Airplanes & Porn

Mom: So what does it mean that you haven't written in your website for 2 weeks?

My “Ghetto” Baby Sis: whats up with no new blog entries, yo? you gotta gimme somethin to get thru the day.

I've been busy....I've been meaning to...Sorry Mom…Sorry Sis

J: Why do airlines suck?

Airlines suck because A) They never take off on time. B) They only land on time because they bake in an extra 1 to 1.5 hours of flight time just in case. C) They are not that cheep. D) There’s no room for my legs. E) Security is a nuisance and a joke. I’m going to start a new no security airline where you just have to get there 10 min before boarding. F) There is no reason to get to the airport more than 45 min before takeoff; except that they will give your ticket away if you are not there before 45 minutes before takeoff. Not once over my 8 flights last month did it take more than 15 minutes from arrival at the airport to get to the gate. G) Airlines don’t care about you. The guy infront of me checking his bags gave the attendant his ID and she lost it. She wouldn’t let him look in the garbage behind her or anything. He had to call the police. H) Airlines lie to you.

Which brings me to my next question...

BK: How can people still be getting off an airplane when the "departures computer" and the gate both say "boarding"?

Airlines just LIE to you. The same situation happened to me this week. I’m eating dinner in the food court 20 minutes before my departure time when I look at the “departures” monitor and it says my flight is “boarding.” Knowing that there wasn’t even a plane at my gate 15 minutes earlier, I get up and walk over to see. Behold! The sign behind the gate miraculously says “boarding” while the plain obviously just got there because people just started getting off. Maybe the sign meant “boarding the terminal from the plane.” I left and came back in twenty minutes and wrote this in the interim:

My Simple Rules for Understanding Airline Talk, Analyzing the Bullshit, and Just Generally Figuring Out When an Airline is Lying to You:

When you book your flight, and it tells you the length of your flight, the computer is lying. The time you are in the air is between 45 min and 1.5 hours less than the time on the ticket. I once took a 35 minute flight that was scheduled to take over 2 hours, those freaking liars.

When you call ahead to check the status of your flight, don’t check your flight because your flight is always on time. Find out if there’s a flight arriving about 45 min before your flight from the same destination you are going, and find out if that flight is landing on time. Most planes go back and forth between destinations. Additionally, they will estimate the actual time of arrival. If that flight is late, yours will be too.

When you get to your gate, the FIRST thing to do is check to see if there is ACTUALLY A PLANE waiting at your gate. I don’t care if you are supposed to be boarding in 5 minutes and the signs all say “boarding now.” The airlines are lying to you. You are not on time. NO plane = at least 25 minutes before you board.

When you get on the plane, if the doors of the plane don’t close within the 10 minutes of the scheduled departure time, you will take off at least 30 minutes late. Once a flight is already deemed late, it becomes a second class citizen to all of the other flights that may make it out on time. That flight has a different line for take offs and a different priority for taxiing.

If the pilot says you are 10th in line for take off, and will be taking off in 15 minutes, look out the window. If you don’t see any planes behind you, or in front of you, and there is grass and a parking lot next to you, then your plane is not on line at all and your pilot is a liar (feel free to point this out to a flight attendant and to the people sitting around you, it may get you extra cookies later). If you can see a FedEx plane sitting in a hanger from your seat, you are not taking off for a VERY VERY long time. The FedEx hanger is always the farthest from the correct end of the runway, even at airports where they take off and land in both directions, somehow, the FedEx hanger knows.

When on line, if the plane does not move every 4 minutes, you are not on line and / or other planes that are on time (aka priority) are being allowed to cut you.

When the flight attendant asks you what you want to eat, and you ask what’s good. Get whatever she does NOT suggest. Her job is to keep everyone happy and thus when the steward runs out of one dish, everyone is not happy. She’ll tell you to take the dish no body wants, thus, she is lying to you. Take the other.

When the pilot tells you that he plane is going to try to make up some time in the air, he is lying to you. Most planes go around 550 miles per hour, at slightly over 600, they would hit the sound barrier and break apart. On a 4 hour flight, if you are going 50 mph faster for the middle 3 hours, then you’ve made up 150 miles, or about 15 minutes. That does not make up for the 1.5 hours late you left. The extra hour they put in flight time on your ticket is why you might “make up some time.”

In the bathroom, it says that it may cause a safety hazard if you flush anything other than TP down the drain. I’m not sure how anything getting flushed besides a grenade could represent a safety hazard.

When you are about to get to the gate and the stewardess says to be careful when opening the overhead bins because its contents may have shifted during flight, they are lying. I’ve never seen the contents of the bin shift enough so that when you open the bin, everything falls out like someone opening a closet on a sitcom that has been stuffed w/some kids toys after he claimed to have cleaned his room. It doesn’t happen, and if it did, show me someone who got injured, especially after a flight with no turbulence.

When you are just about to get to the gate, and the captain says, “please remain in your seats until the fasten seatbelt light is turned off,” you are welcome to get up. For some reason, the captain says that line exactly 1.2 seconds before he turns that damn seatbelt light off anyway. Its like he’s just fucking with you. I bet, if you heard that announcement, 9 out of 10 times you couldn’t get up before that light went out on its own.

When you are getting off the plane and the staff says, “Thanks for flying with us. Have a great stay.” Don’t believe a word, because airlines are all fucking liars.

Pink: Is it wrong for your boss to show you porn?

Technically, no, he has not done anything wrong yet. However, if you think he has acted in bad judgment and/or looking at porn with him / her is not comfortable with you. You need to tell him / her that, and DOCUMENT the conversation. If that passion for office porn continues, then he has violated laws and now it is quite wrong. Understand? You have to establish that you don’t like porn.

EG: So how would you handle this scenario: you met your girlfriend through mutual friends who were dating, and now they have broken up? It’s like you're best friends w/ the boy and your girlfriend is good friends w/ the girl, and it was kind of a bad break-up. Neither of us are taking sides really, but I'm not sure how to handle future scenarios where we're hanging out and they both independently want to come meet up - does that make sense?

I love how you go from a hypothetical to giving up on the analogy and just letting us all know it’s really you. Yes, I understand, I understand all. The answer is easy one…I’ll borrow it from my pot smoking days. JUST CHILL. Take it casually. Feel free to take sides...esp. w/the girl, she’s your friend. The idea is to cut off the middle so the circle can’t be completed. You can talk to your girl; he can talk to his boy; just don’t talk about it between you, and don’t talk about your boy to her. If you do, they will both resent you. There’s no need to worry about them bumping into each other. Everyone’s an adult now, I hope, and that is their problem, not yours. You can let them know the ex may be at a party, per se, but you don’t need to baby them, or worry for them, esp. after a month or two.

IsMine: Is it possible for a parent to have a crush on one of your friends? My mom keeps telling Dan to invite Schecky to Buffalo whenever we go there. And she also always says how good looking Schecky is.

Yes, it can happen. Didn’t you see American Beauty? And FYI, that scene was totally hot and every guy totally understands that. That’s why the movie was so bad, because now every girl knows that every guy is a pedophile deep down. That’s why you want a guy who has self control, maturity, and has conformed to the constraints of society.

D: Why was the empire state building lit up in blue on Monday?

For the 60th anniversary of UNICEF, duh!!!
Click Here For Proof

Lax: Do you think its wierd to have a painting of yourself and someone else up in your living room? I mean, if I have a painting of me and my boyfriend up in my living room is that wierd? Does it seem vain? Or, is it better if i do one of him and one of me and hang them up so that they're looking at each other?

Yes, I actually dated this person, and yes, these are my readers.