Stupid flying

There's a new website called farecast.com that lets you check out pricing trends for different flying routes to figure out if prices are rising or falling, or when flying will be cheapest. So I'm trying to buy tickets to travel from Detroit to Portland over New Years, and I'm finding it really tough to get cheap tickets. The graph below from farecast explains why:

So apparently, right around Jan 1, all the flights are really expensive before dropping back to their reasonable price of about $320. I understand supply/demand and all that, but I have to say this really sucks. No other type of transportation works this way. Trains, tolls, bus fares, or ferries don't raise their rates around certain times of the year by almost 100%. I would even prefer if they just flattened the prices at a slightly higher rate rather than gouge people who have to fly during specific times. This is yet another reason why airlines sucks and they all deserve to go out of business.

New friend

I'd like to give a shout-out to Mr. Hound Blog and his new site, the appropriately named
hound-blog. Check it for pictures hounds doing what hounds will, which as far as I can tell mostly involved sleeping and looking dopey.

Boo to AT&T Universal Card

I just got off the phone with a representative from AT&T Universal. I was trying to cancel my credit card because I have something like half a dozen, and I just got a new Northwest Card. To my dismay, the AT&T person got all hostile. She asked me why I was canceling this card, and I said it was because the card is not linked to any incentive program. This was not a lie because I got the Northwest Card for the miles so that the airline doesn't treat me like shit, which it does if you don't maintain Elite status. The AT&T card gives me exactly nothing.

We enter in medias res.
(How did you decide to cancel the card? Randomly. What? No rewards. So then she went on about how she could give me this great card with cash back on all purchases.)


AT&T Rep: Blah, blah. You'll have Blah blah interest rate and blah blah cash back rate blah blah.
ME: I really just want to cancel my card.
AT&T: What interest rate are you getting on your other cards now?
ME: I don't carry a balance.
AT&T: (Pause) Well this is a cash back offer. Who doesn't want cash back?
ME: Look, I don' t want to mean, because I know this is your job, but I am very committed to canceling this card. (Searching on LLBean website for boots. It's snowing!)
AT&T: You said you wanted rewards. So what do your other cards have that I can't offer?
ME: I would really just like to cancel my card.
AT&T: You don't care about getting cash in the mail? (Playing her ace card)
ME: No. I am not motivated by cash.

I can't believe I had to say that. I felt like a jerk. Realistically, a 1% return rate on all of my purchases is not sufficiently motivating.

AT&T: (long pause) What is your address?
ME: Why?
AT&T: (pause) So we can send you your cancellation notice.
ME: Oh....

Everyone always wants to know why I don't like to use the phone or make business calls. I'm afraid of unpleasant conversations where I feel like I have to be rude to get my point across. Luckily, I'll be on AT&T's records for a year in case I decide I want to reapply for my card.

Artsy cat photo

I took this nice picture, and even though Monday night catblogging is even less traditional than Tuesday night catblogging, I just had to put it up.


Don't you feel like Andre and TT are having complex thoughts about life at this moment? There's something almost philosophical about their gaze.

Controversial post

Given our apparently low readership, I was surprised to find that Ms. Boo's post on Sri Lankan Air was apparently quite controversial. Quoting commenter "Nike" (presumably not his/her real name?):

Fuck off you racist pricks!

I'm gonna fly SriLankan and there is nothing you can do about it

http://www.srilankan.aero

Which begs the immediate question - how on Earth did he/she find our blog?

Or perhaps the more pressing question - is this post really racist? I don't really see how that particular post could be so construed, although I suppose it does display some disregard for non-FAA regulated state-sponsored airlines. Looking up Sri Lankan airlines on wikipedia, it is apparently a well-regarded if somewhat small airline, winning international awards recently:

In March 2003 the Skytrax Research Agency’s worldwide passenger survey voted SriLankan, for the third consecutive year, Best Airline of the Year for Central Asia. In that same year TTG(Asia) voted SriLankan Best Airline in South Asia. In 2001 the UK’s Wanderlust magazine placed SriLankan eighth in its Top Major Airlines travel award category.

However, the incident referenced in The Week hardly makes on feel confident about flying Sri Lankan, and it would be hard to imagine any similar situation happening with a US carrier. That's why I would attribute Ms. Boo's humorous view more to "general queasiness about flying" than to "general ridicule of Sri Lankans." We are, of course, interested to hear from our diverse readership on this important issue.

Abbott's transformation

One consolation of Ms. Boo living far away in the Northern Mid-West is that we've been holding out great hope for Abbott to return to his Maine-Coon roots and become shaggy. Here's Abbott as recorded by Ms. Boo's camera phone shortly after she moved away in August.


And here's the shaggy little beast now.


I think it's working!

Optimism

I recently bought a domain name, and while checking prices I noticed that the Network Solutions pricing chart lists .com domain at $9.99/year if you reserve it for 100 years. If you think this isn't unreasonably optimistic, check out this talk on just 10 of the many ways that the world could end (full talk is here):