3.31.2005
another day at the office
I'm not a big fan of business travel. And I don't like hotels for the sake of hotels, but man, I stayed at the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay for work last night and I suppose business travel has its charms after all. This I could get used to.
The Ritz is a sprawling, six-story mansion placed across turf-topped bluffs and cliffs that drop right off into the ocean. Walking the halls and manning the desks are what seems to be several hundred people paid to be REALLY nice to you. And they are so good at it that it feels almost natural, almost real, like a very vivid dream.
For instance, getting busted for drinking beer in the hottub after posted hours goes real well at the Ritz. It starts out pretty standard: blue windbreakers, flashlights, questions, staff taking your beer and pouring it out. But they pour it into paper cups, then hand it back to you and invite you to continue enjoying your beverage in the tub. "My pleasure," both guys said as they waved and left. Of course, it had been the lobby bartender's apparent pleasure to deliver ten Coronas with lime wedges to the hottub in the first place...
Following an evening of wine, seabass, aforementioned seaside hottubbing, a sunrise jog along the beach, and a morning banker meeting, I dropped off my room key and summoned for my car. As if from a dingy backstage area, my '91 Corolla – the Corolla of Stark Reality, no stereo and all peeling paint – was promptly brought around to the front drive. Every car in sight was a Mercedes, two of them dealer-plated SUVs.
Teetering between dreamland and the rude wakefulness of my old station wagon, I handed the valet a five and mused to myself that there was little more Ritz to be had for someone like me. But here it came. "My pleasure," said he, closing my door for me as I started the car. "Man, what great cars. They run forever, don't they?"
Yeah, you know, with the A/C turned off it does have a little bit of kick. I revved up the Corolla of Stark Reality and took it for a drive up the coast as far as I could go before heading back into San Francisco. Gorgeous. My pleasure.
The Ritz is a sprawling, six-story mansion placed across turf-topped bluffs and cliffs that drop right off into the ocean. Walking the halls and manning the desks are what seems to be several hundred people paid to be REALLY nice to you. And they are so good at it that it feels almost natural, almost real, like a very vivid dream.
For instance, getting busted for drinking beer in the hottub after posted hours goes real well at the Ritz. It starts out pretty standard: blue windbreakers, flashlights, questions, staff taking your beer and pouring it out. But they pour it into paper cups, then hand it back to you and invite you to continue enjoying your beverage in the tub. "My pleasure," both guys said as they waved and left. Of course, it had been the lobby bartender's apparent pleasure to deliver ten Coronas with lime wedges to the hottub in the first place...
Following an evening of wine, seabass, aforementioned seaside hottubbing, a sunrise jog along the beach, and a morning banker meeting, I dropped off my room key and summoned for my car. As if from a dingy backstage area, my '91 Corolla – the Corolla of Stark Reality, no stereo and all peeling paint – was promptly brought around to the front drive. Every car in sight was a Mercedes, two of them dealer-plated SUVs.
Teetering between dreamland and the rude wakefulness of my old station wagon, I handed the valet a five and mused to myself that there was little more Ritz to be had for someone like me. But here it came. "My pleasure," said he, closing my door for me as I started the car. "Man, what great cars. They run forever, don't they?"
Yeah, you know, with the A/C turned off it does have a little bit of kick. I revved up the Corolla of Stark Reality and took it for a drive up the coast as far as I could go before heading back into San Francisco. Gorgeous. My pleasure.
3.21.2005
anti-pesto S.W.A.T. team
Wallace and Gromit go to the movies!
3.17.2005
hey. wait. kurt wrote the new stairway...
When I was a boy, we walked seventeen miles in the snow wearing flipflops a size too small to the only guitar shop in the hemisphere. Actually, it wasn't a guitar shop, it was a large cardboard box and a soggy one at that. Inside was a crazy old man with a broken tennis racket. And when we asked him if we could air "Stairway to Heaven" on the racket, he would scream at us and chase us out of the box. And we liked our guitar shops like that. We LOVED them.
3.15.2005
OK, Episodes I and II had me afraid I'd never be able say so, but I just watched the trailer for Episode III, and I'm actually excited to see it. Perhaps George has finally done it. Or redone it. Again. For the first time. And maybe this'll get everyone to mellow out about the special editions. Hell hath no fury like a nerd scorned...
3.14.2005
recipe for an awesome cough
• Let your lawn go for about three months.
• Now get a little cough.
• Rest intermittently during the following week, creating a long gestation period for the virus. Remember to cease resting immediately if you start to feel better.
• Now that the cough has a good foothold in the old lungs, go spray herbicide on weeds for about an hour. For best results, use a nice fine mist and no mask.
• That three month lawn growth? Get out there with a weedwhacker and give it a haircut. A bad haircut. That's right, wade in knee-deep and puree that bad girl into a bright green allergenic paste.
• Now run seven miles, preferably in the hills.
• Don't forget to take a decongestant before bed. This serves the important dual purpose of mobilizing the phlegm into the lungs AND keeping you speedy and unrested the whole night through!
• Now get a little cough.
• Rest intermittently during the following week, creating a long gestation period for the virus. Remember to cease resting immediately if you start to feel better.
• Now that the cough has a good foothold in the old lungs, go spray herbicide on weeds for about an hour. For best results, use a nice fine mist and no mask.
• That three month lawn growth? Get out there with a weedwhacker and give it a haircut. A bad haircut. That's right, wade in knee-deep and puree that bad girl into a bright green allergenic paste.
• Now run seven miles, preferably in the hills.
• Don't forget to take a decongestant before bed. This serves the important dual purpose of mobilizing the phlegm into the lungs AND keeping you speedy and unrested the whole night through!
3.10.2005
Really enjoyed playing last Saturday. Thanks to all who made it...
