The new iPhone is 2 weeks old tomorrow. I’ve been trying to get one since it was launched. Seeing as how I live and work right beside an apple store you would think I would have one by now.

I don’t.

Which is a problem. Bits on my current phone keep breaking. Just yesterday I had to glue my earphones back together.

I could have got one last week when the lines weren’t too long. I elected to spend time with my brother instead. Now the lines are longer at 8:30am than they were at any time last week.

I think I’m just going to have queue up at around 8 Saturday morning and get one. That is if they haven’t sold out of them in the state like I believe they have in others.

I’m in Park City for the Sundance Film Festival. I just saw Quentin Tarantino walking down the street. This place rules.

You no doubt heard about this by now.

This all started at 7pm last night. We first heard of it a little after 7, Which brings me to the title of this post. The two most annoying words in the english language are Breaking and News. You’ve all seen it in the movies, something big happens so the news station breaks into the current program and tells you what the big news is. I was kind of excited when I saw this. It’s not something that I’ve ever seen happen on Irish TV.

The thing they don’t show you in Movies though is that they keep interrupting what ever it is you are watching. In our case it was an incredibly gripping episode of 24. One thing we noticed while all this was going on was that they wouldn’t interrupt the ads. In fact there was one case where the sound dropped out and it looked like they were going to cut away to the news room but then the sound came back. Then 24 went to an ad. Not a minute after 24 was back Bob was back on the air (did I mention Bob was the anchor? I hate Bob).

We contemplated switching over to another channel and watching the rest of 24 later but a quick look showed that they were all breaking the news as well.

That was my first encounter with breaking news. And I hated it (I still hate Bob more).

The apartment had a space in it. This space has been filled.

Tune in at 9 to find out more.

Yesterday after I got the car I picked Johnny G up at work and we headed out to Smiths. We got the vitals such as 24 cans of Mountain Dew and 36 bottles of beer. Then on a lark we headed for Park City.

I had at this stage gotten to grips with driving on the right and the automatic gears. The next thing I had to deal with was the spiders web that is the Interstate.

From the first turn we were headed in the wrong direction. After turning around we were going in the right way but I now had to contend with the speed limit. Speed Limit signs here aren’t the handy black on a circular white sign with the red border. Instead they are white or yellow with seemingly any combination of numbers on it. And I’m pretty sure everyone was going faster than it. But what’s important is that I was driving on the interstate. A four lane highway. With cars over taking me on both sides.

As I was driving I had trouble maintaining a steady speed. I eventually figured out why the buttons on the left side of the steering while weren’t doing anything to the radio. They were for the cruise control. Knowing this I set about trying to figure out to get it to turn on. Many a wheel jerk later I was dancing a jig on the floor with the cruise control working and Johnny G freaking out.

Half an hour later we were on the outside of what we think was Park City. Now we just had to figure out how to actually get in there. We ended up flippin a bitch twice. The first time in a cul de sac, the second on a road I thought was a one way street which I was going down the wrong way.

It was getting late so we decided to head back to SLC. We were ten minutes out when Johnny suggested we find somewhere to turn around and head back. This was my turn to freak out. I thought we were going to Salt Lake. Turns out my sense of direction is that bad. We were nearly in a little place called Worship, which is definitely somewhere I want to visit. I bet there are loads of Polygamy loving mormons there. We turned on a ranch exit and headed back the way we came.

A half hour of uneventful driving later we were eating delicious hamburgers from wendy’s and everything was good.

I drove home from work today. No, I didn’t buy a car. I rented one so I could go buy one. I’ll take some pictures of it a little later.

One of the things I’m really looking forward to with my new car is going to the shop and buying sixty cans of Mountain Dew. And lots of beer too. I might look into getting a microwave as well. Oh the fun.

I don’t know what I’m doing tonight but you can bet you britches that it will involve driving there. I won’t be eating from the food court either. Now that I have wheels Salt Lake City is literally my oyster.

Ahhhh yes. I expect lots of things to happen this weekend. I shall you keep you, my loyal reader, informed as they do.

There is a place in Utah called The Hotel, formerly know as Shaggy’s. Crazy stuff happens in this place. I believe Shaggy’s is under new management, hence the name change. One of the improvements that has been added is what I like to call the wall of time.

Every night at smack bang 12:30 the wall of Time displays the message

Last Call in 30:00 mins

. Needless to say this results in every Irish man in the place (that would be me and johnny) panicking as they realise they only have 30 short minutes to get in the rest of the drink for the night. As you can imagine this can make for some messy situations and/or entertaining stories.

The first time this happened there was a lot of demanding in loud voices that the barmaid remember “Us Irish Guys”. I also remember asking that same barmaid why she got the tattoo’s she did.

Before we went to The Hotel the next night, we stopped off in Murphy’s. It was a saturday night and didn’t appear to be that busy. We say at the end of the bar and got talking to a guy named Todd who was a trucker from florida. He wasn’t exactly a trucker any more, as he has stopped driving and now just does the loading and unloading for a removal company. After a few pints in Murphy’s Todd decided to move on to another place. He talked me and another guy from saudi arabia into going with him and I talked John into going with us (I think John was scared of Todd). We went to The Hotel and after a bottle of beer decided to call it a night.

The last time we went to The Hotel, which was when I wrote that last post, we went to the Port O’Call. Mostly out of fear of meeting Todd. We sat near a TV and discussed various things including the pros and cons of getting some sort of ninja tattoo. Then at around 11:30 we left for The Hotel. The actual Hotel door had a massive queue but the Elevate door which is just another door to The Hotel had a small queue. One of the bouncers there asked us were he knew us from. Unable to tell him he let us go with a “Come to me next time and you’ll get in faster as VIP’s”. I think he did any way the beers were clouding my brain.

Once in the Hotel I went to the jacks were I was surprised to see a bathroom attendant. I think I gave him a $10 tip by accident.

Out at the bar Johnny was ordering 2 bottles of Bud. While he was doing that I was staring at the two girls dancing together on top of the woofer. The women love the woofer. Eventually Johnny got served. At some stage someone suggested shots and then it all went pear shaped.

I remember the clock starting, taking ages to get served and Johnny coming up to me to say that he was going to get his own drinks. I then remember drinking two Gin and Juice fast enough to nearly get sick. After calming down the gag reflex I went back to the bar. I had noticed on a previous trip that they sold Killians and I aimed to get some. The tattooed Barmaid was working and I went to her area. A girl infront of me got served and I prepared to slide into her place when I heard a “Hey, Hey” behind me and some guy cut a head. Shocked, that a person from Crowded Bar Land such as myself could have such an amateur moved pulled on him I used the age old technique of “The Hand on the Bar” to ensure my place in the line. It turned out that such a move was not required as the tattoo girl remembered me (I think) and got my order.

With the sweet nectar that is killians now firmly in my grasp I returned to my previous position near the Dancing Girls on the Woofer. John told me that two women had asked him to by them a drink (I think they did it seperately). He didn’t not realising things are different here in America. I then proceeded to tell him and every one else in the club that “It’s all about the number”. John went somewhere and I dropped my pint on the floor. Seeing as how they had stopped serving and we had bud light in the fridge we decided to leave.

When we arrived back at the apartment we listened to some music on Johnny’s computer and possibly woke the downstairs neighbours. After that I went and wrote that post then i fell asleep.

That was my saturday night. Who knows what’s going to happen this weekend. I’m renting a car to kind of get back in the swing of things and to go look at cars that are for sale. More on that later.

Before I came over to America one of the big things that I was worried about was cursing. After all I curse a lot. Especially when I am in a social situation. I figured (correctly) that Mormons wouldn’t curse.

Instead of Damn they say Dang. And I think that’s the worst I heard coming out of a Mormon. Imagine my surprise when I heard that two of my mormon friends where fans of Sublime. The thing about sublime is that they aren’t exactly the most wholesome band going. They liberally use bad language in their songs and well… here’s the lyrics to the first verse of Wrong Way.

annie's 12 years old in two more 
she'll be a whore, nobody ever told
her it's the wrong way. don't be 
afraid with the quickness you get 
laid for your family gets paid it's 
the wrong way. 

What’s a bad language hating, good music loving Mormon to do. Why remove the bad language of course. And that’s exactly what one of them did. He also reorganized the album so that all the songs that had objectionable content like the above were removed from the album Sublime.

Apparently this was so well done you couldn’t tell the difference. It wasn’t. See for yourself. here are two mp3’s. The first is What I Got (The Mormon Remix), the second is What I Got (original).

Listen to the first one and tell me if you can see where the bad language has been removed. If you can post it in the comments.

Then my time travel device worked. Right this minute that this is visible, I am travelling a car/van to Zions National Park. There I shall be walking a great distance, through water and up mountains to look over cliffs. It will be brown like the desert and I expect to get thirsty in the 100 degree heat. In fact it is going to get so hot on friday it has been recommended that we soak all my clothes before we head out.

After Zions I continue my pilgrimage to that most unholy place known to as Las Vegas to the layman and as that place I married that chick to the minister in charge of keeping it real.

I shall be careful to not lose my shirt in vegas but I can’t guarantee it. My shirt is hawaiin and from what I hear, it here may be swallowed up by the carpet. But fear not, I shall not go shirtless as I have many a T-Shirt.