almost witty

Random anecdotes and a little thought

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Only in America…

Mar 2

Posted in Current Affairs

would they want to charge overseas tourists $10 to register for the privilege of visiting America. So they can fund a travel tourism promotion group aimed at … getting overseas tourists to come to America. And explain to tourists why they have to be fingerprinted and give away lots of their personal details.

Nothing like being scanned for fingerprints and asked if I was involved in a Canadian drink-driving incident in 1994 to make one feel welcome when entering the land of liberty and freedom. Looks like I’ll have to pay an extra $10 for the privilege soon…

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Eating in America…

Apr 16

Posted in Funny, Life, Weird, adayinthelife

I’ve been in Ohio for ten days now, give or take, and aside from the aforementioned so-called Asian doughnuts, I have been introduced to such culinary delights as:

- country fried steak for breakfast. This would be a pork steak covered in breadcrumbs, and then deep-fried – for breakfast. Even the Scottish with their deep-fried Mars bars wouldn’t cover it in breadcrumbs first. In the interests of research, I had to try this as part of a three-plate breakfast buffet.

Of course, if only I hadn’t then had to go on a Easter egg hunt looking for candy-filled Easter eggs for kids (with a side-trip to Arbys for a roast beef sandwich and a malted milkshake), and then onto a sumptuous evening dinner with some wonderful potato concoction that turned out to be twice-baked potato or something…

- In the UK, it’s called a Welsh rarebit and often the butt of national jokes about Welsh cuisine. But in Ohio, melted cheese sandwiches are revered at Melts, a rather cool bar’n'grill where the menu comes on the back of old vinyl covers. Shame that a melted cheese sandwich apparently takes an hour from ordering to arrival.

- After that came a dessert course of hot fudge ice cream at Malleys. The Americans, they like their ice cream. Even at 1pm on a wet Wednesday afternoon.

However, there are side-effects that come from eating out in America.
Read the rest of this entry »

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What’s in New York?

Mar 2

Posted in Me me me me me




Liberate your money!

Originally uploaded by almost witty

My siblings and I are basically looking at taking my parents to New York for a major celebration.

This is a great idea with the only flaw being that parents being parents, we’re not really sure of their hobbies and walking miles upon miles of city streets isn’t quite an option either. The main reason for taking them to New York is that they’ve never been to the United States before, and it’s a world-class city with major tourist attractions.

That said, the list of places we’re thinking we could take them mostly consist of:

Empire State Building
Statue of Liberty / Ellis Island
Central Park
Chinatown
Times Square

Can you think of touristy places in New York (or the surrounding area) that don’t require much brain or feet power?

btw, I’m flying through New York, Cleveland, Las Vegas and Phoenix in April if you’re interested in following my trip!

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On this almost historic day…

Jan 20

Posted in Being British-Chinese, Current Affairs

Secret Asian Man

(It does have to be pointed out that 20 years from now, we’ll think of today in the same way we think of the Moon landings. Cool, but let’s get back to reality…)

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American mass debating…

Oct 8

Posted in Current Affairs

So I settled down to watch the American Presidential debating thing last night, and was wondering how long it would take for the first insult attempt to waft through the airwaves. It didn’t take long – McCain was barely out of the gate before the first volley appeared. They really ought to instigate a rule that you cannot bash the other candidate’s background or personality.

The British political parties keep resisting the idea of “American-style” TV debates, although I’m not too sure why. We’ve pretty much embraced the other parts of American political campaigning – the mass rally, snide political advertising… although from my memory of the last election, British political (non-TV ads) keep aimlessly bashing the other party. At least the American political TV ads over here give you reasons not to vote for Obama/McCain/section 6.

The opinion polls seem to show a rise in Obama’s standing – although naturally I can’t trust opinion polls. Especially after the British elections of 1992 which consistently reported people saying they were going to vote Labour, but they voted Tory in the end. Essentially, people were too ashamed of wanting to vote for the Tory party that promised tax cuts at the expense of the economy. I can’t help feeling in a gut instinct way that this is being mirrored in the opinion polls in the US – especially when the only election graffiti I’ve seen was in a toilet at Detroit airport with a crude rude caricature of Obama.

And was it just me, or did McCain walk around as if he was a puppet? Very stiff, Frankenstein-like. And the only person he tried to ‘physically connect’ to was a soldier. Does he do that to every soldier he meets? It makes it seem like joining the military is the biggest country golf club in the world. (Then again, Obama didn’t touch anyone at all if memory serves)

The British elections are going to be so tediously dull. If only because for Labour to win would take a miracle at this point, I fear.

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One image to represent America…

Oct 2

Posted in Current Affairs

Imagine you’re quintessential Englishman Stephen Fry – who, naturally, is a geek of Jewish Hungarian stock. He’s spent the last few months travelling the land of the United States, and naturally, has written a book and TV programme about it.

Now you have to publicise said book in a book launch. What’s the one image of America you need to sell the book to a British press? Find out.

This – no doubt hilarious – book joins other ones on the shelves dedicated to explaining America to a European readership. Although given the huge amount of press coverage the American elections get in the UK, I’m not sure anything needs explaining.

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Bloody Americans and their optimistic outlook…

Jul 11

Posted in adayinthelife

I’ve only been back in the States for a week, and despite my failure to indulge in things that I normally do in America (Best Buy and buffets), I get the feeling that their infectious sense of optimism has started to hit me. Which is amazing, given half of America is panicing over rising gas prices, a credit crunch – oh and global warming.

One of the guys in the place I’m currently staying at asked what I do for a living. I made the fatal mistake of revealing that I build websites – which isn’t technically true, but usually does for civilians. He immediately started pitching me a website idea he had – don’t they all, but despite my constant “No, but ….” refrains – mostly around small little things like financing, selling and the current state of the advertising market – he kept persisting with the idea. Even though the website part of it was an important part of the whole idea, there was so much more work to do with it than just building a website and having them come.

Then the conversation did a left-turn and became about ways of getting his brother into an American university. Now I thought it all came down to how much you could afford to pay for tuition, but apparently it’s also about finding the right person, and badgering him/her to get you a teaching assistant position or something. I’d assume, in my “No, but … ” British way that such places would be overfilled to bursting with applicants, but apparently it’s actually a very viable prospect of getting in in some areas.

Consequentally, this afternoon has been mostly spent mentally going over my old ideas, and wondering just how feasible they are to do or not do. Sure, they’re not going to be Facebook v3, but is it better to spend ages trying to craft an idea and watch it fail in terms of commercial success, or decide that the idea is not going to work, and go back to working for Da Man? (just when I find a job too!)

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Two random moments from American television…

Jul 10

Posted in Television, adayinthelife

Taken by Midnight Digital Last night, we were at a sports bar grabbing a bite to eat. A sports bar with about sixty thousand LCD screens showing various moments from American TV – including coverage of the Ultimate Fighting Championships – which just about has to be the most homoerotic thing to be screened on American television.

Well, how else would you describe something which mostly seems to involve one muscular topless man sitting or squatting on another, grunting and generally thrusting various bits of his body on the other, while the other one lies there helpless or is grunting and thrusting away himself? All while the male observers in the sports bar were whooping and hollering, encouraging every movement – and then trying to chat up the young nubile college students nearby?

Then this morning, I was flicking through the various TV stations, and came across some kind of US equivalent of This Morning, where the hosts were comparing water options to go with your food. And the caption that ran along the bottom of the screen said:

Tap Water: Good for hydration

I shall never complain about British daytime TV again.

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America – you need more windows!

Jul 9

Posted in Me me me me me, adayinthelife

Taken by ChrisLB If I was designing a nation that sat under never-ending huge amounts of summer sunshine, then I’d think I’d make better design choices than:

- making all the buildings brown or dark (Florida is probably the honorary exception to this rule)
- ensuring a relative lack of windows, to make the interiors seem surprisingly dark
- because it’s all dark, then having to use electric light fittings to give more light. At 2pm on a sunny afternoon
- because of a lack of opening windows, aritficial a/c has to be used instead. Thus raking up the electricity bills, which is never a good idea.

Granted, the sun must wreak havoc on all sorts of things – like my body for instance. But at least bigger windows would enable you to use sunlight for its good stuff.

Never mind the differences between blue and red America, the differences between outdoors America, street America and inside America are vastly huge. Inside, it’s quiet, dark and rather cold thanks to excessive a/c. Outside, it’s quiet, bright and blisteringly hot. And people are still walking around in business suits, dark trousers and not sweating. I also note that the weather in Cleveland today is 82 F/28 C.

Oh, I have finally realised that American daytime television is terrible. Either that, or I need my fix of Dave and daytime Top Gear. Stat.

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Two countries seperated by a consonant

Jul 8

Posted in Life, Me me me me me, adayinthelife

I’ve spent the last few days in Cleveland, Ohio visiting Shalene – and even though I’ve been in America for the odd week for quite a few years, it’s the first time I’ve been over here since 2005, and I’m not sure if I’ve changed, or if America has changed.

Certainly, the temperatures seem worse. But this is probably more how I’ve changed – it was about 24 Celsius in London before I left. Right now it’s apparently 30 degrees Celsius outside – a fact that prompts Shalene to gloat about how it’s going to get hotter and hotter before I leave. But then the buildings have got their air conditioning turned up to maximum – so here I am, in the veritable British tourist uniform of T-shirts, shorts and sandals, while everyone else is wearing jeans and shirts. How they don’t sweat when they walk outside, I don’t know – I took a short stroll to a nearby Starbucks (I needed the wi-fi!) and I was getting close to sweating by the time I stumbled in. Having nearly caused three traffic accidents – don’t they have pedestrian crossings over here ?!

Another change seems to be how the bargains in American shops just aren’t as compelling to me as they used to be – but then I did indulge in a mini-orgy of shopping at amazon.com before I left. Heaven knows how I’m going to fit Rock Band: Special Edition into my suitcase though.

The biggest difference seems to be how nobody understands me here. Especially when I ask for water. The conversation in restaurants seems to go thusly:

Me: “I’ll have some water, please.”
Waiter: “Sir?”
Me: “Water?”
Waiter: “Erm…”
Me: “Warrrr-terrrrr” (trying to speak slowly)
Waiter: “Erm…”
Me: “Warrrrrrrrrrr terrrrrrrr” (going Ice-Age speed at this point)
Waiter: “I’m sorry, sir”
Me: “Wader!” (in a cod-American accent)
Waiter: “Ahhh, wadderrr!”

*bangs head*

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