I have been alluding to this for a while, but a while ago — before I moved to the US for a few months — I bought a house. The arrangement is fairly complex, but basically I bought part of the estate from my dad. In the picture below, the right hand side is mine. There are also some grassy bits out of frame that are ostensibly mine (I’m thinking about keeping chickens in my garden; what’cha reckon?)

I used to live in the top left corner. My parents are there now. In essence, the main thing I’ve gained is my own front door — and, as a rather nice corollary, the ability to walk around naked.

Anyway, my new house is completely unfurnished. It doesn’t even have a kitchen. All I have is a couple of pink bean bags, a fridge (but no where to prepare food, so it just contains case after case of Coke at the moment), and my computers. Over the next few weeks… it will become furnished!

At this point, you should look at my House set on Flickr. It has a bunch of photos of my house, as it is today. Click through (or open it in a new tab!) then come back here.

The tiler is meant to turn up tomorrow, to do the kitchen floor — but, of course, he’s not returning my calls at the moment. On Tuesday, my kitchen units arrive — and my bed (I’m sleeping on some shitty, dilapidated double mattress at the moment — reeeeally looking forward to my new king-size thing). I’m going to put the units together myself. Figure it can’t be too hard. (Will get some help for all the plumbing and stuff.)

Sofas are due to arrive in a couple of weeks. One is a lovely dark blue (azure) Italian leather thing; the other is a huge swivel arm chair thing, big enough for a couple of people (wink). I already have a fridge, as you can see (it’s moving, once the tiles are down!)

Then I need to buy a worktop for my kitchen (leaning towards walnut at the moment), and then another piece of wood that will become my desk (I don’t fit under normal desks, and they’re generally not designed for the number of screens I have). The desk will go against the wall on the right side of the living room (where the fridge is at the moment).

My bed will be in the big upstairs room. Not sure what will happen to the smaller upstairs room; probably just storage, or a guest room. Or maybe that’s where I can keep my maid.

I don’t really know what to do with the conservatory. It’s beautiful, but not very good for computer work. I could just turn it into some more living space, but I don’t think I’d use it. Might be worth doing up in case I rent the house out, though.

The colour scheme is: light wood (as you see in the windows, staircase, living room floor), dark wood (walnut worktop), and slate/blue (kitchen floor, sofa).

I was going to write all about the Joy Of DIY, and how tearing out fitted wardrobes made me feel Incredibly Manly, but I think I’ll save that for another post.

I still need to buy a ton of stuff: appliances (oven, washing machine), a TV, tables and other assorted furniture, and just about everything that will make the place “homely.” Rugs, plates to hang on the wall, art for the walls — I need it all! I’m open to ideas and suggestions, if you have any.

This site will probably turn into a bit of a decorating/DIY thing for a while. To make amends, I will invite you to my house warming party. I have a swimming pool.

If you like what you've read, or seen, or heard, subscribe to my RSS feed!

Alternatively, if you're new here, you might want to find out more about me, the author. Or perhaps you want to hear a posh Brit rant on about anything and everything (podcasts), or you want to read something more serious?

I started writing this post on December 8, almost one month ago. I meant to finish it while flying home, but… that didn’t happen. I then meant to finish it after I got home… but that didn’t happen. But now, by Jove, I am finishing it!

I’m writing this from the departure lounge of Newark Liberty Airport, but I suspect I won’t finish it until I’m in the air, winging my way towards London, England — my home!

I know that I promised the Three Thanksgiving Dinners story in the previous entry, but I was waiting on some photos of me and my long-lost, ruggedly Russian cousin Dmitry, who I had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with — well, him, his wife, his kids, and a full bevy of septua- and octogenarian parents and in-laws. I have those photos now — and, despite the facial hair, you can see there’s no real physical real similarity between us — but mentally, oh! Why, Dmitry and I could almost be cut from the same gnarled stock.

Anyway, enough about him. I doubt he’d want me to tell you all of his dark secrets — especially the geeky ones. I should tell the story about how I very nearly ended up attending a Thanksgiving dinner for the friendless, familyless, and destitute at the local St Paul’s church — but ended up having a very heartwarming, Hollywoodesque day.

It all started with a tweet, with a tweet to my cousin Neil. This was two days before Thanksgiving — I tweeted him with the hope that he might be doing something festive up in Wisconsin, but it turned out that he was going to Amsterdam. Darn. But… it also turns out that Neil has done a fair bit of rooting around our family tree — and it just so turns out that a lot of my Russian-Jewish relatives ended up in New York or New Jersey. So, a day before Thanksgiving, just as he boarded a 10-hour flight to Amsterdam, he gave me Dmitry’s email address.

By this time I had also advertised on Twitter and Facebook that if fortuitous fate didn’t get a move on I would end up spending Turkey Day with a bunch of hobos who probably wouldn’t leave me any turkey.

First my boss told me that I should stop by his parents’ place — and then, a couple of hours later, one of my writers also told me that I should come for Thanksgiving lunch. I am always surprised by how many people call me friend. An hour or two after that, after he had confirmed my identity with Neil, Dmitry emailed me back to say that I would be more than welcome at his house — as long as I brought a bottle of vodka.

I plotted all three houses on Google, and they were almost lined up in a straight line away from my house — and all within New Jersey! What were the chances? I headed over to see my friends at Enterprise car rentals, picked up an SUV (a fancy, heated-leather-seats Ford Escape), stopped by the off-license to pick up lots of vodka and wine… went to bed… and then in the morning I set off to visit the first victims: my boss and his family… and his chickens.

<Insert one-month gap, while I change countries, move houses, buy furniture, and all sorts of other real life crap>

His parents live in a huge house, quite far off the beaten path — quite similar to where I live in England, I guess. It’s a big, red, hunting lodge-style thing, with lots of grass and trees all around it. His family is Sicilian, and they all have Godfatherly names like Salvatore, Giuseppi, and Annamaria. They congratulated me on my choice of gift-wine (a fairly expensive chianti) and, as chance would have it, fava beans were on offer for lunch.

After slurping down a few glasses of delicious red wine, I hopped in the SUV and headed along to the next port of call, a nice house in a neighbourhood of beautiful-but-slightly-too-ostentatious palatial abodes. If the previous household was decidedly Italian, this house was ALL AMERICAN. There were about 15 people in total, but 10 of them were busy watching Football (it is capitalized in the US, like Him). I don’t like Football, so I spent an hour or two chatting to my writer, his wife, and the occasional offspring that would emerge from the Football Temple to grab a beer/snack/etc. I had raw broccoli for the first time (dipped in some kind of sour cream-chive dressing).

I chugged down a few more glasses of wine (I had got them a bottle of “Coppola” — Francis Coppola, the director, actually makes wine now), I recalibrated my GPS thingee and headed off to Dmitry’s.

Dmitry is a small Russian man with a small Russian wife (OK, she’s not actually that small but she is called Olga). They have two kids, and a full brace of parents and in-laws (all of which were present for dinner). At the time, we figured we were incredibly distant relatives that had been slapped together by the thighs of Fate (or Neil), just for Thanksgiving — but later, after I left, we worked out that we’re actually quite closely related (third cousins, or something). Anyway, dinner was lovely (three courses of delicious Russian food, with a turkey thrown in for good measure), and Dmitry was pretty cool, too. It was a little bit odd; most of dinner consisted of me talking to Dmitry, with occasional bursts of Russian translation to the oldies. I spoke in a mix of fluent English, and self-conscious slow-and-loud expatriate pidgin English (not intentionally, mind you).

Like Neil and I, Dmitry’s a writer — but fiction, rather than the journalisticky stuff that I write. Somehow he writes English prose that makes my head spin and lips curl, even though Russian is his first language. I wonder if he actually has a solid command of all the crazy words he uses, or if he is constantly riffling through dictionaries and thesauri to find the right words. His wife, Olga, designs lingerie (for fairly fancy label, I think). The parents and in-laws came to the US 20 years ago, to be in the same country as their kids, but I don’t think I was told what they do/did for a living.

After a couple of amazing deserts (and only a tiny sip of moonshine; drinking and driving isn’t for me (but he could’ve at least offered me a glass of the vodka I brought him. Damn Jews…)) it was finally time to head out. The entire household watched me tie my bootlaces — a funny mental image that sticks out amongst the rest.

I drove home, full of familial, amicable love, and the warm glow that only moonshine and delicious food can instill. Three Thanksgivings, in one day!

* * *

In hindsight, I really should’ve written this closer to the time — way back in frickin’ November! — as I’ve forgotten lots of details since then. I’ll likely remember stuff if you ask me questions, though, so feel free to quiz me. Also, the photos in this post come from my Upstate New York road trip. The next post will have to be about that! I drove 1,500 miles in four days and visited seven states! If you want to get a head start, you can always check Flickr for (some of) the photos.

Happy new year, friends.

It’s a long weekend here in America, thanks to Thanksgiving — but as I don’t have any friends or family to spend it with, I’m just lounging around, sunbathing, reading some Philip K. Dick, tidying the house, that kind of stuff. In earnest, I’m a bit bored, and a bit lonely too. I wouldn’t say that things haven’t gone to plan, but… well, it turns out that I’m not very good at making friends. Or, well, at least when those people are my age. Younger or older still seems to be no problem at all — but my age… I can only assume that I need more practice.

Anyway, despite all that stuff about being bored and lonely, I’ve done a lot in the last month — and next week I’m doing a four-day road trip of Upstate New York! To Lake Placid… and beyond! It’s staying resolutely warm here on the coast — it was t-shirt weather today — but hopefully there’ll be some snow, ice, and clouds up there.

Last week I went to see the Garden State Philharmonic perform Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. It was surprisingly good. I sat next to two college freshwomen who had been forced to attend, for some music appreciation class they were taking (damn liberal arts students, huh!) I told them enough about the symphony that they no doubt got full marks for their essays. I hoped to be invited back to some crazy, teenage sorority party, but alas… no dice.

I talked to the conductor afterwards and geeked out — he’s a huge Mahler fan as well (this was his first Mahler symphony, so it was a big deal for him).

The week before that I headed down to Washington DC, to pick up a girl, and then head down into Virginia via the Shenandoah National Park. It really was beautiful up there. We had a ball. Then, as we crossed Virginia to the Chesapeake Bay, things went south (well, geographically east, but south in a metaphorical sense — and not in the good, euphemistic sense). I’m still not entirely sure what happened. It was a cold and chilly drive back to DC, anyhoo.

The week before that… hmm… I’m not sure. That might’ve been Halloween weekend? In which case, it was fairly crazy, and a reminder of what university life was like. If you follow me on Flickr, you probably saw a few photos from one of the parties I was at. Oh! I just remembered — I saw Sweeney Todd at the Paramount Theatre! It was put on by the Premier Theatre Company, which is semi-amateur, semi-pro. Sweeney himself was fantastic. Everyone else was pretty good. Not While I’m Around and Pretty Women (hot gay guy alert) get me every damn time.

Except some drunken nights of debauchery, talking to my cadre of Old Wise Men on the Wisdom Bench, eating lots of cake, and discussing LSD trips with the ex-Special Forces, Vietnam veteran downstairs… I think that’s about it for the last few weeks. I’ve been working hard. Made a few nice meals. Enjoying living on my own, but it ain’t easy, that’s for sure.

Damn, I just realized that I actually started this blog post to tell you about my Thanksgiving adventure — and I’ve written nothing about it… and I need to go to bed. I will tell you all about Thanksgiving tomorrow. Unless I magically develop a social life, in which case it might have to wait a few more days. Oh, I was at Occupy Wall Street, too! Damn, I have lots more stories to tell.

I had originally intended for this to be some epic catch-up post that chronicled the last two weeks of blog silence. A lot has happened, after all, including a run-in with Our Lord Himself. Unfortunately I’ve been going through photos of zombies and I haven’t left myself enough time to write much. I go to bed around 10pm nowadays. I usually wake up to the light of dawn lancing into my eyes. It’s nice, but I wish my landlady would hurry up and get me some blackout curtains…

Anyway, today I went to the Asbury Park Deliverance Center, a Pentecostal black church. Me and my friend Becky (a nice lady who lives downstairs) were the only two white faces there — and my face hovered about a foot above everyone else’s. Still, this isn’t some story about not fitting in or being kindly asked to leave — far from it! For four hours, I sat through a bible study (some Song of Solomon thing, about a virgin’s gushing fountain), and then three hours of prayer and singing and praising Jesus. I hopped from foot to foot and by God I bashed my tambourine with strength I didn’t know I had. Maybe I was fuelled by Him.

Yesterday I lumbered, dragged, grunted, and hung out with a horde of zombies at the New Jersey Zombie Walk. I have no idea how many zombies there were, but probably a couple of thousand. There were a lot of observers, too, like me. At least a couple of camera teams making documentaries. Seems zombies (along with vampires…) aren’t quite ready to leave the global consciousness just yet.

I took some fun photos. As usual, I think I was the only photographer there without a flashgun — and there were a lot of photographers. My photos came out much better than I expected. I’ve uploaded a few to Flickr, but I have a lot more to go (including the best ones!) This marked the first time that I’ve actually gone… into the field… and taken photos of people. It was awfully hard to tap the first zombie on the shoulder and ask if I could take their photo, but after that it was a lot easier — so… hooray! I lost my street photography cherry.

It definitely helped that they were dressed up as zombies… (and by the end I was just grunting loudly, pointing, and saying “braaaaains!”, and somehow they understood that as an order to stand still and have their photo taken…)

Ahhh, I went on a road trip last weekend, too! To Cape May! And Sandy Hook! I gazed at Manhattan and some bridge from across the Hudson River. I took a few photos, but I don’t think they’re very good. I also went up a lighthouse at Fort Hancock, but I tell you that purely because I’m proud that I climbed 100 steps without stopping. Go me. This road trip involved renting a car, incidentally — the first car I’ve ever rented, and the first time I’ve ever driven in the US. It was surprisingly easy and a lot of fun. I posted a photo of the car on Facebook, but if you missed it, here it is. It’s a Dodge Grand Caravan — a tank compared to my tiny Mazda 3 in the UK.

That’s all I’ve got time for. Lots more stories to tell, which I will no doubt forget to tell you about… just like when I went to Norway and Montenegro last year and said almost nothing about either. One day I’ll fill in all the blanks, I promise.

This was going to be a lovely story about two large-hearted, generous Texans who gave me free tickets to see a very cool concert in Asbury Park tonight (Portishead!) — but because of the way things turned out, this will instead be a story about how Americans are, in fact, despicable meanies.

It all started yesterday evening on the beach (where the above photo was taken, in fact). I was heading towards Bradley Beach (there’s a Thai place there I wanted to check out, and I hadn’t seen Bradley Beach yet), and was taking the beach route (as opposed to the boardwalk) because it was that time of the day where the sun was low enough to illuminate the crests of waves with a lovely citrus glow. Anyway, I bumped into a couple of Texans, a guy and a girl, both early-20s. I actually thought the guy had approached me to take a photo of them on the beach — he had a camera in his hand — but in actual fact he was looking to score some marijuana, and, I quote, “I’ve just been approaching everyone in a black t-shirt and hoping they have some.”

You see, this weekend there’s this big music festival thing in Asbury Park, just up the boardwalk. All Tomorrow’s Parties, curated (and starring) Portishead. I’d thought about going, but to be honest I’d only heard of a handful of the performing bands — and $100 just to see Portishead (which I only know by reputation) seemed a bit extravagant. These two Texans had driven all the way to Asbury Park to see Portishead, and they were looking to get a little bit high to celebrate.

“Do I look like a drug dealer to you?” The girl nods almost imperceptibly, then catches herself. “No of course not!” says the guy. “I was just hoping… Anyway, are you going tonight?”

“No, I thought it was sold out.”

“Well, we have a couple of spare tickets! Want ‘em?”

At this point I assume my face creased into some odd rictus as the guy then said “I know, it’s a bit weird, two randoms offering you tickets, but really… take them, we don’t need them.”

Apparently they had bought two tickets online, but they were such Portishead fan-nerds that they wanted real tickets, so that they’d have stubs afterward. So they had these two spare tickets… and I was as good a recipient as any. I just chalked it up to Big Texan Generosity. I’d heard stories about Americans being overwhelmingly generous — and I’ve experienced it a few times myself — but this was something else.

So I took the tickets (she emailed them to me — God bless the smartphone, eh?), I thanked them, we went out separate ways, promising to bump into each other at the gig. I went to have dinner at the Thai place, came home, printed the tickets, and then headed off to Asbury Park to cash in my ticket for a wristband.

Bloooeeep! Bloooeep! Blooeep! That’s the sound of the guy behind the desk trying to scan my ticket. “Says here… the ticket’s been refunded.”

“Refunded?”

“Yeah, they were bought in May, then refunded in July.”

Then I had to tell him the whole story about how I got the tickets. He seemed very relieved that I hadn’t paid for the tickets — apparently that’s a common scam (and a very easy one to pull off, too…)

I then walked home, got sorbet on the way, and cried myself to sleep at the cruelty of Americans. Seriously, who gives you a couple of tickets for free, but forgets to tell you that the tickets are no longer valid? Just imagine if I was a huge Portishead fan… and the event was sold out… and I’d magically stumbled across these two amazingly generous Texans… and my dream was about to come true — to see Portishead! ON STAGE! — only to find out the tickets didn’t work.

* * *

Here are a couple more photos from the last few days (I’d upload more, but this room is too bright to actually see photos on my screen… so I have to wait until the sun sets before I can check and upload some more!)

The same groin as the first photo

Monarch butterflies in the garden! (More info on Flickr)

Almost through my first whole week of living alone! It’s very odd, cooking three hot meals per day instead of just one. I’ve done it before — at university — but that was six years ago! The atrophied muscles are returning to strength… but it’s still very challenging (especially in such a small space).

I don’t have a whole lot to share as I’ve been working 8 to 5, but I do have this video, which I shot earlier today, just as the clouds were clearing:

As you can see (hear) it was still rather blustery (you may want to turn your volume down). You will note that I sound very British. It’s perfect outside now. I should go and take some more photos. The sky is a beautiful blue, and the ocean is an even prettier, darker shade.

Other than that… I had a nice dinner out last night — had lobster for the first time (in a quesadilla!) and also baby back ribs (for the first time). Why are they called baby back ribs? Reminds me of this roleplaying game (Call of Cthulu) where I ate a baby — but I’m sure they’re nothing to do with that. The lobster was nice, but hardly mindblowing. I remain of the opinion that vegetables are better than meat, if only for the sake of variety.

Oh, I saw a gay movie (“Weekend“) the other day, in Asbury Park — which is, from what I can tell, the gay capital of America’s east coast (San Francisco being its antipode). I think I was the only straight guy in the cinema (it was an independent thing — only 56 chairs), but I’m glad to say that my concerns turned out to be completely unfounded. Deep down, though, I kind of wish that the guy next to me had asked me to reach into his bag of popcorn. Just as a story to tell the grand children, you understand.

To finish, another photo, taken after the gay movie. (Click to enlarge.)

Who knew that living alone was so difficult… and yet so delightful? I’ve only been alone for three days, but I can already tell that I love it, if only for lack of distraction and the complete autonomy. Working from a sun room with seven windows (six facing the ocean) obviously helps matters enormously, though.

Here’s a video walkthrough of my apartment:

And here’s a video of the sunset from Asbury Park last night (or maybe the night before):

Except for the flowery wallpaper, you can see that my accommodation is certainly not to blame for my new, arduous lifestyle; no, it’s all of the cooking and the cleaning and the cutting up my own food and doing everything that’s taking its toll.

My fingers are wrinkled from the washing up. My legs are tired from all the walking around. My arm muscles are bulging from all of the fridge opening and toilet flushing and saucepan lifting and scrubbing myself in the shower.

Despite all that, though, my productivity is actually higher; it’s a net gain (and again, the fact that I can just pick up my laptop and work from the deck certainly helps).

Anyway, here’s a bulleted list of the things I’ve done over the last few days. Perhaps it’ll help other people who are about to make The Move and live on their own — or just moving out of home (though sharing a house with a significant other/friends at university is obviously a lot, lot easier than having to do it all yourself).

• Arrived by train — had to get a taxi from the train station to my house (but there were no taxis waiting — so had to phone a local company!)
• Learnt where all the power sockets are in my apartment (perhaps this is a geeky thing…)
• Took all of my important bits/pieces out of my luggage, laid them out on the bed — much easier to conceptualize where to put/what to do with stuff once it’s out of the bag
• Learnt how the TV worked (think I’ll stick to downloading TV episodes)
• Photographed the sunset (it’s pretty darn beautiful while I write this, too, but I can’t photograph the sunset EVERY night… can I?)
• Realized that I’d left my phone charger in Los Angeles, ha, ha, ha
• Scrounged charger off landlady
• Sussed out which room/space to turn into my den/office (taking into account light, views of the ocean, my MacBook Pro’s shitty-reflective screen, etc.)
• Got a Philly Cheesesteak burger thing (too late to go shopping)
• Talking of shopping… be prepared to spend a ton of money on essentials. I made a list (the third list I’ve made in 27 years). After all that, I still forgot to buy eggs (but I remembered the Q-tips, the salt/pepper, butter, cupcakes…) I thought I’d escape with two bags of stuff; ended up with almost four.
• More as a note to self: New Jersey is REALLY humid and warm. I actually intended to pack more than one pair of shorts, but I forgot — so now everyone around town thinks I’m a skank who wears the same shorts + Jesus sandals every day. (Ocean Grove lacks a male clothing shop AND a shoe shop, so this situation may not rectify itself quickly…)
• I really regret not bringing my speakers with me, even though it would’ve been impossible. I miss Mahler I have Spotify, but I refuse to pipe Good Music through my laptop’s speakers — and I don’t want to put headphones in, because I like listening to the roar and rush of the ocean. As a result, I’ve been listening to Katy Perry on repeat.
• Went into town to do a bit of reconnaissance. Ocean Grove is just one square mile, so this is easy; guess it’s not so easy if you live in a normal-sized town.
• Sat in the coffee shop hoping to strike up a conversation with someone my age. After the fifth 50+ couple sat down (and leashed their dogs to the table) I gave up. (Ocean Grove is basically a retirement town — Asbury Park, 500 meters that way, is a lot younger, but more on that in another post.)
• Don’t try to cook something complicated until you’ve used a kitchen a few times. Electric stoves suck. Learning a new toaster sucks. Trying to operate in a space that’s about the tenth of the size of my kitchen back home sucks (see video above).
• Related: just buy a couple of fresh throw-in-the-oven-for-8-minutes pizzas to last you through the first couple of days

I think I have some more, but I need to finish this as I need to do a few other things and then go to bed (I’m trying to keep an early schedule, so I’m almost on UK time… kinda…)

Here are a few more photos of Ocean Grove and Asbury Park. You can find more on Flickr, too.

There will be lots of photos where people are back lit with a red glow because the sun sets in the west… and the ocean is to the east!

Not a bad sunset for my first evening in Ocean Grove (not the same night as the video from Asbury Park)

And today, just to prove it doesn’t just do beautiful sunsets, the Ocean Grove beach was blanketed in fog for most of the day.

Again, as I write this, I am on a plane — but this time I am flying from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey. By the time I post this I’ll be at my ocean-front apartment in Ocean Grove. I’ll upload some photos from the wrap-around deck once I get everything set up. [The photo above is the Pacific Ocean -- I was there this morning... and now I'm on the Atlantic Ocean; cool huh? The photo is awesome for at least two reasons. See if you can spot them!]

LA — well, Anaheim and then Pasadena — was a lot of fun. The first week was spent at the Hilton Anaheim and the Anaheim Convention Center, covering Microsoft’s Build Windows conference for my writing job. For five days, I woke up at 6, wrote a couple of stories, and then hung out in the Press Room. I attended a couple of keynote speeches (both were very long) and a few sessions (not as exciting as I’d hoped). The rest of the time I wrote — or if it was after 5pm, I ate, drank, and partied.

Tech writers/journalists/bloggers (don’t you dare call a self-styled tech journalist a blogger!) are an interesting crowd. On a scale from 0 to -10 on the uncool scale, they’re around -7, just ahead of table-top role-players (-9) and just below the horrific, more-pretentious-than-thou psuedo-middle class substratum of society (-5). Tech writers, once you get through the ego that results from being one of the select few that Microsoft invites to its events, are a surprisingly friendly bunch. They are just geeks, after all, and meeting like-minded geeks is one of life’s greatest pleasures.

Anyway, we partied fairly hard and did quite a lot of drinking. It all culminated with a night at ‘Oshimi’, a tiny sushi restaurant on a strip mall in the outskirts of Anaheim. Nine of us spent $1,000 on sushi. I’m not a sushi maestro, but it was certainly the best sushi I’ve ever had; Toro and Cherry Salmon were my favourites (my writing job means that my muscles have now memorised the American spelling of favorite, alas). The sushi was prepared by three wizened, octo- (or maybe septa-)generian chefs that looked like wrinkled, barely-erect corpses. We were waited on by a tiny, cute Japanese girl. She kept nodding and quietly squeaking hai at our sushi choices.

This past week I spent in Pasadena, which is north of Anaheim and east of downtown Los Angeles. As far as American towns/cities go, Pasadena is quite interesting — but compared to green and leafy Sussex, England, it’s horrible. Everything in and around the LA basin is soooo sparsely spaced. The smallest roads are four or five lanes, and most “surface roads” (as opposed to freeways) are at least six lanes — and each lane is at least 3 meters wide, because Americans drive insufferably obese vans and trucks. This means that each road, including a suitably fat sidewalk, is around 20 or 30 meters (65-100 feet) across. The result is a towns that are spread out over miles and miles, because so much space is taken up by roads. The sparse (and low-riseness) means that landmarks are almost non-existent, too, because you can’t physically see farther than a block (or less!) in any direction. The end result is an endless sprawl.

Still, Pasadena was nice. Pasadena is an old town, as far as west coast settlements go, and I enjoyed looking at all of the turn-of-the-century bungalos that dominate the side streets. I stayed in a 115-year-old “Craftsman,” which made it one of the oldest houses in town. My host told me that when the house was built the porch would’ve had a clear view of the mountains and miles of prairie… but now, of course, the house is just another denizen on an endless, 20-mile-long avenue.

On a more personal level, I am doing well. I am not enjoying this single-computer, single-screen thing, but when I get to New Jersey I’ll have a second display and a full-size keyboard waiting for me. Rather worryingly — and I had a hint of this when I went to Wales last year — my English accent seems to be sliding away from me. Or rather, people don’t immediately pick up on the fact that I’m British. I know my ‘proper’ accent has been slipping for a while — sitting in my bedroom only talking to European World of Warcraft friends is the cause, I think — but apparently I am full-on ‘mid-Atlantic’ now. It doesn’t help that my job requires me to write in American English, so I use mostly-American phrases and terminology, too.

Perhaps I’ll have to start podcasting again, or something. Or maybe I’ll have to phone a British friend for a few hours every week, just to polish up on my vowels.

In other news, I am probably gaining weight, but I don’t have any scales to prove it. There might be some in my Ocean Grove apartment. I hope my face doesn’t get all jowly again. Perhaps I’ll have to take up running… along the pristine, sandy beach that is a few meters from my front door.

* * *
I’ll be updating this blog fairly regularly — perhaps once a week — but you should look me up on Twitter or use Facebook’s new ‘Subscribe’ feature if you want a steadier stream of (somewhat funny) updates.