Wax museums rock

Touching down on the left bank today washed me in calm. I feel at home in the west immediately.

San Francisco is bigger than I remember it - and more of a city than I recall. My wide eyed wanderings here over a decade ago (1996 a week after I graduated from college and embarked on a road trip, and 1995 when I came here with my boyfriend and nearly left his ass here even though he was the one driving) left me with memories of me here with my innocent self. I'm no longer she, and I'm working on this trip so my aim is different.

I can say that the plane ride getting to San Fran sucked. Although I've rambled about consistently shitty service before, the airlines are the worst offenders. I can deal with no meal service, cattle call boarding, luggage restrictions, and the outragous expense for booze and in-flight headphones. What I can't deal with is that our ticket prices are astronomical and the planes are so fucking filthy I feel like I'm visiting a frat house after a vomit-filled party. There's shit on the ceilings, dirt in every crevice, tray tables breeding bacteria in streaks of filth, gross seats, even more disgusting floors, the interior siding peeling away from the insulation between the cabin and the outer shell of the plane, and at least two or three things malfunctioning on any given flight. AND WE GLADLY FORK OVER OUR MONEY FOR THIS. The airline industry has it made. Get the consumer hooked on travel. Make him think that he is free to hop on a plane at any time day or night to go work, explore, and escape. Provide good service until he is hooked (travel in the 80's and most of the 90s) and then rip it away from him. He will be so dependent on his illusion of freedom and his Airline-Given right to travel that he won't bitch when he sits on a tarmac for 2 hours in hot, filthy conditions because we can't figure out why the hell one of our tailights is malfunctioning. Never mind that he'll miss connecting flights - not our problem. Why should we clean the plane? He'll fly anyway. Not our problem that the guy next to him hasn't bathed - we're packing 'em in like sardines folks! Yes, we ran out of water. No blankets on this flight. The monitors don't work. The plane doesn't work. You'll have to switch planes even though you were supposed to fly straight through.

And the kicker I heard today, "Ladies and gentlemen, if you see an empty row toward the front of the economy section, you may not move to occupy it. Economy passengers are able to purchase these Economy Plus seats closer to the entrance and exit and may enjoy up to 6 additional inches of leg room. You must stay in your original seat."

WTF?

And the last two times I have flown (both within the last 30 days) the captain has made an effort to refer to the passengers in the bulk of the plane as "economy passengers." Last time I checked, $450 wasn't a piss in a bucket. I could go to my favorite gourmet restaurant for 3 times on that amount and they kiss my ass there. I'm economy because I didn't spend $1500 to fly first class?

My intention for this post wasn't a rant. It was actually to clear my head because it is currently almost 3AM in DC and I'm still wide awake. Let's shift away from the airline industry and talk about a completely pointless industry: wax museums. I had the distinct pleasure of visiting the Fisherman's Wharf Wax Musuem after a glorious Dungeness crab dinner on the water. The museum was $10 well spent. Talk about absurd, ridiculous, gross and entertaining. I could go 45 times for the price of one flight and have a ball talking to all the weird wax statues. I don't know what possessed us to go in aside from the fact that one of my counterparts had never been. Come to think of it, I haven't either. Happily, I am no longer a wax virgin.

Some of those statues were incredible. The one of Barry Bonds was so lifelike I could almost see the steriods! Sadly, Michael Jackson looked Greek and Princess Di looked like an 80's modern business woman on her way to church. But, I am absolutely thrilled to know that there is a representation of The Last Supper done completely in wax just down the hall from a wax Adolf Hitler. YEA! And, in the chamber of horrors, the paint spattered floor (red to resemble a massacre) lent credibility to some fo the very creepy creatures. Anton LaVey was very real looking and there was a really scary guy in the corner who, upon further reflection, I think was really a scary guy in the corner. My friend and I booked it out of there PDQ once we saw him. The highlight of the chamber of horrors is the "electric chair" that we all took turns in so that we could be, what else, electrocuted! It scared the bejesus out of me because I didn't expect the cold air to blow up through the seat, but I guess electrocution isn't so bad if it truly feels like a Swamp Ass Cooler.

Ok kids, the Magic Bullet infomercial just came on so I must go be enthralled (nachos anyone? fancy coffee drinks in 7 seconds!). Besides, the alcohol has relaxed me enough so that I may be able to sleep. Plenty of networking to do tomorrow and lots of geeks to meet at GDC07!

Nighty night!