Toni described the events of the last week pretty well in her latest journal. However, the parts left out are found below. I'm sure I'll be recording this a little later on:

We went down to Doncaster and saw this chav girl
She was, like, all "ehhh"
And I was, like, "whatever!"

Then this chick comes up to me and she's all, like,
"Hey, have you seen Blood Diamond?"
And I'm, like, "yeah, whatever!"

So later I'm at the Argos Extra
And this girl comes up
And she's, like, "EXTERMINATE"
And I'm, like, "yeah, whatever!"

Cuz this is my
United Kingdom, Whatever!
And this is my
United Kingdom, Whatever!
And this is my
United Kingdom, Whatever!

And then it's nine A.M.
And I'm at the shop, wearing my leather
This dude comes up and tries to rob me
I'm, like, "yeah, whatever!"

Then Toni and me are at Conisbrough Castle
Officer Leroy comes up and is, like,
"Hey, I thought I told you..."
And I'm, like, "yeah, whatever!"

And then up comes Mike
She's, like, "yo, Mick. What's up?"
He's, like, "nothin'"
And I'm, like, "that's cool."

Cuz this is my
United Kingdom, Whatever!
And this is my
United Kingdom, Whatever!

I managed to get everything working again. Going to spend some time catching up now that the laptop is fully charged and ready. Time tonight, so I'll make sure that gets done.

Still in England. Still noticing specific things. Englishisms as I am now referring to them as. I will, again, make sure that you are aware of them, as well. Just in case you have to ever venture into this wild world, or, perhaps you are from this wild world and would like to know how us normal folk handle things.

EGGS and TOAST

Odd subject? No, it's my favourite breakfast. Simple, efficient, delicious. I have determined that there is a specific, British way of displaying this food*. Normally, if I order scrambled eggs and toast, it will arrive in one of two ways. ONE: Eggs, toast, seperated. TWO: Eggs on toast (sliced or unsliced). Now, in England, it seems they have found an unhappy middle ground. What I get is two pieces of toast, one sliced diagonal and put to the side, the other in tact and covered in eggs. So, only half sliced and half seperated. Crazy English.

They play They Might Be Giants on the radio here. What's that about?

Another oddity. Monthly movie passes.

I don't know if your local theatre does it, but I have never seen such a thing before. You pay a set amount (11 pounds) and you get unlimited movies for a month. I swear, places would go crazy if we did that around my house. I'd see a lot more movies, to be honest. Any non-Brits have this? Because, otherwise I'm classifying it as an Englishism.

Marketplace totally sold 6 Crunchie bars for 1 pound. SCORE!

I have begun my journey of doubling my body weight since landing. Toni has insisted that I try just about every food imaginable. We had fajitas, which were fantastic. Some really great burgers from a local pub.

OH, ENGLISHISM!

They have ketchup and relish and etc. in little tubes, like Yoplait Yogurt tubes. No bottles. For someone that's used to a lot of ketchup, it was a huge pain in the ass to get it all. I ended up using 6 or 7 of them. I also tried some very generic sounding condiment called Brown Sauce. It's brown, and is pretty much ketchup + Molasses + some other stuff. It was alright. Like BBQ and Ketchup's middle road.

Done a few touristy things. Need the photographs to prove to friends that such a foreign place actually exists.

I will be uploading some prose soon. I wrote some stream-of-consciousness writing while on the plane, which I may or may not submit as a whole, but I wrote a small short story that I will be submitting, so keep an eye out. It's not great, but I liked it. Considering I didn't actually think about it while writing, I'm surprised it had a beginning, ending and all that. TODD I FINISHED SOMETHING

SEVEN DAYS

Alright, so I've arrived alive. Took a nice, long charter flight across the Atlantic and ended up in a place that basically looked exactly as I expected. All the chaos of any major Canadian airports, different accents. (Note, I said major. Not all Canadian airports are crazy, case and point the ones were there are two gates, and both of them involve walking onto the plane using stairs.)

However, that being said, I have already made a few observations that I must share with the world!

Urinals.

Alright, I can't be alone here. Urinals in Canada (and presumably the US) have a much different shape than the ones here. In NA, it's more flat to the wall, with extruding sides or dividers so you can hide your terrible shame from wandering eyes. As soon as I landed, I noticed that the urinal at the London Airport was basically a bowl. Just a bowl. Hanging out there, in the open, with like 5 others. Toni says it's because "What is their to hide?", but I still find it very odd.

I'll write more as I remember later into the week. For now, I'll get to the juicier details.

Toni grabbed me at the airport. Apparently it snowed, so she was a bit late (typical ;)) and the plane was a bit late as a result, as well. Coffee at the airport is crazy expensive, but hot chocolate was worse. I thought Second Cup was bad, honestly, until I purchase a 5 dollar hot chocolate from Costa Coffee. I also finished some prose/journal/brain-spill writing that I did on the plane. I may post that later, but right now my laptop is out of batteries and I have no working charger. (So, if you're wondering why Litmas isn't posted [Todd] that's why. Apologies.)

They drive on the wrong side of the road. Hahaha, yeah, I know, it's a worn out observation. It's actually not as weird as I thought, but roundabouts are weird and scary. I don't quite understand the dynamics of left turns being the same as right turns, but if I have to drive (which I can legally with a Canadian license) I'll have to get used to it.

Spent most of the day driving around. Watched The Ring for no other reason except for the fact that it was on and was mauled by a collective of strange animals.

Though I'd let people know that I wasn't dead. If you have any questions, please feel free to direct them to my agent. Or just ask.

Note: British keyboards have the quotation marks above the 2 key. Odd. The tilde is where that should be. Super odd.

Hmm, a couple things to address.

First of all, for literature, I think that people will be pleased to know that the results for the Merry Litmas competition (or, as I refer to it as, Merry Critmas) will be up very shortly. Check out the news, and this journal (I'll update it in an hour or so) when the article goes up. The delay for this is a lot of my fault, so I apologize. It's been a hectic month, but I'm getting on track for everyone's sake.

We're thinking up some new competition ideas for this quarter. Does that spark your imagination? Well, why not send a note with your idea to me. We've got a few, but hey, we always like some input and new perspective. Why hog all the fun for ourselves?

Alright, now on to life stuff.

I finally, finally, finally watched The Protector. I think choosing to watch the uncut version may have been the worst mistake I could have made. I'm going to try and watch the edited version, because there was so much garbage in the uncut one that I got so lost so quickly. Random character introductions, very silly events, and just awful, awful, awful dialogue throughout. As a movie, it was dirt.

HOWEVER

Best fight scenes in a flick I've seen in a long time. Brutal, visceral stuff. He really didn't like the people he was violently thrusting his knees at. Honestly, I'd recommend it just to see some of the killer choreography. I spent a lot of time telling myself how awful the rest of the movie was. In most senses, Ong Bak was better, and that says a lot.

For the first time this week, I saw a 10 Pound note. That may sound a bit odd, I suppose. For one, I've been asked by a few people state side if we use "English money" or "American money", but no, we use Monopoly Money. Anyway, I have to say this: the 10 pound note is really damn ugly. The new US currency looks pretty sweet, even if it is still that sickly green (I'm not bias towards the multi-coloured money... really!) but man, so ugly.

Also, it has Charles Darwin on the back. Honestly. I was imagining what kind of impact that would have it were in the US. Having Darwin on the back of the bill. Just the kind of flack that it'd garner across the entire country, the whole evolution split we'd see rise out of it. I think it's worth trying just for entertainment value.

I will be discussing this important issue in more detail with `imperfect. In person.

Good foreshadowing?

Yes, I'm taking a bit of a trip. Just a week. I've spent the last 3 or so working tirelessly on my business project and other various things, and I'm actually going to take some vacation now. Although I don't really consider leaving my house to be as much a vacation as just sitting around watching endless CSI (Oh, Christmas was fun), I think that it'll be interesting seeing a different country for once in my life. The US is only slightly different.

Been planning something like this for a while. Should be fun. Toni and I get along very well, so I imagine we'll have a lot of fun...watching endless CSI (Yes, I am bringing a few seasons).

That said, I'll be around. I'm taking my laptop (lifeline) and will be continually checking dA, so don't hesitate to drop a note or a question or whatever. I'll still be popping by, and on AIM, GT and all that other fun stuff for those looking for me in that capacity.

Wish me luck.

There are moments in life that often can signify that times, they are a changin'. For me, I tend to ignore these moments as best I can, so as not to deliver a crushing blow to my reality! Jokes aside, though, I recently came across a few startling things that really show me the reality of the fact: I'm getting old.

Now, some of those who are older than me may scoff, say I'm insulting them. I know my parents do, and have since I have been saying that I was an old man since I was 16, it doesn't get any easier for them to accept that.

I'll start with a story.

I often frequent a bar near my house. Well, not often. In fact, I try to avoid it as much as possible. But the fact that it is the only place in town that has both available pool tables and beer-bringing attendants, it tends to be the place that most people I hang out with want to go.

Anyway, I'm winning, as usual. While sitting out a game, though, two girls approached from the other side of the place. I saw them coming, but they were like 17-18 (Thinking about this, now, I wonder how they got into a 19+ place) and I noticed one of them as a friend of my brother's.

"Are you X's brother?"

"Uhm, yes, yes I am."

"You look just like him!"

"Actually, I came first, so he stole my good looks."

Conversation ensued for a little while longer, just casual, taking in as many compliments as I could. Then it ended.

"Alright, have a good night."

"You, too, sir."

Ugh.

Err.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I reeled like I had gotten punched in the stomach. Sir? Me? Alright, time to invest in my RRSPs.

I went home, unhappy, and as I got in the door, someone walks up to me. "Wow, I never noticed that before."

Oh, no.

"What?"

"You've got grey hair. In your beard."

I promptly shaved and went to my floor, soaking in all of what had just occurred. I'm 22 next month, and I'm already having a middle age crisis.