Ooops, I just forgot to tell my hosting company my new credit card number, so they’ve been trying to charge a stolen card and got sick of it while I was gone and pulled the plug on my sites while I was down south visiting Nefarious for Halloween. Which was lots of fun, although the actual trick or treating actually got rained out — not that the rain stopped any of us. Nefarious used her candy bag (traditional pillowcase) and dragged myself, Rachel, and Matt (her boyfriend) until we were soaked to the bone and most of her makeup was washed off. But the whole thing was lots of fun as was the visit — although the travel was odd so I wanted to mention it.
First of all, when I was at the airport on Friday I got bodychecked by one of Rob Ford’s entourage! Seriously, I’m walking to my gate, limping along with my cane as always, and I notice the Blob and his gang (recently anointed “World’s Worst Person” by Olbermann) heading toward me. He really is hard to miss because he is much sweatier and pinker than the piggish photos would make you assume. Remarkable. Anyway, since they were steamrollering right at me taking up most of the hallway I did my best to get out of the way but the guy on the cane didn’t move fast enough for them and the outer member of his entourage gave me a solid shouldercheck without slowing down or an excuse me. Should I have expected anything more?
On the way back, I discovered that I have had my flight status changed to “SSSS” — Secibdary Security Screening Selection, which is a sort of soft no-fly list or something like that. I asked everyone along the way whether this is a permanent thing, or if it’s a single-flight random thing, or something else, and no one was able to give me an answer — no one knew — which is not surprising since it seems to have all been set up behind closed and locked doors without oversight. I suppose I will try and make some more calls but I’m dubious as to finding anything out. I guess I will find out on my next flight (three weeks, although that one avoids US airspace so now that I think about it, those flights may not be affected) if I should expect “extra screening”. Today I was aggressively searched at every checkpoint — meaning hand searches of my luggage (which found nothing, and allowed my long sharp metal spikes that I use for carving clay to travel carry on — so I don’t think it’s related to any of my adventures traveling with dubious objects and testing those limits, which was the first thing that crossed my mind of course), full scans, and a full pat-down. The “yup, that’s my penis” sort of scan. That said, everyone was very nice and I didn’t feel abused or molested — mostly just annoyed and bored. But I would like to get to the bottom of it. I did have a nice chat with one of the guys feeling me up about the legal status of branding in Virgina after he asked about my white ink facial tattoo which he thought might have been a brand (a common misconception). I haven’t checked what he told me, but he was telling me that branding is not legal there although some shops are fighting the law, and that the law dates back to slavery-era laws stopping cruelty against slaves like branding them as cattle would be.
Other than that, I was hoping (perhaps on a long-shot) to get some audio player advice. I’m reading Nefarious books which I record to MP3 files and send to her. Right now the solution is just to email them, but I’m wondering if there is a stand-alone audio-player (she needs a desktop stereo solution anyway) that has some sort of a drop-box folder? Something that would like me send files to her stereo for her to listen to. oes anyone know if that exists? Obviously it could be done inexpensively with a low-end computer, but that’s not the solution I’m seeking.
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A year in, I still cannot believe that crass, vulgar, fat, plainly stupid man is the mayor of this city.
You might want to check the Logitech Squeezebox Touch : https://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/networking-and-wi-fi/media-streaming-devices/logitech-squeezebox-touch-714785/review. Click the “also consider” tab for a few alternatives.
Here is background information on the SSSS program:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_Security_Screening_Selection
It’s really amazing what can be looked up on the Internet lately.
You can run the dropbox app off an ipod touch and copy the file to there for her to listen to.
Shannon – Yes, you’ll notice I linked that above :P Says very little unfortunately…
Dresden – I’m trying to find a solution that can’t be used to play video games or other kid-distractions — hard these days!
I like to thunk that Rob Ford is only mayor of the mega parts of the city, the suburbs of Toronto proper that voted him in. I’m not sure where that leaves us, perhaps a ship with no captain or maybe as a anarchic state. Either way, he is not my mayor.
This tumblog helps ease the pain of knowing I’m just kidding myself. Immature? Yes. Funny as heck? Oh yes yes yes.
https://robfrusck.tumblr.com/
I got marked as SSSS once. I had no (acceptable) ID – my driver’s license had expired and that was all I had since I was flying domestically (from Seattle to somewhere else, a lot cheaper than going from Vancouver). Now that I think of it I wonder how I crossed the border to get to Seattle…
Anyway, I got the thorough pat-downs and everything examined, and it was actually quite a bit faster since the queues for the ordinary screening were massive. I had it again on the way back (same ID issue) but never again.
This Ford guy is unbelieveably pink! and no, I have no idea who he is – his fame hasn’t crossed Atlantic Ocean yet ;)
Oh, man, SSSS status can be nasty- here’s an interesting article from BoingBoing that doesn’t really explain much other than that it might be damned near permanent. I know you hate BB, but ignore the comments and this article’s decent.
https://boingboing.net/2011/10/31/air-space-a-trip-through-an-airport-detention-center.html
you could drop the files to an ipod shuffle. you could make your own device, with arduino.
You could put a parental lock on it that restricts access to getting new apps, so the Touch could only be used for what you put on it. Not the most ideal solution, but I’m having trouble coming up with any other ideas.
I don’t know if there’s enough space for what you need, but I’ve used Dropbox (dropbox.com) before and it’s pretty decent. I guess if all else fails just teach her to ftp from the command line? ;)
His chin looks like another face
the link you posted is too a private video. . .
SiMac – How strange… It was public when I first posted it.
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