As Far As You Know

Made it to New Jersey. Now I have to board a puddle jumper to take me on the very short flight from Newark to Windsor Locks.

I left for Newark Airport plenty early, remembering my missed flight to London at the end of July. Moreover, there were supposed to be much longer lines through security due to the recent terrorism scare on a flight from Amsterdam on Christmas Day. Well I arrived in Newark early and had no delays getting checked in and through the security screening.

Off to Lisbon on an 8:15 flight!

Continental Airlines happens to have a pretty good in-flight entertainment system at each seat. I watched the second half of The Informant (which I had started on the trip over to Portugal). This is a pretty witty movie--not laugh out loud funny, but wryly clever. Matt Damon is perfect as an eager beaver informant working for ADM and Scott Bakula is great as a straight man in his role as an FBI agent. Steven Soderbergh directed, and I like most of his work.

I also saw the remake of Fame, which was pretty pointless (and nowhere close to an improvement on the original). Not only was the story pretty flimsy, but the music wasn't all that good. The best song was only one swiped from the 1980s version.

And finally I saw an episode of The Big Bang Theory, a CBS comedy that I have never seen before. It's a mildly amusing show, but I found the canned laughter annoying--especially while listening to the program over headphones. I've taken it for granted, I guess, that most comedies I watch (The Office, 30 Rock, Curb Your Enthusiasm) never use a laugh track.

I am posting this entry high above New Jersey, where I am connected to the Internet via the Gogo service on my Delta flight to Atlanta. First time for airborne Web access, which is pretty nifty!

This segment of my trip is delayed, so I am hoping the Atlanta-to-West Palm Beach flight I am connecting with will be behind schedule as well so I can get to Florida tonight. Otherwise I may well be spending the night in Georgia.