Nickel Creek!

I just got an e-mail from Nickel Creek, a band that I really like. Apparently they've got a show tomorrow at the South Bank Theatre, which is in London. Hopefully they'll have tickets, it'd be awesome to see them in person. I'll probably rant about them later on.
For today - Watching a John Cleese movie that was free in a newspaper, which is very funny so far, very English, and hanging out with some people watching Rugby in a pub later on.

And on top of that, I really want to get a Mini Cooper. They're everywhere here.

Edit: Okay, Rugby game is actually next week. I'm glad that I figured that out before I reached the pub and found that out. Okay, now to find something to do for the evening...

The John Cleese movie, Clockwise, is hilarious. It was free in one of the local news papers, and has Cleese, a headmaster who's a stickler for being on time, trying to reach a meeting (Ironically, at a University at Norwich). However, he ends up getting into problem after problem and becoming horribly late in a very funny series of events.

And after that, catching up with some NPR news. Great station, if you've never listened to it.

Blue Merle

Another artist to highlight: Blue Merle. I found these guys through radio play, with their single Burning In The Sun, which is simply a great song. Great sound to it, lyrics are great, and for me, highly relatable for me, regarding love and breakup. Their album has a number of other great songs, including Boxcar Racer, Lucky to Know You, Every Ship Must Sail Away and Places being my favorites. The others are all equally as good, and I think that these guys are just about up there with Low Millions, Amos Lee and Carbon Leaf.

If you like Coldplay, you'll like their stuff. Their lead singer, Luke Reynolds, (Who's also from Vermont) has a very similar sound to that of the British Band, but their music sounds a bit more diverse with a Fiddle and Mandolin. Mandolins seem to be popping up more, and they do add a cool sound to the music, especially here.
Track listing:

1- Burning in the Sun
2- If I Could
3- Lucky to Know You
4-Stay
5- Every Ship Must Sail Away
6- Boxcar Racer
7- Made to Run
8- Seeing Through You
9- Places
10- Part of Your History
11- Either Way It Goes
12- Bittersweet Memory

Their official Website is : http://www.bluemerle.com/main.html. Again, highly recommended.

Scotland

Well, I'm back from my trip up to Eidinburgh, and had an extremely fun, if quick time up there. I left around noon on Tuesday via train for about a five and a half hour ride up. It was extremely nice, great scenery and the light was at the right angle to make everything look really good. Saw the ocean for the first time while over here, which was nice.
Upon arriving in the city, I set about trying to find the youth hostel that I planned to stay at. I ended up walking around for a half an hour, bought a map, walked up and down the road three times before finding the place, but after that, checked in a dormitory and got dinner. Discovered that I left my black hat on the train. The hostel, the Eidinburgh Backpacker's Hostel was nice. Very laid back feel to it, with several long term residents from all over. I talked to people from Australia, Canada, Greece, Japan and South Africa. My roommate was Japanese and didn't speek very much English, but we did manage some conversation. Watching the Olympics with the Canadians was fun. They had their flag out for their team and were very excited.

On Wedsnday, I got up around ten or so, and brought my pack with me to do some wandering. I had a couple of places in mind, but no itinerary, which was nice. I walked up to the Castle, took some pictures and went to the National and Royal Museums, took in some Scottish history and got a book on James Hutton, whom I'm doing a project on. (Considered the father of modern geology).

From there, I went around on some random streets, got lunch, and circled the city. I ended up going to Holyrood Park, which has the remains of a volcano, which has since been overridden by glaciers. For the first time in weeks, I finally was able to take a good look at some outcrops and to do some hiking. The volcanos erupted about 300 million years ago, and there's basalt, overlain by coarse sandstone and another layer of basalt. There were some nice features in there as well. There's a couple main sections, the Craigs and Arthur's Seat, as well as a third section which I didn't get around to hiking over to. I hiked around and up the Sainsbury Craigs, up to the edge, where there was a lot of intense wind, which nearly blew me over. I then went down and back up and came across the ruins of a chapel, then turned and went up Arthur's Seat, which was the highest peak in the area. Very strong winds up there as well. The entire hike took me around three hours, and I went back to the city, got something to eat after the hike and returned to the hostel. I then went out again and walked around another section of the city, bought something for dinner, brought it back to the hostel, read my book and watched the Olympics. Then went to sleep.

Unfortunently, we were right above a club of some sort, so around 1 a bunch of people came out singing really loudly. Same thing happened the night before.
Got up at around ten, checked out and got on the train and arrived back home five hours later. All in all, great trip. I also lucked out, my iPod batteries died right as I went through the door of my flat complex. Good timing or what?

I took about 70 pictures, and they can be seen in here and here. Now, for food and to pass out somewhere.

Stuff

I'm headed up to Scotland for the rest of the week, and I need to pack and get my train ticket for the five hour ride up. Should be very fun and I'm very much looking forwards to it. I need a bit of a break from my roommates. I like them, but a break is needed.

This VERY interesting bit of news came through in regards to Firefly: From junglejen9: Firefly. You gotta spill it if you have any additional info, please!I've heard the CW is considering bringing it back as a series, miniseries or movie for next season. Hurrah! For you who missed my message board posting, on Tuesday, Nate Fillion, Summer Glau and Gina Torres were seen coming out of one of the exec buildings at Paramount, where they are putting together the new CW unit.
I'm not making it up.

I'm holding my breathe about this one, but if it happens?

Have a good rest of the week.

Sunshine

I think that I found a new, interesting looking SciFi film that will be coming out later this year. Thus far, it's been under the radar, but from the couple (and only) places that I've really found any mention of it, it looks like there's a considerable amount of anticipation.
The movie is called Sunshine, and it's being directed by Danny Boyle, who is known for his movie 28 Days Later. It's also written by the same person. Now, I've heard a number of good things about 28 Days Later, so that certainly piqued my interest.

Here's the plot summary from the official weblog of the movie:

The Film
The Sun is dying, and mankind is dying with it. Our last hope: a spaceship and a crew of eight men and women. They carry a device which will breathe new life into the star. But deep into their voyage, out of radio contact with Earth, their mission is starting to unravel. Soon the crew are fighting not only for their lives, but their sanity.

Empire Magazine also posts up this brief summary:
The sun is dying. A team of astronauts have been sent to re-ignite the first failing spot, but communication with them has been dead for some time. A second team are sent to complete the mission.

Okay, it's a little on the "this has already been done before" side, but I'm getting the feeling that this isn't a disaster movie, and that it's going to be a lot more interesting than just that, at least, one can hope. Looking through the official blog, there's mention of the types of solar radiation that the sun puts out, Akhenaten, an Egyptian Pharaoh with mention of the sun worship and achievements that the egyptians made with calculations and the like, the lifecyle of a star, and creation of the universe.

So, in my opinion, this looks to be one to keep your eyes out for. Could be very interesting. This is their official weblog: http://www.sunshinedna.com/

Olympics!

I've been watching the Olympics on BBC 2, having quite a bit of fun doing so. I think that the last time that I watched the event was in 1998, and I ended up missing the 2002 Salt Lake City one, which is a bit of a shame.
The opening events were pretty cool to see, and I had a map out seeing where some countries were in the world, which was fun.
Today, the French got a very surprising win in the downhill racing. I watched the Men's Halfpipe for snowboarding and watched with glee as the US got both the Gold and Silver, and came very close to sweeping the entire thing, as another American got 4th place. I was, however, surprised at how many people fell down on their first run.
My neighbor just got tickets for a couple events a couple weeks from now. I'm seriously debating whether it'd be worth it to try and get some, and to fly over and watch. Any ideas?

Vacation... Soon

I finally got a phone card that actually calls the US, and called home for the first time in like three weeks. Got to talk to my parents and sister, and my grandmother, giving them all a bit of an update on what I've been up to, and talked with my dad about the protests in London and the Middle East and my plans for my mid semester break next week.
I've decided that I'll be visiting Scotland, and I'm looking at Edinburgh. So thus begins the process of looking up Youth Hostels, train times and places to visit. Edinburgh is where a lot of the major geologists who started the entire field came from, James Hutton and Charles Lyell most notably. Planning on staying up there for two nights, seeing the ocean, parks and whatever else I come across while there. I'm looking forwards to it, finally getting around to travelling on my own.

One thing that I've often noticed about travelling, is the anticipation of going somewhere, but actually going somewhere seems to come up incredibly fast, and that you don't realize that you're on your way until you're sitting, looking at the countryside flying by that you realize that you're going.

Now, to find a printer that works...

Cambridge

We went on another excursion yesterday, off to Cambridge, the other major University location in England, and a major rival of Oxford. Overall, I was more impressed with Cambridge than I was with Oxford. The place was smaller, and with less noise. There were few cars, but tons of bikes, everywhere. We almost got hit several times.
Cambridge is more specialized with Sciences, while Oxford is more concerned with Humanities. We saw the places where DNA was discovered and where the first computer was built. They also have a dedicated museum of Geology, which I was able to walk around in, and was very impressed. It was fairly small and cluttered, but there was a lot of things to look at there. Hopefully I'll get a chance to return sometime in the near future. We had a walking tour of the town, which I'm guessing is about the size of Montpelier, which surprised me. It has a nice feeling to it. We visited a number of the colleges and universities there while we were there, all of which were pretty impressive.

Now, for a political rant: Bush Hates Big Bird. Maybe not so much like that, but according to this article, the White House has cut funding for PBS by nearly 100 million dollars. This is all in response to the demand for fun increases in Homelanad Security and Defense departments.
Personally, I think that it's sad, that we have to cut funding that provides near vital children's programming that has been around for decades.
“Oscar the Grouch has been friendlier to Sesame Street characters than the Bush administration, which has chosen to make huge cuts to children’s television programming,” Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) said regarding the cuts, according to Variety. “In a world of fast and furious television with content often inappropriate for young children, the public broadcasting system represents the last stronghold of quality, child-oriented programming - we owe this free over-the-air resource to America’s children and their parents.”
I don't think that I could say that better.

5 Weird Things

Five Weird Habits
I stole this from Walter Jon Willams, In which I reveal five allegedly weird habits that I possess, and then tag five other folks with the same meme.

1. Like WJW, I've never actually sat down and watched the Super Bowl. Not once, never, ever. It's just never interested me. WJW mentioned that: For a few years, on Super Bowl Sunday, Kathy and I made a point of attending the ballet as a form of cultural protest against this annual rite of drunkenness and spouse abuse. It was easy to get to the auditorium because the roads were empty, and the theater was always filled with mothers and their daughters, all of whom seemed very happy to be there.

2. I like the cold. Here in London, it's hovering around 0 C. That = 32 degrees F, and it can get 60 degrees colder back at home, and I don't mind that. I'm actually missing the snow a bit.

3. I go out of my way to look up very odd things, which comes with being a History major and Geology major. Currently on the desk in front of me is a print out of the following subjects: William Smith, Charles Lyell, Arthur Holmes, James Hutton and Quantum Mechanics. The men are all geologists who really started the field in it's modern sense.

4. I don't watch TV, despite being a huge fan of a number of TV shows. Where I live, I don't get TV, so I'll get a show on DVD and watch the entire season within a week or two. I'll probably watch an episode premire once a week, if that.

5. I love and hate heights. With ropes or something of that nature, I'll do anything. On ladders, especially unstable ones, I get nervous.

Tag: Nathan, Andrea, Rachel, Jim, and Zach.

Mark Bowden's Upcoming Books

Mark Bowden has a new book coming out, which is extremely exciting. It's entitled Guests of the Ayatollah, and according to Barnes and Noble, it's about the Iranian Hostage Crisis of 1979 -1980, which is a subject that I've read a little about, but from the military standpoint. Bowden is the author behind Black Hawk Down, which is still one of favorite (that doesn't really seem to be the right word) war stories, because of it's intense detail.

The book also looks to be very interesting, given today's interactions with the Middle East and Iran in paticular, which has been a subject that I've been gaining interest in, ever since we took a look at it in several of my politics classes over the past couple years.

The book is due out in May

He also seems to have a second book coming out a in March called Roadwork, which is a collected set of stories that he's written:
Anyone who has read Mark Bowden’s Black Hawk Down or Killing Pablo knows that he is capable of putting us in the heat of a story in a way few writers can. Road Work gathers the best of his award-winning writing, from his breakout stories for the Philadelphia Inquirer to his influential pieces in the Atlantic on the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Whether traveling to Zambia, where a team of antipoachers fights to save the black rhino, to Guantánamo Bay to expose the controversial ways America is fighting its war on terror, or to a small town in Rhode Island to penetrate the largest cocaine ring in history, Bowden takes us down rough roads previously off limits—and gives us another gripping read.

This one also looks like a good one to get, and I'll be keeping my eyes open for it.

Meeting People

My roommate Fran and our neighbor Luke planned a get together for the flats in our building, because we really haven't seen each other, except in passing at the FSU and the hallway. It was a bit of fun, as we essentially all brought some food, sat around, eating, drinking and talking. It was good to do. I got to test out my own cooking skills with Chicken Balti, an Indian dish that I've really enjoyed in the past weeks, and fairly easy to make.
Got to meet more people, which was a big plus. Up until now, I really haven't gotten out to meet anyone. Turns out that two of them, Ben and April are very big into Firefly/Serenity and that we share a number of the same interests when it comes to movies and Science Fiction. I spent much of the evening talking to either Ben or April, which was fun. There were quite a few other people, and there was general converstation.
Afterwards, people went off to pubs or in our case, our flat and just hung around. I fiddled with my camera, figuring out some of the settings for exposure and the like, getting some practice in with the hallway light with a very cool set of images.
Overall, a productive evening, although I didn't hear from my cousin, Nick, who's in town. We talked earlier in the week, but it's possible that he just got a busy signal, as Fran was talking with some of her friends for a good chunk of time.

Yes, there is Science, no matter how you cut it.

I'm getting back into the regular writing habit, although I'll still update on what I'm doing.

Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him

When will the Bush Administration get it into their heads that Global Warming is a very real and decidedly problematic thing for everyone in the world? Or, that Science, does infact exist in the world, and that Science doesn't conform to any political agenda or party. Having the public relations officer of NASA stating that his job is to make the president, and the Republican party look good is unexcusable, especially when you look up what NASA's motto is.
Beyond that, having administration clearance for access to reporters is also completely out there.

Where scientists' points of view on climate policy align with those of the administration, however, there are few signs of restrictions on extracurricular lectures or writing.

That shouldn't happen. At all. The entire thing reminds me of the soldiers in the middle east when interviewed by the press. They can give out their name and an extremely general activity that they're doing, but it's so heavily censored that they might as well be given a script. Since when did Science become a classified thing? It's simply not right for the government to pick and choose which information to use, because you can't sugar coat everything, no matter how much you ignore. Science encompasses good and bad, and you must look at both. And it's essential that you look at both before using it to dictate policy.

London Images

I'm starting a photoblog, hopefully I'll be keeping it up - http://jtlondonimages.blogspot.com/

Natural History Museum, Tower of London and Canterbury

Those are the three main places that I visited over Saturday, Sunday and Monday, which was a really fun bunch of locations to hit, all in a couple of days. Katie Bell, from Lexia, the program that I'm studying through, came by to visit while inspecting the program. She just left, on her way to Paris and then Rome. All three locations were amazing, lots of fun to go to.

Natural History Museum: Took me a little while to get to this place, because of some work on the Tube, but I ended up getting there on time for a couple of really cool images.

The museum is set in a really cool building, several stories. As the title suggests, there quite a bit to do with the natural sciences there- Most importantly, Dinosaurs and rocks, which is what I focused on while I was there. It was a mistake, however, to visit on a weekend, because all the parents brought their young kids to see the skeletons, and there were lines, which was a bit of a problem. However, the Mineral and Meteorite rooms were easy to get through, which were really cool to see.

Tower of London: Will and I met up with Katie on Sunday to see this, one of the old fortresses in the city, where a couple of monarchs ruled from, and was a military center. It's essentially a castle. Rooms have been restored, armor is on display and the crown jewels are stored there, which was very glittery, and with very heavy security.

Canterbury: Canterbury was out latest excursion out of the city. We got on a train and rode down to the town to see the Cathedral and learn a little of the history of the place. I'm not religous to any stretch, but the building is one of the most impressive buildings that I've been in yet. It's huge, although it looks much bigger from the interior, with high vaulted ceilings and incredible decorations and details. My pictures don't do the thing justice.

Picked up a book called The Constant Gardener, by John le Carre for the train ride, which is proving to be an outstanding novel so far. Highly recommended.

I've uploaded my most recent images here and here.

British TV

Something that's very weird, but funny at the same time. The commercials are leaps and bounds above those that you'll see on American TV. While we only get four channels in our flat, we seem to have a couple that are replaying some new American dramas, such as House and Prison Break.
I caught House last night - that's a hilarious show. Great characters, who are extremely sarcastic.
Also, I got this link from Karen Traviss - Looks like a very good documentary:

Why We Fight

Walking

Haven't been up to much in the past couple of days, a couple classes, going to Oxford and Windsor Castle, both of which were pretty interesting. Thursday and Friday I currently have off, which is really nice, able to sleep in a bit and to do whatever.
I walked down to visit the Tate Modern today. We visited during our orientation, where we got tickets through the program to see their exibition on Henri Rousseau, which was pretty interesting, but that's all that we saw. Went to go see the rest of it today. Lots of other pieces of art there, some very cool and very weird stuff.
I realized that there's a reason why I like art: It confuses the hell out of me, and for most of them, make me think about what the artist is trying to say, most of the time. Plus, it's nice to just see some things that look really cool. However, there's only a couple of the paintings in there that I'd seriously consider going back to see. But there are a lot of other interesting things to see there.
Went back home, cooked some dinner, chicken, which actually came out pretty good, and down here to check the mail. Katie, one of the Lexia people, is coming on Saturday, and we're going to Canterbury on Monday.

Drinking With Legends

Okay, not really, but I did hit a very special pub today: The Eagle and Child. Doesn't ring any bells?

It's in Oxford, and it's where J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis went and met up, calling themselves the Inklings, when they were working on their major books. And I went there. I'm happy.

BECAUSE I WAS DRINKING IN THE VERY PLACE THAT TOLKIEN DID.

Tolkien's Signature

The main pub

More photographs here: http://norwich.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001795&l=7c010&id=70000497

Album #2. More on the original album.

Movie Recommendation: Layer Cake

I watched this movie the other night with my roommates. It's a crime movie, it's about a cocaine dealer trying to get out of the business, but his efforts are hampered by a last job that's asked of him, and he finds a number of different layers to the business. The director, Matthew Vaughn, is a director to keep your eyes on, for his outstanding visual style, with a number of really cool shots and lighting choices. Add in a couple of really good actors, it's an outstanding movie.

One Week & Tintin

Went to the theater last night, the Barbican, to see a stage performance of Tintin and Tibet. I've probably mentioned it in passing, but I'm a very big fan of the entire comic series, ever since I first read the comics in high school. They're a great read, if you've never picked them up, about a young reporter and his various adventures around the world. There's an entire shop here devoted to the comics, and I picked up the DVDs of the cartoon series, which has proven to be very faithful to the comics, and fun to watch.
The play was based off of the comic Tintin in Tibet, which is possibly one of the best ones out there. In this paticular story, Tintin and his friend Captain Haddock are vacationing when Tintin learns that his friend Chang has crashed in the Himalayas, and sets out to rescue him, despite all the odds of his survival. The play was fantastic, with Haddock and Tintin acted out amazingly, as well as a couple of the other characters. Snowy, Tintin's companion, was played by an actor and a small dog, and proved to be very funny. Here's the official site for the play.

And, I've been here for an entire week already. Went by fairly quickly, and I've really been enjoying my time here.

London Roads

I've been doing quite a bit of walking while I've not had any classes for a little while. I did a bit of a loop yesterday near the FSU for a little while, just walking down some back streets and off the main roads. I did the same thing earlier today while I was looking for a theatre, the Barbican, which is showing a stage version of Tintin. I ended up walking for a couple hours, down a couple of main roads and loosing my bearings before finding the place by mistake. There were some very cool roads that I went down. I was able to secure a ticket for tomorrow night's performance, and took the tube back to my flat, where I got lunch and rested for a little while.

We were supposed to go to a talk last night on Globalization, but when we got there, we found that it had already filled, with a bit of a line for people to get in, so we ended up walking around Fleet Street, looking for a Pub that Fran suggested. After about a forty-five minute walk and a lot of backtracking, we found it, and got something to eat and drink. I wasn't too fond of the beer that I got, but I suppose that it's an aquired taste.

In other news, SciFi related, The new Doctor Who series is coming to the US! The SciFi channel picked up the first season, and will begin to air the episodes in March as part of their SciFi Friday. Here's the article:

SCI FI To Air New Doctor Who
SCI FI Channel announced Jan. 12 that it will air the first season of the BBC's hit SF series Doctor Who, starting in March. The 13 episodes, starring Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler, will air as part of SCI FI Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
The series, from head writer and executive producer Russell T. Davies, ran originally in the United Kingdom last year and was one of the network's biggest hits ever. An update of the classic Doctor Who show, the series continues in the U.K. with an upcoming second season that will star David Tennant as the Doctor.
"The Doctor's made all sorts of journeys in time and space, but this is one of his most exciting yet!" Davies said in a statement. "I'm a huge fan of the SCI FI Channel, and I'm delighted that Doctor Who is appearing on a channel that supports and enhances the entire genre."
"With its rich history of imaginative storytelling, Doctor Who is a true sci-fi classic," Thomas P. Vitale, SCI FI's senior vice president, programming and original movies, said in a separate statement. "We're excited to add the show to our lineup."
Meanwhile, BBC Video announced that it has moved the proposed U.S. release date of the Doctor Who first-season DVD set to July 4 from its originally planned February launch.