I have been watching the Olympics since feeling the excitement in America. We didn’t really feel the excitement in Taiwan during my childhood because all of the excitement was around whether Taiwan should declare independence from China for calling Taiwan “Chinese Taipei”. What is that? That’s like calling America “British USA”.
Every four years I am accustomed to sitting around the dinner table and watching well edited slow-motion panning John Woo shots of Olympics atheletes, their mums, their uncles, and their sick grandmothers in the hospitals speaking about the only dream they have ever had since being diagnosed with gonadian cancer. The thought of the agony of removing the cancer-laden testicles from such a bright star would inevitably bring tears to my eye (as is yours currently, I hope). It is great television from 8pm to 10pm every night. A great story told by Bob Costas.
This year, however, things are not the same. Instead of hearing about the Hamm brothers overcoming down syndrome to get gold in Olympic gymnastics, I am hearing about how excited the British are about getting Bronze in the Pommel Horse. Whoopty doo. First of all, the pommel horse is like the least exciting sport in gymnastics. And even if it’s exciting, I have not seen any sick uncles, hospital shots, or bawling scenes from the guy’s sick sick African half-sister. WTF.
We do get some mention of Phelps….thank God. Yes, very grateful that the Brits would mention the best Olympian ever. Thanks, BBC. I owe you one.
Public transportation in London are amongst some of the most expensive in the world. If you do not use an Oyster card, you could very well pay like 4 quid a ride for a single pass. I remember when Agenda visited me in London last year where I was certain it was a mistake. How could you be charged 4 quid to go from one end of a town to the other? Well, sure enough…it was correct. Bloody hell. The Oyster card does make things better by about half, but it is still very expensive compared to say New York or San Francisco.
So… when things are too expensive, what do you do? Well, you hack it, of course. Apparently some Dutch security researchers have figured out how to hack Oyster cards and will be publishing it in October. I would assume that there will have been a patch applied to the system by then but once you get a compromise to one of these massively deployed systems, it will probably be pretty quick when hackers get around that patch. It’s like any of your gaming consoles, DirecTV or any other type of protection systems…you can only hold off the hackers for so long before chaos ensues.
Word: chinos
Definition: a usually khaki cotton or synthetic-fiber twill of the type used for military uniforms
Usage: This usage comes straight from one of my emails where I was asking a colleague on whether I can wear jeans at our stand in the conference.
The response was: “No jeans please. Rich and I are going chinos”. Fair enough. Who doesn’t love Chinos?
Cheerio
Looking forward to my next trip next week. First I’m going to head over to Liverpool for a couple of days for the ACPO-APA 2008, where I will meet some of the UK’s top law enforcement officials. I better hide my flick knife from them. Liverpool, of course, is the home of the Beatles so I’ll see if there’s some opportunity to go to the Beatles museum where I can sing “I want to hold your hand” out loud. Liverpool is also the crime capital of the UK, so it should be fun to get mugged while being at a police conference.
The real fun begins when I hit Scotland. Starting off at Edinburgh, we are going to do a 3 day tour around Scotland, including Loch Ness and Isle of Skye.
We then return to Edinburgh for a day and spend the evening in a real life castle, the Dalhousie. That will be our splurge night with the spa and nice meal…not just haggis.
Should be a fab time. Can’t wait for the scotch and finally capturing the Loch Ness Monster. Wish you were beer.
Word: Flick Knife
Definiton A type of knife with a folding or sliding blade that springs out of the grip when a button or lever on the grip is pressed. aka “switchblade”
Usage: If you don’t bring me a proper cuppa, I will stick my flick knife up ur arse.
I swear to God there seems to be an “important” football match every other week. Well this week(month), we have the Euro2008.
The most glaring thing with this event, however, is that the UK is not present….and as such…Beckham is not present. And when I say Beckham, I mean Victoria…aka Posh. So sad.
Digging into this matter a bit further, I discovered that the reason being commonly cited by Britons is football manager Steve McClaren, who was sacked after the UK not qualifying. Personally I think it was because they did not offer the red carpet treatment to Victoria.
It just sounds right, doesn’t it? “Bank Holiday” instead of “Memorial Day”, “President’s Day”, or some other lame name. The US needs to just call it as it is…a day when the banks are closed. “Bank Holiday”, suckas.
Everyone in London will be watching Manchester United playing Chelsea in the European Cup Finals tonight. It’s revolved around some regional sport where teams of grown men run up and down a patch of green for a long time, occasionally kicking that ball into a net. Yeah, it will be bloody exciting. Wish you were beer.
