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    Listen, can you hear the distance calling

    With holiday travel (including my frenetic trip next week) coming up, your friendly TSA has released its air passenger recommendations.

    Note again that the first and most important contribution you can make the air security of the Republic is NOT TO BRING ANY LIGHTERS IN YOUR CARRY-ON BAGS.

    Also note that you should be getting to the airport “in plenty of time.” (Since the TSA, and not we hapless travelers, is in charge of safety procedures, perhaps it would be the better positioned to judge what “plenty” means. Say, two hours? Four hours? Just one hour if it’s a domestic flight? I guess they figured specifying a time would seem, you know, coercive and arbitrary. Wouldn’t want that.)

    Also, you won’t be required to take off your shoes. Well, unless you are.

    Enjoy your trip!

    5 Responses to “Listen, can you hear the distance calling”

    1. jeff says:

      Did u see this?

      From Masamania, the phreakiest site in Japan

    2. Toren says:

      A comic book artist friend of mine decided she wasn’t going to attend any conventions next year. In her otherwise calm and reasoned post was this line:

      I am goddy (I mean giddy) with the prospect of no packing, no hauling displays, no dealing with wardrobe, NO FLYING OH DEAR SWEET BABY JESUS IN A BURRITO GOD NO FLYING.

      And people wonder why the airlines are losing money.

    3. Portia says:

      I, on the other hand, fly to conventions about four times a year and last time I flew, I had a little extra time and started cleaning the “travel purse.” Which is when I realized that there was a… canister of mace in my purse. A very old mace canister. It was put there when the kids were small and I might need to mace a dog that jumped a fence and came at them (it happened once. Rural neighborhood.) It had leaked over the years (don’t ask) and seemed empy, so I just threw it away. But, by my calculations, that thing flew… oh, a good forty times, all over the US. Twenty times since 9/11. Easy.

      It looked like a lighter. That must have been why it passed. Yeah. I’m sure. ::cough:: ahem ::cough::

      I wish you fortitude and minimal hand wanding on your trip. I hate flying.

      P.

    4. Sean Kinsell says:

      jeff, I’d seen it, but thanks for the link. My boyfriend was home for the weekend, and we actually saw a different demonstration: a conservative group protesting the possibility that rules for succession will be changed to allow for a female emperor. You can trust Masa to get the good parts, but Japanese demonstrations tend to be completely lame–even the least interesting Berkeley protester tends to have more obsessive flair.

      Toren, I second what your friend wrote, with extra chilies. Especially domestic flights. These days, I’d almost rather get around the country on a tricycle, my luggage tied to the back with twine and bouncing merrily along, than set foot on a plane.

      Portia, the convention I’m going to is a yearly one, and at last year’s, one of the women from HQ had brought along a bunch of letter openers to give as gifts to people at far-flung offices she hadn’t seen for a while. Now, of course, they weren’t as sharp as your kitchen knives–no good for slashing–but there were enough of them to arm a half-dozen people for some pretty deadly stabbing. As she was giving one to someone at dinner, she suddenly blanched and said, “OMG, these were in my carry-on!” No one at the airport had so much as asked her to show what was in the boxes.

    5. Yeah, I think “japanese protest” is an oxymoron

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