Thursday, May 11, 2006
Vacations: Aren't They Supposed To Be Relaxing?
The Wife and I have been on numerous vacations together. There's been one constant theme to our vacations: they aren't very relaxing. Usually, we ramble all over a country (or state) and need to decompress when we get home. Now that we have Luke, though, vacations are a lot more stressful. Less travel, but more stress.
We left the Sunday after my graduation. Our flight was at 9:00 am. My mom was kind enough to drive us to the airport. I don't know why she volunteered to do this. It must be some sort of motherly instinct. I'm wondering when The Wife's will kick in. I don't see it happening any time soon. Many thanks to her for doing it though. Because if it weren't for her, we would have done remote parking. And with Luke? It would have been such a pain that Jesus on the cross would say, "Thank Me I'm not them."
(By the way, I can't remember the last time I slept as well as I did Saturday night. After all the stress of having to do the commencement speech, not to mention having to WRITE the speech, Saturday night was just one big relaxation.)
We got into San Francisco around 11:30 (local time) without too much hassle from Luke. Getting to our rental car was an exercise in aggravation. I'll be the first one to admit that I desperately need exercise. But not this kind. First, we had to claim our bags. Since we had Luke in the stroller, we had to take the elevator down to baggage claim (Ride #1). Once we got our bags (which is always the longest, scariest wait in the world), we took the elevator (#2) to the parking garage. There we hiked to another elevator (#3) to take us to the Airtrain. Of course, we had to take another elevator (#4) to get to the actual Airtrain platform. The Airtrain then took us approximately 1000 miles to the rental car facility in Colorado. (Luke was being extremely fussy the whole time, of course.) Once we got to the rental car place, we waited in line for 15 minutes. Then we had to take another elevator #5 to the rental car. I can't describe how relieved I was that we didn't have to get on a shuttle to actually get to my rental car. I think I might have gone all Falling Down on somebody if we did.
The plan for the week was to stay with my brother-in-law in Sacramento. But since he was currently driving back from a bachelor party in Vegas, we had some time to kill. We used that time to catch up with my cousin who lives in San Fran. (They have a child one year older than Luke and just had another a couple months ago, whom I hadn't seen before.) We met up downtown, had lunch and then headed over to their place in Oakland. Luke was quite a trooper, staying up until past 9:00 (Chicago time), a full hour past his bedtime. Of course, he had plenty of toys to steal from his cousins. Yes, Luke is quite the bully when it comes to toys. We're trying to get him to be better about it, but it's hard to reason with a 15-month-old child who understands about 20 words.
(Though, he IS starting to speak some words. So far, he says "No" (way too much, if you ask me), "choo-choo," "shoes," and "keys." It's so cool to see him learning words right now. I must say that I completely underestimated how much fun it would be to have kids. Watching them discover things and seeing the literally learning in front of your eyes is one of the coolest experiences in the world. It's almost as cool as when you get a dog to bring a thrown ball back to you. Or when you get a cat to do anything.)
One of the cool things about visiting my cousin was that I got to see a lemon tree up close and personal. The problem? These lemons didn't look a thing like what I see in the grocery store. Some were the size of softballs. They were all mis-shaped and oddly colored. In fact, I thought they were mangos or some other odd fruit. I had no idea they were lemons. Sadly, my cousin has yet to make lemonade out of the lemons God gave him. (Okay, that's not exactly true. I only assume he hasn't. But it wouldn't surprise me in the least if my cousin told his wife, "We HAVE to make lemonade. God gave us the lemons!" In fact, he probably makes lemon marangue pies, enters them in the state fair and wins ribbons. And my only question? Why didn't he have pie waiting for us when we arrived? I LOVE lemon marangue pie, even if I can't spell "marangue.")
Anyway, we eventually made it to Sacramento around 9:00 (11:00 pm Chicago time), even though my Brother-in-Law (BIL) wasn't there yet. Fortunately, his girlfriend let us in. Then we promptly passed out from sheer exhaustion. We stayed at BIL's one-bedroom apartment, and The Wife and I slept on an air mattress. Air mattresses are great, until you have to share one. The problem? Every time one person moves, the other person feels it. This was the only night we shared the air mattress. Marriage is wonderful. Sleeping with my wife is wonderful. (Get your mind out of the gutter!) But actually getting sleep? That's heaven.
On Monday, we chilled around the house. Luke woke up at 4:30 am (local time), causing The Wife and I some stress. Basically, we let him play around while we alternated forcing our eyelids open. I felt like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange where he was forced into rehabilitation. We eventually made it out of the house for brunch. That was followed by a group nap back at BIL's apartment.
After that, we headed over to Historic Sacramento. We walked around and then headed over to a railroad museum. I know that sounds lame, but Luke's new love is trains. He has a train table and 4-5 Thomas the Tank Engine trains that he LOVES. As I mentioned earlier, one of his few words is "choo-choo" and one of the only things that kept him quiet on the plane was his choo-choos. So, we went through the museum. Luke wasn't too interested in the actual trains we saw. After all, they don't have faces on the front of their engines. But when we went upstairs and Luke saw the HUGE train table full of Thomas Trains, he got all excited. It wasn't easy tearing him away. But as all good things must come to an end, so did Luke's fun with the choo-choos.
We then went over to the capital to catch a glimpse of the Governator. Sadly, he wasn't there. But we saw a lot of trees and changed Luke's dirty diaper on the steps of the capital. That was a fun, symbolic moment. After that, we went out to dinner with BIL's girlfriend. Luke was a pill and I had to take him away from the table frequently to keep him entertained. (And to prevent every other diner in the restaurant from shooting me.)
On Tuesday, we headed out first thing in the morning and went to Fairy Tale Town. This was a nice area where we could let Luke run around all day. There were numerous slides and tunnels and other fun things. Of course, he fell down twice REALLY bad, getting quite a shiner and scraping up his face. When people asked what happened, I just told them that he was asking too many questions. Then I glowered at them and shook my fist. (In other words, nobody really asked what happened.)
From there, we took a tour of houses that BIL is considering buying with his girlfriend. They're both radiologists and won't be lacking for money starting in July. (Not that there's anything wrong with that. Given what they've put up with for the past 10+ years, they deserve every penny.) These houses were gorgeous. Huge. Almost ridiculously huge. It got to the point where we started wondering what some of the rooms were called. "Is this the office?" "No, that's the office. This must be the study." "No, I think it's the den." "Actually, it says here that it's the library." Sheesh! And what's BIL's only requirement for the house? It has to have a "game room." Basically somewhere he can put a pool table. I'm pretty sure he can fit a pool table in the master bedroom's closet, so that won't be a problem.
Tuesday night, we ate in. (The Wife and I had had enough of Luke's behavior at restaurants.) Then we watched The Constant Gardener. (My review will follow tomorrow probably.) Then we all passed out, me on the couch, The Wife on the air mattress.
On Wednesday, our flight was at 1:00 pm. BIL was heading to the hospital at 7:00 am. We decided to use the intervening time to do a tour of a Jelly Belly factory in between Sacramento and San Francisco. We had to kill some time at a Denny's before the first tour at 9:00 am. But we made the first tour, and it was really cool. We got to see how jelly beans are made. Of course, The Wife kept asking all sorts of dorky questions of me. You see, she's an engineer, so she's a dork by nature. (Not that I can talk. I'm a former actuary, for God's sake. In fact, we frequently have Dork-Offs in our house to determine who's the bigger dork. I still haven't figured out whether its better to win or lose.) Anyway, The Wife kept asking all sorts of questions about their processes and their equipment and blah blah blah. Meanwhile, I'm thinking, "Who knew there was sugar in jelly beans?"
We got out of the tour around 10:00 and then high-tailed it to San Francisco to catch our flight. The Wife's goal was to make it to the airport around 11:00. My goal was to make it there sometime around 12:00. For some reason, The Wife wanted to get there with enough time to return our car, check our bags, go to the bathroom, change Luke, eat lunch, get food for Luke, and board the plane. The nerve of some people! We caught some traffic and got to the airport a little late, causing The Wife much stress. We got to the gate on time, though, so The Wife got to relax for about 10 minutes. Then we were stuck on an airplane with a fussy child. And we had to taxi for 40 minutes before we even got to take off. Luke was not pleased.
Finally, we were picked up at O'hare by my mother-in-law. Again, the motherly instincts kicked in. Many thanks to her, to my mom, to BIL and his girlfriend for entertaining us this week, to everyone on our flights for not killing us or Luke when he screamed, to Jelly Belly for all the wonderful treats, and to California in general for all the great weather. And now I have only 1 more day of "vacation" until I have to start working full-time again. Hopefully it's enough time to decompress from our family trip, which I will no longer refer to as a "vacation."
We left the Sunday after my graduation. Our flight was at 9:00 am. My mom was kind enough to drive us to the airport. I don't know why she volunteered to do this. It must be some sort of motherly instinct. I'm wondering when The Wife's will kick in. I don't see it happening any time soon. Many thanks to her for doing it though. Because if it weren't for her, we would have done remote parking. And with Luke? It would have been such a pain that Jesus on the cross would say, "Thank Me I'm not them."
(By the way, I can't remember the last time I slept as well as I did Saturday night. After all the stress of having to do the commencement speech, not to mention having to WRITE the speech, Saturday night was just one big relaxation.)
We got into San Francisco around 11:30 (local time) without too much hassle from Luke. Getting to our rental car was an exercise in aggravation. I'll be the first one to admit that I desperately need exercise. But not this kind. First, we had to claim our bags. Since we had Luke in the stroller, we had to take the elevator down to baggage claim (Ride #1). Once we got our bags (which is always the longest, scariest wait in the world), we took the elevator (#2) to the parking garage. There we hiked to another elevator (#3) to take us to the Airtrain. Of course, we had to take another elevator (#4) to get to the actual Airtrain platform. The Airtrain then took us approximately 1000 miles to the rental car facility in Colorado. (Luke was being extremely fussy the whole time, of course.) Once we got to the rental car place, we waited in line for 15 minutes. Then we had to take another elevator #5 to the rental car. I can't describe how relieved I was that we didn't have to get on a shuttle to actually get to my rental car. I think I might have gone all Falling Down on somebody if we did.
The plan for the week was to stay with my brother-in-law in Sacramento. But since he was currently driving back from a bachelor party in Vegas, we had some time to kill. We used that time to catch up with my cousin who lives in San Fran. (They have a child one year older than Luke and just had another a couple months ago, whom I hadn't seen before.) We met up downtown, had lunch and then headed over to their place in Oakland. Luke was quite a trooper, staying up until past 9:00 (Chicago time), a full hour past his bedtime. Of course, he had plenty of toys to steal from his cousins. Yes, Luke is quite the bully when it comes to toys. We're trying to get him to be better about it, but it's hard to reason with a 15-month-old child who understands about 20 words.
(Though, he IS starting to speak some words. So far, he says "No" (way too much, if you ask me), "choo-choo," "shoes," and "keys." It's so cool to see him learning words right now. I must say that I completely underestimated how much fun it would be to have kids. Watching them discover things and seeing the literally learning in front of your eyes is one of the coolest experiences in the world. It's almost as cool as when you get a dog to bring a thrown ball back to you. Or when you get a cat to do anything.)
One of the cool things about visiting my cousin was that I got to see a lemon tree up close and personal. The problem? These lemons didn't look a thing like what I see in the grocery store. Some were the size of softballs. They were all mis-shaped and oddly colored. In fact, I thought they were mangos or some other odd fruit. I had no idea they were lemons. Sadly, my cousin has yet to make lemonade out of the lemons God gave him. (Okay, that's not exactly true. I only assume he hasn't. But it wouldn't surprise me in the least if my cousin told his wife, "We HAVE to make lemonade. God gave us the lemons!" In fact, he probably makes lemon marangue pies, enters them in the state fair and wins ribbons. And my only question? Why didn't he have pie waiting for us when we arrived? I LOVE lemon marangue pie, even if I can't spell "marangue.")
Anyway, we eventually made it to Sacramento around 9:00 (11:00 pm Chicago time), even though my Brother-in-Law (BIL) wasn't there yet. Fortunately, his girlfriend let us in. Then we promptly passed out from sheer exhaustion. We stayed at BIL's one-bedroom apartment, and The Wife and I slept on an air mattress. Air mattresses are great, until you have to share one. The problem? Every time one person moves, the other person feels it. This was the only night we shared the air mattress. Marriage is wonderful. Sleeping with my wife is wonderful. (Get your mind out of the gutter!) But actually getting sleep? That's heaven.
On Monday, we chilled around the house. Luke woke up at 4:30 am (local time), causing The Wife and I some stress. Basically, we let him play around while we alternated forcing our eyelids open. I felt like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange where he was forced into rehabilitation. We eventually made it out of the house for brunch. That was followed by a group nap back at BIL's apartment.
After that, we headed over to Historic Sacramento. We walked around and then headed over to a railroad museum. I know that sounds lame, but Luke's new love is trains. He has a train table and 4-5 Thomas the Tank Engine trains that he LOVES. As I mentioned earlier, one of his few words is "choo-choo" and one of the only things that kept him quiet on the plane was his choo-choos. So, we went through the museum. Luke wasn't too interested in the actual trains we saw. After all, they don't have faces on the front of their engines. But when we went upstairs and Luke saw the HUGE train table full of Thomas Trains, he got all excited. It wasn't easy tearing him away. But as all good things must come to an end, so did Luke's fun with the choo-choos.
We then went over to the capital to catch a glimpse of the Governator. Sadly, he wasn't there. But we saw a lot of trees and changed Luke's dirty diaper on the steps of the capital. That was a fun, symbolic moment. After that, we went out to dinner with BIL's girlfriend. Luke was a pill and I had to take him away from the table frequently to keep him entertained. (And to prevent every other diner in the restaurant from shooting me.)
On Tuesday, we headed out first thing in the morning and went to Fairy Tale Town. This was a nice area where we could let Luke run around all day. There were numerous slides and tunnels and other fun things. Of course, he fell down twice REALLY bad, getting quite a shiner and scraping up his face. When people asked what happened, I just told them that he was asking too many questions. Then I glowered at them and shook my fist. (In other words, nobody really asked what happened.)
From there, we took a tour of houses that BIL is considering buying with his girlfriend. They're both radiologists and won't be lacking for money starting in July. (Not that there's anything wrong with that. Given what they've put up with for the past 10+ years, they deserve every penny.) These houses were gorgeous. Huge. Almost ridiculously huge. It got to the point where we started wondering what some of the rooms were called. "Is this the office?" "No, that's the office. This must be the study." "No, I think it's the den." "Actually, it says here that it's the library." Sheesh! And what's BIL's only requirement for the house? It has to have a "game room." Basically somewhere he can put a pool table. I'm pretty sure he can fit a pool table in the master bedroom's closet, so that won't be a problem.
Tuesday night, we ate in. (The Wife and I had had enough of Luke's behavior at restaurants.) Then we watched The Constant Gardener. (My review will follow tomorrow probably.) Then we all passed out, me on the couch, The Wife on the air mattress.
On Wednesday, our flight was at 1:00 pm. BIL was heading to the hospital at 7:00 am. We decided to use the intervening time to do a tour of a Jelly Belly factory in between Sacramento and San Francisco. We had to kill some time at a Denny's before the first tour at 9:00 am. But we made the first tour, and it was really cool. We got to see how jelly beans are made. Of course, The Wife kept asking all sorts of dorky questions of me. You see, she's an engineer, so she's a dork by nature. (Not that I can talk. I'm a former actuary, for God's sake. In fact, we frequently have Dork-Offs in our house to determine who's the bigger dork. I still haven't figured out whether its better to win or lose.) Anyway, The Wife kept asking all sorts of questions about their processes and their equipment and blah blah blah. Meanwhile, I'm thinking, "Who knew there was sugar in jelly beans?"
We got out of the tour around 10:00 and then high-tailed it to San Francisco to catch our flight. The Wife's goal was to make it to the airport around 11:00. My goal was to make it there sometime around 12:00. For some reason, The Wife wanted to get there with enough time to return our car, check our bags, go to the bathroom, change Luke, eat lunch, get food for Luke, and board the plane. The nerve of some people! We caught some traffic and got to the airport a little late, causing The Wife much stress. We got to the gate on time, though, so The Wife got to relax for about 10 minutes. Then we were stuck on an airplane with a fussy child. And we had to taxi for 40 minutes before we even got to take off. Luke was not pleased.
Finally, we were picked up at O'hare by my mother-in-law. Again, the motherly instincts kicked in. Many thanks to her, to my mom, to BIL and his girlfriend for entertaining us this week, to everyone on our flights for not killing us or Luke when he screamed, to Jelly Belly for all the wonderful treats, and to California in general for all the great weather. And now I have only 1 more day of "vacation" until I have to start working full-time again. Hopefully it's enough time to decompress from our family trip, which I will no longer refer to as a "vacation."
Catching Up on 24
Only 4 episodes of 24 left for the season. Let's see if I can quickly some up what's happened so far. Former President David Palmer is killed. Jack Bauer (presumed dead) is framed for it. A bunch of other people die too. Jack gets thrown into a plot to hijack (is that the right word?) an airport. Turns out this was just a ruse to get ahold of some nerve gas. Said nerve gas is about to be deployed in a mall (with the President's okay) before Jack thwarts the attempt. The nerve gas is then used on CTU. Rudy (aka Sean Astin) dies so he can save CTU. (It was partially his fault that they got gassed in the first place.) Jack then thwarts an attempt to release the nerve gas into the general populace. Then he discovers that there's a mole inside the President's office who okayed the theft and use of the nerve gas. Turns out that this mole is the President himself. And of course, Jack Bauer has hijacked a plane to get the proof that the President is guilty. I think that gets us mostly caught up. Yeah, and this has all happened in 20 hours. Right....
It's now 3:00 am and Jack hasn't peed once. So the President has decided to shoot down the plane that Jack hijacked. Apparently, he doesn't want anyone to know that he okayed the theft of the nerve gas and that he arranged for President Palmer to be assassinated. Pussy. What's great about the last few episodes is that the President is getting advice from some secretive group who are all wearing identical bluetooth headsets for some reason. And the leader of this cabal? None other than the former Dr. Robert Romano of ER fame, Paul McCrane. Since he's bald and has that headset on, he looks like the guy who controlled the carbon freezing unit in Empire Strikes Back. I need a cabal with matching bluetooth headsets. That should be Step #1 for anybody's Plans To Take Over the World.
Well, you'll all be happy to know that Jack managed to land the plane before the Air Force could shoot him down. It was completely hokey and you knew it was going to work, but I must say that it was really suspenseful nonetheless. I can't give enough praise to the writers of this show. The throw enough unexpected things at you that you're totally riveted for the expected things. You're 99% sure you know what's going to happen, but that 1% is what makes it exciting. It's like going out drinking with me. You're 99% sure I'm going to be obnoxious and get into an argument with somebody. But there's always that 1% chance that we'll all end up in jail. And that's why I'm so fun to drink with. Or so I keep telling myself.
The thing I love most about 24 is the "who can you trust" game. Right now, the acting head of CTU is confiding in her 2nd man about the evidence Jack has against the President. The cynic in me knows that 2nd Man is going straight to the President with what he knows. But what if he isn't? This guessing game makes the story SO much more intriguing. You're constantly guessing what's going to happen. Again, like drinking with me, wondering when I'm going to do a pressed ham.
Right now, CTU is transferring a prisoner. This basically involves tedious paperwork. But for some reason, they're showing it. Clearly this means that something exciting is going to happen. Either that or 24 has seen the success of The Office and is trying to steal some of its thunder. "The same 24 as always, but now with paperwork! Catch it on Fox!" Uh-oh. Bad Transfer Prisoner just gave a head nod to the Driver of the Transport. Something wicked this way comes....
Hey, Jack just met up with his gal pal, Audrey. He just said that it's all over, everything's going to be all right. What a relief! And there's still 3 more episodes left. God, are they going to be boring. I'm guessing it's going to be all paperwork like I said above. Has The Office really been THAT successful?
Well, now the President has found out that his goose is cooked. His solution? He's going to shoot himself in the head. Come on. Okay, in one day, the former President is killed. The President's Chief of Staff (or was it Press Secretary) committed suicide. (Though that's questionable. it's possible that the President had him killed.) There's an attack on the Russian President (and his wife and the First Lady). The Secretary of Defense tries to kill himself by driving his car off a cliff (to avoid being killed by the President's Men), but somehow survives. Now the President commits suicide? There's no way that happens. (And yet, secretly, I'm really hoping that the President has the cajones to off himself this way. It would be one of the single best moments on TV. Right up there with Hawkeye kissing Hot Lips on MASH. Or Dee saying something sarcastic on What's Happening.) And if you're the President and you're going to commit suicide, why not go out on a high note? Why not do it on live TV? Or take out half your cabinet too? Do something interesting. Because years from now, nobody's going to remember a President killing himself. But they might just remember a murder-suicide.
Oooh! The President is visiting the crazy First Lady. I'm sorry, make that the Crazy First Lady. Possibilities for a murder-suicide are rising.... Bah! The President just begged forgiveness and left. What a jerk! Kill the bitch already! (She's actually not even a bitch. I just wanted to use that phrase. She's no Sheri Palmer, but Jean Smart (of Designing Women fame) did a great job this season as the First Lady.)
Alright. The President has his hand on his gun. He's poured his final drink. It's splatter city any minute now. But wait. What do we have here? A call from CTU. Someone has something to tell the President! About Jack Bauer! And it's 2nd Man. I told you he was a weasel. Apparently, he saw the potential gain of helping the President out. Instead of being a middle manager (and forever a 2nd Man), he can vault himself up to, I don't know, 1st Man status. All he has to do is kill everyone in CTU and destroy the recording. I think he can do it. This Jack Bauer character seems like the type to be easily foiled. Unfortunately, my hopes for a murder-suicide, or even just a plain-vanilla-suicide, have greatly decreased.
And so the episode ends with 2nd Man using some "cool technology" on the digital recording. He should have just used a magnet. One of my friends has a brother that works for a magnet-making company. He used to tell me stories about how his credit cards always got screwed up because his magnets would de-magnetize the strips. I, of course, begged him for one. He gave me one that was about 1-inch square (1/2 inch thick). His only advice? Keep it FAR away from my computer. So I put it on the fridge. I couldn't get it off. We would throw other magnets at it and watch the trajectories change radically. Sadly, I lost it in one of my many moves. Anyway, 2nd Man should have just used that magnet.
And so ends my longest summary of a TV show ever. Having it running on my computer makes it a lot easier to summarize. The problem? I'm getting into Television Without Pity area. (It's a great website to read show summaries if you've got about an hour to waste reading about a show.) So, if you want a more elaborate summary, head over there or to Fox's 24 episode guide. I promise to make my summaries of House and Lost much more concise.
It's now 3:00 am and Jack hasn't peed once. So the President has decided to shoot down the plane that Jack hijacked. Apparently, he doesn't want anyone to know that he okayed the theft of the nerve gas and that he arranged for President Palmer to be assassinated. Pussy. What's great about the last few episodes is that the President is getting advice from some secretive group who are all wearing identical bluetooth headsets for some reason. And the leader of this cabal? None other than the former Dr. Robert Romano of ER fame, Paul McCrane. Since he's bald and has that headset on, he looks like the guy who controlled the carbon freezing unit in Empire Strikes Back. I need a cabal with matching bluetooth headsets. That should be Step #1 for anybody's Plans To Take Over the World.
Well, you'll all be happy to know that Jack managed to land the plane before the Air Force could shoot him down. It was completely hokey and you knew it was going to work, but I must say that it was really suspenseful nonetheless. I can't give enough praise to the writers of this show. The throw enough unexpected things at you that you're totally riveted for the expected things. You're 99% sure you know what's going to happen, but that 1% is what makes it exciting. It's like going out drinking with me. You're 99% sure I'm going to be obnoxious and get into an argument with somebody. But there's always that 1% chance that we'll all end up in jail. And that's why I'm so fun to drink with. Or so I keep telling myself.
The thing I love most about 24 is the "who can you trust" game. Right now, the acting head of CTU is confiding in her 2nd man about the evidence Jack has against the President. The cynic in me knows that 2nd Man is going straight to the President with what he knows. But what if he isn't? This guessing game makes the story SO much more intriguing. You're constantly guessing what's going to happen. Again, like drinking with me, wondering when I'm going to do a pressed ham.
Right now, CTU is transferring a prisoner. This basically involves tedious paperwork. But for some reason, they're showing it. Clearly this means that something exciting is going to happen. Either that or 24 has seen the success of The Office and is trying to steal some of its thunder. "The same 24 as always, but now with paperwork! Catch it on Fox!" Uh-oh. Bad Transfer Prisoner just gave a head nod to the Driver of the Transport. Something wicked this way comes....
Hey, Jack just met up with his gal pal, Audrey. He just said that it's all over, everything's going to be all right. What a relief! And there's still 3 more episodes left. God, are they going to be boring. I'm guessing it's going to be all paperwork like I said above. Has The Office really been THAT successful?
Well, now the President has found out that his goose is cooked. His solution? He's going to shoot himself in the head. Come on. Okay, in one day, the former President is killed. The President's Chief of Staff (or was it Press Secretary) committed suicide. (Though that's questionable. it's possible that the President had him killed.) There's an attack on the Russian President (and his wife and the First Lady). The Secretary of Defense tries to kill himself by driving his car off a cliff (to avoid being killed by the President's Men), but somehow survives. Now the President commits suicide? There's no way that happens. (And yet, secretly, I'm really hoping that the President has the cajones to off himself this way. It would be one of the single best moments on TV. Right up there with Hawkeye kissing Hot Lips on MASH. Or Dee saying something sarcastic on What's Happening.) And if you're the President and you're going to commit suicide, why not go out on a high note? Why not do it on live TV? Or take out half your cabinet too? Do something interesting. Because years from now, nobody's going to remember a President killing himself. But they might just remember a murder-suicide.
Oooh! The President is visiting the crazy First Lady. I'm sorry, make that the Crazy First Lady. Possibilities for a murder-suicide are rising.... Bah! The President just begged forgiveness and left. What a jerk! Kill the bitch already! (She's actually not even a bitch. I just wanted to use that phrase. She's no Sheri Palmer, but Jean Smart (of Designing Women fame) did a great job this season as the First Lady.)
Alright. The President has his hand on his gun. He's poured his final drink. It's splatter city any minute now. But wait. What do we have here? A call from CTU. Someone has something to tell the President! About Jack Bauer! And it's 2nd Man. I told you he was a weasel. Apparently, he saw the potential gain of helping the President out. Instead of being a middle manager (and forever a 2nd Man), he can vault himself up to, I don't know, 1st Man status. All he has to do is kill everyone in CTU and destroy the recording. I think he can do it. This Jack Bauer character seems like the type to be easily foiled. Unfortunately, my hopes for a murder-suicide, or even just a plain-vanilla-suicide, have greatly decreased.
And so the episode ends with 2nd Man using some "cool technology" on the digital recording. He should have just used a magnet. One of my friends has a brother that works for a magnet-making company. He used to tell me stories about how his credit cards always got screwed up because his magnets would de-magnetize the strips. I, of course, begged him for one. He gave me one that was about 1-inch square (1/2 inch thick). His only advice? Keep it FAR away from my computer. So I put it on the fridge. I couldn't get it off. We would throw other magnets at it and watch the trajectories change radically. Sadly, I lost it in one of my many moves. Anyway, 2nd Man should have just used that magnet.
And so ends my longest summary of a TV show ever. Having it running on my computer makes it a lot easier to summarize. The problem? I'm getting into Television Without Pity area. (It's a great website to read show summaries if you've got about an hour to waste reading about a show.) So, if you want a more elaborate summary, head over there or to Fox's 24 episode guide. I promise to make my summaries of House and Lost much more concise.
Catching Up (F Comcast!)
I'm going to write more about our trip to CA, but somebody asked about why I haven't been writing about 24 lately. Well, I haven't been writing about much at all lately. I've been watching all my "stories," especially 24. In fact, I was all stoked to watch it this morning. But when I got home last night, I ran into a little trouble.
As I was playing with Luke (who was SO happy to be home with all his toys), The Wife pointed out that the cable was on the fritz. So I called Comcast. Apparently, my cable bill was past due. Huh? I set it up for automatic payments. I don't like to think about cable at all. I just want it to be there when I need it. Let everything else take care of itself.
So I talked to the customer service rep (I'll call her Bitcharella, even though she wasn't all that unkind). She mentioned that my account was past due. A few months ago, we maxed out our credit card paying for some home improvements. (Don't worry, we're not actually in debt. Just big consumers. I think we're single-handedly keeping the economy (and Home Depot) afloat.) Because of that, our Comcast bill, which is paid via credit card, didn't get paid. I paid it all off the next month. I assumed that our automatic payments would start back up again. Boy, was I wrong.
For some reason, Comcast has this policy that they want to see my ID now before they can resume automatic payments. What? Could somebody please tell me how this makes any sense? They want me to show up at one of their payment centers and present my ID. I can't for the life of me figure out why. It's not enough that I pay them about $150 a month between my cable, internet, and phone. Now they want to see my ID just so I can have the convenience of paying all of that automatically? It just doesn't make any sense.
To make matters worse, Comcast never notified me that (a) my automatic billing was halted, (b) my account was past due, or (c) they were about to shut off my service. How about a phone call? Or an email? Or a letter? Anything? Please?
So now they wanted $2 for the right to pay my now-past-due bill. Then they wanted another $2 to turn my service back on. It's a fucking joke, and so is Comcast. And so I've decided that I've had enough with them. I'm getting rid of Comcast. I'm going with satellite TV (which is actually about $15 a month cheaper with more channels), DSL (which is about $30 cheaper, although a bit slower) and VOIP phone (which is about $15 a month cheaper). So overall, I'll be saving about $60 a month. All because Comcast couldn't communicate with their customers and then took a last opportunity to gouge them with fees. Arrivederci Comcast!
Fortunately, I was able to locate a few key shows that I missed because of the Comcast screw up. I just finished watching The Sopranos, which is having a really good season. I'll be watching (and reporting on) 24 tonight probably. Then it's on to House and Lost. I'm hoping to be all caught up by Monday when I have to report for my new job. I think my blogging might actually slow down for a day or two there. At least until I get hooked up to the internet at work.
As I was playing with Luke (who was SO happy to be home with all his toys), The Wife pointed out that the cable was on the fritz. So I called Comcast. Apparently, my cable bill was past due. Huh? I set it up for automatic payments. I don't like to think about cable at all. I just want it to be there when I need it. Let everything else take care of itself.
So I talked to the customer service rep (I'll call her Bitcharella, even though she wasn't all that unkind). She mentioned that my account was past due. A few months ago, we maxed out our credit card paying for some home improvements. (Don't worry, we're not actually in debt. Just big consumers. I think we're single-handedly keeping the economy (and Home Depot) afloat.) Because of that, our Comcast bill, which is paid via credit card, didn't get paid. I paid it all off the next month. I assumed that our automatic payments would start back up again. Boy, was I wrong.
For some reason, Comcast has this policy that they want to see my ID now before they can resume automatic payments. What? Could somebody please tell me how this makes any sense? They want me to show up at one of their payment centers and present my ID. I can't for the life of me figure out why. It's not enough that I pay them about $150 a month between my cable, internet, and phone. Now they want to see my ID just so I can have the convenience of paying all of that automatically? It just doesn't make any sense.
To make matters worse, Comcast never notified me that (a) my automatic billing was halted, (b) my account was past due, or (c) they were about to shut off my service. How about a phone call? Or an email? Or a letter? Anything? Please?
So now they wanted $2 for the right to pay my now-past-due bill. Then they wanted another $2 to turn my service back on. It's a fucking joke, and so is Comcast. And so I've decided that I've had enough with them. I'm getting rid of Comcast. I'm going with satellite TV (which is actually about $15 a month cheaper with more channels), DSL (which is about $30 cheaper, although a bit slower) and VOIP phone (which is about $15 a month cheaper). So overall, I'll be saving about $60 a month. All because Comcast couldn't communicate with their customers and then took a last opportunity to gouge them with fees. Arrivederci Comcast!
Fortunately, I was able to locate a few key shows that I missed because of the Comcast screw up. I just finished watching The Sopranos, which is having a really good season. I'll be watching (and reporting on) 24 tonight probably. Then it's on to House and Lost. I'm hoping to be all caught up by Monday when I have to report for my new job. I think my blogging might actually slow down for a day or two there. At least until I get hooked up to the internet at work.
I'm Back and Better Than Ever!
Okay, maybe I'm not really better than ever. But I'm probably heavier than ever. I just got back from a trip to sunny California with The Wife and Luke. It was a great trip, better than I thought it was going to be. Most of that was because Luke was generally a very good baby.
I was quite nervous about the flight out to CA. It's a 4.5 hour flight to San Francisco. Luke did great, but only because WE knew how to handle the situation. So here's how to fly with an infant in case you've never done it before:
I was quite nervous about the flight out to CA. It's a 4.5 hour flight to San Francisco. Luke did great, but only because WE knew how to handle the situation. So here's how to fly with an infant in case you've never done it before:
- Pack a lot of toys. I recommend at least 2-3 full bags of toys. If you can, pack every toy he has ever played with. Because he's got an attention span of about 30 seconds. So swap toys often.
- Pack a lot of food. Luke went through almost 2 zip-lock bags of animal crackers on the flight out. He also went through 2 dum-dums to relieve the pressure on his ears. (Instead of using the common "sucking" method to relieve pressure, we just jammed the dum-dums in his ears.)
- Pack some candy. Luke discovered that he liked jelly beans more than he liked dum-dums. Good to know.
- Pack a lot of beverages. Luke did a lot of drinking from his sippee.
- Pack his blankey. So crucial for helping him fall asleep.
- Don't spare the drugs. Luke slugged down some Benedryl before takeoff and slept about 2.5 hours on each flight.
- Don't bother packing any books or such for yourself. Your flight is going to be completely occupied in pacifying your child.
Seems straightforward, no? Yeah, it was a complete pain in the ass, and Luke was actually GOOD. He had a couple of tantrums, but nothing major. Still, it took me, The Wife and the occassional good-natured passenger to amuse him throughout the flight, even though he slept for more than half of it.
That said, The Wife and I are really looking forward to our next vacation. We're flying out to Boston for a wedding. Without Luke. And that's why we're looking forward to it so much.
