JUBILEE!

So anyway, we went to the Queen's Jubilee Par-tay last night. It was great fun. Lots of British flag-waving (incidentally, I have finally had the whole flags thing explained to me. There was a bit of confusion over the flag for Great Britain, the one for England, the one for Wales, you know, that sort of thing. Anyway, I have it roughly figured out.) and many many musicians singing tributes to the Queen.

The best moments, of course, all had to do with Ozzy Osbourne. There's something about watching Ozzy Osbourne shake hands with the Queen that just warms your heart. And then he was singing along to "Hey, Jude." I almost soiled myself.

Matthew, of course, was being Very British. He did *not* sing along with anything. He did *not* shout "hooray" when they did the three cheers for the queen thing. He swayed a bit during the tunes, but that's all I could get out of him.

Mind you, this is the guy who loses control when listening to Certain Latin Bands Which Shall Remain Nameless, but I'm pretty sure that's under the influence of Certain Beverages Which Shall Not Be Named.

Anyway.

It was great fun. I am really happy that I got to be here for this, even if it's sort of silly.

Today I got to watch the planes fly overhead. The Royal Air Force did this flyover thing, and the last group had red, white, and blue smoke.

It was way cool. I can't quite figure out whether or not it's completely cheesy or not. I mean, when they're doing the whole "proud to be British" thing, they're talking about stuff like the Beatles. Definitely not cheesy. But then, they're all wearing glittery hats and waving little flags.

It's confusing, I tell you.

I just love Ozzy Osbourne. Between him and Alice Cooper, you know, there's everything I could hope for. But anyway, they interviewed Ozzy. He was so excited about meeting the queen, but obviously really nervous, too. He had this attitude of, "Wow, I can't believe they'd ask me to do this. I can't believe there are all of these people like the Beatles, and here I am." He actually said something to that effect. He said that they were all grown-ups, and he was just this kid. He was talking about this, and about the success of his show, and he just kept saying over and over how lucky he was, and it was obvious that he was just so humble about everything--that he felt like it was sheer good fortune, and he didn't take any of it for granted.

What an awesome guy. I wish I could adopt him in my dad's absence.

I just had a mental picture of what my dad would do if he thought I had anything to do with Ozzy Osbourne. You don't want I should tell you.

Anyway, I will endeavor not to mention football too much, although it is actually consuming my life at the moment. I just have to say that during the Turkey/Brazil game, I had a very confusing moment because a penalty (a yellow card) was issued to a player named Fatih.

Mind you, I didn't know any of the player names or anything. All I knew is that the commentator said, "And that's a yellow card for Fatih."

In American English, this would have no effect on me whatsoever. But, when spoken with a British accent, I thought that someone had just received a penalty for passing gas.

They keep American-bashing on this thing, too. I guess the US is a notoriously bad team, so at least once a day someone says, "Man, that's almost as bad as the US!" or something like that.

Hmph!

They're just jealous because we have food that isn't grey. Or covered in beans.

All right, so it's time for feedback from you. I have spent the last two days trying to come up with a word for the little ceremonial cube of pork that sits at the top of every can of Pork 'N' Beans. Please mail me your suggestions.

Thank you.