First Lady Honorable Senator Madam Secretary Khaleesi

Catching up on my DVR'ed Daily & Nightly Shows this week,  found Larry Wilmore's Nightly Show last Monday to be absolutely hilarious!  Following Hillary Clinton's presidential run announcement on Sunday, along with the start of Game of Thrones, Larry's writers had a field day, graphically.

They're really not that different...

Hillary could use Khaleesi's campaign slogan

Both had their kingdoms taken away a few years ago

They were both married to horny warlords

They've both spent years dealing with spiteful, barbaric horse people

Their paths to the throne has been blocked by gold hoarding families

Those families have been guided by a patriarch in shadows, who has been positioning the family

With the torture loving son who famously choked at a banquet

And the brother everyone likes, despite the red flags... 

And the dark horse from the fringes, who might have a chance, but who's brain has been turned to mush by religion

And of course, there's Hodor

Hodor...   I laughed out loud!   Too damn funny!!!!  Highly recommended.

Delta, Zone 1, Isn't

I flew Delta Airlines recently, and I was surprised and a little bit amazed to be BOTH TSA-Pre-check AND "Zone 1" boarding group.  "Zone 1"? I thought to myself....   that's reserved for Diamond and Platinum level frequent flyers (neither of which I am anymore, nor have been for a decade), or military in uniform (thank you for your service) or people traveling with children under 2 years of age, or those "needing extra time / assistance in boarding".  What luck!  Perhaps, in the Monopoly Game of Life, there was a computer glitch / error in my favor...

No such luck.  On Delta, Zone 1 isn't one.  Zone 1 is ACTUALLY Zone 3.  FIRST they board "PREM" ....  "PREM" is first class, million milers, Delta employees (Pilots, etc, who are not flying the plane).   Then, next is "SKY" (short for "Sky Priority"), as the 2nd boarding group.   In Europe, where Silver matters on Delta, Silver status Frequent Flyers (which I am one, after flying to Bangalore and then to Warsaw in the last year, both in Coach, narrowly avoiding Deep Vein Thrombosis) are also included in "SKY".  But in the good ole USA, Silver means bumpkus.  Silver, ever since Delta bought Northwest and inherited more frequent flyers than their Medallion Club lounges and priory boarding queues could handle, have ignored and jettisoned their Silver status members as "nobodies".  Gold gets you 1 bag free, and a listing in the "SKY" queue.  Silver, "back of the line bud!"...  persona non grata.  One of the unwashed, sweaty masses.

After printing my boarding pass the day before travel, and seeing I was "Zone 1" I did not check a bag and took my 22" roller bag on, thinking "I'll have a place in the over-head, surely!  I am 'Zone 1" after all!"  [Printing, how archaic you say?  Why not get it emailed to me, and scan it at the gate?  Well... once you've tried to do that, and you're in Zone 3 or 4 and they're out of over-head room, so they have to gate check your bag...  the only way to do it with a cell phone electronic boarding pass is to walk with the gate agent back up the jet way, so she can re-scan your pass with you phone, issue you a gate-check baggage claim ticket, and then walk back down to the plane, wasting another 10 minutes of your life that you could have been AIS [Ass In Seat] and about to fall asleep for the 4 hour flight back home. Having a PRINTED boarding pass, you just give the gate agent the printed paper, and they come back to you with a baggage claim ticket.]

So all the PREMs boarded.  Then the HOARD of SKYs boarded.  Then, when "Zone 1" boarded, the plane was more than 1/2 full, most of the over-heads were already taken, and I had to find a place for my bag 4 rows behind where my seat was... which is such a joy when getting off the plane and no one is polite enough to let you go back 4 rows.  The poor bastards in Zone 2 were all screwed.  No more over-head space.  "Zone 2" on Delta = "Zone 4" on all other airlines.  Or "Boarding group D" on Southwest.  Despicable how Delta ineptly tries to manipulate language to get the beleaguered passenger to temporarily feel better. Just call it "Zone 3" and treat your passengers like grown ups, your stupid Georgia Peaches!

On top of this, I find out in April of this year that EVERY state in which I have to travel for work, will now have State Income Tax withheld, for each day I am traveling to that state.  So in 2016, I'll get to file 5 or 6 State tax returns, to get my money back.  Joy!!!!!!  So much incentive to be a happy traveling employee!!!!  So customer centric!!!  (at Accenture, where a friend of mine works, the COMPANY Files For the employee, in the multiple states to which they have been dispatched to do work for the company..   but not so at my corporate leviathan).  Lamer than a 2 legged dog.

Tomato, Tomato... Potato... Potato...

Tomato, Tomato... Potato...  Potato...

Have you ever heard this ring tone?  (Circuit)
http://www.zedge.net/ringtone/1689022/

= )

Play it on your iPhone...   and then say  "Tomato, Tomahtoe, Potato, Potahtoe...."

Blogger won't let me upload a WAV file.

Horse Manure First Class Farts

On Sunday afternoon, my flight to Atlanta was delayed, in-ordinately.  My connecting flight was lost by my late arrival, so Delta re-booked me on a later flight, and put me into first class, seat 1A.  "Great!" I thought.  And as I later sank into my 1A seat, at gate B5 in Atlanta, I smelled something vaguely familiar.

I've been to a horse farm.  I've smelled horse manure in the past.  In my 1A seat, with a bulkhead in front of me, an external fuselage frame to my left, and a large, obese man, reading his Kindle to my right.  My nostrils filled with the stench of horse manure.  Scent is one of the most powerful of human senses.  Wired directly into the ancient reptilian brain.  Far stronger than the other senses, from our primitive ancestry.

The passenger in in 1B, a "Mr Weisner" had apparently been eating oatmeal as if he is Wilfred Brimley's best friend, or if he's drank an entire keg of oatmeal stout.  But the stench of horse manure, of an animal whose majority diet is oats.  Before we took off, it wafted to my nostrils.  After we took off, it wafted again.   Then mid-flight, during the 22 minutes of flight to Greenville SC, again.  Once we landed, he let loose his last flatulence.  All of it, smelled of horse manure.  Had I not been on a plane, in a semi-confined space, I would never have known, it was the fetid passenger next to me.  Unmistakably horse manure.

Please, if you're going to fly, be cognizant of the senses of those around you.