DAILY BLOG – APRIL 15th, 2010

DAILY BLOG – APRIL 15th, 2010

DATELINE: IN A LINE CASHING A REALITY CHECK – While I am not a person often prone to sympathize with airline companies, because, let’s face it, the prices have gone up and the level of service has sort of gone in the crapper in many cases, HOWEVER, in light of the current stop of air travel over Europe, people, GRAB A FUCKING BRAIN! This is an international situation that requires communities to open open up their hearts, open up their shelters and their exacuation centers and help people who are stranded. As for the global media covering this situation, SERIOUSLY YOU MIGHT HAVE TO COLLECTIVELY GO MINING FOR A BRAIN TO SHARE AMONG YOU because all you are doing is making matters worse with your stupid fucking questions and reports about frustration and anger and incompetence. No airline is good enough be able to deal with this sort of a situation without hitting a bump or two -- because this is global -- and there is not one of them who will be able to tell you when flights will be able to commence because no one knows that. The impact of this shutdown is huge, and everyone is totally in the same fucking boat. Yes, I feel incredibly bad for the passengers who are stranded, who had holidays cancelled, or holidays suddenly extended even though they might not have the resources to afford it, but what the fuck do you want airlines to do? For starters, this ain’t no fucking picnic for them. There will be pilots and aircrew who are stranded as well, regardless of what they might have planned in their personal lives, be it weddings, funerals or just working in their gardens. Yes, there are ticket and service staff working major overtime to try and help, and computers grinding endlessly to help people as fast as they can, but again, THIS IS GLOBAL AND HUGE and is something that no one could have anticipated. Here is the bottom line: A volcano erupted (which is not any airline’s fault), the jet stream picked up the ash and is carrying it over Europe (nope, still not the airline’s fault), airplanes tend to hurtle into the ground at rather breakneck speeds when their engines get filled with ash and volcanic dust (okay, you CAN blame that on someone… I pick Sir Isaac Newton and his fucking gravity). It is not their fault that you cannot fly, and while it pains me to say this, there is no fucking way the airlines can be expected to carry the can for your extra costs involved with staying where you are because they cannot fly. It’s time for communities to step up to the plate, for people to help each other. Go to the fucking airport where you live, offer to help someone by taking them food or offering them a place to stay. Perhaps local merchants should step up to the plate and take some pizza’s to help out, or offer spare diapers to the people waiting with little ones, town officials can open up their disaster relief facilities and offer housing for people who are stranded – perhaps the collective media can be helpful and call for people to step in and show some compassion for stranded passengers. There is one person to blame for this, and one only, and that would be Mother Nature, and the lesson she is trying to get through to us? That no matter how smart we think we are and how much we demand control of the world, she ALWAYS has the trump card to play in this game, and when she does, it is time for us to show our human side, pitch in and help.

DATELINE: SOUTH AFRICA – It seems we are destined to never fucking learn that a game is just a game. As the ticket offices for the World Cup soccer tournament opened up, one person died in Cape Town (no, he wasn’t trampled or murdered, but he was a pensioner and he collapsed while waiting for the office to open, cause, well, if he didn’t have some of those tickets, he would just die.) and many others in Pretoria clashed with police because the lines were going too slow. The lines were going slow because the computer equipment in the ticket office was not working properly, so it was not like someone was trying to fuck them over, and none of those people ‘had’ to wait for a ticket to a fucking game, but apparently this is life-shattering enough to require police to use pepper-spray. Who gives a shit about the other people standing in the line, because they had the bad luck to be standing around some asshats and just got caught in the overspray and the pushing and whatever. Sadly, and you read it here first (duh! Cause like we all don’t know this is what’s gonna happen) there will be more of this crap once the actual games start, because nothing says ‘Yes, its soccer time’ like fans swarming and fighting and generally behaving badly. IT’S A FUCKING GAME, and YOU AREN’T EVEN PLAYING THE DAMNED THING, so take a chill pill. Nothing pisses me off like people thinking some sport event is the fucking be-all and end-all. That we pay billions annually for grown men to play all day is totally asinine.

DATELINE: MISSOURI – I have no idea what the hell ‘expired’ beer is, but free beer is free beer, especially with summer coming, so who the hell can blame two city dump workers in Columbia if they happened to take a case or two… or 700. Two truckloads of expired beer were taken to the dump for disposal. The Beer from the first load was destroyed immediately. The beer from the second load, 700 cases of Bud and Michelob Ultra, were not, and it was just a crying shame to leave them sitting there, alone and unloved in a landfill (damn, that sounds like some great lyrics for a country and western song!). So, the two employees backed up a city truck, loaded up, and HELLO!!!! Block Party time. You boys have a good ole’ time, and just make sure you get help to drink the evidence. I will be ending you my phone number in the event you want some help, cause there is nothing I love better than free beer from the dump.

DATELINE: MARS – They are preparing for our visit! Yes, now that President Obama has decided that NASA should concentrate on Mars, I have been giving this a lot of thought. I know NASA can do better than a worm and a turtle and a rat to send to Mars. And once we definitely make contact with the people on that planet, we will have to do something to protect ourselves, because they will be coming to look for us, wanting to tap into our vast knowledge and expertise. Add to this, the reports that state Sarah Palin has made over $12M this year from book sales and speaking engagements (excuse me while I puke because even if this number has been slightly exaggerated by the media, it is still obscene!) and you have a perfect combination of totally dumbass circumstances. SO, I volunteer Sarah Palin for the first test flights to Mars. Just think about this for a fucking minute – she KNOWS the place, because she can see it from her window! And she would definitely take away the worries of the Martians coming to tap our brains, because they would know from our offered sampling that intelligent life forms will not be found on our planet. The benefits of sending Ms Palin could be endless. Mostly… while she is sitting up there drinking tea and talking her hopey-changing drivel, she would not be doing damage here… maybe.