Monday Night: I'm in the airport as I write this -- but not as I post this; then, I'll be home. After a long flight on Sunday morning that indeed felt less death-threatening thanks to the new iPod mentioned in the previous entry, I had my very first experience renting a car. A big ol' red Equinox from Hertz, which marks not just the first time I've ever rented a car, but the first time I ever drove an SUV, and the first time I ever drove in Los Angeles. So, a first time Cali driver in a completely alien SUV: I'm lucky I didn't leave a death count on the West Coast.

Work put me up in the Loews Beverly Hills, which didn't look like much from the outside but was really nice on the inside, complete with well-dressed desk girl who faked six or seven accents in the minute it took me to check in. The room was excellent, with a big ass balcony overlooking the Hollywood hills (and indeed, the Hollywood sign), and it's good that I had a nice room, because I had absolutely nothing to do all day Sunday. The office considered me going down a day early a "just in case" scenario, but it ended up being for no reason, and I ended up not doing much of anything, because even with a big red Equinox at my disposal, I still preferred sleeping in and watching pay-per-view movies. The beds in this hotel are incredible -- they have some kickass memory foam thing going; I felt like Oola sleeping against Jabba's belly.

Like I've said before, I just like hotel rooms. Love them. Especially ones with hot, hot pay-per-view movies available for exorbitant prices. My first plunge was the remake of The Hills Have Eyes, bought after a recent testimonial from my friend Zach, who was totally right. That was a good movie. Now, here's the thing: I never saw the original, so I don't know if it's a totally soulless ape like the shitty Omen remake was. The closest I got to the original was a Michael Berryman sighting at that horror convention I went to last year. Whatever, ape or not, this is one sick, twisted and awesome stupid movie.

In the midst of too much room service and too many cigarettes, I watched Final Destination 3 again, and I still like it, so there.

Work started calling me at 7 AM this (Monday) morning, apparently not remembering the three hour time difference. I was happy to remind them, but it only bought me a half hour. Finally, this afternoon, I got around to doing what I was sent here to do: Try desperately to take a picture of the Hollywood sign from my balcony through the fog. Nah, I came to interview some of the people who lent their voices-and-more to Monster House, and that went mighty fine. We did it on the Sony lot, where they were apparently shooting Spider-Man 3 every day this past week except today, just to piss me off, because I so needed to be the 3,456th person to take a picture of Tobey in a black shirt and call it a career.

When all was said and done, I'd met some good people, watched some good movies, took some shitty pictures and had a gazillion hours to kill before my redeye. Which is why I'm here. You're helping me kill time. I'm not kidding when I say that I drove around the airport for an hour and sat outside it for another 45 minutes, desperate to avoid doing what I'm doing right now: Sitting at my gate with absolutely nothing to do but type blog entries in a size 6 font so the burly guys behind me can't read 'em. There's still about 90 minutes before flight time, and the flight involves a stopover in Chicago, so all in all, I'm ready to kill your mudder.

Now: Back home, and that was, my GOD, that was the WORST flight ever. As I was writing the above section, I noticed the scheduled depart time change from 11:15 to 11:35...and then to 11:55. When all was said and done, they didn't let us on that plane until well after midnight. I got stuck in the middle of a row next to a gigantic old guy who did not stop fidgeting the entire flight. At one point, he tried to contort himself so he could sleep sideways, in an airplane seat, with his folds of fat invading my personal space and making me cry. Once in a while, he'd settle down and actually fall asleep, and once I got past his snoring, I followed suit...until he flicked on the overhead lights to read the stupid complimentary plane magazines again. This happened 100 times.

We finally landed in Chicago at 6 in the morning, where the three or four of us who were continuing on the flight to Newark had to sit by the gate for 45 minutes, basically for no reason. Then we were herded back on the plane with a bunch of fresh faces, making me feel even more dirty and unshowered. On the plus side, I noticed the fat gross guy sitting next to me pull out a new boarding pass just as we landed in Chicago, meaning that I wouldn't have to deal with him again. Sure enough, when we reboard the plane with a bunch of new people, he's gone...and replaced by his fucking identical twin, equivalently fidgety, this time with goddamned psoriasis.

All told, it took around fifteen hours of traveling to get home, and now I'm too pissed and exhausted to tell you about the Kryptonite Doritos I found in Cali. Tomorrow, I guess.