Treason!

Way to go, Yahoo.com. Just tell the terrorists how to win.

Three random thoughts for the day [Feat. a bonus 4th thought!]

1) When I speak seemingly random, meaningless phrases like "Follow directions," what I REALLY mean is "Don't bother following directions. It won't fucking piss me off or anything."

2) So, if you've got some down time, pick up some of the Dresden Files novels by Jim Butcher. It's good shit. Wizards and noir and detective work and vampires and other crazy ass shit, all in Chicago. Good times. Plus, Butcher's Chi-town geography is pretty good, so as a former resident of the South Side, I was amused by the scene which featured raining frogs...in Jackson Park. I was NOT amused, however, when the titular character visited a bookshop (which resembles a cross between Powell's and 57th Street books) down the street from the campus of the University of Chicago... in LINCOLN PARK. Sigh. No one's perfect, I guess.

3) I ate a turkey reuben for dinner. It was fucking amazing, especially with the mango smoothie (w/ whipped cream, people!). The smoothie was a must, since it's getting all "summer in the south" here.

BONUS: I'm employed for the summer! I have an office job, and after 4 days of work I haven't been fired! Huzzah!

Spiderman 3: The Dashing of Hopes

Okay. Well. I saw Spiderman 3 yesterday. I waited until today to comment, and I'm glad I did. There is perhaps no greater (recent) example of the "really want it to be good because it SHOULD have been so good" syndrome which I have suffered mightily from in the past (see Star Wars: Episode I...or see it six times in the theatre, like I did).

But this movie is not so good. It really should have been. At first there were just a couple of scenes I didn't like:

1) The goofy musical interlude/montage THING leading into the über-ridiculous Moulin Rouge/The Mask style dance number. I mean, come on. Seriously. WHAT...THE...FUCK? That's about 10 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

2) The cheesy news anchor guy announcing the occurrence of the situation that leads to the final battle. In addition to this, the wretched, overblown, melodramatic dialogue that went with it: "This could be the end...of Spiderman." I shit you not.

Honestly, at first I thought those were the two blemishes on an otherwise okay movie. The rest was exciting, it was cool to see Venom and Sandman onscreen...action was good...but really, it's just too busy. It's not as cool as it SHOULD have been since it didn't get the sort of solid treatment that the stuff in the first two did. I like having multiple villains, but this fell sort of flat. Worth watching just to finish off the trilogy, I guess, but man, weakest movie of the three.

But, frankly, I'll probably buy it. I do have Episodes I, II, and III, which combine for just under 2 hours of worthwhile movie, on DVD. Ugh.

Sports mania!

Well, with the Avs missing the playoffs, the Nuggets getting bounced by the Spurs in five, and the routine mediocrity of the Rockies...

THANK GOD FOR THE NFL DRAFT!!!

Am I right, people?

So for Draft Saturday, a day when, surely, I had better things to be doing, I sat there in the bar at Dave and Buster's with John and his friend Drew, drank Coors Light, and pondered with wonderment the fascinating obsession with basically a nationally (poorly) televised, "pro" version of "picking teams" on an elementary school playground.

We stayed for the whole first round. Yes. The longest ever first round of the longest ever draft. We stumbled out of there almost 6 1/2 hours after sitting down. That, my friends, is dedication.

Or idiocy. Or a nice mix of both.

I have a number of lame excuses for staying the whole time... 1) we said we'd stay for the first round...I mean, you can't back out of something like that 2) our teams (Broncos and Panthers) both had trades that changed the draft order, and 3)...yeah, I don't have a three.

Regardless, we had fun. And Coors Light. Also, D&B's actually does have a cocktail drink called:

"The Schizzle"

I shit you not. Try it out. And forget what a nerd I am.

Solemnity and Levity

Well, it's awfully hard to find the words. I don't know where to start or what to talk about, and I certainly don't want to harp on things to gain credibility or to sell sensationalism. So, I'll keep it simple and move on. I have to smile and laugh, since that's how I cope, but I'll get the serious out, too, because I do, in fact, have that side as well. Frustration, fear, sadness, and every other emotion are running pretty high down here, since Blacksburg is close enough to have pretty extensive connections to students, faculty, staff, etc. I talked with each of my classes for a few minutes about how something like this feels, recalling my own feelings right after Columbine. I'm both extremely moved and severely put off by some of the things that have been said around campus over the last couple days since many comments have interspersed genuine feelings of empathy and emotion with asinine, even offensive jabs at this country and the American way of life (to put it broadly), and that doesn't even include the gun control issue. It's an ivory tower, and even now my love/hate relationship with it continues.

But, there's no need to rant as it never tends to help resolve anything. But Tuesday and today I couldn't help noticing the shadow this casts. It comes in various forms, like looking around campus at large groups of people. More frightening, though, is looking at the open door of my classroom (i always leave it open) and wondering, to myself suddenly and completely without warning or explanation, "Could I get there in time? Could I close and lock the door fast enough? There's no windows, where can my students go?" It's...odd.

So. Levity.

Looking at my blog it's really a study in white, bland, text on a page minimalism (the format, of course) juxtaposed with my compulsive obsession for inserting color photos in my entries. What does that even mean?

...okay, I'll admit, I haven't got the levity part right now. I'm sorry this is a downer, and next time I promise we'll be back to the lighter side. I hope everyone is well and my thoughts are with all of you.

Dire straights

Mega props to Geoff for pointing out my old fogey-ness. Very timely, actually. Though, to be fair, I kept saying "friggin" because I am, in a move that is somewhat out of character, trying to keep the rating on this blog a shade above an R. That's not easy to do, especially considering the number of F bombs I tend to drop on a daily (well, hourly) basis. I have a horribly foul mouth.

Anyway.

Two points come of this.

First, now that my week is over, I can look back and comment on last weekend. I went up to Chapel Hill and got to meet Sarah's brothers, both of whom were awesome. This was a good time. Seriously. It was great to finally get to meet them and hang out. We have a lot of the same interests and we got along very well. I had a great time all weekend.

Second, I learned a sad truth about myself.

For much of my life, I have used the term "rockin", or, more formally, "rocking" to describe a state of mind or being. It's also a handy verb, e.g. "So and so ROCKS!" I frequently part company with those I care for with an earnest encouragement to "Keep on Rocking in the Free World." Also, I like rock music. A lot. And, in a way, I have always, at least in some sense, believed that I, in fact, "rock" to a certain degree.

Well, bad news. I don't rock. ...as much, or at all.

This falls in line with the old fogey nature of my last post. I had never looked at the world from a "damn kids and their rock music" perspective before. Well, all that ended when I first played Guitar Hero I and II this past weekend.

I was terrible. Really, I'm, seriously you guys, terrible. God awful. It was lame to the extreme.

For someone who played a fucking (there, I said it) stringed instrument (for seven fucking years, I might add), and also considers himself a legitimate gamer, it was perhaps the most wretchedly pathetic performance imaginable. Fortunately, it was just Matt, Mark, and myself (though it was a little embarrassing to flop like that in front of two people I barely know), or I might have shamed myself beyond all reason.

I still shiver at the memory.

So, ultimately, I am not a Guitar Hero.

I hope and pray that this does not, however, hurt my chances of becoming a Jukebox Hero...and anyone who's been to The Pub with me will know that I can drop quarters into a jukebox with the best of them (and play the same three songs every time...Panama, Rock n' Roll, and When the Levee Breaks).

Still, my feeling about my own "rockin" nature has, yes, turned Cold as Ice. Though I'm not really willing to sacrifice anything.

Hot Blooded? Not so much, it would seem.

And furthermore, I promise NOT to threaten to take Jeff Prisoner of Love, especially not at his wedding.

Insanity springs (rolls) eternal

Okay, seriously. What the hell is wrong with people?

Call me old fashioned. When I was a kid, there was such a thing as discipline, or, as I liked to say, the ever-present threat of a severe smackdown from my parents should I cause problems. Of course, the running joke on much of television these days is the whole "time-out" thing, as in, if you talk back to your folks, are out of control in public, lie, or, apparently, instigate mass ethnic cleansing one too many times, you're slapped with a time out. You sit in the corner.

Now, as a punishment for today's ADHD younger generation, sure, maybe that works.

But it's something else that bothers me...

Back in my friggin day, it was a BAD thing to run around out of control in the supermarket...remember?!?!?!? How do we solve this problem? Well, you got a smackdown. Hell, you got a time out. You get SOMETHING that attempts to reinforce the idea that running around a public place like a store is potentially dangerous for any number of reasons.

Not anymore. Instead, it seems we not only tolerate this behavior, but encourage it and ENABLE it by outfitting children with the tools to move faster with less control!


Yes! Let's put friggin' roller skates in their friggin shoes!


Wow, can't imagine why no one thought of this before now. The benefits far outweigh the potential hazards.


The reason I bring up the supermarket, though, is that seems to be the only place where kids wear these things. That's the only place I've ever seen them. I kid you not. The whole lights in the shoes thing? That was dumb. Dumb, but potentially harmless. This?

"Oops. Clean up on aisle three. Some kid on skates ran into an old woman and FRIGGIN SHATTERED HER HIP!"


Actually, I'm the kind of person that presents a delightful target for such things. Mostly because I don't expect kids up to 12-13 years old to be zipping up and down the aisles of Harris Teeter with no regard and no mercy for others.

As a society, we are doomed. And don't even get me started on my job.

Oddyssey III: Final Destination II: The Last Final Stop at the End of the Final Journey, Gold Edition

Okay. So, now my little journey has been over for more weeks than it lasted, and I haven't finished the narrative. Which is fine, I guess. It's not that interesting, really. Still, I have other stuff I want to get to so let's get it out of the way.

When I landed in Grand Junction some weeks ago now, I found that, as I had feared, my bag was unavailable at the baggage claim.

Sadness.

But, I didn't mind that much. Afterall, my bag deserved its own fun little adventure. Figuring it had landed the night before, I walked over to the United Express counter to inquire after its fate.

25 minutes later, someone showed up at the counter to deal with customers (for an airport, albeit a small one, serving a general populace of approximately 100,000 people, you'd never suspect Walker Field Regional Airport to be as ass backwards as it is).

Turns out, surprise surprise, my bag didn't make it to GJ after all. Of course, I figured it was probably still in Denver. Oh no, that would make sense.

My bag decided it would rather hit the slopes than join me on my trip, so it hopped the plane to Eagle, CO. Now, for those of you who are not familiar with the geography of Colorado, Eagle is a town in the mountains about midway between Grand Junction and Denver. Geographically, my bag had travelled about half way to where it needed to go. Unfortunately, in air travel terms, it pretty much went 180 degrees the wrong way. Eagle, like GJ, has a regional airport, which means that, yes, it's essentially a dead end. There are no flights from either place to other regional airports. Way to go, United. The excuse was that the label had been misread (some other bag ended up there too). Naturally, this would make perfect sense if the airport codes were similar, and since GJT and EGE do share a common letter, I have to assume that was the cause. Good one, guys.

But hey, I was on vacation. I ended up getting my bag at THE END OF THE NEXT DAY, nearly 48 hours after I was originally supposed to land. Still, I was at home, so it was no big deal.

What WAS a big deal, apparently, was the massive storm in the mountains that diverted all plans bound for Aspen to Grand Junction. This was amusing to no end. Baggage claim was full of angry Aspenites (peroxide bleached hair, fur jackets, absurdly expensive hand bags, etc) all whining into their cell phones in that annoying valley girl tone:

"Uhhh, we're, like, in this awful little town called, I don't know, Grand Junction? Oh my god, it's SUCH a hick town. I hope they didn't, like, lose my bag. My feet hurt SO much. I just hope they didn't lose the bag with my hiking boots, because these heels are KILLING me. I guess they, like, charted a bus or something? It's so stupid..."

And so on. This was, to say the least, intensely gratifying, in a way. It must suck to be those people.

And that was it. GJ was great, played with dogs, shot some birds, and relaxed. Chicago was also great, crashed at Mike and Liz's and played waaaaay too much Wii...made a Wii Mii. That was sweet. Then, Sarah surprised me at the airport in Charlotte and stayed with me for a few days, which was wonderful. So, in a sense, I had two weeks of break.

And then things went to crap. But that's another story.

Odd-yssey, Part II: The Return

*Cheesy announcer voice*:

In our last episode…

Anyway. Did I mention it was pouring rain in Charlotte? I got back to my car in the long term parking lot, having walked through the deluge, and drove around in circles until I found my way out of said long term lot…three hours after I parked in it.

This is all happening around rush hour, by the way.

But, whatever. I’m on vacation!

My drive home was just like a Navy Recruiting video. The only differences being: 1) Instead of a group of Navy Seals in wetsuits it was me in my rain soaked jacket, 2) instead of a tactical combat raft crashing through the surf (heh…I typed “serf” the first time) it was my explorer crashing through the rain and wet pavement on I-85, and 3) Instead of a Godsmack tune (“Awake”) dubbed over as a non-diagetic soundtrack element, I was singing along to the CD. So…really it was nothing like a Navy Recruiting video.

But, if you have the necessary Fortitude (DC: 35), you can imagine me singing along at the top of my lungs:

“I’m aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive, for yooooooou, I’m awaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake…”

Had to swing by the CVS for some contact lens stuff (my kit was in my bag…still is, incidentally) and a frozen pizza, and then headed on home.

Didn’t do much, really…had some DiGiorno and played a bit of Jade Empire…because I’m only on my fourth play-through.

And then…

Got to the airport and MY GOD the line for security was long…finally, I was up to the front and…YES! Specialized screening! They put me in this…thing...which looked like a cross between an upright Jacuzzi and some kind of Star Trek transporter thing…and it…uh…blew jets of air on me. I think this was to analyze the air for explosives or such materials. (Apparently it's called a Trace Portal Machine, or a Puffer...)

That was odd. And then through the metal detector, and then stopped in the big glass box until they were ready to…*gulp*…oh, never mind, just going to take samples from your shoes and bag. Okay, you’re good.

I wonder about that, though. I mean, you take the little wipe thing and rub on the inside of someone’s shoe and find nothing "bomb" related, but does it check for other things too?

“Okay, Mr. Smith…no explosives in the conventional sense, but you might want to pick up a tube of tough acting Tinactin! BOOM! Ha ha!! …now get out of here before we kill you.”

And everything was smooth after that. Until I got to GJ…

Odd-yssey, Part 1

So, I’m in Colorado now, a day later (yesterday) than anticipated (Thursday night), but there it is.
Why a day later, you ask? Well, even if you didn’t ask, I’ll tell.

*Music plays*

…without singing, even.

*Music Stops*

The truth is, Chicago O’Hare International Airport and I go way back. Waaaaaaay back.
My first experience with O’Hare was not actually with the airport, but rather its namesake.




The O’Hare I knew was Edward "Butch" O’Hare, a WWII fighter pilot (and Medal of Honor winner).===>



It turns out that I was a bit of a nerd as a kid (not that much has changed, really) and some of my heroes (second only to John Elway) were American WWII fighter pilots like O’Hare, "Jimmy" Thach (of Thach Weave fame), and Pappy Boyington, first of the American Volunteer Squadron in China (Flying Tigers) and later of the Black Sheep squadron in the Pacific.

<==Boyington was probably my favorite, for a number of reasons. First, I was very interested in the Flying Tigers, since they were flying crappy old P-40 Warhawks before the US entered the war, and somewhat keeping up with the vastly superior Japanese fighters. Boyington was also cool because he coped with high-g turns by tensing the muscles in his neck (fighting physics with force of will).

Next, the Black Sheep!! (Who probably shouldn’t be judged by the TERRIBLE 70’s TV show, "Baa Baa Black Sheep", which, in my limited viewing experience, focused more on tight fitting uniforms and sappy 70’s comedy than, you know, dog fighting and such. Note that Robert Conrad doesn't really look like Pappy...as much, or at all.)

They flew my FAVORITE fighter, the Chance-Vought F4-U Corsair.

Yes, and many delightful hours of Aces of the Pacific on my old IBM 386. Gooooood times.

But I digress.

My ACTUAL history with O’Hare is more, you know, airport related. The only travel issues I’ve had have always been in someway related, like the time we sat on the plane for FOUR hours in Denver because thunderstorms were FORECAST around Chicago (skies were clear, as I recall). Also, the only time a flight has been cancelled (like, completely, totally, entirely wiped from the face of reality) was when Delta decided to cancel my flight from Salt Lake to Chicago for unknown reasons (though that might just be because they suck).

But this one was good. I was flying from Charlotte to Denver, no stop in Chicago, nothing. Except…oh yes…the plane was COMING from Chicago. And I’m told that there was a delay…because the roof was leaking. Oh yes. So, at first it wasn’t an issue, since I had a 2 hour layover in Denver. Of course, according to the surly woman behind the counter, it didn’t matter, and she didn’t know if it would work, so she tossed my bag check tag aside and walked away to help someone else, leaving me standing there looking like an ass for about 5 minutes.

That was cool.

Then the guy came over and helped me out, and said I was still okay. Cool, bag checked, things are good. Grabbed a sandwich, and hung around. THEN, the flight gets delayed again, screwing me totally. So, I was faced with the choice of getting to Denver and sleeping at DIA, or going home to my apartment, sleeping in my own bed, and flying out in the morning then getting to GJ at about the same time.

Tough one.

Anyway, I didn’t mind that much. I’m on vacation. The only time it got dodgy was when the line for the counter curved around a bit, meaning it was forming at a right angle behind me. Suddenly, this dip shit turns around and says… "You know, the end of the line is over there." I’ve been standing behind this guy for 10 minutes, which I tell him. Fortunately, one of the people behind me said that I had been there, and it was okay. But the guy gives me a look and doesn’t say anything. Now, usually, no matter what kind of mood I’m in, I won’t lash out at someone or raise my voice and use profanity (with people I don’t know, that is). I like to be civil. Seriously. But I was this close to letting fly at this guy. He had his wrangler jeans and boots and leather briefcase…so he’s one of THOSE assholes, some self-important prick from Greeley. It would have been…bad. Still, things were fine, the lady was nice, and set me up with a flight in the morning.

Of course, my checked bag…that was something else…better finish this later.