I was one of those people who were like "I don't need a cell phone. Cell phones suck and are destroying society." My cell phone went out a few days ago and it was like "OH MY GOD, HOW AM I GOING TO CONTACT ANYONE!!!!!!!!! WHAT HAPPENS IF I GET IN A CAR ACCIDENT!"

Now, I'm a believer.

And speaking of phones, I got my phone just about two years ago and the battery just wore out. It also happens to be around the time my contract is up. Coincedence? I think not. I also love how they tell you they have this offer and this offer and the phone is free and then once you purchase a bunch of stuff they start telling you about rebates and offers and filling out this form and that form and my phone's dead, what else am I going to do?

As much as I love modern technology...

Comcast switched a bunch of channels around so my Tivo got all huffy about it and made me have to redo everything. Fine. Whatever. Except because technology is the way it is, it meant that something had to go wrong and so I wound up having to spend something like 24 hours over the weekend without TV as I tried to figure out what was going wrong. I repeat: I HAD TO SPEND 24 HOURS OVER A WEEKEND WITHOUT TV.

Do you know what it's like to come home from something, turn on the TV like I always do, only to discover there was no picture? And then do you know what it's like to stare at the screen for a couple of seconds as you try and figure out what you're supposed to do? And not in the way of fixing it, which was a concern, but because you always flip on the TV when you come home and it doesn't come on and everything is not how it should be.

And then there's my cell phone. For whatever reason, the recharger isn't working as it's supposed to and it's not charging up my cell phone battery. So I'm running out battery juice. This despite the fact it's been in the cradle pretty much all weekend. Even worse, when I use it, it flashes a message that the battery is low and that I need to recharge, something I know because I've spent all weekend trying to friggin' recharge it. Shouldn't I get something just for the effort?

Also, it turns out that taking the cell phone recharger and slamming it continuously on my desk doesn't help.

So I hear they're doing a Survivor where each tribe is broken down into ethnic groups. You know, test tube experiment and social commentary on race and all that. Watch to see whether it matters or whether or doesn't and whether we can all get along and all that.

I notice, however, that they're missing one of the most obvious groups to include, that being the Jews. After all, wouldn't it be an interesting way to prove whether or not everyone really does hate the Jews?

In contuing with the theme of the week, today I had to sit through one of the most dreaded phrases in the english language- deparmtnal off-site workshop.

Yep, nothing like taking a day off in the middle of every damn deadline there is to listen to all the higher ups crack inside jokes with each other, praise a bunch of contractors for all the money they're making for the shareholders (the very same shareholders in whose name we are told the company can't afford to hire us as fulltime employees), and polite applause at just the meer appearance of a VP. Yay! I can't tell you how great it is to see such and such a person! And yes, I'll totally take you up on your offer to go out for lunch with you. I am so sure you really want to meet me.

Eh, whatever.

We'll spare everyone the gruesome details of easily the worst experience flying I have ever had as it's too long and I'm too burnt out to get into it. So, instead, I'll sum everything up.

Here are the details:

# of planes travelled on- 3
# of planes I was supposed to have travelled on- 2
# of airports- 6 (Baltimore, Greensboro, Charlotte, Vegas, Oakland, SFO)
# of times I was at SFO today -2
# of trains I was on- 4 (Maryland commuter train, BART, BART Cal Trains)
# of times I rode the SFO/Millbrae train this morning- twice
# of airlines- two
# of times I went through security- 3 (one at Union Station, at BWI, and at Vegas, the last time the full pat down)
Time I was supposed to get in last night- 7:30 (PM)
Time I got in last night- 1:30 (AM)
Airport I was supposed to arrive in- SFO
Airport I did arrive in- Oakland
Cost of taxi from Oakland to my apartment due to the fact there was no other way of getting home- $60
Amount of time stuck at the Greensboro airport- 45 minutes
Amount of time stuck at Greensboro airport runway waiting for clearance to take off- 40 minutes
Amount of time I had between landing in Charlotte and making my connection to Vegas- 2 minutes
Amount of gates I had to run through to make above connection- 10 but half of them all the way across a rather large airport
Amount of people at the front gate who had full on panic attacks when they discovered they were placed in a non-aisle seat- 1 (and no, not me)
Amount of people who were at the front gate complaining because they didn't get the first class seat they were supposed to have gotten- 1
Amount of people, including me, who were desperately trying to get onto flight but couldn't find out whether they were on or not due to above craziness- three
Amount of time I was late to work this morning- 1 hour
Amount of time after I got into work that I was thrown into a status meeting/conference call- 10 minutes
Amount of airlines who were able to track my lost luggage- 0
Amount of people for the airlines who weren't able to find my lost luggage- 3
Amount of time it took me to locate my luggage when walking into SFO this afternoon- 0 minutes
Amount of time it took it took for AAA to come and restart my car battery this afternoon at SFO long term parking- 45 minutes

And finally-

Amount of time from the moment I took a cab from the hotel in DC to when I finally got home with both car and luggage and can safely call my trip over- 36 hours.

Hell. It was pure hell.

Yes, I'm in DC right now. Let's just say this straight off about DC-- you kind of walk around and turn the corner and there, staring right in front of you, is something like the Capitol Building. And your first reaction is "wow. That's pretty cool." Which is quickly followed by a "hey, I hate those guys...."

I would also like to say that travelling with a laptop friggin rocks. So far, I've watched episodes of 24 while on the plane, checked e-mail while eating dinner at the Pittsburgh airport, and now I'm sitting here in the lobby of the beautiful Normandy Inn drinking fairly crappy coffee while surfing online. Gotta love it. I do notice, however, that several times when my mom has been looking for some information she starts digging through maps or calls people or asks people and I am scoffing at her. But mom, don't you know you can find it all on the internet....

Also, there's this. While I love the idea of having free, continental breakfast in the hotel every morning, I have noticed that said breakfast always causes more stress than necessary. Because despite the presence of hundreds of breakfast/coffee places in the immediate area, the reaction whenver there's a contintental breakfast is that no matter what, YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE BREAKFAST OR YOU WILL DIE OF STARVATION! Alarms are set to it, mornings are rushed through, showers put off just because, damnit, you have to have the free box of cereal and warmed up scrambled eggs.

Wow, just think. Right now, somebody somewhere is actually watching "Snakes on a Plane."

And thus endeth one of the great pop culture rides ever as we all know this movie is going to suck..

Anyways, so you know, you spend 38 years of your life being pretty much the same thing. Then one day, you wake up and you are suddenly attached to the words "nephew" and "uncle" suddenly attached to your name. It's a little weird. Of course, probably not as weird as being my brother and one day suddenly becoming "dad."

That's gotta be a little stranger.

Off to DC for the weekend as yes, motherfucking Jon on a motherfucking plane tomorrow.

Man, oh man "Talladega Nights" was funny. Funny, funny, funny. Like make you hiccup funny because you're laughing so hard. Just the thought of Sasha Baron Cohen saying "Ricky Bobby" in that hideious french accent or the whole prayer to Baby Jesus brings a smile to face.

I can't believe anyone wouldn't want to see it. Who would be so lame to think the movie looks dumb and pass on a chance to see it? Especially when they go see "Tokyo Drift?"

Mercy me,

Our President just ensured that no college liberal arts Major ever wanting to appear cool and deep will ever study existentialism again:

Bush reads Camus's 'The Stranger' on ranch vacation

Dear Terrorists,

Fuck you. No really, fuck you. And I don't mean because of the whole "trying to blow people up bit" because that's really wrong and you people really need to go out more. Maybe get laid even. No, I'm talking about how you keep up on coming up with sneakier ways of attempting to blow us up on airplanes, things because of you are totally going to make flying that much worse.

Like this latest stung, liquid explosives. Now, thanks to you, we won't be able to get on a plane with a bottle of water or even bring toothpaste or deodorant or juice or anything like that. We already have to take our damn shoes off everytime we go through security which is like totally the dumbest thing ever, but now we have to have some security dude go through our toiletries to confiscate shaving cream and lipstick.

Thanks a fucking lot.

If you ever contemplate using iPods as an explosive, thus ensuring the banning of iPods on airplanes I will personally come to your house and beat the living shit out of you myself.

Of course, this would all be moot if someobody would just be courageous enough to say something along the lines of "shit happens, there's nothing we can really do about stuff like this and if somebody really wanted to blow up a plane, there's nothing we can do to stop them. So, we could either make you all come onto airplanes in nothing but PJs to ensure your safety, you could do that, or you could just accept the fact that the percentages of something happening are infitesimal and while we'll do our best to secure you, you can't let the terrorists get to you by making us throw your lipstick away before boarding a plane.

Which, of course, would never happen.

Speaking of which, I was watching CNN a few weeks ago and Wolf Blitzer was in Tel Aviv reporting on how Israelis were handling the latest crisis and threats of rockets coming down upon them. As Wolf talked about all the threats and potential of rocket attacks, he intercut it with shots of Israelis going about their business as if nothing was going on-- going to the beach, shopping, eating out at cafes. So Wolf goes out there and interviews all these Israelis about how they're getting on with all of this and every Israeli he talked just pretty much shrugged their shoulders and said something along the lines of "what are you going to do about it? You can't let stuff like this scare you." And every time Wolf heard this, he'd pretty much say with every dint of incredulous "but you could be hit by rockets. WHY AREN'T YOU SCARED!!!!!??????' To which the Israeli would then repeat the same thing and say "what are you going to do about i?" This only made Wolf even more incredulous as he went around and around wondering what the hell is wrong with these people.

It is amazing what weird things pop into your head in the middle of an extremely boring and long meeting. Like one minute you're sitting there, pretending to being paying attention and trying to stay away and then the next minute you get hit with the idea of downloading Rush's "Signals" off of iTunes.

Which I did, by the way as for whatever reason, it's my favorite Rush album.

Yeah, I'm back. Don't know where I've been lately (mainly fighting insomnia and going to the gym) but I'm going to try and post at least three times a week.

How's that?

For whatever reason, people use this to find out what's going on in Me-land and without the blog, I have to come up with things to say at parties whenever asked what I've been up to. I hate doing that.