Stuck

I'm stuck in Pittsburgh. My route home is via Chicago, where bad weather has grounded all flights. So my flight is delayed by three hours, which means I have now missed my transatlantic flight back home, and the BBQ that Clare and I were going to have on Friday night. I'm booked in on the next one which lands at 10:40 PM Friday (12 hours late). I guess I'm going to have a night trying to sleep on airport seating. I am so fed up.

Time Up

So my time in the States has come to an end - this is my last night. I must say, I have enjoyed my stay here, people have been very friendly, there has been plenty to do and hotel living has made life very easy! I'm certainly looking forward to getting back home though, I have missed friends and family (and morris), healthy food and commercial free television. I have also missed out on all this hot weather! It had better not turn cold on my return. I think I have also built an appreciation for the vast history that Britain has. There are hardly any old buidings or landmarks here, and you don't realise how these things provide a sense of identity for British people. I'm waffling - see you all soon!

MySpace Sucks

I don't like MySpace for the following reasons:

• It's difficult to use, stuff just isn't laid out very well


• It's full of annoying adverts


• It's frequently broken or not working properly. It's just badly coded


• It's ugly, and customised profiles look even worse most of the time


• There isn't much functionality, for example; customising the appearance of your profile is essentially a hack, you have to use 3rd party tools to embed css in your description


• It's full of annoying teenagers anyway, and has little useful content

So why is it so popular? I admit, I have a profile, I guess the answer is that it was the first. It now has so much weight behind it that I guess it's here to stay.

Personally I preferred the old days of the internet where the world only heard your opinion if you were prepared to learn HTML. This automatic entry test screened out some of the muppets who now use MySpace.

Loose Change

I watched the Loose Change film on google video the other day. It puts forward an argument that the American government planned the destruction of the World Trade Center. In particular, the video shows evidence supporting claims that charges were set to bring down the buildings, and the Pentagon was hit by a military aircraft/weapon which was then covered up. These are of course outrageous claims, but after watching the video I too was swayed to believe that some sort of conspiracy may have existed. Many of these thoughts were put to rest after a bit more research. Thanks to sites such as 911Myths.com, I reaslised that the loose change film wasn't presenting all the facts. Draw your own conculsions, but I generally find the most simple explanation is the correct one.

More Pittsburgh

Tonight I took the incline (a train that runs at about 45 degrees) to the top of Mount Washington to get a good view over the city. You may notice amongst my collection of photos a tall sky-scraper made mostly of glass, with lots of sharp points at the top. It belongs to the local glass company and the design was inspired by the Houses of Parliment. They seem to have missed off the big clock.

Less than two weeks until I come home now, can't say how much I'm looking forward to a nice cup of tea (and seeing my Wife).

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All-Stars in Pittsburgh

It's All-Star week in Pittsburgh. Which means that the richest best baseball players in the world have come to town to play rounders, sign autographs and attract tourists. Clare and I escaped to 'Racoon Creek' for a peaceful hike, and looked around the Andy Warhol museum for some culture - innit.

By the way - the guys in the canoes are there to catch the odd ball that flies out of the ballpark and into the river. They can be seen paddling franticly towards such balls, and diving into the brown sludge to retrieve their prize.

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Niagara Falls

Clare has come to visit this week, so we watched the Pittsburgh Pirates play the Detroit Tigers (this was a baseball match) and took a road trip (long drive) up to Niagara Falls. We got back to Pittsburgh in time to celebrate America's independance from the UK - we're off to watch the fireworks right now.

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