Michele’s brother and his wife had been covertly organising a party to celebrate our recent migration, and Saturday night was the night. There was so much food, so much to drink, and so many people that it couldn’t fail to be anything but excellent. I even made a friend or two! Really! Of course I paid the price by losing my camera, but that’s only fair I suppose. Additionally it means that I don’t have to show you the pictures of me dressed up as Uncle Sam and looking like an even bigger tit than usual. We even got presents. The bits of it that I remember were really good.

Meanwhile we’ve been failing to make any sort of perceptible progress in our nesting. This Thursday is my long-awaited job interview in New York and I’ve been applying for a bunch of other jobs but with little, or rather, no feedback as yet. Either things are moving really slowly or I’m unemployable.

The biggest bummer, next to my complete inability to be comprehensible to any natives without saying every sentence twice, is credit. My lack of a credit history here is equivalent to having the credit history of a bankrupt crack dealer. I followed the advice of everyone I asked and applied for a store card (charge card) so that I could start building a history. Of course I got turned down. They usually give them out to everyone including 20 year old criminals. I was so annoyed that I just dumped the suit we were about to buy on the counter and walked out, resulting in more work for the assistant whose fault it wasn’t that I got rejected. Sorry.

In honesty Michele went back today and bought it because it was really nice and a total bargain: 100% wool, light-weight, Ralph Lauren, black suit with a cotton shirt and tie for $200. It feels so nice on too. Jesus, what’s happening to me ? I hate suits. Age is so cruel.

Tip to those who are planning to move here: get a social security number on day one and then apply for a “secured credit card”. It’s a total con but apparently opens the wonderful door of debt that blocks the path to a mortgage and somewhere to live.

Applying for jobs and getting annoyed by things is taking so long that I’ve hardly been able to do any work for my UK employers which does, as you’d imagine, suck. But on the occasions I have been able to do some work, I’ve been enjoying the Comcast on-demand cable and watching many films. Here are some films that I’ve just watched and you have to see, otherwise your mum is gay:

• Idiocracy
• Rosemary’s Baby
• Short Cuts
• Under Fire
• Broadcast News
• Anything by The Cohen Brothers, especially Barton Fink and Miller’s Crossing
• Anything by Terry Gilliam, who is my all time favourite director

I’m sitting in the back seat of Walter, next to a cage containing our dear Parrot Humphrey.
We drove up to New York to pick her up from her custodians and now we’re heading back, under guidance from a borrowed Tom Tom.
Humph looks a little dishevelled, but essentially OK. And she’s already done some considerable damage to the Honey Treat we put in her cage so she’s clearly not too bad.

If you could judge a nation by the way people drive, our experiences today would have led us to believe that America is nearly entirely composed of Neanderthal fuckwits with erectile problems and zero common sense. No wonder Viagra sells so well over here.

We made the mistake of looking around a local show home that was for sale. It was a mistake because the house was absolutely perfect. As the result of being a new immigrant I have zero credit; at the moment I couldn’t get a loan for a packet of crisps, so a mortgage is out of the question. Pity because the house was not only lovely it was also a bargain.

So life goes on and I thought it prudent to make active efforts to go out and meet people, so as to avoid a friendless life of misery.

2600 was due last Friday but when the time came I couldn’t face it. Partly because it meant getting to 30th st station for 5pm and partly because the idea of socialising with a bunch of 14 year old boys with limited social skills didn’t really appeal. In the end I chickened out and decided to go to an alternative teccie event in Manayunk the following day: the Ph1ladelph1a Powerb00k Users Group.

It’s easy to look back in astonishment at decisions one has made in the past and think “what the fucking fuck were you fucking thinking you fucking stupid fucking twat” but you have to remember that this was just down the road, in a nice pub that brews their own beer, I love my macbook, and I thought that maybe Mac users weren’t as mental over here.
Let me tell you, the same gene that produces the classic blinkered British Mac fanatic is alive and well over here too. In fairness, there were a couple of good talks about the new OS – Leopard – and the guy who ran the seminar seemed utterly level headed and genuinely nice. But my god they were barking.

I arrived a tad early and was astonished to find that plenty of the mac people were there already and not one was a day under 65. I sat at a table that didn’t shoo me away and was then subjected to a, clearly well rehearsed, monologue about 3 spectacularly tedious and tiny bugs that one of the guys at the table was very proud to have discovered in Leopard. After a tortuously long period of time elapsed I caught the waitresses eye and ordered a drink. Thankfully Mike, my brother in law, arrived soon after and so I didn’t have to drink myself to death.

Much of the discussions revolved around people’s iPhones and for a normal person it was a real insight into the mind of mac fanatics. These people queued up with large wedges of cash which they eventually gave over to the guy in the shop in return for a small, crippled, piece of crap that doesn’t want you to use it. They then spend a long time working out how to “hack” it so that it will become marginally more useful (despite the lame specs) until Apple fix the bugs that caused the hack to be possible. Of course, Apple’s fix will always be pathetic and so the hacks can continue. All the time they are battling with this expensive and hateful little box they go around showing it off to people and telling everyone how cool Apple are. In fact, the harder that Steve Jobs shafts his fans up the Gary, the more they seem to love and evangelise him. Hmm. Anyway, Mike and I spent a pleasant time there sampling the local brews and toothsome food before heading back home.

Unperturbed by this experience, tonight I went along to the Philadelphia Linux Users Group (PLUG) which was a far more enjoyable experience, despite at times seeming like a load of out-takes from Dear John. There was even a mini keysigning session! We ended up in a local pizza place discussing the exigencies of setting up a Linux based business in Mali…ok…but look, it’s better than discussing the look of the new iMac. And I even got a lift to 30th street station, where I completely failed to find the bus stop home and ended up catching a cab.

There’s loads of stuff to blog about but I’ve not really been in the mood. Suffice to say that I’m delighted Michael Nutter is our new Mayor. There are three reasons for feeling happy about this:

1. He seems like a top bloke.
2. It pisses off all the local Republicans; especially as he won by >73%.
3. Heheheh. Heheheh. His name’s “Nutter”. Heheheheheh. Heheheheheh. Nutter! Heheheheh.

Oh son, your mayor is a nutter.

And I’ve now discovered why it’s so difficult to get good staff these days – HR departments (Personnel) are universally shit.

In my experience their entire raison d’êtra is to act as a barrier between candidates and jobs; consequently they are staffed by a combination of authoritarian harridans and vapid jobsworths. As the role of these departments is nebulous at best they are constantly striving to justify their existence by instituting new demands on applicants and existing staff so that they are not forgotten about.

Since I’m now “in the market” I’ve been dealing with a number of HR departments and a shocking new trend has emerged. Rather than send your carefully formatted CV (resume) you have to retype it into their awkwardly designed, utterly inadequate web forms and send your CV.

You then have to wait while some HR monkey scans your responses for the presence of keywords in your responses that match those in the job requirement. Of course, being totally unaware of what the words actually mean, they can’t recognise synonyms or related skills and so you don’t even get the hiring department looking at your resume.

Throughout the entire process the candidates are treated as though they are the fortunate recipients of a chance at the cup, rather than the people who could solve the problems of the department that needs them.

How much simpler would it be if the departments did their own hiring ?

But, far worse than HR departments are recruiting companies. Every member of staff in every recruitment company could be replaced by a very simple perl script. I find this particularly ironic because yesterday a recruiter was “testing my technical knowledge of perl” by asking me questions and hoping that my wording of the answers matched whatever was on his screen. Have you ever tried to explain a back-reference to someone who doesn’t know what a regular expression is ? He called them “reejixps” for Hicks’ sake. This job hunt is going to take a while…

It’s Halloween and in America this is a big deal. Brits will no doubt be giving derisory tuts as they read that but that’s because in the UK we are the victims of marketing pressure to adopt yet another artificial holiday just so that retailers can sell more junk to us. But over here it’s different. OK, every retail outlet is choc full of plastic, light-up, spooky crap, but it feels different. Mainly because here, everyone buys into it. Kids really love it, and it’s been said many times that it’s their favourite holiday of the year – and that includes Christmas! Here it means, dressing up, having fun and getting hold of buckets of sweets. For the adults it’s the same but with drink instead of the chocies.
So we’re now sitting outside on the front porch rocking benches, tapping away at our laptops like a 21st century Ma and Pa Kettle. Michele is hoping that the armies of dressed up children will suddenly descend and demand sweets…like it was in her day.

But evidently things have changed. Daily Mail culture (or rather Fox News culture) has made everyone believe the streets are crawling with child molesters and general nonces. Sad really.

Oh wait! Here comes one now. There’s loads of them! Oh yeah – over here the costumes don’t necessarily have to be scary – in fact some of them are just plain old fancy dress; consequently all the little girls go round as princesses and all the little lads go as ninjas, superheroes or corpses.

In the UK, all you get is a bunch of teenage delinquents demanding money with menaces.

Last night we went with Michele’s brother and his wife to a Haunted House called “Bate’s Motel.” We were bought tickets in advance with the added enticement that “they’ve got a corn maze too!” Obviously, I haven’t got a sodding clue what that means or what the whole thing was about so we went along.

Thousands of people drive to this big field in New Jersey the middle of Pennsylvania, park up and then join astonishingly long queues to enter either a scary house, a scary corn field or go on a scary “hay ride” – nope, me neither.

Let me tell you, the scary house and the scary corn field were genuinely frightening. Each was pitch black, full of “actors” dressed up as terrifying things, willing to jump on you in the dark, and all sorts of other nasty stuff in there: giant robotic rats, hanging meat (mainly fake), and people with chainsaws. My heart was racing for about an hour afterwards.

Afterwards, Michele and I were absolutely shaking with hunger and so we all went to a massive diner and ate much too much food, whilst laughing at the ludicrous wigs on the customers which may, or may not, have been Halloween costumes.

Today: lovely cycle ride along the creek again.
My favourite quote of the day is from Helen, Michele’s mum:

Martin, you look like a freak.

If you’ve been unlucky enough to have to get on a plane in the past couple of years, especially across the Atlantic, then you’ll no doubt have been irritated by the ridiculous pantomime of the airport security checks that you are required to endure just so the stupid people feel a bit safer. The limited liquid rule is particularly irritating, based, as it is, on a bizarre knee-jerk reaction to a very dubious threat.

There’s an old joke that involves asking someone why they’re performing a bizarre ritual, such as constantly throwing confetti out of a car window.

“It’s to keep the crocodiles away” the person explains.

“But you don’t get crocodiles around here,” you point out.

“See it works well doesn’t it!”

Now this is not just a crap joke, it also seems to be what the UK government are basing their airport security policy upon.

According to an article in El Reg Baron Bassam of Brighton, the government’s lordly gobshite on the matter, explained the need for the 100ml restriction of all liquids and gels thus:

The fact that there has not been a serious incident involving liquid explosives indicates, I would have thought, that the measures that we have put in place so far have been very effective.

So, not only has this measure prevented terrorists creating liquid explosives in airplane khazis, but it seems to have also put off the crocodiles as well!

We’ve had our first Indian meal since we landed. Michele’s mum, being a mum, insisted that we get a lift down the “fucking massive hill” (q.v.) to Manayunk rather than us risk life and limb on the cheap, convenient, safe, bus service. As it was raining hard and the hill we would have to descend was really quite massive (in the “fucking ” sense) we agree and got dropped off in the lovely Main Street.
First stop was a lovely little (in the sense of “big”) bar which thought it was Irish, called “Paddy O’Mally’s” or something equally insulting. But it turned out to be quite nice. Of course there was American Football on the many widescreen TVs and plenty of that pastiche Irish folk coming out of the speakers, but the barman managed to pour a couple of quite acceptable pints of Guinness and Michele’s “Mer-*low*” was quite good too. It turned out the barman had spent time in London, which explains his pouring skills, but the atmosphere was nice and allowed us to relax in preparation for our impending curry.
And what a curry it was. Everything was different to our expectations, but it was superb. In the spirit of scientific discovery I ordered a Vindaloo: the reasoning was that outside of India, it was pretty much a wildcard and that in the UK it just refers to anything that will cause anal bloodshed the next morning. When the lovely waitress asked “Mild, medium or hot” I knew I was onto a winner and asked for the latter.
To cut a long but pleasant story short, it was superb. Not oily, not too salty, full of flavour, and my Vindaloo was milder than the mildest I’ve ever had in the UK. It was however the best I’ve eaten in a while. OK, it was expensive for Philly but it really seems to have been prepared with love and for that I’m grateful.
Reassured that good Indian food was on offer in the area we caught what is now our second favourite bus route home – the 35. Like its number it comes second to the legendary London 36 route (but only when, in the old days, the 36 was run using Routemasters.)
The 35 is the official and satisfactory solution to ascending the “fucking massive hill” of Manayunk. Its sole purpose seems to be to carry us to and from suitable drinking/eating establishments in Manayunk. Nice one SEPTA.

BTW – I received a lovely message from “Stuart” who didn’t leave us his email address. Thank you for getting in touch Stuart, and good luck with the move. We both think that you should get in touch so that if there was anything we could do to help (like be reassuring) then we could do so – even though neither of us have any real idea about SF – good luck anyway people.

Had a good day today – check flickr.

We’ve got to the stage of exploring our new land in an everyday way: popping to the shops, buying bogroll, walking up to the post office and the offy – stuff like that. It’s a fascinating way to find out about the place and also makes us feel more at home. Tonight we explored a local supermarket and I was genuinely shocked. Ten years ago, a visit to Pathmark was like stepping back in time to the supermarkets in the 70s – remember “Presto” or “Caters” ? But this one, “SuperFresh”, was like an upmarket Waitrose! Seriously, their cheese counter made me weak at the knees, mainly because of the pong from some of the fantastic imported French gear that was doing its best to run away. And the seafood! Great swathes of shrimp (prawns), crab, tuna and tilapia all there waiting to be scooped up together with some seriously upmarket sauces. We drove home, in our car, like proper grown ups listening to a radio station that should really be called WSAD Thirty-Something FM as it played a load of music that only 30+ people who are desperately trying to cling onto their youth would appreciate. We’ve named our car Walter, which we both feel is an appropriate name for a respectable old gent like him. But since he was bestowed upon us and we jumped through the hoops necessary to get a licence plate, this is the first time we’ve used him.
We made a decision that we would not become car dependent and luckily the neighbourhood we live in is perfect for pedestrians…and cyclists. On Sunday Michele and I went on a beautiful cycle ride along Wissahickon Creek which was an utterly life-affirming experience and a 10 minute walk away. Michele observed that none of the families we encountered walking and cycling along were as heavy (in build) as most of the people you normally see on the streets. Funny that.
We’ve also managed to walk down to Manayunk and back again several times, a journey which involves ascending and descending what can only be described as a “fucking massive hill.” We’re going to get fit I tell you.

One reason we’ve been going there so often, apart from the high density of posh bars, pubs, and restaurants on Main Street, is that there’s a mobile phone shop there. We bought a couple of Cingular (AT&T) contracts, against the advice of many on tinternet who reckon that T-Mobile is the best thing since Worcester Sauce flavoured Wheat Crunchies. So far, apart from the guy in the shop trying a very lame scam, I’m really happy with it. I’ll spare you the boring details but AT&T really do appear to wipe the floor with the competition on all fronts as far as I can tell. Of course, my prejudice against T-Mobile based on experiences in Europe helped. As for customer service (the main gripe from the new world about AT&T) every time I’ve called them the service has been exemplary, and their automated menu systems far less offensive than T-Mobile’s or the bastard Social Security…you know I found myself putting on a ludicrous American accent just so their voice misunderstanding system will have a better chance of sussing what I was on about. In the end I gave up and just blew rasberries down the phone at it – a technique I strongly advocate by the way because I ended up getting put through to a human very quickly. But to be honest he didn’t understand me either and dropped the call. Sorry – you don’t need to know any of this.

It’s easy to start thinking that pedestrians are not only few and far between here, but also actively disliked by the authorities. That can be the only explanation for the aggressively anti-pedestrian traffic laws. Firstly, we have the cynical “turn right on red” law. This means that if you are at a red light and intend to turn right, you can. Oh yes, you’re supposed to wait until the road is clear first but this is regarded as an optional rule by most motorists.
Secondly even if the pedestrian “walk” light is on, cars may still turn left or right across the crossing. In other words there is no safe phase for pedestrians. And why should there be ? Not using a car is, after all, anti-American; pedestrianism is just another form of terrorism.
Enough of the niggles though, in fairness there are quite a few life enhancing improvements that deserve a mention. The fact that people are generally more friendly, more helpful and less shocked when strangers talk to them is a nice thing. The abundance of good quality sea-food everywhere you go is also a pleasant change.
Oh yes, SEPTA, the public transport services, could teach TFL a thing or two. From the end of our road there is a regular, cheap, air-conditioned, fast, bus service into center city that takes about 20 minutes, even in traffic. Even though we’ve got a car it’s still easier to get the bus.

Michele has, of course, managed to get a lot of avian activities into her short time here. Yesterday there was Parrot Palooza, which I decided to swerve, having a far shorter parrot threshold than Michele. The other evening we decided to eat out in Manayunk (a bit like the Islington of Philadelphia) and it took five minutes from leaving the car to Michele having a cockatiel on her head. Walking along main street, her finely attuned bird-sensitive hearing picked out a parrot and so she dragged me into a junk shop where, sure enough, was a beautiful pearl cockatiel in a cage. The sound of Michele’s cooing brough out a long girl from the back who explained that she’d adopted it two days before and enthusiastically closed the shop door so we could take the bird out of the cage. Only Michele could find this place.

Right, we’re off out for a cycle through some nearby woods.