My wife and I enjoy playing many games. Poker is a favorite and we're also nationally ranked Scrabble players (which, sadly, is about as impressive as it is cool). Our least favorite game, however, is What's Making That Beeping Sound? (tm)

Is it one of the zillion smoke detectors in the house? A long lost pager? Maybe a PDA has taken this opportunity to alert us to a mis-scheduled meeting. Sometimes the dishwasher gets into a passive-aggressive tizzy and beeps verrrrry quietly and repeatedly. The coffee maker beeps at every possible opportunity, but we're no longer surprised by that bastard. The most annoying beep is the toaster oven beep. About every six months, usually in the middle of the night, it will suddenly go "beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep". Just one big long unending beep. It won't stop until you unplug it. No reason why. Perhaps it got lonely. (Note to self, make proactive toast before bed.)

Really, it's not so much that we're playing What's Making That Beeping Sound? (tm) as it is that the appliances are playing it. It's their version of hide and seek, the little electronic wankers.

So, I hardly feel guilty at all when I exact my revenge.

Our DVD player, which never beeps unexpectedly, lives quietly in a cabinet with glass doors, which are usually closed. The remote control for the DVD player has an "Open" button on it, which pops out the DVD drawer. I'm not quite sure why you need that button on the remote since you still have to actually walk over to the DVD player to do anything useful with the drawer, but more having buttons is always better, I guess.

It is with childish glee that I sit on the couch and repeatedly hit that damn button with the cabinet doors closed. I see the little drawer pop out about an inch, and then straaaaaaaaain to get past the glass. The poor thing whirrs and whirrs and eventually gives up and retracts the drawer. Hah! Take that!

Why do I torture the one object in the house that doesn't wake me up with nocturnal beeps? Because I can.

One of the joys of living in San Francisco is that a muscle-impaired, but not hideous, guy like me occasionally gets leered at. Granted, the leering is always done by men, and sometimes they are skanky smelly men, but you gotta take your validation where you can get it. This would be better for me if I were gay, or even single, but still I eke joy out of this.

Once, soon after I first moved to San Francisco, the not-yet-wife decided to make some fudge, but we didn't have a recipe. While she decided to wing it, I browsed the cooking magazines in the supermarket looking for a fudge recipe. So there I stood, in a semi-upscale supermarket in San Francisco, perusing Gourmet magazine. When a fireman approached me and struck up a conversation, I thought nothing of it. He asked me about cooking for a few minutes (which, stupidly, confused me until I realized that I was holding that magazine) and then handed me his phone number. "Give me a call sometime," he suggested and walked off. It was right at that exact moment when I realized that he didn't really value my cooking advice.

Woo hoo! I got hit on by a fireman, and a cute muscly African American one at that. That, at age 25, was probably the first time in my life that I got hit on by anyone anywhere. I strolled over to my wife with a newly-found cocksure swagger to my gait. She was impressed (not by the swagger, but by the fireman incident).

These days I don't do as well. Yesterday I went out for a run and passed by some disheveled little troll of a man. "Nice legs!" he barked at me when I ran by. It had been a while since anyone had hit on me, so I still managed to enjoy it. Sometimes validation comes from unlikely places. On the way back, I passed by the same man again, curious to see if he'd remark upon my obviously spectacular legs.

He spotted me and exclaimed, "I'd like to squeeze those...." and that was all I heard before the wind obliterated the rest of his witty come-on. We'll never know exactly what he wanted to squeeze, but this being San Francisco, we can assume the sentence probably ended with "...Republicans in a headlock!" Political discourse takes unlikely forms here.

So, as I was saying, my coworkers and I go to Reno for some gambling about twice a year. I looooove gambling.

Mostly I love blackjack. (Not as much as I love you, wife. Wife you're #1, blackjack is #2.) Getting a table packed with my coworkers with a fun dealer at the helm is always a blast (Oh, crap, I love my daughter too. Ok, wife and daughter, you guys are tied for #1, then blackjack is #3. Yeah. I'll deal with the rest of the extended family when they eventually find this blog.)

Blackjack is the only game in the casino where you can play against the house and have the odds in your favor. This requires keeping track of the high and low cards that go by and betting accordingly. There are more complicated counting schemes that are a bit more lucrative, but Rainman I'm not (despite my alleged inability to relate normally to humans).

I've been counting cards for about a decade and in that time I've probably lost a bit more than I've won. I'm not an expert at counting cards and if I'm with a bunch of friends, sometimes I just don't bother. Of course, the bottomless alcoholic drinks that the cocktail waitresses force down my throat don't help either. There ought to be a law.

The casinos, however, frown upon this whole counting business. They rudely consider it to be cheating and in less civilized times they'd punish your kneecaps.

One time, about 3 years ago, I was at the Peppermill casino by myself, my favorite place to play, doing my thing. I try not to be too obvious when I'm counting the cards. I keep up a little chatter during the game and I do my damndest not to move my lips as I count. Generally I only play at $3 or $5 tables, so I'm clearly not much of a financial threat to the casino.

I won about $50 at one table and then when the count went bad, I left the table to play some craps. Almost immediately I felt a tap on my shoulder and a pit-bossy looking man gestured for me to come speak to him. I instinctively clutched my kneecaps and waddled over. "Sir," he said, "Please stop playing blackjack here at the Peppermill. You may continue to play other games, eat in our restaurants, and stay at our hotel, but you may not play blackjack."

I was stunned. "Why?" I asked, being a coy and panicked little devil. "Well," he replied, "You're just too good of a player." And he gave me a cheesy little half smile.

"For how long?" I asked.

"For life," he ominously replied, still smiling.

That was it. He walked away. After years of patronizing the Peppermill, I had been banned from my favorite game FOR LIFE. They must have seen how I was varying my bets according to the count and pegged me as a counter. Or perhaps my lips were moving. Either way, this was pretty absurd considering that although I was up $50 that evening, I was probably down about $1000 in that casino over all my visits throughout the years. I've never stepped foot in the Peppermill since then.

I've since modified my counting technique a bit to be less obvious and am now playing at other casinos. I'm also winning a bit more than I'm losing, which is a nice change. I still can't believe that I've been banned from a casino though. It just doesn't seem like the sort of thing that should happen to me. Dammit Jim, I'm a boob, not a major casino financial threat!

So last night at the casino I tried something new. I made some sports bets. Since I've been playing fantasy baseball for a couple years, I've become pretty knowledgeable about baseball, so I thought I'd try my hand at making some sports book bets. Years ago, after I read a couple books on blackjack and card counting, I wrote a computer program to run a million hands using a realistic version of my counting system to see if it would really be profitable. The simulation indicated that it would indeed be SLIGHTLY profitable. Now, with even less data about sports betting, I'm fairly convinced that I can make money off of baseball. I am the reason that casinos continue to exist. You know what they say, those who don't learn from history are doomed to make hair-brained schemes about sports bets.

Let the record show, however, that this isn't a totally absurd thing to do with my money. I'm even worse at the stock market than I am with gambling. I'm a money sieve.

Considering that Aaron Gleeman, who knows 10 times what I know about baseball, consistently loses money on his virtual bets, it's idiotic to think that I can be successful at this. Unfortunately, I won all 3 of my bets and I would have won 3 more had I gotten to the sports book before those games began. I'm emboldened by my statistically insignificant 6 for 6 track record.

I'm not a religious man, but let's pray that I don't figure out how to make sports bets online. (Is it even legal? Does anyone know?).

Welcome to "I Am Prepared to Give Up at Any Time", your home for stories about travel gone awry.  I am, apparently, a glutton for punishment.

My coworkers and I sneak off to Reno about twice a year for an evening of blackjack, boozing, and bonding.  Although I could drive to Reno in about four hours, I usually fly because I'm obsessed with saving time.  After all, if time is money, and if flying saves me time, then I can't afford not to fly!  Let's move onto the next paragraph quickly.

We flew out of Oakland yesterday afternoon.  As usual there was a couple of sizable lines at the security checkpoint.  Time obsessed engineers will usually do some quick line analysis before choosing a line.  You try to avoid things like families with small children, really old people, or anyone who looks like a nutcase.  Avoiding the latter can be tricky.  Nutcases can lurk in unlikely places.  I chose one line and my coworker chose another. 
As it turns out, the woman in front of my coworker had packed a Cuisinart into her carry-on bag.  Apparently she had stopped at a kitchen supply store on her way to the airport and selected the largest appliance with whirling blades that she could find that would fit into a carry-on.  Why she deemed this flesh-pureeing device appropriate or necessary for airline travel, we'll never know.  She was, however, a lurking nutcase.

The security guy explained to her that he'd have to check out the Cuisinart to make sure that she wouldn't be able to remove any of the blades in flight.  The woman was taken aback by this request and promptly mocked it.  The good-natured security employee (yes, I really did write that) tried to ignore her jibes, but she continued, "You know, I was watching this comedian on TV last night who was talking about hijacking airplanes...."
At this point the security guard's eyes bugged out of his head and he furiously made the lip-zipping gesture, which apparently is sign language for "What kind of moron are you for talking about hijacking airplanes to a airport security guard, you nutcase?!?!"

Needless to say, my line went much faster than my coworker's.  Coworker: 0.  Me: 1.

So, on our return home today, we were presented with a similar choice in the Reno airport.  My coworker and I carefully examined the two lines at the security checkpoint.  One line featured a man with a metal prosthetic leg.  The other line had two Goth girls with abundant facial piercings.  My coworker went for shorter line with the metal leg.  I went for the piercer's special. 

Unfortunately, I was a bit duped.  Soon after entering this line, I overheard the Goth girls' father say that he had a hip implant, but that it never set off the x-ray machine.  Of course, like clockwork, it set off the x-ray machine.  Expertly, however, the security guards moved this guy to the side to search him more thoroughly.  While he fretted about a cavity search, I waltzed through the x-ray machine and once-again won the line-picking contest. 

Coworker 0:  Me 2. I feel validated.

(Note: This is the world's longest and most boring blog entry ever)

There are two types of stories that people tell that I just can't stand. I hate hearing about people's dreams ("and then I walked into this house, but it wasn't really a house because the walls were made out of armpits and there was this chicken there, but it wasn't really a chicken because it smelled like Britney Spears...") and hearing people's stories about airline travel gone awry. So, apologies in advance, but here's my story about airline travel gone awry. This will be cathartic for me. The management summary is that United sucks. Gory details are below.

We departed for Burlington, Vermont on Tuesday morning of last week. We were off to spend my daughter's fifth birthday with my wife's family. Scheduling issues prevented this from being a long trip, so we only had 3 full days to spend in Burlington with the family, but they were going to be action-packed with fun activities.

So, Tuesday morning of last week we crawled out of bed early, dragged the kid into the car, and drove down to the airport for the first of the two flights that would bring us to Burlington. Our daughter was excited about going on vacation and sang one of her made-up songs in the airport in honor of the occasion, accompanied by a modern/ballet/jazz/tap/Irish jig style dance.

"Vacation, oh we're going on vacation,
"Yay vaca-a-a-a-a-tion!"

The first flight was uneventful. We managed to entertain the kid with a variety of books, activities, and fire-juggling. We arrived in Chicago at O'Hare with about two hours to kill before our next flight, which promptly got delayed by about an hour and a half. Then it got delayed by another half hour. Then fifteen more minutes. Then ten more. Each time we got a different excuse:

- "The plane is not ready yet."
- "The crew is not ready yet."
- "My pants are on fire."

Finally, the people at the gate just removed our flight from their board and admitted that they didn't know when our flight would leave. My wife sprung into action and stood in the customer service line while simultaneously calling United customer support. They assured her that our flight would take off, but to appease her, they also booked us on an 8:43pm flight to Burlington. Now we were booked on two flights and were unstoppable! My daughter burst into song:

"Oh, our flight is late"
"Late late late"
"We're late late late"

(Granted, the lyrics aren't going to win her any Grammys (Grammies?), but ease up, she's only four!)

We entertained ourselves with all the amenities that O'Hare has to offer: mediocre food and overpriced shopping. I played with various gadgets at the airport Brookstone and laughed at their $8.00 one-hour cell-phone battery charger. What kind of fool pays $8.00 for one hour of phone power, I thought to myself?

In dramatic terms, this is known as foreshadowing.

Soon our flight reappeared on the board at our gate, scheduled to depart at 9:00. We considered bailing on this flight and going to the other 8:43 one, but it seemd silly to travel across the airport, which is literally a full mile, to save 17 minutes. Besides, our luggage was going to be on this flight and it seemed wisest to be on a plane with our luggage. So, given the firm 9:00 time, we stuck with our original flight.

Tick tick tick...

At 8:20 pm United cancelled our flight. The excuse this time was "bad weather". This was clearly a lie. United's other flight was still scheduled to fly to Burlington and besides, the 9:00 flight never even materialized at the gate. They used the "bad weather" excuse becaue they believe it absolves them of responsibility. The weather there in Chicago was good and it was clear in Burlington.

We now had about 20 minutes to travel the mile across O'Hare and get to the other flight. I hoisted the kid onto my shoulders and grabbed the insanely heavy laptop bag, meanwhile my wife wore our insanely heavy backpack and other bags, and we began our epic journey across O'Hare. My wife was fuming mad, but this fueled her jogging. Rage is not often mentioned as a running motivator in the running articles I read, but she kept up a pretty good clip. Amazingly enough, after about half a mile, we got picked up by one of those roaming airport carts. My daughter was giddy with this development:

"Choo choo!"
"We're on a train!"
"Woo woo!"
"We're on a train!"

It delivered us to the gate with over 5 minutes to spare. Although we were booked on this flight, we did not have boarding passes for it, so we had to stand in line at the gate desk. As luck would have it, this flight was overbooked and the very people in front of us in line got the last assigned seats. No room for us. Apparently the customer service rep who booked us on this flight, broke some sort of rule and our booking was unauthorized.

That's it. That was the last flight to Burlington that day. We had been in O'Hare for about six hours at this point and had nothing to show for it. We grimly wandered to the customer service desk and were greeted with a line that was about 100 people long. It was not moving quickly. The wife got on the phone and called into United customer service again. They said that the next available flight to Burlington was 24 hours later. They also refused to pay for a hotel room for the night for us since the flight cancellation was out of their control (bad weather, see?). They admitted no responsibility for booking us onto an unavailable flight.

So, we trudged down to the Hilton attached to the airport. It was booked up, but I did manage to spend $65 on t-shirts, toothbrushes, toothpaste and deoderant. Since we weren't going to have our luggage for the evening, we needed some way to not stink during the next 24 hours. We had a good funk going after all that airport jogging.

After calling a few hotels, we managed to find a room for a mere $229 near the airport. Grrrrr!

We got the kid to sleep and then we logged onto the Internet to try and find a way to Burlington that would get us there before midnight the following day. We only had three days in Burlington and damned if we were going to lose an entire one of those days in O'Hare. We were willing to spend some money if it could give us that day back.

We found a United flight the next morning into New York (Laguardia airport) and a Jet Blue flight from New York (JFK airport) into Burlington two hours later. Two hours seemed like a reasonable amount of time to deplane, get across town, and board our new plane. The Jet Blue flight we had to pay for out of our own pockets, but it got us into Burlington during the afternoon. We knew that our in-laws would appreciate it if we didn't miss the whole day. So we paid $400 for the Jet Blue flights, happy that this money was going to an airline other than United. United then tried to wrangle a $100 "change" fee out of us since we were now flying to New York instead of Burlington, but somehow we managed to convince the supervisor that WE weren't changing the flight if THEY FREAKING CANCELLED IT! This, apparently, is a subtle distinction for the not-so-astute customer service representatives at United.

The next morning we woke up early (again) and dragged ourselves back to O'Hare. We checked in at the ticketing counter and found that they had no record whatsoever of our booking on the flight to New York. Our previous night's conversation had someone just gone into the ether. Poof! Gone. No record, no tickets.

Then, something amazing happened. I don't know if the ticket agent saw the sadness in my daughter's eyes, or the desperation in my eyes, or the bubbling rage in my wife's eyes. Either way, the agent just decided, without speaking to a supervisor, that she would just go ahead and print us out some boarding passes for the flight. No payment, no proof that we were booked, nothing. She just decided to do it. I had never seen such a thing. We took the boarding passes, thanked her, and backed away slowly. Clearly this woman was not really a United employee. She was some sort of unnatural guardian angel and it spooked us. My daughter summed it up.

"We got ti-ckets!"
"We got ti-ckets!"

So, we slogged to our gate to find that the flight had been delayed by an hour and a half. This was a deal breaker. Assuming that the flight actually took off at the new time (unlikely), this would give us only 30 minutes to change airports in New York. The odds of this occurring successfully were miniscule. Once again we were stuck in O'Hare with no way to get to Burlington. Day two.

My wife launched into her now-familiar United assault. She tried a variety of tactics with various United employees: being nice, yelling, and crying. And the winner is: crying! Upon her bursting into tears, a United representative actually tried to find us a flight. He found us a flight to Detroit and then a connecting Northwest flight to Burlington. It would get us into Burlington at around 8:00pm that evening. That was pretty crappy, but it was our best option. Of course the flight was due to leave in 10 minutes at a gate half a mile away.

We knew the drill. As my wife took down the details from the gate agent, I slipped the backpack onto her shoulders and the child onto mine. We were off and running in seconds. I managed to get my nice new Chicago t-shirt all sweaty less than 12 hours after buying it, but we made it to the flight.

So, an hour and a half later, we're in Detroit. Motor city! We had three hours to kill before our next flight (thankfully NOT on United), so we found a play area for the kid. She, and a couple other kids played "restaurant" using the kid-sized table and kid-sized house. Unfortunately this required a parent to be the customer. So, I played about 20 iterations of "customer" while the wife waged an epic battle against the voicemail-fortified fortress of luggage information. We suspected that our baggage was still in Chicago, but, honestly we had no idea. It could have been in Burlington, or New York, or Detroit (Motor City!). After about 40 minutes of voicemail battles, my wife spoke to something claiming to be a human. They weren't quite sure where our luggage actually was, but they assured us that it had definitely been in Chicago and would probably arrive in Burlington on some flight that day. Meanwhile my "restaurant" experience was going poorly. I had been fed dirt soup, innumerable hot dogs, bizarre cakes, and I died about a half dozen times, only to be resurrected by small children poking rudely at me. Soon it was time to line up for our flight.

"I'm waiting in li-ine"
"I'm waiting all da-a-a-a-ay"

Our non-United flight went smoothly and we soon arrived in Burlington, greeted by the in-laws. We were a mere 25 hours late! Thanks, United! For the pleasure of losing a full day of vacation, we got the privilege of paying about $700 for the hotel, the unused Jet Blue flight, and the shirts and toiletries. Neat.

I'd like to say that when we went to baggage claim, we were surprised that our luggage wasn't there, but we weren't surprised. It wasn't there. It wasn't back in some secret Northwest room or any secret United room. The United employee told us to file a claim with Northwest and the Northwest employee told us that United was responsible for finding our luggage. We knew that United had our luggage somewhere, but damned if we could get anyone with any real information. We filled out the required forms. At this point my daughter's songs began to take on a distinctly bluesy flavor:

"Lost luggage"
"Oh! lo-o-o-st luggage"

So we went to our hotel (which was fine, but did smell weird).

The next day we barraged the airlines with calls to the luggage center and trips to the airport. It was a multi-faceted assault, attacking both Northwest and United on both the phone and in-person fronts. We were rebuffed. At one point, some United employee admitted that our bags had somehow escaped their tracking system. She explained that luggage is supposed to get inventoried every hour and they had last performed this act on our bags 36 hours ago. This means that, somehow, our wily luggage had eluded their inventory technicians 36 times in a row and was....well....missing. She was confident, however, that it would be located soon and would then be delivered to us. Hopefully that would be soon. My daughter's birthday was the next day and all her presents were in the luggage.

We were not so confident, so we went to the mall and purchased some necessities. I got a pair of shorts, socks, underwear, and a swimsuit. My wife bought some unmentionables (ok, bra and panties (not so unmentionable, as it turns out)) and jeans. Luckily our relatives in Vermont were able to supply us with shirts. By this time our cell phones were close running out of juice and they were main link to the luggage search. So, I broke down and bought one of those $8.00 one-hour cell-phone battery charges. Woe to me for mocking this fine product.

We called into the luggage black hole every few hours. During one of our calls that evening we were informed by a Northwest employee that our bags had been delivered and our case had been closed. After checking with the hotel front desk, and looking under the beds in the room, we assured her that our luggage had not been delivered to us. She poked around in the computer and said that her records indicated that our bags had been deliverd to xyz Main Street in Barre Vermont at 11pm that evening. This was a totally unfamiliar address about 60 miles away from our hotel. She said that it had been delivered there and now the delivery guy had gone home for the night. I tried to convince her to re-open our case, but she said that only a person at the airport could re-open a case. Unsurprisingly the people at the airport said that only a person at headquarters could re-open a case. I guess this helps ensure that cases stay closed.

Somewhere in all these conversations, a very nice Northwest employee, asks me to wait for a bit, puts me on hold and disconnects me. After 30 very stupid minutes, I called her back and she put me on hold and disconnected me again. Eventually we finished with her. So, all we had was an address and a phone number for an address in some other city, but we had no luggage.

The next morning was my daughter's fifth birthday. I got on the phone as soon as I woke up and began calling the delivery service, the number for xyz Main St in Barre, Vermont, and the various airlines. Meanwhile my wife got the pleasure of explaining to our daughter that her presents were in the luggage and thus would be late. We offered her the chance to go to the mall and get a bonus gift as a consolation prize. Amazingly enough she said she was fine as-is and preferred to go swimming.

I finally spoke to the delivery man and he said that the luggage he delivered was not ours. That means that our luggage was still in airline limbo and not in Barre. I re-engaged the luggage idiots at the airlines and attempted to convince them that our luggage had not been delivered and that they needed to reopen our case.

FINALLY, at around 11:00am that day, I spoke to a Northwest employee at the Burlington airport who found our luggage back in some United storage room. It had apparently been flown in the previous evening and no one knew what do with it (PERHAPS THEY COULD HAVE LOOKED IN THE FREAKIN' COMPUTER????). The woman proudly offered to have the delivery service bring the luggage to our hotel. Being wary of the accuracy of the service, I suggested it might be wisest for me to come get it. She said that the delivery guy was right there and would have it to our hotel in 15 minutes.

30 minutes later, we had our luggage. My daughter danced with excitement:

"Luggage yay!"
"Luggage hurray!"

What did we learn?

1) O'Hare is a massive black hole that will suck in your time, your luggage and your will to live.
2) Luggage is wily.
3) All airline employees will always blame other airlines.
4) Crying gets results.
5) United sucks.

On a final note, when we started our return journey, 24 hours later, our flight from Burlington to O'Hare was delayed, causing us, once again, to sprint across O'Hare to make our flight home. I wouldn't have had it any other way.

I'll be out of town for most of this week, but I'll make the obligatory comments on Farenheit 9/11 before I go.  Every other blogger has weighed in, so I might as well.

First, let me make a disclaimer.  I'm a San Francisco latte lovin' liberal.  I've voted Democratic or Green in every election I've ever voted.  Although I'm not a card-carrying member of the ACLU, my wife is, so that probably covers our household.  Bush's cowboy-inspired attitude towards the war in Iraq has always scared me as does the Bush Doctrine in general.  I don't necessarily think that Bush is an evil idiot, but I'd appreciate it if he spent less time trying to prove me wrong on that point.
 
So I didn't go into the theater looking to pick a fight with Michael Moore, yet as the movie went on, I found myself more and more annoyed with it.  How can a movie that fundamentally expresses my point of view do such a crappy job of making me agree with it?  Here's how:

1) The movie constantly attempts to make Bush look stupid by finding footage where he has a befuddled expression on his face.  Man, that's like shooting fish in a barrel.  How about instead showing how his policies have bankrupted our nation?  Or maybe show how he changes his mind on every important topic.

2) Michael Moore constantly intercuts serious scenes with scenes of Bush making jokes.  As someone who has often gotten in trouble for making jokes at an inappropriate time, I'm inclined to cut Bush a little slack here.  Obviously being President takes a little decorum (it's hard to fathom that his ambassadorial-puking father gets higher decorum marks than Dubya does), but having a sense of humor is not an impeachable offense.

3) Moore shows us dozens of scenes of the armed forces in Iraq being irreverant about their job.  They play music in their tanks and seem to ignore the gravity of the war.  Mr. Moore, I've never been in a war, but I suspect that if the armed forces were filled with grief-ridden soldiers who carefully weighed the consequences of each bullet they fired, we would not have an effective fighting force.  The low-level troops need to obey their orders.  They have been trained to be an army, not grief counselors.  The careful contemplation is what's missing at the higher levels of authority.

4) The emotional center of the movie is a woman whose family has had a proud tradition of serving in the armed forces.  Consequently she is pleased and proud that her children have done the same.  By the end of the movie, her son has died in Iraq and she feels cheated by a government that sent her son into an unnecessary war.  Her sorrow brought tears to many members of the audience and her anger left a lasting impression.  This type of footage tear-jerking footage works for many people, but personally, I get swayed by more analytical arguments.  Her story, however, was undeniably moving.

5) Much is made of the Bush family's relationship with various influential Saudis, including members of the Bin Laden family.  Moore documents several instances where the Bush family was financially tied to the Saudis and he implies that the Saudis were merely investing in the Bush's to ensure their access to powerful political forces in the U.S..  This is not a crime, nor is it surprising.  Moore shows us how the Saudis have gotten special treatment in recent years, but there's no evidence that the Saudis have done anything wrong.  This appears to me to be just one example of money buying influence in Washington.  It's unfortunate, but there are a million of these stories in our government.  Moore closes this chapter by showing us a dozen pieces of footage where Bush and Bush Sr. shake hands with various Saudis.  Scandalous.  Hands must not be shook!

6) Moore mocks the Coalition of the Willing and lists the members of the Coalition.  For humor's sake, he leaves out every single country that actually has an army and focuses entirely on militarily insignificant countries like the Republic of Palau.  The Coalition was already small enough and mock-worthy enough that he didn't have to leave out the major players.  That type of omission just makes the film look EVEN MORE biased.  You see that scene and you think to yourself, "Well, if he left out England, what is he leaving out in all the other parts of the documentary?".

Note that not everything in the movie disappointed me.  The scenes showing how Bush was unable to figure if he should excuse himself from an elementary school after the World Trade Center got bombed were priceless.  Moore's comments about Bush being confused when his handlers and advisors weren't around were compelling.  Bush clearly comes across as a lightweight in this movie.

I was just disappointed that Moore so often took the easy route.  We got a smattering of facts and some funny footage, but I wanted a more analytical movie.  I wanted an appeal to logic and common sense instead of tear-jerking and pot shots. 

I realize, of course, that a documentary mired in the details of policy and low-level documents isn't going to make $100,000,000 at the box office.  This one probably will.

About a year some neighbors of ours gave us their fish before they moved out of the neighborhood.  This was our family's first pet (not counting the roly poly bug that we killed in record time) and I suggested that my daughter name it.  So it was that "Fishy" became the fourth member of our family.

Fishy was a pretty crappy pet.  Although he (it?) required minimal care, there's little joy to be wrangled out of a single fish.  Sometimes you could get him to look at you in that open-and-closed-fishy-mouthy way, but that was about it for entertainment.  Frankly, it looked like he wasn't even trying.  So, I wasn't terribly disappointed when I found him floating on his side one morning.  Although I wasn't looking forward to informing my daughter of his demise, I certainly wasn't going to miss his lackluster performance as a pet.

The wife and I briefly strategized and then I broke the bad news to my daughter.  "Sweetie, I have bad news," I said to her, "Fishy was dead when I got up this morning."

Although I knew my daughter would be sad about this, I also knew she'd be intrigued by Fishy's death.  She's very interested in death.  I'm picturing a Goth phase in her future.  One time her preschool took a field trip to a local church to see some recently discovered old murals.  Unfortunately the church wasn't availble to the kids because a funeral was being held there.  My wife explained that the kids couldn't go into the church because it was currently being used by some people who wanted to say goodbye to someone who had died.  My daughter's eyes lit up and she said, "I want to say goodbye to someone who has died!"  She was disappointed to hear that that wasn't going to happen.

So, after I told her about Fishy, she thought for a brief instant and then grimly said, "I want to see."  We went downstairs and I showed Fishy to her.  After contemplating for a moment my daughter brightened up and said, "But we can go to the pet store and buy a NEW fish!".  The wife and I quickly agreed to this idea.

That day was already going to be a busy day.  It was planned full of errands and activities that couldn't easily be rescheduled.  So, we didn't want to spend a long time on a burial for the fish.  We actually buried the damn roly poly bug in the backyard earlier in the year and the whole thing, ceremony and all, took a non-trivial amount of time.

I explained to my daughter that when a fish dies, traditionally one flushes it down the toilet rather than bury it in the ground.  The wife quickly chimed in and added that this was done to send the fish back to the sea.  It was a good story and my daughter soon bought into the plan.

Later in the day my wife took Fishy's bowl over to the toilet, with the daughter in tow.  My wife had a ladle and was ready to scoop the fish into the toilet.  "No, I want to do it!" my daughter explained.  She took the ladle, scooped Fishy from his bowl, and unceremoniously plopped him into the toilet.  She reached for the toilet handle but my wife stopped her and asked, "Would you like to say a few words before you flush him?"

My daughter thought for a second, then her face screwed up into the pre-bawling expression and she broke into tears.  "I don't want to say goodbye!" she cried.

So, it was sad for a bit, but we all agreed not to eat fish for a while.  That didn't last so long, as it turns out (kids love fish sticks), but sometimes it's the thought that counts.

Went to the Chabot Space and Science Center this weekend with the family.  This is an excellent facility with lots of interactive exhibits for all ages, in addition to a planetarium, and a large-screen dome theater.  When you purchase your tickets at the front desk, you get to choose which movie you want to see in the dome theater.  Since the screen kind of wraps around the room, it's good to see a visually interesting movie.  My daughter is easily frightened by movies, so we asked her if any of the movies choices interested her. I think the choices were: 

- The Human Body (I explained to my daugher that she'd get to see what the insides of people looked like)
- The Living Sea (I told her that she'd get to see lots of colorful fish and interesting sea creatures)
- The Cosmic Voyage (See outer space!  See inside an atom!)
- Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West (All I could really muster for this one was that she'd get to see Lewis and Clark walk a really long way)

Of course she chose Lewis and Clark, the obvious booooring choice.  I urged her to reconsider.  I pointed at the poster for The Human Body, which showed a skeletal figure drinking yellow Gatorade (we can only assume he had some fierce skeletal athletic event coming up soon).  "Don't you want to see what it looks like inside our bodies?" I suggested.  She pointed right back at the poster and said, "I can see it right there on the poster.  I don't need to see the movie."  She struck her best "Duh!" pose.

So, Lewis and Clark it was. 

Our previous experience in a movie theater was seeing "Garfield".  Normally I wouldn't even bother to spit upon a movie like this (I run a lot, so hydration is important to me), but my daughter loves the comic strip and it seemed like one of those rare movies that wouldn't scare the crap out of her.  Still, getting her in the theater to see the movie was a chore.  I held her in my arms and literally inched my way down the aisle during the previews.  I'd take a tiny step while she gripped me tightly and then wait for her to let me take another tiny step.  Once Garfield came on screen, we got to sit down, but any scene with a hint of excitement usually caused her to panic.  Keep in mind that this was Garfield, a character famous for napping, being fat, and quipping about Mondays, so the definition of an "exciting" scene should be put into context.

At one point Garfield was trying to enter a building by climbing through the ventilation ductwork.  My daughter became alarmed and asked me, "Where is Garfield?!?!"  Not wanting to explain how a ventilation system worked, I just said that he was going through some pipes to help find Odie.  Apparently that was the wrong answer because she screeched, "WHY IS GARFIELD IN THE PIPES?!  I WANT TO LEAVE!"  I convinced her that this scene would be over soon and that she'd really want to see the ending.  She remained on edge for the rest of the movie, but did make it to the end, where she bounced up and down in her seat with glee.  She loves a happy ending.

Anyway, I was familiar with the drill for Lewis and Clark.  We slowly made our way into the theater and she nestled into my lap, grabbing my arms and wrapping them around herself.  The movie, despite not being what she expected (apparently she goes to school with a girl named Clark and thus expected this movie to be about a little girl and a little boy taking a lovely stroll), it wasn't overly scary.  Often the camera would cruise across a beautiful landscape or waterscape.  Since the screen was so big, it gave the effect of flying.  I tried to make those scenes extra fun by holding out my arms in an airplane like fashion.  Each time, my daughter would grab my arms and rewrap them around herself.  She did start doing the airplane thing with her arms soon though.

Aside from a scene where Lewis slid down a hill, and another where a bear roared, the film was a success!  I think she only asked to leave once.  We give Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West one of our highest ratings:  "Only Mildly Terrifying".

I don't even know what to call this guy.

I'll back up.

I often end up seeing movies at the Metreon here in San Francisco. The worst part of seeing movies there is the concession stand. The food choice, especially in the always important chocolate food group, is limited, the lines are long, and the prices are, of course, stupidly high. Service there is usually uninspired. There's this one employee, however, that is unstoppably cheerful and relentlessly efficient. If there's six customers in his line, and two customers in some other employee's line, I'm choosing this guy's line. He's that good. His line is always faster.

His persona, however, is unexpected. He greets customers with a booming, "WELCOME TO LOEW'S THEATERS! HOW MAY I HELP YOU TODAY?!" He says this with surprising enthusiasm and sincerity. It's a bit off-putting, especially since as you stand in line, you hear him say this over and over, to each customer. It's worth it though, for his speedy and efficient service. I'm a sucker for efficiency.

Theories vary on why this man is the way he is. Some say each one of his sales is a brilliant performance, a mini corporate satire, if you will, while others insist that he's just a bit off. I'm beyond caring. As far as I'm concerned, he's God's gift to popcorn dispensing.

Now, they've changed this guy's job. Amazingly, the management at this theater has found the perfect task for this guy. I don't know if they created this position for him, or if it was simply perfect luck. Now, his job is to go into the actual movie theater and hawk his concessions there. A lesser man would be intimidated by this task. Other weaker and less confident men would be embarrassed by the spectacle of it all. They would skulk into the theater, head hanging low, and meekly wait for the customer interactions to end. Not our hero.

Our hero proudly fills his cart with every treat available at the Metreon. He then proudly marches through the lobby, loudly singing "Over the Rainbow." I don't know why he chooses this song, but he sings it every time. Perhaps the rainbow signifies the many colors of his delicious skittles, or perhaps it's meant to convey the escapism of a good trip to the movies. Or, maybe he really just is a bit off. Anyway, he arrives at the bottom of the movie theater and then gives a booming, enthusiastic, and surprisingly lengthy speech, carefully detailing all of his sugary, salty, and sour treats. Inexplicably, he seems to relish each sale.

I don't know his name. I don't know if he's mocking me. I don't know why he sings "Over the Rainbow". But I love him. Thank you, enthusiastic Metreon concession guy. May others have more luck googling you than I did.

I don't know if this is true of all four year-olds, but my daughter has virtually no ability to deceive. Last night she took a minor step forward in this department, but she won't be fooling any polygraph machines for a while yet.

So, our bedtime ritual often includes a game of hide-and-seek. Recently this has consisted of one person hiding a large doll somewhere upstairs and then another person seeks it out. Last night my daughter did the hiding. When I came out for my seeking, my daugher announced, "Daddy! Don't look in your bedroom first!"

I explained to her that when she says things like that, that's a big clue to me that she has hidden the doll in my bedroom. "Oh," she said, "You can look in that room first."

I played along, however, and visited a few other rooms before entering my bedroom. My daughter quickly piped up and said, "Daddy, I don't even remember where I hid the doll, but it's NOT under the bed, so you don't have to look there."

I shot her a look and then played along for a bit. I checked behind the door and in the closet before peeking under the bed. Lo and behold, there was the doll! Who
knew?!

My daughter gleefully bounded over to me and exclaimed, "I tricked you! Did you see that I told you that the doll WASN'T under the bed?!? It WAS under the bed!". She cackled to herself as I congratulated her on this fine bit of deception.

Parenting books don't really cover whether or not you should teach your kids to lie. Blast!

Saturday night the wife and I hosted our monthly poker game. Although I fared poorly during the Dealer's Choice round, I came out on top during our first ever Texas Hold 'em tournament. In honor of the B-List celebrity power of Celebrity Poker Showdown, I suggested that we each adopt a B-List celebrity persona. Despite my essentially non-existant performance of Michael Ian Black, the idea didn't really catch fire. Regardless, I'm happy to report that the fake Michael Ian Black did as well as the real one. Take that, Norm MacDonald!

On Sunday evening the family and I attended a 25th Anniversary party at a local restaurant. We were, apparently, some of the only attendees to forget that this was a theme party. The theme was to dress as though it were 1979 (the year the couple met). Theoretically, since I was an unfashionable eleven year-old in 1979, I should have been wearing floods, sneakers, and a lame shirt, maybe a velour one (readers should avoid looking for a joke here about how that's the way that I still dress. Nothing to see here, move along, please). Inexplicably, I chose Sunday evening to dress more corporate than I ever do. I wore some unwrinklable blue slacks, and a restrained Oxford-ish shirt. It would be safe to say that at this highly-gay-attended event, I was not the grooviest guy there.

Monday was a holiday (Cinco de July), so the family went to the Giants game. Bonds, as usual, refused to play in a game that I attended. I don't know why he hates me. It's weird. Anyway, the Giants got whupped by the lowly Colorado Rockies. The Giants losing to the Rockies here at home is kind of like....well, it's like.....it's like the simile that got away. It's just embarrassing when it happens.

On Tuesday morning, I got up at 5am for the first session of a "bootcamp" style exercise program. I'm normally not this much of a masochist, but I'm committed to running a 3:15 marathon this year and I'm hoping that some strength training will help. I'm sure lots of funny stuff happened during that hour and fifteen minutes of exercises, but my brain never really engaged. It was really super early.

Tonight, one of the neighborhood kids came over to play with my daughter. The neighborhood kid (let's call her NK) is more of a babysitter than a friend to my daughter, but they get along well My daughter adores her. At some point they were going through my daughter's dolls. NK said, "None of these dolls can talk or pee or anything. You need to upgrade them". My daughter immediately mumbled to herself, "I need to upgrade these dolls." She sounded like me at this computer.

NK soon figured out that one of these dolls could pee. It had all the right parts. We fed it with an eye dropper and then got ready to watch the exciting peeing action. My daughter was delirious with anticipation, both frightened and eager to see this dribble of liquid come out of her doll. I'm happy to report that dolly did not disappoint. They played this game several times, even holding the doll over the toilet. Kids are weird.

My daughter is a good kid. She's pretty well-behaved and is generally a lovely child. Still, you'd think I'd pay more attention when I hear her say something like this while eating breakfast:

"Look! I found a new way to eat!"

I was bopping around the kitchen, making coffee, and generally not paying attention. A minute later when I see her gripping the handle of the spoon in her mouth, hands-free, attempting to transfer soggy rice krispies from the bowl to her mouth (which, I do not think, is even physically possible in this universe), my brain finally processed what she had said a minute earlier. Rice krispies everywhere.

Note to self: a new way to eat is a bad way to eat. Stick with the classics.