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
ironing board
If you are heading out for a couple of drinks this evening, my advice to you would be don't leave your ironing board set up just in front of the front door and definitely don't leave it set up so it is crotch high. Then you will be able to avoid bursting in to your dark living room with the intention of relieving your straining bladder and finding yourself being abruptly stopped by the end of an ironing board hitting you in the testicles.
If you are heading out for a couple of drinks this evening, my advice to you would be don't leave your ironing board set up just in front of the front door and definitely don't leave it set up so it is crotch high. Then you will be able to avoid bursting in to your dark living room with the intention of relieving your straining bladder and finding yourself being abruptly stopped by the end of an ironing board hitting you in the testicles.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
umbrella
I was walking home from the tube after going to a pub quiz. I had my umbrella with me. When I walk back with an umbrella I like to use it like a walking stick, twirl the umbrella around my hand a bit and also to place the tip on the ground and kick it so the bottom of the umbrella swings up and over pivoting around my hand and returns to its original starting position. I find it makes a dull walk, slightly less dull. I was doing my usual swinging the umbrella about a bit and then went for the kick the umbrella around in a circle trick. Probably because i was somewhat well oiled, i gave the umbrella a good boot but the direction of the kick was a little awry resulting in me kicking the tip in to my forehead. It hurt and there is a slightly red mark to remind me of the incident today.
I was walking home from the tube after going to a pub quiz. I had my umbrella with me. When I walk back with an umbrella I like to use it like a walking stick, twirl the umbrella around my hand a bit and also to place the tip on the ground and kick it so the bottom of the umbrella swings up and over pivoting around my hand and returns to its original starting position. I find it makes a dull walk, slightly less dull. I was doing my usual swinging the umbrella about a bit and then went for the kick the umbrella around in a circle trick. Probably because i was somewhat well oiled, i gave the umbrella a good boot but the direction of the kick was a little awry resulting in me kicking the tip in to my forehead. It hurt and there is a slightly red mark to remind me of the incident today.
Monday, January 28, 2008
talent?
I was pleased to see over the weekend that Coleen McLoughlin (girlfriend of half witted, potato headed multi millionaire footballer Wayne Rooney ) has her very own TV show coming out. It is nice to know that being a somewhat attractive, (if an overly orange woman in need of a personality can be considered attractive) vacuous retard, only famous because she has managed to bag herself a spud faced moron with a penchant for grannies who happens to be very good at football, is all that is required to get your own TV show. Actual talent is superfluous.
(In linking to the charming couple above I read some of the Coleen bit on Wikipedia. They have a Dallas themed living room.
And Wayne proposed to her on the forecourt of a BP garage. It is nice to see romance isn't dead.)
I was pleased to see over the weekend that Coleen McLoughlin (girlfriend of half witted, potato headed multi millionaire footballer Wayne Rooney ) has her very own TV show coming out. It is nice to know that being a somewhat attractive, (if an overly orange woman in need of a personality can be considered attractive) vacuous retard, only famous because she has managed to bag herself a spud faced moron with a penchant for grannies who happens to be very good at football, is all that is required to get your own TV show. Actual talent is superfluous.
(In linking to the charming couple above I read some of the Coleen bit on Wikipedia. They have a Dallas themed living room.
And Wayne proposed to her on the forecourt of a BP garage. It is nice to see romance isn't dead.)
cereal
My cousin came down to stay with me this weekend. She was taking the American SATs because she is thinking of going to University in the US and so has to have an SAT result to do that... Anyway, I had to buy her some cereal as she didn't approve of my fruit and nut option. She went with Frosties, which i joined her in eating on Sunday morning. It took me back to my childhood. I ate Frosties before school for many years and had perfected my eating method to get the maximum enjoyment out of a bowl. It was as follows.
Perfect Frosties Eating Technique. (If you are me)
1. Add the required amount of delicious frosted flakes to a bowl.
2. Add a generous amount of milk fresh out of the fridge and as cold as possible to the bowl. The milk should be about 1 cm higher in the bowl than the top of the cereal before the addition of the milk.
3. Leave the bowl of cereal and boil 3 cups of water.
4. Make a cup of tea with the boiled water (The timing of steps 3 and 4 is crucial. This allows the milk to slightly soften the Frosties and also the sugar from the Frosties starts to dissolve and turn the milk sweet. Too little time and the Frosties will be too hard and stand some chance of lacerating the roof of your mouth. More importantly though, the remaining milk may not be enjoyably sweet by the time the flakes have been eaten. On the other hand, taking too much time results in a soggy mess of cereal, where you do get sweet milk, which is nice, but the flakes lack any crunch and the texture in the mouth is not a pleasant one. How quickly your kettle boils and how fast you are at making tea are obvious variables here so some experimentation may be required.)
5. Eat the still crunchy Frosties, being careful not to take up too much milk with each spoonful.
6. Drink the enjoyably large amount of deliciously sweet milk remaining in the bowl.
I enjoyed going through my ritual again on Sunday and have the remainder of the pack to look forward to as well. They're great.
My cousin came down to stay with me this weekend. She was taking the American SATs because she is thinking of going to University in the US and so has to have an SAT result to do that... Anyway, I had to buy her some cereal as she didn't approve of my fruit and nut option. She went with Frosties, which i joined her in eating on Sunday morning. It took me back to my childhood. I ate Frosties before school for many years and had perfected my eating method to get the maximum enjoyment out of a bowl. It was as follows.
Perfect Frosties Eating Technique. (If you are me)
1. Add the required amount of delicious frosted flakes to a bowl.
2. Add a generous amount of milk fresh out of the fridge and as cold as possible to the bowl. The milk should be about 1 cm higher in the bowl than the top of the cereal before the addition of the milk.
3. Leave the bowl of cereal and boil 3 cups of water.
4. Make a cup of tea with the boiled water (The timing of steps 3 and 4 is crucial. This allows the milk to slightly soften the Frosties and also the sugar from the Frosties starts to dissolve and turn the milk sweet. Too little time and the Frosties will be too hard and stand some chance of lacerating the roof of your mouth. More importantly though, the remaining milk may not be enjoyably sweet by the time the flakes have been eaten. On the other hand, taking too much time results in a soggy mess of cereal, where you do get sweet milk, which is nice, but the flakes lack any crunch and the texture in the mouth is not a pleasant one. How quickly your kettle boils and how fast you are at making tea are obvious variables here so some experimentation may be required.)
5. Eat the still crunchy Frosties, being careful not to take up too much milk with each spoonful.
6. Drink the enjoyably large amount of deliciously sweet milk remaining in the bowl.
I enjoyed going through my ritual again on Sunday and have the remainder of the pack to look forward to as well. They're great.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
top shelf
I went in to pick up some supplies last night from my local corner store and whilst in there had a glance at the top shelf so i could have a free look at the scantily clad women on display. They have a particularly large selection for a corner store. Presumably the shop wouldn't stock them if they didn't sell, but with such a huge array of top shelf material available for free at the click of a mouse, i am surprised that jazz mags have any sort of market nowadays. Apart from being free, by using the internet you avoid the potential embarrassment of taking the Big Jugs magazine you have carefully selected up to the counter and paying the clearly disapproving older Indian lady, whilst the teenagers who have just come in to the shop giggle at your purchase... I imagine. Despite this shop's impressive collection, the range on offer is far smaller than that on the interweb. Magazines do have the advantage of being easily transported but mobile phones provide excellent porn carrying options nowadays.
Whatever the reasons for their continued popularity, it is good to know excited teenage boys will still be finding discarded grumble mags in bushes and railway sidings and the like for at least a few years yet.
I went in to pick up some supplies last night from my local corner store and whilst in there had a glance at the top shelf so i could have a free look at the scantily clad women on display. They have a particularly large selection for a corner store. Presumably the shop wouldn't stock them if they didn't sell, but with such a huge array of top shelf material available for free at the click of a mouse, i am surprised that jazz mags have any sort of market nowadays. Apart from being free, by using the internet you avoid the potential embarrassment of taking the Big Jugs magazine you have carefully selected up to the counter and paying the clearly disapproving older Indian lady, whilst the teenagers who have just come in to the shop giggle at your purchase... I imagine. Despite this shop's impressive collection, the range on offer is far smaller than that on the interweb. Magazines do have the advantage of being easily transported but mobile phones provide excellent porn carrying options nowadays.
Whatever the reasons for their continued popularity, it is good to know excited teenage boys will still be finding discarded grumble mags in bushes and railway sidings and the like for at least a few years yet.
sweat?
I carried my phone to work in the front pocket of my shirt this morning. The screen on the phone was resting against my chest. I just took it out to put it on to charge and the screen was covered with a thin layer of moisture... What would that be? Sweat, presumably, but that would mean sweating through my shirt and creating an environment in my pocket so moist that the sweat started to condense on the screen. Could that happen? If so, that is some impressive sweating.
I carried my phone to work in the front pocket of my shirt this morning. The screen on the phone was resting against my chest. I just took it out to put it on to charge and the screen was covered with a thin layer of moisture... What would that be? Sweat, presumably, but that would mean sweating through my shirt and creating an environment in my pocket so moist that the sweat started to condense on the screen. Could that happen? If so, that is some impressive sweating.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
police
After going to a slightly disappointing country music open mic night (they only had 3 people singing and 1 of them wasn't country) on Sunday, i was walking back along my road when i saw a very large police van with blacked out rear windows parked in the road. There is a dodgy pub nearby, where the patrons seem to enjoy a good fight so I assumed they were in the area for that. As I walked further along the street i saw a large group of police officers crammed in to the small waiting area of the local Indian take out (The Bayleaf- it is excellent). "I wonder if they've been robbed" was my initial thought. Then I noticed they all the officers had menus in their hands - they were just out for a big police group curry order. So everybody was a winner. There was nobody beaten up, I got to chuckle at the fat police people going out on a big curry trip and the police got bellies full of delicious curry.
After going to a slightly disappointing country music open mic night (they only had 3 people singing and 1 of them wasn't country) on Sunday, i was walking back along my road when i saw a very large police van with blacked out rear windows parked in the road. There is a dodgy pub nearby, where the patrons seem to enjoy a good fight so I assumed they were in the area for that. As I walked further along the street i saw a large group of police officers crammed in to the small waiting area of the local Indian take out (The Bayleaf- it is excellent). "I wonder if they've been robbed" was my initial thought. Then I noticed they all the officers had menus in their hands - they were just out for a big police group curry order. So everybody was a winner. There was nobody beaten up, I got to chuckle at the fat police people going out on a big curry trip and the police got bellies full of delicious curry.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Are you ready?
I always enjoy the New Year because it means the crap darts is on the BBC. (And it is time for Worlds Strongest Man, which i dissapointingly missed this year) Admittedly I would rather watch the far superior darts on SKY, but I will take what I can get. I love darts. It is a great sport. What other sport (apart from the pantomine that is boxing now) can a 50 year old man be world champion? What other sport will the commentators patronisingly refer to women playing the sport as darling? (Hot [for a darts player] Russian Anastasia "From Russia With Love" Dobromyslova was playing last night. She is not quite hot enough to remove the qualifying "for a darts player" but not far off. Her website is somewhat entertaining. It looks like she is living the dream, having moved to the UK and making an ugly Brit happy in exchange for a visa. Anyway, she was treated to "Come on darling, you can hit the double." by the commentator.) In what other sport can so many fat, unhealthy men be considered the world's best? In what other sport is so much gaudy jewelery on display? It is good to watch on tv but better live. I have been to the good darts World Championships a couple of times and enjoyed it thoroughly. It is generally a very drunken affair with less and less attention being paid to the darts as the session progresses but with more and more roaring when 180s are hit. i met Eric Bristow and Sid Waddell one time. What a day that was! It used to be held at the circus tavern- a horrible pub in Essex. It is the sort of place that on a Friday night has male strippers upstairs for the women, female strippers downstairs for the men and then at 12.00 they allow the two floors of horny Essex people to mingle. urrrgghhh.
Anyway, i plan to watch as much darts as possible over the final 3 days to tide me over until next year.
I always enjoy the New Year because it means the crap darts is on the BBC. (And it is time for Worlds Strongest Man, which i dissapointingly missed this year) Admittedly I would rather watch the far superior darts on SKY, but I will take what I can get. I love darts. It is a great sport. What other sport (apart from the pantomine that is boxing now) can a 50 year old man be world champion? What other sport will the commentators patronisingly refer to women playing the sport as darling? (Hot [for a darts player] Russian Anastasia "From Russia With Love" Dobromyslova was playing last night. She is not quite hot enough to remove the qualifying "for a darts player" but not far off. Her website is somewhat entertaining. It looks like she is living the dream, having moved to the UK and making an ugly Brit happy in exchange for a visa. Anyway, she was treated to "Come on darling, you can hit the double." by the commentator.) In what other sport can so many fat, unhealthy men be considered the world's best? In what other sport is so much gaudy jewelery on display? It is good to watch on tv but better live. I have been to the good darts World Championships a couple of times and enjoyed it thoroughly. It is generally a very drunken affair with less and less attention being paid to the darts as the session progresses but with more and more roaring when 180s are hit. i met Eric Bristow and Sid Waddell one time. What a day that was! It used to be held at the circus tavern- a horrible pub in Essex. It is the sort of place that on a Friday night has male strippers upstairs for the women, female strippers downstairs for the men and then at 12.00 they allow the two floors of horny Essex people to mingle. urrrgghhh.
Anyway, i plan to watch as much darts as possible over the final 3 days to tide me over until next year.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
road rage
On the way to the station this morning i witnessed some road rage. (Although, is it called road rage if it is a pedestrian doing it?) I didn't see the incident that caused it but came round the corner to see a guy in a suit holding a briefcase, presumably on his way to work, shouting at a car waiting in a queue of traffic. I couldn't understand anything he was shouting so have no idea why he was so annoyed. After a bit of a shout it looked like he was done and he turned away to leave. But no, he wheeled back around, started shouting again with renewed vigour and tried to open the driver's door. It was locked so he resorted to hitting the driver's window with his open hand. And more unintelligible shouting. The driver was sitting looking embarrassed whilst trying to ignore the crazy man outside his window. I didn't see how it resolved itself because by this time i had walked past the scene and had to turn down another road. I wonder what the driver did to so enrage the man?
On the way to the station this morning i witnessed some road rage. (Although, is it called road rage if it is a pedestrian doing it?) I didn't see the incident that caused it but came round the corner to see a guy in a suit holding a briefcase, presumably on his way to work, shouting at a car waiting in a queue of traffic. I couldn't understand anything he was shouting so have no idea why he was so annoyed. After a bit of a shout it looked like he was done and he turned away to leave. But no, he wheeled back around, started shouting again with renewed vigour and tried to open the driver's door. It was locked so he resorted to hitting the driver's window with his open hand. And more unintelligible shouting. The driver was sitting looking embarrassed whilst trying to ignore the crazy man outside his window. I didn't see how it resolved itself because by this time i had walked past the scene and had to turn down another road. I wonder what the driver did to so enrage the man?
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
bonking
I just interviewed a French lady who kept talking about her work in the banking sector. Except, when a French person says banking (very much like in 'Allo 'Allo) it sounds like bonking, so I found it very difficult not to smile when I heard about her bonking experience and how she would be interested in working in bonking again.
I am quite immature.
I just interviewed a French lady who kept talking about her work in the banking sector. Except, when a French person says banking (very much like in 'Allo 'Allo) it sounds like bonking, so I found it very difficult not to smile when I heard about her bonking experience and how she would be interested in working in bonking again.
I am quite immature.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Christmas fun
I enjoyed the festive period.
My brother had borrowed my car so I had to journey up from London on the trains. It wasn't too horrible. The trains were mostly on time and even the one that was delayed by an hour wasn't too annoying. I had a good book and nothing in particular to be back for. I'd even booked in advance so it didn't cost too much. The most annoying part of the journey was the soundtrack provided for me on one of the trains by some prick and his phone. Obviously, if you are the sort of person to play music loudly from your phone on trains or buses you are going to be a prick of the highest order but why do they always have such utterly shit taste in music? Surely some pricks must have decent taste in music.
Christmas day was delicious - roast turkey and pork for late lunch and various snacky things through out the morning and i ate far too much. My over eating continued at a family party on boxing day where i ate a generous helping of left overs. In the evening i went over to my cousin's where i was given even more left overs and some beer. I was so full by the end of the day that i couldn't lie on my side or my front without pressing on my full belly. I just had to lie on my back feeling horribly bloated occasionally venting gases until i finally fell asleep. My stomach hurt for the next couple of days.
On the 27th I went in to town for a bit of shopping with my Dad. He is a man who loves a bargain and so was out buying reduced price wrapping paper and christmas cards ready for next year.
I didn’t bring any toothpaste of my own when i went home and was forced to use the house toothpaste. They are using mint and lemon flavoured toothpaste??? Mint and citrus flavours do not mix well. I was gagging while brushing my teeth. That can not be a good thing.
After that it was back down to London before heading off to Stockholm for the new year. Stockholm is beautiful. Lots of nice old buildings, and lots of water around. Saw the Vasa, which is a cool old warship but at the same time is utterly rubbish because it was so stupidly built - it sank very shortly in to its maiden voyage in light winds. Also went to the modern art museum, wandered around town quite a bit and went to an ice hockey game. That was fun. They are a good hockey crowd in Sweden and the team we had chosen to support won. Wooo. New Years Eve was drunken and fun and i got to show off my dance moves. I could have pulled thanks to my dancing prowess, but unfortunately the only person sufficiently impressed was a man...
Felt very hungover on new years day wandering around a snowy, then rainy stockholm. Got back late on the 1st and back to work yesterday. urrgghhh.
I enjoyed the festive period.
My brother had borrowed my car so I had to journey up from London on the trains. It wasn't too horrible. The trains were mostly on time and even the one that was delayed by an hour wasn't too annoying. I had a good book and nothing in particular to be back for. I'd even booked in advance so it didn't cost too much. The most annoying part of the journey was the soundtrack provided for me on one of the trains by some prick and his phone. Obviously, if you are the sort of person to play music loudly from your phone on trains or buses you are going to be a prick of the highest order but why do they always have such utterly shit taste in music? Surely some pricks must have decent taste in music.
Christmas day was delicious - roast turkey and pork for late lunch and various snacky things through out the morning and i ate far too much. My over eating continued at a family party on boxing day where i ate a generous helping of left overs. In the evening i went over to my cousin's where i was given even more left overs and some beer. I was so full by the end of the day that i couldn't lie on my side or my front without pressing on my full belly. I just had to lie on my back feeling horribly bloated occasionally venting gases until i finally fell asleep. My stomach hurt for the next couple of days.
On the 27th I went in to town for a bit of shopping with my Dad. He is a man who loves a bargain and so was out buying reduced price wrapping paper and christmas cards ready for next year.
I didn’t bring any toothpaste of my own when i went home and was forced to use the house toothpaste. They are using mint and lemon flavoured toothpaste??? Mint and citrus flavours do not mix well. I was gagging while brushing my teeth. That can not be a good thing.
After that it was back down to London before heading off to Stockholm for the new year. Stockholm is beautiful. Lots of nice old buildings, and lots of water around. Saw the Vasa, which is a cool old warship but at the same time is utterly rubbish because it was so stupidly built - it sank very shortly in to its maiden voyage in light winds. Also went to the modern art museum, wandered around town quite a bit and went to an ice hockey game. That was fun. They are a good hockey crowd in Sweden and the team we had chosen to support won. Wooo. New Years Eve was drunken and fun and i got to show off my dance moves. I could have pulled thanks to my dancing prowess, but unfortunately the only person sufficiently impressed was a man...
Felt very hungover on new years day wandering around a snowy, then rainy stockholm. Got back late on the 1st and back to work yesterday. urrgghhh.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)