Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Ack, I can’t do this.
I’ve been running on too little sleep for the past four nights. Maybe longer, I don’t remember. This gave me the bright idea of writing a Thursday Thirteen on insomnia cures, but there’s one problem: it takes energy to write a Thirteen. Lots of energy. And I don’t have it right now. Irony’s a bitch.
Here, let’s see how far I can get with Idea B.
Thirteen Things I Hate About Ted
Yup, I hate “Ted,” or as my son calls them, UniTED Hitler; and I’m not the only one. Here are thirteen reasons why.
1. Lost luggage. We returned from Vegas on Dec. 31. Ten days later, Jake’s luggage has finally arrived.
2. The local monopoly. If Walmart pisses me off, I can take my business elsewhere. Same goes for Exxon gas, Safeway market, or the pet store down the road. But dammit if I don’t have to take United for at least the first leg of my journey. Bastards have a lock on the market.
3. Delayed flights. We were supposed to fly out of Medford on the 27th. Fine, fly out tonight, they told us, but you’ll be stuck in Salt Lake City.
Maybe forever.
Me: We’ll fly out tomorrow, thanks much.
4. No leg room. We only realized this when we flew back on Alaskan. What a difference.
5. No smoking in the airplane’s bathroom. Which is fine, really; but when some drunk dimwit started smoking in the bathroom, why did it take them about 40 minutes to throw him off the plane?
6. Gremlins.
Putting up with William Shatner’s acting ain’t much fun, either.
7. Snakes.
8. Singing nuns.
9. Zombies. Sorry, that movie is still under development.
10. Lack of full body massages.
11. Ratio of contributions, Republicans to Democrats: 2:1. A ticket on United means dollars to Mitt!
12. In-air snacks are deep-fried locusts. And they don’t even have a vegetarian option.
And the worst problem of all . . .
13. United’s jet engines are lubricated with baby harp seal blubber.
Told you I didn’t have much tonight. It took me three hours to do this! Of course, I spent 2/3 of that trying to write a post on insomnia . . .
Leave a comment, and, well, you know what happens next.
Tam caucuses, quilts, and grumbles!
Hey, Dan, is that a universe in your pocket, or are you just glad to see us?
Don’t ask Lyvvie if she can spare a smoke
Need a book rec? Ask Darla.
Dean gives us curves and wetness.
D.
As much as I LOVE flying – and if you’ve ever read my blog, I’m sure you’ve seen me wax poetic about the utter orgasmic joy of being crammed with several dozen coughing strangers in a tin tube hurtling through the atmosphere with no leg room and canned air – I do have to agree that United stinks. In fact, pretty much all of the national airline chains stink. However, I think that Northwest and Southwest Airlines stink the least.
Northwest hubs out of Minneapolis, and I try to fly them if I possibly can. The seats are more comfy – there’s still not a ton of legroom, but at least my knees aren’t shoved into the seat ahead – their flight attendants are usually friendly, the planes are nicer, they seem to have more blankets, and they’re not stingy with the complimentary beverage.
If they’re even close of comparative price wise, I fly Northwest. But I’d rather not fly at all. 😉
When we lived in San Antonio, we had several opportunities to fly Southwest. Liked them a lot, still like ’em. Alaskan was comparable.
Seems like whenever we fly United, something always goes wrong.
Did you ever watch 3rd Rock from the Sun? As you noted, William Shatner was in the “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” episode of The Twilight Zone. In the movie version made years later, John Lithgow played the same role.
Shatner guest starred in an episode of 3rd Rock, playing the Big Giant Head. Lithgow’s character picked him up at the airport. The BGH complained that he saw something on the wing of the plane, and Lithgow’s character said “That happened to me!” “Too” is implied by Lithgow’s emphasis on “meeee.”
Very funny, so long as you were familiar with both of them having played the same role.
I see now that this is mentioned in the Wikipedia article. But, I’m still pressing the “Submit Comment” button. 😉 They have Lithgow’s line as “The same thing happened to me!”
As far as writing posts goes, I have two posts I was going to write this week but ultimately didn’t. At least I didn’t start a WordPress draft for them; I have too many unfinished drafts already!
I never saw much 3rd Rock, but I do like John Lithgow. I’ve also liked French Stewart ever since Karen and I saw him in this small-theater production in the early 90s, a very funny play called “Zombie Attack.” He was wonderful. You could tell he would do great things some day.
You get kind of silly and punchy when overtired dontcha….kind of cute. But really, baby harp seals? Zombies on a plane…