-------- Original Message --------
Subject: (void) First 48 hours
Date: Tue, 06 Feb 2001 17:07:26 -0500
From: Simon Wistow 
To: xxx@xxx.org

( mooses sighted so far : 0 )

London, hangover, panic, not packed, Hollyoaks, taxi, work, laptop,
Jaguar XK8, airport, airmiles, flight, movies - Remember the Titans
(imdb : schmatlz / racial tensions / Denzel Washington / that bloke from
Armageddon / Football / token gay character / maiming / death / tears /
laughter / Gettysburg/ overly smart 9 year old/ Ethan Supplee) and All the
Presidents Men (imdb : Watergate / Redford / Hoffman / hotel / newspaper /
coffee / cigarettes / annoying pilot announcements at crucial plot
moments), view over the ice caps, land.

Try getting through customs with a Rasputin look alike, an Australian
with flu and an english passport, a bag full of Cobalt Qubes and a
passport issued in Germany that has such choice visas as Indonesia and
Cuba stamped in it. Too easy? Try doing it when tired, irritable and
hungover. Still too easy? Try stating your business as exporting crypto
products and see how fast *you* get dragged aside. 2 hours for customs,
2 hours to get bags and hire car, hour and a half to find hotel - wrong
directions, cruising over the 401 in a 3 litre V6 Ford Taurus, bad rock
on the radio, George keeps flicking so we keep catching strands of songs
- Hey Joe *crackle* Porn Jazz *crackle* Delta Blues *crackle*
Freefallin, Block Rockin Beats, Hockey scores. Apparently the local
football team are looking for cheerleaders and not the sort you'd find
in the XFL.

The hotel is like an appartment block. My own room, kitchen, bathroom,
sofa, jacuzzi and a pay-as-you go SNES. I have all the games on it
except one and I'm not playing 4 quid an hour to play Tetris.
(c.f http://www.sandalwoodhotel.com)

Can't sleep, too wired, so I watch the TV. Mixture of french and english
programs - end up watching a m	arathon of Chrome Bumpers - a home hot
rodders show that took me through getting an engine and building a
chassis through to tweaking my carb springs and adjusting the
distributor before I got freaked and watched The Commitments instead.

Finally got to sleep when my body told me I should be waking up - bad
dreams. Breakfast was - uninspiring and they whip their butter here. Go
figure. Drive to new place of work. Big blue cube. Too tired to think
straight and I'm supposed to be explaining crypto stuff - they think I'm
weird. They don't get sarcasm - I suspect they think I'm an alcoholic.
I'm usually much better at hiding it.

Lunch. they have a canteen here. With free food. And free sodas. And
free chocolate milk. You just walk in and make yourself a sandwich. Or
noodles. Or nuke some pasta. The fillings are weird. Miracle Whip is a
type of mayonnaise but fake. It's not a type of marshmallow spread.
That's called Fluffy or something. It tastes bad with Pastrami. Trust
me.

We drive to a big electronics warehouse to buy supplies - IBM Celeron
600 Thinkpads for 500 quid. very tempted but decide to come back later
when I'm not stupid with lack of sleep. Back to the office. Get given a
cubicle (6' by 9' - lots of shelf space) and a new computer -  Pentium
III 700 running DeadRat 7 and HelixGnome. Install SSH.Check my mail.
>300 messages. Decide to ignore them. Check #london.pm. No one is
awake. Of course. It's nearly 10pm in London.

Code. Install. Try and get X configured on laptop but X doesn't support
it. Find fanboy page. Try S3 site. It's b0rken. Try weird framebuffer
hack. Laptop starts whining. Pull plug. Chew pen contemplativley. Learn
Vi. (Virtual Terminals)++.

We go home. We take a left out of the carpark instead of right. 3 left
turns and a right instead of 2 right turns and a left. We're so tired
we don't notice. Rasputin and I go out for beer. They have merchandise
in the liquor store. We buy beer.  We go home. We somehow end up on the
wrong side of Dixie Road. We're 5 miles west before I notice but we're 
8 miles West by the time I actually care.

We order chinese take out. The chinese is closed on a Monday. So why are
you at the restaurant on a monday to tell us? Hang up. Pizza. Order a
pay-per-view film - Almost Famous (imdb: boy / girl / Black Crowes /
journalist / Jason Lee / Beard / Phillip Seymour-Hoffman / Faizura Balk /
Rock / Roll / Drugs / Sex / Sunglasses / Golden God / Cameron Crowe).
Very good.

The beer, Moosehead in case you were wondering, takes the edge off the
world. Suddenly the suite seems more like home. The peacocks outside
are golden. Maybe they're not peacocks but they look like peacocks.
Peacocks sprayed gold. They must be cold. It's snowing.

goto BED;


do {

	&sleep();
	&dream() if perchance();
} until (early_morning_phone_call());

Back into work. More code. More hacking. Explain OuliPerl to a Canadian
over a cup of tea (Tetleys bizarrely - apparently it's quite popular).
He looks at me strangely. Another meeting. Issues. Day dreaming. Too
warm. more tea.

Apparently there's a Firkin pub near out hotel. English Theme Pub.
Bizarre. Actually It's an English Theme-Pub Theme-Pub. More bizarre.