209 posts tagged “qotd”

This past year has been called "the worst year ever for U.S. airlines." What has your experience with the airlines been like when you've traveled in recent months?

How do you answer this question?  Where do I start?  My experiences have been everything from barely sufferable to downright miserable.  Between idiotic and despotic security regulations to poor service on the actual plane to inconsistent standards and practices within the airlines themselves, traveling has become a waking nightmare.

Recently, I flew Northwest from L.A. to Oklahoma City, with a plane change in Memphis.  I was carrying a small backpack with a padded compartment for a laptop, which was inside.   When boarding the plane  in Memphis, the gate staff told me that I would have to check the bag.  When I explained about the laptop, I was told to remove it and carry it on board by itself. During takeoff and landing, the flight attendant told me I would have to put my laptop, unprotected, in the overhead bin and that if I was worried about damage I should have gotten a case for it.  When I explained that I had a case and had been told to check it, I was told not to make a fuss and just put the laptop away.

On the return flight, I was able to carry my backpack aboard with no problems.

Other airlines are no better.  I have had lost luggage, delayed flights (due to mistakes, not weather or other uncontrollable events), patronizing, useless staff, impatient and rude security personnel, and just general inconvenience after inconvenience.  It seems the airlines have forgotten that passengers are paying customers, especially in their hub areas where it is more difficult to get competing flights.

Something should be done, but, unfortunately, no one seems to have any answers.  For myself, I fail to understand why the U.S. does not build a network of high speed trains across the country.  It seems somewhat ridiculous to fly from Oklahoma City to Memphis, which is about a five hour drive.  A bullet train could make it in three, and, while a plane makes it in an hour and change, by the time you have to check in and go through security, you're right back at five hours.

Build trains and stop flying so much.  That's it.

Flickr pro users can now upload 90 second videos which has members complaining about everything from slowing Flickr down, lack of community consultation, and diminishing Flickr's inital purpose: photography. What do you think -- Do you support video on Flickr?

This is a good question.  I've been browsing around the video and I like some of the stuff I've seen, but I think Flickr would have been better off making a sister site with lots of interaction and cross applications.  Something like the way the 43 Things group of websites works - they're all separate, but they cross-link and work together fairly well.  Having said that, they've done it, and done it fairly well and all that's left to be done is to wait and see how the hardcore Flickr users adapt and change the service offered.

Has anyone ever done something so horrible to you that "I'm sorry" couldn't fix it?

Yes.

What fictional character do you relate to most and why?

Charlie Brown.  Irrepressible optimism in the face of unswerving and often vicious defeat at the hands of fate is something I could wish to emulate, yet seem to find myself nodding along to the humable pathos of cynicism.

What's your ultimate rainy day song?
Submitted by J-Len.

Which yet-to-be-released movie are you excited to see?

Speed Racer

I know a lot of people are ready to trash this but I'm dying to see it.  I loved the cartoons as a kid and I have had  a movie crush on Christina Ricci for a long time, so, yeah.  Speed Racer!

Have you ever been skinny dipping?

None of us had jacuzzis or we would have just gone home.  Instead, loaded up with booze and hormones, we climbed over the fence into the pool area of an apartment complex.  It was a spur of the moment thing, the kind of thing bored teenagers do to stave off the imminent intrusion of real life into our social group.  We were going to graduate this year and be split up into various small units and individuals as we made our ways to college, the military, or just real life.

The night was clear and beautiful, stars glowing down over the desert of my hometown and promise of achingly hot days to come under the cool breeze.  We shouted in whispers and helped the girls over the fence and stripped down to boxers or briefs, bras and panties, and we laughed at seeing each other thus.

The water was too hot and the bubbles were not quite powerful enough.  The wine was cheap and our moods were light.

Someone, emboldened by the alcohol and atmosphere took off a bra and threw it to the side.  Other garments followed until we were all exposed beneath the water, flushed and nervous and wondering how long it would be until we were caught.

Our conversation and voices and laughter grew louder and the security guard came to chase us away.  He turned his back while we dressed in sopping underwear and grinned when I shook his hand to thank him for being cool.

We piled back into cars and made for home, laughing still.

What is your favorite quote and why?

"I still have a little whisky left
I still have enough stretchers to carry the dead
But I can't save the burning birds
And they are telling me
Singing is fire, singing is flame"

       -- Singing is Fire, by Charles Bukowski

Just because I do.

What do you do when you find yourself with nothing to do?
Submitted by Cassie.

It doesn't happen too often, but on those rare occasions I do have nothing to do, I seem to find myself hanging out in Second Life.

Rocketship

I just log in and look for whatever new coolness has occurred since my last login.   Like in this "photo" where I found a rocket and climbed in to have a ride for a while.

What's your morning beverage of choice?  Coffee, tea, juice?  Homemade or store-bought?

Usually just the free coffee from my job.  And water.  Gotta stay hydrated you know.