Now With Charts! ( argh )

[fireheart]

well at least nobody's licking kittens....

[Jester]

...he called me at 3am and actually pressed the option for emergencies which clearly defines itself as emergencies for Americans traveling in Canada and only in the event they are in a jail cell, hospital room or just woke up naked and beaten in an alley.

So based on that I was assuming a rather extensive level of stupidity on his part.

I think it's safe to say that this had left the Village of Assumption and taken up residence in the Big City of Virtual Certainty!

I can name numerous places in Canada where this sentence can be achieved with relative ease at this time of year...

And I would like to point out that I don't live within a thousand miles of any of those places. Nor have I ever been to or anywhere remotely near any of them. So for ME to work those phrases in would be a lot more impressive!

[Broomjockey]

well at least nobody's licking kittens....

<Yakko> G'night everybody! </Yakko>

[Chromatix]

Oh, I had my own tale of airline woe and disruption over here in Europe this weekend. And it did involve a paid-for hotel stay. Allow me to elaborate...

I visited England for the weekend, in order to check in on some friends/relatives and drop off some presents for them (some of them being vastly easier to deliver in person than by post). On the way there, I happened to pass through Copenhagen at precisely the same time as they locked it down to send the VIPs off, presumably including Air Force One. As a result, I landed 2 hours late, literally sprinted to the railway station as soon as my luggage arrived, and still missed the last train that would drop me within 20 miles of the right town by 5 minutes. So it cost me an extra £50 to get there (an extra train fare to the following station, and a taxi from there).

On the way back, I knew Murphy's law was going to apply once again when the train's brakes froze on. See, the worst of the Friday storm had missed the areas of the country I was travelling through, but it was still unusually cold and snowy (but no skin off my Fennic-acclimated nose). So after they bashed the offending hardware into shape, and got stuck behind a goods train for the next 30 miles, and sorted out the particularly large number of passengers (many with luggage) at the next station, we were 45 minutes behind time. The weather had worsened on the other side of the Pennines, so all trains were running slowly into the immensely congested Manchester region.

I eventually got to the airport over an hour late - but still in time for check-in. That's forward planning, and crucially it meant the airline was now responsible for getting me back home to Finland.

Meanwhile, I had an SMS saying the flight was delayed - but to continue to check-in at the normal time. The SAS check-in clerk noticed I was going to Helsinki, and told me that they would re-route me since the connection would be missed at Copenhagen. Instead, they would put me in a hotel in Stockholm - which is noticeably close to Helsinki - and then on the first flight in the morning from there. All taken care of by the airline, no extra cost to me. Of course since they actually run a chain of hotels, they can use spare capacity relatively cheaply. A bit of faffing about between the tickets desk and the check-in desk, but nothing major.

Good thing I didn't take a budget flight though. Easyjet passengers were visible with cancelled flights and promises - but not yet actualities - of refunds. Heck knows what would have happened if I'd flown through London.

Manchester airport is usually well-organised. That day, however, it was completely unable to cope with the conditions. The runways were closed for an hour and a half at a time, several times, to clear the snow off them. There were many flights delayed solely because their inbound aircraft could not be given a landing slot at Manchester, when they could successfully take off from places with arguably worse weather.

Mine were among them - both the original flight to Copenhagen, and my new one to Stockholm. I spent some of the time commiserating with some Germans who had been diverted from Düsseldorf (closed entirely) and were waiting for their (different) replacement flight.

We eventually took off over four hours late.

In Stockholm, I had been directed to ask at the arrivals service desk, which happened to be directly opposite the baggage carousel (number 13, as if anything could get any worse). No hassle there, and certainly no phone calls to make, just identify myself and get handed a piece of paper and directions to the shuttle bus for the hotel. Then pick up my bag and wait for the bus. Then I get all of three hours in the room before I have to head back and check in for the morning flight.

Well, I get free internet (a distinct improvement on trying not to use too much roaming data on my iPhone), a chance to recharge my laptop and aforementioned iPhone, and about two hours of sleep. The room is not high-class - I had to locate about half a dozen light switches to make it dark - but clean and comfortable as is expected in Scandinavia. My alarm wakes me up - just - and I crawl back downstairs, check out, and stumble out to the bus again.

The morning flight was also delayed by about two hours. I'm still not sure why, but it scarcely matters since it did still fly to the right place with everyone on board.

Helsinki public transport, on the other hand, was running practically to time, despite there being fresh snow on the roads and more in prospect. Nevertheless I chose to take the shortest bus route to a railway station, since I would prefer not to take any further chances of delays or accidents, even though the route would in this case take longer in total than taking a longer bus ride. I was possibly justified, since I saw a car almost lose control in the process of avoiding the bus...

Still, the plume of snow caused by a jet engine in reverse is a sight to behold!

[Andara Bledin]

Come to think of it, Stalin does have a sort of "teddy bear" look to him. A teddy bear forged of iron from the depths of hell, but teddy bear nonetheless...

I don't know about Stalin, but Lenin doesn't look so very skinny. At least, not based on this dead Lenin cake...

Actually he sounded like he was in his 30s and he was speaking 100% practically cartoon level ebonics. One of our hundreds of various toll free numbers is about 2 off for the number for Georgia Power. We get wrong numbers for it quite a bit and they rarely listen to a word you say until they finish plowing through their entire story arc.

It's really a shame you can't just hit the escape key and skip the dialogue and go straight to the response options...

... I've been downloading sound clips from DA:O today... I don't know how I'm going to survive the weekend with no computer... >.<

^-.-^

[Gravekeeper]

... I've been downloading sound clips from DA:O today... I don't know how I'm going to survive the weekend with no computer... >.<

^-.-^

It has a most peculiar past time.

[MadonnaC]

Stop trying to fly into a BLIZZARD damn you.




Step by Step

SC: “I can’t believe you’re there so late!”

Yet this disbelief did not prevent you from calling anyhow. This is still a thought process I cannot fully understand nor appreciate. I’ve attempted to analyze this process on many occasions and I have come up with a working framework. Allow me to go over it with you so that we may judge how accurate my simulation model really is:

#1: Dull glimmer of an idea faintly pulses on the horizon of your mind. Rouses you from your bear like slumber.

#2: With a great heave, you shift your nacho cheese dusted body weight off of the couch. Getting just enough of it over the edge for gravity to take over and do the rest of the work for you. Causing you flop onto the floor where years of unmetabolized aerosol cheese cushion the impact.

#3: You spend the next hour on the floor, staring longingly at half a Twinkie that has rolled under the couch out of reach.

#4: Remember why you went through the trouble of moving in the first place and begin to drag yourself towards the phone by pulling yourself along the floor grabbing large fistfuls of lime green shag carpet.

#5: Take a rest for 20 minutes. Tear up a little over lost Twinkie segment.

#6: Resume journey.

#7: Finally reach end table directly next to couch where phone is located. Slowly heave self up to phone level using arm of couch.

#8: Mash keypad several times. Hope someone answers.

#9: Do this for several minutes.

#10: Finally succeed in reaching us. Act surprised that we are actually here when deep down you knew we would be here the whole time and were just desperately lonely for some company. Regardless of the fact we are disembodied voices with little purpose or warmth beyond dispensing lottery tickets.

#11: Order tickets. Act gleeful that tickets could be ordered at this ridiculous time of night. Say goodbye.

#12: Be gripped by overwhelming sadness once the line goes dead and the caring warmth of our closing script slowly fades from your ears.

#13: Spend Christmas alone with your cat. ( ….hey, wait a sec. )

{snip}

This is why:

#1 I love reading Gatekeeper

#2 My wife is wondering what the %^$# I am reading now

[Eric the Grey]

Ha Ha, isn't that cute....but its WRONG!
( Bonus points for the reference )

SC: “I would like to cancel the paper.”
Me: “I’m afraid you have the wrong number.”
SC: "Oh…….what number should I be calling?”

You know, if this were face to face, I would remain dead silent and stare at you like you were a complete idiot. In the hopes that the combination of visual clues might slowly sink through the remarkable density of your skull and make you realize that you had just uttered a fantastically stupid question. Unfortunately, we are not face to face and I fear that if I attempt to give you the silent treatment here in the hopes dawn will slowly begin to break over the horizon of your mind then we will sit here for the next hour or so. Till you finally grow angry enough with my non-compliance to hang up.

I can fully believe that call centers are the reason we do not yet have video phones in the mainstream. Imagine how many people would feel they have to complain if a rep "made a face" at the caller?

They would take away one of the few outlets the call center rep has.



Eric the Grey

[Andara Bledin]

It has a most peculiar past time.

"It"?

I've been reduced to a neutral pronoun?



^-.-^

[Gravekeeper]

"It"?

I've been reduced to a neutral pronoun?



^-.-^

It is obviously missing one of the DLC's. ;p

[Andara Bledin]

It is obviously missing one of the DLC's. ;p

I has no DLCs.

Nekojin took the DLC that came with the disk. Just because it's his game....

^-.-^

[Gravekeeper]

I has no DLCs.

Nekojin took the DLC that came with the disk. Just because it's his game....

^-.-^

Ack, then It is missing one of the best characters in the game. ><

[Andara Bledin]

It will be correcting this shortly. Sometime after recovering from a $900 vet bill & $500 car emergency.

^-.-^

[Ironclad Alibi]

I has no DLCs.

I have to ask: What is a DLC?

[Broomjockey]

I have to ask: What is a DLC?

DownLoadable Content. Additional content for video games that didn't come on the disk when you purchased it.