My 30th Birthday

My birthday was on Monday (the 24th) but I didn't really feel like putting on a big bash or anything. I usually can't be bothered organising birthday parties but I figured , with this one being my 30th, that I'd get off my backside and do something about it.

In the end, I settled for a cozy pub lunch at the Mucky Pup, a pub near Angel, which was noteable for 1) being slightly out of the way from the main street, while still easily accessible and 2) being the "Most friendly dog-friendly pub in the UK". Surely enough, the owner's dog, a huge bull-mastiff made several lazy appearances throughout the day.



You cannot have a pub lunch without at least considering a nice Sunday Roast, and that definitely played a part in me choosing this pub, as they serve some pretty decent food. Of interest on the menu were these Hot-Rocks dishes, where they set down a really hot piece of rock in front of you and you watch your meat cook as you're eating! Pretty cool. They also had barramundi on the menu, which we had a good laugh about, considering the distance the poor fish has had to cover to finish on our plates :-)


I had invited quite a few people and I had a good turnout, despite a few last-minute cancellations. I hadn't invited everyone I knew (which, in 6 months in London, turns out to be a surprising amount) because I wasn't sure that the venue would be packed or not. In the end, I could have extended the invite to everyone but it was still great, as we were more than enough of us to keep the laughs going and keep the pints coming.

People came and went all afternoon really, with me being the only constant, from 2pm till 10:30pm. All in all, a bit more than 8 hours of solid drinking, then, which me and the last few stragglers ended with a solid burger at Giraffe's up the road.



As you can guess, Monday morning was a bit tedious...

My Birthday Present To Myself.

I'm turning 30. I thought this called for a present out of the ordinary. Call it an early midlife crisis, except I don't believe in buying Porsche convertibles. Now, look at her. Ain't she beautiful?



The specs: Gibson Les Paul Standard, Carved Maple Top, '50's Rounded neck, Light Burst finish.

Now, I just need to find a drummer and a singer. I know I already have a bass player :-)

An Evening With Dream Theater

It's been a week already since I've come back from a few days in France but I couldn't be bothered sitting down and writing down about it :-)

I left on the Thursday around mid-morning (no point in rushing) and arrived in Paris around 3pm. I just had the time to dump the bag at the hotel, stop at my sister's to pick up my brother-in-law and catch the metro towards the Porte du Pantin, where we were going to see Dream Theater at the Zenith!!!


I'd already seen these guys play a few months back at the Parc des Princes but that had been a double-bill with Iron Maiden, which meant they'd only played a hour-long set. For these guys, that's barely enough time to play a couple of songs and finish their warmup!

Anyway, this particular tour is billed as "An Evening With Dream Theater" and the basic idea is to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the band. Hence the "evening..." format, meaning no opening band, a slightly unusual, fan-oriented setlist and more than three hours of Dream Theater! Woo-hoo!

They gave us a retrospective going all the way back to the "Majesty" era (their first name) and played songs from all their albums through the years, in chronological order, kinda. Of course, the concert ROCKED! By now, I've seen quite a few bands, including some pretty big names, but in terms of musicianship, no one comes close to these guys. I'm not saying they're the best band ever (of course not, everyone knows the Fab Four are) but, technically, Dream Theater can play absolutely anything and anyone off the planet, and remain completely musical while doing so.


The next few days were spent relaxing and catching up with some old friends, including Anne, Geraud and Carole (coucou!). Needless to say, a lot of food was consumed (a bit of wine, too) but then, that tends to be a constant, whenever I go back to France :-)

On the weekend, I caught the train up to Vernon, in Normandy, to stay at Tiffany and Aurelien's. Once I got there, Tiff tossed me the car keys (God, it felt good to be driving!) and we went to check out Claude Monet's house in Giverny.

The most obvious thing I learned from this visit was that Monet didn't like going too far to find his muse, as a lot of his famous paintings were obviously inspired by his (very nice) garden :-)

After a quick visit to some medieval ruins (Chateau-Gaillard, built by Richard Lionheart!) and some driving down the French countryside (I'd missed driving!), we headed back down to Vernon. This was on the saturday night, which happened to coincide with France taking on Switzerland in a crucial World Cup qualifier. Aurelien had invited a few friends over, for a "raclette" (french meal involving strips of meat laid on a hot plate, and lots of melted cheese) and we enjoyed a very rowdy football evening, the likes of which I hadn't experienced in a long time :-)


France drawing the game (the bloody Swiss equalized in the 80th minute) kinda put a damper on the celebrations but there was some wine still to be drunk, so we ended up playing a game of Trivial Pursuit around 2am. this was another flashback from my childhood :-) To my relief and surprise, I wasn't too out of touch, as I almost won the bloody game! With a bit more practice, they'd be all toast.

"WoW Is a Feeling"

This is quite funny and yet, also very disturbing and creepy:

http://www.putfile.com/media.php?n=PurePwnage-WoWisafeeling

For more, go and check this out: http://www.purepwnage.com/

Note that non-GaM3rZ among you might have some trouble understanding what is going on in there.

ON EST QUALIFIE!!!!!! ON EST QUALIFIE!!!!!!

OUAIS!!!! OUAIS!!! OUAIS!!!!

LES BLEUS VONT EN ALLEMAGNE!!!

LA FRANCE VA AU MONDIAL!!!

WOO-HOO!!!!!!

MUHAAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!!!!

US diplomacy (or how to add insult to injury)

I think that quote pretty much says it all:

"Put the shoe on the other foot. Let's say some Muslim leader wanted to improve Americans' image of Islam. It's doubtful that he would send as his emissary a woman in a black chador who had spent no time in the United States, possessed no knowledge of our history or movies or pop music, and spoke no English beyond a heavily accented 'Good morning.'"

http://slate.msn.com/id/2127102/

But then again, not all americans have their heads up their ass:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=26174

Blog-surfing...

Mondays are always very sloooow days:

For all gamerz out there, this should talk to you:
http://blaggblogg.blogspot.com/2005/09/you-can-never-escape-ss-and-zsanother.html

Woohoo! Doing sequels for the hell of it can be annoying but damn if I'm not gonna check this one out:
http://www.clerks2.com/

What if someone reviewed the Bible. Not consistently funny but I like the idea:
http://blaggblogg.blogspot.com/2005/02/book-review-bible.html

Great concept. I'd love to have enough time on my hands to come up with shit like that and then actually implement it:
http://www.capstrat.com/cs/insight/articles/post-itnotes.cfm

I hate this guy.

He's gonna make 1 million dollar, just because of a very simple idea. Bastard.
http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/

(If it sounds implausible, think about the fact that he's already 1/4 of the way there)