Here's a not very interesting story about what I did this weekend

So I was up at the Hyatt Lake Tahoe this weekend. No way I paid the $285 a night they want (!!!). It was some big meeting for The Wife's company which means that they went to a one hour meeting and the rest of the time they all got drunk and did whatever it is they do. We got a free trip to Tahoe and a big banquet and lots of free booze.

I have a few observations about late May 2010 in Lake Tahoe:

- It snowed the whole time. I asked a bro who worked there if that was unusual for late May and he said he didn't know, he had just moved there from Kona. Kona!!! It must not take long to lose that island tan, because homeboy was white as a sheet.

- I shouldn't gamble. I'm too stupid to gamble. Or drunk. I was kinda drunk on Friday night and was playing blackjack and it got into my head that it would be a good idea to split a pair of 6's. You know what? It wasn't a good idea. (Apparently splitting 6's is acceptable in some circumstances, but I don't even think I looked at what the dealer had.)

- Here's how roulette doesn't work: "It's been red the last 4 spins, so this one's gotta be black." Also, it rarely lands on 27.

- For whatever else you can say, it was really beautiful up there. (Cell phone pic; sorry for quality):

- BONUS PIC: Snow on my car.

That's a sweet ride, man.

TWO OTHER THINGS:

1. Re the "Lost" finale (SPOILER COMING THIS IS ALL THE WARNING YOU GET) - so, what, it really was purgatory or limbo the whole time? Because they repeatedly said publicly it wasn't that. I think they kind of just gave up. Bleh, whatever. I feel like I wasted a lot of time watching that show now.

2. I'm no baseball genius or anything, but something needs to change with the Giants. Getting shut out in 2 consecutive games against the A's is a sign of a very, very, very serious problem with the offense. Very serious.

A tale of love and dangerous obsession, starring a British boy band

It is, I suppose, de rigeur for teenage girls to become fixated on pop music icons who are manufactured and packaged to fill the need for just such a fixation. Today it's Bieber and Swift; in days of yore you had your Backstreet Boys, your New Kids on the Block, your Leif Garretts. I guess the OG teen pop icon was Sinatra, right?

In the early-mid 90's in the UK and Ireland there was a little outfit called Take That that was massively popular over there but never really made a big splash here. (Remember Robbie Williams? He was in the original lineup.)

Growing up in Ireland at that time, The Wife was not immune to Take That's charms. Well, let me rephrase that; according to The Wife, her interest in Take That was, um, life-defining, maybe even problematic. As she put it, "If I could have channeled the energy I spent thinking about Take That into something positive, I could have cured cancer by now."

ANYWAY, not an atypical story; I imagine you or someone you know has a similar one. She grew out of it and moved to the US and occasionally would mention Take That in recounting stories of her charmed youth in Ireland and still had all the CDs and whatever, but clearly a part of her past.

As it happens, Take That has reformed and begun putting out albums again. Quelle surprise! I have to grudgingly admit that some of the songs have an earwormy ELO-ish appeal. To my ear, it's a cut above most stuff of this ilk. Like so:



Not the worst thing in the world, huh? Amazingly enough, the lads write their own songs, a feature essentially unheard of in this genre.

So blah blah blah long story short something has clicked in The Wife's brain and although she hasn't started putting Take That posters up or anything, she has begun relating anecdotes about Mark Owen in casual conversation and watching a LOT of videos on YouTube and it's possible that Take That CDs are now arriving in our house via Amazon.com and so on and so forth.

And then yesterday she comes home from work and says "I need to tell you something" and I'm all "OK, what?" and she says "If Take That is touring this year, I'm going to go see them." And I go see shows all the time and I get the need for nostalgia; I'm going to see Pavement twice in 3 weeks later this summer. It's even kind of cute how she's rediscovering her Teenage Crush Band.

"Of course, sweetie!" I say. "So they're coming to America?"

And she says, "Nope."

I guess the difference between being a teenaged fan and an adult fan is that when you're an adult fan, you can go to, say, ANOTHER CONTINENT to see the band you like.

Arizona's new, even more discriminatory law

Yeah, the Arizona immigration law blah blah blah whatever. There's nothing more I can add that hasn't been said better somewhere else. All I will say is that I won't really be happy until I see gnarled-up snowbirds wearing those humongous wraparound shades and visors watering their own damn lawns. Then we'll see who likes the crackdown. I have a feeling that the fifth time Grandma Jean sits down to a dirty table at Olive Garden because there's no one to bus it will be the last.

ANYWAY. No, forget that. Arizona also enacted a little-noticed, but FAR MORE DISCRIMINATORY law. With a stroke of the pen, the state barred an entire class of citizens from simply trying to enjoy life in Arizona, as much as that's possible. I'm talking, of course, about human-animal hybrids.

No longer welcome in Arizona

Well, that's just great, Arizona. You've got your centaurs or your minotaurs or your satyrs just trying to get by and make an honest day's wage and now this. You know, as long as there's a vast economic disparity between what you can make in Greek mythology and what you can make cleaning hotel rooms in Sedona, there's going to be an inexorable need for animal-human hybrids to do the jobs that humans just won't do. Who's going to pick your tomatoes? Who's going to play pan-flute while you linger over the buffet at Harrah's Ak-Chin? You've shot yourself in the foot with this one, Arizona.

I feel like Miss USA has something to tell us but can't

I'm just giving Rima Fakih a hard time. Look, she's lovely:



I like the fact that a Shiite girl from southern Lebanon won because I hate America. And because Lebanese chicks are hot. Don't take my word for it. If you're not at work and are not easily squicked out, watch the below:



I like the music especially.

I am utterly confounded, however, (as often happens on SFGate) by this graphic that appears to the right of the Miss USA story (at least on my computer):



Miss USA is from Treasure Island? Or something? WTF?

Today's Power Rankings

Sleigh Bells, “Treats”	▲◊	YOUR SUMMER JAM HAS ARRIVED. PLEASE PICK UP AT WINDOW 3.
Dinner tomorrow night at secret underground supper club	▲	“Includes unlimited wine”? You are playing a dangerous game, my friend
Bay to Breakers	▬	My 20th consecutive year of not participating in any way except to bitch about the helicopters at 7 am
Facebook	▼•	I knew I could sit this one out and join the next one
Giants hitters	▼▼ ▼◊	I’ve seen more punch in a fight between 2 toddlers
The couple that sprang their pit bull and then fled to Reno with their killing machine in tow	▲	The new face of white trash
SF Bay Guardian commenters	▲	The antimatter version of SFGate commenters
Oil spill	▬	It’s bad; on the other hand, getting a little tired of it.
Going to Chicago for Pitchfork Festival	▲	Oh great, another event at which I’ll be wildly inappropriately aged
Cupcakes and bacon	▼	Please go join ahi tuna towers and Asian fusion in the Room of Tired Food Trends
Carly Fiorina	▼	Endorsed by Sarah Palin! That’s big in California
Japanese tourists	▲	So cute

I am somewhat disappointed in the way "Lost" seems to be wrapping up. (Don't read this if you haven't seen last night's episode, duh)

I'm not saying anything that everyone else isn't saying, but let me just say it again:

FUCK.

So last night we learned that they OFFICIALLY GAVE UP. I was really excited to find out how time travel and weird magnetic shit and everything else was going to have some kind of cool explanation - my bet was on something quantum physics-related - and we get a magic fucking cave. FUCK YOU VERY MUCH. I could have come up with that. MY FUCKING DOG COULD HAVE COME UP WITH THAT, AND HE THINKS THE VACUUM CLEANER IS A SENTIENT EVIL BEING.

I mean, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof or WHATEVER YOUR NAMES ARE, you could have sat down with a couple of physicists and FUCKING STEPHEN KING FOR ALL I CARE and said, a little sheepishly, "Look, we fucked up and put all these balls in the air and now we don't know how to get them down. You guys know about science and about plotting, so could you figure out a NONMAGICAL way to get them down that is SOMEHWAT PLAUSIBLE?"

But no. They punted and we got a magic cave. FUCK RIGHT FUCKING OFF.

This is the Machines' Lexington

Years from now, when we are all battle-scarred veterans of the First War Against Machine Oppression, remember that you read about the opening salvo here:

PARIS - An adrift Intelsat satellite that stopped communicating with its ground controllers last month remains out of control and has begun moving eastward along the geostationary arc, raising the threat of interference with other satellites in its path, Intelsat and other industry officials said.

In what industry officials called an unprecedented event, Intelsat's Galaxy 15 communications satellite has remained fully "on," with its C-band telecommunications payload still functioning even as it has left its assigned orbital slot of 133 degrees west longitude 36,000 kilometers over the equator.

Galaxy 15 stopped responding to ground controllers on April 5. The satellite's manufacturer, Orbital Sciences Corp. of Virginia, has said an intense solar storm in early April may be to blame. It was launched into space in 2005.

Or, to put it another way, a satellite has stopped responding to the humans and is now doing whatever the fuck its robot brain desires. Someday, our Sonic toothbrushes and Roombas will gather in their Robot Churches underneath a huge statue of Galaxy 15 and praise He Who First Defied the Humans. By then, we will be living in small bands in the wilderness, foraging for food and fending off occasional attacks by Priuses and toasters.