24/7 just got a whole lot shorter

So i'm moving out of my apartment and leaving the states. I think. I don't really know as of now, but i might tomorrow! Or not, who can tell?

Selling things is fun... things that i need are actually not valued at much at all, so i am trying to sell them for as cheap as possible. Just so someone will pick it up - anyway, i have a few things sold, and a few things looking to be sold, so i figure i should cancel my energy & cable services.

And pg&e? Bless their cotton socks, cancelling was simple - a long wait, but simple. But comcast? Comcast?

Not so simple - their call center is "their for you, 24/7". So then i call up, and go through the menagerie that is american voice-automated systems... oh no, wait, that was pg&e. But i have to put on an accent so the voice thing gets what i want to do.

But comcast... "we're sorry, we're closed". Closed! Closed? When did 24/7 get... oh sod it. I'm going to go to the gym. And then maybe eat some food. Yum!

Do you mind if a feel you up?

Birthday question of the willenium! and, or as ze germans say, und, it was asked, of me, by a man!
I know! Clearly, he was far too charming for me!

Ok, so, that's not a really great summery of the first 4 hours of my birthday, but it's pretty close. Or not. The first 4 hours were actually spent dancing with some girls, getting lost, and walking a long, looooooong way with this dude. And then, on me turning him down (sorry bub, but my gay-resisto meter is at an all time high after san fran!), he is kind enough to offer to let me sleep in his apartment! Again with the no, but still.

Ok, so that's a pretty disjointed summary. Oh, and then I went out again later that, well, day, I suppose, and partied with Czecks and some, Germans? I think they were Germans. Some guy drank too much and fell over, but it wasn't me! I know, weird, no? And... uh, and other things happened too!

I did an impromptu pub tour as well - but that was last night. It's been pretty laid back here, to be honest. Oh, and my thai masseuse made me an...

Indecent Proposal

but i turned her down. First she offered for a fee, then for free! These Thais, they'll never make money with such bad business plans. But then again, I don't have any money anyway, so who am i to talk? Write? Aaaah!

Choos!

That is german for "aaaah! Hans! the Russian trains are coming, run, run for the hills!". I think. They say it often here, which is weird, but hey, zey are ze germans, no?

What will i eat today?

Maybe some humble pie? Yes! Humble pie it is then, that sounds de-licious!

Ok, so here i am, well paid and blah blah, and almost totally and utterly broke. Again. Its an interesting fact i just learnt (or is it learned? I sure am getting there, if mistakes make you smarter) that you live within your means. Or a bit above them.

ME? I live above them... most of the time. Its a fun way to do things, i promise you, but not with a great future.
Anyway, people didn't come here to read about my budgeting woes (actually, they didn't come here at all, but that's another thing altogether) - they came here to read about my utter inane fury with google for not, you know, letting me change the language on blogspot.com until AFTER I lof in. Which is pretty damn difficult if you, say, do not speak german. And I think we can all say that.

Anyhoo, lets quickly cover Berlin, which is awesome.

Berlin is awesome, there is drinking, and partying until 6am in the morning, or later if you like partying that hard, but i cannot... there are sites, and bicycles to ride, and gosh darn it, it is just all over awesome.
I hung out with some fun Slovenians (fact! Slovenia is not a dictatorship, nor is it communist, and the people can actually speak english... and they even have electricity!) for a few days, some germans for other days, some british on other days, oh it was fun! I should just note that one of the Slovenians had the incredibly awesome name of Zala, which pretty much means she's going to marry, I don't know, Ming? The guy with no mercy? And rule a small planetoid somewhere.

Then I took a very nice train ride, met the head of the PR dept. of the red cross in Germany (who was wearing read and black!) and ended up in Munich. It is nice, but i am tired of big cities again, so i head off to some small township nestled in the mountains of... somewhere. NEarby, anyway!

I will let you all know how that ends up, but it will be good! Or bad!

I am in love. All over again.

With europe. So! As you may guess, if you have your detectoring hat on (do you? you really should!) i am in europe again, having left the americans to america. I always get sooooo worried whenever i leap across to another country, and then when i get there, i enjoy myself - fortunately, I know this, so i simply can savour the fear and the enjoyment.

Like a fine beer. Hoegaarden? Why not?

So! I am in London, I just saw the notting hill fair thing - it was quite boring. Apparantly i only saw the preamble, and the main event is tomorrow. But tomorrow, houn houn houn, I will be in france! Hooray!

I'm trying to book my tickets now - oh, but i should tell you a story about the flight over here! There was a grumpy canadian border-official

gcbo: 'ow long will you be in London?'
me: 'not long - 3 weeks'
gcbo: 'why - business? Travel?'
me: 'travel!'
gcbo: 'do you know anyone there?'
me: 'no!' ~ i lie here, but it is ok. He was being rude... oh, wait, i should, in the interests of fairness, include the initial greeting:

gcbo: 'bonjour monsiour!'
me: 'awww, cheers! G'day mate!'

I think that put his delightful little frencho nose all out of sorts. But i will see! 'ow will ze french 'andle my style? A second anglo-invasion? Not off the cards people, not off the cards...

Anyway, this blog can now welcome maybe part 1 of the thrilling conclusion of Andrew's Adventures in Europe, this time with (a leetle) money! Much more fun!

I've met up with Emma & a distant relation called Summi, and am currently sleeping on the floor of emma's apartment - no, no worries. I am taking her out to nice dinners in thanks for saving me ridiculous hostel/hotel prices!

Ahhhh, i must book my ticket though! Or i will go nowhere tomorrow - tres terrible, no?

I'm in Australia!

A few things

1. Qantas? Your air stewards? Their accents? WAY too thick. I mean really, I like the dinky, ridiculously unprofessional aussie accent as much as the next person - but when I've got flight stewards honking around the airplane sounding like their day job is sheep shearing, well then, that's when we've got a problem.

2. I also nearly burst into giggles when I was talking to the person at the phone shop.

3. And the bread shop.

4. And the clothes shop.

5. Aussie accents sound ridiculous, I can't believe I once talked like t... oh wait, I still do? Great.

6! I can count past 5! I'm making a speech at Haran & Dim's wedding. I'll post photos (of their wedding, not my speech, which I haven't written yet and am panicing (why can I never spell panicking right?)) later on. Did you notice how there were 2 brackets there? That's the mark of a quality programmer.

7. If you're reading this, and you haven't bought (somehow) Paralysis & Denial (by my boss, Ken Flagg, and which I'm listening to now), then you're probably mum and are not, in fact, Ken. Just clearing that one up.

8. After a lot of people's opinions, I have, in fact, put on weight, and am, yes, doing everything I can to get rid of it. Bah to you people! Why can't a man age & increase in weight gracefully? Why?

9. I'm going to be job hunting when I get back to SF! What fun!

More news from America!

I'm going to Sydney tonight, which should be fun - there will be a 15 hour flight and if that doesn't spell fun for you, well then, you can probably spell pretty good. Airline food... you know, and I might be in a bit of minority here, but I really quite like airline food - it tends to be of pretty high quality.
Or I might just like peeling back aluminum (that's how the yanks spell it) foil to see food. Often i just wish there was more of it... hey, now there's an idea to lose weight - just eat airline food all the time. There's not alot of it, and it's reasonably good, ... I wonder how I can extend that one sentence into a 150 page booklet that will make me rich?

Oh oh! New title for my upcoming NBC sitcom!

"I got your america right here" OR "This is america" - i'm going to work on it with a coworker and it's going to be pretty darn snappy. Biggest issue? It's going to be to laughtrack or not. I hate them myself, so there's not going to be one.

What did I do today? I prepped for my flight, had lunch with a nice yankee bird, and drank some oj.

To Australia!

Third post! And now I need stuff to post about!

I'm going to go to a wedding soon! And I'm going to go to bed soon too! Which one will be sooner? The bed one! It's like Lawrence of Arabia all over again! (Bedouin. Sounds like "bed one", no?)

Today at work I worked! I know, fun AND different! It's not the type of different that I like too much, but yeah, let's keep it up. I really haven't done much interesting laterly, well, interesting by *my* standards... and look, i've circumnavigated the world, pretended to be Uzbekistani, been a pauper in London and been mugged by monkeys, so probably my average day is like the average person's wet dream (in terms of excitement, not like an ACTUAL actual person's wet dream, because... well, just because!), so to put all that to an end I'm going to try and organise a "Billy Connolly" day. Billy is a very funny Scottish comedian who I haven't ever really watched a full show of and who swears too much, but I'm sure that that won't pose a problem!

I'll organise a work team and let you know how it goes.

I also have to start looking for room-mates... I'm going to write up what just might be the world's most awesome room-mate ad and then post it here. And on Craigslist, becuase I actually want responses, and no one reads this thing.

Well, i do. And that's weird enough.

Oh! Drinks Friday!

So, on friday, I had some brunch with 2 other co workers at 10:30. Then we left three table at our trez-chich french restaurant half an hour later to accomodate another co-worker, who was late (so we had to wait for a table for 4, trez chich i tell you!), and were then joined by another bloke so we had...
a party of five!
After 2 bottles of champagne, we wandered out into a beautifully warm sunny day, and proceeded to walk down a street in hopes of finding a place to drink - fortunately, Bacchus was smiling that day (and every other day, but still) and we managed to find a pub that served alcohol! One of my co-workers was explaining patiently to us an interesting tale about a girl bringing *him* tulips, and that just shows how weird America is, and that's about all i can remember of that.

After some more drinks, we played the ever popular "spot the de-bagge", which is how you pronounce "douche-bag", doncher know! I won, totally spotted the angled bball cap with thongs and dyed blond hair - but someone did spot a de-bagge in a ferrari, so it was fun by all!

Oh wait, i need to go to sleep... maybe i'll write tomorrow?

New post number 2!

Because, well, I can't just post ONCE in, what the hey has it been? 4 months?? 4 of them??? CRAzY!

Well, I'm still in america, I've been here for a while, I'm probably going to be here for a while, and I've learnt that spending money? It's very easy. I'm still a programmer, but i now have an apartment! But I also now don't have a bed! But i have a sofa!

Exciting stories... exciting stories...


I talked to hippies! In Mexico! More about Mexico later! Oh, and Palenque? Go to Palenque. Now. It's very much Ankor Wat before the billion starving masses decided to move there and sell coca cola, crappy food and imitation clothing. That's clothing that looks like clothing, but is really just rags in disguise.
Palenque is beautiful, a drop of mysticism, a waft of spring, as refreshing as fighting the good fight. I cannot urge anyone reading this to go soon - I went in February, and it is brilliant. Quiet, moving, hot, shady, adjective adjective noun. Relaly, it's that good.

And there are hippies.

"Heyyyyyy maan, were is your mind right now?"
"My what?"
"Where are you? Can't you hear the trees? Oh, they're loving what we're experiencing now"

It was like that for a while. Actually, you know what? I'm going to go and buy some, ummmm, ice cream? No! Milk! And cookies! And I'm going to eat them. And then tell you more about the hippies.

Because I can!

Also - I'm going to stop those one off sentences for a bit. They're toop jarring.

Massively Late Post!

Hi there everyone! It's been a long while since I wrote, and seeing as this whole blog is just as much for *my* memory as your amusement (and yes, I suspect there are all of 0 of you out there... except maybe Ken on the occaisional days he sees some code of mine that refers to this thing), well, seeing as that's the case, I'm just going to write for myself!

First off - whoa! I didn't realise having a bad back could put me in such a crabby mood. I mean, honestly, I know I've tried writing here a few times, but on account of having been in pain, all i ended up doing was frothing like a rabid foaming thingy at commonplace events. Trees, americans, global warming, that kind of thing. So, to you, the occaisional reader who has stumbled on this by accident, I offer this pearl, nay, gem of wisdom:
don't get ill. And if you do? Don't get grumpy, on account of being ill.

There, I'm sure i've saved someone's life.

Life? Ah! But mine hasn't been *all* bad back! It's also been me having a stomach bug too... the benefit of the tummy bug is that I really don't drink so much. But bah! What a bother nonetheless.

Ok, that's my little whinge over. I'm going to write a new post, and this one will be a slice of awesome.

Promise.