Bday parties and Artsy Farties

Before I start writing about what is going on with me - today is one of my most favourite person's Bday. I think if this person would want a "Happy Bday" song from any one, perhaps it would be from these guys. While researching this blogpost for pics and links I funnily enough came across this doggy-picture, whichI will dedicate to her.

Anyway, this week has been fun and I went to a great concert on Wednesday, you can see the venue - "The Great American Music Hall" - above, it is a really cool place with loads of extremely cool people (I am pretty sure that Asian girl with the sunglasses was there too, hence the picture). Things started with "The Blow", who makes some funky music but becomes rather annoying after a while cause she just talks on and on and on, mainly about herself. Actually only about herself. Mirah on the other hand was really good and she is worth checking out. Even though her newest album is a concept album about insects ?!? Anyway, the crowd was good, and the crowd was full of lesbias I was told (one could recognise a few I guess if going by stereotype) due Mirah, but I had fun.

The picture on the right is still from wine tasting last Saturday, most people from work. Thursday we had an after-work bar night with an open tab which was fun although taking the shuttle after having some shots and beers isn't much fun. We watched a couple episodes of the American office, which is really really funny, close to the British one, and I fell asleep on the couch until 2:22 that night, mind you, the couch is comfortable (but the living room freezing). Yesterday I played some Squash and am now officially a member at this really nice club, they gave me a tremendously good deal. Played rather a lot but now like 6 people gave me their number and want to have a game with me soon, although I am quite happy just like playing once a week or twice. But in the dressing room they even have mouth-wash and combs and Q-Tips, I mean how good is that? After Squash I met up with some friends and we went to this vegetarian/vegan restaurant called the "Golden Era". I was wondering why people wouldn't offer at least a few meat dishes for friends who aren't vegetarian, but then I realised it is cause they really love animals. They actually had pictures on the menu with cows sayin "We love you, we pray for you" and weird things like that. My food was fine but not spectacular and they don't serve any alcohol either, which I thought of as strange. Maybe alcohol gives you a craving for meat, I don't know. Each table also had a list of celebrities who are vegetarians, but after a few names I failed to recognise anyone of significance. Anyway, quite the experience for a change. Finished off the night with some beers down at Mission bar, where Winnie, Ben and I got hooked on some weird gaming machine and set several high-scores, which mostly was due to Ben though.

Today I hung out drinking coffee and reading the New York Times - funnily enough the very first copy I buy has a squash court right on the front page. The New York Times is Ben's favourtie newspaper and it is really good to read and perfect for a Saturday morning. After that we went to some Art Galleries (I know, look at me all artsy fartsy) which was in parts really cool and in parts incredibly dull. Anyway, I decided not to buy any pictures or photographs for $5,000 this time around. This evening is Arlene's belated Bday party at, I was gonna say funnily enough but it actually isn't that funny, an Irish pub. Before that, which is now, I am gonna get a stinkingly delicious wet Burrito. These things are so good, it is undescribable. Seriously. Tomorrow? Sleep in, not have a too bad hangover and there is a free concert in my new favourite music store, which sounds like fun. Luckily "Au Revoir Simon"'s music is very soothing, as I couldn't put up with too loud music on a morning on which I am likely to have at least some battle scars from tonight, but hey, I am not living in SF to drink water and go to be d at 11.

Wine, Beer, Jägermeister and cool glasses

So I am sitting in my new 2-week home in the Mission, Valley Street and just finished watching Super Bad (which I would give a rating of say, 76%) and reading the New York Times and tomorrow it is back to work. As you may or may not see by the pictures (thanks again to Mathieu, Doreen and Arlene), my weekend was quite eventful to say the least. Saturday we went wine tasting with a group of like 15 of us in the Santa Cruz mountains which was fun, even though the winding roads were quite tough in combination with all the wine and we went out in the Mission to this place called "Lone Palm", which Ben really likes for its white tablecloths. What started with only Stella on my side ended with shots of Jägermeister (a tribute to Martin M.) and a bunch of drunken people. Place is real cool as you may see by the pictures and it was real fun, first it was Arlene, Ben, Evan and I and we were later joined by David J. and Doreen & Mathieu (top left, other Ambassadors). And myself wearing Ben's glasses (see pic, it is me), in which I look quite clever I find. Not that I would look stupid otherwise, but I think I can just about pull it off.

Unfortunately my next morning was far less fun to wake up to as I was sporting quite the hangover, but then again so did quite a few of us. I did manage to leave my old flat by 1:30 after chatting with back home in Dublin and being totally surprised by a real nice present someone had made for me (helped divert from the hangover) and drove over to Ben's and Sandra's place (my new home). We hung out at this cool Phillipino place which makes funny egg snacks and you can buy small toys. Then we went to Amoeba, probably the coolest place to buy CDs I have ever been to and we spent 2 hours browsing CDs and buying a truckload. I spent like 70$ on 6 CDs (Ben beat me by almost 60$). Worst thing was I bought this one CD of what I thought was from a band called "Adem", it was labelled under that band anyway. Then I came back home and opened the booklet and I had some Nu-Metal idiots glaring at me on a pic and it turns out I bought a CD from a band called "Adema", who are, safely said, godawful (unless Linkin Park is your favourite band). So that was 5$ wasted. Later on we went for some food, good old-fashioned pizza. Hanging out generally with people here is a bunch of fun and I have to say I can count myself lucky that I know a few people here as they just know the cool places and have cars. Like that Phillipino place, that was just really cool and iwould never have found it if it weren't for Ben & Sandra.

So today Mathieu & Doreen and I went wine tasting (again!) in Napa Valley and I managed to be there on time at 8:45 on my day off. It was good fun and I bought some wine and drank some wine and fell asleep on the way home and had a fun conversation with a cab driver on the way home. He was cool, he was like 55 but he talked like me, always saying "hey man, this is a cool place to hang out" and "there are some crazy guys around here, drug dealers and them". Later on I went to a supermarket to buy some Becks beer and bought an absolutely fantastic "wet Burrito", which was just, plainly put, absolutely delightful.

So this is a short week and Wednesday is the next highlight, going to see "Mirah" and "The Blow" with Liz and Ben and Sandra, which should be great. So long. Oh yeah, and thanks to Arlene for the sunglasses picture, they are hers and she arguably looks a hundred times better in them than I do, but it is a fun picture I thought taken by an even more fun girl!

Stolen Pictures

So, I didn't take any of these pics, honestly, they are all stolen by Matthieu, one of the other Ambassadors here. He is pretty into it, photographing that is. Most of these pics are from yesterday, the Barack Obama helper thingy, which was at this real cool place with art, a good band and some good DJs. Don't think Matthieu can complain me using his pics, not pictures, not
only am I showing his photos to the world for free, but also did he forget his wallet (he was pretty tired) and I paid for all drinks. Anyway, the other pics are from where I live or the view I have, i.e. the Bay Bridge, the Swimming Pool in my appartment complex and like the area around us. Also, you may see, that I still look pretty much the same and still wear the same stuff as always (I am really realising that I totally over-wear stuff). Quite happy about my shoe picture though as I bought them in SF last time I was here and they probably are my favourite shoes, even though I have to tell like everyone (as in hot girls who use the shoe thing to start a conversation with me) that "No, I didn't draw those things myself" and "No, I don't know what it is supposed to be, either!". That is kind of cruel, I secretly enjoy being asked about them.

Okay, back to the party, this was probably one of the coolest parties I have been to lately and it was a pity I was a bit sick and it was Thursday. Thing is everyone there was so cool, I mean most guys just looked real cool and most girls just looked real cool and good. And this was a politically themed party with real cool music and all. This kind of sums up why I decided to come here, it is just like a real cool city with cool people and I am happy I went there yesterday - thanks to Matthieu really as I wouldn't prob have turned up by myself (didn't like the possibility of standing by myself, having nothing to do and then drinking too much, checking my phone every 5 seconds and then deciding that the best thing to do when you don't want to look stupid standing alone is smoking). Mind you at this party at least I could have just stared at the cool pics of mainly topless women. So the party was like 10mins from home but walking out we managed to take one wrong turn and ended up 5 blocks in the wrong direction in a bit of a shitty area. Despite my confessed bad sense of direction I still havent figured out how we ended up so far away from where we wanted to get to, oh well.

So today I worked from the San Fran office for meetings and had to introduced myself but had a joke on my side (I am terribly funny these days) when I wished everyone a "Happy Winnie the Pooh Day". This was mentioned as random trivia earlier and I just shamelessly used it to my advantage. After that I actually went to play Squash at the San Francisco Bay Club like 30mins by foot from my house. Went with a girl from Google who plays as well and we played in this round robin thing and it was real fun. The guy who organises it was so happy for me to be there, he gave me a Tshirt and hyped me up to everyone and everyone was so happy to play with me. Felt like a celebrity and everyone was nice and there were some decent players around. Even better though is the club itself, there are conditioner, shampoo and body wash in every shower cubicle, deoderant, body cream, Q-Tips, free towels, a big TV area in the men's changing room with great couches, and I didn't even see the rest of the club. But I guess, once I have figures membership out (which normally is over $200 a month) I will be back.

Way back I had some chicken fingers and chips and a beer for $8 (now that is a fair price) and wanted to do some washing here but reception was closed, cause you have to get some card to do your washing. Decided to stay in tonight cause I have to get up at 8:30 tomorrow, long wine-drinking day coming up tomorrow. Oh, and today is the first day I think I don't have some computer speaking on my answering machine - "Please listen to this important message about your car!". Advertising over here is the biggest pain in the ass, apart from daily phonecalls I have like 3 magazines and 4 envelopes in my letter box, amongst all the fan mail of course.
I just re-read this post and realise that I say 'cool' way too much, but I am too lazy to change that now.

She, who guesses right, shall be rewarded...

Bodies, Dogs and Gladiators

Huge guys & poor guys

Today my good friend Russ finally sent me some pics from a trip we made to Bermuda in December and I thought I would post one picture as the blog looks somewhat boring, so here we are. For some reason I find really big or tall (the pic their is no joke, I stood next to a model of his when I was small) people quite fascinating, I used to always read all the human height and weight records in the Guiness Book of Records, so when I was in Bermuda we saw this bouncer dude who was absolutely huge. He told me that there are 63 gangs in Bermuda and that all of them have respect for him and would never mess with him (I told him there are 52 gangs in Dublin and every single one of them has no respect for me). He also said he would have become a real good American football player but he fucked his knee up at some point. I was quite happy with that information to be honest and was prepared to leave but he made me feel his biceps and shoulder muscles, which felt a bit weird and I kind of moved away after that. Cool guy nonetheless.
In other news I went to watch this film called the Savages which is just my kind of film, funny yet kind of sad. So worth checking out. Sandra and I wanted to go to some Italian place in town before. Took us 45 minutes to find a parking space. I thought we could stay in a car park but the one we found was 5$ for 30 mins. So we got to the restaurant and we would have had to wait for 45mins as well, so we went to a Chinese place which was really good. Really helps going with someone who can talk Chinese and understands how to order stuff too. Portions were really big so we took some food in a doggybag and Sandra gave it so some homeless dude outside, which of course was very nice. SF has like 12,000 or so homeless people and you see them at every corner, which is kind of strange. Most of them are pretty nice guys and will play you a song on their harmonica for a dollar, ask Colm or Keith about it. Anyway, off for some unhealthy food now.

Presents

I forgot to mention this: On my first two days at work I was beleagured (positively, I just really felt like showing off and using this word) with presents. I got a cool AdSense bag, a T-Shirt and of course an IPod. I got this for winning some contest in MtV like 8 months ago (a couple of submissions to another team) but was never sent one, so I thought they had forgotten me and I was too lazy to follow up. Turns out the person who it was given to for me had forgotten to give it to me and it was at the bottom of a box for 8 months. Anyway, so now I have three Ipods, which feels a bit strange...

First few days

First work day I had to get up at 6am to get the shuttle at 6:45 which is tough, but I made it. I have been watching DVDs on the way, the very brilliant “The Wire” (Ben’s recommendation) which I have to watch with subtitles due to the hardcore slang, even then I don’t get some of the terminology but I was told most Americans don’t either, which made me feel better about myself and I therefore consider myself again a worthy semi-Englishman. So the shuttle takes like 45mins to an hour and you also have wireless (which of course I first was able to figure out with some help) but working on the shuttle at 6:45 isn’t my idea of a fun start to the day. Work is really cool and all the people are really friendly and the choice for food is, to put it plainly, an absolute joke (as in extremely awesome). Winnie also brings her dog in most days and she, Fred the dog, sits right next to me. I stayed til 7:40 cause I missed my shuttle so I was first home at 9, which for the first day was rather long.

Friday was good too and after work went back to a friend’s place where we first did some crosswords (I know, Sex, Drugs and Rock’n’Roll) which we solved (maybe I was the cleverest person on the plane?). Three of us went out for some cool Thai food which was better than any in Dublin and less than half the price. After that we played this weird Video game (Bust-a-Move 2) at which I got my ass kicked most of time by Alison, and that after winning the first time right-away and thinking of myself as a natural talent. After that we went round the Mission area in some bars where I had some Guiness, which obviously wasn’t as good as in Dublin but at $4 that was excused. Had some weird woman cab-driver who let me off 2 blocks too early and didn’t wear a seat-belt and was on her mobile the whole time, I reckon she was talking Portuguese but couldn’t tell for sure.

Today I slept in for a change and walked around the bay area for like 3 hours which was cool. Nice weather too. On the way back I did pass some not dodgy, but not quite as posh areas, and I was thinking to myself that there is some advantage in looking scruffy (I don’t consider myself as scruffy but back in Germany people do and won't even let me enter some clubs) and therefore I think that I blend in nicely and don't look like a tourist. Went to Starbucks too where there was this totally cool guy working, I went in and ordered a coffee and while I was wondering how to correctly pronounce “Grande” he was like “Hey man, what’s going on?”. At first I was like “Well, I am a bit tired and intimidated ‘cause you look like an actor and I don’t know if you want me to answer ‘Thank you, I am fine. How are you?’ or just go ahead with my order” but then I just ordered a coffee and a sandwich (which his charming female colleague warmed up for me) and wandered around some more and went home. I did go into an arcade and thought to myself that no-one is developing new arcade games these days, they all look like 5 years old yet these things are always full with people. Strange. Anyway, now at home waiting for Sandra to pick me up for some food, Italian I demanded and then maybe going to the cinema after.

Getting to SF

I flew over on Wednesday and had to get up at 6am and got my flight at 9:30. Luckily I didn’t have to sit next to anyone but due to Tuesday evening being not quite as quiet as planned I was rather tired and fell asleep pretty quickly. I woke up and think that I may have dribbled while sleeping but I don’t think anyone noticed. When sleeping in an aeroplane I always wonder if I snore (which I do very rarely) and piss all the people off, but when I woke up people didn’t seem to care about me which I took as a good sign. Watched two films, “Shoot’em Up” with this English bloke and Monica Belluci (forgive me for forgetting his name but I was more focussed on Mrs. B) and Ratatouille (which took me like 5 mins now to figure out how to spell), which was quite fun and at one point I got surprisingly emotional as all the rat’s friends and family helped him out when he was in need - even the Dad-Rat who was upset that he wanted to become a chef instead of being the poison sniffer for the community. Changed perspective on rats for me, never knew some of them could cook. The rest of the time I watched DVDs and played this funny quiz on my monitor and watched an old lady ahead of me play it too. Felt quite embarrassed when she knew a Music question I had gotten wrong but I think all in all I was better than her which got me thinking if I was perhaps the most intelligent person on the plane (stupid things you think about 10,000m up in the air). I always had a feeling that some people were watching me do this quiz which is why whenever I got a supposedly easy question wrong I tried to pretend to go like “Oh, of course, I knew that but misunderstood the question”.

Luckily there was only one annoying kid on the plane and it was quiet most of the time, other than on my flight to Bermuda the other month where I really grew a hatred on screaming kids on planes. Then again there aren't many people who actually like screaming kids on planes.

When I arrived in SF at 12:30 I got picked up by a driver – first time I had someone with one of these name boards wait for me. He drove me to my apartment and told me about SF and that he used to be a mile runner and his best time was like 4:02, which, for any sports enthusiasts amongst you, is pretty damn good.

Appartment I have here for now (I may have to move) is really nice, one bedroom with kitchen, living-room, TV, balcony, and a phone. There were even some messages on the answering machine which was for someone who hadn’t been paying some bills and I got a call from some computer on my phone from some mortgage company after I got all excited that someone was calling me. Area is in the North-East of SF on SoMa (South Market), a kind of funky area which has been re-developed and is right by the bay. Nice in most parts, a bit scruffy in others. Hung out, bought some stuff at the supermarket (in which I was ID’d for buying beer) and later went for some Mexican food with Ben, Sandra, Liz and Alison who picked me up. It was my 2 year Google anniversary that day so it was quite a good day for reflection on that time (and of course some drinks). Food, we agreed on though, wasn't great and too expensive and Sandra's food, instead of being all colourful and Mexican, looked more like some mud in a dirty puddle.

Prologue

So walking around San Francisco today I decided that I would create a blog and write about what I am getting up too over here. All very family-safe of course as my parents may be reading this (Hello dear parents!) and definitely not terribly work-related. Thing is with these kind of projects is that they always go well for like two weeks until I lose interest, I am too socially active and don't have time (yeah, right) or the several critiques prove to be too damning. Anyway, lets see how things work out. I probably won’t post any pictures for the time being as I haven’t got a charger for my camera yet, but you always have Olivia's blog for pretty pics for now.