Long Haul Flights Suck

So here I am in Germany some 24 hours+ out of Sydney.
Long haul flights suck. The first leg to Kuala Lumpur was the best leg - but that was'nt saying much. I was on the window and wasn't interested in barging my way past the other 2 people between me and the aisle so I didn't. Fortunately my DVT didn't dislodge and travel to my heart or lungs and kill me - yet. The second leg sucked more than the first. On the first I could try and rest on the window, which was inconveniently positioned beside my chair so that I could not lean directly onto the 'pillar' but rather the window it self which is recessed. It was unconfortable to say the 'least'. The 'least' it turned out was sitting in the aisle chair, with crappy head rests which allow no slouching or leaning, and trying in vain to sleep. Add to this the vertical -1 degree full extension of the chairs, and that leg (to Vienna) sucked. There was a reasonable selection of movies to choose from but these too ended up sucking. Firstly, my sound only had one channel in my chair- presumably the crappiest chair on the plane reserved for late comers. I was in fact so late to the airport the lady at the desk told me in a curt mannerism I was soon to discover is company policy, "Where have you been? The flight is closed." So apart from the poor sound, and the tiny screen (which would often flicker for the beginning crap period of each movie) - I decided not to sully my first taste of the good films I actually want to watch with such poor presentation, and thus limited myself to the worst films in descending orded of crapness. Edison was first up - starring Justin Timberlake, guess that's why that second album hasn't been forthcoming... I would prefer the album. Not a terrible performance (he certainly tried hard, but comes across too serious but impossible to take seriously), but the movie was B grade. Dylan McDermott (dude from the Practice season 1 through to when he and the others asked for too much money and were all promptly fired) was a convincingly palpable bad guy, although when he started crying in the absence of contextual plot his character started to breakdown in a way his on-screen breakdown didn't intend. After that was Road to Glory. Now this movie pissed me off in the same way Edison did for a technical reason. The vision began - and the channels in german, french etc. all worked... but not the English one! At least not immediately. Fortunately, being such poor films, it's pretty easy to pick up what's happening in a different language, indeed even with the sound off while I wait patiently for the english track to resume in bits and pieces. the sound resumed in Edison only about 20 minutes in. However, in my inability to sleep and thus avoid that option, I went an hour, more than half the length of Road to Glory with little to no english at all! Incidently, Edison is about a bad town turned good by hardcore cops who continue to take the law into their own hands and a young journalists exploits in bringing his story to public while everyone is dying around him. Road to Glory is about the first predominantly (half) negro college basketball team to win the National Championships and thus usher in a new era of racial harmony in America forever and ever... it's Disney can you guess?

Eventually I arrived in Munich, and there are some cool World Cup ads about the place and in the Aisport. I'll post pics in a sec when I duck under the table to plug in the USB cable. I'm at my cousin Byrons place - or rather the house of my Auntie Debbie, Uncle Helmut, and cousins Sara-Lee and Mary-Lee.. I think! There are 3 Aunties and each has at least 1 kid, 7 cousins in all. Only said hello to Debbie and obviously Byron who came and picked me up from the airport - he's 20 and we get along pretty easily. When he wakes up in an hour or two, he went to a reggae concert after watching the matches last night..., I'll have to venture into the Munich rail system to get Mike and possibly our tickets too for the match. EUROs suck. This is going to be an expensive expedition...