Wednesday, August 6, 2008

A question for you

I heard the other day that the Kaiser Chiefs were getting Mark Ronson involved with their new album. My question to you is does the following equation apply?

Kaiser Chiefs + Mark Ronson + proposed 'Radical New Direction'

= The worst album ever made


I have a feeling it probably does.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

WOOOOO

The green card application has been completed and sent in!

YES!

Monday, August 4, 2008

Rock Band / green card

After a week of bureaucratic green card B.S (nearly done now!), it was nice to have a few beverages with Julie and Jason over the weekend. Then Hillary mentioned that they had in their possession (for a couple of days at least...) the genius that is Rock Band.

Now, for those who don't know videogames, it is essentially a game where you play fake real life instruments along to an on screen sound and rhythm track. It sounds kind of lame, but add in friends, alcohol and a literally amazing fake drum kit and you get this...



Unfortunately I haven't got any photos of when I saw a million faces and rocked them all with a rendition of Bon Jovi's 'Wanted Dead or Alive'. Everyone in the room was crying after the performance, so moved were they. Hillary still tears up now thinking about it.

As I say, the green card paperwork is almost done now, but that didn't stop last week from being intensely annoying. On Wednesday we had to turn out and go to Raleigh (about half an hour's drive from Durham) so I could have a 'medical', which in the end turned out to be one MMR shot and a doctor transferring my medical records to yet another form. Getting the right size photo taken was a pain as nowhere in Durham seemed to have an actual passport photo booth. There were plenty of comedy 'get your portrait sketched by Van Gogh' type places and a few photography shops that wanted to charge $15 for two passport photos, which we thought was rather unnecessary. Anyway, it's done now. All we have left is to have it finally checked by the lawyer and to send it off.

I may well have to request to play more Rock Band once it goes out as way of celebration...

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Watson 2

A clearer view of what Watson looks like.



Watson

This is our dog Watson. He likes socks, as you can see...


Saturday, July 26, 2008

Lucky Strike

Durham American Tobacco district.

Hillary reminded me to post this the other day - this is a picture where we reckon the Lucky Strikes (www.theluckystrikes.com) should play if they ever come to Durham and fancy doing some ruthless self promotion at the same time as blowing some minds with rock.

Actually bands do sometimes play under the water tower - what do you reckon Mat?

To get the bigger picture and see everything better, click on the one here.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Las Vegas 1

As you may know Hillary and I went to Las Vegas back in June. I thought I'd start things off by posting a few photos from then.

Now unfortunately, this first one is the biggest amount I won. I was playing the 1 cent slot machines, though, so by my logic, that's a 394% profit I'm holding in my hand...

Hillary did win $5 on one of the machines at the Hilton. I haven't got photos of that though, so I'm not sure if it counts.

The next photo was my attempt to capture the surroundings of Las Vegas as it is set against a backdrop of mountains and desert. I think I've captured more of the car park though.

Still, you get the idea.

The next three are just an attempt to show that Las Vegas is absolutely ridiculous. The first of these is a photo of the New York, New York hotel. Yes, that is a rollercoaster running round the outside of it.

Apparently there are over 2000 rooms there according to Wikipedia and it's something ridiculous like a mile wide. I'm not sure about the accuracy of that last bit of info but I do know it takes aaaaaages to walk past.

The next picture is of our favourite hotel, the Excalibur. As you can tell, it's a medieval castle. It is particularly tacky inside but I think that's why Hills and I enjoyed it so much - it knew what it was and didn't go out of the way to be too trendy. It also had a store selling AC/DC pyjamas, an arcade and numerous cheap slot machines. Beat that Hard Rock!

The Arc de Triomphe.

One of the days we were there we went to the Star Trek Experience at the Hilton, which I have numerous photos of. It was, of course, brilliant.


It also featured this brilliant slot machine.


Now the story behind this fishbowl is that the big waiter guy serving us insisted that it was small, only about the size of a 'kiddies drink' and with not much alcohol. He was very wrong; it was full of alcohol. We managed to struggle through it but were both a bit drunk for the rest of the 'experience'. We later realised that the waiter might not have been the most normal person when he came and stared at us eating for about 5 minutes.


All comments are well appreciated! Apparently you don't have to be a member to do it now, so that may help.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Hello

Hello

Does this thing work then?

Hmmn. Good.