It's not about the house.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Every Sow's Ear Has a Silver Lining

From The Boston Globe:

Amid higher airfares, fewer flights, and new fees for everything from checked luggage to a window seat, there's a glimmer of good news: Once you buy your ticket, odds are slightly better your plane - and luggage - will arrive on time.

Flights nationwide landed on-time - within 15 minutes of scheduled arrivals - 79 percent of the time in May, according to data released yesterday by the US Department of Transportation. That's an improvement from April's 77.7 percent and from 77.9 percent a year ago in May…

Congratulations, airlines! You’ve increased your performance a statistically-insignificant 1.1%, and all it took to pull it off was cutting your workload by whole fractions! When your kid comes home from school and announces that by dropping half his classes he managed to up his GPA from 2.3 to 2.4, remind me to send a congratulatory wheel of cheese!

But what’s really exciting about this news is imagining the other steaming goodies we can look forward to fishing out of the toilet the economy is in. For instance:

Lost your job? The still-employed get around much faster without your unemployed ass bogging them down!

Can’t afford heat? Fewer fingers and toes means money saved on gloves and pedicures!

Fresh fruits and vegetables out of your league? When the scurvy sets in, it won’t matter that you lost your dental plan!

Gas prices too high? More carbon credits available for Al Gore!

Lifelong dream always just that far out of reach? Keep chasing it, and eventually you'll wind up the hero of a Great American Novel!

And, last but not least…

Facing foreclosure?

Tough!



Besides, if worse should come to worst, there's always...


Happy News Tuesday, everybody!

3 comments:

su said...

Brian ''Young Gun'' Krause has out-spit his father to claim his seventh championship at the International Cherry Pit Spitting Championship in Eau Claire, Mich.


Krause's winning spit on Saturday was 56 feet, 7½ inches.


That's 6½ inches better than his father, second-place finisher and defending champion Rick ''Pellet Gun'' Krause of Tuba City, Ariz, who spit 56 feet, 1 inch.


Fifty-nine-year-old Rick Krause of Dimondale, currently holds the Guinness World Record after spitting a pit 93 feet, 6½ inches in 2003.


Amanda Jennings of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., the first woman to place in the top three, did not qualify for championship competition but retained her title as women's champion with a spit of 43 feet, 11 inches.


———

soupie said...

and in other, completely unrelated news…

::collapses across the finish line::

i did it! i did it! i saw sparkle’s list of her top however-many favorite blogs of yours, and decided to read the whole thing. i mean EVERYTHING from january 2007 on, although i get the feeling there may have originally been more… because i have QUESTIONS. like how did the name AssVac come to be? and is there a mrs. andy elk? (not because i’m “shopping,” i just wanted to know what she’s like if she does exist.)

in any case, there were many laugh-out-loud moments, too many to count, and your stories were fabulous company while i was stuck at home sick… for four days. (it takes four full afternoons, trust me.)

EGE said...

Oh Holy Crap, Soup! Thanks for bothering! Stinks that you were sick in this weather, though -- although I have no idea where you are. Maybe it's snowing there?

Anyway, there are one or two posts I've removed for one reason or another, but mostly that's the lot. The AssVac came from here (with apologies to Sarah Vowell).

And no, there is no Mrs. Andy Elk, but if there were I think she would have to be a very patient drunk. Kind of like me!

I'm still stunned that you read it all, and here I've been sort of coasting for a while. I promise to get back to laugh-out-loud work, if you promise to rave to all your friends!