Talkin' bout the midnight rambler...

Since I'm up late working (well, sitting around waiting for techies to do things so that I can tell them it's still broken), I thought I should write something on here for a change rather than pissing around on Facebook...

So, an update. I'm still working on my project in Charlotte, and it's actually looking like I'll be spending the majority of my time here until around August. Not exactly how I had things worked out - my lovely apartment in Cambridge is sitting empty most of the time (and costing me oodles of cash into the bargain). So Operation Make A Life In Boston, which I set out on back in October, is an unqualified failure. I'm still in touch with a couple of people there but haven't seen them in months, and it really is a place where I leave my stuff and have my mail sent at the moment.

But Charlotte really ain't so bad. True, the city is soulless, ugly and seemingly populated exclusively by bankers, but the weather's gorgeous, I'm enjoying working with the team I'm on and the delights of Charleston are a mere 3 hours(!) down the road. I've been spending most of my weekends down there, primarily to see a young lady with a cute southern name that I've been seeing. So I think it would be fair to say I'm settled down here, in a temporary kind of way.

But what comes next? When I move off this project do I go back to Boston and try again? Do I bow to company pressure and move to their HQ in Utah? Or pick somewhere else to give a go.. New York, San Francisco, DC? I don't think my employers will force me to move to Utah (which is a beautiful but otherwise unexciting place), but at the same time the thought of starting out again somewhere groovier sounds like hard work. While the 3 months in Boston was quite a relief from routine, I've enjoyed the rhythm of going to an office and working with the same people each day in Charlotte. Unless I can persuade the company to set-up a satellite office in one of these places, the idea of working from home isn't too appealing, even if that home were in Greenwich Village. The timing isn't exactly ideal either, what with my lease in Boston running out at the end of September, I'll have only a month between leaving Charlotte and deciding what the hell to do, even if things go to plan.

Plus, I'm missing London a fair bit at the moment, particularly the prospect of drinking beer sitting outside a pub and the snooker, which there is zero coverage of over here... Oh for a pint of Broadside and a proper Sunday lunch...

This week's guest publication...

In the tradition of Have I Got News For You, I came across these publications in a Charlotte newsagents today that I just had to share...

First up is Celebrity Car, a rollicking read I'm sure. The bastard offspring of Hello and Autocar. Or something. I have no idea who Chuck Liddell is, I'm afraid, but he seems to like his Ferrari.



The next one is truly special: Turkey Hunting Strategies. I wasn't aware that turkey-hunting was particularly popular in these parts, or for that matter that such a pastime even existed. I haven't seen a single wild turkey, but perhaps that's why you need to subscribe to this publication - it boasts a "Feather Forecast" - a 48-state report predicting the success of your bird-baiting season. The "Chick-Strike Tactics" just sound mean though...

Vegas Baby

"Ooh, Las Vegas,
Ain't no place for a poor boy like me..."
- Gram Parsons, "Ooh Las Vegas"

I spent last weekend in Las Vegas. It's a truly mental place. In fact, "mental" may have been the most over-used word of the weekend.

I flew in from Charlotte on the Friday night, to meet up with some colleagues that had flown in from London. McCarran airport was absolutely packed with weekend revellers, and the taxi rank queue was about 15 minutes long. I headed to our hotel, the Luxor, which is a great big glass pyramid with a spotlight shining out of the top and into the sky, all with a faux-Egyptian theme. After dumping my stuff I headed out to meet up with the chaps, who were already well into the gambling at a neighbouring casino. Vegas casinos are utterly bizarre places - row after row of flickering, bleeping slot machines, blackjack tables, craps roulette, etc etc, with ladies of the night tottering around trying to drum up business. All completely cut off from the outside world - no clocks, no windows, and a convoluted signpost mechanism that somehow makes you walk through the whole casino, no matter what your destination. Some genius must have come up with that. Mutton-dressed-as-lamb cocktail waitresses stalk the tables, offering free drinks to the gamblers - you only have to give them a buck for a tip, on the assumption that you'll piss away much more gambling than you ever will propping up the bar.

After downing a couple of beers to get me started, we headed to the next casino, New York New York, which was like a miniature polystyrene version of the real thing. There was a mini Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Chrysler Building, etc. Even a footbridge modeled on the Brooklyn Bridge! There were similar casinos further down the Strip, including the Paris with a mini Eiffel tower and Louvre, and the Venetian with tiny canals and Bridge of Sighs. We tried to get into a couple of clubs, but it being late and us being a group of 4 chaps, we had a bit of trouble. The rest of the night passed in a bit of a blur as we staggered from casino to bar to casino, though I remember at one point we narrowly avoided paying $30 to get into a gay club. I think we had breakfast back at the Luxor at about 5am. While waiting for breakfast I decided that now would be a good time to start gambling, and went to what I took to be a blackjack table and slapped down $20. One lost bet later, I realised that it was actually a three-card poker table, so it wasn't long before I was back tucking into my pancakes.

Waking up at lunchtime, the next afternoon was spent lazing around by the Luxor pool in absolutely scorching weather, chugging beers and admiring the lovely ladies (or which there were plenty in Vegas). Imagine 4 English chaps with their tops off, turning lobster-pink in the sun with beer in one hand and fag in the other, and you're about there. We probably weren't a pretty sight.

That evening, we tried to get into one of the most popular clubs in town - Tryst at the Wynn hotel. We must have queued for about an hour before giving up and wasting several hours and a lot of money at the Irish-themed casino next door - it was the place we found with the lowest minimum blackjack bet - $10. I think I must have lost about $150-200 (strangely, the ATMs only seemed to dispense $100 notes - wonder why they do that!), and the other boys did similarly badly. We were hardly high-rollers, but we had a lot of fun. The rest of the night descended into drunken debauchery, and we finally walked back for breakfast at about 8am, admiring the sunrise over the desert. Gorgeous.

The final night was certainly less hardcore, but we did go on some absolutely ridiculous rides at the Stratosphere, the tallest structure on the Strip. The view from the top was magnificent, but struck fear into your heart knowing what was to come next.

First up (bottom picture) was a ride that shot you up in the air from the tower, before gradually bouncing you back down like some sort of inverse bungee jump. Belly-in-mouth stuff, but nothing compared to what was to follow. Next (top pic) we went on a sort of merry-go-round that dangled over the edge of the tower. As the ride got faster your chair angles outwards under the centrifugal force, till you had nowhere to look but down at the strip several hundred feet below. The coup de grace though was the final ride (middle pic), a truncated roller-coaster that shot you out over the edge of the tower and dangled you over the edge. It then holds you there, staring at the drop before pulling you back and launching you over again, dangling you at an even more ludicrous angle. It was horrible...

After that, we weren't really in the party mood, and retired to bed. We were offto Utah the next day, which was about as contrasting an experience as you can imagine...

Off to Vegas (baby!)

Oh yes. Never gambled before, but I have a feeling I might have after this weekend!

To anyone who's actually checking this every now and again - sorry I haven't posted for so long. Much of my mis-spent online time has been taken up with Facebook recently. I've got a lot of traveling coming up over the next week or so, so will be sure to get things up-to-date!

For now, roll on Vegas...

Yet another roadtrip...

This weekend, I was a little lost for what to do. I had a few options:

1. Give the girl in Charleston a call and go down for some drunken fun and warm weather. Pros: might get laid, and get to see more of lovely Charleston. Cons: stressful to meet up with these people I barely knew and who may have been looking to have a slightly better time than I might bargain fpor (if you know what I mean).
2. Go back to Boston. Pros: actually get to see my flat, see a couple of friends there and experience the New England winter for a change. Cons: Couldn't really be arsed to fly all the way up there and back.
3. Stick around in Charlotte. Pros: get to sleep (a lot), which would be good since the last week or so has been very busy/stressful at work. Cons: may end up just working the whole weekend if I'm not careful, leading to further erosion of soul.

By Friday lunchtime it looked like I was going to end up doing the latter. I had called the Charleston girl and left a voicemail on Thursday, but she hadn't got back to me and besides, I wasn't exactly feeling up for anything that hedonistic. I booked a hire car so that I could go and do some shopping (just food, nothing exciting - in Charlotte I need a car to do ANYTHING except work), but then I had a flash of inspiration and called a friend who lives in Washington, DC, which isn't all *that* far from Charlotte (well, a 6 hour drive, but I'm king of the road trips at the moment). She turned out to be free and amenable (even enthusiastic) to a visit, so on Saturday I forwent a lie-in and hot-footed it up I-85 through North Carolina, into Virginia and on up to DC.

Now, I really like Washington. I've been there just once before (to visit the same friend) and had spent most of the day wandering around the city on a gorgeous spring day, and devouring the Smithsonian museums that sit in the shadow of the Capitol. It's a tremendously well-turned out place, as you'd expect, and I love the aura of bustling politics and of important decisions being made all over the place (even if recently those decisions have been, ahem, misguided).

After dropping my stuff off at my friends' place we went out to meet an English friend of hers who works for the BBC - we had grea cocktails at a nice swanky place called Urbane in Georgetown, and then moved on to a French restaurant where I had really quite good onion soup and confit du canard - not as good as you get in France of course, but not a million miles off. We also had some chips for the table that had been deep-fried in duck fat. Now they were good. All washed down with a yummy Cabernet Sauvignon and accompanied by interesting conversation about Cuba (where the BBC girl had recently been), the US and politics. It made a lovely change from the fried chicken and work talk that is what Charlotte is coming to represent to me. Then this morning we had gorgeous Belgian waffles cooked by my host with her new waflle iron, slathered with maple syrup and fruit, and accompanied by the Sunday papers. Mmmm.

So now I'm on my way back, and have stopped off in Richmond, Virginia to see a gig by a folk singer I like that hails from this area: Paul Curreri. If there's one thing going for this part of the world, it's the music. Richmond doesn't seem to have a lot going for it, though I am having a spot of dinner in a great little bar called the Capital Ale House, which has a mind-boggling selection of beers. The Beer Menu sitting on the bar is about 20 pages long...

Drug adverts

In the UK, you don't use particular (medical) drugs because they've been advertised to you. In fact, I'm not sure they're even allowed to advertise prescription drugs - just over-the-counter ones. You go to your doctor, he diagnoses you and prescribes something suitable. In the US, a large proportion of the ads on telly are for drugs (most of them are for cars) - and they're really quite odd.

So, an advert will begin with someone looking horribly ill in some way, before the voiceover extols the virtues of their particular panacea. Then, in the final seconds of the ad, they run off a litany of side-effects that may or may not happen to you, presumably because they're legally required to. I think they must employ special people to do these bits, because the speed with which they talk is superhuman. You try saying "rare side effects may induce nausea, vomiting, cancer, brain damage, broken bones, and low self esteem" in 3 seconds with any kind of clarity, and you'll get the idea.

I was spurred to mention this by an ad just now for an anti-depressant called Cymbalta. Apparently it treats both the mental and physical effects of depression, but can have it's drawbacks. You are advised to "contact your doctor if you notice changes in mood, behaviour or suicidal tendencies". It continues "Has been known to produce suicidal feelings in children and teens, and is not recommended for those under 18". Not sure how this ad would make someone want to take this stuff. Weird.

Down from the mountain

I'm in Asheville, NC today. Primarily I'm here to see Matthew Ryan, one of my favourite singer/songwriters who's playing a rare gig here tonight. The place had been recommended to me though, so I came a few hours early to have a nosey around.


And it is lovely. Asheville is about a 2 hour drive from Charlotte, nestled in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. It's a pretty small town with a distinctly bohemian and even urban feel - all tie-dye and busy coffee shops of bright young things. The old town center, unlike Charlotte, is still very much the bustling centre of the place and the cobbled streets around it are bursting with interesting (and mostly independent) shops. The one of most interest to me was a record shop, specialising in "mountain music" (bluegrass essentially) but which was rather incongruously blaring Lily Allen on the stereo, singing her songs about Tescos and orange squash. I was confused for a moment, but came to my senses enough to browse around the incense haze and buy a couple of suitably old-timey albums.

Another major feature was an old-style Woolworths (with it's full title, F.W. Woolworth & Sons) - featuring a fifties-style soda fountain and considerably more classy than its English counterpart. I had a hot apple cider (which isn't alcoholic over here - pretty much just hot Copella apple juice) in a bookstore cafe. Apples seem to be something of an obsession round these parts - the roads around Asheville are lined with orchards where you can pick you own, like a massive version of the Cox orchards around Sandringham. They were all pretty much shut up until autumn though - this must be a hard time of year for all those apple growers...