Loch Ness, Round 2

I took my parents to Loch Ness yesterday, to see Inverness and to do the Jacobite "Temptation" tour. I'm not so sure what's tempting about the bus ride/loch cruise/castle visit, but hey, it's marketing.

We had the usual three-hour bus ride to Inverness, followed by a brief lunch (sadly, The Mustard Seed was booked up), and then we did our cruise, including a send-off by a truly atrocious piper. I'll give it this: Loch Ness is much more pleasant when it's not raining and forty degrees outside. True, we got pummeled with spray every time the bow hit a swell, and I was wearing the same coat I wore in my last batch of Inverness pictures, but not having to wear gloves was an obvious plus. Also, Inverness is a much more lively place in August than in November. For one, things are actually open and running.

After the tour, we grabbed dinner and took the bus back to Edinburgh, planning for a nice lie-in this morning. Well, I hope my parents got to sleep in; I desperately needed clean socks.

What's been most striking to me while touring with my folks is how everything I've come to take for granted is still new and bizarre to them. Busses are the way to go, and they're not always comfortable. The M9/A9 is usually two-lane. Stores close by 6 PM. Prices are ridiculous when converted to dollars. Ketchup sometimes comes in tubes instead of the rectangular sachets we have back in the States. Brown sauce and salad cream abound. High Street fashion generally sucks and the morning presenter on GMTV dresses like a twenty-something. You may not be able to find a camera shop, but there's definitely an Indian takeaway place down the block. You know, the usual.

Sunday

Amazingly, I made it through an entire day without losing consciousness on a major street. Huzzah!

This morning began with church (and a whopping four people in the choir). Roy and Ian were both back, meaning we had no guest leaders for the first time all summer. Afterwards, my parents and I did lunch at Wannaburger (really good milkshakes, incidentally), and then we started down towards Holyrood House. On the way, we just happened to wander into Hector Russell, and I just happened to find a lovely Harris Tweed blazer. While I thought it was a little pricey, my mother explained that it would be twice that price in the States, even with the pound as high as it is right now, so it was actually a bargain. I never thought I'd find a bargain in Scotland. Our clerk told us about going to Harris and visiting one of the weavers, who asked him to take the sweater she'd just finished. He protested that he couldn't afford it, and she said to just give her five quid for the wool. That is a bargain.

After that, we toured the palace, which isn't a bad little shack at all. I could use my own throne room. Dinner tonight was at The Witchery, which is truly lovely. Dark chocolate torte with lavender ice cream and a glass of Muscat...let's just say that I could do that again some time without needing much persuasion.

Not my greatest moment

Today was a lot of fun. My folks and I had breakfast at a cute little restaurant on the Royal Mile, toured the castle, did the pub lunch thing, and even hit up the Whisky Centre tour (which should be avoided like the plague). Though I developed a headache from my wee dram of Johnny Red - what can I say, I'm a lightweight - we had naptime, then dinner at Ciao Roma, always a good choice. That's when things got interesting...

Mom and Dad agreed to go with me on the City of the Dead tour. I did Auld Reekie's back at Easter and enjoyed myself, except for that bit about almost passing out in the torture museum. City of the Dead gets great reviews, I'd had fun chatting with the other tourists before we began, and, aside from the rain, all seemed to be going well. Our guide, amazing leather trench coat and all, walked us around the side of St. Giles, and then, before she took our money, she started telling us about witches.

I knew that getting pegged as a witch in Good Olde Edinburgh never did much for one's lifespan, and I'd already been told about dunking in the Nor' Loch, but when our guide began to go into the various tortures used on one convicted witch's husband and children, the world began to get fuzzy. About the time she finished talking about a rat and a cage (think 1984), my mental defense tactic - namely, trying to drown out her voice with a rousing chorus of staples from The Sound of Music - failed me.

I don't remember much of the next five minutes. Apparently, I collapsed, hitting the church wall with the back of my head on the way down, and convulsed on the pavement for a few minutes with my pupils completely dilated. My poor mother thought I was having some sort of a seizure, and she and my dad tried to get me to my feet. I collapsed three times - I couldn't stand on my own - and the next thing I really knew, Mom was holding me and praying, and the rest of the group was long gone. We didn't get to go on the tour, so I have no idea what the Greyfriars Kirk poltergeist got up to this evening, but I have a lovely souvenir lump on the back of my head, a sore jaw, and a few additional bruises (the sidewalk's unforgiving), and our tour guide now has one more fainter to add to her tally. Five minutes to the first faint has to be a record, though it's certainly not one of my personal best moments.

Suffice it to say that torture really doesn't do it for me, and I'll not be seeing Hostel II. Ever.

Fun with Finnish music

I managed to find a promo copy of one of Nightwish's upcoming singles online, and I'll say this for "Amaranth": I'm running out to the store on the day Dark Passion Play is released and will complain vociferously if Coconuts isn't stocking it. I was worried when I heard that Tarja was out of the band, but the new singer, Anette, while quite different, is also very good. She's the pop to Tarja's opera. In any case, I've had "Amaranth" on repeat for much of the afternoon. The only downside to the file I found is that, it being a promo copy and all, a curiously American announcer comes on twice during the track to tell me where the song is from and who's performing it. I knew this already, and it's distracting. Come on, September.

While doing the usual Wikipedia information gathering on the upcoming album, I happened upon another Finnish group, Lordi, who won Eurovision in 2006 with a little ditty entitled "Hard Rock Hallelujah". It's also awesome. I'm loving these Finns. Here's a band that performs in monster masks and refuses to be photographed without them, and the country is so happy over the Eurovision win that they're making a Lordi postage stamp and have produced "Lordi Cola". I haven't heard their Christmas song, but something tells me my mother wouldn't be amused...

Spider-Pig, Spider-Pig...

...does whatever a Spider-Pig does. Can he swing from a web? No, he can't, he's a pig. Look out! He's a Spider-Pig!

I saw The Simpsons Movie tonight, and it was great. Moments of brilliance, moments of pathos, even a moment (mercifully brief) of full frontal nudity. On a skateboard. After a sequence of covering gags that Austin Powers could be proud of.

And now I have "Spider-Pig" stuck in my head. What's great is that there's a full choral version of this little ditty in the credits, and I have to wonder how many takes it took the choir to get through the song without cracking up. Lord knows the Glee Club wouldn't have made it; we had enough trouble with the Coronation Athems ("The King shall have pleasure", anyone?) In any case, I just downloaded it from iTunes...Spider-Pig, Spider-Pig...

Tuesday

The Good: I finished the last batch of transcriptions and took a twilight walk to the park (at 9:45 PM, mind you), where I saw a lovely rising moon, cloudy sunset, and general atmospheric prettiness.

The Bad: We just had an 11 PM fire alarm. It's now 11:22. If it goes off again, I'm putting on my iPod and staying in bed.

The Weird: My dissertation is due one month from today. An impetus to work, I suppose...

Camping for the Tattoo

Tickets for the Tattoo preview show went on sale at 10 AM. Besides the happy fact that they're half-price, these tickets are our only chance to see the Tattoo, as the real shows sold out within hours back in January. I had planned to camp in front of my computer and hope their system would be able to withstand the traffic, but last night I decided it would be safer to go down to the office instead and get my tickets in person.

Well, as it turned out, that wasn't going to happen. I made it down to the Tattoo office shortly after 9, and found a line stretching around the block. It could have been Harry Potter night all over again, except for the number of copies I passed as I tried to find the end of the queue. One girl at the front had brought a blanket; God only knows how long she'd been on the sidewalk. When I realized that a) the line extended halfway up Waverley Bridge, and b) there was no way I would make my 11 o'clock appointment with Alan if I waited, I decided to head back south and try my luck on the computer.

It was slow - the booking took at least 15 minutes - but I managed to get into the system right at 10 and secured what appear to be halfway decent seats. Bagpipes, here we come...

No spoilers

It's finished.

Twelve hours after I cracked Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I finally reached page 607 and the end of the series. That twelve hours began at 12:45 this morning, when I got home from Blackwell's Potter party, got comfortable, and cracked the book, and includes a five-hour break for sleep and half an hour out for a shower this morning. I got by with a piece of candy and a Coke Zero for breakfast, and quite happily made myself oatmeal around one.

It's rather surreal, having finished the series. I remember beginning it back in high school, sitting in the library every afternoon for a week, waiting for Jen to finish being a camp counselor. ISS had the first four books on hand, and I plowed through them in the little side space behind the shelves, hoping no one saw me with kids' books. It was the same space in which I read The Gunslinger, in which I stumbled upon my first taste of non-vampiric Anne Rice erotica (and didn't get much beyond the chapter, to be honest), in which I found enough forgotten galleys to keep me happy for a good while. It's a good table, and during the summer, the library was mercifully quiet and air conditioned, a real perk in June in Alabama. In the years that followed, I waited for books five through seven to be released, making sure to pick up my copy at midnight so I could get in on the fun.

Last night was my first actual release party - complete with trivia and Sorting - and while Warwick Davis pulled out at the last minute, the staff really got into it, especially the folks playing Rita Skeeter, Snape, and the Golden Snitch. I was wearing all black, and one girl thought I was part of the staff. The great part was that many of the people there weren't kids - while we waited to go inside, Ella and I stood between a mother and son who had been on the Harry Potter tour reported on the news this week, and a group of grad students from UT, half of whom were in costume.

Plot aside, the one thing that really surprised me about the book was the strength of the profanity. Maybe it's just a British thing, but somehow I didn't expect to see "effing" in a kids' book...

Greatest Jeremy Kyle moment ever

Concerning Aaron, who at 18 is the father of two children by two women...

JK: Let's talk to your stepfather, Carl. [Cuts to a young man in the audience with a popped collar and track pants.] How old are you, Carl?

Carl: 26.

JK: You're a grandfather at 26?

Carl: Yeah.

JK: I'm obviously losing the will to live.

I love morning television.

An open letter

Dear Edinburgh,

You may have noticed, but according to the calendar year, it's currently mid-July. Not even mid; today happens to be July 20, and while I and half the planet are celebrating the fact that we have less than 24 hours to go before the Deathly Hallows launch, I do have one complaint.

Edinburgh, we have to do something about this weather situation.

According to MSN, it's currently 52 degrees, with a predicted high of 60 and sprinkles. Tack on the wind, and let's just say that I'm enjoying the extra blankets on my bed.

Look, you know it's bad when you have to wear a sweater and rain jacket on a July afternoon.

You know it's bad when you go to the DHT shop for the first time in months and the nice clerk says, "You must be having a miserable summer!" Not because of dissertation, mind, but because he knows I'm from Alabama.

You know it's bad when you sit in your room in a fleece jacket and thick socks because the window's open on principle, and for circulation.

You know it's bad when you're almost as likely to see boots as summer shoes on a given excursion through the city.

You know it's bad when your sister in South Africa - which has a legitimate excuse to be cold in July - is having better weather than you are.

Edinburgh, while I certainly appreciate that you've kept my allergies at a record low this season and have given me a fuller understanding of 'summer leather', I could do with a little warmth and sunshine. Just a little. You know, in case my vitamin D-enriched tablets fail and I get rickets or something, which really isn't the souvenir I'd wanted to bring home with me.

Golden Wednesday

Last night featured another installation of The Golden Hour, albeit sans Ryan. Instead, we had an amazing guitarist, an MC who read a poem entitled "Catman" over the last few minutes of a horrible kung-fu movie, Ben's Scrabble poetry, a long-short story from Nick, and other goodness. There was, however, one ick part of the evening.

New Yorker. She'd been in Edinburgh for a few months, and she couldn't quite pronounce the city's name, but she decided to write a long, relatively ambitious poem about, among other things, haggis and Scots escaping to America. Our table - British, Irish, Canadian, American - couldn't decide whether she was being ironic or just plain condescending. On a side note, it's amazing how your ear tunes to different accents after months away; I've heard pleasant accents coming out of New England and New York, but hers wasn't one of them.

Wet Tuesday

There was supposed to be a picnic in the Meadows Tuesday. Alas, the weather gods of Scotland had other ideas.

The morning was lovely, sunny and relatively warm (as Ella put it, it's great if you don't think about which month it's supposed to be), and I hurried off to pull together lunch ingredients before one. We had a minor downpour around noon, but it was brief, and I thought there might be a rain contingency plan. At ten of one, however, when no information to the contrary had come through, I stupidly figured I'd go down to the Meadows and see if anyone was around.

The rain, which until then had slacked off, came back in full force. By the time I got to the park, my coat was dripping, and I sorely regretted leaving my little umbrella at home. At least my canvas bag dries quickly. Upon returning to my room, I caught the e-mail cancelling the event due to rain. You know, just as the sun was coming out.

After a long, dry afternoon, Ella and I took a walk last night, and made it about as far as Blockbuster when the heavens once again decided to spit upon us. Obviously, the weather gods want me to stay inside and preserve my winter pallor. It's overcast right now, so today could go either way.

In happier news, three days until HP7!!!

Monday again

Today was one of those mornings that begs for a lie-in: cold, overcast, and sporadically raining. Still, I sucked it up and made it to the gym, then came back and began planning a tentative itinerary for my parents' trip over here at the end of the month. So far, I think I can get us everywhere we want to go by bus or train, with the exception of Glencoe. I'm not thrilled about the prospect of my mother behind the wheel of a British car - not that I don't trust her driving aptitude, but it is the wrong side of the very winding road - but one day shouldn't kill us...

Having realized that Warwick Davis, aka Professor Flitwick, is also the actor who played Willow in the 1988 Spielberg film, I logged onto YouTube and found a copy of the movie. Well, all but forty minutes of it - the guy offered Part 1, then Parts 6-12. Still, I'm pretty sure I have the gist of what transpires in Willow, and yeah, it's a Hobbit knock-off. At least now, assuming we get into the Blackwell's party on Friday, I can look at Warwick Davis and know him as something other than a short wizard...like a short sorcerer...

Edinburgh in ten hours

I had a semi-surprise visit today from Johanny, one of my Davenport friends. As it turned out, she arrived in town at 11:15 this morning, having flown into Glasgow from Paris last night, and was leaving at 9:30 tonight on a grueling 10-hour bus trip to London. In the interim, there was Edinburgh to be seen.

Fortunately, the day felt like cooperating, so we had a quick lunch at Chocolate Soup, followed by a walk up and down the Royal Mile, taking in the castle (complete with Blondie bleachers), Parliament, and a bit of Holyrood Park before heading back to the National Museum. I hadn't yet been, but the museum's pretty neat, rather like a compressed version of the Smithsonian with a huge section on Scottish history tacked on for good measure, a couple of koi ponds in the lobby, and the freakish "Millennium Clock", which somehow manages to incorporate Death, the months, a pieta, and Hitler. And as if that weren't enough, it chimes every few hours, too. Huh.

After the museum, we were both pretty tuckered out, so we came back to my place and Johanny grabbed a pick-me-up nap before dinner. I had wanted to take her to Frankenstein's, but the bar level was packed, so we settled for Favorit nachos - which, I suppose, isn't really "settling", per se. We had a little time left to head back to the Royal Mile to track down souvenirs and whisky fudge, and then, sadly, her whirlwind trip was over and it was time to say goodbye. I do hope she has a chance to sleep between here and London...

Weekend!

I realize that the grad school summer lifestyle really makes little differentiation between the weekend and any other time of the week, but last night was Friday and the Forest was having a benefit concert at Octopus Diamond, and Ryan's a pretty cool guy, so I braved the rain and popped by.

I didn't know what to expect, but it was an excellent show. First up was Billy Liar, who Donna described as "a Sex Pistol". His appearance was a little on the punk side, but that was okay - it's not that far from Flogging Molly to honest punk. Next up was a guy named Jed, and our table swooned a little. Ryan claims he has a beautiful soul. Honestly, if he had just kept playing, I would have been quite content to watch...and, erm, listen.

Well, it was Friday...

Let the Potter mania begin

Today marked the UK opening of the fifth Harry Potter movie, which I managed to see this evening after hearing a glowing review this afternoon. All in all, it's not a bad flick, and certainly one of the better ones of the franchise. Perhaps not the best - nothing quite beats the charm of the first, really - but HP5 had a number of selling points:

-Harry is actually learning to act. He also PMSes much less in the film than he did in the book.
-Umbridge is amazing, and I will never look at pink suits the same way again.
-Snape manages to steal scenes with two words. There needed to be quite a bit more of him, but I assume he'll get ample face time in the next movie.
-Luna is also quite good. Apparently, she doesn't have to act...

On the down side, the whole thing does feel a bit rushed, but then again, the novel was thick and they had a lot of ground to cover. What you get, in essence, is a skimming of the plot and a whole lot of amazingly shiny CGI. Glass explodes. Fireballs appear. People vaporize and start rushing after each other around the room. Voldemort still lacks a substantial nose. There's a great scene with a paper bird early in the school year...

Tonight was only the beginning. Tomorrow, I'm off to reserve my copy for next Saturday...

Mindless fun

Facebook recently began adding optional applications to the profiles, some of them mildly interesting, but most useless. A few people I know have added this one called Pets recently, so I decided to give it a try.

Basically, Pets is what would happen if you combined (fluff)friends, Pokemon, and D&D. You choose one of several rabbity things, each with its own HP, gold, et cetera. You then sic it on various "monsters", mostly overgrown bugs, and each time you win a battle, you get more gold or scavenged items. Spend the gold, buy armor and weapons, and eventually move up the levels...

I'm currently sitting at Level 15. My pink rabbit is covered in this blue armor and wields some funky phoenix thing. Someday, we'll apparently be able to let our rabbits duel other rabbits, but that hasn't quite been worked out yet. In the meanwhile, I'll keep fighting mutant bugs so that I can finally buy that giant gun my rabbit's had his little eye on...

Being productive

I've been doing some more transcription work over the last three days, which always gives me a little something to gripe about - my headphones pinch after an hour or two - and after listening to several hours of conversations, I must admit that I'm surprised afresh at how normal, unscripted speech looks virtually nothing like written dialogue.

For starters, we talk in run-ons. Horribly long, convoluted run-ons that may change theme two or three times before they reach a logical end. We speak with no regard for commas or semicolons, we repeat ourselves, and we have a tendency to let our sentences trail off when we can't think of an appropriate conclusion. Also, it's amazing how much filler we put into our speech (um, you know, like, I guess, uh...yeah), regardless of our age or educational level. We're thinking on our feet, so we have to fill the air while we stall for time.

The other thing that struck me is how it's virtually impossible to convey the aural nuances of conversation in a typed document. Text reads as a horizonal line, but voices rise and fall, crescendo and decrescendo, pause, reapeat, and stutter, and the use of italics conveys only a fraction of this. In some respects, it might be more appropriate to score conversations, just get out the staff-ruled paper and have a go. The tempo changes might be a bit on the abrupt side, but hey, that's what the avant-garde is all about, isn't it? You know?

Weekend

So...Sunday night. And somehow two days have magically disappeared into the ether without anything exciting to show for them.

I've been doing a little transcription work, so that's eaten two afternoons already. Yay.

Other than that, I found a few episodes of Daria on Google Video, and have been reliving late 90s MTV. Still, nothing quite tops Live Earth's Spinal Tap reunion concert yesterday...I have a very special place in my heart for "Stonehenge" especially live, with little people.

Morning oddities

Two things made me smile as I left the gym in the pouring rain this morning:

1) I saw a girl in a "Branford 3:16" t-shirt, meaning I'm not the only person at the CSE whose workout apparel largely consists of Yale t-shirts.

2) As I came to the corner of West Richmond and the Pleasance, I was passed by a guy on a unicycle, holding an umbrella as he pedaled down the hill. Someone give that man a medal or something.

Fireworks in Scotland

Click to Play

See? It wasn't just a video of someone else's fireworks...

Independence Day

There's something vaguely perverse about celebrating the Fourth of July in the UK. No massive cookouts. No swimming. No hours of History Channel programming about the Revolutionary War that vilifies the British. No Law & Order marathon. No going to the American Village and trying to hang out in the air-conditioned press building. (Good times, that.)

No, we made do in the best possible fashion: we staged a "cook-in" (fearing rain), complete with meat, non-meat, potato salad, and entirely too much dessert (hurts so good, though), and watched Wimbledon, as Blockbuster has somehow neglected to purchase a copy of Independence Day. The festivities wrapped up around four, when many of us slunk away to nap off lunch, but we were roused two hours later by the promise of free food at our "Midsummer Pizza Party".

Come on, Warden, just call it what it is. It's okay. We won't tell anyone you want to celebrate our independence.

Anyway, after our first serving of rationed Papa John's, we began complaining that we were still stuffed from lunch, which was sad, as the pizza was good and, best of all, free. Some made the most of the situation by taking pizza for a later meal.

The highlight of the evening was the Three Sisters' Fourth of July bash, which was most definitely not like any I've ever seen. The Scottish "trucker" band in the courtyard played Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan covers, while the DJ inside played tracks that could be vaguely construed as American (including the inevitable "Sweet Home Alabama", joy and bane of my existence). Fortunately, the rain stayed away, and the bar put off about two minutes' worth of fireworks over their roof. Has to be one of the shortest displays on record, but hey, fireworks in Scotland? I'll take it. Any oasis in a desert...

Midnight surliness

In the cold light of morning, you have to feel almost sorry for the inhabitant of room 205. She has the most sensitive smoke or heat detector in the building, apparently, and whenever her shower gets too hot, the fire alarm goes off.

Closer to midnight last night, when her alarm went off for the second time in roughly half an hour, the crowd was feeling less sympathetic. The firemen called back for the second time in half an hour were certainly not happy campers. As for me, I'd just gone to bed after the first alarm, and had just gotten comfortable when the siren started again. Sadly, putting a pillow over my head and muttering curses at the ceiling proved an ineffective way of blocking the noise, and so I found myself outside with everyone once again, watching as an extremely apologetic girl accompanied the firemen back into the building.

On the plus side, it wasn't raining!

Waterlogged

Edinburgh may go through multiple seasons in a given day, but lately, all of them seem to be resembling November.

In any case, here are a few shots of our recent weather...

June 29: a mini-rainbow in the afternoon

July 1: the haar covers the mountain

July 2: the stormclouds mass during a break in the rain. A short break...

Sunrise

I honestly don't know what's wrong with me.

Sunday morning, for no good reason, I was awake at 6. This being a completely unacceptable time, I tried to roll over until 8, but managed only a half-doze for most of those two hours, and resorted to my traditional Sunday afternoon oh-look-it's-raining-I-can't-go-outside nap to prepare for going out Sunday night.

I was only at Three Sisters for three hours - I left at midnight, citing the aforementioned 6 AM wakeup and my planned trip to the gym this morning - but whether it was the afternoon nap or the two drinks I had, something happened to screw my head over last night.

I hadn't seen an Edinburgh sunrise since winter, but let me say now that the sky was still cloudy, albeit rosy, at 4 this morning.

Cut to the present. It's 7:40, I've been up for 10 minutes, I want to leave for the gym by 8, and I've been tossing and turning for the better part of the last three hours. It got to the point that I was having Big Brother-inspired dreams, and that's never a sign of good mental health. Something tells me that there's a nap in my future. That, or mega doses of caffeine...

Saturday

Today was one of those mishmash days, a little of this, a little of that.

Though I definitely woke too early (it's never comforting to wake and notice a six in the leading spot on the alarm clock on a day that doesn't involve an early flight), I zoned until nine, then ran to Tesco for a magazine - and another pair of free flip-flops - to break my £10 note for laundry money. (Sad, no?) Leigh was right, as it turns out - Dryer #1 , which for some reason runs in 40-minute cycles, really will dry an entire load, even denim, and so I was able to leave my spiffy clothes rack down for the first week all year.

After that, there was time for lunch (still going on the pot pie...it's looking like Monday), followed by a two-hour, 4.6-mile walk into the New Town and environs. It was only lightly misting when I left the building, but just as I got to the Leith crossing, two miles from home, the real rain started. My North Face jacket, I fear, gets more wear than just about anything else in my wardrobe (or out of my wardrobe, as the case may be; I hang it on the wardrobe doorknob to dry).

Following my exercise, there was time to watch four episodes of Red Dwarf, read my new copy of Glamour, then take an hour's nap before dinner. After dinner, slightly bored, I headed to Blockbuster for a DVD, eventually settling on Tideland. I knew nothing about it, but it seemed more intelligent than my usual Blockbuster selections, like Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny. Turns out that it's disturbing on several levels, with all of the Gothic fantasy of Big Fish and none of the warm fuzziness, and was widely praised and panned on its release. One critic called it a blending of Psycho and Alice in Wonderland. Can't go wrong there, I suppose, but I kept glancing on the timer bar, wondering how much more of that twisted story I could take and when someone was going to rescue that little girl and her Barbie heads. Worth a look, but it's not going down on my list of must-buy movies.

And now ResNet is down. Again. Twenty-four hours before they're supposed to take it down for a couple of hours to fix it. Have I mentioned lately how much I despise our tech team?

Not quite ready for Master Chef

Today was another cold and semi-damp day, and I decided, since I hadn't had one in months, to make a chicken pot pie. I didn't have a recipe, but I figured I could figure out some vague approximation of one without it.

Well, surprisingly enough, it worked. It's a lot chunkier than my mother's - I wasn't certain about amounts, so it ended up with a large can of corn, one of peas, four chicken breasts, and the better part of three potatoes inside, and I didn't even have room for the broccoli - and it's not the most beautiful dish ever assembled, but it tastes like a chicken pot pie. The good news is that I'll be eating off this thing at least through the weekend. The bad news is that my stomach, which has grown somewhat unaccustomed to meat and pastry, is currently letting me know its displeasure.

Mmm. Hurts so good.

Out and about in East Lothian

This morning, two of my Birmingham neighbors' lovely extended family took me out for a drive down the coast road to Dunbar, a seaside town south of Edinburgh. The day even decided to cooperate, weather-wise, and all seemed to bode well while we took morning tea at the Scottish Seabird Centre in North Berwick, an adorably posh little town with a dress shop that I would be quite happy to revisit with an AMEX and a more favorable exchange rate. (The dress was great, but I couldn't justify a $400 bill to Mom and Dad. You're welcome, Dad.) As we began our walk, however, the rain returned, and promptly soaked us as we wandered through town.

This is why it's not wise to invest in silk and suede in Scotland. Fortunately for me, my North Face jacket, dress pants, sandals, and purse are by now impervious to the elements, and by the time we reached the Dunbar Golf Club, I was mostly dry, even if the rain continued.

I have no idea how the golf is - my experience is a bit limited on that front - but the DGC is exquisite for its views, if nothing else. After the first three holes, the course passes through a wall and meanders along the Firth, which was showing quite an impressive surf this afternoon. Over lunch, we watched the soaked golfers come in to warm up and dry off, then leave just as quickly as the sun began to peek out. By the time our meal was finished, the dining room had emptied and the first green was full.

The outing was a real treat, but easily the funniest moment of the day was the brief conversation I had with an elderly lady at the next table who knew my hostesses, and who had quite possibly had a bit too much to drink today. After explaining where I was from, she smiled and asked, all seriousness, "Are you engaged to be married?"

Huh?

I told her no, that I'm just a university student, and she nodded understandingly. "Don't worry, you'll be snapped up soon enough," she reassured me, and we parted amicably soon thereafter.

Saddest statement of the day

From STV news this evening:

"Tonight will be chilly, with lows of 1C in the Stirling area."

(For the Celsius-impaired, that's 33.8F.)

At least the sun's out...

Precipitation

For some reason, Edinburgh has decided that proper June weather is 55 and rainy.

That said, when we went out to Frankenstein's last night, I decided to chance it and not wear the raincoat I've been living in for the last year, or carry an umbrella. On the way over, the weather held, but little did we know that the rain, this time accompanied with gusts for good measure, would return when we decided to leave.

Picture this: three sane people are in rain jackets. One's in a coat, but doesn't care. Ian's walking along, eating his pizza as the box gets soaked through, while I'm carrying mine and running into bus shelters every so often while the rest of the group catches up. When we got back, my makeup was running, my coat and dress were soaked, my hair looked like I'd just stepped from the shower, and the security guard was laughing. Bastard.

Today was less than productive - it's never a good sign when you have to redry your bangs pre-gym because they've dried so oddly the night before - but I did get to see the first episode of Red Dwarf on YouTube, which was quite amusing. Yay, Britcoms!

Two nights, two movies

To escape the constant rain/fog/unseasonably nasty weather we've been having, I treated myself to movies on Friday and Saturday night.

Friday's cinematic feature was Epic Movie, predictably bad but unavoidable. I've seen the Scary Movie franchise, and I sat through their stab at a romantic comedy, so I figured that a guy doing a Jack Sparrow imitation couldn't be all bad. And it is close, but it's not completely horrible. Just...random. How can you be anything else when you're combining The DaVinci Code, Nacho Libre, Snakes on a Plane, X-Men, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Cribs, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, Punk'd, Pirates of the Caribbean, "Lazy Sunday", Talladega Nights, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Click, and stabs at ninja movies, Sigfried and Roy, and Paris Hilton?

Saturday was the long-awaited advance screening of Shrek the Third (yeah, yeah...I know it's been out for a month already in the States, but things can be slow over here), which was amusing but slightly disappointing. I found the third to be the weakest in the series, though it still has its share of amusing moments. Many of these, unfortunately, were covered in the trailers, but I'm still pleased to have seen it. Bring on Shrek 4!

The haar comes on little cat feet...

...and like an old, obese cat in a warm spot, it refuses to budge for long. We've had either fog or torrential rain every morning this week, but yesterday had to win for most hours under low cloud cover.

The first picture was taken around 8 AM, when I finally dragged myself from bed. The second was taken around 6 PM, when, after a lovely afternoon, the fog rolled back again.

In better news, less than a month until HP7!

Night of much goodness

Despite the gully washer we were treated to this morning (and over dinner), today turned out to be rather pleasant. I managed to snag a pair of flip flops in this month's copy of Elle, and to do a little work in the meanwhile. Afterwards, there was time for dinner at Favorit - there's nothing quite like introducing someone to the wonders of Favorit nachos and waffles and ice cream in the same meal.

Once the rain let up, it was time for the Golden Hour, which was made even better with a bottle of something I'd never tried before, pear cider. It's quite smooth, with a distinct finish, and though I do enjoy my Strongbow, I'd recommend this one as well. Still, no one quite tops Ryan, who when we left had downed at least a liter of wine on his own. The beard doesn't lie; he's a man among men.

Last week's roundup

I've been something of a slacker in the past few days about updating my blog. Well, it hasn't entirely been my fault.

From Wednesday through Saturday, Ella and I were on the oh-so-lovely Isle of Skye, just off the western coast of Scotland. It was incredibly gorgeous - sunny, cool, and truly photogenic. We stayed just outside the little town of Broadford, which is really one street. That's large by Skye standards. Broadford isn't the most happening place on the island, but our B&B in Harrapool was pleasant and inexpensive, and I highly recommend it. What I don't recommend is Creelers, apparently the best restaurant in town, whose sign reads: "Gumbo Shack, Art Gallery, Tapas Bar". (It's a small island, you've got to consolidate. There was also a walking store that sold gifts and lingerie.) Creelers' food was fine, but I'm not about to pay £14 for a bowl of gumbo. No. Quite honestly, I doubt anyone on Skye would know a bowl of gumbo if it jumped up and kissed him.

Portree is the "capital" of Skye, meaning it has more than one road and all the buses pass through it. We took what was essentially the school bus into Portree every morning - there's only one high school on the island, so all the kids piled on and headed in - and then hung out near the pastry shop and cafe for an hour until we could pick up buses north in the 10 AM shift. We took one up to Dunvegan, which has a great little castle and a teeny town; after walking back from the castle, we had to stop a local to ask if there were anywhere we could get food, and she knew of one cafe. The next day, we took a bus on the Trotternish peninsula loop and got off at Duntulm Castle, which, though it was marked with the same icon used at Dunvegan, is little more than a pile of rocks in a sheep pasture. Uncertain what we should do for the next two hours, we decided to walk in the direction of the next bus stop along the one-lane road the serves as the only thoroughfare around the top of the island, passing through Kilmaluag, which is a nearly non-existent settlement with a charming art gallery and a Church of Scotland that alternates Sunday services with Staffin, some fifteen miles down the road. At least the weather was amazingly cooperative - the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the sheep were giving us strange looks.

I returned from Skye on Saturday night, but opted not to blog in favor of bed. Sunday morning was church - a whopping seven in the choir! - and then, about 1 PM, ResNet decided to die.

Grr...

Service was restored yesterday around 11 AM, after we were sent e-mails informing us that Internet service was down. Gee, geniuses, think we couldn't have figured that out on our own?

Last night, I went to the airport to meet Jackie, who had just come off YGC tour and will be living in Edinburgh all summer. As she pointed out, it's amazing to have never met someone and yet to know exactly who and what the other person's talking about. Considering that we know a large chunk of people by virtue of being in the YGC, we had plenty to talk about. I headed home afterwards to catch the last hour or so of Leigh's birthday party, which was complete with Chariots of Fire, an unopened 750ml bottle of Irn-Bru (have fun, Michael), chocolate cupcakes, pin the tail on the donkey with our faces on the tails, balloons, and party hats. After the movie, we engaged in half an hour or so of hitting the balloons around the room, and then Ian and I started fencing with balloons, which worked until mine decided to pop ingloriously. Ah well, he's the better fencer, anyway.

I planned to blog after that, but guess whose ResNet is down again?

Kate's had the brilliant idea to tally the number of hours ResNet is down, calculate the billing rate, and then submit a refund request to Accommodation Services. Not that they would honor it, but it might make us feel better. Jerks.

Fun with oral hygiene

The television has been hawking this odd British mouthwash for the past few weeks, so when I saw it in a trial-sized bottle yesterday, I decided to give it a go.

Dentyl claims to be unique. The chemicals inside separate into two colored layers that you then need to shake up to activate. There's no alcohol involved, and weirdest of all, the makers claim you can see the results in the sink.

Uh huh.

Well, I will give it this: minty freshness is nice, but there's something vaguely amusing about seeing greenish precipitate in the wash basin. No wonder the girl in the commercial covered her boyfriend's eyes.

If I truly like the stuff, I can buy it off Amazon.co.uk and have it shipped, but that would be like paying $10 for a bottle of mouthwash. Scope will suffice in the future.

Confusing the visitors

This morning, a large group of Presbyterians from Boise joined us at church, nearly doubling the size of the congregation (the choir, however, was a bit lower than usual at only three). Their story was cute - their minister has been doing a correspondence Master's course at St. Andrews, and his graduation is in two weeks, so he invited the congregation to come along and said they'd make a tour out of it. From here, they're going on to Glasgow tomorrow, then up the coast, out to Skye, and back down the eastern seaboard to St. Andrews in time for him to walk. Most of the tourists can't go to the actual graduation, but there's plenty to do in St. Andrews to keep them out of trouble.

Despite the haar and our guest organist, who played everything at approximately dirge speed, everyone seemed to have a nice morning, and I had many exhortations from the church ladies to go mingle with my compatriots.

I spent a few minutes talking with one of their ladies over tea after the service, and after a moment, she sort of squinted and asked, "Are you from around here originally?"
"No," I laughed, "Birmingham." Pause. "Alabama. Our Birmingham."

Around here, one must specify.

Snip

After seeing Rachel's lovely cut on Thursday night, I decided to finally take the plunge and go to Cheynes for a trim.

I realize it's just a haircut, but this took some soul searching. I haven't let anyone but Susanne at Trocadero touch my head in years, and I've never actually paid for my own haircut. I know, it's sad, but since I went home once a season during college, I've never gone longer than three months or so without getting coiffed. Six months on, however, my ends were looking rather shabby and split.

Long story short, Cheynes is very nice. Their shampoo chair reclines and has a built-in massager, and I really could have carried it out with me and installed it in my dorm room. I got an appointment on the same day, my stylist was only about fifteen minutes behind, and she was quite good.

Cheynes is interesting in that you pay different rates for more experienced stylists - being a student, I of course opted for the bottom tier, to my mother's consternation. She was even more shocked when I revealed how much it had set me back:

"You payed $60 for an inexperienced stylist?!?"

Well, when you put it in pounds, it doesn't sound quite so bad. Plus, Ashley the stylist called my bangs "fringe", which amused me to no end.

Thursday night out

Without classes or full-time employment to give real structure to the week, the days seem to flow into a long cycle of wake, write, eat, sleep, repeat. The weekend has lost some of its luster because, with the exception of Sunday mornings, it's pretty much like the rest of the week.

That said, having the freedom to go out Thursday night has its perks.

We went to a bar called Siglo last night, which was virtually empty at 9:30. Sadly, the dance area upstairs (including the pole) was closed off, but the DJ kept playing cheesy pop, and the bartenders, at least one of whom was in training, were friendly. The trainee actually misjudged the amount of mixer needed in a cocktail, resulting in a free drink for Rachel. I am fairly certain that I had the cheapest night out - in an effort to actually drink something Scottish over here, I had a Grant's, which took me about two hours to finish. Whisky is definitely an acquired taste.

The poor trainee bartender actually carded almost everyone in the group as well, to mixed amusement and annoyance. Ruth and I dodged the bullet; I'm not sure how she did it other than by looking rather sophisticated, but I think mine may have had something to do with ordering straight whisky.

Siglo was followed by Three Sisters, which gave us a group of sketchy older men, an accommodating DJ, and Michael's amazing rendition of the Hammer Dance, after which it was widely agreed that we can now die happy.

Chemical dependency

It's official: I have a coke addiction.

Coke Zero, to be exact.

My stash ran out two days ago, but I didn't bother going to Tesco to replenish until just now. "It's okay," I blithely thought, "no worries, I can just drink tea to fill the gaping hole next to our tainted water in my beverage schedule".

Ha. Haha.

Today, staring down at the last few packets of my Splenda box with a splitting headache and thinking about how now would be a great time to stock up on sweetener, it finally came to me that yes, caffeine is a deeply entrenched part of my life, and that the occasional cup of tea doesn't cut it. As much as I love (and consume) peppermint tea, the caffeine receptors in my brain have wised up to the fact that herbal teas don't have that magic ingredient, and besides, when the heater decides that the perfect time to come on full-blast is the middle of the afternoon, a cup of hot tea's about the last thing I want. (A tall glass of Milo's Famous Sweet Tea would be ideal, but with my luck, someone at Customs would seize it for no good reason.)

It could have been the dissertation I proofread after lunch that started it, or perhaps it was the stress of losing ResNet for the second time in 48 hours, but when even a healthy dose of Bill Bryson and an hour horizontal did little to alleviate the headache, I knew there was only one cure.

As I write this, I'm knocking back a semi-chilled cold one. Cold turkey's for the birds.

Free pizza night

Grad school is really like undergrad in many ways. We sleep at weird hours and rise later than the rest of humanity. We can spend the day in pajama pants without a second thought. We can, and do, find any excuse to procrastinate and then complain about how much work we aren't getting done.

We'll also go to nearly any lengths for free pizza.

Tonight was another of Richmond Place's free pizza dinners, or what I postulate is the warden's way of saying "Sorry about the hydraulic drills and the tainted water". He orders dozens of Papa John's pizzas, puts out a few bottles of Irn-Bru and wine, and watches us descend like starving locusts. It doesn't even matter if we don't get the toppings we like - 'free' is the best flavor of all.

The funniest part is watching people try to take leftovers home. Many come down with tupperware to score a free lunch for the next day, but a fortunate few manage to sneak out a bottle of wine. For that, o masters of the strategic outerwear, your kitchenmates salute you.

Resolutions upon reaching semi-adulthood

After nearly five years of higher education and one particularly lousy residential situation, I have come to a few conclusions about things I should do in the coming year, when I officially end my time in parentally-funded academia. In no particular order:

1. I will return the credit cards to Mom and Dad. I have mooched for the last 23 years, and it’s time for me to give them a break.

2. Whether I rent or own, I will have my own washer and dryer.
a. As cash will no longer be an issue, I will separate my laundry into whites and colors.
b. I will also buy detergent that costs more than £1, and dryer sheets.

3. I will have a dishwasher as well, but I will remember that some pans must be pre-scrubbed. I will not, however, take steel wool to a Teflon-coated skillet.

4. I will clean on a regular basis. The bathroom will be cleaned weekly. The dusting may be less frequent, but it will happen.

5. I will recycle, as long as there’s a bin nearby or pickup service.

6. Remembering that I come from a Gulf State and that shrimp originating in the North Atlantic or Vietnam are not fit for human consumption, I will cease to buy anything called a “Value Prawn”.

7. I will learn to prepare foods that do not originate in boxes.
a. I will also collect a decent selection of recipes that make attractive party dishes. You never know.
b. I will, however, remember that all meats and most vegetables taste better after the application of barbeque sauce.
c. I will learn to prepare ethnic cuisine, as pad thai is some of the best comfort food on the planet.

8. I will remember that oatmeal and other cereals are not part of a balanced lunch or dinner. I will also remember that ramen has no nutritional value whatsoever.
a. I will still continue to snack on dry cereal, as it has more fiber than, say, Cheetos.
b. I will also continue to buy low-fat ramen, because I am lazy like that.

9. On occasion, I will make myself eat a vegetable other than peas.
a. I will not eat asparagus in abundance.
b. I will remember that iceberg lettuce has no nutritional value whatsoever.
c. I will continue to eat multiple servings of fruit per day, even if most of those servings involve discount citrus.

10. I will limit my trips to Starbucks, not for political reasons, but because their coffee is freakishly expensive.

11. Remembering that adage about a fool and his money, I will not purchase organic products just because everyone else is.

12. I will have my car serviced on a regular basis. I will also wash my car, and not just clean the windshield at the gas station.

13. I will adopt something furry and canine to remind me that yes, I am loved, and no, I am not the center of the universe. I will also buy plants, which, knowing my luck, will probably die.

14. I will cease to be so hard on Southern American English. I may drop the occasional terminal G, but I will remember that half of Britain is unable to pronounce a terminal vowel without tacking an R on.

15. I will try to cultivate a vague interest in politics without becoming too cynical.

16. Remembering that not everyone likes New Age, Irish punk, or symphonic metal, especially not in combination, I will purchase at least one CD of jazz/mood/ambient music for social occasions.

17. I will learn to appreciate films that do not involve CGI, fantasy themes, riffing, lust-worthy actors, Mel Brooks, or Will Ferrell. I will, however, continue to maintain that Twister is underrated.

18. Though I have learned the stress-relieving powers of swearing, I will refrain from doing so around children under 12, my employer, my pastor, and my mother.

19. I will maintain contact with people from high school, college, and grad school. This is what e-mail (and the occasional letter to the convent) is for.

20. I may not like AP style or some of the nuances of Chicago, but I will get over it. I will not relinquish my Oxford comma unless forced.

21. I will keep a gym membership and will work out at least three times per week. Weather permitting, I will walk on the off days. The aforementioned canine will need exercise, even if I don’t feel up to it.

22. I will bear in mind that it is possible to have a good night out without drinking. I will not, however, be afraid to have two drinks in an evening.
a. I will remember that alcohol is caloric, though, and will request Diet Coke the rest of the time.
b. I will learn to drink something besides cider, sweet wines, and vodka mixers, but I will remember that shots are overrated.

23. I will not be afraid to fall in love, but I will not jump into bed with the first person to catch my eye.

24. I will remember that the world is a big, crazy, diverse place, and that not everyone does everything my way. That’s what makes life fun. I will attempt to limit my Type A anal-retentive tendencies around others.

25. I will stop being so hard on myself. I am not perfect, and no one expects perfection of me.

Fun with the Sunday paper

I only buy the newspapers if they're running promotions. The Sunday Express showed a commercial last night advertising their two-week giveaway of Beach Boys songs, so I thought I'd pick up a copy this morning.

Well, listening to the CD, I can say that it isn't quite what I expected.

The Beach Boys' tracks I remember were mostly recorded in the 60s, when the guys were...well, young. The CD included in the paper is a split copy of Good Timin': Live at Knebworth England 1980, which was released in 2002 and never charted here or in the USA. It's something of a letdown, to be honest. While I'm not a huge fan of the band, I do like a few songs ("Sloop John B" comes to mind), and these versions are a little lackluster, especially in the falsetto parts. First, it's a live album, with all the problems that entails. Secondly, it was done in 1980, and according to Wikipedia, this was the last major UK performance for the original members, who were all approaching middle age by the time this was done.

I'd overlook these failings but for the paper's bizarre decision (and they're not the only ones who do this) to fill second half of the disk with unknown British pop songs, none of which are even thematically close to the Beach Boys' tracks. One is halfway decent, but still...guys, come on.

Bathing in disinfectant

In the latest chapter of the Richmond Place Hates Us saga, notes were posted everywhere in the building yesterday to alert us to the commencement of the final (yeah, right) phase of the pipe installation project.

Just a recap: this project, of which we were not informed when we signed our leases, began last October and was supposed to end in May. Theoretically, it will give us more hot water, but all it's given us to date is Specific Heat workmen making noise in the hallways, weeks of hydraulic drills in the courtyard, the loss of our front gate for at least three weeks while the cobblestones came up, random water outages (including toilets), Saturday morning scaffold-building, the stench of new asphalt, and a complete brush-off from Accomodation Services every time we complain.

This last phase should be fun: for the next eight weeks, the pipes need to be flushed with a chemical disinfectant to prepare them for use. Now, while we've been assured that this chemical isn't toxic, it will probably make our water taste odd, so we're encouraged to use our kitchen taps, which connect directly to the main, to refill our water bottles.

Our showers, I suppose, are another matter.

One person on my floor went ahead and looked up the disinfectant, and claims that it isn't terribly strong, so while we won't be bathing in chlorine, we will be bathing in something peroxide-derived.

Thanks for nothing, Accomodation Services. May your legs grow together.

I have no upper-body strength

After avoiding it long enough, I'm on a quest to improve the tone of my arms, which have been displeasing to me for...oh, just about forever, really. On my gym days this week, I've added a brief circuit around the weight room, hunting for the machines that will magically improve my triceps.

Yeah, right.

The depressing thing about beginning strength training is that beginners are usually weak. Granted, it's not like I'm using the varsity gym - when I hit the machines, there are usually only about three other people there, most of them middle-aged - but seeing that someone has set your machine on a triple-digit weight load which you then have to cut back to the first or second notch is embarrassing. I've never been able to do a pull-up (I am, however, very good at hanging there and looking awkward), and I've been doing a whopping 35 pounds on the tricep press this week. Wow.

To make myself feel better, midway through my circuit today, I got onto one of the leg machines and did ten reps at 160 pounds. Yeah. Feeling the burn. I would have kept it up - it was helping my ego immensely - but then I remembered that my run was still to come, and that trembling calves wouldn't last very long on the treadmill. Common sense triumphed in the end, and I reluctantly got off.

Insane sopranists

Ah, countertenors. Where would we be without them?

When I was an undergrad, I took part in the annual Messiah sing-in, in which the Glee Club and a bunch of other singers from the university and the community came together and sight-read large chunks of the oratorio. Chaos frequently ensued from the choir, but we could always count on the soloists to know their parts.

Handel wrote solos for soprano, mezzo, tenor, and bass. At least one year, there was only one woman on stage.

While the School of Music had its share of good mezzos, it also had a countertenor, who was frequently called into service for alto lines. The guy was amazing. Tenors seemed a little uncomfortable. Sopranos and basses were confused. Altos just envied his high notes.

I didn't realize this until recently, but there's a further speciality breed of countertenors known as 'sopranists', who have ridiculously high falsettos. I was introduced to the concept by watching a concert clip from a young Latvian guy, Vitas, who is quite possibly not human, if sonic quality is any indication (you tell me). There's no telling how accurate the Russian-English translation of his website is, but his header reads: "Vitas: The Artist Who has been Waited For". With rarity comes ego, I suppose...

Depopulated

I'm on my way to the gym (gradually...), where I expect to have my choice of machines, especially at this hour. It's official: the undergraduate mass exodus has happened.

As some might put it, the baby children are gone.

It's strange to walk into the gym and not hear the whine of several treadmill belts (I don't know why, but certain machines emit a high-pitched whine above 7 km/h or so), and to not see some of the more risque ensembles I've come to recognize over the past semester. Still, there will always be the old fellow with the bad knees and the blue paper towel tied around his head, and the middle-aged man who thinks it's appropriate to wear a midriff-baring shirt and short shorts, to keep me entertained.

I hear the library is similarly dead, especially after we watched half the undergraduate body move into it as a horde last month. (Really, think camping. It was worse than the D'port library at finals time - at least the Master gave us snacks and a constant supply of coffee. These guys looked up at you and glowered if you breathed too heavily, but then again, some of them were taking a full year's worth of finals in May. I don't understand the Scottish system.) I can only imagine what a ghost town Pollock must be at the moment, but then that's what summer school is for...

Guilty pleasures

Last night, a group of us went to see P of the C: At World's End, a film I described to my mother as "168 minutes of lusting".

My father then asked me if I was going to see Shrek.

It wasn't the strongest of the series - there were quite a few loose ends and more double-crosses than any movie based on a Disney ride should have - but between the special effects, the fight scenes, and, ahem, Will Turner, I passed a pleasant three hours in the theater. The ending made little sense until I saw (on Wikipedia, Fount of Useless Knowledge) that an explanatory scene had been cut before the release. (Director's Cut, anyone?) I won't spoil it, but for anyone going in the near future, sit through the credits. Yes, they're long, but you get to see names like "Richard De'Ath", who you just know got teased in school.

That was yesterday. A few minutes ago, I finally found an MP3 of a song I've been guiltily enjoying since high school, one that not even Amazon seems to sell.

Anyone remember Daler Mehndi and the immortal "Tunak Tunak Tun" video? You know you did the dance...

I still have little clue as to what he's saying, even after looking at the translation. Does anyone know what "tunak" means, anyway?

Sunday morning strangeness

Things were a little odd at church this morning.

First, Roy the organist was home packing for his two-month sabbatical in Germany, so we had a guest organist and his wife, who joined the choir in place of Margaret, who was off running the Race for Life. Ian, the minister, had also stepped aside this morning to let a theology student preach, so our lineup was a bit shaken.

Even stranger, I knew all the hymns. Really. All of them. One we had done at Kirk o' Field, but the others were all familiar from back home, or at least the tunes were. There was one with an American folk tune that no one else in the choir had ever heard before, so I got to lead, for a change. As I told Norma after the hymn, "Welcome to my world."

I had tea with two old ladies afterwards, one of whom began telling me all about her grandchildren, who are roughly my age. She then wanted to know about my program (she likes to write poetry), whether that was an actual degree program (instead of night courses), and what I wanted to do with it. We then went through the "Oh, I've always wanted to go to New York" stage. Fair enough.

Then she asked me what sign I was born under.
Huh?
"Taurus," I replied, wondering where this was going.

She seemed rather shocked at my choice of programs, given my sign, and said that it was more in line with her sign, Pisces. She wondered why I wasn't in accounting or something else math-heavy.
I explained that I got through calculus and ran from math. Then I made my excuses and slipped off.

Saturday musings

I woke at 5:30 this morning for absolutely no good reason but for the fact that the sun was shining brightly on the other side of my curtains.

Arrrrgh.

Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate the 11 PM dusk, but 5:30 on Saturday is too early to be up unless you're trying to catch a flight. I gingerly rolled over and went back to sleep until 8:30, a much more civilized hour.

Why 'gingerly'? Well, as I've once again relearned through experience, not doing a machine for months, then getting on and doing 40 reps, will leave you in a bit of pain the next day. Right now, I feel like I've been punched in both pecs, and the triceps are right behind them. As long as no one asks me to lift anything heavy above my head today, I should be fine.

I can't say the same for the gang of teenagers I passed walking home at 9 last night, many of whom will probably wake up with hangovers some time around lunch. It's ridiculous how many teenagers - young teenagers, especially - are allowed to wander in packs around the city at night. Look, I understand that teenagers are supposed to be loud and obnoxious, but we did most of our group activity at the Summit, generally around the movie theater. I know my friends drank during high school, but it was usually at a place, like someone's house or school. (Hey, it was a boarding school on 250 acres. You try to control everything that goes on around there.) They weren't gathering in the streets with 20-ounce cans of Strongbow, being a nuisance.

This particular gaggle I passed was hanging around the wooded area at the top of St. Leonard's. The girls looked like they'd done their shopping by lifting whole ensembles from TopShop mannequins, while the boys had the usual assortment of jeans and track suits, plus the aforementioned cans of cider. None could have been older than 16. As I approached, a couple of girls ducked through a hole in the fence and descended into the woods, squealing as they ran off to join another faction. (So that's where the marijuana smell came from that one time...) The ones at the top of the hill were clustered around a gate, talking about sex they had had and smoking. As I turned off to take the path home, I found the rest of the group; one girl was sitting on a trashcan, complaining that she had "spunk on her hand" while the boy next to her laughed.

Where are these kids' parents, and why are they permitting them to roam the city? Maybe I'm just too suburban for my own good, but my mom would have killed me if I'd tried a stunt like that. She still doesn't like me out by myself after dark.

On a completely unrelated note, for the first time ever, I have been called "Lawrence" in an e-mail. Usually it's just "Laura", but folks are now getting creative with my gender.

The Penguin Lady

We received a visit from the (apparently sole) representative of Penguin Scotland yesterday, whom many of us had hoped could give us the Magic Key (TM) to getting our work in print.

Alas, it was not to be.

She was lovely, and gave us many helpful tips (You can put purple polka-dots all over your manuscript and be remembered, but do you really want to be remembered as the purple polka-dot guy?), but as for actual assistance, she couldn't offer much.

"How many of you are Scottish?" she asked the room of about twenty.
Three people, including one of our professors, raised their hands.
Her face fell a little at that.

The problem is that Penguin Scotland is supposed to find, well, Scottish talent. Granted, "Scottish" is a loose term, encompassing both those born here and those who have written here for a while and use matter with local interest, but the majority of the people in the room didn't quite qualify. What made it even sadder is that she's one of the few publishers left who will actually read unsolicited materials...

Still, the event was followed by a book launch and wine reception, so it all worked out.

Better days

Today, with the exception of the low headache, has been much better than many recent days. This is largely due to the e-mail I received this morning - an agency in Atlanta wants exclusive reading rights to my dissertation novel for the next two weeks, so I spent the morning formatting that puppy and sent it off, hopefully to find a good home. We shall see...

Other than that, and partly due to the headache, today was largely unproductive, and was spent in an afternoon nap, a long walk around the park, and The Golden Hour. What amazes me is that it's quarter past eleven and the sky isn't completely black yet...what's mid-June going to look like?

One year

One year ago today, I graduated from Yale.

Where the heck did the last twelve months go?!? I've been trying to figure it out, but somehow Commencement seems like yesterday. There was the walk in, and the batons Lauren and I got to carry, and Aaron with the flag, and the cute kids in the park with our D'port pennants, and the tip-take-shake method of diploma acceptance...

'07, remember this. You've been warned.

In less nostalgic news, we're booked in for Skye on June 13! And At World's End comes out this weekend! Huzzah!

Collecting

Not that this is doing much good for my ego, but I've begun collecting what every young writer inevitably collects: rejection letters.

As of this afternoon, here's the tally:

Acceptance, but from a shady agency (and thus rejected by me. Ha!): 1
Rejection with "Don't worry, it only takes one 'yes'" tag at the end: 2
Unanswered e-mail queries: 2
Drafts sent to my editor in Birmingham, who sent it to my former English teacher, who knows someone: 1
Meetings with Alan tomorrow to discuss how much work this novel will need over the summer: 1
Novels and short story collections (or drafts) written this year: 7
Novels and short story collections written to date: 8
Novels and short story collections with fantasy themes, and thus untouchable by many agents: 5
Meals I owe Eytan Halaban after I sell my first book: technically 1, but really quite a few at Union League, Mory's, or the fine dining establishment of his choice.
Times rejected by Eytan's agent: 1 (but hell, the novel was in the 300,000-word neighborhood at the time. Give me a break, I was 20.)
Total rejections to date: 3

Beyond wallowing in self-pity and nursing my wounded pride, I'm keeping this in hopes that I'll look back one day and laugh. In the meantime, if anyone out there is (a) a reputable agent with a thing for both general fiction and fantasy, who is (b) looking for new writers, and (c) might be interested in me, I've got a query I'd be happy to send your way...

Multi-tasking

I had marked on my calendar that this was to be the morning that I both sang a duet and read in church, but as I hadn't heard from the minister, I assumed I wouldn't be reading. Nevertheless, I showed up 45 minutes before the service, since the walls of Churchill House are quite thin and my neighbors probably wouldn't like to hear vocal exercises on Sunday morning.

Just a guess.

The piano was locked when I got there, but I was able to stand in the corner and hum a bit without feeling too self-conscious. Roy the organist gave me the cheat Post-It of the day (a little service he does for me, since the minister likes to pair hymns with other tunes and I'm still reading most of these tunes cold), and we decided to run the duet once my partner arrived.

Then I saw the bulletin. Yup, that's my name on the front.

Whipping out the Bible I had borrowed the week before (my NIV translation is slightly different), I scanned the verses and breathed a quick sigh of relief - I had a total of seven to read. Not too shabby. The minister told me that he had tried to call yesterday, when I was at Ian's "Dead Animal Feast," but he didn't leave a message on my cell phone, and I didn't want to call a strange number at 10 PM, so there we stood.

We got the piano unlocked, ran the anthem, and then it was time for the service. We had no men again - Bert's on vacation - but we had a whopping six women, including four altos, though one had to sing soprano on most hymns since she accidentally picked up the Melody version of the hymnal. It was great fun - sing, sit for prayer, surreptitiously chug contents of water bottle for sustenance, read, sing anthem, listen to minister read, sing, read, sing, sit for a while, sing once more. The ladies seemed to like our duet, so all was well.

There's nothing quite like a solo F in the morning to give an alto heart palpitations, but I didn't crack, thank God. Still, if anyone knows how to make my leg stop shaking when I get nervous, I'd be grateful for the tip...

Why I miss Alabama

I believe the graphic says it all. Birmingham's two degrees warmer, and it's 4:20 AM there.

And we're having a cookout today, too...

Two-rainbow day

The weather here has been hit and miss all day: the rain either hits you, or it misses you for a few minutes and comes back around the block to bite you in the butt. Still, thanks to our intermittent nasty weather, we've seen two sets of rainbows today.

"Sets," you ask?


Item one: the 5:30 rainbow


Item two: the 5:30 rainbow and its faint double (upper left, just squint a bit)


Item three: the 6:45 rainbow, also known as The Brightest Freaking Rainbow Ever

Someone pass the Skittles, eh?

Celebrity

My college roommate, Mary, is home from the convent for a few days, and so she forwarded me the link of herself being interviewed on MTV.

MTV!!!

Sadly, because I'm in the UK, I can't actually watch this clip right now, but if anyone out there knows Mary and wants to repost this on YouTube, I'll be eternally grateful...

"Entering the Convent is Anything but Conventional"

My kind of band

I consider myself a moderate Evanescence fan - I haven't been to any concerts or anything, but I bought both Fallen and The Open Door.

Yes, on actual, glorious CDs.

Thanks to Wikipedia, however, I learned that they produced several EPs and one questionably decent CD prior to Fallen, but that they were released in very limited issues, some with less than 1,000 copies in the complete run. Basically, unless you want to pay a few hundred dollars for one on eBay, you're not going to find copies anywhere.

In an interview a few years back, the band addressed this issue by saying that paying eBay prices for one of their early EPs is ridiculous, and that they'd rather fans just buy the new CDs and download the old tracks. As the EPs aren't for sale and they're not generating any money for the band, they don't mind fans just having the songs.

I found a site today that has taken this to heart, and so I now have more old Evanescence tracks than I know what to do with. I'm thinking there will be a listening in the near future...

Good and bad e-mail

The bad news: the first thing I saw when I opened my Gmail-box this morning was my Very First Rejection Letter. At least I'm now in good company, and there's nothing for it but to keep trying other places...

The good news: the first thing I saw when I opened my SMS mailbox this morning was another offer for proofreading work, in a discipline I might have a snowball's chance of understanding.

I'm glad we have this new technology...

Art imitating life

I was bored this evening after listening to some of the Clio winners (the radio awards went overwhelmingly to Bud Light's "Real Men of Genius" ads, which have to be some of the best spots ever), so I listened to a few tracks off the Avenue Q soundtrack.

Man, that CD gets better with age.

The opening number is still my favorite - for being appropriate, if nothing else - but I'll always have a soft spot for "The Internet is for Porn", especially after having watched Vardit and Chris do it live in Glee Club.

If you're unfamiliar with Avenue Q, imagine Sesame Street with adult themes. The opening number, sung by a character named, ha, Princeton, begins, "What do you do with a B.A. in English?"

I feel for ya, buddy. Word.

Being cultural

Rounding out the weekend last night was SHINE, a series of 12 short one-acts by young writers performed by high schoolers, which gave us a chance to be both cultural and social for the second night in a row.

Whoa.

Some of the plays, whether because of the writing or the acting, were a little questionable (there were some "Bohemian Rhapsody" moments). One of the better ones, simply for its absurdity, had a character who seemed to be channeling Jay of Jay and Silent Bob, and another who seemed to be the Scottish version of Artie, the Strongest Man in the World. But the best was certainly saved for last. Cali's play, "Wrestling Armageddon", sent the whole affair off with a bang (and seven trumpets...). She says it was loosely based on the Arthur's Seat bonfire - yeah, there was no champagne and Death never made a guest appearance at ours - but Ian, Leigh, and I couldn't help feeling that some of the characters seemed awfully familiar. A short brunette getting angry at the end of the world and wrestling Death has to be Leigh, right? Ian had his choice of the non-gay guy (the other was originally a girl, but the casting worked anyway) or Death, while I think I got pegged as the ditz. Whatever. They all had good lines.

Ian might have been glad to avoid them, but I left the theater with an unexplainable hankering for Reese's Cups.

Huzzah for oboe!

Here's to Ruth, her oboe, and the symphony orchestra, who managed to save a concert that was going horribly wrong before intermission. "Rhapsody in Blue" and "Bolero" were fantastic, as were the two encores. Bravo, Ruth! Bravo, oboe!

As for the other groups...well, let's just say that, when playing the great orchestral game of "Find the A" tonight, the first orchestra lost. There were tuning issues, and something sounded off in the string section. No matter, though; they recovered fairly well with the Unfinished Symphony, which then, sadly, led to our choral act of the night.

Guys, there's a reason why we love "Bohemian Rhapsody", and it's Freddy Mercury. "Bohemian Rhapsody" is not intended to be a choral piece.

Sopranos going for the falsetto part? Uh-unh.
Cutting out verses? No.
Wonky arrangements? Forget it.
Final consonants? Sounds like a New England glee club attempting a spiritual.

The biggest letdown of the piece was that bit after "For meeeeee" - you know, the great bit with the guitar rocking out - which turned into a piano solo. PIANO SOLO. People, you can rock out on many instruments, but a dinky little piano isn't one of them.

The most appropriate statement uttered during that song?
"No, we will not let you go."
"Let me go!"

Jeff, if you ever see this, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for never attempting a Queen piece with us.

The things we do for cash

I've learned a very valuable lesson in the last 24 hours: transcription is horrible.

I'm doing a little work for another student, and all I'm going to say is that I had no idea how long it takes to do a single tape. It's taking me at least three or four times longer than each tape's length to finish the transcription. My eyes are glazing over, my ears are pinched from the headphones, and I've begun promising myself little rewards to keep going. Two more questions and you can have dinner, one more tape and you can have ice cream, stuff like that.

Suffice it to say that I was probably the person most pleased to be caught out in the rain during the afternoon fire alarm today.

This may be a problem

For the last two mornings, I've been waking at 6:15.

This hasn't been intentional. My alarm has been set for 7:30, I have no pressing matter in the morning to make my mind fret and wake me hours early, just in case, and the drills haven't been back.

No, the problem is that sunrise in Edinburgh is currently 5:15, and when there's full sun, my curtains aren't quite strong enough to block it. By quarter after six, my room looks much like it did at 9 AM a few months ago, and it's only going to get worse as we move into June. At its peak, the sun is supposed to come up at 4:26 and not set until 10:03, giving us more than 17 hours of daylight.

The one real perk, besides the end of everyone's seasonal affective disorder depression, is that the later sunsets give me plenty of time to walk after dinner. I can watch television and still take a three- or four-mile walk before sunset. Considering that it used to be twilight when I walked to class at 4 PM, this is a welcome change.

Still, I may look into a sleep mask...

Monday

Today won't go down as one of the most thrilling on record. Highlights included a four-mile hike around the park after dinner and seeing a lovely rainbow during more of the sporadic rain showers this evening. I did, however, find something I wanted to post...

In all honesty, I think the folks who wrote this bit of copy from the back of my Herbal Essences shampoo bottle were high at the time:

DIRECTIONS FOR USE: Massage into wet hair. Indulge in the luscious lather and the energising, refreshing fragrance. Rinse when ready.

I don't consider something called "Fruit Fusions" to have an energizing, refreshing fragrance, but I think that's the least of their problems. The conditioner is worse:

DIRECTIONS FOR USE: Massage the juicy conditioner into strands of wet hair. Let it soak up the refreshing energy for as long as desired, then rinse thoroughly.

Am I the only person out there wondering what ad team was paid to create this drivel? Or whether English was their first language?

Random musings

Today has been one of those days...

The morning began with a marathon through Edinburgh, which just happened to run by my church. This meant that very few people could park near the building, which in turn meant that our numbers were down.

I left church at around 12:30 to beautiful skies and wet cement. Five minutes later, the heavens opened up. Then they closed. Then they reopened with two minutes of hail, followed by more rain. It's rained off an on all day, now, and the wind is horrible out there. (One of those "Why did I forget my ponytail holder?" days, indeed.)

I wanted to purchase a pedometer - I've been meaning to figure out how far I walk - but I had to hit up, in this order, EBS, Superdrug, Pound Savers, Boots, the sports store off Princes Street, the bigger Superdrug, and the bigger Boots before finding one. Even then, it's a crap model and only counts your steps, but thanks to a nifty map tool I found online, I've discovered that it's 0.75 miles from my door to Princes Mall, and that my after-dinner walk is in the 3-mile neighborhood.

Also, and this is completely unrelated to anything above, I'm reading a Bill Bryson book, Made in America, that explains many oddities about American English. One of those is the phrase "quarter of", which means fifteen minutes before the hour. Brits always use "quarter to", and so they get confused when we give them the time. According to Bryson, using 'of' instead of another preposition was actually a feature of Elizabethan English, and our method of telling time is just a relic of the practice. So there you have it, guys. It's archaic, but it works. Also, there has never been an American coin officially known as a penny - it's a cent - but the term is a holdover from the days of using British coins. The cent was originally one two-hundredth of a dollar, too, which makes absolutely no sense.

The morning after

First off, I'd just like to thank everybody here, back in Birmingham, and all over Facebook for making yesterday such a nice birthday. Between the roses, lunch, the amazing caterpillar cake, and drinks...y'all are awesome! :)

Last night was Bar Kohl, and I managed to not get drunk. Happy, perhaps, but still able to walk a straight line and not be like the girl in the bathroom, who was asking everyone if they had an eyeliner she could borrow. Yes... But last night was momentous for me in that it was a double first: my first shot (the schnapps I sipped from a shot glass on choir tour doesn't count), and my first absinthe.

Absinthe (absinth) is an interesting drink, strong (mine was mid-range at 140 proof), green, and tasting of licorice (it's anise-flavored, but the wormwood gives it its bitterness). I'm not a huge fan of licorice, so when it was time for a drink, I did it the easy way and got this little number off the chalkboard, which was tempered with honey vodka. (This bar has over fifty flavors of vodka - honey was certainly not the strangest.) There are pictures on two camera that document me getting it down, but there's really no need to put those out here, right? Suffice it to say that the Diet Coke I requested as a birthday drink came in handy.

Since I took a long hike before dinner and the bar (almost up Arthur's Seat - I did everything but the rocky summit, since all the tourists were snapping pictures), I didn't feel bad about stopping for pizza at Ian's suggestion. We came in for one pizza. Once we discovered that the student price is only £2.50, we left with four, and the guys were still able to finish the caterpillar. Now I have cold pizza in my fridge, roses on my windowsill, and a nagging suspicion that I should get some work done today.

Pub Quiz Night

Here's to Team Whatever, which managed a brilliant sixteenth place of sixteen teams! At least we got applause and the attention of Sketchy Drunk Semi-Pro Golfer...

On that note, I really need to come up with a new state. Whenever anyone in a bar asks me where I'm from, I try to go with a generic "States", but this inevitably leads to a call for specification, which can only lead to one thing:

"SWEET HOME ALABAMA!!!"

Yes, I was aware of the song, but thanks for pointing it out to me, buddy...

Beltane

Click to Play

There are few things for which I'll willingly stand on a hilltop in downtown Edinburgh for four hours on a chilly night. Beltane happens to be one of them.

For the folks back home: Beltane is a Celtic fertility festival (remember that bit in The Mists of Avalon?) now celebrated by the Beltane Fire Society every April 30 (since May 1 is officially Beltane). I couldn't actually see most of the procession around the mountain, since we were sharing Calton Hill with 12,000 of our closest friends, but here's the quick and dirty on the event:

The May Queen and her court, the White Women, have to walk through a processional fire arch and enter the Underworld to reunite the elements. They parade around the mountain, visiting each of the four elemental sites in turn, while the Red Men (and women), who are wearing little more than loincloths, interact with the crowd and try to subvert the parade. Meanwhile, the Horned God touches the May Queen, dies, and is reborn as the Green Man in a dance. In the end, a giant bonfire is lit and there is much rejoicing, particularly since it's very cold up there.

While we couldn't see much of the parade itself, there was plenty to watch. Side shows. Various pagans in their cloaks. A girl wearing elf ears. Drunk Frenchmen (one of whom almost fell on me from his buddy's shoulders). Fire jugglers. A Red Woman who...um...danced on the Parthenon steps in a loincloth and nothing else (we felt sorry for the Red Men...it was really cold last night). The poor Christian group giving out much-appreciated chai tea and, well, laughable pamphlets. (Really, they were pretty bad.)

What was neat was that the evening started as a perfectly clear night with a full moon, and as we watched, the fog rolled in from the Firth and covered everything. By the time we left, it was decently foggy and the whole place had atmosphere.

The video was meant to capture the fire arch, but regrettably, the lighting was horrible and the crowds were worse, so it's more of a "Sounds of Beltane" clip.