A Freeway of Their Own

So I’m driving to Monterey on Highway 17 at about 80 miles an hour when I spy something coming toward me out of the corner of my eye. It’s spherical, it’s bouncing, and it’s coming straight for me. What the fuck do I do? It’s a two-lane freeway and there’s a car on my right and some fucking roofing jackass riding my ass completely oblivious of the car in front of me and what appears to be a baseball rapidly approaching. I start to slow but realize this fucking baseball is gonna hit me no matter what. I quickly try to think what Picard would do in this situation, as I do in most dire emergencies, but the only thing that comes to mind is some delicious hot tea. Damn you Picard! Where are you when I need you–too late, the baseball bounces directly underneath my car’s undercarriage, loudly ricocheting off the engine block and bouncing back at the roofing jackass behind me. Great, I finally get this hunk a junk back together and the local Little League decides to start expanding their outfield into traffic. Who gets hit with random baseball? The question mark (oooo scary) that’s who. So for the next hour I’m driving at varying speeds, listening intently for some indication of engine malfunction. A couple times I think I hear a rattling, then a knocking, but then it goes away. Hmm. Well touche National Passtime, you’ve succesfully now managed to both bore and scare me to death.

Keep on Rockin’ Hugo, Keep on Rockin’

Excuse the hiatus, I was undergoing one of those major life events, this one involving the boxing and unboxing of all of one’s personal posessions, an uprooting of sorts that has landed me back in the general vicinty of where I grew up and went to school. I visited the place where I’ll be working today, everyone was cordial and polite. I know the ritual of change is generally averted whenever possible, but I’ve moved so many goddamn times in my life it’s beginning to feel like second nature. One positive thing about it is that I’ve become intimately familiar with my AV setup to the point where I can do it all by sense memory, turn it all on, and have it work the same way I left it before I moved. I never seem to get used to all the boxes though. No matter where I go, no matter the size of the place, there are always too many boxes. I’m reminded of the aphorism asserting the ownership of you by your posessions, and to a certain extent, that is true. I think at some point I’m going to stop giving a fuck about the physical things. It is possible to survive and be happy without them.

I’d say the toughest thing was leaving my friends behind. I’m sure I’ll make more up here and I have family and a friend or two left in the Bay Area. I decided to go ahead and get cable for the first time in three years, mainly because it was cheaper to bundle it with my internet than without, but it’s still complete shite. I’m stunned at the complete lack of watchable programming on TV. I flipped channels until I landed on a movie, then when it went to commercial, I remembered I have it on DVD and decided to watch it in better quality on the DVD player instead. I’d say the only thing worth watching is HD travel shows and maybe the History and Comedy Channel on rare occasion, seeing how I’ll have to wait until December/January for a decent show to come on.

Commercials are particularly atrocious. I remember them being bad and completely innocuous, but it seems the bigger the corporation, the more blatantly bad the advertising. Take for example McDonald’s. Can they more obvertly direct their advertising to the poverty level class of America? Dollar breakfast menus and trogs playing air guitar in their Dodge pickups. WTF.

It reminds of another issue I wanted to write about, one I mainly think about when I’m driving. Having to endure a 2-3 hour commute for a few months in LA I became intimately familiar with how bad the majority of drivers on the road are. Intially I would become very upset with the complete lack of consideration and awareness exhibited by most drivers on the road, but then I considered the fact that the general population is divided into a Bell Curve when categorizing intelligence. There is an average mean intelligence around 100 and given that approximately a third of the world falls into the category of double-digit IQ’s and a startling amount of people can be unmaliciously characterized as being morons, I realized I was getting angry at abject and unintentional stupidity for no reason. There’s nothing these mongs can do about their brains, they are dumb and the DMV has no test for IQ when they’re handing out licenses. The only thing you can do is shake your head in disbelief and go on about your day. I like audio books personally. If it’s an especially lucky day for me, only three or four borderline retards try to kill me on the way to where I’m going a day, and a intellectual distraction is a welcome respite from flipping out and becoming another road rage statistic.

As Obi-Wan said, who is the more foolish, the fool, or the fool who follows him? Oh Alec Guiness, your last name is a delicious beer. Speaking of beer…

Keep on Rockin’ Hugo, Keep on Rockin’

Excuse the hiatus, I was undergoing one of those major life events, this one involving the boxing and unboxing of all of one’s personal posessions, an uprooting of sorts that has landed me back in the general vicinty of where I grew up and went to school. I visited the place where I’ll be working today, everyone was cordial and polite. I know the ritual of change is generally averted whenever possible, but I’ve moved so many goddamn times in my life it’s beginning to feel like second nature. One positive thing about it is that I’ve become intimately familiar with my AV setup to the point where I can do it all by sense memory, turn it all on, and have it work the same way I left it before I moved. I never seem to get used to all the boxes though. No matter where I go, no matter the size of the place, there are always too many boxes. I’m reminded of the aphorism asserting the ownership of you by your posessions, and to a certain extent, that is true. I think at some point I’m going to stop giving a fuck about the physical things. It is possible to survive and be happy without them.

I’d say the toughest thing was leaving my friends behind. I’m sure I’ll make more up here and I have family and a friend or two left in the Bay Area. I decided to go ahead and get cable for the first time in three years, mainly because it was cheaper to bundle it with my internet than without, but it’s still complete shite. I’m stunned at the complete lack of watchable programming on TV. I flipped channels until I landed on a movie, then when it went to commercial, I remembered I have it on DVD and decided to watch it in better quality on the DVD player instead. I’d say the only thing worth watching is HD travel shows and maybe the History and Comedy Channel on rare occasion, seeing how I’ll have to wait until December/January for a decent show to come on.

Commercials are particularly atrocious. I remember them being bad and completely innocuous, but it seems the bigger the corporation, the more blatantly bad the advertising. Take for example McDonald’s. Can they more obvertly direct their advertising to the poverty level class of America? Dollar breakfast menus and trogs playing air guitar in their Dodge pickups. WTF.

It reminds of another issue I wanted to write about, one I mainly think about when I’m driving. Having to endure a 2-3 hour commute for a few months in LA I became intimately familiar with how bad the majority of drivers on the road are. Intially I would become very upset with the complete lack of consideration and awareness exhibited by most drivers on the road, but then I considered the fact that the general population is divided into a Bell Curve when categorizing intelligence. There is an average mean intelligence around 100 and given that approximately a third of the world falls into the category of double-digit IQ’s and a startling amount of people can be unmaliciously characterized as being morons, I realized I was getting angry at abject and unintentional stupidity for no reason. There’s nothing these mongs can do about their brains, they are dumb and the DMV has no test for IQ when they’re handing out licenses. The only thing you can do is shake your head in disbelief and go on about your day. I like audio books personally. If it’s an especially lucky day for me, only three or four borderline retards try to kill me on the way to where I’m going a day, and a intellectual distraction is a welcome respite from flipping out and becoming another road rage statistic.

As Obi-Wan said, who is the more foolish, the fool, or the fool who follows him? Oh Alec Guiness, your last name is a delicious beer. Speaking of beer…

I’m still here you bastards!

Just moving, moving sucks, more to follow about that…

I’m still here you bastards!

Just moving, moving sucks, more to follow about that…

I’m addicted to RAGEAHOL!!!

I’m taking care of some last minute errands before I move and I decide to take care of one thing that has been bugging me for months, namely use the product replacement program I bought for my PS3 to get a new one that doesn’t freeze every other time you start it. So I box up my shiny, 50 lb Blu-Ray player and head off to Best Buy in CC. Get my little pink sticker and step up to the return desk. I tell them my situation they start going through the box doing their checks and scanning their scannables. I’m kind of zoing out, basking in the ambient din of at least 70 different movies, TV shows, and songs constantly filling the air inside the Best Buy when the clerk startles me out of my reverie informing me that she cannot return the PS3 because the serial number on the box does not match the unit itself.

Huh?

How is this possible, I ask? She doesn’t know, I certainly don’t know, but I tell her this is the only PS3 I’ve ever owned, if there’s some mix up, it’s on Best Buy’s shoulders and to replace it via the agreement I bought with them. I must have the worst electronic luck known to man. She gets the Assistant Manager, a dumpy slow-moving mouthbreather who slowly states the same thing. She can’t return the PS3 because the serial numbers don’t match.

Starting to lose my cool, I restate the obvious, this is Best Buy’s mistake, not mine, I bought the replacement program on this unit, they should replace it. She stands in her position. I count the ten zits on her face, calm down a little, and ask to see the manager. She slags off and I go through my little replacement agreement. Sure enough, there is nothing in there about serial numbers not matching. I try to reason through why they would not take it back and figure that people must be using other customer’s replacement plans to replace their shitty PS3’s, but honest to god, I did not take advantage of this little clause. I have a legitimate issue here and there has to be some resolution.

Mouthbreather returns with sad-eyed, inflexible, balding Manager, both of them laughing as they approach the desk. Manager offers his hand and introduces himself, and tells me he can’t replace the product in a very smug matter-of-fact way. I reiterate the situation, in case his henchwoman didn’t explain it clearly. He tells me what I’ve already figured out, people are using the replacement plan to return other people’s PS3’s with different serials. I’m losing the ligitimacy of my case, despite it being a geuine mix-up on whoever packed the box.

I get a little pissed and start yelling, to which he asks me to stop yelling. Might-as-well ask me to stop breathing, yelling’s what I’ve been doing best lately, it’s the source of my joi de vivre. I eventually calm down, one zit, two zits…ask him who else we can talk to to straighten this out. He has me call Best Buy corporate.

After waiting on hold a sufficiently infuriating amount of time listening to Linkin Park muzac I get a technician who will return the product if I mail it in, but cannot authorize it in the store. I ask him to get someone on the line who can. He puts me on hold for ten minutes and hangs up on me. I’m starting to quietly Hulk out, looking for something I can strangle, the Manager, a small child, maybe a kitten. Can’t find the latter two and the Manager’s got about two feet of counter between him and me, so I call back corporate and wait again.

After being hung up one more time, I finally get a supervisor on the line, about 20 minutes later. I hand the Manager the phone and let the two BB mavens puzzle out the problem while I concentrate on my spirit animal. After about ten more minutes of deliberation, he hands me back the phone, looking rather pleased with himself. Corporate tells me that they cannot take the unit back with researching what happened with the serial numbers more. I know what this means, it will sit on some lackey’s desk for a few weeks until he notices the overdue slip on it and calls me back to inform they can’t replace it.

Manager wishes me a nice day and I let him know he ruined it and sulk off, paperweight in tow. I get out to the car and I’m steaming mad, I’m not giving up yet, no sir.

I drive to the new Best Buy in the area and try again. I get my pink sticker, hand the unit to the clerk, anxiously waiting and watching to see if the clerk is going to scan the two serials. She doesn’t. She hands the PS3 to a technician who checks the hard drive and determines it’s the unit itself. They begin the paperwork, putting the replacement machine next to my paperweight. I’m giddy with secret glee, but try to exude just the right amount of feigned nonchalance. I banter with the clerk a little as she fills out her forms, wincing every time she says something like, “oops!” or “huh, why didn’t that work,” but it turns out to just be her infamiliarity with how to use a keyboard. Five minutes later I walk out of the store with a new unit laughing manaically like Barbosa going into the Maelstorm.

I consider driving back to the other store and finding the Manager just to rub it in, maybe make another scene, but I have won my private war.

I’m addicted to RAGEAHOL!!!

I’m taking care of some last minute errands before I move and I decide to take care of one thing that has been bugging me for months, namely use the product replacement program I bought for my PS3 to get a new one that doesn’t freeze every other time you start it. So I box up my shiny, 50 lb Blu-Ray player and head off to Best Buy in CC. Get my little pink sticker and step up to the return desk. I tell them my situation they start going through the box doing their checks and scanning their scannables. I’m kind of zoing out, basking in the ambient din of at least 70 different movies, TV shows, and songs constantly filling the air inside the Best Buy when the clerk startles me out of my reverie informing me that she cannot return the PS3 because the serial number on the box does not match the unit itself.

Huh?

How is this possible, I ask? She doesn’t know, I certainly don’t know, but I tell her this is the only PS3 I’ve ever owned, if there’s some mix up, it’s on Best Buy’s shoulders and to replace it via the agreement I bought with them. I must have the worst electronic luck known to man. She gets the Assistant Manager, a dumpy slow-moving mouthbreather who slowly states the same thing. She can’t return the PS3 because the serial numbers don’t match.

Starting to lose my cool, I restate the obvious, this is Best Buy’s mistake, not mine, I bought the replacement program on this unit, they should replace it. She stands in her position. I count the ten zits on her face, calm down a little, and ask to see the manager. She slags off and I go through my little replacement agreement. Sure enough, there is nothing in there about serial numbers not matching. I try to reason through why they would not take it back and figure that people must be using other customer’s replacement plans to replace their shitty PS3’s, but honest to god, I did not take advantage of this little clause. I have a legitimate issue here and there has to be some resolution.

Mouthbreather returns with sad-eyed, inflexible, balding Manager, both of them laughing as they approach the desk. Manager offers his hand and introduces himself, and tells me he can’t replace the product in a very smug matter-of-fact way. I reiterate the situation, in case his henchwoman didn’t explain it clearly. He tells me what I’ve already figured out, people are using the replacement plan to return other people’s PS3’s with different serials. I’m losing the ligitimacy of my case, despite it being a geuine mix-up on whoever packed the box.

I get a little pissed and start yelling, to which he asks me to stop yelling. Might-as-well ask me to stop breathing, yelling’s what I’ve been doing best lately, it’s the source of my joi de vivre. I eventually calm down, one zit, two zits…ask him who else we can talk to to straighten this out. He has me call Best Buy corporate.

After waiting on hold a sufficiently infuriating amount of time listening to Linkin Park muzac I get a technician who will return the product if I mail it in, but cannot authorize it in the store. I ask him to get someone on the line who can. He puts me on hold for ten minutes and hangs up on me. I’m starting to quietly Hulk out, looking for something I can strangle, the Manager, a small child, maybe a kitten. Can’t find the latter two and the Manager’s got about two feet of counter between him and me, so I call back corporate and wait again.

After being hung up one more time, I finally get a supervisor on the line, about 20 minutes later. I hand the Manager the phone and let the two BB mavens puzzle out the problem while I concentrate on my spirit animal. After about ten more minutes of deliberation, he hands me back the phone, looking rather pleased with himself. Corporate tells me that they cannot take the unit back with researching what happened with the serial numbers more. I know what this means, it will sit on some lackey’s desk for a few weeks until he notices the overdue slip on it and calls me back to inform they can’t replace it.

Manager wishes me a nice day and I let him know he ruined it and sulk off, paperweight in tow. I get out to the car and I’m steaming mad, I’m not giving up yet, no sir.

I drive to the new Best Buy in the area and try again. I get my pink sticker, hand the unit to the clerk, anxiously waiting and watching to see if the clerk is going to scan the two serials. She doesn’t. She hands the PS3 to a technician who checks the hard drive and determines it’s the unit itself. They begin the paperwork, putting the replacement machine next to my paperweight. I’m giddy with secret glee, but try to exude just the right amount of feigned nonchalance. I banter with the clerk a little as she fills out her forms, wincing every time she says something like, “oops!” or “huh, why didn’t that work,” but it turns out to just be her infamiliarity with how to use a keyboard. Five minutes later I walk out of the store with a new unit laughing manaically like Barbosa going into the Maelstorm.

I consider driving back to the other store and finding the Manager just to rub it in, maybe make another scene, but I have won my private war.

Random Bag Check

I’m a pilot, have been one for almost 16 years in varying capacities, for four years flying one of the largest planes in the world to over 30 countries. I thought I had seen just about everything relating to avaition…and then I went through Oakland airport security. When I fly commercial, I typically take one carry-on with everything Ill need for my trip in it. It’s not one of these mini-fridges you see these 200 lb land cows towing behind them through the terminal. You know the suspect, the rotund sweating, middle-aged woman who looks at you with those sad, dull sheep eyes because she needs your help getting her coffin full of cosmetics and god-knows-what up into the overhead compartment, inevitably clubbing an old man unconscious with same said bag when pulling it out at the end of the flight.

Anyway, suffice to say, I’ve got a small bag comparatively, a Jeppsen flight bag to be exact. First round through leaving LAX I get fingered (hmm, bad choice of words, pressng on) for a random bag check. I had some large toiletries confiscated, a tube of shaving gel and some toothpaste, ok, that’s understandable.

Had the same thing happen in Vegas once, admittedly I almost strangled the bag-checker because I thought it was so ridiculous at the time. I now understand the thin rationale behind not bringing your own fluids into the terminal, but (sorry to state the obvious) who’s to stop a terrorist from bringing a solid in and right after getting through security,buying a bottle of water, and an ice cold beer, and mixing up his own little liquid bomb? What the fuck is a liquid bomb anyway? Whatever happened to good ol’fashioned dynamite and C4?

Whatever, I learned my lesson, I buy some smaller travel toiletries and think I’m good to go for my return trip. Now when I get in line for the security check I have all my metal and devices in my bag, so I dont have to get wanded. I’ve got my ID and boarding pass ready and my shoes off. Oaktown security, I’m red’ to go. So guess what? Random bag check. Again. Not to be discriminating but I’m a 6′2″ white guy. Exactly how many tall white guys have been terrorists in the past? I mean besides theUnibomber…ok let me reframe that, how many tall white PLANE terrorists have there been? (Not counting the ones painted up with tanning cream to look like Middle-Easterners in Delta Force) I think…zero. I guess I’m the token white guy being singled out to dilute the racial profiling perception.

This time a little bemused, “What the hell is it this time?” I’m wondering. The elderly security officer rifles through my bag acting all saintly for saving the world from yet another white hijacker and informs me that I need to put my toothpaste, shaving gel, and collogne in its own plastic sandwich bag. Despite the fact that my toiletries are in their own hermetically sealed,carefully segregated bag, the old man insists I walk to other terminal and buy ONE sandwich bag. (I later found out this is common knowledge, thus making me look more like an ass for not having cable for the past two years and being innundated with this common knowledge. What I also found out is why it is required and that is to ensure you don’t take more than a sandwich bag worth of toiletries, so it’s more of a guideline then a preventive measure. Apparently it was too difficult for this octegenrian to ascertain the combined volume of my three tiny toiletries, but they easily would have fit inside a PBJ. But, still…)

I’m pissed.

I follow the rules and do my best to expedite these peoples jobs and this is just fucking ridiculous. I don’t say this though, I quietly fume and make the security officer assure me that I can return to the front of the line without having to wait in the snaking line of Splash Mountain-ian proportions. As he’s directing me out of the security area, I ask him why they don’t have a box of Glad bags there to avoid the hassle, which he replies that they’re not allowed.

I’ll repeat that, they’re not allowed to have a box of sandwich bags.

So I storm off to the other terminal, shoving old women and crippled people out of the way. Stomp up to an Information desk and in my most politely sarcastic tone ask where I can buy ONE sandwich bag. Luckily the guy behind the desk is picking up what I’m laying down. Apparently, in this terminal they are allowed to have sandwich bags, amazing. He hands me ONE sandwich bag and I’m on my way back, bashing unwitting children in the head with my errant carry-on, man on a mission.

I arrive back at the security gate, barging my way through the line, mumbling half-ass excuses to the people I’m bowling out of the way, get back to the front of the line, and see the old man’s line is full, so I go to the next one. Guess what? Fingered again (metaphor starting to resemble the image you’re thinking of). This time, it’s not the baggy, its too many electronic devices in my bag. I explode. I get the frist security officer over, start ranting about my rights as a disabled vet, harrassement, whatever I can think of to get my bag through. Basically embarrassing myself in public to the amusement of the security staff. Furious because I realize this truity as well and recognize the absurdity of their actions to elevate me to the point of embarrassement but not being able to do anything about it…I eventually take my re-checked bag and sulk off in shame rather sweaty.

I write this under the influence of as many legal over-the-counter drugs as a three-fingered Gunslinger.

Random bag check guy, touche.

Ocean’s 13 is a chick flick

Aside from the editing and cinematography, Ocean’s 13 ranks up there with one of the worst films I’ve seen this year. Relying strictly on the star power of these three guys prancing around in expensive suits (who admittedly have done good work in the past, both in their professional lives and personal lives, Clooney for films like Syrianna and raising public awareness of global issues like Darfur, Damon for the Bourne movies and his contributions to charities like ONE, and Pitt for his role in Fight Club and for nailing hottest/craziest chick on the planet…yes I’ve seen Team America, eat me), Soderbergh substitutes the kinds of celebrity in-joke gags I imagine Hollywood wannabees tripping balls on cocaine find amusing, for plot and reality semblance. I’m supposed to believe they bought and buried not one, but two tunnel boring machines (TBMs), one being one of the drills used to dig part of the Chunnel (which looks identical to the first TBM they break at the end of the first act to get useless Andy Garcia back in the sequel, the real Chunnel drill being about three times the size of the one used in the film…and residing in France)? How ’bout the ridiculous side-plot they dedicate a good twenty minutes to involving a Mexican border factory that two of the whitest kids in Hollwood infiltrate, subsequently instigating a riot to secure higher wages for the workers, only to then sabotage the same factory, presumably resulting in its closing and all those migrant workers we were supposed to care about losing their jobs. Thanks a lot Aflac.

The one character they brought back from the second crappy installment that I was hoping would be used at least a little bit more was Toulour, cause he kicks major ass in every French film he’s ever been in, but loses all ass-kickery in translation to American cinema. I mean hell, the guy is married to Monica-freaking-Bellucci fer-christ-sakes, you can do more with him than having him jump off a building and curse in French. Don’t believe me? Check out Crimson Rivers some time, about a minute twenty into this clip Vincent Cassel kicks a guy in the face, sickness! Did they let Vincent Cassel kick anyone in the face in Ocean’s 13? Hell no. If I had made Ocean’s 13 it would have starred Vincent Cassel and the plot would have revolved around him hunting down Steven Soderbergh to kick him in the face for wasting two hours of my life on this chick flick.

(ps. Notice how I did not make one gay joke in a post about Ocean’s 13, that’s self-restraint right there buddy)

Ocean’s 13 is a chick flick

Aside from the editing and cinematography, Ocean’s 13 ranks up there with one of the worst films I’ve seen this year. Relying strictly on the star power of these three guys prancing around in expensive suits (who admittedly have done good work in the past, both in their professional lives and personal lives, Clooney for films like Syrianna and raising public awareness of global issues like Darfur, Damon for the Bourne movies and his contributions to charities like ONE, and Pitt for his role in Fight Club and for nailing hottest/craziest chick on the planet…yes I’ve seen Team America, eat me), Soderbergh substitutes the kinds of celebrity in-joke gags I imagine Hollywood wannabees tripping balls on cocaine find amusing, for plot and reality semblance. I’m supposed to believe they bought and buried not one, but two tunnel boring machines (TBMs), one being one of the drills used to dig part of the Chunnel (which looks identical to the first TBM they break at the end of the first act to get useless Andy Garcia back in the sequel, the real Chunnel drill being about three times the size of the one used in the film…and residing in France)? How ’bout the ridiculous side-plot they dedicate a good twenty minutes to involving a Mexican border factory that two of the whitest kids in Hollwood infiltrate, subsequently instigating a riot to secure higher wages for the workers, only to then sabotage the same factory, presumably resulting in its closing and all those migrant workers we were supposed to care about losing their jobs. Thanks a lot Aflac.

The one character they brought back from the second crappy installment that I was hoping would be used at least a little bit more was Toulour, cause he kicks major ass in every French film he’s ever been in, but loses all ass-kickery in translation to American cinema. I mean hell, the guy is married to Monica-freaking-Bellucci fer-christ-sakes, you can do more with him than having him jump off a building and curse in French. Don’t believe me? Check out Crimson Rivers some time, about a minute twenty into this clip Vincent Cassel kicks a guy in the face, sickness! Did they let Vincent Cassel kick anyone in the face in Ocean’s 13? Hell no. If I had made Ocean’s 13 it would have starred Vincent Cassel and the plot would have revolved around him hunting down Steven Soderbergh to kick him in the face for wasting two hours of my life on this chick flick.

(ps. Notice how I did not make one gay joke in a post about Ocean’s 13, that’s self-restraint right there buddy)