Is jetBlue smarter than a 5th grader?

It's been while since my last post, so I have a few different things to rant about.

The first thing, is something that I noticed during spring break. Some people went on vacation to tropical locales and some went to New Orleans to lend a helping hand. As for me, I took it easy and tried to catch up on sleep. I also watched a little TV and I got a chance to see some shows that my family liked to watch. Namely, reality shows, game shows and the painful combination of the two.

At the beginning of the reality show craze a few years ago, there were a few that I was into. Including the underrated Anderson Cooper vehicle, The Mole. I loved this show, I even made a sports related theory out of it that I mentioned in my last column.

The show's premise was simple: find out who the mole was. But this was harder than you might think. During the numerous missions the mole's job was to do make the others fail the mission, but to do it so they don't detect you. At the end of the show, the contestants had to take a quiz that asked them questions about the mole. Sometimes it seemed impossible to tell who the mole was because there was contestants that were so incompetent that they were candidates.

Like I mentioned in my column, this relates perfectly to sports because a lot of times there is one player who is good and seems to have the will to win, but skillfully messes up causes the team to fail. The example of this I like to use is A-Rod. Of course, many people won't get this analogy anymore because The Mole was ruined by the monstrosity that was Celebrity Mole, which featured the likes of Kathy Griffin and one of the Baldwin brothers that no one cares about. And that opened the door for other horrible reality/game shows. There's too many to list here, but one specific one that I want to mention (and I'm ashamed to say I caught my family watching) is Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

There is so many things wrong with this show, i don't know where to begin. I mean, it's a show meant to humiliate and prove how stupid Americans are and it's hosted by Jeff Foxworthy. A man who's made a living off redneck jokes and stupidity. Now, he's going to snicker as a 11-year old outsmarts an accountant. Does anyone else see something wrong here?

Secondly, the questions aren't that easy to begin with. Sure, there's a few softballs in there, but that's the same with almost any gameshow. One question that I remember was: what geological time period are we currently in? What' that? Is that a 5th grade question at Mensa Elementary school? (the answer by the way is the Cenozoic era). These kids aren't even real 5th graders, they're actors. Freaking rocket science, cheating 5th graders! Anyway, in conclusion, I vote that this show be renamed to: The Idiot Show (sorry, no offense).

Now, I'm sure people might agree with me that 5th Grader isn't the best show. But here's a new one for you, I don't like American Idol. I think it's stupid, a glorified karaoke contest with annoying judges and a host that I really wish someone would punch in the face.

Seriously, I don't get the appeal of this. I love music, but I would much rather watch 24, Lost or The Office than this hour-long, repetitive crapfest. Please, someone put in the comments section why this show is so great.

I'm almost done here, but there is one last thing I have to address. And this Bud's for you jetBlue. I love your TV screens and luxurious leg room, but I'm not a big fan of hanging around an airport for 8 hours more or less because of your incompetence.

That's what I did last week in JFK along with the rest of the Courier staff, the staff of the Medaille paper and several other disgruntled travelers looking to commute to Rochester. The weather was far from ideal, so I expected a few delays, but nothing like this. Every other plane had left JFK without a hitch except ours. First, because they couldn't find a stewardess in Florida where our plane was waiting. I would have volunteered to pass out water and blue tortilla chips for an hour to spare the extra wait, but no, they eventually found a stewardess and the plane arrived at JFK around 11. That's not too bad, right?

Well, jetBlue (and possibly some twisted fate) weren't done screwing with us yet.

While the plane was waiting for us on the tarmac, a rouge baggage car somehow managed to run into our plane and defy the 1 in 1,ooo,ooo odds that this would happen. Considering that our plane had a dent in it and we would now have to wait for another, coupled with the fact that it was St. Patrick day, led to a march to the JFK bar.

A bar that had conveniently closed sometime before 11:30.. on a Saturday.. on a holiday known for drinking. No problem though, there was booze next door in the airport convenient store. And boy do they know how to cheer disgruntled travelers up, by charging 6 dollars for one 12 0z. bottle of Budweiser. Or how about nearly 8 bucks for a Mike's.

Eventually, we made our way on the plane and took off around 2 am. The pilot was cracking jokes and in good spirit, this relieved some of my angry. At least, until we arrived in Rochester to find out that a quarter of the people on the plane had their luggage lost, including our advisor who happened to be wearing a jetBlue hat!

With that being said, I'd like to congratulate jetBlue as the next contestant on Are you smarter than a 5th grader? Only on Fox.