Funny or frightening?

A couple of weeks ago, just before that really bad winter storm hit the southeast, I witnessed a strange occurance on a Delta flight: our flight attendant fell asleep on the job.

We had just gotten in the air, and he was seated at the front of the small plane, still strapped in, facing us. Holding some sort of phone receiver looking thing, speaking into it, explaining the snacks:
"we have an assortment of juices and sodas, as well as wine beer and spirits available for…"
silence.
Eyes closed, head tilted to his right, face pressed into the receiver.
Ten seconds pass.
The pilot must have turned the seatbelt sign on then, because there was a familiar ding sound.
Startled awake, he started on "the captain has turned the seatbelt light on…"
He never did finish explaining the alcoholic beverages.

At the time I thought it was kind of funny. The poor guy looked like he had been up for days. He was physically more towards the Chris Farley end of the spectrum, and I invented a storyline in my head wherein he was up late acting a fool at some club where he didn't quite fit in.

A week later I was randomly reading the airplane crash part of the Malcolm Gladwell book, Outliers. In it he writes about how pilot fatigue has contributed to several airline accidents. Of course, in the book it is a combination of fatigue and other important factors like changed flight plans, minor malfunctions of equipment, bad weather, all contribute to bad decision making. We were flying in perfect weather, and it was a flight attendant not a pilot, but all the same, I no longer find this event funny.

Serena and Pepper

Portland, Maine

I'm Happy Just to Dance with You

Broken Household Appliance National Forest

We did some exploring recently in some of Knoxville's not-yet-parks (Fort Stanley, a future park on the bluff overlooking UT, the recently donated Wood property). They river bluff trail can be accessed from a parking lot on Cherokee Trail, and is the most cleaned-up of the three future city parks.

There's not much to the Wood property yet, but it will soon be turned into bike and walking trails. While walking around we ran into a lot of junk, which brought to mind this old Grandaddy song.

Later, in the old city, we noticed this half broken phone. Not sure how long it's been there, but the costume shop to its right appears to have been found unfit for human habitation recently, according to a note on its front door.

Pepper

Things that should exist: download codes for books

In the last few years, record labels have started including download codes when you buy music on vinyl. That way you can still enjoy the superior sound of vinyl, and load your music up on an ipod or laptop for listening at work or in the car.

It would be great if publishers did the same for books. Unless I'm travelling, I prefer a physical book. It's kind of a pain to have to have two separate reading piles for home and for travel.

Cool Aid: Rhye

For the last year or so I've been listening to a lot of softer, more sedate music. This change in my tastes might have evolved out of my thinking about Kelis's last album, Flesh Tone, and Hot Chip's One Life Stand. These two albums are ostensibly pop records, but the love that they address is far removed from the booty-shaking in love-with-a-stripper stuff you hear on the radio (which I also enjoy). The sounds are pure pop, but the themes are adult. Is this why they aren't more popular? And does this mean I'm getting old?

Of course those albums are very upbeat, Rhye has much more of a soft-rock vibe.

I would describe Rhye as a warmer sounding Sade. Think Sade + Sebastian Tellier's La Ritournelle.

The cure for bad dreams

There was a handwritten note on my car this morning. These have been popping up around town.





I've been into Cccandy lately. This song sounds like it could be the soundtrack for a bad dream.