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Now Playing: Ministry - Rio Grande Blood
Topic: Stephen Says
Elisabeth's in Sweden for the weekend, I'm wallowing in crapulance (Not really - it's sad how little my life alters when she's not around) and so I leave you with the best band to come out of Sweden since Abba (According to me):

Barclays visa folly's pt.2
Topic: Stephen Says
Some of you may remember the stupidity I had to face last week when I tried to pay my Visa and was denied this pleasure because I lacked the appropriate identification...

So today:

I went to Barclays to pay off the 480 pounds on my Visa, passport in hand, lined up, waited in line and...

The person in front of me went up to pay his Visa and I overheard him talking to the casheer how he'd brought in extra ID for it because of problems he's had in the past trying to pay it off. He said something like "This really is a silly thing to have to do, you know."

And she said "I know it makes no sense. We try not to follow it because it's so silly. But it's up to each tellers perogative."

I paid my Visa and didn't have to show my passport.

The moral: Some bank tellers are real big assholes.

Well, we're back from Wales
Topic: Stephen Says
And it was an interesting little raod trip. 700+ miles in 3 days is the kind on thing that Elisabeth's probably not going to do again. Seeing as she's got the day off and may or may not blog about it, here's our playlist from the trip:

-The Pipettes - We Are The Pipettes
-New Prrnographers - Mass Romantic
-White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan (1/2)
-Endtroducing DJ Shadow (Some)
-Tainted Love (song)
-Rough Trade Indypop vol. 1 disk 2
-Beirut - Gulag Orkesta & The Lon Gisland EP
-Jolie Holland - Springtime can Kill You
-Chemical Brothers - Come With Us
-Cat Power - Moon Pix
-Of Montreal - The Sunlandic Twins
-Lily Allen - Alright, Still
-Rough Trade Indypop vol. 1 disk 1
-Tim Westberg's December Wintry Mix
-Rough Trade Indypop vol. 1 disk 2 (again)
-Anumal Collective - Sung Tongs
-Neko Case - Blacklisted
-Tricky - Blowback
-Fabric 17: Akufen
-and BBC1 all the way home.

We're off to Wales
Now Playing: Animal Collective - Feels
Topic: Stephen Says
If y'all are missing us, please check out Louis Theroux's Most Hated Family in America. It makes religious bigots look like religious bigots x 1,000,000 in a sad and angry and fascinating way. You can see it on YouTube if you care enough and save your rants for this space. It's awful enough that I'm not going to both posting a link because... is it really worth it?

Toodleoo!

I don't know if anyone other than myself actually cares about things like these but...
Topic: Stephen Says
I read an interesting article about anti-intellectualism in Hollywood entertainment.

And the coolest thing of all? The good folks at Chud are making a movie about my mostest favoritest video game ever!

Paying off your credit card in England
Now Playing: Of Montreal - Hissing fauna are you the destroyer?
Topic: Stephen Says
The Background: I intend to pay off the 480 pounds on my credit card at Barclays. After standing in line (And jostled by a bizarre German lady) for 5 minutes, I approach the teller:

Me: I'd like to pay off my Visa.
She: No you have any picture ID?
Me: No.
She: None at all?
Me: No. I don't have a drivers license.
She: Do you at least know your PIN number?
Me: Of course.
She: Then I recommend you withdraw the money from your account from a machine, queue up again and pay it off that way.
Me: (Confused look)
She: Without any picture ID I can't let you transfer that much money onto your credit card.
Me: Well how much can I tansfer?
She: Three hundred pounds.
Me: What's stopping me from getting back in line and then just paying off the rest?
She: I'm sorry sir but you can't do that.

And then I stormed off in a huff.
Only 2 more months of putting up with this kind of bullshit.

I also put in my resignation yesterday, which is singularly depressing.

Just a quickie...
Now Playing: Isis - Oceanic
Topic: Stephen Says
Just want to say what a lovely day E&I had with Stephen & Laura on their whirlwhind tour of Europe. We got down to Robertsbridge (The maternal home of the Westberg brood) and grabbed a quick pint, trekked through the backwoods of Sussex to Bodium Castle and then down to Rye for a chilly walk along the 'coast,' swanky meal and then back to Woking where they've now left us for Sweden.

It was great seeing Ye Olde England yesterday. Certainly creates a dichotomy between it and Woking; one of whose high streets is currently shut down by police cruisers because there's human blood all over the place.

(And I, being the brainiac that I am, walked through it and got shouted at.)

Blah
Topic: Stephen Says
Argh!

I really should have been following the elections in Quebec and now it's too damn late. My God, people are stupid.

BlahBlah
Now Playing: Isis - Oceanic
Topic: Stephen Says
As any long-time reader of this blog would know, our time in England hasn't all been shits and giggles. However, in the grand scheme of things, I don't regret anything that's happened, since we've always managed to recover and come out all the better for it.

Yesterday though, marks my biggest missed opportunity so far and I fear I'll live to regret it.

Woking, being the most environmentally friendly town in England is hosting a special re-release of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth in the cinema. It's being preceded by another envirnomentally-minded short film spearheaded by none other than old Big Ears himself, Bonny Prince Charlie, who was in town yesterday to open the event.

As it turns out, the manager at work got an invitation to attend this gala event but wasn't interested at first and then lost the invitation (That I was intending to steal or photocopy or whatever to try and get in.) In any case, I was lazy and didn't get around to thinking about it until one of our service users called us to say that she'd just met the Man Who Would be King, shook his hand and he made the astounding observation to her(As she emerged from the mall): "Been doing a little shopping?"

*Sigh* That could have been me. What will probably be my only opportunity to meet royalty was squandered because I chose to got to work and play boules in the basement hallway.

Idle
Topic: Stephen Says
Elisabeth says she doesn't have time to blog any more. They're also predicting snow tomorrow. So I'm off to London to do things, namely meet up with a long lost friend as I'm trying to be less of an anti-social hermit these days but I'm going to try and buy some music that you can't buy in Woking (e.g., anything that doesn't feature Lily Allen) and ride the slides at the Tate Modern.

Red Nose Day was yesterday - one of the really, really good ideas that England has that deserves to make it overseas. Think: The Jerry Lewis Telethon except not dull,boring only on TV and generally crap. Rather, you gather your friends/ workforce, stick on a red nose and do stupid things so that people give you money. It satisfies all my baser insticts with a dash of good cause thrown in. Basically, a lemonade stand was set up outside work and we harassed passers by to buy our lemonade (Sprite with a bunch of lemons thrown in) for 10p a pop. We made over 80 pounds.

Enough of me, now. I've got to convince Elisabeth that it's time to watch Sopranos.