doit, doit now!

Several weeks back I mentioned that I would be conducting an informal experiment to show that Invisalign’s advice to not use Efferdent and other “generic” orthodontic-cleaning concoctions is really just a thinly-veiled attempt at selling their own ridiculously overpriced Invisalign Cleaning System. This coming Wednesday (hold on to your seats!) will mark the first round of photos from this endeavor.

I did not use Efferdent in these photos, however. In fact, I didn’t use anything. In a disgusting twist of oral scabrousness I did not clean the aligners at all for the past two weeks. I didn’t Efferdent them and I didn’t brush them. I did rinse them off with plain tap water every time I took them out or put them in, but that’s it. This is Really Gross™.

My theory is that the aligners cannot possibly look worse than they do after two weeks of not being cleaned. The Invisalign folks say that Efferdent and its friends can “dull the surface of the aligners,” but they of course make no mention of doing nothing at all. On Wednesday morning I will take more pictures of the current pair and post them in all of their slimy, plaquey glory. You’ll be able to see for yourself what they look like.

Once those are done I am going to do a Marathon Efferdent Day. I will plunk the aligners into Efferdent over and over and over again, taking pictures of them each time new Efferdent is added. On Thursday I should have an example of what the aligners look like after being subjected to far more Efferdent than any sane human being would ever use.

And then, gentle readers, we shall see if Invisalign’s wool is still pulled over our collective eyes or if I have managed to save my otherwise unsuspecting crooked-toothed compatriots the $100 they would have otherwise given to Invisalign.

To me! Chadfox put up a very nice post wishing me a happy birthday, though he’s not going to be able to join in the festivities. We’re going to Minako Organic (my favorite restaurant in San Francisco, and that is saying a lot) for dinner, and then perhaps to Medjool to hang on the roof deck afterwards, though that place is a major clusterfuck.

Incidentally, Judy, the “daughter” part of the mother-daughter team that runs Minako, is in a rock band. And she works in the music industry.

Actually, neither one of these things is true, but every single review of Minako out there somehow makes mention of Judy’s mellifluous leanings, so I thought I would oblige.

Anyway I have to get back to kernel rebuilds and dæmon building.

This picture is of my dog Feynman, named after the late, great physicist, adventurer, and all around great man Richard Feynman, a guy I greatly admire. In fact I would say that he is one of the people I look up to most in the world. (Who says we don’t have heroes anymore?)

Anyway, while he’s not an expert on quantum electrodynamics, our own Shih Tzu version of Mr. Feynman is just about as smart as dogs come. He also has a penchant for leaping off of things and being very dramatic about it. The picture itself is linked to a bigger, uncropped version that is even more cute, with him attempting to leap on to my face. Barf now if you want to.

I just love the little guy to death.

Marginal Revolution has an interesting piece on why Hollywood is getting all freaked out of late. Hopefully they are right — maybe things are changing. The crashing fortunes of Hollywood and the rise of blogging and other similar user-created content can only be a good thing if they each keep going in their same respective directions.

I joined Amazon Prime a couple of weeks ago and I have to say that it’s about the coolest thing in the universe. It costs US$79/year and gives you free two-day shipping on any item that Amazon carries, as well as US$3.99-per-item overnight shipping under the same terms. The only caveat is that the items must be sold directly by Amazon and not by any of the thousands of stores that feed into Amazon (such as Target, Office Depot, etc). You can even extend the privilege to other people in your family, and Amazon is the kind of company that recognizes that families come in all shapes and sizes, so your domestic partner and foster child and psuedo-little-brother count.

It’s already paid for itself in shipping fees. I’ve ordered books, CD’s, appliances, computer equipment, clothes, and gifts for others thus far. It’s incredibly easy to find your item (usually at the substantial Amazon discount), set up your One-Click Shopping™®© settings, and then magically find the item on your doorstep two days later. It’s also had the remarkable effect, which I’m sure is the whole point, of making me rather exclude the non-Amazon merchants from my options. I seriously now go to Amazon first for everything I try to buy, because it’s so easy to just One-Click™®© my way to product-on-my-doorstep bliss.

I highly recommend Amazon Prime for anyone who does any amount of online shopping at all — it will seriously change the way shop!

A company has developed a machine that vaporizes basically any form of alcohol so you can simply breathe it in. There is a “built-in safety device” that makes the machine take 20 minutes to process about 1/2 oz. of liquor (which is 1/2 a shot for those of you less-versed in mixology). Someone like me, with a penchant for taking things apart and screwing with them, could probably override it to make it absorb a bit more alcohol the “safety device” allows, but at $299 a pop for the single-user version I am not about to try. $299 is at least a case of Pine Ridge 2001 Rutherford Cabernet!

Anyway, since alcohol passes directly through mucus membranes (which is why you can dissolve other drugs in some alcohol, put a drop or two in your mouth, and get fairly instantaneous effects from the dissolved inebriant) the process dosn’t dump many calories into the body, nor does it dehydrate like actually drinking alcohol. The company says that it even prevents hangovers.

Basically it allows you to get drunk without drinking, and thus without any of the messy physical effects that drinking alcohol imposes, though I am sure all of the messy behavorial effects are untouched.

In an April ‘05 Miami Herald interview, Peter Cressy, president of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, was quoted as saying “This would strongly suggest that the purpose of this device is to get a buzz. We don’t think getting a buzz is a good idea. . . .” (emphasis mine).

I’m sorry. “We don’t think getting a buzz is a good idea” coming from the president of the DSCotUS? That’s like “We don’t think shooting missles at enemies is a good idea” coming from the CEO of Northrop Grumman.

Petey, I realize that your cracker-jack PR and legal team told you that you can never, ever, publically say that the purpose of drinking alcohol is in fact to get a buzz, but literally everyone on the planet knows you’re full of it.

So in the meantime, folks, get yourself an AWOL machine before our government makes it illegal (as they inevitably will, of course, probably “to protect the children”). If anyone has any experiences with this contraption to share, please do so.

So a few days ago I wrote to both the FAA and America West customer service departments and asked about the supposed “federal security regulations” that America West cited on my last flight when they informed all of the coach passengers that we were not allowed to use the first-class passengers’ bathroom. As I reported in the comments, the FAA forwarded my request on to the TSA, who responded by telling me I needed to contact the FAA. This is of course the only possible outcome when dealing with a government agency.

Regardless, America West responded today:

Dear Mr. Hodulik,

Thank you for contacting America West Airlines. We appreciate and welcome all inquiries, concerns, and compliments, as your feedback is important to us.

Our first class ticket holders pay a premium to enjoy a quiet cabin atmosphere to complete paperwork or to simply take pleasure in the amenities the first class cabin offers. Our first class flight attendants request and encourage coach customers to use the lavatories in the rear of the aircraft when serving carts are not obstructing the aisle.

Should it become necessary for coach customers to use the forward lavatory, they will be asked to wait behind the bulkhead separating the two cabins until the forward lavatory is vacant. Heightened safety measures dictate, our customers cannot congregate in the forward galley while waiting to use the lavatory, though we cannot refuse a coach customer the use of the forward lavatory.

We realize that the professional attitude of our employees will leave a positive impression of our company, and I’m sorry this was not your experience.

Your feedback is appreciated and will be shared with our Inflight Manager. The intent here, of course, is to address these issues and to make positive changes for the future.

Sincerely,

Kathi Gee
Customer Relations
America West Airlines

—–Original Message—–
From: americawest.spam@hodulik.com [mailto:americawest.spam@hodulik.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2005 11:56 PM
To: customer.relations@americawest.com
Subject: America West Customer Relations Information Request
Importance: High

search:spa : 00031a39-sp00000000
search:spq : Search
CRS METH TYPE : I
CRS PRODUCT : CTCIN
CRS SUBJECT : INTERNET
CRS RESP TYPE : IR
CRS CUST TYPE : P
CRS EVIDENCE : Y
CRS NAME TITLE : Mr.
txt first name : Nicholas
txt last name : Hodulik
CRS COMPANY :
CRS ADDRESS 2 :
txt address : 151 Buena Vista
CRS STR SUFFIX : Terr.
txt city : San Francisco
CRS STATE : CA
txt zip : 94117
CRS ACCT NUMBER :
txt email address : americawest.spam@hodulik.com
CRS PHONE 1 : 415-861-9300
CRS PHONE 2 : 415-861-9300
txa message : I am writing to inquire about your policy of not allowing coach passengers to use the first class bathrooms during flights. During my last trip the flight attendents cited “federal security regulations” as being the reason why this policy is in effect. Since the very existence of such a regulation is a particularly bizarre notion for most rational humans I am wondering if you can help me to understand *exactly* which regulations dictate such a strange policy and where I can get an exact copy of those regulations. I very much appreciate your help.
content: ctl0.x : 37
content: ctl0.y : 8

Message generated on www.americawest.com at 7/6/2005 11:55:30 PM.

So, as Ars said in the comments to the previous post, the regulation refers to people congregating near the bulkhead, not to using the lavatory itself. So basically America West’s entire message to me, while very friendly and courteous, is essentially PR-speak before and after the only statement that actually matters: …though we cannot refuse a coach customer the use of the forward lavatory.

So don’t take any crap from those flight attendants. If you have to go, go. Anybody who tells you that you can’t go to the bathroom is a bad person.

Tip for those of you considering Invisalign: if you do decide to go ahead and get them, heed the advice about wearing them for 22 hours a day. In general I have been really good about wearing my aligners, but whilst going out during Pride and in Vegas I decided that it was easier to just take them out and leave them at home, because during that time I would be eating and drinking various things that were a.) not clear and b.) not good for me. The sum total of the time I didn’t wear the aligners was probably a couple of days. By “a couple of days,” I literally mean “a couple of days” — I probably didn’t wear them for around 48 total hours during my two-week cycle.

So of course when I put in my new pair of aligners on Tuesday I was and still am in much more pain than in either of the previous two aligner switches. Each set of aligners is a bit jarring to your teeth, much like an orthodontist tightening normal braces. If you don’t give your teeth enough time in one set of aligners, the next set will be more painful. This is of course common sense, but I want to give a very visceral example to people.

It hurts. Think before you yank them out for longer than you have to.

So Daigle, whom I hardly know (and who recently had a frightening brush with appendicitis), has demanded that I put a picture up, and in the interest of keeping the waters of San Francisco Bay calm I have decided to assuage the beast within him and acquiesce. I hear the boy not only kicks and screams but actually bites, so I had best heed his wishes.

This picture was taken on a really remote beach about 3 hours south of Santiago, Chile during New Years 2002. I was ridiculously sunburned, hungry, dehydrated, and drunk, and I was having a fabulous time. It is one of the worst pictures of myself I could find, so I of course decided to post it in the sidebar to right.

There are other pictures of me scattered all over my ex Todd’s website, many from our trip to Chile.

So this past weekend I went to Las Vegas with my friend Alex Gray on a lark. We drove from San Francisco to Vegas via Yosemite and Death Valley, and I will detail those adventures at a later date, since what matters right now is that I flew back via America West Airlines on Tuesday morning, and except for a slight delay it was an uneventful flight.

With the exception of the bathrooms.

I have flown quite a bit in the past few months and have noticed a disturbing thing: when you sit down and the flight attendants do their little Safety Song and Dance they inform all of the denizens of the plane that Coach passengers are no longer allowed to use the First Class bathrooms “because of federal safety regulations.”

This is not a joke. They are very serious about this.

I think that during the post-9/11 airline traffic drop the airlines needed to sell as many First Class seats as possible and thus wanted to give as many incentives as possible to those travelers and so somehow snuck the “security regulation” in. The notion that somehow a Coach passenger peeing in the rich people’s bathroom creates an inherent security threat to the United States of America is little hard for me to swallow. It’s so odd, in fact, that I decided to write both the FAA and America West Airlines to see what the deal is. Here’s the text of my letter:

I am writing to inquire about your policy of not allowing coach passengers to use the first class bathrooms during flights. During my last trip the flight attendents cited “federal security regulations” as being the reason why this policy is in effect. Since the very existence of such a regulation is a particularly bizarre notion for most rational humans I am wondering if you can help me to understand *exactly* which regulations dictate such a strange policy and where I can get an exact copy of those regulations. I very much appreciate your help.

I’ll let you know if/when I get a response. If the FAA doesn’t respond I’ll submit a Freedom of Information Act request to find out.

So dumb. I wonder, if it’s not okay for me to pee in the rich people’s bathroom, is it OK for me to just pee directly on them?