First power casualty

So i finally hooked my xbox up tonight. Kevin and I started playing nba live and all of the sudden the xbox went dead. The converter had a choice between 50watts and 1600 watts. It was on 50, i decided that the xbox had just tried to run above the 50 watts, got annoyed and shut off. So I flipped it to 1600 watts. Bad idea. Turned it on and BANG, big pop, loud explosion and that lovely, "You have blown something up" smell. Ahh well. First casualty. I knew it was coming and I will probably have more coming as well...

Since I am here, I might as well tell you about my day. B)

Woke up this morn and went to meet Mathew at mushroom street, no wait... Portobello Road. After some detours (tube didn't go all the way there b/c of maintenance) I met Matt and Rachel at Notting Hill Gate. It was a beautiful day at and the place was packed. Not sure if it is this packed all the time but there was a see of people there today. It is a market like london loves so much. Think a NYC street fair but in 2 lanes instead of 5. It mainly started w/ Antiques but has grown from there. All the way (down?) to fake pearls and knock off perfume. Had a nice time wandering around and being amazed that people would still try to drive through the area despite everybody walking down the middle of the road. Add to that, I saw big garbage trucks come down the road no less than twice. I guess they just produce that much garbage but we had to all squeeze against the juice stand not to get run over as it rumbled by the first time at .5 miles/hour. Doesn't seem like a good idea but i suppose they have their reasons.

After that, i headed back to the apartment for a recharge (literally, my bb was dead and I was expecting calls).

Next Kevin and I headed out to Camden. After some more tube detours, we arrived at London's answer to St. Mark Place. (Look honey, punks) Wandered around another market, this one w/ much more random african food.

Either of those places would be acceptable to live in. Still looking.

After Camden, we headed over to Brick Lane for dinner. This would be the most convenient place to live, it is walking distance to work. After this visit, though I am not so sure about it. Or at least I want to live closer to Shoreditch than brick lane. (Knowledge of which neighborhood is which has been hard fought and I am still in the dark about much of it.) We took the wrong exit and ended up taking the long way there. It is amazing that parts of this city can be so completely vacant at 6 on a saturday. Memories of Vanilla Sky or 28 days later kept running through my mind. Also amazing is how quickly the city transitions from absolutely dead to a hot spot of life. Remember my feelings on Seattle, islands of culture surrounded by the dark see of suburbia? London (especially the City of London) seems to be oases of culture surrounded by deserted tundra of empty city.

Anyway, We had a decent indian meal and came back to watch the football, err... soccer.... whatever. Italy vs the US. Totally expected the US to suck like they did in their first match. Especially against Italy who was a heavy favorite. I did bet 2 quid that Italy wouldn't score for the first 20 mins (i win). I only caught the first half before i got on the phone but it was a pretty good half. Final tally was a tie after Italy scored 2 goals, one in our goal and one in their goal. 1 red card for italy and 2 for US. But it was a tie and nobody expected that. I can't believe I just wrote a paragraph about soccer. I must be being indoctrinated.

Ahh well... hi to all. I have changed the comments to not require a login but I am still moderating. Your comments should be up w/i a day of posting them. And please post them, I love getting comments.

Cheers!