Acura for Trekkies

Do all Star Trek fans drive Acuras?
I'm neither (except the most recent film with Chris Pine was kinda awesome), but I was surprised that I had never noticed the similarities in their symbols until I was driving (very closely) behind an Acura last week.

I mean, it's obvious that they are both As.  Maybe that's their only similarity.  Maybe I'm crazy.  They don't look that similar now that they're next to each other.  However, I think Acura is feeding off of the Trekkie subconscious.

It's not just me, right?
~RoB

Drowning in a Taxi

I like to consider myself well-traveled.  And, for those people that I know who have filled their passports dramatically more than mine (since I don't have one), I can at least say that I feel 'urban'.  By that, I mean that I'm comfortable in large cities, and I don't really stand out like most tourists.  However, I've never really been comfortable with taxis.  I've always been a bus/subway/walker.  Taxis kind of intimidate me.  It was fun to find that Annie shared these feelings with me.  We found out when we had to hail one from in front of the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco on Sunday.

Yep, I teach here on Sundays, and I needed a taxi.

The whole process actually wasn't difficult at all.  I actually found the new/hybrid taxi to be comfortable and really convenient.  Although, there was a glowing moment where my inexperience with taxis came to a screaming apex.

I had just danced for an hour.  Before that, I walked to the top of Nob Hill from BART (straight uphill).  I was kind of tired, and I was slightly dehydrated.  After we got settled in the taxi and the driver stopped at the next light, I reached into Annie's bag to grab her pink, stainless steel, water bottle.  You know, the kind where the whole top screws off giving you a wide mouth for gulping.  As soon as I was tipping it up to my mouth, the taxi sped off, having been giving access to do so by a friendly green light.

The water didn't just dribble onto my chin and shirt.  It splashed.  All over my neck, down my shirt, back of my neck, bottom of my hair, and in my nasal passages.  I almost drowned... in a taxi... drinking from a bottle of water.  Return to the beginning where I was already uncomfortable in taxis.  Now I feel like a noob.

The next time I am quietly judging (to myself) someone who looks cautious as they are stepping on an escalator, I'll try and remember that my taxi anxiety is no less ridiculous.

I'm lying.  I'll still make fun of people scared of escalators.  What is this, 1849?
~RoB

Podcasts

I drive ~39 minutes one-way to work.  I did the same commute in the summer of 2008, and I was almost excited to catch back up on all of my podcasts.  My enthusiasm ran out as quickly as my podcasts did.  The only things that I regularly listened to before this summer were: Bill Burr's Monday Morning Podcast, Freakonomics, and This American Life.  I highly recommend the latter two to everyone, but the first one is more up my alley than most people's.

Anyway, I went on a rampage of trying new podcasts.  I'm really happy with them some, and I have a few that I'd like to say aren't so good..  Car Talk is amazing, and How Stuff Works is super interesting.  Planet Money hits an interest that I've only recently come across: economics, so I listen to that regularly.  Adam Corolla's podcast sucked, so I really don't understand why it is so popular..  I've unsubscribed to TED Talks (stupid without video) and Comedy Central (same problem).  ESPN's B.S. Report and Jillian Michaels' podcast didn't do if for me, either.  A new podcast from the producers of WWDTM! has been pretty good, and its called How to Do Everything.

I'm a big fan of Doug Loves Movies, but I don't think I've correctly guessed a single movie yet from the Leonard Multin game.  I tried Jordan, Jesse Go!, but I don't think that I get it.  Not really my thing.  I'm also trying to settle on Sklarboro Country.  I'm a big fan of the Sklar Bros, but hearing them (instead of being able to look at them) as they continuously switch between each other is almost too much for my brain.  I like their interviews, though, so I'll probably keep trying.  Joe Rogan's podcast is just too long, he gets too long winded on some of his crazy rants, and I get distracted every time I think about the Fleshlight.  Bring back in the long list of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me! and Napa Valley Wine Radio 'casts that I allowed to build up in my iPhone, and I've got quite the fleet of entertaining sound bites to get me from here to work and back each day.

I've also learned some really important things from these podcasts over the last few months:

• How to Do Everything taught me that the only sure-fire way to get rid of hiccups is to stick your finger up in your butthole and tickle the inside a little bit.  Think about that next time you have the hiccups.
• Doug <3s Movies taught me that Johnny Knoxville lost a tooth to a high-velocity dildo while filming Jackass 3D.
• Doug Loves Movies also taught me that a taping of Mr. Belvedere was shut down early because Christopher Hewett sat on his own balls.  (He also had another instance where he fell out of a harness during a production of Peter Pan and landed on his balls... stopping production for another day.)  Pretty much, we learned that Mr. Belvedere had gigantic testicles.
• Planet Money, on a more serious note, has taught me that nobody in the world knows what the fuck they are doing when it comes to the economy.
• Oh, and How to Do Everything taught me that Annie is just as awkward on the radio as she is in real life.

BB's MMPC makes me think the word 'cunt' alot, to myself, too,
~RoB