With day one out of the way, we can focus on day two. My first full day in San Francisco. Full day is an accurate way to describe it. Awake at 3 (stupid jetlag), I did a few hours work before heading down for breakfast with the no longer drunk Galbo. Buffet is the best way to do breakfast, two massive platefuls of bacon, sausage, egg and potatoes later I felt quite ill. Will have to have a lie down before I get onto anymore work me thinks.

Popped over to check out the venue for the event on Tues night (today is Monday), was weirded out by the total change in social class on the drive over. Went from Union square, which is an up market shopping district, through an area that looked like absolutely everyone was a scag head. My suspicions proven by a couple of people seemingly openingly doing some stuff I’m sure they shouldn’t be doing on the streets. Passing through this area we got to City Hall, the opera house and the symphony building. How can all this be within a minutes taxi ride from such poverty? I think it was Mr Galbo who was telling me that there is a serious problem in San Fran with poverty, that there really is a divide between the have and the have nots. (A point which I will pick up on more in a later article about a book I’ve just finished).

City Hall was awash with TV crews, because of this I decided that after checking out the venue I would walk the half mile or so back there and have a whack about. The TV crews were all around due to the San Francisco politicians deciding that it was time to allow gay marriages, and that the first one was going to be legalized at 5:01. There is a real back story to this, which I semi picked up watching hours of repeated news in the hotel. Something along the lines of gay marriages previously being legalized, then they changed their minds and cancelled all the marriage (anyone know more on this?). Wondering through I happy snapped pictures on my n95 8gb to my hearts content. Then noticed a guy with a better camera (TV dude) so had a quick natter with him. Later to be quite surprised to see he had donned a tie and was presenting the report for a local news service.

After all this excitement I went back to the hotel to do some more work.

That evening we all decided to pop out for dinner, all being me, Galbo and Cookie Monster aka Pete. We ended up wondering all the way to Polk, around 20 blocks or so up Sutter. We found this little Chinese place, through desperation rather than desire we went in. The food really wasn’t that great, but they had Cobra so pleasure/pain yoghurt advert I guess. After the quick munch we headed over the road to the Blur bar, a wannabee trendy bar which seemed just dark and depressive. Always funny for the bargirl to try and sell you cheap fags too.

Next we popped next door to a bar I don’t remember the name of, something Tavern, you’d think I’d Google research it, but no. A cool upbeat rocky bar with a dj and a pool table. We jumped onto the pool table (to play, not literally jumped on) and stayed there for an hour or so. I dominated Galbo and Cookie, but got beat by a Texan guy who was taking it extremely seriously. Poor Chap, he really was rubbish and if I’d been playing properly, or had played American tables at all recently, I’d of kicked his arse too. He did however get a bit grumpy when I had 2 shots after he potted the white (scratched). Stupid American rules!

Left the Tavern, walked back, and bed, night night and onto day 3.

• Munching breakfast down! #
• Can you see alcatraz from your breakfast table? #
• @msjen HHHHEEEEYYYYYYYYYYLLLLOOOOO 🙂 #
• Serving guy is crazy, he just said to me “told you so”, but made no reference to anything else #
• @bryan Mahalo meaning? Im gunna guess hello in some form? 😛 #
• Ok now the breakfast man is hitting on me :S #
• @bryan Just been saying it to myself, and cant help but sound (or try to) Hawaiian #
• @bryan I’m sure it actually is as rediculous as you’re imagining #
• @ricgalbraith get your own table! im having a nice romantic breakfast, just me and twitter and msn and email #
• Discovering #
• @sebroberts check out my blog colinmercer.co.uk #

• San Francisco Day 1 P1 http://tinyurl.com/6mo48c #
• Just back from breakfast, if only a power nap was an option 🙁 #
• Off for lunch in the sun, lovely weather #
• Listening to city and colour, some how always makes work flow #
• Bye Bye france #

• What a horrendous journey! Can it get worse? Will blog the incidents laters #
• is this basketball something important? Lots of people at the tv’s. #
• @arnold who are the purple and golds? i can only find celtics lakers on tv now? #
• Heres some tweets i wrote earlier which didnt post….[spam] #
• People eat weirdly here #
• Just asked in restaurant/bar if the steak comes with chips, took ages to twig why i was getting such a strange look back #
• Steaks dont come with fries?!? #
• Budweiser and Lamb Shank in “Authentic” irish bar #
• Feeling bad for the guy wondering around who is clearly lost looking for the pissers, will be me later #
• Two people next to me are clearly on a date, the dude is doing well, i should interrupt? #
• Ok i’m done wit that spam now [/spam] #
• @bryan 😀 glad to be of use! #
• @arnold dude said it came with a little bit of salad. i think he realised i was a brit and that a 12oz steak is big for us. #
• GOOD MORNING Twitter USA #
• GOOD AFTERNOON Twitter UK #
• @missdd not there, but watching launch online! Heading up for breakfast on the 32nd floor soon ;p #
• So it appears that same sex marriages are being legalised in CA this evening. This seems suspicious with just me and galbo here #
• Haribo for breakfast!! #
• @jakkychamp what a load of “who har”. no questions over why a charity worker was in a casino gambling the raised money away #
• @ricgalbraith breakfast soon? text me when u get out of bed you lazy BEEP #
• @Jeremy_Jeffers get off the bandwagon #
• too much breakfast, need lie down 😛 #
• MSN broke again 🙁 #
• Back from Venue for tomorrow night, looking very nice #
• OMG NO… ANDY GRAY is commentating on Euro’s for ESPN 🙁 #
• Disappointed that i am leaving the states before Discovery Black Gold is on 🙁 #

What a day! All that was required was a simple flight over to the States on Sunday 16th, for a few days work trip to San Francisco. Was it that easy/straight forward? Of course not.

Getting to Terminal 5 was easy, quick and quiet drive, plenty room in car park and no wait for a bus to the terminal. All sounding easy so far. After checking my bag in I wondered off and ridiculously randomly bumped into Dan M and his lady, a school friend who was popping over to New York for a week holiday.

Second weird thing I noticed was a group of Americans, who had loads of music gear to check in. From a closer inspection they had clearly just played at Download festival and were heading back to the states. Still haven’t been able to work out how they were though, best guesses from pictures on Download website suggests either A Day To Remember or Alesana. Unfortunately neither have a blog which I can link to and see if it was them.

Once my flight gate popped up it was time to stop stalking the emo band and move on. Whilst walking to the gate an Irish chap started chatting at me, so ended up wondering down to the gate with him. Before being interrupted by the Duty Free guy offering us a free cocktail, its 10am, who wants a cocktail at this time? Me! He whipped up some lemon thing with fancy vodka, as you can see his sales pitch worked well on me, I’ve remembered everything about his product. Woops. Strange incident number two, this Irish chap happened to be called Colin too and was seated a row behind me on the plane (admittedly on the other side).

Boarded plane, sat next to a 60 year old Indian lady who didn’t move other than to let the guy by the window out. The guy I’m sure is some form of social media geezer, he had a Firefox Tshirt on and read “The Google Story” book. So it that was you in seat 49J of flight BA285 get in touch.

Landed (yay) as per usual, and got off quick fast to try and get through security nice and quickly. A few more questions than normal and I was through, I blame the flip flops and shorts, now onto luggage claim. As normal, gotta wait around for a few minutes before the bags start flowing around on the conveyor belt. As they started flowing through I started watching out for mine, and watching and watching and watching. After 30 mins and there only being one bag left on the conveyor I gave up. Walked over to the luggage complaints/enquiries desk where a very slow BA employee had been lumbered with everything to deal with. She was very helpful and tracked my luggage, apparently it was on the plane. Not like everyone else’s which had been moved to the flight later that day. After another hour or so they finally found my luggage somewhere out the back, no idea where or why it wasn’t just put on the conveyor but I don’t care. There was nothing missing so I just left the airport for the easy trip to the hotel.

A short limo ride later, yes limo, well normal car with sweets and drinks, I was at the hotel. Quickly checked in and Galbo came down to meet me, this was the extent of his exercise for the day.

Got upstairs to my room on the 29th floor, walk in, and there is some luggage in the room. WTF? Why is there luggage in my room which isn’t mine? Rang reception who explained that the room had already been setup for a guest arriving later that day and that I would have to move. No real big deal, hopped down to the 14th floor which is where I now came to rest. Here’s the view from my window below. I think that pretty much wraps up the day, I am going to do a separate post about the dinner I had in a minute.

• Heading to heathrow. No time for twitter this morning 🙁 hopefully later #
• Beautiful day. At heathrow. Need breakfast! #
• Just bumped into a school friend at the airport. What are the chances? Have a good trip dan m #

• @sylwiapresley another msn virus? Stop signing up for everything woman! #
• Twenty20 today. Hampshire up against kent. I hope the the weather stays good #
• @jakkychamp don’t punish me aslan, she wasn’t meant to cut as much off *sobs* #
• For once dont mind being up early on a saturday #
• At rose bowl. Battery struggling already #
• I’m streaming live right now, come chat! http://qik.com/video/102320 #

• @ricgalbraith have a good flight mate. See you sunday #
• @Whatleydude ANOTHER ONE? Did vodafone come to rescue again? #
• On hold with BA cust service, and there was me thinking it would be easy #
• To do list is growing, ever growing, boo #
• Unconvinced by my new look :S #
• @opentoanything Sir, I have a question #
• FED UP, FED DOWN, FED F**KING EVERYWHERE #

• Trying twhirl out #
• @arnold staying in hotel next to union square, I’m there sun > wed. And yeap, i’m open to anything again! including karaoke (maybe) #
• @JsonStone driving is the best time to listen to music, especially when you are driving alone #
• @bryan where ya off to? #
• @bryan HAWAAAIIIII sweet man! SF should be good, shame your not gunna make it along #
• Artists Impression http://tinyurl.com/64qj2r #
• @ricgalbraith Ha ha ha #
• COME ON AUSTRIA #
• YEESSSS Free beeeerrrr for Austria #
• @missdd you still working too? #
• Onto S2 of my Family Guy recap… #
• @missdd weather said that it would in the night… dum dum dum #
• Back To The Woods – Family Guy http://tinyurl.com/5ltjax #
• @missdd option 1) keep phone on, get woken up and feel shit at work, 2) silent phone, no alarm, no work, no woken up. WIN WIN WIN #

Just watching this episode on BBC Three and noticed that there was an extra clip compared to the one i downloaded from America a long while ago now. Just after Brian is tied up in the garden and runs after the squirrel, Stuey refuses to help him get scissors. On the episode i downloaded we then cut to Pete walking into Quagmires house naked, however on BBC Three it cut to a scene where Brian is filming Stuey’s reaction to 2 girls 1 cup. Genius scene!!! Why no show in America?