In case you're not a fellow resident of Colorado, let me explain the weather.

It doesn't mess about. Between mid-May and mid-November, it's hot 'n' sunny (90 degrees F and above June-September). It rains in September. Usually around 4pm, for about half an hour. The snowiest time of year is March and April, but this winter it's been pooping snow on us since early December.

Last night and tonight it snowed, but only left about an inch or two of the white stuff on both occasions. This, of course, would bring the whole of Britain to a standstill, but it goes almost unnoticed here. Bear in mind that the sun during the day usually melts most of it off the roads. This gives the council a lucky break as it means they can spend less money on snow ploughs, and (by the look of things) more money on sports stadiums (because three just isn't enough) and traffic wardens.

I'm starting to formulate the theory that they're genetically engineering increasingly more heartless and evil Parking Dept staff. It's a bit like Genesis of the Daleks (yes that is Phil Collins as Davros - hence the title), where Davros kept adjusting the DNA of his creatures, until they were totally evil, and despite pleas from The Doctor, refused to give them the ability to pity. If you've ever tried parking on the streets of downtown Denver, you'll see the connection straight away.

I have a lengthy (true) story of my encounters with the Parking Daleks of Denver, which should probably be billed as, "a gritty tale of horror, suspense, parking meters and extermination", however, I'll save it for another time.

Well, after my last rant, I had to take a couple of days off, as there was no way I could sustain that level of hatred.

So, yesterday was mediocre in the extreme. I suppose that one highlight was that I may have found my calling, career-wise. I think I need to be a technology evangelist and consultant. I say this, because throughout the day, I took three calls for help with technology. All involved an element of evangelising tech that I care about (in this case, PDAs and Macintoshes) and giving advice on the caller's need. I remained unbiased, and helped my callers consider other options.

In the case of a photographer who called to ask about Macintoshes, there's even talk of me doing a paid on-site visit to set up the system and software.

Just as I was down for a quiet evening of reading, and chilling out, a friend rang, and wanted to go out for a beer and dinner. In a completely self-less act, I eschewed an evening of reading and quiet contemplation, in order to help Mike get some beers in.

I took him to The Pub On Pearl, which is one of the closest bars to my house. It looks like your typical sports bar as you enter, but the televised sports is unobtrusive, the atmosphere is warm and friendly. One of the best features, is that they serve Guinness in (proper) 20oz pints. Not only that, but the price is very reasonable (for Guinness in CO).

As if bargain pints of Guinness wasn't a big enough attraction, they serve some of the best burgers in town. Real fresh-tasting, and with a thousand possible configurations. The waitresses are cute, and the barmen a decent bunch o' guys. Finally, their jukebox is outstanding. As if that wasn't enough, last night someone had left over 50 credits on the machine. This meant a whole evening of free songs. Mike and I were merciless, exposing the other patrons to quality rock, right upto and beyond our leaving.

Upon returning home, I had to call someone back about some technical advice they wanted. Then, I had to get my tea on, bigtime.

It was 10pm, so it was time to watch World's Wildest Police Videos. I'm sure you know the sort of show I'm talking about. Don't get me wrong, I still watch independent movies, Woody Allen films and Bogart, but after a few beers, you need something relatively low-brow to unwind with. WWPV is the second-lowest form of television. It does the job.

The whole tone of the show is not so much, "Aren't our policemen wonderful", but more, "The police are invincible. There is no escape. Don't even think of running from them. THEY ARE THE SUPERIOR BEINGS! YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINTATE! OBEY THE DALEKS!... err..." I think you get the idea.

Our host, is Sheriff John - who just like Hyacinth, insists on a less-obvious pronunciation of his surname. "Bu-nell" rather than the standard "Bunn-ul" (rhyming with funnel). This man has the scrariest teeth and haircut on television. The teeth are so white, so bleached, you can see his smile before any other part of him. They're almost glow-in-the-dark. The hair is a lovely uniformly even grey, but boy is it bouffant! It adds about another two inches to his height. The overall effect is that he looks like a tele-vangelist with a badge and gun.

But it's the commentary he gives that is borderline irritating/laughable. According to our coiffured wonder, everything is, "A policeman's worse nightmare." and the police are often, "Left with no choice but to SHUT HIM DOWN!". I've lost count of the number of times I've heard that the poor idiot that's being chased had, "reckoned without the boys from (insert hick town name here) PD."

So why watch it? Well, as my friend Tim said, whilst visiting me in the US, and watching WWPV, "It's dreadfull, but it's compelling." It's true. There are some very dramatic chases, crashes and confrontations.

I guess we're all just rubberneckers at heart.

I was going to make this article about "people who'll be first up against the wall, when I sweep into power", but I have to get this off my chest first.

This afternoon, I came into the lounge, to find Top of the Pops playing on BBC America. First off, it was being presented by that uber-himbo, Jamie Theakston. If ever there was someone on TV who needed a good beating, it was him. But even Lamie Weakston isn't the target of my wrath. In fact, after the guilty party had finished, his back-intro and link to the next act, was subtly disparraging of them.

The target of my venom, is (yet) a(nother) manufactured teen boy and girl band. They are (ironically) called Allstars. You know the sort of band. None of them can play an instrument, let alone write a song, yet I bet they still put "Musician" under the occupation category on their passports. Of course, that's assuming that they're not still on their parent's passport.

The first thing I couldn't believe was their choice of song. It was a cover rather than an original. But that's not the scary/bizzare/annoying bit. They chose to cover... get this... Bucks Fizz's "Land of Make-Believe" ! Yes, your eyes weren't decieving you, it really was a Fucks Bizz cover.

I mean, it's bad enough that these bands are manufactured. It's even worse that none of them wouldn't know a treble clef if it came up to them and gave them the beating they so richly deserve. It's even worse still, that they do a cover song. But BUCKS FIZZ????

What the fuck is going on with British music? How low a common denomenator do the suits think we should go for?

But it gets worse. Oh yes. Not only are they doing this crappy little early eighties dribble, and all they do is sing in unison on it, but they were shit even at that. They sucked, even by boy-band standards. None of them had strong singing voices, and it took about seven of them to do this feeble performance. Safety in numbers perhaps, for when the crowd decides to lynch them? The really depressing thing, is that the crowd has been conditioned to like this sort of badly-performed shite, and I bet half of them didn't even know it was a cover, as none of the TOTP audience would have been born when the original came out in 1981.

They were so weak and amateurish, it was like watching some end-of-term talent show at a high school. In fact, if you'd seen the (unintentionally laughable) choreography, you'd have though it was the Special Ed class on stage, after a few too many glasses of Cocoa-Cola.

I know I don't always use swear words in this blog, and maybe some of wish I never used them, but these gimps absolutely fucking sucked donkey's ass.

I know I'm getting old, but I still like to think I'm reasonably in touch with the music scene - even way out here in the western United States. I understand the need for some boy bands, it gives teenagers something to watch. But this was so shit, I just couldn't believe anyone had given them a record contract.

I think the Top of the Pops producers had cottoned on to how weak the band's voices were, and had faded them down in the broadcast mix. Suffice to say, the backing track was a lot louder than the vocal track. However, I guess there's only so much you can do with technology to cover up bad singing.

So, I switch the TV on, and for whatever reason, it's on MTV. They're plugging the debut album Love is Here by British group Starsailor. They describe it as, "A bit like Jeff Buckley", and, "the nearest thing to OK Computer." I'd be lying if I said I wasn't intrigued.

An hour or two later, and Miles and I pop out for a quick walk (in addition to the two-hour one we had this morning, in six inches of snow at Chatfield). By an amazing coincidence, our walk takes us past Twist & Shout - Denver's premier independent record store - a mere three blocks from our house.

Towerrecords.com has it at a fantastically cheap $9.99, so I'm figuring that if Twist and Shout have it for no more than $3 more, it'll be cheaper (as well as quicker) than getting it from Tower, if you factor in shipping costs. Also, I like to support my local independent store, so in fact I'd have probably put up with them charging $4 more.

However, we get to Twist & Shout, and what do we find? They're selling it for $8.99! Not bad.

Miles then lead me to the back of the store, where he knows they have a bank of CD players and headphones for pre-purchase listening. I was just going to buy it on spec, but he seemed to think it'd be best to give it a listen. So I had a good listen, and Miles had a good bit of fuss made of him by both myself and the staff there.

As for the record? It's first class stuff. Imagine Nick Drake meets Coldplay, with a touch of Radiohead's OK Computer. I'm told by a certain Irishwoman, that it does sound quite like Jeff Buckley too. It's a good mix of accoustic guitar, old 70's keyboards, and great vocals. I'd make it my Record of the Week, but it'll probably be the only one I buy this week, so there's little point. I suppose, grammatically speaking, if I'm not buying any others, then it is my record of the week.

Late last night, I watched They Live! on TNT. I don't think I've ever seen the whole movie before. In fact I think I've managed to see just the last 10 minutes of it, twice. But what a superb film it is!

Synopsis
Our hero, Nada - a living tribute to the art of badly highlighted mullet haircuts, and an unemployed construction worker - stumbles across dodgy dealings inside a church. After a raid on the church by some overly-violent cops, he goes back and discovers a stash of 'special' sunglasses. These glasses enable the wearer to see how things really are.

Nada is able to see the world as it really is: people being bombarded by media and government with messages like "Stay Asleep", "No Imagination", "Submit to Authority". If you've ever lived in Swindon (in the UK), or Highlands Ranch (in metro Denver, USA), then you'll know the feeling.

Even scarier is that he is able to see that some usually normal-looking people are in fact ugly aliens in charge of the massive campaign to keep humans subdued.

Commentary
The rest of the movie involves him trying to convince his friend Frank - another construction worker - of what's really going on, plus the battle of a bunch of rebels, who want to expose the aliens.

Nada's method of convincing his buddy to join his cause, is to spend an inordinate amount of time, in a back alley, with the two of them beating seven sorts of shit out of each other. The main crux of his argument being that Frank should put the sunglasses on, and he'd see what Nada meant. For reasons known only to the screenwriters, Frank continually refuses to wear the sunglasses, but gives no real reason as to why. Instead, they start knocking chunks out of each other. Despite the fact that Nada manages to knock Frank flat, numerous times, it doesn't occur to him to put the sunglasses on Frank whilst he's out cold, until they've fought for a good 10 minutes or more. Finally, he puts the glasses on Frank, and viola...Frank sees the subliminal mind-control stuff too.

Throughout the move, I came to loathe Nada. It wasn't just the mullet haircut, although that didn't warm me to him. It was the fact that despite that fact that it was bleeding obvious that these aliens he could see where a bunch of evil scumbags who wanted to do him harm, He'd wander around totally giving the game away, as to the fact that he uncovered their existence. He'd be saying things like, "My god you're an ugly alien, I can see what you're really like.", and then act all surprised when the cops - aliens to a man - were called, and wanted to shoot first and ask questions later.

Here's a thing. We're told that the aliens are evil, and are keeping humans subdued. OK, so most of the people in positions of authority and power are aliens (can you spot the subtext here?), but apart from the subliminal messages to "marry and reproduce" etc... what were they doing that was all that bad?

Life seemed to be going on as normal, humans weren't being used for experiments, or for food or as a fuel... so what was actually the problem?

I suppose it was more of an ambient evil. The constant subjugation of the masses via the media, but who's to say that isn't already going on?

Oh my God! I'd better start working on those sunglasses!

I shalln't bore you with the minutae of the day, but it was a leisurely start, including brunch at a new (to us) diner, the Walnut Cafe.

Then, there was what can best be described as a "Target Overspend" incident. We went to Target, to look for a couple of things, and ended up spending a ton of money on a lot of stuff we didn't realise we needed.

When I got back home, I got to play at Bob the Builder, erecting the clothing racks, towel rails and shelving. The new bathroom shelf was the only less than perfect event, and it wasn't my fault, guv.

I bought a new studfinder, in order to locate wall-studs in which to drill holes to fasten the shelving to the wall. The bloody thing was off by a couple of inches, so consequently the first two holes were, shall we say, unnecessary :( Once I'd word out how 'off' the studfinder was, I was able to get the thing done properly.

Today was a "perfect family day" for us. A slow start to the day was followed by piling the dogs (two Golden Retrievers, Miles and Saoirse) into my truck, and heading off to Chatfield state park for an off leash walk.
Went home, donned the "Wash Park Uniform" (black roll-neck sweater with black leather jacket, black boots, plus either black or blue jeans. Drove the Beetle down to Stella's (the coolest Wash Park/DU area cofffee house, and purveyors of the best damn latte in Denver), where we had coffees and a bite to eat.
Headed down to the Apple Store, with a view to buying belated Christmas presents for each other. We totally failed to buy the prescribed presents (an Airport card or two for me, a Handspring Visor Neo for her), due to a couple of minor technical questions. Headed over to Starbucks, and had yet more coffee.
Went out in the evening, with my friend Mike. After discovering an hour and a half wait for a table at Pasquini's (which wouldn't be so bad, but it's just a pissant little bakery and pizzeria), we headed over to The Saucy Noodle (motto: "If you don't like garlic, go home." - seriously, it says that over the door), wherein we down 2 litres of Chianti, and an as yet unmeasured amount of pasta.

Yes, after a lot of procrastination, I've settled on turnerzone.com for my domain name.

I'd like to say a BIG thank you to the fine people at Everyone.net, who did a first rate job of getting my domain registered, and my e-mail service set up. I'm not one to enthuse about companies, but these guys seem to be fully clue-enabled, and appear to actually give a toss about their customers.

There was a slight glitch in setting things up, and they called me to explain everything, even though this was only about 12 hours after I signed up with them, and we're told to expect things to take between 2 and 5 days.

It's so nice to find a company that doesn't dick you around. Since I've lived in the US, I've had so much hassle from companies and their lousy customer service.

Talking of which, we've had a small breakthrough with our phone bill. AT&T have finally agreed to remove the illegal $500 charge from our phone bill, following their slamming us twice. They were informed of their dodgy if not illegal practice on both occasions, so legally, I don't owe them a thing.

Max Payne Crisis
I'm almost at the end of this very enjoyable game, and I've just found out that there's a bug (perhaps in just my save-games), which means I can't complete the level, and for that matter the game. For you Payne-players out there, I'm in Part Three - Chapter Six, and the error occurs as I leave the room where there's a couple of suits chatting and a projector TV showing at Powerpoint presentation. Help anyone?

It's Thursday, so it must be ER.

There aren't many TV shows that I make a big effort to watch these days. However, ER is an exception.

I'm not going to go on and on about the brilliant writing, inspired casting and superb acting, but it rocks! Strictly between you and me, dear reader, Abby (Maura Tierney) is a major attraction. Mind you, Deb Chen, Elizabeth Corday and Susan Lewis are somewhat alluring ;-)

Here's the controversial bit though I just don't get what the fuss is about Carol Hathaway. Everyone I know, who watches the show, thinks she's "oh so cute", but I just don't get it. She's not ugly, but she's nowt special.

So, I'm watching The Screensavers on Tech TV, and Leo Laporte (a geek god) is showing how you can run X-Windows inside Mac OS X! How cool is that?

I wrote this yesterday, and forgot to post. Oops!

Frankly, this is just showing off.

I'm writing this blog on my PDA, which is connected to the Internet via my mobile phone. Sat in the food court at Castle Rock.

Why? Because I can!

More (more thrilling stuff] later.

I'm not going to list them, but I got a whole bunch of errands done today, and published my resume, and announced my availability for work on dice.com.

The (unending) search for a cool domain name of my own, continues. Amongst the contenders (that haven't been taken yet) are turnerzone.com, planetturner.com (and turner-zone and planet-turner).

maxturner.com isn't available, however, given my fondness for Apple products, I've discovered that
macsturner.com is available.

Amusingly, galileosucks.com is still available (Galileo being my former employer).

Given my search for work, I'm avoiding "zany" domain names. This means that www.arsebiscuits.com is out.

Synopsis
Mac OS X, whilst being the most wonderful operating system in the world, ever (well, it is Unix underneath!) does have one slight flaw. The flaw is that it seems to fragment one's hard disk rather more quickly than it's predecessor (OS9).

So, when my iBook's hard disk (recently formatted and reinstalled) started playing up, I bought Norton Utilities for Macintosh from my dear friends at the Apple Store (off Santa Fe Drive). I got it home, and within a startling half an hour discovered that I'd bought v6.0.2, and whilst it said it worked with OS X, what it didn't say was that it only works with 10.0.x

Guess what? I'm running OS 10.1, as is anyone who's running OS X. Sooo apparently, I need Norton v6.0.3. Great.

Of course there's a download upgrade, but that's sod all use if you want to defrag your system partition (you can't defrag a mounted partition, so you have to boot from the Norton CD).

The Action
I called Symantec (the monolithic corporation that bought Norton) this morning about getting a CD of v6.0.3

After a small game of telephonic cat and mouse, plus a spot of phone menu system Russian roullette, I got through to a real live human being, that at least was his story. Here's the news folks. He took my name and address, and without asking for any proof that I'd purchased v6.0.2, said that I'll be recieving a CD of v6.0.3 in about a week.

Talk about restoring my faith in humanity! There's a company that'll be getting repeat business from me!

Tomorrow's big challenge: Convince Qwest that their losing the two extra DSL modems they sent me, is their problem, and that I'm not going to pay for them. It's a long story, but if you've ever dealt with a phone company, you'll know just how frustrating it's been.

What the hell is it with these girls, as it's mostly girls (but occasionally some boys), who feel the need to make every thing sound like it's a question? (note the irony of my question mark!)
It got to the stage where, when a waitress said, "So, like, the special is seared Ahi tuna?", and I asked, "Are you asking me, or telling me?" - which was rude, I know. She probably doesn't even realise she's doing it, but boy is it grating on the nerves.

And then there's this business of them using the word 'like', as if it's punctuation.

"So I like went downtown? And we saw like this really cool movie? And I was like 'what's up with that?', and he was like 'I don't like know'.

I could go on, but I fear one of us, dear reader, will end up with an annurism.

Tonight I saw Gosford Park at The Esquire. As with last night, click on the link above to get the plot.

It was co-written by Altman and Julian Fellowes (and English actor). It has a rich cast of well-known faces (at least in Britain), many of whom take on bit-parts, without worrying about their careers too much. The other night I saw Altman on TV, talking about this film. He said that there was no way he could have made this film in Hollywood, because actors of that calibre, in Hollywood, would never dream of taking bit-parts. Their egos and/or their agents, wouldn't allow it! So, that's a brief chance for me to feel patriotic!

Gosford Park was a wonderful film. Full of details, and beautiful scenery. It almost made me homesick, even the rainy scenes! I'd expected to like The Royal Tenenbaums more than this film, but it wasn't to be. I enjoyed Tenenbaums, but I was rivetted by Gosford Park. It's a bit of a whodunnit, but unlike a lot of TV whodunnits, the audience was shown all the clues as the thing progressed.

That's something that irritates me about the likes of Morse, Poirot et al. I love the series', but I hate this business of them shoe-horning in extra facts and evidence in the final denoument, without which, the audience couldn't possibly have worked out who the culprit was.

Anyway, it's a great film, with a enough gentle humour to take the edge off the murder!

What I meant to blog last night was that I saw The Royal Tenenbaums at The Mayan.

In short, it's about a dysfunctional family, who've all grown up and left home, but are now returning to the family nest. Click on the link above, to get the plot, cast lists and viewer reviews.

It's a funny movie. No doubt about that. Gene Hackman is the start of the show, as far as I'm concerned. Angelica Houston was good as the matriarch, but she was under-used. The delicious Gwyneth Paltrow, was cooky, at least her character was. Her makeup was... odd.

Ben Stiller, who played one of the sons, did the same irritatingly angry character he seems to play in all his movies. Sorry, but he irritates the piss out of me. I try to enjoy his work, but every single time I find him reminding me of a school bully, who expresses his insecurity and repression by being angry at everything.

Owen Wilson plays "the boy next door", who grew up to become some sort of author/Andy Warhol character. His character is fun and interesting, and Wilson gives a great performance. They could have featured him more. Whenever he was onscreen, things seemed to become more madcap (sorry, but I couldn't think of another word to use. God knows I tried though).

Whilst it was funny, it wasn't as side-splittingly hilarious as the trailers would have us believe. Now you're probably saying to yourselves, "But Max, when are trailers ever a true representation of movies?" OK, so maybe that was a bad way of putting it.

It all starts off well, but pace-lag sets in about a third of the way through. My partner in crime for the evening felt that the movie ran long, but I just think a little plot adjustment would have paid dividends. Perhaps they could have had Ben Stiller's character torn limb-from-limb in an amusing and ironic way? I'd have paid money to see it again if they did.

Around three quarters of the way through, things get a little grim. If you're squeamish, start looking away when Richie Tenenbaum decides to have a shave.

OK, so, go see it. It's good. Not perfect, but good. It's a gentle comedy, that has a cutsie, but not too saccharined ending. In case you're wondering... the butler did it. With a penknife.

No blog tonight, as I've been busy reading the following link, which is a highly entertaining read, regarding some nutcase, who thinks he's a computer consultant, and spammed a perfectly innocent guy in a Canadian university, then threatened to sue the same guy, when his victim suggested he shouldn't spam people.

It gets crazier and crazier the more you read it. What's more, it's all happened in the past two months, so more could develop in the future

Added a feedback link, to allow readers to reach me with feedback.

Keep it friendly, folks.

Today (well, it's yesterday by now) Apple introduced the new flat-panel iMac.

It's very cute, and very well spec'ed-out. Check it out here. It's a Mac on a stick!

They've also made a new 14" iBook, but the whole reason I went for the new 'iceBook' last year, was it's small footprint, which made it great for travelling with.

So far, the only feedback I've had has been that "blogs are more interesting when the writer is ranting about something".

I'm amazed that I got this feedback from the particular friend concerned, as anyone who knows me, will be aware that, at certain times of the day (meaning: those times when I'm awake), I have been known to rant.

Today was pretty dull. I didn't get all the things done I'd intended to, but I did manage to get lunch, and walk my dog.

Question: How long does it take to turn right, out of a parking lot?
Answer: Apparently, fucking ages. That is, is if you're a brain-dead moron in a Grand Cherokee, with probably no clue as to how big the thing is, and certainly no clue as to the location of the switch for the indicators (turn signal - if you're American).

This was coming out of a parking lot right next to a really busy junction. Of course the other thing this cretin did, was position himself for a left turn out of the lot, so as to fool me completely into thinking that he wasn't turning right. As a finale, I looked in my rear-view mirror, after I was across the junction, and he was doing a u-turn in the middle of the crossroads!

Talking of people taking their time turning... that's something that really hacks me off. I'm driving behind someone, they signal right. I judge my speed and the distance between us, so's not to hit them, and yet not to have to stop to a complete halt. Then it happens. They take the corner at a speed you'd need an electron microscope to be able to observe as movement.

Aaaaahhhhh. It's only a 90 degree turn! How hard can it be? So I'm left having to stand on the brakes (yes, I drive an SUV, and so emergency braking involves standing on the brake pedal with all your weight, and if you got them, the weight of your passengers) in order to avoid rear-ending the idiot.

It's not like I'm asking them to drive a slalom course around some cones, or jump over a row of fucking buses... just turn the damn corner you morons! When I'm turning in that sort of situation, I always check to see who's behind me, so's not to inconvenience my fellow road-users. It's not rocket-science. It just involves being awake!

This minor rant has been brought to you by the letter M and the number 8. It's far from my full force of rant.

Like I said, it's been a pretty dull day.

OK. Right. So.... err... Let's get started.

This is my first ever blog, so don't go expecting any great literary work. I mean, it's not like I'm attending film premieres every night, or having big meetings with top Hollywood producers every lunchtime. I might add a small bio at some point, if anyone actually reads this, and wants to know more. Let me know!

So, to kick off, the highlights of today were as follows:

Got up late, and wasted the rest of the morning surfing the web on my new(ish) iBook, whilst watching the original (ie. with Adam West) Batman movie on AMC. It was a classic. I mean, only the original Batman and Robin would have a range of Oceanic Bat Sprays in the Batcopter. Batman was hanging from a ladder below the Batcopter. He had a shark on his leg, and so got Robin to hand the shark repellent bat spray. There was a thing, like spice rack, only containing a complete range of Oceanic Bat sprays, for Shark, Baracuda, Octopus... etc..

Whilst that was on, I found how I can get my new (planned) website hosted for free by Apple (bless 'em), and finally managed to get iDisk to handle the upload of pages properly. After that, plus watching a really old Dr Who story (circa 1965), I got my arse into gear, and headed out.

The truckasaurus was on loan, so I drove the (new) Beetle to the Denver Diner, and gorged myself on their "Square Meal" (so called because if you eat enough of them, you become square-shaped. I used my own Bat-gadgetry (iPaq linked to mobile phone) to check my e-mail whilst I waited for brunch.

I say brunch, but given that it was 3.30pm, it was more Lunch/Dinner than Breakfast/Lunch, so I guess that makes it "Linner"?

After several of their dishwater-weak coffees, and a quick grilling by my waitress as to my country of origin, I headed over to Denver's finest bookstore, The Tattered Cover Bookstall (downtown branch - 2 of 2). After a bit of a wander round the (approximately) 50 square miles of bookshelves, I settled in the the computer section, in one of the many comfy chairs, and read through a couple of books on Final Cut Pro (a professional video editing package from Apple), before choosing one, and buying it.

Driving the Beetle is so different from driving the Mountaineer. I love the Mountaineer, but the Beetle has features it doesn't. Features like, the ability to corner at speed, without throwing me into the passenger seat, and of course, it has a manual gearbox (which makes a nice change from the Merc's auto gearbox.

I headed over to my friend Mike's who, despite his American upbringing, has recently discovered tea - the way we make it in Britain (ie. hot with a dash of milk). The man isn't just a total convert to it, he's become an evangelist on the topic!

Got home, and after a few chores, blew off cooking in favour of going to the pub and dining there with friends. After dinner, we wandered over to Stella's Coffee Haus, and ingested a large amount of caffeine, which is how I'm still going as we head towards 2am the next morning.

So that's it. My first day's blog. It can only get better I suppose.