Jibber Jabber

Ah well, another week has gone… We’re at just about mid-fall right now, and the leaves are doing their thing, so much as leaves in London ever do their thing. There are few trees that put on a proper autumn-show, but a lot more typical is the London Plane, which seems to engage in an ongoing battle with its leaves every fall. One at a time, probably during the night, they crinkle into a sort of yicky brown, then fall to the ground with a slight crackling thud. Very unlike, say, a sugar maple, where some bit of inner choreography celebrates the shortening days with a riot of color before the leaves commit mass suicide and plonk to the cold ground. Unfortuantely, London has a lot more London Planes than it does sugar maples, which may go some way to explaining their name… Hmm…

I’ve managed to catch a minor cold, it seems. Sore throat, general mild crappiness. Not bad, considering that I work in an office full of unhealthy, chain smoking, grease-consuming lardybutts. I still managed to go out for a 55 mile bike ride yesterday – I figured maybe I could scare away the cold germs.

Saturday night, Avi came over, and David, Robin, Avi and I sat around, eating junk food, and watched four episodes of BS Gallactica. Fabulous way to spend an evening.

A random observation from the work shower… Someone there has shampoo with ‘Extract of Horse Chestnut’. This seems odd, as horsechestnut contains a blood poison, and the Native Americans used to use a relative – buckeye, to stun the fish in water. Why one would want to rub this in one’s hair is beyond me – perhaps it tames wild hair?

And tomorrow we have an all-day ‘away day’. An away day is where the entire department spends the entire day listening to bullshit presentations and some amount of self-esteem or communications related drivel. This time, their idea for a ‘lunchtime activity’ (mandatory, of course) is a group singing session by some woman who thinks she can teach non-singers, llamas, and corduroy to sing (http://www.singalive.org/about.php). I’ve informed my boss that there are several important things about being a grown-up… 1. I don’t have to eat foods I don’t like, and 2. I don’t have to sing. I mean, really – where do they get off thinking that people in an IT department are going to want to stand around and sing KumBaYa?

Not much else exciting – it’s been pretty dull – hence my lack of entries…

Shit and Champagne...

You wouldn't think those two would go together... However, Saturday, David, Robin and I went over to Avi's to help him plant palms and tree ferns in his back yard (which he is redoing completely). When all was said and done, he offered us all a glass of champagne (us all being raging and notorious homosexuals). I had my glass of champagne while sitting on top of a bag of horseshit. Very classy.

I am coming up to one week with no caffeine, and I have to say, it's been really difficult. I suppose this is the reason I had to have coffee, tea or soda every day for the past 18 years. I got through the headachey and bitchy phase (bitchier than normal), but I'm still waking up at night and am unable to fall asleep. Weird. Who'd a thunk that caffeine would be so addictive? Well, there goes my desire to have a heroin addiction...

I went for a bike ride yesterday - not very far - only 42 miles, but it was the first bike ride of any length I'd been on since August. The weather was absolutely crap and I got soaked, but I suppose it is October, and one must expect these little trials and tribulations.

Went this morning to a talk given by Google's top laywer about censorship and general freedom of information. Very interesting, but not always for the reasons it should have been. As it was a public talk, it was pretty general - lots of examples of how Google had dealt with censorship requests from various governments. I couldn't, however, get past the thought that 'Wow, this guy has really drunk the Kool-Aid' as far as he painted a picture of Google as this sort of beneficent extra-governmental organisation fighting for free speech everywhere. Of course, he did mention that this was sort of important for the business model, but still, it really made Google sound like the corporation you'd bring home to mom...

Not much else exciting at the moment... My cooked breakfasts are going well (bacon, eggs and beans), and while I miss my daily PBJ, my salad and meat lunch seems to be getting rid of the PBJ around my middle. Who'd a thunk that PBJ would cause so much midline damage?

Anyway, time to change and head out towards the gym. It's already getting dark - blah.

Wet and crappy...

So, I'm nearly through the process of cutting out caffeine completely, and I actually haven't murdered anyone yet (though the thought has crossed my mind...). Today I had two green teas. Tomorrow it's one. And then Wednesday, for the first time in 18 years, I'm going to try to go through the entire day with no caffeine (if I eat chocolate, that doesn't count, b/c my protein powder is chocolate). I'm not going to never have coffee or tea again, because that's just silly, but I decided that I needed to stop having it every day, because I really don't like the idea of being dependent on something. Ironically, given that the amount of caffeine I've been having has been dropping (to be honest, it wasn't that much - 4 cups of tea per day), I've been sleeping terribly and having weird dreams. Wow - good thing I don't smoke, seeing as how much of a baby I'm being about this...

Today is wet and cold and shitty out and I'm feeling uninspired. My bike ride in was full of morons as well - you'd think that in a place that rains as frequently as this, people would know how to drive properly in the rain. Unfortunately, you'd be wrong.

Blah.

Oh, seen at lunch - the first Christmas decorations from lamp posts. How horrid! Some of the stores have had their Christmas crap up since mid September. It's pretty sad that now by the time that Christmas gets here I'm completely sick of it. (And both sad and ironic that all traces of it disappear within several days after, when they were up for months before!).

Oh dear, it might be autumn...

Well, here it is Sunday evening and I'm still feeling like a hippo from lunch. After a very nice (but unfortunately short, only 30 miles) bike ride through increasingly autumnal London, I met up with Adrian, David, Avi, and Avi's beau of the month, whose name eludes me. They've apparently been on several dates and still haven't even made it to first base. Truly shocking behaviour - I'm thinking of organising an intervention for Avi - he's losing his touch... Anyway, we went to a pub at the north end of Camden, just at the edge of Chalk Farm (far enough out of Camden to be away from the huge crowds and homeless people, but close enough to be still uber-trendoid) and had Sunday Roast. We all had lamb, except David, who, for some bizarre reason, had chicken. I mean, really - if you're going to have 9 million calories, you might as well go the whole hog and have lamb (I'm sure there's irony in that sentence somewhere, but I'm too lazy to find it). We sat out in the back, in the beer garden (only seats available), breathing in everyone's smoke, which was pretty spectacular, and freezing as the temperature decided to plummet. Headed up the hill after that for yummy dessert at a little cafe with brightly coloured cupcakes in the window. In my book that's a sure mark of a quality bakery - big fluffy, bright cupcakes. I had the chocolate chiffon cake and a fresh peppermint tea. Mmmm...

I biked down to Vauxhall after that, to momentarily rescue Robin from boredom. His friend Mike (who owns a sex store) is in from Munich, and Mike wanted to go to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern to stand around outside with the various drunk and dishevelled queens (too much partying over the weekend) and schmooze (neither Robin nor Mike had been out over the weekend...) The funny thing about the RVT (there are many funny things) is that it's this little shit pub right by a train station, and right by a very busy road. There are a number of clubs and bars in the immediate vicinity, under the arches of the railway, as well as a horrible little park out back, where the trashed gay boys and their fag hags tend to congregate in the summer after partying the weekend away (I have, of course, never done that, and just read about it once in a book, which I then promptly burned). Across the railway is the very imposing headquarters for the MI5 (or is it MI6? Can't remember). Anyway, here, on a Sunday afternoon/evening, at the edge of one of the busiest streets in London, one can always find a (very) ragtag group of gay men of various shapes, sizes and ages, standing around outside the RVT, smoking and talking. A number of them will be just your ordinary pub goers, but at least half of them will have been out the entire weekend, taking unmentionable amounts of illegal substances, and will be standing outside, no matter what the weather, often shirtless, having their beers, happily oblivious to the stares of the passersby, the bus passengers, and the many West Africans who live in the area. The police, who I'm entirely sure have full knowledge of all the silliness that goes on in Vauxhall, seem to look the other way, as long as people behave themselves and don't generally cause a ruckus. I guess, when it comes down to it, if you have a group of drunk and belligerent hetero "lager-louts" causing fights, or a gaggle of saucer-eyed, loved-up gay men, it's not hard to guess which is more likely to cause problems... Anyway, the point of all that is that I stopped by there to say hello to Robin, who was standing around, bored out of his skull while Mike flitted about from group to group like some hairy German butterfly. A very odd situation indeed. (I do like Mike very much, I should add, even if I find him occasionally ridiculous).

Yesterday, what did I do yesterday? Ooh, getting geriatric... Oh, I know - I went running, went to the gym, had a very healthy lentil-heavy, vegetarian lunch at the lesbian cafe (followed by several trips to the bathroom... sigh - the wonders of roughage), and we all sat around on our collective asses last night and watched Angels and Demons. Now if that wasn't a big wet "I'm sorry" kiss to the Catholic Church I'm not sure what is...

And I spent two days, Thursday and Friday, at my first ever computer programming class (MapBasic), where I realized that my brain just doesn't work that way, and that computer languages are definitely created by people without girlfriends.

And finally - the Robin crime saga... The police said they are going to drop the case b/c (of course), the CCTV cameras at the bottom of the hill weren't pointed in the right direction (of course) and they are too lazy and donut-starved to bother with any of the cameras coming up the hill. Go lame-ass British police! Oh, and just to really sparkle things up, poor Robin had the seat and seatpost stolen off his bike last week as well. It is distinctly possible this household might be having politically incorrect thoughts at the moment about ghetto trash, I mean, certain members of the less fortunate.

And that brings me up to now, 7pm on a Sunday, when it is depressingly dark and cloudy outside. Heading into the winter dark... I'm going to have to get my happy-lamp out soon at work (and piss off everyone else in the process...) :-)