Road Trip USA

Ever tried to drive for thirteen constant hours only stopping for gas and to obey your body?
I did.
Ever drive for another ten hours just after you've driven for thirteen hours only to stop for gas and your mind's well being?
Yeah, I did.

Virigina to Texas is a fun drive,
if you like straight roads, bible signs,
Arkansas,
& a car that doesn't know the concept of suspension.

Did I mention I don't have cruise control?

Bang Bang Bang, Reload, Bang

I hate guns,

or least the civilians that carry guns.

I know this has been said a million times by more than enough people,

but I'm sorry, this country has a misplaced faith in firearms.

Faith in firearms is a ridiculous notion.

You trust a weapon, a weapon that fires a projectile faster than your mind can track it.

You trust weapon that can kill your entire family before you need to replace a cartridge.

You trust a weapon to guard yourself because you let other people carry the same weapon.

You actually trust a weapon.

Have some responsibility and grow up.

There is no real threat, most people killed by firearms are killed by someone they know and usually that's an accident.
There are few or no illusive bad guys, its all in your mind.

This week, in the town that I live in, a man was held at gunpoint and mugged, luckily he was not hurt. Gun crime happens everywhere, that is unavoidable, but it happens far less in places were the average man does not own a gun, the opportunity is not as easy to grab.

You live in relatively safe country, you don't believe that, go to 80% of the rest of the world.

Think of your family, your friends and put the bloody guns down, if you continue to stand up with an outdated irrelevant right to bear arms, then you clearly don't go out into the wider world enough and see that most people now function perfectly fine without the use of a firearm.

As far as I'm concerned, there are only a few reasons for owning a firearm.

1) You want to practice shooting targets because you hate your life and the people around you.

2) You have a small cock.

3) Your weekends are boring enough to require the shooting of beer cans and unsuspecting wildlife.

If you like firearms and you have a problem with this, then good, that is your opinion and this is mine, If you want to challenge my opinion please do.

Thank you for reading my weekly Venting.

Texas State Fair

It was a bizarre Saturday,

7am that morning I had schooled both of my younger brothers in how to run a 5K,

that was the highlight of the day.

Four hours later, under the heat of the Texan Sun I made my first visit to a State Fair.

I wasn't expecting to be amazed, but I was not expecting to be appalled by the lack of Texas things in the Fair. It was just corporate meets the fairground.

It didn't help that it was 95 degrees in the shade so you couldn't stand around for too long in the heat to admire the crap. I tried my best to give it a chance, but it became painfully obvious that the fair was not a good move as soon as my family started to get annoyed with the place. We left after a few short dissapointing hours.

They didn't even have a t shirt in my size.

The Texas Book Depository

September 23rd.

I landed in Dallas after a six hour domestic leap-frog from Virginia.

It was 11:32am Dallas time, and we pulled straight into the Parking Lot beside Dealey Plaza.

I've watched the Oliver Stone movie JFK about 400 times, it's not a fantastic movie, mainly because it has Kevin Costner as the main role, but I usually have it on in the background when I'm doing something else.

The movie has several different scenes of Dealey Plaza, which has not been changed since the 60s.

So stepping out of the car really played with my brain, as I had seen every angle of the plaza from the movie without ever visiting Texas before.

The Texas Book Depository, which is now a museum, sits on the corner of the plaza. The museum is called the 6th floor museum, where you catch an elevator directly up to that floor and are given an audio tour of the building walking you though the political and personal life of JFK, the events of the fateful day in Dallas and the consequences and reactions of JFK's death.

I was a moving story and you see people, even people that were clearly born after 1963, crying and mournfully approaching the exhibit.

If you visit the exhibit and the square, it makes you realize that it was probably that the shots came from the Depository, but whether on purpose or not, it also questions what else happend.

Read to Children

Children are great, There aren't many more satisfying ways to start your week, than to go to a local school and read to a bunch of kids.

Our Assignment was to read to children, but I had accidently ended up volunteering to teach, or at least attempt to teach a group of kids how to use homophones.

It was the most terrifying 28 minutes of my life. I have to do presentations all the time at school in front of several classes, but nothing has scared me more than 

The only thing is I didn't know what a homophone was. I crashed out of English class when I was sixteen and I have not looked back since that day, so to get to terms with a bunch of terms that I had not heard since Elementary school was fairly tough.

So I winged it, figured it out before they knew I was stumbling and having no idea what to talk to them out.

Children are so much more aware than adults, anything at all that interests them will be pointed out to you immediately. They have far less restraints than adults and tend to ask far more questions than you do. They are still young and everything is new to them, so to stop the curiosity of a child will seriously damage their development later on in life.

That morning I learnt how nervous and shifted I can be when I am not only asked to present something, but actually pushed to leave an impression and attempt to have someone learn from me.

Bring out the Safety Car

A 1/3 mile oval of asphalt.

More cars than the downtown expressway at 8:46am

The Foundation of Nascar

This is Short Track Racing at Southside Speedway, Richmond, VA

I have breathed in more carsogens to last me the next twenty years

I could potentially drunk enough beer to take out a field of yeast.

My ears were assaulted to hell.

At least me teeth didn't rattle out everytime the car rolled by.

we are going back again, If you didn't go, you should come, at least if it's just for 15 minutes of repetitive crashes

Shakespeare Fast Forward

This week in Virginia,

I journeyed for the first time to Charlottesville to see a play which basically condensed everything written by Shakespeare into about an hour and a half of performance.

This means there's a lot of improv.

This means there's a 40 second version of Macbeth

and a lot of ridicule of traditional theatre. Good.

The basic format of the play was written a few years ago, and I remember it being a bit hit.

Since then it has reproduced and performed all over the place.

The production I saw was staged by a drama/acting college in Charlottesville by students.

The cast consists of just 3 actors and minimal props. The stage is really just a backdrop, one armchair was used briefly.

If you ever hear of this being done anywhere near you, just go, it'll be worth it.

Return to the Promised Land

The return to Richmond was supposed to be an anti-climax, a return to the normal.

It felt more like a time warp had erupted on the side of my brain.

I drove down from D.C. on a Tuesday morning, after 3 months of being out of the country I was happy to discover that the I-95 was still riddled with roadworks and bad drivers.

I was also relieved to see that my car worked after baking on a friend's drive all summer.

Interstates are the same wherever you go, they are a stretch of slightly bent and cracked highway rhythmically thumping away under the tires. You hit a gas station followed by a bridge over a valley with no decent view and the occasional phantom traffic jam, followed by a gas station.

Richmond became familiar just before I hit it. There is a junction for another highway just outside the city that I know very well. It is just another junction like the other 20 that I passed through Spotsylvania (I love that name) & Fredicksburg. Except I know every bend. My Brain got very confused by suddenly transitioning from 100 miles of dull highway to dull highway that was as familiar as the road I grew up on.

I went into autopilot and descended on the city that has only been changed by the roasting southern sun. Nothing was different.

Within 60 seconds of getting out of the car, someone from school drove by waving.

Gas prices

So people have spent most of this summer worrying about the rising price of a barrel of oil.

Seeing as it has dropped for the first time in short-term memory let us reflect upon it.

I find myself staring at the gas prices all the time, it seems to be the only drama allowed for my brain on the commute to work or school.

In the U.S. you pay close attention to gas prices, they have a certain foothold on your life. You find that is one those things that you look out for on your regular drive to work, your regular drive to 7/11 and your epic statewide journey to the mall. We rely on the car so much that these gas prices cause us to go on a hunt for the cheapest gas station, even it's only a cent less and involved a 3 mile detour, thankfully this means when I fill up my 16 gallon tank, it will save me 16 cents, just ignore the 3 mile detour.

In the U.K however it's a different story, first it's called petrol. Gas makes the oven work.

The price of petrol is currently around 1.16 pounds, but it's priced per litre, we like metric in europe.

There are 3.78 liters to the gallon and it's 2 dollars to the british pound at the moment, done the math yet?

That means the brits pay $8.78 per gallon

Think about that the next time gas crashes over $4 a gallon, or you visit California and cry at the west coast cost of gas.

(unless you already live there)

But the UK is not SUV land, we drive cars with 1.0 liter engines, most of my friends drive cars that have yet to exist in the U.S because of their size and that's if they drive at all. We have a tiny island to roam around on, so most people do not travel the distances that are possible in the U.S.

Most people who have a brain catch a bus, ride a train or even sometimes a plane.

Some people even ride a bike.

I didn't get a driver's license until I moved to Virginia, I was 22.

If I had not left London, I still wouldn't be behind the wheel of a car

The guy that asked for some Blog love

There's this guy I know back home on that small rain-infested island I come from.

His name was Ches**r. (His identity has been safely protected for purposes of future blackmail).

Ches**r is a lovely guy, when I first met him I thought he was an arrogant little whatsit, but most people look like that to me when I first meet them. He was tall, handsome and annoying. He was one of those kids that always has good skin, a smile that knocks people over, rides motorbikes and an abundance of happiness all round. I still thought he was a little shit. 

As time passed I got used to him, and eventually began to like him. It has been a long-standing trait of mine that the people that I befriend the closest start off as the opposite, so just watch out if I'm friendly to you from the start.

C**ster was the perfect example of this, however I strangely became a close friend of his when I found out he had a 70-acre farm with a swimming pool in Southern England.

Honestly though, it is rare that you meet such decent people.

it is worth noting that he surrounds himself with an equally decent group of people, except that dipshit Alex.

So on that note, here is your Long awaited Blog Love Che**er.

See you in a Month.

You'd better be counting down the days.

James

10 year plan

We were introduced to a concept of planning as much as 10 years ahead into you career, so I did mine.

2 weeks: Research Biological Warfare

3 months: Start underground genetically modified monkey army

6 months: "Accidently" release RAVEN virus.

1 year: Finish doomsday device

3 years: Wipe out North America

5 years: Initiate global coup d'etat and form new Totalitarian Empire.

10 years: Chief Creative Head Honcho of 3 planets.

Nowhere to Hide

We go to a small school,

a small school in a small city.

In this city there are no places to go where I don't bump into one of you.

Even when I don't, I'm certain you are all bumping into each other. 

If we are not losing hair at school, we are loitering in the aisles of Kroger

or Decompressing in the free-internet haven of a coffee store.

Richmond doesn't offer anywhere to hide from your fellow student,

not that this is a particularly bad thing. 

I come from a city where anonymity comes with the territory,

where you never see the same person twice on the subway ride to work,

and where you could befriend no one for more than a few minutes a year.

In Richmond, we are constantly bumping into each other at every bar, every resturant and every other city street.

I guess I have to try harder to find somewhere other than my own bedroom to hide.

Does Anything make me angry?

I have a small amount of anger, most of it gets directed at myself.

Angry that I'm not working enough

Angry at the work I'm doing is just garbage

or just Angry at the fact that I get angry at myself.

But I don't really get angry at anything specific.

I get annoyed at the traffic on Broad Street, the construction workers that stand around just to watch the traffic.

I get annoyed with my brothers, like everyone.

But what really makes me angry?

I was talking over waiting in a line with Jackvony, Husayn & Merkley, we got going on this subject, we blurted out the obvious of Religion, War and Social Security. Healthcare was a strong argument to get angry about. It staggers me that the country with the largest military spending on the planet does not look after the health of it's own countrymen?

Anyway that still doesn't make me angry

I'm relatively passive, I don't get in fights with people, always avoided the Rugby team aftermath at school and I always didn't get involved in physical showdown.

Never hit a man with glasses.

I'd probably break mine I were to hit someone with them.

Anger has to come from the soul, it has to make your blood boil, physically, you've got to change. Like hate, it is at the extreme of emotions, so whatever you say gets you angry, then it has to be at the peak of what you consider to be the worst of what people can do in relation to your own standards.

Enough nonsensical ramblings.

I'll update when I get properly angry at something

Ahoy Captain

Meanwhile, In Captain Buzzy's, I desperately try to hide from the Brandslamcenter and the insnaring internship pressure can.

There is no trendy music

There are just Church Hill people with their Church Hill clothes and their Church Hill looks and their Church Hill coffee and their Church Hill clothes and their Church Hill laptops.

I'm drinking the same coffee and prancing about on my laptop, my god I'm one of them.

Maybe like me none of them are from Church Hill, really they live miles away, they come here just to feel important or pretend to add a small amount of sophistication to their lives. It's possible they came just for the free internet.

They hide here all day whilst their husbands or wives  launch statewide manhunts just because they don't want to go to the mall. It's possible that their partners believe they have a job.

Whereas in reality, they are spending day after day, hour after hour trying to figure out how on god's green earth they ended up in a town like Richmond.

This place has a lot of green to it. Green is supposed to make you hungry. Alternatively this is really a starbucks in disguise.

Time to leave this utopian columbian roast sanctuary and retreat to a library with dusty books and an illiterate arthritic librarian.

There is always caffeine, more caffeine

I get the BBC radio on my laptop now, so get lost CNN!

STARBUCKS

Maybe they play the same music at all the Starbucks to make you all drink the same coffee.

Maybe they make you drink the same drink whilst you listen to the same music so that you can all think the same way and eventually brainwash you into a secret caffeinated army that will take over the nearest salad bar.

Maybe they just want you to have a "unique" drinking experience whilst everyone else around you is having the same thing.

The caffeine makes me shake and i just come back for more.

I don't care, I'm stealing internet from Baker's crust whilst watching the fashionable monkeys of carytown go about their Sunday afternoon without a care in the world.