Greenwich for Christmas

Greenwich at night, by the walkway under the Thames. I'll have to go out and try to get better pictures.

London lights up for x-mas

I needed to go to the Apple Store and was stuck around the flat until 4 or 5, which meant that I had to head into Oxford Circus — one of the busiest areas of London commerce on a Saturday afternoon/evening just before Christmas. To say it was crowded doesn't even begin to cover it.

Sidewalks that you should be able to walk on three abreast were spilling out into the street. This building, which you can't see very well here was covered from roof to ground in lights. It was like something out of the Vegas strip.

Home Stretch

In the home stretch now. Only one more week of work, then I have a week free before flying home.

At the moment, I'm shipping most of my stuff home on Dec. 17th, which will leave me fairly light in that last week. My flatmate will be off for the holidays and I'll have the place to myself. One of the places that I wanted to see before I left Europe (or when I come back) is Amsterdam, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to pull that off in the last week, especially with my sleep study.

Still it'd be nice, if I could pull that off.

See everyone soon.

Rituals

Everyone has rituals in their lives. Whether it's your morning shower and shave or trying each item on your plate before eating in earnest, there are things that you do in a certain way. I was thinking about that today.

I have a silly ritual that I do. I can see where it came from, but when you look at out of context it seems more than a little nuts.

When I find money on the street and I don't need it. I'll take it, but give it to the first person that asks me for money, whether street person, busker or co-worker. This came from when I was younger and there were a few times when I really needed money and I found a $5 or $10 by my feet as I walked around Boston.

So on some level, it's magical thinking to imagine that my need was connected to finding the money, but I guess that's not stopping me from I guess redistributing wealth in my own way.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Mmmmm. Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, veggies, gravy, biscuits, gorging myself until I waddle: these are only a few of the things that I miss about not being back home today.

Instead, I stopped by the post office this morning to ship some stuff home. I've used post offices around the world for years. Friends and family are postal workers. They're not all Newmans. Hell, I haven't seen anything like that in real life.

Then there was today.

In the UK, the royal postal service does more than just deliver mail. They also exchange currency, sell insurance, etc... I saw this gentlemen in the post office earlier in the week. Maybe I was a little short with him, when I said that I wasn't interested in getting flat insurance or holiday insurance. I have no idea. All I know is that I saw him again today, as I was going about my daily post office business:

• Find the box that I need
• Put in my books, clothes, stuffed animals, board/card games, whatnot
• Put in clothes, whatnot to pad it out
• Address the box
• Secure it
• Cart it over to the big scale to figure out the weight to save time
• Cart it over to the queue to wait to be called to a window
• Sign, pay and out the door

That sounds simple enough. I've got it down by this time.

Or at least that's what I'd think. The guy made me schlep back to the big scale to re-weigh things while he watched (because nothing helps the customer experience than to feel that you're being accused to lying), schlep back to the window and go over every piece of the paperwork to be positive that they were all filled out correctly. It took forever.

That said, he was also as anal-retentive with my package. He took time to tape up all the edges for me to be sure there would be no problems with anything getting inside.

Gay Paree

I know that it's called Gay Paree, but did they have to make the Eiffel Tower look like a gay bar? (And if anyone knows how to rotate the damned video, I would be most appreciative.)

Reaper Review

I had been waiting for this show to come to iTunes, so I could finally get a gander at it. Kevin Smith mentioned it when he was here in London for one of his "An Evening with..." monologue and Q&A sessions.

The early reviews that I heard about it were pretty solid. And it's got Ray Wise, who I've loved since seeing him on Twin Peaks.

I got all the episodes so far and just laughed my ass off. The premise is a little silly, Sam (the titular character) works at the equivalent of Home Depot and seems to be going nowhere with his life. It starts off on his 21st birthday and, as any writing teacher recommends, right in the heart of things.

That's the day that he finds out that his soul was sold to the devil by his parents. And that's the day that he meets the devil himself. The devil (played by Ray Wise) is smarmily perfect as a hands-on manager/mentor/tormentor. Sam is now a bounty hunter for the devil, chasing down lost souls for Satan and returning them to hell.

The shows are a bit formulaic with monsters of the week, but what makes the show stand apart is the light-hearted camaraderie between the main characters: Sam and his best friends, 'Sock' and Ben.

Enjoy the ride.

Another Tale from the Dating Pool...

Just before Halloween, I had a date with a nice guy. He was a working medium and talked a bit about how the spirits share information with him and about the differences between clairvoyance, clairaudience, and the other extra-normal senses. He talked about himself a lot, but I chalked that up to nerves or something.

He finally got back to me a week or so after I said that I had fun and looked forward to another coffee date or something. Unfortunately, he didn't think we had any chemistry.

I'm not sure whether I should be happy or annoyed that someone that speaks with the dead doesn't have any chemistry with me.

Things I Learned In Paris...

I'll be posting more once I upload the pictures from the camera, but here's a few of the random thoughts.

• Talking louder and more slowly doesn't make what you're saying any more comprehensible.
• Prefacing it with 'how you say....' in a French accent also doesn't help.
• Miming things does work, interpretive dance doesn't. (Which surprised me, because I thought that left leg, right leg, butt wiggle, head cluck and arm flap was the International dance for I'd rather the chicken than the veal.)
• Tourist hotels trade online reservations as easily as grade school kids trade baseball cards. I had two different hotels in the two nights that I stayed in Paris.
  
• The French clearly have a different idea about bathroom plumbing than we do. (The first hotel had a tub with a shower attachment about a foot above the top of the tub—roughly below waist level for me. The second hotel looked like a normal shower until I turned on the water and the shower head flipped up from the force of the water and sprayed over my head, drenching the towels on the rack behind me.)
  

And now Mesmo loves you, too...

I always love weird viral marketing or oddball posters.

"Damages" on F/X

Okay, normally, by the time shows get to the UK, it's already too late to say anything about them. This might be one of them, but wow. It's on F/X, which shouldn't really surprise me. They've got a history of absolutely fantastic shows, if their stack of emmy nominations and awards are any indication.

I had seen articles about this show online and every critic has been favorable. I downloaded the season on iTunes. Saw the pilot last night and was blown away. Glenn Close is just absolutely fantastic in her role as the ruthlessly manipulative Patty Hewes.

I can't wait to see the rest of the season and hope that it'll get picked up for another year.

WTF?!

First off NFL football here in London? Secondly, two story anamatronic robots to sell it?

Stardust - Review

This film just opened here in the UK, so I finally got a chance to see it.

I had heard it referred to as the closest thing to "The Princess Bride" in twenty years, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to see it.

I have to say that I don't think I've been this enchanted by a movie since I saw "Amelie". It's a sweet love story, a swashbuckling adventure film, and a magical fairy tale all wrapped up together.

While I loved the ostensible male and female leads: Charlie Cox and Claire Dane, for my money the film was stolen by Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer. Both of them played against type wonderfully.

The heroic journey of Cox's Tristan was fairy tale pitch perfect (not that I expected anything less from a film based upon a story by Neil Gaiman). There were trials passed and failed, difficulties faced or avoided and a wonderful mix of odd-ball characters filling out the magical realm of Stormhold.

See it. Pay full price, but please see it on the big screen.

Maddening!

Somewhere, something in the flat is beeping. One beep every five minutes. I have no clue what the hell is making the noise or how to stop it.

It just keeps on beeping. Looks like I'll be sleeping with the fan on tonight to get some white noise to keep from being disturbed.

Update: My flatmate just came home. It was his phone. He couldn't call and let me know that it might be here and beeping on low-battery, because he didn't have his phone. Oy.

At least the good news is that my back is feeling much much better, no twinge at all today and I didn't even take any pain pills. Go healing.

Charity

I realize that charity is tough for some people to take, but sometimes it's just weird.

The other day, I was in line at the grocery store and I was chatting with the people that were next to me. They said that they were with a youth charity. After I paid for my groceries, I tried to slip some money to the cashier to help pay for their groceries: cake, chips, etc... for the party that they looked they were going to have. All I wanted to do was to do something nice and then slip away.

The cashier didn't want to play ball. He couldn't take the money. I had to do it. By this point in our discussion, the people behind me had figured out something had happened. They weren't sure if I was trying to take some of their groceries. I tried to explain that friends of mine worked with youth and that there was never enough money and I wanted to help. They didn't want my help, but I finally talked them into taking my money. Then they wanted my email to thank me.

*Sigh* You just can't do something nice and anonymous these days.

Things that make me homesick

Boston T | Slog | The Stranger | Seattle's Only Newspaper

At least Dan Savage makes me laugh when he does it.

Fear

The last couple of days were interesting. Each time I went out, I was afraid that my back was going to act up again. My anxiety level would go up and I had trouble just leaving the house. I had to break it down it down, just to step outside.

When I started thinking about it, the issue was fear. Fear of falling, fear of being stuck on the ground, fear of not being able to help myself, fear of embarrassment, etc... It probably didn't help that I didn't have to face it for a couple of day. I was able to avoid work, by pointing out that muscle-relaxants and pain-pills weren't conducive to solid coding practices.

For two days, I slept, watched TV, read and slept some more. I did the stretching exercises that I was supposed to and did some walking. And I took my pain pills, hoping to hoard my last couple of muscle relaxants until I really needed it. Each time I kept the walking to a minimum near the flat.

This morning was tough. I was up for a couple of hours before the alarm, worrying about whether I would be able to make it, whether I'd fall again, etc... When the alarm went off, I sort of shoved the stupidity aside and got going. Pulled on clothes, groaned in pain at parts, sucked down my pills and got moving.

As usual, what I was afraid of was less than the reality. At times my back spasmed, but nothing as bad as it might have been. I walked when I could, stood when I had to, got to work, had breakfast and did my stretching exercises. Now I'm getting back up to speed on the last few days at work.

Oh the joy.

My London "Sicko" story

Earlier in the week, I hurt my back again. (I wish I had been doing something exciting when it happened, but all I did was reach for a book while I was lying in bed. I either felt something pop or just spasm, I can't really remember what. All I know is that I hurt. I popped some Ibu and did my back stretches and it was manageable.

Everything was not pleasant, but dealable and getting better. Until Saturday. It got worse and nothing was making it any better. Getting off the bed almost brought me to my knees. The pain helped make up my mind, I decided that I had to go to the doctor. I got the pullover on, put my stuff in my pockets and reached for the door. A spasm hit and I collapsed.

I couldn't walk. Hell, I couldn't even get to a kneeling position. Five minutes quickly became twenty and the pain hadn't gotten any better. I slowly made my way from my stomach to my back. I could reach my cell, but didn't have anyone to call other than an ambulance. The problem was that they wouldn't be able to get to me, because the front door to the flat was locked.

It took a half hour, but I got shoes on. (Well, Tevas, but let's be generous. At the time, it felt epic.) Then the long slow crawl to the closed door of my bedroom. Stretch, spasm, collapse, repeat. At some point, I realized that if I forced myself not to collapse during the spasm, I'd make slightly better time.

Out in the hall, the slippery wooden floor meant than I made a little better time as a human Swiffer across the floor. About an hour later, I was at the front door to the flat. Unfortunately, there I couldn't reach the lock from the floor. I was going to have to get to my feet. Getting my feet under me didn't work. Pushing my torso up, while trying not to bend my back was not happening. Finally, I got the idea to try to use the corner to get to my knees or my feet, so I could reach the lock. A door to my back didn't work; the door wobbled slightly, which set my back spasming even worse than before. I wormed my way back to a corner, where both were walls. It took forever—false starts where I couldn't get past the pain, then I finally got my legs beneath me and pushed up against the wall and stumbled off of it to stumble toward the door.

By this point, my back was spasming so badly that I had to lean against wall to keep from falling again. I couldn't even lift my arms without agonizing pain. I had come too far to just collapse and have to start all over again. After what felt like forever, I toddled to the door and was able to unlock it. Breathing rapidly to try to keep the pain down, I got the door locked and stumbled down the hall to get outside.

Once I was outside, I dialed 911 to get an ambulance or something. There was no way that I'd be able to make it to a place where I could find a cab; I needed the wall to even stand. I let out a groan and a young girl must have taken that as a dirty bastard moan or something and rushed inside.

In London, 911 doesn't work. I called my cell phone company's customer service line to find that you need to dial 999 here in the UK. I said I needed an ambulance and they redirected me to the ambulance service. They took my information, though I had to tell them my address three times—I can only imagine that my Boston accent must be indecipherable to her.

The wait for the ambulance felt like forever. (Now, anyone that knows me knows that I hate cats and clearly they hate me. A local outdoor cat made a bee-line toward me. Clearly, it's nemesis-sense was tingling and it could tell that I wasn't going to be able to shoo it away. It took this opportunity to rub against me and use my jean-clad leg as a scratching post.)

Finally, the ambulance showed up and the two EMTs helped me inside. At this point, things moved much quicker. It was a rush of taking my vitals, giving me an inhaled analgesic that made me light-headed, giving the EMT my history to expedite my entry into the hospital.

I wasn't in danger of dying. They quickly verified that it wasn't a kidney stone or appendicitis and moved me from emergency to minor wounds/problems. A nurse checked me out and gave me something for pain and told me to walk a bit while they waited for the pain meds to kick in. I don't think I was there for than twenty, thirty minutes on the outside, before I saw a doctor and was treated.

It didn't take him long before he realized that it was back spasm in my lower trapezius and not my spine. He said what I expected: pain meds and muscle relaxants, back exercises to stretch things out. Instead of a prescription, I got handed the pills I need. I had my Sicko moment, when I wondered about payment. There was no cost for the ambulance or the hospital visit. I even got looked at funny, when I asked about that.

The only thing I had to worry about was my cab ride home from the hospital and then the pizza that I ordered, because all my pills needed to be taken with food. At the moment, I'm on the mend and hoping to be mobile in a few more days/weeks.

Jumper!

One of my favorite books, Jumper is being turned into a movie.

I don't know whether it's any good, but the trailer looks like it's been turned into a big action movie extravaganza.

Ramadan Is Not An Excuse For Weight Gain

Who knew?

Seriously, I went to the doctor last night to see about getting referred to a sleep study so I can finally get checked for sleep apnea — it's only been what 15 years since an ex said that I would stop breathing in my sleep as I snored. The doctor pointed out that I've put on some weight in the last month. The only thing that made sense is that my co-workers are fasting for Ramadan, because I don't think I've become any more sedentary in the last month or ate anything much more than I usually do. *shrug*

We'll see how well eating less and exercising more work.

And as to the sleep study. There's one place where it can be done in London. Add to that the rise in obesity — which I thought I heard was linked with sleep apnea — and it shouldn't be much of a surprise that they're heavily booked. My appointment is on Dec. 19th.

Also found that I'm getting some tax money back from the UK. (Am I the only one that feels guilty for getting an overpayment back when I'm getting free meds and medical care? That must be either a liberal thing or it has to do with the mindset that says that medical care must be expensive.)