I have been blogging less frequently for a few reasons:
1. I’m completely integrated into the British society and therefore things aren’t new and exciting anymore. I drink proper tea a few times a day and actually ask my mates if they’re “all right” now as a way to greet them.
2. The US elections are here and I have to catch up on the debates. I usually do not like to bring up politics in public forums as they tend to offend…and I don’t like to offend…like when I called you a fat-so. Um…so I don’t support either presidential candidate. Here’s the thing: I don’t like old foagies so I don’t like McCain. I also don’t like terrorists, so I don’t like Obama. There’s that. I hope I didn’t offend anybody with those simple sweeping statements. Oh, and btw, McCain dislikes colored people.
3. Madge divorced Guy Ritchie without a prenupt. Yes, this was on the front page of the daily Tube paper, the Metro. Yes, the Metro is the only source of news I read. Yes, £150m.
4. We’re in the middle of a global economic meltdown not seen since the Great Depression with whole countries on the brink of bankruptcy. Maybe that makes Iceland one of my top 5 destinations for 2009…unless the inhabitants resort to cannibalism.
So all of those tough external factors and the fact that I’ve been traveling but not having sorted through all my pictures yet have contributed to a gradual slowing of my blog output. I will try to reverse this trend for the rest of the quarter…unless McCain wins.
I grew up watching 007, hence I’ve always been a fan of Sean Connery. As such, I have developed a nice British accent, although it is closer to Monty Python than Tony Blair. As a matter of fact, it’s probably more Sloth than Tony Blair. (I hope the Sloth reference doesn’t reveal my age too much.) The BBC posted a story on How not to do an American accent a while back.
I’ll take any excuse to put up an image of Hoff.
Word: Kit
Definition: The standard equipment and attire worn by players in association football. That’s soccer.
Usage: Put on your kit, we’ll be doing press-ups in 15 minutes.
Not Kitt, as in Michael Knight & Kitt. I enrolled in a “lunchtime boot camp” and was subsequently introduced to the word kit. Nice.
I had been waiting for Dark Knight all summer since its announcement and of course, the death of Heath Ledger (RIP). Action. Romance. Love. Chicks. Chicks making out (rumoured). It’s got it all, and I finally get to watch it….October 9th. I can’t wait!!! Literally…I can’t wait.
So given Dark Knight was filmed in 65mm IMAX film for four action-packed sequences, that’s the way you’re supposed to watch it…in an IMAX theatre near you. Unfortunately, London only has 1 IMAX theatre, the SouthBank which sold all seats for like 2 months right away. If you’ve ever been in a IMAX theatre before, you know that if you sit anywhere near the front, you will not see anything but blur, especially in action sequences. Given it costs around 13 quid to watch this film, I figure I have to make sure I’m in the middle, about 4 rows from the back. Those are the prime seats. And, yes, I have to wait over a month to watch it. It better be the best film I’ve ever seen as it will be both the most expensive film I’ve ever seen as well as the longest I’ve ever had to wait for a movie between buying the tickets and actually watching it. Bloody hell.
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.
