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Joe Strummer

RIP Joe Strummer, who passed away six years ago today. I heard a great story about him when I was in California. A male flight attendant was on a flight somewhere in the US, and as he was walking down the aisle in monkey class, he overheard a teenage girl with a British accent giving her dad a hard time, saying stuff like "Hey dad I thought you were a big rock star, so why are we sitting back here in stupid economy class?"

The flight attendant turned around and looked, and realized it was Joe Strummer sitting there with his family. The attendant walked over to him and said "You are Joe Strummer! Your music changed my life when I was a teenager, and you will *not* fly in economy class on my airplane!"

He upgraded them all and dragged them up to business class, made sure they got everything they wanted throughout the flight. I like that story. Combat Rock was the first "real" (not kids' music) album I ever bought. I still have it somewhere... 'Rock the Casbah' was my favorite song when I was 10 years old.

Bad landing

Had a vivid dream last night of taking off in a widebody jet - an Airbus 330 or 340 - sitting in business class. Biz class was like it always is, nice and comfortable and friendly. Then after flying a few minutes I realized we had stopped ascending, and then I felt the plane's attitude change nose down as the flaps and landing gear deployed. I looked out the window and saw we were very close to the ground. Clearly, we had to land in a hurry because of some kind of unseen failure on the plane.

The plane did a slow procedure turn over a very small private runway, and we came around and touched down on it, landed hard, blew the brakes in a cloud of blue smoke, and came to a screeching halt just at the end of the small runway. We evacuated the plane and were milling around the huge body of the jet. There were houses all around because the field was just a local field built in the middle of a town.

I have this dream a lot and I don't know what it means - being on a large passenger plane that has a problem, and the pilots need to put it down on a tiny strip too small for the jet, or on a highway, or parking lot, or shallow water. The jet always ends up too damaged to fly again but no one is hurt, and myself and the other passengers end up milling around waiting for rescue. And I always wake up before rescue comes.

The future is an adventure

This is the closest description of my life's philosophy that I have yet found, over decades of searching.

Sickbed

I've had the flu for the last four days. It's no fun but I guess it's one of those times you might as well make the best of while you can. I haven't had real down time in a hell of a long time, so I've been playing video games for the first time in almost a year, and catching up on reading and movies.

I finally saw "Shaun of the Dead," which was as funny as everyone told me it was, and "Letters from Iwo Jima," which was just wrenching. I hate being non-functional, it just makes me feel pathetic when I can barely leave the sickbed. And I've missed two sushi appointments and my company Christmas party (which was down at the Boeing museum which I've never seen and really wanted to.)

But like I said, you have to make the best of it. And I guess lying in a raging-hot bath with Bob Woodward's new book and a glass of whiskey isn't that bad.

Zombie Caterpillars and Voodoo Wasps

This is a crazy story that sounds more like science fiction than science. There's a species of "voodoo" wasp that lays its eggs inside a certain kind of caterpillar. The eggs turn into larvae that feed off the caterpillar for a few days. Then they burst out of the caterpillar's skin, climb a nearby twig or branch, and transform into their chrysalis stage.

Here's where it gets weird (well, weirder). After the larvae hatch, the host caterpillar becomes a zombie, compelled through some unknown process to watch over the chrysalises and protect them from predators. Then when the chrysalises open to release the new wasps, the catarpillar dies. How the catarpillar "knows" that it's time to die is also unknown.

Here's a link to the article on the New Scientist site, with video of a zombie caterpillar.
Zombie Caterpillars Controlled by Voodoo Wasps

Sunrise

I was in a great mood as I drove to work this morning - not even sure why. Maybe it was the sunrise - a few gorgeous flat red clouds across a blush sky - reflected in Lake Washington as I hummed across the bridge. And Mount Ranier looming pink in the distance, too large, out of perspective... looking impossible, like I was driving across the surface of another planet.

Music on the car stereo instead of podcast today. I just didn't feel like thinking for a little while.