Blah blah blog

I have no fucking idea why this is, but Blogger has put the "Blogs of Note" spotlight on a blog called Romseyredhead. I clicked on it hoping to see pictures of freckled fuckers but to no avail. What I found was possibly the most boring and incoherent pieces of shite on the web. It's a blog by a woman named Sandra Gidley in the UK, who is the Liberal Democrat MP for Romsey. I have no idea what that is, but just by reading the first couple of entries, I can see that she has nothing better to do than blather on about nothing worth reading. Which is probably what I'm doing as well.

Without copying too much text from her blog (you never know what the copyright police will come down on these days), here's a tasty tidbit:

My eye was caught by a new Labour female MP who was dozing off..... Dozing off during the budget is understandable (almost acceptable) but to see a newly elected MP dozing during what is supposedly the highlight of the parliamentary week... I am lost for words

What the fuck is that about? Why the hell does anybody want to read that? And more importantly, why in the hell does Blogger put the spotlight on shit like that? Okay, I may not be adding much more to the web than a chuckle for a few TNSCers over their morning coffee, but that Romseyreadhead blog is a total waste of time. At least she's not wasting paper.

Great expectations

I saw two movies in the last two days. Sin City on Tuesday, Revenge of the Sith on Wednesday night. Sin City I couldn't be more disappointed with, Star Wars III I couldn't be less disappointed with. One was filled with cliché after cliché, and the other had dumb line after dumb line. Oh wait, the other one had dumb line after dumb line too.

Sin City has been out for months now but it seemed like one of those "gotta see it on the big screen" flicks due to the neato-comic-book-style painting treatment visually. High expectations abounded. So I went to the AMC Van Ness 14 or 1000 or whatever it's called and checked out a matinee. About 6 people were in the theater and maybe that had something to do with it, but it felt as vapid and empty as the theater. How many times can you show the hero getting pounded and never dying? I can just hear Robert Rodriguez in his casting sessions: "Hey, we need a guy who can get beat up a lot and keeps living. Brad Pitt? Too expensive. I saw Bruce Willis do that in Die Hards 1, 2, 3, and 4. Get him, and cheap!" Dumb. Gratuitous violence and nudity, and thankfully none of Bruce Willis. Actually yes, there was too much of Bruce's naked flesh on the screen. Next.

Revenge of the Sith just opened to throngs of geeky viewers frothing at the mouth. Yes, I stood in line outside the AMC Van Ness 14 or 1000 or whatever it's called for about an hour (that's not super geeky, right?) in the drizzle to see it on opening night. We got flashed and mooned by a bunch of women in a hotel shuttle while we waited in line. After getting inside the theater, we were able to see the true geeky-ness of San Francisco Star Wars fans, which wasn't much. Yawn. Not a lot of people dressed up as Chewbacca or a Stormtrooper, but there were lots and lots of light sabers. A couple of guys went up to the front of the theater and staged a light saber battle in front of the screen. One guy was way too good with that thing for me not to believe he practices with it on a daily basis. The other guy got skewered and then some other kid came up and bum rushed his ass. The "bum-rusher" kid was way too agitated and we started to wonder when security would escort him out of there kicking and screaming. And crying for missing opening night of Star Wars.

The movie started and everybody cheered and you know the rest. I mean, how suspenseful can it be when you already know what's happening in the next three movies? Still, It was enjoyable to the point of not feeling like 2 1/2 hours had passed. And because my expectations were much lower than that of Sin City's, the movie was pretty great. After all the futuristic gadgets and flying machines on the screen, the crowd moped out to broken escalators all the way down. Use the force next time.

This is the end, beautiful friend

Well, this is the final installment of "Lee Lee the Musical Bee". I want to thank the TNSC robots for giving me a forum to blather on about anything I wanted to. And personal thanks to the probably three people who read "Lee Lee the Musical Bee" on a somewhat regular basis. I especially enjoyed it whenever somebody would e-mail or IM me and tell me that they almost peed their pants. Nothing is as magical as the ability to make somebody laugh so hard as to pee their pants. If that were a superpower, I think that's the one I would choose. And then the ability to magically make their pants clean again. Because people would get mad at me and not want to hang out with me as much. Anyways, I hope y'all have enjoyed at least one of my rants/blogs/whatevers.

One final quote from Henry Adams:

No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

The show to end all shows, or at least part of the show...

Last weekend I went down south to Indio for the annual Coachella music festival. Me and a bunch of high school pals just kickin' it in the desert. I probably mentioned the festival in my previous rant about how nobody should ever use Travelocity, ever. I'm not gonna let that one rest until I have that "reimbursement" they promised.

Some of the headliners were Coldplay, Nine Inch Nails, Weezer, New Order and Chemical Brothers. The overriding theme seemed to be: "Yes, yes we know. The 80's are back and now we're going to have a festival show about it. Blah blah blah." Except they left the hair metal bands out of the lineup.

It seems that the decades off have reminded a few of the bands where they ventured off their courses and started to blow in a major way. Example: New Order stuck completely to either their early stuff or their brand new album. Their set list screamed "I know our disco period was shit!" They even played a couple of Joy Division songs to make up for their disco misdeeds. Example #2: Gang of Four stayed away from material on their last couple of albums. I guess they couldn't afford to bring along the backup singer ladies.

But the one band from the late 70's / early 80's that played material from their whole catalog was Bauhaus. They stole the show. It proved they were right in breaking up and leaving their legacy intact. Peter Murphy made his entrance hanging from a rope upside down. They began with "Bela Lugosi's Dead" then moved throughout their catalog without staying too heavily into one album or another. "Stigmata Martyr", "In the Flat Field", "God in an Alcove", "She's in Parties" to name a few more.

They blew me away so intensely that I'm swearing off concerts for the time being. I mean, who's gonna top Bauhaus? I think I've now seen every band I've ever wanted to see, except for Iron Maiden of course - but that would have only been for the Powerslave tour.

Some truths I've discovered this week

- As a novice filmmaker, never write a bank scene into your script.

- There are no differences between the silhouettes of Marge Simpson and Erykah Badu.

- A person wearing white earphones doesn't mean that person has an iPod.

- Don't underestimate a band you previously liked and later disliked from coming out with an album with will blow you away.

- You can only stuff 3 Twinkies in your mouth and successfully down them in one minute.

- Putting a new battery in your iPod gives you the exact same feeling as getting a new iPod.

- The Dukes of Hazzard isn't as fun as you remember.

- No matter how bad the Star Wars movies get, you will go see the next one.

- Stop-motion is good because it's difficult.

- If you don't get your paperwork done at the end of the day, it will come back to bite you in the ass.

NAB 2005 review

The Las Vegas Convention Center was hopping with all sorts of techie activity this week at the annual National Association of Broadcasters convention. It's still going on, but nobody should stay in Vegas for more than 3 days. Especially me.

Synopsis:

- Apple was the winner.
- Avid was the tired loser.
- HD is about to be shoved down everybody's throats.

I worked at Apple a couple of weeks ago, and Steve Jobs came into my edit "suite" with a group of large men wearing white jumpsuits with iPod shuffles dangling from their necks. Two of the men grabbed my arms while another laid down a sheet of paper with the words "NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT" on the top. A circular robot similar to the one in Star Wars that floated into Princess Leia's cell hovered into the room. It had a syringe attached to one of its robotic arms. I yanked my right arm away from one of the henchmen and quickly signed the form. The group of henchmen let out a collective "awwwwwwww" and slumped out of the room. Mr. Jobs just smiled and nodded his head as he rolled up the paper and handed it to the robot. They left and I got back to work. Anyway, because of that I can't really mention anything about Apple except for stuff that was announced at NAB.

Final Cut Pro 5 was announced. A whole Final Cut Studio which includes FCP, Motion, Soundtrack Pro, and DVD Studio Pro was also announced. Across the aisle, Avid was showing a demo with some 3D footage that looked like it was rendered in 1995 of a Mini Cooper. Avid played testosterone-driven rock through their soundsystem. It was sad. It just felt odd. Avid wasn't really introducing anything new other than the ability to do HD on all their systems, while FCP5 was closing the gap on functionality with multi-cam editing.

But basically everybody was touting their HD capabilities. Nobody seemed to care if your product could do SD. Even though the majority of consumers won't be upgrading their home TVs for at least another year, it felt like the collective NABers were over the hump as far as incorporating HD into their facilities. Even the small-time booths aiming for the chump-change folks like myself had HD gear to sell.

Autodesk changed Discreet's name to Autodesk, Quantel is fading from our memories. Adobe didn't have anything new to say. Sony is still the biggest fish in the pond, and Panasonic had the most forward-thinking product to release: removable disk-cards for shooting, which imports into editing systems at 4x realtime. No more kicking back and drinking way too much coffee while the tapes load. Yippee.

Shaggy

I got my haircut the other day. I didn't really need it, but rather than letting my hair go way longer than the standard 3 months I usually do, it seemed like a good idea. You know. Give the hairdresser something similar to go for, rather than the complete overhaul.

The last time I got my hair cut I was in Seattle. I decided to go to this reportedly hip place called Rudy's Barber Shop on Capitol Hill. The hairdresser at Rudy's was this 80's punker chick with jet black hair and a ring through her lip. She definitely didn't want to have anything more to do with me than chopping my hair and taking my money. She sang the words to the Gang of Four songs from "Entertainment" blaring through their sound system. She didn't talk to me. That was okay because I didn't have anything witty to say other than possibly, "Ya know I used to love these guys back in the 80's. Back before you were born." There was one other person in the joint, and he looked older than me. I began to wonder how hip this place could be if there were nothing but a bunch of old fogies there. She finished up and I paid 20 bucks, which included a decent tip. Good deal.

I hated it. I walked around for the next two weeks wondering why the hell I got my hair cut at a cheap barber shop instead of going to a stylist. The people I worked for looked at me like I was a victim. I felt like a victim. I decided not to get my haircut again for a while. But 3 weeks later it looked pretty good, so around then I was thinking it's too bad there's no Rudy's in San Francisco.

How quickly we forget. About 8 weeks into this haircut it was looking a little shaggy. Not long, mind you, but hair was extending beyond the tops of the ears, and when the wind blew (as it has a lot lately) it bugged the crap out of me.

I've been to almost every haircutting joint in my vicinity. I walk out of each and every one hating the cut. I'm beginning to think it's my weird little thing to go through life and never find a place where I get my regular old haircut. So the one place that I actually think the haircuts aren't that bad was the one I decided to go back to this time. Oxenrose in Hayes Valley.

Oxenrose is the most uber-hipster-styley mecca in San Francisco. I am not worthy of getting service there. The clientele is kids in their 20's with gear from Diesel, Urban Outfitters, and the used clothing stores that nobody knows about but them. These kids have every cool accessory, and ONLY cool accessories. My friends think I have some idea of what's hip, but I walk in there and I stick out like a sore thumb.

Assured that I would walk out of Oxenrose minimally-annoyed-but-nonethless-satisfied, I made an appointment. A day later I'm getting my haircut by a girl who's (I only call her a girl because of...) turning 21 in a couple weeks. 21. Couldn't they have told me this BEFORE she started cutting? I don't care how hip you look, you need to cut hair for about 3 years before you get to work in the most hip spot in town. She also told me this is the only place she's worked at. After telling me she's worked there for almost a year.

One should be allowed to get out of the chair and switch to another one at that point. But I'm way too nice to do that. So I let her finish, and I kept telling myself on the way home that I'd just shower and put some gunk in my hair and it would look stellar. Lily thinks I look like Frankenstein. So at this point, I think I'm going to either invest in some head-shaving gear or it's gonna be a grunge revival for yours truly.

Earphones can kill.

I bought a pair of Shure e2c's a couple weeks ago. They sound great. I heard elements of my music I've never heard before. And they seal off the outside world so much that I no longer have to hear the dancepop crap they play at my local gym.

On all the review boards I read prior to buying these earphones, they consistently warned about them being dangerous to wear in the outside world because they block the outside world so well. But did I listen? Hell no. I mean, I listened to the earphones but not the boards... uh, nevermind.

I was walking around downtown listening to the new Beck album (which is pretty great by the way), and as I was jaywalking between two trucks in the loading zone, I neglected to hear the #4 bus barreling down Sutter. At the last possible moment, I sprinted out of the way and I barely escaped being run over. But in doing so, I ran into a group of very large tourist ladies from Ohio. One of the ladies believed I was a terrorist because of the way I darted between cars so she smacked me in the head with her Kate Spade knock-off bag. I landed on the sidewalk already out cold.

Apparently I was unconscious for a few days. The hospital was feeding me through a tube to keep me alive, but my mom objected to this because the pope (the prior pope, that is) majorly disapproved of the way the Terri Schiavo thing was handled. That was, until the pope himself had to have his breakfast, lunch, and dinner delivered via tube.

Anyway, as I lay there unconscious I vividly dreamt of having a long meeting with the president and CEO of Travelocity, Michelle Peluso, about why they don't owe me any money. It all made sense to me as she explained it, but by the end of the dream she had turned into Satan and Dick Cheney was wiping her ass with the constitution.

I guess the doctors figured I was a goner, and they didn't want Lily to endure the same torture as Michael Schiavo. They give up so easily once a precedent is set. As they were pulling the feeding tube from my nose I woke up. I clearly remember it smelling awful as I awoke. Somebody had farted. I looked around the room, and along with Lily, my mom and the accountant at Digital Kitchen was the saleswoman from the Apple store who sold me the Apple in-ear earphones (that's a redundant name for those things). Apparently she felt responsible for my accident and she wanted to personally apologize to my family. So all my griping about her farts in a previous rant was a little premature. Sometime somebody's gas just might save your life. It's kind of like the saying from Lankavatara Sutra: "Things are not what they seem; Nor are they otherwise."

Never use Travelocity.

First the short version:

- They sold me a hotel room.
- They ensured me it was available and charged my credit card.
- The hotel then told me they've been sold out for months.
- Travelocity told me no rooms were available.
- No resolution.

Now the really long-winded version:
(Just stop reading now, and save yourself some time and never use Travelocity.)

I'm going to the annual Coachella festival in Indio, California at the end of April. A bunch of high school buddies and me will meet in Burbank and drive over to the Palm Desert area where we will go to our hotel and party down for a few nights. And then we'll go and see lots of fun bands like Bauhaus, New Order, Weezer, Wilco, Gang of Four, Fantomas, blah blah blah.

We divvied up the chores to get this thing done and I (stupidly) volunteered to get the hotel room. Everything around there that was affordable was sold out. I looked on Yahoo! Travel (which says Travelocity on it) and their site said they could book these cheaper hotels that were sold out on other sites. I booked it as fast as I could. Then I received my e-mail confirmation:

First line of e-mail:
YOUR TRIP TO INDIAN WELLS IS CONFIRMED

Page down:
YOUR TRIP HAS NOT BEEN CONFIRMED WITH THE HOTEL

Now how in the hell can that happen? Shouldn't a travel site not list a hotel that isn't available? Isn't that the whole reason you put in the dates you want to book there in the first place? Call me crazy.

So I call Yahoo! Travel and get somebody from halfway across the planet I'm sure, and she is of no help at all and basically tells me I should cancel my reservation. Great. Thanks for your help. I go to Travelocity's site and see that the room is still listed as available. Not wanting to make the same mistake, I pick up the phone and call Travelocity and tell the lady what happened to me at Yahoo! Travel and I saw that these rooms are still available. She took a look and ensured me that the rooms were available. I told her to book the rooms for me, and she did. She sent me an e-mail receipt with confirmation not like the earlier one, which contradicted itself.

I let it be for a month. Am I dumb or what? Then I decide to call the hotel and make sure that my reservation is there. The lady at the hotel gets all pissed at me and tells me I don't have any reservation, and she's been sold out since November. Great. So I call Travelocity and the fellow halfway across the globe tells me matter-of-factly that the reservation isn't confirmed.

This is the part where anyone who knows me can envision me completely blowing my lid and letting the motherfucker have it. He basically told me to cancel my reservation and book another one. Right. This is the part where anyone who knows me can envision me completely blowing my lid and letting the motherfucker have it. I asked for a manager. He told me that the managers were all busy and I'd have to hold for some time. This is the part where anyone who knows me can envision me completely blowing my lid and letting the motherfucker have it.

Anyways, there is still no resolution to this point and I'll probably be reserving a much more expensive hotel room much further away from the venue. All I can say is: Never use Travelocity.

Apple Store adventures - part 2

Being in the Apple Store in downtown San Francisco is kind of surreal. There are a bunch of people aimlessly moving slowly from computer to computer, gadget to gadget. It's the store where you can actually buy cool. All I wanted were some new headphones. And I heard the Apple In-Ear headphones were good.

I asked the Apple store representative about the In-Ear headphones. She told me they were amazing, and explained how she liked them better than the stock earbuds that come with any iPod because her ears were too small. Then I think she farted. I didn't hear it, but she was kinda squirming around while she was telling me about the fact that the Sony earbud headphones had a cord that wrapped around the back of your ear. And then it smelled stinky. I tried to hold my breath for as long as I could, but it was futile. I was about ready to hand her the 40 bucks and run, just so I could get away from the stench. For a moment I thought my friend Jesse laid it because he moved away from where we were standing as soon as I smelled it. He denied it.

Anyway, these Apple In-Ear headphones have got to be the worst I have ever heard. I had these lame Koss earbud-style phones a while back that had poor sound quality, but at least it was a listenable experience. The Apple earphones had absolutely NO bass whatsoever. They fall out of my ears on average about every 2 minutes.

After finding the article on the web that describes the "prescribed insertion method" for these things, I realized it was all me. Operator error. Suddenly these things had great sound and they sealed off the outside world nicely so all I heard was the music. Well, until about 10 seconds later. The canalphones (as they're now called) lost their seal and there went the bass.

Now I'll have to pay the fart lady a visit at the downtown Apple Store again. Hopefully she'll remember that she told me I could "try 'em for two weeks and if I didn't like 'em, bring 'em back." If she doesn't rememeber, maybe if I tell her she farted while telling me the tech specs, it'll jog her memory.

Taxes suck.

That is all.

Spam n' eggs, Spam n' spam...

Today I actually clicked on some of those spam e-mails I always delete. The temptation to get free Starbucks for a year was too much to resist. So after getting my free Starbucks for a year coupon, I decided to head over to the local Starbucks and get a triple mocha latte with extra whip. It worked! Being the planner-aheader that I am, I brought my notebook computer so I could test the waters of spam again.

I logged on at the comfy sofas at the Starbucks that used to be called Circadia on the corner of Mariposa and Bryant, kitty-corner to the Muni bus barn. After signing into my Yahoo mail account, I found 69 bulk e-mails that were ripe for the picking. Just as I was about to click on one with the subject line "Mexican Pharmacy tj" my iPod ran out of juice. There's not much that will take the wind out of your sails easier than having your iPod die. Especially while it's in the middle of "Red Alert" by Basement Jaxx.

Suddenly, like an angel descending from heaven, the words "Claim your Apple iPod 40GB" glowed from my computer screen. Click. Almost immediately a punk rock bike messenger was handing over a box and demanding my signature. Unfortunately the iPod was the damn U2 version and had nothing loaded on it except for U2. There's always some hitch when stuff is free. Thank god for Under a Blood Red Sky.

This spam thing was like a dream come true. Actually it was like having unlimited wishes, but always with some loophole in the wish making it not exactly what you wanted. I was having so much fun consolidating my debt and selecting new desktop computers, I neglected to check my battery usage. I clicked on every single spam link, and the last one from Conjurer H. Giggling had the subject line asking "Leegardnersf wanna play? knead" This one sounded kinda odd, but hey how bad could it be? I envisioned myself playing "knead the bread dough" or playing "knead the sore calf muscle" at Starbucks as the baristas cleaned the espresso machines for the next morning. Instead, some huge hairy dude in a wrestling outfit busted through the door. He wore a jock strap and protective cup on the OUTSIDE of his singlet. "WHO'S LEEGARDNERSF?" He shouted into the room full of computer caffeine addicts. He shouted "WHO WANTS TO PLAY KNEED?" Now I understood. Knead. Check.

My computer ran out of juice and shut off. The wrestler guy barreled over to a sofa near the door. I silently said "Oh fuck" to myself. He angrily confronted a web design-y hipster. "YOU LEEGARDNERSF?" I discreetly closed my computer and got the hell outta there. I hopped on the 22 Fillmore and listened to "With or Without You" for the 20th time that afternoon. When I arrived home, I plugged my computer in and looked for some new bulk e-mails in my Yahoo account. There were too many to count. I clicked on "Paris Hotels $49 a night." Nothing. Clicked again. Nothing. I clicked on "Need Quick Cash?" Nothing. It looks like I better just realize that spam is just spam. Unless it's spam n' eggs. Or bacon eggs n' spam. Or spam spam n' spam...

One of our finest

Did you watch the Academy Awards? Did you see the part where Chris Rock was asking who the hell Jude Law was? Man that was funny. I mean, we all know that Jude Law is a huge star now. He's a hottie, right? That's all it takes. Hottie? Star. Not really, because I'm wondering why Adriana Lima isn't a huge star yet if that's the formula.

Did you see the part on the Academy Awards where Sean Penn came out and tried to one-up Chris Rock by saying Jude Law "is one of OUR finest actors"? Oh shit, man. What a pompous ass. I can just see Sean Penn backstage snorting a fat line of blow and doing the requisite double sniff afterwards to make sure he got all of it up his schnoz, then telling his coke buddies how he was gonna set the record straight on Jude Law. It could have only been a better made-for-TV moment if Mr. Law were actually in attendance because he was such a fine actor that he'd be up for an award for one of the 10-fucking-million movies he was in last year.

Unfortunately, none of the people at the house party I was at caught the retort from Chris Rock later in the show. But I read it online. He apparently said something about his accountants wanting a word with Mr. Penn. Lame. It's Chris Rock for cryin' out loud! He LIVES for shit like that. Please, Chris Rock, don't let Penn get away with being a stuffy shit. I can't decide what was more disappointing - that, or the fact that Adriana Lima wasn't up for best actress.

Grounded

I flew back from Seattle last Friday, and boy are my arms tired! (Insert drums and crash sound effect here).
Actually, I had probably one of the more miserable flying experiences in recent memory, and that's saying a lot. I know, I know, you're probably saying "Golly, Lee, you're always griping about stuff that happens on airplanes. What could possibly be more miserable than:
a. Almost having to pee your pants while the flight crew blocks your entrance to the toilet.
b. Getting smacked on the head by the Frenchman in the seat behind you.
c. Being held at gunpoint on a hijacked plane."

Okay, so C never happened, and I hope it doesn't ever happen. But the other two are in fact, fact. Well, this time it was nothing in particular. Except maybe that the stewardessesses skipped me and the gentleman next to me whilst giving out complimentary feces-laden water and juices and soda with feces-laden ice cubes. That, and the lady behind me kept letting her newspaper rest on my head.

Lately I've noticed the pilots of these planes are becoming a little more aggressive with their flight maneuvers. I mean, do they think they're some ace pilots hot-dogging in the friendly skies? If so, we can probably find a nice flight pattern over Iraq or Afghanistan to hot-dog it at will whilst dodging the scud missiles or whatever the US Gov't sold them a while back. IT'S A DAMN PASSENGER PLANE. TREAT IT AS SUCH. Lily made the analogy of a bus driver maneuvering like he's driving a sportscar. I've seen that on Muni. It ain't pretty.

Whoever the fuck was flying this Alaska Air MD80 decided to take the super-agrro pattern while coming in to land at SFO. I looked out the window and we were heading straight toward the San Mateo bridge. That or the surrounding WATER. I felt queasy. I don't normally feel queasy on flights. I looked up toward the front of the cabin and saw just about everybody looking out their windows. About 15 rows in front of me somebody puked. Hopefully into the little barf bag nobody seems to notice anymore.

Now this has nothing to do with weather, or mechanical issues, or anything. It has to do with some asshole in the cockpit who thinks he's some slick pilot who could do wonders in a smaller plane. Let me tell you, we were all pretty fucking impressed. I am so gonna say YOU SUCK to the smiling trio in the cabin the next time something like this happens. But I ain't flying for a while. That, or I'm gonna push the limits of how many in-flight drinks you can buy.

El Presidente

I received an e-mail today containing a letter written by John Cleese. It was a notification of revocation of our independence from England. Apart from being totally hilarious, it made a good point about us not being able to elect a competent president, and now we have to do a bunch of things in a proper Brit fashion. It's too bad. We were becoming a pretty good country. I mean, not too long ago who didn't want to be an American? Now half of America is ashamed to be American. I know I am. We're represented by a buffoon. And to the rest of the world, it looks like we want him in the oval office.

And this Monday we're supposed to pay homage? What is it that we're supposed to do exactly on President's Day? I can understand most of the other holidays. At least the American ones. Independence day = grill, drink beer, blow stuff up. Thanksgiving = eat. President's Day = ?

I think I'm gonna write a letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle (a fine newspaper if you're normally into reading the Weekly World News) and preach to the choir a little. Maybe say something about the fact that we're better off giving a day to pay homage to John Cleese than this fucking nimrod we call our leader. Hopefully I won't be the only one. We should all do something to pay homage. Wear a FUCK BUSH shirt. Stick a flag with Bush's face on it in some poo. Anything.

I'm also starting a campaign immediately - GAVIN FOR PRESIDENT 2008!

me & my me & my me & my me & my me & my ...

Last week one of my "friends" in Seattle invited to me to go to his friend's house to watch the superbowl in HD. Now if that's not one of the best things you can hope for while you're on the road, I don't know what is. So on Super Sunday I call my "friend" around 3 hours before kickoff. Left a message. No callback. Left another message about an hour before kickoff. No callback. So I proceeded to watch the game in my hotel room with no beer and nobody to sing "Live and Let Die" with.

I had a Superbowl party at my house 2 years ago. Lily and I stocked up on food and beverages. People came over. We even had a mock Superbowl before the real one using Madden 98 on Playstation 1. Raiders vs. Bucs. I was the Raiders. And just like the in real game, the Raiders lost. I vaguely remember getting my ass handed to me just like the Raiders did. Even though none of us were really fans of either team (we were mildly rooting for the local team), we still had a great time.

Okay, back to the 2005 Super Sunday. That day in the hotel I understood what the hell Super Sunday is really about. It's not about watching a game. It's about hanging out with your friends. Which is what most events are about. Unless you're my friends who are Giants season-ticket holders - in which case, it's about watching a game. But it's also about drinking. Drinking a lot of beer. But that wouldn't be any fun unless your friends were there too. So when you decide to go to tonight's venue, remember that the "S" in TNSC is for "Social". And buy your friend a drink.

LLMB020305

As I was putting the finishing touches on the 203rd edit I've been working on, I remembered that I hadn't writtten this week's edition of "Lee Lee the Musical Bee". I thought about it for a minute, and what was noteworthy in recent memory. Like the fact that my car had been broken into, but being as my car is a beater and we don't keep anything but melted cassette tapes and grocery bags in there, there was nothing to steal. Then I realized that all that was just me recalling working on the edit and thinking about the car thing and whether I should write about that, while I was at this "music" event in the basement of 222 Club listening to a guy warp a rasta voice on his laptop while a gal played an endless loop that she too was warping. It was kind of mind-numbing, but at least I had earplugs. It was such a drone that it brought me back to my gig in Seattle that went full-circle and eventually was killed. Maybe that would be good to rant about. But then I emerged from the blackout I was in while drinking myself silly with the writer of the ad, who had just recently moved from San Francisco and was pining for his days of watching "football" matches at Mad Dog in the Fog with his buddies. And all that was just an endorphin space out after a hard bike ride through Golden Gate park where I came across a new dirt trail and narrowly escaped the lusty come-hither look of a guy in the bushes that made me pedal the hell outta there. And then I woke up this morning and remembered that I hadn't written this week's edition of "Lee Lee the Musical Bee."

Born Again

On Saturday my computer died. I hadn't even touched it or moved it for hours. It was playing some music through iTunes. Perhaps the Mail app was open. Then it started making a crunching noise. Not a good, "wow, my CPU is really churning through some data" kind of noise. But a "wow, that sounds like my hard drive is eating itself" kind of noise. Without running through my complete list of tech repair maneuvers, let's just say it was the first time in my computing experience that it truly seemed dead.

Enter Apple Computer tech support. If you're a gambler like me, you don't buy the "extended care" plan you're always offered whenever you buy a piece of tech gear. If you gamble and you lose, what Apple wants you to do is go down to your nearest Apple Store and belly up to the "Genius Bar". You can sign up online for a place in line, so you can limit your waiting to 2 hours or so. During which, you watch helpless souls try to figure out why their iPod doesn't play anymore. You watch a friendly "Genius" explain to an elderly couple how to set up and use a Mac - which is slightly more difficult than plugging in your VCR and setting the time. You check your place in line on the iMac G5 nearby. You check it again. And again. And again. At this point you start to wonder where you can buy the new Apple "ProCare" card. Only 99 bucks for the ability to actually schedule an appointment with the "Genius" of your choice, instead of waiting in line with cheap bastards like me.

And then... my name was called. I told the Genius who called himself "E" that I ran the hardware test CD and it said my drive was dead, so I wanna use my warranty while it's still in effect and put it in the shop. He told me to hold up and then plugged in his firewire drive. He couldn't find an OS. He asked me if I backed up my computer recently. I had done so, and he promptly erased my drive. He had me install the OS right there at the bar. Voila! Good as new. E is a goddamn Genius.

The moral of the story is this: Back up your computer as often as possible. So DO IT NOW. If not, I'll look forward to reading your rant in the near future.

living large

Some people think that if you're taking business trips and living out of a hotel, then you've like hit the big time or something. You check into a room and stay there for weeks at a time. WOOHOO! High-rollin' playa. I used to think that. Then it became a reality for me. The only thing that's posh about hotel living is the fact that you can get out of bed and not do anything about its messyness. You come back from work and the bed is made again. Sweet. Other than that, hotel living kinda sucks. I have to reconfigure my mind to which channel ESPN is on. There's no stereo. And I feel like I'm fighting housekeeping about keeping a glass on the nightstand for water.

There is a strange phenomenon going on with the current hotel though. It's this weird game I'm involuntarily playing with housekeeping: Every day I come back to the hotel and find a new bar of hotel soap, wrapped in this hotel chain's paper, and there's another hotel-sized bottle of shampoo. It's always sitting on the edge of the tub on top of the bathmat, which has been folded in that weird hotel way to emphasize its girth. So I take the soap and shampoo and put it next to the tissue box. As of today I have 6 bars of soap and 5 bottles of shampoo. I can't remember how the numbers diverged, but it doesn't matter.

I can't honestly understand how somebody who takes so much care to fold the towels in such a way as to do the "fannning out in a clamshell shape" day after day wouldn't notice the growing mountain of soap and shampoo next to the tissues. Do they think that I can possibly use a whole bar of soap and an entire bottle of shampoo in one day? Why don't they take them back? I'm really gonna mess with their minds by putting all the stuff back on the edge of the tub when I leave. Apparently these things are invisible to them unless it's on the edge of the tub. Or maybe it's their way of letting me know I've hit the big time.

Fly the Friendly Skies

I've been on far too many airplanes recently. So much so that it's becoming less like a rare treat and more like getting on a bus. I've become aware of the power of alcohol for making the bus ride a little less nerve-ridden. On my most recent adventure, I made my way through the throngs of suits to find a bar in the "B-travel" section (which includes ATA, AmericaWest, and AlaskaAirlines). It was the only bar that had sports on the TV. I promptly ordered a pint of Anchor Steam. The guy sitting at the table next to mine slammed his pint, then followed that up with what I could only guess was a Jack n' Coke. Another woman bellied up to the bar and was there for about a minute and left a bottle of Heineken behind. What a magic trick! After looking around at all the people who looked like they travel more regularly than I do, and seeing how many drinks they had, I figured I better have another Anchor.

Time came to get aboard the flying bus, so I went down to the gate and boarding had already begun. I got into my seat and we took off. As we were passing through ten-thousand feet, the thought of urinating started becoming an obsession. But the "fasten seat belts" light was still illuminated, so I counted to 10 countless times. Finally the light went off and I turned to head to the closet in the rear they refer to as a "restroom". The beverage cart was already coming down the aisle, so I started toward the restroom in the front of the plane. Occupied. The first class attendant (named Cathy) ordered me to wait at row 6 - the first row outside of first class. Luckily there was nobody there, so I took a seat and tapped my foot for about 2 minutes.

One of the pilots exited the cabin and tapped Cathy on the shoulder. She took a key from her pocket and unlocked the restroom which was marked "Occupied". He went in. Okay, so I'd been had. The restroom was never occupied at all and Cathy knew this. I had to go to the little zen place in my mind to get over this. Meanwhile another stewardess (named Theresa) came to the front to sub for Cathy, who had just gone into the cabin to provide a little naughtiness to the flight crew I'm sure. The pilot who had just dropped a load went back into the cabin. I waited another minute and started toward the bathroom, which I was now sure was free. Theresa blocked my entry and said, "No, you have to wait". I said "But there's nobody in there." She told me to go back to row 6. I saw that the beverage cart was still blocking my way to the restrooms in the rear. I was about ready to make a break for the front restroom, but instead I went to that little zen place in my mind again and politely said to Theresa "I have to use the bathroom." This really set Theresa off so she got in a huff and told Kirk (our other flight attendant) to move the cart so I could get by to the rear bathroom. I wonder if I should start wearing Depends to the airport. Live and learn.