San Francisco Update #1 posted by Ben

So I worked last night until 1 AM at the movie theater, went home, slept for an hour, and then got up and got a ride out to the Dayton Airport with my wife. Daylight savings time has never hurt so much!

The trip out, arranged by INdTV, ended up with me sitting in first class on a Boeing 777. Now, I've been in first class once or twice before, but always with fairly normal seats.

It seems that first class on a 777, however, involves a massive robotic chair and a cocoon-like nook designed to make the user feel like a two-year-old. The space that normally would fit at least 36 passengers is taken up by 12 seats that reminded me of the heavy lifter that Ripley uses at the beginning of Aliens: a pasty, luxurious version of testosterone-ridden overkill.

In fact, the chair was so damn comfortable, with so many buttons, controls, and gadgets, that I felt like it would be a crime to waste it by sleeping. I mean, I had my choice of eight movies that I could watch! (For the record, National Treasure is even worse than I expected it to be.)k

When I arrived in San Francisco at 10:30, I managed to connect with a very nice African gentlemen named Andrew, who drove me downtown.

The INdTV offices are right across the street from the Giants Stadium. We were up on the roof shooting some b-roll and could look right over at the crowds on the upper levels.

The interview went as well as could be expected. They asked me why we included a ninja in "Campaign Ad", which meant discussing the "Syphilitic Ninja Vampires".

Other than that, I had lunch, met Al and Tipper Gore, and will get to head off to the hotel and sleep once they shoot a quick segment with me and Al.

Sounds like they'll have Mos Def, Leo, and Sean Penn in tomorrow. I don't think I'm expected to interact with them. They will be showing "Campaign Ad", though. We'll see how a media-savvy audience reacts to it.

They were asking if I wanted to go out and spend tomorrow sightseeing. Not bloodly likely! I've been having a great time talking video tech with the staff! I got to see a 60 TB Xsan array! They're doing all their editing with G5 computers that have gigabit ethernet and fibre channel cards! How could I miss the chance to stick around and help out?