London Ninja

Ah yes, it’s back. Football. No, not soccer. Real football that you do not play with your foot but with your hands. Of course the question is:

“How do you keep up with football in the UK?”

There are two answers:
1. Sky Sports
2. Slingbox

I don’t think I need to describe Sky Sports in detail as you just order some premium package and pay your arse for it. My personally mantra states that I don’t generally pay my arse for anything. This leaves us at the second option: Slingbox.

Here’s how it basically works:

The Slingbox AV is the perfect companion for your DVR, digital cable, or satellite receiver. The Slingbox AV allows you to watch and control live TV, or any other TV entertainment you have, anywhere you go. Using an Internet connected computer or wireless mobile device, you can watch and control your home TV, DVR, digital cable box, or satellite receiver around town or around the globe. With a Slingbox AV you will never be separated from your favorite TV shows, sports broadcasts, breaking news stories, digital video recordings, or video on demand.

I bought a Slingbox for ~$100 before I crossed the pond and hooked it up at my folks’ place. Now I can watch anything they watch. It is essentially like being able to watch their TV. The only thing is that if they flip the channel, you watch what they watch. I would recommend a Tivo, also , as it will allow you to beat the time zone difference and be able to watch Monday Night Football without staying up past midnight. It could get a bit choppy when around 100-200kbps streaming, but good enough to get what’s going on. The audio portion generally comes down quite well, so it definitely allows you to follow the game.

The best thing is that this means I don’t have to start watching that other football anytime soon….you know, the kind you play with your foot.

UPDATE (Oct 27, 2008):
There’s a new option I have learned of, the NFL Game Pass with Yahoo. It’s currently $100 for the season or $80 for just your favorite team, but I think those are mid-season prices. I believe the normal price is something around $200-$300. Sounds like an ok option but I still prefer Slingbox. As a matter of fact…I loooove Slingbox.

Play.com is a relatively new to the UK but it is seriously eating Amazon’s lunch. It might come to the US soon, but here’s the basic premise of the Play.com shopping experience:

1. Focus on electronics, so you will find your phones, cameras, etc.
2. Prices are significantly lower than Amazon.co.uk
3. All prices include shipping. This is huge.

I did a quick check for prices for a set of speakers. The reason being that my speakers run on US electricity and speakers are not the type of thing you want to be converting with as they draw a lot of power. Add that to the fact that these are a pair of crap 8-year old speakers handed down by my nemesis Workmonkey. Speaking of which, I have a bag of e-waste that I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with. Thinking about just leaving it on the company receptionist’s desk and letting her deal with it. We’re talking about power strips, phones, routers, and all this other waste that has been shipped to the UK that I cannot use. Let me know if you have any ideas.

Back to the new e-waste I’m interested in buying….

Siimple comparison is here on a Logic3 speaker system (not what I’m going to get, just an example)

Price on Play.com

Price on Amazon.co.uk

There are many examples of this, but I would say all in all if you’re looking for a new product, Play.com would be the place to go for electronics. eBay may offer some deals but the prices on Play.com are pretty damn competitive inthe electronics area. Of course, you should definitely check HotUKDeals, the UK version of Fatwallet, first.

All that said, I haven’t found the right ones yet and may need to use this tiny laptop speaker a while longer. Bollocks.

Yes, it is true. Dentists in London suck.

Yeah baby

Ok, my first Dental experience in London was very British. There are a few different aspects of dentistry in London that are different than the US.

1. Dental plans are allowance based. In the US, dental plans generally allow you to go to any dentist that accepts your dental plan and gives you the negotiated rates. This means no paperwork, no worries. It allows you the standard one xray and two cleanings a year. Nothing out of pocket. In the UK it is different. My plan is basically a program where you go to any dentist and are given an allowance to spend. The thing that sucks, however, is that you have to shop around because with my plan I only get a set amount. and many dentists go over that amount to get a checkup and cleaning. Prices vary greatly between dentist to dentist so it pays to shop around. I went over by like 30gbp, which is all out of pocket. fdat

2. Avoid the hygenist. I recommend everyone(globally) get the cleaning from a dentist rather than a dental assistant/hygenist. Why? It means either your dentist is lazy or that your dentist is trying to squeeze more patients in which deteriorates the quality of service. I’ve had both types of dentists over the years and I assure you that having your dentist take the time to do your cleanings is critical. My US dentist did but my British dentist didn’t. Guess which dentist I would go back to. Make sure you ask who will be doing the cleaning before you go in.

3. Look for a non-British dentist. I found some South African and New Zealand dentists but unfortunately, because of #1 above, I was unable to go to them because it costs more than the allowance.

4. Make sure your first dental appointment covers the xrays. Some of them don’t. Basically, ask for the overall price, otherwise, they will take that saliva suction device and suck the quid out of your pocket faster than a fat boy runs after cake.

My experience
Ok…so at my appointment, my dentist was almost surprised that I didn’t have any problems with my teeth coming in and that I just wanted to get a checkup. He then kept commenting on the quality of my dental work (um…) and that my previous dentists have done a great job. My last dentist in the Bay Area did in fact do a great job, but is it that rare to see good dental work in London? My dentist then kept trying to get the name of the tooth-whitening product that I had used last year. You know, the one that has given me a pearly white smile that makes people put on their sunglasses. Aw yeah. If you are looking for such a product I will sell it to you at 20% on top of retail. It’s hard work having white teeth, my friends.

So after the rather weak examination by the dentist, I was led off to the torture chamber where an Asian girl was awaiting. I will hereafter refer to her as “she-devil”. Imagine the worst place you have ever been…now imagine pouring a bucket of blood into it and smearing entrails all over the walls. Something to that effect.

She had a blowtorch mask on and had a sinister tray of tools ready for possible enemy. It was sort of like a combination of movies: Braveheart and Hostel. For Braveheart, I am referring to that final scene with all the torture devices where Wallace cries out FREEEEEEEEDOM for the last time. And for Hostel, I am not referring to the pleasant beginning of the movie at the hostel. Yes, I am referring to the chamber of death…with entrails on the walls.

Is that a cavity I see?

So she-devil starts attacking, pushing, sawing, grinding…doing everything at 10x the force it needed to be. My gums were bleeding profusely, of course. For some reason she-devil decided never to pause to splash my mouth with water and suck out all the fluid like every other hygenist/dentist I’ve had. As a result, I’m forced to swallow the goo that is in my mouth…swallowing, of course, is something no man should have to do…ever.

I’m used to pain at the dentist chair, but this was intense, folks. I was literally feeling it two days later. Sure, I get some calculus on my teeth that needs to be scraped, but the force used was fit for scraping cement off my teeth. I kept seeing bloody saliva being stringed along with her dagger when normally dentists would spray water and suction at such a sight. It’s sort of like a loogee that you fish around with a popsicle stick…except it falls on your face. At one point, she=devil told me to use my tongue to lick some blood off my front teeth. ZOMG. I’m bloody bloody serious. I was in shock…and pain. Imagine taking a push pin and sticking it into your eyeball. Then injecting battery acid into that fresh wound and you probably have the pain level she was imposing on yours truly. Cheers.

I promise to floss

When it was all over, I went over to rinse my mouth…full of blood and calculus, of course…and for the first time in my life in a dentist office, I had dried blood caked on my cheek that I had to wipe off with a damp towel. It did, to my pleasant surprise, give my cheeks a nice rosy color, though. Then I passed out and they rushed me to the hospital due to blood loss.

Ok, I didn’t pass out…but this has got to be one of the more traumatic dental experiences I’ve had. I’ll try a different practice in 6 months time, but the verdict so far is that British dentistry is bloody bollocks. At least I know what Wallace was feeling when he died.

FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOM

Banking in the UK has been an absolute nightmare.

When I came over from the US, I was given two “streamlined processes” that I can take. So I already had an edge on someone who did not work for a company with a relationship with a bank. I’ve heard it’s a nightmare to do it yourself. Ultimately it comes down to requiring you to have bills to prove your residence in the UK before banks will give you an account. But you can’t really get a residence without a bank account. WTF.

So I had two options:
1. Natwest UK
2. HSBC Premier International Banking

Being from the US, I decided to go for the HSBC Premier banking because it offers wires between the UK/US (at a crap exchange rate)…about a month ago.

I had to scan and email about 80 different forms of verification documentation to my account manager in the US. I went through two different people, neither of which had any clue what was going on. I just emailed them and left messages for them daily for weeks, usually without any response.

So finally, last week, after many attempts, I got my account manager on the line and voila…apparently the accounts had been opened but no one mentioned it to me. TYVM. The only problem was that my US cards were sent to my parents home and my UK cards were sent to the International banking center in Manchester. Um..TYVM, but I’m in London?!?! I actually had to get the bank to send the cards to my local branch, but as of writing do not have any credit or debit cards yet. Yeah, TYVM.

All of that said, there are two advantages to the Premier banking account:
1. You can do everything through the phone
2. You get a CSR on the phone 24/7
3. I got a 5000gbp overdraft, which I had to use to get my flat.

It was definitely a long drawn out process that HSBC had which I would not recommend. I have no experience with any other banks in the UK, but there has to be better than HSBC. All that said….the Brits say all the banks suck..so maybe banking just sucks overall in the UK. Or maybe banks suck overall across the world, since Americans say the same thing about BofA, Wells, Wamu(probably less so).

The one improvement for banks in the UK is that they don’t assess that ridiculous ATM charge if you use a different bank’s ATM. I’ve always felt that to be ridiculous and why I have gone with my internet banks (FirstIB and eTrade both reimburse ATM fees, not to mention the money-market-esque interest rates).

So you brought your entire suite of electronics to London and are about to plug each of them into the wall and suck down electricity like an American. Oops. Not that easy. I’m not sure how or where this all started (probably the French), but electricity is different in the UK than other parts of Europe and the USA.

Electricity in the UK:

Voltage: 230V – outlets are quite often controlled by wall switches. They are not always “on”. 240V may also be found although 230V is the official voltage.
Frequency: 50Hz
Type of Electrical Plug Used: Type G. It has three prongs (two flat and one rectangular) forming a triangle.

Wall sockets basically look like the picture below:

The plug on the left goes to a tea pot for afternoon tea and crumpets.

The cool thing with the wall sockets here is that they all come with on/off switches right on the wall. This is great for not consuming electricity when you don’t want to. It means you can save your electricity for plugging in your vacuum so you can Flowbee. That’s right…a perfect haircut EVERY TIME.

Anyways, what all this means is that you need to take your US power plug and get it to fit into those crazy looking ones in the UK.

There are basically two routes you can take to use your American devices:
1. Voltage converter - converts 220-240v voltage to 100-120v. This means it will make it so less voltage goes into your device so it doesn’t blow it up.
2. Plug adapter – If you have a device that runs at 220-240v already or if you have a device that has a built in voltage converter this is all you need.

Voltage converter (L) and plug adapter(R)

How do I figure out whether my device will need a converter or adapter?
Look for the Input section of the Power part of your device. If it has a range like 100-240v, you are set. If it’s static like 120VAC, don’t plug it in. Again, just look for a range like 100-240v. It’s pretty simple what it will do if you don’t listen to the London Ninja: YOU WILL BLOW SHIT UP!!!…or more likely it will short and you won’t be able to power up your portable clock anymore.

Pobrecita.

It was nice while it lasted. The peace. The calm. The lack of a proverbial ball and chain. I finally got a mobile after 5 weeks without one.

I have to admit I miss my Sprint PCS phone in the US. I had the ultimate EVDO plan for cheap and I was able to do anything I wanted whenever I wanted. Picture Mails, Texts, GPS, games, get online with my laptop, check email, check secure work email, etc etc. I was constantly on it, Texting, Pic’ing, etc…whenever I was walkin I was rocking it. Sure it was no iPhone, but I aint that hungry yet.

So my goal was to find the cheapest mobile phone plan possible. I already had the T-Mobile GSM phone from the US that had been unlocked so all I needed was the SIM card. The way to go for a low-cost solution is the Pay-As-You-Go plan, of course. You just drop by the store and pop in a SIM card. That’s it. No contracts, no credit checks. Nada.

Basically you have two options:

1. T-Mobile
SIM cards cost you money, but you can get it for .50 gbp online. This is cool, except it’s nice to go into a store to get it activated…and there are mobile phone stores all over the place. After you get your plan, their best plan offer these rates:

These are actually very good rates for a Pay As You Go plan.
2. Orange

This is what I ended up going with. You get a free SIM card in the store as long as you top up with at least 5gbp. The great thing is that the phone will be active for 6 months even if you don’t top up again. And as long as you get a call within that 6 months, your phone will be good for 1 year on the same 5gbp. That’s great for a emergency phone. Better than anything you can get in the US for the lowest “overall cost”.

The rates are similar but sucks if you call outside of the Orange network:

Of course, as was mentioned in my guide to watching movies in London on the cheap, Orange has their Orange Wednesdays where you get 2 for 1 tickets every Wednesday. That in itself makes it all worth it.

Maybe I’ll still be able to maintain some peace and quiet cuz I don’t have too many people to call in the UK.

Movies in London at least at a typical theatre like the Odeon Whiteleys down the street from me costs you a lovely 9.25 gbp. Yes, folks, £9.25 bloody quid (British slang for pound). Translated to USD, we’re talking about paying like 20 bucks(rounded up). Now, I think $10 is steep for a movie already …. but $20 USD for a bloody movie!?!! That’s totally crazy…and I mean Gnarls Barkley style. I wouldn’t pay $20 if Bruce Willis and that black limo driver came to the theatre and reenacted Die Hard 1 for me. Hell, I wouldn’t pay $20 if Jessica Biel and Scarlett Johansson showed up for a live mud-wrestling match…ok maybe I would, but only if you throw Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan in there too….and maybe some Bradgelina.

All this, of course, was until Transformers hit the scene. A lot of people have been praising this movie as a throwback to the old T2 and Total Recall Days. Back when you can count on a big action flick every summer that you HAVE TO SEE on the big screen. The kind of movies where big screen and big sound matter.

So how do you watch a movie in London without giving up your 2nd iPod? There are just three ways that I have found:

1. Orange, the UK mobile company, has a deal for its customers to get two-for-one tickets on Wednesdays called Orange Wednesdays. That’s pretty cool. Will blog more about phones in the UK later.

2. Cineworld has a deal where you pay 11 quid for all-you-can-watch tickets. So you can watch Hostel 2 as many times as you want when it comes out. There are only a few locations in London and it requires a 1-year commitment, so not good unless you watch a few movies a month.

3. Download your movies. Totally legal movies only, of course. I would never suggest that you download whole Hollywood movies, burn them on to a DVD+RW and play them on your DVD player. Alternatively you could stream them to your TV if you have a receiver that can connect via wifi. If you have a laptop, many of them have s-video that can plug directly into your TV. I would most definitely never suggest downloading any movies that come out around Oscar season that say “For your Academy Consideration Only”. That would just be wrong.

I’ll let you know when I try one of these methods, which will probably be the Orange Wednesdays, as I am getting sick of watching re-runs of Dark Angel, which always seems to be on the tube here(Jessica Alba’s overrated) along with that Rihanna video. Man, I miss Tivo. Optimus Prime awaits.

Here’s the start of a series on ex-pat finance. This first one is more for Travelers, which I am right now.

For Cash:
If you have a Bank of America checking account, you can get cash from any Barclays ATM in the UK and other Banks internationally without a surcharge. Otherwise you should still just hit the ATM with your bank account even through you will pay for it. That’s because the time to deal with money exchange and checking rates are not worth it while you’re on vacation. You know you will get good rates from the ATM, so just go with it.

Credit Card:
There’s only one credit card company you should consider when you travel abroad: Capital One Cash. They don’t assess the ridiculous 3% fee usually assessed by your credit cards like Chase and Bank of America. That’s $3 for every $100! In London that could buy you…well…maybe something on the 99 pence menu at McDonalds. Regardless, you should just get a Capital One credit card and use it for travel.