London: Surveying and skating in Jolly Old! Summer 2014: Day 12 5/21/14 (EPCs, surveys, a big blank space, Mondos, Bad Neighbors, no real time blogging)

So I need to apologize first for writing this entry a day after it actually happened. This being the case with how tired I am, it seems like I don’t really recall most of the vents of the day as being all that noteworthy, so I’ll try to make my best guess at what happened. After breakfast and in the office, we all worked on getting more EPCs up online for some time. This was a fairly detailed process and we all contributed quite a bit. It was basically a fun exercise in how to break Google’s servers with uploading so many files in different folders. I would have to generate a spreadsheet with all the property information and EPC grades and then upload the EPC into a folder that had the address of the property. This allows us to add more information in the folders later when we go back to survey homes with our quick questionnaire. At around lunch time we took a break from EPCs and I went back to my flat to eat the rest of the chicken and pasta I had cooked. This literally was like a mounded plate of the twisted cylindrical pasta (rotini, fushini, Puccini?). At any rate I probabl ate a good 7/10ths of the bag as I hadn’t eaten any the night prior so a bit later I was smacked with a wave of carbs-induced sleepiness which made the afternoon seem to drag on. Distractions. The chicken from the night before was really good though. Despite all the effort and prep time I put into the chicken and how much I was lamenting buying cheap chicken (as it had more fat on it), it actually turned out alright after sizzling it for an hour. I’m actually becoming quite the cook here. On a level of 1 to iron chef, I’ve nearly graduated from Easy Bake Oven status! Hahaha. I can cook chicken, salmon, pasta, Ramen in a mug (called mug shots) and quite proficient at drinking OJ straight from the carton. Major life milestones.

Back in the office we worked on the survey and the methodology a bit to get it off to Shockey and Ruiz for their feedback. We also had Peng go over our survey with us and got quite the detailed set of notes to fix it up as best as possible (more survey work in tomorrow’s entry). I also got Makarov the mailing address for me here at the University of Worcester so he can air mail me a CD with Corel Draw on it so I can work on those figures for his textbook (with all my free time of course). At the end of the meeting with Peng, I’m not going to, but we were all a little worried about the state of our survey. So we worked and fixed it quite a bit before sending it off to him and Katy later that night (for revisions before the meeting with Shockey). I think that is about all we did in the afternoon. I had to run back to get ready to go see Bad Neighbors with Marceli. Originally it was going to be the rest of the team and I, but then the three of them swapped to going and seeing X-Men future origins instead at the midnight premiere (Bad Neighbors was at 6:15 PM). So I didn’t have much time , but I got ready and quick ate some dinner (probably peanut butter from a jar) and then walked down to this place called Mondo’s (which is a chicken place right next to the cinema). Before heading into the place we bought tickets (2 for 1 on Wednesdays with a code so it was like only paying $8 for a ticket instead of $16). We then went to the chicken place and I got the smallest looking chicken sandwich for $12. It really looked like the unloved chic; so tiny. So alone and so empty. Luckily I had eaten beforehand.

Lowered expectations (good chicken though)

My finger is so strong

We then shifted back to the theater at 6:15 PM for literally 15 minutes of ads before the previews started. Not trailers or promos. Literally just ads as you would watch on TV, but the worst part was it was all ADS! 15 MINUTES!!!! It’s like having tuning in to a radio station at the end of a 4 hour classic rock block. Ugh so painful. The promos were pretty good. It looks like I’ll be dropping more money on seeing A Million Ways to Die in the West and 22 Jump Street. Good times. At any rate after another 15 minutes of movie trailers the film finally started at 6:45 PM. The premise of Bad Neighbors is that a happy new family is living in a neighborhood with their baby girl with a vacant house next door. They struggle with their new identity a bit being new to the area. They see a several people looking at the house next door and one day a fraternity (Delta Psi Beta) moves in (not an actual fraternity) next door. Obviously the family is a little worried about the potential for noise problems. So at first they act all cool to ask them to just casually keep the music down and party with the frat bros (I use the term here because these dudes are wild and are the stereotype of a frat bro). After all night, then the parents return home and sleep it off. The next night they are kept awake by the noise and call the cops. The frat bros find out and get annoyed. Relations further decay from there. It ends up creating a feud between the bros and the parents to try and get the frat shut down and quiet order restored. The movie has Seth Rogan as a parent and Zac Efron as the frat president (Dave Franco is VP). Each side does their respective attacks to the other and it somewhat gets out of hand (with some lesbian action thrown in one of the party scenes). It also results in some absolutely crazy looking party scenes. Like actually nuts in some cases. The final party is absolutely crazy. Not going to spoil it for those looking to waste money on the film (maybe worth a YouTube), but it is just insane. It really makes fraternities look bad and it wasn’t that great of a film in my opinion because it could have been way funnier and have a better plot, but it kinda lacked that and went for a bit of capitalization on the frat image. There is one hilarious part of the movie where the bros decide to literally sell themselves to raise money for a huge Jacuzzi and fixing their house (it sounds weird but it kinda makes sense). The funny part is how Dave Franco does it. 3D printers. Just 3D printers in a whole new light. At any rate after that I pretty much went back to the University and chilled. I was really tired and I apologize for not getting the blog done yesterday.