Hank LNU

Have you noticed that when we're nice to one person, sometimes that means we're not nice to many?

The best example of this is holding the door to a train. Sure, the person who was late is psyched. But what about the person on the train who's running late to work, but got to the train on time? And what about the train engineer, whose carefully planned schedule is now thrown off?

Or starting meetings on time. Why respect the time of people who are late over that of the people who made it on time?

We always perceive society like Spock, "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one." But we all secretly want to be Kirk, "the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many."

Who have you been mean to while being nice?

I tried to take a picture, but the man holding the sign saying...he just held it back up.

"Jesus is in the Earth Relm, Spiritually Multiplied with Hosts, for manhunt human traffikers."

I love this city.

Monique (I absolutely refuse to use her spelling: Mo'Nique) is still "boycotting" United Airlines. And turning a simple customer-service issue into a racial issue: "I felt like I was being treated like an animal. This happens to black people all the time, and they don't have a voice. I have a voice."

So do the six billion other non-mute Earth dwellers, Mo'. But let's not dwell on that, 'kay?

This has to be the most stupid story of the week.

Ignore the fact that this is stupid for a moment. She wasn't called a name, or assaulted, or insulted. Her assistant, sitting in coach, tried to store something in 1st class, and was challenged. She was "humiliated" because a supervisor called the cops to deal with a "disgruntled and belligerant passenger."

Ignore for a moment the fact that bad customer service doesn't necessarily equal racist customer service.

Can I just say that one person doesn't a boycott make? When it's just you, it's a purchasing choice, not a boycott.

Is MooCow in New Zealand yet? Because this is so his new career path. Some guy is paying some kid $45 per hour to help him learn to play Halo 2 better. No, I'm not kidding. This from the Wall Street Journal.

Let's not even discuss why this is news. The WSJ front page is always a little quirky.

Yesterday I was in the UK. For the day. Ouch. It was a scheduling SNAFU; I was supposed to be at meetings here, but overbooked myself, and no one canceled.

Of course, after 11, 13, 17, and 18 hour flights over the last 3 weeks, the 7-hour flight to Heathrow was like nothin'.

Now I'm back. I hope for more than a couple of days.

I feel true sorrow for the Canadian family who lost 7 of its members in an air raid over the weekend.

I feel constrained to ask, however, why they were "vacationing" in Lebanon. It's not like the war was being fought in secret. Israel has to be the only army in the world that gives advance notice where it's going to bomb. And there are still civilian casualties. Frankly, it makes me wonder about the civilians.

I have a simple rule: when the US State Department says "leave, we can't protect you," I...leave.

Two Pints And A Flight

So I left Singapore, which was hot and humid, and I'm now in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Where, thank G-d, it's decently cold. I was melting in Singapore.

I got in about 3 hours ago, checked into a hotel, and went directly to a bar. I had to walk around to find one that had actual people in it, but I did, and, two pints later, I'm back in the hotel and feeling no pain.

I'm hoping that the beer will put me to bed, because I really have no fargin' idea what time it is. I slept a little on the plane, and right now, who the hell knows. For my family, who I just spoke to, and really miss, it's about 8:30 a.m. Here, supposedly, it's about 10:30 p.m. I don't know whether I should be tired because it's time to go to bed, or it's time to wake up, or what.

All I know is that Desperate Housewives is on, so it's probably nighttime.