Stevens in the States

Got up painfully early (5.45am) cos the phone rang. Such was my confusion, I dropped the phone, missed the call, but was then very awake. So I got up.

Switch the TV on a couple of hours later... and their "fun" news story of the morning was...

"And there's a new trend taking over the UK... a dancing frog that sings the Alex F theme tune has topped their singles chart... and it's not even a song, it's a ring tone!"

Well, all true, I suppose. They then show the video for a minute or two, and have a good old laugh about it. And how right they are!

Now, 7:15pm, they're showing the film "Traffic" which seems incredibly violent. Amazon UK says it has an 18 cetificate... no wonder this country if so gun-loving if kids are growing up watching this stuff while they chew on thier Turkey Twizzlers.

Having a mobile phone that no-one phones is a bit like living in 1995 all over again. Back then, I had a mobile phone... but it was so expensive to call that no-one did! How history repeats itself. At least this time the voice-mail is free.

I got a call tonight though! Woo yay! Alas though, it was a wrong number. Bah.

I made a stunning post on Friday night about all sorts of things... all of which I've now forgotten. Anyway, for some reason it didn't upload which is a touch annoying, but kinda the way of life!

In the meantime... today is Memorial Day which is a public holiday. The idea is that citizens remember those who have died at war, though in reality it's a chance for shops to hold Memorial Day sales... 50% of all matresses and so on. I'm sure the war dead are chuffed by this commercial spin. But then it's no worse than Christmas and Easter for spinning an event into a sale. Mmm.

Was going to go to Houston this weekend to see the zoo and the space center. I wanted to do the whole road-trip thing, pointing the nose of the hire-car south and keep going for 200 miles. However when I woke up on Sunday morning the Weather Channel was predicting hurricanes in Houston. Oops. So I stayed here, and ended up drinking lots of wine with a friend last night while watching lots of episodes of "Bounty Hunter" on TV.

Sunday afternoon - went searching for a well known audio production company on the south side of Dallas. I wholely failed to find it (though not through the lack of trying) and instead found a really beautiful lake with walkways, cycle paths and ncie people all around. Here's a picture, which isn't excellent because it was quite overcast, but it gives an idea...



Nice eh. And not that far from work, so quite easy to go to in an evening. Makes me tempted to buy a bike actually, though not sure that it'd fit into the hire car. Which makes me think that I could cycle to work (it's five miles from my house) though I'm not sure if they have showers there. And in this weather that could be a bit much.

So many thoughts, so little blogging time.

Was stunned to hear a radio claiming that it now plays "28% less commercials than before." Woo yay. 28% eh. Well, that's great because 27% simply wouldn't have been acceptable.

Bought a mobile phone today. A pay-as-you-go one, from Virgin Mobile. I did try to get one from Cingular, but it would have cost me around $250 to get it going, compared with $60 from Virgin. Spot the difference. So I now have an American phone number! This is very exciting, except that I've got no idea what to do with it. So, I'm doing nothing with it.

Anyone for photos? Yeah, why not. Here we go...


That's Dallas. They're pretty good at their big towers. I took this photo last weekend. I got horrendously lost so thought I might as well grab a photo of my surroundings.


This is the car I'm driving around in at the moment. According to the TV ads, they cost $6000 new, which'd mean you could buy one, and a spare, for less than seven thousand pounds. I think I must have read the small print incorrectly.


And this is my office. As you can see, it's a bit sparce at the moment and the walls need painting! Observant people will notice the Chorley FM mug in the background.

I've not used a coin-operated washing machine since I was 19, but needs must and clothes have to be washed. My research proves that I can survive 10 days before needing to wash things. Remind me of that in 10 days please!

VAT may be 17.5% compared with the 8% sales tax here, but at least UK prices include the VAT. Here, the prices on the shelves don't include the sales tax and it keeps catching me out at the tills. I bought some laptop speakers earlier, advertised at $40... so I got two $20 notes out. But at the till, it magically went up to around $45. D-oh.

However, on a positive note, I'm starting to think that people in shops/bars/everywhere are genuinely friendly. The number of staff who offer to help you in stores, and the number of employees who wish you a good day when you leave; they actually seem to mean it which is no longer annoying. It's actually quite nice.

Filled the hire car up with petrol yesterday. $20. Hahahahahaha.

On Monday night it got to about 10pm and I was really keen to get a bottle of wine. So I leapt into the car, thinking that I'd find an off-licence equivalent sooner or later. How wrong I was though, and not only did I not find a liquor store, I also managed to lose the flat, and went round in circles trying to work out where I was.

Last night I was more prepared, and found the shop at 8:55... though they closed at 9 so it meant a quick run to find two bottles of wine and some vodka. Very proud of myself. Got home, was about to have some wine, but realised... no corkscrew! Nightmare! I did consider the whole knife-in-the-cork thing, but I'm sure it would have gone dramatically wrong. So tonight in wine night.

It rained earlier, and there's severe thunderstorm warnings all over the TV. There should however be severe Simon Cowell warnings all over the TV at the moment; can't get away from him! In fact, if you're British, you're either Simon Cowell or Hugh Grant, though to be honest that's a stereotype I quite like!

That's where the barmaid from The Londoner wants to study. To be honest, I didn't know such a uni existed but Google proved that it does, so who am I to argue. I was hoping that she wasn't getting confused, and was planning to spend a year of her life at Luton uni, but luckily not.

Only in America can you have two pints of cider, a rather fine club sandwich and a large orange juice, and pay less than $20 (£11). And where else can you sit outside well into the night and still be really warm. I left at 10pm, and they were trying to switch the misters on to keep everyone cool. Incredible.

My TV seems to be programmed with 20 channels that all show constant commercials, with the odd 2-minute segment of a drama, news programme or over-the-top show of real police footage. Somewhat annoyingly, it defaults to channel 2 every time I switch it on... which is the weather channel... and remarkably dull.

However, last night I struck gold. KERA hadn't really caught my attention as it's some form of public-type channel, but while flicking through the channels last night, I saw one of most reassuring sights I could imagine... something that reminded me of home, and the differences between our countries... something that was guaranteed to make me laugh, whatever mood I was in.

Fawlty Towers.



What a friendly site. Followed by Red Drawf, followed by Blackadder. Superb! I can stomach some more commercials now.

Incredible... the part of Dallas I'm staying in is twinned with Bassetlaw! Is there no escape!?

Had two moments yesterday when I forgot I was in America. The first was when I was lost, looking for a friend's house. I turned into a side street and for the first time yet, drove on the left hand side of the road. Could have been painful! The second was last night... I was watching the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and got really into the music - then looked around me and had one of those "where am I?" moments... turned out I was in America. Odd eh.

And today... a small victory... Wal-Mart accepted my Switch card for payment! It's useful, seeing as I've left my Mastercard behind. Maybe I'll not be eating stale bread after all. But talking of odd eating experiences... I went for a walk at lunchtime and ended up at a McDonalds. Had a "medium" meal and it was so big, I felt really sick all afternoon. Tonight it's fresh fruit and mixed salad, about time I had a healthy meal.

Interesting that the country station here is plugging Oasis...

Driving is getting quite fun, but still has it's scary moments; namely junctions. There's no roundabouts here but lots of crossroads, and the rules are a bit different to the UK.

Firstly, lights don't go Red-Amber-Green... they just go Red-Green. So suddenly you can go. No warning. In the UK, if you look up and it's green, chances are seconds later you'll get beeped by someone behind you, but not so here.

And the really odd thing is that even if the lights are on red, you can turn right if it's safe to do so. Kinda slipping out of the junction and round the corner. I've done this quite a few times now but it still has a really cool feeling to it - as if you're legally breaking the law.

You know how on main roads in the UK, you stick to the outside lane, and then change lanes to overtake? Not here - any lane, anyone, any speed. And there's the odd toll road which I've yet to get up the guts to go on. Besides, I'm not really sure where they go.

Oh, and fuel. Big controversy here, cos fuel is now $2.15 a gallon. That works out at 30p a litre. Not bad...!

I'm slowly adjusting to the concept of drinking coffee instead of tea. However, I can't get my head around the idea of using creamer instead of milk. And this is a shame, because I've yet to see anyone use fresh milk in coffee.

To be fair to the yanks, they have nice coffee. Mostly filter, and with a pretty nice smell. So to add a pile of powdered milk into it just seems weird. Why not use milk? I might do a taste test later in the week, to see if I can tell the difference between the two. Or I might just get a life.

Talking of drinks, a couple of discoveries... at restaurants, they fill you drinks up all the time. Over lunch today I must have had about 5 bottles of coke. Also, the Londoner (an English-type pub bar place) actually does pretty good cider - Woodpeckers, no less. And this weekend they're showing the FA Cup Final. It does seem a bit odd though to watch it at 9 o'clock on Sunday morning. Much as it's odd to listen to the Archers at 1pm, or check out MediaGuardian's new stories from 2:30am.

What makes all those oddities pale into insignificance though is the annoying inability to phone anyone in the UK after I finish work... cos when I leave here at 6ish, it's midnight back home. The only person I normally dare phone after midnight is Ian, because while everyone else is sleeping, I'll probably interrupt him having a kebab.

So evenings are a time of non-communication for me, and that's taking a lot of getting used to. The spin of that is that when I get up at 7ish (1pm UK), I've already got a stack of text messages and emails to look at. Including usually one from London Underground, telling me whether the Central Line is blocked or not.

And the weather... get this... I'm cold. Seriously, I am. Where I sit is right under an aircon unit, and I'm really cold! I want to sit outside making the best of the weather, but that seems to be an unpopular choice generally. Having 28 degree days is still novelty and I want to enjoy it!

Later... how I managed to make a mistake at the vending machine last night, and instead of getting a sachet of shampoo, I got two sticks of salami.

So... here I am in Dallas.

It wierd. 24 hours ago I was staying in Gatwick's Travelodge, Partridge style, and now I'm here in my new temporary home. Though of course it wasn't 24 hours ago, even though the clocks say it was. The 10 hour flight only took 4 hours, according to my watch.

Early moments of interest...

The Hire Car. It's the blandest car ever made (it's a Kia), with the added novelty that the steering wheel is on the left hand side. What's odd is trying to work out how close you are to either side of the lane... I found myself kinda bouncing from one side of the lane to the other.

Customer Service. Astonishingly good, everywhere. It's slightly spooky... you don't get it in East London!

The Weather. It was around 27 degrees this afternoon; it felt lovely. Really nice. Sunglasses are excellent.

I'm feeling really tired, so I'll write something that makes more sense tomorrow.

Erm, just a test posting. In London. Four days to takeoff. Blimey.