The gross and the good, ask Alexa, Crash and Burn

So my flight was scheduled to leave Philly at 6:15pm.  A couple hours prior to that they pushed the departure time back 20 minutes to 6:35, annoying but nothing major.    The gate area for my flight was getting quite full so I decided to wait in the gate right across the hall.  I figured I would easily hear/see when they started to load.  After completing my blog post I dug into reading Crash and Burn, which I only started the night before.  Well either the book really held my attention or the speaker system next door wasn’t turned up very high.  I glanced over at my gate and all of a sudden there were about 15 people left, they obviously had been loading for quite awhile.  I quickly snapped close my book and wound up being the second to last person on the plane.

Despite packing intentionally light to avoid the cost and hassle of checking luggage for the second time in as many flights I wound up having to check my small bag due to all of the overhead bins being full.  The only positive of being forced to check your bag is they do it free of charge instead of socking you with the bullshit checked luggage fee US Airways and almost all major carriers charge nowadays.

I found my aisle seat.  Next to me was a hispanic woman who was traveling with her cute little daughter.  The little girl was already all set to take a nap, complete with a pillow, her blanket and a teddy bear.  It was very cute.  I almost immediately dug into my book.  Despite reading I was unable to block out some of the unavoidable annoying people on the flight.  Immediately to my left was a chubby, nerdy looking guy that would make some utterly disgusting noises which sounded like he was rattling mucus around.  Sometimes he would combine this with bringing his hand to his mouth, presumably to catch the sputum that was accompanying the disgusting noises.  After doing this I would see his hand go to his pant leg for a quick wipe off before it went right back to touching various areas of the seat.  Disgusting.

Then there was somebody with a horrible, chronic cough about six or seven rows ahead of me.  They were hacking almost non-stop for the first 45 minutes we were in the air, it was awesome.  I figured my odds of getting through the next several days without catching some illness from one of the passengers on the flight is pretty slim. The little girl fell asleep quickly.  She had her legs across her moms lap.  A few times she shifted and hit my legs with her feet.  The woman moved her feet immediately but I smiled and told her it was fine.  I was jealous the little girl could sleep through the gross sights and sounds of air travel.

I have to tell you US Airways flight attendants are pretty grumpy people.  I hardly caught a smile on any of their faces.  I also thought it was quite odd that between my two flights we had more men then women flight attendants.  That was a first.  It’s too bad that US Airways is my primary option for direct flights to Philly, I really don’t like the airline at all.  Between the bullshit fees, the cramped seating, the barebones drink service (you get one drink and not a single morsel of food), and the generally lousy disposition of the majority of their employees I really wish I had better options.

So as I mentioned I was plowing through Artie Lange’s second book, Crash and Burn.  Artie is a comedian and was co-host on the Stern show for around 10 years.  He is very funny, quick witted, has a photographic memory and happens to be one of the biggest drug addicts on the planet.  The second book covers the darkness surrounding his exit from the Stern Show which included a suicide attempt where he drank four shots of Chlorox Bleach and stabbed himself a number of times.

The stories of self destruction that are in the book seem impossible in scope and how often they were happening.  It gave a very open look at just how deep and dark the world of a serious drug addict can be.  I am sure multiple times my mouth dropped open as I shook my head in disbelief as I was turning the pages.  It was amazingly terrible just how hard he worked at destroying both his life and as a result the lives of the people that care about him.

The book was odd in the way it was written where at the end Artie tells on himself, basically admitting that something written earlier in the book was a lie.  Also earlier in the book he described how his relationship with his girlfriend that he loved came to an end after another Artie self destruction event.  Then at the very end he says they reconciled and were now engaged. I did a quick search and found out that engagement ended as well.  Of course I’m not surprised.

artie27n-24-web[1]Also the good fortune he described work-wise after he came back from his suicide appears to also have gone away as well.  The DirecTv show he had was cancelled as was the deal he had with Comedy Central.  It appears his only action currently is a podcast that you have to pay to subscribe to as well as some stand up gigs.  Unfortunately I have next to no doubt that Artie is cursed to spend whatever is left of his life, lying, abusing himself and hurting anyone in his inner circle as his demons come to the surface again and again.  The roughly 300 page book was a good read but certainly nothing that will make you feel happy or upbeat.  The best you can hope for is it will make you more appreciative that at least you are not him.

I had forgot to mention that I bought a unique present for Cindy that arrived earlier this week, an Amazon Echo.b8dd669b1ae9049e3101e504cfa86911-amazon-launches-echo-a-sirilike-digital-assistant[1]  The Echo is a wireless digital assistant.  Sort of imagine if Siri was pulled out of your Iphone and placed on your counter.

The small device has 7 microphones inside that are specially designed to hear your questions/commands from a considerable distance away.  It also has a high quality speaker system inside that provides high quality audio when you ask the Echo to do things like play music.

When Cindy first opened the box she was sort of like “great, another weird piece of tech”  but once she set it up and started playing around with the device she changed her tune.  She realized the Echo was sort of awesome. Not only can you give it commands by saying “her” name, Alexa, it can answer questions spoken in plain english, play music, tell you the weather, etc and even control home automation devices like the Nest and Phillip Hue.   In addition the device works with IFTTT (if this then that) which allows the Echo to be scripted to interact with other web enabled services in a near infinite amount of ways.

Amazon is continuously expanding the feature set of the Echo so the device should only get better and better over time.  Is it a necessary household addition?  Of course not.  Is it fun and cool? Absolutely.

It was nice to sleep in my own bed with Cindy and the two dogs near by.  The trip was quick and fun but it’s always feels good to come back to my familiar four walls.