The monitors weren’t working on the airplane on the flight up from Miami to New York. It didn’t really bother me-I’m not a fan of “The Office” and that was what they were showing when they eventually got fixed-and in fact no one really seemed to notice. It only got brought to someone’s attention because the two guys sitting across the aisle from me said something, and I picked up on the conversation between them and the flight attendant that they take that particular flight fairly often and know the staff. I wonder if anyone else noticed. I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody was currently writing a letter to American Airlines to complain and demand some sort of refund. It makes sense, really. Airlines charge you for everything extra, they should refund you when there’s something missing. And don’t say that in-flight entertainment isn’t included in the price of the ticket. The monitors didn’t get fixed until long after the video demonstration of the safety procedures had already been presented (there was audio.) You better believe if that plane had crashed plenty of people would have been lining up lawyers. “You never told us what to do in the event of an emergency!!”
Incidentally, I rarely watch the video, but if the flight attendant is actually doing the demonstration I watch. I figure somebody should just to make them feel good. Next time you fly and they start the demonstration, look around the cabin. If you count more than ten people paying attention, I’ll be shocked.
Further more incidentally, every time I have spelled the word “demonstration” in this blog, I first spelled it “demonstartion.”
I discovered that I need a travel chaperone. Not because I behave inappropriately while traveling, but I always do a piss-poor job of packing, and I am always forgetting something. Halfway to the airport in Key West I realized that I forgot my earphones. In Miami I picked up a cheap pair, plus a book of Sudoku puzzles to keep me company during the various bus trips I’ll be taking. Plane lands in New York, I grab my stuff, I head to the baggage claim. Halfway there I realized I left my new earphones and Sudoku book on the plane. At this rate I’m going to spend $100 on earphones this trip and still have a perfectly good pair waiting for me at home.
While in New York, I read that the MTA is expanding a program that they’ve been running as a test in a couple of stations. It seems that emptying the garbage cans is too much work and they don’t have enough time to do it, which leads to a greater rat population. So they took the garbage cans out of the station. As if people at those stations are going to magically never have any garbage to dispose of. They claim it works so well that they’re going to try it at ten more stations. I like this theory. Basically they’re saying that if there is no place to put the garbage, then there will be no garbage. Sounds promising. Try it out in your home, let me know how it works.
While up here on Cape Cod, I went on a whale watching trip. They tell you when you’re heading out to the feeding grounds that they’re wild animals and there’s no guarantee that you’re going to see any. Of course this is obvious. At least it was to everyone but the whales. It was ridiculous how close to scripted it seemed. First there was one, but kind of far away. Then there were two a little closer, but they didn’t get too far out of the water. Then one showed its fluke. Then there were whales on both sides of the boat. It kept building until right before we headed back into shore there were three whales maybe 200 yards away and one was playing, bringing his tail over and splashing at the other two. Finally, he jumped out of the water and did a full twist in the air. It was AWESOME! And that was the last whale we saw, like they knew show time was over.
The most ironic part of the whale watch? I only saw one person get sea sick while we were there watching the whales feed in a protected habitat where they couldn’t be hunted. That one person was Japanese.
PopcornJackTerry 