Salad Is Slaughter

The parents came to not-so-sunny California from St. Louis last week to spend Christmas with their oldest child and favorite son – me.  I picked them up from the airport on Tuesday evening.  Southwest Airlines, at least at the San Jose airport has the annoying practice of removing flight information from the arrival monitor as soon as the plane lands.  It would be nice if they put gate and baggage claim info on the monitor instead.

The first two full days of the parents’ visit consisted mostly of talking, playing a card game that required 5 decks of cards, watching movies, eating, walking dogs and opening Christmas presents.

Some of my Christmas presents highlights:

• A New Watch.
• Simpsons Seasons 1, 2, and 3 DVDs.
• South Park Season 3 DVD.
• A Ghettopoly Game.
• Assorted Simpsons Stuff.

On Friday the weather cleared up a bit so we took a road trip to Carmel and Big Sur.  Most of the day was spent driving down Highway 1 and stopping to take pictures.  We had lunch in Carmel then spent a couple of hours walking around in town.  That night we went to the Sharks game.

Saturday we got up late then walked around Los Gatos for a while.  The parents bought a couple of Santa Claus knickknacks to take take with them.  That night Janet and the parents watched Pirates of the Caribbean.  They liked the movie but I thought it was dreadful, so after 30 minutes I went and watched the Sharks blow leads all night against the Kings.

I took them to the airport on Sunday, so now I have a week off to recover from all the activity of last week.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone continue to amaze me.  Last night’s episode of South Park was hilarious.  The whole Wizard of Oz theme done in Canada and the final unmasking of the Canadian Prime minister was great.  The song and the parade at the end of the show were fabulous.

I know that in the past Parker and Stone have rushed the development of an episode because of a timely theme.  The episode with Cartman’s trapperkeeper / the kindergarten election was done right after the last presidential election (the deciding vote was cast by a little girl named “Flora”).  So my question is, did Parker and Stone do the entire episode between Sunday and Tuesday, or did they just update the Prime Minister’s picture and write the closing song in those couple of days.  Either way, it was a great job.

So far this has been a really strong season for South Park.

This entry has been written so as not to give too much away for those who plan to watch the show this weekend.  You’re welcome.

Technorati Tags: television

The Vatican is upset with the way the U.S. military is treating Saddam Hussein.

Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican’s Justice and Peace Department and a former papal envoy to the United Nations is upset with pictures showing doctors examining Hussein.  Cardinal Martino said that he felt pity and compassion for Saddam Hussein and criticized the U.S. military for showing video footage of him being treated “like a cow.”

Martino said “I felt pity to see this man destroyed, (the military) looking at his teeth as if he were a cow. They could have spared us these pictures.  Seeing him like this, a man in his tragedy, despite all the heavy blame he bears, I had a sense of compassion for him,” he said in answer to questions about Saddam’s arrest.

Let me see if I get this straight – Saddam Hussein is directly responsible for the torture, rape and murder of hundreds of thousands of people.  He used poison gas against Iraqi citizens.  He bankrupted his country so that he and his sons could live a lavish lifestyle.  He sent thousands of Iraqi soldiers to their deaths in his war with Iran.  He invaded Kuwait.  He paid the families of Palestinian suicide murderers.  And the Vatican feels sorry for this guy?

How about some perspective?  American soldiers didn’t shoot Saddam on sight.  The United States cleaned him up.  Americans gave him a medical examination.  Hussein isn’t being tortured.  He’s getting adequate food and water.  Saddam is being treated far better by the United States than Saddam treated his own citizens.  And the Vatican thinks the United States is the bad guy?

Cardinal Martino doesn’t surprise me.  The Vatican has a history of being morally bankrupt, and it’s a long history.  A few highlights:

• The bullying of Galileo into recanting scientific fact.
• The torturing of “heretics” by the inquisition.
• Keeping silent while Hitler murdered millions of Jews, Catholics, and homosexuals.
• Covering up pedophilia in the priesthood.  There’s some evidence that the cover-up is from the highest levels and has been going on since at least the 1960’s.
• Inciting their most radical members to violence against doctors.
• Telling Africans that condoms don’t prevent the spread of AIDS.
• Contributing to global over population and keeping people in poverty by telling them that contraception is a sin.

And the Vatican expects us to look to them for moral leadership?  I don’t think so.

This rant was inspired by http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3727325/

I just don’t understand how the airlines determine what they charge, and I really don’t understand why one-way fares are so radically different.  I took a look at some one-way fares from San Jose to Salt Lake City.  I then compared the one-way fares to round-trip fares.  All trips were for January 30, 2004.  Return flights for the round trip were on February 1.

• Delta wants to charge me $259 to get to Utah but only $20 to get back.
• United charges me $227 to get to Utah but $155 to get back.
• America West will fly me to Salt Lake City for $147 but back to San Jose is only $51.
• Southwest will get me there and back for $127 each way, and no one else can.

Finally, Southwest does something I understand…  It costs $127  no matter what direction I fly.  If I decide to return with Southwest, then I can get the better fare.  It’s doesn’t surprise me one bit that Southwest Airlines makes money while the others slide toward bankruptcy.

Last night we attended Eric Idle’s show The Greedy Bastard Tour.  For those unfamiliar with Idle’s work, he was one of the original members of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.  He also appeared in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Life of Brian (one of my favorites) and The Meaning of Life.

The show was, in a word, fabulous.  Most of the show consisted of skits and songs from the Python TV show as well as songs from the movies.  There were also songs from some of his other work (I Like Chinese) that were very good.  I thought the first half of the show was a lot stronger than the show after the intermission but it was still entertaining.  The encore had two songs – F Christmas and the Lumberjack Song.  Both were very good.

Eric Idle also had other actors assisting him.  I don’t recall their names but they were pretty good.  The guy who got the bulk of the work, a big guy with a goatee, did some solo stuff that was excellent.  He did the taunting Frenchman from Holy Grail that was excellent.  He also did a piece where he was from the department of homeland security where he starts going off on relatives from back east visiting and hanging from cable cars, then starts talking about the various cities in the area.  Some examples:

• If it wasn’t for the chip, Milpitas would be just an orchard and an outhouse.
• The only thing Oakland is good for is to see San Francisco.  If Oakland didn’t have San Francisco, it would be Fresno.

It went on for minutes and had the crowd rolling on the floor.  They must do a lot of research on the local area when they roll into town because obviously those jokes wouldn’t work in Las Vegas and St. Louis (two of their previous destinations.)

There were also two sing-alongs and they brought out the words on a banner for the crowd.  We all got to sing the Philosopher’s Song then sang Sit On My Face and Tell Me That You Love Me.

Eric Idle’s Greedy Bastard Tour was well worth the money.

Technorati Tags: theater