(no subject)

Am home. Midnight. The kitty has given me and my baggage a thorough sniff and decided that I am probably me, although she's not quite sure. I am being given the benefit of the doubt.

My checked bag was definitely opened and searched - the doujinshi are still in their little plastic bags and are all there, as is everything else I packed, however, so it's not a theft thing. I think what probably made them do it was that I have a big metal can of hairspray that, since it was full and I was worried about it leaking over my clothes, I wrapped in a plastic bag and secured with a rubber band. I expect that had a weird profile on the X-ray and they checked to make sure it wasn't some sort of explosive.

How do I know it was opened and searched? It was repacked. Better than I'd done it. I'd had one shoe on either end of the bag - I remember that from when I was zipping it up - and they were put together. And I'd left the two zipper pulls together at one end of the zipper, and I found them together at the other end of the zipper.

Good thing I vaguely remembered that we're not supposed to lock our bags anymore. Luggage locks aren't any good at any sort of security other than preventing the zipper from opening due to manhandling anyway, and all they would have done was bust the lock.

On the flight home I was seated next to a woman with a kid about 15-18 months (I'm horrible at figuring ages out - walking just fine, but preverbal). They'd been at the airport since 8 AM and the kid hadn't taken a nap that day. He took 2 hours to calm down and go to sleep. Remarkably well-behaved for being nap-free and in an airport all day: some crankiness and high-pitched screaming occasionally (which the mother did her best to calm down) when we wouldn't let him into the aisle to run up and down. I let him play with the buttons on my jacket. The jacket is now covered in sticky apple-juice fingerprints but honestly, it was a small price to pay to keep him occupied, and it needed to be cleaned anyway.

I didn't tell the mother that I thought pumping the kid full of sugary apple juice all day might be contributing to his hyperactivity.

My checked bag didn't come through on the baggage claim, but I and several other people got called over to the desk to be informend that our luggage had, in fact, caught the flight before ours and made it to Dallas (probably before we left San Francisco) and was awaiting us at a different terminal. I went out to catch the shuttle, and the people I'd been talking to had someone picking them up, so they invited me along in their SUV instead of waiting for a shuttle, and I gratefully accepted.

I caight the next SuperShuttle home, and here I am. Finally.

Quick book report

I did find the perfect airport book to read when I was stuck at the airport forever. Hotel Babylon, a trashy book devoted to repeating rumors and anecdotes from various London hotels, structured as if they were all happening in one 24-hour period. Brainless reading, amusing, gossipy, the occasional celebrity dish thrown in but not too much, total popcorn, and lasted exactly until they started boarding my flight. I just cannot, no matter how much I try, read anything of any literary merit while in an airplane or airport. Janet Evanovich or John Grisham tend to be about as complex and articulate as I can get. But Hotel Babylon was perfect and now, having read it, I can pass it on to someone else who needs brain candy with a free conscience.

rachelmanija, you'll be happy to note that I found a copy of your book in the airport bookstore. Shelved in Travel. :D

Engrish report: Saiyuki Reload Gunlock Ep. 7

Not too much Engrish in this one, other than the usual confusion of pronouns and Sanzo once saying "Hutty up!" for "Hurry up!" and Gojyo's incomprehensible line:

Gojyo: Could it be that Arabo has digged oil out? Or mayube some good food or marriage with some woman somewhere...

Which, trust me, makes exactly as much sense in context as it does out.

HOWEVER ... I noticed very shortly into the episode that 95% of the dialogue, if taken out of context, made for a very different experience. There are NO SPOILERS in this because this is NOT from the manga continuity. If you don't want to be spoiled for the anime continuity ... well, there is no continuity, as this is officially a Stupid Filler Ep (TM).* And it's by precisely excising all references to exactly what is going on, that the entire flavor of the episode changes. Much for the better, actually: your mind will produce a show that is far more interesting that the one that actually exists.

So without further ado, I present...


( Telophase's Taken Out of Context Theatre! )

If this produces fic or art out of any of you I WANT TO SEE IT

* Which, by the way, contradicts continuity from a Stupid Filler Ep in the second anime series where Sanzo is revealed to be violently allergic to cats. Because when a kitten shows up that morphs into a two-headed tiger, Sanzo doens't sneeze his head off or, indeed, show any reaction at all. (highlight to see non-manga-continuity spoilers; there is no evidence that it exists in manga canon.)