The Answer May Surprise You
Showing posts with label florida is fucked up. Show all posts
Showing posts with label florida is fucked up. Show all posts

Friday, August 24, 2007

Q: Dear everyone on the Internet, could you please stop being such whiny beyotches? Thanks. Love, T.A.M.S.Y.

A: We're not usually in the business of defending corporations and CEOs here at The Answer May Surprise You (quite the opposite, really), but we'll make an exception if it contributes to the eternal battle against idiocy.

The blogosphere and even printosphere is lately abuzz with the story of how Spirit Airlines CEO Ben Baldanza is still new to this whole email thingee. When a couple named James and Christine in Orlando emailed Baldanza, and various other employees of Spirit, to complain about their flight experience and request compensation, Baldanza responded to one of his underlings:

Please respond, Pasquale, but, we owe him nothing as far as I’m concerned. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He’s never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny.
Except he accidentally hit "reply-all," so his email was sent back to James and Christine themselves, at which point Christine posted it as a comment on a blog, eventually leading to it appearing lots of other blogs, and then USA Today and the Orlando Sentinel, etc etc etc.

Oh, by the way, want to know the nature of James and Christine's original email? They were angry that their flight from Orlando to Atlanta had been delayed by two hours and 35 minutes, because they missed a concert. As CEOsmack explains, "The couple also cited poor customer service when they asked to be reimbursed not only for their $73.60 airfare, but also for their hotel, concert tickets and airport parking... for a grand total of a company crippling $376.84."

As far as T.A.M.S.Y. is concerned, Baldanza should have been far more candid in his reply-all. I would have gone with, say,
Dear James and Christine, and all my employees, and everyone on Earth,

Please accept my apology for your poor experience with Spirit Airlines. I can certainly understand your frustration, as I am constantly receiving emails from people who missed a concert because their flight arrived three hours late.

Oh... no, wait... now that I think about it, I've never received such an email. Yeah, hold up, I've never heard of such thing. Upon reflection, it is, in fact, the most retarded thing I've ever heard. You must live in Florida or something. Oh, yeah, you do, imagine that.

Zee plane boss, zee plane: Ben Baldanza loves email from Fantasy Island

Say, do you know how I became CEO of a major corporation? I'm pretty sure it was by not handing out $400 in refunds to people from whom I will never ever ever make $400 in their entire lifetimes. Especially not people who are so dumb that they'd think it were a good idea to fly to someplace to see a concert within a couple hours of their scheduled arrival. Did I mention how retarded that is? Because wow.

Really, I have to thank you for your very entertaining email. Like when you wrote, "It is understandable that flights are delayed at times, and for this reason, we booked our trip to Atlanta with ample time to get to the concert that we were supposed to attend on the night of August 14th even if the flight was delayed by up to an hour and a half"? Honestly, I busted a gut. Funniest thing I've ever read. Or when you complained that you had to wait 20 minutes for the airport supervisor to unlock the gate? Maybe instead of giving you that $376.84, I'll use it to pay someone to train a field mouse to play the violin, and he will play you the tiniest fucking violin concerto in the history of time. It will be so much better than the DC Talk concert or whatever the fuck you were flying to Atlanta for.

Or wait, how 'bout instead, I just keep the money, and we never discuss this again? Yeah, that seems like a good compromise. No, $376.84 wouldn't cripple our company; in fact, I made that much in the time it took me to write this sentence. It's more just a matter of principle, specifically my principle that idiots who email me for no reason should go fuck themselves.

Please make sure every blog in America publishes this email, because I'm told "any publicity is good publicity," and currently no one really knows or cares about us here at Spirit Airlines, even though we only charge seventy-five bucks to chaperone retards to concerts.

By the way, if you ever email me again, I will instruct one of our pilots to fly a plane into your house.

Respectfully,
Ben Baldanza
CEO, Spirit Airlines

P.S.: I was laughing so hard while I wrote this that I knocked over a $750 lamp. Where's my motherfucking check, assholes?

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Q: What's surprising about a Republican politician being outed as gay and/or into hookers?

A: Nothing. Under normal circumstances, the story of a Republican politician running around banging hookers, or gay hookers, is what people in D.C. like to call "the weekend." Or just "nighttime." Or "being awake."

For one thing, getting caught with hookers is totally hip and getting hipper. And by now, it can safely be assumed that all Republican political figures — especially the ragingly homophobic among them — have caught gay.1 It's barely even news anymore, let alone surprisingerTM news.

In Florida, though, everything's a little more shall we say complicated.

TITUSVILLE -- Florida Rep. Robert "Bob" Allen, R-Merritt Island, was arrested this afternoon at Veteran's Memorial Park on East Broad Street for solicitation for prostitution.

He is currently being booked into Brevard County Jail in Sharpes. The charge is a second-degree misdemeanor, according to police.
Yawn. Snore. Zzz. It's by no means surprising that Bob Allen has an alleged taste for prostitution. It's not even surprising when, in the next paragraph, it turns out to be gay prostitution. And it's only a teensy bit surprising when it's revealed that Allen wasn't looking for a prostitute — he was prostituting himself.

No, the surprise here isn't that Rep. Allen allegedly moonlights as a gay hooker. It's that he moonlights as an extremely cheap hooker.
According to police, the park was under surveillance today by a detail of undercover Titusville Police officers. Officers noticed Allen acting suspicious as he went in and out of the men’s restroom three times. Minutes later, he solicited an undercover male officer inside the restroom, offering to perform oral sex for $20.

Robert 'Bob' Allen, R-Merritt Island, has a tiny microphoneFlorida Rep. Bob Allen: They call that a bargain — the best I ever had.

What is happening to the Republican Party when one of its members is willing to blow a stranger for twenty bucks? Twenty bucks!? If Reagan were still alive and a gay hooker, I assure you he would take nothing less than $50, minimum. Either Allen should be ashamed of himself, or else he gives terrible beejes, for which he should be ashamed of himself.

The other surprising thing is that, unlike all other recently disgraced Republicans, Allen wasn't working for the Giuliani campaign. He was working for McCain.

Of course, the fact that it all took place in a state park men's restroom is so overwhelmingly unsurprising as to render all other related surprises nil. So let's move on.


1 The only Republican who isn't gay is teleportational date rapist George W. Bush. Well, okay, he was a little bi in the 80s, but who wasn't a little bi in the 80s? From what I remember of 1984, it was all cocaine and sodomy. Granted, I was only four, but I ran with a kind of wild crowd.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Q: What are citizens of Florida claiming exclusive rights to today, aside from rambling insanity?

Why is Walt Disney rolling in his grave? The Answer May Surprise YouA: Ownership of Mickey Mouse:

Clearwater resident Steven Stein thinks he has Walt Disney's original drawing of the famous character.

Stein says he paid a NYC thrift store $3 for the drawing in 1984, and he says he's spent many years and many dollars authenticating the artwork. "I've had the ink test-dated. I've had the paper test-dated. The ink tests to the mid 1920's," he said.

Stein claims the Disney Corporation has refused to even look at his drawing since he approached them in 1989.

Now he's taking Disney to court. "I'm suing them for $50-million, the copyright on Mickey Mouse, and the right to tell the Walt Disney story," said Stein.
Seems reasonable.


RELATED: I remain skeptical of the document-authentication field, ever since reading The Mormon Murders last spring. I read it immediately after The Smartest Guys in the Room, and the two non-fictions combined to leave me with the sense that all experts in all fields are frauds.

Both are really, really good, and weirdly complement each other, sort of. I may have already mentioned all this, but whatever. According to the above links, you can get used copies of both for under $3 total from Amazon. Highly recommended.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Q: Does what goes around come around, and also vice versa?

A: You best believe it, bitches. And when I say "bitches," I mean "esteemed readers." Anywaysies: for evidence of the above eternal truth, look no further than tonight's karma-heavy headlines.

#1) The Toronto Star: Church to probe priest who fondled Foley.

Dayyyayumn, church! That is some serious eye-for-an-eye shit, Old Testament-stizzazz!

Now all we need is for several congressional pages to rape that church's congregation, and the circle of fuck will finally be complete. At which point we can go back to our normal lives, hunting down the killer of JonBenet Ramsey.

#2) MLB.com: Cameras notice spot on [Kenny] Rogers' hand.

Wow. The implications of this story are so intense, I can't even begin to make sense of them. In fact, I have literally no idea what any of that story means.

Do note, however, that the cameras were probably biased, as they have sought revenge on Kenny Rogers ever since he punched one of them in the face a year ago. Revenge is sweet, isn't it, cameras? Not sweet enough to mess with Rogers' bizarre mutation into Cy Young, but sweet nonetheless. Or whatever.

The moral of the story is, don't fuck with cameras or Florida churches, unless you want to get accused of cheating and anally violated. If you enjoy both, however, I recommend punching a cameraman at a Miami baptism.