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i didn’t make the drummer thing. i’m going to shoot for thursday. i started reading this thing on pub etiquette. it has some interesting stuff. i wonder how relevant it still is since it was published in 1996. i think i found it while trying to find out about the tipping situation in pubs. i like that it’s not expected. it would seem that the general situation is that service type jobs are not as looked down upon as they might be in birmingham. probably has something to do with the fact that so many people are in those types of jobs. what with all the tourists and all. there are 2 jobs that would seem to be at the bottom of the totem pole. one is these people standing in various areas (usually on main street corners in tourist areas) holding signs for things like mcdonalds and subway around the corner. what must the job interview for that be like, “can you hold a sign?”. “yes”. “you’re hired”.

the other job would, though more skill involved, would have to be these bicycle rickshaws. you’re a human motor. however, i do think these are pretty interesting, polution free taxi. i think it’s more of a tourist thing though instead of a normal mode of transportation. could you power the dart with homeless people? probably a good workout for your legs. is it worse to pick up feces for humans or dogs?

i ate at “pret a manger” tonight. i think loosely translated that’s “what to eat”. seems to fit the bill for my usual problem. it claims to be all healthy and additive free and what not. it wasn’t too bad. the options seem to be a little more tasty than benjys. everything there seems pretty bland. “pret” is pretty much all over the place. there’s also a coffee shop that gives starbucks a pretty good run for its money named “caffe nero”. it’s an italian company. i think everywhere there is one, there’s a starbucks across the street. sometimes right next door.

what does someone do who doesn’t have any real interest in anything? well, other than trying to get into football matches. there’s not really that much to do. i suppose i should be more friendly, but i don’t really like talking to people. they typically don’t really have anything interesting to say. i always think about this dennis miller quote, “most people just sit around with a group of like minded curmudgeons and talk about what assholes everbody else is” or something like that. it’s just so tedious find “like minded curmudgeons”, especially when your mind is mine. don’t misinterpret this as unhappiness or what have you. there would appear there are a lot of lonely people in london (same as any big city). you can see it in their eyes on the tube. i suppose that’s probably why foreigners tend to link up with other people from their own country, it’s the easiest, most obvious connection to start a conversation. i guess something that might make it worse here is that the british or supposedly more inhibited and reserved. whence the pub etiquette designed to provoke social interaction. i guess it should make you appreciate the friends you have and effort required to get what you do have. i should try to be nicer. most people are just so annoying within seconds that you then have to figure out how to get the hell away from them. i would probably be good at the speed dating thing i keep seeing ads for in the tube. i think it says something like 5 minutes per which seems a little slow;-)

enough commentary. i think i’ll take a shower and listen to the commentary for “revolver”. it’s interesting that most (who am i kidding all) people reading know more about my daily life than they do when i’m in birmingham even without me including everything. maybe tomorrow i’ll actually have something interesting to post.

i watched “revolver” last night. i don’t care what the critics say, i think it’s one of guy ritchies best. it’s actually serious. it also has andre 3000 in it who was excellent. i guess if anyone has their region free dvd player working i can mail them. i wonder if it will ever come to the theaters in the u.s.?

i didn’t really have anything to do so i walked around notting hill today. not that exciting. looks like everywhere else in the area (chelsea, kensington, etc). i guess portobello road is supposed to be the big attraction with shops and what not. seems like a lot of antique and boutique type shops if that’s what you’re into. shockingly, i’m not. so far, in all my wandering, you know what i haven’t seen, computer stores. aside from the apple store on regent street. i guess they aren’t really in the big shopping areas as that’s probably not what most tourists are looking for. i will say notting hill is the first time i’ve seen 2 ferraris parked across the street from each other.

you know what you don’t see a lot of, s.u.v.’s. most every car is small. there’s even some weird, true mini-vans. they just look like regular fans, but shrunken to about 1/2 size. very odd looking. my favorite has to be the smart cars. i’ve read stuff about them before, but, of course, never saw one in america.

i think i’m getting bored with just wandering around now. it may be time to turn it up a notch. whatever that means. it’s these couple of days a week with know football matches that are a real pain. of course, stupidly, i agreed to meet ze germans tomorrow night which is when the west ham v bolton f.a. cup match is. what an idiot. i’m going to have to call and make sure it’s going down before the game just in case. i’m making it a goal to try and get to the manu v arsenal match in april. that should be a good one at old trafford. i found this package on lastminute.com, but i can’t get the purchase to go through. probably a shipping address issue. i don’t really want to get it shipped to the hotel anyway so i guess i’ll have to wait until this weekend for that. i believe i’m supposed to move into the new crib on the 17th or 18th.

i guess i should try and go to that yamato drummers thing tonight.

btw, the term use here is “social housing” and it’s getting pushed out of the battersea area by “moneyed people”. i can’t remember where i read that, maybe the paper.

today after lunch i got off at the vauxhall station. i ended up walking all the way down nine elms lane (sort of) through what would probably be described as low-income housing. i then walked all the way around queenstown road, took a right onto grosvenor road and walked back to my hotel (near pimlico station). i was mainly trying to get a look at battersea power station which is being turned into a shopping and condo thing. there’s a nice apartment building already next to it. it’s massive. here’s some pictures.

it’s pretty huge. it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

i’m going to try and go find a decent pizza. it’s almost impossible to find a good hamburger here. i ate at this more expensive place named “ed’s” for lunch. it’s sort of like “johnny rockets”, but not nearly as good. no special sauce or anything. i can see why there are so many thai and indian restaurants over here. everything else seems completely bland. they seem to like mayo (bland) and the burger today had “mild” american mustard. do they enjoy it that way? i may have to start learning to like asian food. it would also be convenient since it seems everytime i’m wondering around the covent garden area i end up in chinatown.
btw, it’s been frigid cold the past couple of days. it’s 4c (39f) now and supposed to get down to 1c tonight. still no snow, but apparently there has been to the north (manchester, obviously). i normally like cold weather, but it doesn’t go too well with wandering around aimlessly.

i ate dinner again at a place called “the lord admiral’s house”, or something. the weird thing is that it has a sign that it’s under new portuguese management. this would also explain why they had a portuguese league game on tonight, benfica vs naval. it was about the most criminal 0-0 tie you’ve ever seen. benfica completely dominated, towards the end the possession was 74% benfica, but just couldn’t get the ball in the ol’ onion bag. gotta love football. there was about 12 benfica fans watching the game. i wish i spoke portuguese ’cause these 2 guys were arguing about the most obvious penalty kick that wasn’t called.

anyway, some other interesting tv bits. saturday and sunday nights they have this great show on bbc4 that’s called “match of the day”. a bit misleading since they show recaps of all the games from the day. nice recaps too, not just the highlights.

it seems that british television is almost obsessed with american actors and movies. it’s as if they think the u.s. is better than britain and britain is better than india. at least, that’s the ranking of the motherland and its former colonies. interestlingly, they showed “the breakfast club” last night after “match of the day”. classic. it was weird because they had done a bad job with the 4% audio increase so everyone’s pitch was a little high. i don’t suppose you would notice if that was the only way you saw it.

i will see a game in person this week.

one thing i’ll say for london, they have a lot of c.c.t.v. cameras. i would think that at any location in london, you probably have a camera on you. kind of creepy. does it help?

i watched the manchester united vs newcastle match at a pub down the street. what can you say, rooney is a force. i then decided to hop up to highbury to see if i could get lucky and score a ticket. there were tickets floating about, but i was unable to pull down a transaction. no joy. i think my next try will be the west ham vs bolton fa cup match on wednesday.

regardless of stat, i’m not doing very well with the overall goal. of course, the goal is as many matches as i can. it’s really an unfailable task. it’s just assumed that it will be greater than zero. 2 weekends is killing me. at least now that i have a place lined up i can concentrate full time on getting tickets. should that really be a full time job? i do need to try and see some of the league 2 games as well to get a feel for what the lowest division is like.

i almost forgot, i have pictures. if you’ve seen the real “fever pitch”, this should look familiar.

look kids, big ben, parliament.

apparently, some people are against that war. no not the war on drugs, the other one. these signs were opposite big ben in the square.

i’m glad i’m writing this, because it would probably be boring to read it. maybe something exciting will happen to night. although, it’s a sunday so that seems unlikely. i’ve got to eat. in case you were wondering.