Picture this: you go to a theme park with about 1500 people for free, and it’s shut down to the rest of the public. That probably sounds cool, but then adjust that vision as follows:
– The people are 85% male, and 90% geeks
– You don’t really know any of them, so you’re pretty much on your own
– It’s nighttime, and therefore totally dark
– It’s raining, and therefore all of the geeks are in aqua blue ponchos
– You’ve just been stuffed with food and alcohol, and therefore you are in no condition to be riding theme park rides

It was a very surreal environment last night. The theme park was pretty fun, but just a hilarious environment. At one point they had a “dance party” inside one of the manufactured theme-clubs. Don’t get me wrong, there were people dancing on the dance floor, but it was also standing-room-only against the wall. I rode on all of the rides that were open (Jurrasic Park was closed) and finished off with the Incredible Hulk which almost made me vomit, but not quite. At least if I had, I would have been protected by my poncho.

I’m in Orlando for the next few days for Sybase TechWave. It’s been pretty good so far. The coolest part was driving by this building and realizing it was my hotel. They basically have a four-acre jungle under glass inside the hotel, with the rooms overlooking it. There is real water, real alligators, and everything. At night they play nighttime sounds (frogs, crickets, etc) over hidden speakers. The place is crazy. You can sort of get the full effect in this picture (during the day). I’m staying in the “Everglades” section which looks like this. The place is unfortunately named the Gaylord Palms Resort.

At long last, it’s been announced that Opie and Anthony are returning to radio. It’s great that they’ll be on satellite and should have far less to fear in terms of FCC regulations. If their show does well, I have little doubt that it will be a springboard for a lot of other great, edgy shows to move to satellite. I’m somewhat bummed that it’s XM and not Sirius for two reasons:

1) I have Sirius
2) XM is party owned by ClearChannel
Oh, and I may as well throw in a 3rd reason:
3) Schulte already has XM, so he’s better than me

When my subscription is up at the end of the year, I guess that’s my time to buy all new equipment and make the switch to XM, because it looks like they will be an XM-only program.

Since you guys are both gmail users now, and they target ads based on message content, I just sent you a message. It is full of references to gay pornography. Let me know if you end up with some hilarious ads as a result.

Enjoy!

Well, I’ve signed enough autographs for one day. This past Friday (or, technically Saturday) at 1:30 AM I had my television debut. I appeared on Ruckus Sound and Style on the WB. What show is that you might ask? How big a part did I play? I can answer both of those questions.

First, the show is put on by some friends of my friend Jon, so they scored us some free tickets on a Boston Harbor cruise a few weeks ago which was pretty sweet. The show is basically about local rock and metal bands… sometimes they interview nationwide bands. It airs every Friday night at 1:30AM.

As for my role, well I think the screen capture speaks for itself. In case it doesn’t speak for itself, I’m the guy in the background to the left of the show’s host. Sure, I didn’t have a “speaking part” but this is just my first role, after all.

Yesterday I was, as usual, listening to kexp at work. They’re a Seattle station but broadcast over the internet as well. Because they’ve become so popular outside their region, they’ve started having events in other places. So, as I’m getting ready to go to lunch I hear the morning guy (12 PM EST is 9 AM their time) say they’re having a concert on Boston tomorrow and the first 5 people to e-mail them would get on the guest list. So, I did, and I won. Pretty sweet… I will be seeing The Ponys live at Great Scott in Allston tonight.

The unrelated but bad part is that on Tuesday I jammed my pinky finger playing basketball. As I went down to lunch yesterday, a friend of mine who broke his pinky a while back took one look and said “it’s definitely broken.” So I went to the hospital and it turns out he was right. Now I have this stupid brace on, and it’s taken me way to long to type this post because my ring finger has to type the “a” and “q” keys in addition to it’s normal responsibilities of “s” and “w”. (I don’t count “z” or “x” keys because they’re more seldomly used). So, I’ll be the one in Allston tonight with the stupid brace on his worthless pinky finger.

My last few days in London were mostly work. I’ve now moved on to Belgium, and this weekend I’m going to Amsterdam. Hopefully there will be some good stories from that trip.

Throughout my time in London, I couldn’t stop noticing the various differences betwen the US and London. Some of them aren’t even interesting really, but for some reason I found them fascinating. Aside from the ones I mentioned earlier, here they are in random order:
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I woke up and decided I’d see more of the city. I don’t know anything about the city, but the one thing I do remember from National Lampoon’s Eurpean Vacation is “hey kids, Big Ben, Parliament” as they drove around stuck in a traffic circle. I went back to the train station and found a reasonably-priced map. The map told me where I wanted to go, and what train stop I wanted. I went to an automatic ticket machine for the train and it listed a bunch of stops, but not mine. I didn’t want to wait in line to buy a ticket so I decided to walk to Westminster from where I was (Paddington).
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So, I’m flying to London. I decide that the best thing for me would be to leave my car at the Alewife T because it’s reasonably close by, and definitely cheaper than parking at Logan. I call ahead because I wanted to make sure I could leave my car at the T for two weeks. The first number I call that’s listed on the MBTA website (I tried it twice) immediately hangs up on you. So, I try another number from their website. I get someone who doesn’t know the answer to my question, who then forwards me to someone else who doesn’t know the answer to my question (but that didn’t stop him from explaining to me the intricacies behind how the MBTA contracts parking out to other companies, subsidizes them, etc.) That guy gives me another “main” number which I call, it rings and rings and no one answers.

So, I just assume that I can park there for 2 weeks, and drive in. The sign outside says the maximum stay is 7 days, or you’ll get towed. I pull over, and talk to a guy working at the booth. He has what I believe to be a Jamaican accent. I say “Is there anywhere around here I can park long term”.
“Long term parking, yes upstairs.”
“The sign says there is a 7 day limit.”
“7 days, yes.”
“I need to park longer.”
“How long?”
“14 days.”
“14 days? OK.”
“OK, I can park here for 14 days?”
“Yes.”

So, I park at the top of the garage, half thinking that I’ll get towed, but at least knowing that someone who works for the garage told me it’s okay. I can only assume (1) He knows they don’t actually enforce the 7 day limit, (2) he owns part of the company who runs the garage and appreciates the extra money I’ll pay, (3) he doesn’t give a shit, or (4) He’s making a note of my car and how long I’ll be gone so he can steal it.

Hopefully 1 or 2 is true. 3’s okay. 4 would be unfortunate.
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Tomorrow I leave for London, England. By Midweek next week I will be in Brussels, Belgium. Should be back in the States on July 2nd.

Not sure what impact this will have on the blog. Maybe I’ll actually post more often.

Incidentally, being as cheap as I am with my clothing, you have no idea how many shirts I own that were inelligible for packing for this trip because they were $5 Old Navy flag T’s. From what I hear, the American flag isn’t as cool over there as it is here. Maybe they’d understand if I explained it by converting $5 to their native currency.