You’d think this would be an Onion story, but it’s legit:
new battlefield clothing includes built-in tourniquets (via Engadget).

Next up: underwear that doubles as a bodybag.

Freakonomics Blog is having an impromptu contest to find the best real-life aptonym: a personal name that accurately describes the bearer or their profession. The example Dubner gives is a magazine fact-checker named “Paige Worthy.”

It took me about 10 minutes before I realized that I myself am a contender since I like to hike in the mountains.

You probably guessed this already: airport screeners are so busy confiscating water bottles that they are letting actual (test) bombs through.

Of course, there’s a TSA attempt at spinning the situation:

“We don’t discuss the results because they tend to paint an inaccurate picture of the competency of our work force,” she said. “The tests are designed to be incredibly difficult and TSA does anticipate a fair level of failure.”

Apparently they believe actual terrorists will be less adept at hiding their bombs than their testers.

It’s too bad that this wasn’t an isolated incident, but this sort of story has cropped up a few times at other airports.

Airport security is mostly there to give the appearance of safety. If more people understand that it’s largely smoke & mirrors, then maybe we’ll get rid of the facade and stop enduring the hassles.

October 2, 2006:

May 21, 2007:

The only thing that changed is the construction

Of course, it was 25C / 77F just a few days ago.

Laura is taking a math test for a job at a hardware store.

L: “This (points to long division symbol) means divide this (dividend) into this (divisor), right?” (They do division with a different method in Costa Rica).
C: “Right”
L: “So it’s like I’m dividing 336 onions for 12 people?”
C: Yes. (Laughs) In Canada we use apples and oranges, in Costa Rica you use onions and garlic.

Have you ever noticed that, on TV and in the movies, characters who are not native English speakers tend to use their native language for really simple phrases (”nyet”, “si”, “merci”) and English for anything more complex… and in real life, it’s exactly the other way around?

I think that Valentine was the Patron Saint of guys standing in the express lane with flowers in hand and blank stares on their faces.

This is why I have to work harder at being abnormal:

“He was a very pleasant, kind of low-key, regular guy.”

(Via Fark)

In the style of Mr. Marco I’m going to wish myself a Happy Blogging Birthday.

I turn 30 today. My sister-in-law told me “welcome to the dark side”. Later, over breakfast, I told Laura that I feel like I turned 30 about 5 years ago.

Also, Happy New Year, all you Orthodoxians out there.