Three Degrees of Separation

After watching the entire run of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (thrice, historically speaking), I plugged in an episode of Scrubs called “My Unicorn.”

There’s a scene where Matthew Perry, as an air traffic controller, is watching an old episode of “Wings” on TV.

Then and only then did it hit me: the guy who plays Jack Rudolph on Studio 60 (i.e., Steven Weber) starred in Wings!

It took me over a year to connect an actor with… himself. I have no hope of ever winning the Kevin Bacon game.

There is no Dallas

I went looking for American Airlines’ route map, and stumbled upon their list of “Featured Destinations.”  Here’s the exhaustive list:

  • Delhi, India
  • Dublin, Ireland
  • Tokyo, Japan
  • Shanghai, China
  • Dallas/Fort Worth, TX

“One of these things is not like the other things; one of these things doesn’t belong.”

I just had to know what about Dallas makes it a featured destination.  What does American Airlines have to say about it?  There’s no such page!

That’s right.  While Dallas is listed as a featured destination, there’s so shockingly little to say about it, they don’t even give it a blank page.

Come Out with Your Hands Up

At about 11pm yesterday I woke up to the sound of a slowly wailing emergency siren and the sound of a recorded voice murmuring instructions.

First thought:  Great.  The building is on fire.  I jumped out of bed, but realized the sound was coming from outside.  The voice was repeating:

“This is the Boston Police Department.  At midnight tonight a snow emergency will be in full effect.  All cars parked along the snow routes will be ticketed and towed.  This is the Boston Police Department.”

Now that it’s morning, I can point out two things.  First, it’s not snowing.  Second, all the cars are still right there on Comm. Ave where they’ve always been.

So basically, the message could’ve said, “This is the Boston Police Department.  Wake up!  Okay, go back to sleep now.”

Unbreakable Duplication

Budget rental cars come with key rings that can’t be opened – one solid ring with an identifying tag for the car, the fob that unlocks the doors, and a key.

Also on this keyring: a duplicate key.

Anybody else find this completely pointless?

Only in New England…

I walked down the street to get a snack.  Keep in mind it’s “late” at night, and colleges are all shut down for winter break.

The convenience store that’s always open ’til 1:00 am?  Closed.

The doughnut shop?  Closed.

The deli and the two coffee shops?  All closed.

But the ice cream store?  Still open ’til midnight seven-days a week. Not even the 35° weather can stand in the way of some good ice cream around here.

Pudding: Invisible Calcium

The box of pie-sized Jell-O Chocolate Pudding we’ve got sitting here waiting to make the pie on Tuesday.  In the corner it’s advertised: “A Good Source of Calcium (as Prepared)”

The parenthetical bit is really just a smaller typeface on the box.

As prepared?  As in… with milk?  Yep, a quick check of the nutrition facts panel confirms there’s absolutely no calcium in pudding.  However, if you mix it with milk, you’ll get to have all the calcium that was already in the milk.

A Rat/Thing to Call Our Own

At around 8:00 a round of frantic screaming wafted into my apartment from down the hall. I figured this was just another emphatic greeting of unusually large proportions.

Then, some time later, another round of screaming began. And another. Each separated by some twenty or thirty minutes. By the ninth round (seriously) I figured I should find out what was going on.

I learned three things.

First, these screams each came from different groups (usually pairs) of people. Second, these groups were independently discovering that a mouse was romping about the hallway. Third, none of them (until the ninth) thought this was an event worth mentioning to anybody else.

Personally I think if you encounter a critter in your house you should either get rid of it yourself or call someone else who can. In this case, it took nine rounds of discovery and reaction to reach such a conclusion.

For the record, I haven’t seen so much as a mosquito here until now. We don’t get a lot of non-human visitors this high up the building. And if we didn’t have elevators I doubt we’d even have many of those.

Where Did All the Prius Go?

When I first signed up with Zipcar they had cars parked literally right next to my building. Then they got rid of those.

So I switched to driving the Prius that’s actually a bit of a walk, but, hey, it’s a Prius.

Now I went to reserve it… and it’s not there anymore. It’s been replaced by a Honda Civic – a model that’s already parked about half the distance from here. That doesn’t seem entirely fair.

I approve of relocating cars to where they’re more useful. I just don’t approve of relocating them, ya know, away from me.