Adventures in Security X-Rays

Today I saw something "awesome" during the carry-on luggage security at LAX. There was a guy trying to get flowers and balloons into the x-ray machine, and the balloons were causing all sorts of misadventures as they were lifting into the air when he and a security (TSA) person were trying to get them into the x-ray. It was delaying that entire line and taking so long that they needed to open an additional x-ray machine. (Everybody in line was filing towards the second x-ray machine because of the balloon ordeal, so they opened up the third one to usher people through faster. A bit of a pile-up was starting to occur and the TSA folks wanted to nip it in the bud.) I can't say I've seen this one before, but a couple of minutes viewing futile attempts to get the balloons into the x-ray machine was pretty damn amusing.

In other news, the UK customs people once again let me through immediately, even though the US ones gave me some grief. Thanks for the hometown loyalty, guys. (Though I didn't have a repeat of last time when after saying I had a faculty job at Oxford, one customs person asked something along the lines about my not having been able to get a job in the US. Naturally, I answered "No. I couldn't." --- with a complete deadpan, of course. What kind of retarded question is that? It's Oxford! I wouldn't have moved to the UK to have a job at a pissy university.)

In one last bit of news, I preordered the core 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks today. It actually only cost about $10 more in total buying it through the UK rather than picking them up in the US, and I'm willing to live with that premium. (The mark-up is of a different order-of-magnitude when it comes to video games, however.)

Finally, I will eventually be blogging about several movies I've seen in the last couple of months. I'll make it one big entry, and maybe I'll even be able to get myself to write it tomorrow. I've been promising this for a while, so we shall see.