Blog of Bling #18- FYI: Bling is NEVER the little spoon!

So I was walking home from the pub last Friday night, pissed (in the English sense) as usual. Way up the street I see a couple people hanging out near the front of my flat. As I draw nearer, I realize it’s my flatmate HF (probably shouldn't post names without permission) and a mate of my flatmate Leighton who lives across the hall from me. I exchange pleasantries as I enter the house, but honestly, I don’t care much for HF as she has trouble cleaning up after herself and maintains a general “holier-than-thou” aura that I can’t really stand; there’s not much love lost between us though. To make things worse, her new friend, the mate of my neighbor speaks some kind of Birmingham-ian English that I don’t understand at all. Plus he looks like a twerp, so I manage to get by without introducing myself, for which I’m quite pleased with myself.

Anyway, I head into the lounge to watch a little tele to find my flatmate LM making out with a new friend he’s brought home for the night. Ugh, so I shut the door and call it a night. Not five minutes in bed, when I hear LM and his friend coming up the stairs. I put my earplugs in as per usual and try to pass out.

About 10 minutes after this, I hear someone coming all the way up to the top floor where Leighton and I live. Ha, I think. Hannah kicked LM’s mate to the curb and now he needs to know where to crash. I hear muffled knocking through my earplugs as I role over toward the window, determined to sleep through all the racket.

All of the sudden, something or someone is climbing into bed with me! I scream “WHAT THE F@&$?!!” pretty much at the top of my lungs as this thing jumps about 10 feet in the ear and starts to head for the door. I follow this up with a rhetorical “WHO THE F- ARE YOU?!” Only this twerp that has snuck into my room doesn’t know it was rhetorical, and starts to answer. “Oh my bad, mate, I’m…”

“I DON’T CARE WHO THE F YOU ARE! GET THE F OUT OF MY ROOM!”

Well the twerp scurries out my room as fast as he can, cause I am literally about to explode. After he’s gone I try to calm myself and go back to sleep. Sure enough, 5 minutes later when the fumes coming out of my ears have subsided, I hear another muffled knock. Surely not, no way, I think to myself. But sure enough, in pops the head of this twerp who apologizes, grabs his shirt that he left on the floor and runs out of the room!! What can I do at this point but turn back over and hope to the heavens that it was a case of mistaken identity, but it certainly takes me a while to finally get to sleep.

As it turns out, HF told this poor pawn of a twerp to meet her in “her room at the top of the stairs across from LM’s after using the restroom” .... which would actually be my room. That's a pretty bold play in the conflagration between her and I. I really don't know how I'm going to top that one. For right now, I'm just going to consider myself lucky to that I avoided being unintentionally spooned and desperately try to repress the memory!

Blog of Bling #17- Minutia-mania

Not a lot that's interesting has happened in the last few weeks, thus the long delay between posts. I guess I could update everyone on the minutia of my life, but that's just not the blog of bling way. Well, maybe just a little...

I did make the team of the week in my 7-aside football (soccer) league this week.



Unfortunately, the three green guys on the left side of the image were all playing for the opposing team and we lost yet again, 1-3. In order to stave off relegation, we'll have to win in two weeks against the second worst (points wise as we are clearly better than last...) team in the league.

I guess one more thing I could mention is that I'll be back in states March 20th, and back in Louisville March 25th, and I'll be staying through April 7th (one day past the NCAA championship game, which was completely accidental of course). I'll be presenting some results (well, lack of results) at the Chlamydia Basic Research Society Conference in Little Rock Arkansas. Weird, I know, but its a free trip home!

Blog of Bling #15- A Bling's Life Bonus Round

Hello faithful Blog of Bling-ers! Apologies for the delay in a new post. The reason for the delay is that I'm actually going mentally insane. Every waking moment I am drifting farther from sanity into an abyss of frustration and senility. Therefore, I will quickly catch you all up on my life in London 2009 so far. Then I will go back into the laboratory and transfer incredibly small volumes of samples that may or may not be contaminated from one tube to another. I'll quit working when I'm so hungry I physically begin to shake and can no longer pipette accurately.

So here goes:

I scored a 40 yard goal to take the lead for my team in my Sunday Soccer league. It was probably one of the better goals I've ever scored. We ended up losing though.

Some bouncer wouldn't let me into a shitty club until my entire group threatened to leave. Then he let me in and we left anyway because it sucked.

The "Britain Blizzard" officially ended today. Apparently six inches of snow in 36 hours on a city that never sees snow and is entirely dependent on public transportation will cause chaos. I walked to work yesterday which took about an hour both ways. I was told the distance from my house to work is about 8-10 km, which I think means about 25 miles.

Shut up, you don't know the conversion of Km to miles either...

Not new: my flat houses seven people. New: the normal people have now outnumbered the crazy people. We're having a party on friday in which a bunch of scientists, nurses, Australians, IT representatives, and a couple snobby girls will mix it up. Fireworks (or perhaps just fires) are expected.

Alright boys and girls, fun time is over as my boss just walked behind me a big "Blog of Bling" window open on my computer. Time to go finish creating an ulcer and pulling out my hair!

Blog of Bling #14- Asking the right questions

I normally try to keep my writings as light and entertaining as possible. Blogs aren't the best places to voice disagreements; it's easy to make judgements about politics or religion when there's nobody talking back at you. However, I am SO riled up after reading the comments page on Courier-Journal online, that I hope you'll allow my indulgence.



I once asked my father what the definition of a republican and democrat was. What he said, rather the paraphrased version of what he said, has stuck with me for a very long time. He said that Democrats wanted to help the poor by taking more money from the rich, and spending it directly on the poor, while republicans think the government should take less taxes from everyone, so that people have more money to spend on companies, which causes the prices of "stuff" to go down and creates more jobs for the poor without. I don't remember how old I was at the time, but I remember thinking that there could be a disagreement even when the final goal was the same was a cool concept.

Should those more fortunate be forced to pay for quality health care, education, and infrastructure for everyone? I don't know, I really don't.

But considering the US is THE richest country in the world, I do know that every American DESERVES these things as the right to a quality existence. How could they best be provided? That's the question Republicans and Democrats SHOULD be discussing.

Here is good luck to the new executive branch and the population that elected them! May the quality of life for all people in the USA and world be better in four years than it ever has been!

Blog of Bling #13- A year's end reflection

While its always difficult to recognize change in oneself, it seems as if I've come a long way in the four or five months I've been in London. And although the "pretentious-barrier" was crossed long, long ago, I thought it would be entertaining to share some of the little lessons I've learned during the past year.

1.) Wear clothes that fit. Shopping exclusively on the clearance racks at Target just isn't going to cut it anymore...

2.) Dancing is easy. All you have to do is put one hand up in the air and bob up and down. Hold up one finger for emphasis which can be turned into a point when inevitably people want to start taking pictures with you.

3.) It's impossible to take a good serious photo after 4 liquor drinks. Instead of attempting to smile and look sober, own you're awkwardness! Intentional idiocracy is much funnier than accidental idiocracy.

4.) The Peacock Rule. When trying to meet new people, its easier to attract through appearance than by personality. The male peacocks with the most "game" are the ones that look the most ridiculous. This can be applied to bar attire. Colored shirts, being overdressed, and apparently hideous sweaters are all applications of this rule.

5.) Great friends are hard to come by. Ultimately the most important lesson I've learned, is that while its (relatively) easy to meet new people and form acquaintances and contacts, it's infinitely harder to develop the true friendships I have here in Louisville.

What a holiday! It's been a fantastic and well-needed break from the London adventure and I don't think this trip home could have gone any better. I'm sad to leave, but I look forward to being back in The 'Ville during the end of March. Cheers for a great holiday season!

Blog of Bling #12- Bling's Glorious Return to the States-- the preview

Just an update, I'm flying out of Gatwick tomorrow morning and will be back in Louisville by tomorrow evening. I think my old cell phone is still activated, but I'm not sure. I'll try to get up a blog tonight about my ridiculousness over the weekend...including pictures, no promises though as I still haven't packed.

If anybody wants anything special from britain, send me an email.




Get ready....

Blog of Bling #11- Turkey Day Depression

It's Thursday morning here in London, and I'm at work instead of starving myself for a thanksgiving feast later. I'm actually quite depressed that I won't be partaking in the annual gluttony and slothiness that is eating turkey and watching (real) football all day. Not only will I not be partaking in usual festivities, it turns out that the lack of Thanksgiving holiday gives no limit to the beginning of the "Christmas" season here in the UK. They started celebrating three weeks ago.

Seriously, I think the Christmas season is too long to begin with. By the time December 25th rolls around, I'm usually sick and tired of chrismas carols, shopping crowds, and have gorged myself on chocolate candies so that none of my clothes fit. Here, Starbucks started playing Christmas music on November 10th this year. That means they will have celebrated Christmas for at least 46 days this year. That's 13% of the year devoted to a one-day holiday! How much money do you think it cost Starbucks to change all their displays, all their cup colors, the "roast" of their beans, and the decorations in their store? Does all that crap really make me want to drink Starbuck coffee over any other place?

Anyway, santa-starbucks rant aside, I'm quite depressed. So depressed, in fact, I shaved off all my hair last night. Rather, I had a flatmate do it for me. It's a bit shorter than I expected (and by a bit, I mean A LOT) due to a little confusion on the way to use the guard for the clipper, but that's ok. The point of my decision was to change things up a bit, and keep it interesting, which I definitely, definitely have done.

This morning, one person at the office described my hair as if "something had attacked me with hair clippers" while a couple others simply laughed. Personally, I think it looks good, or at least better than my usual hair cut. In fact, the cute Starbucks barista chatted me up a bit this morning, being unusually friendly for a crowded morning coffee bar. She ended up not charging me for the muffin I ordered and told me to "come back and see her."




Hmmm. Maybe this early Christmas season isn't that bad after all....

Here it is, my "what do you think" face, combined with my "trying not to get caught procrastinating in the office" face: