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sketch (c) Wes Ruvalcaba

my mission this afternoon was to book a flight for my upcoming trip to Seattle with United Airlines so i could use a $25 discount voucher. you may think this a stupid idea, and you’d be right. probably not, however, for the reasons you may expect because United’s prices were actually a bit lower than the results those cheap airline fare websites were giving me. no, this was a stupid idea for an entirely different set of stupid reasons.

like most people, i book my flights online because i can’t be bothered to call the airline or drive all the way to the airport to make reservations. so i’ve made my flight selections on the website and am ready to enter my credit card number when i realize that i hadn’t submitted the coupon code yet. i look around for an input box but come up empty handed so i consult the “help” section and find out that i have to enter in the coupon code before i look for flights. okay, it’s a little dumb but fine. i cancel the original reservation to make a new one but the site rejects my coupon code.

i then called the airline but hung up after being on hold for almost 20 minutes to try my luck again with the cold soulless machine that is United’s website. inevitably rejected and devastated, i dial United again and am happily answered by a very polite Indian man. he politely tells me that the coupon cannot be used with online booking but that he can politely apply it over the phone. i agree and he politely makes the reservation but politely tells me that United charges a polite $15 fee to book by phone. not wanting to deal with this anymore, i tell him to just politely do it even though i’d only really be getting a $10 discount. i tell him to just do it because i’m sick of wasting my time. he politely says okay, THEN POLITELY SAYS THAT HE CAN’T DO IT OVER THE PHONE AND THAT I’D HAVE TO POLITELY MAIL THE VOUCHER FOR THEM TO POLITELY VERIFY IT IN ORDER FOR ME TO POLITELY USE IT.

so an hour on the phone and three canceled reservations later, i’ve got…nothing.

someone left me a weird voicemail message the other day.

yeah, this is Tommy from Tommy’s Grill. i’m at the front office with your delivery. could you please…come?

sorry, Tommy. i don’t know who you were trying to reach but please check if you have the right number before you’re stranded out in the cold again.

it’s with great pleasure that i can tell you that David Airey (whom i mentioned on the 24th) has his domain back! fortunately for him, a few people who’ve heard his story also happen to know GoDaddy’s CEO (where the domain was illegally transfered to) and convinced him to sort things out. so raise your pints, put on a smile, and chalk one up for the good guys.

when i was seven, most of my friends were doing the same thing i was: attending elementary school, playing with Lego bricks, and watching The Three Stooges on channel 26. when i was seventeen, most of my friends led lives very similar to mine: attending high school, working a part-time job, and watching The Three Stooges on channel 26.

nowadays, things are much different. some of my friends are doctors, some are waiters. some of them live in San Francisco, some live in Singapore. some are married, some are married to their jobs. their lives are as diverse as their names and i can’t help but be a bit overwhelmed by the variety. i kind of miss the old days when we were all in the same place doing the same thing but i suppose it can’t be helped. i guess i just feel a little left behind sometimes.

last year, i spent Christmas eve alone in my apartment drinking beer and watching Goodfellas and Christmas day scouring the local flea market for old cameras by myself. this year, Christmas was with family and a few old friends.

so yeah, things are looking up.

a friend sent me a link to the story of one David Airey and the recent loss of his domain to a malevolent hacker named “Peyam Irvani” with a two fingered grasp of English and a big set of bollocks. basically, Irvani gained control of David’s gmail account possibly using THIS METHOD (please read about it and double check your gmail account if you’ve got one) and transfered his account to another registrar where it is currently being held for ransom.

if you have or can obtain any information relating to “Peyam Irvani” or know of a way to help David, please contact him through davidairey.co.uk/contact/. i’m sure he would appreciate it.

when i was a kid, i remember hearing my classmates talk about a place called “Medieval Times.” i didn’t know much about it other than that it was a place where you could watch ‘knights’ joust and do other Middle Agey things like opress serfs and succumb to the Black Plague. i also knew that tickets were prohibitively expensive and that i would probably never get a chance to see it for myself.

well, i’m somewhat puzzled to say that i was wrong. i went to Medieval Times. yesterday, in fact. my father decided to take the whole family there because he wanted to create some family memories, something we were unable to do during our childhoods for financial reasons.

sketch (c) Wes Ruvalcaba