David's Big Fat American Adventure

This is my blog which I will be keeping in the USA. Incase you were not already aware, im on a year abroad at UCLA (University of California Los Angeles) Im going to be living in Los Angeles before heading off on a whilwind adventure of the USA.

Monday, October 30, 2006

World Premier

Hi

I wouldn't be updating my blog two days in a row unless something really really BIG had happened.

It sort of did tonight.

I met with some friends to go see some famous people attend a premier in Westwood, about 4 minutes away from my accommodation. I was in two minds about going, because, post Dr Phil and Big Brother, I was sort of over famous people, but, as it is yoga night, I went to avoid it.

After standing with about thirty people near the red carpet for the film Stranger than Fiction (if your REALLY interested, there is a trailer for it HERE)

There didn't seem to be that many people, and there were a large amount of people who were in the film who I didn't really know. A range of people kept stepping out of cars, who I had never seen before, and apparently neither had the tens of people waiting in the crowds. Then a limo pulls up, and out steps ONLY STEVEN FRY!!! Apparently no one else in the crowd knew him. In my excitement however, I shouted out "Steven Fry I love you" in my best English accent i could manage. He looked over differently at me and smiled. I was so excited.

Other stars than came including; Dustin Hoffman, Will Ferrel, and Emma Thompson. (Emma Thompson's appearance merited my Australian buddy Jen screaming at her "Sense and Sensibility is my dad's favourite film". She seemed relatively impressed)

To be honest, It was one vast amount of fun, as the stars genuinely seemed to want to sign autographs, and meet their fans, it was all good natured. Even though I don't really know who all these famous people are it didn't matter because Steven Fry had seen me, and I was about two inches away from two Destiny's child members (guess which member was too busy HAIR FLICK).

What happened next was extraordinary however. We got free tickets!! For the world-premier FREE TICKETS. (We asked at the ticket booth like). With our tickets it meant we got to walk up the red carpet and everything, and go into this pretty amazing theater (it was like all traditional and excellent inside) There was even free popcorn and Pepsi. Now, as many will know a free film with free drink and free popcorn makes for an amazing night anyway, excused from any sort of premier thing. So now, I was majorly excited.

The film came and went, it was alright, but it is what happened when we left which was excellent. We were leaving, and I was about two inches away from Steven Fry, like pretty much on top of him. I waited for roughly four seconds in awe and fear, before sort of going up to him and saying hi.

I got a bit panicked, and babbled a lot about how much my house mate love him, like he only bought Twinnings tea now because of him. He seemed ok about this exciting revelation. He asked me if I like the film, and I told him I didn't really understand it. IT WAS AMAZING! and far better than any Dr Phil nonsense.

I promptly called said obsessional house mate back in the UK (You know who you are Mr Martin), whom was impressed than impressed that I was calling at 7.10 in the morning, despite the fact that I was calling to say i had met his hero, and introduced the concept of obsessional fans to him.

It was really rather amusing, made even more so, by the fact that I was pretty much the only person there, at all who knew who Mr Fry was. He left and no one seemed to care, no one ran at him for his autograph. I probably did the man a favour, in not making him feel like nobody cared.
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On a separate topics, it is the mid terms in a few days. Every advert break is flooded with various adverts for different propositions, say yes to this, its excellent, say no to this its rubbish. Vite for me im excellent etc etc etc. However, by far my favourite is this number by Dianne Feinstein, who wins the prize for most cringe worthy advert, best dressed (note the pearls in both adverts) and most irritating extra (er god daughter, who apparently 'approves of this message'. You can see the offering HERE

Have a fun day, David

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Haloween

Hey 'yall

So its sort of Halloween time in the US of A, which, I think it is common knowledge, is a much bigger deal here than it is back in the UK. As a result 'frat' houses have been entirely decked in dramatic, sometimes sinister Halloween garb, ready for parties (they take these parties a little too seriously I feel, as in they have security guards and crowd control railings. At the time of going to press however, as far I have seen, neither of these two investments have seemed nessecary.

As it is Halloween season however, there is many a party to attend. I'm going to apparently the biggest one in California, in Hollywood on Tuesday, where, it is expected 450'000 people will show. On a similar scale to this anticipated party-a-thon was the CO OP party on Friday night. For those of you who may not be aware, the CO OP is a big place where loads of international students live. (Sort of like halls socializing meets Selly Oak cleanliness). Of course, for a fancy dress party, one would need a costume, and this is where my core problem lay.

Having visited the large fancy dress store in Westwood, I was greeted by the perhaps overly realistic 'cannibal fridge' which had (allegedly) fake human organs displayed as if they were meat at a butchers, complete with large amounts of splatted 'blood', displayed in a retro looking fridge freezer. It was all rather graphic, and genuinely a bit dis-concerting. From this however, I was lead to believe that Halloween was meant to be a truly graphic kind of affair, and one's costume should reflect this.

What I was not aware of at the time however, was that Halloween is not meant to be a graphic affair, but instead just an excuse to dress up as, well whatever floats your boat. The party was awash with females in Nurses outfits and Pirates. The males were wearing Pirate outfits also, there was also the odd convict in the orange suit and handcuffs, as well as the obligatory Mummy composed of toilet roll. Generally, it was one of wholesome, family friendly orientated fun.

It was of some concern to the majority of party goers therefore, when I appeared at the party dressed like this;

You cannot quite see in the image, but it is essentially a child;s costume (3-4 years) of a Unicorn, doused in fake blood. As you can see also, I too am covered in fake blood, not only on my face and neck, but also on my arms. (The hat was not part of the costume, but instead for dramatic effect from someone else's outfit.) The Skull necklace was one of Miriam's ex pieces of costume jewelery.

What had started out as a joke (wearing a unicorn in shop and laughing that fake blood flowing from its fur would be fun) Had instead turned into an apparently disturbing reflection upon the type of person I was, and upon my mental condition. I felt rather obliged throughout the night to apologize to people for looking quite so scary, and that it was not meant to be nearly as sinister as it ended up being. I also mentioned that, apart from the severe error of judgment as to the party's tone on my part, I was actually a nice person, who didn't have issues and donated to charity on a regular basis. The majority of people were un-convinced.

What this image does not show also is how deadly (excuse the pun) fake blood is. Even after 2 showers of severe scrubbing, there are still shadows of fake blood upon my body. If it will not wash off skin, I very much doubt that my t-shirt will be able to rid itself of the badly judged stains.

On a different subject, my sound card is bust. It should be fixed soon, but for the next 4 days or so no skype, sorry!

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Phil me now

Hi

Once again, the blog has apparently taken a backseat in my life. Dr Phil sort of took it out of me, and then parties, work etc hold everything like blog up. Ill explain moment by moment my Dr Phil experience.

Having gone to bed at like 2am, I had to get up for 7am. I set three alarms, two on my PC, one on my cell/mobile phone. I had a taxi booked for 8a.m. None of these said alarms went off however so I jumped out of bed at 8a.m

Luckily my taxi was 20 minutes late, however for my expected moment of fame, I was sort of looking a heap.

As I don't have a suit in this country, I borrowed one from a German. European fashion is far superior to UK fashions. I didn't pull it off. I also didn't have shoes so instead wore my converse. Perhaps you will be able to view this excellent ensemble on screen when they finally get around to showing my episode.

After a long and fairly expensive cab ride, I arrived at the studios with about an hour to spare. After getting food, and for some reason panicking about being poorly dressed for such a prestigious show, I finally went into the compound. I should not have worried. Every rule of Dr Phil's clearly listed itinerary had been flouted. It would appear that bus loads (literally) of pensioners had been shipped in. They were not wearing business attire, or for that matter, even tasteful clothing. There was lots of loud colours, white, beige. In the end I felt a little overdressed.

After going through security (just in case, you know, I had given up on my plans to blow up the president, and instead attempt to murder Dr Phil) I then was presented with my VIP ticket, and rushed to the front of the queue. Turns out the only reason I was classed as a VIP, was because I was young and male. Herein ends the VIP treatment. Whilst the ordinary punters were allowed to sit on benches, I was in the 'special' VIP area, which was essentially standing, as a post to sitting. We waited like this for about 90 minutes until we were allowed through to the waiting area.

(As an aside, whilst waiting in the line/queue I spoke to some people who had paid $600 for 4 VIP tickets. They were a little annoyed about this as A) There appeared to be no VIP treatment, and B)They didn't even like Dr Phil that much and sort of wanted to go shopping. Its funny, pretty much no one there loved Dr Phil by any means, apart from one woman, but ill come to her later)

We then went through to the studio. I was seated in the VIP area of the audience (as in the bit where males who are not shipped in by bus sit). The same was repeated on the other side of a walkway, only with women. When five young attractive males walked in and sat at the front I sort of felt my moment of fame was over, only to have this assured when five attractive (Blonde) females came to sit on the mirroring, other side of the walkway.

What then followed would be described as a 'warm up' which essentially consisted of a fairly large man shouting at the audience to make a lot of noise, in exchange for Dr Phil merchandise. He then went to talk to people in the Audience (Barbra; what colour are your pearls? Barbra 'they are blue' THAT'S RIGHT, YOU WIN A DR PHIL MUG, everyone applauds and cheers) To finish off his act he then ran round, proclaiming that, if anyone shouted loudly enough at him he would give them a Dr Phil postcard, which could be exchanged for a Dr Phil book upon leaving the studio. As he bounced past me, I screamed really very loudly, to which I was indeed rewarded with a postcard (As a direct result now sitting in my draw is 'Dr Phil 7 Ways to an excellent relationship').

Just before the show Robyn came on. For this next bit to work however, you need a bit of background. Robin is Dr Phil's wife. She is always in the audience, and nods or shakes her head depending on what Phil is saying. For example. This episode he says 'Robyn always knows I'm shy, isn't that right Robyn?' (to which Robyn would be seen to nod her head) At the end of the show, Robyn always walks out with Dr Phil, arm in arm.

Recently, Robyn has been taking more of a leading role, including publishing a book (the catchy titled 'Inside My Heart: Choosing to Live with Passion and Purpose', and also leading the 'Women of Faith' conference in Texas. In the build up to Dr Phil coming on stage, one women, when being talked to by the bouncing warm up man almost collapsed giggling, and said how much she loved not only Dr Phil, but also Robin in particular.

So Robin comes on looking done up and plastic enough to be Cher (a concept only enforced, when moment before Dr Phil actually coming on stage for some unknown reason they played a Cher music video) and obviously entirely underwhelmed by the whole experience. Whilst the audience were encouraged to cheer the imminent arrival of Dr Phil and applaud wildly, Robin had a chat with her minder next to her, and clapped in a lethargic manner. All of this would be fine, if it were not for the annoying giggling lady being sat only 2 seats away from Robin, who then proceeded to attempt conversation revolving around how much she loved Robin's book.

Dr Phil finally made it onto stage, and was met by the whooping and applause you would expect for Dr Phil (not quite a riot as with Oprah, but none too shabby), and then proceeded to read from his autocue in a highly plastic, manicured way.

Indeed, as the show got going, it became very evident that the 'straight talkin' Texan' who prides himself on honestly was very VERY... fake. Caked in makeup and reading from autocue, it felt almost as if I were staring at a blinking lump of plastic in a suit. What the viewer does not see on television is that Dr Phil is always looking at cue cards, as if he expects, and knows how to respond to every comment of the guest. I suspected on several occasions that guests may have been given 'lines' to say, and that Phil's apparently spontaneous jokes were also written on his cue cards.

Upon going to a break, Phil spent a moment with the audience. After all, some had traveled miles to see the man, waited outside for a good 90 minutes, some (although by no means all) had dressed up, and were now sitting in a very cold studio, all, in essence, doing Dr Phil a favour by sitting in an audience for his tv show. Dr Phil was evidently aware of this, and so greeted his audience with the elaborate and engaging statement of 'How ya'll doin'?' which was met by applause. Then we went into part two. This was the end of his interaction (FYI Jerry Springer shakes the hand of every gust in the audience. On occasion, Oprah gives her audience members cars), but the show plodded on.

Guests are treated almost as poorly as the audience. Said guest meets Phil for the first time on the stage, talks for about 3 minutes, is vilified for being a nasty person, celebrated for being a good person, or given some kind words of Wisdom by the Doctor. When the segment ends (and segments can be about three minutes long) The guest is swiftly removed from the Doctors presence.

For example, in a video clip woman comes on saying that a man stole $100'000 from her, and lied to her to do it. When the cameras come back to Dr Phil, Phil discusses the case, makes a joke, then says 'it was an expensive mistake, but a valuable lesson'. Then that's it, none of the alleged caring/sharing attitude that is conveyed by the program at all. Even Jerry Springer had a green room for guests to 'resolve their differences' backstage. I knew it was going to be a bit like it, I just didn't realize how slick an operation it would be.

So all in all an excellent and fascinating mornings entertainment. I'm not sure when it will be on tv, but when it is ill get a copy of it somehow (Tim needs to download it!) And you may see me, perhaps momentarily on your screens. Watch this space! (Or in the uk, the highbrow ukliving 2)

David

Saturday, October 14, 2006

DOCTOR PHIL!

On Wednesday, I think my life will change forever. IM going to see..

DOCTOR

PHIL!

You see, you could interpret this as me having false excitement, but IM genuinely stupidly excited about going to see the Legend that is. 'If you talk to me your going to have to be honest', a 'straight talking Texan', IM thrilled!

The only catch however is that the show I applied for asked for, and I quote here 'Geniune Down to Earth Guys!', the producers apparently encouraging me yet further by claiming that 'You don't want to miss this Special Dr. Phil show!!!' (the three exclamation marks have not been added by myself, but are apparenlty demonstration of how 'special' and exciting the show will indeed be) I e-mailed the producers claiming I was excellent due to having an English accent which everyone loves. I e-mailed them at 1am, and by 11am they had called me back and booked me in. I spent most of yesterday celebrating to be honest, including eating fatty food and generally smiling a lot.

The catch is however, that IM not sure what exactly to expect of the show, or indeed what to wear. Dress code is strict apparently. I am not allowed to wear white or beige. No jeans, no caps, no bright coloUrs, or heavily patterned clothing. Infact I am allowed only to wear business attire, apparently with a black shirt. I must bring (real) photo ID. I am not allowed to bring in a mobile phone, or any paper. I am not allowed to try to talk to, or touch Dr Phil. I am not allowed to ask for Dr Phil's autograph, or to get him to sign a book. I must be on time, as filming will not wait. Its a little bit like secondary school, only more strict. And with the addition of Dr Phil obviously

I shall keep you posted!

On a separate note, if your reading this through blogger you can now add an annon comment, meaning that you don't need to sign up for an account anymore. If people start writing obscenities however there will be trouble!! :D

IM now going to get some food, quite possibly a marmite sandwich, before watching some Oprah (she is now primetime on Saturday. I guess its aiming for the same market who would watch Parkinson.)

David

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Fiji Water

Today I had Fiji Water.

All the celebrities drink it, apparently. As i'm in LA I thought it would be worth a go. Incase you were not aware pretty much the only place you can obtain this beverage in the uk is in Harrods or Selfridges.

If your still not sure what it looks like, here is a picture; (You need to be on blogger to see this, not facebook, its at http://did21.blogspot.com/)



















And, incase you were intrested here is another image of Fiji Water, this time of the salty sea variety, and indeed some sort of fish;














I also have an image of some random people enjoying Fiji Water;

And Colin Powell giving the creator of Fiji Water some sort of a prize;

If you believe the literature on the back of the bottle people have 'bottled this water at source, thousands of miles from the nearest industralized continent'. You would expect that, as a direct result the water should taste excellent. It does however, just taste like water, and it cost quite a lot of money for the amount of water I recieved. I can however re-use the bottle with tap water, and still appear trendy. Me and Britney will be friends yet! (Amy, I do believe this would be an excellent substiture ot alcohol at the buffet, what do you think?)

Ok, im done now. Someone leave a comment on my blog!

David

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Oh my blog my days are getting longer

I'm not too sure how many blog related play on words I can fathom over the next year. Suggestions would be helpful...

Hi
I knew this time would come, its time for the almighty update of what I have really been up to this past month. Frone who is reading this, I know there are a fair few either on blogger or facebook, it honestly means a lot :D

I think its also important to note that I'm getting fairly tired writing this, hence I'm going to try and keep coherent, short and also to bullet points (to a degree) Oh look, a title in bold...

Introduction

Ok, so I have apparently had the busiest month of my life ever. I don't think even Ecuador was this hetic. I have essentially been given the task of doing EVERYTHING one would be required to do in a regular month, only with everything starting from scratch.

Point of example - Move into new accommodation, only there is no food, no bedding and no television, so on first night in accommodation attempt to find somewhere that will sell bed linens and food at a reasonable price, and try to get it back to said accommodation, all whilst on the other side of the world where people fail to understand your accent, or the fact that you require bedding in the form of a duvet (apparently they don't do duvets over here, only sheets. Duvets reserved for hotels. Great.) Overall therefore quite overwhelming, interesting, fun, yet also very tiring!

My first week in the states I stayed at a hostel. It was pretty good, however its fair to say you get what you pay for. As I was on eleven (pounds) a night, it worked out cool. The people at said hostel were there for a big party however, which is cool, but not what I was doing at that time.

Instead everyday I was hauling myself half way across Los Angeles to go to an International Orientation Program.

As already said, the hostel was pretty cool, however it was about 8 miles away from UCLA, which leads me onto

The abysmal public transportation of LA, and my abysmal sense of direction
The first week in the country was generally thus; get up at 7am, wonder onto the street in the hope of catching a bus,, get onto said bus. Sit on bus until you think your roughly in the right area. Get off bus, realize your still a looong way from where you want to be, and then walk. Now, if I were in the UK, eventually after walking I would get to somewhere, and be able to work out where I wanted to go. Not so in LA. On several occasions I walked about 2-3 miles, before realizing I had made a mistake. I would then wait at a bus stop, not entirely sure of which number of bus I wanted, or where it was going to, and hope for the best. LA is a HUGE city. Net result one very lost David. (As a sidenote, it would appear only those who are too young or really are so poor they cannot afford a car use public transport. Using buses late at night when all children are gone meant It was only me, the homeless, and Mexicans) When I did walk large distances late at night there were absolutley no people on the sidewalks, apart from the odd homeless person. I was quite un-nerved at points, however I reasoned that only a fool would wait on the sidewalks to mug people as they would be waiting for roughly 4 hours, and only then be able to mug a very poor person. There is a reason LA prefers drive by shootings me thinks...

Calling 911
So, on my very first day I was lost for about 4-5 hours in the evening. After walking into my fifteenth Starbucks of the night to ask directions I wondered out onto the street to try and find my way, only to hear an almighty crash, and to see glass everywhere across the road. Turned out that a cyclist had just been ploughed into by a car. The driver had sped off and the cyclist was lying on the road, blood coming from his head. Someone shouted to call 911. No one did so, so I decided I probably should. What happened next was a little bizarre. I have never rung emergency services before, but what happened was I was in a queue for an advisor, I then spoke to a woman, told her where the incident had happened... And then she put me on hold!! An emergency and I was on hold, not best pleased. She then said that she was sending the firemen and the police (he needed an ambulance quite clearly, but apparently without insurance details they would probaly have just left him there), and then, even more oddly said 'ok, now thankyou so much for your call today' as if I had just orderd a burger... All a little wierd...

My apartement and roomates
On the Saturday, 6 days after being in the country, I moved into my accommodation. It is amazing and huge. Images are posted on the link listed on the blog.

Housemates, and crucially roommate are cool. I'm sharing with a guy called Diego, as in San Diego. He is, as the name would suggest, from Mexico. He is doing film and stuff, and has never shared a room before. I was pretty pleased with the fact that A) He watches lost and downloads it and B)Almost had a seizure when I went near the wireless router because he was concerned he wouldn't have internet. He does however have an iBook, although I won't lie when I say that I have been mighty tempted...

Other guys across the living room in the other bedroom are Francis and Adrian. Both are from California. Both are in their 3rd years, having studied at colleges for the past two years. Francis served in Iraq as part of the navy, and Adrian plays scrabble. Reguarly.

We have a dishwasher, a rubbish chute, and an excellent laundry room! Anyone who knows me will know how much I hate laundry, but even I have sort of enjoyed the whole process..

Classes
...Are going ok, however professors don't always like it when you disagree with them I find. Not a good move therefore to say how awful I found Malcolm X's autobiography when the professor claimed to have a personal love of the book. I could tell I was doomed when, after my comment she used the immortal phrase 'not to mean any disrespect to anyone in the room BUT that's not the sort of feedback I'm after'. Oops. I'm taking a couple of African American classes, and its cool to be able to hear people say my parents were part of a civil rights movement, or in some cases I was part of the movement, all quite cool. There are it would appear quite a lot of bitter African Americans in the country as well. Sometimes one or two of them irritate me however. Take this discussion for example;

(African American girl) 'Of course there are a lot of African American drug dealers, and a lot of white peadophiles'

Quite an outrageous statement at the best of times I feel, especially as the buzz word 'peadophile' was mentioned, but what happens later annoys me even more...

(African American girl 2) 'Just to come back to an earlier statement, I don't think its entirely fair to suggest that there are 'a lot' of African American drug dealers, or to generalize in that way'

WHAT ABOUT THE WHITE PEADOPHILE BIT? AND IF WERE GOING DOWN THAT PATH, SHALL WE BRING UP OPRAH'S CHILD PREDATOR WATCHLIST???

By contrast, one of my classes on the dectective novel is going ok, apart form the fact someone described the Yorkshire moores as 'on the outskirts of London', but these are minor issues. Oh and there is a girl with annoying glasses who acts like a nodding dog at everything the lecturer says....

The guy from Milton Keynes
Since arriving in the states I have desperately been trying to find someone from Milton Keynes. Every American who I have spoken to so far says how they love England, may have been to London, Stonehenge etc, yet not my beloved Milton Keynes. Sort of sucks, especially as I find it amusing that Milton Keynes was apparently '[designed on the grid system of LA', despite being absolutley nothing like LA, its very difficult to explain also that the fact everyone dislikes Milton Keynes makes me like it even more, and so a large amount of explanation is necessary for this also...


Anyway to cut a very long story short on Sunday I finally met someone who moved to LA at the age of 13, from, (you probably guessed it by now) from Milton Keynes. I almost collapsed. He was, for those of you in the know, from Neath Hill, he did not however know St Monica's.


socializing

All I have done over the past 3.5 weeks is TALK. Usually this would be a good thing, but there is a lot of talk, and it never stops! Usually I would have a good 11 hours to myself a day in my bedroom, however having been in a hostel and shared room this has not happened. Its all good though, and I'm starting to make friends, beyond the thick veil of small talk I am now reaching substance. I have had moments of struggle however as there seem to be two to three distinct things that have been said to me in recent weeks;

1) 'I love your accent, where is it from?'
(or, the common 1A..., 'oh, so your from Australia')

2) 'Oh England! I have family there/have been to London/ would love to go there/ study English (delete as appropriate)

3) 'Oh you say words so oddly, like you spell colour with a U,/pronounce herbs with a H/say queue when your in a line/say flat not apartment/say motorway when you mean freeway' etc, etc, etc, etc, etc

4) Go on, say something else, anything!

and my personal favourite of the week

5) 'Your surnames link, what is that Asian/I thought you were Asian/ where is the name from?'

(Such was the degree of my irritation last week that I said in a way that made me resemble a racist NO, I'm NOT Chinese AT ALL) (p.s HI AMY!)

There are some pretty cool people though, I think the biggest obstacle is my humor, like either you get it, or you really don't. Luckily enough people are getting it for the moment for me to be happy. Sometimes you can go down a joke path however,r only to spend roughly fifteen mins explaining the joke and translations words, all of which contributes to a removal of the humour...

The store
More commonly known as the supermarket. My last section on how complexed I am by supermarkets. Essentially whenever I am under stress or have a spare afternoon in the UK, I will generally be in the supermarket. On the day I saw the cyclist get hit I pretty much ran at 'Whole foods' (like Waitrose, but not quite as classy). The other day I went into our local store 'Ralphs' to buy cereal, bread, beans and Orange Juice. The orange juice only came in a gallon size. The only smaller ones were organic and cost about $10, same for the milk. Ok, so before I have even begun I have two very large weights to carry back to the accommodation (its a looong way, and includes a hill. Everything in LA is much further apart, hence the necessity of an automobile). Cereal was more difficult in the sense that I was really after Weetabix, which they don't do here. Due to ethical reasons I won't buy Nestle, already reducing my available cereal by 50%. My next specification was that I didn't want my cereal jammed with sugar, its shocking how nearly everything was 'frosted' or came with marshmallows and/or honey and/or 'cookie pieces' and/or chocolate and/or 'dried/sweetened/coloUred fruit pieces'. Next I didn't want to buy a very expensive, very small, very organic amount amount of museli. Net result Shredded Wheat. Not happy. Baked beans were similarly difficult, I think that America may very well be the only nation in the world that actively promotes the fact that its tinned produce has EXTRA sugar in its products. Added to the fact that I couldn't find anything in the store, it was a fairly stressful experience.... The cheese situations not too bad however, they import Cheddar from Ireland (as a pose to Canada apparently)

So that's me, if you have read this far, well done, I know I wouldn't have done! Later updates will be a) more frequent and b)shorter I promise.

If you have e-mailed me (Ozzie and Scott) or nudged me on facebook then I promise ill make contact really realy soon, but not now, I need bed.

Right now to spellcheck this entry....

David

Friday, October 06, 2006

They say a picture paints 1000 words

...Which is handy as I have just uploaded about 49 images of California and the like to the internet. You can view them all HERE

Today I have done absolutely nothing apart from catch up on sleep and watch far too much Fox News. Apparently my housemate doesn't understand the hardcore bias of the network, sigh...

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Im still here

Hi

Ok, so i've not been so great at keeping up the whole blog thing so far, basically all is good, apart from the fact there is SOO much stuff that I need to do, not like fun stuff, but rubbish stuff like getting the internet working, or setting up my new laptop (which is sort of amazing)

Im not going to update for proper now because im knackered, but by Friday night (or saturday morning back in the uk) blog will be updated with an industrial amount of information and photos and the like...

David