Notes ON Travel: Trans-Atlantic Tomfoolery

Hey, it's the return of that recurring series no on really pays attention to! This is surely the best way to recommence the blogging habit and pulling in the audience.


1. If you're going to be stuck in the middle seat, it might as well be on a Trans-Atlantic flight. You may think I'm kidding, but you'd be wrong. WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG. Wrong. That's because those trans-Atlantic flights use non-shitty planes, that have such concepts foreign to your average commuter traveler as "legroom". And given the added convenience of free TV and movies, I was able to watch "30 Rock" and "How I Met Your Mother" episodes along with a neat Bollywood movie. This allowed me to only watch "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" as a final attempt to put me to sleep.

Plus, it didn't hurt that I was stuck between two beautiful ladies...that I didn't say a word to the entire flight.

2. If you're going to be stuck in an airport for a five-hour layover, make sure it's not the Frankfurt airport. Those goddamn Germans and their Teutonic efficiency--they made this aiport into a giant hallway, with only a couple of half-assed newsstands and duty-free shops that take up about 5 square feet. Their food choices are: random prepared-sandwiches, and other random prepared-sandwiches. At least I ended up finding the one set of benches without armrests to sleep for two and a half painful hours, but this was after traveling 2.3 miles in that godforsaken hellhole.


3. There is no scarier feeling than realizing you may have gotten on the wrong train in the middle of a foreign country. Luckily, this feeling only lasted 25 minutes--I randomly ended up on the correct train. But goddamn would I have been fucked with my limited knowledge of Dutch and my 10 weeks-worth of luggage.

4. Don't take a taxi in The Hague. I'm used to New York cabs being pretty cheap, never really having to pay more than a few dollars unless I'm headed to the airport. LA is different, since you're stuck in traffic for 2 hours and have to travel 30 miles to do anything. But taxi service in Den Haag is insane--the starting price is 7.50 euros, which is, if you're scoring at home, 10 dollars. STARTING PRICE. And then once that meter starts ticking, you're going to be paying top dollar. At least their cabbies are dressed in suits. Good to see my money being put to good use.

Notes on Travel #4: Bumblefuck, Northwest

This week I took a trip out into the middle of Eastern Washington to visit The Sister in her collegiate setting. Like me, she chose to go to school right plum fucking in the middle of nowhere, except she made the unfortunate decision to go to one in the middle of the desert. So in addition to schoolwork and social pressures, she has to face the possibilities of attacks from coyotes, rattlesnakes, and mountain lions. All I had to deal with was the remote possibility of a wandering J.D. Salinger.

And now, the random observations from the trip.

1. Your personalized vanity plate may reveal more than you would like I don't make a habit of paying attention to license plates, but somehow I noticed the vehicle with the "2IN LUV" plates. My initial reaction was "Hey man, if you're comfortable with revealing the length of your love like that, all the more power to you." Then I realized that this was probably not the intention.

2. I want an electric harmonica I don't know how this would work, or what the point of it would be. But it just sounds cool. Joe: Make it happen.



3. Wesley Snipes is a goddamn liar (and not just with his taxes) On the way back, we had some time to kill, so we hit The Wild Horse Casino out in Pendleton. Let me tell you, there is nothing more existentially depressing than the scene you'll find at the podunk casino on a Wednesday afternoon. The extent of my gambling was a turn at the roulette wheel, betting 20 dollars on black (mind you, I could have made my bet based on 25 cent increments). This went just as well as the time I tried to buy shrooms from that crackhead.


4. Trucker Gas Stations are amazing Not only could I stock up on beef jerky and Super Caffeine Happy Fun Time Wish Drink, but they have your weapons needs covered. Some of you might opt for the flash and thrill of a 3 foot samurai sword, but I was much more intrigued by the opportunity to purchase a switchblade. I know where I'm shopping for Christmas next year!

5. Who Shiv's A Git! Actual phrase found on a bumper sticker at Trucker Gas Station. Now I'm fluent in Southern, Hobo, and Retard, and never had I encountered words randomly put together like this (though my Jive is a bit rusty). Ignoring the Grammatical Genocide committed here (What the hell is the "shiv" possessing? Why is this implied question marked with an exclamation point?), I just have no clue what the hell is being asked here, or if it's even a rhetorical question. My response?



I don't know?

Notes On Travel #3: Dispatches From the Road (California Smells Like Dick)

This weekend the WDR crew embarked on one of the standard American rites of passages, the road trip. Our destination? The reunion of Rage Against the Machine in the shithole that is San Bernardino.

We will give a total write-up of the entire concert this week, but we're also going to sprinkle in a few random observations that comes from a life on the road.

1. California believes only midgets need to use urinals I swear to god that the only urinals available in the entire state of California are designed to be used by only Gary Coleman. The apparatus was stationed below my knees, and it made for an awkward process of relieving one's self. I really have no explanation for this.



2. Oakland needs to crack a window The stench emanating from the this otherwise perfectly awesome community nearly killed us as we drove through at 7 in the morning. There's a lot of California that has a foul odor, but Oakland can claim the title of Stink King.

But Oakland is the gift that keeps on giving. A constant running joke was the image of a burnt-out car with "Welcome to Oakland, Motherfuckers!" spray-painted on. This is their ambassador.



"Boom, Bitch."
-- Oakland's official town motto

Notes On Travel #2: Grounded Edition

Because fuck Mr. Zhuang, you don't get a free pass on your birthday. A few observations, once again.

1. Pretty People Don't Ride the Bus. All the pretty girls go to the city, but when they're there, they're not using the bus. I have theories--mainly that pretty people end up being more successful, so they end up affording a car, or people fall over themselves trying to help them out, so they never need a ride. And just so you know:

A. Pretty People Don't Ride the Bus.
B. I rode the bus.
which means C. I am not pretty.

The math is solid, you can't argue this shit.



2. School Bus Drivers are way more awesome than public bus drivers. Public bus drivers don't have time for your shit, and fuck you if you can't fit the damn dollar through the slot. And they're not dealing with your non-exact change ass.



3. Don't trust the music options in a taxi. My first experience in a cab in DC was nice--the old guy had it on the alternative station, and I went to the airport singing along to the Smashing Pumpkins' "1979". After that, it varied from droning Indian music to an infomercial-book-on-tape to something so horrible my brain just shut off and I can't even remember.



4. Trains suck. Don't bother with them. And the people that ride them suck. If you need this explained to you, you obviously have not dealt with trains.

Notes On Travel #1

1. Moving Sidewalks. The single brilliant thing about air travel is the use of moving sidewalks that allow you to electric bugaloo across terminals. In fact, it's the one single halfway decent thing at all related to airplanes and airports.



My problem is this: how come we don't have these everywhere?!?! We've had the technology for decades, dammit! We need to install these everywhere, so as to make the future less of a sham at the very least. And it's not as if it takes much to power these things--the secret is that airports use about 3 hamsters per sidewalk, so all we need to do is amp up our hamster breeding program and we're set.

2. Unattended Baggage. Now I understand the security concerns, and the more things that you can try to account for, the better. But the fact that they tell you to be on the lookout for unattended baggage at baggage claim, well that crosses the line from reasonably stupid to just retarded.



Think about it. The one place where everyone is separated from their baggage, and yet they are asking us to be on the lookout for baggage separated from their owners? Doesn't seem like this would work too well. Of course, if you think about it, the whole philosophy is predicated on the belief that potential terrorists are too afraid to die with their bombs, but to think about that is just depressing.

3. The "No Smoking" Sign. For years, they've had these electric lights on planes that tell you it is not OK to smoke, thank you very much, but the fact that these are lights and are not painted-on indicates the potential for smoking at some point. But that is not the case. Of course, way back when, it was possible to partake in smoking, but that hasn't been true for as long as I've been traveling, which is about 15 years. We are wasting precious electricity powering these lights!

Of course, today I saw a different light in place of the "No Smoking" one. "Please Turn Off Electronic Devices" is now apparently making appearances. I don't want to go into the general bullshit of that policy, but if you want to comment on that, please do so.



Anyways, Orlando was a great deal of fun, and no, there were no crimes as had been my fear, as stated in the previous post. Stories will soon follow, especially now that I have given my secret on Matter Transport (Cold Fusion will wait another day). And it's good to see that my co-authors kept going on the blog. Way to pull in the viewers with those new posts!

And now I sleep.