Please learn from my mistake

Quick trip to California, and between life, the neighbours dogs, and a late connection I was drive to the ultimate in desperation...

I bought one of the "snack boxes" on United Airlines.
The "healthy" one.

Judging by the state of the contents, I was the only customer dumb enough to actually buy one this month. Though it had not quite hit the expiry date, I checked.

Anyway, you expect the crackers to be stale, but the rest was basically a tin of cat food and a jar of baby food. Suspicously mouldy looking baby food.
Ok, the mini-toblerone was ok, hard to go wrong there.

You have been warned. Do not let me sacrifice go to waste.

On a different note, I had 4 hours between hotels, that let me do two things: do a drive-by loop around my old hunting grounds at Caltech - much the same, too much parking and signs of even more constructions. South Houses apparently still closed for renovation. New stuff up North.

And, I got to see all of Ned vs Por at El Portal. Best darned Yucatan restaurant in LA that I know of which has a large HDTV in the bar.
Ouch. England vs Ecuador was kinda interesting to watch this early in the morning, since England only played for 15 minutes (just long enough) and Ecuador for only 1 minute (not enough).

I've never seen a kludge like the dutch game. The dutch forwards sure liked to roll, although to be fair there was a lot of shoving in the box (actually also in the Eng-Ecu game, I particularly liked Cole's in air 180 degree free pivot); but the players and ref totally lost control in that one. Vicious off-ball and red card fouls were let slide and technicals called very harshly. Ruined what could have been a good game. Dutch central midfield looked surprised any time the ball came in their general direction, good right flanker though, if only someone had run onto his passes they might have won. Not gonna score if you just hoof it from outside the box everytime. Unless you're Beckham, eh?

We'll see how deep the Portugal bench is, looks like they'll be missing a 1/3 of their starters.

Game to watch looks to be Germany vs Argentina. Could be high scoring, and could be fun if one side doesn't lose its temper, or try to protect an early lead. Odds on being best match of the tourney.
Though Ghana vs Brazil might be worth a peak also.

No idea how this will go now, all the teams look beatable on an off day and a couple of the teams look lucky. That might be what makes the difference. How is that for a scientific analysis!

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United has been such a mixed bag for airline food.

in 94, I flew a combination of Air Canada and United. On the Air Canada flight, breakfast was a surprisingly good omlette, fruit salad and a non-stale roll. The equally long United flight, was one small package of pretzels, one glass of soda (No, you may not have the whole can!), and a AOL diskette. Seriously.

When i flew the same combination of flights in 2001, Air Canada was the one with the lousy snacks, while United was serving a lunch box including crab sandwiches. Then again, we were flying into Maine, and even McDonalds serves lobster out there.

I carry a Clif bar or two when I fly. Trail mix, too, on the most recent trip.