Yippie for camera phones

So I have been seeing stories everywhere about this guy in the library at UCLA who was tazed by police when he didn't show them his student ID, and then was on his way out of the library. It sounded pretty screwed up, and like perhaps the cops acted out of line. Today I finally got around to watching the video (Thank god for camera phones I guess). The video is much worse than I had imagined. There is no way that repeatedly tazing him could have been justified (they tazed him for not obeying their commands to get up after he had just been shocked and most likely couldn't move). They then threatened to taze the bystanders who asked for their badge numbers (which I'm pretty sure they are required to give). I know sometimes people get all upset when police overact, but its just as much the victims fault as theirs. But this is different. The dude wasn't even under arrest and under no obligation to listen to them in the first place (and was on his way out the door no less), and then was tazed again after he was handcuffed... In front of a large crowd of camera-phone wielding college kids. At least the guys who roughed up Rodney King had the decency to do it in front of only a Police Car dash cam. At least you can try and cover that up. Anyway, hopefully this gets a lot of press, and the cops get in some trouble. Anyway here is the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3CdNgoC0cE

Another story involving camera phones getting someone in a lot of trouble is Michael Richards (AKA Kramer)'s racist tirade at a comedy club last weekend. Some hecklers pissed him off and he went off on them using the dreaded N-word many a time. Some people in the audience got it on their camera phones and it became a big news story. Anyway, He apologized last night on Letterman, and it seems like he was sincerely sorry (at least more so than Mel Gibson was). Here is the link to the apology, which is pretty hard to watch (as is the footage of the tirade) for any fan of Kramer. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9107547518165183938

Italy act I

I am finally getting around to trying to document our adventures in Italy for everyone to read even though no one probably cares. Anyway, here is the first part of our trip to Italy. This is the crap ass situation we got in at teh Paris airport. I'm tired of relating this story over and over, so IU am pasting in teh email i sent teh travel agent to let her know about what happened. So it is abnormally boring, and devoid of obscentities for a post on this blog. It is also spell checked so you wont see any teh's or -ign's. enjoy

Our plane was a little late getting to Charles De Gaulle, and it landed on the tarmac (because terminal E which is where all the transatlantic flights go is under construction), so we had to take a 30 minute shuttle ride to the terminal. Then we had to go through customs (which luckily had no line), walk to terminal F, and then go through security again. At security, I notified the guard that there was diabetes medicine in my backpack as you are supposed to do according to the TSA website (at least in the US). I then went through the metal detector. Then Elizabeth went through and they asked her to take the thing off of her belt. She told them it was an insulin pump and she couldn't take it off. The Guard asked for a letter explaining it. We gave him the letter she had from her doctor, but they apparently wanted a letter from Air France. They told us to go to the Air France desk and talk to them. We did that, and they told us we had missed our flight (even though only a minute or two had passed since we left security). They told us we had to go to the transfers desk, which we had trouble finding. When we found it, the lady there gave us a new boarding pass, and we asked her to help us get through security. She came with us, and this time I didn't mention anything about the medicine in my backpack and they didn't say anything about Elizabeth's insulin pump (the guy who gave us a hard time before was gone). So we got through with no trouble and I tried to call the transfer people and let them know we would be late. First I tired a calling card my parents gave me, but I forgot that it wouldn't work since it was a 1-888 number and therefore wouldn't work from France. Then I tried my credit card, and when I put it in it said something about some price in euros, but when it didn't work and I hung up, it said "0,00 euros" or something to that effect, so I thought I wasn't being charged. I think it actually was going through some of the times I tried, but the European ring sounds like an American busy tone, and I was flustered and it confused me. It turns out that each of the like 10 times I called I was charged like 19 bucks. eventually at like 9, I bought a French calling card from the store at the airport, and since it was a card especially for those phones, it was a lot simpler to figure out and I got through. They said that the pickup was already at the airport and there was nothing they could do. Another thing that helped me get through at this point was that before 9 I was calling the 24 hr number, which didn't have a country code with it, so I didn't know what country it was in or what code to use. After 9 I could call the business hours number which had a country code with it. At some point before I eventually got through we had tried to board our flight, which left at 8-something, and they told us that the boarding pass we had was for the next day (right time and flight, just wrong date). So we went to the transfers desk in the terminal and they said that it was too late to get on the same flight (even though we could see it was still boarding), and that the next flight was full, so they put us on the flight that left at like 11-something. They also couldn't get us seats next to each other. Since we now had lots of time, I talked to a manager, and he said there was nothing he could do to help us out, but to file a complaint, and also that they should not have given us any trouble at security. Anyway, I think we got to Rome at 2-something, and my bag was in the unclaimed baggage room ( as it had come on the original flight at 9:20), one of Elizabeth's bags came around on the conveyor belt (it had come on the plane with us), and her other bag was no where to be found. We reported it missing, and it came 2 days later. It was still in Paris and we think it was probably put with the bags for the first rescheduled flight we were on which left the next day. We took a taxi from the airport, where we got our first experience with Italian drivers. The taxi cost 60 Euros with tip.

I don't really know who's to blame for all of this, Air France, Charles De Gaulle Airport, our own naivete. And really in the end, the trip was so much fun that we forgot how pissed we were for the first day. It would be nice if we could get reimbersed by the transfer company for either the missed transfer or the taxi ride. That seems fair. I am going to send an angry letter to Air France, and also talk to my credit card company about the phone calls (I know I need to get on that quickly). I know there is nothing you could have done to prevent our problems, but I would only suggest that when scheduling transfers at Charles De Gaulle, keep in mind that there is a significant amount of time required to get to the terminal from the tarmac if the plane is arriving or leaving at terminal E. So an hour between flights is probabaly not enough.

Absolutely nothing interesting has happened in the last month

So yeah, there is a lot of stuff I should probably post about. Like getting married, going to Italy, etc. Well, I'm not going to do that now, but when I get around to it , I will. So basically, this post is pointless. Kinda like the rest of what is on this blog.