Luke's Blog

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We're changing the look of our blogs pages a little and there might be a few glitches here and there for a few days while we get the bugs worked out.  Your functionality will not change, only the look.

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Call me a cynic but I just don't buy the man's story and if it's true it's not worth two million dollars.

In case you have not heard a Gokhan Mutlu of Manhattan is suing JetBlue claiming the pilot made him give up his seat to a flight attendant and sit on the toilet on a flight to New York from California.

According to court papers Mutlu was traveling from San Diego using a standby travel voucher that JetBlue emplyees give to friends.

Mutlu claims he was told a flight attendant had taken the last seat on the plane, but then he was advised she would sit in the employee "jump seat," meaning he could have the last seat but 90 minutes into the flight the flight attendant found the jump seat uncomfortable and the pilot made him give up his seat.  He claims he wasn't allowed to sit in the jump seat because of JetBlue rules and the pilot told him to hang out in the bathroom.

He claims another flight attendant knocked on the restroom door and told Mutlu he could return to his original seat.

JetBlue can't comment on the suit because it could hurt them in court but I'll do the talking for them... it sounds like a load of bull.

I had three invitations from people I know for a new networking site.  I'm not even going to bother to name it.  I had not heard of it before today.  I have no intention to join it.  I'm already in 3-4 other ones.  They are pretty much all the same.  It isn't fun trying to keep up with them as they add new features and must-do items.

Maybe this new site is the holy-grail of networking sites.  I'll wait until 100-million other people decree it and then I will join.  Until then, no thank you.

I was about 100 yards away from Pope Benedict on Friday afternoon and was watching him but I might as well have been 100 miles away.  That's because I was in our bunker like building on 67th street and the pope was at the East Side Synagogue on the other side of 3rd Avenue.  I was monitoring coverage on our feed from inside of event.  The event had no imact on my daily activies despite road closures, extra people in the neighborhood and sharpshooters on the roof.

Some comedian did a bit about how in New York your sense of space gets exagerated.  I can't remember the joke but it was something along the lines of joking about a mass murderer being loose on the West Side but people not being worried about it because it was on the other side of the park.  In most towns people would be pretty freaked out about a mass murderer hitting a half mile from where they lived.

That's a pretty disjointed post but I hadn't posted anything for a long time and wanted to update the blog.

After yesterday's shooting at N. Illinois University there are more complaints about a school notification system not being quick enough.  I think it's too easy to blame the school.  They have to wait to make sure they have accurate information before sending out the alert.  If they send out wrong information they are going to be attacked the same way they are being attacked now.

I think the students texting each other and sending out the warnings was a much more effective and direct method of alerting than any official program.

At, least that's my thought.  Any rebuttal?

I don't remember Spitzer helping win the game.  He's not even the governor of New Jersey.

I want to say thank you to everyone who took part in our exciting day on the Web site yesterday.  It started with the Giants victory parade coverage.  We had people from all over the world come watch the parade and chat with other Giants fans.

That wasn't over very long until we started our election Webcast on MyFoxNY.com.  It was a great experiment and we had an interesting chat with some good banter.

For those of you who sampled our offerings for the first time, I hope you found other things you like and will become reguars on our little home on the Web.

I was looking through a mailer from Sears tonight. I was offering "No interest, no payments for 12 months" to buy appliances.

Sears, by most accounts ,is a reputable company with quality products. 100 years plus as a solid company will give you that, but credit deregulation has brought an evil streak to the company.

 Look at the fine print of this latest "offer":

"FINANCE CHARGES accrue on a promotional purchase from the date of purchase and all accrued FINANCE CHARGES for the entire promotional period will be added to your account if the purchase is not paid in full by the end of the promotional period or if you default under your card agreement. Making the minimum monthly payment will not pay off your promotional purchase in time to avoid FINANCE CHARGES."

The worst part is those finance charges:

"APR is up to 26.49%, but if your account has a variable APR, the APR is up to 32.24%... "

32.24 %  Are you kidding me?  The mob would blush at these terms.

Before people start getting the pitchforks out against the housing industry they should head over to their neighborhood department store with "friendly" help like this.

There have been some stories in the news the past few days about E. coli.

Here are some resources about food poisoning that you might want to check out on the MyFoxNY.com Health section.

What’s lurking in your lunch? (Contains info on E. coli and salmonella)

Food Poisoning (Facts, causes and treatment)

Side effects from E. Coli…

Nausea and vomiting

Diarrhea (Facts, causes and treatment)

Dehydration (Facts, causes and treatment)

Thanks for the heads up everyone about the problem bloggers.  Some parents obviously didn't do a good job raising their children.

I think we've taken care of the problems on the site.  Please use the "report" link in posts if you see any additional content that shouldn't be here.

We've turned on moderation on the site for the time being to make sure none of that content is put back on the site.  That means it might take a little time for your post and comments to be seen on the site.  Sorry about that.

Luke