The Official Rants and Trolls Thread

I was just looking at the Toyota USA and Toyota Prius fan pages on Facebook and boy, it irks me the number of completely misinformed idiots spammers and trolls on those pages. I've responded to a few in the past but have no bandwidth to do so now.... nor do I really want to feed them.

I'm sure it bugs Toyota marketing even more so...

 

My guess is no. It probably doesn't bother Toyota Marketing more.

You are reacting as an owner...to what you see as either a personal misinformation campaign against your own vehicle, or simple ignorance.

Toyota Marketing I'm sure looks at the bigger picture. Things like whether they are witnessing a growing number of 1st time buyers, repeat buyers...

They probably could care less that an individual or even what appears to be alarge group of individuals are either toxic, misinformed or idiots....

At best/worst it could only be construed as perhaps a challenge as something that marketing needs to communicate to the public better.

The Prius is the most sucessful vehicle of it's type and has reached iconic levels of recognition. Toyota marketing probably could care less that it has become succesful enough to garner criticism and or ignorance or even downright destructive trolling. In a way, it's simply a sign of it's success.

 

prick when lining up for Southwest Airlines flight aka cattle call airline

So, I was flying back from Boston to Seattle the other day and had a 5 hour flight from Boston to Denver on Southwest. I had boarding position B 36 (pretty far back). I attempt to line up in my area (36-40) and bunch of people block my way. They won't let me by and say something to the effect of "we're all in the same boat" and "they haven't called us yet".

A few minutes pass and I ask again. Conversation goes something like this:
me: "Can I move up to my area? That's why they put these numbers up on the poles [pointing to numbers 31-35, 36-40, 41-45, etc.] People line up in order..."
guy with B 46 or so: "Nobody does that."
me: "That's the way I've always done it when I've flown on Southwest."
other woman in line: "He's right." [I believe referring to me.]
other guy: "Fine. I'll let you through.... [some other mumbling] **** you!"

What a prick! Later, I saw people going around these pricks to the left. (I'd gone to the right and ran into these blockers.) Fortunately, those folks had a legitimately lower number than me and weren't cutting.

I don't fly Southwest that often but this is the first time I've ever had anyone ever impede me from getting to the right position in line, let alone swear at me for trying to do so.

 

I am glad I don't fly much anymore!

 

Boredom is not an issue if you bring electronic gizmos with you. My favourite is using the GPS puck and plotting our position on regular map software. You see the flight path of the aircraft as well as speed. Then when you look down and see ants, you know where those ants are located...

 

Yeah. Almost two years ago, I didn't make a connection from Detroit back to the Bay Area. Unfortunately, the two legs were w/two different airlines, so the second wouldn't hold the plane if the first was late.

I went to the Detroit Auto Show aka NAIAS and only had a few hours at the show before rushing to the Detroit airport. My flight on Northwest (IIRC) was late and I and another passenger on the flight both were near the back and had to make a connection to a United flight in Denver. The flight attendants said they'd make an announcement to let connecting people like us go first but they didn't.

By the time we get off the plane and found out where our Denver to San Jose flight was supposed to be, it'd already left and there were no more flights there for the night. I had to pay for a Denver hotel out of my own pocket since the airlines wouldn't cover it since it was due to weather delays then fly out the next morning.

If I had to stay somewhere, I'd have stayed an extra day in Detroit so I'd have a whole day at the auto show instead of needlessly staying Denver.

Boredom of a few hours at connections isn't that bad. I sometimes read magazines or I can surf the net if there's free wi-fi. I bring my laptop and my iPhone (loaded w/some TV shows dumped off my TiVo) so I can surf or watch something.

 

Northwest is great if you love the suspense of not knowing when your flight will take off. It could be five hours or even seven hours after it was supposed to (or you could get real lucky and have it only be three hours). With Northwest, you never know until you're actually in the air!

Delta is great if you have stuff in your luggage you really, really don't want. Delta always adds a special luggage removal service at no charge! Of course, if you actually wanted your luggage, you may be out of luck.

 

Who needs wifi... 1.5Mbps down with AT&T HSDPA tethered through my phone. Been doing this since 2002 or 2003 even on EDGE networks when we did have dial-up and it was comparable. Now it is faster than most shared networks and sustained speeds are equal to most residential cable speeds (after the burst modes are used up).

 

Ive had bad experiences on all airlines... But they seem to happen less often with American. The extra baggage charges, meal charges, drink charges, and "we dont like you so here's another charge" charges all add up to quite a premium though.

Delta may loose things in your luggage, but it is nothing compared to some of the baggage checks in other countries. They are pretty blatent of stealing anything of value out of luggage. They dont even try to make it look like an accident, they just take it out and zip your stuff back up. So if you travel to any non-1st world country dont bring anything valueable that you cannot keep on you during travel.

 

I can only speak from personal experience

Times I have flown: dozens
Times I had my luggage delayed: 3
Times I have flown Delta: 3
Times I had my luggage delayed on a non-Delta flight: 0
Times I will fly Delta from now on: 0

 

I hate Delta. I hated NWA when I lived in Minnesota and flew them.

Virgin America has served us well, so far. Frontier wasn't bad, on the flights to/from Detroit.

On Virgin, we checked our suitcase on the way back from a cruise - we had Duty-Free booze packed in it (well packed) ... yes, TSA opened our bag, yes, they inspected our booze, they left us a note telling us so, and everything was still in our luggage, undamaged (though a bit disturbed), and arrived with us. NOTE: If you are shipping booze home, have the duty-free place pack the booze for shipment (lots of bubble wrap), and tell the airline when you check your bag! They will tag it for more careful handling (maybe it won't go under the wheels of a truck, then), and the inspectors won't freak (much) when liquid shows up on their x-rays.

 

Not likely. They are like cell phone companies, cable TV providers, and ISPs. We all "need" them, but we all hate them.

Tom

 

Anybody here flown JetBlue before? I have heard more horror stories for them that most others... I personally havent flown with them though and thinking I am better for it!

 

I have a mailbox folder which I gave the name "AT&T - Satan" for storing emails from the Dark One. :madgrin:

My cell phone is a "Go Phone" from AT&T only because they had the cheapest plan for pay as you go.

 

Yes, I flew on Jet Blue the first year they started service, before they started holding their customers hostage on the tarmac.