Tony’s Journal

Well, the goals in going to New Orleans were:

• Have fun with Dayo
• See and hear some jazz
• Drink recreationally sometimes
• Eat delicious food
• Drink too much sometimes
• Eat expensive food

I’ll write more later, but basically

Tags: General Thoughts by Tony
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Here is something that will help when someone is writing the TV movie about this upcoming horror.

We are flying on an ultra low price airline. $10 per ticket.

Here’s how this happened.

• We decide weeks ago that we are going to Ohio to go to Cedar Point and other parks in June.
• We decide to drive because the cheapest plane tickets to the State that God Forgot are at least $200 round trip, and that’s not economical.
• I am not so convinced that flying isn’t worth the cost, so we discuss it on Sunday and decide that if we can find tickets for less than about $130 round trip, we will consider it. Looks bleak. Haven’t ever seen then for less than $200.
• I see on the web yesterday that hey! A new airline! It flies only to/from Columbus, Ohio, and the nearest to us is Greensboro! I say “Hey Rob, here’s our flight, look at this ridiculous thing. Ha ha ha!”
• Rob comes and looks. We read hilarious things like “you can’t bring food or drinks on board because we would like to sell them to you,” “our flight attendants work on commission,” and “well actually the FAA hasn’t said that we are allowed to fly yet but we are selling tickets, let’s cross our fingers, LOL.”
• We LOL.
• Rob runs to ask Billy and Richard what they think.
• Rob runs back and reports “they said ‘Go ahead and book the tickets.’”
• I book the tickets. 5 round trip tickets for $181.
• We all gather together and laugh heartily about this.

Here are the reasons why we laugh.

1. They have pillows and blankets, but you have to buy them. You do get to keep them, though.
2. As these are surplus UPS cargo planes, there are no seats; there are poles and straps like on subways and buses. Mandy is short and will have to hold onto someone’s legs.
3. You’re not allowed to bring your own food or drink on board.
4. They choose the day’s pilots by driving a U-Haul to a Holiday Inn Express at 7 am, pulling up the big door, and letting the crowd jump in the back. Then it’s slam the door and off to the airport.
5. They are offsetting some costs by plastering the aircraft with ads. First big advertiser: Nationwide Insurance.
6. Another cost-cutting measure: no co-pilots. This leaves an opportunity for passengers: for $20 you can call “shotgun.”
7. Their pilots will be paid about half of what a normal pilot makes. Cream of the crop.
8. Upon descent, the pilot will announce over the intercom: “folks, this is your captain speaking, we now are giving you the opportunity to opt for the use of our landing gear this afternoon. If we raise $50, we’ll put those wheels out. If not, we’ll just land on the belly.” And then they will pass around a hat.
9. Just kidding about that last one. They are cutting costs by not having intercoms.
10. Nor hats.
11. If you use this airline as a connecting flight, you have to pick up your luggage at baggage claim and go through security again.
12. It’s a buck to use the lavatory.
13. They don’t have a customer service phone number.

(Okay, the even-numbered ones are false. And also #10. And they will probably have intercoms.)

It hasn’t actually gotten clearance from the FAA yet, but who cares? I am sure they will.

Dude, it was $10 each way to Columbus. Ten bucks. I found a Jackson in the Kohl’s parking lot the other day and it that PAYS FOR A FLIGHT TO COLUMBUS OH MY GOD THIS IS GOING TO BE SOME TERRIBLE FARCE.

This experience could range from hilarious to horrendous. I am guessing there will be a little of each.

Here are some links.
Skybus
Article on CNNMoney

Tags: General Thoughts by Tony
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Twitter.

Apparently this is a Very Big Thing, actually.

As far as I can tell, it makes it easier for people who might already blog about crap no one wants to read (like mine) to put a stream of consciousness on the Intarweb. The point is so that you can read the mundane thoughts of innumerable strangers, and possibly those of your friends as well.

In other words, someone has devised a way to capture every thought that does not merit even a blog entry.

Tags: General Thoughts by Tony
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I have been looking for a lunchbox for a long time. Or at least something to bring my lunch in, when I do so, that’s not a Target bag. Nothing wrong with a Target bag but I just have a ton of them all over the place due to using them for everything. So a few weeks ago I bought a surplus cartridge box at the flea market for this purpose. Durable, waterproof, and only $3.

Well, the first day I brought it in about two weeks ago, everyone I passed on the way from my car to my office stared at it, and the first person I passed who I actually know said “Uh oh! Ammo! We’re all in trouble!” Yeah, it’s an ammo container, but I didn’t think of it as more than a box that happened to be army surplus. I guess other people did.

So I stopped carrying it. After this week, now I sure as hell can’t be seen in public with it. So it sits in my office, empty, since I’m worried that it’ll attract undue attention while I walk it back to the car. Guess I’ll have to hide it in a Target bag.

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Apparently the Alumni Building has been renamed to Winslow Hall. I guess this makes sense, since we have a new Alumni Building on Centennial.

But who is it named after?

The only prominent Raleigh-based Winslow I know is shown below.

I imagine an oil-based version of this portrait will be prominently displayed.

Oh, okay. Here’s the real story. Funny, though, this page isn’t linked from the campus map — it still points to the Alumni page linked above.

Tags: General Thoughts by Tony
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If you like Peeps (hi Mandy), you will love this:

Peeps Show

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So there’s some new money management web site that I gather is fixin’ to launch. I think it’s supposed to be Quicken-like, except online. Don’t know how I feel about transmitting my personal financial info to a 3rd party web site, but I won’t knock it until I try it. And I can’t try it until it exists. I’m not exactly even sure what the hell it is, honestly. If it is indeed a Quicken/MS Money replacement, I would likely be willing to try it out. Those two should be called Intuit Sucks and MS SucksWorse. I use Quicken now, because why use SucksWorse when Sucks is available?

Yeah so here is a rectangle that they want you to click on. I think they like me putting this here, and it may give me an earlier shot at the beta. I don’t care whether you click it at this point. I’m just so ready for money management software — online or otherwise — that’s worth a damn, that I figure “what the hell, here’s a button, maybe THIS is the thing that will be worth a damn.”

Tags: Nerd Stuff by Tony
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I have now moved up to #95,019 on the Redskins season ticket waiting list. I have been relatively flying up the ranks since the Skins have sucked lately, and I guess there’s a good amount of seat turnover. Plus, some people have been on the list so long that when their number comes up, their contact info is out of date, and they lose. So, if the past three years are any indication of future waitlist movement, I might have tickets by the 2013 season. Of course, this assumes that the Skins continually have seasons that range somewhere between terrible and disappointing. That seems pretty likely, actually.

If the Skins do well, I guess the waitlist will slow down. That’s a better option, actually, since it would be a hollow victory if I got tickets sooner than expected. It would just mean that I get to watch a crappy team and spend a ton of money in the process. Who wants to watch a poorly disciplined team with no QB underachieve and break my heart every week?

ME, that’s who. (Also Billy.) Twice a week! State on Saturdays and Skins on Sundays.

AM I READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?

I guess.

You know, though, I have had some good football days in my life. The Skins have won the Super Bowl twice in my memory. State has had some exciting wins, I mean 2 out of our three wins last year were OH MY GOD style wins. Even the Skins have pulled off two crazy wins against the Cowboys in the past two seasons. It would surely suck to be a Browns fan, or Bills fan, or Cardinals fan. They have always sucked. It occurs to me that people are born and live long lives pulling for teams that don’t ever win the big one.

Tags: General Thoughts by Tony
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