ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Landed in Athens two days ago, did the Acropolis and all that fun mytho stuff. Now I'm on
Mykonos and a nice shade of pink. I'm working my way up to brown. Just wait 'til you see the pictures. Hope you all have a lovely bank holiday/Memorial Day. I know I am.
oh, and Lee started a blog. Don't know if he wants me to link to it, so I will:
http://kowarski.blogspot.com
Thames picture post
I had to post these somewhere else today, so I thought I'd quickly post them here, too. These are from when I met some friends on April 24th and we walked along the Thames for several hours.
Cleopatra's Needle
Plaque on the Needle
Sphynx
London Eye, Big Ben, Sphynx
The Globe, Tate Modern & Millenium Bridge
The Globe
Tate Modern & Millenium Bridge
Tower Bridge
Tower of London
Tower of London gate
Courtyard by the Tower - I liked the different styles of buildings
see ya in a couple of weeks
If I haven't already told you, you should know that I'm leaving for Greece tomorrow and won't be back until next Thursday (the 2nd). I'll be in Athens the first two nights, but I haven't set the rest of my itinerary yet. I might try to do it later today, but I'm not killing myself to get it done. I figure I can backpack it a bit and/or make the rest of my reservations when I get to Athens. It's a sorta spontaneous vacation and I'm really looking forward to it, despite the forecast now calling for rain. I'll take my cell phone, but I don't know how well it will work given that it never works here.
Other than that, I'm still killing myself at work and might be working on
another cold. I'd love to tell you more but I have to get back so I can try and get everything done before I leave. I'll post pictures and tell you all about it in a couple of weeks.
all I wanna do is
Think I'll finally learn:
Tike's Trike Becomes a Bike
weekend stuff
I'm back at work and winding back into stress mode, but first a round-up of the weekend tox/detox.
Friday was fairly chill because we all went out for lunch and had drinks at work for a colleague's leaving-do. After work, went off to a bar for a couple of pints and a burger. Got in by 8:30/9:00 and finally got to watch one of the
Yimou Zhang movies I've had out for a couple of weeks. I hadn't realized that the man who directed
Hero (and
House of Flying Daggers) was the same guy who directed
Raise the Red Lantern - two of my very favorite movies. The second my brain put that together, I went and added every one of his movies that
LOVEFiLM has to my rental queue. Friday night was
Happy Times. Sentimental but sweet. Not on my need to see again list, but I'm glad I watched it once. The IMDB review's pretty much spot-on. Anyways, went to bed at 11:30, which turned out to be a very good thing given what happened Saturday.
Saturday started off low-key enough. Got up pretty early. Had coffee, read Time Out while listening to football stuff flatmate-Noel had on. Had a shower and some ramen. Watched the other Zhang movie,
Not One Less. It's also very sentimental but I liked it much better than Happy Times. It had more of the Zhang coloring that I love so much. Got the drycleaning and some groceries. Made pasta for me and flatmate-Julia. Watched
Charmed and got ready to go out.
We went to the
Tate Britain to see the (now closed)
Turner Whistler Monet exhibit, which was, well ok. I don't know. As I get older and see more stuff I get more and more annoyed with Monet. I really enjoyed everything by Turner and Whistler but was basically just bothered by the Monets (uck - neon orange suns). Seriously, I think his popularity has less to do with his skill (which I'm not denying) and more to do with the pretty pinks and lavenders that make for good wall posters. Still it was fun to go out with flatmates-Carly & Kevin and flatmate-Julia's friend. We left the Tate to go to the neighborhood Elephant & Castle, where I hadn't been before and really don't plan on going again, to a party Carly's friend Marina was throwing. It was a costume party (heroes and legends) which helped fuel the fire for the planning of our house party in July. Anyways, flatmate-Jerry came with girlfriend-Ayesha and Julia showed up with her boss so we were all there except Noel PLUS a couple more guests of ours meant that we basically invaded the party. Julia and I finally left at 5:00 AM, with the others close behind us, which is incredible given that I rarely stay out past 1:00.
This, of course, lead to a serious problem with getting up in the morning. Carly woke me up at noon because we'd all agreed to go to
The Peasant for brunch. The girls managed but the guys didn't, which was actually really nice. We swapped stories from the night before and laughed at our silliness. We headed back home and had some tea (they really drink a lot. it's not a just a stereotype) and watched the OC (in case you're wondering, we're only up to when Seth and Summer get back together and Alex and Marissa break-up). Then sleep just couldn't be ignored, so I went to bed for a couple of hours. Got up in time for Dominos and
Empire of Dreams, followed by
The Last Crusade, then
the top 100 war movies (clearly voted on by a bunch of Brits). Couldn't sleep. Now I'm tired.
But, the weekend was pretty much exactly what I needed. I've got to crank things back up now, but I really feel bunches better.
Last but not least: everyone say "Happy Birthday" to Lee. Hi Lee!
hard week
I won't lie to you guys. I'm having a really hard week. I'm not sleeping well and am fighting to keep from getting the cold my flatmates have. I have tons and tons of things that have to be done within the hour or within the afternoon or within the week. Tight deadlines abound. My back hurts from the stress and my wrists hurt too, from all the typing.
BUT one of the projects was
very high profile. Our managing director asked our head of marketing (as in, the head of the board asked another board member) to find someone to write something for our umbrella company (as in, the one above our parent company)'s web site. And she asked me! And I did it today and the guy from the umbrella company and our managing director both said they appreciated it. Neat, huh? You can look at it this way: this went to my boss's boss's boss's boss's boss's boss. So I'm feeling the love even though I'm totally making myself sick with stress.
I think that's a happy story. I don't know. It's hard to say.
a movie post
I'm actually working, but here's some tidbits about what's going on in my movie life. Yeah, it's recycled content from emails with Sean, but since I'm actually working, I can't take the time to think of new stuff to say. Ain't I a stinker?
What I'm Renting:Have:
Charlie Chaplin - The Kid
Not One Less -
Chinese/subtitledQueued:
1 Happy Times -
Chinese/subtitled2 House Of Flying Daggers -
Chinese/subtitled3 Garden State
4 Blade: Trinity
5 Charlie Chaplin - The Great Dictator
6 Marx Brothers Collection - Animal Crackers
7 Marx Brothers Collection - Duck Soup
8 Man On Fire
9 Layer Cake (
British)
10 Secret Window
11 Beyond Borders
12 Sunset Boulevard
13 The Man With The Golden Arm
14 Anatomy of a Murder
15 The Ninth Gate
16 Metropolis (Silent) (
German)
17 Rashomon -
Japanese/subtitledSee? and I cut M (German) and City of God (Portuguese/subtitled) because I'll borrow 'm from Sean. I can rent movies with subtitles, so there. I get to it when I get to it.
Also, been thinking of the horror classics I need to see. Let's see, starting with more modern English stuff (for now):
- Craven: The Hills Have Eyes & Last House on the Left
- Hooper (Man, he directed a weird mix of crap): Texas Chainsaw Massacre
- Romero: Dawn of the Dead & Day of the Dead. - actually, I need to do a whole zombie catch-up. I think I've only seen Night of the Dead and Return of the Living Dead 3. So I need to watch all 6 of those to get them straight, plus the new Dawn of the Dead.
If I had more time, I'd add links to
IMDB, but I gots to go. So, if you're curious, look them up and I'll edit this post later when I have more time.
NY part two
Carrying on:
Wednesday night: drinks with Mike then dinner at
Koi with Lee and Melinda. Yummy! and I got to talk to dad and Vicki for a long time on the phone, so a much better night than day.
Thursday: more back to back meetings and dinner with librarians. met up with Ryan for drinks. we tried to go to the
Oak Bar, but it was packed, so we walked through central park to go to
Tavern on the Green. The bar isn't as fancy as the rest, but I was still excited to finally go. Stayed at the Sheraton NY so I could get up early.
Friday: all day librarian meeting. followed by a chat with the boss and
dinner with the librarians again. *phew* good meetings, good dinner, glad to be done. Went out for drinks with the work people at
Zanzibar.
Saturday: dress shopping with Melinda and her sister (Beth). Here's what I picked (only it'll be in a dark brown, not burgundy):
I look really fabulous in it, and the designer's adding some strings in case I want to turn it into a halter. (If not, I'll just tuck them in). Of course, now I KNOW I should do some push-ups. Then, brunch at Nolita House and shopping. We met up with the work crew at
Pop, went on to
Sala 19 for dinner, then out for drinks at
Good World Bar.
Sunday: dim sum with Beth and Lee. more shopping. picked up my bag I'd left behind back on Friday night. Packing accompanied by the
Daily Show, Twilight Zone [
Little Girl Lost - I had no idea how much Spielberg "borrowed" from this episode. I'm actually kind of upset about it, because
Poltergeist is one of my all time favorite movies. - and
The Little People - later borrowed (no quotes) by the
Simpsons. (Little Girl Lost
was too.)] and
Paul's. Finally, had to say goodbye to the kitties and go to Newark, where I replaced the Yankees hat
I lost back in October. And for those of you who care about these things, I saw
In Good Company on the plane. Eh, it didn't suck.
Now I'm back and procrastinating and everything's normal again.
