Stuff

We’re busy packing up stuff for tomorrow’s epic journey but not too busy to scan in this leaflet from Prague’s Museum of Communism. They’re a little down on it to be honest… Anyroad, if you look at the location of the place at the bottom, it’s ‘upstairs from McDonalds, Next to the Casino’. We made it to the casino, but we weren’t up for the McGhoulash Happy Meal.

Also, it’s yer last chance to order fancy American exports before we leave- nylons, chocolate and chewing gum anyone? A militarily enforced democracy? Creationist high school biology textbooks? Comment away your order below

While I’m obviously thinking of the people affected by this latest full contact natural confrontation, especially the 10,000 poor and immobile who are holed up in an American football stadium with no A/C, I can’t help worrying about the possibility of flight cancellations. We’re leaving on Wednesday morning from LAX then on to Newark and eventually Bristol, UK on Thursday. Friday’s the day of me little sister and Ali’s wedding/commitment/knees-up and I will be gutted if we don’t make it.

Continental Airlines were bad enough last time in perfect travelling conditions (miserable flight staff, inept announcers, no free booze, same movies shown in both directions, National Express-quality food, crappy overhead TVs, cretinous security folk…) so Jebus knows what it’ll be like this time around. At least they don’t use the verb ‘to deplane’ like some airlines, but you do hear about there being a lot of ‘weather’. Ah well, as long as they get us to the church stately home in the Quantock Hills of Somerset on time I’ll be happy.

Can’t compare it to yesterday’s screening of Serenity in London (great review from Londonist here). but the 40 year old virgin and Rilo Kiley & John Cale gig were not bad at all. Sita reckoned that 40-yr-old was the best film of the Summer yet, she might be right, i laughed a lot for a (sober) matinee… still, roll on Serenity.
It hit 96 degrees in Downey yesterday hence all these trips to the air-conditioned cinema, shall be v. glad to see clouds come Thursday.
A few photos from yesterday here…

or google talked or yahoo messengered… I’m loving this internet telephony malarky. Victims so far include:
Mum & Dad, Meg & Matt, Jesse, Roberta, Flash and Atticus
Download Skype now and give us a bell: www.skype.com
Me user name’s gwynfisher, natch…

Lessons learnt today:
Unless you’re a huge Terry Gilliam fan, give Brothers Grimm a wide, wide berth.
Fish and chips is one of the best menu items in Maggie’s Pub, L.A.
We’re off to see a Rilo Kiley gig tomorrow. Yay.
Wall Mart’s saving grace is its air conditioning.

Great weekend at Pahrump and Las Vegas, Nevada, for more pix, click away. Aunt Minnie’s house seems desert proof enough and I’ve found a strain of slot machines that I can lose money on very slowly. Sita’s more into the roulette, which means ‘I will bankrupt you’ in French.

Finally got round to booking the car hire for Geneva and beyond, watch out for a speeding Seat Ibiza confused as to which side of the autoroute to drive on in early Sept…

And last, and by most means, least, Atticus’s web debut on GwynUnlimited is here. He also got seamlessly pasted into our wedding photo here. Vive la revisionisme historique!

UPDATE- And this week’s fantastic Onion headline from the future (2056): Democratic Middle Eastern Union votes to declare war on U.S.
MECCA—The 14 democratic member nations of the Middle Eastern Union unanimously voted to declare war on the U.S. Monday, calling the North American country a “dangerous rogue state that must be contained.”
A bientot, gwyn

{{popup DIY_Weekly.jpg DIY_Weekly 600×800}}Like this one here (Click me)

Today I drove Sally & Martin’s automatic car round the block, my first time ever successfully driving a non “stickshift” car. I don’t know what I’d been apprehensive about all this time. Now if the need arises to drive down the Chilean Andes from El Transito to Vallenar in an automatic in pitch darkness down a one lane unpaved road with sheer drops and wild animals on either side, Sita won’t have to be the one who takes over the wheel from her narcoleptic uncle.

The electric bug zapper I ordered (1 buck off of Ebay) for Sally & Martin arrived yesterday. Imagine a high voltage badmington raquet and you won’t be far off. On contact with the mesh you hear a loud crack and the bug falls out of the air, moribund, clutching its little insect heart with a look that says “Why?”…”How?”. V. Satisfying.

Started our journey through the Sopranos Season 5 last night. Even Sally’s into it. Seems a bit slower paced than previous series, but none the worse for it.

Off intersurfing to investigate prices for car rental in Geneva next, the DSL’s gone to dial-up speed today for no apparent reason so it may be a long process.

After a hard days painting again, it was nice to see Kev’s photos from Ashton Court. The two photos linked here and here show a game I vaguely remember participating in (instigating?) that involved head butting each other at waist height. I’m sure I won, but it’s all a little hazy. I love festivals, me. Round two at Beth’n’Ali’s, Stu?

…go marching in. Read my first film review in 7 months or so HERE

Tsk, it’s gonna cost you. You’ve got an oil-based full gloss paint in here, and to cover it you’re gonna need an interiour primer, along with acrylic rollers with extendible handles. Looks like the ceiling needs polyfilling too, and those blinds are gonna have to come down. 2 gallons of paint, no, got to be oil based, see?… Need a dolly to move that fridge.

No none of it, Sally and me made short work of painting the kitchen, and today it’s the bathroom and metal porch bits. No worries, for a few pix, click ye here.

After a fun morning configuring Skype for internet talking (user name’s gwynfisher if you fancy belling me)… Sally and Martin took me to Pala, a Southern California version of Vegas with a more laid back atmosphere. As a cover band played Black Velvet and Paradise City, I played roulette and a fair bit of poker only losing a small amount of money over the 1.5 hrs there. They make their money on the $3 charge to use the cash machine (ATM) i reckon. Anyway it was worth it (using my finely honed Justification System ™) as all those losses went towards the all-you-probably-shouldn’t-eat bargain buffet, which included steak, bbq pork, special fried rice, salmon, spring rolls, spinach salad, beetroot, profiteroles, wine, chocolate cake, chips, spuds, cajun shrimp, chow mein and pizza. 4 hrs later and I’m still waddling round. I’ll never fit into that little black dress for Bethan and Ali’s Behitchment ceremony in two weeks. Sita’s back tomorrow morning, turns out there was all comers in Philly including Kathy & Vance, and Burmese food was Saturday night’s theme. Oh well, next year etc…

Sita’s left me in Downey while she gallavants to sociologise in Philadelphia. Back on Monday. Is what she told me anyway…

I’ve made some lovely DVDs with photo slideshows and musical accompaniment and everything in the last few days, there’s little else you can do in the excrutiating heat. I chose not to go to Philly because it’s the same heat with 10 times the humidity and I’m melting fast enough here…

Anyroad, last night we went to Santa Monica pier where Plastilina Mosh were playing, who i’ve been quite fond of since Guadalajara in 1998. I’ve started to figure out the night settings of the camera a tad better but there’s still work to be done. Have a gander’s at the pix here.

There’s also some photos from our revisiting of our wedding locales, they’ll be at the end of this here link then. And yes, the weather’s just the same with a lower cloud level. Bring your pully.

Meg and Matt had one of the best weddings evah. I took a fair few photos, and if you have broadband and 10 minutes or so to spare. Here’s the top 50 photos as an MPEG file (35 meg or so… Megasaur) I’m putting together a DVD with all the pix. But thought I should blog as I go along so you can see que pasó for yerselves.

Off to breakfast- Here are some pictures from yesterday evening. Thanks to all concerned

I can exclusively reveal that Absinth tastes a lot like Pernon/Ricard/Pastis and is better with the whole sugar/ spoon/ pyromania rigmarole (sp?). Thoroughly recommend it. Delusions, hallucinations, madness and epilepsy failed to manifest themselves in our controlled experiment last night. Mind you, we left a little early…

Click HERE for a large Picassa ‘photo pile’ of some snaps from the shindig.

Click the picture for the gallery. The tour goes from Grand Ave., the Oakland hills, to a bit of Berkeley. Am off to M’n’M’s now to see what kind of shape me missus is in after a day in the wineries. I’m sure she didn’t touch a drop. She just rang from what sounded like a Madonna concert, but could have been the minibus.

Stuart Capstick to me : Aug 3 (18 hours ago)

“I gave Klem 10 and Lulu 1.
Frankly, Lulu displays an enervating dreariness and a palpable lack of vim that makes one feel ashamed to even bring to mind the aspirations of rabbithood. Klem, however, instills in one a sense of lofty fluffiness and self-effacing coyness that cheers as well as comforts for its close to complete achievement of the lapinnic ideal. well done klem”

Rate Stuart’s Face here