Hick in the District

You're on my list Nebraska.

This started out as a United flight operated by US Airways. US Airways subcontracted out to America West, who has now subcontracted out to that airline that transports felons. I'm pretty sure something died in here last week and they still haven't found it.

The first time I flew out of this airport I was delayed 2 hours and then sat 2 hours on the tarmack. This time I landed after my connecting flight took off. A chili cheese dog at an airport bar seemed like a good idea, as did the Manhattan. The chain smoking bar wench across from me sounds like she's 12 and looks like she's 12 trying to look like she's 16. Streaked highlights are never a good idea.

Metro added 45 minutes onto my trip to DCA and I missed my flight. I got another and now I'm sitting at the gate watching a CNN special on 9/11. ::shiver::

I'm not talking about Boston Legal this time. No, I'm blogging from my new blackberry pearl. Who wants to touch me? I said who wants to touch me?!?

AIM away messages need to let you put in more characters.

What, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;
There art thou happy!?! Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slew'st Tybalt; there are thou happy too:?!,
The law that threaten'd death becomes thy friend
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy:
A pack of blessings lights up upon thy back;
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,
Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love:
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.

But look thou, stay not till the watch be set,
For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;
Where thou shalt live, till we can find a time
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
Than thou went'st forth in lamentation.

Put the ball in the air. I'm moving to Vermont. Rutland, Vermont to be specific. Campaign work, yada yada.

In DuPont circle there's what I used to think was a pretty cool bar/pool hall named Buffalo Billiards. The DC Cal Alumni group had us meet there to watch the game on Saturday on one of their large projection screens, which in theory makes sense. They have the space and it's a bar, and they serve food. With pool tables. Awesome.

A large group of people showed up to watch the game, which surprised me given it was the holiday weekend at the end of the August recess. I’d say between 50 and 70 folks were there, crowded around the furthest screen on the right side of Buffalo’s as you walk in the front door. There was one long table in front of the screen, so people got chairs and tables from the middle of the restaurant area and brought them over. The bar tender got on the loudspeaker to tell us we had to put them back after the game, which we were cool with. The game goes one, we eat, we drink, we curse and cry, and long about the middle of the third quarter a bar tender/waiter turns the game to the Comcast channel guide and orders us to put the chairs back or he’s not going to turn the game back on. No one moves, we can hardly believe what we’re being told to do, and the guy gets more belligerent. Being courteous Cal fans, we put the chairs and tables back, and since we’re getting screwed, we leave. As the mass exodus is filing out the manager comes on the loudspeaker to snivel at us "uh…you guys don’t have to leave, you can still watch the game standing…" Verbatim, I kid you not, he expected us to stand for hours, and pay for drinks. This being complete crap I closed out my tab, and watched thunderstruck as a different bartender starts mocking us in a parodied, exaggerated tantrum and ends by saying "who cares about Cal, they suck."

Now I can understand if they needed the tables and chairs for other people who were coming in to enjoy a burger or fries or something, but there was next to no one else in there. Assuming they did actually need the tables, they could have certainly been more polite about it, and EVEN IF they needed to be forceful with us there was no call for the personal and institutional disparagement leveled at us by the staff. I'm never going back there and I don't know of one self respecting Cal fan who is. Hope their empty tables were worth it.