Interactivity! Blogs! Complaining! This is the future!

Just after midnight, a cargo plane caught fire and made an emergency landing at Philadelphia International airport. (That’s the plane at left, in a photo from CBS 3’s website. From that photo, you also learn the Philadelphia Kixx are playing the Baltimore Blast this morning. Helpful!)

Anyway, the plane caught fire and landed at the airport, closing it from midnight to 6 a.m. The blaze was under control at around 4. KYW does excellent video of the fire, as well as the woman-on-the-scene reporter, Stephanie Abrams, who we can assume gets 2 hours of sleep a night since CBS 3 is always sending her out at 5 a.m. to do stories.

The Inquirer has full coverage on the Early Word blog, which means award-winning headline writer Peter Mucha has posted a thread saying “complain here if you’re stuck at the airport!” So, that means this morning the Early Word blog is focused on people stuck at the airport, who have laptops and enough time to check mail at a wireless point. That’s a mighty big audience.

A commenter leaves a big rant about how this is stupid, and Early Word editor Peter Mucha has a snappy comeback, but that’s about all the comments they’re going to get.

But this is the future. When’s the “airport delay podcast” starting up?

Airport Reopens After Cargo Plane Fire [CBS 3]
Burning plane lands [AP via Philly.com]
Affected, Inconvenienced by Airport Closure? [Early Word]

Tornado in a toaster oven!

Yeah, I know what you’re saying. “Dan, why didn’t you liveblog the Wing Bowl? Hell, you liveblogged an episode of 10!” Well, I’ll tell you: I just woke up. Okay, not really. But, well, this year’s “Virgin Wing Bowl” theme kind of ruined any interest I had in it.

Now, you’re probably wondering why said theme ruined it for me. To be honest, I have no idea. It just did. But that doesn’t mean I’m not interestd in the nice amount of unintentional comedy in the Inquirer recap of the event, won by Joey Chestnut (who ate a record billion wings):

The half-capacity, near-rapacity crowd, which was loud as a tornado in a toaster oven, saw the likes of a man with a gigantic meatball, a dragon led by horned helpers, military costumes, a White Widow, and much more during the opening procession of contestants.

According to Google, the Inquirer’s award-winning headline writer Peter Mucha — who did liveblog the event — has invented a new cliche! Congratulations, Peter!

Early Word
Joey Chestnut wins Wing Bowl [Inky]
“Tornado in a toaster oven” [Google]