Apple’s revolutionary new iPhone was officially launched today, and SF went absolutely crazy for it. People camped out overnight just to be in line to get one. Check out the queue:

They look pretty cool but I really can’t understand all the hype. People were queued all round the block, there must have been about 300 people in line. Bear in mind too that I took this photo at 6.30 in the evening! Starbucks cashed in on the punters, taking coffee orders for those in line - cheeky.

I did my laundry today, which in itself isn’t entirely interesting - but the instructions on how to operate the dryer were pretty amusing:

It’s nearly as bad as the “This door must remain unlocked during business hours” sign I saw on the front door of an ice cream shop.

Today I went to look at a place to live. It was an apartment in the Richmond part of the city, and it was right at the top of a hill so you got a cracking view of the city. You could see the fog rolling in off the ocean and covering the Sunset. The roommate was a nice girl called Karen, and the room was pretty decent. I had coffee with her and then I left to go to the beach and think about it a bit.

After some thought I went back and told her I would take it. It’s weird, cos as soon as I told her I immediately had second thoughts and started to panic a bit. I was honest with her and told her I was changing my mind. We got talking and she told me some very personal stuff about her life I then I realised that I really didn’t want to move in! She doesn’t own a TV or a computer, so there’s two things straight off that put doubts in my mind. She asked me to make a decision and lucky for me the phone rang. She answered it, chatted to whoever it was, hung up and told me that she had forgotten that the guy on the other end the phone had already agreed to move in. So basically she was showing a room that was never available in the first place. Solved that problem for me then.

The whole situation made me realise that I’m happy where I am. I like the hostel I’m staying at - it’s not 100% ideal as I have no personal space but I meet interesting people every week and I enjoy the environment. I also felt a bit homesick on the way home on the train, as usually back home finding a place to live is a matter of already having roommates and just finding a house. Over here for me it’s the opposite - I’m trying to find roommates to move in with.

Another thing I’m concerned about is that I haven’t been out to church yet. It’s not entirely my fault, as I’ve had to work every Sunday since I got here (albeit I get tomorrow off to go to Yosemite). But excuses aside I’m really eager to find a decent church to go to, as much as to find some people to hang out with as for spiritual growth. San Francisco is a very difficult place to live for a Christian. As far as I’m aware, I’ve yet to meet another Christian in this city. I realise that Christians come in many different forms and that God’s grace can save anyone, so I may have met another Christian and simply not noticed - but I’d expect that their faith would be pretty noticeable. Which turns the question round to me - how obvious is it to others that I’m a follower of Jesus Christ?

My colleagues in work know I’m a Christian and I sometimes get the inevitable “Oh, sorry I hope that doesn’t offend you” line from people. At the same time, I don’t want to appear as the pious, halo on too tight, weird guy that doesn’t socialise with others. I’ve tried, perhaps not to the best of my ability, to defend what I believe in when the opportunity comes up but when there’s no-one there to back you up it can sometimes be a difficult thing to do.

Well, anyway you can pray for that. Oh, and last night I sadly missed a very good band called Harry and the Potters. They class their musical style as “Wizard Rock”. Shame.

After two semesters of university lecturers badmouthing Windows, and generally being intruiged I have finally totally abandoned Windows in favour of Macintosh. This news will sadden some, and probably not mean very much to anyone else.

After over a week of complications with Apple, I finally got my little 13″ Macbook (with a tidy little discount thanks to the exchange rate. Also due further reimbursement from my uni!). It’s a beautiful machine - silent, fast and very user friendly. Highly stylish too.

Even in my work, they gave my PC to a French guy to use so I’m using the massive iMac. Takes a little getting used to but generally it’s not half as annoying as the old ways.

The biggest date in San Francisco’s calender was on Sunday past there - the BLGT Pride Parade. I think there was like 500,000 turned up for it, unfortunately I missed all of it being stuck in work. The parade itself is supposed to be quite impressive, and I’m quite annoyed I missed it. Personally I’m morally against homosexuality, but it doesn’t mean I don’t like gay people. Plus you don’t have to be gay to enjoy the Pride parade. There was a huge party in the Castro which I headed to after work only to find that it was over by 6pm! Good day for the homeless guys all the same - the Tenderloin was crowded with guys carrying burger and hotdog baps they had obviously pinched from street vendors.

Work has been good banter lately. I’m getting on really well with the people in the office, but we’re so busy with reservations lately that I spend most of the day taking bookings…which really sucks. It’s stressfull dealing with customers that we’ve had to cancel on or move about, and I’ve just been moved to the early morning 7-4 shift which is even worse!

Lastly, I’ve been reading a book called the Ragamuffin Gospel lately. Despite it’s strange name (those of you in the know might spot the Rich Mullins connection) it’s possibly one of the most inspiring books I’ve ever read. It was given to me by a friend to read on my flight over here, and she couldn’t have made a better choice. Every new paragraph opens my eyes to things about Jesus I never thought about before, and it’s fantastically anchored to the Bible. I’ve only read the first 4 chapters so far (I’m not much of a reader these days) but definately get it. Get it and read the first chapter and see if you’re not inspired. It’s fantastic, even for non-religious people (not that I count myself as religious, I don’t).

Oh - rather gory news story to leave you with: Six Flags, KY accident

I got another day off today, so I decided to head to the Guitar Center on Van Ness & California. To be honest I didn’t know if it would be good or not, but it was worth a try. Oh dear goodness how dare I doubt that place!

For a start, they have a whole floor dedicated to drums, which is pretty impressive considering it’s a guitar shop! It didn’t take me long to spy a small Mesa Boogie in the corner, so blindly followed. And there she was - a half stack Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier all plugged in and begging to be played. I took no hesitation, grabbed a PRS Custom 24 and plugged her straight in. No sooner had I started rocking when a store assistant came over. I knew I had it up a bit loud so I stopped playing and apologised. He actually scolded me for playing the darn thing too quietly! It’s 150w of all-tube gain. He instructed me too keep playing while he fiddled with the settings. After he had reached a trouser-shaking level, he said “Oh, your not even on the 3rd Channel yet. Here you go…” and with that he hit the Third Channel Footswitch. Describing in words the sonic majesty of a D with this amp is a futile task. Suffice to say I’d sell my kidney to do it again.

I must’ve been there in the shop for close to 3 hours. There was just so much to see. Back home the Triple Rectifier is way outta my price range. For the whole set up it’s gonna cost around 3000 quid. Over here - it’s 1/3 of that price. It’s under $2000 if you buy second hand. Plus I really have no need for the Triple, the Dual is just fine. It’s identical to the Triple, just has 50w less power which is insignificant unless you’re regularly playing stadium venues! It would sting me a bit getting it home but if I claim I’m a musician I can request to have it loaded onto the plane with me for a special rate. And given that student loan company is giving me a pretty good amount this year I’m thinking this will be a wise investment. And by wise, I mean selfish.

Yesterday I was fortunate to have my first day off with absolutely nothing planned. It was awesome, I slept in until 11 then got woken up by the hostel receptionist. I forgot to tell her I wasn’t checking out.

So in the morning I did some necessary maintenance - I set up a bank account and applied for Social Security. Took about 3 hours altogether, a lot of waiting around.

I reckoned I would take a look around the city, the bits I haven’t seen before so I did what all tourists do and went to Fisherman’s Wharf. It’s like the SF equivalent of Portrush - lots of souvenir shops and tourists. I almost got caught out by the World Famous Bushman. You gotta admire this guy, he’s been doing the same trick for years, but it’s very funny. I found a video online: http://www.vimeo.com/clip:7931

From Pier 39 I decided to walk to the Golden Gate bridge. I hadn’t walked over it yet and thought this would be a good opportunity. I didn’t realise it’s like 5 miles away! I made it there after about an hour and a half of walking, but it was definitely worth it. You get a great view from the hill to the side of it:

It’s really windy out at this part of the city, you get the breeze off the pacific and it’s really quite strong. You see a lot of windsurfers out that direction.

Onto the bridge and I have to admit it’s a little scary. I couldn’t help but think of all the people that have jumped from it to their deaths. It’s really easy to get over the railing, it’s only like four feet high. You get a little nervous even leaning over the railing, just in case a strong wind would push your over the edge. I think the GG bridge is the worlds leading suicide location. Statistically speaking, someone jumps off the bridge every 15 days. They have these signs on the bridge that are supposed to help:

A few posts ago I mentioned a movie called The Bridge which filmed the bridge over a year and tries to explain why people jump off it. I found the trailer for it on YouTube. It looks both amazing and disturbing:

The Bridge

In spite of all that, the view you get from the bridge is amazing. The whole bridge is an amazing constuction - it was painted International Orange so it would be visible in the thick fog that often surrounds it, and it is continuously being painted all year round. The two main cables that suspend from the bridge are crammed with thousands of smaller cables, which laid end to end comes to around 70,000 miles of cable - enough to circle the world three times. The bridge also is capable of swaying up to 27ft and can sag up to 60ft, capable of surviving winds of over 100 mph.Over at the Marin side of the bridge the view is just awesome. It makes it all worth it that you walked two miles to the other side, just to have to walk back again!

The Fratellis were magic, absolute quality! Didn’t care much for the support band (who’s name unsurprisingly I’ve forgotton). I tried to take some photos, but my camera is so crap it’s unbelievable (Connor you owe me a D40!). I did however get a video of Whistle for the Choir, which didn’t turn out that great. Crowd went nuts when they played the iPod ad music (apparently they did the music for an ad campaign here). Finished, rather predictably, with Chelsea Dagger and the place just exploded. The ground actually went up and down. All in all, a short 1 hour set but worth every penny of the $18 to get in. Sold out too which was surprising. Nice venue too.

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On Tuesday I took the day off with Colin and his girl and headed to down to Santa Clara. We went to the Great America theme park, and it was flippin’ class! There’s about 7 big rollercoasters and a ton of other fun stuff (including one of those annoying dancing cartoon character actors at the door). Slapped on plenty of sunscreen having learned the hard way last week. It was a really roasting day, probably mid 90’s and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I was pretty exhausted at the end of the day, but it was totally worth it.

So yesterday I ordered a Macbook from the Apple site. Including tax (which Americans add on AFTERWARDS), it only came out at about £100 cheaper than buying at home. Still a saving though. Problem is Apple won’t take my card because it wasn’t issued in the US. I’m just going to have to wait and open a US bank account and pay it that way. Very, very annoying.

I’m just back from my lunch at McDonalds. The Dollar Saver menu is amazing, I got 2 double cheeseburgers, fries and the huge 42oz Coke for $4.00 (the Coke being 69c). I shall get back to work here, then I’m off to see the Fratellis at the Fillmore tonight, should be a good gig. Chao.