Ok, so no exciting story

The story? Well, the plan WAS to go to the airport, and check in my luggage. Seeing as I only had a coupl'a tees and some jeans, and they were in a plastic bag, there really wouldn't appear to be a need to. But, oh, there was.

See, in the oosa, the airports have this quaint law about not carrying more than 3oz (whatever THAT is. Whenever I see oz, I think of the lamentable teenage mutant ninja turtles movie: "The Secret of the Ooze" (or maybe it was a game)) of liquid... and yep, you gueesed, I am packin' more than that.
"How?" You ask, oh so helpfully? No, really, do you? Oh! You do! Good!

Well, because I carry contact-lens fluid on me. Going TO NYC, the delights at customs not only insisted I throw away my 4oz container, but ALSO that I throw away my mostly-used toothpaste. Why I'd brought it, I don't know, I hadn't brought the brush. There are 2 ways to carry these deadly liquids through the oosa airspace, by the way. One is by putting it in a clear, quart-sized zip-locked bag zzzz-zzzzzzz-zzzzz.

The other is to check it in! Obvious.

So, the plan was, on the way back from NYC to SFO (I don't know what the 'O' means, the airport is called San Fran International...), to check in my contact lense fluid. Think of the hilarity at 1am when I toddle off the plane, only to have to go to the rotating thinggummy whatsit to wait for my contact lens bottle, that would dutifully trundle off the conveyor belt, alongside the other bags.

Ok, it's a pretty funny image, except that had I done it, it would have been 1am and I wouldn't have bothered. As it happens, though, I didn't do it. And NOT because I wasn't allowed to... but because I didn't need to. Yep, they just let me carry my contact-lens fluid RIGHT ONTO THAT PLANE. God knows what the "evil forces" that threaten this fine nation (oosa) will do with that info now it's on the internet, but I'm not flying here again!

Oh, and Fox News? I watched one of your shows tonight - it's called the "Bill O'Reilly Show". Just thought I should let you know, after watching it? My IQ dropped... that darn thing isn't high to start with, and your show's simplistic grammar and easy-to-reuse point of view (the world is, apparantly, full of "good guys" and "bad guys") has lowered it more. It took my a full ten minutes to open the fridge door after watching your show, and it was only later that I realised that I'd really wanted to go out and get some milk. I was wondering why it was so dark outside. And cold. And small.

I'll sue! That's what I'll do!

New York, New Yooooork

Which is where I am... of course, I'm blowing outta here in a few hours, but it's been pretty fun!

I visited my good friend Dave, who owns a collection of the largest screens in the world in his apartment, and got up to, well, not alot. I saw a thai masseuse here, and that was actually very good.
I also was chatted up by a gay businessman here, who gave me his card - I don't know, I don't think he was a keeper.
Oh! And I had a california roll. Yes, that's right - I come FROM San Fran, TO NYC, and do all the traditional san fran things in nyc (hippy massage, gay chat up, california roll... oh, wait, you readers aren't stupid. Sorry...). Anyhoo, a tad hung over right now, on account of not having drunk any beer at all at any time whilst in nyc. Nope, not me.

Things I saw: that statue (of liberty!) (from a distance!), the wtc site, central park, time's square (very bright), and etc.

Ok, that's all now... but after the flight back home (to san fran), I think there might be a pretty cool sotry in the telling. It just hasn't happened... yet.

Just going swimming!

And that's a blog entry to blow ANYONE away.

I am going to ny!

Tomorrow, actually. Only I get there on saturday morning. Who knows what madcap hijinks I will get up to?

In other news:
I'm seriously thinking of becoming an osteopath. There are many reasons for this, including:
1. they earn good money
2. it seems like a fun enough job
3. 90% of the current practitioners are ape-shit stupid incompetents. Like, quite frankly, most of the medical field... but let's not go down THAT path. My rant here is on the ridiculously low quality of osteopathy in the states and london! And it's over now, because it's a boring rant. But next week? When I meet (another) osteopath? I'm laying the smackdown hard on this poor fool, and if he's another weak wristed, "oooh, I don't want to apply pressure on you" (I mean, dude, you're an OSTEOPATH. That is your JOB, to apply pressure. So it HURTS. I'm in IT, do I go around saying "yeah, I can fix your problem, and I won't even use a compuer? No, I don't. Because that is plain stupid)

So! People are wanting the story of how I nearly killed myself. It's pretty simple, and for the benefit of all our readers, I'm going to give it to you in easy, fool-proof (and believe me, mostly fools will be doing this) steps! Now fun for everyone!

1. imbibe your favourite beverage, unless it's not beer. In that case, imbibe beer.
2. imbibe more, because you are in a yankee pub for the first time ever, and that's how you roll.
3. repeat steps 1 & 2.
4. And 3.
5. start again.
6. and one for the road! Only throw this one away - you know your limits!
7. go home, cook pasta.
8. keep cooking.
9. god, pasta takes a long time to cook. Why not have a nap?
10. Wake up. Think: "whoo! Tired, ... stupid alarm-clock going off at 6:19am. Gee, that pub must have been smoky, the room is full of smoke."
11. swear. Realise pasta has cooked for 4 hours, and will probably be soggy and revolting. Go and clean up pot.
12. swear some more, pasta is carbonated. Check out smoke alarm, and find it chillaxin' on the wall, looking at proceedings with a mirthful grin.
13. stay in room for another night, and wonder why you are having difficulty sleeping. Don't think about the smoke, and the health hazard it is.
14. try to sleep the following night. Have an epiphany! Put off joining scientology for another day, and try to go back to bed.
15. Have ANOTHER epiphany, and realise should probably leave smoky, cancer-hazardous room.
16. sleep in lobby.
17. next day complain, and get moved to new, nicer room, bigger, and get clothes washed on the house.
18. write up on blog, so others can try this out too! One has to share!

Yes! Only 18 steps! And the price? It's only free! Where else can you get such a dealeeo?

Ok, so, tomorrow:
- kick ass in IT some more.
- go to nyc
- maybe book a chiropractor? Because, y'know, good osteos are rare.

Oh, and I'm seeing another osteo-type tomorrow

Because, gosh and darn it, a tight whatever muscle it is, is not fun at all. Yeah, I know, how do I come up with such riveting topics on this blog?

Well, would you rather read about IT stuff? Oh, really? Well, too bad. I'm hoping that yank osteos are better than, let's face it, the incredibly piss-weak osteos that live in the UK. Will my sacro-iliac muscle be un-tensed (maybe)? Will I spend a fortune (yes, actually)? Will I, once again healthy, have totally crazy stories to tell you (yep)?

PS Everyone! When staying at a serviced apartment, it is considered BAD FORM to try and burn the place down. I'm just sayin', that's all. Unlikely that I nearly did. No siree, nothing crazy like that happened. Nope.
Move along, people...

I see... naked people

Also, I'm worried I have PAD. What is PAD? Who does it target? I don't know, but I just saw a TOTALLY REALLY REAL advert ON TV that told me that PAD has "no symptoms" and that you shouldn't wait UNTIL the symptoms begin, because then it's too late.

Which means that, well, everyone should be treating themselves for PAD. That means YOU faithful blog-reader! Yes, you must be careful, lest you DIE of PAD. Order a brochure today, and be safe!

What crap. Aaah, fear mongering, can it EVER go wrong?

Also, the naked people? The San Fran equivalent of the city to surf. Think the Sydney version, now add alcohol, and more drunk people than you can possibly poke a stick at. I mean, really super drunk people. They get naked, they pass out on the sidewalk, it was a freaking zoo!
I saw the snuffulufagus, for pete's sake!
From Seasame Street, that's not American lingo. Word.

Anyway, met up with Erin (from Greece!) again, and she showed me the sights of San Fran (and, as you may be gathering, these are quite the sights, these sights), which was very nice of her! Thanks, Erin!

Anyway, I was totally knackered, so after the crazyness of the san fran city2surf, I headed back home, went to work today, went to the gym (i know! I am so proud!) and then wrote on my blog.

And got worried about PAD!

Do YOU have PAD?

Ok, so I went swimming today!

It was initially going to cost just $20usd to use the pool all day at the local gym, but then they explained that, really, I should get a $95/month membership to use the pool all the time, and THEN after chatting to them, they gave me a 3 day pass for free.
I'm going to try this one at all the local gyms and maybe not pay for gym use for a month?

PS If you are Emma and reading this, I *know* I wrote this to you, but I thought I'd write it again. I mean, c'mon, it's not like I have a plethora of jokes here.

Oh! My first week at work was fine, actually, nice team, place is nearby, happy memories.

Tomorrow is the San Fran equivalent of the "city to surf" which I'm going to go to - I'll just make it a giant pub crawl, I suppose, seeing as I'm not about to do the whole marathon thing. I figure, that's ONE way to meet people here!

Ohmigod! Have I written about the spaniard-ish people here? It's so cool! It's similar to those american movies with the spanish/latino guy:
"Aye see you wan a sweem, eh homes? You wanna paey fo' wan day, or you wanna membersheep?"
Totally like that. Actually, I have a phone here that doesn't work, because, well, it's a long story but I'll tell you because, HEY, if you're reading this, you probably aren't finding a cure for cancer or anything important, right?
Pretty much, my battery is dieing, and I don't have an adaptor. So I need one. But, in the meantime, I have a yankee sim card, which I need to "activate" to use the phone. So, using the dregs of my battery, I call the number to activate it... and it's not a "press this number for this service thing", it's an automated "speak into the phone telling me the service you want, and we send you there."

Great idea, except I DON'T speak "american". So I'm all "activate my sim card" and the voice says
"You want to run for president. If this is correct, say yes. If not, say no"
and I say "no"
Then I say a number, just for fun - "123456789"
And she says:
"You said 5874256874" - no kidding! Aside from the president thing, I was joking there. But the numbers? It was whack! So I put on a latino/yankee accent and positively DRAWL into the phone, in the way I would when I'm mocking the "american" language and trying to be cletus, the slack jawed local?
The automated system TOTALLY work out what I said. I think my american is comign along pretty good!

Working again!

So! After my time being an unemployed Indian Actor, whose last gig was a major Bollywood film starring the luminaries of indian film like, umm, I forget, I've just done a full days work here in san fran! Fun!

I don't want to kill people with excitement, so I'll skip what I did at work today, and discuss: Butter. Or rather, butter as in, I can't seem to find any here in the oosa! They have margarine, sure, and they have "cream filled butter" that comes in a paper box and looks, well, weird. But where is the butter with the olive oil and the reduction in cholesterol? Huh? Where?

Also - today, I got my sink unplugged by a li'l old spanish guy, who kept on leaving the room to "get tools" and then coming back, without tools, but smelling of smoke. The big question is: "how much do I tip him?" He was there for, what, an hour? With a drill and a plunger and other stuff, and then he fixed my toilet too, which was apparantly broken. I gave him a tenner in the end - is this too much? Too little? I don't know!
And what happens if I don't tip enough? Do they refuse service? Spit in my food? Clog my sink?

Also, police in Australia will be monitoring a nude car wash for "x-rated illegal activities"... how are they proposing to monitor this?

Also: Fox News. Because They Can.

I was watching some presidential debate yesterday - between republican guys wanting to be presidential candidates. They went into super-crazy overdrive, among the better (verbatim) quotes are:

On american culture:
"America is the last bastion of Western Civilisation" (and that's with an "s" oosa!) [republican guy #1]

On torture:
"I would tell the interrogators to use every measure they could think of" [Giuliani]

"Some people have said we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is, we ought to double Guantanamo," (Or maybe triple it!) [Romney]

On combating terrorism:
"I would be looking for Jack Bauer" (Goal oriented leadership!) [republican guy #2]

On 9/11:
"They attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. ... Right now, we're building an embassy in Iraq that is bigger than the Vatican. We're building 14 permanent bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting.
(I think this particular Republican forgot he was a Republican on the day) [Ron Paul]
--In response:
--"I don't think I have ever heard that before and I have heard some pretty absurd explanations for Sept. 11" (I don't know, because you only watch Fox? It's not THAT uncommon a viewpoint...) [Giuliani]

And of course, today on Fox News (Because They Can), a look at how REPUBLICAN debates are different from DEMOCRAT debates. Conclusion: REPUBLICAN ones are better, because they have REPUBLICANS, and also ask tougher questions, like "What would you do if you were the president and had a situation like the ones that come up on 24 all the time?" (where the answer, or course, is to torture people and get Jack Bauer).

And look at this poll!
"Should Congress change the law that allows its members to trade stocks on non-public information?"
56% - yes
44% - no
What sort of crazy country IS the oosa? And how do I get into Congress?

Yo! S'up HOME BoyZ? Yo talkin' toe me?

Ok, so I'm in The United States of America, also known as The Oosa! It's apparently a country of some importance near Canada, although seeing as most people in Australia don't know much about the war-like Oosa people (except that they are war-like. And near Canada), I have had to do a lot of research for this trip.

The first is learning the local lingo, which in this case is called "American". It appears to be a derivation of English, but is spoken with a slur and has a hearty helping of the letter 'z' put everywhere imaginable. They also like to drop off letters - for example, the title of this blog actually reads (in english)
"Hello! How are you, friend? Did you say something earlier?"
I've been trying my "american" out with people here, with some limited successes, I suppose I'll have to keep studying those notes!

Kidding aside (most Australians know The Oosa is also near Mexico) I'm in San Fran right now. I've returned to the mundane world of working, which, after kicking around London for a while, figured that the oosa would be a nicer place to check out. So I am back to IT (again) working for another large bank (this one's British!) and am, well, going to work tomorrow. For the first time in, what? More than a year? Unless you count my time working in India as a poorly paid actor for a day, in which case I've only been out of work for a few months.

What else? Well, I've been put up in a suite here in "The Financial Sector" with, ummm, a distinctly 80's decor? It's serviced, it just doesn't have any cutlery, which was a nice touch, and made eating ice cream impossible last night. I also don't know about tipping! This morning, at the breakfast area, there's a woman whose sole job is to
put bread on my plate and I think I maybe should have tipped her. Because she had a plate full of money next to her.

And I can watch tv again! Very exciting - I have 60+ channels, all of them full of crap. And medical drug ads. In the UK, all the drug ads are trying to get you to be a guinea pig. In america, they are for you to buy pharmaceuticals - anything from the pill (the disclaimer went on for 30 seconds, and explained that the pill did not stop hiv) to "natural male enhancement drugs". From the ad, I couldn't work if it was for viagra or hair enhancement, it was just a bunch of men wandering around waving their arms every so often.

Finally, a big big thanks to Emma, from Melbourne, who SAVED MY LIFE whilst I was in London by giving me a floor to sleep on, a room to lock us both out of, an oven to ignite the occasional cookie in, and person to talk to lots, to stave off the madness. Thanks again Emma, you're as beautiful as you are kind (and you are very kind!)

News!

Ok, so, roughly, I have no news. But I might!

In the meantime, I'm going to stop adding things to this blog, until I get news to tell you.

I mean, aside from the fact that I met a policeman in London who sang me the nursery rhyme "Muffin Man" when I asked him to.

But that's the kind of news that doesn't make the front page of the new york times, and if it doesn't even make THEIR shoddy standards, then no way is it going to be considered news at the MOART. Because we have real news. The news that other people don't have, because they just can't cut the mustard.

Probably. Maybe because they spend all their time trying to cut the mustard? Instead of getting news? I don't know.

Excelsior!

PS Oh! I saw Spiderman 3, and it was very good.