HK airline apologizes for airport tantrum video

HONG KONG (AP) — Cathay Pacific has apologized for embarrassing a customer whose anguish after missing her flight was captured on video by an airline employee and posted on the Internet.

The Hong Kong airline said in a statement to The Associated Press on Thursday that the worker who filmed the video has been disciplined but that another person posted the footage on YouTube, a video-sharing Web site.

The three-minute video shot on a mobile phone shows a woman wailing, throwing herself on the floor, banging on an airport counter and trying to barge through a closed boarding gate at the Hong Kong International Airport on Feb. 4 after missing a flight to San Francisco.

“They have no compassion. The plane hasn’t even left, and they’ve shut the gate. They’re crazy! They’re crazy!” the woman shouted.

First posted on YouTube on Feb. 12, it had drawn 4.97 million views and nearly 18,000 comments as of Thursday. Some postings have added mock subtitles.

Does our world seem backwards sometimes?

Merry Christmas!  Tis-the-season to be Jorry Jolly!

I was looking for some media to share in my Society & Culture class for a lecture on Australia and I came across this funny ESPN Sportscenter commercial with  Steve Irwin and Albert, the mascot for the Florida Gators!

Call it a case of the Red and Black flu.

Tired of struggling to find enough teachers to staff its classrooms on the Friday before the annual Georgia-Florida football game, the Clarke County (Ga.) School District — which includes Athens, home of the University of Georgia — decided to cancel school altogether.
According to area media reports, 137 teachers last year called in sick the day before the big game, and the district was able to find only 113 substitutes.  Source: ESPN

Interesting…  Maybe they should call “Dr. Tebow”, he might have a cure for their ‘flu’!

Go Gators!

(Don’t forget to take the poll in the sidebar of this blog – so far it’s looking like most of my readers are Gator fans!)

For those of you who’ve made the plunge into the world of Facebook, you’ve probably noticed something… it’s called “targeted advertising” and it can be a little hard on the ole ego.

Do you know what I mean?

The Washington Post recently had an article about it;

Facebook targets its advertising to users based on the information in their profiles. This is not a new concept, of course. Kids usually see toy ads while they watch Nickelodeon, and women get ads for birth control pills as they watch Lifetime.

But Facebook’s data miners know much more about us because we tell them a whole lot more. Facebook knows my birthday, my relationship status and which book I’m reading, among other personal tidbits. The site started turning this information into dollar signs last November with the launch of Facebook Ads, which targets users’ presumed areas of interest (or psychological soft spots).

Basically, the subliminal goal of product advertising is to make you feel inadequate and ashamed, because you’re not perfect. Your teeth are yellow. Your armpits stink. You’re fat. And hairy.

I almost always get ads about “Learning Chinese” – how did they know my Mandarin stinks?  Lately they’ve been asking me if I need help with a “gambling addiction” – huh?!  Occasionally I think Facebook thinks I need to get a life, because it keeps asking me if I want to know about parties in Beijing.  

FB must not have got the memo about my THREE kids if they think I’m gonna jump at an opportunity to party it up in Beijing!

Ahhh, technology, you gotta love it!

Two U.S. hunters are claiming they found the body of a giant ape-like “Bigfoot” creature and plan to prove it at a news conference.

Oh My!