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- ROBERT EVANS on Day 2754: Day Not Found
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Have you ever seen the YouTube video “United breaks guitars”? (Check it out if you haven’t, it’s hilarious.) I think that was based on United’s customer service in Chicago as well.
Yes, I’ve seen it and I was thinking about it the whole time.
In hindsight, I should have just checked online FIRST and then focused on finding my new boarding pass rather than wait in line so I could have a person do for me what I could have done for myself *IF* I could have found one of United’s “check-in” terminals. The online itinerary was correct, but I found no way to trigger a reprint of my e-boarding pass.
I don’t know the layout of that airport, but I’m thinking that once you’re past security, there’s nowhere to check in or print out a boarding pass (because people need those before security.)
I’ve seen them past security (in the “secured” area) in some airports — presumably useful if you somehow lose your boarding pass, or arrive on another flight and need to check in for a continuing flight you hadn’t checked in for before, or … who knows what … but they are somewhat less common. If Nate had checked on his phone right away, it might have been worthwhile for him to leave the secured area, subjecting himself to further indignity to re-enter, in order to (easily) find an automated check-in machine.
20-20 hindsight, however.
I do hope that if Alex White does become the next J. K. Rowling – that he doesn’t crash and burn the way JKR did in her last two novels. Of course, I think that JKR was trying to do something I haven’t seen done otherwhere – transition a series from a kid’s book style in the early part, to a YA or even Adult story in the last sections. She failed, in part by not seeing that tropes that work in a children’s book do not work in an adult’s book – and that those events from Harry’s childhood would have majorly lasting effects.
Still, other than my comments on how the Ish/Gretchen romance thing was handled, I think the Share series is far better than the Harry Potter series!
I agree completely on the later HP books. I also really think that she violates the “rule of the gun” a lot in the later books. (If you use a gun in act3 you should show the gun in act1, if you show the gun in act1 you should use it in act3)
Yes, yes. I know that proper story telling will have things that violate these rules at least somewhat (Nathan does it to good effect with the paths he has us thinking down as the stories progress) but JKR kept pulling things out that I really don’t see foreshadowed and acts like “what didn’t you see this?”
Recently Mur spoke on one of the areas that I had problems with and I now see that I missed something (spoiler ;P Hermione/Ron), however a lot of the others I still say JKR made from whole cloth.
She did and she didn’t. The horcruxes *were* done right – the Diary was in book 2, but the full understanding of it didn’t come until later, but the Deathly Hallows came out of nowhere – it was commented that invisibility cloaks are rare, but never that *THAT* cloak was in any way unusual for them. That Dumbledore had it – when the Potters felt themselves safely hidden away – just made sense, as other people in the Order could use it. The Tales of Beedle the Bard – again, dragged in out of nowhere, as we never hear any of the kids use a catchphrase from them, or anything like that. There’s a lot of discussion from time to time in the Potter fan groups that I chat in that argues that Dumbledore was actually the big bad of the series, not Voldemort.
I’m *REALLY* glad we didn’t get treated that way in the Trader’s Tales!
Yeah, I spend way too much time in HP speculation. I can see the argument that Dumbledore is either evil or an idiot… too many questionable decisions or actions.
Those are some of the points I meant, like I said some things she did right others not so much.
I can now see Hr/Ron as having foreshadow, I do NOT see the logic behind Harry/Ginny unless potions are involved. And I really don’t buy Snape as being as much of a good guy as she tries to make him at the end. Naming kids after the man, not so much.
but we digress 😉
Nathan, Welcome back.
Thanks for the chat about Gearheart. I had started it but put it down in part for the reasons you gave (lots of he-said/she-said tags too if I recall). I’ll put it on my “push through the start” list.
Oh and please pass along to your daughter the following tale, I think she will find it amusingly meta.
The other day my brother and I were at the store picking up stuff for a family get-together. We spotted a guy wearing an Aperture Labs shirt putting cake mix into his cart.
🙂