Thurston Blogging

Things to do in a Holiday Inn Express

It's late here in Torino.  Late for me, anyhow.  I'm still a bit keyed up from a long day, so I'm surveying all that I can see in my 20' by 20' slice of paradise, commonly known as Room 118 at the Holiday Inn Express in Torino, Italy.  What to do.  I have options you know.  Let's sort them out:

TV:
* In English, we have CNN, BBC and MTV is a 50/50 mix between Italian and English.
* Pay per view, which consists of dirty movies, the 40 Year Old Virgin and Pride and Prejudice.  The company doens't pay for it, so that's out.

Books:
Just finished one book, and I have two others with me.  Too late to start a book.
* Between the Bridge and the River, by Craig Ferguson
* Fargo Rock City, by Chuck Klosterman

Magazines:
* Rolling Stone (Eddie Vedder on the cover)
* Maxim (Jessica Simpson with red hair on the cover)
* Giant (some person I've never heard of on the cover)
* Sporting News (Vince, don't call meMike Vick, Young on the cover)

Music:
Four Gigabytes of MP3's on the trusty iPod Mini.  Just a touch under 1000 songs, highlighted by:
* The Ballad of Gumby
* Angry Chair by Alice in Chains
* Pearl Jam live from Detroit
* Judgement Night and The Crow soundtracks
* Complete collection of the Black Keys and the White Stripes

DVD's:
Brought a few new flicks along on this trip:
* The Godfather, or Il Pardon if you're in Italy
* Dazed and Confused.  Not the Criterion Collection version, but it's on my list.
* X-Men 1.5 and X-Men 2.
* Ghostbusters

Work:
Since I'm here, I could catch up on paperwork, expense reports, task lists, e-mail, or project plans.  No, I think I'm done with that thought.

Eat:
It's too late for a pizza.  However, I do have Kit Kats, paprika-flavored Pringles, cookies, Coke, water, Gatorade, and turkey jerkey.  There may still be a granola bar in my backpack as well.

Sleep:
I have a full-size bed, four pillows, two reading lights and one small travel alarm.  In the bathroom there is a half-full (to accentuate the positive) bottle of Target brand sleeping pills.  They give a bit of a drug hangover, and aren't nearly as efficient as Ambien, but they will do the trick.  Nighty night, hosers.  I'm out.

Jay's on a Plane

Clowns, clones and clods -

Not to be confused with the upcoming epic motion picture, Snakes on a Plane, I've flown on three planes in the last 24 hours to get to Torino, Italy.   The biggest and longest plane and flight was the NorthWest flight on the A300-200 from Detroit to Frankfurt, where I was able to:

* Listen to a baby from some Eastern Bloc country ball his friggin' head off for 6 of the 8 hours of the flight.

* Spill salad with creamy Italian dressing on my shirt.

* Fart every 20 minutes past the hour.

* watch Danny DeVito and Jack Nicholson in Hoffa.  Would have been a better movie if NorthWest didn't replace the 671 F-Bombs with "Frig".  You can only hear "Frig you", "Frig off" and go "Frig yourself" so many times before you start to lose interest.

* Sleep for 7 minutes of the 8 hour flight.

* Pee once, which isn't bad at all considering I had a massive amount of water and two glasses of OJ.  No booze on that flight, but I did have a Skyy and Seven Up on the flight from Grand Rapids to Detroit.

* Manage to sit in coach after flying First class from GR to the Mighty D.

* Read 112 pages in Stranger than Fiction: True Stories by Chuck "Fight Club" Palahniuk.

* Choked down half of the worst piece of lasagna ever prepared.

* Miss home before the plane passed over Ireland at 545 miles per hour.

* Miss Ireland by the time we flew over England.

* Wonder why we can't send e-mails from a plane.

* Listen to parts of Pearl Jam's self-titled CD, and the Chili Peppers tw0-CD effort, Stadium Arcadium.  Both are solid efforts by two long-time bands.  Peppers have been together over 23 years.  My picks - Army Reserve by Eddie, and Especially in Michigan by Anthony.

I'm outtie.

Don't worry - more to come

My apologies for not posting much lately.  I plan on getting back on the blog attack soon.  Much to talk about.  Tacos, Pearl Jam, corn, putting another monkey in space, and shoes that don't set off metal detectors.

Remember, wherever you go, there you are.