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Free Hotel Wireless
(27 Jun 2007 at 19:25) |
Hey I made it! I have a little chill time so let me tell you some travel tips and an in-flight movie review.
Travel tip #1: Since basically all US airlines are part of the same government-bailout conglomerate—we might call it the FAA—sometimes when you're supposedly flying on one airline (the dudes you bought your ticket from) you're really flying on another. It is important for a variety of reasons to understand this fiction. One reason, this is tip #1, is that if you get to the airport and there's a 999999-bajillion km (that's kiloman, here man meaning man, woman, or child) line for the United checkin counter at 6:45am, then you should instead go to the US Airways desk because that's which airline you're really flying and they have a much shorter line and if you waited in the United line you might have been sent over there when you finally got to the front anyway. (This last thing is especially true for connections with international airlines.) Don't be a chump: If it says "X Airlines flight 1234 Operated by Y," then behave as if you're flying Y Airlines. Tip successfully employed!
Mini-review: I was watching Lost re-runs on my laptop so I missed the first 3/4 of it, but do you ever get a phrase stuck in your head like you sometimes get a song stuck in your head, repeating? Because when I was watching the last 1/4 of this movie The Astronaut Farmer I had a Spanish-language phrase running through my head and that was muy idiota. Wow, maybe I just missed out on the continuity in that film because they cut out some important not-family-safe scenes or because I missed subtle dialogue in the right stereo channel, unable to reach me in my airplane-incompatible headphones, but damn what a dumb film. Synopsis. Billy-Bob Thorton is a farmer (also his name is Farmer, making the title of the film a clever double entendre) who wants to go into space so he builds a rocket ship in his farm. Then he shoots off into space, with his family being like mission control. Success! There's a montage of the other farmers in his village and some local policemen looking off into space, slapping their thighs with their cowboy hats and mouthing, "Well I'll be!", I am not exaggerating at all here. BUT THEN SOMETHING GOES TERRIBLY WRONG... a nearby satellite causes his radio to fail and he can't talk to his family. Can you hear me, Major Tom? And how is this crisis resolved? He sees his wedding ring somehow floating around in the space cabin, so he takes his space glove off (the whole time he is wearing a bubble-head space suit, but I guess it is just for fashion or something) and puts the ring on. Then he hits the control panel and he can communicate with mission control again. Right? It's a Power Ring. Why does he need to communicate with mission control? So his son can tell him the "coordinates" for his farm, because he couldn't have just written down the coordinates of his farm before he left for space with his Radio Shack POS radio. What the? Then they get pizza and that is the end of the movie.
Travel tip #2: This is some kind of weird nom de net hotel that I booked online where their phone number doesn't work and they aren't in the yellow pages, so I have to find another hotel with a very similar phone number and address, because although they say they have a complementary shuttle in the online info, the bus drivers tell me that these dudes do not have a shuttle. Sorry, this should be in the 2nd person because it is a travel tip. The bus drivers told you that these dudes do not have a shuttle. Anyway, so you finally find the hotel where you are actually booked and they call you a complementary taxi and ask what airline you flew, and you say "United or US Air"—you've already screwed up! Because those are different parts of the SFO. You need to be on top of your shit and apply travel tip #1 proactively because the hotel and cab are not going to be on top of your shit even though this is like their business. You are waiting in the wrong place where you were told to go for like 45 minutes, and keep seeing your cab drive by and you wave at him but he is like, "wrong place, dude!" but eventually relents and on the ride you kinda wonder if you're the weakest link in this game show, but then when he eventually drops you off at the wrong hotel and tries to explain to the understanding-faced but obviously context-lacking concierge why you're so late because miscommunications etc., you can be pretty sure it's not you. |  |
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So was the cabbie definitely for you and he got the hotel wrong, or did you get in the wrong cab who took you to the wrong hotel?
Sounds like a day! I hope you had some coffee on the flight or while you were waiting! |
| Oh, he was definitely for me... he knew my name and everything. I had some $2.50 drip coffee at SFO and I think I'm going to have a bit more before I head out tonight, or I'll fall asleep while walking to the train... |
Well, I'm glad that somebody eventually got on top of Tom's shit. There's nothing worse than shit without a person on top of it.
P.S. I don't believe that such an inane movie actually exists. The title alone is too ridiculous. Nice try, Tom. |
| Look it up, my man. |
| Are there travel tips for the way back? |
| My one tip is that at high altitudes alcohol has a tendency to hit your system a skosh faster than normal, something I took ready advantage of in the pre-3 oz of liquid limit days. Helps with my flight anxiety and is just a generally different feel of drunk that is enjoyable and cheap. |
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