It's the holidays. Well it's not now but it was. And in America that means chockablock airports.
The trouble with airports, busy ones in particular, is you have no control over how other people behave. The sheer effort expent trying not scream at people who are, let's face it, holding things up with stupidity that borders on the criminal has at one time or another left me visibly shaking and moments away from what I'm certain is spontaneous combustion.
It's bad enough when you're trapped and watching the idiocy unfold before you while you check your watch every ten seconds and wonder if you'll make it through security before your flight leaves. But when passengers willfully slow things down? Criminal, surely?
And right around the time of the holidays some absolute nutters, in the name of civil liberties, decide it would be the perfect opportunity to boycott the airport x-ray machines. Sigh... does anyone think these things through before opening their mouths to protest? It's really not an infringement of your rights, people. It's an x-ray. However good or bad you think you look, the bored, exhausted and indifferent TSA agent probably couldn't care less how you appear in x-ray format. If they're taking nude photos of passengers and asking you to pose or look over your shoulder and pout then I can see your point. In actual fact, they're looking at what is for the most part a bundle of bones. Have people seen what an x-ray actually looks like? I mean, you do know you like like an idiot if you think some desperate TSA agent is going to be getting excited looking at an x-ray of you, right? I'm not an expert but I feel good about my chances regarding the accuracy of the following assertion: if the TSA agent is that desperate for excitement I'm pretty sure he (or she) is just going to go home and look at porn.
While I'm not at all one of these folks who wants to sign away my civil liberties for the sake of safety, an x-ray really isn't all that intrusive. What's next, boycotting of CAT scan's and MRI's for fear hospital technicians are getting hot and bothered looking at your irradiated bits and pieces? Try to keep it in perspective.
And here's the thing, x-ray: 10 seconds, full body pat down 4 minutes. 100 passengers body scanned, approximately 16 minutes. 100 passengers patted down, approximately 6 hours. Now, how do you feel about having to be at the airport 2 hours before your flight? How do you feel about having to be at the airport 6 hours before your flight? Stop being an idiot and go through the stupid x-ray. "Oh, but they can see my contours!" Yes, and I'm sure that makes all the difference between an x-ray being of interest or not to a TSA agent. And after 8 hours of looking at x-rays on the job, who the hell wants to look at more that might or might not be possibly stored on a TSA hard drive somewhere?
It's far more invasive to have someone's hands all over you, I'm sure. And you really can't be one of these people who thinks you can say no to everything.
X-ray?
No.
Pat down?
No.
You have to have something done.
I'd really rather just go straight to my gate.
Oh. Ok...uh, never mind then. Have a nice day.
**LOUD BUZZER**
Nil points! It doesn't work that way. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. I've tried, it's not allowed. You can have your peanuts and eat them too but since you only about 14 per flight, it hardly counts and you'll be hungry later.
So for the sake of everyone's sanity, just shut up, if selected go through the x-ray (that's right, it isn't even a guarantee you'll have to have one!) and get on the plane so you can go home and annoy your family instead of me.
In that spirit, I leave you with these very sexy TSA x-rays which I think, we can all agree, probably don't look anything like you when you go through the scanner. Unless you're wearing stilettos and get very creative when told to stay still for 10 seconds. Enjoy!
TSA Calendar
Miss January
Miss February
Miss March
Miss April
Miss May
Miss June
Miss July
Miss August
Miss September
Miss October
Miss November
Miss December
According to Gadling.com, these images were created by a German agency for a Japanese computer display company called EIZO, and apparently they are actually just very good CGI and have nothing to do with the TSA.
Television rots your brain. Or so I've been told. Given the sheer volume of rubbish on television these days, it's not hard to believe. Outside of sporting events which make up a substantial portion of my viewing, there's not much else to choose from. When everyone is apparently religiously watching Jersey Shore and America's Next Top Model, it makes it quite easy to imagine tossing my television and aborting the monthly cable bill.
For my personal viewing, besides Fox Football ("Do you mean soccer?" - click for more details) Channel, I used to turn to BBC America. It was my 'happy place' amid the pain and misery of US television programming. I could get news (proper current events, not local school children constructing the largest noodle craft project ever unveiled), sitcoms (that actually made you laugh) and drama (that wasn't predictable). You've got to give credit where it's due, we do know how to write interesting television in the UK. Lately however, the selection on the BBC America has become tenuous. It seems whenever I do have some time to actually watch television, and switch to my trusty BBC America I'm greeted by Star Trek: The Next Generation. What? That's not a British show. Not even a little. One English actor does not a British show make. Cough up the cash BBC America and pay for some more programming.
The only thing more worrisome than the appearance of American shows on BBC America is the sheer lack of imagination in actual American programming. It seems many of the shows which are having (or have had) enormous success are remakes of UK shows, re-casted with American actors (language barrier?) - Sanford & Son (Steptoe & Son), All in the Family ('Til Death Do Us Part), Football Wives (Footballers' Wives), Skins, Shameless, Coupling, The IT Crowd, The Office, Queer as Folk, and most recently Being Human. In the case of reality shows, they get shifted over the pond with a ready made charismatic/villainous host (Simon Cowell, Ann Robinson, Piers Morgan) - The Weakest Link, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, American Idol (Pop Idol), America's Got Talent (Britain's Got Talent), Cash in the Attic, Trading Spaces (Changing Rooms), What Not to Wear, Undercover Boss, Super Nanny and now Top Gear.
Top Gear, at least, makes sense. It's immensely popular and there is a different market of cars in the US with it's own group of enthusiasts who would love a Top Gear aimed at the vehicles available here. Unfortunately, the US version lacks the exact ingredient which has made the UK version such a smash success: personality. I can count the number of things I know about cars on one hand. I'm not an enthusiast by any stretch of the imagination and I know nothing about engines (outside of the fact that I need one to go). And yet, I love Top Gear. Why? Because it's entertaining. Unlike the US version which is decidedly not.
It would be nice, if the US networks would hire a few more imaginative people and come up with some of their own rock solid entertaining shows. It can be done but someone out there is going to have to work on getting some television execs who aren't monkeys jumping to copy the first entertaining thing they see. A few less Jersey Shore's, a few more House/Lie to Me/Law & Order's would be a treat.
Without that, it's only a matter of time until some dull witted TV exec sees Star Trek: The Next Generation on BBC America and pitches it to his network as a brand new show....
"I just saw it on BBC America," he says. "It's a show about humans traveling space, the final frontier if you will. Exploring the outer reaches and interacting with aliens. They call it Star Trek. We'll call ours...um, Planet Exploration?...No...Space Expedition?....No.... Solar Journey? No, wait, wait, I've got it... we'll call it Star Trek!"
"That's where you started, sir."
"Oh, well, we'll sort out the name later. Right, what we need is a bald actor, go find me one! Is Michael Chiklis free?"
It will be half way through its first season before someone at the network notices the show seems somewhat familiar....
"Hey, who bought the rights to make this new show?" Scratches head, "Don't we already own this?"
At some point in our lives, we all need to slow down. In some cases, it's age, over work or burnout. In my case, I was told to. By the police. Repeatedly.
To be fair, I wasn't keen on heeding their 'advice' so we bumped into each other fairly often. But it was not their grim demeanor or arsenal of hand guns and tasers that made me see the light. No, what finally convinced me that a lifestyle change might be in order was the daunting prospect of a car insurance payment that had ballooned to the size of what I was sure would match a small home mortgage payment.
I have, since my 'rehab' almost six years ago, become a mainstay of a group of drivers who travel just over the limit but never to exceed by more than 8 mph lest we trigger some sort of alarm. I have committed to the actual use of cruise control which heretofore had been the equivalent of self destruct button in the car - DO NOT PUSH! I have forfeited driving red coupes and grimaced as my five speed transmission begs to be toyed with on deserted roads. All done to keep me on the wagon as it were. What I haven't been able to shake in six slooooow years though is my speeder's guilt.
Traveling down any given road, the sight of a police vehicle by the road side triggers an involuntary response whereby I immediately slam on the brakes and then, panic stricken, look down only to discover I was actually already traveling at the speed limit. The down side to this sort of behaviour though is the three car pile up I cause on the road behind me. I'm aware of it, I'm working on it. But I still have a guilty conscience apparently. So consider this a friendly suggestion - don't tail gate in my vicinity.
