Some fun photography for all you fans

I finally got off my ass and uploaded new pictures to my computer, so here they are for the benefit of all of you who have been bothering me for pictures of London.

This one of the many things I get to look at on my way to work every day. One of the things that I love about living in London are the buildings. I'm constantly stopping Matt and saying 'Look at that!' It's not the best picture in the world, but I like it!


This is part of the Royal Courts of Justice, which I work about 5 minutes walk from. The building is amazing, and tourists are always stopping to take pictures of the front of it (it's on Fleet Street). This is down a little alleyway that tourists never go down, and it's a shame because I really like the old fashioned lamp post that's to the right of the frame.
And this is the absolutely stunning view of St. Paul's Cathedral from the building that Matt worked in. It's beautiful. It's also where my new profile photo was taken, from the other side of the building back across London.

This fair and green land

I've recently finished reading an interesting book (yeah, I know, you're surprised, me reading) titled Watching the English, and after living here for several years it's amazing how right-on it actually is. Before I moved over, I'd read Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson and couldn't bring myself to believe the things he talked about in his book. An orderly queue of one? What is a queue? Why is there only one in it?

However, after living here for almost 4 years now... EVERY WORD HE SAID IS TRUE. The English are a strange, funny little people, and Watching the English only confirmed this. There was a phrase in the book that I thought summed up England perfectly (besides that they have satire instead of revolutions) and it is the English 'protest' chant. You know, like when Americans are marching to protest something, and they shout 'What do we want?' 'World Peace!' 'When do we want it?' 'NOW!'

The English chant goes 'What do we want?'
'GRADUAL CHANGE!'
'When do we want it?'
'IN DUE COURSE!'

And that, my dear friends, is England to perfection.

And if it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college...

Over heard on while dragging Matt around London on Saturday:

"On birthdays, I really want to give people something that will last forever. Like cufflinks."

"Oooo! Cheese!!"

"Um...do you think we're on Oxford Street yet?" (While stood under a very large sign saying, you guessed it 'Oxford Street')

Blowin' shit up

I've just read a friend's blog, and decided to voice my opinion around the recent events in the United Kingdom.

Terrorism is scary. That's why we've given it a name with 'terror' in it. It seems to be completely random, except to those in charge of it, and is a game of opportunism. I don't believe that Islam is telling these men to blow people up, I believe that other men are doing that. I think that America needs to take a step back, realize that by getting all up in other people's shit they're just screwing themselves over. I think that America needs to get its act together, have everyone sit down and discuss just what we're trying to get from the rest of the world anyway, and get a foreign policy that doesn't change with the whims of Fate.

I'm sick of getting up in the morning and having the vague thought that something might blow up somewhere in the world today, because no one listens to each other or thinks about the world beyond their borders as holding opinions that matter. If my family or friends were on their way to visit me and died because of a terrorist attack, I could never forgive myself. I worry that when I get on a plane to go home, I worry that I will be killed because of something a government that I did not vote for and do not support has done.

And I don't know what I can do about any of it. And that just makes me more afraid.

He's slowly killing giraffes in his sleep

Living with a boyfriend for long periods exposes you to all sorts of things you never would have thought of when you were giggling after the lights were out with your best friend when you were 12 and just realizing that wow, boys were kind of...interesting. Like the finer points of nostril hair, and having to explain why a grown man refuses to eat mushrooms.

One of the most perplexing things, however, is when he comes down with a cold. Women just sort of sniffle and move on, but men are DYING, oh god, what did they do to deserve this cruel fate? Matt currently has a sore throat and a runny nose, and the World is Ending, right now, as we speak. He lethargically flops around the flat, sniffling morosely, unable to do anything more complex than lie there and look pitiful.

At night, however...

I'm not a sound sleeper, really. If I'm really tired I'll sort of keel over and you won't be able to wake me, but usually noises will wake me up. Unlessl they're in a predictible pattern that my brain can get used to. However, when Matt's ill, he snores. Not nicely, like people do on TV in a cute little soft way, but like he is slowly torturing safari animals to death with his teeth and by God they just will not die. These noises come from him completely randomly. They don't seem to be linked to breathing out or in, whether he's on his back or front or side, no pattern to them at all. So all last night, while trying to sleep, every couple of minutes my eyes would fly open in terror that a small cute monkey had just exploded next to me.

The best bit in all this? After I dragged myself blinking groggily out of bed this morning, he rolled over and didn't make a sound until I left for work.

Why, God, Why?

Because I very rarely have anything to actually do at work (right now, anyway. Apparently in September it gets busy. Sometimes.), I spend quite alot of time clicking on 'Next Blog' on Blogger just to see if I can find anything interesting. I've discovered some pretty interesting blogs this way, and am now an avid reader of a programmer from Seattle who likes hiking, and an American who teaches English in Japan. I have, however, begun to notice certain things, and have a few points to make.

1. I need to learn some other languages, specifically Spanish and Portuguse, just so I can actually read all the blogs that the random button throws up.

2. In a description of who you are, having a picture of your son/daughter instead of yourself and saying that you're their mother doesn't say much about Who You Are.

3. http://patrioticparticipant.blogspot.com/ For f*ck's sake. I am American, and I don't usually try to pretend that I'm not, but this is the blog version of going to a foreign country and thinking that if you talk louder, they'll be able to understand you. I couldn't get past the format to read what the guy was trying to say, my eyes were so...overwhelmed.

4. If I read one more 'And thank you, God, for getting me through this day' I'm going to puke. If that's all you have to say, take it off the net and go to church.

5. If all you are going to do on your blog is whinge about how bad you have it, maybe you should watch the news sometime. Unless you're in America. Where they don't have news, they have press releases from the White House. Because those guys in Lebanon? They have it bad right now.

6. If you are under 20, learn to speak English, if you speak English. I'm all for w00t and j00 when playing games, but having to decipher everything before you can understand it is not the best way to get your message across.

I don't have anything against freedom of expression. After all, that's why I can hold the above opinions. But the crap that is out there is mindblowing. I'm sure someone feels the same way about this, but I like to pretend that they don't. So yeah. Just my 2 cents, or would that be 2 pence?

Things that always seem to come back and bite you in the ass

There are two people in this world that have the ability to turn me into a paranoid, quivering wreck regardless of my current circumstances, mood, or frame of mind. Running into them screws me up for quite some time, and hearing from them instantly makes me wonder what they want. Not because they necessarily want anything, but because both of them seriously screw with my head. And I seriously doubt they know that they do this.

One of them is the first man I ever really loved. I haven't heard from him in about 5 years. I hope he's doing well, but since the last time I saw him I burst into tears after he was gone I don't really want to see him again.

The second is a little trickier. He still talks to and knows people that I talk to and know. I still have him on my IM simply because if I took him off, and then he talked to me, it would be entirely too much of a surprise. But every time I talk to him I'm back in his room after my really shit day, staring blankly at his digital clock, and hearing him say 'I don't think we should do this any more' as my heart breaks and he doesn't even look up from his computer screen. I can remember the whole stupid conversation, I can even remember what time his clock said. He broke me for quite some time, and I didn't realize that he had until much much later.

Part of me thinks that if I could see both of them again, just spend an hour or so with each of them, that their ability to screw with me would go away. After all, I'm not who I was when they knew me and I seriously doubt that they are who they are when I knew them. The thing that kills me though is that I don't know if I want them to change from what I knew. Both of them came along in parts of my life that burned so much brighter, and I don't think that I want to chance the spark dimming. So maybe I'll just try to start enjoying the occasional head-fuck, and start thinking about it as something that keeps me young.

Microsoft is the evil empire...

...and yada yada yada. But this game? This game I might have to go out and buy a 360 specifically so I can play it.