It has been pointed out to me I have been relatively negative in my internet presence lately, so here's a post to the contrary. I'm not going to do a list of five things I enjoy about living in London, but rather just a few random items that come to mind that hopefully don't need much explanation turning this post into a book chapter. The following are in no particular order other than the ones I came up with first in my head.
-I think we can all agree, one of the funniest things in the world is watching people fall. A little disclaimer here: it's not so much fun having to deal with the aftermath of a fall that actually hurts someone, especially if it's someone you actually care about, but the fall itself is magical regardless of the outcome. The inspiration of this thought: it snowed today, which is absolutely terrible, but it did provide some incredibly awesome unintentional comedy for my walk home. Maybe it's because I'm from the Midwest and grew up in this disgusting excuse for weather, but I'm pretty sure footed in snow/ice, very much unlike the majority of people I saw today on the walk back. While I didn't see anyone actually fall, I did witness many people in the midst of an almost fall or people tiptoeing around on the sidewalk like when you're walking in from an all-night bender in high school and don't want to wake the rents. One can only hope that if this shitty weather continues, at the very least I'll be able to witness someone almost break their ass after slipping and sliding for a solid ten seconds. I feel I've earned it.
-Speaking of walking, another thing I've learned to enjoy is the 20 minute walk to and from work each day. I've been spending an inordinate amount of quality time with my iPod and without it, these walks would be much less tolerable. On the walk to work, it gives me time to mentally prepare for the day and relax in a strange way before what will no doubt be a relatively stressful day. On the walk back, obviously the opposite, a chance to unwind while also getting a little unintentional exercise (never a bad thing) and deciding what to do for the evening, if anything. It also gives me an opportunity to check out new music and my collection has grown to the point where I could potentially listen to a new album each day and not run out for the rest of the year (thanks Joel).
-On the topic of transportation, this is one of the best features of Europe and each major city. I live within a 10 minute walk of two Underground (tube) stations and probably a 5 minute walk from about 20 bus stops. With these links, I can potentially be anywhere in the city in the matter of a half hour for a very decent price. Also, a 20 minute walk from King's Cross/St. Pancras station means I can board a train for anywhere in Europe at essentially a moment's notice (provided I'm willing to pay the premium). I do miss driving and the freedom that comes with it, but I do not miss the frustration of dealing with traffic on an everyday basis. Although one of the perks of driving is leaving whenever you wish, rather than being at the mercy of the train schedule...give and take, I suppose.
-As we've already discussed, I have never lived in a major city before so this is probably similar for the hundreds of major metro areas, but there is so much entertainment available in very small area which means there is always something to do. I can't even fathom a guess at how many museums there are in London, and they all have free entry. On one of our first days here, our program adviser said something along the lines of “people can come see all the stuff we've stolen from civilizations over the last thousand years for free. We may have stolen it, but we take good care of it.” Fine by me...I like free. Free is good, especially when living on a monthly stipend similar to the amount of money a normal person earns in a few days. Along with the museums, there are plenty of concerts held every night for not a lot of money. The obvious entertainment options are here as well: musicals, plays, people-watching, movies, etc. but there is so much to do it would be difficult to be bored in this city. I'm convinced a person could live in and stay in only the London area for an entire year and not experience everything it has to offer, there is that much to be seen.
-Along the same lines of transportation and walking, another very cool aspect of the city (and again, probably most major metropolitan areas) is the street art. London is home to many of the best street artists in the world and their work is prominently displayed all over the place. Some may see them as people who destroy and deface, but much of their work is extremely detailed and quite clever. If you have a chance, check out some of Banksy's work online. Apparently every Christmas he seems to do something pretty extraordinary and while I've never actually seen any of his pieces (I've tried and failed miserably), I'm looking forward to finding out what he'll do next. How does this pertain to walking and transportation? One of the only ways to stumble upon some of the best street art is walking around and keeping your eyes open. When it was actually warm, (well...it was never really “warm” here...just...tepid) one of my favorite activities was to walk randomly around the city and try to find my way back without the use of a map. During these mini expeditions I would stumble across some of the street art the city has to offer and some of it is truly amazing.
I'm running out of ideas, so I think I'll stop this post here before it gets too dull and boring (oops...too late). As always, if anyone has any specific questions, go ahead and comment and I'll do my best to answer. Until next time...
Friday, December 17, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
Balls Deep
A quick hitter (potentially) about something that happened at work today that could have gone horribly wrong, but turned out to be funny (thankfully).
First, a little background. Every year, UBS has one Friday a year where employees are invited to participate in a series of events designed to inspire a little fun. This year, the events were a mince pie eating contest, a mini-golf around the office game, an XBOX dance off, a “name the company logo” contest, and a raffle with all proceeds going to charity. Yesterday, my team graciously volunteered me to participate in the mince pie eating contest and I begrudgingly accepted even though mince pies are about as appetizing as they sound. In order to seem more into the team spirit of the event, I brought my newly minted camera along so my co-workers could immortalize my inevitable near-public humiliation and potential stomach upheaval for all eternity (pictures on Facebook to come). During the entire spectacle, my boss is using my camera to take pictures of the festivities since I will be unable to use the camera myself while stuffing my face full of some of the most hideous food I've ever had to eat.
The rules: two minute heat, eat as many pies as you can in those two minutes one at a time. The mouth must be confirmed empty before the next pie can be undertaken. Fair enough. I am in the second heat of three and I realize immediately I have no chance in making it through to the next and final round. The top 6 make it to the finals and in order to have even the smallest chance, you need to scarf down three of these disgusting hair pies. I give it my best shot even though I have zero interest in making it out of this round and eventually choke down two of these vomit inducing pucks of garbage. The next heat involves a co-worker of mine who works directly under my boss's supervisor, so we all have a semi-vested interest in seeing him do well. My boss continues to snap pictures of the happenings with my camera which will probably eventually make their way into the company news letter or some such item.
Here's where it gets interesting. As usually happens during this type of activity, a few decent pictures get taken and the taker wants to share them with the people who might enjoy them. After going through the pictures she has taken, it comes to the end of the most recent pictures and rolls into previously taken ones. Since this is a relatively new camera (I've had it for all of two weeks), there shouldn't be any other pictures on the memory card since I have taken precisely zero pictures with this camera to date. The problem is, there are pictures at the beginning of the card and the pictures are of a shiny, hairy testicle. Two pictures, same ball, one close up, one further away. In my boss's supervisor's hands...my camera...balls on the screen. Awesome. It is at this moment I can actually hear my career getting flushed down the toilet at rapid speed. After viewing the testicle pictures, the big boss hands the camera to my line manager and says “oops...I probably wasn't meant to see those,” to which my line manager replies “that's not my camera, it's Justin's.” Even better. How am I supposed to explain how my camera has pictures of balls on it when everyone assumes they're mine since it's my camera? You can't. You can only try.
This is what I came up with: logic. Why would I ever rationally, intentionally hand over my camera to my boss knowing full well there are pictures of my own anatomy on there? Has that ever worked for anyone? “Hey, I know you said you didn't want to give me that promotion...but take a look at this! I bet you'll change your mind!” There has to be an explanation here...and there was.
Turns out, someone I know (I'm not naming names...that would be rude) thought it would be a pretty funny joke to take some full frontals after having a few drinks one night. Now don't get me wrong, I'm all about male nudity jokes...and had I not discovered the pictures in this particular situation, it would have been a lot funnier. Since it happened to be in this situation? Not quite as funny. Thankfully the bosses had a sense of humor about it and bought my explanation about why it wasn't my junk on the camera. All in all – no harm...no foul. But it could have been much, much worse.
And a friendly warning to the person(s) responsible: payback is and always will be a psychotic, mind-fucking bitch.
First, a little background. Every year, UBS has one Friday a year where employees are invited to participate in a series of events designed to inspire a little fun. This year, the events were a mince pie eating contest, a mini-golf around the office game, an XBOX dance off, a “name the company logo” contest, and a raffle with all proceeds going to charity. Yesterday, my team graciously volunteered me to participate in the mince pie eating contest and I begrudgingly accepted even though mince pies are about as appetizing as they sound. In order to seem more into the team spirit of the event, I brought my newly minted camera along so my co-workers could immortalize my inevitable near-public humiliation and potential stomach upheaval for all eternity (pictures on Facebook to come). During the entire spectacle, my boss is using my camera to take pictures of the festivities since I will be unable to use the camera myself while stuffing my face full of some of the most hideous food I've ever had to eat.
The rules: two minute heat, eat as many pies as you can in those two minutes one at a time. The mouth must be confirmed empty before the next pie can be undertaken. Fair enough. I am in the second heat of three and I realize immediately I have no chance in making it through to the next and final round. The top 6 make it to the finals and in order to have even the smallest chance, you need to scarf down three of these disgusting hair pies. I give it my best shot even though I have zero interest in making it out of this round and eventually choke down two of these vomit inducing pucks of garbage. The next heat involves a co-worker of mine who works directly under my boss's supervisor, so we all have a semi-vested interest in seeing him do well. My boss continues to snap pictures of the happenings with my camera which will probably eventually make their way into the company news letter or some such item.
Here's where it gets interesting. As usually happens during this type of activity, a few decent pictures get taken and the taker wants to share them with the people who might enjoy them. After going through the pictures she has taken, it comes to the end of the most recent pictures and rolls into previously taken ones. Since this is a relatively new camera (I've had it for all of two weeks), there shouldn't be any other pictures on the memory card since I have taken precisely zero pictures with this camera to date. The problem is, there are pictures at the beginning of the card and the pictures are of a shiny, hairy testicle. Two pictures, same ball, one close up, one further away. In my boss's supervisor's hands...my camera...balls on the screen. Awesome. It is at this moment I can actually hear my career getting flushed down the toilet at rapid speed. After viewing the testicle pictures, the big boss hands the camera to my line manager and says “oops...I probably wasn't meant to see those,” to which my line manager replies “that's not my camera, it's Justin's.” Even better. How am I supposed to explain how my camera has pictures of balls on it when everyone assumes they're mine since it's my camera? You can't. You can only try.
This is what I came up with: logic. Why would I ever rationally, intentionally hand over my camera to my boss knowing full well there are pictures of my own anatomy on there? Has that ever worked for anyone? “Hey, I know you said you didn't want to give me that promotion...but take a look at this! I bet you'll change your mind!” There has to be an explanation here...and there was.
Turns out, someone I know (I'm not naming names...that would be rude) thought it would be a pretty funny joke to take some full frontals after having a few drinks one night. Now don't get me wrong, I'm all about male nudity jokes...and had I not discovered the pictures in this particular situation, it would have been a lot funnier. Since it happened to be in this situation? Not quite as funny. Thankfully the bosses had a sense of humor about it and bought my explanation about why it wasn't my junk on the camera. All in all – no harm...no foul. But it could have been much, much worse.
And a friendly warning to the person(s) responsible: payback is and always will be a psychotic, mind-fucking bitch.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Top 5 Things that Piss Me Off About London
OK, so this was originally intended to be a sports related blog (inspired by my brother's), but I soon realized a few things:
1. I don't know enough about sports for this to be entertaining in the long run which negates the whole purpose of a blog that's supposed to be enjoyable to write while also being enjoyable to read.
2. Given #1, I wouldn't be able to come up with enough ideas to even write on a semi-regular basis which would eventually turn it into a chore as opposed to something that is supposed to be fun.
3. There are about 14,323,328 sports blogs out there (probably a low estimate), so really I would just be rehashing the same ideas that everyone else is talking and writing about. I have no interest in reading the same thing multiple times, so once again, the original intention really is not that interesting.
So here's the deal from here on out: I will only write when I feel like it, which hopefully is more often than before since it's been almost a solid year since my last post, I am going to write about any and everything that comes to mind, and most of you will probably disagree with what I say (still holding true to the original title), especially since there will probably only be 3 people who actually read it.
In order to start things off easy, I'm going to steal an idea from a few different places and give a top 5 list. Maybe this will be a reoccurring theme, maybe it won't, but just to get back into the swing of things, here goes.
Today's topic: Top 5 things that piss me off about London in no particular order.
1. I'm sure this is no different than any other major city in the world, but I've never lived in a major city before so it's new to me. Most people bitch about traffic since almost everyone has to drive to work these days. Since I live so close to where I work and since I don't have a car here, I walk to work everyday (about a 20 minute walk). Generally speaking, I'm trying to get to where I'm going as fast as humanly possible, so I carry a pretty fast gait in order to achieve that goal. In a city with around five million people, I tend to pass people on the sidewalk pretty regularly when walking in the same direction. Most of the time, this is not a big deal but there are times (generally three to four times a day) when there's a group of two or more people effectively dominating the entire sidewalk and walking much slower than I am and are completely oblivious to the fact that someone is behind them trying to get where they're going quickly. Just like a nice walk in the park for them while I'm absolutely fuming inside trying to figure out a way around them without touching them or getting run over in the street.
Most people would not not have an issue with this happening occasionally and I would tend to agree. However, once this happens a few hundred times, I have a huge issue with it. The only thing keeping me from giving them a forearm shiver to the back while muttering “get the fuck out of my way” is the knowledge that they wouldn't deserve that kind of reaction. It's not the specific people that are pissing me off to the point where the above actions would be acceptable, but the combined fury from the other encounters with similar situations. Maybe one day it will boil over and I'll lose my mind for a few seconds leading to said forearm shiver, but for now I think it's under control. To be continued...
2. Since we're on the subject of walking, I have another trend I've noticed. I do a lot of walking. A lot. At minimum 3 miles a day. Maybe it's another one of those things I don't understand since I'm from a small town, but one of the more annoying scenarios I've noticed is nobody moves out of the way when there is plenty of room to let someone pass instead of taking up the entire space by walking in the middle of the sidewalk. By walking in the middle of the sidewalk and not moving, it effectively gives me about a foot and a half on either side with which to work with. This usually leads to four options: hope there's no oncoming traffic and go into the street, brush up against a building while king shit walks by, “accidentally” bump into the sidewalk kid while walking by (never a wise option), or simply stop and make him choose. The fourth option never usually works since he's either oblivious or too self-important to notice anyone else walking and bumps into you. What usually happens in this situation is I try and morph my body into positions that cannot possibly be good for it in order to not touch this person as I'm walking by. Apparently I'm the only person in the entire city that can either pay attention to their surroundings or actually cares enough to make room for a person to walk by untouched. Side note that kind of explains the above: I don't particularly like being touched, especially by random people I don't know.
3. Our internet provider is a company called Pogolink. Pogolink is complete and utter shit. I've dealt with a lot of internet companies over the years and this is by far the worst I've encountered. First, our internet is limited to 2,000 minutes (fine, I get it, not a big deal) and 1.5 gigs a week. 1.5 gigs...yes...1.5 gigs. I could use that amount of data in a few hours, let alone forcing it to last an entire week. At first, the limitations were horrible, but just like anything else, you get used to it and it becomes just another thing. What really pisses me off about this company other than the limitations is the actual quality of the service. We are forced to log in to use the internet, which makes sense since we have the limits on the personal accounts. Most nights it's a miracle if a connection exists and even if it does exist, that doesn't necessarily mean it will work. Even if a connection exists and it works, it doesn't necessarily mean it will be a good connection. This makes for a very frustrating internet experience. In order to log a problem with the service, we need internet. How can we log a problem with the service if the internet doesn't work? In order to log off correctly, we need the internet to work. How can we log off if the internet service does not even recognize its own domain? I say again...Pogolink is complete and utter shit.
4. Since we're on the subject of internet, mobile internet is another interesting topic. I kept my Blackberry from the US (fuckin' Verizon...that's a whole other situation) and unlocked it to use in the UK so I wouldn't have to buy another phone. Part of my phone plan is obviously mobile internet but they have a “fair-use” policy on almost all carriers which limits mobile internet to either 750mb, 500mb, or 100mb per month. The plan I use limits my internet to 100mb per month (because I'm cheap and probably also because I didn't get that great of a deal) and thus forces me to be very prudent with what I use my phone for in any given month. This means no Pandora (irrelevant because Pandora does not work in the UK), no YouTube, making sure my program downloads are necessary, and keeping browsing to a minimum. Rationing mobile internet isn't as fun as 1,348 other things I could be doing, but unfortunately necessary since most of my communications are made through the mobile internet. Another issue (which could also be my own fault) is the service. I don't have 3G, but instead have GPRS (which is essentially 2.5G) because when I originally purchased my sim, I was unaware I needed to specify I wanted a 3G sim. It can be rectified, but as with everything relating to internet, I need to be careful. My phone is working now (it was a pain in the ass to get it to work) and I'm afraid if I screw with it, it will stop working. Not something I want to have to deal with if it happens. So for now...I guess I just have to suck it up or get some stones and make the changes.
5. As most of you probably know, I'm not what anyone would call a “morning person.” My work schedule forces me to wake up at 7am each morning in order to get to work on time. I knew this would happen eventually, but I hate it. If I could work a 10-7, I would absolutely love it. Since I also require between 7 and 9 hours of sleep to function correctly, this forces me to go to bed around 11pm each night, effectively turning me into a grandfather. Every night I tell myself to go to bed at 1030 (seriously!?) but 1130 rolls around and I'm usually still awake like an idiot. Sure, also my own fault, but I enjoy staying up late...I guess this is growing up. This is not even close to being related, but the weather is awful here. London isn't supposed to have that much snow (which would be awesome if it were actually the case) but just last week they had a few inches (which is a few inches too much). Also, it isn't supposed to get very cold here (supposed to hover around 32 degrees) but it had been in the 20s for much of the previous week. As many of you also know, I hate cold and I hate snow. Cold, snow, and walking a ton do not mix. Sure, I'm from Ohio so I should be used to it, but as my roommate said last week: “I don't care where you're from, cold is cold. And this is cold.”
So there you go, first installment of what may eventually turn into a series of blog posts on whatever I feel like posting and writing about at the time. If anyone has any specific questions about anything In London, go ahead and ask and I'll do my best to answer. Other than that...until next time...
1. I don't know enough about sports for this to be entertaining in the long run which negates the whole purpose of a blog that's supposed to be enjoyable to write while also being enjoyable to read.
2. Given #1, I wouldn't be able to come up with enough ideas to even write on a semi-regular basis which would eventually turn it into a chore as opposed to something that is supposed to be fun.
3. There are about 14,323,328 sports blogs out there (probably a low estimate), so really I would just be rehashing the same ideas that everyone else is talking and writing about. I have no interest in reading the same thing multiple times, so once again, the original intention really is not that interesting.
So here's the deal from here on out: I will only write when I feel like it, which hopefully is more often than before since it's been almost a solid year since my last post, I am going to write about any and everything that comes to mind, and most of you will probably disagree with what I say (still holding true to the original title), especially since there will probably only be 3 people who actually read it.
In order to start things off easy, I'm going to steal an idea from a few different places and give a top 5 list. Maybe this will be a reoccurring theme, maybe it won't, but just to get back into the swing of things, here goes.
Today's topic: Top 5 things that piss me off about London in no particular order.
1. I'm sure this is no different than any other major city in the world, but I've never lived in a major city before so it's new to me. Most people bitch about traffic since almost everyone has to drive to work these days. Since I live so close to where I work and since I don't have a car here, I walk to work everyday (about a 20 minute walk). Generally speaking, I'm trying to get to where I'm going as fast as humanly possible, so I carry a pretty fast gait in order to achieve that goal. In a city with around five million people, I tend to pass people on the sidewalk pretty regularly when walking in the same direction. Most of the time, this is not a big deal but there are times (generally three to four times a day) when there's a group of two or more people effectively dominating the entire sidewalk and walking much slower than I am and are completely oblivious to the fact that someone is behind them trying to get where they're going quickly. Just like a nice walk in the park for them while I'm absolutely fuming inside trying to figure out a way around them without touching them or getting run over in the street.
Most people would not not have an issue with this happening occasionally and I would tend to agree. However, once this happens a few hundred times, I have a huge issue with it. The only thing keeping me from giving them a forearm shiver to the back while muttering “get the fuck out of my way” is the knowledge that they wouldn't deserve that kind of reaction. It's not the specific people that are pissing me off to the point where the above actions would be acceptable, but the combined fury from the other encounters with similar situations. Maybe one day it will boil over and I'll lose my mind for a few seconds leading to said forearm shiver, but for now I think it's under control. To be continued...
2. Since we're on the subject of walking, I have another trend I've noticed. I do a lot of walking. A lot. At minimum 3 miles a day. Maybe it's another one of those things I don't understand since I'm from a small town, but one of the more annoying scenarios I've noticed is nobody moves out of the way when there is plenty of room to let someone pass instead of taking up the entire space by walking in the middle of the sidewalk. By walking in the middle of the sidewalk and not moving, it effectively gives me about a foot and a half on either side with which to work with. This usually leads to four options: hope there's no oncoming traffic and go into the street, brush up against a building while king shit walks by, “accidentally” bump into the sidewalk kid while walking by (never a wise option), or simply stop and make him choose. The fourth option never usually works since he's either oblivious or too self-important to notice anyone else walking and bumps into you. What usually happens in this situation is I try and morph my body into positions that cannot possibly be good for it in order to not touch this person as I'm walking by. Apparently I'm the only person in the entire city that can either pay attention to their surroundings or actually cares enough to make room for a person to walk by untouched. Side note that kind of explains the above: I don't particularly like being touched, especially by random people I don't know.
3. Our internet provider is a company called Pogolink. Pogolink is complete and utter shit. I've dealt with a lot of internet companies over the years and this is by far the worst I've encountered. First, our internet is limited to 2,000 minutes (fine, I get it, not a big deal) and 1.5 gigs a week. 1.5 gigs...yes...1.5 gigs. I could use that amount of data in a few hours, let alone forcing it to last an entire week. At first, the limitations were horrible, but just like anything else, you get used to it and it becomes just another thing. What really pisses me off about this company other than the limitations is the actual quality of the service. We are forced to log in to use the internet, which makes sense since we have the limits on the personal accounts. Most nights it's a miracle if a connection exists and even if it does exist, that doesn't necessarily mean it will work. Even if a connection exists and it works, it doesn't necessarily mean it will be a good connection. This makes for a very frustrating internet experience. In order to log a problem with the service, we need internet. How can we log a problem with the service if the internet doesn't work? In order to log off correctly, we need the internet to work. How can we log off if the internet service does not even recognize its own domain? I say again...Pogolink is complete and utter shit.
4. Since we're on the subject of internet, mobile internet is another interesting topic. I kept my Blackberry from the US (fuckin' Verizon...that's a whole other situation) and unlocked it to use in the UK so I wouldn't have to buy another phone. Part of my phone plan is obviously mobile internet but they have a “fair-use” policy on almost all carriers which limits mobile internet to either 750mb, 500mb, or 100mb per month. The plan I use limits my internet to 100mb per month (because I'm cheap and probably also because I didn't get that great of a deal) and thus forces me to be very prudent with what I use my phone for in any given month. This means no Pandora (irrelevant because Pandora does not work in the UK), no YouTube, making sure my program downloads are necessary, and keeping browsing to a minimum. Rationing mobile internet isn't as fun as 1,348 other things I could be doing, but unfortunately necessary since most of my communications are made through the mobile internet. Another issue (which could also be my own fault) is the service. I don't have 3G, but instead have GPRS (which is essentially 2.5G) because when I originally purchased my sim, I was unaware I needed to specify I wanted a 3G sim. It can be rectified, but as with everything relating to internet, I need to be careful. My phone is working now (it was a pain in the ass to get it to work) and I'm afraid if I screw with it, it will stop working. Not something I want to have to deal with if it happens. So for now...I guess I just have to suck it up or get some stones and make the changes.
5. As most of you probably know, I'm not what anyone would call a “morning person.” My work schedule forces me to wake up at 7am each morning in order to get to work on time. I knew this would happen eventually, but I hate it. If I could work a 10-7, I would absolutely love it. Since I also require between 7 and 9 hours of sleep to function correctly, this forces me to go to bed around 11pm each night, effectively turning me into a grandfather. Every night I tell myself to go to bed at 1030 (seriously!?) but 1130 rolls around and I'm usually still awake like an idiot. Sure, also my own fault, but I enjoy staying up late...I guess this is growing up. This is not even close to being related, but the weather is awful here. London isn't supposed to have that much snow (which would be awesome if it were actually the case) but just last week they had a few inches (which is a few inches too much). Also, it isn't supposed to get very cold here (supposed to hover around 32 degrees) but it had been in the 20s for much of the previous week. As many of you also know, I hate cold and I hate snow. Cold, snow, and walking a ton do not mix. Sure, I'm from Ohio so I should be used to it, but as my roommate said last week: “I don't care where you're from, cold is cold. And this is cold.”
So there you go, first installment of what may eventually turn into a series of blog posts on whatever I feel like posting and writing about at the time. If anyone has any specific questions about anything In London, go ahead and ask and I'll do my best to answer. Other than that...until next time...
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