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bajillionblunts · 7 months
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Frank Ocean - DHL (Alex Ryderr Remix)
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runwayrunway · 5 months
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A New England Planespotter In...England (And Scotland)
So I've just gotten back from two weeks in London, almost directly beneath one of the arrival paths to Heathrow. One weird thing about being in London was that...my home airport, Logan, is big, sure, lots of international flights, but it's weird in that it's only a hub for three airlines, one of which is domestic. Being sandwiched between NYC and Newark does that to a place. So we get a pretty small selection of airlines here, all things considered.
Heathrow? Literally while taxiing from the runway to the gate I saw us go past an Air Mauritius and a Royal Brunei Airlines plane (and I didn't have my camera out to take a picture!). On the way out on my way home I saw a RwandAir plane (and it was at an angle behind me where I couldn't get a picture of it either!). I saw multiple A380s a day from British Airways and Singapore Airlines, and even a 747 flying for Korean Air Cargo went overhead! (747s never fly to Logan.) I saw THAI, Air India, TAROM, Air Serbia, and the full complement of gulf carriers - which I expected - and China Southern Airlines, which I somehow didn't.
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Hey, wait, is that tailfin...
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There she is! (I was so happy to see her that I think I startled the person sitting next to me.)
There were of course the usual faces as well - Delta, American Airlines, and even JetBlue now flies to London. I didn't see any full-size FedEx planes, but I did see a FedEx Feeder ATR 72 (at least I think it's a 72) at Edinburgh Airport.
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(she was quite far away and the image is inevitably very crunchy)
A few other cargo airlines more typical of Europe were parked nearby her - DHL, Maersk Air Cargo (in the old Star Air livery), West Atlantic, and whoever that is at the end - the livery feels so familiar, actually, but there's no wordmark and half of me thinks it's a wet lease that hasn't been painted. If anyone remembers what's on the tip of my tongue, please do tell me.
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While entirely expected, I also enjoyed seeing little Loganair ERJs around in Edinburgh. They're so short! I was arriving in an A320 and even then I had to wait until I was on the ground to take a decent picture that wasn't half cut off by the plane I was actually in.
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I don't know enough about Loganair's routes to know what they actually fly to Edinburgh, but a tiny part of me was sad I didn't see any of their littler prop planes. I have a huge soft spot for the Britten-Norman Islander, the first prop plane I ever got to fly on, which Loganair operates two of. Among their uses in the fleet is operating the shortest scheduled route in the world, which lasts around a minute and is about as long as the runway I landed on when I took all those pictures. I won't pretend it's not on my bucket list. (To be fair, I am also legitimately interested in the archaeological sites on Papa Westray...just maybe not interested enough to take a longer flight to see them.)
These aren't all the airlines I saw, but the rest I'm saving for other days and other posts. Still, there is one more type of airplane I saw which I think I have never actually seen in Massachusetts. When I was at Edinburgh I heard this bizarre loud thing that sounded like nothing I'd ever heard before and looked up and saw what I thought was a C-130. Then I realized it was actually an A400M with its weird scimitar propellers. As far as I'm aware this is the first airlift plane I've seen in person that wasn't a static display and it's definitely the first plane I've seen that sounds like that. I also got to see my first ever helicopter that wasn't a tiny little general aviation thing in the form of a Chinook going right over my head at...really not that high, but it didn't have its transponder on so I couldn't tell you more exactly. Is that a thing in London? Airplane-sized military helicopters at low heights over populated areas with their transponders off? I don't remember ever seeing that before but I suppose it has been a while. It was very, very strange.
And that's a non-exhaustive list of the things you just don't get to see in Boston! I will definitely talk about some of these airlines in full someday, but some of them I probably won't. I at least had a lot of fun pointing at airplanes and going "wow...".
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n7punk · 8 months
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which one do you feel like is wrong the most often or the most Overall wrong (it'll arrive a week later than it claims, etc)
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eros-sangre · 4 months
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i know you thought about me
yesterday..
and I know you’re lost without me
i’m on the way (I’m on your wave)
cause those feelings deep inside
are ..
never meant to hide..
Now, I don’t write real love songs.
But you make me feel inclined..
cause I know that:
I’m.. catching.. feelings..
(Cause)
your love holds me together..
your touch is burned in me forever
unfolding on my memory
forever.. and ever..
Now I’ll write you real love songs.
For you, til the day I die..
Because I know that,
I’ve caught feelings.
..
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awstenlookbook · 6 months
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Via TikTok, Awsten wears a DHL yellow employee's polo uniform shirt (not for sale, similar pictured).
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warakami-vaporwave · 2 years
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DHL84
follow me on instagram!
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Ore 9:56 suona il citofono.... apro e mi trovo davanti il sig. Corriere,alto,moro, occhiali da sole.. Io praticamente impresentabile , confezionata con lo stile " tanto in casa non mi vede nessuno" , chiedo scusa per la presenza e lui mi dice a tono serio :
-"Non vorrai andare al concerto di Vasco?"
Io sorrido e con un filo di voce rispondo:
-"Minimo!!!!!Non vedo l'ora...e sicuramente non conciata così "😬
Lui allunga la mano per consegnarmi la busta e nel mentre la prendo ringrazio. Ormai stretto il pacco a me , saluto augurandogli buon lavoro e rientro in casa felice.
I biglietti ci sono...B&B prenotato... Giugno è dietro l'angolo.... manchiamo solo noi @ninfea2blog ♥️
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transmhyra · 4 months
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avastrasposts · 7 months
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Personal hatred beneath the cut; you have been warned.
The words below might bring back unpleasant memories and remind you of your own hatred for all things discussed below the cut.
I fucking hate UPS. Burn in hell UPS. Piece of shit company.
Actually, burn in hell all courier companies that can't do what we pay them to do: Royal Mail, DHL and Schenker. Never had to deal with FedEx but I'm sure they're just as bad.
(Dishonourable mention to PostNord over in Sweden, you fucking suck too.
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techniktagebuch · 8 months
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8. August 2023
I Fought the App and the App Won
Es ist ein stürmischer und regnerischer Tag. Ich stehe an der Packstation und möchte ein Päckchen abholen. Ich zücke also mein Smartphone und öffne die DHL App.
Die App verlangt, dass ich mich einlogge. Das Telefon ist noch relativ neu, es ist vermutlich das erste Mal, dass ich mich von diesem Gerät aus anmelde. Das Passwort ist aber im Passwortspeicher abgelegt und ich kann es per Face ID abrufen und automatisch eintragen lassen.
Die Gesichtserkennung braucht drei Versuche, was vielleicht an den Tropfen auf meiner Brille und dem Fahrradhelm liegt. Anschließend muss ich allerdings noch einen Verifizierungscode eingeben, der mir per Mail gesendet wird.
Ich öffne also die Mail-App, merke mir den Code und gebe ihn in der DHL App ein. Die DHL App verlangt nun, dass das neue Gerät aktiviert wird. Dazu wird das bisher verwendete Gerät benötigt, also mein altes Telefon.
Zufällig habe ich auch das alte Smartphone dabei. Es hat allerdings keine Netzverbindung, weil die SIM-Karte in meinem neuen Telefon steckt. Ohne Internetverbindung funktioniert aber weder die Aktivierung eines neuen Gerätes, noch das Verwenden der DHL-App auf dem alten Gerät, um damit die Abholung zu autorisieren.
Ich habe nun noch zwei Optionen: Erstens die SIM-Karte aus dem neuen Telefon rausfummeln und in das alte Telefon stecken. Zweitens könnte ich auf den neuen Telefon einen Hotspot aufmachen und versuchen, damit dem alten Telefon eine Netzverbindung zu spendieren.
Angesichts meiner klammen Finger kommt Option eins nicht wirklich in Frage. Irgendwie klappt es aber nicht, dass sich das alte Telefon mit dem neuen verbindet, und ich habe allmählich keine Lust mehr und fahre erst mal nach Hause. Das Päckchen muss also noch bis morgen in seinem kühlen Schacht ausharren.
(Virtualista)
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yaywebcomic · 11 months
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T I M I N G
Deliveries, no matter which ones, always have the best timing.
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question-josh · 1 month
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Quick and Shakey! sticker heart valentines drawing
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runwayrunway · 9 months
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No. 17 - A Gay Plane Has Landed (A Rainbow Twitter Icon Livery Compilation)
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Yep, it’s that time again! As we wrap up the yearly scheduled month of concentrated rainbow Capitalism, let’s go over some of the paint jobs airlines have used as a much more expensive variant of changing your Twitter icon to a rainbow version for the month of June, immediately after it stops being actually timely.    
To be clear: I am not rating the liveries as a whole. Those get their own posts. I am rating the modifications made to the livery for the occasion. I am judging this, not on overall quality, but on creativity and shamelessness. I want to see a tastefully designed plane that will make homophobic people get mad when they find out it’s operating their flight for as long to come as possible. 
It is not activism and it means nothing, but it has the potential to be somewhat funny, and I think the task of integrating a big gaudy rainbow flag into what’s otherwise a regular airline livery is an interesting and difficult one, and it’s fun to see different airlines to take on the same challenge. It also gives me a chance to review a bunch of special liveries that only change part of the design, as opposed to the ones I’ve already covered which invent a full new paint scheme. Some airlines even had multiple goes at it!
I just want to make my stance abundantly and unambiguously clear. This is not a sincere appreciation of a conglomerate of millionaires deciding they’ll make more money if they paint rainbows on their plane. This is me rating airline liveries.   
N653GT (Amerijet International for DHL)
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I begin with N653GT because she flew directly over my house at 4,500 feet maybe a month and a half ago at time of writing. I’m a bit sad that I didn’t get a picture because it was nearly midnight, but not too sad, because it’s not like it’d be recognizable as anything except a DHL plane. I’m unsure if this was Amerijet International’s idea, DHL’s idea, or a mixture of both, but calling it an idea is honestly even generous. You could easily just not notice that there’s anything different about this livery at all. 
Grade: D
D-AEAS (DHL)
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Unlike the prior airframe, this plane is registered in Germany (rather than the US) and is part of DHL’s fleet proper. I do think I prefer this to the Amerijet incarnation, both because it’s more visible and because the diagonal lines blend with the body at least somewhat. Couldn’t they have extended the red one a bit, though? That color literally already exists in their color scheme. 
Unfortunately, D-AEAS seems to have been repainted to the vanilla DHL livery sometime in October 2022. 
Grade: C-
D-AEAR / “Delivered With Pride” (EAT Leipzig for DHL)
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I’m almost angry because I do think this is very well done. It sort of combines the two prior attempts and turns them into something much better. This implies that they’re learning. 
Relocating the rainbow DHL symbol to the top of the tail solves that weird spacing issue with the gap at the end which the Amerijet incarnation had. It also makes the rainbow tail far more dynamic by giving it the distinct curve of an actual rainbow, then improving it even further by stretching it rather than making it perfectly circular, which adds even more visual interest. I really like how this covers the often-neglected sort of concave line where the vertical stabilizer actually meets the top fuselage, which is often ignored in liveries that bother to integrate the tail with the fuselage proper. I find that in this case the dynamic nature of the curved rainbow actually makes me feel like this tail is part of the fuselage proper despite there being no paint which actually leaves it, an effect probably aided by the fact that the yellow line of the rainbow directly flows into the main yellow of the livery. The fact that the red in the rainbow is also present in the rest of the DHL livery prevents it from feeling unbalanced despite the fact that the main logo is unmodified. 
This livery is very new. Hilariously, I think it was only applied around the 15th or so. I doubt this will happen, but it would be hilarious if they removed it immediately after the end of the month. I also sort of hope they don’t, because this is a pretty solid rainbow plane. (...it would be very funny though.)
Grade: B+
D-AINY / “Lovehansa” (Lufthansa)
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While I generally dislike the Lufthansa livery so much that I made this blog, I have to give them props for a tasteful pride integration. It’s neither garish nor negligible, and as a little bonus the interior also has a rainbow motif. I hope at least one German was very shrill and indignant about having to rest their neck on the dreaded gay antimacassar. 
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It does feel like somebody thought about this, unlike the Lufthansa livery as a whole. And it will be graded as such, independent from the Lufthansa livery as a whole, which I still hatehansa.
Grade: B-
N854VA (Alaska Airlines) 
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I really like Alaska’s take on the pride theme.  It actively adds something to the design of the livery without overpowering it - this is still recognizable as an Alaska Airlines plane but also as a pride plane. The font chosen is fine and the little airplanes are cute. It’s nice. It’s tasteful. It’s delightful. I’ll be honest, it got a smile out of me even though my emotional investment in the concept of a gay pride plane is less than minimal, just because I think the little airplanes are a nice and cute design. 
Apparently a lesbian couple got engaged on a flight operated by this plane. Good for them, I guess. A lot of these airlines operate “pride flights” (???) which as far as I can tell are just like a flying club night with the sort of people who would pay money to attend such an event, which sounds utterly miserable to me, but I’m here to talk about the liveries, not any of this. It just felt worth including a mention of at some point, as this seems to be an industry-wide phenomenon even with airlines which operate no rainbow planes, and this is the only one of the planes which I have any reason to believe hosted a gay marriage proposal. So do with that what you will. In my case, I’ll do nothing. 
N854VA was stored in December of 2022, but is only 11 years old, so surely she’s still airworthy. I’m just saying, if anyone from Alaska Airlines is reading this: bring her back. 
Grade: A-
LX-LQC “Be Pride. Be Luxembourg” (Luxair)
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I’m a little conflicted here, because the paint splash isn’t the worst concept ever for a rainbow addition but it is just added to the existing white part without modifying the existing livery otherwise and doesn’t do anything especially interesting. It somehow feels small despite being large. Your eyes could honestly glaze over it. That’s sort of one of the hazards of propliner liveries but that’s no excuse. At the same time it’s far too large. It feels clumsy, haphazard. I don’t really think I care for it. The rainbow logo on the nacelles is a decent touch but not nearly enough to save it. 
The airframe was repainted in the standard Luxair livery in December 2022. Still, while they are no longer Pride, they are, to the best of my knowledge, still Luxembourg. 
Grade: D+
VH-QPJ “Rainbow Roo” (Qantas) 
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One of the earliest examples of a pride plane comes from one of the oldest airlines still in operation. The A330 (GAY330, as it was called at the time) adopted her paint scheme in February 2017 in partnership with Sydney Mardi Gras and kept it until May 2018. A trailblazer for sure. I think the flag on the tail looks sort of bad, but just replacing the logo with a rainbow version is literally as obvious and simple of a pride livery as I can think of and I’m honestly fine with that. 
Grade: C-
I do, however, respect that the special flight they did for Sydney Mardi Gras included a Qantas-themed drag queen named Qantana. That said, it seems they hired a drag queen to perform as Qantana instead of there simply being a full-time Qantas-themed drag queen, and I have to say I’d respect it a lot more if someone had just committed to making Qantas camp to that degree. I mean, there’s an entire, what, three seasons of Aussie Drag Race? I’m just saying I feel like the fact that it hasn’t happened reflects poorly on Qantas’s general vibe. 
VH-EBL “Pride is in the Air” (Qantas)
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As of February of this year, Qantas decided they were going to give it another shot. This new livery, not in partnership with anyone, is very similar to the original. Much like the original, it’s entirely fine. I do prefer the way that the flag’s stripes are ordered from left to right rather than top to bottom this time around, as it’s much more legible. They also seem to have updated to the progress flag instead of just the standard rainbow flag, and they’ve removed that weird out-of-place flag detail from the tail. Again, I think it could be improved by making the Qantas logo on the tail rainbow as well for balance, and on the nacelles for completeness, but the current state is absolutely fine. 
In all honesty this is probably objectively a C but I do feel the need to upgrade the rating slightly to acknowledge the subtle yet palpable improvement. That’s growth.
Grade: C+
C-GPTS (Air Transat)
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Another gay330, this time from Canadian carrier Air Transat. Another simple replacement of the logo, though it does feel unbalanced. The rainbow on the light blue looks nice, I’ll give it that, but it’s super blink-and-you’ll-miss-it. I’m unsure why nobody thought of making the text rainbow too. Maybe to save paint? I say this because in a very blatant and literal variant of the changing your Twitter icon strategy, she only wore the livery for the month of June 2019 before being reverted to Air Transat’s standard. 
Grade: D
N247GS (Cape Air)
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Cape Air is a regional carrier based in...Cape Cod, shockingly. They’re very Cape Cod, not in a Kennedy way. I’ve had nothing but good experiences flying with them in the Caribbean, where they operate a tiny fleet of Britten-Norman Islanders, but they also do flights in the Northeast US and especially Cape Cod. They’re a nifty little airline and if you’re ever in a position to fly with them I recommend it - flying in a little 12-seater twin prop is a really unique experience compared to a full-size jet. 
This livery is fine, mostly just replacing the standard blue part of the Cape Air tail with a rainbow, but I like the extra touches on the engine nacelles and wheel pants. I also appreciate the airline’s statement that she’ll wear this livery for the rest of her service life. How long will that be? Good question - Cape Air is phasing out their Cessna 402 fleet for their new Tecnam P2012 Travellers, but they still have a pretty big fleet of them and they seem to be going strong. N47GS in particular is 41 years old, which sounds outrageous but isn’t particularly eyebrow-raising for this sort of plane, and she seems to be in good nick, so here’s to many more years of service. Go grandma!
Grade: C+
G-SAJE “Pride Jet /  Jet Pròis” “Flying's for all” (Loganair)
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I truly struggle to figure out how to rate this, because this particular plane looks...borderline featureless before modification. I do sort of like what they’ve done here, in the sense that it reminds me of SAS’s old belly stripes livery and it looks very clean and all that. I think I would really like this on most other liveries, but it’s hard to accept it just slapped on a plane white plane. It’s not integrated into the livery because there’s nothing to integrate it into. I don’t know, I feel like there could have at least been something to match the tartan pattern? I’m not going to turn this into a general Loganair review but the tartan is so underused here and I think at least changing the stripes to a sort of diagonal weave pattern would do a lot to make it fit better. I just don’t know. With a canvas this blank it’s hard to think of specific ideas but this leaves me feeling very wanting and unsatisfied. Come on, Loganair. The sentence ‘Scottish regional airline with tartan-based livery’ leaves me frothing at the mouth, you’ve got to pull yourself together because the potential is way higher than the service ceiling on that plane! (...wait, the ERJ-145 has a 37,000ft ceiling? Why did I expect that to be so much lower? Good for her.)
This livery is also hot off the presses, June 2023 release. 
This really is hamstrung by the absolute nothing it’s working with beforehand. I definitely think this is more elegant than Luxair’s attempt but the livery is so bare to begin with. I guess - I said I’m judging this exclusively by the pride addition, but it’s so hard to not interpret it holistically. I’m too good at my job :/
Anyway. It’s fine but the canvas is so underwhelming that I just can’t like it. Sorry. 
Grade: C-/D+
Thomas Cook Airlines
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Thomas Cook actually had at least two pride planes (I’ve seen the number five tossed out but could only find these two - G-TCDE and G-MDBD - for sure). It’s...fine. Like, whatever. It’s a little heart that’s rainbow instead of the generic yellow Thomas Cook heart. It’s not too visible but I’d describe it as a sweet little touch. I prefer it to what Luxair did. It’s fine. I wish they did more, but it’s fine. I don’t think either of these liveries were left intact for terribly long, and there was no fanfare or reporting about either of these. Following Thomas Cook’s legendary 2019 implosion and the resulting record-setting peacetime repatriation of UK nationals G-TCDE is currently stored and in a default Thomas Cook livery, while G-MDBD is flying for a new airline in a new livery. No clue what happened to the other potential gay Thomas Cook planes, but I don’t think it matters either. 
Grade: C-
XA-MAQ (Aeroméxico)
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The immediate impression is of an Air Transat or Thomas Cook-style tiny replaced element, but the more I dwell on XA-MAQ the more I appreciate her. Like, it is just the red stripe replaced with a rainbow one, but I’ve realised - and this is true of Thomas Cook’s fab (alleged) five as well - that replacing the logo on the tail without touching the rest of the fuselage or the nacelles ends up looking unbalanced, but replacing a little flourish avoids that and fits more smoothly into the rest of the design.  
Also, while both are small, the little ribbon isn’t the only touch. Immediately beneath it on the fuselage is text reading ‘volamos con orgullo’, which is Spanish for ‘we fly with pride’, if my Googling is correct. I find that pretty cute. No, it’s not a lot, but it’s cute. It’s at least an implication that more went into this design than checking off a box. A lot of the others, Air Transat in particular, feel very ‘oh, we made the logo rainbow, guess we’re done!’. 
Plus, bonus points for keeping the livery - it was first applied in June of 2021 and is still in service. 
Grade: B-
G-VPRD “Rain Bow” (Virgin Atlantic)
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Wait...huh? This can’t possibly be the right plane, can it? This is just a normal Virgin livery. 
Wait. Wait a moment.
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Zoom...enhance...
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image: Virgin Atlantic)
That’s your pride livery? The entirety of your pride livery? Not a small part of a more interesting whole, not a large design that’s visible on the fuselage, this tiny...e-girl cheek decoration of a guy who looks vaguely fruity? This is your big move towards inclusivity that you brag about flying to Doha? 
I already dislike Richard Branson, but I will not forgive him for this particular act until he paints what will be renamed to GayceShipTwo entirely in rainbow colours with THIS PLANE IS GAY written in massive letters on it, and also sends me a million dollars directly shipped via GayceShipTwo to my local airport. Is the runway big enough to land it? No clue, but that’s going to be his problem to figure out and is none of my business. And then afterwards he will fly GayceShipTwo back to his house and land her on his own head, killing himself instantly. Likes charge, reblogs cast.
Grade: F
N724AV (Avianca)
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I have mixed feelings. On one hand, all they’ve done is replace the barely-above-standard tail-only design with a rainbow. On the other hand, I do like that it’s not just a flag and has something actually visually interesting about it with the way it intersects itself. I do wish they’d also replaced the logo, nacelles, and winglets with the same rainbow pattern, but the general amount of things going on in the middle and front at least prevents it from feeling unbalanced. I mean, did they do an Air Transat? Sort of yes, but their livery is a lot less rear-heavy at base and there’s a lot more to look at here. 
I don’t know. I think it’s fine. Just fine. Can’t knock it too hard, but not exciting.
Grade: C-
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Well, that’s it for the good, the bad, and the Virgin Atlantic of every pride livery I could find record of. Let me know which tepid corporate gesture you found most aesthetically pleasing, and remember: I am doing my utmost to psychically harm Richard Branson with my malicious thoughts, and this medical equipment I’ve stolen is going to help me in this goal.  
I’ll have a couple more posts coming out about planes which aren’t gay pride planes but look like they might be, so keep an eye out for those tomorrow and Monday. 
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magpies-gold · 9 months
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I attempted to order a couple of shirts and tarot card packs from Welcome to Night Vale because yes, I’ve gotten back on that bullshit again - I’m back up to 2016 and listening to it on my walks to work, which functions about as well as a cup of coffee to wake me up, let me tell you.
In hindsight, I should have known that box would be cursed. It’s Night Vale.
If you enjoy long tumbles down several flights of stairs, read on.
It started innocently enough. I ordered and remembered during checkout that oh yeah. I’m going to Spokane at the end of the month. And I’m in Canada. There’s a good chance it’ll be a little slow to get here and the arrival time might be while I’m away. Okee doke. Work address it is. DHL eCommerce usually turns into Canada Post and Canada Post does a daily delivery to our front door, where my whole department is located. If it looks like it’ll happen during my vacation, I’ll just tell my co-workers to watch for it. Easy pease.
Time passes. My box clambers across the US to the border.
Hurdle Number One: You owe duty fees! announces my tracking app. Check your email to pay. :D This is in the morning on my way to work, less than a week out from my trip.
I do. No email. I check junk, I refresh, I squint at time stamps. I scour their page for links. I think “Don’t they usually either send a letter after delivery or just demand cash at the door?” But this has all the indications that I have to pay now or it’ll be sent back. Exception. Held for payment. I am stupid and obsess over this while walking to work, listening to Night Vale with half an ear and having to rewind Cecil because my brain is occupied. I nearly get run over by a bicycle and it’s coincidentally ridden by a co-worker. He comments that I look especially unhinged today. He’s right. I keep plugging away trying to solve the labyrinthine maze that is DHL’s customer service department.
My tracking number doesn’t work in any of the Help Me boxes. The chat bot doesn’t know what a duty fee is. It finally barfs out a phone number. That’ll work. I pray it’s not a robot on the other end and continue to work.
While waiting for the kettle to heat up on my break I take a quick spin outside with my phone to call customer service.
To my briefly pleasant surprise, the wait on hold is less than five minutes and it is, in fact, a pleasant human voice on the other end. The conversation is quick “Didn’t get the email.” “Junk mail?” “Nope, nothing.” “You can wait until it’s delivered by Canada Post and pay then.” “This really looks like it’s being held, though…” “It should still go through but otherwise I have an email for you.” “You can’t like… transfer me?” “No. Just email and they’ll resend the instructions.”
Labyrinthine!
An ambulance blares by. I wince. I also have no pen. Uh. Speaker phone, apologies for the traffic noises, and frantic tapping into my Notes app while cursing autocorrect. The email is cryptic and long but I get it written down. Thanks, g’bye.
For the record, once I sent the email, things went smoothly. It worked. They resent the email, I paid the whopping $12, and then my tracking updated to say it would continue on to me. Whew. Good. I await the Canada Post tracking number.
Hurdle Number Two: This is where the package started mutating, I’m sure. A Canada Post tracking number appears!
…. and then an Intelcom tracking number appears.
And then my DHL original tracking number duplicates itself saying it’s being sent back to the states? But the original one is still on its way to me… How did my box become at least three boxes?
I blink a few times and just… track them all to see what’s going to happen.
At this point I’ve got to leave for Spokane so I just ask my co-workers to keep an eye out and I leave it up to the fates.
Canada Post never budged. Nothing happened. The duplicate DHL package did move, and eventually returned all the way back to the sender. I don’t know what that was to this day. The Intelcom package identified itself as coming my way with a little email and a link to add delivery instructions and so I thought “You. You are the real one. Found you.” I know Intelcom delivers on weekends and I don’t want to inconvenience anyone and this has started to get to where I don’t want to leave any details up to chance, and so in every instruction box I can find, I note that it’s a business address, give the hours, and the times we’re open. Please deliver to reception. On weekdays. Please.
I once again give it up to the fates and enjoy my weekend.
Hurdle Number Four: Intelcom is Jared, age 19, who never learned how to read. On Sunday morning, the final day of Mysterium, on what is a long weekend in Canada because of Canada Day on the 1st, I get a happy little email.
Package delivered!
….
How.
I open the email. I scroll down. There’s a photo. Of my box.
On the lawn.
Outside an obvious office, smack dab in the middle of a three day weekend, beside a street that harbours half the city’s traffic.
A safe location, they say.
A safe location.
The same way that a toddler on the train tracks is in a safe location. Certainly!
And I am in another country.
I make a noise that startled all thee cats in our friend’s house.
My co-workers are heroes. I thankfully have my supervisor’s cell number and she actually checks her phone, unlike me. She knew about the box. I send her the photo and just “Those absolute MAD LADS. Heeeeeeelp!”
By sheer luck another co-worker was not out of town on that glorious warm weekend and was able to swing by and rescue my box.
I enjoy the last day of the convention with a slight eye twitch.
Finally … I get home. I go back to work. I retrieve my hard earned box. Finally! I don’t open it at work. I carry it home. Whatever. It’s in my hands now and I’m going to enjoy opening it. I go the long way to meet my boyfriend at his work and then we go back to our abode.
We talk about the box adventure. We laugh about it. We both decide that Friday would be a good day to wear our new shirts. It’s going to be great.
At home we plunk it down. Tim gets a knife. He opens it.
He blinks.
What?
Um, he says.
Oh no.
And I look over his shoulder…. and I don’t see shirts. Or cards. I see…
Sleep masks. Sleep masks in fancy plastic boxes all neatly tucked together. They’ve got a sea creature on ‘em.
My box has mutated into someone’s fuckin’ Manta Sleep order. My box has escaped. My box has fled and framed an innocent bystander for its crimes. We got the wrong man, boys!
And I swear I can just about hear Cecil narrating this whole thing if I listen really, really hard.
It’s a three part tragedy. One of the shirts I wanted is out of print now. I contacted support and they offered me my pick of any others in its place, which was nice. Thank you Lucid John, that is quite a name. I paid customs fees and probably will again on box two, but such is the way.
And I think I lost a part of my soul there. Maybe that’s what was in the mystery third tracking number.
Basically if anyone in the world finds where the fuck my Night Vale shit went, could you send it home? I’ll trade you some sleep masks.
They’ve got a sea creature on ‘em.
And be careful when ordering from Night Vale.
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my-plastic-life · 3 months
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Been considering doing this for a while, and now it's finally happened! Join me at Kenleigh's front porch as we evaluate the various delivery companies. Everything is based off my actual experiences lol
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hellssblog · 10 months
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detroit grand prix 2023
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