It's odd (and not a little morbid) to think about the things that you leave behind that people might remember you by. Those little marks you make on the world, whether they're physical marks scrawled on a toilet door with permanent marker pen, mental marks left in the mind of people or now, technological marks, too.
There'll always be a little trace of me left in Southampton thanks to largely-pointless but fun geotagging app Gowalla. When I first downloaded said app, there weren't many people using it but I liked the idea of it. Go out, walk around, "collect" places. If nothing else, it was a nice way of building yourself your own custom tourist map of a place.
So on more than one occasion, I went out for a walk with the specific intention of creating a bunch of Spots around Southampton. This became something of an obsession, with the vast majority of Spots around the city centre being created by me. General way of telling: if it has a lengthy and slightly sarcastic description, or is the kind of thing you wouldn't find on a typical tourist map (such as "The Pedestrian Crossing That Makes The Funny Noise"), it was probably created by me.
Now, as pointless as Gowalla is in many respects, there are many reasons why it'll always hold a fond place in my heart. Firstly, as I say, it's been my way to leave my mark on Southampton. I "found" these places and tagged them the way I wanted them to be tagged. This means that Greggs on East Street will forever be remembered as "fine dining for chavs". At least until they realise and ask politely for the description to be changed. Which, let's face it, they probably won't.
But the second reason is that my wandering around, creating these spots, marking my territory (as it were… albeit with less piss than is usually implied by that phrase) caused me to meet one of my dearest friends from that city. She happened to use Gowalla, stumbled across some of my sarcastically-described Spots and decided that the person who tagged Greggs as such was someone she'd like to get to know better. So we progressed from stalking each other via Gowalla, to tracking each other down on Twitter, to chatting on Twitter, to finally meeting face to face. It was one of those random instances of chaos theory at work, where one little choice made slightly differently would have meant we'd never have met. And, given what was going on in my life at the time we met, and how much she helped me through that difficult time, that would have made things go very differently for me.
So I'm certainly glad that I've left a "mark" on a few places over time, be it physically, emotionally or technologically. Because you never know when those marks might lead to something great, even after you're gone.
I spent the day in London today. Primarily for a job interview, but I also had the good fortune to run into one George Kokoris and one Mitu Khandaker. Well, all right, we'd pre-arranged to meet. But "had the good fortune to run into" sounds so much nicer, doesn't it?
Anyway, the actual reasons I was in London are fairly unimportant for the purposes of this entry. I want to talk about London itself.
London is simultaneously one of the most English places you can be, and one of the most un-English places you can be. Many people who come to visit England begin and end their visits with London. Many of them don't even get outside the city limits of our capital. Which is fair enough; there's plenty to see there, after all.
But the city has a unique character all of its own that isn't replicated anywhere else in the whole country. Sure, there are other big cities, but none quite have the same feeling as London.
It's a combination of things. Not all of them good. First of all, there's the fact that everyone's always in a hurry. Everyone has places to be, things to do and people to see that are far more important than whatever it is you're up to at the time. As a result, God help you if you dare to stand on the left-hand side while you're on an escalator or travelator, as you'll probably end up with someone physically pushing you out of the way, as I witnessed happening to another person earlier. And it's not as if charging down the escalators saves you any more than one or two seconds at most.
Then there's the traffic. I have a complete phobia of driving in London. I've only done it once and have absolutely no intention of ever doing it again. I'm not sure entirely why that is. Again, it's probably an aggression thing. See a light turn amber in preparation of going green and almost immediately horns start beeping and other drivers start getting impatient.
But on the flip side, there's the curious little hideaways that the city offers. Just today, near Waterloo, we wandered down an innocuous and borderline scabby-looking side street only to come across a little row of three lovely restaurants bordered by some gorgeous trees and bushes. Stepping into this restaurant was like escaping reality for a little while. The noise of the city was gone, and we were in a land of Thai curries, Lionel Richie advertising Walkers crisps on the TV, and a selection of R&B and soul from the last twenty years. Most peculiar. And an experience that can't be replicated easily anywhere else.
Somewhere else, somewhere near Regent Street (and I can't remember where, so stop hassling me and stuff) there's an awesome American barbecue and grill place that is pretty much a place where they give you an enormous plate of meat, some implements with which to eat it and the possibility of some bread and/or fries, and then it's up to you how to deal with it.
Then there's the theatres. Scattered around the place, there's hundreds of shows to see, things to do, stuff to enjoy.
It's a bombardment for the senses. And it's utterly exhausting. But I think, today, I came to appreciate it a little for once. Perhaps it was sharing it with other people. Perhaps it was having a sense of purpose for being there. Or maybe it's just one of those changes in my outlook. I couldn't say.
Just remember, though, if you're visiting England or the UK in general, we have a whole lot more to offer than that bustling metropolis!
Day of firsts today. My first press trip. My first visit to a developer. My first bit of freelancing for a large and well-known video games website. My first trip business class.
Actually, "business class" might be stretching it a bit. Since FlyBe only appear to fly to Scotland in aircraft best described as sheds with wings, "business class" means you get to sit at the front. Oh, and you get a voucher for a free drink and a free snack. However, you don't appear to get another coupon for the return trip.
You do, however, get to use the Executive Lounge, which offers moderately-comfortable seating and free food and drink. It's quite nice. Yes, that's "quite nice". As in, if I'd had to pay for this trip myself, I wouldn't have paid the extra.
Yes, this was also my first fully-expensed trip. Nice.
Anyway, I won't be talking about the thing I went to see today, at least not until I have written the articles I have to write about it. But suffice to say it's very good, the demo doesn't really do it justice and it's a hoot in multiplayer. So you should buy it when it eventually comes out in a couple of weeks.
My flight home has been delayed. This means extra time for free stuff. I'm just starting to feel a bit sleepy now so will probably get a brief bit of kip aboard the plane. Though I'm not counting on it.
Will shortly be boarding my flight back to the UK so am posting something now to… well, have something posted, to be perfectly honest. Missing a day because I'm asleep over the Atlantic? Laaame.
I said pretty much everything I needed to say post-PAX yesterday but I'll just reiterate that this was a supremely awesome time for everyone – yes, Sam, better than Kaos and a kebab – and I hope we can all do it again sometime very soon indeed. Maybe next time those people who weren't able to cone this time will be able to join us too.
For now though, boarding will shortly call and my battery is low. So I will bid you all adieu and see you back on the wrong side of the Atlantic.
[I appeared not to have published this at the time. Here it is, for what it's worth.]
Well, I'm shortly off. I have the travel jitters. I'm not nervous about the journey itself – I'm quite happy travelling – but I have those last-minute jitters where you're convinced you've forgotten something. And, being me, as my wife will take great delight in pointing out to you, I probably have forgotten something. But I have underpants, socks, T-shirts, shirts, jumpers, gloves, a scarf, a toothbrush, some deodorant, some shampoo, enough wires to make a terrorist blush, a Nintendo DS Fat (old-school fat, not XL), a Sony PSP, games for both, an iPhone, a Nikon DSLR camera (with its memory card in it), an Asus netbook, my travel documents – plane e-ticket, boarding pass, coach ticket to get to the airport in the first place (leaving in one hour), odd US security form, passport, details of where I'm actually staying, cash… Anything else?
If so, I'm going to have to live without it. Or pick one up there. Because I'm not packing anything else!
Currently syncing my iPhone (well, clearing some space on it, anyway) and then I do believe I'll be ready to go. Even with time to pick up some breakfast on the way! How cool is that? It's super-cool, that's what it is.
Anyway, the next post on here will either come from Heathrow Airport (if I get bored) or Boston, MA. See you soon!
You stand atop a gently-rolling hill that is fairly featureless aside from a few bramble bushes, some small, dead-looking trees and, just next to you, a small stone monument.
There is a wooden bench here.
I'm in the Great Outdoors, specifically the New Forest, though the bit I'm in right now isn't very foresty. After the week that was, the peace and solitude is just lovely. There are very few people here, and the ones that are here are the type of people who politely say "hello" to you as you pass, even though you've never met them before. They also have dogs with names like Gladstone and Horatio.
It's striking to me, sitting here now, just as it was when I went to Lepe Beach to take those photos the other day, that there isn't a game out there yet which has got "the great outdoors" right. Games like Oblivion, World of Warcraft and numerous other open-world adventures and RPGs have tried, but none quite capture this feeling of peace and solitude. (Perhaps because wherever you are in an RPG world, you're only ever a stone's throw from something that wants to kill you.)
Actually, to say that no games have pulled this off is inaccurate. The games that do it best are interactive fiction titles, they of the complete lack of graphics and the only minimum system requirement being an imagination that still works.
Up here, I'm particularly reminded of Andrew Plotkin's "A Change In The Weather", the only game I know of where your final confrontation is with a thunderstorm. Of course, right now it doesn't look like I'm going to have to race against time to prevent a rickety old bridge from being washed away, but the atmosphere is the same. Peace. Quiet. No-one but you. And definitely no needy, whining, squabbling children, stick-up-their-arse inspectors or faux-concern headteachers.
Sitting here, you can say "sod off" to the world, and no-one can do a damn thing about it.
Hello! I'm back from a day in London that's left my feet aching. I really need some new shoes. The revolting sweatiness of my feet has all but destroyed the inner soles of most of my pairs of shoes. Nice. Anyway, sweaty feet and shoes that are falling to bits are not what today's entry is about.
We went to the London Aquarium, or the London Sea-Life Aquarium to give it its full title. It was Jane's birthday the other day and she decided a few weeks back that she wanted to come and see the fish. We'd seen some great displays of fish and underwater life at zoos in both Toronto and New York over the last year, and we'd resolved to go and see more things that were a little closer to home. After all, London is a little over an hour's train journey away, and there's tons of cool stuff there to see and do, even if you do have to deal with taking your life into your hands every time you cross a London street. That said, it's no worse than Italian streets, from my limited experience with them. Probably better.
First challenge of the day was, of course, trying to buy a train ticket from the machines at the station. You'd think this would be as easy as selecting "London" as your destination, indicating that yet, you would like to come back as well as go there, and then purchasing your ticket.
No.
Do you want a Standard Day Return? A Super Saver Off-Peak Day Return? A Mega Buster Super-Fantastic Awesome Only Valid For Three Minutes A Day Which You've Already Missed Day Return? All of these cost varying amounts of money. If you remember to book in advance they cost different amounts again – considerably less, usually, but that requires pre-planning. Which is, let's face it, not always on the cards.
Battle with the ticket machine won, we got on the train and headed to Waterloo before walking down to the South Bank to find the Aquarium. For my international readers unfamiliar with London, the South Bank of the River Thames is a pretty vibrant area that always has loads of things going on. There's a whole bunch of concert halls there which see everything from black tie classical performances to Video Games Live, several museums, lots of places to eat, the London Eye, boat trips, and today there appeared to be some sort of world culture event going on. This was mostly filled with stalls selling food, tat made to look faintly "ethnic" and, bizarrely, what looked like the opportunity to have one's photo taken with an African man. How odd.
But I digress. The Aquarium beckoned, and Jane had had the foresight to print out some of the 2 for 1 offers on this site, meaning the two of us effectively got to go in for half price. Or only one of us paid. Or however you want to look at it. We went in and immediately discovered that the London Sea-Life Aquarium do not have a very good toilet strategy. There is one toilet by the entrance, along with a sign saying that "The next toilets are 20-30 minutes into your journey" – so naturally, there was a huge queue, even before we'd got in. (Wee-d got in. Do you see what I… oh, never mind.)
The Aquarium itself was great. Plenty of huge fishtanks with lots of interesting fish from all over the world to see, including many from Britain, too, as well as some of the more exotic fish (and other… things) from tropical waters. And, of course, sharks.
I remember someone saying a while back that under the sea is one of the only places on earth where you legitimately get things that you can call "monsters". And it's true. There are things down there that would be terrifying to find yourself confronted with. Even the monsters of Lovecraft (themselves from beneath the waves) aren't that outlandish compared to some of the things that really do exist, particularly in the deep. It's interesting to see creatures that are just so completely alien in design and function to land-based creatures.
Take a jellyfish, for example. No brain, almost completely seethrough body and four balls that you can see in the middle of its body. Sorry, "gonads", to use the technical term. (I always find it amusing that "gonads" is a scientific term, particularly in light of this gentleman from British comic history) Weird shit. And certainly not something you'd want to wake up with on your face, for example. And sharks. They have big teeth. Sounds obvious, I know, but it's not until you see one up close in a big tank with glass windows that you realise quite how vicious those things look.
The other interesting thing I thought about while looking around is how easy it is to look at these creatures and see human characteristics in them. Sharks, for example, look pissed off all the time. Manta rays look like they enjoy flying out and surprising things like ghosts. There were a bunch of fish that looked like they were belming. And, of course, there's Happy Fish. Now, who knows whether or not these undersea things really are feeling these things that they look like they're feeling, but it's certainly fun (or the sign of an overactive imagination!).
The only disappointing thing about the Aquarium was the "Shark Walk", which is hyped as one of the big attractions there and I was assuming was one of those "glass tunnels" where you walk through the middle of a tank full of sharks. (The promotional picture I have posted at the top of this entry probably went some way to making me think this.) However, what it actually was turned out to be, essentially, the attic of the Aquarium with a glass floor. The sharks were quite a long way below where you stand, and the water was a bit murky. It was very disappointing, but the fact that you could see the same shark tank earlier in the tour of the place with much bigger windows made up for it.
It was a good trip, and I'd recommend it to anyone who, well, likes fish. I believe there's times when there are proper tours – there was some guy with a mildly annoying voice rabbiting on about sharks as we passed one area – but otherwise you can wander around and read the (relatively simple) information and quizzes scattered around the place. To be honest, it's quite pleasant just looking at the fish, even if you don't learn that much.
After the Aquarium, we wandered over to St. James's Park, which looks just like it does in Project Gotham Racing, only with more people and pelicans in residence. Yes, pelicans. The area in the centre of the park is set aside as a sort of "nature reserve", with a variety of non-native birds making their home their. There are pelicans, canada geese, other kinds of geese whose name I've forgotten and a whole bunch of other things there. Jane freaked out a bit when we noticed there was a pelican on the loose in the main part of the park. It was just wandering around. It wasn't causing any trouble, but it was amusing to see the people sitting on the grass look around and react with shock, fright or amusement. "OMG WTF PELICANZORZ", they seemed to say.
OMG WTF PELICANZORZ
Then we had a hot dog in the park, walked back to Waterloo via Trafalgar Square (which is much closer to Waterloo than I realised) and then caught the train home, accompanied by people who don't know where the volume control on their ringtones are. Now we're sitting watching The Cube. Well, I'm blogging too. But The Cube is on next to me.
So yes. A nice day. I'd recommend it, as I say, to anyone who likes fish.
I'm writing this post retrospectively as Jane recovered yesterday and I spent the day feeling rather unpleasantly ill, finally experiencing the unpleasantness of vomiting first via my mouth then via my arse at about 5am. I feel a bit better now though, if tired. Maybe we're allergic to New York, maybe we picked up some weird virus, I don't know. But I think we're both over it now having spent some time talking to God.
Despite this, we had a great day yesterday. We visited the Natural History Museum which, despite getting up the earliest we've managed all week, we somehow didn't manage to get into until after lunch. This may have been partly due to our practical demonstration of the difference between "local" and "express" Metro trains – the latter of which was the first one we boarded today, then wondered why it sailed past the station for the Natural History Museum, then streets beyond it until we were well over 40 blocks away from where we wanted to be!
We're going back to the Museum today to see some other bits because we didn't have a lot of time to see things in the end, though we got a chance to see the dinosaurs and an interesting section on Asian peoples. We got kicked out at closing time though – 5:45 – so we decided to head down to the south end of Manhattan to take a look at Bodies… The Exhibition. I think most people know about this by now, but for the uninitiated, it's an exhibition showing how our bodies work via the means of real-life dissected bodies.
This wasn't as gross as I was expecting, interestingly. It was, however, interesting to see the different body parts, how they interact and what they actually look like. There were also some interesting displays on the blood supply to various parts of the body, where they had injected the veins and arteries with a special dye and then chemically "decomposed" the rest of the body, leaving only the blood vessels.
The other great thing about Bodies which I hadn't really considered before was its stunning use of lighting. The whole exhibition hall was very dark, with pools of light surrounding each major exhibit, but also focusing very tightly on small "body trivia" signs on the wall. The overall effect was very distinctive and memorable, and lent a huge amount of atmosphere to the whole exhibition.
Finally, once we had done this, it was time to go out for dinner to a restaurant I'd heard a little about from a few people and was intrigued to try, though it had a reputation for being expensive. I am referring to Ninja New York, a themed Japanese restaurant where you are served by ninjas and the food is self-proclaimed "high-end Japanese cuisine". The food was indeed tasty, and the "interactive" dishes, which often involved something exploding or having to pull a sword out of something followed by it emitting an atmospheric mist were great. We also got an after-dinner magic show by "New York's tallest ninja" who displayed some Derren Brown-style tricks to us which he admitted were inspired by the performer, and that he secretly hoped Derren Brown didn't get too popular in the States because he'd then be relegated to the status of "Oh hey, you're that guy who does stuff a bit like Derren Brown". His mastery of manipulation and misdirection was excellent though, and it was a great display to finish the meal with.
The only things with the Ninja restaurant was you need to be 1) really hungry (we had a five-course banquet…) 2) really rich (…for $50-$70 each) and 3) not mind that "recommendations" sometimes turn into "orders" without you remembering having ordered them (and to counter this, if something unexpected arrives, simply tell them… they're ninjas, they can handle it). All in all though, it was a fantastic meal that is worth experiencing, particularly, I would imagine, if you have kids.
We're flying home at 10pm local time tonight. Neither of us want to go home. We've started to feel "settled" here now and are coming to terms with New York's own little idiosyncrasies, although the Metro still occasionally bamboozles us. We'll definitely be back, without question.
Still here! Again, another short entry as it's pretty late, once again, and we both need our sleep! My legs are exhausted from the amount of walking we've both been doing.
Today we went to the Museum of Sex (surprisingly work-safe – the website, anyway) as it was something that little bit "different" to the norm, plus it was somewhere that we could again use our New York Passes.
There are three exhibitions on at the Museum at present – The Sex Lives of Animals, Sex and the Moving Image and a selection from the Museum's permanent collection.
First came the Animals section, which presented an interestingly "alternative" take on natural history and biology by focusing exclusively on the sexual behaviour of animals, mostly looking closely at unusual behaviour which in many cases, the curator describes, goes against Darwin's theories of natural selection, against Creationism and instead presents a third possibility.
In practical terms, this meant we got to look at videos of animals masturbating, fucking every possible way they could and even some discussion on homosexuality in animals, including the story of the gay penguins And Tango Makes Three which got banned from many, many educational institutions. It was interesting and, yes, different, as expected.
On the floor above was the Sex and the Moving Image exhibition. As the name implies, this exhibition charted the use of sex (or lack thereof) in movies from the earliest black and white silent films, where sex was mostly implied (with the exception of "stag" movies – early porn films, very few of which have survived due to their illegality at the time, but some examples of which were on, err, "display") through the more liberal approach that developed over the years, taking in (no pun intended) Russ Meyer and Deep Throat all the way to modern porn and celebrity sex tapes, contrasting hugely with how mainstream film deals with sexual encounters. There were also some shorter videos from Beautiful Agony (NSFW) showing different people's faces during orgasm, and a selection of sex-themed commercials from over the years.
Then in the final room we had the selections from the Museum's permanent collection, which included male and female RealDolls (sex dolls that run into the thousands of dollars due to their supposed "realism") to a selection of sex machines, including a terrifying-looking one that was essentially a rubber cock attached to a Black and Decker drill.
So that was nice.
Anyway, we spent rather longer in the Museum than we had intended, as we'd originally planned to move on to Bodies… The Exhibition and also potentially to go and see Ground Zero later in the day. However, we'd also made plans to meet up with the fine gentlemen Papapishu and Regulus for dinner in St Mark's Place at a Japanese joint called Kenka which is often filled with Japanese ex-pats, is very noisy, serves traditional Japanese food that isn't sushi (which I've never had before, and which proved to be delicious, even the deep-fried garlic) and serves terrifying "specials" such as bull penis.
So it's been a good day, only marred by the fact that Jane's not been feeling too well off-and-on since last night. I'm sure you'll all join me in wishing her a big "get well soon".
Hello again! This has to be the most blog updates I've done in a week since… ever, I guess. Nothing like having the time to sit back, relax and not have to worry about anything. Jane's currently soaking in a nice hot bath, we've had a nice meal at the hotel's restaurant and another great day.
Today we did two main things. Firstly, we revisited Central Park, this time to go to the Central Park Zoo. Jane was very excited about this – so much so that she appeared to be regressing to childhood. I have to admit, it having been a long time since I'd seen a zoo also, I was also keen to see the animals.
Central Park Zoo is relatively small in the grand scheme of zoos. We later discovered by finally reading the guidebook that we bought a couple of days before the wedding that the Bronx Zoo is the one to go to if you want a full-on large-scale zoo/safari-style experience. That's going to have to wait for another visit though, I think! This isn't to say that Central Park Zoo isn't good – far from it, in fact, as the relatively few displays of animals on offer mean that you can easily get around all of them and take plenty of photos.
We started by looking at the Rainforest section – an area where it is impossible for people to walk in without going "Oooh, it's hot in here!". Well, duh. In the Rainforest area we saw a huge variety of tropical birds and some amazing monkeys whose species escapes me for the moment, but they had huge bushy tails like squirrels that were very "expressive" in their own peculiar way.
Next up, we saw the polar bears, who were asleep. It occurred to us that it was entirely plausible for someone to go to one of these zoos and not see any animals if they were all asleep. I felt a little sorry for the polar bears as it was a relatively warm day today, but then I remembered how cold it had been for the last couple of days and determined that they were probably all right.
Moving around, we then saw a red panda, which looks more like a tree-hugging fox than a panda. It too was asleep, but at least it had the decency to sleep in a tree where you could see it.
Next we saw the snow monkeys of "see no evil" fame. These little guys were extremely active – running and jumping around and picking things off their feet. It's strange how watching a creature like a monkey do something that we do – picking fluff from between your toes, for example – is infinitely more interesting and amusing than seeing another human doing it.
Then we saw the penguins, which Jane was very excited about. The penguins lived in a darkened room that smelled of fish, and were extremely docile, swimming right up to the edge of their enclosure and posing for pictures. I was also impressed at their speed in the water considering their clumsiness on land – and the fact that they can throw themselves out of the water at high speed and then land upright without breaking a sweat.
So that was the zoo. Fun, and a worthwhile way to spend the morning.
This afternoon we took the three-hour Circle Line Island Tour, which circumnavigates the whole of Manhattan with a guided commentary. The tour we elected to go on at 3:30 also happened to coincide with sunset towards its end, so it was likely to be a good photo opportunity. Photos to follow when I've been through all of them – over a thousand now, I reckon. 🙂
It's odd (and not a little morbid) to think about the things that you leave behind that people might remember you by. Those little marks you make on the world, whether they're physical marks scrawled on a toilet door with permanent marker pen, mental marks left in the mind of people or now, technological marks, too.
I spent the day in London today. Primarily for a job interview, but I also had the good fortune to run into one 