Flying Ted

A few nights ago (and the night I wrote this) I had the wonderful experience of "flying Ted" to get to my destination of Logan Airport in Boston, MA. Let me tell you, the reader, a few illustrious things about this wonderful, wonderful experience of flying commercially in this article.

"Flying Ted" is like no other form of transportation. It's better than AmTrak, Greyhound, American, Delta Song, or even Toyota. Wait, no, it's not. Not at all, in fact. I suppose I should enlighten you lucky ladies and gents that have never had the privelege of experiencing this to what Ted actually is.

Ted is United Airlines' discount airline -- the tickets are cheaper, the planes are cheaper, and the terminal is cheaper. To put it bluntly, flying Ted is like flying in a dimly lit coffin filled with disgruntled passengers and cell-phone talking businesspeople.

Now, I bought this Thursday night ticket for close to $100, so I knew it was going to be a cheap-ass flight. I even joked once or twice about having to sit in a toilet for the plane ride. Well, my expectations came true - not only did that plane freaking suck, so do the people. I sat in what Tyler Durden would call "a cesspool of infectious human waste." The lady next to me did not speak a single word to me, she's just been reading some damn book nonstop. The guy across from me was seemingly negotiating a nuclear weapons treaty or something, as his tone of voice and attitude were far angrier than any businessman should ever be. Oh and did I mention that my seat makes me feel obese because I can barely fit in it, and I'm a pretty small guy.

Flying on commercial airliners flat fucking blows, to be completely honest. As the flight attendant instructed the viewing audience to get out the safety instructions card for this Boeing 757, I can't help but laugh and think of Fight Club. I really want to make the comment that the card shows a water landing at 700mph and the people's faces are as calm as Hindu cows. And then comment on the fact that Oxygen gets you high - in a panic situation, you take deep breaths, thus becoming euphoric and accepting one's fate without protest or panic. I, on the other hand, do not have the grapefruit-sized cajones of Tyler Durden and do not think my single-serving friends would appreciate the humor as Ed Norton did.

Regardless, that was my experience flying Ted. I should buy a Gulfstream or something ridiculous like that when I become wealthy. Private jets are sweet, or maybe I just won't fly Ted.

What About All of the Good Things Hitler Did?

So, I was having a conversation with someone today, and I realized something. There are lot of freaking idiots out there with many different f**ked up ideologies. Now, I'm not here to say that your beliefs in whatever religious doctrine are wrong (well.. maybe I am, we'll save that for later) but I mean, as the title of this article implies, clearly, this is among those stupid ideologies. Instead of my normal, typical entry, I will make another attempt at satire as the one I did for English Lit Honors was apparently a total failure. And with that;

Freaking Idiots, You Can't Live With Them, You Can't (Legally) Kill Them

Everyone has encountered a person that can be deemed a "freaking idiot" at least once or twice in their life, if they're lucky. If they're unlucky, then they encounter these people maybe once or twice a week, or if they are ultra-lucky, once or twice a day.

What is a "freaking idiot," exactly? Well, glad the question was posed. This type of person is usually of the know-it-all status, meaning, they claim to know every bit of information in the world, even on topics they don't even begin to comprehend. These people can be of all ages, and arrogance plays a huge factor into this, but usually they are of high school age, in the teenage years. At times, they try to flex their intellectual muscle by offering up seemingly intelligent bits of information, strung together in a looseleaf packet of facts, but often times there is a line of very bad logic behind these tidbits. Often this logic can lead to an ideology that they claim to believe in because it seems smart from their perspective.

In my experience, this logic can range from anything like "Stalin was a great guy, believe me" to "No, believe me, Area 51 does really house alien spacecraft, I saw it on Google Earth." Regardless, these people do not belong in our society, they need to be dealt with efficiently and expediently.

I propose that we ship these people off to some planet 100s of light years away in a long-term cryogenic hibernation tank, in a different galaxy even. This would serve to do a few different things. First and foremost, it would get these Godforsaken life forms that do not deserve to be called human beings off of the planet, away from everyone else, to prevent cross-breeding between them and normal people, and preventy corruption of the souls of the children of the future.

Not only that, it would put to use that lovely thing in America that we call the NASA program, because God-knows, sending rovers to Mars is extremely productive, but I think we can put that aside for a more noble cause; this one. In addition to this, being hundreds of light years away, our generation, nor our kids generation will have to deal with any issues, because they will be asleep the entire time. An added benefit to this, most current cryo tech does not work, so with any luck, these people will all die before they reach Planet R (R, for Retarded).

On the off chance that anyone does survive, or at least a male and female couple, due to charted chemical and biological reactions, any mating done between these parties will yield a child completely unaffected by this ailment of stupidity. Research shows that because the "freaking idiot" genes appear on both the X and Y chromosomes from the female and male, the traits will ultimately cancel each out, producing a potentially intellectual life form. In this case, the planet will be populated by an intelligent sentient race of human beings (yes, the production of two "freaking idiots" mating, leads to the reacquiring of the term "human beings") and the process of interstellar imperialism has successfully begun.

A Tale of Two Mountains

Well, this website is long overdue for an update. Two weeks is far too long, but I've had a lot of stuff in between the 24th and now - Mock Trial, for one. Good times..

In regards to my title, it would be a grave injustice to call Alpine a "mountain" so I guess I amend my title to "A Tale of a Mountain Range and a Landfill." But anyways, I'm here to tell you a story of my trip to Alpine Ski "Resort." I headed up to Alpine on the 26th (yay, post-Turnabout day! oh wait. F*** that.) On this particular trip, I was accompanied by my dad, and the ensuing story is sprinkled with his comments during the day.

First of all, let me say that Alpine falls quite short of being a "resort" and the name is one heck of a misnomer. It's more like a glorified land-fill with fake, icy snow on it. And the board park is nothing to smile about, I went sideways off a jump at one point to discover the true icyness of the ground alongside of it. To quote myself, "this isn't a mountain, this is a travesty."

The particular day I went, it was like, freaking Polish day or something. There were so many eastern europeans there, it was unbelievable. In the words of Mike, "This is like the eastern bloc." (Which was, of course, repeated many times.)

I'm a snowboarder and a skier, so I know both sides of the story. You know- 'snowboarders are evil, they cut off skiers, and blah blah.' Well, that may be true in the Rockies. But, however, in the hallowed hills if Wisconsin, it's the inexperienced jackass skiers that cause the problems. I was snowboarding, minding my own business, and was cut off about 7 times throughout the course of the day. Not one of these people were snowboarders. They were all sucky, horrible skiers.

That brings me to another thing. People who suck at skiing are FUNNY. Wow, I saw more yardsales (for those of you, not in the know, it means when you fall less than gracefully and lose your skis/poles/etc) than I've ever seen before. Quite classic, actually. Oh yeah, and the people who SUCK at getting on and off the chairlift. COME ON PEOPLE, it's REALLY not that hard, I managed to do it successfully without falling or f***ing up 17 times, and I haven't snowboarded in 3 years! If people sucked that much in Colorado, they'd be shot.

I really miss the mountains and skiing. Maybe one of these years I'll go back for spring break, or for Christmas. I can hope, I guess. I'll just envy those who do until that day arrives. And maybe take a few more trips up to the proverbial "eastern bloc" with all the people who can't ski.