Photosucht

1002 down.

So I'll take a picture of anything. And bolts are interesting to me. Minutae rocks!

But my new memory card has been a challenge. 2 gig and the photo counter refuses to budge. 999 photos remaining.

No reason to delete the pictures that the camera has declared blurry. No reason to redevelop any kind of fire discipline.

Often the blurry-warning pix look fine on the laptop anyways.

I've been taking extra shots for a project and to try to force the counter to budge. Last night I transfered to my laptop and I've only used 630 meg. at my highest resolution. I don't think I took near enough today to beat it. I've kind of slowed down in defeat and the museum of the day didn't allow photography. And the church was closed in the afternoon. And the rain started as we looked at the outside so I didn't take as many as I might have.

But I still got in a few. For the amount of time I've been on vacation, 1002 is obscene. And it's not quite over.

Urgent Starbucks Update

In the interests of fair and balanced reporting (read: further bashing) your intrepid reporter checked on the prices of coffee in this fine establishment. They seem to be fairly high, in line with the coffee shops at high end department stores. The soy milk was .40 (in pence) or approx .80 american at this point in time. Hot chocolate was 2.55 sterling for a small. This is definately more expensive than the other places that I've looked or stopped at. Especially once you and my muched loved carmel syrup (30 p).

In comparision, my lunch today was a largish burger, fries and a pint of cider. I had to pay .60 extra for the cheese. But the original package was 4.99. And the alcohol beverage choice seemed to be encouraged over soda. But there were 11 to choose from, all full size. And I was definitely more than twice as full than drinking a hot chocolate. And the place was called Sheakespeare's Head. Maybe I've consumed inspiration or tiny brain particles, which would be totally sweet.

(It's vacation, why not drink at lunch? Now I remember why I liked being a lush but I didn't get a buzz from the cider. For the record, Pucca was the one walking into doors last night, not me.)

There's two good, nicely-priced ready to eat chains around town, EAT and PRET. Mostly soups, sandwiches, salads and wraps with a couple other things thrown in. They are both soy-locations. Eat has flavored syrupsfor coffee but no bathrooms and closes earlier. Pret is the opposite. The food is good in both and a good alternative to 10 pound lunches when you don't see a package deal.

I'm attemping a second cheese-tomato-free day today. I've had it in sandwiches and or salads every day but one so far. It gets old with me even though the type of cheese changes. A new variant is the mozzarella, roma tomato, avacado salad which I'll admit is quite tasty.

Can you tell I'm getting hungry?

Loving London

Fuck is it ever expensive.
Big city+shit dollar = counting tuppence the rest of the trip.

pick pockets are real.

the poker books are right that some times the shaking hands stress response comes only after the stressor is gone and the big decision has been made.

I miss readily available soy milk. I didn't realize that until it's not around. Really lattes are too expensive anyways. Other prices have gone up so much coke is a reasonable beverage choice now.

dublin feels different than belfast than london.

open top bus tours on rainy days are good for hair curling. better than a perm even.

the coutard collection is like walking through an art history text book. Major super-famous impressionist and post paintings. Plus my sweethearts Muenter and Kandinsky. Only one Munter, though. Cought a gallery talk about K-dog. Quite good.

The traditional pub and curry was quite fun. when you order a bottle of wine to share with someone, you should make sure they actually want it so you don't have to drink the whole bloody thing by yourself. I forget cider is readily available here and I could have just had that. it probably would have been a 40, though and that would have been wourse than wine. I did count glasses of water correctly to wake up with no head ache even if I can't hold the liquor as well. Sorry Tim, Pucca, et al. I did do fairly well for an entire bottle of wine.

The trains have been interesting.

Note: If a train is crowded enough to de-classify several cars of first-class, when you get there it won't be very nice. And they won't give you free drinks.

Note 2: I am now old. One of the two 11-13 year old girls at the table with us on the trainleft a book when she got off. We said "hey, your book!" but she didn't turn. Finally the thing she heard was my loud "Miss, your book!" And when she came back I got the silent thank you that was mostly air, not voice. It looked like a library book, expensive to lose. I officially announced That I was old now and a few people sitting around laughed. I can't believe I said "miss".

Comic Love and Ballet

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

I'm in love with these guys.
This is the funniest thing I've read in a long time. Especially because I sat through a bunch of ballet last night where it was really important for the men to not even accidentally touch each other. And the music was off, but that's another story.

It seems like two men dancing together could do some cool ass acrobatics. There was a tiny bit for 4 seconds. Out of TWO and a HALF HOURS. very heteronormative.

I'm just sayin'

When the next Art Spiegelman draws the new Maus for the post Iraq War War era,
the Americans will not be puppy dogs!
Infer from this whatever you wish, but I'm just sayin'.

I feel like I could be the everyday German allowing Nazi atrocities to perpetuate themselves. But hey, Bush did great things for the economy. Or at least the war machine. Which I'm benefiting from. No wonder I'm frequently nauseous.