What the hell, Sprite, just what the hell were you thinking? (WTF ads)

Before the previews leading into the new Star Trek...

Man, the long hot days of summer. The asphalt jungle, it's denizens.... the skateboarders, the bicyclists, the sweaty slaves to corporate melancholy commercial pseudo protest rock that linger, hot, sweaty, and clothed in mostly earth tones, in the midst of what is the most Soda inspiring weather. The trademarked logo'd , brand guidelined beads of condensation clinging to the screen like so much macro-written horse drivel. Yet another ad for sugar water, an unwelcome guest before real entertainment.

A standard soda commercial, right? No, in fact, something much much worse. Something that makes you question the judgement of the people who funded it.

As the music rises up, two skateboarders decide to run headlong into each other and with the rising crescendo of the pseudo-rock, they explode their component chemicals, mostly water, I'm guessing, and , in a great gush of bodily fluids they coat their friends in an enormous spray of what appears to be a cleansing ritual of orgasmic cool fluid.

In the course of the 30 second commercial, 10 male of the species literally ram into each other in what might be meaning to invoke a dominance ritual, but instead of a winner going and bedding the females of the pack, the combined secretions (no blood, to be sure, just enormous gouts of watery remains) flow and spray all over the surrounding crowd, their rapt, happy expressions unmistakable in their glee at being able to absorb and consume their fellow human kind. Only one female offers herself, not in single combat with another for pack dominance, but instead, a stage dive into a crowd of about 15 or so people , a polyglot of men and women, who receive her stage dive of fertility as she explodes into the largest geyser of cataclysmic remains, covering a better park of the park in her ferocious leavings.

So, yeah, what the hell, Sprite? Here's a link to the ad in question:

Will there be sphinxes shooting missles at each other?

One might imagine that the previews that were to appear before the new Star Trek movie were heavily negotiated, with the film industries best marketing and publicity people vying for that all important blockbusting promotional moment. Or, maybe, there was a 12 year old boy (the one present in many of us) who sad "Well, wait, how about we only allow movies that have robots shooting missles at each other?"

One producer like human might have offered, "Well, we have this movie about two people finding love and themselves on a journey in post World War II egypt"

To which our selector of previews must have replied "Will there be sphinxes shooting missles at

each other?"

"Well, no, that wouldn't fit the story"

"BRRRRZAAP, no go, get out of my office."

"Crap"

Producer #2: "Hey, what about robotic like body armor?"

"Will there be missiles?"

"Sure, it's GI Joe, can't have GI Joe without missles."

"Wait, will there be actual death? The problem with GI Joe was that it was always robots getting sploded."

"Well, it'll be pg13, so maybe a couple of dozen, mostly innocent bystanders."

"Hmm, okay.", twelverson might have said, "Who's next"

"Hmm, lets see...", his PA might have answered, "Terminator Salva.."

"Yeah, of course, don't waste my time. What else?"

"Hmm, Transformers 2?"

"PERFECT! You're the best. Let's go to lunch?"

Seriously, though, every single preview had robot (or robotic'd up people) and missles. Often being dodged. In a car provided by Ford, I think. Lots of product placement.

Speaking of which. I was human product placement, recently. At the time of this writing , I'm on the plane from Tokyo to SFO now, I upgraded myself to First, which on United's non upgraded fleet is downright insulting. On the way to Asia I had the good fortune to be on Singapore Airlines 777 with the new Business class, which begged the question on how First could possibly be any better, and it was like a slice of heaven with some papaya on the side. I like papaya. Which, btw, I had on Singapore Airlines. It was a damn sight better choice of fruit than a slightly browned bananna on the United planes.

I've been flying almost solely United now for years, I've built up almost 470k in the seat miles with the airline over the years, which is pretty appalling, and I'm likely to cross the 1/2 million marker soon. I kind of bragging, I guess, but why? Bragging about a half million miles on United is like bragging that you are the least inbred family member in some weird fundamentalist cult on the Utah/Arizona border. Or at least excepting the odd newly laid out planes (which are really very nice).

I didn't really go into this post looking to slag on United, my chosen carrier, which I obviously like otherwise why would I keep using them? I mostly wanted to talk about my trip. I was in Kuala Lumpur, Beijing and Tokyo on this trip. For the first two, it was my first time in those cities and for Tokyo my first trip over 24 hours. I spent about 3 days in each.

In KL, my lungs began the upward battle of smog triage on the cilli and villi of my lungs. I got to the point in China where I was actually worried about my ability to give my speech, which was alarming. In the end it worked out, but the pollution was formidible. Many have written about the pollution in China, so I won't bore you too much, a speech was given, I think it went well, and the organizers of Google Developer Day in Beijing did a simply bang up job. In some ways, it was the best organized conference I've been to in a long time.

I also got to meet up with some old pals, and the chinese governments open source promotion arm, which was cool. I walked the stalls at a hemmed in kind of mall that specialized in inexpensive electronics, mostly counterfit. For instance, I saw the "Iphone Air" which was a flip, pink, Iphone. You know? You must have seen Steve release that one at WWDC, right? The other one, the "Iphone Duo" was a bitchen 3g lookalike, with dual sims, 5 pages of apps (notably not the iphone apps) and support for micro sdhc. All for about 1000 won (I suspect I could have talked them down dramatically).

I picked up a 'Disney MP3" player, with 2gb of onboard ram

(with some craptastic songs preinstalled) for what amounted to 13$ (I had bargained them down from the inital price of $25). I don't know why I bought it, honestly, I'll probably just give it to Cory Doctorow next time I run into him, as he's into this kind of thing, but there were some amazing things in that mall. I haven't been that excited to simply walk around a mallesque collection of stalls since the first time I walked the streets in Akihabara some 8 years ago.

The thing I should have bought was this neat little rc helicopter for 90 won. (around 30$, down from an initial price of about 2.5x that) but I decided that I really didn't have space in my bag for it in its box.

Malaysia was very interesting. I did some normal stuff, like check out the Petronas tower, which is flipping georgous, but I didn't go inside. Between jet lag and work, I didn't want to spend the time and I don't have the same desire I used to have, to go to the highest spot in a city. My happiest times in all three cities were simply when I was walking around, by myself, getting mildly lost on the way here or there, understanding little beyond what street I'm on and which one I'll be on next.

It was kinda hot though. Food was super fun in malaysia once I got away from the hotels with a group of open source hackers the last night I was in town.

Tokyo, though, I got some -mad- walking in. Went guitar shopping with a dude from work, which was very fun. The first store we went to (the wrong one) was 6 stories tall, with each story being kind of small, consumlables-guitar-guitar-acoustics-keyboards-mixing/amps-lessons, it was neat. I want a pacemaker (looks fun, won't actually buy one) but it was not the right shop. Next street over we found 'Heartmann guitar' and , for the record, I played a little when I was younger, but I was -terrible- at it. I didn't practice and didn't learn much past a few songs. But that said, I was transfixed and shocked at some of the guitars they had. A 54 les paul, a 55 martin, it was amazing. These guitars were behind glass, but a part of me felt like I was in a museum. It was really something. And -boy- were those not cheap.

I spoke in Yokohama the day after at Google Developer Day Tokyo , which was neat. Going out after with my work friends was neater afterwords, and shopping for Mochi with Jason Chen was more awesome still.

But it was all so long, so much time away from Christine and the kids. So you'll see less of these kinds of posts after June. It's too much travel and so I won't be doing as much of it. Sorry United, my status will lapse. Sorry Starwood, you'll need to upgrade some other travellers rooms. 2010 will be the year my status expires, if I have my wish, and with hope, I'll never make 1m miles on star alliance. I will , instead, be home.

11 but not 6, perhaps due to the aerosolized Prozac before the spy contacted me in the Domedovo bathroom?

Again I sit on a plane. This time I'm Moscow bound, due to land in a bit over an hour's time. Going to speak with my colleagues in Moscow about open source use, keynote a conference, chat with some Moscow press and generally try to be a friendly face for Google. 

And so I sit. Managed a Business class seat, on one of United's 767s with the new layout they were promising last year. They're spreading to their Atlantic long haul flights, I see.  The seats are really nice, and the in flight entertainment sports your standard video on demand and the rest. So in this they have achieved parity with most other airlines business class sections. In some ways, they're a little better. Large screens that make the choice to watch a movie not one of squintitude. 

This is, however, the first time someone on a flight has given me their card in case I get "In a jam" in Moscow.  I find this really charming, if ominous.  I dislike that I'm likely to have a heavily mediated experience in Moscow. Airport to car to Hotel to office to cab to dinner to hotel to venue to cab to dinner to hotel to airport to home.  I hope to fit in some subway riding, some walking arounding and the rest. My seatmate thinks that I'm asking for trouble.

But what he doesn't know is that I have the international fellowship of open source developers that I can draw upon. One thing I've noticed is that a well timed email to the summer of code students list or a local users group is more than enough to allow for a uniquely local experience, especially in non-English dominated countries.  These people, my brothers and sisters in arms, are everywhere. Every country, every city, and we've got something in common to talk about.

Computers are swell, you know?

The title for this post is meant to describe a funny quirk of my flying existence. 11 hours is actually weirdly easier for me to deal with than 6 when it comes to flying. Something about hour 5 kills me on the New York or Boston to San Francisco run. It's weird, it's like a spell comes over me as I pass over the continental divide.  But it is clearly -not- geographic. I don't experience the same issue when coming back from London, nor is there a similar effect  induced by the fiesta ware (catalina? Whatever.) islands when coming home from Japan or New Zealand. 

So what is it about 6? I could make up some yarn about how early in the development of my people, the number 6, not being reducible cleanly as a power of 2 and, when considered bitwise, allowing only a lower case character set  was considered anathema by all but the 12 bit crowd. A 12 bit crowd whom you'd clearly see holds some bizarre horrible affinity with the 6ers among us. Like a convention of 12 fingered people welcoming the right-handed amputee among them as a brother. 

I think I'm a bit off topic. Anyhow, the thing is the 12 hour flight doesn't bother me, and time passes faster than the 6.  Similarly, a 15 hour flight (my current maximum that I've taken) is not any longer, neocortexically speaking, than a 12, 11 or 10 hour flight. Why is that? It's not really a b-class vs. non b-class thing. With my vaunted status with the alliance of the star, I can practically hunt economy class people for food if I so desire (and lest you consider me some kind of caveman, know that I do not do this, thank you very much)  I never travel economy if I don't want to, so...what is it?

Is it a smaller plane thing? The 757 being the mainstay of United's cross continental flight, it has neither the air pressure practices nor the roominess of the 767s even if they do share a cockpit design and type-rating. Maybe....

Or maybe, they put something in the drinks. Yes, that's it. Prozac in the drinks supply. Airlines have a long history of this kind of thing. Who doesn't remember flying in the 80s, when they'd have everyone drop their pants a bit so they could inject the left butt cheek with some Halcyon. And why only the left butt cheek? Unknown, but we can agree that is one intriguing standard. Imagine the standards process for that decision:

Standards person: Point of personal order chairman, we clearly must inject into the left cheek, and we should not allow the representative from the Facconable to allow for gender specific  directionality the way they did with shirt button placement. I object! 

Maybe that's it, maybe Prozac is metabolized slow enough that for a sub 7 hour flight, it is too detectable to use modern psychotropics on the passengers. A lot of people don't know this but the reason the DC-10 was taken out of service was that it's nootropic gas dispensers would often jam open, reducing the plane's passengers into a writhing mess of hugs and teeth grinding (People Express airlines liked to use MDMA before it was made illegal) Other airlines found that aerosol dispersal made for pilots that were too agreeable, which led to departure delays as they'd allow other smaller and cuter planes to cut ahead in line for the runway. 

Listening to tower traffic was much better though, I tell you what. None of this clipped efficiency that rules the day in 2009, no back then it was much mellower. 

People Express Pilot: Hey tower, it's PX 557, we have the plane mostly buttoned up (giggle) ...hey give that back....*snort* wow you are cute.... Christ. Anyhow, hey tower, we're ready to push back you know, whenever.

Tower: PX 557 roger on push back.  Proceed to runway 4R behind the Delta Heavy. 

PX: PX557 to tower, Whoa dude, just cause she's been letting herself go a bit. Don't be so mean.  Hey, so what's it like in the tower today? 

Tower: PX 557, we have a hold on runway 4R, as AA 756 decided to do donuts for a while. 

PX: PX557 here, sup tower...  Yeah, they are really awesome at that. Passengers look a bit green though. Oh hey, so where should we go then. 80R? I like that one. It's wide and smooth. You guys repave or something? I loved it last time. It was like licking ice cream out of a belly button. 

Tower: Christ, PX557, the FCC's gonna fine you again, 80R fine by us, try to use the runway and not the taxiway this time.

PX: 80R roger for PX557.  You guys are no fun. That was awesome, and you guys got the luggage cart our wash turned over no worries, so...no harm no foul.

Tower: PX557, okay the runway is yours, proceed to three-zero-zero and squawk one one five niner.

PX: Roger roger. 

I could go on, but you get the point. More later ...

In fact, more right now. My fellow passengers seem fine this flight. No craziness. 

Wonder what Russian customs will be like. Everything I know about Russia I know from spy novels. So clearly there will be a Finn who will attempt contact me while I wash my hands in the red veloured, golden handled, Russian restroom, which is strangely lavish for an airport bathroom, but just go with it, cool? So this Finn, who is masquerading as the restroom attendant,  will ask me to carry something through customs. 

Being a man of careful process, I will refuse, and he will indeed turn out to be XKD, which is the reformed spetnaz (anti-spy, which I learned from old Ian Fleming novels) division of the KGB. Oh ho, you think I didn't know that?  I'm a world traveler, man,  I know stuff,  so back off.  Anyhow, thanks to my declining, they will try to convert me to be an asset of theirs at the state department, but having Ieft that job 13 years ago, that too will fail. In the end the agent will just say "oh forget about it, stupid computer dork" and leave me be. Win one for -America- bitches. 

Anyhow, I anticipate that customs will be as boring as it ever is. There have only been two times when customs was exciting. 

The first exciting customs experience was my trip to Venezuela when I was on my first trip abroad, when the customs dude basically tried to get a bribe out of me to leave the country, but I was so clueless he ended up giving up exasperated with my inability to understand "I believe you do not have the right exit stamp, I could perhaps apply one" to mean "dude, give me a 20, cool?" 

The second was when I was heading to Israel to keynote Google Developer Day last year. Get this... I flew on the red-eye to new York, hopped on the afternoon continental flight to Israel arriving at 8:15am Israel time. Our in-country people had a dude meet me at the plane, take me down to the apron, drive along the tarmac to customs, walk me to customs, which had me pre-cleared and to a taxi in a mere 10 minutes. I was on stage giving the keynote at 9:30. It was awesome and I totally effing nailed the speech. Then a day of press and dinner with the local awesome Googlers. For the record I love that kind of stuff. 

More later (I mean it this time)