So the trip began with a flight delay. What was amusing/annoying was the reason for the delay. They claimed that there was too much fog in San Francisco so the flow rate into the airport was reduced. I get that. So we take off with a half hour delay. But then we arrive early! Very confusing.

Anyway, we then have the joy–nay, the privilege–to wait in line to pay for the rental car that we already paid via the Internet. Perhaps it’s the economy or maybe the status quo but it seems as though all of the salespeople were wearing suits in the hope that they can sell you more stuff that you would have bought already if you wanted it. I would go so far to say that the guy we had gave us the hard sell to NOT get an economy car because it didn’t have power locks or windows. Su and I both thought do they even make cars without power anything anymore? Suffice it to say that after we didn’t upgrade the guy who showed us to the car(also wearing a suit) tried to scare us to get the insurance fee protection (this isn’t insurance) which we also refused.

We met up with Don for an early dinner at Monks Kettle which is a great restaurant with 20 draft beers in the Mission district. Area looks a bit dodgy but hard to argue with the fare. Summary: pepper crusted bacon is awesome.

So as we stopped to figure out directions we turned on the hazard lights. Little did we know that we wouldn’t be able to turn them off(thank you automobile industry). Not wanting to spend the rest of the trip with the constant clicking and flashing we made our way back to the airport to get a new car. We traded our chevy ? for a Nissan versa. Jury is still out on whether or not we traded down.

And I almost forgot the best part. On the way back to the airport we were pulled over by the police because of the lights. At least we got a discount from Enterprise for the hassle.

Drive to Sonoma from that point was largely uninteresting other than Google Maps giving us the wrong directions for the last turn.

Su and I are getting ready for a trip to Napa and Sonoma Valley by making space in the wine fridges. It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it. Starting Sunday night, I will be doing daily write-ups of our activities and all the specifics of the wines we like and dislike. Stay tuned.

Crazy you say?

Yes, well, it’s hard to resist the Woz and Steve-o on the same show together.  The former probably thinks it’s a lark and the latter is trying to figure out new ways to embarass himself.

This is reality tv at it’s finest (aka most entertaining).

I think it is quite overwhelming and there is a lot of information.

Why so sad?

Let me list the causes:

I’m virtually last in my fantasy league with zero chance of seeing any return on my money.

The bears need a small miracle to make it to the playoffs.

Too many non Sunday afternoon football games. For example the bears played on last thursday and will not play again until Monday. The worst part of that is that they could be knocked out before their game starts with a Vikings win.

Anyway, I’ll be metaphorically doing some live animal sacrifice to ensure a positive outcome.

So I was a bit despondent over the Bears losing on Sunday. What cheers me up the most? Hard to say but I do like music (and by association musicals). So I went to my trusty DVR and fired up ‘Across the Universe’ mean I kept meaning to watch but was never in the right mood. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Sure there were going to be Beatles remixes. (I had heard some of them from iTunes previewing already). But beyond that I really didn’t know.
Well, I have to say that I was really surprised and delighted with the movie. They really integrated the music with the ’60s counter-culture story they were trying to tell. I don’t know if all the actors did their own singing (because the dubbing looked funny and hey, that could be the delay on my DLP tv), but I really liked the story and my mood definitely was more upbeat.

To summarize the ‘Beatles aspect’ of the movie, you basically have a British guy(Paul Sturgess) who looks exactly like Paul McCartney (or George Harrison, honestly they all looked very similar with that haircut back then) he is named Jude. So go figure, somebody sings ‘Hey Jude’. Oddly enough, the lead female was named Lucy but there was only ‘Lucy in the sky with diamonds’ in the credits. I guess it’s like of like the Queen musical ‘We Will Rock You’ where they didn’t know how to fit in Bohemian Rhapsody in the story so they just sang it at the end because everyone wanted to hear the song. There were also characters named Prudence, Sadie, Max, etc.

Also in the news lately is that Harmonix (the makers of Rock Band) and the Beatles have signed an agreement so that their music will be available in some type of game/learning device in about a year. I love their music so I think this is pretty exciting news. Even though half of them are dead, music lives on and the Beatles keep rocking.