American Airlines Gets a big F- from us!!!!

I'm never flying American Airlines in this lifetime, and neither will anyone I know after they hear what a bunch of rude, unhelpful monsters they were for something that was NOT OUR FAULT.

We had a trip planned through Expedia.com (who are also fuckers, but that is another topic) for three of us to fly to Mexico. All tickets and connections were purchased through Expedia. The first person, my cousin, was flying Continental from London to Texas where he would meet my buddy, and they would both fly to Florida (where I am). The next morning the three of us would fly to Mexico on an early morning flight. The initial tickets we purchased from Expedia were to fly out at 9:00 AM, a reasonable hour, BUT, American kept sending us flight updates during the two months before departure, our final departure time being 6:00 AM - this is HOW we got SCREWED in the first place.

There was, of course, a snafu. My cousins plane couldn't land due to foul weather, and when it did land, they of course pulled HIM out of the regular line to do an extensive "are you a terrorist" search, even though he was wearing his police ID. WHATEVER. Anyway, Continental KNEW he had to get on a flight and they were trying to find him in time to get him and my buddy on the flight to Florida. Of course the 10 min we needed we didn't get and the plane left without them. It was the last flight out for the day.

The next flight coming to Florida was arriving too late the following moring to allow us to catch the flight to Mexico. We are all in a panic, I am in Florida and my friend with my limited English speaking cousin, stuck in Texas. I called Expedia. They would have been happy to change the flights for Mexico for a small fee, but AMERCIAN AIRLINES WOULDN'T LET THEM. They called American Airlines. I called American Airlines. The people that worked for Continental in TEXAS called them and told them they should do all they could to help since it was not the passengers fault.

Know what they said? Tough, you want to change tickets it is $700 dollars PER PERSON. They all called a supervisor who said the same thing. NO ONE at American Airlines cared, was helpful, NOTHING. Know who saved the day? CONTINENTAL AIRLINES. They felt very bad for us and found a way for us all to go for 400$ TOTAL COST TO ME. So, American Airlines, you have forever lost a customer and for what you put us through I will tell anyone that will listen how shitty your service is and not to fly with you. American Airlines should be ashamed of themselves. CONTINENTAL AIRLINES on the other hand, went above and beyond the call of duty to help us and saved our vacation!

Carnival Cruise about as much fun as the Maiden Voyage on the Titanic

We recently made the grave error of going on a Carnival cruise this past week. We don’t know what we did in a past life to deserve this. The room itself was really nice, the balcony terrific, but that's pretty much where the positives end. We were on the ship name Carnival Legend, and how apropo because how bad this cruise sucked is already legendary to us. Let's break each horror down one by one, shall we?

1) The food. We thought people who went on cruises always talked about the food, the food, the food and how much weight they gained. We BOTH lost weight this week. Since neither of us are morning people per se, we decided to have room service for breakfast on the first day. The only choices were cereal, some super lame fruit, milk, coffee and not much else. Big fat whoo. The next morning, we decided to go upstairs and figured breakfast food is pretty safe, right? Ok, it was horrible. The pancakes were so hard they could have been used as frisbees and if they would have hit you it would have taken out an eye. Too bad we didn’t have a shot gun, we could have used them for clay targets. The eggs and bacon were SO greasy because they didn't put anything under them to CATCH the grease, they just left it there to sit and soak. *yum*. I had milk in a little kindergarten lunchroom container and prayed for better luck at dinner. Well my prayers fell on some pretty deaf ears because in an entire WEEK, out of all the nonsense they put out, the pasta with plain sauce was the only thing that didn't make me nauseous. Of course they only served it ONE TIME. Yippee for me. My friend, who is more brave than I, tried a variety of these culinary disasters only to have one bite and push away the plate. They had numerous desserts, and I love desserts and am not picky about them, I will eat cake made from a box mix and be happy. I tried them all and can’t say I liked (or finished) ANY OF THEM!! HOW DO YOU SCREW UP CAKE? Seriously? HOW? These people did DAY AFTER DAY. WTF? You can get pizza and cheeseburgers 24-hours a day but they even FUCKED UP PIZZA!! How gifted do you have to be to do THAT? I can make Ellios pizza from a box in the toaster oven and not like it but it was still better than that undercooked NONSENSE. It should at LEAST BE WARM. The burgers had zero taste (which may have been a blessing) and once again, cheese isn’t melted and it isn’t even WARM. WTF? We even ordered a grill cheese sandwich, again from room service and the cheese was NOT melted. How does that make it a grilled cheese sandwich? So pack a lunch folks if you plan on going anywhere with Carnival. Fuck it, if you want to diet go on a carnival cruise because you will opt for starvation before eating their food. Maybe they should market themselves as a weight loss plan.

2) The casino : 9000 machines, all of them THE SAME. All boring and old. Whippee again. And hey, let's not say anything about the CHILDREN constantly running around and brought in by their parents, who were darting in and out of the Texas Hold “Em room or running back and forth to the Follies theatre. Thought there was a law against that but I guess not. The other folks we talked to were not having too good a time because every single slot machine was jinxed against the player – hah.. no wonder Carnival cruises are so cheap!!! On the last day the hideously perky cruise director said, and I quote, swear to god "Why not spend some time in the casino and try to win back some of the money you lost?!!". Need I say more? Actually I do, but the entertainment choice for the casino is getting its own number, which brings us to number 3.

3) Tony Ray. Yes, Tony Ray. While passing around a crack pipe at the annual
"Carnival cruise think tank" meeting, some idiot came up with the brilliant idea that the casino needed live music. ????????? WHY would you want music to be louder than the sound of the slot machines which encourage passengers to play? Oh, that’s right, they never pay out anyway, so you might as well have music. They then decided to make a bad idea even worse and hire Tony Ray, a band of one, to deliver his “smooth sounds” that are probably the soundtrack playing in HELL. He picked all the favorites folks, and delivered them in an order that made zero sense. How do you go from Lionel Ritchie’s "Hello" to Ozzy Osbournes "Crazy Train" and for God’s sake WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? His vocal range is non-existent, and we want to know is if he is the cousin of someone who works for carnival cruise lines or if he made a deal with the devil. Even the devil and all his powers couldn't get this dude a gig better than a carnival cruise ship in the casino! He had a captive audience!!!! If you wanted to gamble you had to suffer through 5 hours, 5 grueling hours, of Tony Ray. He even had a SHTICK. Think Bill Murray doing the lounge singer Jerry Vale on Saturday Night Live! We would have been thankful for Bill!!!! Actual line uttered by Tony Ray : "Yes you once, twice, six times a lady". I have WITNESSES.

4) We left the ship at Grand Cayman, the first port of call (in search of food or we would be dropping dead shortly) and decided to pick up some cigarettes. The ship, of course, had a duty free shop, and Jen our perky cruise director reminded us of it about six times a day. Get this, the duty free shop only sold three different kinds of smokes. Not three BRANDS, but three different kinds: Marlboro Lights, Reds, and Benson and Hedges. I bought some in Cayman because I was out and without them someone was going to get thrown overboard. They had to be delivered to the ship and then to our stateroom. Fine. So I waited for the ship to leave port and went to guest services to ask that they be brought to my room and they said they would get them right away. After waiting over 2 HOURS I got pissed and asked AGAIN. It took over 3 HOURS to get them to my room. WTF?

5) If you are not an American citizen be prepared to be UP and OUT of your room at 6:15 AM on the last morning of your cruise to go through Immigration. They don’t tell you this until about 8pm the night before by leaving a piece of paper on your bed. If you don’t read it, you are screwed. AND it says that they will not start unloading the boat until ALL non-US citizens have done the Immigration walk. Great time for them to take a chance like that, don’t you think?

6) Before you get on the ship and actually go on the cruise you get NADA, NIL, NOTHING. Nothing telling you where you have to be to get on the ship, what time you have to be there, what you can and cannot bring, tips, rules, what to expect, warnings about tony ray, NOTHING. We had to look it up online and even that was bleak.

7) Free ice cream for the kids and adults 24 hours a day! Yay! The first problem is they are so well hidden you will need a treasure map to find them. The area is such a mess you would think 98 gremlins came and trashed the place. Every time we saw it, it looked as though the machines exploded. Three flavors were available. THREE. No sprinkles, nuts, topping, nothing. Guess buying a vat of sprinkles would have broken the bank.

8) The captain needs some people skills too. He never made a single announcement that we heard, so we never heard his name or his voice. When he walked through the casino and we caught a glimpse of him he made ZERO eye contact with ANY passenger on the ship or said hello, he was too busy hanging on and kissing some lady that he was obviously involved with (could have been his wife), and the next time he was talking with another member of the crew. No gold stars for him when it comes to friendliness, but we sure heard enough, and we mean ENOUGH, of our cruise director… good thing we never saw the bitch, we would have thrown her overboard!

9) Children running in the hallways – why do parents allow this??? If only they had scissors.

10) We don’t want to buy your god damned diamonds. At 50% off even. Even with the additional 20% off. Yes, cruise director shoved this bullshit down our throats hourly. Why the FUCK would we go on a cruise to buy god damned diamonds???? Hell, every fucking port you stop at the god damned cruise villages, that were obviously built with the help of the cruise lines, have DIAMOND INTERNATIONAL. Why oh WHY do I want to buy diamonds in Belize, Cozumel, Honduras, Grand Cayman AND on the fucking boat. Knock if off with the fucking jewelry sales already.

11) Cruise photographers… again, where are the children running with scissors? You can’t even get on or off the boat without some stupid fucking Kodak moment with either Mayan warriors, Mexican folk dancers, a parrot, a pirate or the stupid Carnival smoke stage super hero. WTF? ENOUGH already. I won’t buy it so leave me the fuck alone.

Texting While Driving AKA Driving While STUPID

Cellphones have become a menace to society, a necessary evil making it easy to communicate while we area away from home, but in terms of creating stupid behavoir, they are the devil. Talking while driving is bad enough, but texting while driving, on a highway, traveling 60 mph in heavy traffic.... WHY? do you want to die?

Hindu God's have 6 arms. They can talk on the phone, put on makeup and eat all at the same time. You do not, you have two. It takes two hands to drive safely so why does anyone want to take this risk? You might think you are important, which is why you are answering the flurry of texts coming your way. But really stop and think about this...is your life so trivial and insignificant that you are willing to risk dying just to answer a text message?

We don't even know where to begin to address this, so lets start with some statistics.84 percent of cell phone users stated that they believe using a cell phone while driving increases the risk of being in an accident. Teenagers seem to be the worst offenders. Gee, what a surprise and they have not been driving very long so don't have much behind the wheel experience. Why are they doing something that further distracts them from driving?

• Each year, 21% of fatal car crashes involving teenagers between the ages of 16 and 19 were the result of cell phone usage. This result has been expected to grow as much as 4% every year.
• Almost 50% of all drivers between the ages of 18 and 24 are texting while driving.

WTF? do you want to live to see your next birthday? do you want to graduate from high school? Do you think your parents would be happy to know that you ended up as road-kill? How can you focus on the road and the other cars around you when you are click-click-clicking your life away.

Now on to the adults, if we can seriously call them that. Here are some stats for you:

• Talking on a cell phone causes nearly 25% of car accidents.
• One-fifth of experienced adult drivers in the United States send text messages while driving.
• Studies have found that texting while driving causes a 400 percent increase in time spent with eyes off the road.
  

Don't you need your eyes on the road to drive? Thought so. So put your damned phones away, put your hands on the wheel, eyes on the road, and shut your pieholes and focus. You might just save someone's life, or your own.

And if this is not enough for you, please consider reading this post..but be warned, the images are frightening and hopefully enough to ensure you will never text while driving again.
"NO MORE TEXTING WHILE DRIVING"

Jon & Kate Need to Get a Life and so do the Millions who Watch Them

While we are on the topic of television programming, which seems to be a major annoyance of ours these days, lets just have a quick look at Jon & Kate Plus 8. Never heard of them, never seen the show, personally I would not waste my time and would have more fun in a Turkish prison. Nonetheless, millions of Americans seems to turn into this rubbish week after week to see the latest antics of the Gosselin family. For the love of God.. WHY? Don't you all have enough drama and BS in your own lives? Or is it better to see others go through it because then you don't have to focus on your own stuff?

First and foremost, TLC presents this show. I used to watch TLC. It used to be one of my favorite channels because it used to present good quality shows and documentaries that were informative. TLC - THE LEARNING CHANNEL. What the hell. Where did the good programming go only to be replaced by another stupid reality show about a couple who had 8 children.

Why is octo-mom considered a nut but not these assholes? What is this Brady Bunch + 2? No one bothered to consider that putting them on a reality show with their kids would ultimately create problems in their marriage? What did they have in place in case it did? What did they do to prepare themselves and their children for a life on reality TV? Well lets see... Kate had a tummy tuck paid for by the show, and probably other cosmetic procedures. But what about the children...you know.. kiddies...in their formative years. Where is child welfare when you need them?

Well now they are getting divorced. Jon has allegedly bought an apartment in Manhattan. How? Does he have a job. Supporting 8 children without a reality show can be quite a challenge, so do they pimp themselves out to afford the lifestyle they have become accustomed to? Apparently there is a huge online debate about whether or not the show should continue. And based on what I have seen flipping through a few tabloids waiting in the grocey checkout lane, you can bet Momma wants this show to continue. She loves the fame, the fortune, the glory and the attention. She makes herself out to be a great celebrity. WTF-ever.

Let's face it, how many people watching are watching to see 8 little munchkins run around or to watch a marriage meltdown? Why the hell does someone want to watch this? This show didn't have a large audience, its not like it was in the top 10 ratings, but the media has made sure we all know the names of these two. Why?

Don't give me the bullshit that that many people care or watch this shit. The media just saturates us with all this info about these two when truthfully, most of us don't care, so please don't pretend that we do, and don't make it as if we do. What is with this "Team Jon" and "Team Kate"? What is with the "team" itself? Their marriage is their partnership,

THEY are supposed to be a team, we are supposed to concentrate on our own relationships. This "team" shit has to stop. Why are we encouraged to pick sides? How would we like it if all our relationships were judged this way? How would you like a "team" of people against YOU that don't even KNOW you? And what good does a team of people for you that can't do shit for you either? They need to get back to what is important in lives, which should be their children, and we need to focus on our own lives, because they are not perfect either.

A final thought is, are they really in trouble? Or is the only trouble with the ratings and this some stupid staged attempt to get more viewers through the creation of the media feeding frenzy? Who knows.. but I do know this, I won't be watching this show on TLC. But I am anxiously awaiting the release of the Gosselin Action Figure set.

Automated Phone Systems for Cusotmer Service SUCK

You know the drill. You dial a number (bank, credit card company, doctors office) and the first thing you hear is the voice of the robot announcing "to listen to your options press 1". Companies and organizations, both large and small, want to route less and less calls to their customer service departments. They deliberately set up the phone systems to keep each caller, the customer, in a 15 minute loop of number pressing until you are able to speak to a human being.

They usually ask you to key in your account number, so have it ready, and even though you followed the directions and keyed it in, when/if you actually speak to a customer service rep the customer service rep will ask for it again? So why bother asking you for it before you reach a customer service rep? Why waste everyone's time?

Because they don't want you to wait. They want you to hang up and go away. They figure if you are away from home making this call you wont have your account number and hang up. Many times you cannot proceed with your call without the account number. They want to waste your time so it looks like it didn't take them a long time to get to you. It was YOUR fault.

No one likes these automated systems. Half, actually more than half, of the times you call, the issue you are calling about doesn't have a prompt so you don't know which button to push anyway! Then if you go to the wrong department and they have to transfer you, you will most likely get "magically" disconnected and you can start this whole annoying, time-wasting, getting-ready-to-load-your-gun-and-go-postal process all OVER AGAIN.

THIS IS CUSTOMER SERVICE? What customer appreciates this? Doesn't everyone, the second they call and discover this automated "barrier" between themselves and a human being, want to take the phone and throw it in a lake? Exactly. That is their point. They want you to hang up.

Don't get me started on the "press or say ___" bullshit either, because you either must repeat yourself 14 ZILLION times before the automated system understands you, or you have to scream so loud that you would drown out Ty Pennington and his megaphone. Hell, you would have to scream louder than an AC/DC concert. I cannot believe how LOUD I have had to scream to get them to understand me, and I am in a house with little or no background noise. Many people have to call from work, or when they are out running errands, places where screaming your account number is not a really great idea. With identity theft being a rising crime, it is also a stupid option. Pretty soon every f'n company will have one of these customer service/tech support automated systems, and we will all be at their mercy.

Do these systems make YOU feel like you are getting customer support or customer pissed off? Tech support or tech infuriated? The words "service" and "support" should in no way be used to describe these bullshit systems. Can they get any worse?

The Travel Channel Really Needs to Stick with Travel...and Leave the Food Shows to the Food Network

What the hell is happening to programming on television? AMC used to stand for American Movie Classics. Then they started showing shit like Steven Segal movies and I demanded their heads. Bravo TV used to show weird cool stuff like Cirque de Soleil (before everyone knew what it was) and now they have Real Housewives of the (insert name) and their rotten kids. They need to change their name to MTV.You can read our rant Why Network Programming Really Sucks, but now we are focusing our attention on The Travel Channel. They are really working my last nerve. I want them to start calling themselves "THE CLOGGED ARTERY CHANNEL" or perhaps The Glutton Network.

I have tivo so I went through 1 week of programming and here is a sample of the travel "gems" they have as programming - on THE TRAVEL CHANNEL - which is supposed to be about TRAVEL...right? And to add insult to injury and make it even more boring, each show listed below was on at least 3 times that week.

1) Surf: reality show about lifeguards. Traveling lifeguards? Nope.

2) Man vs. food Travel vs food? Nope. MAN vs FOOD. Ok they go to some places but still who wants to see some chubby dork gorge himself with greasy artery clogging food whilst being cheered by throngs of onlookers. It is not educational. It is not funny. And it sure as hell is not entertaining.

3) Samantha Brown : annoying, but at least she travels, even though now they just let her do "weekends".

4) Extreme Pig outs: After this episode will they travel to the extreme cardiac by-pass hospitals?

5) Extreme Fast Food: because you can't find fast food near you, right? WTF?

6) World Poker Tour: WHAT THE F---? well at least it is not about eating, but yet still about greed.

7) Holiday Hostage Hell with shows like Locked Up Abroad (there seemed to be a marathon of these): this is a show about how you can get kidnapped and possibly die in certain places around the world. I am sure these places are not buying commercial ads on the network, but at least its about travel. Bad travel, but travel.

8) All you can Eat Paradise: The people that would go to these places are either too old to travel (or drive, in many cases) or aren't really into travel because they can't afford the extra seat they have to buy on the plane to accommodate their butts) These are the people watching TV and eating, and that's about it. They really should follow it with "Gastric by-pass paradise".

9) Extreme Restaurants: Does anyone you know hop on a plane with their family so they can go to a fucking restarant? (If they aren't a chef or food critic)

10) Hot Dog paradise: Just what I have been searching for! A HOTDOG!

11) Extreme Bathrooms: this should be on the Home Depot channel..then again, all the folks gorging themselves on fast food and hotdogs are going to need a toilet.

12) 10 Fun Food Factories: forget Disneyland folks, this is where the fun is! Take the kids here instead so they will murder you while you sleep

13) 10 Fun Food Factories PART 2 : I am SPEECHLESS

14) Ice Cream Paradise: I know travel and ice cream go hand in hand but this is ridiculous

15) Extreme wild parties : and YOU are not invited. But be glad you dodged that bullet, they used the word "zany" to describe it........

16) Most Unique McDonalds: cause you go to McDonalds for its uniqueness, right? Not like you cant find one at every red light. Forget Stonehendge, the pyramids, castles, MCDONALDS is the new travel hot spot, that's why this was on more than THREE times in a WEEK! Why don't they just cover this with Fast Food Paradise?

17) Extreme Truckstops: The truckers are out driving and the rest of us don't care. Like what are we supposed to do with this? Plan a road trip with the family, stopping truck stops along the way. Woooo hoooo, sign me up!

18) Million Dollar Planes: that you wont travel in, and never own. Let Robin Leach handle this shit, ok?

19) Million dollar yachts: See above

20) Outrageous Trucks: ?????????????????????????????????????????

21) Great American Lake Homes: Save it for the Real Estate channel, ok?

22) Harry Potter: an interview with the author: WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH TRAVEL? BY BROOMSTICK???? Are we all going to Hogwarts?

23) Diner Paradise : followed by alka seltzer paradise

24) Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmer: Gross. Just gross. I don't want to see someone eating spiders, rats on a stick, bats on a stake, grasshoppers, sheep heads, fish eyes or anything else that is creepy crawly. GAG. Why isn't this who on Chill or SyFy?

Its no wonder there is so much obesity in this country... The Travel Channel clearly promotes it with their line of programming. But what about travel? What about shows that highlight Paris, Ireland, Thailand, Yellowstone... anywhere but a greasy-spoon truckstop in the middle of Podunk, Nowhere who serve up 64 oz chicken fried steak smothered with cream gravy.

What companies or places want to advertise onThe Travel Network? Alka Seltzer? Tums? Work out dvds? Sweatin to the oldies? The hoverround? Because travelers aren't watching this garbage. No, they watch The History Channel and National Geographic so they can figure out where they want to travel to.

Thank god for Anthony Bourdain. Yes his show No Reservations is about food, but it is done with great Bourdain flair, complete with snarky comments that are ENTERTAINING. And when I watch a show I want to be entertained! They should do everything in their power not to lose him. We love Tony and will follow him anywhere... except into the cave with the bat poo.

Parking

Why do so many people spend endless time driving around and around and around to get the closest parking space available when they are going to the MALL?

Unless acid rain is falling, there is less than no point to this. And don't give me the "I will have to carry out so many packages" line of crap either. You carried this stuff with you through the MALL. You know the mall, the place where all you do is walk and walk from one side to the other shopping until you leave. You can carry it to the CAR ok?

I will never understand why, if you are physically able and willing to walk (aimlessly in many cases) miles through the mall but are horrified at having to walk the extra YARDS to the car. What is the big whoo? People get into fights over parking spaces, or get elated when they get a "good one". No offense, but at a time where we have become more overweight as a nation than ever before, the extra steps surely cannot hurt us.