Not going anywhere for awhile?

You got your choice -- stuck on an airplane for six hours on a tarmac or stuck for two hours less, but on a roller coaster. Both happened over the last few days.

Two dozen people on Monday were stranded between 40 and 80 feet off the ground on the Invertigo Roller Coaster at the Great America Theme Park near Santa Clara, Calif. It happened just after 2 p.m. local time and the last of the 24 riders was not rescued until around 6 p.m.

All the riders were at least right side up and strapped in. Could have been worse, I suppose. I'm sure all the lawyers trying to get to the scene later could have passed for the bumper car rides nearby.

Then there were the poor passengers last weekend on a Contintental flight from Houston to Minneapolis. The 47 passengers on board were diverted to Rochester, Minn., 85 miles away, because of storms.

Another flight did the same thing and passengers were taken by bus to Minneapolis. Continental decided to wait out the storm and fly to Minnesapolis rather than bus. And despite the terminal being just 50 yards away, passengers were not allowed to deplane and stretch out there.

Instead they were there for SIX hours in a plane on a tarmac with screaming babies and smelly toilets and no doubt passengers at their wit's end. Finally at 6 a.m. they deplaned to the terminal, but it took 2 1/2 more hours to reboard the same plane to fly to Minnesapolis.

The plane finally got to its destination at 9:15 a.m., some 12 hours later on what should have been a 2 1/2-hour flight. But, hey, they all got free vouchers for future flight.

Me? I would have taken the roller coaster.