As a frequent traveler I often have to listen to non-frequent travelers "horror stories" and they often end with something like "...and so we sat on the tarmac for 30 minutes". I then pause for a moment and then expect the story to go on and get interesting but after the moment passed I just realized I wasted time listening to a story that has happened to me hundreds of time. I am often mystified at the passengers ready to start a revolt because the pilot mentioned we need to wait 10 minutes to park at the gate. If you booked your connecting flight so close that 10 minutes means you will miss your flight, you are a moron that deserves to spend a night at the airport. At the company I work for, everyone travels and when we have a few drinks and swap stories you really hear some interesting stuff. Here are two of mine:

Clippy
I was lucky to grab a bulkhead row and an empty middle seat to boot. I was in for what I thought was a good flight. I am reading my magazine when I hear the unmistakable noise of finger nail clippers. (This was pre-9/11 so this dangerous weapon was allowed.) I look over and sure enough the guy is clipping his finger nails. I was like "that is pretty gross" but I continued to read. Then I noticed him take off his shoes. I was like "he better not be doing what I think he is going to do". Sure enough toenail clippings were bouncing off the bulkhead wall sometimes coming dangerously close to me. I was secretly wanting a clipping to hit my leg so I could have an excuse to sock him in the head.

Second Cla$$
I am again sitting in bulkhead, because flights from New York are impossible to upgrade because there are too many rich people who actually waste money on first cla$$ seats. We are sitting on the tarmac on a weather delay and the tape of Everyone Loves Raymond I have seen 100 times is playing. People are getting restless and starting to wander the aisles. From first cla$$ comes a young richly dress woman with a small toy dog in a matching outfit. She introduces the dog to everyone and I am like "that's fine she is looking for attention and it is all very amusing." Shortly after the introductions she puts down a diaper mat for the dog to go to the bathroom. Quickly the flight attendant tells her that she needs to have the dog relieve itself in the bathroom. I realize that she went back to coach not to talk to us but because she thought it would be inappropriate to have the dog go to the bathroom in first cla$$ but it seemed OK for the dog to pee among us commoners in coach. I am sure she thought it was noble of her to introduce the dog to the poor before we watched it defecate.

Note: I have to use cla$$ becaue of the crappyness of the GameSpot editor.

Airports are like purgatory. It is the time before the miserable hell of flying but still almost as miserable.

5) Kansas City - I have visited many airports with as many places to eat as the K.C. airport but they were all 3 gate small town airports. If you want to eat in K.C. you better like the Cheers restaurant. At this Cheers everyone might know your name but that is because it's the only damn place to eat. Maybe because this airport is in the middle of nowhere it is really hard to transport good food out there.

4) St. Louis - This airport is creepy. The extinction of TWA caused what is literally a mile of weird empty gates between the Southwest and American terminals. It is like one of the post-nuclear holocaust movies from the Eighties. Things left where they were before somebody was sent to the unemployment line. Signs on restaurants left 7 years ago stating that "we will open back up soon". I am afraid to use one of the restrooms because my body will never be found for years if I get killed by someone gone mad after being bumped from an overbooked flight.

3) New York La Guardia - Thanks to Giuliani's campaign to clean up the city in the 90's the airport is now crappier than the subway. Sure you could have paid $1000 dollars more to land at the nice airport that is incomprehensibly 3 miles away but you just landed at La Guardia instead. You can tell it is going to rain in New York that day because the staff has put out buckets to catch all the rain coming through the roof. It feels like I am playing Frogger crossing the street with the exception that the yellow cars get faster when you walk in front of them.

2) Las Vegas - Landing in Las Vegas is like stepping into a dream world. There are slot machines IN THE AIRPORT. This conveys to you that you are in some kind of fantasy land. The problem is that the same slot machines look really sad with a hangover on the way home. Old ladies are trying to make back their social security checks with the slots that have the worst odds in the state of Nevada. The longer you stay in the Vegas the sadder the airport becomes on the way home. It is compounded by the fact that after 3 days in Vegas you can't wait to leave because you made the mistake of viewing Vegas in the daytime and not intoxicated.

1) Chicago O'Hare - When you look at the departure board you have to do a little math to figure out the real time you will depart. Just add a random amount between 2 hours and 3 days. The only time your plane won't depart is the time on the departure board. The worse thing is that are not enough seats and there is no damn place to eat. There is only one damn sit down restaurant in the whole airport. Good thing my delays average 4 hours so I can wait an hour to sit and eat some decent food and overpay for a beer.

Charlotte probably has the best airport with a live piano singer, good food, and rocking chairs. Too bad if you got there you had to fly US Airways.

No international airports are mentioned because to hold other countries at a different standard isn't fair. Sure O'Hare is hell with crying baby in your ear but at least you can drink the water and it doesn't have any French people.

I am glad GameSpot finally got their act together because my search for a new video game site was not going well. Here is what I found:

IGN
Wow this site is a mess. If I wanted stuff on movies and TV, I would go to a site for movies and TV. IGN takes so long to load that I thought I was browsing on my DS. Why are there checkboxes next to the games? I was afraid to click on them because it would probably spend another 2 hours loading the page again.

1UP
Wow this site is ugly. White with red text? Are you serious? I didn't know my computer could render fonts that small. GameSpot has the SoapBox where good writers can have their work read. 1UP seems to feature just popular bloggers who just happen to be attractive girls. Coincidence? Some of the blogs at 1UP make MySpace musings look like Voltaire.

ScrewAttack
OK if you post video of gameplay footage and just state some obvious knowledge of the game you are wasting people's time. Really Contra had a code to get 30 lives? Thanks for that insight. Yeah just say the game is "awesome" 50 more times.

GamePro
I think magazine game sites purposely make you click on 12 links to read something so you will just go out and buy the magazine. Yeah gaming print magazines are useless unless you like reading a preview for a game you already finished.

Luckily GameSpot decided to clear things up because I was worried I would be reading old issues of Nintendo Power from 1989 for the next couple of years because it was better than anything else out there.