What to do on a plane when you have an annoying passenger next to you.

[Finch Platte]

One of those forwarded emails- thought I'd dump it here. :dita:

1. Remove your laptop from the briefcase;
2. Open the laptop slowly and carefully:
3. Turn it on, as well as the sound;
4. Make sure that the passenger next to you is looking;
5. Access the Internet;
6. Close your eyes for a few moments, open again and look up to heaven:
7. Take a deep breath and open the site: http://www.myit-media.de/the_end.html
8. Observe the facial expression of the passenger seating next to you.

Have a good trip!

[Troy]

One of those forwarded emails- thought I'd dump it here. :dita:

1. Remove your laptop from the briefcase;
2. Open the laptop slowly and carefully:
3. Turn it on, as well as the sound;
4. Make sure that the passenger next to you is looking;
5. Access the Internet;
6. Close your eyes for a few moments, open again and look up to heaven:
7. Take a deep breath and open the site: http://www.myit-media.de/the_end.html
8. Observe the facial expression of the passenger seating next to you.

Have a good trip!

I love it. too bad it drops you in a bike ad at the end. That's like the Ovaltine Decoder Ring scene in A Christmas Story. Buzzkill.

[Finch Platte]

I love it. too bad it drops you in a bike ad at the end. That's like the Ovaltine Decoder Ring scene in A Christmas Story. Buzzkill.

Wha!? You watched the whole thing? You've got too much free time on your hands. :arf:

[nightflier]

Somehow I think this will land you in hot water. Not all airport personnel are going to appreciate the joke.

[audio amateur]

Somehow I think this will land you in hot water. Not all airport personnel are going to appreciate the joke.
I wasn't going to say, you better not try it unless you don't mind going to jail upon landing! lol

[Mr MidFi]

I'll be flying to Istanbul tomorrow night, so I'm getting a kick out of this.

Undoubtedly, the passenger next to me will be a young mother with a screaming 2-year-old lap child. Thank jah for noise-blocking earbuds and 5-euro vodka drinks!

[ForeverAutumn]

I'll be flying to Istanbul tomorrow night, so I'm getting a kick out of this.

Undoubtedly, the passenger next to me will be a young mother with a screaming 2-year-old lap child. Thank jah for noise-blocking earbuds and 5-euro vodka drinks!

That sounds like a cool trip. Have a great time and be safe.

[GMichael]

With my luck I'd end up face down in the isle with some pissed off FBI agent's knee in my back.

[Finch Platte]

I'll be flying to Istanbul tomorrow night, so I'm getting a kick out of this.



Not Constantinople?

[Mr MidFi]

Not Constantinople?

Hey...
Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it, I can't say
(People just liked it better that way)

Take me back to Constantinople
No, you can't go back to Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks!

[nightflier]

But giants don't need to fly!

[Troy]

I'll be flying to Istanbul tomorrow night, so I'm getting a kick out of this.

Undoubtedly, the passenger next to me will be a young mother with a screaming 2-year-old lap child. Thank jah for noise-blocking earbuds and 5-euro vodka drinks!

Ahhhh, the smell of International travel!

[audio amateur]

I'd really like to go to Turkey, i hope you enjoy it.

[Mr MidFi]

I'd really like to go to Turkey, i hope you enjoy it.

Thanks, aa. Years ago, Mrs. MidFi and I decided we wanted to be 'those people'... the kind that just keep going places and seeing cool things. And we've indoctrinated our daughter into this school of thought along the way. It's been as big a deal to us as music is, and that's a bold statement.

If you'd like to see a recap of some (but not all) of our adventures, our web site is:
onelittleworld.com

NP: George Harrison, "Bangladesh"

[Swish]

I'll be flying to Istanbul tomorrow night, so I'm getting a kick out of this.

Undoubtedly, the passenger next to me will be a young mother with a screaming 2-year-old lap child. Thank jah for noise-blocking earbuds and 5-euro vodka drinks!

I would recommend viewing The Midnight Express before going there, or am I too late?

[Swish]

But giants don't need to fly!

Give it a minute.

[ForeverAutumn]

I would recommend viewing The Midnight Express before going there, or am I too late?

Great movie! Even better book. :) A good read on the plane perhaps?

[nightflier]

Sorry, but let the guy enjoy his vacation, already.

Turkey isn't Iran folks. Considering how badly Turkey wants to join the EU, things there have changed considerably since Billy Haye's experience in the 1970s. The movie that was made about the book depicts Turks in a way that even forced Oliver Stone to apologize about it. There's considerable misinformation about the unfortunate events surrounding Hayes' arrest and imprisonment and to say that it was over-dramatized and sexualized to sell tickets would be an understatement.

Anyhow, I seriously doubt our current treatment of prisoners here in the US measures up to any European nation's standards. I remember reading that something like half of US inmates are raped, and even more than that suffer regular physical abuse in prison. Add to that our renditioning, water-boarding, and enhanced interrogation legacy, and it's pretty hard for me to see that we should be throwing stones from our glass towers. Turkey still has a lot of political and social issues, but movies like Midnight Express are pretty far from the mark today.

[Swish]

Sorry, but let the guy enjoy his vacation, already.

Turkey isn't Iran folks. Considering how badly Turkey wants to join the EU, things there have changed considerably since Billy Haye's experience in the 1970s. The movie that was made about the book depicts Turks in a way that even forced Oliver Stone to apologize about it. There's considerable misinformation about the unfortunate events surrounding Hayes' arrest and imprisonment and to say that it was over-dramatized and sexualized to sell tickets would be an understatement.

Anyhow, I seriously doubt our current treatment of prisoners here in the US measures up to any European nation's standards. I remember reading that something like half of US inmates are raped, and even more than that suffer regular physical abuse in prison. Add to that our renditioning, water-boarding, and enhanced interrogation legacy, and it's pretty hard for me to see that we should be throwing stones from our glass towers. Turkey still has a lot of political and social issues, but movies like Midnight Express are pretty far from the mark today.

I would have no trouble traveling to Turkey. If you want to see a prison movie that over-dramatized in the other direction, see the Shawshank Redemption. All those wonderful prisoners who were really good people, despite their crimes. Yeah, sure they are/were.

Have you actually seen water boarding in action? I mean, it's really not a big deal, although it renders the prisoner helpless. If it gets good info out of the terrorists, I'm all for it, and my tongue isn't in my cheek at the moment. The ACLU can stick it where the sun don't shine.

[nightflier]

Actually here's Wikipedia's take. You can judge for yourself about waterboarding (aka Spanish Water Torture, from the good old days of the Inquisition):

"It can cause extreme pain, dry drowning, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, lasting psychological damage or, if uninterrupted, death.[4] Adverse physical consequences can manifest themselves months after the event, while psychological effects can last for years."

I know there have been a number of Fox specials claiming it isn't so bad, but those were not depicting the practice accurately and have been debunked. Those people who have been subjected to it, suffer from the same long term psychological effects as people who have been interrogated with electric shocks, spinal breaks, heel-beatings, and a host of other techniques that I really don't care to go into. More to the point, torture works against untrained people (which ironically are seldom guilty of anything yet make up the vast majority of victims). Torture is seldom effective against trained operatives as long as they have the wherewithal to know their status. Once they psychologically break (they all eventually do), which in the movies is falsely depicted as the goal of the torturer, they are no longer sane, either. And when they are "broken" what is there to believe anymore?

Swish, I'm sure you're a tough guy, but I doubt you'd do so well under waterboarding or any other form of torture. There's a reason why we have a Declaration of Human Rights but it's a pity that so much misinformation exits out there about torture in this country. If people knew the truth instead of the lies on reality-TV and profit-driven movies, they probably wouldn't be so quick to support it. Consider this, if an estimated 98% of what is obtained under torture is false, would you really bet the lives of thousands, maybe even millions, on that information? Or is it just a search for revenge?

[Swish]

Actually here's Wikipedia's take. You can judge for yourself about waterboarding (aka Spanish Water Torture, from the good old days of the Inquisition):

"It can cause extreme pain, dry drowning, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, lasting psychological damage or, if uninterrupted, death.[4] Adverse physical consequences can manifest themselves months after the event, while psychological effects can last for years."

I know there have been a number of Fox specials claiming it isn't so bad, but those were not depicting the practice accurately and have been debunked. Those people who have been subjected to it, suffer from the same long term psychological effects as people who have been interrogated with electric shocks, spinal breaks, heel-beatings, and a host of other techniques that I really don't care to go into. More to the point, torture works against untrained people (which ironically are seldom guilty of anything yet make up the vast majority of victims). Torture is seldom effective against trained operatives as long as they have the wherewithal to know their status. Once they psychologically break (they all eventually do), which in the movies is falsely depicted as the goal of the torturer, they are no longer sane, either. And when they are "broken" what is there to believe anymore?

Swish, I'm sure you're a tough guy, but I doubt you'd do so well under waterboarding or any other form of torture. There's a reason why we have a Declaration of Human Rights but it's a pity that so much misinformation exits out there about torture in this country. If people knew the truth instead of the lies on reality-TV and profit-driven movies, they probably wouldn't be so quick to support it. Consider this, if an estimated 98% of what is obtained under torture is false, would you really bet the lives of thousands, maybe even millions, on that information? Or is it just a search for revenge?

Uh, not so much not that I'm a certified geezer, but when it comes to terrorists, I seriously have issues with treating them like common criminals, because they're not. One guy Obama released from Gitmo just went back to join his buddies on the battlefield, so what do we do now if he ends up killing a slew of innocent people? Sorry, I just don't feel bad for them and never will.

[ForeverAutumn]

So the NCAA thread gets moved and this one doesn't? How the hell does that make sense? Not that I think this should be moved. I'm just sayin...

:nonod:

[nightflier]

Hey, I was just trying to point out that Turkey today isn't what's depicted in Midnight Express and that anyone can vacation there just like in any other European country. I've traveled all over Europe, including Turkey, and I can say unequivocally that there are far more dangerous places than Istanbul. Heck I feel safer there than in South Newark or Watts for sure.

It just seemed like the associations from Turkey to human rights to terrorism were slipping mighty fast into stereotypical assumptions about people based only on where they happen to live. Ironically, the primary source of terrorism in Turkey is actually anti-Muslim. Likewise the recent upsurge of Christian-based anti-government terrorism here in our own country certainly doesn't help. And our prison system is no model of human rights either. Movies like Midnight Express just accentuate negative stereotypes when our own country is far more disturbing in these areas.

Whether we want to admit it or not, traveling in Muslim countries is typically much safer than in Christian countries, just ask anyone else who has. So let Mr. MidFi have his vacation in peace. I'm sure it will be a wonderful trip with plenty of positive stories for him to report back when he returns.

[MasterCylinder]

And our prison system is no model of human rights either. Movies like Midnight Express just accentuate negative stereotypes when our own country is far more disturbing in these areas.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You mean like SHAWSHANK or COOL HAND LUKE ?

[3LB]

geez, I had to double check to see which forum I was on...this thread now illustrates two things:

why many RR'ers avoid the O/T forum

the inconsistencies in why threads are moved to O/T

I don't care who says what in the RR forum; un-PC, sexual, hateful, double-blind testing, insensative, bold-faced lies...we're like The Family Guy over here. We're equal opportunity offenders.

[Swish]

Hey, I was just trying to point out that Turkey today isn't what's depicted in Midnight Express and that anyone can vacation there just like in any other European country. I've traveled all over Europe, including Turkey, and I can say unequivocally that there are far more dangerous places than Istanbul. Heck I feel safer there than in South Newark or Watts for sure.

It just seemed like the associations from Turkey to human rights to terrorism were slipping mighty fast into stereotypical assumptions about people based only on where they happen to live. Ironically, the primary source of terrorism in Turkey is actually anti-Muslim. Likewise the recent upsurge of Christian-based anti-government terrorism here in our own country certainly doesn't help. And our prison system is no model of human rights either. Movies like Midnight Express just accentuate negative stereotypes when our own country is far more disturbing in these areas.

Whether we want to admit it or not, traveling in Muslim countries is typically much safer than in Christian countries, just ask anyone else who has. So let Mr. MidFi have his vacation in peace. I'm sure it will be a wonderful trip with plenty of positive stories for him to report back when he returns.

...when I mentioned that movie and that I would have no trouble traveling to Turkey. It's not exactly at the top of my list, but I wouldn't avoid it either.

As for religious zealots, there are some in nearly every religion, and history is fraught with wars that were started because of religious differences. Amazing, isn't it?

[Mr MidFi]

... and jet-lagged as hell. Did anyone miss me?

We had a blast and saw some very cool things. Anyone interested in looking at just a few of our photos can check them out here:
http://onelittleworld.zenfolio.com/f192159874
(many more are to come; we haven't had time to sort through them all)

[ForeverAutumn]

... and jet-lagged as hell. Did anyone miss me?

We had a blast and saw some very cool things. Anyone interested in looking at just a few of our photos can check them out here:
http://onelittleworld.zenfolio.com/f192159874
(many more are to come; we haven't had time to sort through them all)

I missed you. ;)

Too many pictures there to view at work. I'll have to wait until I get home. But tell us, what was the highlight of your trip?

[Mr MidFi]

I missed you. ;)

Too many pictures there to view at work. I'll have to wait until I get home. But tell us, what was the highlight of your trip?

Tough to pick just one, but... the hot-air balloon ride over Cappadocia was pretty incredible!

[nightflier]

Any signs of the kinds of misery in Midnight Express?

[atomicAdam]

Hey...
Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it, I can't say
(People just liked it better that way)

Take me back to Constantinople
No, you can't go back to Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks!


too bad they are making children's music now.....

[Mr MidFi]

Any signs of the kinds of misery in Midnight Express?

Actually, we drove past a high-security prison out in the middle of nowhere a couple of times... and it looked like a suitably grim place. [shudder] But generally, and overall, the Turkish people were among the kindest and most hospitable people we've ever encountered, anywhere. And Istanbul is just a huge, bustling, prosperous metropolis with a million things to see and do.

And the food's really good, too.

[Troy]

too bad they are making children's music now.....

I HIGHLY recommend the recent TMBG releases The Else and Cast Your Pod to the Wind. Both are throwbacks to the first 3-4 albums. Short quirky and excellently weird little songs.

I despise the eye-rolling political turn Nightlier forced on this thread, but no, it should not be relocated.

[3LB]

Turkey...the original white meat

[Swish]

Turkey...the original white meat


....Pork the one you love.

[Swish]

... and jet-lagged as hell. Did anyone miss me?

We had a blast and saw some very cool things. Anyone interested in looking at just a few of our photos can check them out here:
http://onelittleworld.zenfolio.com/f192159874
(many more are to come; we haven't had time to sort through them all)

...you forgot the rule that you should include people (yourself?) in some of them. I particularly liked the bird in flight. A local artist was taking pictures at a wildlife preserve and got a picture with hundreds, if not thousands, of geese taking off at the same time, and it's truly amazing. I should have bought a print at the last art show. Heck, I still can at the next one since he's local.

[Mr MidFi]

...you forgot the rule that you should include people (yourself?) in some of them.

That's actually at my wife's insistence... she's the one who posts the images to the zenfolio account. For whatever reason, she doesn't want people knowing what we look like. I think she assumes there are too many perverts out there. Based on what I've observed of the internet, that's not necessarily wrong.

Anyone who wants to know what we actually look like can see us here, however...
onelittleworld.com (http://onelittleworld.com)