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Effluvia Pam Grier is 51 years old today. You damn right. The best movie title ever. The other Harold Williams. Taken from a programming forum: Well, first you should take it out for a nice dinner with some wine... Ron Jeremy - friend to the stars. Autofellator. Mary Cherry is cool. Bygone
Days 75 YEARS AGO Dayton, Tenn. - John Thomas Scopes, a Dayton High School teacher, has been indicted for teaching evolution. Additionally, several other teachers were arrested for asserting that the sky is blue and George Washington was the first president of the United States. Boss Kenny 
"I sure am glad I left the music business for this internet thing. Man, cutting edge stuff. Anyway, you can cut your development time by a third if you use C++. And you might want to make those graphics blue, instead. See, I know design, too." "I would be Harold 'Catfish' Williams, always moving along to avoid the law, born under a bad sign." |
05/26/2000 London, Part 4 Tuesday, 13 March 2000 Some BBC production assistant wrecked a Lamborghini Diablo here in London this weekend. The BBC had borrowed it for a new show they're making about cars. The Diablo was a total loss. That's in the neighborhood of $200,000. I'm guessing the production assistant doesn't have a job anymore. Bitter cold today; a solid north wind blew all day long and it was constantly overcast. We've been lucky, I suppose. The first three days were sunny, breezy and relatively warm. We have coats, though - we'll be warm enough. Went to Waterloo Station this morning to find out about a trip to Salisbury to see Stonehenge. Twenty pounds round-trip - cheap! We'll do that later this week. We all went to Harrod's, then. It is every bit as fancy as you'd expect it to be. Snooty help, too. Sonya and I went to some of the less touristy areas of the store and the salespeople still wouldn't make eye contact. The food halls were massive and magnificent; piles of ham and chocolate and fresh ocean-smelling fish. And anything they sold you could have them cook for you to eat right there. Snazzy, huh? James and Kent wanted to shop some more, so Sonya and I got back on the tube and went to Baker Street, where we had the English delicacy known as the "Pizza Hut Buffet." Very exotic. Don't judge us, though. The place was packed and there was not one person there (besides us) who didn't have an English accent. A digression, here, for a word about English food: despite all the warnings to the contrary, everything I've eaten over the past few days has been fresh and tasty. Yes, I've eaten a lot of ethnic food, but I've had English food and fast food, too, and it's all been good. Surprise, surprise. We were on Baker Street, so we had to go down to 221B, where Sherlock Holmes lived. Well, he would have, if he had actually existed and if the address was actually there. If 221B were real it would be in a bank lobby. They've set up a little museum down the street, though, and written "221B" over the door. We got Sonya's dad some Holmes goodies and took a picture. Then the British Museum. Wow. We mainly spent our time in English history and Egyptian antiquities. Mummies. Lots of mummies. And the Rosetta Stone. How cool is that? I'm going to try to make it back and explore a bit more. Sonya had worn shoes that were not entirely sensible (though they were very hip), so she was a bit footsore. We stopped at a small, elaborate pub a block from our hotel - the Hedgehog and Giraffe or some such nonsense - and took in some atmosphere. We watched the locals, drank some beer and grooved on the vibe. It's such an integral part of life, here - stop by the pub, have a drink, visit with the crowd - and it doesn't have the faint stigma of being a bar regular in the States. A quite night after that. We met back up with James and Kent for a flaming hot Indian dinner. Sonya drank a whole pitcher of water by herself after breathing flames, cartoon-style. We considered doing the Jack the Ripper walk, but the cold drove us back to the hotel. It's sad, but when we've been awake over the the last four days we've been going. I think we deserved a night off. We were in pajamas immediately. British TV is bizarre, you know? And the original Men Behaving Badly is pretty damned funny - lots of talk of asses and tits and drunks. And we think America is sports-crazed, but every aspect of English media seems to revolve around football. Our room has a radiator. It's deliciously cozy right now. James and Kent are off to Paris tomorrow for two nights. I'm not sure what we're doing - maybe Stonehenge, maybe Highgate Cemetery. St. Paul's or Westminster? So many cathedrals... |
