I'm a 30 year old born and
raised in Los Angeles

Now a Designer
turned Information Architect
turned Design Director
at a .com in London
with my new wife Leyhsa

Archive:
Apr - Jun 01 | Jul - Aug 01 | Sept - Dec 01 | Jan - Apr 02 | May - Jul 02
Aug - Sep 02 | Oct- Dec 02 | Jan - Feb 03 | March 03

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• Responsible for slaughtering thousands
• Aided in Spain to put back into power 'Peter the Cruel'
• Attempted to bankrupt the kingdom on his wars and lavish parties
• Dies of a venereal disease while committing adultery with several women
• Revered with an eternal eulogy to him in Canterbury Cathedral

Confused? So was I. The same book goes onto saying how he had a personal affection for Canterbury and gave generously to the cathedral. Boom, case closed. No pious existence necessary if you can spend a little of somebody else's money to be revered. Where I am going with this, is that the monarchy has contradiction upon contradiction that it is based on. Within one building three prominent monarchs of history left their mark on how the dichotomy of good and evil exists in the Monarchy. I'll get into the rest with my next writing, so stay tuned..

• My friend last week said he had to check in with the Trouble and Strife to see if he was free. When questioned, he had said that 'Trouble and Strife' rhymes with 'Wife'.
• 'Butcher' which is short for a 'Butcher's Hook', which rhymes with 'Look'. So Butcher = Look. Makes sense in its own nonsensical way.
• There's some pretty messed up ones like 'Lemon' for a girl. Check out this beauty: Lemon is short for some kind of sandwich spread, 'Lemon Curd' which rhymes with 'bird' which ofcourse is a word for 'girl'. Lemon = Girl. Duh.
• Then the more sophisticated ones are even more esoteric. 'Bob's your uncle' refers to the Irish politician Balfour who in 1887 was unexpectedly promoted to the post of Chief Secretary for Ireland by his uncle Robert, Lord Salisbury. This stroke of nepotism is said to have inspired the term. The phrase is used as if to say "and so it is done". e.g. "You just turn on the power, hit the switch and Bob's your uncle".

There are hundreds of these goofy sayings and luckily I don't hear them enough to get caught too often with my pants down. I do however get caught going the other direction with my unbeknownst to me Americanisms. So when I told a couple people on my staff that 'it would be a cake walk to do', I got that same blank stare I usually am providing. Not knowing it, I was invoking American history and culture into my phrasing as a walk-around known as the cakewalk, a good-natured competition originating among Afro-Americans in which the reward for the fanciest steps in style or elegance was customarily a cake.

And I am always telling people at work to 'cover their bases' which is ofcourse a baseball term which means as much as to them as a 'googly' in cricket makes sense to us Americans. Speaking of sayings but completely off subject, I found this hilarious site that you should check out.

The other news is that there's yet another NEW SECTION to the site. My best man, Uncle Mike, for now on will be hosting his very own ongoing area on Limeys Everywhere called 'Big Mike's Corner'. This debut is being celebrated with a contest drawing! All you have to do is write something to Big Mike and you will automatically be entered to win your very own Brit Funk CD. At Limeys Everywhere everybody's a winner with second prize going out to all entrants, my special recipe for Sticky French Toast. Now how can you beat that?!

This isn't the first thing that has been stolen. As I have mentioned before, the Queen of England stole my Scooter last year. She took it right in front of our house. I also had my Palm Pilot ripped off by a thief while I was heading up the stairs from the Underground last March. And then before that, somebody stole my passport while I was at the grocery store. I had it tucked in between some things in the front part of the basket, looked down to get some canned beans and looked back up and whammo, it was gone. I haven't been able to eat kidney beans ever since.

Yes I am forgetful, yes I can be stupid, but I'm not that stupid. Despite what you are probably saying to yourself, I do have street smarts. The thing is though, they are Los Angeles Street Smarts, not British ones. You are probably also telling yourself,

'But you grew up in LA where there are drive-by shootings, riots and gang violence, so you should be able to handle London easy where they have wimpy crime, and the worst problem they have are stupid Hooligans who tip over trash cans after their team loses.'

But after twelve years of living in LA, I have honed those skills to avoid Los Angelino hazards and never was prepared for London crime. I can spot a cop car from two miles away - I never get off the freeway for gas in Compton - I can always tell if my car is in a safe parking spot - I know if somebody is carrying or not. (Uh - sidebar here, 'carrying' is a term for somebody who is concealing a firearm)

Most of these harms can be avoided by looking for the signs of intimidation. A guy packing heat looks a little more careless and more confident, a cop with a mustache and aeronautical sunglasses is much more likely to use a nightstick on you then a clean shaven one, a well lit spot in a parking lot is useless unless you park next to a nicer car, etc. None of these fine rules to live by apply in London.

The reason is that if a homie walks up to you, you prepare and take the necessary precautions, if a cop notices you, you prepare, take the necessary precautions, and hope he finds somebody else to harass instead. But when those signs of intimidation go away, you go about your business. Here on the other hand, there aren't many intimidating characters lurking about and so you don't have your defences up as much. Instead, you need to always have the defences up because anybody can be the thief. And so I have learned the hard way and have had all kinds of stuff ripped off not keeping the precautions up at all times. The total bill of lost goods comes to $3,200 so far. I'm telling you, the Queen is going to pay.

As far as other things going on, I celebrated Yom Kippur (in layman's terms, a Jewish New Year / Guilt Day) at the oldest Reformed Temple in Britain and had very nice services. The Temple itself was built in 1870 and was one of the most beautiful ones I have ever been to. I could even detect their British accents while they were saying the Hebrew which was pretty weird. The service itself was for the most part the same though they have these special people who wear big black top hats for some reason. There is usually a part at the end of the services where the Rabbi will say a blessing for Israel. Here, they said that and then tagged onto the end 'and we bless Queen Elizabeth our Queen' which took me by surprise. The Queen's a Jew too!

And finally, I am extending the Big Mike drawing out ONE MORE WEEK as he has recently added a new entry, and its even more offensive and even more irritating then the ones before. You just can't sit by, write back and get entered into the drawing; and don't forget you win a Sticky French Toast Recipe either way!

• riding solo and does not have a twin
• active and fidgety just like the Mom
• all the limbs and parts are in good working order
• well situated in the womb relaxing as if in a Barka Lounger
• aged at a ripe old 13 ½ weeks
• Leyhsa has provided a nice and healthy habitat to rule in, for stretching and wiggling and growing and ordering that amniotic fluid around
• gender is still an open issue and yet to be known
  

The whole medical system works differently here as they have a National Healthcare System which left Leyhsa and I a bit confused on understanding its depths. You have to follow a very lengthy procedure starting with a visit to your GP, who will refer you to a hospital that's somewhere else, to then be referred to a pre-natal clinic which is in yet another location, who then refers you to a 'MIDWIFE' and then eventually at some point, hopefully before the birth, you will see your obstatrician doctor. I was very confused as to what that means as I am used to a completely easier set of rules and a much shorter set of steps. I had asked a Brit Friend of mine what exactly a MIDWIFE is and luckily received some helpful advice:

Sounds like the UK system is confusing you a little. Just to confirm, a Midwife is an optional partner that stands between you and your real wife during and shortly after the 9 month span. She can be used for a variety of duties within the boundaries of the law and often displays a light "girl" beard above the lip to deter any passion that may distract a devoted husband. Often called Julie, Marie or Gary and able to craft fine furniture with little or no carpentry tools.

Hope that clears up your confusion. Tip top and best of luck to you both.

-Colin

Fix Crap Service: London establishments have a distaste of being courteous to its customers. And as the Honourable Mayor of the capital, I promise you the first thing I'd do is make all London stores and restaurants be required to put a placard in front of their establishment with a Customer Satisfaction Rating on it. All establishments that receive an F rating will be required by law to hire a Walmart Door Greeter. I suppose London will never be the friendliest of destinations, but I would make sure it wasn't as bad as France. I know most ratings would be between F and D but you have to start somewhere.

Axe the Architects: I would fire every single British architect and only let new buildings be designed and decided on by more prudent foreigners. More money is thrown away on these shamefully ridiculously stupid projects then you could possible imagine. There's this new City Hall building, known as the 'Glass Testicle' that cost the taxpayer £43 million ($66 million) which floods when it rains, is humid in the summer and only houses 440 people. That's an average cost of $136,000 per office chair! Not to mention the ludicrously stupid $2 billion Millennium Dome (which is now closed) or the horrifically overpriced $28 million pedestrian footbridge (which had cost an extra $7 million just to make it stop swaying when people walked on it).

Shoot on Sight: Next, I would arm the police with big huge automatic weapons rather than those wimpy night sticks they walk around with. Police here are totally powerless to whoop ass and I'm tired of having my things stolen. I am usually a peace loving individual but have learned that an iron fist is sometimes necessary. If criminals were being shot at rather than given a polite request to stop running, maybe they'd think twice before making off with my scooter.

Automate the Underground: And lastly, I would automate the trains of the Underground and fire all of the drivers. On Wednesday, they went on strike for the third or fourth time this year, the latest reason is to complain about their 7.5 hour work day wage of $52,000 with 9 weeks of paid vacation. That's $9,000 MORE than police officers who risk their lives every day and an entire month more of holiday pay. The entire city was essentially shut down causing an estimated $90 million in losses within London just after one strike and another one is planned this week. At Canary Wharf they have a light rail system that is fully automated and doesn't require extortion to keep running. As the most ungrateful human beings on the planet, I'd be happy to personally hand out their walking papers.

So VOTE FOR ME and we can clean up this damn city!*

*brought to you by the Jason for London Mayor Foundation