London Ninja

Word: ladrón,-ona
Definition: thief [ɵɪ:f] n (pl thieves [ɵɪ:vz])
Usage: Hay muchos ladrónes en Espana pero no pueden robar ninjas mas fuerte. (yes, I took 6 years of Espanol and passed the AP test in high school.

So I basically just got back from my first extensive trip to Portugal and Spain with the fam. Great trip full with excitement and aversion of potential disaster.

Some quick trip highlights:

1. 3 days in Portugal and 3 days in Barcelona.
2. 6 camera-happy Orientals traveling through lower economic countries of the EU. AKA targets on our back.
3. Guru-level Ninjitsu skills needed to protect all 6 in a hostile environment.

More to come…

My folks are in town visiting my arse in London this weekend with an excursion to Portugal and Spain next week.

Early observations of my current family gathering:

1. I’m not a fish and chips guy. Had that shit again at Borough Market today and I think I’m over it. It’s not bad, but at the end of the day its fried fish and chips. I am after all sophistimacated.
2. Walking around for like 10 hours gives the feet a nice workout.
3. Living on the fourth floor is great for personal exercise but is different carrying two different luggages.
4. Family gathering with my entire family means two prosumer photographers shooting up the town…which means very slow movement from site to site.
5. The water container for our flat can do exactly 16 mins of dishes, 2 showers, 3 teethbrushing sessions and 1 load of laundry before being depleted completely. Sorry, mum.
6. Chinese accents and British accents don’t do well together. If you are Chinese, please do not attempt a British accent…ever. I mean it. As a matter of fact…just don’t attempt a British accent. Or I will Ginsu your arse…..slow.

Real slow…

As part of our Bath trip, we visited the quaint little town of Lacock. It is apparently where they filmed some of Harry Potter and Pride and Prejudice. You can see how they would as they all you have to do is remove the cars and you have an old school village.

It was basically a small village with small doors and the old British feel. The best part, of course, is the name. La-cock. Pronounced “Lay-cock”. Locals refer to the town lovingly as “the dick”. Blimey.

So yes, we have seen it. Stonehenge. One of the most famous prehistoric sites of the world….that’s what they keep telling us.

The rocks themselves are formed in a circle in kind of a cool way…I guess.

Wonder of the world

All of that said, it is right next to a road but you HAVE to buy tickets to see it along with an audio tour. It’s all good except all that I’m really interested in is taking pictures…not so much the whole “We believe they used to use this for….” kind of history because at the end of the day nobody really knows what Stonehenge is.

Of course, you have to fight with all the other folks that are also told that these rocks are a wonder of the world….

Can you take a picture for me?

Bottom line of Stonehenge is that it’s not as impressive as people say it is. The area is cool if you block out the crowds and the motorway but it’s definitely all a bit touristy.

Here are tips to seeing Stonehenge:
1. Bring your headphones. They give you the audio guide that is like a phone, but it’s a pain to hold it the whole time with one hand. Just plug your headphones in and you have your hands free to snap pictures AND you don’t get the last Briton’s ear wax in your ear.
2. Imagine you are looking at a UFO. And the aliens that come out of that UFO are hot chicks in bikinis…oh, and you’re the hottest guy on planet Earth to them and then all other men die. cheers.
3. Bring a jacket. It gets bloody cold up there.
4. Have multiple people take pics of you or bring a tripod.
5. Don’t try to touch any of the rocks at Stonehenge. You will be struck by thunder coming from the hand of Zeus.

To celebrate my 1st year anniversary, I decided to take mi lady out for a nice dinner in London. The decision on where to go was easy since we are close friends with Gordon Ramsay, the celebrity chef behind Hells Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares (Premiering this week). By close friends, I mean we’ve met him once at Taste of London. So we chose to go to the Boxwood Cafe for dinner.

Boxwood Cafe is basically gourmet British cuisine with very nice dishes but offering some traditional British food like Sheperds Pie and Sweetbreads.

We ended up ordering the following dishes

1. Champagne
2. Joffre e Hijas Grand Malbec from Mendoza
2. Baby squid in a rocket salad
3. Fig salad with parma ham and greens
4. Salmon with cauliflower foam
5. Gnocci with different beans
6. salt caramel coffee cake

All in all the quality was great. By great I mean both in terms of taste and in terms of Pounds Sterling. In Brit terms, it was lovely but bloody expensive.

The unique thing about our evening, however, was that when we arrived we noticed a dude there having a drink. Lo and Behold it was Gordon Ramsay. Apparently he was taping a show of Kitchen Nightmares there that night. So despite the chaos with the filming in the kitchen, I was able to arrange for a private personal tour of the kitchen, meeting both Gordon Ramsay and the Executive Chef of the restaurant. I was able to hook it up through some special deal that I could tell you about but then I would have to put you in a jiujitsu lock. I don’t know Kung Fu but I know CRAZY so consider yourself warned. In the kitchen we got to chat with Gordon about stuff…restaurants…LA, San Fran, Hell’s Kitchen, and my mad ninja skillz.

The good thing is that there was no mention of me needing a proper shave this time around. That bastard.

All in all, great experience. Pricey food. Probably the most expensive meal I’ve had thus far in London but it’s worth it if you get to chat with a celebrity chef.

There are many things that are totally wack in the UK. The main one that I find completely appalling is the TV Licence. (No, I didn’t mispell that). The basic gist of it is that you have to pay a fee for the bloody telly in the form of an annual licencing fee to watch your TV. Yes, to watch that TV you own…even to just get TV signals from the airwaves.

The 2007/2008 colour TV licence costs £11.29 per month – about 37p per day for each household. It is free if you are over 75, half-price if you are registered blind.

The annual cost (set by the Government) is currently £135.50. A black and white TV licence is £45.50. There is no radio licence. There are regulations governing the licensing of second homes, residential homes, hotels, students or special situations.

Thank you, Queen, for throwing the physically impaired folks a bone….£67.75 if you are blind. What a deal!

Generally you can get a package of broadband, TV, phone that has everything in it. Alternatively you could buy a Freeview box that allows you to get programming for free afterwards. I always preach avoiding the recurring costs, hence this is good if you don’t get the package deal. The problem is that bloody licence fee which is a recurring 135.50gbp cost. Bloody hell.

So why tax the working class for using a TV?
Yes, folks, this gets better. Get this:

The BBC is paid for directly through each household TV licence. This allows it to run a wide range of popular public services for everyone, free of adverts and independent of advertisers, shareholders or political interests. 92.5% of the UK population used the BBC every month in 2006/2007.
…
BBC World Service is funded by Government grant and not your TV licence. Profits from separate BBC commercial services help to keep the licence fee low.

WTF. Are you telling me that the BBC forces a fee on everyone in the UK that owns a television to pay for its programming regardless of whether you want to watch it or not? On top of that, are you telling me that the BBC cannot sustain itself on ads like every other TV network in the world? The BBC is not completely bad, but I’d rather watch some female hygiene ads than pay a licencing fee. As a matter of fact, I would just not watch the BBC altogether…they don’t have SuperNanny and Gilmore Girls anyways. Yes, they are US shows for a mang’s mang.

So how do I not pay for my TV?
Being a professional in the online security space, I always think about how the fraudsters and scammers would think. Those bad horrible people that try to avoid the hideous absurd television tax.

You could just not pay it, but then you will face the wrath of the TV Detectors. Yes, straight out of the Twilight Zone:

Do I detect pr0n?

Basically BBC states that there is a fleet of TV detection vans that patrol the city to look for fee avoiders. As the Brits would say, this is most certainly rubbish. Naturally there are “anti-TV licence” groups out there that have their own points of view.

My plan?
1. Joost
2. Slingbox
3. Downloading of American TV Shows

I much prefer ad-supported TV networks where I can personally avoid the ads via Tivo. Since I don’t have a Tivo here, and because the shows in London are all rubbish (except for the Gordon Ramsey shows), I think I will just stay away from the British shows altogether. Cheers to the Internet and F the BBC.

“What are the biggest differences for you in London?”

This is the most common question I get asked by Americans. I had a couple of visitors from the US both at work and outside of work and they always ask me this question. It’s a pretty fair question, but it’s also a bit like asking someone “Do you like you mum or your pup better?” Ok, may they don’t say pup for dad, but I think it makes complete sense. Anyways…I am happy to share my early thoughts of London to save you from asking me that question in person.

1. Everything is bloody expensive.
2. Everything is bloody expensive.
3. Everything is bloody expensive.
4. Everything is bloody expensive.

oh.. and:

5. Everything is bloody expensive.

We can actually break that down into:

5a. You get taxed on everything
5b. The taxes are absurd
5c. You get taxed for using a television!!!
5d. You pay the property tax!!!

I will break down the taxes in the UK in short time…you know, after I’ve had a chance to take sedatives so my mania does not lead to any unnecesary breaking of tea pots and the throwing of crumpets.

6. Service levels are not up to snuff
7. Food is actually very good. Just not British food.
8. Some foods are much better here: beer, cheeses, yoghurts, fish, produce, meat, breads. Some are not: Asian groceries, mad cow, Mexican groceries, and any international food stuff other than Indian…or should I say Asian…
9. British people are not the friendliest folks but man can they drink (beer)
10. The local ale is bitter, flat, and not-cold…not strong selling points for me personally.

All that said, it’s a totally rad experience to be living in a different continent, country, and culture…Only thing is I’m still trying to figure out what a faggot is.

Workmonkey just sent me this article on the cost of eating out in London. I just love these types of surveys that come out. First it was that London is the 2nd most expensive city in the world. Bollocks. Now London is the most expensive city in the world to eat. Bloody hell.

According to AP:

London is the most expensive dining capital in the world, restaurant rating company Zagat said Tuesday.

The average meal in London costs just over $79, beating out Paris, at nearly $72 and Tokyo, at just over $71, according to the company’s survey of 5,300 Londoners.

That makes eating out in the British capital more than twice as expensive as New York, where the average meal costs $39.

Lovely. I have to say, there are ways to get around the expensive prices of eating out, but at the end of the day London is bloody expensive because the dollar is weak.

So..one more time…F Bush. Go Hussein Obama. What’s his first name again? BinLad? Adolf? Bollocks?…oh yeah…Barack. Yeah…he’ll surely win with a name like that.