Vive le Arse

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 03:38:51 GMT

if my friend Mark is right and this Ladytron member looks like a boy then someone needs to go out and get me the complete set of Erasure and Pet Shop Boys albums

Icer Air was pretty lame apart from Ladytron....alright, in a nerdy 18 year old way I was impressed by Tony Hawk too but otherwise, like Kate Hudson, it just wasn't meaty enough.

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 19:12:06 GMT

It's been about 2 years since I last posted but I needed to ensure that if the worst happens my death will be avenged; Should I be found weirdly contorted and bloated it's all due to the bug that bit me multiple times this morning. The thing was the size of my little finger and, I later found out when I squashed it, had the look of a cockroach about it but could fly.

Showing the kind of backhand that has put the English at the top of the professional tennis ladder, I missed it with many flings of a rolled up magazine before it somehow managed to divebomb down the neck of my t-shirt and spent the time it took me to yelp like a girl and pull my shirt off to bite me at least three times on the back. Justice was finally mine minutes later when an overhead volley sent the sucker to the floor where a book was then used to deliver the final blow. Should an autopsy be required, the body of said bug is now lying next to a half-eaten bagel in the kitchen bin. Lovely!

Much puffing and blowing later and my heartrate is back to normal but the bites are swollen and I have a headache - though I'm not ruling out pure hypochondria causing the latter.

The only thing that haunts me is I may never know how Lost ends. Or, for that matter, how Paris Hilton ends. Sad days.

Question..

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 18:06:29 GMT

Does getting bitten on your penis by a mosquito count as beastiality? Not that that happened to me last night you understand...

In other news, I'm feeling a strong need to get one of these

Frightening

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 23:49:42 GMT

Just thinking last week that I might have amoebas inside me was bad enough, I don't want to get a case of the humans.

Great mutton chops ahoy.

Mon, 19 Jun 2006 20:41:04 GMT

It's been months since I last posted. It was purely because I was waiting until I found something as good as the World Beard Championship to post about.

Those beards put my dad's efforts to shame but I'd still vote for him as he sent me an England supporters package today which included two England flags - one for the car, one for the apartment - an England t-shirt and, best of all, an inflatable cheer hand. There's no way they can't win the World Cup with me so adorned.

Question that's haunted me since I heard it

Wed, 12 Apr 2006 21:13:06 GMT

What would happen if you put a Chameleon on a mirror?

Mis-spent youth

Tue, 11 Apr 2006 20:20:06 GMT

According to this story the average salary of an English Premier League soccer player is about $1.2M. I can't tell you how glad I am that my parents would stop me playing footy until I got my homework done so I could get this job in IT instead of wasting time trying to make it in the soccer world.

Then again, maybe they recognised that my lack of talent and skinny bones would have a negative impact on my chances of soccer stardom.

I'm in the office today which would be awful but I'm still really excited by the fact that I get to wear my smart trousers which have a special mini-pocket inside the main pocket that holds your change in such a manner that the coins don't a-jingle-jangle when you walk. It's the simple things in life.

In exactly 39 days Kate and I fly to Vietnam. Cannot wait. The good news is that we won't miss San Francisco too much as it will be rainy season there as well. Stupid rain.

Wed, 08 Feb 2006 16:38:07 GMT

Nobody does romance like the English

Even without the story I would just love the picture of the couple. There's something about two people without a tooth between them that's strangely heart-warming.

And while I'm shirking writing any real entries by referencing other people's work, I read a comment yesterday that Columbo didn't in fact have a glass eye. The thinking being that the actor Peter Falk does have a glass eye but in the show the glass eye was playing the part of a real eye hence Columbo had two real eyes. It's messing with my mind. So deep!

Beth is back

Wed, 18 Jan 2006 23:18:03 GMT

Doubley good news - not only does Beth Orton finally have another album out but she's also going to be appearing at the Fillmore in March...

http://bethorton.astralwerks.com/

I just watched the video for Conceived from the website...I'm not sure about the song but the video is genius (assuming that it really was done tongue-in-cheek and I'm not over-estimating Beth's talent for comedy)

On a more negative note, I just saw a soccer player bite through the skin on his upper lip...right through! That's just not nice.

You can't put a muffler on a baby

Tue, 17 Jan 2006 22:35:57 GMT

I have just finished talking to my landlord about the screaming baby upstairs (see Kate's description) I can honestly say that I've never had, and hopefully never will have, any conversation with so much use of the phrase "you can't put a muffler on a baby."

Thankfully, the outcome was that my landlord will release me from the current lease when we find somewhere to move to. Which is great as it means we get to find a place in the Mission to live, hopefully with laundry and parking (I would love it, LOVE it, if we did,) but is also terrible as it means it's back to flat-hunting and packing/lifting/unpacking and all that. Gah!

If anyone sees any reasonable (under $2000) places in the Mission that you think we'll like let Kate know she can do all the legwork and then I can do my Roman Emperor impression and just give them a thumbs up or down

U.S.A..U.S.A..U.S.A etc and so on

Tue, 10 Jan 2006 14:43:47 GMT

I have my new visa, I can return to America next Monday. Hurrah!

I had a bit of a panic today that my passport wouldn't be returned before my flight next Monday and even called the courier company to see if they could tell me anything but they had a recorded message that said that I had to wait five days until speaking to a real person and basically to feck off, which was nice.

It turned out that while I was on that call my mum was calling to tell me the visa had arrived at my house. Actually, I think the main reason she was calling was to tell me off for the state my passport was in rather than the news that it arrived - I used it for over a year as my ID in San Francisco so it took a lot of flak in the Marina's (yes, I know..the Marina..I'm sorry, I'm cured now!) various bars.

Anyway, all done, all good. Phew.

Stupid, stupid, stooooopid

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 14:11:19 GMT

Stupid me for deciding to stay at my mate Chris' house last night, stupid British terrestrial TV for only having 5 channels; 3 of which were showing tat, one of which was showing highlights of a footy match we'd already watched and the one we ended up watching showing Invasion.

It's clearly a stupid show, with a stupidly stupid storyline and stupid actors acting stupidly...and yet, I'm hooked. We ended up watching three episodes into the small hours of the night and not once did I think it was a good show but not once did any of us suggest stop watching. And now I NEED to know whether the doctor really is an alien, if the crazy brother is going to die and whether the ranger's daughter can get any more sickeningly cute. Bah!

The only other problem is that I've discovered that in the US we're about 8 episodes ahead of the UK so I'm going to jump those episodes when I fly back next week - forget jetlag, i'm going to have Invasion-lag. Double-bah!

And to think if I'd been in America I could have had my favourite night of the week; take out sushi with Kate in front of Family Guy...THAT's why I have to get my visa ASAP!

Is it just me or is everything shit?

Fri, 06 Jan 2006 21:26:01 GMT

I have access to the internet outside work again at last. Not only that, but I'm just inches...well, days...away from getting my passport back from the US Embassy with a shiny new visa in it which should allow me to stay in SF for a couple more years....the only problem is that that's only if I keep the same job...same old story..etc and so on.

I spent 6 hours in the US Embassy waiting around for an interview that took all of 2 minutes before getting the visa application approved. During that time I read Is it just me or is everything shit which includes such entries as....

Cafes that charge excessive amounts for a mug of shit tea
A pound? A fucking pound? I KNOW what tea costs! I make it all the time!

OK, so it's not exactly Balzac..heck, it's not even Nick Hornby, but it is quite funny in places. Actually, it kind of sums up the English attitude; totally cynical, pretty miserable and moaning about everything but in a comedy style that can be very entertaining.

After so much time in upbeat California though I do find it a bit sad that us English are so negative about everything. Then again, I still say we're better than the Americans simply because it wasn't us who unleashed Mariah Carey on the world.

That's that, hope everyone had good holidays etc...happy new year and so on...

Me not lazy

Thu, 22 Dec 2005 00:45:26 GMT

So it's only taken 5 and a bit months for me to get round to my second livejournal entry...impressive eh? eh? oh.

I am going to get better at doing this though, I'm not quite as lazy as my output here suggests.

Went to the Mission last night to help Sharon celebrate her birthday. Had a really good time. I spent some time talking to Ian about his work and agreed that I'd send him my CV..resume, whatever you call it where you are..

It's opened up a major debate on my side though - do I want to continue working in an environment where I'm very comfortable, can work at home a lot of the time and easily produce good work because I'm so used to the organisation, the expectations etc or is it time to move on and take up a new, more challenging role that would almost certainly be more exciting but would also gobble up a whole extra chunk of the 'life' side of the work/life balance and probably also whack on an extra chunk of stress to boot.

When I write it like that it seems like the first option is a clear winner but when I think about my career and job enjoyment the second option is really tempting.

Meh, I don't know. Of course, it could all be academic as Flock (Ian's company) might not want me and/or getting a new Visa after my current one may be impossible anyways. Why couldn't I have been born with quadruple citizenship or something!

One thing's for sure now though, http://www.followsoccer.com isn't going to be my root to riches even though I did manage to get sponsorship for it a couple of months ago.

I'm cat sitting right now, so from one chore to another - cleaning the cat litter.

Fly to England in two days for Christmas. Wahoo. Bad weather, slow public transport and a power-crazed leader who seems to have lost it in his final term. It'll be like I've never left SF. Honk!

First entry stress...

Sat, 02 Jul 2005 19:42:50 GMT

I'm pretty sure the first post sets the tone for the rest of the journal and so should be something witty, interesting and profound right? Bugger.

Obviously, normally I'd be able to meet all those criteria without breaking a sweat, so I'm going to blame my total failure on Tim who woke me up at 6am this morning with his text messages. To be fair to the lad, it was worth his waking me up as he had just seen the girl who I truly believe is the prettiest girl in England, if not the whole of Europe - yes, even greater than Kate Beckinsale.

What she's doing working in a greasy spoon cafe and not strutting some catwalks in Milan I'll never know but she's only 17 so I guess she's still got plenty of time to be discovered. For now, she gets to serve the best (for best, read saltiest) bacon in the world so at least she's getting some form of job satisfaction...

Her stunningness (that really should be a word) is testified to by Tim's inability to stop his hands shaking while he was taking a pic of her with his phone. As soon as I figure out how to post pictures here I'll put it up so you can see his shoddiness and try to make out her beauty through the blurrrr.

My plans for today have changed continually through the week; first I was meant to be on a houseboat in LA, then a condo with a pool in Napa and now it's all broken down and I'm going up the road to a jazz festival - though after that we'll be heading to the beach so it's not all bad news. It's Cathy's last night in SF for a long time tonight as she's heading to Tokyo for two years tomorrow...I'm really going to miss her-sure she's a woman with an opinion and she's vegetarian (both things I obviously, really hate) but she's a great drinking buddy and that more than makes up for the rest!

Well that's the first post over with, reckon it sets me up to deliver nothing better for the future so guess this will be the first and only visit from most of you. In the words of KP, thanks for coming....

Shibby

Johno