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.

Saw this on a message board and thought it was pretty darn clever:

A world-wide survey on food shortage was conducted by the UN. The only question asked was: "Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world?"

The survey was a huge failure...

In Africa they didn't know what "food" meant.
In Eastern Europe they didn't know what "honest" meant.
In Western Europe they didn't know what "shortage" meant.
In China they didn't know what "opinion" meant.
In the Middle East they didn't know what "solution" meant.
In South America they didn't know what "please" meant.
And in the USA they didn't know what "the rest of the world" meant

For the past couple of days, somebody has been calling my land line every half-an-hour or so and not leaving a message. Now, I no longer pick up the land line as most people call me on my cell and I usually figure that anyone who calls it is probably somebody I don't want to talk to. Like a telemarketer. But throughout all Sunday and Monday night, that sucker was ringing and ringing and ringing.

Naturally, this drove me crazy.

If it was a telemarketer, them calling every half an hour or so is probably not the best way of going about it as it's a sure fire way of pissing somebody off. If it was a friend, call on the cell. Or, more importantly, instead of calling every half an hour to see if I was there, leave a damn message.

Finally, sometime tonight, I picked up the phone just to berate whoever it was who was calling me. Who was it?

Wrong number.

A few odds and sods since I haven't posted in awhile

-I was at Safeway a few weeks ago and there was a woman behind me at the register. She was huge, like beyond fat into a whole other realm of fatness. Her entire purchase consisted of everything diet-- diet coke, diet snacks, diet frozen food. So the question is raised-- at that much fatness, how much does drinking diet coke instead of coke really matter? And really, if you want to lose weight, should you even be drinking coke?

-And yes, I enjoyed the Bush caught on tape thing as much as the next person, although I have to admit if I didn't hate the dude so much, it would be kind of endearing in a slobs vs. the snobs kind of way. On the other hand, you could totally envision how pretty much the exact second he leaves one of those summit things, all the other leaders instantly start gossiping about what outrage he had committed this time. Also, the best part wasn't him cursing or his talking while eating (seriously, did he even try to cover up his mouth? Blair seems like he's a bit on the stuffy, anal retentive streak too so you could imagine what he was thinking) was his little discussion with the guy from China about how long it would take to go home and how China is a big country and Russia is a big country too. Besides the fact it proves that even in private, he still has an amazing ability to say completely obvious, no duh things, and yet make it sound as if he was imparting some greater wisdom, he is such the Ugly American.

-Sick over the weekend and because walking the four or five blocks to the video store would be such an ordeal, downloaded episodes of 24 off itunes and started watching it. I had always heard it was a great show and everyone at the water cooler supposedly watches it (I actually don't really know anyone who does, but the bloggers love it) and all I can say is, eh, not bad. I like the gimmick and I like the plot and think it's pretty clever what they're doing. And yes, I'm into the story-line (it's the first season), but.... first of all, the whole daughter being kidnapped by frat dudes is pretty unbelievable. And yeah, I realize you need to have some sort of suspension of disbelief to watch it, but that's a little too much. As is the idea of a black guy about to be elected President (just joking). Actually, the other thing is a plane gets blown up over LA and the leading contendor for President has some sort of European hitman after him and nobody seems that panicked. Maybe a little panicked, but not that much panicked. It's more like they're all just having a bad day. Not on "Oh My God" kind of bad day.

-And finally I watched the infamous Chappelle Show skit which caused Dave to quit, the racist pixie one. If you remember correctly, Dave quit because some white guy laughed at the wrong moment and made Dave think not everyone was getting the point of his comedy. Anyways, I laughed out loud a few times during the skit. Which makes me wonder if I laughed at the right moment or the wrong one?

I hope you're all enjoying the start of WWIII as much as I have. Didn't this whole thing start off with the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers Archduke and Ferdinand? Actually, according to memebers of the Rapture Ready Web site, all of this is good. In fact, those guys are so giddy I'm about expecting all of my good Christian friends to disappear at any moment. Unfortunately, I don't know any so that'll make things a tad more difficult.

You know, it's amazing just how much the world could possibly go to hell just by the doings of one person. That one person, of course, being our President. How is that bringing safety and security to the world thing going?

And what does it say that I've spent most of the first weekend of the Apocolypse being all flu-ridden and watching Vh-1's "I Love the 70's Volume 2?"

BTW- I noticed Anderson Cooper is already in Northern Israel reporting the story. Does he have to go everywhere a story goes? Should we expect him to show up in a few days somewhere in Beirut getting shelled? Maybe one day, he'll just do a Dr. Strangelove and attach himself to a rocket being fired from somewhere. And nothing shows how lame cable news can be when something like this happens. Those transactions from death and mayhem and war to Natalee Holloway and hour-long documentaries on Brad Pitt are that more awkward.

So we're conducting a little experiment here on Blogger and possibly adding something new to the site. What the hell, I haven't changed it in almost five years.

Anyways, this photo shows just what happens to you if you go to the theater.

So I'm at a bar long after the end of the World Cup, afloat in post-Cup revelry and I'm talking to some woman at the bar. She tells me that she rooted for Italy because she hates France. Why? Because they do crazy things like protesting to have jobs that they get to keep for the rest of their lives once they leave college. And so I tell her, "what's wrong with that? Can't you appreciate the whole slacker-ness of it?"

Her reply? "Don't you believe in the American Way?"

And my reply? "Whu?"

PS- is there anything that sums up golf more than the fact that there's a tournament sponsored by an erectile dysfunction medicine? And is there anything more un-hip than turning on ABC on sunday and going "God damnit, why aren't they showing the Cialis Open instead of this soccer crap?"

While flipping through the channels one night, I saw yet another moment that seemed to sum up The Way Things Are more than anything I could think of. Even more than having ESPN shorten the TV screen during the Italy/Germany game to let everyone know Kobiyoshi beat some American dude at the hot dog eating contest.

Anyways, what I flipped past Fox News and saw Whoppi Goldberg herself debating Sean Hannity. And for a second, I thought "cool, someone smart, intelligent, and liberal is finally stepping up to take on the Seanster." And then I realized that I was cheering on Whoopi Goldberg and stopped. So Whoopi goes on and very intelligently and logically points out that liberals hatred of Bush isn't irrational, or at least is just as irrational as conservatives loathing of Bill Clinton. To wish Hannity vehemently denied and then went on a five minute rant about why he absolutely hates Clinton.

And here it is, your moment of Zen as it were: speaking up for one side is some freakish looking blowhard lame-ass celebrity who most intelligent lefty's would wish just keep their stupid mouths shut vs. a loud-mouthed idiot with not a dint that they grasp any sort of reality or self-awareness.

Because I'm now older and still trying to live young while living in a city full of older people still trying to live young, the question of when and when not to still be hip is one of major concern. Luckily, as I have never been truly hip, this dilemna doesn't really affect me that much. It does, however, affect others. To whit, when to give up on the hipster look and when to still hold true. The line between hip and pathetic, like the line between clever and stupid, is negligable.

I did, however, come to a pretty major conclusion on all of this while walking around the hood the other day: if you are in your mid-thirties and a woman, and you are wearing a fake leopard skin jacket that falls to your knees while also wearing a black t-shirt that reveals the belly rolls you have aquired from too much Pabst drinking, you might consider giving up the hipster look.

Oh wait, one more thing about the concert. As I was sitting there, this group of about three youngish granola girls walk by. From somewhere behind me, another granola woman runs up to them and gives a hug to one of the three women. Guess they hadn't seen each other in awhile. Anyways, they sit down next to me and start talking. Sadly, I didn't hear all of the conversation and missed a lot of the best parts, but here's what I do remember. And it doesn't really matter what I missed out, anyways, because the fragments I heard pretty much say it all:

"Alison, this is my friends Ariel and Amber....we met in Mexico...I just got back from Guatamela...hiked in Peru...she's in Mexico right now...there's an election there tomorrow....and she's in Palestine working for some art colloborative....it's totally non-confrontational-- they try and show the conflict through the eyes of the artist...the community garden is doing great...I haven't seen him since we were at Toby's place that one night for dinner where we stayed up all night and planted beets....Oh, he's traveling America I think just selling things and, you know, planting beets....he's going to stay with an art colloborative in Santa Fe...I love their community garden...."

And just another San Francisco Saturday....

Running some errands, I go into Wahlgreen's and came out only to see a funeral procession drive by. It was for some kid, a victim of gang-related violence. As his friends all drove by in their souped up cars, honking their horns, they all shouted "R.I.P" and wore the victim's face on their t-shirts. I finally crossed over and went by the 16th Street BART station. On the bench by the station was another whacked out probably homeless woman, sitting there all spaced out, with what looked like a nip showing. It was, fully out there for everyone to see. I know because I walked by and saw it-- I couldn't look away. And no, not because I'm a guy and I wanted to see some boobie, but mainly because the whole thing was already a car wreck and I had to see just how awful the car wreck was.

And from there, I went off to Dolores Park to see the SF Opera Symphony play some opera free for the crowds. It was a beautiful day, the Park was crowded, and the music was, well, it was opera. Make that of you will. It being in Dolores Park, however, the crowd didn't quite look like normal opera crowds. Let's just say that it was one more event that just went on to prove that not only is the Mission made up of some of the most unattractive people, but that hipsters just don't do well in the sun.

So yes, you got it...gangland funeral, boob baring smack-head, and opera. All within a couple of blocks from each other.

Now how about that?

Oh, one more thing, next to my friend and I at the park were bike messenger/homeless guy types. You know, haven't showered in awhile, ratty hair, all in black-- that type. As soon as they settle down, they start smoking dope. Why not, it's a concert? Second thing they did was open up a plastic container of Tofurkey and make a little picnic out of it. Cause, yep, here in SF, our grungy homeless types are veggie.

I never thought I'd ever say this, but here goes--- Go France.