LEFT: San Simeon elephant seals

ABOVE: Me after Thanksgiving dinner.



We're back from Thanksgiving in California. My folks came out to San Luis Obispo, where Paul's folks are. It was even more fun than movies like "Meet the Fokkers" (with all its uncanny parallels) would suggest.

Actually, everything went really well. We went to see the elephant seals and Hearst Castle and went on a wine tour. It was kind of like the movie Sideways, except with a totally different script, and different actors, and with no apparent story arc, which is a good thing; family trips that involve a Very Valuable Lesson are definately to be avoided.

Getting to and from SLO, alas, requires a tour of America's Most Boring Regional Airports, brought to you by America's Worst Airline(TM), US Air. This "discount" airline, which features DIY re-routing for the hands-on traveler, is unfortunately one of the few airlines that goes into SLO.

I won't even go into the details, but our picaresque adventure took us to Laguardia, Pittsburgh, Phoenix, SLO, Vegas, Charlotte, and back to Laguardia. We got stuck in Pittsburgh, and were almost rerouted through Chicago to Philadelphia to perhaps the International Space Station and back to SLO.

This might have happened if we hadn't alerted the ticketing agent that there were not in fact going to Saint Louis, home of the Cardinals, but in fact San Luis, which is in California and is NOT the home of the Cardinals (as it says on the license plates).

Below is a rough transcript (no joke) of our on-board conversation with the USAir ticketing agent:

Hi. We're on the tarmac in Laguardia, and it looks like going to miss our connection in Pittsburg. We need to be re-routed to San Luis Obispo, in California.

(the sound of tapping on a keyboard)

You're in luck! We can get you on a flight to Chicago, and then from Philadelphia straight on into Saint Louis!

Not Saint Louis. San Luis. It's pronounced differently, because, uh, it's an entirely different city.

Okay, let's see here ... If we sent you through Houston, we can get into Saint Louis with just one connection..

San Luis Obis -

Or, we can route you through Chicago, back to Pittsburgh, and then on to St. Louis.

But ... we're going to California.

Sorry, I'm afraid Saint Louis is in (more keyboard tapping) ... Missouri?

Granted. But we don't know anyone in Missouri.

Then why did you buy a ticket to Saint Louis?

SAN Luis. Obispo. It's in California.

Our records are indicating that it's in Missouri.

Let's start over....

Oh .,.. I see what you're saying! Give me a minute (10 minutes of commercials for the new USAir Visa! so you can have your money managed by people who think Saint Louis is in California). Here we go - it's all sorted out. (sigh of relief) We can take you through Laguardia to get to Saint Louis even faster!

But .... we're going to California.

But that's not where Saint Louis is.

Which is why we don't want to go there.

But we can't change your end destination, just the routing.


That was supposed to shut us up, which it did. We called back and talked to someone else, who told us to talk to someone at the gate, who in turn told us to call reservations. But 24 hours later, we did arrive in California. Next time, I hope they route us through Hong Kong. I've always wanted to see China, and I'm pretty sure it would be a lot quicker.

Ad-ing it up ...

Not long ago, while watching a Star Trek marathon (something that could safely be interpreted as a cry for help), I wrote down just a few of the commercials that came on TV during one episode.

To put it into context, we were watching one of the growing number of cable channels targeted to men ages 18-29, or longer for men in New York, where adolescence typically lasts until around 40. (Much in the way that we would weigh less on Mars than on earth, because of the difference in gravity.)

In other words, this unnamed channel (rhymes with "G-Bore") offers programming for men in that halcyon period between the time they're are old enough to have jobs and sufficient disposable income to buy tons of video games, but before they have wives or girlfriends who will forbid them from purchasing said products. Thus, many of the shows on this channel are video game-centric, which I just don't get.

Although I'm not a "gamer," I can at least see how video games might be fun if I had a serious head injury, for instance. But watching a TV show about video games? Come on. I like shopping for shoes, but I wouldn't watch a show about people shopping for shoes. Or even a show about shoes. If I'm not personally shopping for them, I just don't care.

My husband, who is 34, loves video games. If only we lived in Winnipeg, he might have chosen to marry "Doom 3" instead of me. Because in countries such as Winnipeg and Holland and the Netherlands where same-sex marriage is allowed, the next logical step is for guys to start marrying beer. Or even wine coolers.

Except that - oh, crap! - in countries where gay marriage has been legal for several years, pretty much nothing changed. Except for gay people, who now enjoy a fundamental civil/human right (I won't even add "to be miserable," as the joke goes, or even "to sit around watching Star Trek marathons in a legally sanctioned union," although that should probably be worked into most legal and/or religious wedding vows).

Watching these commercials, it occured to me that the products they're hawking just might hold the key to everything that is wrong with our country, if not our species.

Let's start with SweeTarts Squeez, what appears to be a petroleum-based confection that (finally!) eliminates the exhausting task of chewing a SweeTart.

Full disclosure: when I was a kid, I absolutely loved SweeTarts, but was forbidden from eating them except on rare occasions. I felt very victimized by the fact that my mother, who is a teacher, was so adamantly opposed to children - me in particular - enjoying such delightful all-American treats as SweeTarts, Nerds, Lik-M-Aid (you know, where they give you the sugar stick to lick and dip in the colored sugar packets?) and any cereal that was "part of this nutritious breakfast!" I often wondered if I could make a case for abuse to child services for being forced to eat stuff like fresh vegetables and other food that was "grown on a farm." Sheesh.

I clearly remember my mother denying my request to buy a bag of SweeTarts, saying, "those things will rot your teeth out, and then how are you going to chew them?"

It may be 20 years too late, but finally - there's a comeback! I don't need no stinkin' teeth now that it comes in a tube! Best of all, with SweeTarts Squeez (no "e" at the end, 'cause they're cool like that), no need to burn the extra 2 calories involved in chewing.

Irony of ironies, this "fine addition to the SweeTarts family of products" comes in something that looks suspiciously like a toothpaste tube. At the risk of sounding all conspiracy-theory-ish, you have to wonder if this product wasn't the diabolical brain-child of some underground society of evil dentists, perhaps the Dark Knights of the Bicuspids, who want to buy more vacation homes on St. Barthes? Think about it: dentists could be the new hedge fund managers if more people would just "squeez". Or maybe it's designed by Jenny Craig in an effort to get more male clients between the ages of 18 and 29?

But seriously - as rates of Type-2 (adult-onset) diabetes are growing to epic proportions among U.S. children - to whom the cartoon TV spots are heavily targeted - how isn't this a public health hazard? How does this get FDA approval? Most of all, how do the people putting this crap out there even manage to sleep at night?

The late comedian Bill Hicks once said that the marketing and advertising people in this country should just kill themselves. He had a point.

The next spot was for the Triple Whopper with Cheese (comes with a free defibrilator) at Burger King. Unless you're a professional athlete, you're not burning enough calories to justify a whopping (no pun intended) 1230 calories and 82 grams of fat. And if you are a professional athlete other than possibly a sumo wrestler, you're probably not going to eat a triple-decker Whopper with cheese, for the same reason that you're not likely to juggle chainsaws; someone could get hurt.
(LEFT: The Triple Whopper went down to Glamour Shots at the mall, and this is the result. Heck, we all have to treat ourselves sometimes!)

The Triple Whopper started as a cross-marketing ploy in 2005, to promote the movie King Kong, but has since been added as a permanent menu item. It was pitched as a solution for "Kong-sized appetites." In other words, if you happen to be a giant gorilla, this is for you. Which would be a long-overdue nod to the mutant gorilla community, except that gorillas are almost exclusively vegetarian.


I'm not one to blame fast food for making people unhealthy, but ... okay, let's indulge in a little of that. I guess they wanted to make the Whopper seem like a "lite" option, kind of like those Victorian women who used to go around with monkeys on a leash, so the ladies would seem prettier by comparison. The standard Whopper sans cheese has a mere 670 calories.
Again with the how can they even sleep at night?

Bringing us to the next ad, which was for Dominos square brownies. I really thought I was hallucinating the first 4 times I saw this commercial. If Paul hadn't been there to confirm that it was real, I might have called a hotline for immediate psychiatric help.

The star of this commercial is a bizarre brownie-creature, a short person (either a midget or a child who's going to be telling this to an army of psychiatrists someday) dressed in a square costume made of fake brown fur. The square rings a suburban doorbell alongside the Dominos Delivery Associate, who, unlike an actual Domino's employee, doesn't seem even slightly disgruntled. As the square steps back, we see that the hug-ee is covered with, well, what might come out of a person after eating this crap.

Because, of course, nothing says "yum!" like brown plush fur and diarrhea hugs.

As you might expect, the Domino's customer looks utterly horrified by this turn of events. It's one of those moments where everyone, from the viewer at home to the Key Grip to the SAG member in the plush suit, feels a bit dirty.

Not that Domino's is any stranger to annoying ad campaigns, but as corporate mascots go, this one is just weird. In the day, the Noid might have been worth avoiding, but this one is actually repulsive. I'm not a scientist or anything, but isn't the purpose of a commercial to - I dunno - sell stuff? Unless you have some scat fetish, you're probably not reaching for phone to call Domino's.


All I can guess is that the folks who came up with this idea must've been on some serious pharmaceuticals. Or maybe they were just hopped up on spoonfuls of SweeTarts Squeez?

What have you been up to lately?

The other day, April called. "So, what have you been up to, lately?" she asks.

An innocent question.

"Ohmigosh, I've just been SOooooooo busy!" And, up to that point, I had totally convinced myself that this was true.

"Doing what?"

"Well, uh ... you know." I thought and thought, but nothing leaped to mind. "Work, and ... well... I drew half a monster! Which took at least several minutes."

Do you ever stop to make a list of everything you've done for the past day/week/decade, etc., and struggle to come up with more than 3 things that don't involve personal grooming? Or drawing the bottom halves of monsters?

Let's see ... what have I been up to? Does growing an ulcer over not checking messages/emails count? Or worrying about not going to the gym/not writing thank-you letters, not winning the Prix Goncourt, etc.?

In other words, can you count all the things you're NOT doing ? If so, I'm stoked.

True, work is busy, but it's not like I work all that late (the French frown upon it) -- rarely past 6 p.m. Nor am I involved in any extreme sports, nor volunteering for charity, or frequenting underground fetish clubs. No real social life to speak of (note to self: perhaps should look into underground fetish clubs, if only for the outings).

So where does the time go? I do floss regularly, but that's almost certainly "personal grooming" ...

As something of a personal credo, I've always avoided any and all activities that could be described as a "hobby." The whole concept of hobbies has always struck me as unbelievably creepy. Especially the ones that involve Hobby Glue. It brought up images of weird middle aged dudes in basements creating scale replicas of world monuments out of tounge depressors. Which is depressing, and not just for tounges.

That's when it occured to me: I haven't been busy -- I've just been sitting around the house watching a lot of TV. I can admit this to April, but never would to most people. Except, of course, anyone with access to the Internets.

Disspelling the myth of busy-ness (busitude?) has been kind of depressing. But it gets worse - I started thinking about what I've been watching on TV. This is where the story gets ugly.

To be continued ...

Feeling Bloggish

Listening to the election results.

Much talk about the "bloggers blogging on the blogs in the blogosphere." On one channel (okay, it was Fox ... they have shiny colors and all the words have no more than 2 syllables, me likey), they showed some bar in DC where there were 10 bloggers blogging. Perhaps about six geese a-laying.

The gist of it was that "blogging" was something that very bad people do to baby seals.

Instead of making an astute political statement, I have to observe that "blog" -- a bastard noun-child, sprung from the union of Web and Log (next step: bestiality!) -- has become a noun, a verb, and even a shape.

Who decided that it's a sphere? I thought it was a truck. I mean, a series of tubes.

Ahem. As you can see from the above text, I have nothing of interest to add to the blog rhombus (or is it a hatchback?) this evening.

However, the political election has inspired me. I've realized that, by waiting until I "have something to say" before saying anything, I'm defeating the alluring, sinister purpose of the blog-ellipse (or is it a sphere?).

As a consequence/benefit of watching too much TV lately, I've had a revelation. It occured to me that in our culture -- now, this may come as a shock --quantity is more important than quality. For instance, in things like votes. Or, say, money.

So, I've decided to start updating this blog every day, even though most of the time, I usually have no salient (a.k.a., "salty") points to add to the blog rectangle (or is it a cube?).

The above represents the first episode of blogging in the bloggish blog even when I have absolutely nothing to say. But if I say enough of it, maybe it will add up to something, at least quantity-wise.

Or maybe it will just be a series of tubes.