Well, I claimed to like flying, but this flight wasn't all that great. Not the airline's fault -- Air New Zealand was timely, with good food and service, and TVs in every seat back, which is getting more common these days, thankfully. I watched The Fastest Indian and The Matador, which were both good; also parts of Syriana, The Producers, and a lot of TV episodes. Interesting cultural aside -- the pilot interrupted everyone's movies to announce the result of a New Zealand rugby match.

But I was stuck in a center seat, next to a guy with serious personal space issues. Crying babies will eventually stop, but a guy who huffs at you when you try to push his knee out of your space is a flying nightmare. Of course, it's tough to sleep while being constantly irked. I would have got into it with him verbally, but I knew the adreneline that would result would've made sleep impossible. I thought about queuing up Brokeback Mountain on my TV and then rubbing his leg seductively as an aversion tactic but was afraid it might've had the opposite effect I was intending.

So I'm operating on sunlight and Mountain Dew at the moment (the first thing we did was make a run for the border). We're about to run out to Santa Monica to do some shopping, and there's a shindig of some sort tonight, so I'm just going to push through.