June 23, 2003

I'm in Oakland!

I'm dead broke, but I'm glad I finally went on this trip. It was two years late, having chickened out back in 2001 (and it had nothing to do with 9/11). But the more you travel, the less it seems such a insurmountable deal. Of course, I went to a place that spoke English and had ATMs everywhere...

One of my favorite places was the Design Museum where they had three exhibits, Peter Saville, the designer for Factory Records (producer of New Order and Joy Division), Jonathan Ive (VP of Apple's industrial design), and an exhibit of old video game machines (from Pong to PlayStation2).

Oh, and I had to take a look at the Millenium Dome, just to see the travesty. It was sad walking through the modernized Tube stop designed for a large crowd. The station was completely empty, and the Dome blocked off. From the station, it looked like a giant erector set, less a dome than a giant metal tarp stretched across some porcupine beams.

Oh, and London has a whole lot of hotties across all ethnic lines. Did England realize they needed to improve their gene pool and encourage certain people to immigrate?

Anyway, back to life at the States.