…Not if you’re in the USA. There you work in a Call Center. Either way, you may use Avaya, or something similar. If you do, the link below may be useful to you. If not, it will sound like garbage. Even more than my usual stuff.

…Honestly.


The Correct Usage Of Avaya


…See? Told you so.

Okay, so I’m going to write about TV. I’ve been putting this off because this always sound like I sit in front of the TV all day and do nothing else. But that’s not true. At work, I sit in front of a computer all day..

I’ve always enjoyed TV shows – from when I was 10 and had a small black & white portable in my bedroom – to nowadays with my 47” LCD screen in the living room. (I have a plan with my LCD screen. I’m going to hang it on a wall, and record a picture of me standing perfectly still. But every fifteen to twenty minutes I’m going to move slightly, so that visitors aren’t quite sure if the portrait is coming to life, or if they’re losing their minds…)

…This is actually version 2 of the plan. The first version involved me peering through eyeholes in a real picture, and then dressing up as a monster and scaring my guests… But then these 4 meddling kids and their dog turned up and… Ah well, that’s another story.

Note – If the above comment made sense, then you are with me. There are several rules that seem to hold true throughout the world of TV. As part of my ‘Mike Switzer Tells You How To Live’ series, I’ll outline the top 20 below;

1.    EVERYBODY watched Scooby Doo. No matter how old you are, everybody has watched Scooby Doo at some point in their life. Consequently, Scooby Doo has influenced our society overall. Witness how many vertically challenged girls who wear glasses are now in fields of investigation. Witness how many guys with those little stubbly goatee beards cannot hold down a job. Witness how often I go out wearing a cravat, and think I look great.
2.    As a general rule, a show has ‘jumped the shark’ (or is ready for cancellation) the second they introduce a previously unknown family member. (This can either be a new actor, or a previously unknown Brother/Daughter/Son/Father/Mother that is unexpectedly announced). Either way – stop watching the show. It’s not worth it. First and Final example – Scrappy Doo. Scrappy has now gone down in history as the worst example of this trend, so I won’t go on about it here. Oddly, The Bible seemed to pick up a bit when they had the unexpected birth of God’s new son. (Although even that seemed hastily written-in… Where were the two seasons of on-again off-again romance? …They were obviously struggling for ratings).
3.    If someone is introduced as ‘singing live’ that may mean that they are appearing live while miming to a backing track, or were live when it was recorded last week, or one of the words in the prerecorded single is ‘live’. Never will it mean that person is singing in real-time and you are hearing it without enhancement.
4.    If a sniper is a character on any TV show they will glare at the person through the sights for around 90 seconds until they actually get around to pulling the damn trigger.
5.    When they pull the trigger it will always be just after the person they’re aiming at has moved out of the sights..
6.    If they say there is no cure on a medical procedural TV show, that person will die.
7.    If they say there is no cure on any other TV show, you have anywhere between twenty minutes and three episodes before they find the cure.
8.    If someone introduces a dog on a TV show – before the end of that show, it will die saving someone or something. (Unfortunately, in all these cases – there is no cure).
9.    If everything seems great five minutes before the end of your show – something really bad is going to happen before it actually ends.
10.    This is slightly different, but similar to, the American Idol (X-Factor for the English among you) effect – when the judge starts with ‘first of all, you look amazing tonight’… That’s never going to end well. It’s like saying to Picasso ‘Yes – It’s a new camera. The old one just wasn’t photorealistic enough for me. And as we both know – the level of photorealism is directly proportionate to how good a picture is. Which reminds me, where are those paintings you wanted to show me?’
11.    By the same token – if anyone on any reality TV show talks about how they are certain they’ve done really well – They’ve failed.
12.    If they talk about how badly it’s gone – They’ve won.
13.    Anyone appearing on a show with the word ‘celebrity’ in the title, by and large – isn’t a celebrity.
14.    If someone is English on an American TV show, they are either evil, or rich. Or both. (See American Idol).
15.    If someone is American on an English TV show, they are either sex-crazed or John Barrowman. Or both.
16.    If the show finishes a season and is advertised as ‘returning soon’ with no specific date – it’s never returning.
17.    The more people that watch a show, the less people will admit to liking it.
18.    ‘Reality TV’ is a sub-genre of Television in which people are asked to do things they would never normally do in reality.
19.    If you require more Reality in your Reality TV, turn off the TV. What’s left is what we call ‘Reality’.
20.    And finally – If you are American, and really must compare my accent to someone English on TV – make it Patrick Stewart, or Hugh Grant. Not the gecko from the Geico ads…

(Note to English people who may not know the Geico gecko.. It’s a charming, intelligent, witty, sexy character in an ad campaign over here. …That’s why people mistake us. Of course, now I’ve told you that, you don’t need to check this with your American friends.

…Ever).

The website is finally updated – and after one month of work I’ve gone from having a website with some pictures on it and my blog – to a website that has slightly different pictures on it, and my blog…

Well, that was worth it. But one of the other new features is the fact it now updates Facebook automatically. Which is great.

…I think.

Now – I’ve got to confess to something here. When I was at school I was never really the sporty kind. I was into books & computers. Nowadays I would be considered a geek. But unfortunately back then the ‘geek’ was still someone you kept chained in your basement, and fed live chickens. ‘Geek’ as we know it had yet to exist. So people tried other words, in the hope of finding the one that would stick. Let’s just say that none of them were particularly pleasant..

Anyway – the upside of having no social life, is that I used to be able to sit alone in a room with a computer and form a relationship with it…

Yes – I said upside.

I started out with a ZX Spectrum (which no-one in the USA will ever have heard of, but basically it was the first popular UK home computer. Sir Clive Sinclair, who invented it, thought that it would be simpler for someone to – instead of just typing ‘PRINT’ letter by letter – hold down shift and alt and P and that would be quicker. Simple right? So naturally many UK homes had a second computer to remember the key combinations required for the first computer).

Then I worked through several other brands through the years. I was on the pre-internet internet which was, at the time, called Compunet. It was more a bulletin board than anything but you used to be able to meet with other people and then call them direct to.. ahem.. ‘share’ games with them. All this happened at 7.5k speed. To put this in perspective – it’s 7 times slower than dial up at the moment. And we were being billed by the minute. All of which meant that I was unable to use the ‘internet’ after my first month – when my parents got the bill for five hundred pounds. (And this was back when 500 pounds was real money… Although apparently not to a twelve year old).

In short – I’ve always loved working with computers, and gadgets, and technical stuff. And then I was introduced to ‘social’ websites. Now – speaking as a pre-geek. ‘social’ websites are an oxymoron. You know you could just talk to that person, right? You could just call them or travel to their house and see them, right? Try it – It’s like virtual reality – but not virtual.

So I go on Myspace and Facebook and ask people to be my friend. That’s altogether too open for rejection for my liking. I’m laying all my cards on the table – I like you, I want people to know we’re buddies, I want to have a 1/2″ square picture of me on your ‘friend’ space. And I’m going to take all the risk that you may just go – ‘Hey honey, look it’s that weird kid from school that we didn’t have a word for’, and click ‘reject’.

I don’t think so.

And even if someone does accept you as their friend. It’s all happiness and witty banter until you turn up drunk at their house at 3am asking for somewhere to stay. Noooo apparently ‘friend’ doesn’t mean, on Facebook, the same that it means in real life.

Now that brings me to the next point… When I first logged on facebook it asked – ‘What are you thinking about right now?’ Naturally, I typed ‘boobies’.

They could really explain up front that they will then post that information to everybody.. Luckily at that point I only had various home computers from the eighties as friends, so they just thought I’d typed 5319009 upside down and giggled about it.

Then I realised that this was supposed to be an update for people to read. Now if everyone answered the question honestly, when asked ‘What are you thinking about right now?’ – they would all type, ‘I’m trying to think how to be extremely witty and charming in such a way as not to offend any of my 253 friends – but also make them all like me so much that they go speak to their other friends and get them to be my friends as well.’ Of course – no-one would actually type this, because it’s too open and raw and honest…

..And also because apparently we’re not allowed to have any thoughts that exceed 140 characters.

So I kind of got the hang of it. My first real status post asked if the past tense of ‘To Twitter you’ is ‘To Twat you’, and two people liked it. Naturally, being English, I wondered why the rest of them clearly didn’t like it enough to click the little thumbs up icon. And again, being English I vowed to bottle up that resentment and let it eat away at me until the day I die.

But that seemed to be it – just little one-liners ever so often.

…And then someone threw a sheep at me.

To be precise, my beautiful wife threw a sheep at me.

What does that mean? Is it a sign of affection? Surely livestock hurtling toward you can’t say ‘I love you’ any more than flowers, can it? Then other things got thrown at me. A cow. An octopus. Then I got sent quizzes. I didn’t know there would be tests… Is there a minimum level of intelligence required to keep an account open on Facebook? (Answer: No) (Note: If you had to read the answer first, you failed).

When I asked, I was told that the sheep meant I was being ‘superpoked’. Now I never had a problem with the normal level of poke. Why would someone feel the need to make it super? What does it all mean?

Well – I’ll tell you. It means I am officially old. It took 38 years, but I’ve finally had to accept it. From this moment on, I will get up at least twice a night to use the bathroom. I will make a little grunting noise every time I get up off the couch. I will never lift my foot higher than a 45 degree angle from my body. I will check for drafts. I will complain about the noise of anything. And if there is no noise I will say it’s too quiet. I will grow hair in places that hair has no place growing.

But it means I can finally accept that I won’t understand all the new technology that comes along. I can relax and just enjoy life and let everything else pass me by… Just one more thing – if you agree with me please could you click that little thumbs up at the end of the article? Or Digg me? Or visit www.mikeswitzer.com?

..Hey – I might be old, but I still need to maintain my social life…

So it’s finally time for the crazy hairdresser. I’ve waited a while because, well, to be honest it’s not much of a story. It’s more of a punchline – no, scratch that – it’s not even a punchline. It’s just the single, strangest statement I’ve ever heard anybody make. (And I used to work in a comic book and trading card store – I’ve heard a 13 year old kid say “I’ve got nearly all of the cosmic beings – Now I just need to find someone to give me death”. (I offered, obviously.)

Anway – I go to get my haircut. Now, this didn’t used to be a big deal – but since we relocated I’m trying to find someone I actually like, to cut my hair. My problem has always seemed to be that I either go in feeling happy and get someone miserable who doesn’t speak to me – or I go in feeling grumpy and they will not stop asking questions. And usually – if I give them a grunt as an answer – they won’t assume that means ‘I’m grumpy’. No- they’ll assume it means ‘Hey you just haven’t found the right way to get me to open up yet – Please keep asking me questions until you get the right one!’

So I tend to get –

“Been awhile since you got your hair cut then?” (Of course it has – I tend to wait for it to grow before I get it cut again).
“Have any plans for the weekend then?” (Do you really think – if I had plans – I would be sitting here?)
“Weather’s lovely/terrible isn’t it?” (Uh – yes. This kind of question is on a par with those people who ask you if you saw Lost on TV last night – and then, when you say yes, they talk about what happened when you just said you already watched it. As if reliving it will add something to the experience. Of course, recently this has been taken to extremes by American TV. Now – don’t get me wrong, some of the best TV I’ve ever watched has been American. But if I see one more show that ends part 1 with a ‘coming up on…’ and then starts part two with ‘previously…’ and shows me the same stuff I just watched/am about to watch I will go find the spotty little TV executive that allowed it and shout ‘You know what’s coming up?…’ and punch him. Then punch him again and say ‘told you so’.. Then shout ‘Oh, And previously…’ and punch him again. Oh you get the picture. Anyway – hairdressers…)

So I walk into a new hairdresser and wait my turn. The lady comes to find me and says come on through – I get up and she introduces herself then shakes my hand. I’m not sure why, but that seems weird. When a Bank Manager shakes your hand it’s because you’ve refinanced your home. I don’t want my haircut to feel like the same level of responsibility as when I sell my house. It implies there’s all kind of things that could go wrong.

I sit in the seat and she asks me what I’d like done – I explain ‘grade 3 back and sides – leave it longer on top to cover where I’m losing my hair’. She says okay and –

…No – wait. If you are a hairdresser and you’re reading this. If I ever say leave it longer on top to cover where I’m losing my hair – the correct answer is ‘Where?’. And for bonus points – ‘Where? I can’t believe you think you’re losing your hair it’s so luscious and thick’

…Which she did not say. So strike one.

So she starts cutting my hair and asking me about the weather (If only she had some method for seeing what the weather is like outside – some kind of see-through wall of some kind…). As she’s doing it she looks at me and says ‘would you like me to trim those eyebrows for you while I’m at it?’

…Now – first of all – No. Because I’m not a girl. Ladies ‘trim’. Men never trim – or they certainly don’t pay someone to trim them if they do. If they did, they would do it alone in a room that’s locked. With the light out.

Secondly – a second ago I was Baldy McBald of Baldingtown. Now I have a face like Chewbacca. What’s going on?

I take all the above and sum it up succinctly with – ‘No thanks’.

She says – “Oh, I guess you want to keep them for work… to intimidate people”.

…

…

…And there you go ladies and gentlemen. The single strangest sentence I will ever hear uttered. What can she think I do for a living? Why would I need eyebrows to intimidate people?! Or is she mistaking eyebrows for – you know – lions, or something?

Ironically, I raised my lions eyebrows when she said that, and politely explained that I thought she had enough to worry about with just my hair. Apparently she took offense at this as I clearly shouldn’t have asked her to do the thing that I was under the impression I was paying her to do. I should allow her to go off shaving and clipping any parts of my head that don’t fit her worldview. Unfortunately, I was beginning to think her worldview involved a rose-tint of some kind, and entirely too many cats.

Anyway. I got out alive – and I got a haircut. And actually quite a nice one at that. So now I have to decide whether to go see the crazy lady and get a good haircut, or continue my pilgrimage through barbers across the MidWest.

Unfortunately, it’s a curse I’ll have to live with. I can’t afford to wait – I’ve got such a thick, lustrous growth on top of my head it’ll grow out before I know it.

…Won’t it?

….WON’T IT?!

So it’s been nearly four months and I haven’t written a blog since my trip to Maine.. Why? Well, I would love to say it’s because I’ve been far too busy attending events around the globe – but actually I’ve been clearing the yard of sticks and sweeping leaves. Last week we got our first ‘real’ snow of the year so I’ve got no more excuses… I’m going to try and be more timely in future.

(Note to non-Wisconsinites: You know that bit in Crocodile Dundee with the knife? (Okay – note to Wisconsinites over 30, I guess) – Well, if you point out the snow to anyone that’s been living here for any length of time they’ll look at the snow, then at you. Then look at you like you’re five years old. Then they’ll say – ‘Naah, that ain’t snow – this is snow’, and then they’ll tell you about a time five years ago when they basically lived in igloos and the prime cause of death was tongue-stuck-to-pole-io.)

Then I needed to find something to write about – and the problem with not writing for four months is that you’ve got four months worth of stuff that happened, and you want to pick the best thing.

So I’ll give you a choice;

1.The crazy hairdresser.
2.The friendly A&W burger boy.

Really? I thought you’d go for the other one.. Are you sure? Okay – we’ll save the other one for next time..

Anyway, you know how people can be miserable? (The City Of London – Are you listening? You know who you are..) …Then some people can be okay. They’ll look a bit uncomfortable when you first speak to them but then they’ll open up – Until you make some joke that you think is perfectly okay but it strikes them as wholly inappropriate, and there’ll be an odd silence until you both wander away..

Then there are people that are really genuinely friendly. Like me.

And screw you if you don’t think so.

THEN there are people that are too friendly. Like their ‘friendly’ dial goes up to eleven if you know what I mean… Well, the American word for that is ‘Wisconsin’.

To put this in perspective, if you fall and break your hip –

In London/New York they will stand on your hip while they take your wallet.
In Wisconsin they will drive you to the nearest hospital, pay to get your hip fixed, and then send you away with a spare hip ‘just in case’.

This is clearly lovely in most cases. But in some cases it becomes slightly surreal…

So I went to buy burgers from the A&W drive-thru. It was raining a bit and I… well… drove-thru. I pulled up to the speaker thing and ordered. As these aren’t the best way of communicating I put on my best American accent to help. I ordered my “four cheeseboigers and fu-reyes – hold the mayo” (They don’t put mayo on them normally, but since I got to America I find I ask them to hold the mayo on everything. It helps me fit in.)

After the guy has asked me to repeat it three times I lost the pretend voice and used my normal one. He got the order and told me to drive around to the window. (I figured he didn’t want his parents to see me coming in the front door).

I arrived and he repeated the order to me and I agreed. Then he looked at me and said –

‘I really like your accent’.

Now I have a stock answer in times like this. I get told this sometimes, since we arrived here, and I needed something to say to avoid the embarrassment – so I go with;

‘Thanks – I really like yours too’. To which he said –

‘Oh, I don’t have one’.

‘…Yes you do’.

‘No I don’t… Do I?’

‘…Well – Yes.’

(Click of a lightbulb)

‘Oh! I guess I do, to someone who isn’t from around here!’

‘Yes! Exactly – now you just need to move to England and everyone will tell you how cool you sound!’

‘Wow – Moving to England. I’ve never even been outside the USA.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah.. Well.. I suppose… Does Canada count?’

‘..Umm.. Yes.. I guess that does count as being outside the US, as it’s an entirely different country.’

‘I really do like your accent’.

..There – you see? That turned a perfectly normal burger cooling conversation into something else. That little extra, unexpected, ‘I really do like your accent’… Weird.. So I say;

‘Thanks’. And then successfully drop my credit card on the ground as I manage to miss his hand reaching out for it. He shouts ‘Don’tworryI’llgetit!’ and a tiny door opens on the side of the store. He runs out in the rain and picks up the card. Stops. Looks up at me. Says ‘Sorryabouthat’ – then runs back indoors and apologises again.

Then he congratulates me on my accent again.

So I just smile this time. He gets the bag of food and goes to hand it to me. Then he says – ‘Whoa – look – isn’t this like the biggest bag you’ve ever seen?’ and starts swinging it to show off it’s.. biggishness. I reluctantly agree – although I’m fairly sure I’ve seen larger. Then he hands me my drinks..

I get as far as three before I run out of hands. He asks if I’d like a tray, and I say ‘no thanks – I’ve got enough to carry’. He says okay, so I point out I was joking.

He says – ‘That was pretty dumb of me, wasn’t it – I mean if you didn’t have the tray you’d be like “whooooaa”, “waaaaaaah”, “woooohoooo”’ All of this is accompanied by him holding some empty cups and staggering around the booth like an English guy in a Jeep with too many drinks to carry.

I say ‘absolutely’ – and he compliments me on my accent. He says he really hopes I come again, and I assure him I will – while thinking that I may never even use the letters A and W again.

So when you encounter someone who says ‘you can never be too nice’ – assure them you can. And then start complimenting them on their accent..

Next Time – The Crazy Hairdresser!

Day 4 goes fairly slowly for me – I get to see my family again tomorrow so the anticipation makes it creep by.. Eventually though, we start to leave.

Here’s the plan – we (my boss and I) leave Maine at 6pm – we drive to Boston, and stay overnight – then we get the flight back to Minneapolis the next day and drive home.

Now, my boss has a track record of getting lost/missing flights/claiming countries as his own while away on business, so everyone I work with had started to run a book on the odds of me, a.) Getting home on time and b.) getting home at all.

But as it happened, we had a fairly easy run down to Boston, then we dropped off the rental car and I called the hotel. It was the first time I’d been in a big city since we arrived in the States and I was keen to see how the friendly geniality of the Mid-West was matched on the East Coast.

“Hello – It’s Mike Switzer, I’ve got a room with you tonight and was hoping you could pick us up from the Enterprise Car Rental depot at the airport?”

“Where?”

“Enterprise – The Car Rental Place? Enterprise?”

“He’sonhisway (click – buzzzzzzzzzz)”

Now – if I were back in Wisconsin she would have already asked my entire family history and invited us around at Thanksgiving for cheese and turkey.. And cheese..

So I realized pretty quick that this wasn’t Kansas anymore (or Wiscon- oh, you know what I mean).

We got back to the hotel, and I checked into my room on the 5th floor. (In Wisconsin they don’t have hotels that go over 3 floors – any higher than that you expect oxygen and a candy to suck in the elevator to stop your ears popping.)

My boss had decided we should go into Boston to eat – he’d been told about a pizza place that was ‘the Best in Boston’, but he could only remember it was in Boston, sold pizza, and began with an ‘R’.

Strangely, the cab driver couldn’t help us. Partially because he didn’t have enough information, mainly because he didn’t care.

Over the course of the drive I began to think of this guy as our own Han Solo. Mainly because he was driving fast enough that everything was a blur outside, also because every time he changed lanes at that speed I made a noise like Chewbacca.

So, as all four wheels hit the ground again, we got out. He’d dropped us on Hanover Street which was apparently where all the best restaurants were. We started to walk down the street, and I gazed around in a state of shock. In all seriousness – I was back in London, England. The architecture – the market stalls – the nightlife – the lack of space – the people bumping into me every three to five seconds. It was stunningly similar on several levels. I turned to tell my boss how amazing I was finding this, and he’d gone.

I knew I should have got that shock collar.

So my boss (who is from Wisconsin) has stopped some lady in her tracks and is asking her if she knows any pizzeria’s that begin with the letter ‘R’. Amazingly – she does. Even more amazing – She knows the specific place we’ve been looking for. She starts to describe directions and my boss asks if she’s walking that way. She is, and so he decides to walk with her and ask how her life is going in general. (You see? You though I was exaggerating earlier – but I’m not – Wisconsinites love everybody. I believe Barney the dinosaur was born in Green Bay for that very reason..)

So she’s talking to my boss about her education, her career aspirations – while maintaining a look like she’s worried he’s just getting details for the ransom note. I’m hoping we find the place before he asks what type of cheese she likes – and we do.

And the advertising was correct. It was amazing pizza (Regina’s pizzeria if you’re interested). A 20 minute line outside, but every person said it was worth the wait – eventually we got in and watched the Olympics while we ate our Supreme Pizza.

..Then my boss started cheering the US ladies volleyball team, on his own, in a pizza bar in a back alley in Boston.

Where’s Han Solo when you need him?

There were really two ‘events’ that happened yesterday, but I’m going to have to tell them in reverse order because my favourite happened first.

In the evening, we went to see Baseball. It was my first ever live game and I want to be clear I’M EXTREMELY GRATEFUL. The company paid for us to go see it, and I genuinely appreciated it.

…Having said that…

If I think twice about going to see a movie that’s three hours long – why, WHY would I sit looking at a baseball game for three hours? When, for at least 90 minutes of that, I’m watching guys stretching – without actually playing anything?

In order to fill the silence, they have little mini-games and so on. For example, at one point they wheeled on a giant shopping cart and someone tried to throw balls into it to win a shopping spree. Another time someone had to pitch three balls through a hole to win a car. Now I’m sure ‘The Price Is Right’ had it’s time and place. But that time wasn’t last night, and the place wasn’t in a field.

Then they have the entertainment. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I’m partial to standing in front of a crowd myself and telling a few jokes (and if you think a baseball game seems to run too long, you should see my act), so I’m not about to criticize someone that tries to entertain in the immediate vicinity of a large group of men with wooden bats –

But – He was called ‘The Wonderful Christopher’. And, in fairness, when he walked onto the pitch with three man-sized puppets strapped to him – all dressed as members of the Village People – I looked to the sky and thought ‘..wonderful.’ So I guess that’s truth in advertising.

At that point, my boss decided to starting dancing to ‘YMCA’. Now – in and of itself, this is a questionable judgement choice – but he then started to shout at the rest of the audience to join in. I remember him saying ‘Wow! What a boring section I’m in’. I remember that as unusual because it wasn’t just our section. No-one else in the entire stadium was dancing. Except my boss. Who was sat next to me.

Now – I don’t talk about my boss when I’m writing because.. well.. he’s my boss. I’ll either say something nice as I sound like a suck-up, or I say something negative and he ceases to be my boss shortly after. So let me step through this particular career-limiting minefield carefully..

Firstly, my boss is a really nice guy. A genuine, friendly, Midwestern gentleman who is always respectful and polite to people no matter how much they don’t want to be spoken to.

Secondly, he’s a little bit crazy. He wasn’t dancing to ‘YMCA’ to show off, or get friends, or as an audition – He was dancing because he’s full of the joys of life. Because he wanted to dammit, and that’s his right as an American.

So basically what I’m saying is – you know that crazy Uncle you visit every Christmas? The one that smiles just a bit too much?

…That’s my boss.

So the reason I’m telling you all this is because of the other thing that happened (which actually happened before the baseball, remember – I just prefer telling it this way).

We went to visit a customer – and on the way stopped for some lunch. There were a few of us, and the Maine-iacs amongst us took us to a Lobster shack down next to the bay in Freeport, Maine. On a more serious note – it was beautiful. And as I sat in the sun, with the sea-breeze in my face and lobster dribbling down my chin, I reflected on the fabulous scenery surrounding me and could really see why Stephen King sets all his stories about crazed murderers there. (Note – For legal reasons I should point out he doesn’t set them all at that particular lobster shack – just in Maine).

So I ordered the lobster roll. (Or in Maine-ian ‘lobsta roll’) and my boss ordered the lobster dinner (‘lobsta dinna’). Eventually it arrived and he started tearing apart the lobster and eating it.

Now while we’d been waiting I’d noticed the boss of this place wandering around. I noticed him because he was shouting at the customers in line, the directions for ordering. (I know – it doesn’t sound difficult. But I think he’d made it difficult just so he had a reason to shout at these customers). So – you had to go to one counter if you wanted food, and another if you wanted the lobster dinner. You would get a number from each counter and had to wait until your number was called (and then check it was the correct number from the correct counter).

Then he was telling people where they should stand so that they didn’t get in the way of the other people he’d stood elsewhere. It didn’t seem to occur to him that the same thing would happen whether he was shouting at them or not.

Anyway – my boss is eating his lobster, and has nearly finished, when this guy comes over. He says to my boss – ‘Do you want me to show you how to do that?’ My boss (ever the nice guy) says yes. And the guy picks up the tail of the lobster – then says ‘Do you believe in Magic?’ He gets the answer yes again and then twists the tail in a certain way and a ‘hidden’ piece of meat pops out. My boss is dutifully impressed which, unfortunately, encourages the guy. Then he tells my boss to hold another piece of the lobster like it were a book (at which point I would have laid back, put it over my face, and gone to sleep – but I guess that’s just me). He does – and he’s told to ‘open the book’ which then exposes even more hidden meat.

The guy then picks up the rest of my boss’s lobster and starts opening it up all over the place to expose more meat. My boss says that he’s beginning to believe in magic, and the guy says ‘You know what you get if you don’t fully believe?’ We say no, and he cracks open the last piece of lobster – which is empty. He says ‘Nothing’.

As seafood based magicians go, that’s a terrible ending to your show. Open the last bit and pull out a dove – now that’s magic. (And I know ‘Do you know what you get if you don’t fully believe? – Doves.’ Doesn’t make sense, but that’s not the point.

And then he was just standing there, watching my boss eat, like he wanted to make sure he ate every part of the meat he’d just discovered for him by pawing through someone else’s dinner.

Eventually we finished eating and my boss went off to use the restroom. I had visions of him entering a dingy poorly-lit room and the guy following him in going ‘Do you want me to show you how to do that?’.

Of course, that would pale in comparison to him asking, in that situation, if you wanted to see something magic…

Okay, so nothing much happened on day 2 until the evening. We went out to a place called ‘J’s’. After driving through the traffic into Westbrook, we pulled into a parking lot next to a huge, glamorous looking floating restaurant at the edge of the bay. I looked in awe as we walked up to it.

Then straight past it.

..Then into the shack just behind it.

It was one of those places where you ask for a table for six, and they haven’t ever had that many people sat around a table so they tell you then can only do four at a time. You have to actually point out that two fours would- almost definitely- be more than six, before they’ll listen.

Then we ordered the food – and, all joking aside, it was amazing. And, naturally, we started to have the conversation about why I don’t sound like everyone else. We’re usually on the third ‘English’ question before they stop, frown, look quizzical and then say ‘but why Eau Claire?’. I explain the story – which is that my beautiful wife knew someone who had never met his Father. Ultimately, he traced him back to Chippewa County and showed Liz the pictures he had been sent. She fell in love with it, so when we came to look at places in the US – that was the first area we looked at.

..So when I next see you – don’t ask. Just don’t. Or at least wait until the fifth or sixth question..

The natural progression of this conversation was then talking about the way I can’t pronounce words correctly. Or to put it a different way – I can’t speak like an American. Or to put it the way we would in England – I speak properly. Using real words and everything… If you ever hear me say ‘yo, wussup’, just kill me.

So we went through ‘tomato’, ‘aluminium’, ‘colour’ (talking about spelling just to spice up the conversation a little), and obviously the definition of ‘football’. Then one of the guys I’m talking to is pleased about something witty I said (I’m also pleased, although not entirely surprised – I’m hilarious. Just ask my Mum (sorry – Mom).)

(Separate note – Word™ has now underlined half of what I’ve written in red, because apparently inventing the fricking language doesn’t matter if Microsoft have subsequently bought a majority of the shares in it.)

Anyway – so I say something witty and the guy I’m talking to, puts his hand in the air – palm towards me. I raise my hand and go to slap his, but he kind of moves his hand backward as I slap so the net effect is that I’m pushing his hand backward with my own. Basically, it looks like we’re about to start dancing. But that’s not the point.

He then realizes we didn’t connect and puts his hand in the air again, then – and this is my point – says ‘Do you have these in England?’
I, naturally, reply ‘What? Hands?’ – He isn’t quite as impressed as he was with my earlier wittiness and says ‘No – we call this “High Five” and do it when something good has happened.’

Now – for those of you that don’t know/care – we DO have hands in England. We have also heard of slapping. Our ‘moving picture’ devices have seen those ‘Happy’ days you used to enjoy so much. And, for that matter, we are aware that you have a bar in Boston where everybody knows your name (which doesn’t sound inviting, it sounds creepy. Is this an early example of identity theft?)

..So please don’t act like I just jumped off the London bus from merry old English-town.

But I didn’t tell him that. I just said that in England we did it differently. We call it a ‘face-five’. It still involved my hand, but he didn’t need his hand – just his face. And then I sat and desperately hoped he’d ask to see how it worked…

Much respec’ to the Eau Claire massive. This is Switzer signing off – Peace. Out.

08/11/08 02:26
So I leave my house in the wonderful rented car we picked up on Sunday. I’m enjoying the feel of air-conditioning that actually works. I turn it up in an effort to get it to blow my eyelids enough to keep them up. Neeeed Sleeeeep.

08/11/08 03:35
I’m still driving to Minneapolis St. Paul airport. My boss has given me directions on how to get there – I’ve printed out directions from Google Maps – and the lady on my GPS is giving me directions. All three are entirely different. Wonderful. Luckily the surge of adrenaline when I realize this is enough to wake me out of my semi-slumber and encourage me to make one of those split second decisions that almost always end up being wrong. Given that;

a. My boss missed his plane as he went the wrong way.
b. The Google Maps printout is smudged, and
c. The lady on the satnav is pretty firm in her demands that I ‘turn right NOW’ and so on –

I chose the satnav. 10 minutes later I’m driving through the center of St. Paul. I’m now even more pleased I move to Eau Claire. Eventually I wind up in some parking lot where a sign says I should leave the rental car.

I get out and walk to the Avis rental desk – to find no-one there. (Apparently they don’t have much of a rush at 4am). They have left two slots open – one to put the updated rental agreement through, one for the car keys. That doesn’t help me with what to do with the satnav. Eventually I disassemble it and put it through a piece at a time. I’m sure they’ll thank me later.

So now I’m in the airport at around 4am with no stores open – and no other people. There’s just me, and two security guards. I’m hoping they like the English or I may be here some time…

08/11/08 05:30
I’m sat at the gate, and it’s started to fill up. They’ve announced the flight is overbooked and they’re looking for someone to take the next flight. No-one moves. They mention a $300 voucher. Everyone moves. Some older guy beats women and kids out of the way then gets the voucher. He wanders back to his (slightly embarrassed) wife with a winning grin on his face. Then the gate attendant makes the mistake of looking like he’s going to push the button on the microphone. Instantly – everyone stands and starts trying to look like they’re not lining up yet – while being in a perfect position to line up.

He pushes the button and the queue comes together like someone cracking a whip. He announces that they are boarding people who need wheelchair access first. There’s a silent moan and the line evaporates again. I swear I hear someone say ‘stoopid disabled people’. The one lady that needs wheelchair access is let on, then we go through the same process for families with children, then first class customers, then premier customers, then people they like the look of, etc. To be clear – WE’VE ALL GOT ALLOCATED SEATS. Why the rush? Is someone bigger and stronger going to get to your seat and claim it in the name of their home country? Look – I only did that the once and she took too long to get there because of the, y’know, wheelchair.

08/11/08 06:00
Anyway – eventually we finish the airport shuffle and we’re on the plane. I’m impressed – In England you get given pretty poor quality food on airplanes. Over here the food is clearly infused with minerals for healthy growth, regrows balding hair and adds twenty years to your life. I assume that’s the way it is of course, because why else would you charge $3 for A BAG OF CHIPS. (NB – For the English, Crisps are chips; for the Americans, Chips are French Fries; for the French, … Well I don’t’ actually speak French, so Je ne parle pas de français. Although I’ve often wondered how you can get away with saying Je ne parle pas de français when clearly you parle pas de français enough to tell them you ne parle pas it. Strictly speaking I guess you should say Je ne parle pas de very much français. But in French, obviously.

08/11/08 07:20
Right – first of all it’s not actually 7:20, it’s now 8:20 because I’ve changed time zones. This is also weird – in the UK we’re all on one timezone so it never changes. Here though, you have to opportunity to LOSE AN HOUR OF WORK in travelling. Excellent! I’ve booked a days holiday on the way back so I gain an hours holiday in the other direction..

08/11/08 07:35
Now, I don’t know if it’s because people are naturally terrified on flights – but there always seems to be a tendency for people to state the obvious when we’re landing. I’ve had a nice sleep on the way (so doubling my overnight sleep from 2 hours to 4) and I’m woken by the captain telling us we’re about to start landing. Then he tells the crew to prepare for landing. Then we start to go down. Then the man next to me says to his wife ‘Looks like we’re landing’. I’m assuming he’s the alternate pilot in case the first one was sick. Then the flappy things on the wing go down. He says ‘the flaps have gone down’. As I’m about to explain to him that I’m breathing in. Now I’m breathing out. Now I’m breathing in, etc. I hear a young boy behind me say to his brother ‘everything is getting bigger’. Now assuming he wasn’t talking about the natural process of growth at his age – of course it’s getting bigger. That’s a good sign – as long as it’s not too quick. Too quick is bad. Very very bad. But a nice slow things getting biggerishness is a sign of a good landing. Followed by that uncomfortable bit at the end where you’re absolutely sure the plane is coming in at an angle and you’re about to lose a wing. Followed by the really really uncomfortable bit when you hit the ground and you’re sure the pilot is whitenuckled holding onto the joystick for dear life screaming ‘ohmygodohmygodohmygod’ until it all slows down. THAT’S why they make you put your seatbelt on – so they know you’re too far away to hear the sobbing when the engines stop.

…Or maybe that’s just me.

08/11/08 08:40
Now I’ve landed and the boarding pass tells me I need to go to concourse C from concourse A. The map I’ve found sets my mind at rest as it appears to be a distance of about two inches – unfortunately the scale is such that I find myself pretty much walking to Maine.

Eventually I admit defeat and start using those motorized walkway things. There’s a line down the middle of them. On the right, it says ‘stand’ – on the left, it says ‘walk’. Unfortunately an elderly Chinese couple in front of me have taken that to it’s logical conclusion and decided you can stand in the middle and stroll. Or meander. Or mosey. Or make me miss my flight. Luckily for them I’m English, so I just stand behind them with my ‘impatient’ face on (which involves me rolling my eyes and clenching my teeth mainly – it’s very much the same as my ‘I’m having a seizure’ face. Eventually they stop admiring the scenery of the Borders bookstore and notice the traffic behind them. Without a word, they step out of my way – I say (politely) ‘Thankyou!’ and walk past. Then I hear them talking to each other behind me – ‘Well don’t just stand behind us, you should say something!’. And – with the greatest respect in the world – the lady talking has one of those ‘old Chinese lady telling you off’ voices. Do you know the one I mean? The one that instantly makes you want to turn around and say – ‘No – no, I shouldn’t need to say anything as there isn’t a sign that says “if you see someone in your way, make them aware of it” – there are only the two signs marked ‘walk’ and ‘stand’. Neither of which you were doing! You were perambulating – you were taking a constitutional – you were on a tour of the airport – but the one thing you weren’t doing was GETTING OUT OF MY WAY!’

But I didn’t say that because I’m too polite. I just did my impatient/seizure face and moved on..

08/11/08 09:20
Eventually I find the gate and go through. Now, here’s the thing – I don’t know if anyone else gets this, but I’m going to share it with you.. Sometimes the simplest phrases make me panic. Usually when I hear someone else saying them first – that’s when I’m most likely to screw it up. So, as I’m walking to the gate I hear;

‘Good morning, Sir, How are you today?’
‘Good! And how are you?’
‘Fine thankyou’

Then the next person;

‘Good morning, Sir, How are you today?’
‘Good! And you?’
‘Fine thankyou’

So I hear this like ten times – and I prepare for this interchange to show I’m just as capable and lucid as everyone else that’s gone through before me – but that’s when I get myself so panicked about it –

‘Good morning, Sir, How are you today?’
‘Youse?’
‘Fine thankyou’

Youse? YOUSE?! What on Earth does that EVEN MEAN? And for a split second you think about going back and explaining that you actually meant to say ‘I’m fine thankyou for asking – and what about you?’ but instead your tongue swelled to three times its normal size, and in conjunction with all the fluid draining out of your mouth you ended up making a noise that sounded like ‘Youse’ – all because you wanted to fit in. Kids – let that be a lesson to you – Always walk up to gate attendants with a moistened mouth and your tongue out.

08/11/08 09:46
So now I’m on the plane, and actually typing up all these notes from earlier in the day – it’s been a fairly uneventful flight. Although, when I got on, people were in my seat so I had to do that thing where you looked at your boarding pass with a puzzled face (creased brow, squinty eyes) and say your seat number with a question mark at the end of it. Then there’s a slight pause as you desperately hope the person who is in your seat (we’ll call them the ‘thief’) says something before you have to resort to.. well.. doing the same thing again. Eventually though you must resort to pointing to the nub in the ceiling that says 7-D and asking ‘Is this seat 7-D?’

So far I’ve not encountered anyone bold enough to outright deny it.

Oh, and then the guy who sat in front of me is in the Olympics. I say that because, after he used the bathroom, he nearly dived into his seat again – and the sound of the cracking when his seat met my laptop he obviously took to be applause as he then startled wrestling the seat into submission. Eventually he stopped and went to sleep. Bless him. Well now I’m typing about what a jerk I think he is, quite literally behind his back – and at any time he could undo his belt, get out of his seat, walk around to mine and ask to read what’s on the screen of my laptop – and he’d be furious. But I just don’t care. So who’s laughing now jerkboy?

(continued on Day 2…)

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON MYSPACE

Wow… Just.. Wow.

Okay – so I’ve not updated the blog in a while. I’ve been having second thoughts about this whole comedy thing. I guess the problem was that it didn’t feel like me getting up on stage – it felt like me acting like a comedian when I was up on stage. And along with the nerves and everything else it just seemed too much hassle.

I knew I used to be able to do it, before I started thinking about it so much – so I kind of took a step back and reworked it from the ground up. I used my beautiful wife to tell me when it sounded like me, and when I sounded a wanker.

..As a general rule – don’t do that. It leads to a rather obvious comeback line, and.. Well.. You can see how it didn’t start off so well..

Anyway – then I rewrote some stuff and finally got a set I thought actually felt like me.. BUT before we get to that – this Kingston gig I wrote about before. The Invisible Pig Roadshow didn’t turn up (or perhaps they did – who’s to know). But I couldn’t smell ham so I assumed not. I, however, was AWFUL – in short I took every ounce of energy I’d used previously, and lost it. I looked like someone who really REALLY didn’t want to be there – (coupled with the ‘reading a script’ thing I talked about earlier). And you know what? People DON’T FIND THAT FUNNY!

So it went pretty badly. I had some of that ‘polite chuckle’ stuff going on, and scraped through to the next round by the skin of my teeth. (For reference – you will never see a DVD of a comic that quotes the words – ‘Brilliant! I didn’t stop politely chuckling throughout’. If that happens – you’re shit.)

So anyway – last night I did the quarter-final and for the first time felt like ME. I really enjoyed it and (to my surprise) so did the audience. A group of good friends came along, and were really positive afterwards. The nice thing is that some of them can be quite critical (in a good way) so it was particularly pleasant to have good feedback from them.

On the downside – no video. I was attempting to overcome my obsessive compulsiveness and told myself there was no need to check the camera three times like I normally do. So when we got there and found out I hadn’t put a tape in the bloody thing, I felt somewhat vindicated before untying and retying my shoelaces fifteen times and touching my left elbow with my right hand because I just need to ALRIGHT?!

Which brings me to the ‘Wow’ that started this – I’ve only gone and got put through to the semi-finals! And now I’ve got to perform up to 6 minutes. I asked my wife if she knew anything I could do to cover a minute.

Again – not a bright question to ask.

Thanks to everyone that just kept talking to me while I was have a bleak moment. Won’t happen again. Honest.