Hey, did you hear that the Transportation Security Agency lifted the ban on bringing lighters onto airplanes? Yeah, so did I, but it turns out that they’re only okay with lighters starting next week. This week, they still haul you out of line, take your Zippo, and toss your luggage. Which, theoretically, would be a bad time for them to discover a pewter hip flask sloshing with something that smells strongly like acetate to a buzz-cut government flunky who’s never partied on anything stronger than communion wine.
If this happens to you, learn from my mistakes: feign respect for their ironed-on TSA “badges” and tell them that you think “Semtex” is a company out of Silicon Valley that makes encrypted flash drives.
Regardless of the travails, I am currently in San Diego for Nerd Prom. My girl and arrived last night at about 7:30 local time, which was about 10:30 Boston time and therefore T + 5 hours from beer o’clock. I relearned two important things after visiting the hotel bar:
- 1) In California, ordering any form of beef product in a “rare” condition is roughly akin to requesting a steak knife and a plastic tarp for the commission of public ritual self-castration, and:
- 2) Since Stone Brewery’s Arrogant Bastard Ale is available on tap, it only take me about 75 minutes become surly and truculant over my fucking medium burger and be shut off at the bar.
So we awoke this morning at 6 a.m. local time (or T + 2 hours from “I need grease to kill the pain or I am going to die” time). Now, last year we stayed at this same hotel, which is nice and clean with a great bar and a magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean. However, This year, our room is on the opposite side of the hotel, giving us a magnificent view of this:
Those fucking freight trains run every fucking ten minutes, all fucking night long. And they blast their air horns as they pass, regardless of the hour. Which I could understand if they do it TONIGHT, because there’s gonna be around 100,000 Comic-Con attendees wandering around in the general vicinity of those tracks, and around 72,500 of them will be dressed as Stormtroopers, and no speed-addled train conductor wants to hit one of those and see what’s in the creamy center.
But after LAST NIGHT, I think they we’re just trying to fuck up my internal clock a little more. After one more night of this, I may be so fucked up and out of time that I get up at 3 a.m., shake my girl awake and start muttering that Javier said to start taping me up with the smack before my flight out of Turkey.
Anyway. Unlike last year, this year we are armed with Internet access and a real digital camera, so I should be able to check in with daily updates on the madness, freaks, and fat black Wonder Women. Check back in now and again, and keep an eye on Amandarama; I’m sure she’ll want to chime in as well.
If only to open a Paypal account to raise me some bail money. Does anyone know if assaulting an interstate freight train conductor is a federal beef?
[tags]San Diego Comic-Con, Nerd Prom, Goddamned Fucking Trains[/tags]
