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AIM: Lenlow1
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Clix.

Freakin Netscape. I just wrote several paragraphs here, and then what I was writing was off the page, so I had to resize the frame so I could see it all, and that refreshed the window and I lost everything I typed. So you get the less clever, more frustrated version.

This will probably be my last update until I return stateside. Hopefully I will be able to remember what I've been up to, and I hope for your sake that it involves more than "then I went here and it was coooool... then I went there and it was coooool... " At any rate, putting up my pictures remains unfeasible, so I'm going to steal others' from the web. Yes, this will make my pictures much less interesting and attractive, but I don't care.

Tuesday Karen and I went to Pickering and it was coooool... there was a huge old castle (pictured left) on a hill that overlooked the moors (or as George Costanza would say, the "moops"). Unfortunately Pickering Castle was closed to tourists that day, so we walked in the moat around the back and I climbed up the wall and peeked over the edge. For me, no vacation is complete until I risk my neck climbing on something. (Exhibit A.) The quaint little town of Pickering also had a beautiful little church, and not much else. After the church and the castle, we were content to follow some path into the moops for a little ways and be one with nature (in my case, heed the call of nature).

Wednesday was not a day that would make my sight-seeing hall of fame. Sometimes being a poor planner bites me in the posterior, but usually I get by... and I really pulled a Homer Wednesday. Karen had classes so I had to be a big boy and figure out the trains myself. But they don't speak American over there! Anyway, I had planned on seeing the Lake District, out west. I moseyed to the train station and asked this bloke what the best way to get out there would be, and he said "trains only get out there twice a day... but hey if you hurry, one leaves in 5 minutes." He also added that it would cost £43, and take three hours. Hmm, hadn't really allotted that much of either... Oh well. Vacation! Sight-seeing! So the train took me to Manchester, and I noticed my ticket says York-->Manchester, Manchester-->Windermere. Hmmm.... at a Manchester stop I asked some bloke "Does this mean I need to change trains here?" And as the doors close me in he said "yes." But then he adds "But you'd be better off getting off at the next Manchester stop anyway." Woo-hoo! So that's what I did, and soon some people were getting on a train and I just on a whim asked some bloke "Where's this going?" and he said "Windermere", so I hopped on right before the doors closed. Then I got off at Windermere and there was a bus waiting to take me to Bowness, which is on the allegedly beautiful Lake Windermere (pictured right). So as soon as I got to Bowness I saw that a lake cruise was leaving in 15 minutes, so I took advantage of that. I could tell that the area was beautiful, a huge lake surrounded by moops, but it was cold and rainy Wednesday, and I could only see about 100 yards (I mean about 100 metres), so some of the lake's charm was lost on me. Anyway, after two hours in Bowness, it was time to get back to Windermere to catch the 16:14 train to Manchester. So Wednesday I spent about 7 hours travelling and less than three hours seeing the rainy sights. Oh well. Vacation! Sight-seeing!

Yesterday Karen and I took a beautiful bus ride north through the moops to the coastal town of Whitby (pictured left). Whitby's claims to fame are the ruins of Whitby Abbey, and the home of Bram Stoker's Dracula. I'd say the Abbey was probably my favorite part of England so far. We got some great pictures. Whitby was three hours away, but we didn't care because (1) it didn't cost £43, (2) the ride there was through the rolling hills and quaint towns in the moops, (3) it was a gorgeous day in a gorgeous town, (4) the ride home we slept.

Okay I go eat now. Cheers!

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I've just spent the morning walking the streets of York, while Karen's in class. What a beautiful city. Here's a picture I found of York Minster, the largest church in Europe. Pretty spectacular. Huge stained glass windows. Huge church. I also took some time to walk on the old walls that encircle the city... fortunately it's a beautiful day. I've taken more pictures too, but they may just have to wait until next week. Unless I can work my computing magic.... boo beep boo... 1010101

Tomorrow we plan to go a bit North to the Moors region, about which I know nothing. It's just supposed to be quite a sight. Hmmm, I think I'll round up some pictures on the internet and show them to you tomorrow. We can pretend that I took them.

I'm not yet used to looking into what I think is the driver side of passing cars and seeing either nobody, or a very small child. I wish that the first time this caught me by surprise, it had been a dog.

I can't stop speaking with an English accent. It's really annoying Karen.

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'Ello from beautiful York, England. I'm on me third day out here and I'm having a great time. I've taken lots of digital pictures, but unfortunately the slowness and cost of Karen's computer connection are making it rather difficult for me to get the pictures to my server. So those will be along later.

Yesterday we toured London. Look kids, Big Ben... Parliament... We took a double-decker tour bus that allowed us to get on and off when we pleased, which really was the way to go. My favorite parts of that were the Tower of London and Westminster Hall (Big Ben). All big and cool and whatnot.

Today we went to see Leeds United take on Aston Villa. What a great experience. The stadium was huge, the fans rowdy (and creative), and "the pitch was in beautiful condition", to quote a Playstation FIFA soccer game. It really felt like I was playing a video game, everything was so clear and the ambience was exactly what I was expecting. Why can't America get that riled up for a match. (It was a 1-1 draw, by the way. And oh what fun to pretend LUFC has always been MY team...)

Stuff sure is expensive over here. I've started taking Karen's advice of "Just pretend that price is in dollars, and it's not so bad." I'm on vacation, after all.

Did you know that "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" is the non-American (original) title to the book? Word on the street is that Americans are too stupid to know what a philosopher is, so it was changed to "Sorcerer".

At the Leeds bus station today, this is what a bathroom door sign said: "The lighting in this toilet has been altered to deter unsociable behavior. It may take a moment for your eyes to adjust." The light inside was kind of like black light, but not so extreme. It was weird. Does anyone know what that means? Is it supposed to have a calming psychological effect? Is there something I'm not getting and maybe I don't want to get?

Aw-royt, I may turn in soon. I'm positively knackered.
Cheers mate

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Eleven-day weekend, here I come!

Friday morning I fly to England. My first time overseas. Gonna visit my friend Karen, spend about a week seeing all the sights. I'm most looking forward to a Leeds United match Sunday night... last I heard they were tops over there. At any rate, I will definitely be borrowing Karen's digital camera and I'll try to update LenLowLand on a regular basis. They have electricity over there, right?

TOP TEN PHRASES I PLAN TO USE IN ENGLAND:
(10) Do you speak English
(9) Bangers 'n' Mash
(8) Top bob
(7) Chim chiminy chim chiminy chim-chim charoo
(6) Clench yer buttocks, mate!
(5) Piggy's lost his specs
(4) Christmas is ever so special
(3) Shine yer boots, guv'na?
(2) I want an oompa-loompa, daddy
(1) I've coughed in me trousers!

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My website was recently reviewed by "The Weblog Review". I'm pretty happy with 4.5 out of 5. Fortunately the reviewer made it to EnlowSpeak, and he or she seemed to enjoy it. So anyway if you go there you can, I dunno, vote for me and stuff.

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Thanks to Jenny, Farah and Mary Jo for sending us some delicious chocolate chip cookies! These are some cool girls from the Big Apple whom Bill, Alan and I met at a party last weekend and had a great time with. About those cookies (which are honestly excellent)... Bill was a little leery opening the brown paper package with an unfamiliar NYC return address done with magic marker. When you are cornerstones of the community as high-profile and as influential as Bill, Alan and myself, you tend to be a little cautious about suspicious packages. But a nice deep whiff of the goodies inside quickly calmed our fears. Hey wait a second... girls... sending us cookies.... now I'm suspicious again. Maybe the big whiff was a bad idea.

I told Farah I'd plug her company's website iVillage.com... I may not be at all part of the target audience, but it looks like a great site. Jenny is a senior writer for Fashion Wire Daily. Again, target audience... not me. My idea of being fashionable is wearing khakis instead of jeans. Mary Jo does web design and makes cool Flash things, to which I unfortunately have no links... so unfortunately she will not benefit from the huge volumes of traffic I could send her way with a click of the mouse. Pshaw!

Thanks again ladies!

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Oh drat, Crazy Carl wants to leave the Red Sox. I say give C. Everett Poop what he wants.

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NotMyDesk.com contemplates the origins of butter.

Fine, so, someone decided to churn it. I guess I can accept that. Maybe they tried other things, like mashing it with a hammer, rubbing it on themselves or others, smoking it, reading stories to it, and a multitude of other applications with a discernable lack of success.

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Matt just reminded me of his favorite Wal-Mart moment...

The Toy Department and the Pet Department are shoved in a remote corner of the store, and in between them is the entrance to the outside portion of the Lawn and Garden Department. Sometimes when business was slow and there weren't any unwrapped Nerf guns to play with, we'd all hang around the Toys desk and discuss current events (goof off). There was a certain Lawn and Garden associate named Ron, who we liked to tease. Not that there was much to tease him about besides his French-Canadian heritage, but... boys will be boys. One time he was out assisting a customer and he had left his nametag on the desk. So I took a marker and wrote "MO" in front of the "RON". That's about all there is to the story, except that it was a long time before he ever noticed. A long, hilarious time.

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My friend Nathan, who is an aspiring actor in L.A., said he went to see an improv comedy show last night which featured Will Ferrell (of Saturday Night Live), Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman) and Dan Castellaneta (the voice of Homer Simpson). As you can imagine, his review was a rave one... to paraphrase, he went in with tighty whities but at the end of the night they were only tight.

Nathan has some good brush-with-greatness stories, as most people who live in L.A. probably do... he's performed improv with Jack from "Will and Grace", he's eaten dinner next to Adam Sandler, he was almost a victim of Gary Coleman road rage, the list goes on and on...

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This just in... the meteor shower Sunday morning is still going to be cool.

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After I graduated from high school I spent the summer working in the WAL-MART toy department. I recently remembered a humorous anecdote from my experience, and I thought I'd share.

In every company, feeble efforts are made to boost morale and increase the "family" atmosphere. In my first week on the job, the non-vital store workers (of which I was definitely one) gathered one morning at the Snack Bar for a meeting. I have no idea what the meeting was about and I probably had no idea as I was sitting there either. But as the meeting closed we were informed that we were long overdue for a spirited rendition of "the WAL-MART cheer". I was vaguely aware of what this entailed. I recalled some people clapping and chanting something, kinda like how theme restaurants celebrate birthdays. I thought to myself "okay, I'll just stand silent in the back and hide from passing customers." But the big boss instructed the manager of each department to choose an "associate" to help lead the cheer. And since I was the only "associate" working Toys at that juncture (or maybe it's just a nasty rite of initiation), I was selected. Associates from all the departments lined up, and before I knew it the cheer had begun, with the clapping and the chanting and the embarrassing and the hey hey....

I moved my mouth in an attempt to blend in, probably saying "peas and carrots" as if I were reprising my "scrawny townsperson #2" role in "The Music Man" from a couple years prior. But all of a sudden, the guy on one end yelled "give me a 'W'!" and the other workers yelled "W!!!!!!"... I immediately started counting down the line to see where I'd end up, and I became rather nervous when I noticed that the last "T" in "WAL-MART" would end up several people before me. Does that mean I'm off the hook? Do we spell it again? What does this mean????

"Give me an 'R'!"..... "R!!!!"
"Give me a 'T'!"..... "T!!!!"
The next dude yelled "What's that spell????"... Of course, I thought. But that still didn't solve any problems. Only one person left before me...
"I can't hear you!!!!!" ("WAL-MART!!!")

There was no way out. I had to make up something, and I think a lot of people would have come up with the same thing:
"I STILL can't hear you!!!!"
I was met with many confused looks, and only a few of my coworkers could think quickly enough to yell "WAL~MART" again. I don't know what they were prepared to say, but that wasn't it. Fortunately I was allowed to return my post without much ado. For a situation with such high embarrassment potential, I thought I came out relatively unscathed. Maybe I really impressed management... that would explain how I continued to get away with hours upon hours of nerf gun fights with Matt from the Pets Department. Wonder what happened to that kid.

P.S. I have the perfect picture to accompany this anecdote: me in my WAL~MART vest collecting shopping carts in the rain. Unfortunately I don't have access to a scanner... bummer. So all you get is a cheesy graphic. Wal-Mart cares about Kids! They must mean the part of Wal-Mart that didn't have to clean up after the rugrats after Mommy and Daddy left them alone with more Barbies and G.I.Joe's than they've ever seen in one place. That's the part of Wal-Mart that cares about kids.

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Top two reasons to stop looking on my site for "PICTURES OF BRAIN URLACHER":

(1) His name is Brian, not Brain.
(2) I don't have any pictures of him.

Great, now that I have explicitly said "pictures of brain urlacher", I'm going to be number one on the search results for some time now. Well, better that than "funny WTC pictures". Oh great I did it again.

So is Brian Urlacher some sort of dreamboat?

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For the funny people out there: Funnypics, courtesy of WorldWideJeb.org. It's an ongoing contest where you try to come up with the funniest caption for a given photograph. I hope you kids have better luck than yours truly, who has yet to crack the scoreboard. Okay maybe it's not luck. Making up captions just doesn't seem to be my comedic forte. But Matt (a.k.a. "MisterMe") is on the board with 2 points. Aah, I didn't want to play that stupid game anyway.

Speaking of pictures... here's a picture of a big cat. Thanks Dean.

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For the eggheads out there: Bartleby.com. "The preeminent publisher of literature, reference and verse providing students, researchers and the intellectually curious with unlimited access to books and information on the web, free of charge."

Basically, one-stop shopping for all things reference.

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It's ironic that I get frustrated when sites like www.notmydesk.com go several days without being updated. I haven't exactly been Johnny Blog-a-lot. Rest assured that if I think of something interesting to say, I'll say it.

Speaking of "rest assured"... Growing up, I would hear that phrase and think to myself "What does that mean? The rest of what are assured of what?" Then I realized that it's not declarative, it's imperative. But then it seems like it deserves a comma. Like "I command you to rest, assured that if I think of something interesting to say, I'll say it."

Well what do you know, it seems that if I think of something not interesting to say, I'll say that too.

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Here's some more information about the upcoming meteor storm. All signs point to "really cool".

Sunday morning November 18th, 4am - 6am EST. I think I'll be awake for this.

What's coming on Nov. 18th could be the biggest event since 1966 [when North Americans enjoyed a Leonid storm numbering 100,000 shooting stars per hour].

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Why can't I ever think up a Halloween costume like this? Oh now I remember... I don't feel like working on a costume for even five minutes, let alone a year.

Speaking of Halloween... In grade school I only remember getting three spelling words wrong... and each one devastated me. The first was "beggar". What the heck is that? "A-R"? That was absurd. I protested that for weeks. The second was "past". I was disappointed with myself for this one because the teacher even used it in a sentence, but I still thought it was "passed". Those two were from second grade... the third was either fourth or fifth grade: "Halloween". Nobody spelled it right because the teacher insisted that the proper spelling included an apostrophe: "Hallowe'en". So we all told her that was garbage. I'm reminded of that every time I write "Halloween", and I never use an apostrophe, because (1) That's garbage. (2) Nobody likes a show-off. Even I, who used the word "foci" in my college interview, would not do something like that.

P.S. Honestly, the only other time I can remember having my spelling corrected was in high school; we once had a spelling bee, you know, for fun. Game over, I thought. But I didn't win. I think teacher had done some research on my potential weaknesses and gave me the word "hypocrisy". I spelled it "hypocracy", like it was some sort of government. STUPID! STUPID! I can't believe I'm telling everybody this.

P.P.S. That's the same English teacher who wrote on one of my papers: "Luke, this is the best paper you have ever written. But, it's off-topic. D"

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Not My Desk reviews "Mission Impossible 2".

The goons can't hit Tom Cruise because he keeps doing back-flips and half-gainers, but Tom Cruise can kill them pretty easily because they are preoccupied with things like aiming their guns.

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The filming of Russell Crowe's new movie "A Beautiful Mind" gives him nightmares. The movie's about a paranoid-schizophrenic Nobel Prize-winning mathematician. I can see it now: "On my signal... zzz... perpendicular bisector...... zzzzz..... Cramer-Rao Theorem...... [snort] the natural log of pi * i is negative ONE!!!!!! AAAHHHHH!!!!!!" And a subsequent phone call: "Hi, Ron? This is Rusty... yeah. Hey listen I'm kinda getting cold feet... um I think maybe for the role of John Forbes Nash Jr.... wouldn't you rather cast someone who's actually been in a math class before?... I dunno, I just... isn't there a part for a big guy who wrestles tigers or something? Or I could be the guy that kicks sand in the face of the mathematician on the beach... can we write that in?... PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME GO BACK IN THAT CLASSROOM"

But seriously, the movie, detailing the trials and tribulations of a crazy mathlete, is subtitled "The Matt Enlow Story". No, it's like "The Wizard of Menlow Park". No wait, "You can't spell 'Matthew' without 'Matth'". And so forth...

See I'm an equal-opportunity people-mocker. I'm actually a one-eyed one-horned flying purple people-mocker, but that's neither here nor there. And is it just me, or do I write weird stuff when I'm tired?

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Menlow reviews the sassy new season of Boston Public. To think I was so close to watching it, before I noticed the finale of Band of Brothers was on. But seriously: I liked Boston Public the first time I saw it..... wheeeeen it was called "Dangerous Minds".

More about Band of Brothers... This was a riveting HBO miniseries about an airborne division during World War II. It was produced by Spielberg and Tom Hanks, and many times it seemed like you were watching what was left on the Saving Private Ryan cuttting room floor, but I preferred it to the movie. You didn't see much of the Hollywood cheesiness, and for the most part had no idea what was going to happen. Also, war movies intrigue me.

It was also fun to play the "That Guy" game throughout the miniseries, with major characters played by Ron Livingston (Office Space, Swingers), Soap from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and Donnie Wahlberg. Also making appearances were David Schwimmer and Jimmy Fallon.

By the way, episode two, which detailed the Normandy invasion form the paratroopers' perspectives, featured one of the most riveting TV moments I can remember. It's right up there with the episode of ER when Gant died, somewhere in the '96-'97 season. Also up there is Sunday's Game 7, and Nomo's no-hitter... but I think those are just up there because they are recent... and I wasn't talking about sports moments anyway. So stop talking about sports! Can't I get through one blog post without someone mentioning sports????

Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic: What are the TV moments you remember most? And let's not include sports or news events. We all remember where we were on 9/11, or when Laettner hit the buzzer-beater to beat Kentucky. (Ladies, think Kerri Strug.) I'm just interested if there are any memories of TV shows that stand out in your minds.

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Here's a challenging maze-type logic puzzle game thing: "Theseus and the Minotaur". I gave up on level 7.

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YEAHHHHH BABYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
That game was AWESOME.

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Wil Wheaton and Greg have recommended "Mame" for classic arcade games. Well it certainly seems like a good idea... now if I could only get a download to work. I'm trying to get "Kicker", a cheesy kung-fu style game which I mastered at a Las Vegas campground one day in the summer of '89. Good times...

P.S. That's the same Wil Wheaton of Star Trek: TNG and Stand By Me fame. His site is entertaining, give it a peep.

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Yeah baby... 12-0 D-backs right now. Bottom of the third inning. Even Randy got a hit. This is awesome.

I write this fairly confident that the Yankees won't hit a 12-run home run in the ninth inning...

Photos courtesy of espn.com.

**UPDATE: It's official. And wow was that third inning fun to watch.

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Know what would be fun? Let's anagram the names of Yankees players into some derogatory (yet clean) phrases. That will get out some aggression, eh? Eh?

I'll go first.
Derek Jeter = Jerkee Terd
Alfonso Soriano = 'n' Soriano's a fool
Shane Spencer = Sheep scanner (?)
Paul O'Neill = Pauline! LOL
Mike Mussina = I kiss emu, man

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Last night the Yankees won again in extra innings, after ANOTHER game-tying home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. They lead the World Series 3 games to 2 and the Diamondbacks need to win the last two games to win the Series. So glad I went to bed early last night. They are really frustrating me. (ARR, it's drivin' me nuts!) How is this happening like this? It's not as if they're so good they can hit home runs whenever they want... "OK there's 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth again, I guess I need a home run. America would want it that way. BING!" So what's the explanation?

And I still don't think I'm out of line... let me know when the Yanks play against the al-Qaeda All-Stars, then I'll do my patriotic duty and root for them. The Yankees that is.

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I am REALLY looking forward to this.

P.S. Sorry I haven't been around, but work is kicking my bum bum.

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