Another Day, Another Dollar

Obama won. Oh, you heard, did you? Silly me.

California voted yes on proposition 8 - no more gay marriages in the great state of California. They are now recognised as 'civil unions'. So pedantic.

Southern Californians complaining of the cold at 14C.

I hobbled my way round an understaffed 5 hour shift. I ate coffee frozen yoghurt and blueberry frozen yoghurt. Blueberry wins. Blueberry always wins. I had a fast food burrito. A depressing experience. What did I expect? Is the Big Mac as good as the Big Al Burger? Of course not. Not much else to say for my day except I spent it with 'A Man's Gotta Do' stuck on repeat in my head. At least it kept a smile on my face in the store.

Dance Me Round And Round The Kitchen By The Light Of My TV

I think Kim might get today's title reference.

Election today.

Since I didn't register myself in time, I can't talk about voting, but I can talk about what politics is like here.

Firstly, people are more open about it. In Britain most people seem to keep their votes close to their chest, like a dirty secret, and not talk about it. Here it's very clear which side of the line people stand on. And there's no Liberal Democrats for a 3rd option. You're either Pepsi or Coke. The party colours are even the same as Pepsi and Coke. People were debating the election in the supermarket with total strangers. Such a different atmosphere.

Secondly, it's all that's on TV. Yesterday's ads were 99% vote related - party ads and proposition ads (in california propositions are voted on. This year proposition 8 is about having gay couples in 'civil union' rather than marriage because marriage is heterosexual. Proposition 7 [I think] is on renewable energy. Proposition 5 is on providing healthcare to the underprivileged.). Debates, news, papers - you can't avoid it. There's not nearly as much money or coverage in Britain, a good thing I think.

Finally, I believe there is more passion in it. People demonstrate on the roadsides (mostly on prop. 8 - lots of people want yes. I find that very saddening), attend huge rallies, wear tee shirts, have bumper stickers on the car and signs on the lawn. You feel enthused. In Britain it all seems so drab. Life like the weather, eh? I just wish that more people in America voted with an open mind. Texans being born republican, people voting the same party regardless. Only two parties. I admire the passion, but wish it were tempered by a bit of thought and consideration.

As for my election day, it's not a happy one. I'm happy but today has been wearing. A huge-ass truck with a huge-ass trailer nearly crushed my poor car through no fault to me. I was just driving along, as I always do on my way to work. At Trabuco the truck does a right-on-red to join me. Just us on a three lane road, me in the left lane, him in the right. Empty middle. We're going the same speed - slightly under the limit on the road (50mph). He moves over a lane. Fine. As I'm observing this (and thinking about what a monstrous vehicle it is right next to me) I notice that he hasn't stopped in the middle lane. He has continued to drift. Now, it is possible that he didn't see me when he was in the middle lane (might've been in the blind spot - something like must have a mighty blind spot), but he should've taken note of me before he decided to drift lazily across the lanes and expecting for everyone else to shift. Well. I quickly noticed that I was soon to be crushed into the middlebit (that's right folks, I've squeezed a Mikism into the blog). Think Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade boat scene. Very scary. I did what I had to, slammed on the anchors (thankfully the lane was clear behind me, as was the rest of the road actually), and swore at the driver of the truck/trailer combo. He was turning left at the junction before mine. Thankfully I noticed his drifting before it was too late, that's all I'll say.

 I then got a rude call (I hate answering the phone. Most of the time it's nothing hard, but sometimes people have odd requests) and had my little toe crushed by a display cabinet stacked high with bottled water. It's either bruised or broken, doesn't make a huge difference. It's swollen and hurts. And had me limping for the last hour and a half of my shift. During which I had to clean the men's toilets 'cause some complete so-and-sos had laid waste to it. Seriously, why bother? It's a supermarket toilet! Anyway...

The rest of my day has been R & R, keeping off my feet. Bloggin' for y'all, planning the rest of my time here, and enjoying the wondrously entertaining Mr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog which I purchased on iTunes yesterday, along with it's soundtrack. I encourage you all to check it out. A supervillain musical by Joss Whedon and co.? Magic.

Fingers crossed for the result of today...

Super-calorific-sates-Al's-edacity

I was looking for a decent play on Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, and this fits well enough. I can’t wait for this this serious (perhaps dangerous) blood sugar spike ends. As for now, I feel almost drunk.

Why, you ask?

I went all out on my 10 worst drinks investigation. What a great way to write off my day off. I have tried 9/10 and will put the Men's Health comments with mine. And will probably go sugar-free for a little while. Here goes...

Number 10: Worst Milk Beverage - Hershey's Chocolate Drink

Men's Health says: Besides being loaded with sugar, it contains more water than actual milk.

Al says: So true, but what can you expect at $0.64 per carton. Very watery - tastes like those rubbish camping (just add water!) hot chocolates. I can see why they don't call it chocolate milk.

Number 9: Worst Soda - Sunkist Orange

Men's Health says: More sugar per ounce than any other soda we found.

Al says: Very like Fanta. Fizzy, syrupy, leaves a weird bitter aftertaste and has a colour reminiscent of Irn-Bru. And not exactly cheap - this bottle was $2.64.

Number 8: Worst Spritzer - R. W. Knudsen Family Tangerine

Men's Health says: The label says, "No sugar added." Good thing.

Al says: I couldn't find this one for love nor money. I'll keep my eyes peeled.

Number 7: Worst Bottled Green Tea - SoBe Green Tea

Men's Health says: To make regular tea this sweet you'd have to add 16 packets of sugar.

Al says: And here I was thinking that Mike used to like his tea sweet. This was unbelievable. This was on a par with that horrendous green tea latte I had - where's the tea flavour? This is sugar-water, like those bugs from MIB liked. In a big bottle.

Number 6: Worst Juice Drink - Arizona Kiwi Strawberry

Men's Health says: You'd have to eat 11 cups of strawberries to consume this much sugar from whole fruit.

Al says: I kinda cheated here. Couldn't find the named one, so tried another in the range. Will look out for the correct one, but this was definitely on the same lines. This was sugar and tang in a huge can. Seriously, Americans need to cut their serving sizes.

Number 5: Worst Fountain Drink - 7-Eleven Double Gulp (filled with cola)

Men's Health says: This is 2 litres of soda.

Al says: Liars. It's 1.9 litres, less with ice. But either way it's massive. You know the taste of coke, kids, so I won't go into that. What I will say is that this monstrosity must cause a lot of car accidents. Far too big for conventional cup holders, I was forced to hold this drink between my thighs. This resulted in my thighs being steadily frozen throughout my short trip home, and in the embarrassment of drinking it at lights with an action which must have seemed like an attempt at auto-fellatio.

Number 4: Worst Hot Coffee Drink - Starbucks Venti 2% Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha

Men's Health says: More added sugar than the average person consumes in a day.

Al says: I cheated again here. Peppermint syrup doesn't seem to be in the stores just now, so I had it with raspberry syrup. It goes with white chocolate, right? Forgot about the coffee part. Ach well, wasn't so bad. The coffee takes the edge off the sweetness until the bottom quarter of the cup, which isn't really worth drinking. Y'all know what I'm talking about here.

Number 3: Worst Frozen Coffee Drink - Dairy Queen Caramel MooLatte

Men's Health says: Having a large DQ chocolate sundae instead would save you 300 calories.

Al says: Like drinking caramel syrup. This was by far the sweetest drink in the list. Yuk.

Number 2: Worst Smoothie - Jamba Juice Peanut Butter Moo'd Power Smoothie

Men's Health says: As much sugar as 13 bowls of Froot Loops.

Al says: Really? This one didn't seem as sweet as the others. Maybe my sugar taste buds have burnt out. Decent flavour, but too rich to drink the whole cup. Like the narrowing base to allow it to go in cup holders. How thoughtful.

Number 1: Worst Drink in America - Cold Stone Creamery OhFudge! Shake

Men's Health says: Has almost 3/4 cup of sugar and more calories than six McDonald's hamburgers.

Al says: I'll take the hamburgers. Starts chocolaty, then gets sweet, then the cream hits. And hits. And hits. I liken this to the point where pleasure becomes pain. Very intense, doesn't leave the mouth for ages.

There you have it, folks. My sacrifice for you. Had I consumed all of the drinks above (instead of asking for smalls in the larger cups and ditching a lot of the drinks) I would've taken in 6,026 calories, 938g of sugar. I'm not blowing 3 days of calories on sugar loaded drinks! Just to give you an idea of the real size of the Double Gulp, here's a pic of me holding it. Remember how large I am.

In other news, Orange County got another hour of rain today, I drove some more (in the Protoge and in the brand-spanking-new Mazda 6), and I ate at an all-America diner type place. I tried the chili dog. My verdict? Toss out the dog. The cheap meat ruins a good steak chili. In fact, lose the bun too. Have one or the other. Having both is just greedy.

Gotta get my kip for a 13 hour shift tomorrow, hope you enjoyed this sweet little treat!

Happy Alloween!

Americans take halloween seriously. And it's getting bigger. This year is said to be the most celebrated halloween ever, and it shows. Decorations everywhere, most employees dressing up, oodles of stores dedicated to halloween (and desperate things they are too, my short visit yesterday just made me sad. Where's the pride? Where's the craftsmanship?), and folks wishing each other happy halloween left, right, and centre.

My costume (mentioned in the post yesterday), as seen above, actually looks a lot better in the pictures despite the face contortions required to keep the least adhesive mustache in the history of costume clinging to my upper lip. My day has been low key, continuing my quest to try the 10 worst drinks in America as selected by Men's Health, going to Borders (my heaven might well be an unlimited borders gift card - does that make me sad? Don't answer that.), reading, and swimming. Got a dinner party tonight. Look at me, so festive!

Actually my festivity took place in DC - Becka kindly sent me photos of my jack-o-lantern (something that Americans still take pride in making, thank goodness, though ceramic monstrosities are creeping in.). Not up to the others carved that night, and far off the hardcore jack-o-lantern fanatics (see http://yeswecarve.com/ for Barack-o-lanterns, a fine example of which was made in my presence, or http://www.extremepumpkins.com/ for general pumpkin carving hilarity.), but a step in the right direction for me. Try to ignore the mistake that makes the happy side of the drama mask look like a devilish smiley face. I was drinking beer. 

Now kids, I encourage you to enjoy festive seasons responsibly and not go see Quantum of Solace without Al just 'cause he's in American and has to wait for two weeks and he deserves to have something rubbed in his face after all that bragging about being a lazy bum in America.

Kidding. But not really. But really. Nah. Un hunh. Nope. But I am kidding. (Sorry - no one will get that reference to Eddie Izzard except maybe Les, if he's paying attention)

For the record, I am kidding.

Happy Halloween everybody!

Driving. Me? Insane!

That's right folks! This man is legal on the roads of the world! Nobody is safe! Mwah-ha-ha-haaa!

Not a great driver (yet) - 11 out of a possible 15 minors, mainly for 'not checking the intersections enough' and a couple for having my nose on the pedestrian crossing, and a couple more for vigorous cornering. Full points on my car knowledge though (the different terminology was confusing!). No freeway driving or parallel parks in my tests, what I was practicing the most. Been on a couple solo drives in my 'hood on roads I know. It's a groovy feeling not to be the outcast non-driver.

Work was hard, especially as I had 4 hours on the carts in a busy lot (I got extra cart hours for failing to be dressed up. I didn't bother pleading the truth about the awful, rip-off, piece of crap 'instant disguise' I'd bought. Einstein my butt. I knew the rubber mask of Nixon at $5 more expensive was the way forward. Damn it. Got a free hot dog and some free cans of Diet Coke at work. Not too shabby.

It's late, I'd better hit the hay. Might hit the celebratory Corona first though. It's to aid sleep. Really.

Whatever. I deserve this 'un.

High Ho, High Ho

Back to work for me. Pretty usual apart from a lesson in customer service, a new name badge (see above - I seem to have lost my "asdair" so as to not confuse customers), and spilling the last chicken noodle soup all over myself at the till, thus depriving some poor women of her chosen lunch. *Sigh*

At 31C is was another scorcher today to roast me as I collect the many, many carts the Californians won't return.

I hope all your lives are as colourful and interesting as mine!

PS I see I used brackets today. Drat. I lose.

Out of the Freezing Land and into the Fire

After my time in Britain - not an American experience per say, so not covered here - my stopover in DC was a good way to prepare for the heat of California. And it was a chance for me to do something better on the east coast than run through Newark International.

I experienced pumpkin picking (in the pouring rain), cider (no booze, but not apple juice, but really apple juice but thick and lightly spiced - I prefer the British definitions of drink, much simpler), American public transport (not bad, clean), serious pumpkin carving (My skills weren't up to the Barack O. Lanterns, I stuck with the traditional triangular cut-with-a-kitchen-knife-that-isn't-really-up-to-the-job features. I love the classics, baby!), Ethiopian food (any food eaten with fingers wrapped in carbs has got to be a winner), ballroom dancing (not really [sorry Kim], just wanted to see if you'd given up on the dense list format by now), decent American beer (I guess there had to be some, right? Ha ha!), margarita from a slushie machine (gotta get myself one of those), Becka's whip-round tour of DC (tailored for my preferences, naturally) and the caloriffic might of the Cinnabon chain (mmmmmmm....).

So, all in all, it was okay.

In all seriousness I had a great time, much needed - especially after the low in Scotland (not to say I didn't enjoy seeing y'all... you know what I mean) and a big, public thank you to Becka for that. Listening to my rubbish for two days takes some serious patience...

Got to get driving again, test Thursday. Work Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday. Straight back into the swing of things in the 33C heat. Thankfully it's supposed to get down to 20C high by the end of the week. So odd considering that most of you reading this are beginning to freeze...

After that session of condensing a lot of good stuff into a shorter, less interesting form I'm gonna go, but not before I set myself a little challenge. I use ellipses (you know...[such wit!]) and brackets far too much when I write (please ignore the rest of my poor grammar and/or spelling - this isn't a test!), it seems, so next blog post will contain neither (I hope...)

Peace out!

Words by Alasdair Dennis.

 Pictures by Becka and used with the permission of Dennis Enterprises.