Bullets · Are · Gonna · Burn...

I’ll admit, I’m a little slow about getting on any wagons, band- or otherwise.  The idea of a rickety structure [read: plot decided on by marketing strategists who only want to whore the show for as much as they can merchandise] covered in hay and distressed paint to make it look authentic  to the delight of the masses isn’t my cup of tea.  I’m used to getting into a show long after it’s been consigned to DVD and every iterate of its “special edition” has come out.  I didn’t get into any Joss Whedon shows until they’d either run their lifespan (Buffy, Angel) or had been kicked off the air and made a movie for the die-hard fans and made a killing, so suck it Fox.  (Firefly).  By the time I signed on to Scrubs, I was too busy watching the series from the beginning to even hope to catch up to the new episodes coming out.  Luckily, most of season seven sucked, so I didn’t miss much while I was missing much, if you get my meaning.

However, I am a subscriber to Entertainment Weekly and when I started seeing these viral campaigns for the new HBO series True Blood, I was reminded of the staggering success the new Batman movie The Dark Knight experienced after its huge underground viral marketing movement.  (For a really fantastic showcase of a slice of that, go to http://www.superherohype.com/news/topnews.php?id=6470.  True Blood started taking out advertisements in many major magazines for one of the show’s creations, a synthetic blood beverage called TruBlood.  There was even a website or two about the “product”, even though they were lacking any sort of ordering process.  Sorry goth kids, you’re just gonna have to keep making do with red wine and kool-aid.

HBO even put out political ads urging citizens to either support or oppose the “Vampire Rights Amendment”.  I’m telling you though, it wasn’t until I saw these ads that I even knew a new show was coming out right under our noses.  That’s the way to do it, if you ask me.  Get people talking about stuff they don’t even know what they’re talking about. 

I missed the premiere of the first episode and came in on number 2.  Let me say, I was hooked from the opening credits.  Jace Everett’s “Bad Things” and a truly stunning montage of Southern film clips along with some edgy erotic shots makes for one slick opening.  And it just got better from there.

I’m not a fan of Twilight at all.  I think it’s a bunch of overfluffed  pre-teen angst and sexual frustration with weak writing and a campy plotline, and all you Meyersites can shove a dazzling stake right up your collective asses.  For the vampophile who’s too damn old for Twilight but not bored enough for Anne Rice, step right up and meet your perfect match: finally, a writer who recognizes that the idea of a vampire has always had sexual connotations and he’s not afraid to let loose. 

I like the writing for several reasons, but I think the best one is that it knows when to mock itself.  When a scene is getting too cliché or campy, somebody says something like “Bill?  Your name’s Bill?  I thought it’d be Antoine or Langston or something like that.  Bill?” or “I wish Buffy or Blade were here.”  I like a show that pokes fun at its roots.

Also, Stephen Moyer is damn hot.  Props to that makeup artist.

New friends of mine decided that there are too many Michel(l)es on campus, so they renamed me.  I accepted this for several reasons: one, I have never had a nickname based off the second syllable of my name that sounded cool, and two, I met these other Michel(l)es and they are indeed many in number.

I just went home yesterday (really against my will but I did need some essential things, like food, water, and a cable extender for the TV.  How the hell else am I going to watch Scrubs reruns and Haunted History?  Certainly not by storming someone else's room.  They frown on that.)  Many freshman went home for this weekend, as it was Labor Day, and while the campus was extremely uneventful, it turned out to be ok since it gave the few floormates left time to really bond in the evening.

In other news, in a study recently conducted by me, it has been found that I still hate Starbucks coffee.  It still tastes like bong-water infused with caffeine extract and a hint of caramel substitute.  But since I am currently polishing off a $4 veinte macchiado that I got for free with my meal plan, I'll revoke my deep-seated hatred for the next five minutes while I finish.

Our (and when I say "our", I mean "my", since I paid for it and all its accessories) pet gecko Chazz is adjusting well to his new life.  He spends his days listening to Dave Matthews music and eating live mealworms, so that's alright then.

College is ok.  I'm still here after a week and a half.  It must be ok.

This time of day should not exist in the summer months.  It should be referred to as "Happy Alexis Denisof Dream-Time REM Sleep".  I should still be curled up in my delicious new sheets made from the softest, almost slimy-smooth T-shirt material.  Instead, I'm waking up to drop my brother off at a camp when it was decided without my notice that I wasn't required to wake up in the first place.

Communication issues for the win!

In other news, World of Warcraft is a satanic black hole full of skimpily-dressed Night Elves with stupid long ears.  It's getting harder and harder to walk away from it, but somehow I think I'll manage.  Probably I'll be returning it to the store.  Good move, TenLSD. 

So my place of employment (read: my bank) got bought up by Beneficial and now we're merging.  But instead of staying on for the very frustrating change-over, training, and angry customers who insist that they've "been with F&M for thirty years", they don't have to show their ID and why are you taking so long processing my transaction when you were only trained on this new system for eight hours and four weeks ago with no practice at that, I've decided to quit.  I'll need all kinds of support to stay strong, I know.  Love me, hold me, never leave me. 

Beneficial has the audacity and nerve to place holds on cash deposits.  You know what that means?  That means that you hand your perfectly legal tender to a Beneficial teller - money that you could use to immediately pay whoever is threatening to break your kneecaps if you don't pony up - and they don't allow you to use it until a day later.  Now, due to the complaints of hundreds of Farmer's customers, Benestalin has relinquished that rule.  But that goes to show that F&M customers have a lot more balls, and customers of the hostile takeover have been living with this all this time.  What idiots.

And speaking of a lack of balls, did you know that Beneficial tellers sit behind bulletproof glass?  Yeah!  I know!  Did you also know that they're installing no such thing in all the F&M branchs being converted?  Yeah!  I know.  Weak.  I mean, I'd never take a bullet for the bank - not when everything's FDIC-insured - but I don't really want the situation to ever present itself.  For those of you who don't "hablo el dinero", FDIC means that the government will reimburse you for any money stolen from your accounts by armed means, and then take it out in trade from the poor idiot who held up a bank teller only to get a couple thousand (tops) in cash.  Life advice: don't ever rob a bank.  Rob a WaWa or even Tarantino it and rob a restaurant.  But don't ever go up against an institution specifically protected by a money-mongering government.  You'll lose, they'll kill you, and then they'll go to work on you.

Speaking of the Ocean films, in a recent study conducted by me, I found the 13th to be better than the 12th but not as good as the 11th.

This has been your friendly (still)neighborhood Snyderwoman with an update from the front.

Since it's the end of the school year, I suppose I'll bid you all a (temporary) fond farewell with some words of wisdom.  This is especially for all the graduating seniors, but you little'uns can take notice if you're smart:

Don't get sarcastic with your hairstylist.

Enjoy that extra food-thing once in awhile.  If you live your life in constant deprival, one day you'll go psycho and hoover everything in sight.  Or you'll die miserable.

Sing along to the radio at least once a week.  Preferably while you're on the highway, going 75 with the windows down.

Learn to play some sort of instrument.  It doesn't matter if it's a concert bassoon or a kazoo.  Make music, even if it's not "good".

Tell jokes to old people and youngin's.  Laugh at other people's jokes, and then tell them to someone else.

Learn to stretch $10 as far as you can in a supermarket or clothing store.

Try not to eat things with preservatives that you can't pronounce.

Invent a new word and try to slip it into the conversation.  See if anyone calls you on it.

Weed an overgrown garden and then think twice before you mock the landscapers, even if they can't speak perfect English like I know you can't either.

Don't play frogger against the light.  One day the bad car-ma is bound to catch up to you.

Don't openly challenge someone's religion, especially if they've challenged yours.  The worst genocides in history were spawned from people bad-mouthing other people's gods.

Foot the bill from time to time.  That's what money's for.  And eventually the favor will come back around.

Your first car should not be right-off-the-lot, spankin' new.  It should be a piece of four-wheeled functional crap that you will learn to depend upon and appreciate and treasure for its purpose and not for its looks.  This way, when you have an accident or crash it, you will be very distraught because you have affected something important to you.

Host the party.  Then get help.

"One for the road" should not apply to alcohol.  Someone who asks for this should be relieved of their keys - forcibly - and locked in a bedroom.

Maybe a List v.2 will be posted, but for now that's all.  Now go forth and experience.  We are only issued a brief time to live and we must choose carefully who we spend it with and what we do while with them.

Life is long.  But good friends and good times can make it seem all too short.

This has been your friendly neighborhood Snyderwoman, soon to be your friendly distant Snyderwoman based out of TCNJ in Ewing NJ.

WARNING.  Some (if not all) readers may find this offensive.  It's not intended as such, but there's the tradeoff.  But I figure if I don't write this, who will?  I've been meaning to get a good rant off about this and now's the time.

§§

Let's face it: colleges are getting racist.  And not in a civil-rights, keep-the-black-man-down, you-hate-me-'cause-I-have-Latino-grandparents racist.

No.  It's getting tougher and tougher for Caucasian kids to get into college.  

See, institutions have these things called "minority quotas" which they're supposed to fill, almost regardless of scholastic merit.  That means that, in a contest for the last spot in an Ivy-league college, a kid with "a diverse ethnic background" who scored a 1490 on his SAT will be sent the acceptance letter over a Polish/German closet case who busted his ass to make a 1570.  That kid now has been cheated out of his hard work just because he happened to be honest in filling out his ethnic background on the application.

Colleges have to do this.  This way they don't get sued by the NAACP for trying to be a WASP institution.  

Pardon me, but since when should your skin color make you more acceptable to colleges?  Since when did the Civil Rights Movement include using your heritage as an excuse?

And don't get me started on exclusive scholarships.  That's what they are: SCHOLARships.  Based on talent and academic achievement.  Not the family you happened to be born into.

I don't consider myself racist.  I hate using the words "black" and "white", but I hate "African-American" even more.  You're only "African-American" if you were born in Africa, immigrated to this country and secured citizenship.  But because they must have had one ancestor who hailed from the Continent, it's only P.C. to call them "Afro-American".  Why's this?  I don't go around calling myself "Russian-American" or "German-Irish-Austrian-Russian-American".  Know why?  Because that's stupid.  Also, there are hundreds of different places in Africa one can hail from.  Grouping them together is an insult.  Might as well call us "European-Americans" or "Asian-Americans".  Oh, wait, we can't do that, because there are DOZENS of countries we could hail from and to group us together wouldn't be acceptable.

Hmm.  I think someone didn't get the memo about cultural diversity within a continent.

We caucasians can't drop the n-bomb (and who would want to?), but in the great hypocrisy, they still can.  Although, to be fair, most affirmative-action A-A's don't use it, and I have uber-respect for that.

I got into college, I like to believe, on my own merit.  I made acceptable grades and I participated in enough extra-curricular stuff to make me eligable to attend a college I'm ecstatic to be going to.  I don't like to think that there are kids out there who got cheated out of a place at their dream college because some reverse-racist bleeding heart demanded that a person be let in just because their ancestors were repressed.

I don't like to think that.  But I know it's true.

Choice bits of conversation from Leigh-Ann's birthday party tonight:

Michelle "The word 'vagina' is just stupid.  I wish I were there when they named it.  I'd have objected."

Rob "HAHAHA"

Michelle "No, seriously.  We're replacing the word 'vagina' with 'Donna'.  HotDonna, your new name is vagina."

HotDonna "What?  NO!"

And for the rest of the evening, HotDonna was referred to as V-Box, Vajayjay, or V.J.  By everyone present at the party.

Later on,

RandomGirl (addressing Michelle) "Hey, were the dinosaurs before or after Jesus?"

Michelle "Uh, the dinosaurs were 65 million years ago.  Jesus was only two thousand."

RandomGirl (to other random girl) "See!  I told you!"

KelseyFace: "Yeah, but could you see that?  Jesus riding on the back of a stegosaurus?  'Mush, mush!  I'm late for Mass!'"

Michelle "Jesus didn't go to Mass!  He was jewish!"

KelseyFace "Wait, then were dinosaurs kosher?  Hey, who here's jewish?  You!  You're jewish!  Would dinosaurs be kosher?"

JewishGirl "Sure.  Why not."

Michelle "I'll tell you why not.  They had dewclaw thingies, which are like hooves.  And when you're kosher, you can't eat hoovey-thingies."

We're smart people, we are.

If I Did It, I Would Have Been A Great Deal Smarter Than Whoever Did Do It

By: Michelle

Let's discuss the local events, shall we?  Please, sit down.  Are you comfortable?  Good, because these are dark times we are in.  So let the light from the fire warm you as the shadows creep in from without.

Recently we found ourselves evacuated from the school because of a bomb threat scribbled on a bathroom wall.  You may be acquainted with this through the group I survived Lenape's bomb threat and half-froze my ass off doing it.  (That's a Facebook group, just so you know, and I couldn't help plugging my own work.)  It was three and a half hours outside on the frozen soccer field while the bomb squad went through the building.  In short?  Not fun.  I would know - that fool idiot wearing nothing but a skin-thin tee-shirt and jeans, jumping up and down like a cat on crack just to stay warm?  That was me.  Look me up sometime; I'll be here all week.  Free autographs; appearance fees apply.

Anyways, yesterday there was a threat to kill everyone at the school, but since it was discovered at the end of the day, they let everyone go home or stay after like normal and just had a faculty meeting.  (God forbid they try to protect the after-school kids.)  This morning, however, everyone entering the building had to be searched.  The administration claimed that a phone message went out last night regarding it.  No one, apparently, received this message.  This leads me to two conclusions:

1.  That the faculty is covering their own asses by claiming that notice was given when actually, it wasn't. That way, if anyone accused them of offending the 4th Amendment, they could blame the students.  "No, officer, we called them.  We let them know that we were exacting the right to search them.  Probable cause and all that, Judge.  You understand, thanks.  Now take this nice packet of tax-payer's money and run along now."

2.  That if the faculty had any higher-level brain functions, they'd know that telling everyone that they were searching bags on Friday would in fact discourage the offending student from trying anything that day and would in fact encourage them to do it the day after, i.e. next Tuesday. 

Yes!  Let's give the psychopath a heads-up so he'll have a good sporting chance!  Brilliant!

Not only that, but they still allowed students outside to transfer between classes.  Anyone who knew about the search could just as easily hide the weapon in a bush, go through the search, and just wait until between periods to go grab it.  No harm, no foul.

I say just be done with it and either install the metal detectors or line all the freshmen up and spank 'em one by one.  They're being very naughty and trying to make Lenape into gang territory. 

Bad, bad ninth-graders.  If you're going to act like superfly bombshit little gangsters, we're going to treat you like superfly bombshit little children. 

The Night We Almost Died

Tenacious LSD and I hung out tonight.  He picked me up in his new car, which is a burgandy Oldsmobile (you know the type: for a decade it was lovingly cared for by some little old man or lady who only used it for groceries and polished it in the meantime with a diaper) that looked and drove like a steamship.  He'd named it the S.S. Shagatsea after Michael Caine's boat in Austin Powers and to be frank, I thought it fit wonderfully.  We spent the evening making maritime jokes at its expense, but it didn't complain.  Permission to come aboard, Captain; I give it a week before you've got barnacles.

The night started out cool enough; we decided long ago to rock the Chiles' and get some chicken nachos which weren't on the menu but they'd make because if you ordered it, they knew you were hardcore Chiles' enthusiests who were around before they changed the menu, so "forget them" and make us some blasted nachos before you lose your tip for seating us in the tiny bar booths.

Afterwards we chose to get to a bowling alley to play some pool or actually bowl.  We launched The Boat on the highway and I called my father to make sure we were going to right direction and were actually on the right road.  Turns out we had to hang a U-turn and then negotiate "The Whiparound", but it was in the middle of this conversation with my father that TenLSD decided to take matters into his own hands and make the U-ie.  But the place he chose to turn around happened to be separated after a point from the main highway by a concrete median.  My phone conversation went as thus:

Me: (On phone with Father who does not approve of cursing, swearing, or being out late on a school night) "Ok, so we just have to turn around?  TenLSD, find a place to turn around."

Father: (On phone) "And then just drive for awhile until you can do that overpass and get on the other side of the highway..."

Me:  "Yeah, yeah, the Whiparound.  We'll do thatOH MY GOD!  GET OVER!  GET OVER!  SHIT!  FUCK!  FUCK!"

TenLSD:  "Sorry!  Sorry!  I didn't see it!  Oh my god!"

Me:  *Covers eyes with hands, makes lighting-quick peace with God*

The Boat:  *jumps the median, pulls into a side street where we can turn the U-ie*

Me:  "Dad?  Dad, hello?"

Father:  (After a deathly long pause) "Yes?  I'm still here."

Me:  "Ok, sorry about that.  We just almost died.  If I don't get home, my sister can have my room."

Father:  "That warms my heart, Michelle.  Don't talk like that."

I hang up and we proceed to try to find the bowling alley, unable to negotiate even a few miles without making a wrong turn and having to drive about a mile out of the way to find a place to turn around.  This happens twice on the way to the bowling alley and twice on the way home. 

TenLSD's precursory to each of these home-bound turns was "Yeah, I know the way to your house from here."

Five miles later: Me: "We need to turn around."

TenLSD:  "Yeah.  I thought about that."

Me:  "We're going to die."  *begins to laugh uncontrolably*

TenLSD:  "No!  No, you can't do that.  If you start crying, I'm going to cry!"

Eventually, with the successful docking in my driveway, the night was over and I stumbled laughing (half in hilarity, half in grateful thanks that my brains weren't strawberry-milkshaked all over the highway) into my house and tried to face my father after the conversation we'd had earlier that night.  Turns out, he didn't think much of it.

I have either a very trusting or very uncaring family.

The Harvey cast party was - if I may be so bold - legendary.  The party started out as could be expected of any Lenape-production long-guest-list affair, having all sorts of lovely decorations that were put up without my knowledge, there were activities such as karaoke, dancing and good conversation.  There was Apples to Apples and Stewarts Fountain drinks, and most of the population went home sated and very pleased with the evening's events.

And then there was the sleepover.

Let me paint the picture for you: it's 2:30 AM Sunday morning and five guys and two girls have decided to spend the night at my house because it's too late to drive home.  The girls are sleeping on an Aerobed in my room upstairs and the boys are left to their own devices in the basement.

Let me repeat that for full dramatic effect: left to their own devices.

The girls and I are upstairs and trying to fall asleep when I casually mention that the odds are 2:1 that the boys will raid us in the middle of the night for some silly reason.  To head them off at the pass, we decide to call them.  The conversation went as thus:

Michelle:  "Hey, whatcha doin'?"

Boy:  "Can't talk.  Busy.  See you in the morning."

***dial tone***

The hell?  What at three AM could this mishmash of high school and college boys be doing in my basement?  We settle down, my having to work in the morning and so having to get at least a couple hours of sleep inhibiting us going down to see for ourselves. 

I wake up around 7:30 the next morning and stumble down to the basement.  What I beheld has secured the number-one slot on my list of Awesomeness and will probably hold the record at least until the Anything Goes cast party:

A giant blanket fort.

Apparently, our dear boys spend all night - or morning, as it were - building this massive fort o' blankets.  It dominated 75% of my basement.  It was held together by anything they could find, including most of their clothes.  One boy was apparently wearing only boxers at one point because the rest of his apparel had gone towards tying ends down.

You can read more about it here. 

Now I'm all excited for Anything Goes.  If this goes down again, they say Fort V.2 will conquer the first floor.

I am not a terrifically educated young woman in the ways of James Bond.  I was raised to defend Sean Connery to my dying day, to support Pierce Brosnan's sexy arse and despise Roger Moore's third nipple.  I know that Bond likes his vodka martinis shaken and not stirred.  And I know that Craig was taking a lot of heat for not being very physically canon.  As Entertainment Weekly put it: "Yes, Mr. Blonde, they expect you to dye!".

But I just got back from Casino Royale (I even went out of my way yesterday to buy an advance ticket, which was smart of me.  The theater was packed.) and let me be the most Bond-innocent (if not the first) to tell you: Get yourself to that movie.

Craig has an almost hypnotizing stare that makes you wonder if that's really his face and not just a CGI illusion.  Sure, he's a bit older and more weater-beaten, but just watch him work in the first half-hour of the film and you forget all about that. 

I won't spoil any of it for you.  I did call bullshit on a situation or two - you can't bring a flatline back with a defibrillator - but all in all the movie was so brilliant that you can't help but say "No. Way." when your mind is saying "GOD THAT'S AWESOME!"

SMALL SPOILER ALERT!

Plus, there's one scene that's a little unnerving (mostly for the men; ladies will just be crying over spilled milk.)  Ladies and gay guys, it's the "money shot".  But don't be fooled.  The Bond family jewels are threatened in this torture scene and when it's over, you'll be thinking "Bond. Is. The. MAN."

SPOILERS FINISHED!

Anyways, for those of you who've tuned back in, Casino Royale is fantastic.  It's a glorious romp through high-stakes adventure and when the credits roll you'll be thanking yourself.  Maybe even want to see it again.

My closing advice is this: make sure you use the bathroom before the movie.  It's a tad long (2 hours, 24 minutes), and the last ten minutes are kind of deflated if you're gunning to get to a stall.

Before you say "Hey, I hate terrorism too!  This is old hat!", just think about this: you did not just spend yesterday (which topped off to be a 20-hour day on 6 hours of sleep) in the airport.  You did not have to fly 7.5 hours home from England to the USA.  You did not live those 7.5 hours in fear that someone you've never met, never even seen from a country you've never worried about had sneaked on a weapon that could blow the flimsy-walled flying deathbox to tiny bits of shrapnel mid-flight over your beloved and much-missed home country. 

I'm not a political person.  I'm the make-love-not-war type without the sex.  Personally, I don't see why everyone can't just leave everyone alone; no one's "right" or "wrong" and it's really none of our business in the end if a country's a democracy or a dictatorship so long as they're not threatening to blow up a hemisphere.  And hey, if everone subscribed to this concept we'd essentially have world peace!

Unfortunately, they don't and we don't, so we have conspiracies to blow up passenger flights and kill hundreds - even thousands - of innocent people who have never really wished ill of another country. 

Anyway, all this ruckus has led to this increase in airplace security which is my original reason for writing.  I, traveling yesterday as a member of a Girl Scout group, may have gone through the process faster than the average passenger (and my heart goes out to innocent Saudi-Arabians flying these days!), but again, if no one hated another country enough to attack their planes then we wouldn't have all this hype.  Again, unfortunately, we do, so I experienced a very specific Hell yesterday that I feel I should share.

Even before thinking about going to the airport, I had to assure that I wouldn't have any carry-on luggage save my passport, another form of ID and a small amount of money.  If US Airways didn't have in-flight entertainment like SkyRadio and the TVs for each seat, this would have been a daunting 7.5 hour trip indeed without a book or anything.  Since I came to England with three bags (two checked and one carry-on), I had to shove the contents of that third bag into the other two.  A tough task.

Then we went and got through baggage check quick enough, but it was the personal security checks that killed us.  Each individual is now given a pat-down and must remove their shoes and all decently removable items of clothing.  The contents of their moneypurses must be examined.  And then another personal security check before getting on the plane.

The flight itself is alright, except for the mounting fear that someone may have slipped something past security.  Meanwhile USAIR is making a killing off selling earphones because no one could bring them on or anything else to amuse themselves and it is physically impossible to sleep through the journey.  When we were descending the engines made a funny popping noise like a gunshot, but that was, in hindsight, probably just engine trouble.

Getting off the plane was yet ANOTHER personal search and ANOTHER baggage check, and let's not talk about the line going through customs.  Maybe four flights backed up and the computers broke down and our Girl Scout leaders barking at us the while, but like I said, let's not talk about that.  Finally I got into the car and drove home through rush hour traffic because we were two hours late.

In conclusion, I hate terrorism because terrorists are ruining my short-term life.  Or at least making it very, very difficult.  I wish I could sit down and talk with a terrorist face-to-face.  I wish I could ask him or her why.  I wish I could make them understand that in normal society, suicidal people just kill themselves instead of taking perfectly happy people down with them.  I wish I could convince several world leaders that we may be fighting each other but we are working together to destroy the world.  I wish, I wish. 

I wish.

Hello everyone!  No, I'm not dead.  No, I'm not ignoring you.  No, I'm not converting to Brittainism.  I'm on "vacation", or as vacation as one can get after sleeping in a muddy, rainy, dead-grassy field for a week.

Anyways, I'm safe now and thoroughly enjoying my time.  I've learned much since my departure July 25th:

1.  England is very much like Seattle: full of cold rain and oppressive sporadic heat.  And coffee/tea.

2.  Seeing the changing of the guard from inside Buckinham Palace's gates may be a huge honor, but if you've never really cared about it in the first place it can be very long and not much different than bearing witness to a funeral involving pallbearers wearing huge bearskin hats.

3.  The Crown Jewels are not as staggering as they're made out to be.

4.  England is full of jaw-droppingly hot men.  Really, if we could, a few of us would move here just for the eye candy.  I mean, every three seconds it's like "There goes another one!  After him!" and then we see another and it's like "Ooh!  He's even prettier!  After him!" and the like.

5.  Newfoundland dogs, specifically two of them, are like bears.  Really.  Buckingham Palace guards probably skin these dogs when they run out of Canadian Blacks.

6.  Gas is surprisingly cheap!  9/10ths of a liter is about 96p, so that equates to something just under $2 per gallon, I think. Woof.

7.  Fish and chips is YUMMY.

8.  The vernacular differences are tough to overcome.  That, and the fact that I'm from the States is a source of constant wonder.

9.  Girl Scout dance parties are not parties.  They are a gathering of pree-teen girls screaming and making fools of themselves to the sounds of the local pop teen orchestra.

10.  English men are terrible flirts.  Since arriving, our group has been eyed, teased, questioned and the like.  And last night while walking through the park a guy grabbed my butt.  However, after two weeks of no male contact, it was kind of a welcome experience.  It reminded me that I am, in fact, not a lesbian, and many would think of a girl who's been in Girl Scouts as long as I have.

There's tons more, and when I get home you're all welcome to ask about it.  But I've got to pop off now to change my clothes, 'cause I'm all wet from a SuperSoaker fight outside.  Some things just don't change.