It's ironic that it's Southwest of all airlines that's doing this.
Jesus Christ, those women are dressed fine. I fucking hate that customers feel the right to complain about stuff like that. It's not but a few steps away from telling a stewardess to kindly remove the openly gay dude two aisles away because the fact that he isn't being gaybashed openly at that moment might harm her son by making him think homosexuality isn't a constant curse. (And you know they want to be able to complain about it.)
I don't see why they heed the customers' complaints, when the only way to deal with one pissed-off customer is to piss off another customer. What does the airline win here?
Those are the outfits? I was expecting pasties and garter belts, or something. They aren't even close to crossing a line.
The 70's outfits from SW's days of yore are adorable.
I can tutor you in contemporary American English, Ben.
Pretty weak controversy you got going here, Ben.
I'd say it's a combination of a couple of loopy flight attendants with a culture in which passengers are so frequently badly treated and therefore hostile that airline employees develop a nasty attitude in response. My mother was a flight attendant from 1960 until a couple of years ago, and really got to dislike the passengers in her last decade or so, as air travel changed.
4: My guess is that there was potential for "harm" of children here. Children, as you may have heard, are the future. This used to be a metaphor. Then people forgot.
Relevant, somewhat: A trans-male student of mine recently applied for male dorm housing at his school. At first, they assigned him to an all-wrestlers undergrad floor, which had the potential to be incredibly threatening. But someone complained that the existence of a trans-man on their floor would be harmful to the bio-men! So the housing officials pulled my student in and said, "Well, we found you a place in a male grad student floor, where your presence is less likely to cause damage."
That is, no one gave a shit about the possibility that undergrad boys were more likely to beat the crap out of him; no, the safety required was for their sweet innocent little 20-year-old straight bio-dude minds, which might be harmed and poisoned by a trans-man's very existence!
Is there any question that most-conservative-interpretation-of-potential-"harm"-to-children always, always wins?
May I please get outraged about this? Trivial though it be? Honest to God, all you people, SHUT UP!
Also, you spineless pseudo-capitalists at SWA, which class of passengers has more money: the class that likes to show off the value-added, or the class that likes to complain about people showing off the value-added?
The 'value added', slol? Been spending too much time reading economics?
11: college wrestlers are notoriously homophobic, even by the standard of your average college jock. Something about spending hours a day rolling around in the sweaty grip of other men makes them defensive. Hey, don't ask me.
The 'value added', slol?
I was trying to eupheme.
12 - did you see him sobbing about Britney over at wwttd? It's really painful to watch.
(I should add to 11 that the housing official refused to give the student the grad housing unless he showed his genitals in the office, to prove he was "really" a man. Because he walked out, he's now without a home. Who's being harmed here?)
There was supposed to be a link.
Also, in re Peoria, and because I quoted this poem the other day and have it in my head:
If thou must choose
Between the chances, choose the odd;
Read The New Yorker, trust in God;
And take short views.
18: That doesn't even make sense. If they knew about his trans status enough to understand the safety issue with the wrestlers floor and offer the gradstudent housing, what's with the genital check? Jerks.
19 is scaring me, badly. And it puts into context 12's "The most important thing in the world, like, uh, right after, like, the war or whatever: PUBIC HAIR!"
And, why on earth would you put all the wrestlers on the same hall?
why on earth would you put all the wrestlers on the same hall?
The same reason they put all the theatre people in the same dorm?
21: Yeah, I don't get it either. I'm guessing that the housing official is transphobic herself, but has directives from superiors that they have to help and protect my student. She rephrases it in terms of harm to other students, etc. The school itself is generally fairly good on trans rights/respect issues.
why on earth would you put all the wrestlers on the same hall?
The same reason they put all the theatre people in the same dorm?
Y'know, tolerance makes the world go round, but you never can escape the fact that it's pleasant to be around like-minded people.
This makes me kind of sad, because the main thing I used to like about flying Southwest (when I lived near a SW airport) was that the flight attendents weren't pinched, constipated, vipers like they are on all the other airlines (except for cutie Raoul in Delta first class -- shut up, I got bumped -- who asked for my number and then DIDN'T CALL, goddammit). The idea that they'd throw somebody off a flight for showing cleavage *because another passenger was bothered* boggles the mind.
Those of you who still cotton to old-fashioned notions may wish to attend the Hollywood Father Daughter Purity Ball at the old Acapulco's on La Cienega.
it's pleasant to be around like-minded people
It's the comity that keeps me coming back here.
15: nyuck, nyuck. My first boyfriend was a wrestler. Maybe there's something to that insecurity?
Speaking of genital peepage, is there something wrong with me that, in all these photos of Britney's vag, I have never seen anything I recognize as a vagina? Is it like a Magic Eye thing?
I can tutor you in contemporary American English, Ben.
That's good, because apparently I need the help.
Oh, you're just taunting Apo with 31. I bet we'll see up her cervix in 3.....2.....
31: Oddly enough, I was wondering the same thing.
18 sounds like grounds for slapping said official's face and/or siccing lawyers on the institution.
11,18,25: Jesus H, that makes me mad. The right thing to do on the pecker-check, I think, would have been to agree to be pantsed by the housing official as long as a more senior administrator could be present, and the event could be captured on video.
There was an incredibly sad series of incidents on my dorm floor freshman year when it got around that one kid could be found loitering in the dorm lobby in the wee hours dressed in women's clothes. A bunch of fratty guys got him trapped in his room, terrified, one night, trying to confront him about it. The most affecting part was that after the show was over, one fratguy remained, continuing to try to talk to the trans/crossdresser guy through his room door. In an awful, oafish, way, he seemed like he was really trying to meet crossdresser kid halfway.
in all these photos of Britney's vag
Gawd help me, but she has my sympathy.
35: One of the reasons transphobia goes so underreported and underlitigated is that trans people tend to be broke as shit.
As for nuptial chamber fainting spells, I am reminded, for reasons unknown, of a passage that I encountered in one of those books that one picks up during a slackly-overseen childhood in a house with unhappy parents and without a television, to the effect that many a man has been disappointed that the first naked female bosom that he encounters is so unexpressive.
31: I haven't actually looked at any such pictures, but might it be a still versus video issue? I can imagine a video from which it could be clearly deduced that she wasn't wearing underwear and that some particular shadowy area was therefore her vulva, but that you still couldn't pull an obscene looking still from.
Is it like a Magic Eye thing?
Is there a word like "Apostrolling" for this kind of thing?
36: Yeah, a friend asked me the other night, if one knew that, five minutes from now, someone would ask you a question that offensive and you had a few minutes to prepare a response, what would you say? We decided that asking to do it in front of the whole office would be the only answer.
I haven't actually looked at any such pictures, but might it be a still versus video issue
Heavens, LB, why not?
re. Britney, maybe you guys just haven't seen the right pictures? Because what I saw was pretty unmistakable.
Btw, who the fuck is this Chris Cocker clown anyway?
Mostly that I do most of my online timewasting at work, impelling me to avoid teh noodz.
Oh, shit. Chris Crocker. Shut up.
apparently I need the help
I just sent that post to exbeforelast, who will enjoy it.
44: I like the sense of indignation there, ceeb. "What does that random idiot on Youtube think he's trying to pull, anyhow?"
45: man you gotta change the corporate culture there. Possibly hire apo as a consultant?
Oh, there are so many things I'd like to change about our corporate culture.
A totally not safe for work photo of Britney Spears' relevant parts.
Self, I said, the world must be really going to hell. I mean, Southwest airlines was the primo billboard advertiser of my youth, what with the orange hotpants that displayed both butt cleavage AND tight crotch action. Also: 'Southwest always pulls out on time.' So, obviously, SWA was the airline of choice for cheesecake, and we liked it that way.
However, I actually looked at the story on channel 5 (which is making me all nostalgic for home) and noticed that the women in the green top (see slide six, look closely, like I did) has visible titties. Not a tight top with points, but an actual see-through top. While I personally look forward to a future of see-through tops being socially acceptable in public, I'm pretty sure that's over the line. I am thinking they sorta adjusted the newsstory to minimize the titty broadcasting on the TV.
I'm also rather guessing that the California blonde (sigh) wasn't wearing panties when she was sitting down in the plane. I'm totally in favor of that sort of thing myself, but that's really over the generally accepted line.
Therefore: 'Oh.'
m, that said, they really should have scantily clad young ladies on the news
I have to admit, he has a point about the pubic hair.
Say, now I know what "torquisey" means! Took me a while.
52: can't have pubic hair. Makes it too easy to get pinned.
I mean, Southwest airlines was the primo billboard advertiser of my youth, what with the orange hotpants that displayed both butt cleavage AND tight crotch action. Also: 'Southwest always pulls out on time.' So, obviously, SWA was the airline of choice for cheesecake, and we liked it that way.
They seem to be moving away from that image. In my experience flying Southwest (and I've flown Southwest for almost every flight I've taken in the past ten years) I can remember only one attractive female flight attendant. They're almost all middle-aged women and vaguely effeminate young men.
One of these women is named Setara Qassim. Interesting.
Hey, congratulate me! I'm going to be a great-aunt.
Come to think of it, I think I'm going to start drinking heavily as I contemplate aging and mortality.
Congratulations on living to a ripe old age!
My niece and her husband did most of the heavy lifting.
Shit, I need to dig out that baby blanket I got half-crocheted the last time my army buddy was pregnant. I hope I still have the pattern someplace.
I imagine LB saying 63 while covered in mud, in a foxhole, chewing tobacco. Also, I imagine her saying "Sheeee-it."
Because if you spell it backward, it's Arates Missaq?
My very own copy of Eroticon just arrived, and already I'm wiser, having learned how to possess a woman in dream (following which she will materialize in all her fleshliness and nakedness beside me).
65: Enabling this sort of thing is why I will never vlog.
Oh for Christ's sake. You can see collar bones. People need to grow up or masturbate before flying so they can fucking relax.
grow up or masturbate
Decisions, decisions...
I do sometimes wonder what it's like for someone who has never done anything or seen someone naked before their wedding night. I can't imagine how intense that experience must be.
before flying
Oh, now you tell me.
People need to grow up or masturbate before flying so they can fucking relax.
Preach it, sister.
re Hollywood Purity Ball: Come in "prom wear" and receive a special Purity T-shirt which says "once you pop, you can't stop."
What the fuck kind of t-shirt is that for a virgin to be wearing?
I'm also rather guessing that the California blonde (sigh) wasn't wearing panties when she was sitting down in the plane.
What, and the inflight magazine was shocked?
I do sometimes wonder what it's like for someone who has never done anything or seen someone naked before their wedding night. I can't imagine how intense that experience must be.
Some of those poor women freak the fuck out and can't even go through with it on the wedding night. Sometimes takes them a few days.
Why is that interesting, teo?
Because of ogged's remarks in the post about Muslim countries.
76 - I was thinking "wow...that would be pretty hot" but I guess not.
How many times has this happened to you, gswift?
Not the freaking out. The newness of the experience.
We somehow need to come up with a way for someone to reexperience the intensity of their first time without all of the nerves that distracted you. Some sort of limited amnesia.
You can have your hymen surgically reconstructed, Becks.
Does Southwest still have kids walk around collecting the trash?
80: I believe the technical term for that is "cheating".
84: born-again anal virginity, then.
born-again anal virginity, then
Minneapolis airport meetup!
Preach it, sister.
Posted by: Larry Craig
That is the funniest thing I will read all week. A gypsy told me so.
We somehow need to come up with a way for someone to reexperience the intensity of their first time without all of the nerves that distracted you. Some sort of limited amnesia.
Actually, I'm kinda this way about sex, even well into a relationship. Thrilled! Totally thrilled and nervous and excited! Yay!
No fear, of course, but definitely excited/nervous.
No fear, of course
Never been with a Muslim, eh? Gswift knows what I'm talking about!
My very own copy of Eroticon
By the mad Arab?
The flight attendents weren't pinched, constipated, vipers like they are on all the other airlines ^ LB's Mom.
How many times has this happened to you, gswift?
Fundie please. I went to BYU because it was cheap, not out of a sense of belief. Believe me, lots of those straightlaced Mormon chicks couldn't save themselves for marriage if their lives depended on it, thank god.
But I really do know people who didn't seal the deal on their wedding night. Not hard to see how it happens. I had bishops in those student wards telling us that anything but holding hands and a kiss on the cheek was unchaste.
Are there people out there who aren't excited and nervous about sex? People who aren't being paid to do it, I mean?
vaguely effeminate young men.
I'd like to raise a toast to vaguely effeminate young men. Did I mention that I used to really enjoy flying Southwest?
By the mad Arab?
And that, my friends, is nerd-cred. I'm so thrilled that when I type "Abdul al" into the Google search bar on Firefox, the *very first suggestion* is Lovecraft. There's still hope, my friends, there's still hope.
95: I like to cultivate a coldly distant demeanour. It makes the whole thing more of a challenge.
a coldly distant demeanour
Buck (and your blogcrushes) are so lucky.
I wish preemptively to invite Ben not to tell me anything about parentheses and subject-verb agreement.
99--
learned from your mom, presumably.
is part of your bed-room patter "chicken or fish"?
No, but I do circulate with a tray of hot towels afterward.
I said I was coldly distant. I didn't say I knew how to spell demeanor.
103:
"Please remain seated during this portion of the ride."
I like a woman who approaches sex with bemused resignation.
I'm so thrilled that when I type "Abdul al" into the Google search bar on Firefox, the *very first suggestion* is Lovecraft.
It's ungrammatical in Arabic, so I'm not too surprised.
The hard part about being a stewardess is that each customer expects personal attention, but you have a whole planeload to satisfy.
I like to cultivate a coldly distant demeanour. It makes the whole thing more of a challenge.
One day a man will come along and pleasure you by force. That's the best!
103--
nicely played.
actually, i felt bad in 102 appearing to diss your mom, or flight attendants, because i'm aware that it's a damned difficult job for which people--mostly women--don't get enough respect. so i would have forgiven you for going postal on me.
also, props to the vaguely effeminate young men. it's a lousy job no matter who does it.
("chicken or fish" reminds me of billy crystal's great line in city slickers when he says "what did you use for protection? paper or plastic?")
108: teo reads from Al Pedantiqon.
I went on a date with a flight attendant I might on a JetBlue flight, once. She was very nice. The end.
Yeah, mom would kick my ass for this conversation. Actually, I've forgotten most of them, but I used to be up on the stereotypical hiring patterns for flight attendants of different airlines back in the sixties and seventies. Pan Am was where you got seriously glamorous types, the ones who modeled on the side; TWA was nice Catholic girls with college degrees; American was wholesome middle-America types. Since the eighties or so they've all mostly moved into the underpaid battleax demographic.
Seeing "Going To Peoria" over and over on the side of the page has forced me to put on a Mountain Goats album.
I have no doubt that LB's mom is the exception that proves the rule; I'd even give her my phone number, if she asked.
But seriously, a lot of light attendants are kinda mean.
Forward, light attendants!
Charge the seats and tray tables!
By the mad Arab?
No, silly, by the amorous Greek, Yoryis Yatromanolakis.
I wish preemptively to invite
Not splitting your infinitives sure does make you sound stuffy, Mr Cummerbund.
The flight attendant as model seems to have gone a long time ago.
I only fly a couple times a year, but all of the flight attendants have been perfectly nice, but not very pretty.
I seldom fly, but on NW (tough to work for, they say) I figured out that flight attendants have a whole lot of miscellaneous tasks, including special tasks during emergencies, and aren't really personal service workers.
The first hit for "Abdul Al" on google.
General Question: When did flight attendants go from being primarily (wholly?) female to mixed-gender?
121: Emerson you should fly Midwest if you ever need to escape minneapolis by air again. God damn that airline is great, and you're in their hub.
Wow, 123 was poorly—but perhaps felicitously—phrased.
125: when they had to room with the college wrestlers, is what you're saying?
123: At least for TWA, there was a hard line in the 70's sometime, before which there were some men but only in a supervisory role (that is, a crew would be twelve female flight attendants and one male purser, who was in charge.) After that point, they started hiring men as flight attendants.
123 - I'll let someone make the obvious East German joke. The flying boat-era flight attendants were mostly mail; the idea of stewardesses seems to have come out of a plan to put nurses on flights in the '30s. I don't know when precisely male flight attendants became prevalent, but it was an outcome of '60s-era civil rights lawsuits against discrimination in the industry.
can i just say how glad i am that we are no longer trying to decide whether there is any hope of using net-based liberal media to rescue our country from the current fascist dictatorship?
cause that was fucking depressing.
Mom got fired for being pregnant, and rehired after the relevant class action lawsuit went to the Supreme Court.
126: yes, exactly.
127-8: Thanks. I kinda figured. I don't think I've ever taken a flight without at least one male attendant.
129: Sure, go right ahead.
christ, lb, we only just got your sex-life disentangled from the flight-attendant jokes, and now you're throwing us back in the soup.
130:
When we were young, teachers had to stop working prior to their bellies showing lest those poor impressionable children ask questions about how they got pregnant. Because, the kids never saw pregnant ladies anywhere else...
131.3--
exactly the permission i needed:
i am very glad.
i would also like to take this opportunity to say how intensely i have loathed the linguistic innovation, which i date to the mid-90's, whereby question-like sentence order is used with statement-like intonation in order to signal expressions of intense emotion.
how stupid is that.
no one before 1994 or so, as far as i can tell, had any trouble saying "how stupid that is!" when they wanted to express their emotively charged judgements of stupidity.
and no one before then used the 'how...is that' order for any other purpose than to ask questions.
then some time in the mid-90s i woke up in stupid word-order land.
was it a valley thing to begin with?
Were you the Supreme Court baby?
I was halfheartedly trying to come up with a comparison between Southwest's actions and those of a restaurant that won't permit men to dine there without a jacket (and even has a rack of them available for the non-compliant). But it falters on just about every level. Bah.
No, my big sister. She didn't get rehired for four years or so, which got her until I was over a year old. Actually terribly convenient timing-wise.
138:
Wrong. The correct answer is "And how!"
Is this the surgeon? She must lord over you.
While we're talking planes, let me repeat my failed threadjack of the weekend: upon arriving in London Heathrow from Los Angeles at 3:30 pm on a Saturday, how much of a margin should I allow before a Ryanair or Easyjet flight to Milan from London Gatwick? It's a big money saver. There are flights at around 6:30 that look good -- is that sane?
136--
this is on topic, by the way, since i remember spotting the usage the very first time in "american way", the inflight magazine of aa. i was flying back from the uk. it was an article about some hot young chef named todd something who was hired as the chef for a baseball team.
he described a recipe, and then said "how good is that."
and silly me, i thought it was a typo of some kind.
how naive was that.
143--
no, no, no.
getting from heathrow to gatwick in 3 hours? you're dreaming.
even if every single little thing went right, no.
Kid, I'm OK with it on the rare occasion that the scribe realizes that a Rhetorical Question has been posed, and adds the requisite question mark. But yes, there seems to be endless confusion stemming from the inference that the person is not seeking an answer.
this is on topic, by the way
Lie.
Thank you very much for 145. Any guesses as to a good margin? You will not be held liable.
148: 75 minutes, but allow much longer.
148--
http://www.britishairways.com/travel/airpflcnxlhrlgw/public/en_gb
yeah, they say the minimum is three hours. they aren't going to be held liable either.
notice that sifu's link says:
"Airlines recommend you have at least 3 hours between landing at one airport and checking in at the other."
checking in, note, not take-off time.
147--
what do you mean it's a lie? what do you mean it's not on topic?
i was reading the inflight magazine, and chef todd english was wearing revealing clothing, and so he got thrown off the flight, and also lb's mother was wearing a flight attendant's outfit that was revealing something or another and so she got thrown off the flight, and then i got thrown off the flight because my clothing didn't cover my face, and this is totally on topic.
how honest is that.
Thanks, Tweety. "Airlines recommend you have at least 3 hours between landing at one airport and checking in at the other." The last flight of the night is a 4 hour window (arrive 3:30 Heathrow, depart 7:25 Gatwick). Might be smarter to wait for morning. Anybody have relevant experience?
There was a very cute flight attendant on the last flight I took. Admittedly, much like the East German swimmers of yore, I tend to think of the cutest in any given group as cute, but she would have been cute even in a larger population. There was also a legitimately mean flight attendant on that flight, but she was shouted down by a bunch of people when she hassled someone. "Why are you being so hostile? He's asking reasonable questions!" That was a woman with an infant, defending a Marine from the flight attendant.
Sadly, these hostile brutish flight attendants are the very face of the Left today.
how honest is that
Bracingly honest, thank you.
155: hostile, brutish and short.
We somehow need to come up with a way for someone to reexperience the intensity of their first time without all of the nerves that distracted you. Some sort of limited amnesia.
Yeah, see, some folks would consider reexperiencing their first time a fate worse than death.
154: Infants can be lethal in the wrong hands. I'm surprised that the woman was allowed on. But at least the poor Marine had a strong hand to take care of him.
Yeah, I don't think it was the nerves that distracted me. It was genuinely terrible sex, and gave me a wicked UTI. For years, I thought it was bad because it was my first and I didn't know what I was doing, but then we hooked up again five years later, and I was somewhat relieved to realize that, no, it really was genuinely terrible sex.
An infant in a hurricane can punch a hole through a brick wall.
I fly Southwest a couple of times a year, and it's actually bizarre how strange their flight attendants usually are.
Last flight, a month or so ago, there was a very short, pudgy 60-something woman who sang us all an old show-tune over the intercom while we were landing (no kidding), a very attractive 20s black man wearing rather short shorts and a fantastic grin, a 30-something very tall woman with a gallon of hairspray and hideous mascara.
Odd.
sang us all an old show-tune over the intercom while we were landing
This sort of whimsy is strongly encouraged by SWA's corporate culture. I guess it's what they replaced titillation with.
There was only a 10 year period when US flight attendants were all women. But that was the 1960s. Pan Am was the last US airline to employ men (excepting UAL's employment of "exotic" Hawaiian men on flight to flights) and was the first to re-employ men after it lost a court case (Diaz v. Pan American World Airways, 1971).
Tits before whim, you'll get more trim.
Whim before tits, flights give you fits.
Old pilot motto.
My first was entirely forgettable and unauspicious. The lady probably hardly remembers it, unless it was even worse than I think. I saw her picture decades later in the National Geographic, where she captained a fishing boat.
My first was utterly terrific. I assume she felt that way as well, though obviously I never asked.
My first was utterly terrific as well, and I didn't have to ask. Of course it took us 2 months or so to work up to it, but there you go. Youth.
I think having a terrible first partner might contribute to my thrill and excitement about sex with other people since then. So exciting! Such a low bar set! Nearly impossible to be my worst lover ever!
Nearly impossible to be my worst lover ever!
In Elgin, N.D. there are dozens of men who might be your worst lover ever.
It's an open question whether there are dozens of men, period, in Elgin, N.D..
took us 2 months or so to work up to it
Tantric? On the first time?! You guys must've been bo-o-o-red if it really was that bad.
Not splitting your infinitives
You're not seriously busting on me for not splitting my infinitives.
Stanley, that's so oblique I can make nothing of it. 2 months of foreplay is nothing to be sneezed at.
174: Slightly more than eleven dozen, as of 2000.
Perverse red ant tree. Take that, Rev. Spooner!
(my favorite Spoonerism: "My opponent, as Rev. Spooner might say, is a shining wit." or did I get that from you people?)
The Southwest whimsy can get them in trouble.
You're not seriously busting on me for not splitting my infinitives.
I? Bust on a body? A Weiner man than I once said, "don't start none, won't be none", and I take it to heart. As for unsplit infinitives, it is a bit awkward, slol, but as we know, I like it that way. I was just bringing it to your attention.
20 dozen or more. Go to it, ladies!
Being a gentleman, I was only counting the single men.
Damn. I can't do math in my head.
178: He's deliberately misconstruing your comment as meaning 2 months of sex rather than foreplay.
(Cross-posted to Standpipe's blog.)
Stanley, that's so oblique I can make nothing of it. 2 months of foreplay is nothing to be sneezed at.
The bearded philippine is implying that the copulative act itself lasted four fortnights.
Gin a body bust on a body....
No, this is going nowhere good.
162 is reminding me that Alaska Airines is renowned for wannabe stand-up comics as flight attendants.
In Elgin a lady could have one bad sexual experience every night for eight months, more or less. If one bad experience did AWB that much good, think what 240 bad experiences could do.
One uniquely different bad experience every night, as Tolstoy would have said.
Dude Emerson I'm still suspicious of your math here.
But what of the sneezing?
Neti pot. Problem solved.
One can have different bad sexual experiences with numerically the same person.
In the North Dakotan number system, "240, more or less" means more than 100 and less than 400. But you copuldn't have been expected to know that.
I don't believe that split personality shit.
Then the number of potential nights of bad sex would be infinite. Unless Emerson has access to data on Elginate promiscuity and STD infection rates he isn't sharing, and is doing some back-of-the-envelope combinatorics? Fiendish!
A nehi pot will cure the sniffles right up.
Then the number of potential nights of bad sex would be infinite.
Sure, but that wouldn't falsify the statement that one could have 240 nights, more or less, of bad sex. You wouldn't have to keep going.
Plus you figure some of the people would improve over time.
Plus you figure some of the people would improve over time.
The tall poppies get pulled down in a small town, ben.
In Elgin a lady could have one bad sexual experience every night for eight months, more or less
Better act fast though. The estimated growth rate from 2000-2006 was -11.2% so the longer you wait the less bad sex you can have.
185, 186:
Geez, it was just the if it really was that bad part that was a head-scratcher for a moment there.
'night all.
Plus you figure some of the people would improve over time.
Under the tutelage of the generous and caring Easterner, one would assume so.
AWB's one room schoolhouse, dark silhouette against the windswept plains, a motley line of Elgin's eligible waiting to learn to love, to live, to love again!
Makes a fellow weep, it does.
They seem to be moving away from that image. In my experience flying Southwest (and I've flown Southwest for almost every flight I've taken in the past ten years) I can remember only one attractive female flight attendant. They're almost all middle-aged women and vaguely effeminate young men.
Oh, no doubt. SW moved away from that a long time ago after a buncha people yelled about the hot pants. Back in the late 80's I do believe. But SW was still the semi-demi-outlaw airline. Nowdays, I guess not!
What, and the inflight magazine was shocked?
Hah. A skirt will slide up, what, maybe 4 inches when a woman sits down? And a tight denim (or some non-stretchy cotton material) skirt will ride up maybe 6 inches [*], which looks like right about where that girl's crotch begins. Panties or no panties, I'm guessing the flight attendents and/or people going to the bathroom thought that they were being flashed.
I also know that the noon news programs in Dallas have been one-upping each other on featuring stories about social conflicts over sleaze. Which is a great angle for working sleaze onto the news while remaining straight-faced, although damned if I can figure out why that should appeal to what are mostly female audiences. But appeal it does, especially to underpaid battleaxes like, say, my mother, who regaled me for ten minutes one day about the woman who came in the store wearing a transparent top with no bra. ('You could see EVERYTHING!'
[*] I learned how much a typical skirt would slide up via rigorous experimentation in feeling up my ex-girlfriend in various 24-hour restaurants.
m, i only got chased out once
180--
my favorite was when he addressed a meeting of the Agrarian Society, and began by saying,
"never before have i spoken to so many tons of soil."
In Livy's account, the Roman tyrant, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, received a messenger from his son Sextus asking what he should do next in Gabii, since he had become all-powerful there. Rather than answering the messenger, Tarquinius went into his garden, took a stick, and symbolically swept it across his garden, thus cutting off the heads of the tallest poppies that were growing there. The messenger, tired of waiting for an answer, returned to Gabii and told Sextus what happened, who realised that his father wished him to put to death all the most eminent people of Gabii, which he then did.
What's the Kolmogorov complexity of that, biatches?
203: "if it really was that bad" means "if it really was his fault that it was that bad".
as always, ripped off from a greek original. in herodotus. involves the periander of corinth? or some other cypselids? or polycrates of samos?
jesus. took too many hits playing tackle football. brain no work.
Seems like sort of a tip-off that he symbolically swept the stick. Duh, says the dim-witted Septus, maybe that means something!
Although I suppose he could've gotten sidetracked by opium or flower arranging.
208: but parsimon said that her first time was fantastic.
209: Periander indeed, but that was corn (presumably in the british sense), not poppy.
204 hurts. How can an awkward, inexperienced bud of a 19-year-old virgin dare to tutor her 27-year-old European rock star lover? I didn't know he was doing anything wrong at the time; I just thought I was not really into sex, or that it would take some getting used to.
One-room schoolhouse on the wind-swept plains is the most tortured vaginal metaphor/insult I've ever seen.
Oh. parsimon wrote "My first was utterly terrific as well"
I completely misread that as "terrifying".
213.2--
good god, child, i don't even know sifu, but i can assure you he meant nothing of the sort.
In kid bitzer's link there's an even more terrifying vaginal metaphor. Seriously.
"Periander had put his loaves into a cold oven."
213: Geez, now I feel bad. Happy birthday!
Honestly, I didn't mean it as a metaphor. I just had a bad historical romance thrust itself suddenly upon me. With, obviously, heaving bosoms.
216: I'm overreacting for comedy's sake. I thought it was pretty funny.
yeah. okay. now *that's* an intentional vaginal metaphor. now we're onto the serious necrophilia.
but sifu's windswept schoolhouse etc. was just a bit of americana.
look: i can prove to you he didn't mean it.
that would have required him to be *clever*.
That is, on my birthday, I am allowed to act shocked (shocked!!) at the swipes at my purity and chastity and goodness and charity, though I am glad someone's making them.
I got yelled at by Canadian rednecks for going topless on a northern Ontario beach this summer. North American society is surprisingly puritan. A good indicator of extreme puritanism is the public reaction to breast feeding mothers. BREAST FEEDING! the oldest type of feeding there is. WTF Why can't we handle seeing it in public? I'm with ogged on this whole cover-it-up-to-keep-our-erotic-fascinations-intact thing. (what else will we use to sell toilet bowl cleaner?)
Best in-flight joke ever told over the intercom by a matronly stewardess on a X-mas day flight:
Why don't Santa and Mrs Clause have any kids?
Because Santa only comes once a year, and he usually comes down the chimney.
I coudn't look the grandmotherly-type stewardess in the eyes as I deplaned. (maybe this culture is infecting me too...)
Durr! Sifu make metaphor! Metaphor purty! No! Hug too much! Metaphor sleep forever!
well, sure, they have to take the swipes to see what might culture. chlamydia, strep, who knows what.
BREAST FEEDING! the oldest type of feeding there is.
No it isn't.
w-lfs-n, always standing up for the little guy.
Shouldn't you wait a while before you flirt with the newcomers, Ben. What are you going to say, autophagy?
I understand, ogged, that there was a long period of time before there were any mammals at all, but instead great, terrible lizards roamed the land and flew through the sky, and the seas were inhabited by strange, scaly creatures, and not a tit was to be found on the earth or in the waters, nor in the upper nor lower air.
Tits are the new albumen! Suck it, lizards!
Thanks for deanthronormatizing the sex talk, Ben.
229, I stand corrected. Perhaps we can say that breast feeding is one of the newest added rungs to the evolutionary ladder of feeding and thus should be emraced, not hiden away? However, on the other hand, we could just figure out a way to hatch kids in very large dumpsters like larvae, so that they'll have enough food to sustain them till they're old enough to waddle away...
230: Why, AWB, I had no idea you were down with Herpys!
233: No kidding, my friend M just sent me a link to Dragonsfuckingcars, which, along with this link, were two things I didn't really want to know about.
233: And "Herpys" is a disturbing name for a wankgroup, right? If I were to think of two things that categorically turn me off, it would be herpes and herpatological specimens. Being reminded of both, I'm going to swear off sex for, like, uh. Yeah.
234: let's go ahead and make that three things.
NSF -- wait for it -- W
Following the link in 237 is a bad idea, y'all.
236: closing up the schoolhouse for winter then, Ma'am?
239: Students in this town tend to send in applications, but they tend to defer enrollment indefinitely. ITYKWIM.
Passersby will cast wistful looks at the shuttered boards.
They prefer to attend schools with much higher tuition. The loans, I say!
They prefer to attend schools with much higher tuition.
Foolish. What you get out of an education is largely a matter of what you put into it.
So anyway, it looks like I confused the import of the "tall poppies" legend with the import of the "crabs in a bucket" legend.
It's a fact that many prefer lecture courses, which we don't offer.
Bah, the criticisms of early admission be damned!
Word has it it that a lot of the courses are weed-outs.
The seminars get very in-depth.
The administration holds that a lot of the students are drop-outs.
Students tell of arbitrary grading and capricious expectations.
"Fuckin'-A" is actually part of the grading scale.
You learn the most from your hardest teachers.
Many students seem strangely eager to finish as quickly as possible.
What's great about school is that your teachers make you think in ways you never would have considered.
The cafeteria is well-known throughout the district.
Accusations of grade inflation have led to higher admission standards. With the school closed, the groundskeepers only show up to work at random intervals. The professors often take to lecturing themselves over and over again, which they take great pleasure in, but even they tire of it.
Problem students often have to be taken firmly in hand and made an example of before the entire class.
Traversing the hallowed halls, one cannot help but feel the presence of all those who have been this way before.
The hallowed halls of the old one-room schoolhouse.
Day one assignment: cover your textbooks.
Had enough, ben? I'd like you to suggest a better allegory.
Oh, thank God, my birthday is over! Hooray!!!
Had enough, ben?
I'm just not feeling challenged anymore, Ned.
It's still your birthday where you were born.
261: one room, many halls. It's a bit like a Doom level.
262: Some simply refuse! They don't care! They claim they can't study without the cover showing.
Let us hail the haloed hero of the now hollowed hallowed halls.
I'm just not feeling challenged anymore
Sounds like you should have taken the AP-level course instead of the intro. Probably you were too diffident and apologetic during the advising session.
270: If only I knew which alumnus to honor!
Alphabetical order, first the alumnae, then the alumni.
It's still your birthday where you were born.
It's always one's birthday where one was born.
It's true that the graduates don't feel like they got anything out of the experience, but you can't argue with such high job-placement stats.
I bet ben gets laid tonight.
What are you basing that on?
277: the rose petals he's strewn about Ben's bed.
Alumni testimonials include: "I put more than one 'OH!' into my 4.0."
Actually, class evaluations are enthusiastic as hell, but after graduation, alumni express dismay that courses did not prepare them for experiences in more traditional graduate schools.
Ben's not a rose-petal guy, he's all cactus: prickly, lacking fluid—but then, I've said too much already.
Ah, the majestic sweep of the old alma mater still brings a lump to my throat.
Is that the first Mineshaft Rickroll? It's the first I've seen.
Geez, thanks for ensuring that only 1 person would get rickrolled, Dean Bear. Talk about the out-of-touch ivory tower.
I can't bear to see everyone fall down that hole.
Talk about the out-of-touch ivory tower.
Well now it certainly is, Mr. Grumpy.
But seriously, this is the real alma mater.
Though many students apologetically lack the depth and breadth of study that are associated with academic endeavors, the faculty are open to non-traditional curricula.
292: No way, man. I stand by that comment, dammit.
I figured out that flight attendants have a whole lot of miscellaneous tasks, including special tasks during emergencies, and aren't really personal service workers.
I reckon it a major accomplishment of the flight attendants union (with an assist from the pilots) that they repositioned the craft as "safety professionals" rather than "flying waitresses". This was of course a deliberate strategy.
In addition to creating a more auspicious context fo collective bargainint, this positioning has the side benefit of excusing all manner of laziness and inattentiveness on board ("We are here primarily for your safety, but also for your comfort...").
The last flight of the night is a 4 hour window (arrive 3:30 Heathrow, depart 7:25 Gatwick). Might be smarter to wait for morning.
You can easily stand in line for an hour at immigration at Heathrow if you're unlucky. You will then hit the streets at the beginning of the after work rush.
I'd wait for morning, but I'm of the Benjamin Jowett school of travellers ("The only way to be sure to catch a train is to miss the one before"). You might get there in 2 hours, but you might just as easily miss your flight.
Yeah, travelling in London is nightmarish at times.
Heathrow to Gatwick, you're talking two hours minimum, before you add on check in times, immigration, etc.
I can't find a link, but didn't Southwest discipline a pilot and co-pilot a couple of years back for flying the plane with no pants on?
If this recollection is correct, then at least you can give them credit for consistency.
As I recall, the pilots had a pretty good defense in the grievance procedure, and I'm not sure the employer was able to make the reprimand stick.
...most Muslim countries, where guys who aren't rich enough to have visited prostitutes probably reliably faint on their wedding nights.
I had the experience of observing the impact this had on a bunch of Palestinian students at a Western university. By and large, they came from the more educated and cosmopolitan strata of Palestinian society, and still the culture shock of seeing so much female flesh on display in everyday life threw them for a loop.
The Palestinian guys (they were all male) had a terrible reputation on campus for making insistent, unwelcome come-ons to the local women at student parties. It was hard not to feel sympathy for them, because the cognitive dissonance must have been really distressing: judging by appearances (for their standards), all the girls were whores, yet they refused to put out.
I do sometimes wonder what it's like for someone who has never done anything or seen someone naked before their wedding night. I can't imagine how intense that experience must be.
God only knows, but I imagine it's probably something like this.
298: "Every Arab comes to the US with his penis on his shoulder." An Arab told me that, and IIRC it's a common saying among Arabs in America.
The guy who told me was a Yemeni policeman in some kind of exchange program. His first week in the US he slept with a Jewish NYC policewoman. He was never the same again.
The Arab/American couples I knew of turned out badly. This is orientalism, I know, but in Arab culture AFAIK you have virgins, wives, secondary wives, temporary wives, and prostitutes, but no sexually autonomous women. American women either got put in the temporary wife / secondary wife / whore category, or else they found that they didn't really want to be wives in the Arab style. In the case I know best the husband was not a bad guy, but was controlled by his old-fashioned mother.
294: I feel silly defending my mother, particularly given that she's retired, but the definition of a flight-attendant's job as primarily about safety rather than food service isn't the flight attendants' unions, it's the FAA. Think of how badly passengers are treated otherwise -- would the airlines hire someone to give you drinks if they didn't have to?
Back in '90, maybe '91 or '92, TWA had a plane make a bad landing in NY -- the plane had every seat filled. It was a fireball 90 seconds after landing. No one died, no serious injuries, because the crew managed to clear over a hundred people off a crashed plane in barely more than a minute. That's what the job is -- pushing the drinks cart is what they do for the 99.999% of the time they're not necessary.
How could someone who brought a new litigator into the world while fighting a Supreme Court case be anything other than wonderful? And presumably babe-alicious, too. However, her cruelty to water buffaloes still gives me pause.
The link in 291 was a fine comment, but it and the since-claimed Margaret Thatchers threw me for a loop and were pretty intimidating. I remember thinking "Jeez, I've apparently missed a huge part of the experience, all my life. What does that make me?"
I remember being cheered by LB's observation, somewhere in that period, that for that and another much-discussed-here practice, size not only mattered but could be an impediment. Cheered not only because it explained why that other practice never seemed to work so well as those who swore by it seemed to insist, but did so in a plausible way that I could hardly complain about. And cheered also because it suggested that these practices represented a form of compensation for those better-fitted to them, realms of pleasure and satisfaction. It tickles my Emersonian sense (R.W.). And leaves me wondering at the frank matter-of-factness of such knowledge.
Without the internets, the combination of pseudonymity with established personal credibility, it's impossible for me to imagine being party to such a conversation, and fully believing it. I can't imagine my dad had any comparable way of finding out such things, at any stage of his life.
The Arab/American couples I knew of turned out badly. This is orientalism, I know, but in Arab culture AFAIK you have virgins, wives, secondary wives, temporary wives, and prostitutes, but no sexually autonomous women. American women either got put in the temporary wife / secondary wife / whore category, or else they found that they didn't really want to be wives in the Arab style. In the case I know best the husband was not a bad guy, but was controlled by his old-fashioned mother.
You haven't mentioned mystical jasmine and djinns, so you're in the clear. There's a number of American women on my immigration board that married Moroccans or Egyptians (often after a long online-courtship and one in-person meeting), the guy is younger and from a rural area and doesn't speak English all that well, and America just blows his mind. He might even have the best of intentions (there's a number of fraudsters, or guys who figure that divorce isn't a big deal to Americans so he's really not harming the woman if he uses her for a green card), but his idea of a wife is not someone who wears tank tops or well, isn't his mother. Even the very nice guys have a rough adjustment.
flight-attendant's job as primarily about safety
They are just like lifeguards. 99 percent of the time their job is putting up with preening swimmers trying to impress them. The most important part of their job is the one percent when they have to save the guy in cardiac arrest from trying to show of.
I just sent that post to exbeforelast, who will enjoy it.
She opines,
Charming.... and correct as well.
You are validated.
I would like to agree with the Arab men/American women sentiment, although my parents are of course perfect and infallible and delightful.
Actually, my [Egyptian] dad was in fact looking for a smart, independent, strong woman, which means that after my [American] mother died, well, he's been single for the past 18 years.
But yeah, every other Arab/American couple I knew was kind of gross and upsetting. And the kids wack.
Relationships are difficult enough without adding in deep rooted cultural differences. More power to the people who overcome them, but it can put a real strain on the relationship.
I once dated a girl from New York. Wow that was difficult.
comic gold, man. i can't understand why vaudeville ever died.
i can't understand why vaudeville ever died.
Stomach cancer.
I cant sing. I can barely dance. Humor is not my friend.
I'd have been perfect for vaudeville.
306: Was that mere opinion, or knowledge?
This is getting pretty far in the weeds of stereotyping, but the Egyptians I've known haven't seemed like Arabs. Most of them were PhDs or MDs, of course.
There's a big difference between the the people who come from the various countries. The (rich) Saudis sent over a lot of very average guys, whereas Egyptians who can make it over seem to be elite.
Vaudeville was a cleaned-up version of burlesque. Burlesque was the authentic shit. Fact.
yeah, generally i prefer to clean shit up.
or rather: generally, i prefer it when the shit's cleaned up.
(not saying i like to do it myself).
I am SO not reading this thread, which has surely already gone way off topic, but.
1. Those outfits aren't especially unusual, especially in Vegas and San Diego.
2. That said: if I were sitting five inches away from a woman with that much visible suntanned cleavage, I would probably be internally annoyed. I wouldn't complain, but I mean, come on. You guys know what airplane seating is like.
3. It probably was some Christian snoot complaining, yes. But as a parent (!!!) I resent AWB's presumption that anytime someone's being a snoot they're doing it "for the children."
316: And Emerson knows, because he was there.
re: 319
The green dress was just a bit misjudged for travel unless people habitually travel in 'party' clothes. On the other hand, the short denim skirt, when she was sitting down, you could basically see her arse. Personally, I have no objection to arses, but I can see how some people might find it distracting [although complaining to the air-plane staff just seems weird].
complaining to the air-plane staff just seems weird
Indeed; I use my personal staff to deal with all exposed asses.
321: As always, I consider ttaM's endorsement complete confirmation that I am 100% right.
If I were sitting five inches away from a woman with that much visible suntanned cleavage, I would tip.
Perhaps they should just have all the other passengers indicate whether or not they're willing to be seated next to a woman may or may not be semi-nude.
Also, those outfits aren't that unusual in Oxford, on cold wet days, when it's 10 degrees (C).
United's "Premiere Class" already sounds like a "gentleman's club" name, so Emerson's proposal seems reasonable.
On the Today show, they asked her about the skirt, and she said that she had her legs crossed the whole time. Yadda yadda; getting into the details skeevs me out a bit. I did sit next to a woman who was flying back from a bikini contest once; I don't remember exactly what she was wearing, but I do remember loaning her my jacket because she was cold in whatever she was wearing. I'm a goddam saint.
I use my personal staff
Also known as "Little Ogged".
Latest reports are that she was pantiless but perfumed and neatly shaved.
As best I can tell this is a social thing, not an airline-regulatory thing. If one were to disapprove, the correct response would be to gracefully insert a five dollar bill into some portion of her dress.
That was a woman with an infant, defending a Marine from the flight attendant.
Take *that*, everyone who ever argued that women don't belong in combat.
333: Sure, if we're ever facing invasion by an army of flight attendants.
I'm a goddam saint.
Of course you are. The kind that's mortally offended by the sight of exposed female flesh, so you had to give the hussy a jacket to cover up in order to save yourself from the flames of hell.
Did you burn the jacket afterwards?
334: Apo, I bet you know perfectly well that a woman with babe in arms can be a pretty fearsome adversary.
Did you burn the jacket afterwards?
The jacket?
Re: 121 and lack of HAWT flight attendants: go fly someplace overseas, particularly where they don't have as many lawsuits or as much feminism. The stewardesses on Middle East Airlines are pretty much all teh Hawt, eg.
Re: exposed flesh, assumptions, etc: this is one reason that Saudi tourists are hated, nay loathed in Lebanon. Along with (1) jealousy and (2) the fact that the Lebanese hate pretty much everyone anyway.
