The Stupidest Stuff

OK, the actual headline that got�us thinking was “American Airlines sez sked ready for takeoff” at the New York Daily news site. Of course, the not even close attempt at coherent communication in English got our attention —F7 in Microsoft Word is your friend. (Editorial note: we all make mistakes, but at least try to form words.)

Apparently, American Airlines canceled another 200 flights yesterday. Now, I haven’t been keeping track but that should bring the number of canceled flights this week pretty close to 2500 flights. Once they get them airborne again– anybody want to actually fly on one now? Lets see…

According to Boeing, The MD-80 models were built between 1980 and 1999 so these planes are at least 8 years old (not to bad) and at most 28 years old. So, basically a plane that would qualify for antique plates, if it was a car, is flying you and your loved ones around the country at over 500 Miles an hour almost 7 miles above the ground. (Editorial note: with the doors locked and no parachutes–Plus you paid at least a C note for the privilege and all they can do is say “in the event of a water landing your seat cushion can be used as a floatation device”. Great! I’m flying from Minnesota to Louisiana… Mind following the Mississippi down?!?!?!) Oddly enough, people don’t like to hear these statistics right as your screaming down the runway, generally you end up getting the row to yourself by the time the captain turns off the fasten seat belt lights.

American Airlines operates the largest number of MD-80s, a fleet of 275 planes and the planes have a max capacity of 139 passengers. These are smaller planes that I’ve flown on a few times, when you fly on one it’s generally pretty full. (Editorial note: Dare I say packed to the brim, not counting that lady who’s trying to bring a swing set on board as a carry on– who just happens to want to stow it over your head in the compartment smaller than the gas tank in a Yugo so when you hit turbulence it comes out in your lap. Every Yugo by the way is NEWER than the plane we’re talking about– and they had to tighten the bolts at 50,000 miles.) But, for the sake of argument. lets assume all these planes were an average of 75% full�that would be just over 104 people on each of the canceled flights.

Basically, American Airlines destroyed travel plans for over 260,000 passengers this last week alone. (Editorial note: This doesn’t include the the number of passengers that had tickets on planes that were over booked and made it off the ground BEFORE the fiasco started.) Way to go American Airlines!

Now, American made an attempt at fixing some of it’s planes 2 weeks ago but apparently that attempt either didn’t work or wasn’t enough. “About 300 aircraft were inspected for faulty wiring on the auxiliary hydraulic systems and 149 needed repairs.”, according to the Atlanta Business Chronical.(Editorial note: Auxiliary hydraulic systems is airplane technical lingo for what a layman would call landing gear, this writer my not be in the know about this– but I’m not certain there is anything auxiliary about that!)

My guess (that has no inside information or basis in fact) is they fixed some so they would have to� shut down completely– but why wouldn’t they have used the last two weeks to fix them over a period of time? (Editorial note: If you flew with them 3 weeks ago, how are you feeling right now? My guess is 50% of you need to find new boxers.)

Folks, you can expect to see some form of whining by them at some point in the future for a (yet another) government bail-out or bankruptcy court. Why, When you think of an American Lines plane, you are likely visualizing a MD80! Not to mention 260,000 passengers who got refunds, payroll that was paid to employees that did little more than accept chewings from irate customers.

The airline industry is just stupid! I can’t imagine other industries following suit:

• A bus charging $100 to ride downtown instead of $2.00 because you didn’t make plans 2 weeks ahead.
• A Movie theater selling 300 tickets to the latest hit movie for a single showing when they only have 200-250 tickets.
• For those folks that didn’t show up on time, a surcharge would be charged to change their ticket, if any sort of refund was given at all. Likely, see item one above.
• For the folks that did show up, but before the theater was filled would wait to see if any of the people already in the theater were willing to give up their evening plans.
• The folks that would give up their movie going plans would be offered free movies (at likely another over sold venue), free dinner vouchers, and possibly cash.
• Imagine a cruise ship loading the boat, pushing off the dock 300 yards and then making you wait 9 hours while the boat was repaired. (Editorial note: They would of course offer you all the 8oz sodas and tiny bags of peanuts while you waited. If you caused a stir on the plane because of it, they would have the police come and jail you.)
• Imagine a restaurant Taking the tables and decreasing the size of the tables and chairs, along with the distance between them by around 6 inches each. (Editorial note: to compensate for this potential customer service nightmare they would buy all new�seats and call it an interior�upgrade.)
• Lastly, when a restaurant is about to go out of business because it serves less than standard food or offers terrible table service– the government will pay their debts with low cost loans or even grants.

Amazing isn’t it? Right, it’s downright stupid!

This approved patent for Method of use for a water pipe�was a bit much…. Don’t believe me? Read the full patent here, heck you’ll even see related pattents linked there– tons of patents for bongs up through 1999. So much for the war on drugs!

War on Drugs? What about the War on terror? This patent for an Electronic Device with Concealed Firearm System (full patent here) was granted in 2004— less than 3 years after 9/11/01!

Does anyone atually expect to make money off these patents? Or are they hoping for the big payday in a patent infringement lawsuit. Seems to me that’s where the money is these days. (Editorial note: unless you’re the plaintiff or�the defendant.)

Take some time, browse the patent site– you’ll see what I mean. It’s just stupid!

The recent news of people protesting the Olympic torch relay in Paris, and now San Francisco, because of China’s human rights record got me to thinking about China, the world order of things, the Olympic games, and (of course) Polly Pocket.

First off, I need to be clear here… I’m not a big fan of China, however, let me share with you some of the great products coming out of china last year:

• Tootpaste sweetened with Anti-freeze. (Proving marketing loons don’t know what people want, who needs strawberry toothpaste or Dora the Explorer children’s toothpaste. Fluorescent green is the only way to go!)
• “Stunted growth” Bert, Big “failure at school” Bird,“PMS” Polly Pocket,“Insomnia” Elmo, and“Yo No Oye” Dora toys painted with lead paint. (Editorial Note: Lead paint causes the following symptoms.)
• Overheating Remote Controls that truly must be a engineering marvel! How on earth do you make a remote that has either a watch battery or at most 4 AAA batteries that could at most produce barely enough�voltage to require you to count the volts on two hands— BURN SOMEONE!?!? (Editorial note: The Chinese military is currently looking into building Duracel Bombs with 16 9-volt batteries because they produce much more explosive power.)
• Breakable Bike Frames that, apparently, must have been made of the same material as the cocktail umbrellas.
• Baby Toys with lead based paint (Editorial note: The toys were clearly labeled “Babely, U no chu”)
• �Unguarded Blades on saws where customers were told to remove the�makers logo label from Circular Saws– because the label could become partially detached and expose the saw blade. (Editorial note: SERIOUSLY? The label might come loose and expose the blade so just go ahead and take it off?!?!? Truth really is better than fiction.)
• Toxic Fish, Packages labeled Chinese monkfish were actually deadly puffer fish. Whoops!

In fact, there were a ton of others through out last year. Most noteable would be the the 9 million Mattel toys which might have prompted a Chinese company’s CEO to kill himself. (Editorial note: This was accomplished by hanging– not some method nearly as cool and manly as the Japanese tradition of�Seppuku.) Despite all this, I must admit all is forgiven because while they brought us some crappy products– I do love their General Tso’s Chicken! (Editorial note: Ummmm. No, they didn’t.)

Now, the people protesting the Olympic torch relay haven’t got a clue. Protesting the torch relay because China doesn’t have a good human rights record! Stupid.

One doesn’t have anything to do with the other… ahhh I long for the good old days when people protested for a cause and did something related– like good old fashioned bra burnings to protest the war in Vietnam. (Editorial note:, bra burnings had nothing to do with the war in Vietnam, however, since they were such a time saver this fact will be over looked.)

Truly! They really haven’t accomplished anything except for:

• Robbing young athletes of a great honor.
• They don’t think anyone plans for this sort of thing and that were all complete idiots. Folks… they have a backup flame.
• That they are Neanderthals. It would simply rock if they put the flame out and the runner looked at them like they were stupid (we’ve already proven they are) and lites the flame with a Bic lighter from his pocket right before he punches them. (Protesters: Every one, except Becky and Sundra can make fire– somehow.)
• That they watch to many action movies were the hero runs into a deserted warehouse where the bad guys are quietly sleeping or packaging cocaine for distribution screaming at the top of his lungs a split second before he kills them all with a tooth pick and bubble gum. (Editorial note: I might have gotten Rambo and Macgyver mixed together here.)
• They don’t watch enough horror movies because they seem to be announcing themselves AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS seconds before attempting to put the torch out. (Protesters: If you actually want to put the torch out you’ll learn these facts; the virgin who just had sex with her longtime boyfriend in the last scene and has found him dead in this scene– dies in the next scene, the chick that runs up the stairs with the madman close behind with a butcher knife almost always is next, and most importantly for you—Opps, thse two have nothing to do with you. This one is more what you need to know, the girl hiding in the closet that screams at the top of her lungs when the madman gets close is almost always BUSTED!)

Seriously, Give it a rest people. If you want to protest; buy a ticket on American Airlines to fly to China and do it at the opening ceremony. (Editorial Note: Apparently, American Airlines can’t get you there either this week because they can’t get planes off the ground and those Chinese guys will pull some extreme judo karate stuff on you and kick your pansy butts.) Or better yet, don’t got to the Olympics at all… In fact, don’t anyone go to them. An empty stadium will show them how the rest of the world feels. (Editorial note: That might not work either, the population of china is over 1.6 Billion of the 6 Billion people on the planet. Curses! Foiled again.)

The moral of the story is, your protests are stupid. They don’t do anything to heighten awareness of anything other than your stupidity. Get a life… This is a member of the stupidest stuff I’ve seen.

Well, here we are for sometime now I’ve been seeing stupid things that frankly are mind blowing to me.

This venue is where I can share them with you, like it or not. Here are some ground rules….

1. If it’s stupid, I’ll share it.
2. If you don’t think it’s stupid, please don’t read it. _{(or do and see items 3, 3.1, and 3.2 below)}
3. I will offend people.
   1. If I’m writing about you specifically it’s probably intentional, congratulations you made it on Stupideststuff.com!
   2. If I’m not writting about you specifically, but you’re offended. First, it wasn’t intentional. Second, Leave a comment so others can ridicule you. Third, come back again because I’m likely to offend them and you can pay them back!
4. Few things are sacred.
5. While the posts are written to be funny, they always will have the general message– “this is stupid, here is why.”

Enjoy the upcoming posts… I’ve got some whoppers.