Mental Perambulations
Today's ride was short and fortunately less eventful than last week's. I've been hit with insomnia for the last few weeks, so my compromise was an extra thirty minutes of sleep for driving, rather than cycling, to the ride. Turnout was good, and there were some new (at least, to me) faces. I had some company for most of the way, which was nice.
I saw The Simpsons with some friends yesterday. I agree with some reviews that have questioned the success of the transition of the iconic franchise to the big screen. It was good, but not any moreso than one of the better episodes. Compare that to the South Park movie, which really went beyond what that series had ever done.
We had a good lunch at Seoul Garden - aka the other kind of seoul food. It's a Korean restaurant near where I grew up, and while the menu covers a good bit of ground, including exotically nasty-sounding things like cod intestines before veering off to comforting vegetable tempura, the real reason to go is for the marinated meats that you cook yourself at the table. All of the tables have inset grills in the middle, and it's quite convivial to chat and cook at a relaxed pace with your friends.
As we were wrapping up, I got a phone call from my friend, Paul, in Aberdeen. It was about 8PM local time, and he called to tell me about his hard day of playing golf and drinking since 7:30 that morning. He was going to hop in the shower and hit the town. Long gone are the days when I could do those sorts of things, but I did just get a text from him saying, "My heed hurts."
That reminds me of the first time I was over there to visit. Paul, me, and another Scottish guy, appropriately named Scott, were doing road trips to get me acquainted with the country. We decided to hit Glasgow, and swung by Dundee on the way in order to meet up with this girl who knew Scott through work over the telephone and thought he had an intriguing voice. I don't remember much of the evening except for going to the one disco in Dundee (which outside of the university, is kind of a dumpy town) called Fat Tuesday and drinking vodka Red Bulls while dancing to frenetic euro-pop until three in the morning. Scott and I were fine the next day. Paul looked terrible and spent the entire trip curled up into a fetal position in the back of the car, at one point getting out to puke up bile. I'm sure he's in a similar boat today. :)
Oh well. I feel like I should be productive. Maybe write some music or clean something. I feel completely and utterly uninspired. Vapid, even.
