OK, that’s quite enough already, with the fuckin’ snow. I get it. I live in Colorado. But the shit’s only useful in the mountains, which is apparently where half my office is headed today, to ski. I wouldn’t know, but hopefully by next weekend I will understand what this snow fever is all about. Right now, to me, all it is is a friggin’ nuisance.

After dropping Brenda off at the bus and our car off at the dealer to have the damage from last week’s snowstorm(s) repaired, I strapped on the gaiters and plodded through the snow to my office. Looks like we got 8-9” here already, and it’s supposed to snow most of the day again. It wouldn’t be so bad if Brenda didn’t have to be in Denver for the next three days.

Suddenly our fun little front wheel drive, low slung car ain’t so much fun anymore.

Well, I just go back from the barbarian’s office, sans tooth #32. That hurt a lot, and it’s starting to get worse as the Novocaine wears off. At least it was fast. This is gonna get worse before it gets better, but the good news is my office is closed tomorrow through Tuesday so I can lie around and complain in the comfort of my own home. Brenda will be thrilled.

Words cannot describe the delight I feel by being the oral surgeon’s entertainment for the day; after several moments of yanking and tweaking the tooth was out, and he goes “cool root”! He showed it to me—the same way a satanic gargoyle shows you your heart after ripping it out of your chest—and explains that the hooked root is probably what made the extraction “uncomfortable”. Uh huh.

Apparently in a couple weeks I’ll be totally 100%. In the short term, I have some Vicodin.

The worst part is, I forgot to ask him for the tooth. No souvenir, dammit.

One time, in high school (not band camp), my friend Brian Scargill called someone an “assbutt” in gym class. I’ll never forget it. I thought it was brilliant, to call a guy an amalgam of slang phrases for the posterior. While I never forgot the moment, or the expression, I’ve never, ever used it. But now I am forced to do so, for fear of calling this idiotic moron something far worse.

Say hello to Assbutt “Breakdancing,White,In2006” Assholeface:

This horrific image captures the New York City Twentysomething Financial Sector Asshole Jerkoff in its natural setting around this time of year, the office holiday party. My dear friend sent me this picture as evidence that she needs to get the hell out of her current job, but I would argue that most office environments are habitats for similar specimens. Sigh…

Wow. (Another) Yankee goes and gets himself killed flying, and now the criminal (yes, criminal, just like his asshole father) Chicago Mayor Daley and Hillary Clinton are yapping about how dangerous these small planes are. CNN’s shitty website ran a poll recently asking the good citizens of the websurfing world if small planes should be “allowed” to fly over densely populated cities, and the majority answered no.

Chill out, people.

I have never Monday-morning-quarterbacked a plane crash before, but moments after hearing about the Lidle crash I already had a good idea what had happened; after watching the video and seeing the smoke streaming west I had all the info I needed. Cory and his instructor flew up a dead end canyon of airspace and tried an already tight turnaround, downwind, in a stiff and gusty wind. This strong wind took them over Manhattan and they were apparently caught unawares and before they knew their mistake and could plan an exit they flew into a building. They were idiots, pure and simple. And now asshole politicians are using this tragic act of stupidity to twist it into moronic legislation and more fear mongering. This is retarded bullshit and it pisses me off. Some kid hopped up on Accutane flew a stolen Cessna into a Florida office building a couple years ago and all he managed to do was break a window and stain a carpet. Cory Lidle and his brilliant instructor did a little more damage, owing to some fuel burning, but the bottom line is the plane pancaked into the building and fell to the ground. Terrorism shouldn’t even enter into the discussion, but it does, even with the democrats. I’m so sick of these moronic politicians attaching themselves to “causes” that don’t need attention, scaring people, hamstringing pilots and restricting freedoms to further their political careers because the masses are uneducated about general aviation.

Fuck you, Hillary, drop dead, Daley. Lautenberg, you can kiss my ass too.

I learned to fly in the New York City area and I never thought to fly up the East River Corridor for the very reason that it required a tight 180-degree turn to get back out. It’s really only meant for helicopters, or good pilots on a good weather day. Cory made a mistake, but his accident affected a lot of people, and that’s unfortunate. But this post-9/11 climate has allowed People like Daley and Clinton to seize on this event for their own political gain. They can all go to hell.

If you doubt my assessment of the crash, here’s a screenshot of Cory’s view of his last few seconds. My friend loaded up a flight model of a Cirrus SR-22 (the plane he was flying) into Microsoft Flight Simulator, placed the plane at the last point (lat/long and altitude) he was tracked northbound on radar, set the wind speed and direction exactly as it was at the time of the crash, and began a 60-degree (very steep) turn to get turned around and head south out of the East River Corridor. Here’s what he saw:

The wind took them over the island of Manhattan (into controlled airspace) and they simply didn’t recover or form a Plan B in time. I’ll eat crow if I’m wrong (turns out I wasn’t, but I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that that’s what happened, pure and simple. It’s a damned shame, but we don’t need to be grounding pilots because of it. Plenty more people get killed every day by assholes who can’t drive.

Microsoft Outlook SUCKS!

I have resisted this stinky pile of shit for years and years, and was delighted to see they used Thunderbird here at my new job when I came out here a year and a half ago. I snickered and then sighed a long resigned sigh when both of my last two employers haplessly “upgraded” to Outlook when I left those companies and they were forced to hire general IT consultants, who of course mindlessly toed the Microsloth party line.

But, alas, it’s finally happened. My present employer, wanting some groupware features such as shared email folders and calendaring, has finally made the jump. The back end is not Exchange, so at least this thing runs fairly quickly, but the client application is Outlook, and I was one of the last people in the company to get upgraded (I stayed under the radar as long as I could), and this week has just been one annoying discovery after another.

The fact that this bloated, nonsensical, dismal excuse for an email application is the single most popular email client in the world is about as sensible as the fact that this country re-elected our current dismal excuse for a President.

There is more shit in here that I don’t need, tons of hoops to jump through to get the program to leave your email alone and format it according to time-tested internet protocols, and apparently NO way to format replies in such a way that avoiding top-posting is not a cut-and-paste extravaganza.

Good job, Microsoft. Your stuff sucks.

Well, shit. This is even better. God damn, when it’s presented like this you just want to cry.

Hey Bush supporters: read this please, and then look in the mirror and ask yourself what in the fuck you are thinking. If some passage from the bible is your first thought, I’m guessing you’re just as confused as our leader is. And shame on you, you stupid idiot.

If there’s a Bush supporter out there who can name one useful thing he’s done, foreign or domestic—one positive effect he’s had, or is ever likely to have, or that will not backfire on us with the impact of an Israeli air strike—I long to hear it. Because it is starkly clear that history will judge this ill-bred, malignant narcissist to be not just the worst American president, but a force for evil in the world unseen since the glory days of fascism and Communism. And judge those who voted for him to be entirely responsible for the worldwide calamity known as George W. Bush.

Fuckin’ a. I’m goin’ fishin’.

Well said; I wish more people read this site. Please read this:

A great article on the disgusting hypocrisy of this piece of shit that this idiotic nation RE-elected to play president of the US, and the sad, sad mindless “faith” of the idiotic masses that form this asshole’s voter power base.

So, Brenda & I headed to Denver today to see the Body Worlds exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. This is an exhibit of real human cadavers that have been “plastinated”, their solidified remains exposed to reveal the amazing complexity and beauty of the human body and its systems. The show is so insanely popular that they sell tickets to the show and have staged fifteen-minute entries. With the show closing next weekend, I was excited that we had tickets for the exhibit today.

Brenda read in the paper this morning that since there was a power failure in Denver yesterday—the result of the brutal temperatures we’ve been experiencing here lately, no doubt—the ticketholders that were turned away from a dark museum yesterday afternoon would be honored today as well. Great. Thoughts of overly-crowded museum galleries in New York and the attendant hassles of being stuffed into small rooms with large people, long lines and general annoyance with humanity filled my head. But I’ve moved far away from New York City, and surely this experience would be different, right?

We left at 3PM for a 3:45 entry slot, arriving with a nice ten minute cushion. The parking lot was packed, the end result of the anticipated crowds, and we descended to the lowest levels of the parking garage to find a spot. With the car parked, we headed for the doors of the museum. They had kiosks where we could retrieve our prepaid tickets, which was nice for avoiding the lines. We checked in, and the kiosk cheerily printed out one ticket for the two of us, which obviously wasn’t going to work, so we ended up on line anyway. After getting a second ticket, we headed for the ticket takers, just a few minutes past our expected 3:45 p.m. entry time. The gentleman asked: “Body Worlds? What time are your tickets for?” 3:45, said I, and handed the bloke our tickets. He gave us directions for the third floor, and said we were to present our tickets later. On the way to the escalator were were brusquely accosted by a woman in a museum staff shirt, hand out with the universal “halt” signal, and asked us the following question: “Body Worlds? What time are your tickets for?” 3:45 was my answer again, and again I offered the tickets, but we were simply waved through. We entered a doorway, into a darkened gallery, and I thought surely we had arrived at the actual entry to the much-vaunted exhibit. Instead, a long gallery ended with a doorway that had a Body Worlds sign in front; surely that was where we needed to go. We made a beeline for that door and as we passed an older woman who I thought was a patron she shot an arm out with another halting gesture and said: “Excuse me! Body Worlds? What time are your tickets for?”

It was an interesting moment, because I realized how easy I’ve had it for the last year since moving to Boulder. I used to be accustomed to people making me want to kill them, but that had subsided since moving out here. But here was a nice old lady who I wanted to kill with my bare hands. THREE FOURTY FIVE.

“Jesus Christ, how many fucking people are going to ask us what time our fucking tickets are for before one of them actually fucking takes the goddamned things”, I asked my wife, who was growing unhappy with my increasingly intolerant mood. Luckily, shortly after running the ticket time gauntlet (four askers, total) we ended up on the end of what appeared to be a very long line, the Body Worlds Line. But it was moving along pretty well, and as we were actually snaking through a natural history gallery, the exhibits themselves were interesting enough. As we approached a display with a stuffed mountain lion chasing a deer, the lights dimmed a couple times and I thought “uh-oh”. In the next instant, we were in the dark.

Now, I know a thing or two about blackouts, and as soon as we were plunged into darkness I know full well that Brenda & I have should have made a beeline for the car, but we waited. We stood there like idiots, with all the other idiots, hoping the power would magically come back on and we could resume telling people what time our tickets were for. But after about five minutes or so we came to our senses and started heading out the door. Unfortunately by this time a lot of people had the same idea, and worse, the security guards had started to feel the need for taking control of the situation, which of course made everything worse.

By the time we got to to the car, everything was all fucked up, and as an added bonus I could tell that the power had come back on (all the garage lights were on instead of every fourth fixture or so). We tried to leave, but the traffic didn’t move, so we got out and walked around the park surrounding the museum. Still delusional that we were going to see this fucking exhibit today, we walked back to the museum entry only to hear that the museum was now closed for the day. We went back to the car and waited out the Bataan Death March out of the garage.

Finally speeding home to Boulder, we decided to eat at one of our favorite restaurants in town. Turns out we missed happy hour by three minutes and all I wanted a this point was the burger they serve on that very menu. Getting them to serve me one of those burgers was like pulling teeth, but they did comply and I tipped accordingly. Unfortunately the assholes seated next to me ruined everything by being assholes. The one chick had a shrill voice that could remove old lead paint from the side of a barn, and she was stupid and rude to boot. Anyone who mistakes a plate of complimentary cornbread for the shrimp ceviche she ordered (oh, is this the se-veech-eee??”), and then stares at her phone for three really loud and annoying rings as she squints and struggles to figure out who is calling her, and then takes the call at the table, is a stupid asshole, and I didn’t want stupid assholes seated next to me after all we’d been through.

I managed to enjoy dinner and ignore the assholes next to us, but I’m afraid I annoyed Brenda as much with my complaints as the assholes at the next table annoyed me. So in the end, we lost half our Sunday to a crappy museum and a flaky power grid—and my inability to deal with assholes and stupidity. Oh well, some things never change.

We’re gonna try and get tickets for Body Worlds before the thing closes, but I think I’ll wait till the temperature drops below 95 degrees (which may be a few days yet).

Vegas baby, Vegas. Been there, done that.

My 38 year-long streak of never having visited Las Vegas has come to an end, as I just got back from spending three days in that pit of depravity. Lightfair, the architectural lighting community’s annual trade show and convention, alternates between New York City and Las Vegas for its host cities and this year it was once again being held in Vegas. I generally made the New York shows, but now that I call Boulder home, the desert location makes more sense. We were lucky enough at work to get funding for the entire daylighting team – all four of us – to go, so off we went to Vegas.

My review: eh.

The trade show was great, a chance to meet new people and see old friends, see new products and learn new things. But the town itself was sort of a mixed bag. Las Vegas has never been a place that interested me; I’m a very competitive person, and hate to lose. When you throw money into that mixture, you have a recipe for disaster with me. Losing sucks, and losing money sucks even more. Growing up watching my family play cards and play them exceedingly well only made me withdraw from these games of chance and skill, feeling that I’d never be as good as they were. Furthermore, I’m in a committed relationship with my wife. So a town in the desert whose only redeeming features are illicit sex and gambling just never seemed to make sense for me. I’m funny like that.

With expectations already low, Vegas still managed to disappoint upon arrival. I was staying at the Las Vegas Hilton, which I’m pleased to tell you is a friggin’ dump. Interested in taking in the city (and getting out of my shitty room), I walked down to the strip and then down about halfway, and was struck by its resemblance to Wildwood, NJ – essentially a carnival atmosphere loaded with simpletons oohing and ahhing over all the fancy lights.

As an added bonus, the other end of the strip, with its newer and more extravagant hotels, has that sickening aura of Disneyland; that “we can build our own Paris, because we are rich, and you can just enjoy yourself here at Paris-in-the-desert rather than bothering with those rude French people” type of feel.

One evening, as I stood on the Strip talking to Brenda on the phone, I was treated to a water show in front of the Bellagio featuring forty foot geysers of water blasting into the sky, dramatically lighted, with Toby Kieth’s Lee greenwood’s “Proud to be an American” booming through an amazingly high fidelity sound system. Just as I was choking back the vomit from that whole scene, a truck motored by with a giant advertisement on the back. The ad was essentially a large picture of a whore wearing a black leather bikini lying on a white background in a suggestive pose, with the simple headline “HOT BABES”, and a phone number. As this scene unfolded before me, entire families with kids in the 8-12 age bracket waddled past, taking it all in with smiles on their faces. Proud to be an American, my ass.

One day, returning to the hotel after a day at the conference, I entered the hotel at the opposite end from the lobby (which left about a mile to walk before I actually reached the lobby). On my way through the maze of cavernous corridors and meeting halls, I encountered a herd of old zombies shuffling out of a huge room. The banner over the door read “$100,000 blackjack tournament”, and judging from the looks on those people’s faces, the winner was not present in that crowd. Mingling in with the old folks, I was hit with the aroma of farts and Old Spice. It was a memorable moment.

It wasn’t all bad, though. I returned to the craps tables, after my last and only other casino visit (Atlantic City, with my dad, in 1998 or so), and walked out a winner. Not big, but shit, I won. After dropping $80 the first night and $60 the second night, I had a couple hours before my last seminar on Wednesday, and plopped $40 on the table. An hour and a half later, after standing shoulder to shoulder with high rollers who the dealers knew by name, and after being called a “gunner” by one of these same high rollers for making so many points, I was running for my seminar, with my pockets full of chips. After the seminar, I went back to get my bags. With 15 minutes to spare, I placed a couple more bets, backing my pass line bets with odds bets, and cashed out with more money than I started with when I got to that place. Yeah!

My main regret is not purchasing one of the “Barry Fanilow” t-shirts that were for sale in the lobby gift store (apparently Mr. Manilow calls the Las Vegas Hilton “home” in Vegas, which should help my case about the place being a real past-prime dump).

I’ll definitely go back to Fake City, because Brenda still wants to check it out, and because now I have some money I can lose. It’ll certainly be fun to gamble with Brenda, and maybe we’ll take in a show or whatever. But I fail to see the magnetic draw that that place holds for so many people on this planet. It’s a toilet and a real sucker magnet, you ask me.

It’s not that it’s always crowded, it’s not the hypocrisy of their touting sustainability while selling Chilean Tomatoes in the Garden State, it’s not the fact that they charge five clams for a tomato and cheese sandwich. The real problem with Whole Foods, at least here at the Boulder branch, is that the entire joint is crawling with two kinds of people, both of whom are irritating to the point that they give me a headache.

On the one hand, you have these self-absorbed health nuts wandering the aisles in their Patagonia walking pants and their Crocs and their hydration packs, zipping to and fro, stopping short at every goddamned free sample hawker (of which there are too many crowding the crowded aisles—a topic for another rant later), all the while wearing these sickeningly smug, self-satisfied smirks on their faces that seem to say “look at me; I’m never going to die”.

On the other hand you have these Patchouli-laden Naropa University poetry majors (hippies) to contend with. These free spirit-types like to float around the aisles—slowly, I might add—in search of tempeh, or flax. They get in the way, and they annoy me when they get upset over my overt displays of displeasure with their aroma and their happy attitude.

I just want to get something with meat in it and get the hell outta there, for chrissakes.

After doing battle with these evil forces for 20 minutes, I have usually lost whatever appetite I had, and my blood pressure is up 20 points to boot. I could actually eat nothing but grass smoothies in that joint and I’d still be unhealthier than if I simply went to El Taco Loco every day as is my wont, simply because the chilled-out groovy healthy climate in Whole Foods drives me NUTSO!

(I guess this is the first post on this website filed under Boulder and complaints. Don’t worry, I still love it here. I just hate everyone in Whole Foods. Oh, and the drivers all suck here too.)