The RCC at Gate 18 in Chicago Ohare is really nice. It’s smaller than, but as nice as a lot of international lounges. The features I care about most and have been pestering UAL for for years (literally) have all been implemented now:
- Power outlets at every seat.
- Concordia espresso makers like in Europe that actually use coffee for coffee
- Free WiFi (this has been US wide for a year).
For a couple of years I’d fill out a complaint card every single time I visited an RCC (about twice a week all year, so about 100 cards a year for 2-3 years) asking for these three things, then email 1k and GS voice and beg and plead.
This is very nice. Uh oh, better run for the plane…
The movie What the bleep do we know is a pseudo-scientific exploration of using quantum mechanics to justify a human potential-like pseudo-religious concept. I have an undergraduate degree in physics from MIT, and so I recognized a lot of the arguments as absurd immediately, but I reached the limits of my depth, particularly on the history of QM in this argument. Most, but not all of the concepts could be easily refuted from an undergraduate understanding such as mine, some seem to require more depth. But the practicing physicists I reviewed my answers with seemed to think they had nothing useful to add to the discussion, in part I suspect out of the still-somewhat-in-vogue idea that the best way to confront anti-scientific ideas is to ignore them, viz the debate over intelligent design (which I think, personally, the flying spaghetti monster settled.)
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Woo rented a minivan!
Now I just need to rent a family to ride around in it and complain. It does have back seat video but I can’t reach the gas pedal from there.
This was a much better rental car than I expected. it was really kind of fun. Fast, powerful, and surprisingly solid. It has those paddle shifter things on the steering wheel and the were kind of fun - with a 6 speed automatic transmission. It’s too bad I couldn’t find anyplace to drive it fast.
It was also very quiet and had a pretty nice stereo. Really, an unexpectedly good car.
I got a Toyota Landcruiser as a rental car for the first time. It was kind of absurd as a rental. Oversized and a bit mushy, but otherwise it was a perfectly competent car. I still don’t get the “luxury 4WD” concept. I understand luxury cars - they are about comfort. But I don’t get a vehicle that’s premise is to be durable and tough yet coddles it’s occupants as if they’re eggs. You should be able to climb into a 4WD vehicle covered in mud and not think twice about the interior.
I rented a pontiac Grand Prix in Canada. It’s a slightly sporty car that otherwise doesn’t stand out in any way. The stereo doesn’t have line/ipod inputs but works. The knob based control system has lots of identical knobs making it easy to change tuning instead of adjusting volume or vice versa. Otherwise fairly comfortable and basically a competent rental car.
I got a chance to experience the new UAL business class pods on a UAL international flight routed from Zurich through San Francisco to Sidney. As it is one of the first six 767’s out of about 100 with the new Panasonic seat pods, a system-trained UAL employee was on board to answer questions. My observations are:
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BBC Newsquiz is hilarious. I think it is my new favorite podcast.
A mustang convertible is about the perfect LA car. I was very amused to find it waiting in my spot at Hertz. Alas I only had it for the day and the drive from LAX to Santa Monica doesn’t provide for much sporty driving entertainment. Still, it’s fun.
The state of mind in the US is very sad, more so than typical. While there seems to a continuous and ongoing degradation of discourse, I’ve never before seen politics and statesmanship so irredeemably reduced to the level of a religious war.
Sadly… embarrassingly, it is not a phenomenon consigned to the usual right wing fundamentalist morons that dominate the airwaves with their punditry and inanity; rather the left too seems to have taken up the banner of unthinking allegiance.
Having just seen Bill Mahr’s Religulous (”lig” rhymes with “midge”) in Toronto, the idiocy of “faith” is fresh in my mind. Not that I’ve ever doubted that “faith” is the sad abandonment of reason, but Bill’s entertaining movie makes amusing and thoughtful light of the many entertaining flavors of absurd that are the world’s religions.
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Map It
