Stevens in the States

I saw the Super Furry Animals last night - a great gig, with the addition of superb video/graphical clips before, during and after the band's set. Is always nice/odd to hear strong Welsh accents booming out in Texas. They also did a very odd song that sounded like the jingle "I Feel Like Chicken Tonight". Perhaps jingles are taking over the world.

Cable TV is almost here. Comcast cancelled yesterday and promised to return today. Between 5pm and 8pm. It's currently 7:45pm and nothing, so I'm not holding up that much hope. Having said that, I've sussed the Blockbuster postal DVD service, so I have new movies to watch.

Have set up lots of the Ikea furniture, and even have a light in my room now - the main one has been broken since I moved in, so as soon as it went dark at night, it stayed dark in that room until the next day.

Blimey, what boring day-to-day nonsense this post has been so far.

American observations. Erm...

Ah yes. Well, I bought that vehicle. At least, I've put down a big deposit on it and am waiting for HSBC to wire the money across. Who'd have thought in this modern networked age that it still takes SIX WORKING DAYS to transfer money from a UK bank account to one over here. That's over a week! Incredible!

So I've still got a rental car that's costing a small fortune. But a small moment of praise for the Texan authorities here... when you buy a vehicle here, you have 30 days to sort out the insurance. During that time, you're covered by the state! Stunning! So that'll give me time to sort out car insurance once my social security number comes through.

Work had a thanksgiving dinner today - however I've been off work today with a stunning level of stomach ache. Not nice. I also missed the annual thanksgiving meal there. Thanksgiving is quite confusing. It's next week and we all get two-and-a-half days off work. Which is nice, but odd. For some people, Thanksgiving is bigger than Christmas. More blurb that makes far more sense here.

10 minutes until cable TV... or a phone call to Comcast. If I had a social life, this'd be getting in the way of it!

And having started this post talking about super furry animals, lets end with one. It's the neighbour's cat, which occasionally wanders into my place as if it's his. He then tends to fall asleep somewhere odd, like the sink, or on a box.

This is Baxter. Don't fall for that cat-like charm. He fights like a mad thing when you try to throw him out. Which, for the sake of his owners, is quite often.