London - Full of Pride

Today's most bizarre thing was trying to visit the famous toy store, Hamley's. Normally, visiting Hamley's wouldn't be an adventure - but when you suddenly realize that you're in middle of London's annual Gay Pride parade? It becomes an adventure.

To the nice man in the wedding dress that I had to cut in front of to get to the toy store? My apologies. Hope I didn't freak you out.

Of course, the parade went right by Piccadilly & Haymarket - where the police found those two car bombs this week. Everyone felt very safe, though - there were plenty of police officers about. Not including the gay police officers club that was marching in the parade.

Also today visited the British Library, had some great fish & chips while watching rugby in a pub, and had the best Indian food ever. And it just FEELS like London, with the intermittent gray drizzle going on and off all day.

But it's not all rosy in London.



Someone here in London must do something about these @#$#-ing walls that swallow up your luggage carts. Never ever trust a platform with fractions in it.

London - Having a Blast!

Perhaps you saw the big news today? It's almost impossible to believe something like this would happen while I'm in England. Kinda exciting since no one was hurt, but also sobering and scary. Very surreal waking up in the morning, turning on the television news, and letting your jaw drop as the crawl goes across the bottom of your screen.

Spice Girls to re-unite.

I mean, really, what are the odds that this would happen while I'm in London? First the new Prime Minister, now this. The world has gone all crazy on me.

Oh - and there was an unexploded car bomb found on Haymarket near Piccadilly Circus, where I was going to meet up with my family. The massive police presence closing off that street made us change our plans, so we met up back at the hotel.

Anyways, the excitement notwithstanding, had another great day in London. British Museum, Harrods, BAFTA lounge for a meeting. Highlight of the day was the British Museum, which is AWESOME. Too much great stuff to see, but my favorite might have been this-



Look! They're the ancient Egyptian equivalent of Pez. I'd like to think that ancient Egyptian kids could flick the head up and get sweet sweet rectangular candy out of them. Collect them all!

There's another interesting bit to this trip that I hadn't expected - I'm taking way too many pictures. I started out with 2 gb of free space on my laptop - and it's already gone. So I went through and started deleting stuff off my laptop. I feel like I'm in Apollo 13 - I'm stripping everything I can from my laptop to turn it into a flying gas can. I'm deleting everything to make room for pictures. I've got 4 gb of free space left. I don't think I'm going to make it.

More blogging from London to come after I get my Spice Girls reunion tickets. I'll tell ya what I want what I really really want. SO TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT WHAT YOU REALLY REALLY WANT.

Have fun getting that tune unstuck out of your head.

The British Empire

Thursday was another packed day of sightseeing - Tower of London, St Paul's Cathedral, Millennium Bridge, Globe Theatre, London Eye. Instead of telling you all about the various touristy-things I did on Thursday, I'll just post this.



Pictures do tell a thousand words, but they invariably lead to questions, so I'll take questions from the floor. Yes?

Q: Is this a joke?
A: Yeah, most definitely. But the photo is real.

Q: No really. Did you photoshop that?
A: Nope. The photo is real.

Q: Really? It must be a fake. Because it looks like a picture of you with an Imperial Stormtrooper in London.
A: On the south bank of the River Thames with Big Ben behind us. Yup.

Q: Getting your picture taken with a Stormtrooper. Isn't this the sort of thing you're supposed to do at Comic Con?
A: I look forward to scintillating and erudite discussion of British history over tea and cucumber sandwiches at the San Diego Convention Center, July 26th through 29th.

Q: All joking aside. What's the deal?
A: London has gone all Star Wars geek on us. They have plans to turn Big Ben into a battle station. The ultimate power in the universe. A Madame Tussaud replica of Peter Cushing will stand in the tower as Star Wars cos-players will try to hit a thermal exhaust port two meters wide.

Q: No, really.
A: There's some art of Star Wars exhibition in the center adjacent to the British Airways London Eye. While on the way down from the London Eye, I saw that they'd run a couple guys in Storm Trooper and Galactic Commando armors out there to advertise the exhibit. I tried to keep a straight face in the picture, but I just couldn't do it. Getting my picture taken with a Storm Trooper on the River Thames was just too giggle-enducing.

Q: Isn't he a little short to be a Stormtrooper?
A: Isn't that great? I'm taller than a Stormtrooper!


Thank you everyone for your London suggestions! I'm hoping to fit some of them in, but I'm already finding that I don't have enough time to do everything I wanted to do. Not with me spending all my time hanging out with Stormtroopers...

London while only SLIGHTLY jet-lagged

Now I know why you're supposed to kiss the ground when you land in England. Because after twelve hours in the air, you'd kiss ANYTHING to get away from breathing recirculated air for that long again. I'd kiss [insert gross person here] on the [insert body part here].

Sorry, I'm on holiday. You write the jokes.

London is a lot like New York - in that everyone walks fast and rushes from place to place. These people are BUSY and they have places to go. I've never seen so many people walking in a million directions at full speed like I did in London Victoria Station. If they'd just started piping in some Rage Against the Machine, it would've made for an amazing mosh pit. "DID YOU DO WHAT THEY TOLD YOU? [NUH-DUH-NUH] DID YOU DO WHAT THEY TOLD YOU?!?!?"

And man, after you've flown for twelve hours, it's the most disorienting thing on earth trying to navigate. I tried to ask one gate employee if I was going the right way, he just shouted (in his awesomely British accent), "Come on, sir! Go, sir! Go go go!" In his defense, he DID have me going the right way. And a nice man pointed out that I was dragging my suitcase behind me upside down so that the wheels were sticking up. Wow, was I tired.

Finally ended up at our hotel in Earls Court. This is an amazing neighborhood. Lots of restaurants, shops, markets - some gorgeous architecture and great English charm. I mean, it's no Van Nuys Blvd, but it's nice...

I'm staying at a Premiere Travel Inn. It's a chain that I've never heard of because we don't have them in the U.S., but I think there are about 7000 of them in the London metropolitan area alone. The big purple logo with the moon on it? It's mounted right outside our hotel room window. And when I went to use the bathroom here, I couldn't get it to flush. I was about to go downstairs to ask for help using the UK toilets, when I realized you just have to jiggle it before flushing. To think I almost went down to the front desk and said, "Hi, I'm a yokel from the United States and I don't know how to flush your toilets in this fine country!" That could've been a bit embarrassing. It could've ruined US/UK relations.

The people around here are amazing. You hear all sorts of languages walking around - French, Russian (I think), Chinese, German, and some of the best English I've ever had to concentrate to try and understand. When I bought my train ticket at Gatwick, a very nice man explained to me the system - but I only understood about half of what he said. It was like watching Gosford Park, where I put on English subtitles until I could grasp everything that was being said. I'm still having trouble getting some of the accents here. Henry Higgins was so right.

Oh yeah, I've seen lots of Chinese here. Plus Earls Court has a Filipino district. Good in case I get a craving for lumpia, I suppose. I didn't expect to see so many Asian faces. Check that, we're here in the UK, where "Asian" means Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi - what we call Southeast-Asian. Here I'm not Asian, I'm Oriental. Which is awesome, since I haven't been called oriental since it became unpopular/mildly-offensive in the early 1990s. So if I roam out onto the street and shout, "I hate Asian people!" - instead of getting a chuckle for my self-effacing humor? I'll get my @$$ beat down by some furious Indian dude.

My first meal here in London was at a gourmet burger place on Earls Court Road. Very good - lots of hamburger relish. And they gave me garlic mayo with my fries. Now I can say that I've TRIED mayonnaise on my fries... and that I didn't care for it. It wasn't until after I ate that I started remembering, "Wait. Isn't UK beef the place that had all that mad cow stuff?" Oh well. If the jet lag doesn't kill me, maybe the mad cow will.

Ended up crashing to sleep the first day at 2pm, woke up at 9pm. Uh-oh. Ended up back in bed at 1am, woke up at 6 am, and started day two in London.

The newspapers here are all about next week's ban on smoking in public places, the change of the Prime Minister (more on that below), a rise in teen violence, and page after nauseating page of coverage of Paris Hilton being released from jail. Ugh. I travelled twelve hours and eight time zones and I still can't get away from that no-talent ugly $%@#&. With my luck, I could travel through space and time and I'd still find her haunting me with her lack of talent.

By the way, I love that now if someone ever googles the terms "Paris Hilton Rage Against the Machine garlic mayonnaise" - it's going to point them to this page. I feel so honored.

Watched some British television. The BBC News has this deaf translator who stands off to the side and signs like crazy. I feel so bad for the guy - his arms must get tired. And had to watch some British cartoons. Hey - it's research. Anyways, I turned on ITV this morning and watched... Biker Mice from Mars. No, not the new version. The ORIGINAL. Weird, huh? Followed up by Transformers: Cybertron - so it wasn't some retro animation block or something. Maybe Biker Mice is to England what David Hasselhoff is to Germany?

Want to take this time out to welcome everyone who just googled the terms "Paris Hilton Rage Against the Machine garlic mayonnaise David Hasselhoff".

Then headed off for the day. Took the tube to Westminster, then stepped out of the tube station and saw this huge building right in front of me. Decided to take a picture of it, since I thought it looked kinda cool. Only when I'd walked out of the tube station and walked aways away did I realize that the cool building was Big Ben. Duh, Eugene.

Did the sight seeing thing today around Westminster - Big Ben, House of Parliament, Westminster Abbey. Had my first (of what I'm sure will be many this trip) encounter with loud stupid Americans - whining about having to pay to go inside Westminster Abbey. Must... resist... urge to murder... Then again, why resist? Surely the British would understand my need to murder a loud whiny American for paying $1000 to fly to Europe, then complain about a $20 admission ticket to a historical site.

Tried to look down at 10 Downing Street, but wouldn't ya know it, today's the day that the Brits changed Prime Ministers. And just my luck, PEACEFULLY, with no violent overthrow or public beheadings. So there was a huge crowd gathered of media and on-lookers, along with anti-war protesters angry at the old PM and the new PM. Made it impossible to get close, so we wandered down to Trafalgar Square, the Mall, and then stopped in St. James Park for lunch.

While there, Tony Blair's motorcade zoomed by to Buckingham Palace where he would official resign in front of the Queen. I managed to snap a pic of his car in his last car ride as PM. Then after lunch, as we arrived at Buckingham Palace, his motorcade drove past us again - now no longer PM. Before and after pictures.




By the way, I'm taking a ton of pictures. Some of them are even turning out okay. Which is good, since I've got an Asian stereotype to uphold. Sorry, ORIENTAL stereotype. Don't want to get jumped.

Ended today with dinner at Wagamama. Awe-SOME. I wish I had a joke to tell you here, but I gotta get to bed early. I gotta wake up early if I want to watch more Biker Mice from Mars...

Eugene World Tour 2007 - London!

Greetings from a comfy hotel here in Earls Court. I would blog about everything I did today in my first day in the United Kingdom, but I'm currently being held hostage by militant jet lag. Jet lag is making day into night, night into day, up is now down, and I'm pretty sure it's messing with my mind. And not in a good way.

More blogging later when my mind doesn't hurt so much...

Soakin' up Philly like a sponge...

Woo! The excitement of the Eugene World Tour never stops! I'm sitting here in Philadelphia Airport, waiting for the next flight. I'm pleased to report that the airport announcements where someone says, "youse need to come to gate a23" are HYSTERICAL.

Good news, Bad news

The first stop in the Eugene World Tour is Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Hey, I never said they'd all be interesting.

The good news : the Flyaway bus did a fantastic job. It got me to the airport in almost 30 minutes. Very fast.

The bad news : I have to find some way to entertain myself for another 2+ hours. And you can only do so much people watching before you start to hate the people you're watching. "C-mon, looks-like-the-worst-cosmetic-surgery-ever, do something to entertain me!"

See, now angry Kelly Clarkson just sat down across from me. So angry-looking. Maybe she knows I'm blogging about her.

And there's a group of like thirty ten year-old kids wearing matching t-shirts roaming about. That poor chaperone has that crazy shell-shocked look in her eye.

I wish I had something more substantial to blog about, but it's only an airport. By its very nature, we're all just waiting for the first chance to get out of here.

So Where's Waldo now?

I'm mobile blogging this on my treo from the comfort of a bus on the way to LAX. Or what I'm calling the Eugene World Tour 2007. I got three hours of sleep last night as I prepared for the first day of the Eugene World Tour.

I'm so tired.

Yikes. Okay, the bus just got on the 405 freeway and we're in crazy traffic. Working from home, I forget how nutty morning rush hour traffic can be. I would not want to be a bus driver having to navigate this.

Then again, I'd hate to be a bus driver period. More blogging later after I get some caffeine in me.

Attention loyal readers (all 2 of you)

I read something about Too Much Information (TMI) in your blog. Mostly it's about guys who blog about work stuff they're not supposed to, then get fired. Which came to mind after a meeting I had recently where I made a joke that just bombed. Would love to tell you the bad joke I made, but I don't want to get fired. Let's just say that from now on, I'm never telling any joke where the punchline is, "Oh my god, WE'RE DOOMED!"

In the same vein, I had someone warn me not to blog that I'm going on vacation because then someone could break into my house. So let me establish - one, there's an alarm on the house. Second, I have neighbors who know I'm leaving. Third, I have guests staying in the house while I'm gone. And fourth, my mailman is incredibly nosy. So if anyone out there STILL wants to try and break in, be my guest. Nothing worth taking anyways.

Okay, I am off. If anyone asks, I'm leaving the country to get away from those annoying radio commercials where the guy screams "you're killing me, Larry." Seriously, you think I'm joking, but I'm not.

I'll still be blogging at eugeneson.com. For those of you reading this off livejournal and myspace, I can't promise that I'll be updating those until I get back, so you might want to head over to eugeneson.com for regular updates.

I'm Back... I'm Gone!

Still working, but I have a moment to blog about random stuff that no one cares about but I still feel the need to write down.

So yesterday, I'm in the fast line on the 405 freeway south... and I'm stuck behind a FedEx truck. I somehow found myself TAILGATING the slowest FedEx truck on the planet. I'm not a roadrage guy, but I'm not above asking rhetorical questions in a loud voice. "Aren't you FedEx guys supposed to be fast?!?! Don't you have a package that needs delivering by 10 a.m.?!?!?" I went around him... and then ended up stuck behind a slow Time-Warner Cable ROADRUNNER install van. Sigh.

Anyways, I drove down to San Diego yesterday. It boggles my mind that I can drive through a freeway through the west side of Los Angeles, and it'll be busy - then a few hours later, I drive through a freeway through the middle of nowhere San Marcos... AND IT'S A PARKING LOT.

When I moved from San Diego to L.A., everyone would ask me if I was worried about the bad L.A. traffic. At least there's a good REASON for the traffic in Los Angeles - there are lots of people there. There's just no good reason to explain why there's nightmarish traffic in deserted places like Temecula.

Anyways, I'm back blogging.... and now I'm gone. I'm leaving on a trip this week, so my next blog post will be from on the road. I'll have my laptop with me, but I might be working, too. So check back with me - maybe I'll have some bloggy stuff for you.

June 2007 Music Diary

Rehab (Remix) - Amy Winehouse featuring Jay-Z
Jarhand - Immaculate Machine
D.A.N.C.E. - Justice
Men's Needs - the Cribs
If I Were a Bell - Amel Larrieux
Your Joy - Chrisette Michele
Ordinary Day - Dolores O'Riordan
Give Up? - Hot Hot Heat
Coqueta (remix) - Kinky
Instant Karma - U2
#9 Dream - R.E.M.
Mother - Christina Aguilera
Whatever Gets You Thru the Night - Los Lonely Boys
Gimme Some Truth - Dhani Harrison & Jakob Dylan
Jealous Guy - Youssou N'Dour
Power to the People - Black Eyed Peas
Beautiful Boy - Ben Harper
[Just Like] Starting Over - The Flaming Lips
Real Love - Regina Spektor

Jay-Z adds very little to the Amy Winehouse track, but he doesn't take anything away from a catchy song.

Found the Cribs, Amel Larrieux, Hot Hot Heat tracks through iTunes. Dolores O'Riordan is back, just in time because I was having Cranberries withdrawal. Check out Coqueta - fun fun fun dance track.

Your Joy, Jarhead, D.A.N.C.E. were free from iTunes. Free is good.

"Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur" is getting a lot of play. I know I know - your grudge against the hunky George Clooney makes it difficult to support Darfur. But the CD is solid.

Death by Deadline

Cranking on deadlines. Sorry for the lack of blog-activity. But I'm pretty much skipping food and sleep to get my work done on time. So if it makes you feel any better, I'm pretty sure this deadline is slowly killing me.

See? That makes you feel better, doesn't it? I'll try and blog soon. Stay safe everybody.

AAA! It's like AA, only more so!

I had to go to the AAA office today to get my International Driver's Permit. It's this piece of cardboard with my picture in it that allows me to drive legally in places like Upper Volta, Kyrgyzstan, Papua New Guinea, and some parts of the San Fernando Valley.

I used the AAA.com website to find my local office on Kester Avenue... then promptly got lost because the map to the AAA office on their website is wrong.

While I ponder the significance of being led astray by AAA, allow me to apologize for the lack of posts this week. I'm hard at work doing whatever it is I do.

My Favorite Joke of All Time

Okay - now I'm just procrastinating from my work. The bit in the previous blog post about ejecting reminded me of my favorite joke of all time. I take no credit for writing this - I don't know who wrote it, but it goes a little something like this-

A kindergarten class is given homework - go home and ask your parents for a story that has a moral at the end. The next day, the kindergartners have to present their story in front of the class.

So the first kid stands up. His dad told him the story about a farmer who built a huge chicken coop for all his chicken eggs, but not all the eggs hatched and he was left with a huge coop.

The teacher asks, "What was the moral of the story?" The kid responds, "Don't count your chickens before they hatch." The teacher thanks the kid on a job well done.

The next kid stands up. His dad told him a story about a trucker who had to move two cargos. Instead of making two trips, he put everything into one truck, then ended up in a car accident and both his cargoes were ruined.

The teacher asks, "What was the moral of the story?" The kid responds, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." The teacher thanks the kid on a job well done.

The third kid stands up. His dad told a story about a female fighter pilot on a bombing raid mission in Afghanistan. Her plane is shot down deep behind enemy lines, but she manages to eject. As she parachutes down into enemy territory, all she has on her is a handgun, a knife, and a bottle of whiskey. So she drinks the whiskey, finishing the entire bottle before she lands.

When she hits the ground, she's surrounded by enemy Taliban soldiers. So she shoots the first ten to death, stabs the next twenty to death, and kills the last hundred men with her bare hands.

The teacher is mortified. "Good lord," she says. "What is the moral of that horrible story?"

The kid responds, "Stay away from Aunt June when she's been drinking."

What if you Don't Set the Tivo... but THE TIVO SETS YOU!

Busy couple days ahead. Have some people over tonight, have family commitments on Saturday, and then I'll be working through the weekend. But before I eject from the world of the living, two heads-ups for everybody. Set your Tivos for this Monday night, June 4th.

Storm Hawks airs at its regular time starting this Monday at 7pm PST/EST on Cartoon Network.

Later that night, the American version of Creature Comforts premieres at 8pm on CBS. It's done by the same minds at Aardman as the UK version - I've seen some snippets of the show and it passed the "made-Eugene-laugh" test. I have no connection to the show, except that Ellen Goldsmith-Vein is one of the Executive Producers. I figured this out when everyone who works for or with her sent me an email reminding me about the Creature Comforts premiere.

Okay - back to work. These cartoons aren't going to write themselves... but man, WHAT IF THEY DID?