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When I suffer through insanely long delays at airports, I like to entertain myself with fantasies of revenge on people & things in my surroundings. It's petty, immature, vindictive, slightly insane, and awesome.

For example:

• Throwing the crying baby behind me like a football across the waiting area, nailing the girl shrieking with laughter on her pink cellphone and giving her a broken nose, Marcia Brady style


• Jumping on the back of the sloth-like creature behind the gate desk, riding him down the concourse while screaming "WHO'S DELAYED NOW, KYLE? WHO'S DELAYED NOW??"


• Commandeering one of those beeping golf carts, throwing it into high gear, and picking off anyone walking slowly or suddenly stopping to ponder the menu at Auntie Anne's pretzel stand*

*I was going to put in a link to the Auntie Anne's web site, but Google believes "This site may be harmful to your computer," i.e. as you browse her site, Auntie Anne will go behind your back, while singing pretzel songs sweetly in your ear, and install malware on your computer. Auntie Anne, you bitch.

Anyway, the whole point (?) of this ridiculous post was to share with you Lewis Black's "An Airline Traveler's Prayer," which is far better than the dreck I just blurted out above. Excerpted from his "Oh Me of Little Faith" book:

In the name of Christ, Your only begotten son, my hair gel doesn't come in a container that is 3.4 ounces or less. I don't care that we are now in Code Orange, I have no orange to wear. I am losing my mind in here. I want to tear off my clothes and run on all fours onto the tarmac and bark at the planes like a dog.

Amen.

Dear Ronald McDonald,

I had a great time at your place, celebrating my birthday. It's not every day you turn 6. My friends had a good time too, as evidenced by the photos that showed a beaming me with icing in my hair and my friend Jennifer doubled over with giggles. Never mind that I tripped on the way out and nearly put a tooth through my bottom lip. (Thank god for baby teeth - it was going to come out anyway, right?) And thanks for the photo op out front, by the Playland. Weren't my Garanimals wicked sick?

But I am a little older than 6 years old now and I must bring something to your attention. I looked the other way when the McJordan Burger debuted, I ignored the McDLT, and I politely shunned the inexplicable McRib. Today, however, I must stop my selective indifference and wave my flag of McReason.

Please stop the Southern Style Chicken Biscuit (breakfast menu only).

Who? Who? Who wakes up and thinks: I must have fried chicken - convenient fried chicken - shaped into a circle and wedged between two pucks of friend Bisquick?

My soul is not so cold that I cannot imagine the appeal. Pause, though, and just think about this: After eating a Southern Style Chicken Biscuit, before 11:30 AM, is one inspired to map the human genome? Remove tartar buildup? Call one's mother? No. No, one is not inspired to do any of those things, nor anything else that benefits humanity.

Please stop the Southern Style Chicken Biscuit.

Thank you,

A Concerned McFlurry Lover

Over the weekend a friend graciously gave me a quick studio tour of MSNBC. I saw both Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews on set, about to broadcast something or other. Two words: Pancake makeup. One more word: Spackled.

Also witnessed: a bulldog pushed around in a baby carriage in Bryant Park, a couple with matching nose jobs, and an old episode of the Jon Stewart Show (thank you, Paley Center for Media - you are the BEST). Some people shouldn't monologue. Nor should some people wear a green screen suit upon which endless photos and films are projected and then giggle about it for way too long. The gag was good for 60 seconds, max. I love me some Jon Stewart but thank god his shtick has improved.

His show was selected because Studs is apparently not in the Paley catalogue. Bummer.

At the Madison Square Park Shake Shack, I witnessed Hot Dog! The Delectable Musical. Okay, so it was witnessed in my mouth: a Shack-ago dog lovingly dressed in a frock of Rick's Picks relish, mustard, and pure rapture. That's right, rapture.

Via the always entertaining MindHacks comes a 1939 Marital Rating Scale - Wife's Chart. Wives are given demerits or merits, based on range of behaviors. Wears red nail polish? Demerit. Is a back seat driver? Demerit. Puts cold feet on husband at night to warm them? Deeeemerrrit. Merits include: Dresses for breakfast; Has meals on time; Lets husband sleep late on Sundays and holidays.

A few edits of the list:

• Bacon maple bars
• Pixel Couch
• Sad Kermit Re-Enacting Needle in the Hay scene from The Royal Tenenbaums
• Toaster Message Writer

Appetizers

A 1 Deep Fried Baby Sock, Stuffed with Eraser Detritus $1.25
A 2 Boiled Packing Peanuts (6) $3.95
A 3 Fried Potpourri with Special Bright Red Sauce $1.75

Entrees

B 1 Spicy Mr. Clean Magic Eraser with Steamed Barbie Hair (Market Price)
B 2 General Tso's Seat Belt a l'Orange $15.45
B 3 Sweet and Sour Racquetballs with Brined Baby Pinecones $13.20
B 4 Deep Fried Loofah, Shanghai Style $14.90

Dessert

C 1 Homemade Radiator Coolant, Assorted Flavors $2.90
C 2 Fruit Delight on Princess Ming's Paradise Bed of Regret $9.95

Sorry for the wait...I just stepped out for a York Peppermint Patty, and I got the ssssensation of a brisk jog! through the piney woods! over the mossy hills! across the Joann's Fabrics parking lot! past the Lane Bryant! over the freaky karaoke club where it's always dark and everyone lacks a full set of teeth! through the parking lot kiosk that used to be a Fox Photo and now sells turkey on a stick! over the carpet store with the wacky wavy wiggly arm man!

...and then, the couch. Hi!

p.s. I know some of the archived links are broken...working on it. :)

I did it. :-)

Recently, the splendid P and I did some pop cultural spelunking by way of Waterbury, Connecticut. Waterbury is home to one of the last "real" Howard Johnson's restaurants, and by last, I mean, they're brushing off their HoJo affiliation next week. But the lunch counter is still there, replete with mirrored back wall, the Simple Simon & the Pieman graphic, HoJo's logo carved into the glass near the ceiling, milkshake mixers, and people who look like they've been there since opening day.

The entire experience was a peculiar patchwork of past and present, organic and synthetic, family-style and not-so-family style. Waiting-room mauves and greens were everywhere. The dining room seemed to be true to the original layout, as did the lunch counter. In the back of the dining room was an oddly placed salad bar, which glistened with beets and gelatins...this was across from a slightly off-balanced "Desserts" glass refrigerator which held saran-wrapped pies, mousses, and cakes. This was in the middle of the dining room, right next to a table of six.

The menus were laminated collages of inkjet printouts, old, copied HoJo's food photos, new items (wraps!), old items (fried clams!), and an earnest announcement on the cover promising their clientele that even though the HoJo's name was going away soon, they'd still get the same quality dining experience and service they'd come to expect over the years. And we have fried clams!

(We didn't get the clams - I couldn't muster up the stomach juice for it. I did, however, have a lovely cheeseburger.)

Adjacent to the dining room is the retro-phenomenal cocktail bar. It was a (karaoke on Saturday nights!) bar - filled with dark, heavy furniture and dark wooded walls. In the middle of the room, dividing the bar from the lounge area, were two gigantic fabric screens of a leopard and some other wild animal, presumably included to lend the lounge a more...exotic? exciting? urban? urban! feel, which I guess might give you some credibility if you were belting out "We Built This City" in front of the 1970's gas fireplace on karaoke night.

Supposedly, HoJo's is coming back (better than ever, etc.) as soon as they get their ice creams in order. Not the same as the "real" thing, but, awesome.

Dear Music Choice People,

As an occasional listener (when I need background music while I write) and distracted viewer of your cable channel "Light Classical," I must tell you a few things I've noticed. I hope you will indulge my suggestions here on improving your service.

1. Your graphics make me feel like I'm watching TV in a room at the Paducah Holiday Inn, ca. 1983. I have watched a bowl of oatmeal that was more interesting. What's with the weird montages? The clunky graphics? The photos of jaundiced musicians that look like they were safety-scissored out of an airline magazine? Feh.
2. Speaking of musicians, do not ever show the public what the flute/oboe/violin/piano player looks like. I say, better heard than seen. Enough said.
3. Why is it that every time I look up, there's some tidbit on the screen about when the composer died? "Schubert died in 1828" or "Liszt died in 1886" or "Bizet died in 1875." Why not call this channel "Elevator Music by Dead White Guys?" It would be more descriptive, and it might bring you some more corporate subscriptions.
4. This brings me to your little trivia tidbits. I'm not sure who writes these, but I suspect these are either auto-generated from some big dusty reference CD-ROM from 1989 or they are written by a Mr. Bo Ring McBoringson who works in a broom closet in the Music Choice HQ and has a tuna fish sandwich for lunch every day with a carton of milk and exactly 7 Milk Duds for dessert. If you don't have anything better to write than when Stravinsky died, why not tell a joke? I can think of a ton that you could write about Bach ("Bach wrote all his fugues Bach-to-Bach in the spring of 1748", etc.), Lizst ("Q. How do classical composers get fresh breath? A. They gargle with Lizsterine!"), etc. At the very least, bring in a writer or two from NTN. They manage to slide some real zingers in their little trivia game answers, and I suspect they make those writers work in broom closets too.

Thank you for your attention.

Sincerely,

A Concerned Music Choice Light Classical Listener

I have resisted, for several days now, the urge to sit down and write an entry about my renewed love affair with prunes. Because I feared that a passion for prunes would mean I'm just around the corner from early-onset senility, and before you know it, I've got 64 oz. jars of cold cream and the complete DVD set of Mama's Family. And soon I'll be waving my graham crackers and scowling at my neighbors who leave their mailbox flap open and my tinfoil hat tells me that's how all the aliens get into our city milk supply.

Unrelated:

• Erdos numbers
  
• Erdos-Bacon numbers
  
• Mega-list of web design/development references
  

Quote of the day, or at least this morning:

We do not see the world as it is. We see the world as we are.

This was lifted from a NYT piece, quoting someone who had lifted it from the Talmud.

Other thoughts:

• Can't someone improve upon the umbrella, for god's sake? I mean, this design has been around forever, it breaks, it sucks, and you'd think by now someone would have come up with a better solution. I don't have any bright ideas, other than using some new space-age material (that's my solution for everything...), hire some Italian designer, and uh, magic happens. I'm pretty sure that's how the process happens at Target. And I love Target. ...Forget designing "a better mousetrap": umbrellas suck the big one.
  
• Ditto internal combustion engine.
  
• Negroponte's laptop UI. Hmm. The jury is out. I must hold one in my grubby hands and mutter ignorant remarks.
  

I predict that this blog will get more attention in the coming months, as I invent and revisit ways to procrastinate from writing my thesis. I also predict that my house will never be cleaner. The effects of thesis research are already being felt: today I lint-rollered my cat. She didn't seem to mind. Also, I have rearranged my medicine cabinet twice after I ran out of laundry to do. And it's only January.

Question: Is blowing one's nose a modern custom, evolving from our fascination with hygiene, or is it a natural human response to having a drippy nose? Did cavemen with allergies run around looking for leaves to wipe their noses with? Or did it just run down their faces? Or did they wipe it off when it dripped with the back of their hands? These are the important questions.

• Rosie and Trump shut up.
• More money. Less fretting about it.
• Lots of giggling.
• More meatballs. Specifically: Five meatballs, arranged in a star formation around the perimeter of my plate, with a small blop of mustard in the middle.
• More civic accountability; fewer asshat city leaders.
• My master's degree (finally).
• My tire patched.
• Being where I want to be, with the person/people I want to be with.

Why do you keep selecting the same 3 pairs of socks and wash just those when you have a veritable plethora of other socks to choose from? Fine socks. Happy socks. Socks that need to be worn and have their $7.99 purchase price justified. And stop hiding things in here. I see you. I know. Have I said too much? That's right. I'm on to you.