Not on the list. Seriously.
20. Actually, yeah -- a kick-ass birthday cake. I got a lovely cupcake from a co-worker last year (no sarcasm, it was really nice and yummy and all that), but before that, I think I haven't had a cake since I was about 18, at one of the soirées occasionally held at my house in my high school days. So maybe, something that reflects me as a fully-grown adult, like
I feel compelled to credit the website, http://shariscreations.com
or
Or, you know, anything. Feel free to direct me to other cool cakes.
19. A case of Brains Beer. It amazes me that, living in the land o' microbrews, where literally any beer you can think of is brewed within about 50 miles of my home, I can't get this damned lager out of my head. I practically lived off this stuff during my week in Wales a few summers ago -- the Cardiff Central train station is located right next to the brewery -- and have been craving it ever since I hopped the first connecting flight to Chicago. Unfortunately, after searching the internets for what seems like a very, very long time, all information I got told me that Brains is not shipped outside the UK. I fumed, and sulked, and now still want a damned pint (or bottle or can or whatever) of the stuff. And now they've come out with Brains Black -- the Guinness of Wales, it's being called! How am I supposed to let that slide? Now I'm getting all depressed again. The website is worth a look, particularly the bit about the pubs; when in the greater Cardiff area, I highly, highly recommend The Goat Major. Just sayin'.
18. My degree. I'm actually on track to make this a nice little Christmas present for myself, but seriously, this college thing has gone on long enough. I don't want to work at Wal-Mart for the rest of my life -- I don't want to work at Wal-Mart two years from now! -- and I'd like to start on the path to a "normal" life, please.
17. For this exchange to happen at work:
"Excuse me, do you know where --"
"I wouldn't tell you if I did. Now piss off, I've got work to do. Idiot."
Without me being fired. Just once.
16. To understand the rules of cricket. I was in New York one year for a conference for the (now defunct) International Association for Jazz Education conference (I think that's right -- IAJE...yeah), and found a nice little pub nearby, where I'd spend a lot of my downtime. This place was a full-on, British-style, ye-olde pub, with football (soccer) and cricket on the television almost non-stop. I found myself watching a Twenty20 (or is it 20Twenty?) match one morning -- and yes, I was in a pub at 9AM -- and I ended up being more confused than I think I've ever been in my entire life. Back at my hotel room, I looked up the rules of cricket on Wikipedia, but to no avail. Seriously, look at that and tell me that you actually know more about the game than before you looked it up.
Anyway, the next day, I decided to give it another go -- there was another match on between sessions -- and I ended up in conversation with an elderly British ex-pat named Nigel. Nigel, in all his senile majesty, tried to teach me the finer points of the sport, but ended up being about as successful as Wikipedia. Still, I really liked the guy (although a lot of that had to do with the fact that he was the only one who didn't hate me for being a Manchester United supporter), and I vowed to learn the game Nigel loved so dearly, and after watching a few wickets (and playing a few through the magic of video games), I still have no idea what the hell's going on. Someone needs to teach me, or I need to give up.
15. This. If for no other reason than pure nostalgia. I loved -- LOVED -- this show growing up, and Quinn's friends' voices still enter my head in random intervals, as does the theme song. Too often, I get nostalgic for things I was never a part of: this is a chance for me to actually, you know, remember something.
14. My own little flat in Cardiff. This actually depends on a few other things happening on my list as well (see: getting my degree and a Lib Dem success on Thursday, for immigration purposes), but hopefully, I can get over there soon. There was even a fairly nice area of flats for rent while I was there, with a nice view of the river, and the stadium, and even the university. Pretty central location, if you ask me. And Wales is one of those places that just felt like home to me when I was there -- in some ways, even more so than my home is now. I'm getting a bit too wistful for my own good right now, but there you have it.
Beautiful, yeah? (courtesy stayinwales.co.uk)
13. Rediscovery of my 8-bit video gaming skills. I think I mentioned the games I've been playing some of in recent weeks (BioWare RPGs, Madden, Rock Band, etc.), but what you may not know is that in my bedroom, I keep a couple of secrets. Their names are NES and Commodore 64. I remember playing for HOURS on these machines as a child, blazing through new games like they were nothing. So what happened? It's a sad fact that games have not only gotten much more advanced technologically, they have gotten much easier due to that technology. Now, I'm fairly crap at new games, so imagine my frustration when I sit down, flick on the 3.5" floppy drive, pop in, say, "GI Joe," (which is WAY better than the NES version, by far) and spend the next half-hour failing so hard I'd might as well be on that show where people get punched in the face and fall into the water.
"Damn you, Cobra Commander!"
Is it really that I've acquired a brand new skill set with the newer games, or am I just getting old? I see my roommate blazing through the old Mega Man games like...a big blazing... thing, so it's probably just my inability to do more than one thing sort of well at a time.
12. A subscription to Private Eye. This paper, claiming to be "The UK's best-selling news and current affairs magazine," is pretty much brilliant. It's the closest I've seen in any country to the yellow journalism of Upton Sinclair, et. al, in early 20th century America, but it's the mix of "bugger everything, it's not worth it" satire and "hey, we actually care about this country, why isn't anything being done about this?" activism which makes it a truly unique read. The editor -- who I think I mentioned before, since he's a regular on that news quiz I went off about a few weeks ago -- is known as the most sued man in Britain, due to all the libel actions against him; whether that's due to fearlessness or idiocy, I'm not sure yet, but I really enjoyed reading the mag while I was there. And any publication that refuses to call Piers Morgan anything other than "Piers Moron" gets an A+ in my book.
11. A Sony E-Reader. As an avid reader of books and other things you can read, a e-reader always seemed like the next logical step in my gadget chain, right after the iPod Touch (since I can't afford the iPhone bill -- yikes!). I've been doing research on the several models out on the market now, and I think I'm going to go with the Sony, when I finally muster up enough cash to do it. Possibly a Nook, but definitely not a Kindle (fuck off, DRM!), unless someone gives me a damned good reason why I should. I guess there's always an iPad, too, but I'm not getting one of those until at least its second or third generation, for practicality's sake. The one thing about the Sony that grabbed my attention is its link to your local public library; Eugene's got a killer library, and is advanced enough with the techie stuff (for instance, you can use their in-house terminals to download audiobooks directly onto your MP3 player) that surely, syncing its massive library with your e-reader shouldn't be a problem, right? Man, I want one of those things.
Ok, part two over. More to come, I guess.
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