Thursday, July 31 Hello from Tulsa, Oklahoma! Got in at 10 pm last night after a 24 hour nightmare of a journey from London. The initial ten hour flight went by pretty quickly thanks to a decent selection of skip-at-theater-but-ok-to-watch-on-video film titles as well as my frequent lapses into unconciousness. Originally I thought the only thing I'd have to bitch about would be the inconvenience of flying out of Gatwick, my usual seat assignment between two fat guys who love taking up elbow space or the faulty pair of headphones that I always end up with. But far from it, those things were minor in comparison to the ordeal that awaited me upon my arrival at George Bush International Airport in Houston, Texas. We were held up in a queue the moment stepped out of our gate and into the corridor passage. Two stationery lines of people stood in our way. We were then informed that there were too many flights for the immigration inspectors to handle and therefore delays were imminent. My fellow passengers and myself made our way in opposite direction to the immigation area, towards the end of the queue, guided by what seemed like a neverending line of people from other flights, and reached the end about 200 metres later. It was 2:15 pm. My connecting flight to Tulsa wasn't until 5:30 so the prospect of a long queue didn't phase me. I had made the mistake of not visiting the toilet once during the entire flight and my bladder was beginning to vy for attention, but I thought to myself that surely we'd be done with immigration within an hour so I might as well hold it in that much longer and not leave the queue. I mentioned earlier that there were two lines... one for US citizens/residents and one for the rest of us. We stood and watched with envy and impatience as the US line huddled along relatively quick. 4:15 pm: Our line continued to move at a snail pace and it was only by this time we'd made it back to the very gate that I'd come out of two hours earlier. Looking down, there was still no sign of the immigration counters. A slight worry began to set in as it dawned on me that I'd probably not have enough time to go through immigration, clear customs and re-check my suitcase and guitar in time for the 5:30 flight. I think most other people in my line had already abandonned any hopes of catching their connecting flights. I was surprised they didn't give special consideration for people in an urgent hurry 5:00 pm: I finally reached the top of the ramp that led down into the immigration area. The US queue had already emptied out for a good half hour. Some inconsiderate people on my side began to show signs of impatience by rudely shoving their way to the front and cutting in, arguing that they had their flights to catch. Right, like they were the only ones faced with the dilemma. Despite numerous objections, they continued to stand their ground. I was half expecting a fist fight to break out. By this time I knew I was going to miss the flight and was simply too exhausted to give it any further thoughts. We finally reached the bottom of the ramp at around 5:30 and got divided into the different counter queues. Here the people around me and myself made the worst mistake by lining up for counter 23, which became clear to us as the others moved swiftly whilst we stood motionless that this must've been the slowest of all the lines. This far into the journey I'd already come to conversing with those in front and behind me, and it was only at this point that I felt comfortable about stepping out and relieving myself in the gents. 6:00 pm: A lot of people who were way behind us in the original queue had caught up or even overtaken us as they'd by chance picked the faster moving counter queues. I should also point out the illogical way in which the immigration area operated, namely that there were about 10 counters for the hundred or so US passengers and no more than 8 for the thousand that I was a part of. Add to this the fact that citizens/residents were processed in a fraction of the time and you begin to see why things took this long. And still they kept saying that it was due to a lack of inspectors. So whilst the inspectors on our side worked incessantly to get us through, there was always a handful on the other sitting on their butts with nothing to do. Somehow it never occurred to the people in charge to open up these idle counters to the visitors, which is what I've seen happen in other places like Chicago and New York. I observed to a girl next to me that there was no use complaining about any of this. Make your complaint before you cross the immigration line and they can easily power-trip you on the next flight back home. Make it after and all they can do is offer a formal apology. I mean it's not like they can compensate you in the same way that an airline or restaurant can. 6:20 pm: At last it was my turn to step up to the counter and find out why our guy was taking four times as long as anyone else to process the visas. From his accent and appearance I gathered he was probably from mainland China. It cracks me up that almost all the inspectors are always ethnic minorities who don't sound like they have been in the country for too long. Which also makes me wonder why they have to make life hell for everyone else trying to get in. Basically J.Song asked me a boat load of irrelevant question such as what my father did (to which I had to answer twice because he kept thinking I was telling him about MY job), what nationality I was (too lazy to look at the passport in his hand I guess) and whether the photo on an old US visa belonged to me. He also asked me where I was from, which in response I said 'Hong Kong'... it being where I was born and still the place I consider home. 'But just now you said you came from London?' he asked suspiciously, like he'd finally unravelled my cover. Duh! 'My flight was from London... I live in London... but I'm originally from HK.' And of course there was his problem with me having an electronic ticket, despite being presented with a print-out that I got from BA prior to boarding which showed clearly the details of my journey to and from the US. I had become so delirious from the flight and from standing in line for 4 hours that I really didn't care anymore. If he was going to put me on a flight back to the UK, there was nothing left in me to fight. He then proceeded to carefully analyze the stamps on every single page of my passport; a grand total of three times. No wonder our counter moved so slowly. And even after he'd stamped a visa in my passport, there was still time for twenty questions. I reached baggage claim at 6:30. Our items had long been removed the carousels. The area was a ragged collection of confused passengers and uncollected suitcases scattered all over the place. Finally after asking three different people, all of whom pointed me to a different direction, I located the guitar and the suitcase, which were thankfully right next to each other. I got in touch with the Continental people and they successfully got me on to the next flight, which wasn't until 8:35. An hour and a half later Johnathon picked me up in our brand new luxurious GMC tour van which I'll tell you all about in a later installment. Today we pick up Matt and Brooks from Alma, Arkansas to begin rehearsal and will leave for Iowa on Saturday at the crack of dawn, our first show of the tour. Wednesday, July 30 I guess I'm one of those people who can never get ready well ahead of time for a flight. Last night I stayed up until 2 am, meticulously going through my mental list of things I need to bring on tour whilst trying to scan in two additional rolls from the tbm shoot and uploading them onto the server. Three and a half hours of sleep later I wake up to yet another hour of frantic packing (as well as a shocking bedhead). My flight isn't for another three hours but it does take forever for me to get out to the airport (Gatwick today unfortunately... grrr) and I just don't want to put things at risk in light of BA's recent series of check-in staff strikes. Failures: I''ve run out of time for working on the correcting the random image generator as well as posting my thoughts on the film Good Bye, Lenin!. Guess both will have to wait until the end of august although I'll definitely pop online every so often to post an update as well as attend to any semi-urgent emails. But if the film does come to a town near you by all means check it out... you'll not regret it. I leave you now with three images from the at the close of every day impromptu shoot by a dutch river from last saturday. Monday, July 28 Got back to London early this afternoon and I didn't waste a single moment of my time back, rushing immediately over to Soho to drop off the rolls from my shoot with this beautiful mess, as well as swinging by Select-a-Disc to pick up the Good Bye, Lenin! soundtrack, a remarkable score composed by the one and only Yann Tiersen (which has been on repeat in my room since I got home). But more on that and the film itself in tomorrow's blog as I'm too busy getting things ready for the Unwed Sailor tour and haven't quite managed to unpack yet from my trip to the Netherlands. I have however managed to pick up and scan the two color rolls from the shoot so here's a few that I'm quite pleased with. Sorry about the sizing on the page... didn't really have that in mind as I had merely prepared these to show the band. The first four are from the zoo in Rotterdam whilst the last one was taken in one of the downtown metro stations right before Abne had to take off. In fact the train in motion behind them was the very one he boarded. Sunday, July 27 Amsterdam: Back to the land of giants. Back to 'normal' keyboards with letters in the right places. For once I've opted to stay inside than doing my usual drill of mindlessly hitting all my favourite streets and corners. Maybe it's because there are just too many summer tourists in town or maybe it's because I'm simply exhausted from having had too much fun in the last three days, beaten down further by the unusually high level of humidity. Anyway it doesn't help that all the shops and markets (e.g. the Albert Cuyp which I really wanted to walk around) are already closed. That's one thing I still haven't managed to come to terms with living in London, the way shops in Europe tend to open too early in the morning and close too early in the evening, thus denying anyone with a regular 9 to 5 work pattern the pleasure of shopping at night... and thereby limiting the city dweller's choice of evening entertainment to that of drinking holes, restaurants, theaters and clubs. So instead I'm lounging around, checking my emails, chatting on ICQ with some late night owls in HK and catching up on all the latest message board gossips. There's of course the option of going out again later tonight when the sun has set and the crowds subsided, mainly for the purpose of having a go at capturing a more sedated Amsterdam in black + white, but it's just occurred to me that the one roll left in my OM-10 may in fact be a 24 instead of a 36, in which case I'll have 12 less frames to work with. With the indicator pointing at 22, chances are I'll manage to expose no more than a couple of scenes onto the film. So maybe I'll just step out for a few minutes to enjoy the sweet stench of pot floating freely in the air and treat myself to some vlaamse frites (flemish fries) instead. My 10 a.m. flight back to London tomorrow means I probably shouldn't be wandering too far off or late tonight anyway. Saturday, July 26 Greetings from Belgium. We got done with our set about two hours ago. Found a couple of internet termals around the artist backstage area so I thought I'd post an update... except they have their letters and symbols all mixed around on their keyboards so I probably won't be too wordy. Show went well and it was a delight playing with our friends from Face Tomorrow. We returned to our dressing room, only to find the floor completely covered with potatoe chips and half-eaten sandwiches... clearly the handy work of our emo friends. Our hostess Clara was NOT impressed. In retaliation we left a mess in theirs that probably costed us any future opportunities to play here again. Oh well, it's memories like these that are worth living for. Plus there was a girl there who thought I was cute. Ha, guess there's a first for everything. Translated from previously cryptic entry: Urgh: Stupid Belgian keyboqrds: I'm not going to worry about what I'm typing anymore and hopefully som of you will not be too lazy to translate. Photoshoot for this beautiful mess went reall well yesterday. We spent the afternoon at the oo in Rotterdam, enjoying a vast collection of animals in between shots. Hopefully I'll manage to come up with a thing or two that they can use. It's always a bit of a pain photographing four people together and making sure that all thir facial expressions and eye directions are in sync. Plus this time round there's the added pressure of the shoot being paid for by their label. I'll get these sorted out when I'm back in London on monday and hopefully even manage to upload a few of them on the site before i zoom off again to the US for the Unwed Sailor tour: Ooh: Speaking of Unwed Sqilor. There was a kid at the spirit show on thursday who recognized me from the band. Of cours we wre both rather surprised. How weird especially considering that we haven't made any press photos in the longest time and rarely do people bother to take live shots of me. Dangit. My back and neck are so darn sore from going ballistic on stage. I wonder if this is detrimental to your health in the long run. Doesn't help that I slept on the ost uncomfortqble bed the other night, with zero spring support so the middle portion of my torso just kinda sinked into it. Anyway guess I better go bqck to join the other boys and sip barcadi like it's our birthday. Another updqte when I return to Amsterdam tomorrow. Blah I'm so incoherent tonight... don't worry I'm not drunk. Sorry though about the annoying typos. It's just such a chore to keep my eyes on the keyboard and move my fingers against instinct. Back to English tomorrow... Thursday, July 24 Great... not even a week has passed by and people are already voting for my removal from photoblogs. Jerks. Er... where was I? Another late night involving night buses. I spent the evening in Camden with Mika Bomb, auditioning a couple of girls interested in the second guitar position. Tomy, with only a couple of months experience, has my vote although she may not be ready in time for some local shows next month. Tomorrow evening is my flight to Amsterdam. Upon arrival I'm going to have to jump on a couple of different trains that'll hopefully bring me to the venue in Barneveld - about an hour away. From there I'll only get an hour or so to recuperate and say hi to everyone before we get on and rock the night. No soundcheck, no rehearsals. And chances are those fools have probably made half a dozen changes to the parts! Ha. Anyway I'm rather exhausted from the half hour walk home (the buses on the route I made the stupid mistake of going home on stopped running just before 1) so I'm just going to leave it here. Wednesday, July 23 Okey... I've managed to get the location tracking script running so you should all be able to get real-time status on where I am in the world, at least as accurate as within half a day or so. Nothing too fancy I'm afraid since my cheapo hosting plan doesn't support PHP or ASP. But if anyone wants to give me some free server space with that kind of support by all means drop me a line ;) Been listening to a lot of classic 80s hits lately... you know stuff like Jefferson Starship and the Church. I think it's quite astounding when a handful of artists can create a sound that somehow defines an era. Put on a track like 'Video Killed the Radio Star' and you can't help but not be reminded of the decade that I imagine most of you readers spent your childhood in. Sadly nothing of this sort really comes to mind for the late 90s and I can definitely can't pinpoint a sound to the last couple of years. Perhaps good music is like fine wine and gets better with time. Of course there are bands like Sigur Ros who I feel are doing something different and innovative... but are they perhaps a little too much on the fringe? Where are the Beatles and Rolling Stones of our generation??? Oh yeah it looks like I'll be spending my day off in Holland (friday) doing a little photo shoot for this beautiful mess. I guess they need some press pics to go along with their soon to be released second full length. From the little I heard in the studio a couple of months back, I think this would really expose them to a far wider fan base. I ordered the films from mail shots yesterday afternoon and they already arrived in the post early this morning. Talk about speedy delivery! Thanks to anyone who's been so kind as to give me a positive vote on photoblogs. Looks like I've been bumped up to 47th place :) Tuesday, July 22 Urgh. It's 1:00 am and I just got home from trying to fix Tomoko's notebook. Boy was it a disaster. Just my luck that it ran XP which I so happen to not have much experience with. Of course I could've clicked around blindly for things that looked familiar but the fact that the OS was in Japanese took the difficulty to a whole new level. So in-between clicking on arbitrary icons, I also had to get Mika or Tomoko to help with the translation. An English windows environment can be cryptic enough for non-geeks so imagine what it must've been like for them to translate to me things that they couldn't even understand in Japanese! Ha. It was a good laugh though. And at least I got a free okonomiyaki dinner out of it. One other thing. I've placed a little link on the bottom left corner that allows you to vote for this site on photoblogs.org. I think I'm ranked 89/100 at the moment or something so please help out if you could! Thanks. Monday, July 21 Well it looks like I have quite a few things to sort out before I fly over to Amsterdam. Since the purpose of my trip is to play at a couple of festivals with tstgu I do kinda have to run through the set a few times and make sure I can remember all the parts, bearing in mind that I'll probably arrive at the venue just in time for us to go on... therefore no rehearsal or soundcheck. Then of course I also need to be present for a couple of Mika Bomb auditions to make sure that the girl replacing Hisako is up to the task. A solid line-up is what we most desperately need right now to secure fantastic opportunities like the Donnas tour this fall and maybe some new clothes from Hysteric Glamour. Hehe. And finally I need to get a move on with contacting UK promoters about getting some Unwed Sailor shows during our european tour in November. Last year's shows were put together in a bit of a hurry but we still had a good time so hopefully with better organization we'll manage to end up with better venues and better turn outs. Now if only the boys from Rameses can join us for the fun... Sunday, July 20 The moment everyone's been waiting for is finally here. Welcome to the updated version of nostalgic. As you can see I pretty much retained the original design and format but have added a few more sections and plenty of new photos. No doubt there's still a fair bit of tinkering to be done and a couple of sections are not yet complete but I hope you'll find enough going on to keep you interested in making frequent returns. Comments, remarks and criticisms are welcome both via the guestbook and email form. I leave for Amsterdam on thursday but hope to get a couple of javascript/XML-controlled features in place before then: LOCATION TRACKER - dynamically inform you of my whereabouts IMAGE SLIDESHOW - to replace somewhat annoying random images Might as well put my computer science degree to good use! If I can find the time I'll also implement the blog page which would allow for more personal entries to be featured as I want to shift that focus away from the initial home page i.e. what you're reading right now. Wednesday, July 16 Just a quick little update to point out that over half of the photos on the nostalgic server have been labelled, which means that within a couple of days there should be 8 or 9 different photo sections that all you secret admirers/voyeurs of my photography can take delight in browsing through. Wow. Finally. I think there'll be about 300 oldies that some of you may be familiar with and then about the same number of new ones that have accumulated from the last couple of tours and festivals. The site won't really be a departure from the original format although there'll be a few new features to keep things interesting. In other news I was devastated earlier upon finding out that Brandtson will be playing in London the night I leave for Amsterdam. They'll have another show in Kingston but that falls on the same day as my flight to Tulsa. Poop. Talk about ill timing. Hopefully they'll end up playing another show close to London although it will be a bit odd seeing them rock out without Matt. Oh yes, and as a token of my appreciation to all you faithfuls that have been keeping the site traffics flowing lately, here are a handful from the last tour: Monday, July 14 Emil left the house at 6:30 this morning so I can finally claim back a little personal space and resume the quiet routine that sums up my life whenever I'm back in London. The poor boy must have been dead tired as we only managed to get home at around 3:45 (more on the night bus journey further down). We'd spent the entire afternoon shopping around Covent Garden for a pair of shoes with Kari and my long lost Aussie friend Tanya. It probably took him a couple of hours to find the right pair in the right size and color. It then took us another hour to decide on a place to eat, thanks to Tanya's fussy vegan dietary needs and my refusal to eat at dodgy all you can eat Chinese buffets. We finally settled on some curry in Brick Lane. Our ride home on the night bus was a far cry from the quiet and peaceful journey we were looking forward to. Upon boarding we found the upper deck to be packed with sleepy, drunk passengers. As all the seats were taken (apart from a vomit-covered bench) we decided to stand at the top of the stairs and wait for the first couple to get off. By the next stop there were a couple of seperate seats vacant near the front. So we sat down and kept our eyes open for an opportunity to sit together. A few minutes later I spotted an opening towards the back so we instinctively made our way there. Just a few seconds later the guy who had sat across the aisle from me leaned forward and began throwing up a large waterfall of undigested food and all the liquor he had drank earlier on. I mean, he was beyond control and it just went EVERYWHERE... on the floor... on the seats. All the tired passengers in the front frowned and reluctantly gave up their seats. Since we were in an uphill direction the vomit also proceeded to make its way down the entire aisle of the bus. In my lethargic state I got a pretty good laugh about the incident although I'm sure things would've been very different had we not made the move further back just moments earlier. Also thanks to my allergic reaction to a cat in Kari's apartment earlier on, my blocked nose kept the intoxicating stench at bay. Welcome to London night life... Oh yeah forgot to mention the other day that I got back from the lab the couple of rolls I shot during my recent trip to Cornerstone. Nothing too inspiring this time since I spent most of the festival behind the Unwed Sailor merch table, which presented a rather dull, poorly lit viewpoint and one with the tooth & nail booth as the backdrop. Anyway, to begin with here are five in no particular order: Saturday, July 12 By now it has become apparent that I'm simply not made for a nocturnal existence frequenting indie club nights, with its pretentiously predictable playlists and fashion-conscious, name-dropping inhabitants (as featured in the Hipster's Handbook). The only reason I ever go is to enjoy the company of friends, but conversations that require one to shout at the top of their voice over loudly played songs that could be better enjoyed at home don't usually amount to much and are half-understood at best. My sXe past has also left me physically incapable of enjoying the bottle. Plus let's not forget that I'm a horrible dancer. So I usually sit around and stare into space. But even if I could get past all this, there's also the problem of waiting a good half hour for the night bus home, which at 3 in the morning serves as the ultimate anti-climax. Why I'm mentioning all this is because of the NME party that Emil and I, against better judgement, went along to on friday night. We showed up at the Barfly at around 11:30 only to realize that Mika was the only person whose name had made it onto the guestlist. There were 7 of us. After several negotiations with one of the door guys, he gave in and stamped our hands at £2.50 a pop. And so we set foot into the lion's den... Our main reason for going along was to check out seedy hype-hype-hype sensation Har Mar Superstar, who had been advertised as guest DJ for the night. Imagine our disappointment to be greeted by signs posted on the second set of doors stating that he was in fact playing a different show somewhere else that night. There had also been talk going around of Cooper Temple Clause doing to have a little live performance but they too failed to materialize. Instead we were subjected to a horrendous performance by the Brunettes, who kept everyone waiting for a good 15 minutes and ironically only managed to retain the attention of the crowd for about the same amount of time during their bland set of 80s retro rock progressions and Velvet Underground-ish vocal leanings. I guess in 2003 it still only takes a set of jewfros and a cute girl behind the keys for a band to get good shows at the right places. So we left the show bitter and frustrated, and opted for some late night snacks instead. Emil and I experienced in one night the very things that we find repulsive about music (apart from the 'evil' that is CCM). There's no denying that we both share an intense passion and love for music in general, but the by-products of scenes, trends, label executives, gimmicks, fashion statements, $$$ signs, etc just don't appeal one bit. I try to picture all this within the context of life 20 years down the road and honestly none of this besides the music itself (apart from maybe a few notes of historic and cultural value here and there) would really matter. Thursday, July 10 Back in London. The flight went by pretty quickly for some reason. I know it was shorter than usual because we only managed to see two movies (The Core and The Hunted) instead of the usual two and a half. Made the mistake of requesting asian vegetarian for the meal preference - the main dishes are generally pretty decent but I just can't seem to ever get into the uniquely funky taste of Indian desserts. I kept myself occupied during the one hour 15 minutes tube ride back home with Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2. A rather fascinating read, and one that's helped me to see christians and the arts in a refreshing new light. Speaking of refreshing, such was the feeling as I sat on the tube and studied the tired and blank expressions on the many faces going about their daily commute to work, and being liberated by the realization that I'm really no longer a part of this monotonous cycle. Not that there is anything wrong going through life this way but I just know that it is not for me. Emil is in town for a few days and should hopefully show up at the house tonight. It's always nice to have quality people around especially when I'm back in London. Benemy gets here on sunday and he's another person I look forward to catching up with. No doubt he'll be bragging for hours about his recent adventures in India. I think tomorrow I'll catch up with Haruna and Mika and check out the final mixes of the Osaka EP. But for now: zzz...zzz...zzz...zzz Wednesday, July 9 I'll be catching my ride to O'Hare Airport in a couple of hours. In a way I wish I could stick around a couple of days more to connect further with my friends here as well as to do a little CD/clothes shopping, but for the most part I'm looking forward to being back in the UK. Everything's pretty much in place for the site to go live again so hopefully that will happen over the weekend, although chances are I'll probably be distracted by friends in town for a day or two. Last night a bunch of us went out to see the new Terminator movie. Without giving too much away, let's just say that it is almost a repeat of T2 only this time we are introduced to John Connor's future wife and once again they are being hunted down by a terminator sent back in time. I was kinda hoping the story would take place right in the future where John Connor leads the resistance against the machines, but I guess they're saving that to milk more money out of this franchise in the next one or two titles. And in comparison to the T-1000, the T-X was an utter disappointment. The only interesting bit to the story was to see how Judgement Day came about and to realize that it was inevitable. In totally unrelated news, I found out yesterday that another classmate from Hong Kong will be getting married next summer. At this age I've already seen plenty of dear friends tie the knot but there is something particularly surreal when it comes to people you've known since 2nd grade and whom you've shared the same classrooms with for about a decade. It is only now that friends from that category are saying their vows. Two of them (one being my first girlfriend)said theirs back in the spring of this year and now there's another on the way. Oddly enough, none of them happen to be boys though. Anyway, I suppose I should pack my bags... hopefully the stormy weather will not bring about any delays or cancellations. Monday, July 7 Got back yesterday afternoon from Cornerstone. With the temperatures in the high 90s (around 40 celsius) it was another hot and humid year. Highlight for me (apart from seeing the usual entourage of band friends) came in the form of the 20th Anniversary Birthday Bash hosted by a fine selection of so-called pioneers and legends of the CCM world. I can't really recall many names apart from Steve Taylor, the Choir and Lost Dogs but they were all a breath of fresh air in comparison to all the usual diluted nonsense that flood the stages each year. Maybe I'm jaded and exhausted by the indie CCM circle... the mundane and regurgitated sounds, the genericly mass-executed fashion trends, the particularly high percentage of (for lack of a better word) slutty groupies, and let's not forget the arrogance that can get to some of the artists' heads. But then again it's not like I had an absolutely miserable week. The 5 days in Bushnell gave me the opportunity to get to know a couple of people better and for that alone I'm grateful. Plus it's always a blast sharing the merch table with friends whom I find inspiration in both as artists and believers... this time namely Dan Smith and the good looking boys from mewithoutYou. And of course let's not forget about Unwed Sailor - we received extremely positive and encouraging responses to both our performance and the new record (especially the limited-edition hardbound book release). I was also pleasantly surprised to see the boys from Questions in Dialect turn up at the festival with keen determination to somehow find an opportunity to present their unique blend of sound and imageries. Their impromptu gas generator set inside a tiny little youth group tent on the last night to a patient crowd of 50 brought the event to a nice close, at least for me. Despite being able to spend the nights within the comforts of an air-conditioned hotel room, I was pretty much ready to go home by the middle of the second last day. On the ride back to Chicago our car was caught in the middle of some pretty horrible stormy weather. Hails the size of little peddles repeatedly pounded on the windshield and I was pretty much embracing myself for the glass to crack. Thankfully nothing of that sort happened. We pulled into a gas stop and parked until the dark clouds passed through. So now I have a couple of days in Chicago before I return to London. I hear it's been pretty cold and miserable over there. Probably a nice change, but regardless I'll be back here again in about three weeks for the august tour. I think I'll spend the remainder of my time here catching up on new movies so I can brag about it in London for a couple of months before they hit the theaters there.