humour

 by Brendon J. Wilson

Mile High Club

The other day, somewhere between Silicon Valley and Sin City, I was thinking about the paradox of the failing airline industry. How is it possible that the lynchpin of international business is constantly on the verge of financial collapse? I think the airline industry needs to take drastic action, and leverage some of the unique assets of its industry to pull itself out of its financial nosedive.

For example: movie theaters have long taken advantage of its captive audience. And they’ve only got you for two hours! Imagine what you could do with a captive audience for a trans-Pacific flight to Australia? I’m thinking four hours of in-flight ads, and people who are only too willing to watch them because they’re the only entertainment available. And what about all that free advertising space? I’m envisioning print ads on the overhead luggage compartments, the backs of seats, tray tables (both sides), the floor, and the ceiling.

And I hate advertising – how is it that people in the airline industry haven’t figured this out?

But why stop there? Branson announced plans to add beds and cabins to Virgin airlines flights – I say he didn’t go far enough. Hey, if you’re flying over international waters, why not use the absence of legal jurisdiction to your advantage? Where are the sky call-girls? Where are the in-air monkey knife fights? And hasn’t military aviation refueling technology progressed to the point that a Columbian provisioning plane could supply international flights with all the cocaine they could inhale prior to landing?

Honestly, someone just isn’t trying.

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 by Brendon J. Wilson

Phear And Something

The strangeness for our trip to Las Vegas started in SFO before we were even in the air. And all without a Hunter S. Thompson lookalike in sight.

While waiting for the flight, Ashley and I sat next what can only be described as The Busiest Salesman In The Universe. He had several cell phones. He was using two of them simultaneously. In different languages. Ashley counted Spanish, Hebrew, English, and something vaguely Arabic in the mix. And his phone calls came in rapid succession – “What? No….tell him no! It’s 100 or nothing.” followed by a switch in cell phones. This rapidfire conversation continued down the loading ramp and into the plane, until the stewardess told him to unceremoniously hang up.

Mr. Sales was soon surpassed on the weirdometer by the plane’s captain, who only seemed capable of speaking in one continuous stream of consciousness. It was like listening to someone read the French instructions for fastening the seatbelt, without either the benefit of a French accent or an inkling of comprehension. The words “fasten your seat belt and make sure your seat and tray table are in an upright and locked position” had obviously lost all meaning for the man. The least he could have done, if he was resigned to be incomprehensible, would have been to spice it up a little – you know, maybe a little tribute to Denis Leary:

“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome aboard! Your pilot today is Edward. He’s drunk and hooked on crack. The man sitting next to you has a nailclipper and the woman in front of you appears to be trying to light her shoes on fire. Good luck, folks!”

Vegas itself was pretty weird – I still haven’t decided whether I love it or hate it. On the one hand, it’s a very liberal city. Why, the guys on the street handing out “escorts to your door” literature are obviously big supporters of equal rights – they had no qualms attempting to hand pornographic flyers to both Ashley and I in equal measures. Yah for progress! On the other hand, it did have this sweaty, desperate, and slightly inebriated quality to everything – but that was to be expected, I guess.

On Friday, We caught Cirque du Soleil’s “O” at the Bellagio. The show features some pretty fantastic visuals, and the pool/stage was a feat of theatrical technology. My only complaint with the show was the technology overshadowed the performance – I found I spent the first half-hour of the show trying to figure out how the stage worked! What a geek.

The Phish show on Saturday (the main reason we were in Vegas to begin with) was mind-blowing. Phish was obviously having a good time – it was the third night of their three-night appearance and they were tight. Ironically, I crossed the arena to take a photo of some people wearing silver shirts, only to end up taking a photo of some guy we hung out with at the last Phish show – I didn’t recognize him until I downloaded the photos from my camera! I’ll have some photos up soon, including a pretty cool shot of the glow stick riot in the middle of “Piper”. Stay tuned for that in the next couple of days.

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