Last Hours of 2010

Greetings from Toronto’s Billy Bishop airport. I’m writing this post on my latest toy, a T-mobile G2 (also called an HTC Desire), using Android’s WordPress app.  The keyboard is driving me nuts. But given the hefty investment I made in this beast, I guess I’d better start getting used to it.

Tomorrow I’ll post my traditional new years blog post. (And there’s already a retrospective over at Skiffy.ca.)  But today you get complaining.  As I’ve already tweeted, one of my newer grammar peeves is misuse of the word “momentarily”. It means “lasting but a moment”; however most people use it to mean “in a moment.”

So the announcement I just heard, that my flight will be boarding “momentarily” actually means that passengers will only have a brief instant to rush onto the plane.

In the past I’ve both sung the praises and cursed Porter Airlines.  Today I will do the latter.  Forget the fact security checked everyone’s boarding pass three times over a 3 minute period, the following exchange may shed some light on my frustration:

Me: Hi I’m on the 9:00 flight to Ottawa, one bag to check.
Porter employee: where are you going?
Me: Uh…. Ottawa.
Porter employee: what time is your flight?
Me (sighing): 9:00
Porter employee: And will you be checking any bags?
Me (now visibly pissed): one.

And there you have it.  Time for my free booze.

Update: Okay, they won me over again with excellent in-flight service.