twincityhacker | Attention Camp:

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, WILL THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE STOP ATTEMPTIG TO BLOW UP EACH OTHER? IS THAT REALLY TOO MUCH TO ASK, PEOPLE NOT TRYING TO FUCKING KILL THEIR FELLOW MAN?

FUCK. NOW I HAVE FUCKING POSION IVY.

That is all.

Current Mood: angry

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

commanderteddog.livejournal.com

Whoa. Just switched on CP24 and heard what went down.

Suddenly, we can't bring any liquids on aircraft, not even bottled water, and carry-ons might be banned. I'm rather glad I no longer have to travel back and forth from Thunder Bay. Even if I did, I'd say "fuck this" and go by Greyhound.

It's not that I'm worried about flying. I'm SICK of feeling like we all need to be babysat on an aircraft or else we'll kill each other. On the Greyhound, you look after yourself.

From:

msp-hacker.livejournal.com

I'm not worried about flying either. And considering I'm always about to fly just after terrorist attacks - flew the first day after 9/ll, a few days after the shoe bombing incient - I don't think anyone else should be either.

It's kind of funny, the first thing people did after they heard the new flight restritcions was brainstorm ways that terrorists could get around them. And it's not very difficult at all, and since they're zelots, not idiots, I'm pretty sure they found ways to go around them too.

So, since we're going to flying home in a few days we're burning all the data on the laptops and hoping that no one is going to steal them, especialy Dad's work computer.

While I've never rode Greyhound, it is getting faster to drive places than fly. Not the point where it's easier to get from Jasper to the East Coast, but it's getting there.

I don't know if it's just babysitting, or just... I don't know. Flying is still the safest way to travel, even if there's a tiny odds of getting blown up. I'm not gonna stop flying, and pretty soon I think you'd be able to take liquids on board again. For the love of all that's good and holy, you were able to take matches and lighters on last week. What do you think's more dangerous, a bottle of water or a lighter?

And no matter how much you reduce the risk, there's always some. It's way more likely that I get killed in a car accidet going out to eat tomorrow than it is that I get blown up on Sunday flying home.

From:

commanderteddog.livejournal.com

Reply went "boom" when my laptop did. Darn.

Flying is the fastest and safest way to travel at the moment, given the nature of the highway between here and college, but it's also quickly becoming a money pit. I paid $350 for a round trip from Pearson to Thunder Bay in June. This has gone up; in 2003 I used to get this same trip for under $200.

Al-Qaeda's bizarre obsession with aircraft (they should really see a doctor about that) is the least of my worries, as there's rising fuel costs, airport fees and less competition. I'm suddenly paying over $100 more for service that hasn't really improved much and is now actually much more limited, aside from WestJet's TV sets. The time killer that is Mythbusters aside, I never saw the point in that other than being another money grab since you have to pay for the headphones. In fact, I'm in the camp that thinks that the no liquids rule might still be kept because someone can probably get very rich off of it, although it's a risk to the Duty Free stores (which I rather like, because they are the Lords of Goofy). With word of some really strange limits - I heard that books are getting banned in some flights - I just have to shake my head.

I was commuting when the Toronto terrorist plot went down, yet I didn't see a sharp jump in security even when the CN Tower was a target. My train went right past the base of the Tower every day and... nothing. Thus the kneejerk reaction with air travel seems a little odd. Canadians flying into the US have to have their shoes searched now, despite that the plot was based out of the UK and was centred around a gel-based bomb.

I still perfer the Greyhound. You get on and off whenever you want, but if you goof off at a stop, you get left behind. It was also a really neat way to see the smaller northern Ontario towns along the TransCanada Highway. A 20 hour ride with a chance to see the Wawa geese is a lot cooler than a 2 hour flight were my luggage gets ripped apart. :(

From:

msp-hacker.livejournal.com

I've been thinking about the airlines thing, and I think it's just because you're flying. I think people are just afraid that they're going to fall out of the sky - I could be wrong though. But the Governer of Massachutts supposedly called out the National Guad to all the transport places, but when my sister came up from Boston, she said that there was less security on the subways and commuter rail.

I haven't had much trouble with air travel myself, except for the time there was a massive front ripping though the Midwest, so our one stop flight turned into five stops with a layover in St. Louis.

I've had my shoes x-rayed at all the airports since the shoe bombing incident. And my sweatshirts, because I had them tied around my waist as I'm obviously smuggling in a bomb. I have all the TSA pamflets saying what the security rules are decorating my room, but I guess I need a new one now.

And that's rediculas what you paid for that airline ticket. Wait... Okay, that makes zero sense. I just put that thought the currency converter, and for some reason that ticket was a lot more expesive than the tickets we've been getting. I'm not sure the exact price of the ticket to come out to Massachutts, but it's like $200 to $250. The ticket you got was the same that we're paying to go to Florida on January 1st. -_-O

I think in the UK everything is banned except for things like passports and money. In the US I think it's just liquids, at the moment. We're waiting to see whether or not we have to pack the laptop in the checkin luggage and burning the photos to disk just in case.

From:

commanderteddog.livejournal.com

See, I would have expected to see a rise in security on the commuter rail, but I haven't. While I can't speak for Via (the long distance trains), Go Transit (the local train service) is very, very open. Tickets are issued on an honour system and out of the two months I was commuting, I got asked for my ticket twice. You can even fall asleep on most trains without fear of mugging.

My success with flights has been mixed. The route is very rough for whatever reason (Great Lakes? I don't know). The runway at Thunder Bay is really short with an insanely quick landing, as noted by my well-travelled mother, so flights are cancelled at short notice due to weather. Luggage handling is okay at Thunder Bay, but sucks at Pearson. My worst flight was coming home from grad, where a man towards the back of the plane suffered a heart attack while we were over Lake Superior.

I've never had my shoes x-rayed before. Everything else, yeah. Usually, what I had to do at x-ray was get my laptop, bag and jacket scanned and toss my keys, wallet and watch (it's a heavy metal one) in plastic container. You used to have to remove all electronics to be searched by hand back in 2003, althought that's lifted since.

That overpriced ticket was on sale too! This is how it adds up, using the WestJet website, since they have the tickets at the sale price now:

Departing
Airfare per/Guest $129.00 CAD
Taxes, Fees and Surcharges/Guest $47.67 CAD
Subtotal/Guest $176.67 CAD

Returning
Airfare per/Guest $129.00 CAD
Taxes, Fees and Surcharges/Guest $31.77 CAD
Subtotal/Guest $160.77 CAD

Total Cost of Flight $337.44 CAD

That's the same price I paid for the base ticket cost, but the taxes have dropped since my flight. Note that this is Economy class with no meal. The higher price flying out is because Pearson has either the highest or second highest airport fees in the world (I forget which).

I want to like Pearson. I really do. It's a pretty airport. I'll post of pictures of it before I go to bed tonight.

The liquid and gel ban is now indefinite in Canada. I don't know about elsewhere yet.

From:

msp-hacker.livejournal.com

They have a very odd liquid ban. You can't take liquids past the security checkpoint, but when you're in the terminal you can buy stuff - but they have to put any bottled liquid in a cup and you have to get rid of it before you get on the plane. Diffrent airports have diffrent screaning deals too - Louisville, laptops get swabed for explosives, but not in Providnece.

I asked Dad how much the tickets were, and it was $640 USD for the three of us round trip, with one stop along the way, no meal. I'm not sure of the taxes/fees/surchages though.

At least this time we had a semi direct route Providence to Cincinatti to Louisville. I've gone absolute wrong direction to get connectting flights often. = )

The T - I have no idea what the real name is, but it's the transportation to and around Boston - is not the most user-friendly thing at the moment, as they are phasing out tokens and have "charlie cards" where you put in some money on the ticket and use that to get in and out on the stations. It's diffrent from a subway pass. And it doesn't yet work at all the stations, so when we bought a round trip on a charlie card, we couldn't get on the subway at a diffrent station and had to buy tokens. Two days later they installed the card readers for Charlie cards at that station.