Too Old To..

Rock and Roll? Nope, just too old to think people should be able to drink when they're 18 in bars.

I went into London today and walked around from 4 till 8, got off Underground at Green Park and walked all over the theater district, soho and the river areas. When I'm in a city I love to do the "what's that cool looking thing over there" style of wandering around, at one point I was in a five way intersection and decided left looked cool, after about 15 minutes of "this way looks cool" turning I ended up back in the same intersection, that's when I decided I was done in the theater district and wandered over to the river. On the way over I went into a comic book store to get some Red Dwarf merch but I didn't really like what they had in stock. The Thames is very pretty at night with Big Ben, the London Eye and the London Aquarium. Took some cool pics, uploading to Flickr while I type this. After wandering around the river I decided to head back to Bracknell, on the way to the train I stopped off in a game store and was very impressed with their selection, just not their prices..

Went back to Bracknell for food because I felt cheap and figured since all beef here is organic and grass fed I would eat some more burger, not to mention the Old Manor has their Burger and a Beer special for 6 GBP. While I was in the bar (about an hour) I saw 4 "kids" get thrown out because of drunken disorderly conduct.

Apparently because of the mad cow scare British beef is now all organic and grass fed, so I guess some good came of the mad cow scare - too bad America didn't follow suit.

Block Crazy

EMC sent out an email this morning saying that they were having issues with the internet blocking mechanism and they apologize for any inconvenience. They are blocking my eRoom which is where I get courseware and updates, they are blocking powerlink (which is their customer portal website), they are blocking Meebo (my IM site), they are blocking MLB, ESPN, CNN, ADP, Facebook, & Bella's and those are just the ones I tried. They are not however blocking Blogspot? OK.. So today's blog is brought to you by luck I suppose.

Last night I went out for the curry club and the Old Manor with a co-worker. For 6 GBP I got a very good Chicken Tikki Masala and Vegetarian Samosas, it came with 2 pieces of nan and some yellow rice. It also came with a free beer! I got the English Bitter again. I was so tired last night after staying up late every night that I ended up crashing in bed around 10. I woke up around 2:30 and had problems falling back asleep so I watched a documentary on TV about British Yogurt sales and how the packaging and marketing evolved over the last 40 years. It was the best thing on.. I didn't watch it all, I watched from the 1960's till the 1990's before I got tired enough to shut it back off and get back to sleep.

I am done with lecture and now waiting for my students to do labs, it's a bit frustrating because they have not even started them, instead they went for a "quick" break before labs about 25 mins ago. I plan to go to London today once they are done and would really like to be sooner rather than later.

Ghost town

Last nigh I decided to just hang out around Bracknell, London is an hour train ride and I feel that if I get out after 6 it's not worth riding all the way into the city just to eat and come back. I went to Reading the other night so I didn't want to do that again. I searched online and found a bunch of music venues in Bracknell, all in an area called "the Ring", so I figured I would walk around and see what I stumbled into.

What I stumbled into were tumble weeds, not literally but figuratively. This town is dead at night, from my hotel I walk past a college and a pub called "The Manor House" to get into the center of town so you figure in a college town there would be a night life. Plus with all the music venues you would assume that too. However, the night life, music venues and night clubs are only open on Friday and Saturday nights. During the week you get a nice quiet walk past lots of closed shops and buildings. I was so stunned when I saw Burger King closed at 8pm that I had to start taking pictures of the empty wasteland that is Bracknell at night.

Speaking of pictures, I uploaded a bunch of pictures from January, February and March onto my Flickr.

Walked through the dead zone and came out near the train station, the only thing open there is "the goose" which is a pub with less than fantastic looking food. I decided after walking around for a while to go back to the manor house. They had a sign up saying favorite beer spot of 2010 so I figured I'd give it a shot. I went in and they had maybe 20 different beers on draft and their menu looked pretty impressive. I ended up getting a mozzarella fishcake as a starter and a bacon cheddar burger as my main. One thing I love about being here is the sustainability of the food, all meat is grass fed as I said before and most places sell line caught sustainable fish. The nicer part is that the menus will clearly say that, for example the fishcakes were called "line caught haddock cake with italian aged mozzarella cheese". When I ordered the burger the bar keep tells me I get a free drink with that, I'm thinking soda, turns out it's beer! I had a Lomond Gold Ale which is an Organic English Bitter, I know beer advocate only gives it a C+ but I thought it was good, maybe the people on beer advocate don't like that type of ale? After that beer I had a Ruby Red Hot Chili IPA which is by the same company "Traditional Scottish Ales", I can't seem to find that one on Beer Advocate. Hoyle, if you're reading this, don't get that beer in hopes of being up to your standard of IPA. It is a very good beer, probably better than the Lomond Gold but I would not call it an IPA. It's got a very smooth flavor and a very smooth finish, there is a hoppy flavor but certainly not when used to the Bastards.

Tonight they are having the Manor House is having their Curry Club which is 6 GBP for curries and a beer, I know it's not as cool as wandering around London but I might just go there tonight depending on what time I get out of class. I'll keep you posted.

Tattoo..

So, when last we left out intrepid traveler he was in the San Jose airport about to a "new york style bagel".. I ate it on the plane from San Jose, it was ok but certainly not a "NY Style bagel".. I guess I didn't really expect it to be. The flights home were uneventful but good. Got home, hung out with Dianne, Jessie and Joe on Saturday night.

Yesterday I finally got my tattoo, after years of design and waiting I finally have it. It only took about 2 hours and was not nearly as painful as I thought it would be. Pictures on Flickr. The only part that was real painful was the top of the shoulder by the neck. After the tattoo me and Lynz went and got some dinner at the Courthouse. They were slow and I convinced the waitress to give me potato skins instead of fries! So good!

Tomorrow I have to go to the Brazilian Consulate to finally get my Brazil Visa.. I just found out I may be going to London now as well as Georgia and Brazil.. If that's the case it will be, fly out Sunday to Georgia, leave Georgia on Friday, go to Mythical Journeys Future Imperfect, fly out on Sunday to London, fly home Friday morning and go to WPA Friday night, fly to Brazil on Saturday!

---Diversions of the day

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BAT FIGHT with Will Ferrell from Will Ferrell