Your Appendix - WHY???

Do you realize that doctors still aren't sure why we have an appendix, or what its function is, or what causes it to freak out and almost kill you?

Just askin'.

P.S. gross.

The Problem with Air Travel

Everyone knows that riding/driving in a car is far more dangerous than flying on a commercial airline.

To wit:

# of motor vehicle traffic crash fatalities:

2008 - 37,261

2007 - 41,259

2006 - 42,708

2005 - 43,510

(you can read more here)

# of commercial airline fatalities:

2008 - 3

2007 - 1

2006 - 50

2005 - 22

(got that info here)

Unfortunately, though, even with the above statistics, you will begin to freak out about the sheer number of planes in the sky above us at any given moment.

In 2009 there were 10,349,200 (that's million) departures and 7,557,161,000 (that's BILLION) miles flown in the U.S alone.

Ahhhhh!!!!

I know. . .stop thinking about it. Seriously, stop it.

Let's move on. . .

The problem isn't the facts. The problem is perception. Human beings are not bounded by the limitations of facts. Quite the opposite - we actively and aggressively reject any facts when they don't back up our already decided interpretation.

So, facts don't matter.

Back to the problem. . . Air Travel.

It's just so in-your-face that you are not in control of the situation, because, let's face it, most likely, YOU are not the one flying the plane

(P.S. thank GOD).

It's hard to give up that much control to someone else, especially when you're going 500 mph at 35,000 feet. The only way to deal with it is to avoid it altogether. But this poses a dilemma for live-TV folk: like using a porta-potty, air travel is one of the hazards of the profession. One could make a rather convincing argument that the portable toilet is more dangerous than flying. . . but that's not the point at the moment.

Star Trek has it right - the way to go long distances is to figure out how to do it in an instant. It's time travel, really, and it takes care of all your concerns about flying across the country.

"But Mary Woo," you may be saying, "teleportation won't be possible for another 5, maybe 10 years! How does that help me NOW?"

Well, I have the solution. All you need is a pillow, a cocktail, and Galilean Relativity.

Yeah, I SAID it - Galilean Relativity (more here).

Look - if there's no light, you can't tell if you're moving.

Try it the next time you're airborne - close your eyes and imagine that the plane is still taxi-ing down the tarmac. Could be, no? Now, I know you KNOW you're in the air, and if the plane climbs, turns, or descends (OH MY GOD!!!!!!) you can definitely tell you're moving. But, at a steady pace, with no turbulence,you can easily imagine yourself still.

Sleeping on a plane is virtual time travel. You put your head down on the pillow in Los Angeles, CA and - BLAM!! Suddenly you're landing in Charlotte, NC. Sweet!!!!

Give me a window seat, my purple pillow, a vodka soda in the airport bar and I am ready to time travel. Einstein would be proud. I mean, come on, it's in his name: "Ein" "Stein" - as in "One Stein" as in "A pint of lager, please, Mary!"

It's all perceptions - the dangers of air travel, travelling through time, Einstein's theory of relativity and cocktails. It's all how you look at things.

What was my point again? Oh yeah - facts are meaningless to human beings. That's a fact and it will be meaningless to you. When you strip away all the data and personal interpretations it all comes down to just a few self-evident truths.

Feather pillow, decent vodka, and our unalienable right to a clean, warm, dry place to do our business. Amen.

failblog.org rules!

more fail here

The Cell Phone Tinkler

Can someone please explain this to me?

Why do we feel the need to take the cell phone conversation into the bathroom with us these days?

Is what you're saying THAT important?

Really?

R.E.A.L.L.Y.???

And this is an international phenomenon. . .

So I'm at Dulles International Airport (inexplicably called "IAD" for short) and I'm wandering around concourse D and I find a small, yet empty, ladies for my own private use.

Score!

As I'm washing my hands, in walks an IAD employee

talking a mile a minute into her cell phone.

What language was she speaking? Russian? Armenian?

I do not know.

What I do know is that she did not stop talking or even take a breath as she entered a stall and proceeded to do her business. I made a hasty exit, as loud tinkling resounded from the stall, barely audible over the mid-european-ish diatribe.

This encounter raises several questions, such as:

1. Is this not considered rude behavior all the way around?

2. Doesn't this open your phone up to an unnecessary proximity to cell-phone damaging water as you are about two seconds away from dropping it into a (possibly soiled) toilet bowl?

3. You don't need BOTH hands in there????

Ladies and Gentlemen, if you have to go THAT BAD,

you can call me back!

Seriously, I'm fine with that.

BEST.PRODUCT.NAME.EVER.

Dig it:

I finally spied one of these in an LAX ladies and it's pure genius!

You know you wish you had thought of it!

(Oh, btw, just TRY to NOT find porn when you google search for "hiny hiders". Go ahead, I dare you).

Don't Mess With Texas (Girls)

Another gem from undercover photog MD, this time from an un-named restaurant's ladies room somewhere in Texas:

That's right, the LADIES ROOM.

MD claims he did not take the photo himself, let's just believe him, shall we?

Not sure what's going here, but I postulate that it's some sort of retaliatory gesture - probably in reference to the obvious lack of tp, or maybe for the hideous lighting scheme.

Scary Times in Texas

No, I'm not talking about the racing, I'm talking about this:

(My undercover, roving reporter, I'll just call him"MD", captured this image in one of the mens rooms at Texas Motorspeedway)

Huh.

April 17, 2010 - TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY

It's raining.

In Texas.

(srsly?)

A n y w a y. . .

I'm pretty optimistic about this track. Check it out:

The track (and by "the track" I mean "the real bathrooms") doesn't/don't look that far away, does/do it/them?

Not as close as Phoenix (you'll have to take my word for it, I didn't take a picture), but still pretty close.

(looks cloudy, no? That's because it's RAINING.)

See, it only took me 2 minutes to walk up to the pretend 99 car!

Saaayyyy...THIS looks promising!

Texas Motorspeedway definitely has their priorities straight!

And the ladies room does NOT disappoint!

Look at all those stalls:

But WAIT - there's more!

That's 2 - count 'em! - TWO full sides to this, ladies.

A modern engineering marvel.

And the best part is, most people don't look for the 2nd side. It's like your own private palace. . .

. . .a porcelain, concrete and metal palace, but a palace nonetheless.

However, I'm not sure if this reassures or scares me:

Hmm. . .

I'll let you be the judge.

The Porcelain Report -TEXAS MOTORSPEEDWAY

For Texas Motorspeeday:

4 out of 5 bowls!

Texas gets dinged just one bowl because of the distance from

compound to bathrooms and because it was really cold and wet.

That's not the track's fault, but I don't really care, because

I hate being cold and wet, end of story.

TMS definitely went for quantity, and they succeeded, but it's not enough to go all the way.

The Starbucks Indicator

(0/poor/low/medium/high):

Dallas/Ft. Worth:

medium

We did find a perfectly acceptable Starbucks in

the Albertson's down the street.

It was legit - not one of those "we proudly serve Starbucks coffee"

fake-assed Starbucks. They never have soy milk.

Future Starbucks indication prediction: rising

PInk Mafia Postscript

P.S. - it is impossible to take cell phone photos of porta-potties without looking like a complete creepy weirdo fruitcake.

Just sayin'.

April 15, 2010 - TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY!

Just to give you a little bit of an idea of what we are dealing with here.

THIS is what our facilities look like (pretty much) at every track:

Jealous???

Let's go to the close up:

This is the ladies room.

I actually caught a dude coming out of that thing yesterday.

Totally busted.

Even the guy washing his hands was like, "Bro...you're gonna get it."

I told him the Pink Mafia was going to come after him.

Here's their leader:

Oh sure, she looks lovely, doesn't she? A total pussy cat! A doll!

Michelle will END you.

Michelle is our Production Manager and she is in charge. . . of the world.

If you are of the male gender, do NOT be seen by Michelle coming out of the women's porta-potty. I mean it. Seriously. No joke. You've been warned.

The Official Porcelain Report: PHOENIX INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY

For Phoenix International Raceway:

PIR gets the highest rating!

5 out of 5 bowls!

The real restrooms are quite close to the TV compound,

they are plentiful, clean, and no lines!

LOVE IT!

Phoenix International Airport Porcelain Report:

toilets: auto

water: auto

towels: manual

General Overview:

clean, well-maintained, if somewhat old and cramped.

The Starbucks Indicator

(0/poor/low/medium/high):

In the Airport

(at least in my terminal):

0

There's Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, if you're into that sort of thing (see map).

Myself, I don't like their weird ice.

Also, they have those super tiny napkins (why??).

Phoenix as a City:

high

Future Starbucks indication prediction: rising

First race of 2010 - PHOENIX INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY - April 9th, 2010

Greetings from Beautiful, Sunny

Phoenix, Arizona!

Why, you might ask, am I in Arizona on this sultry Friday night?

Dear Reader, let me explain.

I am a freelance video editor and I am currently employed by ESPN to edit videos for their coverage of NASCAR.

That's right, NASCAR.

And this week the schedule dictates that we will be in

Phoenix, Arizona to bring you the Basha's Supermarkets 200.

If you have any idea what that means, good for you.

If you stick around this weekend you might also enjoy the

Subway Fresh Fit 600.

Joy.

But I did not create this blog to discuss my

(or anyone else's for that matter) need for speed.

This blog is here to explore a deeper, more primitive need.

A need for paper towels.

For running water.

For concrete floors and ventilation.

The need, simply, for porcelain.

You see, the way TV coverage works for live sporting events is that all the necessary equipment is driven around in gigantic trucks from city to city where it is rapidly and carefully set up, well used, and then packed away and carted off to it's next location. It is an efficient and amazing endeavor. Honestly, it's a miracle that it happens every week and with surprisingly few technical problems.

If you are unfamiliar with the world of NASCAR, it may not occur to you that racetracks are generally constructed in the middle of, and I'm using the technical designation here, BFE (go to urbandictionary.com if you're not sure what that means).

Phoenix International Raceway, for example, is in Avondale, Arizona, presumably chosen because of its proximity to the dead center of nowhere.

If you were planning a trip to the middle of nowhere, and you took a moment to think about it, you might determine several things you would have to bring with you. You know, things that might not be readily available in the void. What might you bring on your journey?

Go ahead - think about it, I'll wait.

One thing that may not jump directly to your mind is a toilet. Oh sure, you campers out there thought to bring some t.p. and maybe a shovel, or perhaps you know what plant has the kind of leaves you could use in place of t.p. without also causing a debilitating rash, whatever floats your boat, Hippie.

That type of granola-crunchiness is all well and good, however it doesn't cut any mustard when you have a crew of approximately 250 people every weekend vying for real estate in a porta-potty.

One thing I've noticed in this male-dominated car racing environment is that a lot of women seem to be under the impression that men are gross pigs, who will piss anywhere.

This, however, is not true of all men, and is mostly sour grapes on the part of women who have to use porta-potties at their jobs (e.g. women who work on NASCAR). This is also the true interpretation of Freud's theory of "penis-envy".

Now, everyone knows that Sigmund Freud was an enormous pervert, but in this case he was definitely on to something. Unfortunately the theory is often misinterpreted. What it really refers to is man's ability to take a wee anywhere while standing up and woman's desire to be able to do the same thing.

And so back to the true purpose of this blog: to support the women of NASCAR in their quest for clean, dry facilities. If I can help just one person find the slightest comfort in their long workday, my work is done.

"But Mary Woo", you may be saying to yourself, "are we really so spoiled in this country that we're spending valuable time and energy on the rating and review of bathrooms at one of the most expensive and resource-depleting sports in the world?"

Answer: Yes.

Be grateful for us TV travelers - the people who make it possible for you to be entertained. We're the conduit between the "Want-to-be-Seens" and the "Want-to-Sees". Think about that when you start to question my obsession with clean, real bathrooms. We are the people who sacrifice our weekends for you and your entertainment.

Why? Why do we do it?

Because we get paid to do it, that's why.