Eriq’s Blag

I had yet another one of those days where I didn’t really do anything. I still don’t have a clue what the fuck I’m doing; period. The internet is still wonky and we don’t have a desk or printer, but my dad’s colleague did print out that application for me which I promptly didn’t fill out. Now I need to go to sleep because I need to get up early tomorrow morning to procure for myself a Russian hat. The fur kind. The kind with the hammer and sickle. Yes, that kind. Fuck yes.

Almost a week here and I still haven’t done much. Went shopping for food again today, but mostly swore at the router which has apparently decided it’s going to fuck off whenever it wants. There’s another one here, but I can’t test it until I get the password for the DSL. A new wireless DSL modem/router would cost forty-five pounds (seventy-five dollars). I managed to eat an entire box of Cadbury’s Fingers in pretty much one sitting. I’m going to get fatter this year, but maybe it’ll help when winter hits. A tech company that my dad recommended me to sent me an application for an internship, but the PDF wasn’t a form you could fill out on the computer and send back, not exactly promising. We also don’t have a printer so I can’t print it out and send it. My dad says he plans to buy a printer tomorrow. We’ll see.

My alarm didn’t work and I got pissed at my dad for waking me up. I promptly fell back asleep. My mom woke me up again at three to yell at me for not changing my sleeping habits. I took a shower and when I came back found my window and window shade open. She did this back home too, I fucking hate it. I grunted and attempted to close them. I couldn’t unwind the shade cord due to my anger and shouted at it. My mom came in and I got pissed at her. We got mad at each other and I told her to get out and she said that if I was going to sleep in late and be grumpy that she would find somewhere for me back in the States. She then left and lashed out at my dad, asking why I had even come if I didn’t want to be here, as if I couldn’t hear through the walls without trying. I then had a mental breakdown standing in my towel trying to figure out what the fuck I was doing here and with my life in general. I didn’t come to any conclusions. I eventually calmed down somewhat and got dressed as it was six and we were going to see a play at eight. I was still pissed. The play was a farce by Hitchcock of a spy novel (something like that). Performed by only four actors it was centered around that “for another character to come on, one must go off” style of comedy. It was very funny. When we got home I started to watch Alien, but it wasn’t really the kind of SciFi that I like, not that I was scared of it, it just wasn’t techie enough or actiony or westerny. Then I played some TFTwo with Trung.

I meant to wake up at ten in the morning. I woke up at seven. I went to bed  at two. After finally figuring out where to put my laptop so as to not burn/melt/crack anything I played TFTwo for about an hour completing an entire game (getting two hundred and eighty nine points) without the internet cutting out. Although my ping was at a near constant one eighty to one ninety, it played smoothly. I’ve now determined that the router resets whenever a computer connects…or when it feels like it. I had planned on going out, but I had no money and by the time I was done with the game, my mother had fallen asleep. When she did wake up I helped her with her laptop and we eventually went shopping. The city does not smell very nice. I took some pictures on our journey to Marks and Spencer. The first thing I wanted a shot of is what is called the gurken, a large, pickle-shaped office building:

Giant Pickle

We walked through the place where (according to my mother) the Diagon Alley scenes of Harry Potter were filmed. I couldn’t give a shit, but I figured Emma would be mad if I didn’t take any pictures:

This is for you, Emma.

When we got to Marks and Spencer I found this:

Might have to get this for my birthday.

Then there was Lloyd’s Tower which looks like something from a dystopian mining facility, but whose picture is currently sideways. When we got home I fiddled around on the computer for a while and then Princess Mononoke was on and having never seen it I felt I should watch it. I did. It was of course very good and trippy. Then I fiddled on the computer some more. We’ll see how sleeping goes tonight.

I stayed up till four last night and then slept for twelves hours. At least it’s not like vacation where if you sleep all day you lose a day of doing things. I sill have six months in which to explore England. Our landlord came over and he attempted to fix the internet situation. I surprised to find that he actually knew what he was doing (he had putty running on his Nokia phone). He fixed a few things like the router only giving out two IPs and it giving the wrong DNS server IP. My tablet still insists on using the first IP address that the router gives out even if it was given to another computer. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to figure out why the internet cuts out randomly. It looks like it might be on the ISPs side. I hope that it doesn’t stop me from playing TFTwo.

It was hot and sunny today. This fact disappointed me. We had lunch with my dad’s cousins, their children, and their parents. They belong to one of those country clubs. My parents got somewhat dressed up, but told me that jeans and a t-shirt were fine. Turns out it wasn’t the kind where they turn you away or give you dirty looks if you don’t look the part. My second cousin is sixteen, but is now taller than me. For dessert I had a Mars Bar ice cream bar, this requires further examination. After lunch we went for a walk around the club. In the process I realized I had lost my day pass for the train. When we got back the the clubhouse I found it where it had fallen out of my pocket when I had taken my tablet out. I promptly lost it again in the same manner, only realizing half-way back to the tube station. Next we visited my Father’s colleague whose family we are friends with. On the way we found a grounded adapter for my laptop (using it now). That was rather uneventful. By this point I was over the heat/sunny weather. On the way home we went through Brick Lane and had dinner at a Bangladeshi restaurant. Just about every restaurant was Bangladeshi and just about every one was completely empty. After we got home I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out how to fix the wireless. I thought that I needed to turn the modem/router into a gateway so that the wireless router would give out IP’s. I took a break while my mom checked her email (this was on my dad’s netbook) and plugged in my laptop and hooked it up to the HDTV. I tested Farscape and Batman:TAS. Despite the fact they are very low resolution they both looked just fine which is sweet. I then spent another few hours trying to get the wireless to work only to realize there was nothing I could do and that, in fact, it did work, but it was very flaky/finicky. Then I played some TFTwo. My laptop can play it at ten-eighty on full settings, but sitting on the couch, I can’t actually see anything. The lag wasn’t too bad, but because of the flaky internet, it looks like I might have to deal  with frequent random disconnects. Seeing as it’s three thirty in the morning, I should probably go to bed.

I’m on my tablet because I don’t have a cable or adapter for my laptop yet so I’m going to keep this brief. The flight from SF to Atlanta was uneventful. From there to London was also uneventful except for the old guy who couldn’t breath for a bit causing mild panic among the flight attendants. When we got to customs it turned out my dad fucked up and we couldn’t legally stay until the date we has planned because my mom and I weren’t on the visa and guest visas are only six months (we would be going two weeks over). The woman kept telling us how fucked up and that the British were very disappointed with us. I can’t legally get a job. We’ll see what happens in terms of deportation. The internet here is a bit fucked. There’s a modem and a wireless router, but the modem is also a router which I think prevents the wireless from assigning more than one IP address so only one device can use it at a time (others have to use an ethernet cable). Possibly three times daily Jack the Ripper tour groups of fifty plus people go by outside. There’s a group down there now with a rather loud guide. I haven’t gone out yet as I hadn’t slept much in the past twenty-four hours. I took a nap. Oh yeah, there’s an HDTV; it’s shiny.