Monday, February 15, 2010

Express Checkout: Blow Out, Kevin Smith, Pattinson

- You know, for a second on the weekend, I felt bad for the women on the Slovakian Hockey Team at the Olympics after taking an 18-0 shellacking from the Canadians. And then I found out that the Slovakians piled 82 goals on the Bulgarians to qualify for the Olympics to begin with. Someone calculated that was a goal every 44 seconds. The thing that really makes that horrific from a karma standpoint was it was the closing game of a qualifying tournament, so there was a point where they could have stopped scoring and they still would have made it to the next stage. It makes me wonder what Bulgaria did to the coach of that team because that is just insane. I mean, I think that is worse than the infamous Georgia Tech-Cumberland State football game of 1916 (and 82 goals isn't even the biggest blowout in international hockey history).

- Kevin Smith was kicked off of a Southwest Airlines flight over the weekend because he was too big to fit in a single seat after trying to get a standby flight from the San Francisco area to Burbank. He had purchased two seats on the flight up there, and admitted that he is "way fat". Now, I'm a husky dude, I admit it, but I have to side with the airline here, as much as it pains me to do so. When I am not blogging and doing all the various other things I do in my life, I watch and read a lot of things about plane crashes. I mean, a lot, so I know a thing or two about them, and the operation of aircraft and regulations as well. From reading the stories from both Smith and Southwest Airlines perspectives, this is what I think happened. Kevin Smith boarded the plane as a standby passenger, he sits down and gets settled in. The pilots in the cockpit are doing their preflight check and knowing what was in the cargo area, they do their weight calculations (based on average weights per passenger), and they discover that they are over the carrying weight limit for that plane, and they then made the decision to kick Smith off because he was the sole standby passenger, and the airline then tried to get him off the plane delicately so the other people on the plane didn't know that there was a potential issue with the flight through another pretense (because they kept saying it was a safety issue). Smith has also heard speculation that someone near the flight had him pulled because they didn't like his movies or his attitude when he boarded the flight... which also seems possible. EDIT: I just got through listening to Smith's Smodcast, and he told a tale about the flight after the one he was kicked off of, and I have to say, I was wrong. He was very much slighted, and apparently he is not alone.

- I will just present this quote I found browsing Google News with one brief comment at the end. "In a new interview with Details, Robert Pattinson reveals that he loves his dog more than any living lady, and that he's not a big fan of vaginas." Yeah, is anyone really surprised by that last revelation... at all?

7 comments:

Lee Sargent said...

I really have to make the time to listen to K Smith's smodcast, even though the man grates on me I also do enjoy his speaking engagements.

I don't know if I have an opinion formed properly yet over this flight debacle. My initial reaction was to side with the airline but then I know what it's like to be frustrated with an organisation, although for nowhere near same reasons!

I think if I had Mr Smith's money I might consider a personal trainer, but that's just me.

MC said...

He told a story about the next flight which had a lot of open spaces on it, and he was sitting in the same row a girl who was also heavy set, and a flight attendant pulled her aside and suggested that maybe she should buy two seats not two hours after the Smith incident happened. So it was Smith, empty seat, and that girl.

The standard the airline is using is if you can comfortably get the armrest down, and both parties could do that.

After hearing that in those circumstances, they were trying to get someone to pony up for another seat... well, I can really see Smith's side in this.

Kristyn said...

I think it's terrible that they're kicking people off planes for being heavy. I'm not a small girl, and I would be humiliated if that happened to me! I mean, I can see if it's a danger, but if there're empty seats, Southwest Air is just trying to make a buck by humiliating people. That bothers me, a lot.

This isn't the first time they've done this. They kicked a girl off a flight for being too scantily clad, once. They're starting to get ridiculous!

Semaj said...

Just listened to the podcast, OMG I can't believe they treated a female customer she was too fat too...right in front of him.

How does a company get away with this?

MC said...

Semaj: They are cheap, so people make the choice to fly them.

Kristyn: The money is exactly why this stuff is happening. It was the latter part of that podcast that convinced me of that.

AG said...

Yeah, I checked out the Smith situation before I passed judgment, though Southwest's record of general asshattery is pretty well-established. I'm a fan of Smith's and want him to be around making movies for a very long time; I'd like him to be healthier, but I'd also like to stuff the SWA waitresses-in-the-sky into a convenient jet turbine.

Also: Pattinson. The coffee. The snorting. You don't owe me a new keyboard, pal -- you owe me new sinuses.

(CAPTCHA: remaking -- yes, that's probably what will be required)

MC said...

Yeah, I was watching Frontline... airline jackassery was heavy on the menu last week.