Monthly Archives: August 2008

What goes up…

So. When your car engine stalls, you drift off to the shoulder of the road, or stop and put your flashers on.

When your airplane engine stalls, you fall from the sky and die. Or, if you’re lucky, you land in a tree and escape with your life.

I know, I know. The conventional defense is delivered eloquently at epicdisasters.com:

While airline disasters are spectacular and often cause tragically large losses of life, it’s worth noting that airline travel remains among the safest modes of travel. In a statistical sense, airplanes are far safer than cars. Each day, three million people fly. In 2000, commercial airliners carried 1.09 billion people on 18 million flights, while suffering only 20 fatal accidents. On the other hand, automobile accidents kill more than 40,000 each year in the United States alone.”

I hear it, I read it, I see it, I understand it. But it’s the “tragically large loss of life” I struggle with, feel me? I suppose there are those who say, “Oh well…when it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go.” Agreed. But I’d rather not go that way, if it’s all the same to you. As many car accidents as there are, I would think that the majority of them do not end in a ball of flame with the passengers trapped inside — if not dying from incineration, dying from smoke inhalation (although I’ll concede that there are plenty of nasty ways to die in a car, too, and on a boat and at a football game and in the grocery).

But there can be minor car accidents. Fender-benders. You can survive a massive heart attack. Is there such thing as a “minor plane crash?” If I’m making up percentages, I’d say 98% of the time, no. Even at an altitude of, say, 200 feet, when you ram a 182-ton aircraft even gently into the ground, bad things are probably going to happen to the jet fuel and you’re going to hurt people. In a car, mechanical failure often means you’re stranded at worst. In a plane, you’re stranded, and on fire. No thanks.

Years ago, on a flight from Cleveland to Denver, I had the good fortune (???) to sit beside a commercial airline pilot, who was snagging a ride home to Colorado. We struck up a conversation while waiting to taxi to the runway, and exchanged what we did for a living. I was quick to tell him, “I’m terrified of this experience, and it doesn’t get any better with time and repetition.” He was kind and encouraging, and only slipped up once, when he told me, “The most dangerous times are taking off and landing. You burn that much jet fuel at high speeds and it can be lethal.” Right. Thanks for that.

Yesterday’s news didn’t help me process my paralyzing fear of airplanes. Gotta keep trying. But for now, I choose not to fly.

In other news — it’s the first day of school. Yay!

Rat Fink, aviation weenie

Photo credits: Associated Press

How it feels to be 39

Actually, I can’t remember. But I must say that I don’t feel “old” at all. Last night, after the last of my wonderful fam went home, the Thriller and I sat on the porch swing and chatted. In between the jokes about “what we’re gonna do next year for your 50th,” I got to thinking — I don’t feel old.

So I guess the adage “you’re as young as you feel” applies here. Either that, or I’m just delusional. Either way, it’s all good.

Off to the school house with my bad self.

Schmenglish V

I was sitting at my computer in the parlor last night, doing some research and getting ready to scan my final project. The Indians were on a rain delay, so I decided to keep the TV on in hopes of waiting out the storms down in Arlington, Texas.

Then I heard it.

It was a commercial for the Kirk Herbstreit High School Varsity Football Series (Herbstreit’s initial claim to fame was playing quarterback for Ohio State University back in the early 90s). The announcer said it three times:

Canton McKinley verse Cathedral

Cardinal Mooney verse Covington Catholic

Washington verse Jordan”

A (supposedly) professional TV commercial production team making this big of an error is bad enough; letting it slide through to air unedited/uncorrected is downright nasty. What am I going to do with these people?

I emailed their media person about it. She will probably come to the same conclusion as many others: I am a wackjob.

But I don’t care — it’s my party and I’ll rant if I want to. Sometimes, it’s you VERSUS the world.

F.O.

TBS Pipeline

So get this:

Recently, I was contacted by the public relations department at the TBS television network in Atlanta. Turns out, RtB has been showing up on somebody’s screen down there. They asked me if I was interested in previewing some of their upcoming shows before they air, and writing about them here. I might even get to interview some of the talent.

How about that? I am the luckiest fink in the world. I’m also probably one of many people like this, but hey, it still sounds like fun.

The Thriller asked me what I got out of the deal. Well, a huge kick, for one thing. A possible occasional link on the TBS site for another. After that, who knows…

So, with the introduction out of the way, here’s a look at what’s in the early stages of production at TBS:

Valerie Bertinelli to Star in TBS Comedy

Remember Valerie from the 70s sitcom, One Day at a Time, where she played one of the daughters of single mom Bonnie Franklin? I wanted to be her. Actually, she and I were/are a lot alike: the same age, built the same, same emotional and physical struggles.

News is that Valerie is currently filming an as-yet-untitled pilot for TBS, where she plays — a-ha — a single mother of two. Her husband abandons the family and she is left with the task of running a lumber yard and keeping her kids and her sanity intact.

Michael Wright, senior veep for the Content Creation Group for TBS, TNT and TCM says:

Between Valerie’s comic skills and [writer/exec producer] Dave Caplan’s highly relatable humor, we’re very excited to watch this pilot take shape.”

Well, me three. Count me in. No word on the premiere date yet. I’ll keep you posted if I hear anything.

Valerie Bertinelli is a serendipitous choice for me this week, as Mavis and I are concluding a summer of self-transformation. [For those new to Finkville, Mavis is my only, and older, sister.] We have both struggled with food issues all our lives, and finally took control of it this summer.

I want to read Valerie’s new book. Talk about transformation! Sheesh…I’ll add it to the stack of eight that I’m trying to get to, while at the same time getting ready for school to start, finally finishing that evil orchestration project, spending time with Jake, and hating on eBay.

So watch for [Funny Show Title Here] from TBS, starring Valerie Bertinelli. I imagine I will have updates on the show — and other shows in the works at TBS — from time to time. Keep it tuned to RtB.

Fink out (to the kitchen to make the quiche for Heidi’s shower — yummy).

Progress report

Bet you thought I wasn’t going to post, didn’t you? Oh, ye of little faith. :-)

Since I’m getting all school-minded now, let’s have a progress report. On the state of the nation’s educational institutions? On my district’s state report card? Nah.

On Starbucks.

Back in April, in an effort to reclaim dissatisfied customers and “get back to basics,” the Starbucks think tank decided to go retro. They reverted back to their original brown logo (at left, although it looks black), in hopes of sparking nostalgia and a “return to roots” feeling among their customers.

According to this article in Business Week, Starbucks brass heard loud and clear from their customers that things just weren’t working, so they boarded the nostalgia bus. I haven’t heard word on whether it’s worked or not. All I know is, $3 and up for a cup of coffee is a *little* steep for many folks.

Apparently, the effort they made back in February to improve service by closing down all their stores for a day of intense training and re-training didn’t have the desired effect.

I haven’t seen the brown logos at all at my Starbucks store. It’s the basic green like always, with the cleaned-up siren picture on it.

There’s a lot of misinformation about the siren, apparently. From what I could find out through research, a mermaid (with one long fin) is half human, half fish; but a siren (two long fins — see the old logo above) is part bird. Go figure. And the siren is not the gentle, benevolent creature of the sea that we’ve come to know and love through “Chicken of the Sea” commercials and movies like Splash. Sirens are evil beings, whose sole purpose was to lure sailors into the sea and kill them.

Nice.

Fink, done with the final project and ready for the weekend. It’s my birf-day.