... the week thus far:

Back at fencing. Having only practiced a handful of times since November, I am not up to my usual snuff. However, it is nice to be back, and it isn't hurting as much as I expected it might.

I now have a place for people to sleep when they visit. Have had a couchsurfer. Good on this front. I also have a wardrobe, but it is still unassembled. This is because I am a lazy fuck.

Tried to remove my thumb with one of my new, extremely sharp knives while making dinner tonight. Not good.

Internet has arrived. I am once again worldly. Or, at least, world-wide-webly.

So, Lizz might have beat Kirsten to giving me a five (or two), but Kirsten's is much easier, so I'm doin' it first. "Favourite cities" is the topic, by the way.

Though I am tempted to wait until after I've gone to Prague, because I expect it might make this top 5. Instead, I will split it into "5 favourite places I've been to", and my "5 favourite places to visit in the future, but to which I've never been". The second part is more speculative.

Places I've been:

This is tough. A number of the places I've been, I haven't had a chance to explore properly, so they're lower on the list than they might otherwise be. Or I've been so long ago that my memory of the place doesn't necessarily do it justice. Also, I'm leaving off places I very much enjoyed visiting. Oh, well. I asked for five, didn't I?

1. London. That's right, suckers. London. It's nice, and you have a free place to stay, if you come visit.
2. Paris.
3. Brussels
4. Berne
5. Amsterdam.


Places I'd like to go:

This is also tough, but much harder to get wrong.

1. Prague
2. Rio de Janeiro
3. Madrid
4. Tokyo
5. Venice

#3: Halal Fried Chicken, with KFC style lettering, and everything.

#4: e One club

This is the second-closest bar to my place. Sunday night's "special" is karaoke, starring "Candi, the slag in drag."

So, I'm in the new place now. I'd post pictures, but piles of half-unpacked bags probably aren't that interesting. Instead, I will post a few things that I've found since moving in:

Find #1: Mr. Yaseen

The following was found pushed through my mail slot, on my first day here. And no, I am not making this up:

NOBODY CAN BEAT YASEEN - BORN GIFTED!!

If you have a problem that has not been solved by anyone in this world or you think your problem is impossible to solve, ring Yaseen immediately. Your entire problem will be solved in SEVEN DAYS. For example: Business, Financial problems, Agreements, Career, Depression, Separated from the person you love, Domestic problems regarding Husband, Wife, Children, Health, Exams, Court Cases, Immigration Problems, pain & stomach pain, illness & disease, hair grow, lose weight, Studies and Sexual Impotence or other problems. Physical sport improvement, to be high rank, to be a winner. JUST ASK? No matter what your problems are, he can help you to solve them in SEVEN DAYS. Yaseen's work is 100% Guaranteed. Breaking Black Magic and Evil Spirits in 48 hours. If any healer has left your work incomplete or unsuccessful see Yaseen immediately. Yaseen has the high knowledge of removing problems from people.

THE RESULT: Believable.

Find #2: The neighbourhood bar

OK, after Mr. Yaseen, a bar just isn't going to measure up, but I'm a bit more excited about it, as I anticipate it having a greater impact on my life than Yaseen will. You might recall me blogging about the bar near my old place. Or you might not. I might have never written such a blog entry, but I should have.

It was a dive.

It was beyond a dive.

I walked in to find 10 year olds playing pool, smoking cigarettes, and drinking pints.

The new "closest bar" is good however. Decent food, decent pool tables, and no sign of ten year olds. But, more important are the games:

Stacker. Yes, much like the rest stops along the 401, Stacker. But, instead of DVDs as the top prizes -- iPod Nano. Motorolla RAZR phone. I kid you not. Grand-prize stacker.
Mario Kart. Two player, side by side.

I need somebody to visit, so we can line up shots and play Mario Kart in this bar -- drive a lap, take a drink. Awesome.

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I'm sure there were more finds, but they've temporarily slipped my mind. I'm sure there will be more finds, and I will endeavour to post about them.

Oh ... I also like the giant phallic Gerkin poking out of London whenever I walk towards the centre from here. Phallitastic!

Amazing, really.

Rain.
Lost my umbrella.
Missed my tube stop.
Run into (literally) by random stranger who had far too much momentum.
Signed and paid for a new flat.
Dinner with Ola.
Back to Tooting, where I am on the verge of packing.

Exhausted, perhaps understandably.

And that's all the update for now.

or, as the case may be, in the new flat.

Had an e-mail from flatmate-to-be today, when I got into work. "Call me," it said. "it's urgent."

So, I call. Immediately. Apparently not so urgent, though, as it can wait 'til lunchtime. I relax. Lunchtime comes, and I call back ... and find out that the shit has, indeed, hit the fan.

New flatmate can no longer afford her half of the flat. And what would I like to do about it?

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The eventual answer, after I'd had time to digest and consider, is that I would like to move into the flat that I really like and have already paid a deposit and first month's rent on.
Is this possible?
The answer is expected to arrive tomorrow, via the Hong Kong landlord connection.

---

Also, generally speaking, fuck.

So, I was somewhat tempted to watch the Super Bowl today. This was going to be difficult, being in London.

But, on a Sunday, I was going to head down to Bodean's (or maybe the Maple Leaf -- they're probably showing it too, and I'm not feeling hungry), and stay up half the night watching some football.

You think I'm crazy, since most of my friends list isn't made of sports fans. But I do enjoy the Super Bowl, even if the best Super Bowl party I've been to is the one at Pez's where we spent the whole time playing Zombies.

However, I don't think I can handle staying up 'til 4 am. It's only 8 now, and I'm exhausted ... pretty much packed for next week, but exhausted. And seeing as I'll be travelling to a new city each day for the next four days, I don't think I can give myself a night without sleep to kick it all off.

So ... next year. This year, I am the party pooper.

Recently my friend Tristan blogged about not understanding why Science Fiction and Fantasy novels are grouped together, given that they are different things. He likes the former, but not the latter, so this is clearly a matter of grave importance.

My first thought was that there is a common theme between the two: Both require the reader to suspend their disbelief -- things which are currently (and perhaps always will be) impossible are a key (or, at least, common) ingredient to both genres. Hence, they tend to appeal to similar groups of people.

However, this is quite simplistic and unsatisfying. Today, as I was walking, I came up with a better one: Most "science fiction" is, in fact, fantasy in disguise.

Science fiction is about the perils of science. It imagines how scientific and technological developments could impact humanity.
Fantasy, on the other hand, isn't at all about elves or dragons. It's about ... well, I don't really know what it's about. There's an element of adventure. But the key ingredient is the tool used to explain away inconvenient details. Usually this is magic.

I used to consider "science fiction" that is really fantasy "bad science fiction". But I'm wrong. It's not even science fiction at all. Star Trek (and I'm thinking "the next generation" here), for example, is (most of the time) fantasy. More often than "prime directive" plotlines, they have plotlines that involve exploration, or that mean to reflect on the here-and-now. And the "USS Make Shit Up" science (or Q) is just their version of magic.

No, bad science fiction is Terminator -- where they have the "what could go wrong if we allow weapons systems to make decisions for us" as the base concept, thereby making it real science fiction, and then use it as an excuse to blow a bunch of shit up.

Star Wars is fantasy, for example. Spiderman is fantasy.

So, Tristan, if you happen to read this, my answer is as follows: They group them together, because they can't be bothered to separate the science fiction between the science fiction and fantasy categories. Since 60-75% of it is fantasy, anyways, they just lump it all in with the fantasy stuff.

And, if you're really trying some fantasy, to see if you're wrong about it being all bad, please put down the Robert Jordan. Go grab some Neil Gaiman or Guy Gavriel Kay. Or, at least, Tad Williams. He has a nice fantasy novel about cats.

I don't know where to begin, but I guess I'll have to find a place.

At work, our "year end" is January 31. Which means all our targets had a deadline on Wednesday. There was a lot of work at hitting our targets.

Also at work, the end of January is performance review time. So there was a lot of work towards meeting personal targets, in addition to team targets, and filling out review paperwork.

More at work (noticing a theme?), there is a business trip next week, which requires preparation of presentations, and such. This is laid on top of the higher-than-average workload that our first two items give us.

This was a long week at work, though today (being the day after the day after all deadlines) seemed slow. I think it actually was slow, but it seemed even slower than that.

None of this, however, should be taken as a turn in the "Steve likes his job" tide. I just don't want to see many weeks like this one. Appearances lead me to believe that this one might be unique, or nearly so -- a once-a-year occurrence coinciding with a business trip. And even then, it wasn't that bad, it just had me looking forward to the week ending over the last day or two.

So, what else happened this week?

I signed a contract for a new flat. And paid over £1,000 in security deposit on it. Details to follow in a protected post, for those of you who actually do know me. The second sentence, I will have you note, does not quite make me as poor as you might think ... but having to pay my first month's rent before my next paycheque ought to take care of that.

I gave notice at the current flat.

I generally spent a lot of time trying to organize my shit.

Tonight, I was going to call around, find someone to go out for a drink with ... but I gave up after Bob. I just want to sleep.

But it turns out I have some sort of stolen internet signal, so instead I post, while there's time. Pleasant weekend thoughts to all.

One of you reading this has likely already seen it.

How do I know this? Because the following link is from my friends-of-friends page.

Now ... before we link, this is most probably not safe for work. In any case, you may want to make sure that nobody's reading over your shoulder, unless they're strange like me.

And I link.