PSoTD

Honestly, I can't think of anyone so hard up that they need (or should want) a Hooters MasterCard. Can you?

How long until airlines add a "salesperson class" that works the coach class for the duration of the flight?

These days, free or low-cost WiFi is almost a given at a coffee shop as are double-tall, half-decaf moccachinos with hazelnut syrup (hold the foam). WiFi is great for attracting customers... and spammers, as The Green Bean in Greensboro, NC found out last week. The coffee shop had its Internet connection shut off after its ISP noticed a gigantic volume of spam originating from its IP address.

I'm old-school coffee shop, I guess. The place I go to doesn't have WiFi and I hope they don't get it. I stop in almost every day as part of my work routine to get a coffee, talk to the owners and whatever regulars are there. There's a roundtable of men - retired, primarily - who make up a bit of a "roundtable" at lunch. There are three or four regular ladies there I see in the morning if I stop in then. There's Mike, the sports fanatic, who seems to have refereed every sport at some time and gives his insight on how a game should have progressed. The owner and staff are all open and friendly, and there's very rarely a computer visible in the shop.

The owner has talked about WiFi, but I doubt she'll ever get it, since the store isn't really big enough to support having too many people hanging around using the wireless connection - there's just not enough tables and chairs to go around. And I hope she doesn't. I get a great dose of local news almost everytime I go in - stuff I wouldn't get on local television or radio, stuff about business coming in or going out on the Carlisle Pike, or just goofy stuff. This is a low-tech respite, and it's good to stop in on a regular basis before returning.

You know what isn't often talked about in "our" coffee shop? Politics. I think it's out of respect for the ownership of the shop - the few political discussions that have occurred at the shop have gotten heated, and angry customers - even if they aren't angry at the business, but at another customer - are much less likely to return. The coffee shop is meant to be a connection point of neighbors, not a convincing point for politics, and there aren't many people who can accomplish both in a friendly way. So the topic is generally avoided.

Clogging fax machines of domains throughout the nation like turds after a Hot Dog Eating contest.

That would be the worldwide clothing-optional resort market.

I find this to be rather disappointing news.

Brazil's Civil Aviation Authority, or Anac, will restart the process of redistributing domestic and international air routes formerly run by embattled flagship airline Viacao Aerea Rio-Grandense (VAGV4.BR), or Varig, after overturning a bankruptcy court ruling blocking the operation, said a regulator spokeswoman Friday.

I flew Varig quite a bit for about a month of my life, in November and December, 1990. I flew Varig from Los Angeles to Rio de Janeiro and back, during which I spent about a month kicking around Brazil by myself, although I did meet up with a few Americans and Brits in the process, and Germans kept thinking they recognized me from their country (apparently I look quite German somehow).

Varig had/has an Airpass program for visitors from other countries - similar to the European rail pass and other such programs. At the time, for about $440, you were allowed five different destinations in Brazil. You could call up and generally make arrangements to fly the same day or the next day. I went from Rio to Belo Horizonte to Bahia to Foz do Iguacu and back to Rio over the course of the month. (I didn't plan to really revisit Rio when I left for Brazil, but I had so much fun there the first time, and met some fun folks in Iguacu and decided to spend my last four days there instead of Belem.

Varig was great. Great planes, easy to travel on, and I had no delays that I can remember. Some day I hope to take my family back to Brazil and the Pantanal area, and I had always expected we would fly Varig when that happened. I'm sorry to see that part is unlikely to happen.