LAST WEEK I was in Austin, Texas. Home to a million bats – not all of which are evil, it seems. The atria are fantastic!
So I get to Austin TX airport on my way to Dallas and decide I’ll have a burger and a beer at the bar just opposite my “gate”.
You cannot buy an alcoholic drink there without showing a picture ID. Heck, I’m old, but the guy on my right was about 75 and he had to show his photo ID too.
I foolishly thought that America didn’t have ID cards – we still don’t in the UK despite the efforts of the fascists. I don’t have a driving licence, I had a passport at the bar. I have an NUJ (National Union of Journalists) photo ID. It’s recognised by the Metropolitan Police.
Maybe I should have flashed that. So much for freedom and justice.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Austin, beer, burger, Dallas, ID cards, National Union of Journalists, NUJ, picture IDs, Texas
November 6, 2009 · 1 Comment
THE ASHMOLEAN museum opposite the Randolph Hotel opens tomorrow, I’m looking forward to browsing through it at my leisure.
See this piece on TGD, here.
If you’re in Oxford, check out the Pitt Rivers museum too – it’s full of strange strange things like poppets and shrunken heads.
No shrunken heads in North Parade, where I live. But they have widened the pavements in a strange chicane sort of way. No, I don’t work for the Oxford Tourist Board.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Ashmolean, North Parade, Oxford, Pitt Rivers, poppets, shrunken heads
SO FOR THE first time in must be 16 or 17 years ago, we find ourselves in Austin, Texas.
The last time here, it was with IBM and they still were waxing lyrical about OS/2, bless it.
This time it’s with AMD, and I’m esconced in the Hyatt Regency, which has an atrium to be admired, with lifts whizzing up and down on the inside like there’s no tomorrow.
There is a tomorrow. Here’s a view of the inside of the hotel. We’re not far from the bridge of a million bats but we haven’t got to see them yet.
done
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: AMD, atrium atria, Austin, IBM, OS/2 Regency Hyatt
October 27, 2009 · 1 Comment
AT the Mind shop in Walton Street, Jericho, today I rediscovered an edition of Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais – a first limited edition of 750 copies, my copy is 411. It’s a very beautiful set of two volumes.
I snagged it. It only cost 20 quid. I think that I will have to contribute to Mind more than I take from it.
Let me give you another example of my awful egoism. I won a bottle of boiled sweets in a central Oxford shop – the question was to guess the number of sweets. I guessed 93. I was right. As the lass said, not bad for a 50 pence donation to a charity. I’d just been to the dentist. I should have banged in another two quid to the charity, at least.
I have this notion that I am taking more out of the world than I am giving. I blame the semiconductor companies. They’re easy to blame. I guess I’d better go back and give some more money to Mind. ♦
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Tagged: 93, Aleister Crowley, boiled sweets, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law, Gargantua and Pantagruel, Mind, Rabelais, semiconductors, Walton Street
THE FLACKENHACK awards are some sort of PR gig where the booze runs out early.
I’ve been to one. Lest you have any doubts about this, PRs, generally speaking, despise journalists. Mike Hardwidge didn’t, and Bill Moores doesn’t, but they are totally exceptional.
At an Intel Developer Forum a few years back, my son was standing near the front of the piano bar when one Dan Snyder walked in. My son was then a hack but Dear Dan didn’t know that.
The minute he walked in and saw me, he said “f***** Mike Magee, f***** Mike Magee.”
Tazz is a bit of a rebel. Heck he’s doing PR these days. So when he went to the Flackenhack Awards the other day, he bumped into a spinner from Hill & Knowlton, a spinner for the Intel Corporation, and asked him what he thought of Mike Magee.
“He’s a f***** t***”, said the spinner. Why’s that, asked my son, faux innocently. “He totally screwed us at the Intel Developer Forum,” said the H&K guy. “He’s my dad,” said Tazz.
Funny how things come around in the end, eh? Heck. ♥
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Tagged: Bill Moores, Carter Ruck, Dan Snyder, f******, Flackenhack Awards, Heck!, Hill&Knowlton, Intel, Intel Developer Forum, Mike Hardwidge, San Francisco, Tamlin Magee
MET MY son last night in the Coach & Horses, Great Marlborough Street – a pub that holds many memories for me. I can’t tell you about them all.
In true rebellious spirit, Tazz is now a spinner trying to sell stories to us hacks. But he was greatly enthused by his HTC Hero phone.
It’s got the tilt and spin an iPhone has but better than that, there’s dozens of apps that are free – such as a metal detector yeah. And it works. He tried it on the metal plate in my right leg and it worked. He tried it on my sapphire ring yeah and it worked. It doesn’t just detect ferro-magnetic materials.
It didn’t find the few gold coins I hide up my bum in case of emergencies. That’s good! ♣
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Coach & Horses, ferro-magnetic, gold, HTC, iPhone, metal detector, sapphire, Tamlin Magee
