Took wife and child to the airport, and as usual, agita. It’s bad enough I get twitchy about flights I take; it’s ridiculous when I get that way about other people. But my wife, as much as I love her to the ends of time, still seems to think it is 1957, and you can walk from the curb through a waiting room to a door and then go up the stairs to the plane. To me there are three elements:

The time it takes to get to the airport

The time it takes to get through security

The time it takes to get to the gate

The first two are variables; the third can be discerned by looking at airport maps. That’s why you build in time, and lots of it. For example: their flight left at 4:47. This does not mean that you have an hour if you leave at 3:27; it’s the time the plane leaves the earth, as far as experience tells me. Right? I’ve never been on a flight where they pushed off at 4:47. The tickets should say the time the doors close, but they don’t.

Anyway: time it takes to get to the airport. Variable: traffic. It tends to start to bunch up here around 3:30. At 3:00, which was the time I agreed to take them, the road was clear, according to the traffic maps. Between 3:00 and 3:20, when we left, there was a solid block of inert cars on the main road to the airport. So, backup. If it had been in the same condition - which was more likely, since it’s more heavily trafficked - we would have gotten to the airport around four, at the earliest.

Time it takes to get through security. You just don’t know. So I build 20 minutes into that, minimum.

In short: it is relaxing to arrive at the airport ahead of time and saunter. It is not relaxing to spend every minute of the process wondering if you have to run from F2 to F23. So plan the day so you’re there with time to spare.

But like I’ve said before: people who think like this always end up married to people who don’t. Half an hour before we left, my wife asked me to print out her boarding passes, and check in. Guh-whuh? GUH-WHUH? I’m the sort of anal-retentive nutwad who not only checks in as soon as possible, but prints out two copies and puts them in envelopes and places the main envelope on the suitcase, which is packed and standing by the door. The night before. (If it’s an AM flight.)

As it happens, I was out of ink on my Kodak Scumbag4300 Ultra, and had ordered more from Amazon. Had to use her printer, the useless rattling HP Nevr-Conekt wireless printer. It had low ink, of course. All printers have low ink. If you’ve used any ink since you put in the cartridge, you have low ink.

Also, if I could print off the itinerary? Surely, dear. Got it off Travelocity, and the printable version had a color picture, because it would never in a million years occur to anyone at Travelocity that someone would be unable to print it off because their printer said it was out of fargin’ magenta, and thus could not proceed at all for fear of ruining the artistic integrity of the image.

But I had enough. It also managed to spit out two sheets that were entirely blank, except for a footer.

As for the check-in process, it was fairly simple, if kludgy and ugly. BECAUSE EVERYTHING ASSOCIATED WITH AIR TRAVEL HAS TO STINK LIKE A DEAD DONKEY STUFFED WITH PANICKY SKUNKS.

So I tried to get someone in the Hallmark PR department yesterday; left a phone number and an email. I was responding to a press release, which is rare - those things choke my work inbox with a never-ending flood of crap, and every day they require action. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. At the very best, it’s like this:

It’s national news: the iconic candy team, MIKE AND IKE have split  - The independent and talented duo have decided to split due irreconcilable differences in the candy and to follow their true passions; Mike is a musician, Ike is an urban artist and a lover of art.
 
Since the split, Mike has been working on his music and just debuted his first music video – “Strawberry or Die”, featuring Blaze Kelly. The vibrant video can be seen at Strawberry or Die on YouTube.
 
Fans of MIKE AND IKE can help us reunite them by entering  the “Where Are Mike and Ike?” contest.

Oh by all means, count me in. But is it social?

“Where Are Mike and Ike?” is a social media based contest where participants will be asked a question about the location or activities of Mike or Ike. Participants will be given clues that will help them answer their questions. More info on this is available at www.facebook.com/mikeandike and the MIKE AND IKE® Tumblr page: http://mikeandikebrand.tumblr.com/

Yeah, I don’t know how a musician and a lover of art can possibly get along. The tension must have been enormous. But that’s as good as it gets. Mostly it’s celebrity crap, really dull political crap, self-serving crap, crap full of images that get filtered out by the company’s e-mail program, and reaaaaaalllly looooooong letters I never read because, well:

Good Morning James – hope you’re having a good week so far! 
 
With three (soon-to-be-four) kids, a husband and a busy career, it’s no surprise Tori Spelling enlisted the help of her son Liam on a recent shopping trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond.

I hereby coin a new word for the process of bathing in celebrity trivia: moronating.

 


The tweet described this as Gorgeous Beautiul Soviet poster art. I think this stuff is ugly as hell, with few exceptions. There’s just something off about all of it. Some of it’s cultural; there has to be something about this that strikes a chord, instead of making everyone flee in terror:

 

. . . but in general it’s like most avant-garde graphics from the other side of the Iron Curtain. It’s dreary and cheap to boot. The Nazi stuff is much more interesting, because it’s closer to American advertising. I doubt anyone will call it “beautiful” or “gorgeous” or any of the other words lavished on the Soviet propaganda; the images are inseparable from the evil that produced them. The Soviet stuff gets a pass because, well, because, and it all worked out in the end, didn't it?

SomeNazi anti-spy posters; here. A “humorous” series of posters designed to mock the complainers; here.

 

A huge slew of California motel postcards! Right here. Enjoy!!

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

blog comments powered by Disqus