drunk.com

I’m sat here, reasonably well pissed. A bottle of some dreadful mango rum has haunted my home for almost four months, left the last time a friend of mine named Don was in town. He’s returning tomorrow, and so I thought I should have a sip or two of the bottle he left and as it’s sweet and easy to drink, I’ve managed to get through a bunch of it.

But that’s not why I’m writing. I’m writing because I happened to have turned on the TV and ‘Sliding Doors’ is on. I know it’s not everyone’s cuppa, but for me right not it’s a perfect tempest in a teapot. I must admit, I do fancy Gwyneth. Also, John Hannah is brilliant. But more than that, I’m missing London right about now. Images of the Tube, shots of The City, scenes set on the Thames, and just random pictures of streets and taxis. Yes, it’s all cliche, but nostalgia is as cliche as it gets, and that’s where I am right now.

I head back to London in two weeks. I can’t wait. There are so many things I miss. I don’t mean the exceptional taxi service, though frankly, I miss it. I miss opening TimeOut and knowing there’s going to be a band I want to see, or an exhibition. I miss living in the center of the universe. Where I am now, I’m lucky if there’s a band once or twice a year that comes here to the outback.

That said, I have tickets to see both The Shins and Maximo Park in the next couple of months and that makes me very happy. I’ve not yet seen The Shins, but I’ve seen Maximo Park in the UK and in the US and they’re brilliant. Paul Smith has a presence that’s fantastic live.

Anyway, my bed is calling, so I think I’m headed to sleep. I know I’m going to regret posting this tomorrow, not so much for the lack of content but for the typos that are so clearly going to be evident in 12 hours time.

I’m sitting here with a taste of home, well what was home up until a little while ago, in the form of a bottle of Badger First Gold from Dorset. No, I’ve never lived in Dorset, but before my last move there was a pub around the corner that served a variety of Badger ales. It’s familiar in what feels like a very good way, here working on my fourth month in a new place.

There’s not a whole lot to report at the moment. I’m into the last month of the semester, and things are largely on track. I got the score I wanted on the last paper I had graded, and so that’s pretty much one of the four classes done and dusted. I know, it’s not about grades, but it’s nice to get the feedback you seek.

Otherwise, the seasons are changing here and it’s somewhat more drastic than I was expecting. Nothing too over the top, but some shopping might be in order as my current set of clothes aren’t really doing the trick so much. The same goes for linens - I picked up some new sheets that I hope will make things more reasonable.

Oh, and on the scooter front, the 1969 Sprint 150 is sitting downstairs in my garage looking beautiful, but just today I ordered a PX200. I figure even under the most ideal of circumstances, I’m not going to get amazing reliability out of a 38 year old scooter, especially as I’m not yet a mechanic, and if I want to learn how to handle a scooter with gears, I might do better with something that I know will be able to deal with a novice. I should have it in a few weeks, and I’m really looking forward to a bit more umph on the road than the 50cc LX I’m on now.

Beyond that, I’m still waiting for a shipment of new music, but I picked up a trio of soundtracks over the weekend because they were on sale and I couldn’t help myself. In no particular order, at the moment I’m listening to the music from The Garden State, Kill Bill, Vol. 1, and Pretty in Pink. I already have a number of tracks from the first on other CDs, but I figure if they have the good taste to include the Shins and Iron and Wine, I’ll take a chance and see what else they included. The Kill Bill music isn’t bad, though sometimes too cliché for my tastes. Pretty in Pink is just funny - I know I had the soundtrack on cassette back in the day. Some of the songs have aged more gracefully than others, let’s just say.