Things I've learned to do in 2008

1 - waterski.
2 - juggle.

Things I learned to do in 2007

This is compared to 2007's list, which was

1 - change diapers
2 - that Cracker Barrel peg game (I can now 'win' with the initial empty hole in any position. And, yes, I taught myself)

Happy Birthday

I am one to look for foreshadows and omens, and I thought I'd found the one I needed for the birth of our daughter in the the last movie Mandy and I saw last week, "Children of Man."  It's a bleak-future action movie, with Clive Owen and, inexplicably, Julianne Moore and it's full of tricks and turns and thrills, and it willfully never lets any of its characters actually speak its own obvious premise: The world is rational, Godless, cold and lost, but even so, childbirth – and only childbirth – is mystic and Divine.

I left the theatre thinking that, as last-week-of-pregnancy omens go, I'd take it, even if it ran a bit heavy on cruelty and despair.  If you need a Sign, you take what you can get.

But then, in the final hours, we got a better one.

The TV in our hospital room was on a closed-circuit channel which spent the day playing helpful reminders about washing hands and discharge procedures until, deep in the middle of the night, somebody threw in a tape of "Coal Miner's Daughter."

Coal Miner's Daughter is

• a) probably Mandy's favorite movie
• b) surely the best movie ever made in and around Nashville
• c) the unrivaled Gold Standard for on-screen southern accents
• d) the finest movie ever made about love and the American Family.

Through the guileless Sissy Spacek, we watch Lorretta Lynn leave her family in Kentucky as a young girl, and live a long, turbulent and ultimately happy life with Moonie Doolittle, aka Doo, a role swallowed whole by Tommy Lee Jones.

There's country music in there, but it's not really the point. The point is the role of family in finding happiness.

It was a perfect way to get ready for Judith Francesca White, who was born at 11:42 Nashville time after 24 hours of labor and 20 remarkably brief minutes of final pushing. You can call her Jude, since Mandy is determined to.

There's a long list of emotions and declarations you're supposed to have and make on such a day, but other than delight at the sheer newness of it all (which felt shamefully consumer-ish when it hit me), I didn't take any emotional roundhouse kicks to the skull. I didn't cry or faint and remain baffled to the point of outright doubt that anybody would ever want to pass out cigars to their buddies after such a day, like they'd just closed a big merger or bombed Iraq.

But I'll tell ya who WAS blown away: Jude.

I watched her arrive, and I was expecting to see something gross or gorgeous or crying or spastic or shriveled or conceivably even dead, but what I didn't expect was to actually see her face, and to see on it the single most unmistakable expression in all of human facial expression: the What-The-Fuck-Just-Happened? face.

And you can quote me cognitive brain function stats and lecture me on the dangers of projecting adult (or just selfish) emotions onto children. I get the whole, "you think she's smiling at you, but really she just has gas"-thing.

But my daughter could grow up to be The One and choose the red pill and wake up in the Matrix with cords sticking out of her back and she won't be half as surprised as she was to be born this morning. I was watching her face as the doc rolled her over, cord still on, to clear her airway. Trust me: she absolutely could not believe that just happened. It didn't go away when they cleaned her up, when Mandy and I got to hold her, or when I took her to the nursery. She just looked around, obviously thinking:

 

"WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?"

 

So from that moment on, I was utterly absorbed in considering the moment from her side. And that's when it all became terrifying.

Because I thought, 'wow, you just learned about "cold" "bright" "loud" and how to breathe in about 10 seconds! What a learning curve! Everything else from here will be EASY!'

Only, it won't be.

Today she was born, and wrapped in blankets with blue and pink animals and a little hat and a cute dress-thing we bought here (red flowers all over it), she's perfect. She's everything she can be, everything we want for her.

Tomorrow morning, the pediatrician is going to come see her for the first time, and ruin it.
What he's going to do, essentially, is give her a report card. Responds to verbal-Check Plus. Cries to painful stimulus-Check, Skin tone-Needs Work. The first of 10 million little exams, reports and scores that will tell Jude that she's good at this, but not at that.

Well, I've spent the last month applying to business schools, which make you spell out in excrutiating detail, over vast essays, what you are good at. To do so, you have to first get a very clear understanding of what you're NOT good at, and steer your essays away from those cliffs. And in order to know where the cliffs are, you have to think back to times when people told you that you were no good at something.

In short, applying to business school makes you catalog and relive all the times you've ever been told you suck. It is a 3-month journey of relentless self-doubt.

And Jude gets her first taste tomorrow.

Not really, of course. What really happens is I get MY first taste for her tomorrow. And its true that the pediatrician might say something scary – any one of hundreds of those baby-disorder lottery words – but he'll probably say that she's 100 percent healthy and in perfect shape with no problems, and while you're here, Doc, just what the hell is that supposed to mean?

Cuz it could mean, "no blood in stool and clear lungs." Or it could mean "she will be elected by 7 billion voters as the first Global Prime Minister at age 35, having cured AIDS and all strains of loneliness in her late 20s. Unless you, first-time parent, screw it up for her between now and then."

What REALLY happened today was that while Jude sat there mystified and bewildered at being born, I was nearly paralyzed thinking about how I was going to ruin it.

Starting from the moment your kid is born (or at least from the second your pediatrician signs off on it) your kid is a Nobel Prize winner. But it's up to you to keep the rocket on that perfect straight-up trajectory. Each little wobble decays the apex just a bit, and the earlier the wobble, the worse the decay.

With the slightest hiccup, you lose the Nobel, and settle for a Sakharov Prize or a Pulitzer or a maybe just a Fields Medal (lousy Fields Medal…). Then something else goes wrong – wrong 6-month day care? – and suddenly they aren't even getting a Rhodes Scholarship and the wheels are coming completely off. If you allow just a few glances at prime time TV anytime in the first 12 years, they're a crummy Salutatorian in an inner-ring suburban high school and one more wobble away from an Intervention episode.

And the earlier, the more magnified the effect. In the first week – hell, first years – the slightest of slip-ups is the difference between the 52nd President of the United States and being in rehab by 14.

We're dealing with a slippery slope here!

And I haven't even gotten into chronic diseases and driver's licenses and internet porn and consumer debt and the current make-up of the Supreme Court... How did we ever find time to invade Iraq and cure polio and break up the Beatles with all these anti-baby death-forces massed in every direction!

Greatest Day Of My Life? Are you friggin' kidding me? Do you even know what the Fed is hinting about inflation? DO YOU?

And then Jude burped. Just a tiny one. Breathing's hard if you've only been at it for 15 minutes and no one has bothered to show you how (particularly not the moron looking at your expecting to see facial expressions) and your fingers are the size of sunflower seeds but still have perfectly formed nails for some miraculous reason. That's another one I was also totally unprepared for.

So she'll figure out breathing, the pediatrician will introduce her to performance evaluations (actually, she already has one: AGPAR between 8 and 9. Perfect score is 10. Damn. So much for the free trip to Norway), and we'll go from there.

And someday soon – not real soon, but maybe 12 or 14 years down the road – we'll sit down together and watch Coal Miner's Daughter and she'll be old enough to sing some of the songs, which are great, and understand about Family and Happiness and then the train station scene will come on and Loretta's dad will lean down and hold her as the train pulls up, and tell her that he ain't ever gonna see his little girl again, and if Jude picks that moment to glance over at me, it might be her turn to see that expression that just says:  "What the fuck just happened?"

Pirates: At Series End

Pirates of the Caribbean 3: skip it. Seriously. Its about 3 hours with maybe 12 minutes - maybe 8 - of slight fun. Horrible script on a truly unfollowable and dumb plot. Just awful.

One question: the second movie was much worse than the first, though much better than this one. Its strongest sequences, by far, where the daffy feats of kinetic gymnastics that the characters performed in a series of chase scenes and sword fights. And what really set them apart was that except for single set shots, they weren't computer generated. They were real stunts.
The sword fight inside a runaway, rolling waterwheel - the combantants dueling as they run like hampsters inside the wheel - was the best live stunt I've seen this decade. It felt like an 80s action movie. Brilliant!
This movie has so little real stunts/action versus absurd - truly awful - CGI, you might as well just turn you iTunes onto tht funky visualizer that makes your computer a kalediscope. Its just as real as any of the 'action' in the dreary Pirates3, with better music.

Cloverfield, Juno

Juno: nice little movie not worth near the hype its getting. Its a small movie, full of funny teenage humor which mostly works. On the other hand, it gets those laughs by applying standard high school-movie timing, mood and structure - like American Pie or 10 Things I Hate About You - to a protaganist who is a 16 year old pregnant girl. In fact, the movie opens with Juno going into a convience store to buy a third pregnancy test, because she rejects the results of the first two with Julia Stiles-calbier haughtiness. THe clerk is the guy who plays Dwight from The Office. As she buys, uses and - inexplicably - reports the results from the test, the Dwight/clerk guy mercilessly taunts her about it in his geeky-Dwight way.
Wait- a 16 year old gets pregnant and its fair game for snide jokes from loser 30+ guys working at 7-11? huh?
When the characters aren't throwing bathroom-slash-sex jokes at each other, its a well rounded, small movie, with small, catchy songs. In fact, the music - airy folk tracks from nameless, squeeky guitar-and-Starbucks acts - is a great metaphor for how big the movie should be, which is not big at all. A central conciet - a 16 year old can deal with pregnancy with sarcasm and a little help from quirky parents - and some nice execution. And nowhere near Great Movie status. THis should be a Showtime series, not an Oscar nominee.

Also not an Oscar nominess is Cloverfield, because it isn't trying to be. It wants to be a 3- or 4-chase-scene monster/horror movie set in - give or take - the post-human chaos of NYC on the morning of 9/11 only with a Godzilla instead of terrorists. It also doesn't want to benchpress even a single plate from the Traditional Horror rack of cliches, which is why its so fun. Instead, its a whole horror movie shot from POV, the 'internet' term for somebody filming their life.
So you get: not a stitch of backstory. not a note of music. shockingly little gore, cuz when the monsters attack, the guy routinely drops his camera and screams leaving the fight to be recorded in blurrs and whizzes of motion and split-second frames, and a wholly un-'And-that's-why-it-was-the-craziest-summer-Camp-Tititkaka-ever-had' ending.
Frankly, I can't believe it hasn't earned a name like the Godzilla Witch Project or something.
Its fun and fast, at least, after a shockingly long opening act, wherein the camera (the film's real hero) begins its night recording a going away party among friends before the monster hits and ruins not just NYC but the party, too. THe movie is a TV-like 84 minutes long, of which this party seems to last, oh, 15 or 20 minutes.
The final shot - and I mean, the last 15 seconds before the credits - is a fun little easter egg. Don't miss it.

Lost - Ep 2, Season 4

Now THAT was a great episode. First one in years, actually. Advanced the story, gave up a secret or two, reconnected with the mysticism (how is the one guy connected? what's Miles' crazy ghost story?). They even mentioned the monster! I think that was basicly a placeholder, sort of an early "we'll-get-to-it!" promise that they're going to loop back for some of the Season 1 stuff.

Also, UNC's basketball team is just terrible. I know they didn't have Lawson, but there's Hansbrough, and nobody else can play! Nobody can make a shot, nobody can play at all, nobody can run a screen and nobody can drive and dish. Other than that, Coach Williams really had them ready.

Prius Turns 15

Very close to the Georgia-Florida border on I-75 last night, my Prius hit 15,000 miles. Its only been six months and two weeks since I bought it, which extrapolates out to almost 30K this year, or junk status sometime in 2009. Fortunately, the next 6 months (and beyond) should be significantly more stationary than the last 6 have been. I'd like to think the odometer still has a chance to close out the decade under six-figures, but you never know.

But reaching that mark, I think, is reason enough to put up a semi-serious review.

Since reviews of the Prius tend to gush with superlatives - and I intend to join the flood - I'll first swim upstream and complain about a few things first.

What sucks:

1 - this is the only "how could they?" mistake about the car: driving at night, a REALLY obvious and annoying line of light appears on the windshield, at the center of the driver's view. It's the result of a complicated, 2-bounce reflection from the dashboard/readout. The Prius offers no dials or gauges, only a digital speedometer and line of warning lights lined up DEEP in the dash. That display glows out onto the dashboard. It is the reflection of that glow that you see in the windshield. It would not be visible on most cars, but since the Prius windshield is very long, the angle is just right to reflect into your eyes. Its not blinding but its WAY annoying and over a long trip could turn semi dangerous. The ONLY solution is to turn down the dash intensity on a dial next to the steering wheel. That means you have to turn it back up the next day.
I can think of like 6 ways to fix this in the design process, but none now. How could Toyota have missed this?

2 - My gas gauge isn't very good. It "sticks" on full for at least 150 miles, then plummets, and hits the "add fuel" blinking line at inconsistent levels. Not a design flaw, but a bigger glitch than I experienced in any of my three previous cars (two Subarus and a Honda).

3 - The computer is pretty boring. The Prius comes with a big screen and obviously lots of brains. Yet its system of displaying current MPG and energy usage is dull and mostly lame. If I had GPS or sat radio or whatever, i'd keep it on that, but I don't so i'm stuck with the lame computer readout.

4 - Spare tire is one of those horrible mini-tires. Found out the hard way.

5 - Design is absolutely, totally incompatible with a dog gate/fence. In my previous cars (a Subaru Forester and WRX wagon and, briefly, a Mazda3 hatchback), you could easily wedge a dog guard up against the rear seats in the back compartment. In both cars, I pinned it in place with the "cargo cover" attachment (that's the stange bar that a cover rolls out of like a window shade). This concern - keeping my dog in the back, off the seats - was a MAJOR reason why I bought consecutive wagon-models.
In the Prius, the hatchback door attaches to the roof foward of the rear seats. Therefore, any fence/rails cannot be attached or even wedged against the roof. Very disappointing, and Toyota offers no installable dog gate. The only upside is that the Prius cieling is so low that my dog has trouble jumping over the seats.
If anyone has figured out how to keep a dog in the rear area, let me know.

Short of those complaints, the car is what it should be: a small, simple, trouble free car that gets 45 MPG. And that's a legit 45 - I track my mileage and fuel consumption. THe car's computer always comes out 1-2 MPG better than what the number say.
Underpowered? A bit. I cruise easily at 70-75, even 80. Beyond that, you can feel and hear the engine pushing.

The best part of the Prius is not any feature. The radio is adequate, the features well thought out but basic, and the interior is sharp but unremarkable. I don't take any satisfaction from its "green" side, which is hardly appreciable. After driving the car for 15K, its clear that all cars will soon be like this. You get the same car at twice the mileage - how could they not? But I don't really take satisfaction from the "drive The Future" aspect, either. If anything, its just embarrassing that its 2007 and this is still new ground.

What is REALLY great about the Prius is the psychological freedom you get that I'd lost in my last few cars. My WRX got, at best, 25 MPG. The forester, only slightly better. Even the Mazda3, which I drove gingerly to milk some effieincy out of it, topped out at 29.
As gas prices exploded in the last 3 years, that tacked on more and more weight to every trip, from days-long roadies to trips to the 7-11. The value of every ounce double, then almost doubled again, in less than 2 years.
First, I stopped driving too fast, ever (a shame when you own a WRX, or even a 3). Then I found myself focusing on which stretches of road I could put the gear into neutral to coast. A red light, with its minute of idling and then gas-guzzling acceleration, ruined my mood.
I'm not sure I skipped any driving to save gas, but I never drove anywhere without resenting the need to. Blockbuster, huh? How far is that? Anything else we can do on the way there or back to save a trip later?
Gas prices became The Next Creeping Thing, like too much sun or teenagers hanging out on your street.

And then I bought the Prius, and set my mind at ease. Driving no longer feels like paying interest on your life. If I get to work and realize I left something at home, I turn around and drive home, just as I always would have. What I don't do is bitterly compute the gas money I'm spending all the way there and back.
Its a peace of mind I compare to the ignition and starting process. In the Prius, there is no key. The key sits in your pocket, communicating electronically with the car, telling it you are there. You sit down, put your foot on the brake and hit the well-placed power button. Silently, the dashboard lights up and almost immediatly displays the word 'ready.' No coughing explosion of an engine turning over, no twisting of keys. Click. Ready. And, silently, drive.
That's a perfect analogy to the Prius peace of mind. I don't drive more than I used to. I just drive easier.

The King of The 80s Returns

Consider: Among musical acts, who 'won' the 80s? Who hit huge in the 1980s - at least as big as, say, The Thompson Twins, just as a baseline - and kept an active, relevent career the longest (ie, Night Ranger's perpetual "Sister Christian" tour on the state fair circuit
doesn't count)?

I say they still haven't cut down nets, but we have our finalists:

The Beastie Boys
Wierd Al

(And I'll entertain George Strait nominations. But hasn't he put out the same song about 30 times since 1992, and UHF trounces Pure Country anyway)

So Weird Al's latest album, Straight Outa Lynwood, hit yesterday.

If his last album, Poodle Hat was an A+, and the one before, RUnning With Scissors was an A-, then this one is B- at best.

Truthfully, he doesn't really get hit any of the songs in the sweet spot. Best is probably Canadian Idiot, based on Green Day's American Idiot. Funny (and dead on), but the jokes don't really crack or pop. The same could be said for the other 11 tracks. The jokes, unlike the last two albums, are tired and strictly junior high.
The single out now, White and Nerdy, is pretty good, but then, what does that song that Prety Fly For a White Guy didn't?
The closest to really laugh-out-loud funny is probably Close But No Cigar, which chronicles meeting three perfect women and dumping them for inconsequential details ("she was always using the word 'infer' when she obviously met 'imply'/... I told her, 'are we playin' horseshoes, honey, no I don't think we are/ You're close - but no cigar")
But even the polka medly - usually a bankable homerun - comes up a little slow (maybe because I'm unfamiliar with a large percentage of the songs parodied in it). Compared to Angry White Boy Polka from Poodle Hat, its not even close.
So its a good album, but as Al puts it "Are we dong Government work here? No I don't think we are - You're close, but no cigar."

The King of The 80s Returns

Consider: Among musical acts, who 'won' the 80s? Who hit huge in the 1980s - at least as big as, say, The Thompson Twins, just as a baseline - and kept an active, relevent career the longest (ie, Night Ranger's perpetual "Sister Christian" tour on the state fair circuit
doesn't count)?

I say they still haven't cut down nets, but we have our finalists:

The Beastie Boys
Wierd Al

(And I'll entertain George Strait nominations. But hasn't he put out the same song about 30 times since 1992, and UHF trounces Pure Country anyway)

So Weird Al's latest album, Straight Outa Lynwood, hit yesterday.

If his last album, Poodle Hat was an A+, and the one before, RUnning With Scissors was an A-, then this one is B- at best.

Truthfully, he doesn't really get hit any of the songs in the sweet spot. Best is probably Canadian Idiot, based on Green Day's American Idiot. Funny (and dead on), but the jokes don't really crack or pop. The same could be said for the other 11 tracks. The jokes, unlike the last two albums, are tired and strictly junior high.
The single out now, White and Nerdy, is pretty good, but then, what does that song that Prety Fly For a White Guy didn't?
The closest to really laugh-out-loud funny is probably Close But No Cigar, which chronicles meeting three perfect women and dumping them for inconsequential details ("she was always using the word 'infer' when she obviously met 'imply'/... I told her, 'are we playin' horseshoes, honey, no I don't think we are/ You're close - but no cigar")
But even the polka medly - usually a bankable homerun - comes up a little slow (maybe because I'm unfamiliar with a large percentage of the songs parodied in it). Compared to Angry White Boy Polka from Poodle Hat, its not even close.
So its a good album, but as Al puts it "Are we dong Government work here? No I don't think we are - You're close, but no cigar."

Laguna Beach 3: They stand up, we stand down.

We'll start with a quiz of the Drudge-advertiser variety – match the
gender to the Laguna Beach Season 3 character:
Kyndra
Kel
Lex
Rocky
Cam
Tess
Chase
Cam
Answers below

I can't think of a rational link between our Iraq adventure and the
social narrative of MTV's Laguna Beach, but after the debut of Season
3, I'm convinced there is one.

Season 1 was the invasion and the illusion of success. The locals
appeared friendly, sort of, and there was reason to believe that peace
and good intentions might win out. The fabulously rich and spoiled,
it turned out, were good hearted, eclectic, curious, quirky and
occasionally bright (also, Lauren and Kristen were Bond-girl hot in a
two-piece, which they habitually wore). They were like us, and when
they weren't exactly like us, they behaved like we hoped we might,
as when Steven juggled the affections of Lo and Kristen, and actually
looked for a decent option to spare the loser with a fair peace.
These kids did normal things like beg their parents for cars, fail
algebra, look lost when they visited the big city and get drunk when
their parents weren't looking.

But was this whole experiment breeding a new generation of terror-kids?

Season 2 was the slow slide to anarchy as the locals and the influx
of new blood lost respect for authority and realized that – in the
vacuum of the power left by the invasion – they could do anything they
want, anytime they wanted. They got drunk in limos and around their
pools in the middle of the day. They deployed sex in more and more
ruthless, haphazard ways, and the body counts piled up. Dignity and
brains (and any semblence of 'normal' high school behavior)
disappeared as ruthless, cruel kids rushed in to grab turf, all
orbiting militia-head Kristen, who was rumored to be dating people
like Nick Lachey Matt Leinart, the King of LA, where EVERYONE said
they were moving. Like all Khans before her, Kristen ruled with
cruelty, ruining enemies and friends alike almost every week.

Had we lost control? Was it time for a different course?

It's legacy at stake, MTV pushed on.

Now it's Season 3 and regardless of what Tony Snow might call it,
we're in open civil war. The insurgents are now the only power, and
their only voice is violence. Like Al Zakahir, Kristen is gone, and
rival groups are now inventing new ways to be horrible to each other.

Like this Kyndra. Holy crap. DO NOT get caught out alone in any
sector of the city her loyalists control. One minute you're getting
sushi with some water polo buddies, the next minute you're blindfolded
with dudes holding swords behind you.

This week's season debut culminated in a pool party at Kyndra's
house, with key lieutenant Cami, the kind of pool party where all the
girls wear jeans and corsets (?), playing tough to the normal
distribution of skinny jocks.

(sidenote: Cami must REALLY be easy, because despite huge tits she's
the worst looking central character to date)

In walked Tessa and her bestest friend Rocky. Kyndra was Super pissed.
Glares, pointed fingers, fabulously fake hugs. Nothing new here.

Then we saw just how bad its got.

The two camps – Tessa's and Kyndra's – separated into groups across
the pool deck, and, after a few minutes of glaring and cattiness,
began openly yelling taunts at each other. "Yeah, I'm talking about
you, bitch" etc.

An unthinkable break of the social norms in previous season (plus:
nobody hated each other THAT much, at least not until Cabo).

Soon enough, Tessa and Rocky retreated – "Whatever" "I'm so over
this" – out of the pool to the Green Zone, I guess. And Kyndra and
Cami declared it bikini-time.

And finally, back for more abuse this year, is Jessica Chalabi, whose
ineptness in the political arena is getting so ridiculous, she may
soon start getting fan mail from Christopher Hitchens.

The central Himbo this season is Cameron, who unlike last year's
human trash can Jason, at least looks the part, something akin to a
water polo-version of Trev Alberts.

Now stop me if you've heard this: the season opens with Jessica
having just hooked up with Himbo, bragging to Alex M (who rejoins with
muscle-for-hire Alex H (!) in reprising their award winning 'I wish I
was as pretty as my friends'-roles) that she and Himbo are on their
way to being a couple. Cut to Himbo talking shit with his boys,
making fun of Jelabi for, essentially, being enough of a slut to hook
up with him.

Where's this going? Anyone want a stab?

Yip. As the ads are already telegraphing in next week's episode
"Summer Gives Way To Fall-uja," Kyndra is about to lay siege to Himbo.

(I may have gotten my Alexs switched up above. Who can keep up?)

Published accounts have said the entire town turned on the show last
year as they filmed, running them out of public places and ruining
shoots. As a result – and this is a key parallel with Iraq today –
anything here that might be presented as "normal" (ie, rival groups
of girls attending the same pool party; meaningful elections) can now
be assumed to be a carefully scripted and delivered act, with no
relation to reality. And for the second straight year, the cast just
isn't as good looking as the first go-around, and why spy on rich kids
if they look like us?

But I suppose I'll watch for a while, even if we're unlikely to see
any of those adorable
Daddy-can-I-have-a-Beamer-please-please-please?-moments.

Like Iraq, we broke it, we bought it.

Kyndra (F), Kel (Kelan, M), Lex (F), Rocky (Raquel, F), Cam
(Cameron, M), Tessa (F), Chase (M) and Cami (F).

Terror: "Can't Stop. Won't Stop. Bad Boy. Uhhhh."

Deep Breath.

We had'em WAY before Hello.

Way before 'going operational.'

Way before 'dry run.'

Way before 'gel bomb.'

(Gel bomb? Really? A Gel Bomb? They have those now? I hadn't heard
of the Gel Bomb. I'm going to remember that. Gel. Bomb. Got it.)

I think my wait-a-tick alarm went off with this picture:

those are Mass. state cops - 'fawkin staties' as Ben Affleck might have
put it to Damon, but we can't put it that way today because Freedom Is
At Stake.

First question: how many tires did he put on the sidewalk when he
parked it right outside that door? I say 3.

But take a close look. Pretty much your prototype 1 - overmacho cop and
2 - overbored cop, huh? I mean - seriously.

See those guns? You might recognize those as MP5s. You might want to
remember that, too, because if you can talk "MP5" to people, you've
got a good chance of passing yourself off as a SEAL. Seriously. A
little technique I like to use - throw in: "SD4-mod, with the
three-round burst."

Go ahead - feels good to be a gansta, huh?

Fortunately, these two have the kind with built in silencers (that's
the SD-mod part, Killah). 'Suppressors' they call them in the biz.
Sure, they slow down the bullet and make it less stable so you're more
likley - emphasis on 'more' - to miss, but when you're watching people
huck their bags at Logan, do you want to be without it?

He's also wearing what we call "a combat sling." Too bad its wearing it wrong. How wrong? Its adjusted so that the rifle is hanging straight across his
pistol, which he'd need if his high-speed, low-drag,
as-seen-in-The-Rock MP5 malfunctioned, which kind of defeats the
purpose of the Combat Sling.

And I'm sure I don't have to point out the Vest. Probably spotted
that before the forearms, huh?

So he's incorrectly wearing more rifle than he - and certainly she - knows what to
do with, with a silencer in an airport, along with
the i'm-a-dick Vest in the country where the terrorists aren't.

AND not helping that dude with his bag.

But at least you know where your Homeland Security dollars are going.

So a quick checklist:

- Local Yokels of every kind breaking out their Big Big Toys and
standing around with a supreme sense of importance and not shit-all to
do? Check

- Almost immediate emergence of Something New To Fear (blue gel -
run!)? Check.

- Orange Alert! No, Red! Check?

- Dubya: "Islamic fascism" and leave me alone about Iraq? Check.

Yip - the Captain has turned on the "We're Overreacting" Light. As
always, the "They're Lying To Distract You" Light will be on
throughout the flight.

So let's take a step back here, and ask ourselves, Just What Have We
Got? What the hell exactly have we got here?

Here's what: 24 (24!) london Kids who have spent at least the last
year talking about pulling off a series of bombings that would be - on
technical grounds, tactical grounds and strategery grounds -
absolutely unprecedented.

Again: Incredibly complicated. Unproven methods. Reliant on perfect
timing. And makes no sense.

They have a word for plans that combine all those elements: That
word is 'bullshit.' And oh, yeah, all of your
chemist/commando/spy/planners did not grow up in Saudi Arabia and
spend the last five years in Chechnya.

They've been in London, which, since their muslim, probably means
half of them secretly wish they were Ali G.

So Ladies and Gentlemen, Victims and Vicettes, put your
hands together for "9/11 part II"!!!! Give it up!

Or if you prefer, "8/10" as some british papers are
solemnly calling it today.

8-slash-10. For 24 London kids who talked up a big fuckin' game,
for at least a year. And how do we know it was a year?

Because, as Sam Kinison might have put it, they were onto them A
YEAR AGO!!!!! A YEAR AGO!!!!! (I WANT MY RECORDS BACK!!!!)

And consider: they gave themselves away a year ago, ERGO they were
being watched for a year AND DIDN'T FIGURE IT OUT!!!!

You've been such a great crowd, how about another big hand
for "Even More Spectacular than the World Trade Center Attacks!" What
a night its been!

For this parents are forced to eat baby food in the line to prove
its not Death Gel?

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?!?!? "8/10"!!?!?!?!?! MP5s IN THE
AIRPORT!!??!!??!

FOR THESE IDIOTS!!!!????

These were the worst terrorists ever! I think half of Hezbullah
quit shooting Jews yesterday. "What's the point?," they all said,
shrugging their shoulders and tossing their Iranian-supplied rockets
to the ground. "If we're gonna get lumped in with these guys, I say
we just go to Jordan and get laid."

these were the suckiest terrorist who ever sucked!

these were like the terrorist version of that Friends episode where
Courtney Cox's boyfriend swears he's going to be an Ultimate Fighter
and ends up in a body cast!

these were like the terrorist versions of the answering machine
scene in Swingers!

My God, do you know what this means? these were like the terrorist
version of John Favre TWICE!!!!!!!

Pardon me while I decline to shit my pants in fear.

Now.

I WOULD like to know where the money came from. Actually, first I'd
like to be sure there actually WAS money, and then I'd like to see
where it came from. And then I'd like to bomb that place (aside: I
bet its not Iraq! Come on, anybody wanna bet? I'll give you the
whole country and kuwait at 2 to 1! Bet it's not there!)

Pakistan, a few reports have said, which is odd, because I thought
that they were our friends, except for the whole
hiding-Bin-Laden-the-last-five-years thing and the
top-scientist-sold-nukes-to-North-Korea-and-now-we-can't-even-talk-to-the-scientist-cuz-hes-under-house-arrest
thing, and that generally not helping us at all thing. but except for
all that, their on our side!

And can you really blow up a plane - BLOW UP A FUCKING PLANE, MADE OF
STEAL AND RIVETS, THAT FLIES THROUGH THE AIR AT GALACTIC SPEEDS AND
CRASHES BACK ONTO ASPHAULT 10 TIMES EVERYDAY WITHOUT EVER EVER EVER
HURTING ITSELF - with bleach, blue gel and (did I get this right?) the
flash from a camera or a vigorous rubbing?

Are we committing mass murder or sticking balloons to the wall?
Would this really work?

Questions remain. Attention is merited. Good for the Brits, good for
the Staties and good for Islamic Fascism, war-against-ily.

but let's all take a deep breath.

fight the power

For the first time in my life today, I contested a charge on my credit
card bill. And I have to say: it was incredibly satisfying.

The first was a strange online charge to a wierd online-fantasy game
site. I have no clue how that happened. I have assume its a mistake
on the game-company since anyone who would be into credit card fraud
AND online gaming would have surely spent a lot more than one $42
charge.

I liked that one, since the nice email i had sent the gaming company
had gotten back just a snippy form letter.

But it was the second that felt so good. This one was a giant, heaping
Fuck You to fuckin' Delta fuckin' Airlines.

Delta is the worst airline on earth. In fact, they are probably the
worst company on earth I know of, of any kind.

I used to fly a lot, and Mandy now flies as much as I ever did, so
between us we've seen them all. No one comes close. Delta is the
worst airline this side - maybe that side - of Aeroflot. And with
Aeroflot, you now what you're getting.

Delta has lost an 80lbs, bright red bag for 5 days on a non-stop
international flight (?), and offered compensation of $50 a day IF you
had reciepts.
Delta has damaged Mandy's luggage to the point that stuff fell out
and was lost, twice in two trips.
Delta's SkyMiles program is essentially a rumor - both Mandy and I
have been told that no SkyMiles seats were available on a flight but we
were welcome to buy a seat on the same flight. Skymiles fees, when you
do get a seat, are the highest in the industry, making it hardly worht
the effort.
Delta, alone among airlines, uses American Express as their credit
card partner, meaning their annual fees start at 85 and go up to nearly
200.
Delta has left Mandy stranded in two different airports on the same
trip with no accomodations, forcing her to pay to drive to a third
airport to catch a connection.
Delta has NEVER given our money back, offered a discount or upgrade
or offered to pay expenses on any of the above problems.
And Delta is the major player at Hartsfield I'ntl, the second worst
airport in America behind Philly, and far and away the worst among any
and all hubs (yes, worse than Dallas, particularly if you are
attempting to drive to or from it).

Please, join us in boycotting Delta, won't you?

Well, they charged us $50 a few months ago for some unfair fee, but
they made the mistake of charging it twice. And we even played ball -
we called them. we waded through their elaborate, inept phone system
(worst in the industry, by the way). we got to "Refunds" (which they
keep locked away on its own phone-system island, which you must have
permission from other gatekeepers to enter).
And the "refunds" people said, 'oh, we don't do credit card
refunds.' Or maybe it was, 'we don't do fee refunds.' Whatever - the
Delta Refunds department said they weren't going to refund us a charge
they rest of their operators said they owed.

here, they said, call another number.

So I did: bank of america. Fuck you Delta.

Just an invigorating thing to do.

Fuck Delta.
matt

Charity's insightful analysis

first off, soldiers at checkpoints don't get kidnapped BY
DEFINITION. Do we 'kidnap' taliban guys from Kabul? Everytime I hear
someone throw out the word 'kidnap' or 'abducted' I feel 1-percent less
supportive of Israel. When it's an Israeli official saying it, it
bumps up to 10-percent, because then it's intentionally manipulative
and NEVER goes unchalleneged.
Call them 'captured' or 'prisoners' or just 'missing' or even
'casualties.' If they're 'kidnapped' than Isreal is already a
world-leader felon, along with the US. can't have it both ways.
Of course, also never spoken, is that you can't very well sell
marching a country to war over 'captured' soldiers, and certainly not
over three (three!) 'casulaties.' But three 'kidnapped, solders ' I
guess, is enough to let slip the dogs.
The result, of course, has been predictable: the debate is now, 'is
Isreal over-reacting?' as if there is an argument that three captured
(and, so far, still alive) soldiers at a roadblock could ever
rationally equate to the shelling and invasion of a country. There
have bee armies in the last 100 years that practiced that scope of
retaliation. The state Israel was formed in defiance of their memory.
But of course, it's not about kidnapping. We might as well start
calling them KMDs - Kidnappings Of Mass Destruction. Its precisely the
same lie with precisely the same motive (though, in Israeli's defense,
there is not an abundance of evidence that those soldiers don't exist).

You want to go to Lebanon? Go to Lebanon. Just don't sell it as
Entebbe II.

Second, what no one (including Charity's delightfully well informed
email) is saying is that Israel could lose. and they could.
not in absolute terms (I mean, Tel Aviv won't fall or anything), but
their 'ultra-modern' army (and its unchalleneged air force - sound
familiar?) could take far greater casualties and accomplish quite a bit
less than they think they can, and that would be the same thing as
losing. Throw in any kind of a 'quagmire' scenerio, and its 10 times
worse.
I JUST GOT that that word is the same as the name of the Family Guy
bachelor. Just hit me.
Anyway, I would never have considered that notion to be plausible
before a) a group of alledged 'terrorist' street thugs managed to
attack and set afire an underway warship, a just fall-over amazing
feat, B) they proved that - Holy Shit! - they actualy have rockets that
can reach out and touch someone (begging the question, what else do
they have) and C) the last three years in Iraq.
Modern-army-vs-hometown-thugs 101.
(though the "rockets in Haifa" thing strikes me just like the
'kidnapped' thing - last night CNN had a US reporter obviously in some
imbed-like position who sort of manfully reported that he'd been with
an Israeli artillery brigade that had been launching shells into a
Lebanese city for four hours. And i'm confident Israel owns more than
one company-worth of canons).

but from a military/political standpoint, I have a feeling Hezbollah
would like nothing better than to watch the Israeli's roll their
(American) tanks up a road and into a city. plenty of guys in there
with friends in baghdad and access to the internet. Could be a hell of
a fight - and if it is, regardless of who wins, Israel loses.

So what would happen if Israel went all in and was handed a
genuinely embarrassing battlefield setback (I'll abstain from the word
'defeat')? THEN what? I'll tell you what: stay the fuck out of
Damascus for a few weeks.

Maybe, just maybe, this will workout for exactly the reasons Iraq
hasn't. Consider:
Dubya went in to impose democracy via bayonette on a nation entirely
committed to despotism. Given 10 years, it might work, as it
occasionally has other places (a notion I've NEVER disputed and in fact
have always thought was really a great idea - just not worth 1/100th of
the cost in lives and coin, not for a shit-ass, nearly-first-world
country like Iraq when the globe is brimming with more deserving
candidates). In 10 years, Iraq could settle out and look like...
Modern Lebanon: able (and willing) to hold elections and make them
stick, influenced by and aligned with Dark Neighbor (Syria/Iran) but
not Of them.
again, that's 10 years away in Iraq, but it's a week ago in Lebanon.

That would be the Good Outcome: Israel effectively shoots the locks
off the last chain holding back Lebanese democracy (WOW, what a visual!
I just made that up, too! I wish I knew somebody at the White House -
I'd charge them for it).

Or the Bad Outcome: The sight of tanks crossing the border does
exactly what it did in Iraq - squash debate, progress and reason, end
democracy and fire up the militias. So long to 2, 5, 10, 20 years of
good.

Plus: $77 oil. Gas prices effectively tripling in 2 years. No
matter what, Israel just made that the floor.

matt

Rose Bowl Requiem

Did you see Chicago? remember when Zelwenger's Roxie watches Lucy Lu
gets dragged into jail and she realizes her 15 minutes are up? Flicker, go the lights. Snap, goes the neon. Darkness.

That's what I thought of as SC's players walked around on the field
after the game, stunned and aimless, thier faces suddenly 15 lbs and 10
years heavier, seeing for the first time the cameras all pointing the other way.
Welcome to the rest of your life, kid. We've been waitin'.

It was quite a run. It started four years ago the night Carson tore
apart once-beaten Notre Dame.
It ended last night.
It ended, technically, when VY ran it in, on a busted play, on 4th
down, probably the all-time least surprising, most-predictable
championship-clinching 4th-down in history. I mean, who ELSE was going
to make a play on either side of the ball? Who else, to that point,
had?
But really, it ended - the game, the streak, the magic - the second
Reggie Bush made that astonishing lateral-attempt inside the Texas 20.
His reasons are easy to understand but impossible to believe. At that
moment - for the first time since Carson-ND - one of the cogs in USC's
machine forgot how to win.
There's been the down games, the big deficits, the ND squeeker and
all the rest. There was even the two fourth downs SC failed to pick up
in this game, either one of which would have won it.
but never - not once - has one of USC's go-to players mistaken
stupid for bold. Not once had somebody panicked. Until that moment.
And then - buzz-snap - it was over.

I stayed excited and nervous and stomped around the living room
through the bitter end (even fired off a cocky TM to a friend at the
game when SC took a 12 point lead) but from that Reggie disaster on, I
had an It's-Over pit in my stomach I haven't had said Carson put up his
fourth TD pass of the night on Next-Rockne Willingham.
Reggie, both on the stat sheet and in every observable way, never
recovered. nice little run at the end with a flying walenda finish,
but even that felt empty. And you could see when they followed him to
the bench, moments later, he was still haunted.
The cold reality is, Reggie lost that game, and it was probably the
biggest post-Heisman bust since Detmer.
Surprisingly, Reggie's self-emolation didn't spread to Leinart and
White, who were simply marvelous (I hung my hopes, in fact, on the
notion that White would rise to the occasion of replacing Reggie in
this brightest of spotlights).

But "marvelous," it turns out, gets off two exits before Vince Young.

I have little to say about VY - he's a witch. He's Tiger in pads.
He's a joke. I could go on but I'll leave that to... everybody.

(VY aside 1: by far, the most delicious post-game moment was watching
ESPN's top bimbo, Kirk Herbstriet, try to simultaneously keep from
throwing up in his mouth while trying to climb on the VY wagon, weighed
down by the full weight of his month-long, any-open-mic campaign to
declare Reggie Bush "the greatest college player I've ever seen." When
UT's linemen stormed the stage, I thought he was going to cry -
fabulous moment)

So Leinart and Bush and White and that whole team doesn't get 3 (and
yes - it would have been 3), and now never will. I think after going
to the trouble of winning so damn many in a row, it would have been
nice to see them finish. But now we clearly know that VY was always
the best player in the country, by miles. It's only been 40 minutes
since the game, and already his non-win at the Heisman has that ghostly
"did I really grow a fu-manchu in '96?"-feel to it.

(VY aside 2: second most delicious moment was Lee Corso not asking or
suggesting but DEMANDING that VY be taken first in the draft - one week
after the incessant, month-long ESPN-led "Reggie Bush Sweepstakes"
drumbeat climaxed in the niners-texans "Reggie Bush Bowl")

All the things they're saying now are wrong:
- first and foremost: not a 'great game' though it had highlights.
The finish was fun, and any time evenly matched teams go for it on 4th
down five times, you've got something. But 5 first-half trips in the
redzone for SC and they score once? And how many turnovers for UT?
And how many drives stayed alive on penalties? Great games are when
two teams take turns cashing in opportunities, not blowing them.
- under no circumstances could USC have possibly NOT gone for it on 4th
down at the end; first off, they were rolling; second, they're SC;
and third, VY had 3 timeouts and almost 3 minutes - he was going to
score from Riverside if he got the ball.
- Mack Brown still can't win a big game and Greg Davis still should be
fired; all 3 of VYs rushing TDs, his (kneedown) downfield pitch for a
TD, the 2-pter and most of everything else (including his biggest
openfield run) were broken-play VY improvs. Just like last year's Rose
Bowl. Just like everything in the Mack-VY era, all the way back to
that 4th-and-27 at Kansas. Greg Davis apparently knows how to draw up
a flip over the middle to a tight end, though, and he should be
congratulated for it.
- Vince's knee WAS down on that pitch, and it's utterly meaningless;
UT (like USC if Reggie hadn't pitched) would have gone in for the TD
within 3 plays anyway.
- the one bad call that did matter was the by-a-mile fumble on the pass
over the middle, but it led only to 3 points, not enough to truly get
pissed about.
- (disclaimer: the last two items are not blame-the-refs whining - but
both of those calls are in heavy rotation in the post-game shows.
that's my rebuttal)
- I suppose I was going to be bitter, no matter what, but here's what I
want: just one - JUST ONE - of the grinning stooges on the networks to
say: "USC is 4 TDs better than Texas - but Vince is worth 5." Anybody
want to seriously dispute that? Any evidence at all to the contrary?
What would be so taboo about saying it? WHERE THE HELL IS TREV!!!

I guess in the end, the harder they really do fall. It took maybe
20 minutes for the Kings of LA to morph before our eyes into sloppy
has-beens - not quite Celebrity Fit Club, but headed down that road.
We got a chance to see what Matt Leinart looks like wearing a bad loss,
and it was incredibly unattractive: he was whiny and bitchy and pouty
after the game. ESPN said he and Reggie visited the UT lockerroom to
congratulate them, but that "class" (my least favorite of all sports
non-words) didn't show up to the cameras. He looked like one of the
Laguna kids after losing a cell-phone bitch-off.
What little I saw of Reggie in the post-game was pure shell shock.
even if nobody reading this agrees with me that Reggie lost the game
for SC, I'm quite sure Reggie does.

(VY aside 3: until last night, he'd said "i'll be back" more than the
Governator, but about 14 seconds after the whistle he wanted to "sit
down with my family and make the best decision for everyone" - time to
earn your $25 mil, Mack)

I am never interested in "would he make a good pro?" talk, but I
will confess to some fascination over the fall-out of this game. Did
we just see VY leap into the top 5? Into #1? Did Reggie just fall
out? Did Leinart just lose 7-figures in signing bonus? Did LenDale
White just pick them up?
Corso's spittle-fit aside, VY can't play like that in the pros (for
the same reason that, a week ago, it was ridiculous to even discuss
whether or not USC could beat an NFL team) and he absolutely showed no
sign of being able to throw NFL passes. And, PLEASE, enough with his
"most efficient passer in the nation" thing. I'd be efficient too if 9
guys were on the line to stop me from running and my recievers averaged
6-8. VY didn't throw a single timing pattern, a single accurate deep
ball or a single on-the-money sideline route all night. Not one. He
dinked to his tight end, hit streakers over the middle and dumped to
running backs.
That will win you State 5A Championships and, evidently, beat SC in
the Big Game, but it won't beat The Patriots.
Enough VY-as-a-pro abuse. It's his night.
But how far did Bush fall? This was the next Hershell, the guy who
you could pick-and-trade for multiple pro-bowlers. That kid? One dumb
play and he climbs under the bench - you want him? If all you had was
that tape, and you had to take Bush or LenDale - any doubts? Hell,
you'd probably take UT's running back, whoever that was. Or Limas
Sweed (hands down, best name of the Bowl season).
And Leinart? Maybe he's still the next Payton - but maybe he's the
next Leif.
no, that's too harsh - not only did he lose his first game since 7th
grade or whatever, but he had to sit there and NOT rip his own defense
for losing it. that can't be easy. And what was he - 17-for-19 in
the second half? Are you kidding? He needs to stop showing up drunk
on the internet with bimbos, but he's a player.

And finally - lost like tears in rain in the middle of it all was
the fabulous performance by Dwayne Jarrett. Prior to 4th-and-Green
Jersies, I considered him a tall, good-on-paper bust who appeared to be
on scholarship to drop third downs. Since 4th-and-That-Grass, he's
been a revelation. And he was retard-good last night, bailing out
Leinart (and everybody else) over and over, and, on his final catch,
causing two of UT's excellent Dbacks to run into each other so hard,
one broke his arm and the other broke his head. Jarrett stepped
between them and fell back over the line for a TD. Absurd performance.

But not enough to beat VY.

So that's it. it's over - bring on Booty or, I suspect, Sanchez.
Bring on the next two guys who can run and four or five Parade All
Americans who can hit. Build it from the ground up again. Mix in a
loss or two to Oregon or Cal or whatever. Even drop one to ND, so we
can go back the next year ready to pick back up.
I hope UT runs with it for a while - the number, the streak, the
bullseye, the 'nothing lasts forever' behind every corner. Let's see
just how deep a hole Mack can dig in Waco or Boulder or even Austin
before VY runs out of rope to pull him out. Lord knows they both just
earned it.

Carson to VY. thanks for reading along. as the bad 80s band nearly
said: the streak is over, you were with me all the while.
(wow. bookended with bad Chicago references. I couldn't be prouder)

GTA: Fairbanks

I'm now as done with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (5) as I ever
intend to be. I spent the first two days here finishing off the
Airstrip and Vegas-based missions, two of which were the toughest in
the game. I'll get to those. The last one was to steal a Harrier jet
off an aircraft carrier, shoot down 3 others (more tedious than it
sounds) and bomb 5 boats in Lake Powell. When all that was boring, I
realized it was time to quit.
The only remaining missions are boring return-to-LA, gang-based
missions. But I've played all 3 cities, flown lots of planes, shot
everything imaginable and, yes, beaten up plenty of hookers, so I
think I'm done with it.
So to sum up: The initial part – about 1/5th of the game – is based
in LA ("Los Santos") and isn't that great. In fact, I almost quit
playing. It's dreary, in fact.
The second part – out in "the country" is just bizarre, utterly
different from the LA part. And by itself, I'd have quit playing it
then, too, because, again, it wasn't very engaging. No gangs or the
blight of the LA part, but then, not much else. Strange little
missions based in the strange little towns set in the hill country. I
mean, you have to steal a combine harvester from a hippy commune at
one point. A race on 4-wheelers. Strange but, with so much time
invested in that point – and with now no idea what to expect from the
rest of the game – I had to press on.
Then you get to San Francisco which is a strict GTA-city – urban,
kinda funny missions involving shooting and driving. Straight out of
Vice City. Lots of fun. Quickest part of the game.
Then comes your trip to the desert and, for my money, the game really
starts.
You go to the airstrip in the desert and learn to fly planes.
And that takes a WHILE.
Then the city of Vegas opens up and that's where the good missions
are. At this point, you start parachuting onto dams, hijacking police
bikes and running collecting them in the back of a moving van, running
motorcycles up the rear ramp of an about-to-take-off airplane, raiding
a secret desert-based military compound (Area 69) and stealing it's
jetpack (!) and generally raising hell around an amazing replica of
Las Vegas.
The final couple missions are fantastic – in one you take a Lear Jet
(you fly a lot of lear jets) to old Liberty City (Original GTA city)
and do a hit there. It's quick but a nice touch.
And then you rob the vault at Ceasar's Casino (named "Caligula's
Palace" – goes right along with calling Pirates of the Caribean
"Pirates in Men's Pants' and Excaliber the "Came-a-lot'). That's
quite a mission, using night vision goggles, blowing stuff up,
shooting LOTS of dudes and then escaping in a parachute.
Right there with the Steal-the-Harrier mission.

So the hardest missions. Two are "gunner" missions where the entire
mission is from the sites of a gun, and you are shooting at the
landscape. Two are chase mission. And then there's the flight
school.
First is early in the game, a "tail gunner" mission where you sit on
the back of a motorcycle and shoot at the mafia guys pursuing you.
Great mission – lots to see, lots of action, but HARD. Basicly, it
becomes one of those that makes video games hateful – you just
memorize the pattern to get you a few seconds past the part where you
died last time until finally you get finished. It saps all the
creativity and fun out of it.
The second is a goofy subplot mission in San Francisco where you have
to defend a Remote Control store from dive bombing remote control
airplaines – and no, it doesn't even make much sense when you're in
it.
(If you recall, I thought the hardest mission in Vice City was the
helicopter-based gun run mission where you shoot down at a bunch of
mafia around a property – same idea here).
Then there's several missions where you have to chase somebody and
kill them in a roughly equal vehicle. One, between two boats, simply
takes forever. You have to follow him and follow him and follow him…
and finally you can slowly damage his boat badly enough that he dies.
Takes forever.
But that's nothing next to "High Noon", a very late mission which
opens up the final hits I mentioned above. You have to chase a guy
through the desert highway system. And he's a VERY good driver. He
escaped me probably, conservatively, 30 times, before I FINALLY shoved
his car into the ocean, which is actually kind of a backdoor way to
kill him. No, 50 times.
That one was tough.
But not as tough as the Flight School. You have to pass 10 tests
flying a plane – most of which are simple (learn to land, do a loop,
parachute, etc). But you have to fly through specific gates/hoops in
the sky, and a couple of them are unbelievably demanding.
Those took me forever.
Another thing – you have to meet specific girls and 'date them,'
taking them out to eat and stuff. One of which you have to date until
she gives you a key to the vault (or something) at the casino she
works at. Here's how you pass it:
So you go see her, and her boyfriend is coming to meet her – so you
kill him. And he drops a 'weapon,' which is a 2ft purple dildo. And
no, there's no mistaking it.
Then you follow her while she goes shopping and she goes to a sex
store (this is Vegas, afterall). So you figure out that you have to
buy a "gimp" outfit, a full-body leather suit, complete with ball gag.
Then once you are dressed in that, you show up at her house 'armed'
with the dildo – instant night of sex in her dungeon/bedroom.
And the key!

So I've flown most of the airplanes (including the AT-400 Airbus-like
plane), and done all the Vegas stuff. Enough for me.