The week in travel: November 18, 2010

The blog’s been a little slow this week, folks, and my apologies for that. I blame the Seattle weather, which currently resembles the inside of my washer when the cycle is set to “cold”. And apparently this weekend is about to get even colder, with snow in the forecast. Please excuse me while I hide under my deluxe Snuggie, and in the meantime, enjoy these links …

————

Ryanair passengers protest after their plane (originally headed to Paris) was diverted to Belgium, and they were only informed of the change after the plane had landed. Props to them for protesting, because what they had to go through was absolute b.s., but their choice of dissent  – staying in the plane for an additional four hours in the dark – doesn’t seem like the best decision they could have made.

————

One Word might be my new favorite time-killing site. A word appears on your computer screen, and you have 60 seconds to write about it. You then have the option to publish your stream-of-conscious prose or simply abandon it and see what other folks have written. I got “killed”, which, considering I just finished The Wire last night, didn’t phase me for a second (and yet, what I wrote still kind of sucked. But what can you expect from a minute’s worth of work?).

————

A bunch of redditors have mobilized to create FlyWithDignity.org – a site dedicated to informing the public about the injustices currently being committed by the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security. I’m a fan of what they’re doing, but  I wish they had stuck with their original name: Operation Grab Ass.

————

A miniature cityscape, made entirely of staples.

————

I found this map of U.S. states identified by movies that were filmed there to be absolutely neat-o.

————

Good news! Apparently some “Russian guys” (yes, that’s what the site says) have created a sapphire knife blade that’s completely metal-free – meaning it can’t be detected by airport metal detectors when they scan your bag. Wait, WHAT?

————

Artist Brusse’s work is dedicated to spreading love. I am SO okay with that, as long as you clean up after you’re done.

———–

Emily Carroll’s short and creepy comic, His Face All Red, is awesome. Imagine hints of Edgar Allen Poe with a smidgen of The Twilight Zone. Go read it immediately. I’ll wait.

————

As someone who’s frequently out of town, I appreciated these suggestions for ways to thwart burglars.

————

When I first saw the tagline for this an article about 7 airports that allow smoking inside their terminals, I didn’t think much of it. I mean, I’ve been in lots of airports where smoking was legal. Then I realized: they were talking about U.S. airports. That’s infinitely more shocking.

————

This might be the best PSA ever.