I've Got Reservations*

My aunt and uncle are coming to L.A. next month. The other day, to ensure that I was aware of every possible detail I might need to know about their travel plans as well as some I might not - and, possibly, to give me some kind of guilt trip for not having an apartment with a second bedroom - my aunt forwarded the hotel's reservation confirmation email.

I wasn't sure what she intended for me to do with the information. (Make a note of the last four digits of her credit card number, maybe?) But I decided I'd use it as an opportunity to write back and reinforce the notion that I am Very Excited about her visit.

To that end, I sent a one-word response: "Awesome!"

I thought that would probably be the end of the conversation. I was mistaken.

A few minutes later, a reply arrived. "Hardly," it read. "A much overused word, I'm afraid!"**

There was only one thing to write back: "Is 'Whatever' overused?"



* Post title inspired by this Wilco song.
** Capitalization corrected to improve readability.

Why I'm pretty sure Juliette Binoche hates Yugos: A dream illustrated with helpful links

As if you needed further proof that my brain just does not shut down - even when I'm sleeping - I have been having some wacky dreams lately. Often two the same night. I've been visited during the night by celebrities, strangers, and people I grew up with but haven't seen or thought about in 23 years.

Oh sure, there are the common, everyday dreams that everyone has - like the one last week, in which I came off the bench to hit a few clutch baskets for the Bulls in the seventh game of the Eastern Conference finals. But, unlike that one, most are completely unrealistic.

It could be that this new dream activity is related to the new herbal extract pills that I'm taking in an attempt to do something about those migraine headaches I wrote about a few weeks ago. I haven't read the little pamphlet that comes with the supplement to try to figure out what the possible side effects are, but I did look it up on Wikipedia, which is usually a pretty trustworthy source for Medical Information You Can Trust, and  there was no mention of side effects, so I'm sure I'm in the clear.

Anyway, last night's dream was another winner.

For some reason, Juliette Binoche, the lovely French actress, was on the Late Show, sitting in the chair next to David Letterman. Like any good guest, she had a story to share with the TV viewing audience.

"We were driving through Europe in a Ford Fiesta," she began, before a man in the studio audience interrupted.

"That's like a Yugo!" the dream audience member shouted.

Juliette-in-my-dream, who I have never known to lose her temper, was not pleased.

"That's it. Fuck you all," she said. And she stormed off the set.

Anyone want to interpret that one?

My brain on drugs; Or, Seven sequential thoughts on a migraine treatment

1) I get migraine headaches four or five times a month.*

2) As my doctor recently called to tell me, that's far too many, and I should not have migraines so frequently. I'm not sure how that advice is supposed to help me, but I'll give it a few weeks.

3) A few months ago, my thoughtful and amazing wife - who frequently researches potential cures and treatments for migraines - mentioned that she had read an article about Botox being used to prevent migraines.

4) Although I was very appreciative that she had discovered this news, I thought using Botox as a remedy sounded somewhat silly, considering that I didn't need to eliminate crow's feet or frown lines in my brain.

5) I hate injections. I'm sure you don't like them either, but however much you hate them, I hate them more.

6) While poking around online today, I came across an item about the Botox migraine treatment.

7) After reading this article, I was reassured that I have made the right decision in not pursuing Botox as a treatment for my migraine headaches. Mainly because one of the common side effects is, um, headaches.


[Click to enlarge]












* Sometimes more. But I don't want it to look like I'm begging for sympathy. Or pills.

So, why would CNN even bother covering this?

Just when I thought there was no reason to blog this month, I came across this "news" on CNN.com, the website I love to despise.

Apparently, Peter Fonda - notable in my world mostly for inspiring the Beatles song "She Said She Said" - found a dead man in a car on the side of the road. OK, cool enough. I'm with you so far, CNN.

What really ticks me off about the article is probably as much a reflection of America's general celebrity-obsessed insanity as it is about CNN's general journalistic inanity*. But I couldn't get over the last sentence of the story, which read, and I am not making this up:

Poor guy. To be found dead in your car is one thing. But (gasp) it's even worse: He's never been on TMZ**!


* This might not be a word, but I couldn't think of another appropriate synonym for incompetence that rhymed with "insanity."

** Well, he hadn't been. Until now.

Scene in Noo Yorc

We were in the Big Apple last weekend.

I wonder whether the natives will eventually learn how to spell the name of that big expanse of recreational space that separates the east side from the west side north of 59th Street.

On the other hand, you have to admire their tasteful and sophisticated sense of humor when it comes to altering the instructions posted on hotel elevators.

Either CNN or Adrien Brody's attorney sucks at math

The only "D" I got in high school was for 12th grade calculus*.

Even today, I don't think the poor mark was because I was bad at calculus - which I'm sure I would have been - it was just that I literally slept through almost every class. But I had a good reason: At the beginning of my senior year, I knew that I was just months away from starting college, and I knew that college students often stay up until very late at night, and I reasoned that I should start, well, training for that particular aspect of college. Yes, I would train my body for those crazy late nights of college that were sure to come by just... staying awake until 1:30 or 2 a.m., as often as possible.

So every Monday through Thursday night, after I had finished practicing the violin and doing my homework (except for my calculus homework, of course), I'd watch the 11 o'clock news, and then the Tonight Show (this was in the pre-Leno days, when it wasn't awful), and then watch reruns of Benson and/or Cheers followed by as much as possible of the Letterman show. (Unlike other, normal cities, Baltimore in the 80s apparently couldn't handle going right from the Tonight Show to Letterman.)

That meant I was getting somewhere around four hours of sleep every weeknight. The remedy: A 48-minute power nap during calculus. The result: My beloved "D."

All of which is to say that I'm puzzled about the math in this hard-hitting CNN.com article.

The piece explains that actor Adrien Brody was to be paid $1.5 million for starring in a movie that nobody will ever see. It says that he has been paid $960,000 so far (which sounds pretty decent for a direct-to-DVD flick) and that Mr. Brody is still owed $640,000, which would seem to total up to $1.6 million - not $1.5 million. At least I think that's right - maybe there's some weird rule about adding dollar figures that I missed in calculus.

* Actually, it's possible I got a D in trigonometry, too. But there's no idiotic story behind that one.

Just plane dumb

I can finally sleep at night, knowing that the United-Continental merger is done.

Except that - even though I don't care very much about either company - I just don't get the decision to keep the United name but drop the well-known United "U" logo in favor of the Continental typeface and the incredibly bland Continental globe icon, which could easily be the logo for just about any company in the world.

I guess United and Continental leadership both needed to save face, but in doing so, I have to imagine they cost themselves an immeasurable amount of brand equity. I hope everyone at what used to be Continental is totally stoked by their big win - getting the signature typeface and unremarkable logo of a now-nonexistent company to survive. Nice going.

Oh, also, I appreciate the airline's assurance that the integration - matching up all of that frequent flier data, route codes, in-flight snack offerings, etc. - will go smoothly. Except that it seems they haven't quite figured out how to code an email yet. To wit: