Potpourri 17

HD Hot/HD Not

In terms of trailers this year, I'm never going to forget the first time I saw the trailer for "What Happens in Vegas" on my 40" 1080p LCD HDTV; I could only get my mind to think one thing:

"Cameron Diaz looks nasty!!!"

It's very interesting watching commercials in HD, much more so than the shows, which are up and down in terms of actual output quality. (I still think that basketball broadcasts are hit-or-miss in terms of quality; nothing beats golf and football, and baseball is a work in progress especially if the games are coming from low-brow markets like Milwaukee or Kansas City.) In HD, the commercials and the colors for those shots are always incredible...and, that's incredibly bad news if you are looking as broken-down as Diaz looks in the trailer for that movie.

I was never a Diaz fan, to be sure, but I don't remember literally being scared by her appearance on a movie screen; maybe she has been breaking down for years--strange for a woman of just 35--but in HD, she certainly qualifies as HD Not, one of many terms I have been hearing from other people around judging our nation's stars by how they look in 1080p.

Speaking of which,

Justin Timberlake

Just strictly looking at the last six years--his decision to leave 'N Sync at its peak in '02, a year after they were the biggest-selling "boy band" in America, his decision to pink-slip Britney Spears right after that (sending her into what is easily the worst celebrity spiral into oblivion our nation has ever known), then bagging Alyssa Milano, then bagging Diaz for a period brief enough for the entire nation to fall in love with him, then going immediately from Diaz to Jessica Biel (who by then had finally convinced all of America she was a top-five hottie), all the while making hit after hit and showing up in enough places to be popular yet mainstream cool--is there any other pop celebrity who has made better decisions that Timberlake? If Timberlake was on the Obama ticket, McCain wouldn't even bother with these town hall debates he's proposing...the shit would already be over. Could you imagine a hotter pairing? I could imagine something hotter:

100-100-SWAS

I went to play hoops a couple of weeks ago; after finishing up, I got into my car at noon and checked the temperature: 98°. We're on our way to back-to-back 100° days, and 100% humidity, creating the environment known to all of us as SWAS: Swamp Ass Syndrome (© Robert Grant, 1996).

SWAS is a legit fear, something that our nation generally does not have to deal with; popularizing the "dry heat" joke back in 1986 (Bill Paxton as "Hudson" in "Aliens"), I would take that LA-style desert heat over the awful feeling that surfaces every year in DC (or the hive that Hudson jokes about in "Aliens"), when you hop out of the shower, get dressed, walk outside, and realize that your crotch has soaked through your khaki shorts already because the humidity has made your balls soak right through to the public eye. Yikes, SWAS is nasty, and if our first legit SWAS day was June 8th, be afraid, my friends...be very afraid. We haven't even finished the month yet!

Getting Fucked by the Airlines

US Airways, following the lead of other airlines recently, now will charge for all beverages, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. That's right--that shitty six ounces of ginger ale in a plastic cup is going to run you $2 in the air now, according to an article published June 12th on usatoday.com. Added to this, US Airways followed up on United and American's move to charge $15 per checked bag, so now, if you can't carry it on, you better get excited about spending a lot of fucking dough to fly. (Did I mention that airline fuel prices are spiraling out of control??? Delta reported that this year's fuel cost to them is $4 BILLION higher than last year.)

Having flown so much over the last two years, I'm feeling good that Meg has moved to DC and now I can't get fucked by the airlines every time I want to fly. Routes are being pulled off the grid left and right by major airlines, and at mid-market airports like Oakland, you ought to run a search--flights out of Oakland actually cost more now than at San Francisco International, normally the more expensive of the two airports. That's because Oakland lost a number of flights starting in the late summer from a few different airlines (including American and Continental service altogether; by September, neither airline will even be flying there any more), and that combined with higher gas costs in California means big trouble if you want to fly there.

Airfares in general right now really suck. Airport delays have always sucked. Customer service on airlines--you guessed it, the service really sucks right now and I've seen more near-riot situations on airlines than ever before. Here's some random knowledge I picked up last week in the Washington Post: if you are waiting for a flight and you are delayed beyond a "reasonable" amount of time--normally, two hours or more--and then you decide to not fly because of this delay, the airline is obligated under federal law to refund the full cost of your ticket. If you choose to fly, they are not obligated to give you anything. This is really only helpful if you can afford to fly another time, but you should have the knowledge in your pocket just in case. (I'm sure airlines will find a way to fuck you on this too, so don't take my word for it!)

And, as random articles on airlines sucking goes, I enjoyed this one from a recent article online.

A Whopper

I was driving back from work this week and I drove by a sign at the local GMC dealership in Rockville; this was the payoff:

2008 YUKONS--$10,999 OFF--COME IN NOW

That's right--the state of the union is universally awful for SUVs and their owners, thanks to gas prices and the sudden realization that you don't need a $50,000 suburban truck to drive yourself and the kids to soccer practice when $25,000 minivans and $30,000 sedans have been doing the same thing for years. You ever ridden in a Hummer? I have, and I was struck by how ordinary a vehicle it was...the original Hummer (now the "H1") gets something like eight miles a gallon, which was stupid even ten years ago, but now, it's straight comedy.

The current Yukon MSRP is around $40,000. To offer customers a 25% discount on a car BEFORE ENTERING THE LOT is pretty shocking, but then to essentially tell people

"Yes, we're willing to start haggling at $29,000"

is fairly intense, given that no sane individual would even buy one of those things right now.

Dear Whole Foods--Here's an Idea:

I was listening to my favorite sports show, "The Colin Cowherd Show" on ESPN Radio (10 AM - 1 PM EST), and Colin made a good suggestion to the ownership at Whole Foods, his favorite grocery store.

He lamented that going to Whole Foods ends up being a two-store trip, because when he wants "normal" foods--like sugar-coated anythings, cereal that doesn't have "free-range" or "organic" on the front or low-brow alcohol--he has to go to his other local grocery store. Most major chains like Giant, Safeway, Wegmans and the like have an "organic" aisle, so...why doesn't Whole Foods have a "normal" aisle?

Food for thought...literally.

Random Bellviews, courtesy of Bell and Longer Community Trust:

No construction outside your front window: Opening Weekend
Appetizers: $9.50 Show
Losing the US Open to Tiger after playing 91 holes...and becoming a media superstar overnight: Matinee
Non-HD TVs: Rental
Losing your job when an employer checks references not on your reference list: Hard Vice

bellview--i love to nibble

Potpourri 17