I'm going to hell, there's no doubt about it.

Why do you ask am I going to hell? Is it because I want to push slow moving people down the stairs? Because I want to beat morons about the head with an encyclopedia in the hope of literally beating some sense into them? Or is it because I want to force pro-life activists to adopt a baby every time they go out to protest (seriously, if they care about the fetus so much they can take care of it...any takers out there? Didn't think so). Maybe it's because I keep cursing every time I hear about Bush in the news and it doesn't involve his assassination? Any bets that my cell phone will be tapped by NSA by the end of the day? Hell with statements like that I'll likely find myself in Guantanamo (a.k.a. where freedom goes to die) by the end of the week...oh well, it was likely to get cold here sooner or later.

No the real reason is because I have a sick and twisted mind, not like a catholic priest who has a thing for the little boys, I'm sick in where my thoughts will go under certain circumstances. This morning was a great example.

In the news I noticed that there was a shooting in California. Yeah, not much of a big deal, well it gets more interesting when you realize it was a postal worker who went off the deep end...it's about time, I was wondering what this country was coming to when even the postal workers weren't shooting each other. But that wasn't my hell worthy thought, my thought that was worthy of the dark prince himself was "I wonder if they've updated the postal shootings tour t-shirt at T-shirt Hell yet?".

If you haven't been there yet check it out. This site specializes in offensive and absolutely wrong t-shirt slogans. And because they are so wrong they are funny, well at least to those of us going to hell. One of my particular favorites is in baby hell. Check them out have a guilty laugh or two and then repent, unless you want to join me in hell.

Oh, just for the record, they didn't update the site until later in the day...that's right, I thought of the change before they got to it at T-shirt Hell...well, no more cold winters for me I guess.

Another great blog

Ok, I realize that this is a shitty blog entry on my behalf. But what the hell, you guys need to check this blog out, El Guapo in D.C. I found this guy through Waiter Rant and in the past week or two that I've been reading he has had me laughing out loud the whole time. My personal favorite has to be this one, I was crying I was laughing so hard.

So check him out, I've left a permanent link on the sidebar so go there frequently, it's funny shit!

WTF is up with the weather?

So yeah, a while back I was mentioning how there was a misconception that Minneapolis was a frozen wasteland. Well today was a very eloquent summation to my argument that this will go down as the warmest of the 28 winters of my life. Here we are, January 27th and the daytime high today is 8 C (46 F), which is down from the predicted high of 13 C (56 F) that I saw this morning. The current high however is one degree Fahrenheit (you know, I even hate to try and spell that name, there is reason enough to switch to the metric scale) below the record set in 1934.

So what's going on here? Is this part of the effect of global warming that guys like Bush and King Ralph would make us believe isn't happening? Or is this my doing?

Hear me out, I think I may be onto something. When I moved to Edmonton for grad school I knew that I was in for a nasty winter, having spent all my life in southern Quebec. Yet though it got bitterly cold (anyone else ever freeze an ear to the point where it blistered?) there was never any snow. In fact up until the last summer that I was there I think the whole province had been in a massive drought. This was most evident in the winter. See I would hear all these stories from the locals, proclaiming snow up to the roof and walking to school on the tops of telephone poles...ok some of those may have been stories my father told me, but others came from the 20 somethings that I knew in town. Yet did I ever see a massive snowfall? Hell no! The worst I saw was maybe a couple of inches, sure that would put Toronto or Huston in a panic, but no real Canadians.

So now that I have moved here I had to "endure" all of two weeks of "cold" weather. Though a couple of weeks with -15 C (5 F) lows doesn't really compare to a week of highs at -30 C (-22 F). It would seem that much like the moisture in Alberta the cold in Minneapolis has disappeared with my arrival.

So I have a proposition for those of you out there who read this blog. If you wish for the "traditional" weather in your region to be altered for any period of time, I place my services at your disposal, for a small fee of course. Do you wish to end a drought? Warm the region up? Or maybe it's just too damn hot on your tropical island? Pay for my ticket and the aforementioned fee (which will vary, if the weather is going to turn to something I don't like the price obviously goes up) and you will have your very own binary weather switch. I will of course also require proper accommodations while in the area, a penthouse or large furnished condo will do nicely.

Now to sit back and wait for the money to roll in...or if nobody calls, I'm going to Florida to hold the citrus growers hostage.

Check this blog out.

I'm not sure how many of you read the comments regularly on this blog. But if you have you probably noticed that a woman going by New York Moments has been making regular contributions.

I've been reading her blog for some time and I've got to say, she's a hell of a lot of fun read. Plus as an added bonus (unlike myself) she responds to every comment she gets.

So swing on over and check out what she has to say, I'm sure you'll get plenty of laughs...probably more than you get here...unless you like to laugh at me, in which case there isn't much material on her site, yet.

I'm getting too old

Damn it! I can see it now, I'm becoming a cranky old man way too quickly.

Last night a few of us from work decided to head out to a nearby bar for a couple of drinks. Of course for me this means a massive consumption of coke. Since I stopped drinking (6 years ago on Feb 1st.) I have found that I cannot be in a bar, club or any other place where drinking is going on without having something of my own to sip on. So in a bar where waitresses seem to have ninja-like skills in slipping me full glasses of coke I tend to drink a lot of the damn stuff. But let's face it, I'm getting old and without that kick of sugar and caffeine I probably wouldn't make it past 10 pm...or maybe that's just the boredom setting in.

See going to bars no longer holds much appeal for me. Admittedly the bars here are smoke free so that helps at least. And the drinking age of 21 eliminates a few of the underage drinkers, though they all seem young and stupid to me...god I must have looked really stupid when I was that age. My only saving grace was that I was a quiet drunk...well most of the time.

One of the biggest turn-offs to the whole bar scene now is the noise. I swear that the DJs in all clubs and bars follow some kind of strict formula for music levels, it goes something like this:

• 6:00 - 9:00 pm : Play good music at a volume where you can hear people talking at the table next to you
• 9:00-10:00 pm : Up the volume about to about 90 dB, start playing "fun" rock music from the past two to three decades.
• 10:00 - 11:00 pm : The volume edges over 100 dB and seems to be getting louder by the minute, the songs are becoming more sexually suggestive.
• 11:00 - 12:00 am : The music (if you can call it that) is hitting the 130 dB mark and all class has been leached from the music and replace by crass lyrics about pussies, ass, hos and any other sexually explicit concepts you can think of.

Of course all this time the "kids" are coming in sporting their wannabe cool outfits. You know, the mini-skits in January, the one nice collared shirt the frat-boy owns or the favorite gangsta-rapper street wear.

So yeah, I'm getting a bit tired of that kind of crap. I'd like to stay out late in some place other than a coffee shop yet still be able to have a multi-syllabic conversation with the person next to me after 10:00 pm. But that seems rather unlikely, the concept of a nice quiet pub seems to be lost on most people. And seeing as I'm going to be drinking the free cokes all night, I don't think I'm any one's target market these days.

We're all full of shit!

It's funny that no matter how many times I think about it, it still seems odd to think that I have a PhD in chemistry. I'm not saying this to brag or anything, because most of the people who read this are likely friends of mine from grad school and they also have or will have graduate degrees. So for me having a PhD almost seems the norm, everyone I'm surrounded by tends to have a higher education, and seeing how dumb we can be at times, it scares me to think that the public considers us to be smart!

And that may be why in some ways I feel as though I don't deserve a PhD. Seriously what the hell do I know? Sure, I know a lot about what I worked on in my grad degree (or at least let's claim that I do since admitting otherwise would invalidate years of my life) but beyond that what do I know? Well I know how to look as though I know what I'm talking about. I can have a conversation with anyone, on any topic, quite possibly in any language, and make them believe that I know what the hell we are talking about. So I guess the thing that I did learn was to have a good poker face.

I mean all along the process of my graduate studies I figured at some point in time people would realize what kind of an idiot I was and kick me out. But it didn't happen. Even after the oral candidacy exam (several hours of being grilled on everything you know about chemistry, maybe that's why it only took me 2 hours, I don't know much) that was virtually their last chance to call my bluff, but they didn't. Not even when they had my thesis in hand, 200+ pages of drivel that I had presented to them, they still let me go. Listen to me people, the system has failed, there are no real checks in place to keep the idiots out!

But I think I understand it a lot better now, there was something my old boss told me, that the candidacy exam was looking to see if you qualified as a peer to these people. So wait a minute, if I'm full of shit, and they consider me their peer, they must be full of shit as well!

That's it, the whole system is full of BS. Nobody really knows it all, and feel free to call BS on anyone who claims otherwise. I'm personally proud of my ability to BS in my chosen field, I really do it quite well, hopefully you enjoy it in yours. So the key here people is to remember that no matter what degree they have, the people you are dealing with are likely full of shit, some more than others, be wary of those ones, they're likely to get some of it on you. So for the students about to enter the real world or move onto something different, don't worry if you don't think you know what you're doing, nobody really does right away, we just BS it for a while until we feel comfortable with it.

And to any present and/or future employers, please disregard the above statements. I certainly know what I'm talking about and have a firm grasp on all aspects of my work. And I am most certain that, even though I haven't meet you, you too are well above all the shit that others are full of.

Did you find everything you were looking for all right?

I am so sick of hearing that phrase. I don't know when it started or if it's just a Minneapolis thing, but I hear it from virtually every cashier at every store imaginable. "Did you find everything you were looking for all right?" Seems to have replaced "Thanks for shopping at X, please come again", though this new comment/greeting has a whole new level of insincerity to it.

I'm curious what the point of the comment is? After all most of these stores have people walking the floor to help me find what I want, should I need the help. Thus it can be reasonably assumed that since I am at the checkout line with any kind of product I was able to find what I wanted. Or do they actually think that I would pick up a load of crap that I don't want just so that it wouldn't seem as if I was so incompetent that I couldn't find what I was looking for?

You know what, next time I'm asked that question I'm going to change my answer, it's going to be "No". I'm curious to see what kind of look of panic will cross the face of the cashier. After all, they don't expect anything other than a yes. Are they prepared to deal with someone who wasn't able to find what they wanted? And what if I did manage to find what I was looking for but the process was arduous and I didn't feel that everything was "all right". Am I entitled to some kind of discount, or do I get to berate someone for half an hour for having placed the book not in alphabetical order by author properly?

Why can't we all be honest about the real relationship between the consumers and the employees of these stores. The reality is that these people have no vested interest in what I buy or if I had a pleasant shopping experience. I'm there because I need/want a product and I'm willing to pay for it. They are there so that they can get paid to buy the crap that they like. For all I know they despise me for my purchase of a half-gallon of mayonnaise, the latest Yanni CD, a collection midget pron DVDs and Scientology textbooks; so I would rather hear "Wow, you're the fifth person today to pick that particular DVD." or some other intelligent banter rather than the standard mindless corporate schpeel...but maybe that's just me, clearly I have peculiar tastes.

Movie ratings

No, I'm not talking about two thumbs up, four out of five stars, or "if you only see one movie this year..." type comments, I really don't care about movie reviews and how good some lazy slobs opinion of a movie is. Honestly, what do I have in common with some loud-mouth who sits around all day stuffing his face and coming up with new ways of saying that latest formulaic action/comedy/romance/drama movie is a must see. Now if you could find another rural raised, cycling obsessed, metrosexual chemist with an often dark sense of humour who writes movie reviews, then I might care what he has to say.

No what I want to discuss is how movies are rated, you know G, PG-13, R and so on. Now I don't really want to go into how it seems kind of pointless to rate movies by the viewers age. I mean hell, the kids out there these days are less likely to be disturbed by sex and violence than the Baby Boomers will be. The reality is that life experience and not age is more likely to determine how you are affected by a movie. Let's face it, the kid who lives in the suburbs and is home-schooled is going to react differently than the inner-city kid who's brother was killed in a drive-by last year.

But there is no measure for maturity, just look around at all the asinine things that adults do out of pettiness. So we resort to age the criteria that needs to be meet to see certain movies. Yet how is it decided what movie gets what rating? Well in the US it is determined by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) . More specifically it's a group of parents, actually in reading this excerpt "members must have a shared parenthood experience, must be possessed of an intelligent maturity" it sounds to me as though single-parents wouldn't be admitted. In Canada the movies are actually reviewed by each province, each with their own rating codes and guidelines.

The differences in the rating systems first came to my attention with the South Park movie. Yes that quality piece of animation which is responsible for introducing Americans to Canadian culture, and of course the song "Blame Canada". No beyond that, what I noticed when I sat down in the theater, after leaving a bar a beers heavier, was that my ticket stub was marked 13+. I've got to say I was a bit shocked, particularly after the song "Uncle Fucker" which I think opened up the movie. But looking at IMDB you'll notice that the rating given to South Park was an R rating in the US.

Now take a look at what the qualifications are for each rating:

Quebec 13+ :

13 years and over
May be viewed, rented or purchased by persons 13 years of age or over. Children 12 years of age and under may be admitted to a public showing of the film, but only if accompanied by an adult.

Guidelines
When rating a film as "13 years and over", the examiners consider:

* certain manifestations of violence (senseless destruction, physical harm, graphic violence, etc.);
* the representation of sexuality (extremely detailed intimate scenes, sexual relationships promoting dominance or disturbing situations, etc.); certain themes (suicide, family break-ups, mental instability, marginal behaviour, etc.).

MPAA R :

In the opinion of the Rating Board, this film definitely contains some adult material. Parents are strongly urged to find out more about this film before they allow their children to accompany them. An R-rated film may include strong language, violence, nudity, drug abuse, other elements, or a combination of the above, so parents are counseled in advance to take this advisory rating very seriously.

Interesting how the two ratings are about the same. But what I find most interesting is that the Quebec rating is much more clear as to what it is allowing. The R rating however is very ambiguous, hell it even contains the clause "other elements" which makes me think the whole thing is highly subjective.

And if you wanted any proof of just how subjective the rating are, the movie Brokeback Mountain was given an R rating. Now, that movie had less foul language, sexual content (yes it was a sexual topic, but it was not displayed very much at all, hell you can see more skin in any action movie) the only reason I can see for it having an R rating is the mysterious "other elements". Meaning that the conservative parents are afraid of talking about homosexuality. Because in all honesty, this was one of the best love stories I have seen in a long time. It wasn't some sappy Hugh Grant vehicle, it was an actual love story with all the joys and pains. But it was between two men, so that's not allowable.

I am happy to say that it was given a 13+ rating in Quebec (14A in the rest of Canada). But then again, Canada allows gay marriage and doesn't want to change to constitution to outlaw it.

Blame Canada!

Visits

So does anyone out there know when someone made a trip out to visit me since I moved away from Montreal? Well, the last person from home to visit me was a high school friend, she took an afternoon to drive up from Calgary to Edmonton after a nursing conference. Before that, my parents had made a trip through Edmonton, though that was part of a trip to watch the Brier in Calgary. After all, why else would anyone want to visit Edmonton in early March? That was back in 2002.

See the funny part is that when I was looking around for post doc positions there was a potential that I could end up in Hobart, Tasmania. When I mentioned that to my extended family the immediate and universal response was "Oh! We'll have to come visit!". When I ended up in Minneapolis for my post doc the response was somewhat different "Wow, it's cold there!".

I conclude from this that my presence alone is not enough to entice anyone to come visit...that or my family has no perception of distance and believe that Hobart is just around the corner. But since the biggest attraction to this city is a mall that is in fact smaller than the one in Edmonton, I don't think I'll have too many visitors any time soon.

However since I did get a web cam for Christmas I can now make up for my lack of a digital camera by attaching it to a lap top, creating the heaviest, bulkiest and least effective digital camera known to man. That being said it didn't deter me from snapping a few shots of my apartment last night to share with you. Of course since the web cam is suited for capturing images within a couple of feet of it, these photos kind of suck.

So here's the kitchen with the mandatory grocery back garbage bag on the door to nowhere.

More of the kitchen from the living room...exciting tour isn't it! Just wait until I get to the bike closet!

Part of the living room and kitchen...it's a shame the photos don't grasp the near 12' high ceilings.


Oooh...the bike closet, with only two of three bikes...and guess what the bedroom closet is even bigger! Yeah, all the girls out there hate me now.

And that's all you get to see, you want to see more come and visit...or send me a digital camera, the framing with this web cam is horrible, plus the laptop is damn heavy to carry around.

Selfish people

Is there any common courtesy left in people these days? I seriously wonder about this more and more. I think selfishness has hit an all time high of late, or maybe I'm just getting crabby about people being idiots...most likely it's a little of both, but yesterday I was starting to hit my limit.

Since it was Sunday and Deirdre and I had no other plans we decided to take advantage of the museum pass that she had given me for Christmas. So we made the trip to the Minnesota Science Museum to see what they had to offer. After standing in line for quite some time, and noticing all the kids running around (damn there were a lot of them) we finally made it into the museum. We decided to first check out the dinosaur exhibit, the life size pteranodon was rather inspiring as it hung over-head at the entrance of the museum.

Well the first lovely encounter with rudeness came at the first display on the floor. We were standing a foot or two away from the glass case around a simulated Mars Rover, when a rather chunky child walked right between us and the case, obscuring the view completely from me. Now remember folks, I'm six-foot-two, it's hard to hide anything from me with your body, particularly something the size of a Mars Rover, but this kid managed to do it really well. The little (or large) bastard just stood there while his parents were going to the elevator, he never even noticed that we had been there and that he was blocking the view.

There were plenty of other instances of kids just not being watched by their parents, or even worse, the parents were doing little to nothing to prevent their children from getting in others way. It's oh so much fun when you are trying to use a weather experiment and some kid drags his mom over and starts hitting buttons...you would think that there would be some kind of mention from the parent to acknowledge those who were there first...I guess not. Or maybe you shouldn't let you kid climb all over the ping-pong ball shooter. Sure it's designed to be used by kids to fire the balls up into a series of funneled nets, but does your kid really need to be climbing all over the base of the thing? And just maybe, if your kid can stand, but not see over my knee, maybe you should keep an eye on her, just a thought. Though I'm sure letting her trail around ten feet behind you is a sign of being a good parent.

So after being there for only about an hour and half we realized that my pass will get us in at any time and it was probably an opportune moment to make a break for it. There are only so many reminders of why I don't want to have kids that I can stand in one day.

No finally here's a little tip for those of you who are in a parking garage. If you see a car coming at you don't continue to stand in its lane, with you small child, talking to some bozo in a massive SUV for minutes. There are other people in the world and they have places to go, the longer you stand there impeding their progress the sooner they are going to revert to basic animal instincts and realize that you are useless to them and need to be crushed.

And one last little piece of advice. Those of you who drive mini vans, just because they are slightly smaller than the latest crop of SUVs (I swear the only vehicles in the museum parking garage were mini vans and SUVs) and contain the cute name "mini" in the name, they do not qualify as a "compact car". So don't bloody well park in the spot clearly marked with foot high letters reading "Compact Cars Only".

How masculine are you?

So has anyone out there ever described me as macho, or a man's man (by the way, is it just me or does that kind of sound gay)? The answer would be resoundingly NO! I'm not saying I'm a pansy, though at points in my life the term wuss could have been accurately applied. I am most certainly not the guy with the pick-up truck and gun rack who goes to monster truck rallies and boat shows. The reality is that as the years have passed I have become very comfortable doing some very non-traditional male roles, cooking would be a good example of this. So far I have made several dinners for my girlfriend, she has made me one, it was grilled cheese (what can I say, we both tend to buck tradition).

But I am starting to wonder if it's going too far. I mean this week the most masculine activity I have taken part in may have been dancing Argentine Tango! Not exactly what you'd be likely to see on Spike TV. But that wasn't what started me wondering about my masculinity. What got the question rolling was my interest in my girlfriends knitting. See she has been working on knitting some pillow covers for her new couch. They are really nice and I was intrigued at how one could turn a single strand of yarn (not thread, there is a difference) into something so useful.

Ok, it wasn't actually the fact that I was impressed by the knitting that got me wondering about my macho quotient. It wasn't even the fact that I asked how knitting works and suggested that if I was taught I could help speed along the process. It wasn't even the pink practice yarn that she gave me to use with the needles I bought. It was the fact that after trying it last night I picked it up again this morning and continued practicing while she got ready to go to work.

I can only begin to imagine the comments that will come from this post. But hey, knitting is like construction work, at the end of the day you have made something...though at the moment I have only managed to make a long piece of very pink knit yarn. And sure it doesn't have the power tools you need for wood working or welding, but really how function is a chair in comparison to a tea cozy? And didn't Sylvester Stallone knit a sweater in Demolition Man? And yes, I know I'm stretching. But hey, I enjoy it, the act of actually making something is very satisfying (the project on tap is a scarf, and no, it won't be pink).

And maybe knitting is more masculine than I first thought, after all knitting needles are on the list of items that are prohibited on airplanes...along with nail clippers, tweezers, nail files and manicure scissors...yeah, I'm really stretching.

The problem with problems

So what is it about me that makes me always feel that I need to be solving any problems that come up? I've always been this way, it doesn't really matter what the situation is, or whose problems they are, if I am somehow involved I will try to find the solution.

And yes, this may not be the worst thing in the world, but in some cases it is. Often times in life there are situations that have no solution, or more accurately there is no way that an outsider, such as myself, can do anything to provide a solution, things need to be internally resolved. Yet despite the fact that I recognize these situations I cannot help but feel distressed at my inability to "make things better".

And why is it that I need to make things better all the time? It's not that the problems bother me all that much, in a lot of cases they don't. Maybe it's a conditioning thing, after being the one that so many people have turned to help them with their problems, can I handle it if someone is insistent upon dealing with their own problems? Or maybe it comes out of a desire to feel needed, to in some way be irreplaceable, to assure my place within that persons life?

Or maybe it's something beyond my control? I recall a female friend telling me how guys often feel this compulsion to solve problems for her, even though she is fully capable of doing it herself and would prefer to be left alone to deal with them. So just maybe I can blame it on that damn Y chromosome, but somehow I think that's avoiding some of the reality of the situation.

The reality as to why I must always try to solve others problems may be a combination of all the factors above, and possibly some that I'm not fully aware of. Whatever the reason it is hard for me to walk away from a problem without having solved it, particularly if I care about the person who is suffering because of the problem. But I have to be realistic, I cannot solve all the problems out there, no matter how good my intentions, no matter how smart I think I am, there will always be situations that I just cannot resolve. Yet no matter how many ways I acknowledge that fact, realizing that I'm powerless leaves me feeling a bit lost, unsure of who I am and what I can do...I guess that's the danger of describing one's self as a problem solver, but I'm usually so good at it...

How cold is it in Minneapolis?

So I came across an interesting misconception while I was back in Canada for New Years. One of the most common things that was said to me was that it must be cold in Minneapolis. Well sure it’s cold, it’s one of the northern most cities in the US (excluding the freak states, Alaska and Hawaii). And yes, in comparison to the rest of the US it is cold, but why do Canadians seem to think that Minneapolis is a frozen wasteland?

I mean it’s further south than all the major cities in Canada (excluding the freak city of Toronto). And though latitudes are not necessarily the measure of warmth they work relatively well. But if you don’t believe that check out the numbers for the average temperature in Minneapolis and Montreal. Sure enough, Montreal is colder, and surprisingly wetter, I don’t remember that much rain when I lived there, but maybe I just got used to it.

So why do even Canadians think that Minneapolis is so cold? Sure it is near Winterpeg but a six hour drive south can really change the weather. Did some crazy politician dream up some stupid ad campaign for the state back in the eighties, promoting the numerous winter activities of ice fishing and, well that’s all I can come up with to do in this state in the winter…how the hell would you promote visiting a prairie region in the middle of winter?

Oh well, that’s just the way it goes. Just like I’m going to have to accept the fact that no matter what I will always be questioned as to whether or not I’m going to be warm enough wearing what I have on when I go outside. I heard that one far too often during the weekend at Tremblant. At 28 years old and having spent the last 5 winters in Edmonton (which is a frozen wasteland) I know how to dress for the cold. Though I guess it does appear to be shocking to some, since I have a ridiculously high metabolism and I’m able to stay warm with what appears to be a bare minimum of clothing…but it’s fun to freak out the Americans when I walk across campus in a t-shirt when it’s below freezing outside.

Though the one hard part of being in Minneapolis of late has been the overcast weather. It's just so gloomy and it makes me rather sleepy. The sad part is that we are apparently on day 12 of overcast conditions, and it's going to last until Tuesday at least, which might be a new record. So despite what I may say about Edmonton being cold, at least it's sunny and that makes things seem a bit better, until you step outside and realize just how damn cold it truly is.

Ah airports and flying, how I hate thee.

So I’m back from my little vacation up to Quebec. Since my parents place is still quite rural the internet connect out there is kind of poor, as a result I have a few blog entries stored up that I’ll post over the next couple of days. Here’s the first, a lovely little ditty about the flight back to Montreal.

On the 29th of December I flew out of Minneapolis to head back to Montreal for a late Christmas with the family. Deirdre was kind enough to get me to airport on time. Now maybe it’s because I haven’t been flying in a while or maybe because of the blog I’m looking for more things to complain about, either way here are some observations from the trip.

I did notice a change to the moving sidewalks in the airport. Now I don’t know about you, but I never really needed much instruction for how to use those modified escalators. So the fact that these ones now had a yellow line down the middle and instructions to “walk” on the left side and “stand” on the right side is just kind of sad. Seriously, was this a convention that people couldn’t figure out? I mean I thought it was an unwritten rule, stay right and pass on the left…I guess it’s written now.

The other thing that I was surprised to see was not the Fox (pronounced ‘Faux’) News store; I’ve known it to be there for some time. What surprised me was that it seems that the Twin Cities airport requires at least 3 of them! Really how many more places does one need to by books by Bill O’Rielly and Ann Coulter?

I wonder if there is a correlation with the need for the signs on the sidewalks and the Faux News stores?

Maybe it’s just an increase in the overall stupidity of people. Because is it me, or should carry-on luggage be able to be actually carried on? See the couple in front of me had to use a baggage cart to get their “carry-on” bags to the plane. But maybe they were ridiculously lazy, after all, they tried to leave the bags in the first-class part of the plane. Seriously, if you can’t carry your bag to your seat, pack less or hit the gym.

But I seriously think that people are getting stupider. A flight attendant informed us that she had “good news and bad news”. The “bad news” was that there was an avionics problem, but we could still fly. Apparently the only thing that was needed to be done was for the pilot to sign something…I figure it was a liability waiver. But we were never given any good news? Or is that airline so craptacular that if the plane doesn’t burst into flames when they power it up they consider it to be “good news”?

My least favorite part of the flight however was some of my fellow passengers. These specific passengers were about 3-4 feet tall, and prone to crankiness. There were 4 kids in my row and the one in-front and behind me. And no, they were not all well behaved and quiet. A pair of them were particularly loud and annoying. Oh, and I’ve now found something I hate more than Christmas carols; Christmas carols, sung by children (in French for added effect).