dispatch from los angeles

Extremely intermittent wireless connection here at my hotel. Spotty wireless is so much worse than no wireless, because when there is no wireless you don't wander around your hotel room and fiddle with the settings endlessly trying to pull in a better connection.

A celebrity-sighting on the flight would have been appropriate for a trip to Los Angeles, and, lo, there in first class was Danny DeVito. The plane was one of those 757s with a forward first class cabin, and I saw DeVito (or, to adopt the tabloid style, Danny) there as I was getting off the flight--the dark glasses cannot conceal his indiscreet shortness. Anyway, the flight attendant could see me looking at him as I was walking off the plane, and said "Thank you" in this tense and suspicious manner, like he was all primed to jump to intervene if I tried to rush into the first-class cabin: "Danny, Danny! You were so cute on The View!"

I saw Rhea Perlman at baggage claim. I didn't realize Rhea and Danny were still together. I didn't realize celebrity baggage didn't have its own carousel.

It was below zero with wind chill in Cambridge when I left Tuesday morning. It took about five minutes out in the sun outside the airport to see the appeal of Southern California.