Brolly Conduct

Have you ever stood at a bus stop when it's raining? There's no room under the shelter so you are left to stand in the rain, surrounding you are several other people with umbrellas. I'm going to take a moment to break this situation down two-fold.

Problem 1: Lack of you're own umbrella

Now everybody has a day where they are feeling particularly retarded, perhaps you are one of those people that it happens often to - you are not alone, or maybe you just don't own a brolly, in which case that's your own fault. However everybody has a day where they are left with no protection from the harsh rain. Should you spot one of these people, be a hero, offer them to share. Now understandably if there are three people under your umbrella already then I'm sure Mr Being-rained-upon won't mind. If you are the grumpy sod who's standing there in a suit, waiting to go to your big lawyer meeting, holding your briefcase with a lack of flamboyance to look professional but loud enough look to impress people, whilst listening to spoken word, pretentious poetry on your iPhone that's reserved for music because you prefer Blackberrys for texting then throw another person a bone. Offer them to share your umbrella. It's just nice.

Problem 2: Too many brollys!

Everyone's stood in a crowd at a bus stop or a street crossing and been surrounded by sensible people with umbrellas and you have remembered yours today. It's pandemonium. You get tangled up, bang one into the other, maybe tear a hole in one from one of your spokes then you feel guilty but don't want to offer them yours because, well... you'll get wet. It's the same when walking down the street and you see a sea of dry people with they're own protective covers on a stick. Now this particular situation takes some skill and discipline but can be overcome. It's all to do with eye-contact. You have to make sure each person you pass knows what you're going to do with your umbrella when you both pass and attempt to avoid a brolly collision. A flick of the wrist to the left early can allow the on-comer to do the same ever so slightly so when you pass both people can remain dry by keeping the umbrellas close enough to keep the rain out by acting like a moving jigsaw puzzle. This is probably the hardest maneuver to execute but the simplest - and my personal favourite - for the Brolly Rookies (i.e. Australians, Californians) is the old Up and Under. Sounds, as it is. Again with eye contact you let the opposite umbrella holder your thought process and whoever makes the first move will raise their umbrella high enough to avoid the other one while they lower there's ever so slightly. It's smooth efficient and executed correctly can keep everybody dry.

Keep that in mind next time it's raining, especially when you remember to take your umbrella.

Signing off.

Booooooooreeeedd

Ok so I'm online waiting for some Czech dude to send me some slideshow so I can proofread it and I'm bored of waiting so I'm going to write here for a little bit? You don't mind do you? Didn't think so, if you did, you probably wouldn't be reading it.

Pina Coladas are so last year, mango coladas are the shit.

Needing a new iPhone.

Changed a lot of different currencies today to go home. I got somewhere close to 1600 euro. There's an expression for this... I think its; Boo Ya!

Have got a book called 'I hope they serve beer in Hell' that I'm looking forward to reading. It seems similar to a kickass book I read last year called 'The Alphabet of Manliness'

Speaking of Kick-Ass, has anyone seen that film yet? I thought it was shamazing.

Seriously Mango Coladas. Do it.

Going home Saturday, started packing, got bored, stopped.

Ooohh, ooohh also: Got an email from a dude who said he's gonna pass my CV on to the right dept in his magazine maybe for a job.

Also applied to be an intern at SLAM magazine, in New York. Should be interesting.

That will be all for now, need to check if the proof reading thing has arrived yet. I'll be back soon to talk more about PLAYOFF BASKETBALL!

Cau

So no one told you life was gonna be this way...

Friends have that special talent of turning a frown upside down, of turning the grey skies blue and every other overused saying that you want to add.

Because the truth of the matter is, there is no amount of writing that can let you know important these people are to you, so I don't know why I'm trying. But best friends are everything someone needs. There are those people that can say just a few words that mean so much, even when you know that they are always there for you, that reminder every once in a while can make a really shitty day positive.

Those people without friends in life (and there are enough of them that those with friends should not take them for granted) are understandably sad in life. I don't mean that in an offensive or jokey way either. It's really quite sad when you think that some people in this world don't have friends they can rely on being there for them.

So I guess this is just me letting my friends know how much I love them

xxx

Kladno visit... or thereabouts

Just when you think you can't drink anymore beer, you go to a beer festival and re-kindle your love for it.

Katka and I decided to avoid all the loviedovie crap of Prague on the 1st of May and got out of the city to go to a beer festival. The excitement was saturating as we made the bus journey to Kladno, only to find that there was no beer festival, instead we had to catch another bus toward the airport - who puts a beer festival at the airport? Alas we bought another bus ticket and made our way to Velke Dobra.

The festival took place in a giant field and as the bus approached it we got our things ready to run off and grab the nearest liquid sex we could find, but the bus didn't stop. Why wasn't it stopping? Where are you going? No wait, the festivals back there.

We ended up walking back in the direction we came from a couple of hundred yards because the bus driver, I think was just teasing us. But when we finally got there, Katka's first choice was Bakalar, which as I later found out is always her first choice... but with good reason.

As we were drinking we decided to scope out the best beers and make our choices for the days consumption.

The walk around the field offered many an exciting prospect of alcohol. The consensus pick for our first one (the Bakalar was just to warm up) was a corn beer. We were extremely lucky to have the last corn beer of the day as well as one with a raspberry flavour to it, both were amazing but the corn beer was especially tasty - it would go down as the best of the day in our opinion but there was still more to come.

We did make a quick stop for food at this point and there was plenty to choose from. We went with something substancy; bramborove, patatas bravas or potatoes with cheese ham and spices in english. And God said it was good.

Back onto the beers.

The next two beers were a weizen (wheat) and a cerny (dark) and they were not brilliant. They were good but in comparison to the previous ones didn't stand a chance so we sat down, relaxed and watched some crazy Czech ladies sing crazy czech songs in crazy czech outfits and a beer drinking contest. In the form of a boat race, this was a very one-sided affair as the winning team won before the first contestant on the second team finished his beer.

Out cups were getting close to empty by this point so I went to the toilet and Katka bought the next two beers. These were good not fantastic but good, and we had to drink them quickly because it was clear that despite still being early in the afternoon a lot of the tents were running out so after making quick work of these we grabbed some more food and made our final choice. Can't remember it by this point, but it was a good one, sorry I can't tell you much more than that.

On the whole an incredibly successful trip and one that we will do again in the near future no doubt. Stay tuned for more information - if I can remember it.

Na Zdravi

You can take the boy out of Wales...

University was supposed to do it, but it didn't. So I had to leave the country for it to become clear. Whatever it is I'm going to get out of life, whatever I intend on doing, it's gonna be at home.

Now I'm not admitting defeat just yet, this isn't me signing out of Prague and tourism, quite the contrary, it has just become clear that right here, right now, I think where I want to be is in Britain in some way shape or form.

My time in Prague has been the time of my life, I love it, I want to come back, I want a holiday home here, I want to take it behind the bikesheds and get it pregnant but as for me permanently living abroad for an extended period of time, I think I'll leave that up to my brother.

I'm not done just yet, I do have the rest of the summer, but with me going home just around the corner (a little over a week), I'll be doing some soul searching and maybe... book a holiday.

My time at home is something I'm really looking forward to especially with the prospect of seeing some university friends. I'll be in Wales for a few days also with some real food cooked by real people, not Philippines pretending to be chinese, I want a proper chinese cooked by Polish people.

But really that was the point of this adventure really wasn't it? To find a little bit of myself, well guess where I was hiding - Prague apparently.

I've found it, I've got it, it's here in my pocket and I'm going to make the most of it, whether its now or in September, at least now I know what it is.

Over and out

Let's talk basketball

A lot of people may get bored by this post so if you do just click off it, I have one or two other posts you can read but those of you who know me at all understand that I am a big fan of NBA basketball so right now is a particularly favourite time of year for me.

PLAYOFF BASKETBALL!!!

The playoffs are a time where the basketball giants collide, there's no bollocks of the Lakers vs Wizards or 76ers vs Pacers. These are real teams playing every night playing for the championship.

Gotta start out with talking about my favourite team - Spurs

San Antonio are in a good position: 3-1 up against conference rivals the Dallas Mavericks, so I'm loving that, especially as a 7th seed this is a good thing. The team has struggled all year with new players and several injuries but it has all come together at the right time to make a big push, because they're 'star' player Tim Duncan, he's not the physical specimen he used to be so this could be one of the final (albeit a longshot) attempts for a championship for the big fundamental.

The favourites - Cavs

Who else could it be? For the second year running they have won the regular season with the most wins and with a healthy squad of all 15 players they should breeze through the playoffs and into the finals, the only problem being the potential upenders...

Upenders - Magic

Orlando destroyed the odds last year when they upended Cleveland en route to the finals and they reloaded this year swapping one slightly passed it all-star for a slightly more past it (but slightly hungrier) all-star in Vince Carter. Btw I still love Vince I think he has a lot to offer and they have proved it by running up to the 2nd best record in the NBA.

Other potential winners - Lakers

You can never count out Kobe. Even though there will always be the 'Jordan is better' slogan hanging over him he is the only player that I have seen that truly has the killer instinct in him that even comes close to his Airness. The problem right now is Kobe's body is falling apart just a Morris Minor going down a cobble-stone street. He only has three fingers on his shooting hand, has knee and back problems and it seems that the rest of his team only want to play when Kobe is playing well, so they'll be interesting in the final rounds but should be in the Western Conference Championship (with Spurs).

The Darkhorse - Spurs

This may be me getting a little bias excitement but I truly believe everything has come at the right time for the boys in San Antonio. When you compare the other teams in the West; Suns and Blazers are gonna beat each other up for 7 games, Denver is on the brink of being forced out by a frankly weaker Utah Jazz, and even though I really want to root for OKC I think I do have to reluctantly agree with many critics that say that they can fight but not upset the Lakers... yet. Which could leave the Spurs in the Conference finals with the Lakers which I think would be more of a chess game between the two legendary coaches rather than all out talent. So we might see San Antonio in the NBA Finals one final year, whether they'll beat Cleveland (or if anyone can) is another conversation but I'm not counting them out just yet.

Maybe there'll be an update next week, we can see how my predictions are turning out

PEACE

Thoughts for the day

Skateboards!

Skatboards seem to be the cool thing for teenagers between 12 and 16 right now in Prague. Has anyone else noticed the number of people you see with a skateboard around this age? And it's not as if you even see them riding said boards, they're holding them.

In the past week I've probably seen 20-30 people with skateboards, a total of 3 have been riding them and those people were over the age of 25 easily. This says to me that the skateboard is less of a hobby for the majority of these teenagers and more-so a fashion accessory.

I rode skateboards when I was younger, as did a lot of my friends and when I was out with it, I hated being off it. Granted being in Prague with cobblestones everywhere doesn't make you really wanna ride that much but the people you see with them, don't look to be the kind of people that would regularly work up a sweat skating (fat). Also their boards look in pretty decent condition, like they've hardly been ridden. I personally used to go through skateboards every couple of months, they cost a fortune I know but through the amount I used them (and the amount I failed to land any trick I attempted) they'd usually end up pretty battered pretty quickly.

You know what else is interesting? Paloma in Spanish means pidgeon. You know that actress/singer Paloma Faith? Her name means pidgeon religion. I wonder what she fills out on her census form?

That will be all...