The enigma that is Spirit Airlines

So, I will be flying to Vegas this evening on a Spirit Airlines flight. Not being familiar with this airline, I decided to check the trusty internet to see what I could find out about them. I might as well have Googled the term "Snake Oil." As I read through some reviews, several phrases kept popping up:

• Expect delays
• Nickel & Dime
• Bait & Switch
• Soul Plane

Soul Plane? Yes, I actually saw multiple one-star reviews comparing Spirit to a real life version of the movie Soul Plane. That confused me because that sounds like a good thing.

Apparently the airline is basically just a la carte. They give you a really cheap ticket and then charge you for everything else. Everything. Some of it can get pretty expensive.  $10 if you don't print your own ticket.  $3 for water. $10-$50 to pick your seat. Baggage seems to be the biggest problem. Here's a (helpful?) chart for that:

They actually have a pretty funny video that you can watch that attempts to explain what they are doing. But what really put my mind at ease was running across this:

So, not only will they have drinks, but they will give you discounts the more you purchase at one time. Mixing it up, they call it. Spirit Airlines is alright in my book.

*One member of our group is flying out a day early. I was able to get some early feedback on the Spirit experience. Our conversation after the jump..

Paul McCartney Hospitalized

Paul McCartey fell ill and was hospitalized during his Asian tour, forcing him to cancel some shows in Tokyo. This can obviously be blamed on Yoko Ono.

Carry on.

Pink vs. Black

Tom Ley of Deadspin posted a link to what he called the best comedy and action film of the year.  I wholeheartedly agree that the film has just about everything. However, as good as it is, I still thought it was missing a very important aspect of any great movie… music.  As this TCM special about the 40-year collaboration between Steven Spielberg and John Williams points out, a composer can have just as much impact on a film as a director (and Williams may actually be the true genius behind Spielberg’s films).  Some of the pacing and cinematography in this otherwise exceptional piece of cinema is less than perfect. Music can help mask some of the flaws and keep the story flowing.

Hopefully you will enjoy this as much as I did.

Disturbed

A rapper has apparently cut off his penis and jumped off a building. Unfortunately, it was nobody from the Black Eyed Peas. According to reports Andre Johnson, AKA Christ Bearer of Wu-Tang affiliation, was rushed to the hospital early Wednesday after he cut off his penis and then jumped off a second story balcony in what police believe was a suicide attempt.

This immediately raises a chicken/egg question. Is it more likely that he cut off his penis for some strange reason and then decided with no more penis there is no real reason to live, or did he think that since he has chosen to kill himself that it might be funny to leave a penis behind as some sort of bizarre prank on his roommate (likely RZA, but possibly Ghostface Killah)? That is a question that was already going to keep me up for days, if not weeks. But then Radio.com has to drop this nugget on me:

“There’s also no word on whether or not doctors have attempted to reattach his penis.”

So not only do I now have to wonder about the order in which the decisions of one Christ Bearer occurred prior to him falling penisless from a second story balcony, but now I have to ponder the merits of reattaching his unit.

Scenario 1:
Someone finds Mr. Bearer splattered on the sidewalk around 1am and calls paramedics.  They find that he has cut his penis off but decide that keeping him alive is more important.  The paramedics and doctors work tirelessly to save his life. After a few weeks in a coma, he wakes up to find he is alive. He never planned this. He wanted to die. So now he’s alive with a giant hospital bill staring him in the face.  Oh, and he has no penis.  He’s probably going to be looking for a fourth story balcony in short order, which makes everyone’s work pointless.

Scenario 2:
Doctor’s realize that a man without his crank is not really of use to anyone, so (provided they can locate it), they decide the most important thing to do is to get that penis reattached… STAT! They work meticulously through the early morning hours to ensure that the appendage is seamlessly rejoined only to find out that their patient died two hours earlier from massive head trauma.

So it appears that there aren't too many merits in either saving his life or reattaching his penis. The man was obviously having an identity crisis. We all saw what torment Jan Brady went through, and she was simply the middle of three girls. Imagine what it must be like to be lost in a crowd of 50, 60, or even 100 Wu-Tang members.

Madison Rising

People are saying they performed the worst national anthem ever.

They are obviously just saying that because they hate black people...

...and hillbillies...

Hank the Bigfoot

I guess everyone has seen the ridiculousness/awesomeness of Rick Dyer's Bigfoot tour. I don't know what to think of this nonsense. 800 people showed up to a Sunday show and there were two more sold out shows in Houston the past two nights. Assuming that the other shows will accommodate at least as many people as the first, at $20 a person, that is over $45K this guy has made off of Houstonians who want to look at a paper mache monster. And that doesn't even count any of the merchandise sales.

The guy is providing a service for people who want to pay money to look at a monster, but with his story of luring the beast in with some Walmart ribs and shooting it, is he guilty of some sort of fraud? I say that assuming that the thing is a fake (which it certainly appears to be). In fact, he should hope that it is a fake since if it were real, the charge against him might be murder. After all, this is a humanoid creature he has on display.

I guess the part that is bothering me the most is why this current tour is so successful. Dyer himself was caught amidst a fake Bigfoot scandal less than 10 years. Numerous others have participated in some form of hoax as well. So, why is everyone so eager to see this one?  Is it simply because of the awareness?  I have seen stories about this Bigfoot tour from many different news outlets. Why have they decided to cover this one and essentially help line the pockets of a known huckster? How did he get them to help in his bidding? The power of media is a sight to behold.

The Marius Paradox

A Denmark zoo shot a giraffe in the head, chopped it up in front of a group of children and their parents before feeding it to the zoo's lions because they did not have room for another giraffe. Bengt Holst, director of research and conservation at Copenhagen Zoo, said the giraffe was 2 years old, and while he was not officially named, his keepers had called him Marius to identify him (which is officially what names are for).

Holst declared that the zoo staff saw it as a learning opportunity because zoos have an obligation "not to make nature into a Disney World," but rather show those interested in "the real thing." If that's the case, why not just turn Marius loose in the lion pen? Kids would learn more about nature by watching how a lion takes down a giraffe, rather than watching the Copenhagen zoo's glorified butcher do his work.

Several zoos volunteered to take Marius in, but "it is not possible to transfer the giraffe to another zoo as it will cause inbreeding," Holst said. Apparently because only zoos that follow certain rules can be part of international breeding programs. In Europe, these are members of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria, and under its rules, inbreeding among giraffes is to be avoided. So, the zoo can only deal with other zoos in its network, but because of that rule they can't let them breed?  So how/why was Marius born in the first place if they knew they didn't have room for him and couldn't move him to one of their other zoos?

Zoo spokesperson, Stenbaek Bro, said his zoo had turned down offers from other ones to take Marius and an offer from a private individual who wanted to buy the giraffe for 500,000 euros ($680,000). He said a significant part of EAZA membership is that the zoos don't own the animals themselves, but govern them, and therefore can't sell them to anyone outside the organization that doesn't follow the same set of rules. This raises the question, if they don't own the animals, what right do they have to kill it?

The EAZA said some institutions that offered to take Marius were ruled out because they did not meet the organization's strict protocols, and the Copenhagen Zoo wouldn't send Marius to an institution with "lesser standards of welfare."

It's odd that they think that killing it would be in the animal's best interests over sending it somewhere without top-notch facilities. If you could ask the giraffe, I'm sure it would have been fine living in a second-rate zoo instead of getting shot in the head and fed to lions for the amusement of some kids.

I don't have any real problem with what happened here. It's just that every explanation seems to either contradict something else the zoo has said, or other logical alternatives. Obviously, the zoo likes to have cute baby animals born on their premises in order to bring in hordes of families and discards them when the newness and cuteness wears off. It seems that the EAZA or Copenhagen Zoo could have done quite a bit of education/conservation/preservation etc. with $680,000. It would also buy quite a bit of beef for their lions.

Naked man tries to eat teen's face

A naked man died after being shot by a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s sergeant when he attacked a former New York City police officer, chased a man and his young son and bit a man on the face. Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said at a Tuesday night news conference that the man later died at a hospital but it wasn’t immediately clear whether he died from gunshot wounds or from a medical condition (like excessive loss of blood or a foreign object lodged in his heart).

“The people that he assaulted, starting with the retired NYPD guy, the people that he chased and then the 18-year-old, said this guy had like super human strength,” the sheriff said.“He was obviously on some kind of narcotics to act like this.”

What is going on with drugs these days?  What happened to just getting high? Now the street drugs turn people into cannibals and kill our celebrities while the needle is still in their arm. And how come when they get high they automatically turn into cannibal zombies? How come you never hear about somebody getting high and getting super-human strength and then lifting a car off somebody in an accident? Why do they have to use their Junkie Superhero status for evil instead of good?

Talk about a left turn

Especially if it’s a freshly made Mexican dinner dripping in grease and smothered in cheese.

Subway has a new enchilada and Frito sandwich. I'll let that sink in for a minute.

I thought their pitch was always about eating healthy. That monstrosity seems like something I would have invented while trying to clean out the refrigerator of leftovers in order to make room for a vodka-filled watermelon. I guess their new angle is the convenience of taking a meal that you would normally have to eat with utensils and stuffing it in some bread so you can eat it with your hands. Next month will be a fettuccine Alfredo sandwich.

Subway Employee:  Welcome to Subway, how can I help you? 

Customer: I want a footlong enchilada and Frito sandwich. 

Subway employee slaps a mound of enchilada slop on a 12” bun and pours a bag of Fritos on top. 

Subway Employee:  Ok, sir, what toppings would you like on it? 

Customer: Meatballs. 

That customer then proudly tells everyone at the office that he had Subway for lunch. 

Sensationalize much?

Federal agents say they have shut down two alleged human smuggling rings.