Help, I'm trapped in London, after being 15 minutes late for flight check-in Saturday night. No one on standby is getting on. Sorry, one person. I got to the airport at 6:10am Sunday, was third in the standby line, and only the girl at the front of the line got a seat on the first flight. And she was the only one all day.

Saturday night, after being told I wouldn't be allowed to board, I was a bloody wreck, with no mobile phone, no keys to Adam's flat, no more cash, and no place to stay. Adam had gone to Manchester for the weekend to see a Seal concert and meet the fellow backstage, so I was forced to spend Saturday night in a hotel. You may be thinking, "Oh, how tragic for you... room service and everything, huh? Yeah, that sounds pretty traumatic." But, consider: I was faced with being alone in a foreign country, with no prospects of returning home any time soon, classes ready to start again on Monday, and credit cards steadily gaining charges. Not cool. Believe me, spending all of yesterday in an airport, missing one overbooked flight after the next, all on only four hours sleep... that was pretty horrible.

Anyway, I'm not exactly stuck here anymore, just delayed. Adam came back last night, so I've got a place to stay again. My mom was able to convince the Virgin people over the phone to give me another confirmed seat, but Tuesday night into JFK was the earliest one they had. So I'm tragically forced to extend my spring break three days, and miss at least two days of classes. Adam's got tickets to see Seal again tonight in London, and I might be able to go too.

But it's worse than it sounds. Really.

This is sort of a picture heavy entry, so I'm not putting the bulk of it on the main page... just click the link to see the rest... oh, screw it, it's not working... damn you Movable Type! This is what I get for trying to use a feature for the first time while I'm away from my desktop.

Anyway, guess I have to clog up my main page... sucks for all of us...

I love crap like this.

National Gallery and Trafalgar Square

The British Museum's got a lot of books...

...and mummies...

...and this cat statuette...

...and Roman anal spreaders (really)...

...and a big important rock with a bunch of writing on it (the Rosetta stone, idiot).

This is just gay.

Guinness and salt and vinegar chips at a pub for St. Pat's

Adam's living room

I think it's disturbing how much stuff the British Museum has stolen from the venues of antiquity. I think it's also disturbing that Adam only goes by "AJ" in England, to the point that when I say "Adam did such and such" people ask "Wait, is Adam AJ?"

Okay, wow, it's late here already, and yet it's prime time back home. I'm updating from Adam's computer, which of course uses his living room's gagillion inch plasma screen as its monitor. Of course.

He might even be watching this as I type, mind you, on any one of the various TVs around the flat, all of which can tune into the computer input, I believe. The rooms can all listen in on his hi-fi system too. And all the rooms have these light switch panels that have, instead of actual light switches, five buttons that access programmed room settings, all of which are of course operable by remote. Of course.

And the lights are everywhere. Peeking out from under Adam's bed. Changing their LED colors in his hallway's ceiling. Illuminating cabinets though frosted glass doors. And of course built into the walls of the shower. Of course.

All the floors are done in wenge (pronounced "WHEN-gey" according to Adam and possibly the rest of the world... looks like it rhymes with Stonehenge, though) wood, due to its hardness and Adam's African (non-)heritage. Everything seems so obvious, doesn't it? I mean, I'm sure everyone else came to the conclusion that it'd be a great idea to have a massage showerhead and a giant ceiling rain-style showerhead in the same shower, right?

And his DJ equipment and "party amp" aren't even hooked up yet. Just you wait...

Anyway, with just about everything either deep brown wenge wooded or white painted, this place looks like a cup of vanilla and chocolate swirl, with some frosted glass and steel sprinkles. People who say "jimmies" are just wrong, sorry. And why the hell is the double-quote swapped with the @ sign on British keyboards?? Who's the Bill Gates equivalent over here that I can blame this on? Screw it: Tony Blair, fix this damn keyboard! Some keys have three symbols on them... how am I supposed to type those? Magic?? Can you tell I'm already getting tired of all the "Look Left/Right" messages at the crosswalks? I'll look straight ahead, thank you very much, and if a giant black cab hits me, my brother's a lawyer with an expensive flat.

Hopkinsites: have you seen those London cabs encroaching on Baltimore, btw? Apparently they're heading to NYC as well. Anyone know anything about them? Weird.

Sunday, Adam and I went to see his friend Patrick. Patrick is an incredibly prolific painter and his stuff is really quite cool. He's one of the few professional artists I've met, and it's encouraging to know they're out there. I've been somewhat on the outs recently with the thought of poetry as a career, to the point of arguing with myself rather loudly about it. It's hard to keep your responsible side in check, and sometimes mine berates my "yeah man, poetry... woah" side, and says things like: "get a job, hippie!" Or "only poets read poetry!" I think it sounds like I'm half 1950s suburbanite father, half 60s flower child. I guess that's not so bad. Though, really, what does it say about me if the flower child's winning most of the time?

My laptop power is down to ~20%, which is why I'm not using it right now. Adam's US-to-UK converter is in storage, and I was kinda counting on it, so I think I'll buy a cheap one tomorrow. The laptop's charger supports up to 240v, and so does my digital camera's one, so all I really need is an adapter anyway. I hope I don't blow anything up.

I need need need to see the new ep of The Sopranos, and I've hijacked Adam's plasma to do it. Downloaded BitTorrent, and soon I'll have it on his "guess what, Dave, I've got a" 2Mbit conxshun. Whatever, seriously, it sounds cool to have your home computer on a giant screen in your living room, but what happens when you've got to type a private email? It's really a pain in the ass to have to wait for everyone to go to sleep to blog and download, and being sodomized by French bread hurts. The situation reminds me of growing up when our computer line and our phone line were the same thing, and my mom was like "stop staying up so late" and I was like "well then stay off the phone, yo" and then I'd knife her and it was like a whole big thing between our gangs.

Monday has turned out to be a big day for sleeping and walking around. I decided not to tube it, and basically just tried to find my way around Bayswater, the part of London Adam lives in. Right, well, if you click on this link, the arrow shows you approximately where his building is. As you can see, it's only a few blocks away from Paddington station (which connects to Heathrow airport by the 15-minute Heathrow Express train), which is nice unless you're walking with four bags, and even then it's at least convenient.

Anyway, I walked all around the Queensway area, which features a McDonald's, a Burger King, and a Starbucks. Seriously though, there's a bunch of shopping there, and more London souvenir shops than you can shake a stick at, and I know because I tried and almost got arrested. I only bought dinner, some cheese, and a few bottles of Orangina, but I can already tell from window shopping that London's economy is going to benefit from my being here.

Anyway, I'm exhausted. Hopefully I'll even have some pics next post!

Well, here I am in London. I guess this comes as a non sequitor for people who only know me from this blog, and even some people who know me better. Even though the high-flying Jaundices trip was cancelled, I came here myself anyway, to visit my brother, see some sights, plan an ingeneous robbery and race off in a few Minis, etc. Hopefully, I'll have a chance to post every morning or night or whenever. It's 10:37 here, even though my laptop clock still says 5:37.

The plane ride was LONG. Virgin has signed up for the airline industry's shifty business practices, and had to bump like 40 people off its "severely overbooked" flight. What the hell are all those stranded passengers gonna do now? I hope their vacations and business meetings and whatever aren't ruined. I myself suffered when they stole my aisle seat and gave me a window one. "Just be happy you're not in the middle of a row. In fact, be happy you're on the plane at all." WTF?? Be happy I'm on the plane at all?? I bought my freaking tickets, so I better be on the plane, and I damn well want the seat I reserved on Orbitz in their cute little seat selector thing. But instead I get wedged against the wall for 6 hours, plus the hour before we left while they were trying to sort out the people and cover their asses. Airplanes make me want to vomit, and not for the conventional reasons.

Anyway, yesterday was all lines, lines, lines, and it didn't help that I hadn't slept the night before. I think I actually even caught a half hour nap on the plane I was so tired, but nothing too extended, because sleeping in public makes me feel uncomfortable and vulnerable like a little girl. I finally got to Adam's flat, completely knackered as they say over here, late for the party we were supposed to have, but we ordered in Lebanese food instead, and everything was all right.

More on Adam's new flat later.