When you blink your eyes...

I just had an epiphany this evening. It was something that never occurred to me before and for some reason it really made something special to link up the third of this trilogy. I had always known that Warwick Davis, the legendary wee actor, skillfully played both Willow and The Leprechaun. Not until only moments ago did I realize he also played Wicket beginning in 1983's Return of the Jedi. This is a trivia fact I feel ashamed not to have discovered until now. But I now feel complete in my Warwick Davis knowledge. I now proclaim Warwick Davis to be the greatest midget actor of this or any other era. In your face Verne Troyer.

I'm sitting here on a beautiful gray and dreary Sunday Oklahoma City evening enjoying the soothing sounds of Miles Davis - Birth of Cool. I've got my balcony door with the sound of rain hitting the city streets as a constant comforting sound in the background. There is an exquisite layer of fog hovering just below the tops of the tallest buildings. The sound of a train in the distance seems to somehow fit in with the with the meandering trumpet. I think this might be one of the more beautiful days I've witnessed from my balcony. I love the rain. Also, its really not very cold at all. The cool breeze is just right.

Earlier today I played in my first soccer game in about 10 years. It was a lot of fun. The first indoor soccer game I've ever played. However, it was brutal. I knew I wasn't quite in condition. Luckily, I wasn't alone as others on my team were the same. Indoor soccer is a lot like hockey. Extremely quick with a lot of substitutions made. I did decent considering how long its been. I knew exactly what I wanted to do in my head but just wasn't quite in shape to make it happen every time. I'm excited to start playing again, hopefully I can continue this will force me to get in really good shape.

I hope it continues to rain.

I've now listened to Antics nearly 10 times in its entirety since I obtained it yesterday and here are my feelings on it. At this point I think it is the perfect follow up to Turn on the Bright Lights. If Turn on the Bright Lights is a dark shade of gray I would say that Antics is still gray but a bit lighter. There is a little more hope here. A little more maturity in the musical expression. In no way have they went to a more pop sound. The album is possibly a bit more accessible on a whole. It is hard for me to be objective on this in that I am so familiar and in tune with Interpol's sound that it seems very accessible to me at this point.

When I first put the disc in driving back from lunch I was singing along as loud as I could not even knowing any of the words. I don't know of many albums I have done that too. Yesterday I felt track #6 "Not Even Jail" might be one of the weakest tracks on the album, today I know think it is one of the stronger tracks. I think that says a lot about the quality of the album as a whole.

I have tried to analyze what is I have liked so much about Interpol over the last 2 years. I think it is their emotional expression is very close to the way I often feel or the way I want to feel. I would say it is kind of an understated and sophisticated sound. At times dark and brooding with flashes of brilliance and light. The sound is often clean. Paul Banks' voice is very soothing to me. He does have an uncanny resemblance to the voice of Ian Curtis yet I find Paul Banks to have a more smooth an pleasing voice. The lyrics are often cryptic yet have subtle and familiar meanings to me.

I almost feel bad and get frustrated at times when talking about how much I like Interpol because the music is so personal to me. I am trying to get over that. I also feel selfish in a way and don't want to share this music with anyone or only certain people. That is probably silly but that just shows how strongly I feel about this music. Overall, I am very happy with this follow up. I was worried that Antics would not be up to the same quality as Turn on the Bright Lights but so far I feel it is at least close to the same quality. I am confident this disc will stay hot on my rotation for some time to come. Turn on the Bright Lights still gets frequent plays even after 2 years.

In the last week I have posted the first two sets from London. I've gone through over half of all the pictures so far but I think there are still some really good ones left to show. It takes me about 30 minutes to an hour to go through each set and crop and adjust the pictures exactly like I want them. I think its worth the effort because it really makes all the pictures better as a whole when you cut out the ones that aren't as spectacular or more mundane. Also, cropping in just the right manner can greatly improve a photograph.

I had started a space on my webserver for my sister Libby's domain where she is going to display pictures and information about her art work. I finally got up a good set up photos I took of her sculptures awhile back. Right now its just the one photo set but are still deciding on the layout for the site. At least you can get a good look at some of her sculptures. I went through my same exhaustive photo editing process with this set and I like the way it turned out. It will be nice to get more sets up there to show what is becoming a respectable body of work.

Well, today is the big day. Interpol's sophomore album Antics drops in the US today. I will be going to pick it up probably at lunch time today. I am very excited about the follow up to what is up on my list as one of the greatest albums ever. I have just seen the video to Slow Hands for the first time a few days ago and it was promising. It was a slightly different sound but still good. I am anxious to see if Antics can live up to the greatness of Turn on the Bright Lights.

I have just posted the third and final installment of my 2004 Reading Music Festival photos. I am very proud of several of these and feel very grateful to have witnessed these performances. We were near the stage in front of a huge crowd of no telling how many thousands of people. By the end of the White Stripes performance we had stood on our feet for I'm sure over 10-11 hours that day. Walked around in these uncomfortable boots in the mud. I was running on adrenaline through the end of this day.

To get the tight shots I used my 75-300mm zoom lens. With the sensor size on my Canon 300D that actually gives me approximately a 480mm zoom on the long end which turned out perfect for this application. The only draw back with the lens is that it doesn't have the greatest aperture so I have to be careful to get good lighting or the shots will be underexposed. Also, I can increase the ISO speed to compensate which actually creates what I think is a cool effect on some of these.

The set starts off with 3 of Franz Ferdinand, then 1 of The Libertines, 4 of Morrissey, 8 of The White Stripes, then 4 of The Others. I was especially happy with the shots of Morrissey and The White Stripes. I tried to capture the energy of The Others performance with the last 4 shots when about 30 people ended up rushing the stage at the end.

That covers photos from approximately 4 days of the 10 day journey. I still have a considerable amount of material to choose from for my subsequent sets. I will try to start getting the London photos up within the next few days.

I've posted sets 1 and 2 of 3 planned sets of photos I took at the Reading Music Festival. These photos only cover 2 of the 3 days at the festival. I have saved some of the best photos for the last set. Keep an eye out for those. After that I will post some sets from the rest of the trip from London, Liverpool and Manchester.

Well, I'm finally coming back home tomorrow morning. I can't say I'm not ready to get back to the good old USA.

Kevin came through with the hotel room for the last night. Since he's been staying at a Hyatt in Wichita for about 3 months he's a diamond member. He got a free night at the one here and I think 1 night is normally 250-300 USD. We are in the VIP rooms and its very nice. A bunch of free goodies.

Yesterday and today I saw a bunch more sites in London including St. Paul's Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Millennium Bridge, Tate Modern Museum, London Bridge, The London Eye, and bunch of other stuff along the river walk on the Thames.

I mainly went to the Tate Modern Museum to see their photography exhibits, they didn't have a whole lot but it was quality. I also saw some Monet, Picasso, Dali, Warhol and others like that. Its a pretty good setup they've got there. There was an interesting area just devoted to The human form and nudes. There was a unique piece by an artist I can't remember, it was of a crazed homeless man that had 3 penis's. As I walked by a little English boy said to his mom. "Look mum, 'es got 'free willies." I found that pretty amusing.

I also happened upon an excellent photography exhibit on the walk along the Thames. It was of a local photographer Colin O'Brien. His work reminded me a lot of my style. I saw one I really liked a lot he had there of Morrissey in Concert in Manchester from this year. I think I've got a couple that could turn out as good.

I went to see another photography exhibit I read about called "The Photographer's Gallery" which is near the Leicester Square area. It turned out to be worth the walk over there. Some excellent pieces, it really inspired me to get more into photography because I think what I am doing is as good or can be as good as what I saw there. It inspired me to try to get a little more risky on taking impromptu photos of people I see. Sometimes you have to risk getting beat up, arrested, or even killed to get a great photo. I'm not quite to that level of commitment yet. I think I got a lot of good photos, but I know of several that would have been amazing if I would have taken that extra risk to just go for it.

I also did some more shopping today and got some business casual clothes so I can hopefully get on first class on the way home. I finally got a pair of driving moccasins that I'd been looking for a long time. It turns out I wear a size 12 UK and size 46 Europe in case anyone is interested.

Its 7pm now and I plan on relaxing the rest of the time. Kevin is still rushing around trying to see some of the things I already saw that he missed while he was sick. I plan on getting something to eat then trying to see what free alcohol I can get from the hotel since we are in the VIP floor. I think its an open bar all the time there.

I think the flight leaves around 9-10AM GMT. Its about an 8 hour flight from London Gatwick to Atlanta. The time jumps 6 hours back so it should only be about 2 hours later when we arrive. That means I should hopefully get back at a decent time on Sunday if we are able to make the flights and not wait.

I will write more about the trip when I get back and I can sum up my opinions on England and its similarities and differences to the US.

I have now visited both Liverpool and Manchester and I'm now back in London. We found a much quicker train ride that went directly back from Manchester's Piccadilly station to London's Panceas Station instead of the gruellingly long trip we had on the way up. It took a little over 3 hours this time. The trip up seemed to take 5-6 hours all together and we had to switch trains twice.

We stayed at an old historic hotel in Liverpool called the Britannia Adelphi which I thought was pretty cool. It had really high ceilings and was like staying in an old mansion. The bathroom was interesting. The bathtub was huge, one of the only ones I've ever been in where I could stretch out completely. But, it had no shower curtain.

Liverpool and Manchester seemed pretty interesting from what I got to see of it. It was much more modern than the picture of it I had in my mind. I felt the people there could understand my accent a little better than than some of the people I've talked to in London. I did a bit of shopping in Manchester, I got some cool euro style printed t-shirts that were on sale. I think I got some really good photos while I was in Manchester as well. I like to just wonder around and come upon things by chance, its turned out well so far. I think I've taken about 400+ photos so far. Its going to take me awhile to sift through them all. I hope to have a lot of quality shots.

I thought a lot about Morrissey and the Smiths while I was in Manchester since that's where they are from. I noticed on the train ride up there all the factories and shipping docks. Morrissey often talks about the working class England of the North and how they are taken for granted by London and South England. He seems to have a lot of contempt for South England. During the concert he even said "I hope you all travelled from the North of England and not the South" with a sarcastic sneer.

The retail prices seemed quite a bit more reasonable from my brief obsvervations in Liverpool and Manchester. Their seemed to be quite extensive construction going on in both cities. I know both are normally at the top of the league in the Premier soccer league as well. We tried to go on a tour of the Boddington beer brewery in Manchester but it wasn't open at the time. I noticed that the brewery's address said it was located in "Strangeways, Manchester". I remember that from the name of a Smiths album, "Strangeways, Here We Come."

Tomorrow we had planned on going to Stonehenge and possibly back accross the country to Bath. I was thinking today I may want to hang out in London an extra day. It really has a lot going on that I'd like to see but haven't had a chance to yet. It would be a lot of riding on trains again for a few hours of looking at a big rock. I definitely want to see it but maybe not this trip. We'll see what happens. Also, Kevin really hasn't really seen much of London at all since he was sick the day I went to see everything.

We are staying at a hostel for the first time which is located close to the British Museum in northeast London. We are actually just north of Soho were I spent a lot of time the other day. This is the first time both Kevin or I have stayed at a hostel. It is very cheap but doesn't offer many accomidations. We are thinking of switching to a hotel room tomorrow instead of the other hostel accross town he had booked. Also we are figuring out its much better to stay in the same hotel on consecutive nights so we don't have to carry around all our junk in our back packs.

I have become fond of Stella Artois while I've been here. I just drank a 500ml can I purchased from a little shop on the way for 1 pound 39 pence. Its kind of cool how you can walk around and drink on the streets here. The big beers I've seen a lot here are Stella, Carlsberg, Strongbow, Guiness and Carling. I've seen many others of course but those just come to mind as the most frequent. I was surprised to see people actually drinking Budweiser here as well. There is no way I would drink that if I could have Stella or Carlsberg instead.

Something I have been thinking the whole trip is how apparant it is is that England is fond of the US. I'll give some examples. On the BBC statios 1,2,3 and 4 that I've seen you can always see a US show in syndication on. It is a cool fad right now to wear t-shirts featuring a US state. I've seen many people wear cowboy boots as kind of a cool fashion item as it is for people in the US to wear the euro style shoes. Of all the music I've heard the entire trip probably 70% of th music has been from artists from the US. Part of that I know is becuase US just produces more music but it is very obvious that England loves US music. At Reading a Guns and Roses song came on and everyone just went nuts.

I would like to update my opinion on British smoking habits. I know for sure I did see a lot of people smoking marijuana, but a lot of it was also that it is much more common for people to roll their own cigarettes. On every pack of cigarettes there is a huge sticker that says "Smoking Kills." It seems very common to smoke. I think I saw something on the BBC where they were thinking about outlawing it in public places like New York but they haven't been able to pass it yet.

Well I can see the light of the end of the tunnel and I will be ready to get back and sleep in my own bed by the time the end of the trip comes. Just 2 more days in England before the flight back on Sunday morning. I like to keep ragging on Kevin about how all the hotels I reserved have been lavish so far but then we come to one he reserved and its kind of a dump. Oh well, neither of us had stayed at a hostel before so its an experience. Its a good clue when its $45 and all of mine have been $100/night. Actually, the $100 per night is a very good price, that's only 55-60 pounds so I've been happy with the quality so far for that price. Well, I'm going to find something to eat and possibly get another Stella Artois before I go back and try to sleep in that hostel which unfortunately has no TV in the room and a shared bathroom for several rooms, thanks Kevin.

I am currently typing this at an internet enabled McDonald's in Liverpool. It has an annoying ass keyboard that makes it really hard to type. I'll do my best for now and fill in more details later because I only have 30 minutes on this bastard.

It was a long train ride up here to Liverpool from London. I think I got a lot of good photos here mainly at the mouth of the Mersey River as it empties into the Irish Sea which is where the downtown buildings of Liverpool are at.

Tomorrow we go to Manchester. I hope to do some shopping there. I have noticed things seem to be much more reasonably priced here. Also people have more cool accents here probaly because they are closer to Ireland and Scotland. You can really hear the Beatles in the way some of the people talk. We tried to find The Cavern where the Beatles first played but it didn't seem to exist anymore. Well this keyboard is too much bullshit and their is annoying music and annoying kid and bright flourecent lights in here so I'm going to cut it here. I definitely want to fill in a lot more details about yesterday as well when I get a chance.

Since the last post I've walked probably over 15 miles around the London streets. Last night I started walking and just kept going. I ended up going all the way to Buckingham Palace and then all the way down to Chelsea Bridge and back to the hotel in Kensington. I wasn't really going to see those sites so much. I just like to see how people live. How people look and how they interact with eachother.

Today I walked probably over 12 miles. Kevin was still sick and stayed back at the hotel. Today I walked circles around the Soho area of London. Its a more trendy area. Actually somewhat similar to the Soho district in New York. There were tons of places to shop for clothes and records and everything else. I must have looked at 1000s of people today. I like to just study them and see what kind of clothes they are wearing and how they walk and interact with the world.

All this got me thinking about the book I was reading on the flight over. Oscar Wilde's only novel, "A Picture of Dorian Gray." Coincidentily, the Futureheads at Reading played a song called "My Picture of Dorian Gray", which I thought was really cool. A picture of Dorian Gray is about the Aesthetic movement in the late 19th century. So far what I've gotten out of it is he is saying style and looks are the most important things in life. Also, its about "Dandies", guys who look very pretty and act feminine in many ways. Oscar Wilde turned out to have homesexual tendencies later as well. All the time I'm reading this it makes me think of the current metrosexual phase that is going on right now. I don't want to get too much off the subject of London but I just wanted a bit of background on what I was thinking. I really don't believe in a lot of what he has to say as far is beauty being the most important thing in life. But I have recently begun to feel style is very important. I am all about creativity and self expression and style is something that can represent these things.

So anyway, I noticed London really has a lot of style. Even more so than the US. New York is close. Many people there have style. But in London even the old people, the mom's and dad's, the grandparents, all seemed to be dressed pretty stylishly. At least from my day and a half's wirlwind view. The metrosexual idea that has kind of swept accross the US is really just how most males are in London. It seems that many of the social mores about men having to act manly and prove to everyone that they are not homosexual all the time are not as apparant. Its not to say that it doesn't exist. But that's just how I saw it today from my study.

The destinations I went to today included Trafalger Square, Picadilly Circus, Harrod's, Oxford Street, 10 Dowing, The War Room, Hyde Park, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, etc. But really I'm not too much into those touristy type of things. I just want by them so I could say I've seen them and take a few photos. I would much rather experience the city as the people of the city do as much as possibly.

One thing I've noticed is that London seems a to be a bit more of a toy city than London. I don't mean really that its less signaficant, it just seems like it has more rounded edges. In a way I do feel more safe here. I feel like I get less strange looks from people on London than New York. Maybe I look more normal here.

When I finally got back to the hotel my legs were about to fall off. Kevin and I want to a good Lebanese restaraunt I had seen that wasn't too far from our hotel. I saw they had hookahs there and I had to try one. I got a bit lifted after finally finishing that thing, it was pretty good. I also had a good Lebanese beer called Lebiza. The food was also excellent, I had baby chicken with garlic mayonnaise. I haven't had baby chicken before, but I'm a fan of the baby cow so I thought I'd give it a try.

Well, they are about to close the internet cafe so I've got to cut this off. We are going to head to Liverpool tomorrow. We should get Saturday to also check out more stuff on the east side of London.