That Jet Set Crowd

My flight home consisted of a short hop from Portland to Salt Lake City, listening to a couple hydroelectric plant foremen and a Norlift logistic engineer chat about all sorts of things. They talked about rain in Oregon two weeks ago (there was a lot), a guy in the news who almost died when he guzzled the vodka his airline wouldn't let him on the plane with (it was a lot), economic growth in Oregon (there is a lot), the total cost of their kids' Christmas lists (it will always be a lot), and how much elbow room we had on that plane (not much at all, really).

That leg may have been a little cramped, but otherwise pleasant and uneventful. It was the last leg, from SLC to RDU, where things started getting goofy. My 3+ hour layover consisted entirely of people-watching since here it is almost 2008 and the Salt Lake City International Airport still does not offer free wi-fi. We boarded the plane on time, around 4:45pm, and a couple minutes after I'd settled into my seat I noticed that the soothing music coming through the speakers was Sade's "The Sweetest Taboo"... which is unobtrusive enough, until you hear it over... and over... and over. And then they closed the door and pulled back from the gate, and it kept playing. It kept playing while we taxied around to the de-icing station, while we waited in line to de-ice, while we de-iced, and while we taxied to our runway. It was only interrupted when the captain came on the PA to tell us that we were 8th in line to take off and were going to get into Raleigh late and so it was cool if we wanted to use our cell phones for a while longer since we wouldn't be getting off the ground anytime soon - then back to Sade.

Finally, after a last-minute runway change that led to a few more minutes of sweet, sweet taboo, we got airborne and put all that behind us.

Then for in-flight entertainment we were shown Arctic Tale, which The Hollywood Reporter described as, "a new documentary which hopes to combine the appeal of March of the Penguins and An Inconvenient Truth" - which is pretty much all you need to know about that, except also it's narrated by Queen Latifah. I didn't get to enjoy that last part, since I didn't spring for the $2 airline headphones, nor bring my own.

What followed Arctic Tale was one of the weirdest muted-television-watching experiences I've ever had, and something that I will never forget this week. I missed the opening credits and was hopeless guessing what this show was, but I did recognized Matt Frewer (Max Headroom) and Joe Morton (dude that played Miles Dyson in Terminator 2). So after a quick search it turns out this was an episode of a Sci-Fi Channel show called Eureka. This series might be good with sound. It might be great with sound. For all I know, when you can actually hear the dialogue and follow the plot it might be the best show ever made... but I saw it without sound and it was surreally bad. In this episode, a meteorite punches a hole through the sheriff's jeep. The sheriff is played by Colin Ferguson, whose acting technique appears to consist entirely of furrowing his brow and looking like a really worried grown up Timmy Martin - like "Lassie has been in a well for 30 years" worried. Anyway his jeep is perforated so the sheriff has to ride around in this golf cart/Smart car thing that talks and drives itself. And then there are geese that aren't flying right (??) and Max Headroom is concerned about them and trying to catch or fix the geese, or something. And then there's some kind of science fair and one project goes awry and creates a magnetized whirlwind of metallic objects, and then there's some goodlooking woman dressed in black fatigues and wrapped up in 60lbs of SWAT gear and pouches and ballistic nylon web belt garbage. Then a meteorite storm threatens the town, and lame computer-generated meteorites hurtle from all directions. Then Miles Dyson or somebody fires an ion cannon into outer space and deflects something and the world is saved. I mean that's pretty much it. This is the Sci-Fi channel's most watched original series, and is greenlit for a third season. You figure it out.

Then we landed at RDU, and it was "You give me, you give me the Sweeeeeetest Taboooo" all the way to the gate...

Update: Arctic Sea Ice Re-Freezing at Record Pace, Al Gore is reportedly sending the polar bears a monster truck full of North Face PB Cayenne SOD Triclimate Jackets, by air. That dude loves him some environment. No word yet on what the polar bears are fighting now that the T-Rex population has fled south for warmer Canadians to eat.