galleries
delicatessen
die erste strasse LINKS
i've just got a few quick random bits and bobs to tell you about today:
bruce
i've added bruce's brand spanking (and quite snazzy) new website to the links page, or alternatively just go from here. "he's a good sheila bruce, and not at all stuck up."
dmc motors
i never would have taken dave as a petrol head, but the new photo i added here would suggest otherwise.
movies
this week i got to see an advance screening of the last samurai with the japan society, which was very good. i also saw 28 days later, which was very bad.
thanksgiving
i'm looking forward to a much needed break this week. i'm off to see krystal in minnesota tomorrow for a few days. last week we had thanksgiving dinner in the cafeteria so i got to try pumpkin pie for the first time, which was pretty good. i'm yet to figure out what exactly thanksgiving is all about though. is it just a white supremacy thing? a celebration of the uprooting of native americans from their land? hey if it buys me a few days off it's good enough for me! if i find out for sure i'll let you know.
rugby
i say it through gritted teeth, but i guess congratulations are due to the england rugby team for bringing the world cup to the northern hemisphere for the first time... b*stards.
"love is in the air"
no, not for me stupid! you really think i'd tell you about that here? anyway, i'm not sure if it's my place to announce it to the world, but i feel it would be remiss of me not to congratulate clarkey and lissy on their recent engagement, and also karen and al on their recent wedding. so, congratulations!
joe is my hero
my good buddy joe was complaining that he didn't get a mention on my website, so here is his moment in the limelight. i'd like to delacre to the world how much i appreciate his friendship during this difficult transitional time in my life, not to mention the outlandish american generosity he extended to me by shouting me a movie a few weeks ago. to show my sincere gratitude i'm even providing a platform for him to launch a literary career from by posting two papers he wrote in the deli section. (i hope he sees the funny side of all this ;-)
michigan
ok, so true to form i was "on the road again" this weekend. this time i went to visit abbey in hudsonville, michigan, near grand rapids. it was great to see her and meet her family, who were a lot of fun and very welcoming. it was also quite surreal to see her outside of northern ireland, but i'm becoming accustomed to such surreal happenings. as an unexpected bonus i also got to see lauren who i also met on summerserve 99, but haven't really kept in touch with. i also saw yet another new side to this huge country, which rather reminded me of ontario actually. of course there was lake michigan, but there were also some cute little towns like grand haven and holland (yes holland, and yes, apparently there are lots of dutch people there.) i put some pictures up here.
on a slightly tangential aside, if you'll indulge me in this anecdote, the inevitable finally happened. by this, of course, i mean that i was forced to stop, once each way, at burger king for sustenance. (i've still managed to avoid mcdonald's though, thankfully.) anyway, the last time i had been in burger king was in new york in march 2002, so this was no small occurrence. so, unless my accent is thoroughly indecipherable, the fact that they got my order wrong on both occasions seems reason enough to continue my intermittent boycott. power to the people, and all that.
dates
i just realised that some of my recent updates were dated 'october' instead of 'november'. apologies for any confusion. i have now rectified the situation.
the fenians are coming
no i haven't suddenly gone all bigotted on you; i'm referring to a "celtic rock" band called "the fenians" who are reportedly coming to play in cleveland sometime soon. i saw a poster advertising it today in the student centre and chuckled heartily to myself. somehow it didn't surprise me to hear they were from orange county, california.
columbus, OH
this weekend saw the mid-west bei seminar at otterbein college in westerville, a suburb of columbus, the state capital of ohio. it was great to meet up with a bunch of people from home and make new contacts with people in the same general area of the states. we all had to make presentations, but they all seemed to go very well and then after that we could concentrate on the craic. we went to a place called schmidt's restaurant in the german village on saturday night followed by a rather memorable night on the town. (well, i suppose some people may have more vague memories than others ;-) we started out at the claddagh (irish) pub, where the guinness was flowing and the craic was ninety. we all broke into traditional irish songs a few times... er, just like a typical night out at home. ah yes, nothing like giving the yanks what they want! there are some photos here, and also some others which belong to tony novosel here.
this is also likely to be raymond mcauley's last bei tour (bei programme manager) as he has been promoted, so many thanks are due to him and i wish him all the best with the new job. i know all the past and present bei-ers would share those sentiments.
cedar point clips
i managed to get those video clips from cedar point up, thanks to the ubiquitous technical assistance of twoshoes.
extreme engineering
last night, shortly after deciding i was getting tired and really needed to go to bed, i started watching a programme on the discovery channel about the possibility of building a trans-atlantic tunnel (!), and, being a sad engineer, decided to forgo the opportunity to catch up on some much needed sleep. it truly was fascinating though. apparently it would be constructed not below the ocean bed, due to the enormous depth, but suspended much closer to the surface. well suspended is probably the wrong word, as it would be bouyant and thus held down by a bunch of cables. so i was thinking at this stage, "what is the point, it is still gonna be much slower than flying?" not so. apparently it is theoretically possible to develop a train that would travel at 5,000 (five thousand) mph. now let's put this in perspective; the fastest trains in the world currently travel at a bit over 200 mph in japan. space shuttles do in the region of 7,000 mph. that's just plain ridiculous! apparently friction would be entirely eliminated by the use of fancy electromagnetic technology which would mean there is no physical contact between the train and track. furthermore, the tunnel would be a vacuum in order to eliminate air resistance. the journey from london to new york would take less than one hour, and that's allowing for relatively slow acceleration and deceleration to minimise g-forces!
...and all this for just a few tens of trillions of your dollars. i can't help thinking that if it ever happened it would be a horrendous waste of money, what with so many people in dire poverty and such, but the engineer (and the little boy) in me still thinks, "yeah, but wouldn't it be so cool?!"
new york city and the strokes!
ok, so as we discussed earlier, the srokes saw fit not to come to cleveland. well damnit then we just had to go to new york to see them! we (annette, grainne, michael and i) left early thursday morning in the minivan, now tentatively called bertie, on the 450-odd mile journey. dirving conditions were perfect, and there were some great views along the way of trees and rivers and stuff. the directions we printed from mapquest were quite amusing. they could be summarised thus: "get on the I-80, drive 400 miles, then get off again." and so we did. the long journeys really don't seem that bad, as with only four people in the van there is room for everyone to lie down and sleep quite comfortably (not recommended for the driver) and the highways are great; no getting stuck behind tractors here! once we got close to new york the traffic did start to get pretty bad, so i was glad we had decided to park at newark airport in new jersey. we took a cab from there to manhattan (traffic was insane, but i guess it was rush hour), where i rocked up at chris walker's apartment in the upper west side, next to columbia university where he is doing a phd in earth science. i stayed there and the others stayed at a hostel on w. 30th st.
so yeah, i'll get on with it. the strokes gig at the madison sq gdn theatre on thursday night was great, although they didn't do an encore. possibly because the singer appearred somewhat inebriated. perhaps this excuses some of his rock start posing and antics. support from kings of leon was also very good. aside from all that, the weirdest thing happened; i saw someone sitting a few rows in front of me who was the spitting image of rachael foster. turns out, it was rachael foster. i knew she was in the country on BEI, but had no clue whereabouts. un-freakin-believable!
next morning we took an open-top bus tour of downtown manhattan, which was very interesting and informative, not to mention dangerous for tall people, (there was real danger of hitting your head off a traffic light suspended just above you!) en route we stopped off to wander round wall street and the world trade centre site, which has changed a lot since i was there last march. almost unrecognisable. we also stopped to walk round central park a bit and some shops in the madison avenue area, thus ensuring i couldn't afford anything. the weather, by the way, was unbelievably good. yesterday i was walking around in a t-shirt and was still pretty warm!
so back to friday. that night we went to see part of the halloween parade at greenwich village. these yanks really take halloween seriously, but yet they don't celebrate with fireworks. weird. we were the only people not dressed up. later on i caught up with chris and went to a party in someone's flat til all hours. eventually got to bed at 6am and it was getting bright already.
unsurprisingly we didn't have too early a start yesterday, and were delayed further by the fact that the port authority bus station, along with the rest of new york, have removed all their lockers in response to september 11th. it's a long story so i'll not go into detail. suffice to say that, in my opinion, they might as well ban cars from new york. anyway, when we did get going we went up the empire state building which was really amazing. very different to the last time i went up, both because it was daylight this time (which made for better photos), and becasue it wasn't windy! after grabbing lunch we did some more window shopping and then headed to times square for a last look round and to pick up some souvenirs. the bus back to newark seemed very swift as, would you believe, did the drive home. of course i did sleep for the first five hours, then got up at 1am to a large coffee and took over driving for the remaining four hours. about 2:30am i noticed that there was something very serene, not to mention surreal, about driving back with very little traffic to the gentle strains of rem's new best of album. i slept til noon today and then got up feeling very fresh. errr... the end.
ps. as always, pics are here.
the world according to peet
if you're really bored you can read my philosophy midterm paper here. i didn't think it was that great, but thankfully my professor disagreed. i've put it in the deli section, largely because it was looking a bit lonely and forgotten about. any future documents related to my being in the states will be posted there too. there may be one in the next couple of weeks...
"it's the end of the world as we know it"
continuing the philosophy theme, according to my professor, the volcano at yellowstone national park is 25,000 years overdue for an eruption and such an occurrence would be likely to wipe out most of north america... maybe i'll stay home at Christmas! (his point, by the way, was to illustrate the fact that we cannot know with certainty that we will get up and have breakfast tomorrow, based on past experience, probable as it may be.)
hob nobs and tea
there is an irish shop right by campus. until now i have resisted the temptation to go in, but i went in today and bought bewley's tea and milk chocolate hob nobs.... and they are so good!
"last call, he was sick of it all"
i'm not too sure what to say about elliott smith's passing, except that i should say something. i was very shocked and saddened when i heard. you can go here if you want to know more. incase any of you listened to friday's tribute show on across the line, the person who emailed in from cleveland was not me, just a kinda freaky coincidence. i'm very sorry i never got to see elliott play live, but i guess that is farily insignificant.
"see the early signs of daylight fading"
you know how when the clocks go back someone always truns up for church an hour early and we all have a good laugh? well you can all have a good laugh at me.
kill bill
i was a bit slow off the mark getting to see the new tarantino flick. if it interests you you've probably already seen it, so i'll not try to write a review. i'm sure twoshoes will do that, and make a much better job of it. suffice to say that i thought it was a masterful peice of film-making, but not for the faint-hearted. it made reservoir dogs look like wind in the willows. did you notice that the cereal box near the start said "kaboom" on the side of it? classic tarantino.
toronto photos...
...are here.
canada rules!
700-and-some miles later, i've been to toronto... and it was the best weekend! on thursday afternoon myself and a few others set out in the van and made good progress as far as the border, near niagara falls. canadian customs didn't take long, and in fact, one of the officers jumped in his car and drove after us because he thought we were lost! so first impressions: very good. driving seemed a bit more hectic in canada, especially as toronto seemed to go on for about 50 miles and i can't imagine where all those people were going! it just seemed ridiculously big and busy for a city of 2.5 million-ish. anyway, we got through the other side eventually, dropped my friend ife off at his house in newmarket, ate some great food his mother had prepared (and was determined to have eaten, under pain of ife's life) and then completed the last leg of the journey to my friend eryn and her husband rich's house in thornton, near barrie. they were both absolute stars by the way, for putting us up and being so hospitable. see what good friends you meet on summerserve?
so anyway, on friday we went into toronto and did the tourist stuff- cn tower, royal ontario museum and toured a little brewery called the steam whistle, which was most informative. these candians know how to brew- don't think labatt and molson is what they are all about. (or should that be aboot?) eryn named her cat after a beer- clancy's- which i thought was very cool. gave me the idea of calling a future pet 'arthur'. toronto was definitely a lot different to any american cities i've been to. the british/european influence was very evident, and the streets were spotless.
friday night we ate at eryn's mum's, which was a lot of fun. deer and moose were on the menu! i didn't try the moose but the deer was tasty. on saturday we got to meet some cousins of said deer at a wildlife park, the name of which escapes me now. we also saw a black bear and a couple of wolves, one of which was not in captivity and seemed rather more interested in us than i cared for! needless to say we scarpered before i could get a decent photo. next stop was the scenic caves at collingwood. apparently there is a great view from there, but it was misty. still, that's not to say we didn't see some beautiful autumnal scenes. in close proximity to the caves was ontario's longest suspension bridge, a thoroughly useless footbridge leading nowhere, which of course fascinated me nontheless. it did sway rather a lot though. much more, i suspect, than london's infamous millenium bridge.
on saturday night we went out for a few more quality beers in barrie, to a place called the beefeater. (sp?) i resisted the strong temptation to order smithwick's.
all too soon we were leaving again to come home on sunday morning, but of course the fun wasn't over yet. we stopped to see niagara falls which was pretty breathtaking. i wasn't prepared for the commercialisation of the area though. you never see the hotels/gift shops/casinos on the tv. inevitable i suppose. getting back across the border involved a 90 minute queue of traffic at US customs, which failed to amuse anyone. after negotiating this there was still one excitement left; shortly after crossing from pennsylvania back into ohio, we saw yet another deer- this time in the headlights! it seemed to be playing chicken with us, unhurriedly trotting off the highway with just enough time to spare! scared the crap out of me.
i'll put photos from all this up sometime when i don't have an exam the next day, but for now it's back to the books.
cedar point
on sunday i visited cedar point- an amusement park with the fastest, and i think two tallest, rollercoasters in the world. now i know what you're thinking- that doesn't sound like a very 'peet' thing to do.... and you'd be dead right! but it was a lot of fun. and i'm happy to admit that i totally wussed out of a couple of the rides. i've put a few photos up here, and i'm hoping to get a couple of video clips up too, to portray slightly (but not much) better the sheer size and speed of these things. but really you need to see them for real. a couple of them literally made me wretch just to look at!
football crazy, football mad
phone conversation yesterday:
me: hi, will you be showing the european soccer match between england and turkey tomorrow?
guy at toby's sports bar: yeah we've got lots of tvs so we can put it on for you. what channel is it on?
me: i'm not sure.
guy at toby's sports bar: well we got all the sports channels.
me: ok, thanks.
so i got up this morning and drove across town about 12 miles to toby's with my turkish friends.
face-to-face conversation today:
me: hi, can you put the soccer match between england and turkey on please?
barman: eh, i don't know if we can get that. what channel is it on?
me: sky sports.
barman: i'll have to check for you. (leaves, returns.) sorry we only have six sports channels.
me: we are not amused.
damn it damn it damn it!
it seems the gods (or at least the tour managers) are conspiring against me; first, eddie izzard is coming here to cleveland during fall break, when i plan to be in toronto. fair enough, i've known this for a long time. then a couple of weeks ago david bowie announced his north american tour dates and decided he would come to cleveland when i'm home for Christmas. i could swallow this much, but tonight i find out that the strokes are touring with kings of leon and not coming to cleveland at all. but wait, there's more, they are playing toronto a couple of days before i plan to get there, and then when i am in toronto, kings of leon are coming to cleveland for a headline show! un-frikkin-believable! the real question now is, am i crazy enough to go to boston for a weekend to catch the strokes there. the scary thing is, i think i might just be...
allow me to be serious for a minute
i know that generally the purpose of this site is to inform people about what i am getting up to and hopefully to entertain in the process, but there are issues which are too important to me to joke about, and one of them is the death penalty in the united states. last night i was at a seminar on the subject here on campus. i learned to my horror that the state of ohio still practices the death penalty, and there i was thinking i was in the enlightened north. before proceedings got underway the guy sitting next to me turned to me and asked if the death penalty was practiced in northern ireland. i found myself half-laughing as i said no, as if the very notion of that happeneing in western europe was sheer lunacy. which of course it is. and why should it be any less so in the US, the so-called land of the free? however, that is the place i instinctively think of any time the death penalty is mentioned.
there were two speakers of note at the seminar. one of them, a peurto rican ney yorker, had spent 18 years on death row in florida for a crime for which it was manifestly obvious that he was not responsible. the other was an ohioan whose pregnant mother had been murdered when he was young and whose father had been wrongly convicted of the crime. his father avoided death row but after being acquitted died in early middle-age. the film "the fugitive", about which i cannot comment as i haven't seen it, was based on this story. needless to say it was a sobering experience. if you want to find out more, visit the website of Ohioans to Stop Exectutions. It isn't the best website in the world, but nonetheless there are some startling facts and figures.
washington dc
i never knew that washington wasn't in one of the fifty states, but that district of columbia is it's own separate entity. but now i do. every day's a school day. anyway, i need to go to bed so i'm not gonna tell you all about it right now. just look at the pictures.
archive
i've added a new section to the site, but do you dare enter... THE ARCHIVE? (it's just old updates as this page was getting ridiculously long.)
sponsor me
don't forget you can still sponsor me, via paypal if you wish. for further details you will need to pluck up the courage to enter THE ARCHIVE... and go to last month's updates.
license
i passed my driving test yesterday, thereby increasing my success rate in driving tests around the world to 67%. most importantly, this means people won't give me funny looks when i give them my ID to purchase beverages of an alcoholic nature.
car photos
i got my computer today from information services, so i now have disk space for-to store my photos. consequentrly, i put some more up here, including a couple of the car. if anyone can think of a clever name for it (most likely greg) please let me know. personally i don't care, but the girls want to name it.