The Englishman Abroad – Public Transport
San Francisco is a city blessed with a comprehensive, well integrated public transport system which is apparently sometimes capable of driving the unfamiliar insane. I know it's just one of those things, and the natives can manage it without a second thought. And actually, on previous visits I've been able to do so myself, but on Wednesday night I had an interlude of utter confusion while trying to get to The Isotope (SF's best comic shop, bar none, tell them I sent you). The last few times I've been there it's been before heading out to the airport to catch the red-eye to New York, so I've tended to have bags, and therefore taken a cab, but I live here now, so no bags.
The local transport website had said that the most straightforward way to get there from the office was by MUNI train
- the station is a minute's walk from the office, and having got there I joined the queue (excuse me, the line) at the ticket desks. But no - when I got to the front of the line, I learned that this was was only for season tickets and the like. Single trips, "just pay at the window by the gate".
At the gate, I tried to put my cash through the slot at the base of the window, but the woman inside the booth pointed behind me and said something mostly unintelligible about 'ticket machines'.
So I turned round and went to the ticket machines behind me, which were all for the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit - a completely different train system - told you it was comprehensive around these parts). I wandered around for a bit, trying to work out where I was going wrong, but to no avail, and I was suddenly struck by that male/tourist/English (delete as you think) thing of not wanting to ask for help.
So I went back up to street level and got a bus.
Next week, things will be different. And if by chance they're not, you'll never hear about it...
The Englishman Abroad – Sunrise
I know you get them everywhere, but this one was the one I got this morning here on the West Coast, so I don't feel bad that this is the first of my 'Englishman Abroad' posts.
The sunset here last night was stunning - everyone in the office ran to the window to look - and it was followed by a beautiful sunrise today. This was the view I opened the curtains to - sorry the quality's not great, it's off my phone and doesn't do it justice. Can't believe I actually dug out my camera to bring then forgot to pack it. Must not make the same mistake after the break.
Click on the thumbnail to launch the full size version in a new window.
Scandalous!
(Nothing to do with being in the US)
I'm going to miss (but My Beloved will record, on pain of death) what remains of Cranford, BBC1's current period piece (described in Monday's Media Guardian as "a slender period story supported by a stellar cast, enormous bonnets and dirty lace"), but I can't let pass the opportunity to tell anyone who can possibly see what there is left of it to do so.
It's utterly magnificent. The plot, such that it is, revolves around social gaffes, multiple scandals (real and imagined) and the interweaving of the lives of various inhabitants of the town of Cranford, who are collectively faced with the shock of the future, as the railway is coming to town. The cast really is incredible, and brings the already impressive dialogue to life with wit, warmth and humanity. It's harsh to pick one person out, but Imelda Staunton's nosy, judgemental, perpetually scandalised Miss Pole lights up every scene she's in.
There's really nothing to it, but it's got more entertainment value than practically anything else I've seen on TV this year. It's bound to be out on DVD, so look out for it if you can't get caught up on it on TV.
Gone
So, here I am in sunny San Francisco, settled into the hotel that's my home away from home for the next three weeks or so (the pre-Christmas chunk of the multi-month stay), and having been welcomed by my new officemates.
I got off the flight yesterday feeling brighter and breezier than I have off one of those for a while, and then crashed harder than ever at 9.30pm. Like, asleep sitting at the desk in front of the laptop crashed.
Anyway - the bold new adventure begins here. I'm going to start a set of posts on the theme of 'An Englishman In SF' which will hopefully help to encapsulate the specific cultural experience of being here for longer than my usual few days. Or might just be a load of whinging - let's see, shall we?
Just In Time For Me Coming Back
It's become slightly academic for the next few months, but I've been thinking for a while that I need to find new listening for my morning commute. I tend to listen to Today, because I'm a news junkie*, and there's nothing else I've found that does anything approaching proper news in the morning since the now long-ago demise of much-missed 'proper' GLR (ah, the days of Fi Glover and Gideon Coe and real news-based speech-based local radio). But it's a safe bet that at least once every morning I'll turn it off in a fit of rage, usually over John Humphries trying to generate a totally unneccesary confrontation out of thin air, but they're all as bad as one another.
And now it's been announced that come the Spring, just in time for me to resume London commuting, probably, my least favourite BBC journalist not called Nick Robinson is joining the Today team. That's decided it for me - when I get back, for me at least Today will be history.
* And yes, I'm a news junkie about to go to the US for an extended period. Pity me as I thank the lord for the interweb.
Amazon – A Prime Case Of Madness
So I noticed that Amazon UK have finally launched the Amazon Prime programme which has been available in the US for ages. Pay an annual fee and you get some benefits, like unlimited next-day deliveries.
The Mrs and I do a certain amount of Amazon shopping, so on Monday of this week when he was about to place an order we agreed it made sense to sign up. Inexplicably, however, having done so, he discovered that the cost of the order had actually gone up. He decided to cancel the Prime membership, but because that would take 48 hours, and placing the order before then would entail the additional cost, I placed the order instead. Given the urgency - there's a limit to how long he was willing to wait for the new Girls Aloud album - we decided to take advantage of their new evening delivery service and scheduled delivery for Tuesday evening.
Monday evening, there's a ring at the door, and a friendly delivery man hands over the order placed about eight hours earlier. Good job one of us was in.
Amazon appear to be achieving the strangest combination of under-delivery (the extra cost and confusion created by the 'money saving' Prime membership) and over-delivery (the arrival of the goods a full 24 hours ahead of the delivery I'd paid for; though even this could be regarded as a problem, as I'd arranged to be in on Tuesday night, but it was only by a fluke that I was back from work by the time the Monday delivery was made).
An Echoing Silence
Not because I haven't had anything to say, but because I've had a number of things going on that have been occupying my mind and which haven't been finalised enough to talk about.
Now, however, I can at least talk about the major thing.
In a little over a week, I'll be leaving the UK for four months (which is strictly a lie, as I'll be back at Christmas, but this is the principle). It's a work thing, obviously, and I'll be based in San Francisco for most of the time, with occasional forays to the East coast. I'm in the middle of long-distance apartment hunting right now, which is an interesting process, being as how I have to work entirely from descriptions and photos and have to find somewhere I'll be happy to go back to of an evening in a strange town where I'll be living alone.
The plan is that The Mrs will be coming over for around a month in the new year sometime, and I'll be coming back in time for the Japan trip. Ideally a few days before so I don't go straight from a nine-hour flight onto a twelve hour one...
Sort of exciting, sort of weird, sort of daunting. It's all sorts of things 
November?
Where's the time gone? Specifically, where have the last two weeks gone? Having been getting into a more regular blogging routine again I suddenly blew it with two weeks of silence.
Quick round up: was in New York for work on the trip I was last talking about, for what turned out to be a very odd meeting with a prospective new client in which nothing was quite as we'd expected it to be beforehand. The outcome, given the fact that we'd prepared for a completely different meeting than the one the prospect was expecting, can probably be deduced.
Marked the anniversary slightly late, but in very pleasant style.
Been thinking/fretting a lot about things.
Am allowing myself a relatively measured return to World of Warcraft, accompanying the arrival in the game of a friend from the real world who's never played it before.
Have also, through The Mrs, been introduced to the Best Computer Game Ever(tm) . Portal is one of the games in the Half Life 2 Orange Box, and is nothing short of a work of genius.
Am not even pretending to try to take part in NANOWRIMO this year, following my abject failure last year. The Mrs is giving it a shot though.
That's me pretty much caught up on the last two weeks - you can tell it's been full of incident, can't you?
Off out for what will hopefully be a very nice dinner tonight to mark a couple of friends' birthdays, then we're planning on doing as little as humanly possible this weekend.