I'm actually posting this on the morning of Sunday, which is day 5, but meh. Yesterday's fun activities including: A New York manicure (for M; I'm not quite that gay -- yet) Brunch at a swanky cafe where all the staff were, shall we say, fresh from their manicures Wandering around northern Central Park, though the Conservatory Gardens (lots of photos) A trip to Loehman's discount clothing store, narrowly avoiding saving $1750 by spending a still-obscene $750 on a vastly discounted but very nice winter coat Cocktails at the Rise Bar on the 14th floor of the Ritz-Carlton, with great views across the river to Jersey City (if that's your idea of a good time) and the Statue of Liberty Dinner at another good Mexican place Clubbing at Miss Shapes NYC (good, small, and in flagrant violation of the smoking ban) Update 2005-10-09: photos here Keen-eyed readers will note that this was not as activity-filled a day as our previous days; this was because we also went to Opaline on Friday night,...

Aren't you enjoying these thoroughly detail-less updates? I promise there'll be a huge-ass set of pictures when we get back; my snazzy new camera has not had an idle moment since its purchase. Today was Outer Borough Day. We woke up late (I was still tired after Miss-Shapes), and as our host was somewhat hungover (poor boy), we headed over to Brooklyn on our own. We took rather a long time to get there, since the subway lines were being a bit funky: this was better than the Underground's habit of shutting lines down completely, but the Metro could do a bit better job of the signage. In Brooklyn we met up with Colin, who I've not seen (in the flesh) for years. He took us to a great Thai restaurant for lunch, then through Prospect Park and across town to his very swanky apartment. Then we went down to Brooklyn Heights and the river promenade, across Brooklyn Bridge (great views) and met his bf briefly before heading back to the apartment. We ended our final night with dinner at a nice little...

I'm back to London, jet-lagged to discover that my computer is completely kaput. Aaargh. This close to just buying a new one... Update 4.20pm: the computer shop down the road has sorted out my computer (broken power supply! I am such a hardware n00b) for a vastly inflated price that I would gladly pay again to get my computer back in the half-hour it took them to diagnose the problem. I had already spent an hour poking at stuff, not always a good idea when you're jet-lagged...

Well, the photos from the first day in New York are up: all 101 of them! Since this day was central park and the Museum of Modern Art, the 101 is sort of justified though. The other days are much less photo-ful will get cut down a lot more than this lot.

I had a busy day today. I should have more photos tomorrow.

I have some news for you all, that I can't publish here until Monday. Feel free to ask me personally though :-)

I've got off my arse (well, I've been busy) and got around to posting more photos: Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4 of NYC are now up. They're shorter and -- unless you're seriously into design, and hence loved the endless MoMA photos -- much more interesting.

So the news that I couldn't say on Friday is that I have a new job! Wheee! Today I handed in my notice at Boltblue, so I can finally tell you guys. Unfortunately, for other reasons I can't say where my new job is for a while -- so you have 30 days to guess :-) People who actually know: please keep in mind that posting it in the comments is not big and not clever, and in any case will get me in trouble, so please don't :-) I have also uploaded the final two days of the NYC pics. But I'm sure you're all sick to death of them by now anyway.

I got a catalog from Burberry in the post today. It was full colour but had no words of any sort, featuring instead only tasteful shots of people in high-quality, warm-looking clothing including, yes, the infamous camel check. Despite my long-standing aversion to everything Burberry, this mysterious arrival is probably a result of my long-standing subscription to The Economist (thanks, dad!). The Economist is read mainly by 40-plus executive types, so I frequently get mailings of this type: "invitations" to executive privilege cards, worldwide travel clubs, stupidly expensive wines, etc.. All totally wasted on somebody who has no credit cards, has no money to travel and doesn't drink. But oh well, let the marketers delude themselves into thinking they're hitting a prime demographic. Bless 'em.

Spotted on the Picadilly line this evening (on the way to Popstarz, natch): I swear that Matt must have had a hand in coming up with this campaign. It sounds just like him. (Love my new camera.)

Sorry, second tube-ad post in a while. But hey, this is what you were missing all the time I didn't have a camera! Only in a lonely and paranoid city like London would there be a market for a company that holds a spare set of keys for you, because you don't trust your neighbours to do it.

Forgive me a moment of parochialism, but the Prime Minister of my home country is a complete asshole: Prime Minister Patrick Manning says he knows who is responsible for four bombing attacks in the country in the last four consecutive months. He also said that he knows who the "Mr Big" is in the matter. ... Manning said the government was aware of the culprits in the bombing but admitted to not having evidence which could stand up in the courts. Dude, you're the Prime Minister. If you don't have evidence that can stand up in court, you don't fucking know. So don't pretend like you do. God, this man is such an idiot.

Let it be known: housemates T&J, having faithfully put in the time at Ghetto, have hit the big time and will be DJing the late set this week at Popstarz, my favourite club! Woo! So a trip to Popstarz this Friday is even more obligatory than it usually is anyway. Be there and bring everyone you know! The set will be 2-4am, so remember to have some red bull before heading out, lightweights :-)

Oh, it's been a good day for good news: Is Dick Cheney going to be indicted in Plamegate, and resign? It's on the Internets, so it must be true. Update: This is all via credit-whore Ed.

Matt is right, sometimes entries do write themselves. Matt favours the "make enormous numbers of in-jokes and be amusingly gay", a fine strategy even when he doesn't call in the big guns like Danny, who is the most amusingly gay man alive. However, an even easier way of getting entries to write themselves is by responding to somebody else's entry. As follows. Red Dress certainly is a good song from the Sugababes' excellent new album, Taller in more ways. My current list of "likely singles" off this album, in order of likelihood: Push the button (already a single, but I'd like to emphasize that I thought so even before it was released, because I'm snooty) Red Dress. They'd be foolish not to; it's intensely danceable, and of how many songs involving a tuba can that be said? It Ain't Easy. From the very first opening guitar twang to the juicy, juicy bass, this song demands dirty dancing. It might even beat Red Dress out of the gate. Obsession. Following the long-standing Sugababes tradition of...

If there is at least one person in your life whom you consider a close friend, and whom you would not have met without the internet, post this sentence in your journal.

A lovely man, who brought a lot of fun and happiness to a lot of people, died today. I don't have any kind of moral authority to write this. I barely knew Hobie personally. He was usually just a familiar figure in the DJ booth at Popstarz or the front desk at Ghetto. We only spoke a handful of times, when he was handing me free tickets, or through my housemates, true friends of his who today are dealing with a tragic loss. There is a shameful hesitancy to say that he was a great man. After all, a handful of club nights over the years and a couple of gay bars, joints for selling alcohol and venue of countless pointless hookups, is that really so noble? But to think so is to miss the point. To me, Popstarz is not just a venue, not just another dancefloor. It has been my second home, my sanctuary and my playground, site of countless hours of fun and pure, unadulterated delight at the sheer joy of the music and dance. For me and the dozens of others of regulars, there is nothing shameful or sleazy...

Does anybody want to be a Java developer in Gibraltar? If so, let me know. Relocation costs, baby.

So today, in case you missed the geeky-fun of it all, George Takei, better known as Mr Sulu, came out. So when CNN reported it, they obviously decided to use the gayest picture of him they could find. Come on, guys, give the man some dignity! Your obscure trivia for the day: did you know he lived in a US internment camp for Japanese citizens from ages 4 to 8? Damn the US is fucked up.

The BBC is covering plans to end drinking on trains (Bring it on, I say. In fact, ban drinking altogether!), but for some reason decided the most minging picture ever would be appropriate: Ick! Also, Bacardi are probably not too pleased. I need to start a whole new category of posts for me commenting on photo choices in other media. Playing with: DOM manipulation in Javascript (it's fun if you're me) Reading: The Economist and On (it's rubbish so far) Dancing: At Pineapple, and around the living room.