And so it begins.
The world keeps spinning.
Time keeps running.
All the sands almost gone, but it'll keep a few more years all the same.

Blame it on Jet lag.

So here I am, in New York City. Quite literally half a world away. But it doesn't feel it. I don't know if it's the ability of modern technology to keep people in touch, or simply my own aging. Ah yes. The Aging. But reguardless as far as my brains own sense of distance is concerened, you're all just around the corner. (Experiments to follow to test if this is in fact the result of my mind finally developing the ability to generate wormholes...)

And so I'm 21 now. This event cannot pass without partying, and yet it seems to be trying to. Complications, mainly on the family front which are causing excess stress and a desire to simply forget the totalitarian human method of measuring age in year blocks. But I'm at the age now where I can nap during the day... Two years ago, this would of been unheard of, and I would of argued the point as if someone had questioned the length of my wang. As it stands now, if I lie down for awhile with nothing to do I can wake up to find entire hours of precious daylight stolen.

Well, precious is a fallacy. It gets light about 7:30 over here and doesn't grow dark again till about 9:30 at night. It's very upsetting, especially when my body is already trying to deal with being 12 hours outside of it's comfort zone. I'm doing my best to absorb the culture though, make the most, take too many photos of the back of peoples heads and such. We got a digital camera for the trip (I can hear the cries of 'bastard already') and it is a truly sweet beast. Fuji Super CCD which lets it take upto 12megapixel shots. Imagine that. An A3 poster size shot of my wang. God, I'm getting giddy just thinking about it. It also has more manual settings than you can poke a finger at. The camera, not my wang, though my Wang is suprisingly handy. Lifting heavy objects and what not....

And so... I bring you this.. The inagural editions of 'That bastards on holiday and all we get is this lousy blog' blog. I had intended to pre-type it on my lappy and post it from there, saving on the Ctrl-c when I move to a different posting system (Glen, could you package that up and send it on through?) but I have found my lappy unwilling to commune with the CABLE internet that my sister has over here. That's right folks, I said Cable. 10Mbps lovin'. I haven't been able to test the download speeds (being forced to use someone elses computer on their connection it's generally considered rude to download a gig of porn to test bandwidth.) but webpage surfing is sweet. And you know how they say on movies '200 channels and nothing to watch'? It's actually true. 200 channels dealing mainly in crap and crap re-runs. There are the ocasional glimmers of light, but these are generally on at night, which I guess is good seeing as that's when we're here to watch. Though if we weren't we could set her TIVO to record it. Wench. And the Tivo seems ot be everything they say in a sleek, pretty packaging which just says 'love me!'.

On the present front, those of you hoping to receive such frivolous nibblets can submit an eternal gratitude form via the usual means, though the chances of anything from New York are slim. I've already spent my allocated funds for here (Well, very nearly) and we've got 3 days to go. Everything is very expensive here. And I mean VERY. You know how everyone over here eats MacDonalds? That's because they need to take out a mortage to get a meal from a cafe. ($13.50 for a ham and cheese melt with a single egg. That's american, folks.) Everything over here is either the same price as Australia or more, only in US dollars. It'll cost you $2 to get on the subway, though you can admittedly ride it all day... Though I don't know why you would. There is a tendency for odd smells and strange white stains down there.

Oh yes... My list of things to do while here. Bold items are still waiting to be done.

Goto Starbucks
Eat a Twinkee
Eat a Peep (Marshmallowy duck)
Conduct a Peep Duel
Eat a Hershey Bar
Empire State Building
Statue of Liberty (As of writing, can't go inside.)
Goto Macys and not buy anything (Largest Department Store in the world.)
Goto Hard Rock Cafe
See the filming of the Today Show
Take a photo of ground zero
Goto an Apple Super Store
Goto Central Park
Goto China Town (Was short and sweet.)
Buy something from a street vendor
Goto a Bar (Drinking age 21: Check.)
Buy a comic from an American comic book store.
Eat American Hot Dog
Eat American Pizza
Eat New York Bagel
Eat New York Italian Ice
Get a photo next to Playboy Enterprises sign (Awww Yeah.)
Goto a Baseball Game
Get heckeled at a Baseball Game
Buy peanuts at a baseball game

This list will probably grow, shrink and generally change over the next day or so. If you have suggestions of anything else I should do while in New York, suggestions to: myname@porterinakilt.com

Annnd... We're heading out. I'm gonna post this for now and continue it later on. I've got an entire page in my funky little journal full of things to post on. Which is actully one of the things I'm gonna post on... But anyway. For now, adieu.

-9:20AM 30/06/2004

-Continued 1:20PM 2/07/2004
Tracking down a copy of the June issue of Playboy is becoming an obsession. I'm not seeking it out for the blatant pornography, no. For that I'd look at Hustler or something. Neither am I searching it out for the classy nude photography (Though that is a factor), if I was, I hear perfect 10 is good for that. Neither am I seeking it out for the articles, I could get a NY Times or something for that. I am seeking it out purely for the sake of CC. Charisma Carpenter. Somehow I feel obliged to track down and own any magazine which chooses to show tasty nude booty which I've been watching in a favored TV show for the last 4 years. So far, I think I've spent at least an hour, probably closer to two, in this pursuit. Don't worry. Tina has been informed so there's no points for dobbing me in and being the consoling shoulder. She knows she cannot compare to those 30 inch high idols of TV.

Speaking of 30 inch high idols, I went to NBC today to watch the filming of the today show. Got a couple of photos, and I'm even on camera for about 15 seconds while Al is talking to the short woman in front of me. I wasn't able to get any photos with any of the people, unfortunately, they're nice, but they're TV nice. As nice as they have to be to not be cold hard whatevers and still get the hell back to their private little rooms as quickly as possible without touching too many people. I'm going to put in an order for a copy of todays show, see if I can't get it, so if anyone out there has a NTSC recorder, I'd appreaciate knowing about it so I can copy the tape off onto a PAL tape.

Speaking of photos, I've taken a lot of them. I might try and pick the cream of the crop and stick them up somewhere, they're all quite large at this stage though. About 1.5MB a pop, JPEG. 6MP. I will have to look into shrinking them down, because I'm upto 160+, which is a fair wack of webspace. And we're not even in Scotland yet. I've decided I quite like photography. I've been trying to capture some of the culture along with just the pretty buildings. And oh my, isn't there a lot of them. They leave Perth absolutely for dead. Skyscrapers EVERYWHERE with the most incredible 'drapings' on the outside. At least, I think 'drapings' is the right word... Masonry, anyway. I can see why Spiderman is set here, I think it's just about the only city where he could be. Speaking of: Spiderman 2.

Well... There's not a great deal I need to say. It was good. Very good. Arguably better than the first. Personally, I felt the villain in the first was just a little hammed up. Doc Ock meanwhile is played very well, and there are many nice emotional undercurrents to the story, making it a true spidey tail. Stan Lee has his regular little Cameo. Does he Cameo in the X-Men ones? Plenty of actions, and suprisingly, a great deal of comedy in this one, but blended into the story very well. Oh, avoid all the previews though if you can. They will spoil it something rotten.

Speaking of. Previews before the movie. Blade 3. Did anyone know this was coming? Stunned me something silly. Story seems a mix of the first two. Him plus a team of helpers must try and defeat some kind of Vampire ultimate evil. Also saw a preview of the Catwoman movie, which seems to have more bad CGI of Halle Berry than is nescessary. Personally, I'm going to avoid it. Sure it's Halle Berry in skimpy leather and a whip, but it seems like a sell out. Like DC gave up the comic book origins and just handed her over to marketing saying 'Here! Make this as centered towards unkwoledgable, horny jock type teens as possible!'. Or something. I heard that she would only appear in X-Men 3 if they increased her part... Don't like the sound of it, personally. Seems she's getting too big for her own booty... But maybe that's just me.

Ooooh... I've got to update the list.
Done.

Hrmmmm... Looking down the list of things I want to write on.

KY Warming lubricant. Simply apply and it creates a gentle warming sensation. Goto KYSamples.com for a free sample. This was an add I saw on TV over here between about 8 and 10 in the morning. There was no nudity but I was somewhat shocked about it being on at such a time. Same sort of prime time daytime television had two women talking about 'Beano' 'gas be gone' tablets. They also, this time during about 4 and 5 I believe, had an add for a womens deoderant powder. To remove smell and itch during 'womens troubles'. Once again, was suprised. Apparently such adds are quite common over here, leading my sister to beleive that they must have a plague of such problems...

I found the ads in general over here quite interesting. You know how we get those badly dubbed American ads in Australia? They're just as badly dubbed over here! I thought it was the NTSC to Pal thing, but they're just badly dubbed!! Not all of them, but some. And some terribly bad ads... And soem interesting ones. There was an Ovaltine add the other day which was enough to make me shudder. Little girl drops her bike and says to her blonde haired, white toothed arian little kid friends that her mums making Oval Tine shakes. They all cheer and naturally rush over to her mums house. When they arrive, she's got at least 5 shakes made on the counter, and seeing all the children, declares with a smile that would make a Prozac addict proud that "Well, I better make some more!". It was sickening.

What's also interesting is the sudden spate of 'low sugar drinks'. Everything over here seems to have more sugar than our local varieties, but suddenly most of the ads seem to show reduced sugar/carb drinks/food (Including C2, coke with half the carbs and claories but all the great taste!). Fruit Loops and Frosted Flakes (The one with the Tiger.) with a third less the sugar.

What's also interesting is the advertising flying in the face of this. KFC, for instance, has the Dale Jr Bucket, advertised most notably with 3 different T-Shirts appearing in the ad. "The only Carb that matters is the one under the hood", "I'm on the Dale Jr Diet" and ... Well, I forget the last one. But it seemed to be basically saying "Screw your diet! All that matters is taste!" Actually... I think the shirt said soemthing like that... "All that matters is taste" or something... Hrmmm.. *shrug*

*sigh* I feel like I've been writing for hours... Looking at my watch it seems I have. What time did I start? Only about 30-40 minutes then... Ah well. I need a break. To be continued later on.

-Paused 2:36PM 2/07/2004

-Continued 11:00PM 05/07/2004

Well... I write now in Scotland. I sit here in this little apartment we have rented for the next two weeks. And I still haven't written up all of New York. Seems I've fallen behind, but with less tourist activities planned for the next day or five, I should be able to catch myself up. I've also found a nice little Internet Cafe walking distance from us which allows internet access with my Lappy, so that should make updating a little easier. hopefully. Which also means I can check me e-mail every day or two.

Anyway. Back to the updating.

Hmmmm... Briefly wondering if any of you are actually reading this, and if you are, if you're actually finding it at all interesting... Ah well. Not my concern, is it?

Being that I'm now writing this up on my lappy, it's probably time I commented on the Mac Invasion. I don't know how many of you have noticed, but Macintosh have branded themselves into acceptability, using an almost sublime campaign of advertising. Of the movies I've watched lately, I think 4 out of 5 have had at least one Mac product in them. Now, while they might feature a PC as well, the PC is never as recognisable. Even Cody Banks 2 (Limited movie choices on the way to New York) had an ipod in it. Not long ago, if you asked any 'true' gamer about Macs, they would of spat at you and clutched their seven of nine branded shirt lovingly to themselves in case you somehow infect it. Now... Now if you mention Macs, views seem more vague. It's like somehow Macintosh has poured forgetting potion into the worlds media, and now all we're left with is this vague notion that.. Wait.. Didn't we hate them? Once...?

Surely not... They're so sleek and stylish... And the iPod... Oh.. The iPod... I wouldn't mind one of them, what about you bob? I thought so...

I don't know why I'm bothering to mention all this... As most of you are aware, I'm a consumer whore and am already bowing to a dual alter to Microsoft and now Apple as well... But maybe I can save some of you. Before slapping down the cash for your 20GB Apple Judas, look at the alternatives. Many of them are the same price for same features, maybe even cheaper. Don't succumb to the power of the Big Apple. IT's too late for some of us but... The rest of you... You still carry the hope and dreams of us... Dreams of a clandestine world, devoid of choice of OS or style, were only gaming matters... Where all mice have two buttons... And no one's laptop is white and sleek with an irritating abundance of glowing light scattered across it for little to no purpose other than makign a corporate logo glow or indicating that it's in sleep mode and therefore slowing sucking down on your carefully charged battery....

There's still hope... For some...

But not for others... For instances, smokers. People like poor unsuspecting Ben, who are addicted to Nicotine to the point where they'll lie about things just to continue clinging to their death encrusted hit sticks. And you know what? It's worse in America. Pharmacies, purveyors of health and advice, sell Cigarettes. It seems in New York, Pharmacies play the role of petrol stations, dispensing limited comforts and.. Yes. A pocket full of DEATH.

Moving on...

Hrmmm... Have I talked on the trip over yet? It wasn't particularly interesting. 28 hours of transit is hard to make interesting, particularly when you're the one enduring it. Unfortunately, this isn't Harry Potter. There's no magical train. There's no Hermoine to show me how to use my wand. There's just a small TV, extremely limited leg room and a rather lack luster array of movie titles. Welcome to Qantas. I watched part of Starksy and Hutch which seemed to be a terrible hack job of recapturing child hood enjoyment (Speaking of, anyone seen the trailers for the thunderbirds movie? Teen boy plus 2 friends sets out on harrowing, life affirming adventure to save his father and fellow thunderbirds. They've boxed up my childhood and are selling it for $10 a hit on the street corner.).

Also watched on the way over was most of Cody Banks 2. Hmmm... I seem to be developing a bad habit of not watching all of movies. Ah well. One Perfect Day was simply odd. I think it might be designed to be watched while on drugs, which is a shame because it has some great music, but the story just felt disjointed, jumping around, odd cinematic effects... Ah well.

50 first dates... This was an interesting one. It was better than Charlies Angels 2, but that isn't saying much. It had the usual odd, kinda flawed plot you'd expect from a Happy Madison production. The ending wasn't really what I expected, but it wasn't particularly great. It killed time though. Then, there was the supriser.

Girl Next Door. The. It was good. I had no idea what it was about before I saw it. I think there's a Mary Jane character in there, but I'll let you see it and decide for yourselves. If you have/do see it, drop me a line if you want to know what I'm on about. The movie itself was good, a little bit of gratuitous T&A, but the storyline carried itself, characters were well performed on all parts.

Hrmmm... Looking for a smooth transition into my next subject... Don't think I'm gonna get one.

Merril Lynch. Ever heard of them? Neither had I till my sister went and married a guy who works for them. They're a group of stock brokers (He also told me what sell short means. Yay.) who apparently are pretty big in New York. You mention them to an American, and they all see to 'Oooh' appreciatively and nod knowledgably, so I guess they're pretty big in the US of A. Anyway. Reason I mention them is that they know what net security is about. They change logins passwords once a month. But that's not it. They also have a wireless setup across the city picked up by little receivers which has a 7 digit number. This is changed randomly every 15 seconds, and if you don't have the number, you can't get into the system. Personally, I thought that was cool, but I'm kinda odd.

Oh. Random point. Americans are big on leasing cars. Most of the ads I saw there for cars listed a price for leasing cars, many not including the actual cost of the car or any other price, just the lease fee. Just interesting to see the different ways people approach things. And that's another tick in the journal list.

Speaking of. While in the US went to this cool little store which sold just staionery, but some very cool stationery. Picked up a fountain Pen and a very funky little journal. Supposedly it's the same style as used by Van Gough and various other greats. The pages are nice, thick and smooth. just using it makes me feel vaguely creative. I'm trying to use it to develop my book idea as opposed to what the first page is currently in use for (Keeping a list of things I need to Blog on.).

Tick. Moving on.

Something I found interesting about New York was the Two Towers site. From Carolyns Apartment, you could look out the window down on it, which was impressive. But what was interesting was when we walked past. The atmosphere around the base is just... Chilled. Sombre. It was really... Yer. I didn't even realise we were walking past until I felt the chill, then it just struck me... Some people were taking photos in front of it, smiles and cameras... Seemed wrong somehow...

It was also interesting to note the tone of the city with reguards to World Trade Towers. From my understanding, just after it happened you basically didn't talk about it for a long time. Now, you're walking down the street, and you can hear people walking the other way talking about it. The whole city seems almost obsessed by it. You can even buy souvenirs of it... Postcards showing the towers and an American flag... It's just. Odd to me.

Random Fact: New York is upto Big Brother 5. And it still seems to be popular. Their big twist? They're locking the Housemates up with their least favorite Exs.

Some other random interesting things about New York:
In America, Capucinos are served with Cinamon, not choclate. It tastes horrible.

New Yorkers are extremly home proud. Wandering down the street, you'll see people wandering the other way wearing I love NY shirts, and you know they're not all tourists. There's alsoa high population of iPod users. Also overhead some Americans talking about Terrorists on the train when we first arrived (The subway is virtually a whole nother world underground.), the quote is something like "Let them come over here and have a buisness and they'd never think about attacking. They're just jealous. Give them what we've got."

Everyone Jay Walks. No-one seems to get booked for it.

It's very Hot and humid there. Light from about 6 till 9. Subway is stinking but Subway trains are air conditioned.

Water really does go down the sink the wrong way. Just like people driving down the street. (What happens with water on the equator.)

There's a LOT of street vendors. They're everywhere. There's even a lot of illegal street vendors. Crossing the street, a guy came up to me and started mumbling stuff, wasn't listening so I couldn't hear what he said. When I asked him what he said he said "fireworks man, fireworks.". I assume he was selling them illegally... Then again.. Maybe Fireworks is street for drugs in New York...

Have I mentioned everything is expensive there? Same cost or up but in American? Try to win Lotto before moving there, if you're planning on it. Though I have to say that I do like American money. Real paper money. It's nice walking around with it folded up in your pocket. I don't know why... Just is.

And that's it for the randoms...

While in New York... Goto a Yankees game.
That was the plan. Almost didn't come about, except for some blackmail on Ryans part. Our seats were good, incredible even. We were about 30 metres back and to the right of home plate. Forgot to take either camera though, so I can't show you. Bought a Yankees cap, seemed the thing to do. Sat in front of some Mets fans, so got the whole experience, complete with heckler. The Yankees lost. Pitifully. 11 to 2 final score I think. But by that stage I was already a fan. I had the hat. Don't think they let you trade it in at the end of the game if you don't like it. Trial hats?

Other than that, I enjoyed the game itself. Baseball seems cool. I had the peanuts. They're not thrown to you by some wandering vendor though, I was very disappointed, they're pre-packaged. By some nuts company. But I had the experience and enjoyed it. Yay me. Let's all join in a chorus of 'Stuarts a Bastard who's 5000 miles away.'

And moving on.

If anyone offers you Baking Soda Toothpaste, just say no. It's horrible. My sister, Carolyn, has a major fetish for organic products and such. Shampoo, Toothpaste, Body wash... you name it, she buys it from some odd little free range, organic grown, no chemical boutique...

Speaking of sisters and odd presents. Which one first... Youth before age...

My Sister Jennifer.
Ah... What can we say about Jennifer.
A lot, but that's what a therapist is for.
So, in brief, Jennifer and birthdays.
Or family meetings in general, really. She seems intent on passive agressively fucking them up for everyone else. We'll be having a family celebration, and she'll just bring along one of her friends, and not even someone we all know. It must be odd for the other person, but it's a positively stupid thing to do from a family point of view. I think she does it as some kind of attention grab. And my father, being the overly loving man he is, covers for her. Makes excuses. Says he said it was ok. Anything to try and keep the peace. And so she keeps doing it.

The reason I mention this, is she did it recently. My 21st to be exact. Day of, I ask her to organise the dinner. She doesn't. She tells me (Doesn't ask.) that she's going to ask her friend if she wants to come, because she thinks it might be rude otherwise. Alright. I can deal with that. At least I know about it before hand, right? Right.. *gritted teeth*

So get to dinner and Jennifer hasn't organised anything. So we wander around trying to find somewhere. She's Sans the friend, which I'm happy about, and we eventually find somewhere and sit down to eat. Ask Jenny what she's going to have. She's already eaten. She had a heavy lasagne not long before. And she wouldn't drink either. She'd had a couple of wines with dinner and had to drive back down to Busselton later on. Twitch. So it gets to 'Christmas in June', the present giving bit, and she hasn't actually gotten me anything. She's "got it planned" but hasn't actually managed the purchase. Oh, she did manage to flirt with the waiter and eat a desert though. Well. As long as she had fun. *Twitch*

So. We are at the airport, heading over to see Carolyn. Jennifers being her usual self, telling me to do things because she wants someone to boss around. Twitch. Jennifer goes off to the shop for awhile. When we get to USA, I find out why. She had to buy Carolyn some presents. Some Macadamia nuts and some magazines from the air port! She's so thoughtful... *Gritted teeth, twitch.*

Now, for the older one.
This isn't really a complaint about her. Just an oddity.
Jill insisted on me bringing over some choclate bars. TWITCH TWITCH.
Calming breath... Can feel knots developing in my shoulders. Anyway... I do.. Bring them over... Coming through customs, Dad asks if I've got anything for Carolyn, I tell her I do, some choclate bars. He asks how many, I tell him 2, he puts 14 on the customs sheet.

Well. He's old.
I figure he's gone daft.
"No dad. 2."
"Yes, I know, I've brought twelve."
...
After all the stress I went through from Jill to bring two bars, and Dad just brought over 12... Ah well. That's life.

Finally... I'm slightly worried. I've noticed that Carolyn hasn't lost her Aussie accent. I realised this is because she lives in a little clique arrangment. Just like I'm going to be in Scotland. I'm worried that this useless family thing is going to seduce away my chance of developing a Scottish accent while I'm over here. Damn them. DAMN THEM ALL!

-Stuart the finally done with this goddamn post.


posted by Unknown at 6/30/2004 05:38:00 AM [edit]