Has anyone else noticed how screwed up Yahoo! Travel (and therefore, Travelocity) seem to be recently? Or is it just me… I don’t whether it’s hardware, software, or “we don’t care” ware, but the last several weeks of trying to arrange travel has been nothing but frustrating. It’s not just the usual suspects Northwest and Continental and their outdated fares, but I’m sorry, if an airline’s fare structure has changed, shouldn’t Travelocity have it BEFORE you’ve gone through the process of choosing your flights and entering your credit card info?

And what’s all this about trying the same flights multiple times and getting different failures, like no electronic ticket available, or “only 2 seats left at this price!”, or the dreaded “page you’re requesting is unavailable” (both via dial-up and DSL connection) error? In an e-commerce world, that’s like taking the perverbial .45 caliber to your neck and pulling the trigger repeatedly. Well, today I got so frustrated with these long-term friends that (courtesy of our friends at Travel Blog), I decided to use Orbitz for the first time. Bingo, bango, bongo – I see a set of flights, I like the price, I select and put in my credit card info, and – bada boom, bada bing – I get my reservation. Couldn’t have been easier. Me thinks I’m gonna take these fellers out for an extended test drive. Thanks, Travel Blog and Orbitz.

The news on both the domestic and international fronts is just too depressing today. I mean, Senator Russ Feingold (D-Idiot) wants to censure the President over the NSA intelligence thing, George Clooney gives the verbal middle finger to Democrats who supported the war in Iraq, the Prez is preaching patience on Iraq, even while we’re spending more dough to figure out what to do about the damned IEDs, the Iraqis continue to disappoint both Democrats and the mainstream media by not falling headlong into a civil war, an Iranian newspaper is hosting a Holocaust cartoon contest, resulting in violent worldwide protests and attacks by Jews on Arab embassies :-), and Keith Foulke still hasn’t thrown a pitch in anger while he continues to get more fluid injections in his knees. I mean, what’s a guy to do?

Today, I’d rather read stories like this and this. The former sounds like a Goodboys dream come true. As for the latter, that’ll make the next door neighbors think twice about sneaking in for a quick dip while you’re at work, right?

On the Goodboys front, a big “arrggeaaahh!!” to TFG, Killer, Hit Dog, Possum, Goose, and Cubby, who now have the keys for extended drives through the GB Nation weblog kingdom. Welcome aboard, guys!