The Bastard is glad to see the fuckfaces at United get their comeuppance from this gentlemen who was abused by their baggage “handlers”. The Bastard was forced to fly United for a few months but now books with any other possible provider first – even at added expense and inconvenience to himself. The Bastard doesn’t like added expense or inconvenience but United is just that bad.
Lesson: It’s real simple: don’t fly United. If you do, don’t say the Bastard didn’t warn ya.
There’s something enjoyable about browsing a repository of airports with reviews posted by people who have or plan to sleep in them. The Bastard isn’t above them, though most of his unconventional sleep location tales have more to do with heavy liquor consumption than frugality.
The Guide to Sleeping in Airports offers the traveler the opportunity to get a snoozers’ perspective on their regular destinations (and departures) and amuse oneself with vague “what if” scenarios – like “what if I wound up in Moscow Sheremetyevo overnight..?”
“This was the most disgusting airport I’ve ever been to after 10 years of traveling. I had an asthma attack due to all the cigarette smoke, the toilets overflowed and the floor was covered crap and there were piles of trash all over the place. The few staff that spoke English only knew how to insult visitors.”
Don’t miss the 2008 Best and Worst Airports and keep in mind that some of these unfortunate ragamuffins choose to sleep in the airports – how sad. Are they not aware that staying in hotels will accumulate them points toward plush status upgrades?
Lesson: It’s amusing to consider the poor souls who sleep in the airports, but it should only be through a bizarre and uncontrollable set of circumstances that you are forced to stay in the airport overnight. You are better, smarter, and more resourceful than that, fuckface.
The Bastard can recall once staying in a room infested with mosquitoes and beds as thin as cardboard, but the Carter has that place beat hands down:
“The bathroom made me want to vomit,” one TripAdvisor commenter notes. “DON’T LOOK UNDER THE BED!” another cautions. (Apparently, used tissues aren’t the only risk. In 2007, a hotel housekeeper discovered a woman’s body stuffed into a trash bag under the mattress; she had been murdered by the previous night’s paying guest.)
Continue reading Carter wears smudged crown as USA’s ‘dirtiest hotel’ »
Lesson: It’s never wrong to complain, demand your money back and relocate to a new hotel immediately. If they try to charge you anyway, use your credit card’s chargeback – you didn’t book roaches with your reservation.
Surely you recall the legendary tale of David Phillips, “The Pudding Guy” who accumulated 1,253,000 frequent flyer miles by buying up pudding and asking the Salvation Army to help him peel off the UPC codes for a mail in promotion? Truly, a giant in frequent flyer hoardage and a man who casts a long shadow.
Today, the Bastard learned of the story of lovetravellingoz, an Aussie poster on the FlyerTalk forums that successfully accumulated 2,800,000 frequent flyer miles through an Austrailian Amex promotion that rewarded miles for each AmEx transaction. In and of itself, this feat and his recounting of how it changed his life, driving him to shop constantly and make minuscule purchases on his AmEx like coffees or doughnuts, is amazing and worthy of deep Bastardly admiration. But when he got to the part about buying a single beer every day from a place that featured singles from around the world, well, that took it to a whole new level. The frightening, disgusting level where the Bastard wanted to tongue-kiss him and gently caress his cock through his stiff aussie blue-jeans.
* So that began a bit of extra fun and an expansion of my beer knowledge. I resolved to try a different beer each day and this became a fun part of my day (much of the other shopping became a detested, but necessary chore).
* Many of the beers were kept cold in the store, and so on some days I might also treat myself to a refreshing beer at lunchtime too!!!!
* My Beer tasting was by far my favourite part of earning the tx and a grand way to rack up a Business Class return to Europe which I calculate is what I achieved!!!!!Continue reading ALMOST THREE MILLION POINTS by a RTW BEER TASTING , READING NEWSPAPERS AND THE LIKE!! »
Lesson: Strive for the deal, live for the deal, BE the deal. And if you do, you may someday be good enough to join this class of giants and earn the Bastard’s admiration. Maybe.
The Bastard is reposting this hilarious missive because he’s too fucking lazy to write his own post. And for those of you wondering why the fuck the Bastard hasn’t posted lately, get a life. The Bastard is busy, fer chrissakes.
“. . . It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn’t want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above.”
Continue reading The world’s funniest passenger complaint letter sent to Sir Richard Branson »
Lesson: Always document your misery for all the internets to see. And laugh at.
Note that these are the dumbest, far from a comprehensive list of the Keystone-Kapers of the TSA. The Bastard has actually noted some improvement of the general attitude of the TSA folks that he experiences, and that’s saying something special. It’s saying that they’ve convinced themselves that 3oz. containers of liquids and laptops in separate bins actually make a difference and enable effective screening. Good for you, TSA believer. If it makes you less surly, it’s fine by the Bastard.
“We suppose the visual [breast] inspection beats the hands on approach. Though it’s just a matter of time until Al Qaeda develops some kind of poisonous nanodarts that can fire out from those piercings and kill everyone on board. Or at least that’s what keeps happening in that dream we dare not tell the therapist about.”
Continue reading The 7 Dumbest Things Ever Done by Airport Security »
Lesson: the sheeple equate nuisance with safety and the TSA is more than obliged to fulfill that fantasy. Hopefully someday we’ll get real security, but until then we will continue to enjoy TSA shenanigans. BONUS: Even mommy gets annoyed at the TSA »
This past week the Bastard was planning a fucking coast-to-coast trip and the fucking options were endless. Take the northern route through Canada? The midwest route? Connect in Chicago? Connect in Detriot? Denver? The Bastard was bitching about the process when a Friend of Bastard told him about ITA Software’s Fare Shopping Engine and it’s visualization tool:
It takes the available flights and stopovers for a given range and outputs a visualization that not only allows the Bastard to quickly evaluate the flights, but more importantly, the stopovers – their relative width showing how long the Bastard has to cool his heels and suck down Tequila Boilermakers. Further, it has a column for alerts to show prop-flights, short layovers, long layovers and other alerts. It’s fucking good.
To access, click here, login as guest or make an account, input your search criteria, and then select “choose flights (graphical) from the top of the results page. You’ll be glad you did.
Lesson: The internets are a good fucking place to find new ways to save yourself some goddam time. Start with the Bastard to find the best sites.
The Bastard doesn’t like to disrobe for anyone but washee-washee, masseuses, and his Reiki practitioner. Taking off his belt in security adds precious seconds to a routine that the Bastard practices in front of the teevee 12 times every night. Thus the Bastard started a quest to find a non-metallic traveler belt.
To his surprise, such an object is fairly uncommon and is either hellaciously overpriced or of dumbass [TM] design. The Bastard looked into making his own but his sewing machine was in the shop. Eventually he found the TDU Belt from the Officer Store – all plastic! No metal! Just like the cops and TSA bullies wear!
Now, when he dresses for travel he puts on his TDU belt and marvels at the minutes that are slowly accumulating in his not having to remove and replace his belt at security. Bastard uses this time in the airport bar, drowning his misery in hard liquor and crap food.
Lesson: Anything you can do to streamline security is, as Martha might say, a “good fucking thing.“
In case you missed the memo, no one has any rights at US Airports. Of course, US citizens’ rights outside the airport have also been degraded significantly by George Bush, his cronies, and the limp-dick congress, but, at the airport, forget it. Assume you are in the good old USSR once you pass through security and you’ll be fine. There’s no accountability, no real rules, and no way to seek redress for abuses by the security theater folks at the TSA, the secret police working for the DHS or the local police who are just as clueless as you are.
The one thing that the TSA/Airline Security Theater Troupe hates most is being recorded. When they’re recorded, they lose plausible deniability and can’t just lie their ass off and say it never happened. In this case, a 56-year-old woman videotaped an on-air altercation from her seat, by all accounts disturbing no one, and was arrested, threatened with blacklisting, and banned from JetBlue:
“The police, a JetBlue rep and a TSA official all looked at the video and agreed that it was too dark to really see who was on it and that it clearly had been shot from my seat, so I had not interfered with anything that was going on,” Parver said. “I assumed that was the end of it.” At that point, the representative with JetBlue requested that she delete the video, Parver added.
“He informed me that if I didn’t immediately delete it, I could never fly on JetBlue again,” she said. “He said that he would be filing a report that would be shared with other airlines, and I might have a hard time getting any airline to let me fly.”
Parver requested a written notice that she was going to be denied service from the airline, as well as possibly others. The representative and LVMPD officers then asked her to leave, Parver said.
Parver then asked for everyone’s name, when the officer told her to leave or be arrested, she said.
“I said, ‘Then arrest me.’”
At that point the officer arrested her, pushed her against the wall and forced her down a flight of stairs, Parver said.”
Lesson: Ben Franklin said “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” and thus his prophesy has come to pass.
When I boarded my Thurs flight last week I notice a fella getting on at the end of boarding, but he’s in row 5. Because almost everyone has boarded and no one wants to pay to check bags, he has to go WAAAAY to the back of the plane to stow his bag. Dumbass.
When the flight lands and seatbelts come off, this guy launches out of his seat and immediately begins plowing back toward the back of the plane toward his bag. “Excuse me … excuse me … my bag … excuse me,” and shouldering through all the other passengers. Douche.
Then, the flight crew comes on to announce that they have mis-parked the plane and need to move it ONE FOOT for the jetway to dock properly. Everyone has to sit down. And everyone does, except … guess who. Dickbag has to be told … firmly … by flight crew to GO BACK TO HIS SEAT (without his bag). He eventually does. They move the plane.
Can you guess what happened next? Seatbelts come off and dude dives into his second linebacker run to the back of the plane. Same deal – shouldering and excusing all the way. Turdburglar.
Now, this guy’s bag was embroidered with the logo of a very large consulting firm, which, while it doesn’t mean he works for them, suggests that he ought to have enough brains to know this is a futile activity. When he gets to his bag, did he expect to shoulder back to the front of the plane again? I have a feeling the other passengers were not going to cooperate with that, especially after having been shoved not once, but twice.
Bonus: To the couple who tried to cut the security line today by asking the slacker guy 20 people ahead of them if they could go ahead of him – you suck! And to the woman who told them NO – you are my fucking hero – the Bitch to my Bastard!
Lesson: Don’t be a dickbag. Unless, of yourse, you are an actual scrotum. In that case, it’s OK.
