March 17, 2006

Snakes. On a plane. Who says Hollywood is running out of ideas? (warning: YouTube link) Now, I wouldn't normally post something from SomethingAwful, but this really takes the cake.

Hey! I got some ideas for movies! Gimme a million dollars!!!! 1)Lions. On a train. 2)Bears. On a Boat. 3)Weasels. In a car. 4)Badgers. On a bus. 5)Hamsters. In my butt. And for REAL horror: 6)This movie. In theaters. *head implodes*

posted by Debaser626 18 years ago
  • Robots. From Japan.
  • So. What's this film about?
  • Oh, and by the way Debaser, you are a hater.
  • Cats in a house?
  • This will be the greatest game evar made. After this, it's all downhill for Hollywood.
  • this is a joke, right? cause I am laughing my ass off here!!
  • Not a joke. Sam Jackson is dead serious about Snakes on a Plane. The studio tried to block the title, and he made serious noise about it, claiming he chose the project on the title alone.
  • this cements for all eternity exactly why it is that Samuel Jackson is truly a BadAssMotherfucker and I love him.
  • Snakes. On a motherfuckin' plane. Oh, and happy birthday Medusa!!!
  • I simply *must* have that t-shirt, armaghetto!
  • After watching that, I must say I thought our computer animated snakes would look better than that by now. They're still just not snakey enough. I'd rent it... wouldn't pay $10 to see it in the theater, though.
  • holes in a condom
  • Monkeys. In a barrel. That was hard day of work at the film studio. Time to leave the office, drive to my Bervely Hills mansion while sipping a drink under the palm-lined boulevards and plunge into my nude model & coke filled pool.
  • That looks fucking BRILLIANT!!!!!! I am SO going to see it. You just know the one that creeps in with the cat doesn't live to regret it! This snake party's over!
  • Monkeys. In a barrel. Hey! That sounds like fun!
  • Mongoose in a derigable Lemur in a space shuttle Zebu in a Pontiac Felonious Drunk in a bar
  • Horses in a Bar.
  • Lemurs in SPAAAAAAACEEE!
  • Afro Samurai!
  • MPAA director for worldwide anti-piracy, John Malcolm, said people needed to learn that piracy was "harmful to the people who use their talents to create movies". Good!
  • FINALLY... a Lowest Common Denominator I can appreciate!
  • That looks...craptacular.
  • I'll catch it on Showtime next July.
  • Butterflies in my stomach!
  • Jews in Spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace!!!!
  • Pigs in a blanket? mmm...pigs in a blanket.
  • Pubes in my teeth. Sorry, so sorry
  • beervers. in a log cabin.
  • Snakes on a Plain
  • This cat is obviously modelling himself after Samuel L Jackson in his quest for badass muthafucka-ness. Somebody give him a smoke already.
  • Smackson on a Cat
  • Creative bankruptcy, in a nutshell...
  • This will be the greatest movie evar.
  • Snakes on a Plane!
  • When I first heard about it (via flashboy, iirc), I kept saying it over and over for about a week. This thread has reawakened that urge. Case in point: I just now finished going to dinner with a relative who attempted suicide recently. It's the first time I've seen him since the attempt. My conversation choice, to pierce the awkwardness? "So, have you heard about Snakes on a Plane?"
  • "Have you heard about Snakes on a Plane? It certainly gives ME something to live for!"
  • I've been loving this movie since last September. Overcompensating: keeping you ahead of your friends.
  • White on rice
  • I will go see Snakes on a Plane. I will go see it because it is called "Snakes on a Plane". I will go see it because it is called "Snakes on a Plane" and it has Samuel L. in it. Oh, yes. I will go see Snakes on a Plane. I will go see it and it will not suck because it will contain snakes, and a plane, and Samuel L. Jackson. Thus it will contain all that is good and wholesome.
  • Video's been pulled off the site.
  • "Have you heard about Snakes on a Plane? It certainly gives ME something to live for!" /collapse
  • Producers are so sure it will be such a smash hit that pre-production on S.O.A.P. II: cybersnakes attack! has already started.
  • Some snakes have snakes on them... some planes don't. Most planes... most planes don't have any snakes on them at all. THIS ISN'T ONE OF THOSE PLANES.
  • "Producers are so sure it will be such a smash hit that pre-production on S.O.A.P. II: cybersnakes attack! has already started." AKA: SNAKES! ON A BOAT!
  • Ralph: that was gold.
  • <~~~bookmark added
  • Vicious air-breathing piranhas! On a submarine!
  • Defined.
  • Panda in a bucket.
  • ah!!! thank you Ralph, this information will only fuel the fire of my most recent obsession....I wonder if I can get funding?
  • Which would help ticket sales more: 1. An announcement made prior to the film's release that no snakes were harmed during the filming of the movie; or... 2. An announcement made prior to the film's release that many snakes were harmed during the filming of the movie? Snakes just don't get no lovin'.
  • I would vote for the no harm option, as I like snakes. They have no legs.
  • Rabid polecats in a bus.
  • Oh, the bus has been done. Shit.
  • Killer bees! Have we done African Killer Bees? African killer bees in your wetsuit.
  • I would think that a sequel would have to be still on a plane, to retain the central appeal of the franchise, but with a different deadly killer animal. I very much like the killer bee angle, as there haven't been any decent killer bee movies since Michael Cain had a swat at it some time back if memory serves. Killer bees on a plane. You'd be fucked, wouldn't you? ;)
  • I like the fact that Snakes On A Plane acronyms down to S.O.A.P. And the sequel MUST be "Snakes on Air Force One" starring Harrison Ford. It's gotta be.
  • There was that weird news article a little while back about a squirrel in the toilet . . . Welcome back Mr. Wendell! I was just about to FPP a "wendell's 404" . .
  • There was that weird news article a little while back about a squirrel in the toilet . . . Welcome back Mr. Wendell! I was just about to FPP a "wendell's 404" . .
  • stupid double-clicking. I blame Bill Grates.
  • Steaks on a Pane Prolly has better dialogue and less wooden acting.
  • /collapse
  • Stakes on a Plain.
  • Dykes on the wane...
  • Flakes. You're insane.
  • The snakes in Spain stay mainly on the plain.
  • Snakes on a Plane II: Planes on a Snake
  • Lakes are insane
  • Snakes on a Plane III: Speed II: The Rocky Horror Picture Show V: 2 Fast 2 Furious: Citizen Kane MCLIV: Like You've Never Seen it Before on a (riverboat) Surprise!
  • There will be a MoFiLA meetup for the premiere. Mark my words. We'll do it at the Arclight on Sunset and Vine so that we can all have alcohol and reserved seating.
  • They already did a killer bees movie... starring none other than Robert Hays, whom we all know as Ted Striker, from Airplane!! Coincidence... ? Probably. But what if it isn't? Dun-DUN-DUNNNN!/Hiss-HISS-HISSSSS!/Bzz-BZZ-BZZZZ!
  • Yes OF COURSE there have been killer bees movies. But never Killer Bees on a Plane. Think about it - a hive, no wait, *several* hives in transit aboard a plane suddenly break loose, and in their war against one another, draw the entire plane into their conflict! Aieee! Also, the plane runs out of peanuts.
  • WHAT??? NO PEANUTS?????7??
  • Indeed, the lack of peanuts around here is plainly deplorable. And I don't mean that 'comic' strip. Lack of Legumes: bees complains!
  • How could they run out of peanuts?!?! That's just too horrible - they said it couldn't be filmed!
  • They need to asp-plane!
  • And what if they weren't just your regular type killer bees but mutant radioactive killer bees from space and their stings turned the people on the plane into giant mutant radioactive killer bee zombie alien people with wings and stingers and a hunger for brains and peanuts. Now that would be a movie.
  • Are we talking topless starlets, maybe?
  • Giant mutant radioactive killer bee zombie alien people with mouths full of bees so that they bite and sting at the same time and shoot honey from the bees and there are bees in the bees.
  • Just Beeutiful!
  • *cuts own throat*
  • careful, you'll release the killer radioactive bees inside!
  • 5 days of reshoots in order to take it from PG-13 to R rating. Apparently, the studio got the hint. When Ellis assembled Jackson and others for the recent shoot, the filmmakers added more gore, more death, more nudity, more snakes and more death scenes. And they shot a scene where Jackson does utter the line that fans have demanded. Oh, now that's just naked pandering.
  • Well, yes, they are obviously reacting to the net. Is that so bad? If I ever consider paying to attend that film, well, it might be a piece of crap but it better be an entertaining piece of crap. I can already hear the audience's howl of delight as Mr. J. barks the words...
  • Oh, now that's just naked pandering.
  • I pandered naked once. Caught an awful cold, and now I see why they have all that cute black and white fur.
  • If they're going to make a cult favourite, they may as well pander.
  • I think its snaked pandering myself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • ouch!
  • Har!
  • poon!
  • tang!
  • Snakes in a drain! [warning: will freak you right the fuck out]
  • oh. my. god.
  • Obviously the cat was on the wrong side of the cockpit door. Of course, that's what cats do.
  • Obviously the cat was on the wrong side of the cockpit door. Of course, that's what cats do.
  • Well, shit.
  • Opera user.
  • Firefox and a hung connection. Bah!
  • yes, but I am so glad to hear that Keith was presumed to be living happily in the sewers...
  • I want this motherfucking shoe bomber off the motherfucking plane!!!
  • Firefox and a hung connection. Hey, stop flaunting us your connection.
  • Damn! That snake-on-toilet pic gotta be a photoshop fakerie! Please! *puts bricks on closed toilet, locks bathroom door, goes to poop out in the woods*
  • Bears live in the woods, Flagpole. So does Sasquatch. Sasquatch is a shit-loving hog gobbler. Watch out. Do like I do.. never ever poop.
  • Well, that might be easy for you, and surely will help you on your new religion-building-empire, (behold, the miracle of imploding waste!) but us un-enlightened mortals have bodily urges that need release.
  • Never poo on a snake in the loo.
  • MonkeyFilter: us un-enlightened mortals have bodily urges that need release.
  • Chyren I absolutely cannot join your cult ahem, new religion if it forbids pooping. I poop to live, and live to poop! I poop, therefore I am!! le poop, c'est moi!
  • Hey, Chy's new religion is not a poopularity contest.
  • well its difficult to start a new movement without some poopular momentum ;)
  • No shit!
  • wipe that grin off your face young man!
  • Cheeky monkeys.
  • Har! posted by islander at 02:34AM UTC on March 26, 2006 poon! posted by beeswacky at 03:39AM UTC on March 26, 2006 tang! walla walla bing bang Ah hem, well, anyway, for some reason I felt the need to do that. Snakes. On. A. Plane. You may now freely use the acronym "SOAP".
  • can someone remind me about that "don't post drunk/peeing in the guy's mouth story" proviso that I've been concerned with...
  • Nope. :D
  • I vote for drunk in the guy's mouth story. That sounds like a magical trip on a tiny school bus with the Krofft brothers.
  • ...with snakes on the bus.
  • No, I meant: never ever bloody anything ever.
  • Heh.
  • Nunquam umquam, cruentus quisquam, semper.
  • That poor kitty. Somebody oughta kick the guy in business class with a 50 pound foot!
  • Snacks on a plane? It's usually them little pretzels that look like windowpanes. And half a Diet Sprite.
  • I only buy those little snack packs, half sprite cans and tiny bottles of booze, it makes me feel like I'm going places. Also, it's good party favors for all the elves I believe in.
  • What about all the elves you don't?
  • What elves?
  • The motherfucking Washington Post gets its groove.
  • Don't forget. SOAP!
  • The AV Club has put out its Summer Preview, which includes SOAP and Nacho Libre. And yes, the folks at the AV Club enjoy pointing out how much cleverer they are than you.
  • "They came back and asked what my problem was. I told them I had one hand full of snake and the other hand full of plane. They cleared me in." If that doesn't make it the movie, I'm putting it in mine.
  • PS --- I'm getting this as a tatoo.
  • And now for something completely different.
  • Well, that's good. I was hoping he'd expand beyond Ezekiel 25:17.
  • Oh boy, you could read a lot of theological implications into a black man voicing the bible. Am I the only Monkey seriously considering camping out at the theatre until Sankes premieres.
  • Snakes is passe, man. It's out before it even came out. It was in when it was all underground and shit, but now that the mainstream wants it -- poof! Unhiptitude reigns for snakes on plane. We need new hotness.
  • There was a real, big-screen preview for SOAP at Pirates of the Caribbean II this weekend. Make of that what you will.
  • Agreed with Louis - SOAP is over before it began. Shot in the cradle like a John Holmes paycheck - like a tape-delayed Olympics - like so much half-chewed fish. I say it's time for Buckaroo Banzai II.
  • Ong Bak II, man. We need more Tony Jaa. Tony JAAAAAAAA!!! But I can understand that it takes a while. I mean, what can the guy do to top his running-and-dropping-into-the-splits-and-sliding-under-a-moving-van? Or that whole kung-fu-while-on-fire sequence? Dude was awesome, dude.
  • Wait, if it's passe amongst the inernet hipsters... then perhaps... that makes it in for the internet uberhipsters! This could be my big chance! Man, I can't wait for Snakes on a Plane! You know, from a meta-critical standpoint. /waits for ascension.
  • *gives Nickdanger an Apple Auto Glass trucker cap to wear ironically*
  • I hear they're already working on the sequel, "Worms in a Ford Pinto."
  • **SELF-LINK** Look for David Waldon's book Snakes on a Plane: The Guide to the Internet Ssssssensation coming out the end of this month, featuring 3 pages on the Tribe blog of "Carolyn C" (yes, that's ME!!) I don't know if the tribe link will work, it may require you to create a Tribe account, in which case....do what thou wilt homie.
  • First Review! So? Is it any good? Hell fuckin' yeah!!
  • best.headline.evar.
  • Not only will this movie rock, but it will someday be remembered as the seminal event of our age. In the far flung future when our ancestors, carefully making their way through the radioactive rubble of WWIV and a 1/2, go to the temple of Sam J, with the words Bad Motherfucker embossed on the doors in gold, they will remember that it all started here, at this transcendant moment, when mankind finally began to emerge from the darkness of the swamp that is the primordial ooziness of, uh, stuff and, uh, stuff. Yeah! So there!
  • what Berek said
  • Oh dear.
  • ...the fact that the filmmakers behind this movie deigned to listen to the online community, people who never saw a frame of footage, and incorporated all the things fans were clamoring for.
  • In the far flung future when our ancestors... Ancestors from the future? Do you mean descendants?
  • N, please don't pick nits with the mentally impaired.
  • > Ancestors from the future? sssshhh! that's the whole point and it's still secret! they won't find out for another 2 years. and y'know, the whole kaboom!-yaboom!-bush-n-darryl hannah thing...
  • ancestors from the future...is that some sort of Planet of the Apes thing?
  • An accident with a contraceptive and a time machine.
  • please don't pick nits with the mentally impaired. But I pick nits with the mentally impaired every fall when the harvest comes in. It's how I fulfill my court ordered community service requirement.
  • I so DO NOT want to wait in line for tickets to this farce. On a plane. INDEED!
  • Philistine! *hurls monkey turds, the gooey icky ones*
  • Did Berek just throw poop at BlueHorse? Oh no.
  • It's okay. I missed and hit Chyren.
  • No. You missed him.
  • Well then, who was that tall dark handsome stranger I hit?
  • I notice that the SciFi Channel is capitalizing on SOAP to recycle their crappy old made-for-SciFi-creature flix. "Before there were snakes on a plane, there were SCORPIONS! A special encore presentation of the SciFi Original 'Tail Sting!'" *Cut to vaguely Dennis Quaid-y looking feller in an airline pilot uniform with scorpions crawling on him*
  • Not to derail, but Wolof is drawing attention to something pretty awful there.
  • Woah there! Tell Wolof to put that awful thing back in his pants!
  • *blink*
  • I saw the teaser trailer for SOAP before a movie a couple of weeks ago, and my friends and I discovered that the title fits in nicely to the tune of "Skip to My Lou:" Snakes, snakes, snakes on a plane! Snakes, snakes snakes on a plane! (repeat) Snakes on a plane my daaaaaaaar-liiiiiing! That is all.
  • No singing! And go help Wolof put that awful thing back in his pants!
  • Wolov, do you think a front page Curious George might be a good idea? I'll do it if you're not inclined to.
  • Ack
  • BAck
  • UM, path, do you really think a Curious George about Wolof's awful thing would be a good idea?
  • This guy is too stupid to boil an egg.
  • Or dump water out of a boot if you put the instructions on the heel.
  • Oh and I suppose you've never crapped in all the old threads in a desperate bid for attention. Um, well, take it from me - it's a great feeling.
  • Check Chyren's profile (Wolov's link above.)
  • Chyren's profile is indeed a sad read. I don't mean to be cynical or snarky about his condition but spending lots of time online tends to make a person that way. It does become tough to know how much veracity to put on a person's profile. Witness the questioning that comes up about my own profile on occassion. Has anyone on here met Chyren?
  • Our Chy has been here since the dawn of time as we know it and has been a light to our path. although I'm not so sure I'd want to meet him by myself in a dark thread
  • There is a goat on a pole.
  • I sent the guy five bucks because nowhere can I find any information saying that the spine thing can be caught from the internet.
  • I'm sure SOAP not be able to hold a candle to SNAKES ON A PLANE II, SUMMER 2007!!!!!!
  • Well, you've got to put snakes on a plane. How do you THINK they get so smooth and even?
  • <><>
  • TUM? What is that?
  • A plane.
  • *sigh*
  • It gets worse every day.
  • Argh. Argh. Argh. Argh.
  • I don't mean to be cynical or snarky about his condition but spending lots of time online tends to make a person that way. /jaw drops
  • I think he means that spending a lot of time online can make a person cynical and snarky, not that it can cause severe arthritis.
  • But I could be wrong. LBB everybody!
  • That can't be a plane in TUM's drawing, there aren't any snakes on it!
  • Perhaps it's time to make LBB shirts? I'd love a coffee mug, incidentally.
  • I made a LBB poster, but somebody, who shall remain nameless, bleeped it from the poster thread.
  • Just write to Mr. Tricycle and he'll put it back for you.
  • Those terrist bastards have put the kibosh on Duty Free -- now they've gone TOO FAR.
  • You're sitting around with a few extra hours to kill. Why not buy duty free and knock off a litre of vodka while you wait?
  • I miss that wacky Berek kid. What a loon!
  • Waitaminute, I thought Berek was your sockpuppet. No?
  • Shh.
  • Shh. Do you guys hear an air leak? *moves closer to Emergency Exit*
  • Ha!
  • The hits just keep on coming!
  • Links In A Thread Starring Samuel H. Dogg
  • I finally saw a SoaP trailer on TV last night. #2 fears the spin-off movies, most of which are already listed in this thread.
  • Snakes on a Dell let the ads loop...
  • Did you know that measuring the amount rats poop is considering an accurate measure of their level of fear? I.e. a rat will poop out more poo pellets in a given period of time if she's more a-scared. This is Science.
  • Sure, you've seen snakes on a plane, but have you ever seen PLANES on a SNAKE?!?!
  • So, wait. If you feed Rat A and Rat B the same amount of food, and Rat A is more frightened, Rat A will poop more? Or just poop the same amount as Rat B, but in a shorter time period?
  • Nah, more like, each rat has a no-stress default rate of pellet production, which may or may not be the same as the next rat's, but in each case, when fear increases so will pellet production. SCIENCE!! Are you blinded yet?
  • Good heavens HawthorneWingo - you're beautiful! I don't belive it! There he goes again!
  • It's poetry in motion! and scaring rats is the lowest form of science. HWingo you have permission to kick them in their pinhead-scientist crotches, or wherever
  • *sneaks up behind and gooses petebeast for science* Wow. That's one helluva pellet you laid there.
  • Gel bras. Not on a plane. I bet this was their evil plan all along.
  • *sneaks up behind and gooses petebeast for science* Science, hunh? Is that what they're calling it nowadays?
  • There is only one solution. Women must go topless on planes. For their own safety.
  • SOAP is finally at the drive-in, so nobody tell me what it's about.
  • Yeah, but then you'll have guys removed from the plane for drooling, which is a suspicious liquid in itself. There's no way to win this.
  • I miss the drive-in. *sigh*
  • We'll always have Paris.
  • Oh my God, I would love to see SoaP at a drive-in! My dad has a projector and screen: I'm totally going to arrange a backyard screening when it comes out on DVD this summer.
  • Been there. Seen it. Wore the t-shirt. And it was far, far awesomer than I ever dared hope. I now have Snakes on the Brain.
  • Don't tell me this thing is good and make me go see for myself. I just know I'll regret this.
  • First-class cheese. You can totally tell the internet add-ons. Especially the key line -- it doesn't quite fit the rest of the scene's dialogue, then WHAMMO! There it is! The big payoff! If it wasn't for the later changes, the movie would have been boresville. And -- AND -- it had the trailer for the new Tony Jaa movie. TONY JAAAAAAAAA!!!
  • Top Ten Things Overheard Outside "Snakes On a Plane" 10. "What's it about?" 9. "So I can't bring a bottle of water on a plane but snakes are OK?" 8. "Hi, two adults and one snake, please" 7. "I didn't care for the 'Snakes in the Theater' promotion" 6. "Maybe we should just go to Times Square and see 'Snakes In My Pants'" 5. "It's still better than sitting next to Regis" 4. "Exact same thing happened to me last time I flew Delta" 3. "I haven't seen a snake that big since the Pamela Anderson/Tommy Lee video" 2. "That guy sitting behind me? Jackass on a cellphone" 1. "No, Mr. Gibson, I'm not Jewish"
  • "We are not in danger of dying at the hands of toiletries." I just stood in line behind some guy in the grocery store the other night with the most gad-awful aftershave. Somebody needs to rethink this statement.
  • Internet add-on line heard in X-Men 3: "Don't you know who I am? I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" Sadly Vinnie Jones didn't do the line much justice...
  • To be fair, sex toys are Da Bomb.
  • whoot! whoot!
  • Speaking in a foreign language at an AIRPORT! What was he THINKING? [Roffle, etc.]
  • that's fuckin' sick. But I would imagine the suspect list would be fairly short.
  • You know, not to make light of this guy or his experience, his tone really comes across to me as one of those people who's completely incredulous at someone actually questioning him. I've been behind this guy in line at the airport. He starts right out with a "you've got to be kidding me" sneer, and goes downhill from there. Bottom line, the airline owns the plane. It's not a right to fly. Check the damned luggage and quit whining. Apologies if this guy is a close personal friend of anyone here...
  • WARNING! LONG-WINDED RANT ALERT Good Lord, what a self-involved, whiny, pretentious ass. This guy implies that he makes frequent business trips, and then acts surprised at the climate in airport security? Heck, by the time I was twelve years old I knew better than to wise off the the agents on the Canadian border. Is this fellow somehow unaware of the long, and still ongoing, human history of rocks as weapons? Out of ignorance, I broke some unwritten rule. That's why they told you about the friggin' rule. Ignorantia juris non excusat, dumbass. "What, pray tell, is a dual-use item?" I asked. I'm afraid I chucked just a little, causing her to glare, withhold a satisfactory answer and call her supervisor. He hefted my rock, scrutinized it for a moment, and agreed that my specimen was indeed a dual-use item, meaning a potential low-tech weapon. During those uneasy moments when I thought I would be detained, I wondered if a doctor's stethoscope would also be declared a dual-use item, since it could be used to strangle a pilot. Do they come down to the University of Connecticut and make fun of how you teach geology? And did you "chuck" or did you "chuckle?" If you're chucking stuff, no wonder they won't let you keep your damn rock. Perhaps your tax dollars will be used by an internal think tank of agency hire-ups to ponder why on earth a geologist would travel with a rock. "Hire-ups?" Didn't he have to pass Freshman English before they gave him his professorship? And does he think they let gun and knife manufacturers carry on their samples, or chemists carry on bottles of cyanide? The reason guys like this get my goat so much probably stems from my stint working the front desk at an art museum. I never got over people's shock and outrage at being asked to leave food, drinks, backpacks, etc. or to sign in and out for the extremely limited number of parking spaces. I had one woman call the museum director and threaten to call the ACLU and sue us because the guard and I politely asked her to not drink water standing twelve inches away from a priceless Gerome. And if I had a nickel for every woman who whined, "But it's my purse!" when asked to leave a tote bag the size of a sofa cushion, I could afford to hire a hypnotist to erase the memory.
  • I'm a middle-aged, balding, blond and blue-eyed Scandinavian-American. If the gauntlet of untrusting looks at airport security intimidates me, then how much worse would it be for an Arab American? Would the threshold weight for rock confiscation be lower? Duuuuude... tell me you didn't put out the insinuation that this shouldn't have happened to you because you're white. Next time, just put your gneiss inside your head, where all those other rocks are. Yes, you may be perfectly right, but their little shiny badge means that they're right. Nod politely, leave, and bitch about it once you're back in the car. Dumbass balding, blonde, blue-eyed Scandinavian-American.
  • And did you "chuck" or did you "chuckle?" ...Hire-ups... C'mon, Tums, no need to pick on his grammar, there's plenty of other faults. Baddest intarnets grammer n speling iz tha givin. Remember that at least all of his essays are peer-reviewed, for what that's worth. Duuuuude... tell me you didn't put out the insinuation that this shouldn't have happened to you because you're white. I think you might be reading too much into his whiny, dumbass, balding, blonde, blue-eyed Scandinavian-American words. After all, racial profiling is a lurking spectre - especially to the wooden footed. Osama Bin-Laden on a plane, h?
  • Amazing! This thread. Maybe one of the few times a humourous MoFi thread's morphed into one of more serious tenor.
  • It's the anti-thread...
  • It's the anti-thread...
  • It's the anti-thread.
  • It's the anti-thread, (swish and flick). Hmm, still not working.
  • Maybe it's an ante-thread? like a prologue?
  • Trying... hard... not to FPP a "Curious George: what's the deal with airplane food?"...
  • Auntie who?
  • Today on "It's the arts..."
  • Insolent Chimp, you've hit one of my personal pet peeve nerves. Why is it that we have to forgive bad spelling and grammar because it's a given on the internet? For better or worse, a lot of our world has moved to the internet. That doesn't mean that people that are trying to write intelligent essays get to toss it out the window, in my book anyway. Bad grammar still makes you look dumb to me, no matter where you use it.
  • *knows where he'd doned blowed it wid Lara*
  • (on the Lara tangent) I am annoyed and unimpressed when people are careless in their e-mail habits. Good communication should be good, regardless of the medium. I know people who would fire a secretarial-type for writing sloppy business letters on paper, but who routinely send e-mail that is carelessly thrown together. Paragraphs become unneccesary. The subject line is left blank. speling dosnt mattur. A current client, whom I know to be a nice guy, sends his e-mail directives off in terse, rude sentences, so they read as if he's mad at you. He's not. A former co-worker used to end her e-mails "Thanks, Michele". Just like that. No line break. Drove me nuts. (short drive, to be sure.) (end of Lara tangent)
  • kthxbye
  • Insolent Chimp, you've hit one of my personal pet peeve nerves. Why is it that we have to forgive bad spelling and grammar because it's a given on the internet? For better or worse, a lot of our world has moved to the internet. That doesn't mean that people that are trying to write intelligent essays get to toss it out the window, in my book anyway. Bad grammar still makes you look dumb to me, no matter where you use it. I myself loathe bad grammar. But a few things about my statement: 1) The internet is a fickle publishing medium. a) Publishing without an editor (of any sort - husband, wife, son, mother, friend, et al) is very difficult. b) Typos are rife because sometimes they happen and you can't take it back. Most of the things that were brought up looked like typos. c) Sometimes the "post" button is hit prematurely. Do we need to have the author explain this to us everytime this happens? I prefer to move on. 2) Grammar and spelling do not pave the way to show how people are idiots. They only show carelessness (as long as you give people the benefit of the doubt). In opinion pieces it is very easy to be careless because usually when someone opines they feel very strongly about what they are talking about - it's their opinion. Especially when they are typos. 3) The medium of the internet is about the speed of information and the lowest common denominator. This is the same as newspapers. Who give fuck around grammar? That's the question. 5) The internet is bound less by the usual rules of editing: "letters to the editor" are not edited before publication. Anyone can have a blog. This pretty much gives everyone with access editorial status. The majority of people have terrible spelling and grammar, myself included. I'm willing to let it slide. And most importantly: 4) Arguments are the important thing out of any piece of writing. When you try to take someone down for their grammar or spelling you become incredibly petty, and I know that TUM is way better than that. As much as bad spelling and grammar are a pet peeve for me, correcting it in any sort of forum is a bigger pet peeve. I don't care how smurt people are. Correcting it via abuse directed at the original poster is even worse than that. One other thing about the medium of the internet (where most of those points above don't apply, and which doesn't really apply in this case): as a creative medium, the internet is renowned for poor spelling as a means of expression (ie.: irony, facetiousness, sarcasm, synechdoche, roryk's art, etc.). Often this is due to the limits of ASCII and the commonly neglected sarcasm mark. I'm not looking for Hemingway's editor when I read a shit opinion piece and want to hear other's opinions of why it's shit. After all, I don't need references or peer reviews for opinion, only corroboration or alternate concepts. Those who become too wrapped up in the follies of gramar and spelling (and definition) in mainstream media tend to forget the temporal fluidity of semiotics: one day these words are probably going to look and mean and be used differently, and that's just because language isn't locked in time. Klaxon if you're horny. Word.
  • On the other hand, correcting someone's grammar/spelling/word usage in a non-public forum (via email, for example) is not petty. Often, it's necessary - especially in a professional situation.
  • Dorks.
  • ;)
  • Who give fuck around grammar? :)
  • Wolof, will you marry me? I totally see your points, IC. Although I can't forgive bad spelling and grammar in a newspaper. It still doesn't change my bias. Errors like the one TUM pointed out stick out like a drop of blood on a page of text to me, break my train of thought, and take away from what the writer is trying to say to me. I don't think anyone should be so wrapped up in their own passion about a subject that they just hit the post button without reading over what they wrote. (I'm not talking casual comments on a blog, but the actual blogger, who is trying to put his or her opinions out there for the world to try to comprehend.) If you're swept up in your own emotions enough that you type out your thoughts furiously, hit post, and then read the thing over, chances are you've probably written something you'll regret once the heat of the moment passes. And you'll probably bring more people over to your way of thinking if you've presented your thoughts in coherent manntter. Sure, typos get made. And I think they're fair game. I fully expect typos I make to be ripped apart and flaunted for the world to see. Which takes away from whatever I was trying to say. Those are my own internet rules, anyway, learned the hard way :)
  • *knows where he'd doned blowed it wid Lara* posted by Capt. Renault at 06:57PM UTC on November 02, 2006 I'm sorry. *dabs at a tear with a dainty hanky* I just can't abide men who misplace their apostrophes. It just...it just won't work.
  • I hear what you're saying about the breaking of the flow, Lara. But, I just know that it's incredibly easy to miss your own typos if you're the one to edit your own work. Even if you print it out and use a red crayon - furious masturbatory posting aside - you still have opportunities to miss things. My dyslexic, subtle eye allows me to move past missing letters and their ilk without greivous loss of flow. However, if the ideas are stunted, fragmentary or poorly arrayed and/or the writing is atrocious...
  • The reason I feel justified in picking on the dude'r poor language skills is that he's painting himself as intellectually and morally superior to the cretins who've inconvenienced him. Picking on his own mistakes is covered under the "People who live in glass houses" clause. I wouldn't have said anything about his crappy grammar if it hadn't happened in the pursuit of his trying to make other people look stupid. Yes, I know that the argument can be made that by picking on him, I'm opening myself up for the same treatment. But screw him, 'cause he started it.
  • Sometimes chickens, sometimes feathers.
  • MonkeyFilter: furious masturbatory posting
  • Sex on a plane = up to 20 years in jail?!
  • Lara, that link reminds me of a similar, personal encounter when, while feeling ill and beyond wit's end, I accidentally removed the blouse and brassiere of three nearby co-workers. It being entirely accidental, you would not believe the harassment I received from the company's Human Resources department, nor the cold shoulder I got from most of the marketing girls and female accounting staff. As I had, months before, sworn off masturbating in my cubicle, you would think they would have offered me some leeway.
  • Remember that ridiculous liquid explosives plot? Well, here's the punchline: US interference 'allowed terror gang to escape'.
  • This thread. Maybe one of the few times a humourous MoFi thread's morphed into one of more serious tenor. That's because the truth is just as absurd as the fiction.
  • MonkeyFilter: Sometimes chickens, sometimes feathers. So true of anything in life.
  • Medical records - some, school records - plenty and in some cases going back to grade school, and who knows how many other sorts of records are going to follow today's children for the rest of their lives. Not to mention ever more ubiquitous cameras. The world: gone data-happy? Just because ye can collect it doesn't mean ye should.
  • The flight took off again, but the woman was not allowed back on the plane. "American has banned her for a long time," Lowrance said.
  • Yes, because you may need to repair a small radio or put up some shelves on the plane!
  • Sheesh. What if the red wire detaches itself from the bomb, and you need to resolder the leads? And you weren't allowed to bring your wire-stripper on board? How you gonna fix it, eh? *taps head repeatedly* THINK, people, THINK.
  • It'll take a few seconds to get the coordinates from the navacomputer. In the meantime, I know a few maneuvers. We'll lose 'em.
  • > How you gonna fix it, eh? Bite the plastic with my teeth, usually, though copper has a pretty nasty taste.
  • This is a terrible setback in the War on Moisture.
  • Oh, so WRONG, Roryk. Kids used to love sucking on pennies. Now you can hardly find copper pennies. That is because they were banned due to the Rowr on Terrier. It's dangerous to toss pennies. Someone could lose an eye.
  • Mice! Mice on a plane! Rodent terrorism.
  • Scorpions on a plane. We saw "Snakes on a Plane" this weekend. It was bad, and not even fun bad. It was unfunny and mean-spirited. Blech.
  • Did you see it on a plane?
  • No, in my living room. But planes regularly fly low overhead. I don't think any of them have snakes in them though. The good news is, it gave us a chance to finally test our 6.1 DTS surround system. Works great! When Jackson said, "I want these motherfucking snakes off this motherfucking plane", our neighbors said, "fucking rights you badass motherfucker!" Or something like that, we couldn't hear them very well. Definitely said "fuck" once though.
  • This sad and injurious trend will continue until passengers are allowed to make little rings of fire with paraffin, and place their babies scorpions inside.
  • The three-year-old (who is four in two weeks) told me yesterday that when he grows up, he's going to live in Australia so he can look at all the snakes. Then he started going on about Snakes on a Plane and how it's not fair that we haven't let him watch it. I told him it's not a very good movie, but that didn't seem to faze him.
  • An explanation of the War on Moisture.
  • Has he seen the train scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade?
  • > An explanation of the War on Moisture. The Register has a more detailed and more skeptical view. Once the plane is over the ocean, very discreetly bring all of your gear into the toilet. You might need to make several trips to avoid drawing attention. Once your kit is in place, put a beaker containing the peroxide / acetone mixture into the ice water bath (Champagne bucket), and start adding the acid, drop by drop, while stirring constantly. Watch the reaction temperature carefully. The mixture will heat, and if it gets too hot, you'll end up with a weak explosive. In fact, if it gets really hot, you'll get a premature explosion possibly sufficient to kill you, but probably no one else. After a few hours - assuming, by some miracle, that the fumes haven't overcome you or alerted passengers or the flight crew to your activities - you'll have a quantity of TATP with which to carry out your mission. Now all you need to do is dry it for an hour or two.
  • TUM, no. He might quite like that movie, actually. Wasn't it the most kid-friendly of the lot?
  • Dogs. In my nose.
  • That has the best movie review I have ever read. Aah, Steve -- can you please start being funny again? We know you need the cash for your Hockneys and Harings, but... just once in a while, you know?
  • Are the dogs in his nose Schnozzers?
  • "No, it's best, b-e-s-t! Sheez, that's like the 20th time I've told you guys . . . what kinda $100 operation you guys running down there anyway? . . . BEST doggone it, p-e-t-e-b-e-. . Oh, hang on there's someone at the door ACK!"
  • Dog-eating snake. Eleven dogs!
  • OK -- I'll guess -- was he trying to reduce his iron levels?
  • Counselor where are you going with all this? Penguins on a treadmill indeed.
  • Fine then. Coyote in a Quiznos
  • "Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that." Peaceniks on a plane!
  • This would seem an obvious conclusion but it has to swim against the current of post-September 11 paranoia that exerts a vice-like grip on many officials, determined not to admit the next suicide bomber. Do they spell "vise" differently in NZ?
  • It'll add up -- no doubt about that. There are plenty of other places where one can tourist without any hassle. The process will be speeded up once Canadians need a passport for land crossings. Without any day trips, border states will take a huge hit. Hell, snowbirds may just skip Myrtle Beach and Ft. Lauderdale altogether, and head to the islands, if they need to have a passport anyway. Whether that impact will lead to change, idunno. Probably not.
  • TUM: Canada, UK, Australia, etc., too!
  • Silly Merican spelt it wroung!
  • You know how Canada got it's name? 'Cause when they went to name the country, they put all the letters into a bag, then drew them out one at a time. "C" eh? . . "N" eh? . . . "D" eh?
  • Least we GOTS a name.
  • Canada - we put the North in North America.
  • Snakes on a plane. *sigh* Sponsored by Fox News, where Iraq is a linchpin in the War on Terror! 9/11!
  • Heh. Also, poking around Fox News' front page is depressing. Is that actually a video of someone being murdered?! And why is Paris Hilton's newfound religion & no bra wearing a "Pop Tart"? Sickos.
  • So, what, were they like teeny-tiny baby snakes?
  • A trio of hobo bear cubs have been hopping trains Now, "hobo bear cubs" is a cute phrase, but wouldn't "ho-bears" be better? sparking concern from wildlife officials. But NOT from the railraod workers? Shall we start a pool on what date this appears on the Colbert Report?
  • As I was escorted out of security by TSA and a police officer, I unscrewed the cup to drink the water, which accidentally spilled because I was so upset with the situation. I don't know why, but this rings untrue to me. I feel like she probably did pour the water on the floor intentionally. Why did she feel the need to add "because I was so upset" unless she was trying to justify it. And most people know that if the screeners confiscate something, they don't give it back. Even if it is your kid's beloved sippy cup. It doesn't make everything that happened right, but I'm just so fed up with people who know how it is before they fly, but they're so shocked when they can't just breeze through in whatever way they want. I guess I'm fed up in general with people who are so bewildered at the fact that they can't do whatever they want whenever they want.
  • She's an American, Lara. Rules are for other people. *ducks* Seriously, tho, how many times have we all been warned what we can and can't bring on? Sure, there will be mistakes, and people just plain forgetting. That said, if it was a mistake, you should know enough not to argue with airport security, but just cut your losses and grumble once you're last the gate. No, it's not fair. Life isn't fair. Tough shit. I know I would have been right pissed to be one of the people waiting in line behind her ignorant, self-entitled ass. The fact that the story involves a cute widdle sippy cup is a red herring -- she broke the rules, and refused to deal with the consequences. Which is a longstanding peeve of mine -- if you knowingly break the rules, at least be an adult about it if you're caught. Yeah, I'm sure security could have acted much more reasonably about the situation. How about giving them a reason to?
  • "I demanded to speak to a TSA [Transportation Security Administration] supervisor" Notice there's no mention of what happened BEFORE she demanded to speak to the supervisor. If this woman is anything like the people who wanted to bring drinks into the museum, what happened before this was a polite request from TSA followed by a tantrum from the mother. "As I was escorted out of security by TSA and a police officer, I unscrewed the cup to drink the water, which accidentally spilled because I was so upset with the situation." If all she was trying to do was comply with their request, why not wait until she got outside of security to open the cup and drink the water? She wanted to make a point, and she did. "At this point, I was detained against my will by the police officer" If it's NOT against your will does it count as detainment? That's like saying, "I was pregnant. With a baby!"
  • At this point, I was detained against my will by the police officer and threatened to be arrested for endangering other passengers with the spilled 3 to 4 ounces of water. Not quite. The distraction she was causing was endangering the other passengers. I was ordered to clean the water, so I got on my hands and knees while my son sat in his stroller with no shoes on since they were also screened and I had no time to put them back on his feet. So? He doesn't have his shoes on. He's in a stroller. He's not walking anywhere. We've all had to walk on our socks through the airport a bit to put our shoes back on. Yes, it's moronic. But that's how it is. Also, how big a deal is it to clean water? Kleenex, mop mop, done. This 'hands and knees' nonsense makes it sound like she's putting in some serious elbow grease. I asked to call back my fiancé, who I could still see from afar, waiting for us to clear security, to watch my son while I was being detained, and the officer threatened to arrest me if I moved. So I yelled past security to get the attention of my fiancé. So. She wants to contact other people while she's in detention. From a security perspective, of course they're going to say no. Quite a reasonable precaution for the circumstances. So she yells to her husband a quick "help help I'm being repressed", even though a) as she can see her husband, he can probably see her and what's going on anyway, and b) he's already cleared security, so she's dragging him into this unnecessarily. At this point, she's just escalating the situation to make her point (nevermind the fact that she was in the wrong in the first place). The kid is in his stroller. He's fine. Security isn't going to do anything to him. The husband is fine, as he knows what's going on, and can probably help her through another angle. Instead, she just blows the whole situation up to draw attention to her plight. I have no doubt that she was the one who went to the press, to give her sad, sad story of repression as a middle-class white woman, only looking out for her child's welfare. The more I think about it, the more I get annoyed. Yes, going through security is a pain. For all of us. Be a grown-up and deal with it, instead of screaming how you deserve to be treated differently than the rest of us.
  • That's the point I was trying to make. Lots of people get things taken at checkpoints. For some, it's Great-Grandpa's swiss army knife that you'll never see again. For this woman, it was a damned sippy cup. According to the article, a sippy cup was "the only way he would drink". If that was the case, why didn't she bring a spare in her carry-on? What would happen if that one got broken, or fell on a dirty floor? Every other passenger on the plane would have had to listen to junior scream because he could only drink from the One True Sippy Cup that was forever gone anyway. I really do think this woman's attitude had a lot to do with why she was detained. It's not a right to fly, it's a privilege. The airlines are letting you on their planes, in exchange for a fee. If you don't like the policies, drive. I know a lot of people will disagree with me, but I've been in line behind this type of woman, too. In every other facet of her life, throwing a tantrum, demanding the manager and flashing a sense of entitlement get her what she wants, because people find it easier to give in than to deal with her. When she's faced with a situation where that doesn't happen, she can't deal with it.
  • I'll have to disagree. IMO she was being bullied unnecesarily, which she didn't deserve and neither does anyone else. But it's become routine, and most people just accept it, no matter how nasty or stupid the bullying is. The policy is stupid and these people were being jerks, so good for her for not just going along with it. Let the woman have her kid's sippy cup for fuck's sake.
  • "I was ordered to clean the water, so I got on my hands and knees" Hmm, that sounds kinda kinky, actually.
  • Well, I believe that we don't know the whole story. We've only gotten one side of it (her side). She still should have brought more than one sippy cup.
  • I find it interesting that nearly every article commented on in various places on the net has those people that think the passenger is always at fault. I don't fly that often, but every time I do, the shit's getting weirder and weirder, and I DO NOT feel any safer. Why the fuck would you stop a mom with a toddler and a sippy cup? Are we profiling moms now? Afraid it's more breast milk? No doubt she spilled it. I see half the people in the lines trying to juggle all their belongings and dropping half their stuff while trying to put shoes and belts back on before getting run into without having a toddler to deal with. It's a big power trip for about half the TSA people. They're nasty, rude, and just plain overbearing. On my last flight, for every one I ran into who was polite and thorough while being courteous, there were three that were jerks and not even paying attention. One stupid batch held up the line while she bitched about not getting a ciggy break. Classy. This terrorize America has gone so out of hand it's pathetic. You wait, when the shit does go down, the TSA will be sitting with their thumbs up their butts.
  • Think about it, though. If you were a terrorist, would you send your liquid explosives through in a big bottle marked "bomb juice", or in the most innocuous container you could? Of course not every mom and toddler coming through has a bomb. But why do moms with toddlers who have to juggle things get an exemption? Women suicide bombers have been on the increase lately. I guess what I don't get is why people think that flying is a public convenience, like a library card or a post office. If you don't like the rules, you don't have to fly.
  • Why the fuck would you stop a mom with a toddler and a sippy cup? For the same reason you'd stop a man with a bottle of Lucozade. The kid wasn't going to die if he had to fly a couple of hours without his damn sippy cup. If he got thirsty enough, I bet he'd drink from something else.
  • Why the fuck would you stop a mom with a toddler and a sippy cup? Are we profiling moms now? Only if they're MILFS.
  • For the same reason you'd stop a man with a bottle of Lucozade. The War on Moisture?
  • Not that I approve of profiling in general, but if there's going to be profiling, why NOT moms? When I worked in retail, the lion's share of shoplifting that went on was mothers hiding merchandise in their giant strollers.
  • I've travelled with a two-year-old, then alone with a four-year-old and a 22-month-old. You pay attention to the rules. You anticipate ways to streamline the process. You make sure you have checked and double-checked everything because god knows you've got enough to worry about with small children on your hands in a crowded airport. I should sympathise with her, but she's taking a routine security check and making it into a huge thing, which it simply didn't need to be. You can't carry liquids through security. No exceptions. Buy your water after you go through, then you don't lose the sippy cup.
  • I sympathise with her. According to the article, she's entitled to bring three ounces of liquid with her. It doesn't sound like she was far off this, and in general people have been allowed to drink their suspect liquids and pass on. Some toddlers develop strong attachments to cups, spoons, and what-have-you, making it difficult to get them to use different. Plus what homunculus said about the bullying. This sort of thing is happening way too much and not just in the U.S. (The whold liquid ban is a big crock, anyway.)
  • Absolutely the liquid thing is a crock. And absolutely the TSA aren't the paragons of vigilance they see themselves as being. Yes, the policy is stupid. Yes, the TSA were overreacting. But that said, a lot of them didn't accomplish much in life, and they're there not making too much money, and the little badge is the one thing they have to make them feel like a somebody. Does that make their bullying right? No, of course not. But it was entirely predictable -- she gave them a reason to overreact, and they did. It's possible to think of this in terms of an act of civil disobedience, but it's hardly as noble as Rosa Parks refusing to go to the back of the bus, or Gandhi's salt march. This is about somebody who feels that the rules don't apply to her, that she doesn't need to follow the rules if they're a personal inconvenience. It's like somebody going through the express checkout with too many items. There's a rule. We know the rule. The rule is entirely arbitrary, but it has to be drawn somewhere, and that's where it is. The rule confers a benefit, along with a burden. If someone takes that benefit without observing the rule and carrying the burden from time to time, it's a sort of theft, as it takes away the benefit for those of us who are producing it. People going through the express checkout with too many items, able-bodied people using someone else's handicapped parking pass -- whatever. It's all the same. They want the benefit, but leave the work for us to do. It's telling society "Fuck you, I'm the only one that counts."
  • According to the article, she's entitled to bring three ounces of liquid with her...in general people have been allowed to drink their suspect liquids and pass on. Which is what leads me to believe that she's not telling the whole story of how she came to be stopped in the first place.
  • But you're assuming intent to flaunt the rule on the part of the woman-with-toddler-and-sippy-cup. Small amounts of liquid are permitted, and it sounds like the evil sippy cup contained only slightly more than what's acceptable.
  • My last was addressed to the Capt.
  • It's not an unreasonable exception for them to make, really, and they can make it. We went on a trans-Atlantic flight, followed every rule for carry-on luggage...except for hillbillyswamp's contact lens solution, which we could not find in a small enough size bottle for TSA guidelines. It was an ounce too large. We figured what the hell, they can pitch it if they need to. They stopped us, checked it over, conferred with a supervisor who shrugged and waved us through. Could go either way. Either she's not telling us about her participation in this story, or else she came up against someone who was either (a) having a bad day and not inclined to be flexible, or (b) just generally a prick.
  • Yes, I'm making that assumption. From what we do know of the story, I think it's a reasonable assumption to make. At no point was she simply cooperative. Mind you, there are a lot of gaps in her story, and a lot of things we don't know. As her narrative starts off with her demand to see a supervisor, the inference I draw is that she didn't take the opportunity to keep all this on the down-low, and just grin and bear it.
  • If she or the child had done nothing to provoke the TSA agent, the initial request to leave the cup behind would have been included in the story. Because if all she did was blithely walk through the gate and start getting hassled over nothing, it would have been an incredibly strong sympathy-getter and there would have been more reason to keep it in than to leave it out. I don't even think that editing for space can explain that omission away, since they had enough space to talk about the completely irrelevant fact that the kid didn't have his shoes on.
  • This is how I imagine the encounter, based on the woman's telling: NIGHTMARE AT REAGAN INTERNATIONAL, A PLAYLET (Part 1) TSA Screener: Ma'am, you're not allowed to have more than three ounces of liquid. That cup seems to have too much. Woman: Oh my GOD, you have GOT to be KIDDING me! TSA Screener: ... Woman: You mean to tell me that I can't take Junior's Spongebob Sippy Cup on the plane? What the hell is this country coming to when you TSA nazis can deny a decent American toddler his goddam sippy cup?! What do you expect Junior to drink out of? Or don't you even care? TSA Screener: Is it nursery water in the cup? Woman: Nursery WHAT?! What the fuck are you talking about? Junior needs his diaper changed, I'm trying to get through security so we can go gamble in Reno, I've had a hard day, you've made me wait five hours to get on the damned plane, this diaper bag weighs a ton. You don't have kids, do you? For GOD'S SAKE, his feet are BARE!! TSA Screener: Rules are rules. You'll have to give me the cup. Woman: Well, what if I drank it? Huh? Would that be good enough for your jackbooted ass? TSA Screener: No. You'll have to give it to me. Woman: Well I AM going to drink it. And I'll probably explode, because GOD KNOWS that moms with babies are usually terrorists! TSA Screener: Ma'am, you'll have to leave the line to drink that. Woman: You'd like that, wouldn't you?! *rips the lid off, spraying water down the front of the screener* INTERMISSION
  • I think trying to make her clean up the water crossed the boundary somewhat.
  • SCENE TWO: outside a cave in northern Pakistan. Osama: (speaking in Arabic or Farsi or whatever, and subtitled) Foolish infidels! Tell me, have you seen what's in USA Today? New No. 2: Umm, that Cleveland isn't looking too good for the finals? Osama: No, you fool! It seems as though security at Reagan airport has started confiscating sippie cups! New No. 2: "Sippie" cup? Osama: It's this wobbly thing that young children drink out of without spilling everything. I've seen one of my wives use one once for one of my kids. New No. 2: How your kids doing, anyway? Osama: Still in school in Lucerne, but that's beside the point. The godless Americans are confiscating sippie cups! New No. 2: So? Osama: We could totally have used that to blow up a plane, and now we can't! They're onto sippie cups! New No. 2: But, if the object of terror is terror, and the infidels are terrified and we don't even have to do anything, then haven't we won? Osama: Leave the philosophizing to me, smartass. I can put you right back where I found you, scrubbing toilets in a Yemeni whorehouse. New No. 2: Right, boss. Sorry, boss. Osama: Besides, what's the fun of being a terrorist if you don't get to blow up planes every now and then? New No. 2: Right, boss. Sure thing. Osama: So here's what I had in mind... (Osama leans in close, starts whispering.) FADE TO NEXT SCENE
  • SCENE THREE: The Oval Office. Tony Snow: Mr. President, I'm afraid we have a PR problem coming out of Reagan. George W. Bush: He's ALIVE!!!??? (fade to black)
  • SCENE FOUR: a montage of US airports. Sped-up images of planes taking off and landing, people waiting in lines, luggage on conveyor belts, long trains of SmarteCartes, close ups of Jamba Juice blenders, people sprawled on benches sleeping with mouths gaped open, fussy children being Spoken To, darkened lounges, etc. Scored by Philip Glass.
  • OK. Have Bush drinking out of a sippy cup and doing a spit-take, and I think we can sell it to Miramax.
  • I just assumed Bush always drank out of a sippy cup.
  • SCENE FIVE: Closeup of Mom's fiancé quietly slipping a fifty into the TSA agent's back pocket. Music: "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover."
  • I don't know why, I just have the feeling it was like this... The security personnel had her hold the sippie cup up for everyone to see, as employees laughed and made harassing comments such as, "Doesn't your mother satisfy you?" while passengers and employees watched. I think she should bring suit against them for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Quite honestly.
  • SCENE SIX *Woman kneels on the floor, sleeves pushed up, smudge of dirt on her face, scrubbing up the sippy-cup water. A groups of TSA agents stand over her with whips, one lashing in rythm to keep her moving.* Woman: But my son! His feet are still BARE!!! TSA Screener: *twirls mustache* We care not! Keep scrubbing! Second TSA Screener: If it was just a sippy cup full of water, why couldn't she just bend over with a paper towel and... Third TSA Screener: *cracking the whip against the tile floor* Keep scrubbing, woman! Junior: Mooooommmmmmmeeeeeeeeeeee!
  • SCENE SEVEN: interior of plane. Camera closes in on a stewardess in a Varig uniform, as she leans in to talk to a passenger. Stewardess: (in accented English) Would you like a drink, sir? Fiance: Uh, yeah, why not? What's a popular drink down there? A Mojito? Stewardess: Mojito is from Cuba. Brazil has Caipirinha. Fiance: Is it good? Stewardess: Oh, yes. Very good, very popular. Fiance: I'll have one of those, then. I have to do like the locals, if I'm going to become one myself! Stewardess: Very good, sir. You like Brazil. (Points to ring) Your wife, she come with you? Fiance: (looks at ring, looks back) No -- no wife. Stewardess walks back to the galley and prepares drink. Stewardess walks back to cabin, but the camera stays in the galley, closes in on bottle of cachaça, label marked "Product of Afghanistan." Menacing music. FADE TO NEXT SCENE
  • Because if all she did was blithely walk through the gate and start getting hassled over nothing, it would have been an incredibly strong sympathy-getter and there would have been more reason to keep it in than to leave it out. Who's she going to get sympathy from? Like anyone wanting to get anywhere on their flight is going to stick around to talk to the press? Are YOU going to step right in to talk to the TSA officiassholes to stop harassment? Thought not. And I'm no better, because I don't want hauled off to the side either. Sure, maybe she's an utter ass. But I don't fly much, and I've seen people treated unreasonably for little or no reason. Perhaps we need video coverage of all these "little situations" to be accessible to the press. As I said, every time there's a story about problems with TSA, someone's got to jump out and holler that we just need to shut up and cooperate. Maybe instead of limiting water bottles, we need to set up safeguards that will detect bombs.
  • I'm not going to step in to talk to anyone. I'm going to follow the rules and get on the plane. You'd have to actually convince me that harassment was going on, and I've seen none any time that I've flown. And I'm certainly not convinced in this case. So yeah, I'm not going to get all worked up over one woman's one-sided story, and until I know different, I am going to shut up and cooperate. It would be nice if there were safeguards to detect every kind of bomb. Someday there may be, I guess. But that's why the liquid ban. Because it's better to smuggle in the inert ingredients, and assemble the bomb in flight, so that it can't be detected. I certainly don't believe the liquid ban was put in place just to hassle people. Every time I've ever flown and seen a hassle, it was due to the passenger being inflexible, intolerant, and in most cases, just plain spoiled. So I guess my experiences have colored my view, but I'm not crying for this woman, and I'm not crying harassment from the rooftops. Not until I see a heck of a lot more evidence.
  • I certainly don't believe the liquid ban was put in place just to hassle people. Neither do I. I think it was put in place in a panicy response to a terrorist plot that eventually turned out to be bogus, but it's very effective security theater, so it's not going anywhere. Any terrorists who aren't idiots probably have bigger targets in mind anyway.
  • TSA denies sippy cup incident Developing...
  • So Mom doesn't think she's exempt because she's a mom, she thinks she's exempt because she's a Secret Service Agent?
  • From the boingboing link, here's a direct link to the TSA incident report.
  • Who's she going to get sympathy from? Well, the article certainly reads as though she's trying to get sympathy from the readers of the article, and from the general public. The whole Secret Service angle in mindboggling. It makes me wonder if, in the course of her own security duties, she makes exceptions in discharging her duty for people who "look innocent." Of course, the sense of entitlement that runs rmpant in the Executive Branch today proabbly IS likely to trickle down to Secret Service employees. The boss doesn't have to follow rules or answer to anyone, so why should the workers?
  • Check out the video (second one). At about 2:01 it looks like she's opening the cup and shaking it out on the floor. It doesn't look like she meant to drink it, it looks like she was angry and purposefully dumping it out.
  • Just gets better and better. Please, put a little Herradura Reposado in my sippy cup here. Use Triple Sec for the kiddies.
  • Yeah Koko, I saw it on the news earlier and iit did look that way. Lara, you were right. Well, I gave her the benefit of the doubt, but now my sympathy for her is mostly gone. I don't blame anyone for being frustrated with security theatrics like the liquid ban, but it looks like she went overboard and, worse, it looks like she lied about it. Phooey.
  • Well, I'm off on the friendly skies (HA!) tomorrow. Got my nail clippers, my attitude, and my sippy cup. The next video you see may be me, cuffed and down in Salt Lake City. Assuming I make it through security, I just hope there's no MF snakes on the MF plane.
  • Don't forget these helpful tips.
  • Can we call her "Mrs. Sippy?"
  • That's an interesting article, homunculus. I really have been wondering what it is that makes us so ready to believe these stories, but it makes sense. In a nation where the rules are secret and arbitrary, anything seems possible, even likely.
  • Very interesting read! I'm sure the movie will be out soon.
  • Any other MSTies out there with the "Sodium" song from "Horror at Party Beach" stuck in their heads?
  • Oh dear.
  • One of my hobbies is trying to blow up planes. Oh, I'm only kidding. I just try to think of ways that other people could blow up planes, then see if I can get around the security measures, just for kicks. I hate, hate, hate wiseasses like this, who hold up and ruin things for the rest of us who just want to get on the damn plane and get where we're going. Self-important asshole. Questions about the deadly liquids flooded my mind: why would these be dropped into an ordinary trash barrel, and not a special explosion-proof containment unit? What part of "components" does this fucker not understand?
  • Brats! Off my plane! FWIW, the article doesn't seem to mention whether or not the mother ever tried to do anything to stop the kid. My guess is, if she had it would have been mentioned.
  • I hope that bastard's salad dressing made him sick.
  • "She just kept saying, 'I don't know what you expect me to do. I don't know what you expect me to do.'" I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas!
  • Allright, Clay -- we're going to work fast here, so try to keep up. It's an armrest. You can rest an arm on an armrest. It's not a foot-rest. That would make it a footrest. But it's not a footrest. It's an armrest. Did you get that? Shall we go over it again? Maybe with some flash-cards? It all depends on you being able to tell the difference between an arm and a foot. If it was your own armrest, Clay -- sure, go nuts. But it's the lady's armrest. So take your stanky-assed feet off the goddamn armrest, and stop being an asocial, impolite douchebag. Luzer. That's right. You lost. So go join Justin Guarini off in has-been-who-never-was-land, and stop being a cultural assassin. GRR.
  • I'm sure he was assuming she'd be so star-struck by his awesome famitude that she wouldn't mind if he rested his feet in her mouth, let alone her armrest. Captain, a closet Idol fan, perhaps?
  • All I can think of is the Idol With the Feet of Clay from the Book of Daniel.
  • So how come I can't use my nail clippers? They're only clippers--they don't even have that little nail file that swivels out.
  • Am I missing something here? What earthly purpose would anyone have for needing a disposable cigarette lighter with them on a plane?
  • The all-important first cigarette after landing. (ex-smoker, with vivid memories)
  • > Report: Feds to lift ban on many types of cigarette lighters on airplanes next month This was never very seriously enforced. I inadvertently flew with a cigarette lighter several times both to and within the U.S.
  • According to the article, security screeners collect an average of 22,000 lighters a day, and it costs about $4 million a year to dispose of them..., so they're grabbing somebody's. And I'm sure it is the whole first cigarette thing. They should just take the lighters, give you a claim ticket, and let you pick up somebody else's confiscated lighter at the next airport.
  • Oh, now that's just naked pandering.
  • Why don't they just have a free lighter kiosk at the exit door, and people can light up and be on their way? And an automatic nail clipper at the entrance door!
  • Or it could be like the penny dish system. You leave your disposable lighter in a jar in Atlanta, and pick up someone else's discarded one at LaGuardia.
  • You know, I can see where the TSA has to say "hey, we saw an ice pack that could have held explosives, so check out the ice packs you see". I can't see why they had to "leak" a story about dry-runs.
  • I think they ought to ban kids who aren't potty trained from flying. Those disposable diapers for toddlers hold gallons of liquid. That drooling tot ahead of you--he's got liquid nitro in his pants. The giggling tow-head behind you--you may think he's done a poo, but that's really plastic explosive he's packing in his Pampers. These things are dangerous, people!
  • Part 3
  • I'm not liking that one little bit.
  • Get this m*thaf**kin' search outta my m*thaf**kin' body cavity!!
  • But fear not! NY passengers have Spitzer to fix 'er! Governor Spitzer Signs Airline Passenger Bill of Rights
  • My understanding is that it is extremely hard to detect a psychopathic personality. I would think that the really scary ones, and those voted Most Likely To Succeed, would be the people who can bring this off casually with no second thoughts or fear sweat. I imagine with all the info on the web, they'd be very much into studying how to pass TSA checkpoints. Based on my experience, TSA folks come in mainly two flavors: those to which it's just a 9-5 job, and they're fairly casual, and those gung-ho over-achievers who look at a seven-year-old and immediately see a terrorist. I can certainly see that the name situation would have to be checked, even if it seems obvious that there's a foul-up. But there's no reason to treat people like dirt: "We had to stand at the desk for three hours while they checked everything out. "This time they had canceled our tickets by the time they gave Javaid security clearance. I was all on my own, I don't know anyone in Philadelphia." Have folks go sit down in a secured area, maybe allow them a cold drink. Don't just abandon someone when they're cleared. Once the boy was cleared the first time, some sort of annotation should have been made so that it didn't occur again. Just simple courtesy.
  • The Comeback
  • Mrs. TheDog has informed me, via text messaging, that she has recorded Snakes On A Plane on the PVR, and that it will be on our Friday night viewing schedule. I am so excited.
  • Damn!! Ralph just got excited and peed all over the thread!
  • I want this mother****ing movie on my mother****ing TV!
  • Germs. On a Spaceship. The researchers placed identical strains of salmonella in containers and sent one into space aboard the shuttle, while the second was kept on Earth, under similar temperature conditions to the one in space. After the shuttle returned, mice were given varying oral doses of the salmonella and then were watched. After 25 days, 40 percent of the mice given the earthbound salmonella were still alive, compared with just 10 percent of those dosed with the germs from space. And the researchers found the amount of bacteria it took to kill half the mice was three times larger for the normal salmonella than for the space germs.
  • Hom, if you don't make that a front page post, I'm gonna!!
  • Go for it!
  • Well dang, I already shot my FPP wad on the artificial life one! You gotta start delegating, H-dogg!
  • Ah, good old University of Buffalo. My Alma Mater. Figures they'd come up with some hooey like this.
  • Well, if they're using UB students as subjects, they're bound to turn up a high percentage of criminal types.
  • BURN!
  • "Burn." Buffalo. Heh.
  • New TSA Report WTF?
  • OH, BOY! I want a new job pushing papers at a GS 5 job.
  • Finns. On a plane.
    Perhaps the most damning comment on the incident was delivered by [J. Karjalainen] who was strip-searched. On a couple of occasions prior to 1991, he was detained by the KGB and interrogated. Compared to the ICE agents here in the Twin Cities, the KGB operatives, he says, "at least acted like human beings. Not a bunch of animals."
    Yikes.
  • Yeah, but where are the KGB now, huh? And besides, with them gone, the American crossing-guards have moved up in the rankings!
  • LOL: These people are making mountain out of a molehill and were just asking for trouble. I mean, look at them! Would you let someone dressed as a Weber grill into the country?
  • Snakes. On a bus. Bonus points -- first sentence: "This time, the snakes weren't on a plane."
  • *is gobsmacked* *not really*
  • We don't want any of them there damn furrin terrerorists over here in the EuNited Statsoff 'Murka!
  • Freakout on a plane. Any opinions as to what's going on here?
  • If you really, really wanted to get ugly, you'd stand ten or fifteen suicide bombers into a big airport with backpacks and carry-ons to stand in the security check-in line. You could wack ten or twenty plane-loads without the expense of tickets or even getting off the ground. Have their trigger signal be the simultaneous hoisting of water bottles. Now I'm really going to hate the security check-in.
  • Coming Soon: TSA To Screen Passengers For Thoughtcrime. Sheesh, all of this would be incrementally easier to swallow if they were actually halfway effective at actually catching anything. I think I read recently that 60% of the test "bombs" were making it through security. Freaking Keystone Kops!
  • "But a central task is to recognize microfacial expressions -- a flash of feelings that in a fraction of a second reflects emotions such as fear, anger, surprise or contempt, said Carl Maccario, who helped start the program for TSA." Anger or contempt? During air travel?!? Shirley, you can't be serious...
  • Assholes. Next they'll be monitoring your computer to see who's writing contemptuous comments about TSA, and then .... Excuse me, someone's pounding on my door.
  • Oh, yeah! Got this in an email just now. Figure it might liven things up if you get antsy on a long plane ride. Or maybe you have you sat on a plane, next to an irritating seatmate who keeps talking to you, snooping at everything you read? Next time, follow these instructions: 1. Quietly and calmly open up your laptop case. 2. Remove your laptop, and open it. 3. Start it up. 4. Make sure the guy annoying you can see the screen. 5. Close your eyes and tilt your head up to the sky. Take a very deep breath... 6. Then hit this linkie Heee heeee
  • "It seems completely over the top." Yeah, that pretty much defines the whole frickin' "OMFG, there are terrirests everywhere!" attitude here in Amerika, the country known for it's patriotism parinoia. Oops, gotta run. Mall security is after yer GramMa!
  • I'm perfectly OK with five-year-olds being kept off my plane.
  • I'm pretty sure it would be easier to have a "no-no-fly" list.
  • " Thousands of ... snakes were shipped ...from Bangkok to Hanoi.... The official ... reported that the snakes ...may have been headed to another country." MAY have?
  • It's not all together sure. They were trying to upgrade to first class, and the agents kept running away.
  • And, like the snake biting his own tail, the thread comes full circle. Thanks, pete!
  • I am a happy Monster! OK, OK, OK. Ever since the movie came out it's been driving me nuts, especially since I see the title in the mofi sidebar (mofidebar?) so often. "Snakes on a Plane" reminded me so much of a page from a book I read as a kid, but I couldn't remember enough about it to find it. I had a mnemonic breakthrough today, tracked a library copy down at lunch, and scanned the page. Simian brethren, I present Page 46 of Richard Scarry's Busy, Busy World.
  • Yay!
  • OK, no way I would fly on that deathtrap!
  • Yay TUM! (days late, but still. Richard Scarry! wh00t!)
  • Tits on a Plane. Might be NSFW. Now someone find the video.
  • What the...?
  • Anecdotally, I understand that many Europeans have given up on travel to the States, already. They have sunshine and Disneyland there, too.
  • It is all a part of his economic stimulus package.
  • Guns. On a plane. An investigation is under way into how a gun carried by a US Airways pilot was discharged during a flight. [...] Under a programme implemented after the 9/11 attacks, US airline pilots are allowed to carry guns on domestic flights following a training course. [...] Aeronautical experts disagree on how much risk there is that such a stray bullet could bring down an aircraft. Yep. This can only end well.
  • "I want this motherfucking rings out of your motherfucking nipples!" More info on the story H-dawg beat me to.
  • Why no pix?
  • DHS grounds air marshalls for having names similar to the no-fly list I want these motherfuckin marshalls off this motherfuckin plane!
  • To be fair -- I don't know what a bomb 'should' look like, either, but if I saw that jerry-rigged piece of electronics wired to an opaque bottle -- I'd be suspicious, too.
  • We have gone so far down a long ugly road that I'm afraid we're not going to come back.
  • Yup, that sounds about right. TSA. Protecting America from toddlers.
  • "Excuse me miss, I asked for Sprite instead of Coke" "Hands in the air, dirtbag!! You're under arrest."
  • Kittehs! On a Roomba! *iz ded of squeee*
  • Snakes. On a plane. Crikey! Just babies.
  • Just abide by your standard operating procedures. Right there's your problem. You know, there's ways and ways of handling situations. TSA doesn't have an effin clue. For every idiot that goes through TSA and creates their own problem (and gets immense publicity) there's something like this that affects normal people who don't want to sue and should.
  • I guess the TSA are trying (in their own strange way) to apologise for the Exploding Underpants incident - and failing spectacularly.
  • You call them airport security; I call them perverts.
  • TT, I was just coming to post exactly that exactly here :) And I was so very proud of the link title that I'd punnily come up with, that I am going to share it with you anyway even though the link has already been linkied. *ahem* clears throat, assumes classical oratorial pose The title for my link, would have been: Fewer snakes, on the plains. Eyethankew. *bows, shuffles off*
  • *clutches head, falls backwards Seriously, bees, frogs... Something's wrong, folks. Our earth is sick.
  • *stands up, applauds moth's delivery*
  • But why call police? Davis said, "Because her behavior escalated." Those fuckers. Remember, if you die of a heart attack when they search your luggage, don't fall down. That's escalating your behavior.
  • And how many here think they would have called the WIFE if the husband had been carrying 'almost sequential'* checks? *hint sequential means following in a logical order--40, 86, 100, 300, 634, and 750 are sequential, too, you fuckers That whole check thing--none of it makes sense Buying fucking razors before a flight??? Damn, next time I'm not going to bother shaving my legs before I go, especially if I need a pack of new Gillette blades.
  • It looks as if the purpose of airport security has moved on from trying to disarm terrorists. Now it is just an excuse for a fishing expedition. What fun!
  • "When in a time of anticipated threat there is a dearth of perceived threat, make some up."
  • When will they stop putting those mutherfuttin' snakes on a plane!! Man busted with 95 snakes in his suitcase
  • Snakes! On a plane!. Almost...
  • She's right, totally inappropriate for a government entity. PS I'm glad she laffed! I know I did.
  • Stand back or I'll shove this cake bomb in my mouth!
  • I think you'd do that anyway...
  • And we just KNEW this would never happen!!!?!
  • So, TSA wants to scope out T&A.
  • Snakes on a plane, indeed. Horrendous, but like GramMa says, sadly not entirely surprising. I'm really in no particular hurry to visit the US right now. Ugh.
  • Breast cancer scars on a plane - oh my! Looks like the TSA has made yet another powerful enemy...
  • The snakes aren't on the plane, they're working for the TSA.
  • You know, some of this TSA stuff would make a really bad country-western song. Dang! If I could just write it, my name would be in lights.
  • Just preempting their request, sir.
  • *sigh* ...but it's a great shirt!!
  • Frankly, I'm surprised TSA didn't confiscate it as a weapon of mass seduction. Or fall in love with it, as one dildo to another. My suggestion to all out there that feel they need to travel with their dildo--hmmmmm... Just proudly hand carry it on board.
  • A couple of jiggly eyes for a disguise, if disguised it must be.
  • *headdesk* The stupidity of some people never fails to surprise me. You'd think I'd learn.
  • Uh oh. The TSA is onto us sock monkeys. The jig is up.