London Ninja

I hit up the British Museum a couple of weekends ago and saw the actual Rosetta Stone. This is one great thing about British museums….they’re FREE!!! Yes, you can donate money and you should…and you should recycle and give to charity and all that too….

For those of you in the dark or those who only know the Rosetta Stone as a piece of software to help you learn French (Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?):

Ptolemaic era stele written with the same passage of writing in two Egyptian language scripts (hieroglyphic and demotic) and in classical Greek. It was created in 196 BC, discovered by the French in 1799 at Rosetta, a harbor on the Mediterranean coast in Egypt, and translated in 1822 by Frenchman Jean-François Champollion. Comparative translation of the stone assisted in understanding many previously undecipherable examples of hieroglyphic writing.

Now there are a couple of cool things about the Rosetta stone:

1. It was used to translate a ton of undeciperable artifacts that were a mystery for hundreds of years.
2. It is surrounded by a swarm 4,873 tourists, all snapping pictures for their fugly siblings back home.
3. It is available for close viewing without paying a pence.

My rule with museums is “2 hours”. You shouldn’t really spend more than that amount of time in a museum because museums get boring after about an hour. I’m into art like the next bloke, but I can only look at so many religious paintings or statues of Venus before they start to blur and I start wishing they could move and shoot spiderwebs out of their wrists, all with THX Surround Sound.

Happy Fourth of July!!!!

Hmm, for some reason people in the UK aren’t celebrating the day a few hundred years ago when they lost their arses to the Americans. Not sure why…

To celebrate a Happy Independence Day, I went to Gourmet Burger Kitchen to have a burger with my American friend:

This is what I ordered:
1. Cheeseburger
2. Chips(Fries for you Americans)
3. Lemonade
4. Bottled Water

Tab: ~20 GBP or $40 USD for a meal for two. God Save the Queen.

The burger was good, like an American six dollar burger, except twice the cost. I haven’t tried the angus burgers that are at all the pubs here but the word on the street is that they suck arse.

This burger had a pile of fixings on top including lettuce and tomato. The meat was excellent except for the prions. The aged cheddar was a nice touch. It’s much better than that standard American Cheese crap. They have this excellent garlic mayo that was made out of raw garlic, except raw garlic is not good for a workday lunch…who would’ve guessed. The only thing that was weird was the “relish”. What I was expecting was the green pickle stuff we throw on top of good old American hot dogs on a 4th of July. Instead I got this red sweet pastey stuff. Cheers.

All in all, it was a nice American-style burger….I recommend it for those in London who get sick of eating bangers and mash.

One good thing about being in the EU is that advanced booking of inter-EU flights are nicely priced. There could be something that I’m missing, but when I tried pricing out some flights to and from London for some side trips I may be interested in, I got some great results. There are a few airlines that do inter-EU travel, mainly RyanAir and EasyJet. Both are considered cheap airlines, meaning don’t expect to get a pair of socks and pajamas when you board. If you want champagne, you better bring it on yourself in a brown bag…although I’m not sure if you can do that these days. You want to check in your luggage full of feminine hygene products? You gotta pay for it. I once brought fireworks onboard an airplane…and I mean big ass pods that shoot off like 20 different fireworks into the sky…..I don’t think they would allow that anymore.

Apparently, there’s a love-hate relationship going on with Ryan Air, the biggest discount airline, and the public. There’s even a website that exists just to bag on and campaign against Ryan Air, which is not surprising since these websites exist for every airline out there.

I looked up three flights to three different locations (Click to see details):

They all price out at .01, with the final price after fees and taxes to be:

That’s pretty damn good. Roughly 35 quid, or $70 USD. I would say for that price, the flight attendants don’t even need to have arms or hair. They could just walk by every 20 minutes and throw peanuts at anyone that makes noise for all I care.

To compare, I looked up a similar flight on EasyJet:

While it’s not as attractively priced, it’s still under 50 quid, or $100 USD. That’s bloody brilliant. I fancy that’s lovely. Cheers.

Definition: of, relating to, or characteristic of the continent of Asia or its people
Example: I am an Asian Ninja Master of the Secret Brotherhood of the Chi. (maybe not the best example but it’s the truth)

So why am I highlighting such an easy and lovely word? Well, in light of all the terror attacks in London, there has been a lot of reference to Asians being arrested. Sure, there may have been incidents of terror attacks in Asia in the past, but generally it is limited to a small amount of extremism (fundamentalism) in the SouthEast…Indo, Phillipines, etc. The rest of Asia is generally full of peace-loving Buddhists…or self-interested Selfists…but regardless, blowing shiznit up is not generally condoned in Asian culture. We much prefer pirating software and making knock offs of small electronic items.

So why are they calling out Asians in the recent bombings?

Wait a sec…Asian does not mean Asian in the UK!!!!!

Interestingly enough, Asian means Indian(and every other ethnicity that looks like Indian) in the UK. If you don’t believe me, take a look at the BBC Asian Network. There is not one true Asian on there!

Where’s the Asian Network?

I have to say I am mixed on this matter. On one hand, it’s good that Brits do not lump all Asians together with the All Look Same attitude. On the other hand, WTF? Taiwan, Japan, China, and Korea DOMINATE Asia (in that order). If you base it purely on population, China would represent Asia…so how could Asian mean Indian? Something to do with Ghandi and British history?

So what do you call Asians in the UK? Apparently by their country, like Indians(not Native American) in the US. So Korean, Taiwanese, Turning Japanese, etc. It’s all kind of back asswards but I guess irrelevant. It’s just a matter of time before Asians take the word back….and conquer the world. The Chinese invented pasta, you know?

I mean, London is getting bombed.

It’s interesting to be in a city that seems to get bombed all the time, whether it is Al Qaeda or the IRA. It seems like the people here just take it in like just another fact of life. By fact of life, I mean a pint of Young’s Bitter.

The good thing is I work outside of central London and therefore would not feel the heat of the fire at the airport or the two cars found with exposives. The bad thing is that any fire that goes off could have a drying and potentially chafing effect on the skin that could affect the tone of the skin. One could treat this with a proper application of aloe and Mango Mandarin Shimmer Lotion for a nice sheen on the skin.