Don't get me wrong: I like people as a concept. It's just that actual people keep ruining it for me.
We only recently caught onto this Alaska Airlines campaign from 2003 and are way, way in love. (Forgive the lag. New York isn't exactly an Alaska Airlines hub.) Skyhigh Airlines is a spoof, obviously. Its website still lives, and we've had quite a bit of fun perusing it.
The quotation comes from a letter by Skyhigh's fake CEO, Howard Barium. Happy Monday!
Finally, a travel photo contest for the rest of us. Over at Brave New Traveler, they're holding a contest for your most hilarious travel shots. Be warned, however, that while this lowers the pressure to be a sick photographer, it does up the pressure to be funny. You must submit five hilarious photos, and entries should be published on your blog. Submissions must be received by April 22, and finalists will enter a public voting round on April 23. We expect the shots to include a lot of harassment of inanimate objects. Winner gets bragging rights and a copy of Lonely Planet's new guide to taking travel photography.
Usually, we leave the heavy-duty airline reporting to wonky airline blogs that know the difference between Y-ups and Q fares. But when customers' rights come under attack we have to let you know. American Airlines will no longer include jet fuel in the price of a ticket.
True, we like choices when it comes to travel, but doesn't this sound a little extreme?
The airlines spokesperson said that once a flight has departed, flight attendants will ask the passengers to chip in for the fuel necessary to reach their final destination.
"If you're on a transcontinental flight, the choice will be the consumer's," she said. "Do you want to go all the way from New York to Los Angeles, or will you settle for Cleveland?"
The hardest part will likely be getting everyone onboard to agree on a destination. Although, these days, convincing people this whole thing's a joke may be hard too.
Typical of the useless stuff people take the time to post on YouTube, but notable for the fact it somehow did make us laugh. Someone taped a Tickle Me Elmo Extreme laughing at passengers at the airport.
We could have used something like this when we were changing gates in Houston, waiting for the monorail to take us to a flight that was leaving in 11 minutes. Hey, better to laugh than to stab oneself in the knee...which is what we wanted to do at the time.
Money can't buy you love. Money can't buy you a sense of humor. Free television can't buy you a sense of humor, but a little known fact is that it can buy you love. We know because of the mistakes we've made in the throes of cable deprivation. The flirtatious wave of a Time Warner remote can lure more cable-less tail than you'd think.
Canada's second airline, WestJet, continues to struggle to turn on the charm despite a record profit this quarter and all the onboard entertainment it offers. Simply put, WestJet tries to be funny. Problem is, WestJet isn't funny. The lame jokes flight attendants tell over the intercom system are the bane of some passengers' patronage. Every WestJet plane carries a joke book filled to the gills with this cheese. Example: "Q: What kind of car does Luke Skywalker drive? A: A Toy-Yoda." Oh, and the book is called--get ready, now--Just Plane Fun.
The good news is that WestJet is always looking to expand its repertoire. We encourage all interested comedians to call 1-877-WJCARES and suggest a joke, as it's impossible to locate a customer service email address on WestJet's site. We wouldn't object if you, say, petitioned them to hire Bob Saget to perform on select routes, but that's up to you.
It's just crazy what you can buy online these days. There was that guy who auctioned off his forehead (as advertising space, via tattoo) on eBay, and now a dude named Scott MacDonald is out to bask in the glory that comes with offering oneself up to the highest bidder. In exchange for cash, he'll let you choose his name.
Similar stunts are almost common these days, but the best part of Scott's scheme is that the highest bidder so far has offered $35,001 for him to legally name himself Schenectady New York. For those not in the know, Schenectady is a town in upstate New York, about 20 miles northwest of Albany. Scenectady has no booming tourism industry that we're aware of, though it is home to Union College and we may have stopped at a gas station there once or twice, and the high bidder is simply a t-shirt company.
If MacDonald is going to end up named for a place in the world, we're at least hoping some enterprising tourism board will catch on to his promotion. Armenia has a nice ring to it; Jordan is even a real name. The best, though, would clearly be Fjucky Sweden, and we hear they're looking to get rid of the moniker anyway. The auction ends on February 2, 2007.
TripAdvisor, the travel ratings site you love to love for what it is, but love to hate for the fake insider reviews that sometimes plague it (Great service! Great room! 6 out of 5 stars!), has launched a blog. And it's actually pretty awesome. The name of the blog is "We Are Not Making This Up," and accordingly, the bulk of December's dispatches so far are reposts of ridiculous emails and review submissions the site has received. We like this one:
From an e-mail to TripAdvisor support:
Do you mean to tell me I can not get hockey information on your site.
The hell? For some reason, we love it when question marks are swapped for periods. It always makes things funnier. There's also a letter from a hotel staffer in defense against a reviewer's claim that he rented them a dirty room. He insists his hotel never gives guests dirty rooms, but also says they sometimes forget to clean rooms, and then go ahead and rent those out anyway. And the difference is...?
Yes, we're pretty surprised at how much this is making us laugh so far. Props to TripAdvisor to having the balls to make fun of its users, albeit only the clearly crazy ones.
Update: Damn. Those Farkers can bring a server to its knees. Think we got it licked now. Sorry for the down time Enjoy.
According to the Sun-Sentinel, Florida tourism officials want to more than double the amount they get from the state for marketing Florida tourism. Their claim: $24.6 million ain't gonna cut it--it is time to take it up a notch over at Visit Florida.
Florida currently earmarks 15.75% of the $2 a day surcharge on rental cars to funding Visit Florida, which mainly runs the website (and other marketing efforts) of Visit Florida. Only Hawaii, Illinois, Texas and Pennsylvania spend more on tourism than Florida, according to a Travel Industry Association 2004-05 comparison.
Apparently, FLA tourism slipped 2.4% in the third quarter of this year. Why? Who knows, but maybe the folks at Fark.com, a popular website where users categorize and comment on wacky news, have something to do with this.
Because the site has turned making fun of the state into a sport, "Florida" has become its own category on Fark, next to tags such as "asinine," "ironic," and "stupid." Farkers currently tag approximately two out of the fifty stories they post daily as "Florida," and the stories themselves don't exactly scream "Visit Us."
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by djk
