Diary of a West Coast Avenger

So It Is

2008-04-08T18:06:00.002Z

I've decided to shut down this blog. It has charted my time in America, which is what it was meant to do. Life back in Britain (and possibly beyond) deserves a new blog - this one:

http://trivia-lad9000.livejournal.com/

Thanks for reading, sorry there hasn't been any posts in a long long while, and I hope you enjoy the new improved blog over on LiveJournal.

Tim

Home

2007-06-21T21:10:00.000Z

So I'm back.

I've been back at home for about a week and a half now. I've been spending a lot of time with Catherine, understandably, and re-uniting with friends (although there are still lots I've got to see), and in between and around all that, I've been trying to find work, as I'm pretty much penniless now. My last drips of money are swiftly emptying from my accounts, especially after paying overweight luggage charges at the airport.

The flight back home was pretty boring - I actually managed to sleep on this one, which I've never done before, and otherwise kept myself entertained with King of the Hill, the Simpsons and Family Guy. I kept my proud tradition of not reading the book I took with me, in this case Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union, although I am getting into it now, and it's looking pretty good so far.

Catherine, in between animating a three minute film, searching for a job of her own, living in the hottest flat this side of Venus and suffering through tonsilitis (which I think I've picked up myself) managed to find us a great little house with a couple of other art school people. We're moving in at the beginning of July, which will be a big adventure.

I'm living at my parent's house at the moment - it's great to see them again, and great to be back in the house I grew up in, although I lament the lack of broadband and a decent computer. Our internet mysteriously vanished last week, and I had to spend the weekend re-installing stuff to recover it. It's a little odd having to inform someone whether I'll be back for dinner again, but other than that, it's nice to be back at the ol' homestead.

Catherine's project is drawing to a close now. I've seen the finished film, and it kicks ass. She's still very nervous about it, and gets her marks tomorrow, but I'm certain she'll do great. She's the hardest working person I know, so she certainly deserves it.

My feet haven't really touched the ground since I've got back, although so far I haven't got a lot to show for it. My two parcels of comics, DVDs and CDs arrived safely (thank God), I've sent of forms that will hopefully get me my travel expenses back, I have a couple of job interviews lined up, and on Saturday I'm headed out dressed as a superhero, apparently. I'm also waging my own private war against pollen, and losing.

Still no ideas about a new name for the blog. Ho hum.

The Last Day

2007-06-06T00:41:00.000Z

So this is it - barring dramatic events, this is the last blog I'll make from America. It's 5.45 here, and in 23 hours I'll be airbourne, headed back to wonderful old Blighty. I'll miss San Francisco a lot, and miss all the great friends I've made here even more, although a lot of them I'll be seeing back in England when classes start again.

The past couple of days have been a very focused kind of panic, and I feel like I'm held together by ibuprofen, deoderant and the Go! Team being played at high volumes. Our house is pretty bare now, with the majority of our furniture sitting on our street, waiting for someone to pick it up, otherwise it's off to the dump. My bags are almost completely packed, as are Vicky's and Rachel's, and all the arrangements have been made for a (hopefully) trouble-free return.

Since the last post, I've climbed one of the Twin Peaks, attended the Homeless Channel launch/Isotope's 6th birthday bash (where an inordinate amount of photos were taken), eaten my last American burger and generally had as much fun as I could while sorting everything out - photos will be up on Flickr soon-ish. Tonight, we're all taking the evening off from packing and going for sushi at No-Name Sushi (the best in SF, so good they didn't name it), seeing Knocked Up at the cinema and having a couple of drinks at the Millenium Falcon bar at the top of the Marriott. Then it's back home to pray that our bags don't weigh too much, and all our stuff will fit inside them.

Sorry this post's been kind of dotty. I'd like it to be a memorable one, given that it's the last in America, but I think my brain's too fried to form proper sentences.

I'll no doubt be continuing to blog once back home, but I'm considering a name change - after all, I'll no longer be on the West Coast. Any suggestions should be left in the comments section :)

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes

2007-05-29T07:59:00.000Z

Sometime, hopefully in September, a new volume (the fourth, to be precise) of Scott Pilgrim will be released. To see the cover, turn your head 5 degrees to the left. If it is anything like the last three books, it will be the most awesome volume of wonderous words and pictures ever conceived of by man. And that's putting it calmly, and without undue hyperbole.

Prep for the Big Return continues - my bedroom is in kind of a transitional phase at the moment, both tidier and more messier, with lots of things being taken out of the piles they have sat in happily for months and re-piled on the other side of the room, with new and different friends. Vicky, Rachel and I are donating much of what we would leave behind or throw away to a women's shelter in the Mission. I'm slowly realizing quite how many books I own, and have brought with me - it's a little bit terrifying.

The Isotope party was great - pictures can be found on their website (linked in the previous post) and I think you can spot me in a couple. I've met up a few times in the past week with Joey, a friend from the Brian K. Vaughan board who has just graduated from SFSU (Congratulations Joey!) and whose blog you can find linked somewhere on the right, as "A Fearless Journey", 'cos that's what it's called. Joey's a screenwriter, and headed for big things. You heard it here first. I'm headed back to the Isotope this Friday for a party celebrating the launch of The Homeless Channel, a cool little independant book by local Matt Silady, who I've been fortunate enough to meet a couple of times (he was on the infamous Isotope Tiki Tour). He's a cool guy, and the book is great.

As for more final days fun, I'm headed downtown tomorrow to sell off some books and DVDs, and coming back via Twin Peaks, the highest point in the city, for some cool views and touristy pictures.

T

Alice Cooper Said It Best...

2007-05-19T05:59:00.000Z

School's out for summer.

In theory.

I've still got dissertation work to do - writing up an abstract for it and doing yet more photocopying (I'm convinced that basking in the green light of the xerox machine is the closest I'll come to getting a tan over here), but my classes are officially over. I really enjoyed this semester's work - both Arts & American Culture and Contemporary Culture were intensely interesting, provided me with tons of great reading, gave me new perspectives on a lot of subjects and most importantly had great teachers. Creative Writing was even better - I found myself increasingly energised every time I'd leave it (not in a "phew, glad that's over" kind of way) and looked forward to it all week. American university may be very different to the English system, but as far as I'm concerned, it's not half bad.

In far, far more important news, I've finally managed to make my way through my entire music collection, listening to every track once. It actually grew while I was attempting this, so ended up as 2240 songs, or approximately 6 days of music. I can now go back to listening to whatever I want.

Michael Chabon was great - very entertaining, and the new book looks great (I'm saving it for the flight though). Berkeley was also very nice, an archetypal American College Town as far as I know, and very different to SF. I was amazed how quickly it became very very suburban - I felt like I was on the set of The Wonder Years or something.

As far as the whole "do as much as I can in the last of my time" thing is going, I've managed to get one last meal at Pizza Orgasmica, a delicious combination of Brazilian chicken, broccoli and buttermilk called a Romeo and Juliet, and did it while the Golden State Warriors, the local baseketball team, were playing (and unfortunately losing to) Utah Jazz in what appeared to be the playoffs. Tomorrow I'm headed to Hayes Valley in the afternoon for a browse of the shops (in particular, the famous Citizen Cake) and then headed to Isotope in the evening for the launch of Ed Brubaker's Criminal, and related boozery.

T

Fun Little Widgets

2007-05-12T19:39:00.000Z

In an effort to keep my blog on the cutting edge of Web 2.0, I've replaced my Last.fm track counter thingy with the altogether more fun (although awkwardly phrased) Playlist Player, so all you people out there in Internet-town can enjoy my musical taste (or mock it, whichever works for you).

Apparently, enough people have commented on my Daemon a couple of posts down to change in from a crow to a fox-type thing. Either way, it appears I'm scavenging for items most people think are inedible. That sounds about right.

Also, happily, my unlistened-to tracks on iTunes now fit in the small capacity of my iPod Shuffle. 240 songs left to go, and then I switch off the play count and see where I end up.

Anyways, off to Berkeley!

SUGAR AND CAFFEINE!

2007-05-12T09:12:00.000Z

Those wonderful twin engines that power the brain! SUGAR AND CAFFEINE! Makes the body vibrate with vim and vigour! SUGAR AND CAFFEINE! Why won't they let me go to sleep?

It's 2.14 am, and in an effort to power through some essays, I've been drinking corn-syrup laced Coca Cola and occasionally dipping into a packet of Chips Ahoy! Cookies, and while the tactic has worked, and not only have I completed one of my essays, but also done some more revision on my final piece of creative writing, I now find myself far too stimulated and twitchy to start on the next essay, yet incapable of going to sleep. The solution? I don't know, but in the mean time, I'll write here.

There's about three days of the semester left, so I'm really facing the final days of my time here. At the moment, it's all a mad scramble to get work finished and cram in as much dissertation research as I can, but by the end of the week, I'll be looking at two weeks with no real commitments beyond packing and coming home. It's strange to think that I'll never be back here except for in holidaying form. Being here for this long has been great - I've been able to explore the city at my own pace, and discover so much about America and Americans, and I've made some really great friends. I've still got a lot to do though, including:

Have a barbeque on Baker Beach
Visit Twin Peaks, the highest point in the city.
Go to the Palace of Fine Arts, the bison enclosure in Golden Gate Park and Emperor Norton's grave.
Eat Dim Sum, clam chowder in a sourdough bowl and have one more pizza at Pizza Orgasmica.
Browse through Hayes Valley.
Pick up an Amoeba Records hat/t-shirt/bag.

...and probably another twenty things I can't think of now. I'm finally making it across to Berkeley tomorrow (technically, later today) to see Michael Chabon talk at Cody's Books, and pick up a signed copy of his latest book, The Yiddish Policeman's Union. It'll be cool to explore another city, however briefly. Berkeley was where I was aiming for, in university terms, when I applied for my year abroad, but I'm glad I ended up here. As long as I was in the Bay Area, I would've been happy.

Anyway, more updates soon, I'm sure, as I pack as much as possible into these last few weeks.

T

Hooray for Roadkill

2007-05-04T04:03:00.000Z

I haven't read Northern Lights by Philip Pullman - I tried when it first came out, but it was a bit too heavy going for my young self- but Catherine's been reading them lately and reporting very good things, so once I get back to England, I may have to steal them for a bit. Anyway, the first movie adaptation is coming out soon (later this year I think) and the website has a cool little "Make your Own Daemon" thing that was too neat not to try out (although they have changed the title to The Golden Compass, the book's American name. What is it with Americans changing book names? It's called the Philosopher's Stone because that's what it is - you can't change it just because you don't know what a philosopher is). Apparently, my true animal companion/external soul thing is a crow.

I can live with that.

As for the other two bands...

2007-05-03T06:41:00.000Z

As well as The Shins, I've been to see the Arctic Monkeys, who I was very impressed by (I was pretty resistant to all the hype when they first appeared, but after seeing them live, I've come to the conclusion that I actually quite like them, and downloaded their first album) - but the main reason for going to their gig was to see the support band: Be Your Own Pet. They're a four piece punk band from Nashville, Tennessee who I'd describe as a high energy Stooges fronted by Gwen Stefani back when she was still cool. They're definately one of those bands you have to see live - they throw themselves around the stage like crazy, and the lead singer in particular looks like a puppet being electrocuted at times - it makes for a hell of a show. I couldn't find any decent videos of them live, but hopefully this'll give you a little idea of what their sound is like (plus it's a funny video).

PS - How depressing is it that between Be Your Own Pet and Arctic Monkeys, every performer at the gig was younger than me?

Vancouver and Spring Break

2007-05-03T06:14:00.000Z

Well, it's been quite the few weeks. Since my last post (and hair cut), Catherine has come to visit, I've left and re-entered the country, seen three bands play live and met one of my favourite writers.

It was absolutely great to see Catherine again. As terrifying as my short while left in America is, it's great to know it's not long until I can see her again, and not have some kind of time limit on it. We had an amazing time seeing the sights of San Francisco (including several I've not been to before). While she was here, we visited the Golden Gate Bridge again(in the daytime this time), which was surrounded by hummingbirds, much to our delight; we spent the hottest day of the year so far trekking up to Coit Tower and its fantastic views over the city, then over to Lombard Street; we (just about) made it over to Alcatraz and got some more great views of the city, and overall had a magnificent time out and about in San Francisco. We also got to see The Shins live again - they were as fantastic as ever, and it was great to here some of the new songs live.

Of course, SF wasn't the only city we saw - we also headed up to Canada and visited Vancouver. It is one of the most beautiful cities I've had to pleasure to see. About the size of Norwich (roughly) but packed with sky-scrapers in the centre, it nonetheless has a great sense of history and place that can be lacking in US cities - the area we were staying in, known as Gastown, was the oldest part of the city, and very picturesque. What's more, you can glance down any avenue and see across the water to the mountains in the distance - very cool.

While there, we paid a visit to the Vancouver Aquarium, which was very impressive. Gigantic Sea Lions, energetic Seals, playful Dolphins, super-cute Sea Otters (they held hands while floating on the water!) and well trained Beluga Whales were the main attractions, as well as some great interactive exhibits and beautiful fish. I got a lot of great video footage while there, but have decided trying to edit it on my laptop is a thankless task, so will tackle it on Cat's Macbook once I get back to England (if I ask nicely and offer her lots of chocolate, that is). We also saw a lot of the city, which has some beautiful architecture and very friendly people (although, like San Francisco, has a large homeless population). It was very cold there, as was to be expected, and unfortunately there seemed to be something in the air that Cat was allergic to, but overall the trip was a great success and a lot of fun.

On Catherine's last full day here, we went to visit the Alternative Press Expo, an annual gathering for small-press comic publishers and people who are self-publishing. It was smaller than Wondercon, and a lot more casual, with a great friendly atmostphere among both the fans and the creators. We both spent a fair bit on comics, and got to meet Bryan Lee O'Malley, the writer and artist behind Scott Pilgrim, the best new comic of the new millenium. He was very approachable, happy to sign our books and do sketches for us, and Catherine gave him a piece she'd drawn of one of his characters, which he was very pleased with. He even tracked her down on Myspace a few days later to say thanks again - what a gentleman.

That pretty much tackles Spring Break and Catherine's visit - I had a wonderful time seeing her again, and I think (and hope) she had a good time - it definitely helped that her jet lag was not as devastating as last time. I've now entered the countdown to coming home - lots of work still to do, and places I still need to get to before I leave, but I'm really missing home, all my friends and especially Catherine, so I'm eager to get back now.

See you soon!

Trichological Modifications

2007-04-06T09:00:00.000Z

I was going to call this post "Hair Today...", but the writer in me just wouldn't allow it.

I finally got my hair cut for pretty much the first time in 8 months (I got it tidied up over Christmas, but didn't have a lot taken off) and am rejoicing in hair-free vision, easier ear access and a slightly lighter head. I doubt my hair will ever get that long again - it took a remarkable effort at points not to say "This looks stupid, I'm getting it cut", and although it proved an interesting little experiment, I'm pretty happy with looking like I do. Then again, who knows. Come the mid-life crisis, I may end up with a pony tail (although if I do, you're welcome to give me a slap and tell me to pull myself together).

Anyway, for comparisons sake, here's the most recent photo of me, pre-cut, with Vikki and Vicky in the bar at the Marriott (aka The Millenium Falcon Bar)

Note the unfortunate, Farrah Fawcett-esque flicks (oh dear). I'll be very glad to get rid of them. For one thing, I couldn't fit my hat on my head anymore.

And now, me post-cut. I probably could have gone shorter, but I can get that sorted when I'm back in the UK.

This picture was done MySpace-style, camera in one hand, trying to look serious and complicated. It's rather undermined by the fact I'm in the bathroom, but never mind.

Switch on the non-stop loop of "Louie Louie"...

2007-04-05T08:56:00.000Z

According to Jeffrey Rowland, Spring Break is the anniversary of the week when God made everything, illegal in Russia and was invented by Benjamin Franklin when he was drinking beer near a pond and suddenly a woman's dress fell off. In honour of this momentous occasion, I will be flying to Vancouver with Catherine, to enjoy mooses, maple syrup and a thriving indie-rock scene for four days. If all goes well, we will meet that cool Mountie from Due South and his deaf husky.

The slow quest through my iTunes to listen to everything at least once is going well - at last view, I was well into Broken Social Scene - this may not sound like much, but "B" contains Beck, the Beastie Boys and The Beta Band, who by themselves account for over 14 hours of music. Some have called this trial "idiotic" and "a gigantic waste of time". I prefer to think of it as Quixotic.

Tomorrow I'm having my first real haircut since August. I will be taking before and after photos, if only to record my hair at the longest it has ever been, and probably will ever be.

In the words of Goody Proctor...

2007-03-29T02:17:00.000Z

WIIIIIIIITCHES!

Seriously, this is once of the best magic acts I've ever seen - the whole costume change thing is a well known trick, but this is done so smoothly, and frankly I have no idea how they do the last one. A little bit of research uncovered the fact that the performers are Russian, so I'm going to go ahead and say some kind of Cold War experiment.

Plus, the Hoff in his "I'm an intellectual and demand to be taken seriously" glasses - you can't get better entertainment than that.

Muso Torment

2007-03-27T06:20:00.000Z

Taking a short break from an almost completed essay (I love that point when you can see the last page in your sights, and you still have enough stuff to write about, so you know you're gonna make it with insight to spare) to whinge about something that happened yesterday.

My iTunes collapsed.

For some reason, the software decided enough was enough, and switched on completely reset, which means none of my songs were on there (although they were still on the computer, which meant they were easily restored after a short, intense panic), all my playlists had disappeared, all my song ratings had vanished and, most annoyingly for the High Fidelity-esque list maker in me, all the Play Counts had dropped back to zero. This means, according to my computer, I've listened to Orson's cover of the Sugarbabe's Push The Button from the Radio One Live Lounge album (previous listens: about 3) the same amount of times I've listened to Bottle Rocket by The Go! Team (previous listens: over 120).

Now, this is obviously all academic - it's not like my brain has erased all the times I've listened to the songs, it's just not written down anywhere. But for some reason it feels like I've lost something quite important. I can remember that little thrill when Bottle Rocket tipped over the 100 count, and the knowledge that, if I needed to, I could work out whether I'd listened to the Pixies for more hours than I'd listened to The Jam (and having written that down, I now desperately want to know) was somehow comforting. I'm a little obsessive when it comes to music, and this has thoroughly ticked me off.

Still, I'm all about the upside, and in this instance, it allows me to do a couple of things. For one, the idea of having music floating around that my computer claims I have never listened to does not bear thinking about, so I'm working my way through 2219 songs (5.9 days worth) in alphabetically order (by artist) so they all have at least one play. At the moment, I'm halfway through Shopping by Barenaked Ladies. Of course, in this modern age of digital consumption, there's quite a few albums that I haven't listened to all the way through in quite a while. In some cases, I'll have listened to them about three times after buying them, picked out my favourite tracks and then bundled the album with some others and listened to it in random order. Therefore, going through deliberately listening to each album will make some of them new again - I may even find some tracks I'd forgotten I had.

After that comes the slightly harder part of this experiment - once I've listened to them all once, I'm switching off the Play Count display, for at least the rest of my time in America. I'll stop caring (or at least try to) whether I've listened to a particular song enough times and just listen to what I want. Having everything returned to zero puts new albums on a level playing field with the old stuff, and I'm sure I'll be suprised at what comes out as the new most popular choices.

Anyway - enough procrastinating - I'm off back to the essay.

Blegh, and then comics

2007-03-23T06:37:00.000Z

Blegh - why do they insist on giving us work to do at university? My life at the moment seems to consist of panicking over approaching deadlines, completing the work just on time, and then realising that I'm now approaching a new deadline. And then the cycle repeats. US univeristies give out so much work, it's really difficult to pull ahead by any, and what's more frustrating is that most of it is unmarked - they just want to keep us busy. Do they not understand the concept of being a student? We came to university to AVOID work.

Anyway - comics. Yay!

Wondercon was a truly great experience, and a fantastic opportunity to not feel out of place for knowing the name of Iron Man's receptionist. This post is going to be pretty nerd-tastic, so be warned.

FRIDAY - Arrived at the Moscone Centre in the blazing sunshine - it was definately the nicest weekend we've had this year so far, which was great - and, after a short while queueing, entered with no problems. I pre-bought my tickets, which was really worth it: they were cheaper, and I got in quicker. The main hall was absolutely cavernous, and for the first couple of hours, I pretty much wandered round in a daze, taking it all in and orientating myself. The scheduled events I wanted to check out didn't start until later, so I had plenty of time to get used to the crowds (which weren't too bad). I picked up a few freebies, and avoided spending too much money.
Much to my suprise, I won a raffle being held by the Hero Initiative (a charity for comic writers/artists who've hit hard times - they recently helped out one of the creators of Love and Rockets, a famous independent comic, after her house burnt down) and was rewarded with an action figure (hooray!). After failing to come up with any kind of theme to my sketch book, I got a sketch from Y: The Last Man artist Pia Guerra of the lead character from the series. I was really lucky with the line up this year - Brian K Vaughan is by far my favourite writer, and not only was he attending the con, but artists from two of his titles were as well (Pia and Ex Machina's Tony Harris).
By this time, it was well into the afternoon, and I was tired of walking around, so I made my way up to the smaller panel rooms to attend the DC Comics panel, followed by spotlights on Brian, and then Tony. While up in the panel room, I happened across some of the people from the Brian K Vaughan website (I told you this was going to be nerdy) and got talking to them. After the panels all ended, I was headed to a tour of San Francisco's Tiki bars (Hawaiian themed places with big elabourate cocktails) run by Isotope, the comic store I visit here. I grabbed a quick dinner with one of the guys of the website, Joey, and then headed out for an evening of blue drinks.
The Tiki Tour was a lot of fun - everyone got a Tiki Passport to be signed at every bar we made it to, and a fake flowery necklace. James Sime, the owner of Isotope, is a real character - always dressed in the sharpest of suits, with Bart Simpson-esque hair (really - it goes straight up), and made a fantastic host. Also in attendence were Adam Beechen, writer of Robin and DC's upcoming Countdown, and a number of other comic-related people. It was tres cool. A couple of other website people turned up, and we continued round the tour until bar number 5 called time and we all staggered home.

SATURDAY
Saturday is always the biggest day, no matter what con you go to, so the Moscone Centre was considerably busier today. Despite getting in at about 4am, I was back there by 10.30 to get to a signing session by Brian K Vaughan and Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier and Clay, and Wonder Boys (these are actual books, rather than comic books - see, I can do high culture too), which are some of my favourite books ever. I pottered around some more, although I was feeling pretty damn rough for the first couple of hours.
I picked up some more stuff today - an issue of Avengers I'd missed out on, a graphic novel I'd been after - and got some more sketches done - including a Hellboy by Mike Mignola (he's pretty famous). I also got a signed print by Josh Middleton (great artist, not such a nice guy, unfortunately) and saw some more panels - a look at the year ahead from Vertigo Comics, and a Vaughan/Guerra/Harris panel that was very funny (I honestly wasn't stalking these people - I'm just a big fan).
After the Con had finished, I was aiming to get to the Hot Fuzz special screening they had arranged and, after negotiating the Chinese New Year parades in the city, I met up with Sam, Charlie, Rachel and Susan to sit and wait to see if we could get in. Unfortunately, we'd waited in vain, so Charlie, Sam and I headed to a club (the very cool End Up) and hung out for a bit, but I was beyond tired and so headed home to sleep at around midnight.

SUNDAY
Sunday saw an easier, later start, and smaller crowds in the Moscone Centre. I attended the Comic Book Legal Defence Fund Live Art Jam, and regretted my lack of money - the CBLDF helps support artists, writers and retailers who get charged with obscenity or other First Amendment related crimes, and also provides legal advice when books are banned in libraries or schools, and the Art Jam saw some very talented artists providing on the spot sketches to be auctioned off for donations. There were at least three I almost raised my hand to, but the bidding quickly went way over my budget.
After that, and some more wandering around, getting sketches, photos and various stuff, I met up with the website people again and we all went to the Gender and Genre panel, featuring Pia Guerra and Jane Espenson (who wrote for Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Firefly and is currently working on the revamped Battlestar Galactica), which was very interesting. I caught the tail end of a panel on Drive, a new TV series starring Nathan Fillion (star of Firefly and Serenity) - Nathan is incredibly funny and very charismatic, and had the whole crowd (at least 500 people) in hysterics.
The con was winding down, and we all split up to do last minute stuff, which included (for me) getting a sketch off Tony Harris (yay!), then all the website folks (myself, Joey, Mindy, Sarah and Nick) grabbed a late lunch, and I (temporarily) headed home and dropped off my day's swag bag. But it was only a pit stop - we had all arranged to meet up with Tony Harris for drinks after the con, so I headed back downtown to an Irish bar near the Moscone Centre where Tony entertained us no end with some insider tales from the comic industry and some hilarious stories of his hometown in Georgia (FYI, if Tony Harris ever opens a door for you, make damn sure you say thank you).
After about an hour, we headed up to the bar at the top of the Marriott Hotel, which we had dubbed the "Millenium Falcon Bar" because of its large window that resembled the Star Wars spaceship. We all enjoyed one last drink (and some complimentary bar snacks) and then headed off. It was a great finish to a great weekend - meet some great people, got some great things and generally had a blast.

Patience

2007-03-07T08:34:00.000Z

Got a couple of things to write up here, but not yet - first of all, I've done some more creative writing I'm going to stick up on here, and also, my report from Wondercon, but I'm waiting until I've got the pictures developed for that one.

In the meantime, a couple of things I've stumbled across in the past few days. Hopefully, they'll make you laugh.

Number 1 - the bizarre genius of Sockbaby

http://www.sockbaby.com/index.htm

Number 2 - Adam Buxton censors NWA for his son

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

2007-02-24T19:16:00.000Z

On the other side of this particular continent, the New York Comic-Con(vention) is in full swing, with people geeking out over guests such as Stephen King, Stan Lee, Kevin Smith and a bunch of people who you've never heard of, but if you're a massive comic book nerd like me, are very exciting. Am I jealous? Sure, a bit, but next weekend I'll be attending the smaller but less chaotic Wondercon here in San Francisco, where I'll be seeing sneak peeks of 300 and Spider-Man 3, and meeting (among others) my favourite comic book writer, Brian K Vaughan *coughgoreadYTheLastMancough*.

So, instead of queuing up for several hours in chilly New York then being ushered into a large hall full of sweaty teenagers, I'm having a productive weekend of hard work and sensible activities like food shopping. Very dull, but very necessary, and it allows me to get as far ahead as possible to give me a weekend of adolescent excitement this time next week, free from the constraints of homework.

I got my rollerblades - so far I have only used them to skate around the kitchen and living room, but equally I've only fallen over once, which I consider a great victory. Going ice-skating over Christmas was definately a help - it's pretty much the same action. I'm going to make sure I've got my braking properly down before I even consider taking them out onto the hills of San Francisco, lest I end up an amusingly shaped dent in the side of a truck.

Currently listening to:
The Klaxons - Myths Of The Near Future
Jamie T - Panic Prevention
Joy Division - Substance
Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique
Muse - Absolution

Sometimes...

2007-02-20T02:25:00.000Z

you need a beedog in order to get through the day.

Sometimes you need several.

In other news, I'm really enjoying my Creative Writing course, and by grace of God or good karma, have been blessed with both lots of ideas and motivation, which is a rare combination. Usually, I either want to write but can't think of anything, or have ideas but can't be bothered to write them down. I'm trying to take as much advantage of this moment as time allows.

Pancakes tonight, as everyone's busy on Shrove Tuesday.

Also, I'm buying a pair of rollerblades on Wednesday, so I may not be able to write for bruises soon.

Currently listening to:
Jamie T - Panic Prevention
The Shins - Wincing The Night Away
TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
Death Cab For Cutie - Plans

A Very Comfortable Mosh Pit

2007-02-17T03:24:00.000Z

So, scant days after I declared "Nothing Important Happened Today", something rather remarkable happens.

A 500 strong pillow fight.

In what is becoming a San Francisco tradition, I attended a Valentine's Day pillow fight held in Justin Herman Plaza, near the Embarcadero. This was the third year it has been held, and it was quite the event, as you can see.

I arrived at about 5.45 and made contact with Sam, Charlie, Susan, Rachel and a couple of other people. The fight was scheduled to begin at 6.00 exactly (there's a giant clock tower on the Ferry Building at the Embarcadero, so that helped) and pretty much everyone was already there, so in elaborate costumes, others with just a simple pillow (I fell into the latter group). At 6.00, everyone rushed towards the centre of the Plaza, which was already well filled, and began pummelling each other with pillows. I think it took about 5 minutes for the first pillow casualty to fill the air with feathers, and many more quickly followed. My shoes still have feathers sticking out of them, and I think I inhaled approximately three ducks-worth of down. Our group lasted about an hour, by which time the number of participants had dropped a little, although most people hung around to watch. We left at 7.15, and while clean up efforts had begun, there were still at least 100 people still battling away. It was fantastic fun, and if you ever have the chance to be battered by strangers bearing soft furnishings, I recommend it.

After that, we wandered up to North Beach, where we enjoyed a few drinks and discovered an amazing bar that doubled (or should it be tripled) as a live music venue and a sandwich shop.

All round, a great day.

Crate

2007-02-15T22:51:00.000Z

I wrote this for my Fundamentals of Creative Writing class. Thought I'd share it with the world.

When I got back from work, my brother had moved the armchair out to the front lawn and was sat next to a huge packing crate, taller than me. He was watching the TV, which was propped up in the living room window.

“What the hell is that?” I said, putting the Chinese takeout I was carrying down on the wall.

“You don’t know? Some dude dropped it off after lunch. I’ve had to sit here and guard it all day.”

“I thought you were going to look for work. And how come you haven’t opened it?”

“Well, I was going to run down to Crowbar World, but then I remembered it doesn’t exist.” He twisted round in the chair, tilted his head and made a face. He wanted an argument.

“Dad must have left some tools somewhere” I said, running into the house. He’d left the door open, again. I started looking under the sink, then remembered Dad’s old toolbox under the stairs, and returned with a heavy hammer.

“Are we smashing it?” asked my brother. He was leant up against the crate, ear to the wood. “You know, I swear I can hear something breathing in here.”

“You’re kidding.” I walked up and put my head up against the crate, tried to filter out the noise of the TV. At first, nothing. Then I heard it, a low heavy breathing sound, like a passed out drunk. I listened for a minute. The sound was hypnotic, like when we’d fall asleep in Dad’s lap, our heads resting on his chest. There was a smell, too, underneath the waxy, wooden smell of the crate; wet dog and the circus and dead leaves all mixed together.

“We’ve got to get it out, whatever it is. We’ll use the nail-removing thing on the hammer.”

I started working my way round the edge of the box. It was hard going, chipping under the nails and levering them out. I removed my jacket, and then my tie. My brother stayed on the other side, listening to whatever was in the box breathe.

Then, as I was pulling against one of the higher nails, the crate tipped a little, and whatever was inside slumped forward. I felt the jolt as the front was shaken loose by the new weight. It began to tip faster, but my brother grabbed on and pulled it back, steadying it. The thing inside seemed to fall back into place, and let out a blast of warm breath that I felt through the gaps in the planks, reminding me of an Easter holiday spent on a farm.

With my brother helping steady it, I removed the last of the nails and we carefully, slowly, very slightly opened up the crate.

“Well,” said my brother “this just raises more questions.”

Stop Wearing Converse When It Rains

2007-02-13T03:27:00.000Z

First off: apologies to all those who read here regularly. I wish I could say I've been so busy I haven't had time to post, but in truth that so little has happened since I returned to America post-Christmas/New Year/Birthday break that there hasn't been any substantial news. However, taking my cues from the rest of the blogging world, I've decided no news is good news, as it lets me waffle on about whatever I like without having to do complex things like "remember" and "describe truthfully". So, you can expect the signal-to-noise ratio to flip here, at least for a little while.

We seem to have entered the rainy season here in San Francisco. Rain in California appears to be roughly equivalent to snow in the UK - we know it's going to come, but when it finally arrives, we panic and public services seem to halt. Americans don't seem to take rain into consideration when planning roads and pavement, so you get huge puddles everywhere, resulting in extremely wet bottom-of-trouser-legs that stay with you throughout the day and soaked-through trainers. People use "it was raining" as an excuse to be late to class, and lecturers accept it unquestioningly. Also, there's the umbrella thing. I'm of the opinion that getting a little wet is easier than having to carry round a wet umbrella for the next three hours, then find somewhere to dry it off when you get home, so I only open mine up when it gets desperate. People here not only put them up at the first drop of rain, but they keep them up long after the rain has stopped. What do they think they're protecting themself from? Puddles?

Currently listening to: The Good, The Bad And The Queen - The Good, The Bad And The Queen
Beck - Odelay
Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique
Sting and The Police - Very Best Of Sting And The Police
About 45 seconds of US radio every morning when my alarm goes off

Holy Crap! When Did It Become The Future?

2007-02-13T03:22:00.000Z

And you thought that big board they had in Minority Report was impressive:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid271543545/bctid422563006

According to some boffin on Warren Ellis' website (where I found this - check the links at the side of the page) this technology is actually fairly easy to produce and even easier to break at the moment, but holy heck! I still get impressed by the camera that's built into MacBooks - this is like something they shipped in from Star Trek.

Anyway, thought I'd post this before the actual news, so it appears after it on the page.

Exodus

2006-12-18T08:42:00.000Z

Well, instruction has officially ended at SFSU, but the exams remain, so I'm here in San Francisco for another 10 days while everyone else heads back home. Vikki's probably touched down by now, Vicky's off on Tuesday and Sarah returns home on the 22nd, leaving me in the house by my lonesome. Still, it's not like I'll have time to mope about, what with two exams and one essay for next week, not to mention almost all of my Christmas shopping to do (so far, I have bought one, count 'em: one, present). With all this, plus prepping for our new housemate (annotating maps to help her, cleaning the house, etc) and an ever growing list of miscellaneous tasks to do, I'll be busy until I get home, where I'll try to fit every British experience I can into three weeks.

The weather here is a little surreal - it tried to start raining about a week ago, but after a couple of days it just died out. It's like Britain at the end of September, and I think I'm going to be in for a shock when I land back home.

I have to make an apology - in my last post I referred to In-N-Out Burger as a "tastier McDonalds". I've been chastised by Charlie, a native Californian and former UEA visitor, that this is incorrect, and I'm sure if I had a few more, I'd reach a more appropriate description, but for now, we'll have to stick with "the best burger I have ever had that took less than three minutes to prepare". Their fries were pretty damn good too.

(By the way, Charlie is not a man to be trifled with. He is the kind of guy who is more than willing to stand up on buses and deliver Dennis Hopper monologues to total strangers in a strange kind of performance art way.)

I <3 Cheap Things

2006-12-05T23:39:00.000Z

As of October 2006, Tower Records have been in liquidation, and therefore holding "Going Out Of Business" sales in all of their branches. At the end of last week, I finally paid a visit to the one nearest to us, next to the Stonestown Galleria. For the princely sum of $50 (about £28) I got:

Kings of Leon - Youth And Young Manhood
Josh Rouse - 1972
The Dazed and Confused Soundtrack
Sarah Silverman - Jesus Is Magic
The Buzzcocks - Singles: Going Steady
Be Your Own Pet - Be Your Own Pet
Beastie Boys - Check Your Head (only $3.50!)

I love me some cheap swag.

This weekend, we (Sarah, Vikki, Sam, Amy and I) rented a car and travelled over the Golden Gate Bridge and up into Marin County. We visited Muir Woods National Monument and saw an awful lot of awfully tall trees. We drove around for a long while, often repeating ourselves thanks to our lack of maps and communication skills. We went down very steep cliff-side roads with haripin bends for a nausea-inducing amount of time. And we topped it all off by driving back through the city and out the other end to get to Daly City for an In-N-Out Burger (think a tastier McDonalds) and some Krispy Kreme donuts. Vikki got some great photos of the scenery, which was pretty breathtaking, and also deserves a shout out for driving us around all day and not yelling at us too much for backseat driving and poor navigation.

At the moment, I'm listening to the soundtrack of a new film called The Fountain, directed by Darren Aronofsky. We went to see it the other day, and I was blown away. It deals with some very profound ideas about death, life and the cyclic nature of existence, and does so in a visually stunning and emotionally devasting way. The soundtrack is amazingly atmospheric, and the visuals are wonderful, enhanced by the fact that none of them were created with CGI, but rather with microphotography of chemical reactions. I cannot recomment this film enough - one of the best I've seen in a long while.

Work continues apace at university - I seem to be on top of things at the moment. I'm still struggling to choose what to study next semester, but I've got about a week until I actually have to make any decisions, so it's not too much of a panic-inducer yet.

Oh well, back to work!

Thanksgiven

2006-12-02T21:44:00.000Z

Blogger has changed. It's strange and disorientating, and I imagine this blog will be the internet equivalent of the baby deer's first few steps.

Thanksgiving week was great. Catherine and I managed to pack a lot into a short time, visiting the Cartoon Art Museum (small but interesting), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (big and impressive), Golden Gate Park and the Japanese Tea Gardens (tranquil and beautiful, check out the photos on Flickr), the San Francisco Zoo (full of cuteness), Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf (touristy but amusing, with lots of sea lions) and Haight Ashbury (former home of hippies, current home of hipsters). Thanksgiving itself was spent watching movies after a night out on the town with some of my friends, and so our big Thanksgiving dinner turned into Ramen noodles and chicken - not exactly what the pilgrims tucked into way back when. All in all, the week was an amazing trip around San Francisco, and having Catherine here made every day that much better. Seeing her off at the airport was heartbreaking, but it's only a month until I'm back in Blighty, which is what I'm focusing on.

This week has begun the descent into finals, and my schedule from here on in is pretty insane. Exams, presentations, essays and lectures, not to mention Christmas shopping to do, transport home to arrange and all the other unforseen things that are sure to crop up. Plus, Sarah, who is going to Australia after Crimbo, is on a San Francisco related rampage, trying to cram as much into her last three weeks as possible.

Back to work...

Several Thousand Words

2006-11-22T07:00:00.000Z

Some pictures from this week - words coming soon.
Catherine, being cute as a button.

Catherine up on the balcony at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, with the city skyline in the background. SFMOMA is great, by the way - a fantastic collection, some wonderful touring shows (including a great one by a British artist) and an amazing building.
As promised - Darth Vader in Union Square. This is as close as I could get, for fear of being force-choked.
Me on the Golden Gate Bridge, shortly after a Japanese couple decided to take our photo. Go figure.
Catherine at the viewing platform for the Golden Gate Bridge.

An update of this action packed week is coming - stay tuned, loyal readers!

I found my heart in San Francisco

2006-11-16T23:09:00.000Z

Well, it's almost the Thanksgiving break (finally), so I'm looking forward to a week off from university and a chance to have some fun and explore the city a bit more. Catherine's in town at the moment - she landed on Saturday and has been recovering from jet lag for the most part, although we have managed to get downtown a couple of times and also finally made it to Golden Gate Park, which we wandered round for a bit. We weren't sure where we were going, so we didn't manage to find any of the famous bits (Japanese Tea Gardens, Aids Memorial Garden, Bison Paddock, etc), but we did see a terrapin and a crayfish round Lloyd Lake, and had a very relaxing stroll through the woods. It's hard to believe you're in the middle of a city when you're in there - you're completely cut off from the hustle, and indeed the bustle as well.

Work has been flying to and fro at university - I've been getting mid-terms back (good marks all round, mostly in the A area), handing essays in (the history of Norwich, "how is war a crime?") and doing quizzes in class. The end is in sight, as far as this semester goes (three weeks after Thanksgiving, I think), and I've started looking at what courses to do for next year. I've also got to make some kind of decision regarding the direction of my dissertation, which I've got lots of ideas for, but they're all pretty nebulous.

Anyway, we're about to head over to Isotope, then back to do some food shopping, then hopefully out to dinner somewhere. I'll try to keep this updated, but I imagine I'll be pretty busy.

Hoooooly Crap!

2006-11-10T20:03:00.000Z

Why isn't this out now? Seriously, does Sam Raimi hate me in some fashion? Why must I wait until May next year to see this? The world is intrinsicially unfair, and life is meaningless.

In other news, Darth Vader appeared in downtown San Francisco a few days ago to dissuade people from becoming Jedis (pictures coming soon), I'm knee deep in essays (although the level is sinking at a reasonable rate) and Catherine arrives here tomorrow!

Also, since purchasing their album last Saturday, I've become increasingly obsessed with The Pipettes, or at least their music. Everyone should get a hold of this album - it's Phil Spector, Wall of Sound, pre-Beatles style pop written by pretty girls being mean to boys. Who could fail to love an album that includes a song called Because It's Not Love (But It's Still A Feeling)? No one, that's who.

As for the other albums, Elastica is what Elastica always was - three girls and a guy doing The Wire better than The Wire did - Connection is one of the classic songs of Britpop, and this is one of the classic albums. As for Stereo Type A, I think it surpasses Cibo Matto's other album overall, but lacks any tracks that soar to the heights of Sugar Water (for melancholic chillout glory) or Birthday Cake (for batpoop crazy J-hop).

My Changing Cities midterm came back on Tuesday, and I got an A (20 out of 21), so I seem to be on track for good grades this semester. The list of courses for Spring has just appeared, and at the moment I'm leaning towards Arts & American Culture, Introduction To Critical Social Thought and Politics & Literature, which would be a nice spread of stuff I'm studying back home and stuff I'm interested in but have no chance to study back home.

It's International Education Week starting Monday - it's a national event that SFSU participates in to emphasise its international links, which means lots of events, some of which I'm forced to attend. Obviously, I'd rather be spending this time with Catherine, but it's slightly negated by having the next week off for Thanksgiving. Now I just have to cross my fingers and hope that my lecturers don't weigh me down with lots of reading.

No idea what my Thanksgiving is going to be like. Sarah, Vicky and Vikki may be road-trippin', along with some other UEAers, so it could just be me and Catherine. Not sure I can manage half a turkey.

Been spendin' most my life, livin' in a muso's paradise...

2006-11-07T08:47:00.000Z

Hope, the girl from Australia who is going to Tucson and who I met in San Diego (lost track yet?) came to stay with us this weekend. It was nice to see her again - she's a great girl and a lot of fun, and it was also nice to be able to show someone round "our" city - I guess it just brought into perspective how long I've been here and how far I've come from the blind panic of walking through Sunset on an empty stomach, looking for an internet cafe that didn't exist (my first morning in San Francisco). Of course, all our time spent here doesn't stop Sarah from getting lost in places we've been to roughly once a week since we landed; she's like the opposite of a homing pigeon - place her 1 block from the house, point out the direction she needs to travel in, and watch how far off course she goes.

On Saturday, Tom (another UEA expat) was gracious enough to show Hope and I around the Haight Ashbury area, which I haven't really delved into. Haight Ashbury acts like a black hole for hippies, sucking them in and compressing them into a small, super dense ball of tofu, tie-dye and poetry slam nights. It's the home of the Grateful Dead's famous house (although we didn't go see it) and an all round cool place - it's also what you probably think of when you try to picture San Francisco (if you're not thinking of the Golden Gate Bridge, that is).

The Haight is also home to Amoeba Records. Your standard independent record store is this big:

Amoeba Records is this big:

It's based in a former bowling alley, which should give you an idea of the vastness of it. Going in is like that bit in Clerks where Randall visits Big Choice Video and falls to his knees at the sheer selection on offer. It was great. It was also cheap. I found a number of bargains, and came away with...

I'm on a bit of an alternative-girl-groups kick at the moment, clearly. Not sure what's brought it on, but women are pretty under-represented in my record collection, so it's no bad thing. It's clearly time I got in contact with my inner Riot Grrl. If only they'd had some Kenickie...

Catherine arrives in the States in approximately...109 hours, so once she does, I probably won't post on here for a while, as I want to squeeze every second of joy out of her visit that I can, which will leave precious little time to talk about it on the Interwub. Still, I'll hopefully have time over the Thanksgiving break to finish uploading and editing the San Diego video (I know you're all chomping at the bit to see it).

I'm probably forgetting large chunks of my news, but I'll try to fit at least one more post in before Saturday.

Keep frosty, marines!

November

2006-11-01T21:34:00.000Z

I'm not one for New Year's Resolutions. I understand the symbolic power of them: New Year, New Start, New Way of Thinking. It's fairly simple. I've always thought it's a way of putting off today what you can do tomorrow though; "I'll give up smoking in the New Year", "I'll go on a diet in the New Year", etc. I'm much more of a fan of making a decision and changing right now. Still, it'll probably give me a little boost to do it at the start of a month.

What am I changing? Well, I feel like I've been slacking off a little lately, both in terms of academia and, frankly, in terms of life in general. I'm not living up to my potential, and I'm not taking advantage of all the things that this wonderful city has to offer. So I'm changing. Today's been a good start. I'm pretty much up to date with work at the moment, and I managed to hurl myself out of bed in time for class despite having about 3 hours sleep. My first class, Myths Of the World, went pretty good - we seem to be moving into interesting territory, comparing mythology from several cultures, rather than just analysing one piece in isolation. My second class, Fable and Tales, was cancelled (I think my lecturer was probably out celebrating Hallowe'en last night, he strikes me as the type), but on the bright side I not only had all the work for it done, but had an excellent understanding of the text.

I'm now in the gap between classes, awaiting the start of Global Peace Studies. I've been fairly quiet in this class, at least compared to some (I'm probably in the middle of the class overall), but I feel like I could have more of an impact if I tried, so I'm gonna start speaking my mind a bit more. Hopefully, I won't turn into one of those people who annoy me at the moment by dragging the discussion off topic. After class, it's off to Isotope to buy comics, then back home for a delicious Ramen dinner and studying. Also, I have to swing by the Humanities building to get the marks for one of my midterms. Fingers crossed for that one.

A couple of side notes: Hallowe'en is a pretty big deal in the States, and nowhere is it bigger than in San Francisco. Ours was a bit of a let down due to transportation problems, but we all had a good night on Saturday at Sam's birthday, and my costume (Sir Bling-A-Lot, the most ghetto knight in all of Olde England) got at least one outing. Still, it was interesting to walk onto campus this morning and find everyone subdued, quiet and, well, hungover. It was like being back in Britain!

Also, this month stands to be a good one (touch wood). First and most importantly, Catherine's coming to visit in 10 days time (woo-hoo!), but also, season 7 of The West Wing comes out, there's a new Thomas Pynchon book coming, and it's Firework Night. Not sure how I'll get hold of fireworks, but I'm gonna try.

And They Called It San Diego: Sunday and Monday

2006-10-27T18:20:00.000Z

This is the final installment of what I did in San Diego, but there's still a video to come, once I've edited it all together.

SUNDAY

We woke up fairly late on Sunday, and left for the zoo, getting there about midday. San Deigo Zoo is world famous, and for good reason - it's certainly the best one I've ever been to, and I can't imagine any ever bettering it. To start with, we went on a bus tour of the zoo, with a guide telling us all about the zoo and the animals we passed. Then, we decided what animals we wanted to visit and set out on a large loop of the zoo, taking in the elephants, meerkats, flamingos, monkeys, lemurs, orang-utangs, gorillas, pandas, polar bears and many, many more. I got an awful lot of video of the day, and that probably shows what it was like better than I can in writing, so I'll just say that meerkats are the cutest animals on the planet, and I find flamingos disturbing for some reason. We finished our visit off with a trip across the zoo in a "sky cart", a kind of ski-lift-except-it's-a-bucket thing that took us from one side to the other, back to the gift shop, where I managed to pick up some zebra chop sticks. Nice!

That evening, we paid a visit to the Kansas City BBQ (yes, we were still in San Diego), which was the location of the "Sleazy Bar" scene in Top Gun, which made Sarah more excited than she had any right to be. Good ribs, though. After that, we had a little walk around the marina, then headed back to the hostel.

MONDAY

We checked out of the hostel at 10, but were allowed to store our bags there until we headed to the airport. Sarah and Pip did some shopping, and Hope and I went to get some coffee, then we all headed back to the marina, to search in vain for a henna-tattoo place for Pip and Sarah and have a go on an antique carousel. I also discovered the delicious heart attack of a snack that is the chimachanga - it's essentially a deep fried burrito. We picked up our bags, and then headed to the airport, where an even tinier plane than before awaited us. It wasn't even a jet - it was a propeller plane. Still, it was quite cool to be on a plane that can't have seated more than 20. We touched down in San Francisco at around 10pm, happy to be back at our house and with lots of happy memories of San Diego.

And They Named It San Diego: Friday and Saturday

2006-10-22T05:35:00.000Z

Where were we? Ah yes.

FRIDAY

Sarah and I left the house at about 3.40 am and made our way down to Balboa Park BART Station in order to catch the 4am train to the airport. Only to find that the earliest train to the airport was at 5.20. Oh. We kept ourselves entertained/conscious for an hour and a half, and stumbled onto the plane, with a little over an hour to check in and board our flight.

Thankfully, we had no baggage to check and were shuffled to the front of the queue for electronic check-in, so we made it in good time. The changeover at LAX was a little more frantic, as our take off in San Francisco was slightly delayed and, after a quick bathroom stop and a ride on the airport bus, we made it with scant minutes to spare, and took of in a plane that can't have seated more than 40.

We touched down in San Diego at about 9.30 in the morning, suffering from severe sleep deprivation and with no clue where we were in relation to our hostel, the beach or the rest of the world. A kindly security guard sent us to the main terminal, and after some extremely slow meandering through the car park, we decided to take a bus, as there appeared to be no way to walk out of the airport. It should be noted that sunny San Diego, where we had come to catch some sunbeams before the fog planted itself firmly on San Francisco for the winter, was at this point, overcast and spitting with rain.

We arrived in the Gaslamp district of San Diego at around 11.30. The Gaslamp's a beautiful area - in fact the whole of San Diego is a fantastic looking city, incredibly clean and with unique and pleasant architecture. The Gaslamp is a very touristy part of town, full of bars and restaurants. Sarah and I eventually settled on an Italian place for lunch while we waited for Pip and her Aussie friend Hope to arrive, but barely ate anything after managing to order the spiciest thing on the menu.

Pip and Hope turned up at about 1 and we booked into our hostel. I have to be honest - I was expecting a bit of a hole. I was very pleasantly suprised. It was clean, bright and homey, the staff were friendly and well-informed, and they served free pancakes every morning. We settled into our room and Sarah and I took this opportunity to get some sleep before we suffered some kind of psychotic episode.

When I awoke, it was around 5. The four of us got some dinner (I can't for the life of me remember what or where) and then headed to the cinema to see The Departed, Scorcese's remake of the Korean thriller Infernal Affairs. If you have a chance to see it, take it, for God's sake - it's one of the films of the year. Scorcese is on the top of his game, directing with far more energy than a 64 year old should have, Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon are truly fantastic in the lead roles, and the supporting cast is equally magnificent, especially Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen and Marky Mark Wahlberg.

After that, we returned to the hostel, hung around for a while, Pip and I headed out to get a late night coffee, and then I finally fell into bed.

SATURDAY

On Saturday, we went on a hostel organised trip to Tijuana, Mexico, which is only 15 miles from San Diego. Tijuana stories will be made available on a case-by-case, need-to-know basis.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog...

2006-10-21T06:31:00.000Z

To attempt to host some video. I'll be editing my San Diego footage together pretty soon, so this'll work as a trial run for embedding video into the blog. Also, it's good news, everybody.

And they named it San Diego: Thursday

2006-10-21T05:37:00.000Z

Ok, my first attempt at writing up my long weekend in San Diego was nearly complete when my computer overheated, so this is attempt number two, seperated into days to aid posting. If that makes it a pain to read, blame Blogger and my unreliable Dell laptop (oh, for an iBook...) Anyway,

THURSDAY
I'm starting well before we touched down in San Diego, but this is all part of the build up. Suspense, people, suspense. All part of the drama.

Thursday morning was pretty much standard - Changing Cities for an hour and a half took me to 11am, and then I potted around campus, checking e-mail, tending to whatever it is I tend to when I've got not much to do. I can't remember if I got lunch on campus, but I probably did. When I got home, Sarah and I started packing, cramming as much as we could into our respective backpacks in an effort to avoid having to check any luggage.

In the evening, we headed out to the Mission, and to Vikki's flat. We made our way up to a sushi restaurant (better than the one in Japantown, equal to Crazy Sushi, not as good as No Name Sushi, for those of you who are keeping score), had our traditional pre-night out mix of miso and maki, then purchased some booze and headed to Haight Ashbury, to Sarah C and Rebecca's flat. See, in our wisdom, we had decided that if we had to be up at 4 to catch a train anyway, there was no point in going to sleep, and Lily Allen was playing at Popscene that night anyway...

We reached Sarah and Rebecca's - a very nice flat, although they share a bedroom, which kind of sucks. They're smack bang in the middle of the Haight, the old hippie area, which I haven't really explored yet, but looks great. I'm looking forward to having a wander around when midterms are out of the way. We had drinks and stuff for a while, and had found out that Lily Allen was sold out, so Rebecca, Vikki, Sarah, Sam and I all headed out into the night. We hit a couple of bars in the Haight then headed back to the ever reliable Mission, to a club called Delirium, where I managed to dislocate my knee.

This sounds a lot worse than it is - I've got a history of this happening to me (something to do with shallow knee caps) and I was mostly embarrassed. It didn't bode well for a day of flying though. When it got to about 3am, we headed back home, picking up an office chair along the way (don't ask, I don't remember) and preparing for our day of travel.

Shindigs, Menageries and Jackassery

2006-10-10T03:56:00.000Z

Went to see Jackass 2 on Friday - if you want a film that makes you laugh so hard that it's hard to breath, this is it. Needless to say, a lot of the jokes/stunts are not fit for printing in this all-ages arena, and would lose something in the re-telling anyway, but personally, I think this is the kind of thing that everyone with a pulse will laugh at, no matter how disgusting they think it is. Vicky came with us, and she really wasn't looking forward to it, but still ended up laughing throughout, and any film that includes Medicine Ball Dodge Ball In The Dark as one of the segments cannot be half bad.

On Saturday, Sarah, Vikki and I went to the zoo. It was great, and made me feel a little bit like a kid again, running around looking at the zebras, polar bears and meerkats (aww! Meerkats!) Highlights include the giraffes, who appear to run in slow motion thanks to their long legs, and the flamingos that were so close you could almost touch them. There was also a silverback gorilla who looked so thoughtful I half expected him to push a rock aside to reveal a hot air balloon and make a bid for freedom.

In the evening, it was fellow UEA-to-SF transplant Tom's birthday party. He managed to pack a considerable amount of people into the gap between two houses in the Richmond, and topped it off by getting a keg (although credit for this lies with UEAers Sam and James) It was great fun, I met loads of interesting Americans and bonded a little with my fellow UEA students, who I hadn't seen a lot outside of SFSU, and got a fair bit tipsy. I can remember giving Sarah a piggy back ride through the house at one point in the evening, which is always an indicator of a good evening.

Next big event is coming this weekend, when Sarah and I shall board a plane and travel south to San Diego to meet up with Pip. It'll be great to see another part of the States, and I'm looking forward to the sunshine and the endless quoting of Anchorman - The Legend of Ron Burgandy.

See you later!

Tim

Download Festival 2006!

2006-10-02T06:33:00.000Z

So on Saturday I went to a day long Festival down at the bottom of the bay, at a little town called Mountain View which is pretty much small town California with Giant Outdoor Ampitheatre attached. It took Vikki and I about an hour to get there on the Caltrain (which was a double decker! A double decker train! What will they think of next?) and we arrived about 2.00 in the afternoon.

First up were Rogue Wave. Kind of middle of the road, collegey rock style stuff. Not much to write home about, but the first band to play are never gonna be overly impressive.

Next was TV On The Radio. Much better. Had a kind of Bloc Party feel going on to them, and I'll probably be getting some of there stuff once I can afford it. Highly recommended, and not just because the lead guitarist had a massive beard.

Then came The Shins, who as most of you will know are probably my favourite band. They weren't quite as good as when I saw them in Nottingham - I think they are more suited to indoor venues than festivals. Still, it was great to hear some of their new stuff, and apparently the third album is now finished, which gives me happy feelings inside. Also, it's always great to hear Kissing The Lipless played live - that song kicks all kinds of bottom.

Just before Muse came on, the sun went down, and you couldn't have asked for better timing. As much as The Shins are better in an intimate setting, Muse are better outside, in the dark, with an amazing lightshow, with thousands of people around, waiting for the spaceship to land. Their songs sound like they come from another planet, like if you gave aliens a collection of rock from the past 50 years then asked them to reproduce it, they'd come up with something similar. Just great - definately getting the latest album soon.

I haven't heard much Yeah Yeah Yeahs, in fact, I'd probably only heard two songs before Saturday. I'd probably have to sit down and listen to an album before I gave them a definate thumbs up, but I have to say I can understand the seeming legion of men who'd sell their thumbs to go out with Karen O. She's what would happen if the secret love child of Willy Wonka and Debbie Harry got turned into a cartoon character, and it was great to stand at the back of the crowd and watch her shadow zoom across the stage backing like some music-powered Duracell Bunny.

And then we had to leave, just as the roadies were finalising Beck's instruments. Unfortunately, our last train home was just a bit too early, and we had to miss out. I've seen Beck before, and from much closer, so it wasn't a huge tragedy, but it still would've been great to see him again, and hear some of the stuff from the new album, coming out soon. C'est la vie. All in all, it was a great day, and well worth the excursion.

Have to head off now - lots of reading to do, but just wanted to do an old school shout out to Claire Marshall. According to my sources, this is her sole source of entertainment, at least until I bring her The Complete Monty Python back at Christmas :) Claire, if you're really that bored, may I suggest Veronica Mars - I don't know if it's on Region 2 yet, but I know you'll like it.

Peace out, y'all.

News for all you film/comic fans

2006-09-30T04:23:00.000Z

Marvel Comics are making a film of Iron Man. This was announced a while ago, as the first major film they'll be self-financing rather than selling to a film studio. I've never been a big fan of Iron Man - occasionally he does something to remind me that he's pretty cool, but mostly he seems a little behind the times. One writer, talking about Iron Man's technology, noted that mobile phones can film videos and we're having serious discussions on the ethics of cloning and nanotechnology, so a bloke in a metal suit that flies isn't that "sci-fi" anymore.

Then they announced Jon Favreau as the director. Interesting choice - I mostly know him from Elf, the Will Ferrell Christmas comedy that was, admittedly, both funny and heartwarming (yes, heartwarming, dammit), but that wasn't much of an indicator of his action blockbuster abilities.

Then yesterday (or possibly today - the timeline's a little confused) they announced they'd cast Iron Man/Tony Stark. Various names had been floated around. Tom Cruise. Leonardo DiCaprio. Johnny Depp. Terrance Howard. Even Ashton Kutcher (ick). But who had the right skills to play a millionaire playboy womaniser and occasional alcoholic who still managed to be a genius, a business mogul and a superhero?

Robert Downey frickin' Junior, that's who.

In one announcment, this has gone from being a ho-hum, yet another comic book film project to potentially one of the best to come out in recent years. I love Robert Downey Jr. - check out Wonder Boys and the criminally underseen Kiss Kiss Bang Bang if you need proof of his talents. This could be a career move for him similar to Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Carribean, and I'm now very excited to see this.

Anyway, thought I'd share my excitement.

I probably shouldn't be doing this drunk...

2006-09-29T07:50:00.000Z

But drunk I am! Or at least tipsy! Due to the fascist ID policy of Popscene (a club here in SF), I have returned home early while the rest of my friends dance the night away. While I do this willingly, and am happy that they are having a good night out (I hope), from my point of view, this sucks. So what am I doing - using this opportunity to update my blog.

I've been a little ill the past couple of days. Nothing serious, just a little stomach bug kind of thing. I've got behind on my reading, just after I caught up, and I'm feeling a little drained (so it's probably good I'm not out tonight).

While I'm writing this, I'm also uploading photos on to Flickr, a picture hosting site. There's some kind of cool plug in I've seen on other sites that will host them here, once I've loading some up. This also saves my bandwidth from having to load up countless photos of Alcatraz, drunken antics and the LoveFest (big dance festival full of semi and wholly naked people we went to over the weekend).

That's about it for the mo - I still can't sort out wireless in our house (I think it's the router, but I'm not sure), I have a fair few quizzes and papers coming up, so I might be a little quiet the next week, and there's something in the house that keeps going "bing" and I'm not sure what it is.

Don't forget to comment - I have no idea if anyone's reading this!

More updates soon - I promise!

It's been a week...

2006-09-21T23:54:00.000Z

...and a fair amount has happened, hence the non-postage. I could go through a laundrey list of what's been happening with me, but it seems that's all I do on here, so I'll just say: did lots of college work, visited Alcatraz (pictures coming), Pier 39, Lombard Street and a few other touristy places, found a great cinema, joined Facebook (so this'll be appearing there too - hello students!) and spent ages trying to sort the Internet at our house. With that all out of the way, I thought I'd try something different. I seem to be spending a lot of time complaining on here - so and so went wrong, it's hard to find a house, it's hard to find furniture, etc. I thought today I'd post a few things I'm really enjoying about being in America. Mostly dumb things, but they make the harder times bearable.

1) People skateboarding for transport: In England, if you're on a skateboard, you are probably a 16 year old emo-kid who keeps trying and failing to do tricks. Here, people actually use them to get around, and it's so great. I guess I'm so un-used to seeing them used for what they are meant for, and everytime someone at university rolls by, or I'm downtown and see someone skating down the road, I feel a little happy. And it's not just guys - it's girls as well. Yay equality!

2) Late opening: I love that I can get out of uni at 6, hop on a MUNI and get to the comic store at ten to seven, and it's still open. I love that I can then head downtown, and shop for another two hours before places start to close. And even then, there's 24 hour diners, and internet cafes, and coffee shops. I guess it's a big city thing, rather than an American thing, but it's great.

3) Brunch: Don't get me wrong - I like a good English breakfast and I love nipping down to Cafe Nero for a panini, but I'm not a big early-morning eater, and San Francisco has got this mid-morning, sustain you 'til tea time thing down. Most places serve breakfast until about 2pm, and there's a wealth of different options to try. And pancakes. Oh Lord, the pancakes. Plus, it's about the same price to eat out as it is to cook for yourself here, so we can do it on a regular basis.

Well, I could probably think of many, many more, but I wanted to keep these short and fairly little things. I'm sure I'll post some more as the year goes on. I'll leave you with something I found on www.overheardinnewyork.com, a website that does exactly what it says on the tin. Sorry if you're offended by this, but it made me laugh for about five minutes.

Guy #1: I would totally hit that.
Guy #2: Dude, I'd hit that so hard that whoever pulled me out would become the King of England.

More pictures, more posing

2006-09-14T04:15:00.000Z

Sam, Sarah, Alex and Vicky

Tim the Patriot
My bedroom - there's probably twice as much mess by the time you read this.

Our kitchen table, complete with wobbly chairs.

The Existential Horror That Is Ross - Dress For Less

2006-09-13T05:16:00.000Z

As promised.

Been seperated from the Internet for a few days, but as of four hours ago, our flat is equipped with it. On Thursday I'll be buying a wireless router so everyone can use it, but at the moment only my computer can work it, and only in Sarah's room. Still, it's a start. It means I can check e-mail, check news, and most importantly, keep all you wonderful people informed on my comings and goings.

In Scott Pilgrim and The Infinite Sadness (a truly awesome graphic novel all should be reading), the characters enter a store called Honest Ed's, a kind of giant thrift store/discount outlet shop, and are mentally undone by the sheer amount of cheap tat. I've been experiencing a similar kind of effect the past week. Ross is a store in the Union Square area, a kind of American QD that we got our bedding and stuff from. We've also been stalking through The Mission and it's wealth of thrift stores, buying pots, pans, cups, tables, chairs, cleaning equipment and a giant Spongebob Squarepants in a pirate costume who now resides in our living room. The net result is that a) I have severe shopping fatigue; and b) our house is slowly being transformed into a habital environment.

Over the past few days, we've had a couple of UEA Politics students called Sam and Alex living with us, crashing on the living room floor. Over the summer, they had worked at a summer camp in Connecticut, then travelled to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Yosemite National Park before ending up here. They left about two hours ago, and have a 8 hour coach ride and 10 hour flight to look forward to. They were great guys, and encouraged us to finally get out and experience San Francisco's nightlife. Unfortunately this included a visit to a Hooter's, which was the most surreal meal I've had so far in my life.

Anyway, that's all I can think of for now, although I do have some more photos to load up. More soon, I'm sure.

Cue theme music from The Sweeney...

2006-09-07T23:12:00.000Z

So, our new house has had some teething problems.

The plug in the bathroom will neither close nor open, so it just drains slowly when you want it to empty and fills up slowly when you're taking a shower.

There's still very little furniture around, so we're using boxes as bedside tables and plastic bags as bins.

It's cold in the upstairs bedrooms and pitch black in my one downstairs.

And, oh yeah, one of the door handles to the bedrooms broke so I had to kick the door down.

That was fun.

My 1970's cop show antics aside, the house is starting to feel a little more homely. I found a bedside table/bookshelf in a thrift shop in the Mission, so my room's less of a bomb site; we have food in the fridge and appliances on work surfaces, and the American flag we found in the cupboard has been removed from it's flag pole and put into service as a door screen for the living room. Pratical and patriotic.

I'm also getting to grips with the city a little more. When I went to get my comics today, I managed to not get lost when I got off the Muni, and I'm finding my way around Union Square pretty good now.

Updates are a little sparse at the moment as we're without wireless at the house, but that should change soon, and you won't be able to shut me up.

Peace out, y'all.

Preparing For My Arrival

2006-09-02T07:11:00.000Z

Are you reading Overcompensating? No? Why not? It makes me laugh in that horrible way that worries those sitting close to me. Check my links on the right.

Coming once I've got some sleep - The Existential Horror That Is Ross - Dress For Less

2006-09-01T05:59:00.000Z

First off - I managed to get some photos up here! Hooray for me!

It's been really sunny lately - it's actually starting to feel like California. On Wednesday (my fullest day on campus) I actually sunbathed on the grass in the middle of campus. I may yet end up with a tan of some kind for the first time in my life. It still gets cold in evenings, but during the day, it's pretty glorious.

Got the keys handed over to us today, sorted out who has what room (I'm in the downstairs one - no natural light but cheaper rent) and started making lists of what we need to buy. Furniture is going to be a tough one. The landlady is supposedly looking to see if she has anything for us, but she's on holiday until after Labor Day (my first American holiday of obscure origin! Woo hoo!). In the meantime, I bought this really nice folding chair from Urban Outfitters (I told you they'd take all my money!) that I want to bring back to England now. It's so comfy, and light enough to carry back from Union Square to the Mission via public transportation. I'm limiting myself to four nice things from Urban Outfitters - the rest must be bargain basics from, I dunno, Wal-Mart, although I'm actually yet to find one.

I realise I haven't really said much about where I'm living at the moment. Sarah and I are subletting from an American named Matt who's attending a wedding or something. From the fifteen minutes I spent with him, he seemed really nice, and we have very similar taste in movies, which always bodes well. His flat is really nice, as you can tell from the photos. Nothing to big or complex, but probably similar to what I'd have if I was living alone (although I'd be a bit neater, and not a vegetarian).

The flat is located in the Mission, the Latino neighbourhood of SF. It's a great place with a lot of character - there are huge murals almost every block, and Valencia Street, one of the main streets in the area, may well become one of my favourite places. It's packed with cool little restaurants, used book stores, thrift shops and a pirate supply store/writing centre which I'm thinking of interning at (for more explanation, google 826 Valencia). The Mission also contains SF's oldest building, Mission Dolores, a huge church that I really want to check out.

In a few days, we'll be leaving, but we'll definately be coming back to Mission, if only for the excellent sushi place we found yesterday. Yum!

And Who I Am There With

2006-09-01T05:44:00.000Z

Vicky from UEA, who's living in a house of strip-club bartenders and criminals - at least she'll have some good stories.
A shocked looking Sarah trying to study while I pestered her.
An extremely cosy Vicky. How am I meant to cope with a Vicky and a Vikki? We need to develop some nicknames fast.
Me, chillin' with my new hat.
My new shoes. Look how pretty!

Where I Am

2006-08-30T01:12:00.000Z

The kitchen and our board of handy information.

The flat itself (and my sleeping space).

Looking left from the fire escape, towards 24th Street.

Straight out from the fire escape.

The view up Treat Avenue.

Home Free

2006-08-29T02:28:00.000Z

Well, maybe not free, but certainly reasonably priced.

I have a house! 13 days after landing, I have finally secured housing in glorious San Francisco with my illustrious fellow matriculators Sarah from UEA and Vicky from Hull. Our wondrous housing manager Chuck signed over the lease with a expert swirl of his pen; we happily parted with our hard earned dollars, and skipped off to a breakfast of epic proportions. I'm happy - can you tell?

In all seriousness, finding a house has lifted a huge burden from my shoulders. It is so hard to enjoy yourself or get enthusiastic about the future and spending time in this great city when you're constantly aware that you have to move again when your motel reservation is up or the guy who's apartment you're staying in gets back from a wedding.

As well as a big breakfast (bacon, sausages, eggs, hash browns and pancakes) I celebrated this great news with a pair of shoes I've been eyeing in Urban Outfitters (if I had the money, I'd purchase everything from this store, it's alterna-hipster paradise). I know, legally agreeing to hand over a large amount of money each month shouldn't really be celebrated by going out and spending money, but these are really good shoes. Coupled with a new hat I found in a thrift store, I think my time in San Francisco will be highly fashionable. Hopefully, pictures will be coming soon.

Classes begin tomorrow, so there'll probably be more news very soon.

IMPORTANT NEWS!

2006-08-22T18:44:00.000Z

Ok, some of you will find this more thrilling than others (I'm looking at you, Bret Canny), but everyone deserves to hear this...

BARRY SCOTT HAS FOUND HIS WAY TO AMERICA!

That's right - the bloke who advertises Cilit Bang is here too, only in the US, Cilit Bang is now called Bam. But the ads are essentially the same - he still greets us with "Hi, I'm Barry Scott", like we should know who he is, and he still saws "Bam! And the dirt is gone!" It was like an old friend greeting me when he showed up on the TV.

Yes, I know I'm pathetic.

Orientation

2006-08-21T23:08:00.000Z

First off - there is nothing in the world I HATE as much as looking for housing. It is confusing, it is hard, and it is deeply, deeply unrewarding. Our advice from everyone seems to simply be "keep at it", but this just makes me want to scream. As I type, every few seconds I go to refresh my Inbox, to see if I've had any replies, and Craigslist, the San Francisco classifieds, to see if there's any new offers. There is a lot of housing for rent in this city, but there are even more people looking for housing, and it vanishes very quickly.

Rant over - I promise.

Today was the first day of Orientation at SFSU. It's gone pretty well. Met up with a bunch of other UEA people and grouped together for the introduction speeches. We make up a fairly large group, and seem to be one of the loudest institutions here, even moreso than the 60-odd German business students. I could feel the pride and patriotism swelling in my chest when, during the break, most of the UEA students could be found huddled by the Designated Smoking Area. We also make up about 1/5 of the International Society's Council (which is probably 1/2 British); not bad when you considered there are way more Germans, French, Dutch and Scandanavians.

At the moment, my life pretty much consists of waking up, getting the bus to SFSU, listening to people talk at me, searching for housing, then returning to my motel disappointed to watch TV 'til I fall asleep. It sucks that so much of my life hangs on finding a room, but until I do, it seems like I'll be stuck in this loop.

Oh well, back to the search.

I Have Arrived!

2006-08-17T19:08:00.000Z

I'm in America.

I struggled really hard to come up with a witty opening line, but I settled with simplicity. Sorry.

I arrived two days ago - the three hour delay on my flight and being patted down by Heathrow Security twice was made up for by being upgraded to Premium Economy, and getting away from all the little people. That means you. I didn't sleep at all on my flight, which was odd considering I had two and a half hours sleep the night before. However, once I got to my motel (which are exactly like they are shown on TV, although I've yet to see a cockroach) after my $50 taxi ride from San Francisco International, I fell asleep at 7.30 and didn't wake up 'til 10 the next morning.

The first full day here was mostly spent walking. San Francisco is roughly the size of London, or at least feels it. My midday search for an Internet cafe near my motel was in vain, but once I got on a bus, I made my way to Haight Street (old hippies, nice lunch), Fell Street (my favourite new comic shop) and Union Square (shopping, shopping and more shopping). I have a mobile phone that works here now, although registering it was a chore, and I swear the operator was calling me "ma'am" all the way through - does the English accent sound female to Americans down the phone?

So far today I've met up with fellow Brit student Sarah, who I'm searching for housing with, and finally located an Internet cafe, which it turns out was about spitting distance from where I was yesterday. Starting the Big Housing Search soon - wish me luck, I feel like I'm gonna need it.

I'll wrap up now as this is turning into a mammoth entry, but I'll leave you with random things that I've noticed - coke bottles are bigger over here, but cars aren't (don't trust the lousy liberal media!), Mars Bars are called Milky Ways (so what's a Milky Way called?), crossing the road is difficult when the cars are on the wrong side of the road, and cops with guns actually do make you feel safer (go figure).

More to come soon - there's lots to write about.

Packed up, packing off...

2006-08-13T17:51:00.000Z

Well, security alerts aside, I should be halfway to San Francisco in two days time. I'm mostly packed, with just a few odds and ends left to squeeze in and some forms to assemble. The new security arrangements mean that I can't take hand luggage - a real bummer as it means I have to leave my laptop in the care of the apes who load the plane (apologies if you're a baggage handler, but seriously, is it that difficult to not throw the bags onto the plane?).

Feels really odd at home at the moment. I don't think that this will seem real until at least a few days after I land, and things with the Superheroine are kind of intense, what with the enforced absence and everything. We're both really committed to making it work and I'm sure it will, but it doesn't make leaving her for four and a half months any easier.

Just want to be on the plane now - the waiting is killing me.

Random Rules

2006-08-06T17:07:00.000Z

This post is inspired by the Random Rules feature on The Onion's AV Club. Comic book writer extraordinaire Brian K Vaughan was the guest this week, and it prompted those on his message board (such as myself) to attempt their own. The basic rule is 10 songs from your entire iTunes Library, and your justification for owning such rubbish. I posted mine there approximately 2 minutes ago, and now you get it.

Castaway - Green Day: From my high school days, back when Blink 182 where the cool new thing. Warning gets a fair amount of criticism, but it was my first real exposure to Green Day, and I think it holds up fine.

Fashion Awards - Eels: Not my favourite Eels song, but I'm another one who submitted to BKV's relentless pimpery of them, and I now own most of their albums. I'm suprised it took me this long - Novacain for the Soul was the third single I ever bought.

Good Day, Good Sir - Outkast: One of the "funny talking ones" that most hip hop artists seem to put on albums, this one's from The Love Below. I never really dug this album this much - maybe it was too overhyped and I expected too much.

Whiskeyclone, Hotel City 1997 - Beck: Another weaker song from a great album (Mellow Gold in this case). Beck is one of my favourite artists, and probably the best live act I've seen so far.

24 Hour Party People - Happy Mondays: Taken from the soundtrack of the film of the same name, Happy Mondays kickstarted Madchester, which led to the Britpop and clubbing scene I grew up with, so this is really appeals.

Rap Machine - DJ Format: Old school hip hop from two Canadian rappers and a Brit DJ, this is pure raps over loops, done simply, done well. Should be far more well known than he is.

Sometimes - Ash: Another high school relic, Ash produced some great albums at the start of their career and dwindled over time. This is from their last decent album, at the height of their popularity - good solid tunes that take me back to being 14.

Know Your Onion! - The Shins: I love the Shins. Love 'em. I'd just got into them before Garden State exploded their popularity, and saw them live this summer at a great gig. It's literate but poppy, ethereal but jaunty. Love 'em.

Girls & Boys - Blur: Boy, this is throwing up a lot of music from my school days, although I guess Blur are the exception, in that they evolved as I grew up and continued to produce fantastic music. Hopefully, we'll see another album from them.

Junior Kickstart - The Go! Team: A real cracker to end the list. The Go! Team are impossible to describe, although it' always fun to try. Fatboy Slim remixes Sesame Street? Sonic Youth soundtracking a blaxploitation film? The best double dutch chant you never heard? Just listen to them.

Occupational Injury

2006-07-31T20:21:00.000Z

Two days of walking around London with a heavy backpack followed by a trip to the beach where I had to walk around with a heavy backpack appears to have strained, pulled or crushed something in my torso and it now feels like there's an eight year old child standing on my chest most of the time (how I know what that feels like is a story for another time). As a result, I've been taking it easy, mostly trying to narrow my DVD collection down 'til it fits in my 128 space CD folder (a lot harder than it sounds) and prepping for later in the week, which'll be fairly hectic and culminate hopefully in drunk and disorderly behaviour at the Waterfront's 80s Night.

Also, my Visa has arrived. At the Embassy, I was told it'd take 5 working days if I was lucky, probably more because it was a busy period. I was told that if I wanted it at a specific time or on a Saturday I'd have to pay more. I was told that I'd receive a text on my mobile the day before, so I could be there with photo ID, 'cos I wouldn't get it any other way.

Two days later, on a Saturday, my mum accepts it for me because I'm out.

I'm not sure what that says about the system, but it damn well says something.

In 349.5 hours I'll be leaving the country in a big metal machine held aloft by physics I don't understand, and I won't be returning until at least Christmas. This is starting to get very real.

I Accept Visa

2006-07-27T23:16:00.000Z

They think they can scare me. They think they can intimidate me. But they forget - I'm British. Four hours of queuing on one of the hottest days of the year? No problem!

Today was my Visa appointment at the American Embassy in London. I went down yesterday and met up with some friends from uni, saw the Tate Modern, where we enjoyed some art and some not-quite-art, and then headed down to see my brother and his kids. This was the last time I'll see them before I go, and they were all on their best behaviour, which was nice. I'd hate to have my last memories of them for a year be of three kids all annoying each other to the point of violence.

Today was mostly queuing. I arrived at the embassy at 9.30 and left at about 2, which still left me enough time to wander around buying CDs and comics before catching the coach back. I'd been warned that American in bureaucratic jobs can be a little bit like robots (the evil kind, not the nice kind), but they all seemed fairly human. Hopefully, this is a good omen. There were no problems with the paperwork (and there was enough of it to go wrong), so in approximately five working days I should have it. Woo hoo!

Annnd...I'm back!

2006-07-22T12:27:00.000Z

Boy, that was a long gap.

I obviously haven't been on here for a long time, due to The Man finding out that our house was obtaining its Internet in a less than legal fashion, and then moving back home, where we didn't have the Internet (although that's been remedied). Equally obviously, stuff has happened while I've been away.

I won't give you a long list of exactly how much paperwork it takes to move to America to study for a year, but it's a lot. But the end is in sight. I have a Visa appointment at the US Embassy next week, bundled in with a chance to see some friends and my nephews and neice for the last time before I leave. I have plane tickets, insurance, more insurance, hotels and US-approved padlocks (so they don't break my locks when they bust open my suitcase, which they do to everyone now, apparently). I think I'm almost there.

In other, non-US news, I've got to send out a big prayer for my friend Jason. He turned 20 last week, and a few weeks before that, he was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease, which has no cure and means he'll be on steroids for pretty much the rest of his life. He's back in hospital right now, and I'm gonna go see him this afternoon. Jason is one of the most solid guys I know - he's loyal, friendly, smart, funny, and brave. No one deserves this less than him, and I can only hope that his life isn't too screwed up by this.

Stupid miscellaneous news - Over the past few weeks, I've watched seasons 1 to 6 of the West Wing. It is the best TV drama ever. Challenge me if you like - I'll win. Also, try to track down Through The Windowpane by The Guillemots - it's hard to describe, but it's great.

The best of yesterday's news

2006-04-13T00:20:00.000Z

I've been slogging away at essays for the last two weeks, and any free time was taken up by my girlfriend the Superheroine (which I've decided is worthy blog nickname that both preserves her anonymity and allows me to live out my geeky fantasies). But now, it's the Easter holidays, and although I should really be revising solid for the next month, I'm having a couple of days of kicking back and taking it easy.

I have very little money at the moment - a situation that isn't exactly without precedent - but I've been splashing out a little nonetheless. I'm spending a week back with my parents over Easter, which allows me to save on food, washing, etc., and so far, I've indulged myself and bought the best of Massive Attack, the new Flaming Lips album, King Kong on DVD and ordered Peng at my local comic shop. Tomorrow, I am buying some kickass Easter presents for the Superheroine and, more importantly, buying a Suit (note the capitalisation - if all goes well, I will be blogging about how stylish I am this time tomorrow).

That about sums up my two weeks without blogging - wrote academic rubbish, spent time with lacking-in-Internet-but-in-all-other-ways-perfect girlfriend's flat, bought things I can't afford.

Man, my life is dull. Thank God I'm headed stateside in roughly 100 days. Eep.

2006-04-12T11:32:00.000Z

I've not posted for about two weeks - essay deadlines and boyfriendly duties hold precendent, I'm afraid. I'll do a big update tonight, I hope, but for the moment, enjoy this blog-based boondangle, courtesy of Jeff X, proprietor of the House of X (see my links), one of the blogs I regularly read and enjoy.

Go to Wikipedia and look up your birth day (excluding the year). List 3 interesting facts, 2 births, and 1 death in your journal, including the year.

JANUARY 7

Events:1894 - W.K. Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film.

1927 - The Harlem Globetrotters play their first game.

1999 - The impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton begins.

Births:1 BC (O.S.) - Jesus of Nazareth, central figure of Christianity, date celebrated by Eastern Orthodox churches as Christmas (d. circa 30)

1964 - Nicholas Cage, American actor.

Death:1943 - Nikola Tesla, Serbian-born inventor and electrical engineer (b. 1856)

One down...

2006-03-29T11:55:00.000Z

Just finished one of my essays, and I'm well into my Academic Victory Dance.

So, I can wave goodbye to Thomas Pynchon and the role of silence in The Crying of Lot 49, and say hello to Salman Rushdie and the role of multiculturalism in The Moor's Last Sigh. The deadline of which has been moved forward to Tuesday.

Grrr.

Still, looking on the bright side, I'm handing in my San Francisco State University application in the next couple of days, and after April 7th, I'm home free.

Now, if only I could stay off the Internet...

Calculations and declarations

2006-03-24T19:25:00.000Z

As of today, I have 12 days in which to produce a 2500 word essay on The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon, and a 2500 word essay on The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie.
I have 13 days in which to produce a 2000 word short story on a subject of my choice, and a 500 word critical self-commentary to accompany it.
I have 13 days in which to complete my forms for applying to San Francisco State University.
I am working at least 6 of these days.
I have one 282 page novel to read for Tuesday afternoon.
I have one visit home to fit in on Mother's Day.
I have one party to attend, and one evening out at Laserquest, both of which I have deemed necessary to prevent my head from exploding.
And I'm sitting here, writing this blog.

Conventional wisdom would say I'm pretty much screwed.

I say, the hell with convention.

I've never been beaten by a deadline, and I ain't gonna start now. So excuse me while I finish this 2 litre bottle of Dr Pepper and let my brain work in strange ways.

Notes on a transcendent lunchtime

2006-03-23T21:55:00.000Z

It's the first true day of spring and, one could argue, the first hint at summer. The sky is a blue, cloudless sheet stretched over the university campus, and the sun and the rumour of wind blowing across the Square combine into the perfect temperature - not too hot, not too cold. The steps around the Square are filled with the fashion show that is students at lunch: everywhere you look, people are talking, laughing, reading, kissing.

It's 1.30, and already the occasional person is wandering up from the Union Bar clasping an extremely tempting cold pint of lager in their hand. And to make it all the more special, I have returned from the sandwich store to find the Music Society's swing band has set up in front of the chaplaincy and is entertaining me with a selection of their finest arrangements.

It's times like this I wonder if I've wandered into some kind of Richard Curtis-written biopic of my life, rather than the real deal. The History department has got an open day on today, and I can't help but think that most of the gaggle of 18-year olds trailing across the square behind their guide, looking like baby ducklings following their mother, will be here next year. If you were introduced to the UEA on a day like today, you would be.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

2006-03-18T23:42:00.000Z

Actually, it's pretty much just the best of times. I'm sat here at my computer, bottle of wine on my right, packet of lime flavoured Doritos on my left, Eels playing on iTunes as I work my way through The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie, awaiting my girlfriend's return from the party she left for an hour ago, dressed as a superhero. When she returns, we will eat cookies and ice-cream, and watch movies until we fall asleep or are otherwise distracted.

So have I really created this blog just to brag about how great my life is? Well, not entirely.

This thing's main purpose is to serve as a journal of what will probably be the biggest event in my life to date, when I move to San Francisco for a year as part of a student exchange program (God bless you, University). At the moment, everything is still in the form-filling stages, although I have chosen what courses I hope to attend (everything from Robert Frost to Woody Allen, via world peace, I kid you not) and I'm meeting up with people who are also headed to SF in the hopes of finding some flat mates.

Any major developments are sure to be listed here, as are trivial details from my life, odd news stories, cool links and various other gubbins. Once I head over there, this place will serve as a news source for everyone who can't afford the transatlantic phone charges. As for now, I'm gonna finish this glass of wine, bury my head in a book and eagerly await my superheroine's return.

See you all soon.

Tim