Records and Rip-Offs

I actually cannot believe that it is already February. Why does life pass by so quickly the older I get?

It's been a fun few days. Wednesday night I saw a play called Dealer's Choice for class. It was really really good, an all-male cast dealing with poker but really with the gambles and stakes and choices we encounter in all aspects of lives and relationships. And it dealt a lot with father-daughter father-son relationships, which for some reason always really gets to me. So all in all a very good night at the theatre.

Then yesterday night, I babysat for my professor's 2 year old (so cute!) in the afternoon, then took a class at the gym.

{{Heretofore unrecorded event: I bit the bullet and joined the Y here, and took a trampoline class Tuesday night!! It was so much fun; I now have a trampoline coach every Tuesday who will attempt to restore just a tad bit of my former gymnastics-y glory. He has failed thus far (by which I mean, I have failed), but at least he's cute. }}

Yesterday's class was called "Abs Blitz" and was, I swear, taught by a Nazi. He actually gave time penalties for letting your feet hover more than an inch above the ground. And had a little pencil mustache. And was evil all over. My abs do not thank him.

So thenn I returned home to a delicious dinner of chicken salad curry and naan prepared for me by my dear wife Laura, and Gerald joined us, and we drank wine to the iTunes party shuffle feature that changes songs every 40 seconds to the sound of Homer Simpson saying, "Did we drink enough yet?" And we used my iTunes, which guarantees not a single good party song but plenty of Broadway, Backstreet, Spice Girls, and Dirty Dancing. Lovely.

Then we decided it would be a good idea to seek out a pub called The Cock (hilarity ensues when asking passersby to help me locate the cock), which in fact does exist a few blocks down. Since the wine had affected me the most, I was nominated to go up to random Brits and exploit my American stupidity, so in conclusion we met a few London college students who we will never see again. Fun times.

And today, Laura and I had afternoon tea at the National Portrait Gallery with the BEST. DAMN. SCONES I have ever tasted. I cannot begin to explain the deliciousness. Served with clotted cream (still unsure just what that is) and black currant jam, scones are my new favorite.

We also looked at the special exhibit (oh, it turns out museums are for art, not food) showcasing the winners of the Photographic Portrait Prize 2007. This is a movement to use photography as portraiture, aka as a means of capturing who a person is more than the special effects and such that photography sometimes gets caught up in. (Though I can't speak to this, because I know very little about photography.) Some of the photos were incredibly moving, though interestingly I don't think they translate quite as well on the computer screen as they did in the gallery-- http://www.npg.org.uk/live/PPP2007_16.asp and forward and backward for more.

We then went to Brick Street, which is basically Indiatown (as opposed to the Chinatown we have in most US cities and also a block down from me in London.) We don't tend to have Indiatowns in big cities, but this was CRAZY. Every single restaurants had really aggressive people standing outside trying to talk you into going to their restaurant, and even when you pass by them, they actually walk next to you still convincing.

We ended up in this place because they gave free beverages, and got utterly delicious Indian food-- chicken tikka malayan, yumm--but ultimately got ripped off because they offered us bread and we said yes and then they charged us for the bread, which is all well and good if not something that generally happens in the US...but ON TOP of that, they made us pay for the sauces it came with that we hadn't ordered and that seemed as natural and, may I say, as included as butter is with bread in Italian restaurants. Ridic. So we payed them 5pence short (wanted to make it the entire price of the sauces short but didn't have the cajones), and left. Bitter but still a good night.

And now we are going to watch Reentttt! :) Woooot.

Word of the day:
Busker = entertainer in the tube