Staff Letters: Phil

...Nomad, Wonderer, Vagabond...

Three months has to be a record for me for no letter of the month. However, packing up, moving to a new city in a new country on a new continent with a new language and a new job definitely takes up a lot of your time for a while. So my apologies.

At the moment, I'm living out of a temporary, small, one-room, furnished apartment. I've actually found, paid for, and acquired keys to a real apartment, but my stuff won't arrive in Switzerland for a few more weeks still. So even though this room is growing a bit tiresome, it's way better than sleeping on a hard wood floor, and lacking towels, plates, a microwave, a bed and a TV.

Besides, I spent a fare amount of time at work or out at the pub with people from work, so it's all good.

Being in Zurich is awesome! As you can see from my sightseeing trips and my trip to the Yodeling Festival, I'm having a lot of fun and enjoying Swiss culture!

On a more Metallica note, I'm getting very excited about my upcoming Metallica shows! I'll be seeing them in Switzerland as well as at Leeds and Reading in the UK! Woo!

MissionMetallica also said we can expect some big news after the holiday weekend, which I'm really stoked about! I wasn't originally sure about the album name, but it's grown on me. Plus, I'm sure that in the context of the album itself, the title will make more sense. I'm very excited about this album. The riffs we've gotten to hear thus far are really cool!

As you all know, I went to the KMFA Day in AZ, the Weenie Roast in CA, and the Silverlake Benefit show in CA - all the week I moved! While that was an insane week, it was a blast! KMFA Day was probably my least favorite due to the horrible sound and the ridiculously rough crowd. But not having had a good dose of Metallica in a while, it was still great! The Silverlake Benefit was very small and intimate, and very cool. Weenie Roast was probably one of their best shows in a long time - they were just in amazing, perfect, tip-top shape. Much to my chagrin, they didn't play anything new at any of the shows, and to this day - almost 2 months later, they still haven't played anything new despite Lars' comment they would be playing new stuff this summer. I only hope they'll be playing new stuff by August.

On an IPOM-related note, since deploying RE-CAPTCHA on the message boards, there has been no more spam!

My first two weeks here, I hadn't started work yet, and so I rented quite a few movies. I've also gone out to the movies a lot in the last few months. And finally, Film 4 - one of the few English channels I get here - shows some great films that I've watched. So my movie list is quite long. I've omitted anything I saw on TV that I've already seen before, and I'm sure there's a few movies I forgot to write down... but it should be reasonably complete.

Even though Charlize Theron is on my list of hottest 5 women in the world, she's somehow never made it to my Babes of the Month (I assumed she had, but looking through, she hasn't - shame on me). This month, her phenomenal role in Hancock reminded me to put her in.

See you all next month!

Phil

GOOD

All my friends who have wish me well, kept in touch, and kept me company
Google
Switzerland

BAD

Not having any of my stuff for 2 months
How hard it was to get my money here

BABES OF THE MONTH

Charlize Theron
Mila Kunis
Kristen Bell
Danneel Harris
Jessica Alba

MOVIES

Seen in theaters...
Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
Ironman
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Hancock
Seen on the plane...
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Juno
Seen on Film 4...
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
K-19: The Widowmaker
Kingdom of Heaven
The Core
War Games
Rented...
88 Minutes
Good Luck Chuck
Lions for Lambs
Crank
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
War
Blood Diamond
What's Eating Gilbert Grape

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