Jonners' Canterbury Tales

Posted on September 7, 2007 by jonners992 Comments

Short entry today I reckon. Played Madden on the wii in the morning and won the game. I went out for lunch at Ottaker having turned down the option to go to Thorpe Park for the day because I had already gone once this year. Lunch was good and led to a short bit of shopping and posting something I had sold on ebay. In the afternoon I got in and watched Scarface which I really enjoyed. It was much better than I was expecting it to be and I preferred it to the Godfather, am I the only one?
In the evening I had curry and then tried out the Scarface game on wii only to find it was awful with dreadful motion sensing controls that I couldn’t get the hang of. I believe it went back on ebay soon after.

Posted on September 4, 2007 by jonners991 Comment

Finished the packing I started last night when I woke up at 6am and then was driven to the airport by the ladies. I checked in for my flight in about 5mins and got through security in 10 after some short goodbyes from the family. I had a good time with them in Denver, they are all very nice people. I waited around for my flight to Philadelphia by playing on my DS. I had an hour long wait and little to do so this took the time quite quickly. The flight to Philadelphia was uneventful, I spent it looking out the window and listening to music.
Once we landed in Philadelphia I got a little lost as I couldn’t find the right terminal for a while and so went shopping. It didn’t exactly matter, I had a four and a half hour wait anyway. I asked a couple of people whether I needed to collect my luggage and go through security again they both said no so I believed them and enjoyed looking in the newsagents which can only be found in Airports. There was little else to do so I bought Sports Illustrated with its NFL preview and had Mcdonalds for dinner. The flight eventually boarded and I was sat next to a nice Indian couple on the way back to Gatwick. We ended up leaving Philadelphia an hour and a half late (we had to sit on the plane the whole of that time) as we waited for connecting flights to come in. They never showed and so we eventually gave up. After food was served on the plane I tried somewhat unsuccessfully to get sleep on the plane.

Posted on September 3, 2007 by jonners99No Comments

Went to Beth’s church again this morning for a good service. There were fewer of Beth’s friends around this week and so we got out quicker after the service. We took Rachel to Chipotle for lunch and then we went to a fabric store to get patterns for Beth’s possible wedding dresses. When we got back I started packing which really didn’t take me very long. We then played games long into the evening and I stayed up online for a while in the evening in the hope that it would help me sleep on my nice long flight tomorrow.

Posted on September 2, 2007 by jonners99No Comments

This morning Beth and I headed to her local park where we read for about an hour. In the afternoon Craig drove Beth, Rachel and I into Downtown Denver where we went to a big Labor day weekend fair called Taste of Colorado where there were lots of stalls with food and cultural things to do with Colorado. We spent three hours looking around and it was good fun. They also had a fun fair but alas no bumper cars. For dinner I believe I had a buffalo burger and then it was off home again for a quiet evening in and possibly some scrabble.

Posted on September 1, 2007 by jonners992 Comments

Beth and I headed out quite early to go to the cinema and see the film Superbad which Beth has reviewed for my website here. I enjoyed it a little more than she did I reckon but I wouldn’t disagree with what she said. In the afternoon we picked Rachel up from school and then watched Hot Fuzz with Fran. They enjoyed it I think although we did have to watch it on Beth’s laptop screen (never ideal, tiny and it flickers). In the evening Beth and I got to go to a concert. In around February I put a bunch of Weird Al Yankovic videos on my blog, well we got to see him in Concert. He did most of his best songs and was brilliant live. I was a little apprehensive before hand thinking that he might not be able to live up to his recorded stuff but it was very well put together. The show lasted about two hours with no other bands performing so he did a good job. Costume changes were covered very well by archive clips of him “interviewing” famous people. All in all a better night out than I expected, thanks Weird Al.

Posted on August 31, 2007 by jonners99No Comments

Beth had cleverly pre-empted my arrival in America by buying tickets to Denver’s waterworld a large water slide park. We therefore decided to use these tickets today. We drove to the park only to find out that it was closed and would only be open at the weekend (when it would undoubtedly be packed) displeased we decided to go on sunday instead and drove into downtown Denver to go shopping. After a little trouble parking we found a bookshop that specialises in used books. Since watching my favourite film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and reading it was loosely based on an old book I have enjoyed the books of Brett Halliday although they are impossible to find in Briton I found 5 in this bookshop and bought them all.
We then got onto the 16th Street Mall which is basically Denver’s answer to Oxford Street. There were only a few shops we were interested in and it wasn’t actually that long so we walked to the far end and then headed back again. We had lunch in a small pizza hut where you only got one – quite large – slice of pizza and some slightly sickly bread sticks. We also went into Denver’s Virgin Megastores where I bought myself some new headphones and a book on global warming. Beth went in a clothes shop for half an hour whilst I read outside. After a trip to Barnes and Noble which actually had magazines (shock horror) we headed back home and watched Point Break which was pretty good if not a little cheesy in places.
In the evening with Beth’s family out I watched the Bronco’s last preseason game on tele while Beth made cookies. It was a nice evening.

Posted on August 30, 2007 by jonners99No Comments

This morning we played a variation on scrabble called Upwards. This was followed by both myself and Beth’s Grandma falling asleep in the lounge whilst Beth read Da Vinci Code, no idea why I was so exhausted, I guess I just woke up early. We had Lentil soup for lunch and then it was off to the airport to send Beth’s Grandma home. It was nice having her in Denver and she was a very nice lady. On the way home we visited a big computer store which I was happy to spend a good 20mins in observing how cheap hardware is in America. We then revisited gamestop so I could take the Atari game back, the guy would only accept the game back on the grounds of being terrible because he had served me the previous two times I had been in and knew I was British and thus probably going home soon. We then stopped at a large charity shop called Goodwill from which the Blomberg’s got me a second suitcase and I bought 4 John Grisham books for a dollar each . In the evening I made the family a curry with a curry sauce that wasn’t perfect but it tasted ok anyway and then we watched some film in the evening.
First off I got all of Beth’s home movies, they won’t be winning oscars but they were pretty funny anyway and we also got to see Shallow Hal which isn’t amazing but isn’t pathetic either. After falling asleep in the morning I was happy to get an early night.

Posted on August 29, 2007 by jonners99No Comments

A shopping day was planned for today so in the morning Beth and I went off to the library where I read the Wall Street Journal. We then went to gamestop and looked at games, I bought an atari game collection for $10. We then went to Beth’s church and gave away some of the food that we had left over from our party at the weekend. We were also meant to be borrowing a tent off someone so we could go camping but they weren’t there so we gave up on the camping idea. When we got home I tried my atari game and completed the whole thing in 5mins. I decided it was worth taking Gamestop up on their 7 day return policy on preowned games.
In the afternoon Beth went to the fabric store with her grandma and so I played with a DS emulator online figuring it was best to test games online in future so as to avoid a future Atari type debacle. While not all games work most games have roms from which you can get a good idea of the gameplay. On a legal note I would never permanently use this method for playing games, all the games got deleted after being tried and I ended up buying the game I most enjoyed. That game was Trauma Centre which I won for myself on ebay.
When Beth got back I played Apples to Apples with her and some of her family before dinner and then we played a game of scrabble afterwards.

Posted on August 28, 2007 by jonners99No Comments

Hmm I believe I promised Fran this post a couple of weeks ago… D’oh. Today we were off up into the mountains to sample my first 14′er which is a 14,000ft mountain. We first drove to Idaho Springs which appeared to be an old mining town it was a nice place. Beth and I went shopping but came back empty handed. We had lunch in a buffalo restaurant in Idaho Springs which was nice. Buffalo tastes pretty darn good I can tell why they were hunted almost to extinction. After lunch we drove the rest of the way up Mt Evans. As we neared the top the air appeared to get heavier (although the opposite is true). We stopped about half way up to look at some snow and to see a Marmot before plowing on to the top. There were some crazy people cycling up the mountain which was an interesting sight (these crazy mountain types). When i got to the top I obviously had altitude sickness and felt quite faint. I posed for the mandatory photos but didn’t take the extra walk to the top of the mountain. On the way down we stopped to look at more Marmots before being accosted by a sheep in search of food (American’s are confused between sheep and goats… goats are fluffy sheep at bald).
When we reached the bottom we went in the giftshop (guarded by a very cute lil chipmunk) and then had cake (best cheesecake ever and a huge slice). We drove home the long way and I got to take pictures of elk. We got home about 4:30 and an hour later we went off out for pizza. We went to a place called Beaujos which Beth swears by but I thought was boring. It had very little flavour to it and very little tomato sauce. In the evening we played scrabble with Beth’s grandma and watched the Man with the Golden Gun which was terrible (I guess it was good when I was younger).

Posted on August 27, 2007 by jonners994 Comments

Woke up this morning for the Turkish Grand Prix which wasn’t bad but wasn’t overly exciting either, Hamilton was very unlucky in getting a puncture that put him behind his slow teammate. It was a different type of service to the usual served up at London Road but it was not too grotesque. We went to Chipotle for lunch with some of Beth’s friends which was nice, its a cool restaurant and I would love it if it came to London. Possible being owned by McDonalds.
In the afternoon we had Beth’s party at which I was most in demand. I met lots of people, most of whom I have now forgotten and I think I made a good impression… more like hope I did. I enjoyed talking to Beth’s friend Ryan who seemed the only one who didn’t want to either congratulate and grill me or check out my accent. Everyone was gone by about 8pm and we all go early nights as we were worn out.