Security #2
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@Gordonjcp said:
who the hell eats baked beans on toast?
I do. It's a standard meal here and has been for, umm, fifty years, sixty years, more? It is one of those "can't be bothered cooking, what the heck, tin baked beans, toast, grated cheese, profit!" meals. When I was growing up it was a common Sunday evening meal. Much, much healthier than 2-minute noodles.
One thing my country does share with the US seems to be inflexible airport security. Once upon a time, if you took a knife through screening they would make you walk back to checkin and check your carryon bag. Now they just confiscate it. You are not allowed to walk back out - once you have entered the screening area with the xray machines and metal detectors you are theirs, with no escape! As a trainer, I used to travel with a laser pointer. Not any more. It was explained to me that it was a danger because i might shine it in the cockpit. The locked door between passengers and cockpit didn't seem to make an difference.
On the other hand, the airport security staff have never been anything other than friendly, polite and respectful. Completely inflexible on the rules, yes, but respectful.
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@Gordonjcp said:
I've never heard of anyone eating baked beans on toast before, and a quick ask around seems to suggest that no-one else around here has either. It sounds pretty horrible.
I'm not a Brit and I love that stuff. Of course I only add the bread as I eat to keep it nice and crunchy, so it's not beans on toast per se. Oh and I never touch that preserved canned crap, I do the cooking myself. If you want something done right and all that. Same goes for lentils.You've got to be careful though, never eat beans if you're going to be around other people in the next 24 hours.
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@Gordonjcp said:
@da Doctah said:
If I were from the land of Baked Beans on Toast I don't think I'd try making that particular point.
Grim, who the hell eats baked beans on toast?
What's wrong with baked beans on toast?
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@havokk said:
On the other hand, the airport security staff have never been anything other than friendly, polite and respectful. Completely inflexible on the rules, yes, but respectful.
I don't remember the security at Newark, but what I do remember is US Immigration.They're not very pleasant people. They sit in a little glass cage and 'surly' is probably the best way to describe them.A little further away, in Canada, the immigration officer sits behind a big desk, no glass in sight, and he's not just polite, but very friendly as well.
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@Severity One said:
but what I do remember is US Immigration.They're not very pleasant people. They sit in a little glass cage and 'surly' is probably the best way to describe them.
Not my experience on both times I've been to the States so far (Dulles.) Maybe I got lucky?
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@Severity One said:
I don't remember the security at Newark, but what I do remember is US Immigration.They're not very pleasant people. They sit in a little glass cage and 'surly' is probably the best way to describe them.
When I last flew through Houston there were no little glass cages, but "they" would be the wrong word. There was one immigration officer to process all the foreigners on a flight from Quito. It's a good thing I had six hours until my next flight.
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@Mr. DOS said:
@DOA said:
Worst I had was airport security in the UK stopping me because I had a small swiss army knife on my keychain. My luggage was already checked in and I sure as hell wasn't throwing it away because they were afraid I'd MacGyver my way to hijacking the plane. I ended up mailing to myself.
Yeah, I had the same thing once, except it was with a pocket retractable screwdriver, and I was travelling domestically in Canada. Land of the free, yup.
I was once quite confused (at Dulles, I think) by a uniformed lady shouting to everyone in the security queue that "ladders" were not permitted through security.
After congratulating myself for having prudently left my ladder jammed in the back seat of the taxi, I eventually realised that the banned item was in fact a portable device used to generate a flame.
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@Hatshepsut said:
I was once quite confused (at Dulles, I think) by a uniformed lady shouting to everyone in the security queue that "ladders" were not permitted through security.
How long ago was that? The only restrictions I've experienced about them is you're restricted to one ladder - but I usually have two - one in my pocket and a spare in the carry-on, and never been stopped.
After congratulating myself for having prudently left my ladder jammed in the back seat of the taxi, I eventually realised that the banned item was in fact a portable device used to generate a flame.
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... a ladder?
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@PJH said:
@Hatshepsut said:
I was once quite confused (at Dulles, I think) by a uniformed lady shouting to everyone in the security queue that "ladders" were not permitted through security.
How long ago was that? The only restrictions I've experienced about them is you're restricted to one ladder - but I usually have two - one in my pocket and a spare in the carry-on, and never been stopped.
After congratulating myself for having prudently left my ladder jammed in the back seat of the taxi, I eventually realised that the banned item was in fact a portable device used to generate a flame.Probably around 2003-2004.
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@PJH said:
@dhromed said:
No. One of these:... a ladder?
Oh, it's a joke where a person's regional accent obscures the actual pronunciation of the word "lighter".
What a good joke!
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@dhromed said:
Hey, I liked it. Reminds me of that time in England where I heard some lady on the radio talk about going to "megp" and I was wondering what the hell a "megp" is. Took a minute or two to figure out she was saying "my GP (general practitioner)".Oh, it's a joke where a person's regional accent obscures the actual pronunciation of the word "lighter".
What a good joke!
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@dhromed said:
@PJH said:
@dhromed said:
No. One of these:... a ladder?
Oh, it's a joke where a person's regional accent obscures the actual pronunciation of the word "lighter".
What a good joke!
Or it's an anecdote in which my own lack of familiarity with a particular regional accent led initially to bewilderment and then to slightly sheepish recognition of my own mistake.
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@arh said:
No, the bullet was put back in. The gunpowder was only removed so that it would be safer to have around. However, it looked real enough and it could easily have been used to threaten anyone aboard a plane. Kinda like bringing a gun with blanks. I bet a .45 rifle bullet could do a lot of damage on board.
A single bullet isn't any real threat, sans gun. The only way you could possibly fire it would be to put it in a vise, put the tip of a nail against the primer, whack the nail with a hammer. Still, obviously not a good thing to have with you.
Also, and I'm sure this'll derail the thread again, but Mythbusters covered this years ago. One bullet through the fuselage is not going to do much--it'll make a little hole, and after people wrestle you to the ground, any number of things can be used to cover up the hole, and they'll probably divert to the nearest airport to be on the safe side. Remember, there's a documented case where a landing plane suffered a skin failure where something like 1/3 of the top of the fuselage sheared away, and everyone except a single stewardess survived--she was the only one not belted in to a seat.
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@FrostCat said:
A single bullet isn't any real threat, sans gun. The only way you could possibly fire it would be to put it in a vise, put the tip of a nail against the primer, whack the nail with a hammer.
Nonsense, I've watched Shoot 'Em Up and Clive Owen can fire bullets by holding them betwen his fingers and sticking his hand in a fire....come to think of it that must be why they don't allow lighters onboard.
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@Gordonjcp said:
I've never heard of anyone eating baked beans on toast before, and a quick ask around seems to suggest that no-one else around here has either. It sounds pretty horrible.
But tastes good, especially with Brown Sauce and a mug of tea to wash it all down with. A staple diet when ill.
@Gordonjcp said:
Mind you, it talks about the "full English breakfast" - maybe they eat it in England, I don't know.
They do. And if you ain't had a "Full English Breakfast", you're missing a cholesterol treat.
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Baked beans on toast is indeed a common snack/quick meal in England. (It's not really good for a whole meal, but for lunch, or whatever, it will do.)
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@ais523 said:
Baked beans on toast is indeed a common snack/quick meal in England. (It's not really good for a whole meal, but for lunch, or whatever, it will do.)
My toddler loves it, but without the toast and COLD! If I heat it up for him he'll let it cool right down before he'll eat it. But he does that with most food so he is just weird.
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But but... it's the same food group!
It's like bell peppers with a side of tomatoes. Or hamburger on a bed of shoarma. Or rice on top of spaghetti.
OR TOAST ON TOAST.
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@dhromed said:
But but... it's the same food group!
It's like bell peppers with a side of tomatoes. Or hamburger on a bed of shoarma. Or rice on top of spaghetti.
OR TOAST ON TOAST.
? Carbs are not a food group.
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@dhromed said:
Or all these sandwiches I keep seeing with potatoes stuffed inside them!But but... it's the same food group!
It's like bell peppers with a side of tomatoes. Or hamburger on a bed of shoarma. Or rice on top of spaghetti.
OR TOAST ON TOAST.
I've even seen potatoes used as a pizza topping. When exactly did the aliens land and I missed it?
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@pkmnfrk said:
The WHO and USDA seem to disagree with you on that point. On the other hand, heart disease is the leading cause of death here, so I'm not sure they're doing such a good job.? Carbs are not a food group.
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@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
@pkmnfrk said:
? Carbs are not a food group.
The WHO and USDA seem to disagree with you on that point. On the other hand, heart disease is the leading cause of death here, so I'm not sure they're doing such a good job.They may or may not be doing a good job, but how is that related to heart disease being a leading cause of death?
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Well, the leading theory about heart disease is that it's caused by high dietary fat and cholesterol. Their guidelines seem to be based on that theory. I guess expecting heart disease rates to decrease after years of these guidelines is probably a bit naive.
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@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
Well, the leading theory about heart disease is that it's caused by high dietary fat and cholesterol. Their guidelines seem to be based on that theory. I guess expecting heart disease rates to decrease after years of these guidelines is probably a bit naive.
Leaving aside an analysis of the "leading theory," your ability to make the leap from that theory to evaluating the US Department of Agriculture based on an arbitrary statistic like that is...is...TRWTF. Since life expectancy has been increasing, it seems like the entire premise of your evaluation is crap. Hey, something has to be a leading cause of death. Then there's the nanny statism that some Federal Bureaucracy (not to mention international busy bodies!) should be deciding what we eat.
Seriously, all of this nonsense makes me think that your username is false advertising.
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@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
@pkmnfrk said:
The WHO and USDA seem to disagree with you on that point. On the other hand, heart disease is the leading cause of death here, so I'm not sure they're doing such a good job.? Carbs are not a food group.
The new USDA food pyramid has Grains as one group, and Meats/Beans as another. The old one had them on different levels, as does the Danish one.
The WHO pyramid is completely different, since it doesn't talk about food groups, but different types of nutrition. You will also note that they list Fat as a group, which I will also maintain is not a food group.
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@Lorne Kates said:
where they took fried chicken-- and topped it with mass quantites of mashed potatoes, cheese and gravy
That actually sounds pretty good -- if it was made at a decent restaraunt (i.e., not KFC).
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@pkmnfrk said:
@PedanticCurmudgeon said:
Before they started building pyramids out of it (playing with your food?) it was considered sufficient to define groups. You always hear about "the four food groups" (sometimes "the four basic food groups", which I guess includes the GOSUB group). And a cheeseburger satisfies all four groups all by itself.@pkmnfrk said:
The WHO and USDA seem to disagree with you on that point. On the other hand, heart disease is the leading cause of death here, so I'm not sure they're doing such a good job.? Carbs are not a food group.
The new USDA food pyramid has Grains as one group, and Meats/Beans as another. The old one had them on different levels, as does the Danish one.
The WHO pyramid is completely different, since it doesn't talk about food groups, but different types of nutrition. You will also note that they list Fat as a group, which I will also maintain is not a food group.
Thing is, when I was in grade school and entirely subject to other people's ideas of what I was supposed to eat, there were seven food groups, not four. "Fruits" were in one group and "Vegetables" in another, which led to long discussions about just how to count tomatoes and avocados. Potatoes were in one "vegetable" group, but there was a separate one for "green and yellow vegetables", and the spuds were kept separate from other starches like bread, noodles, and cereals. There was an entire separate group for butter (not in the "dairy" group at all) and margarine. And you were expected to eat something from all seven groups every single day.
Still, it's been worse. In the 1930s a lot of people followed the H.K. Stiebeling "buying guide" with its twelve food groups: milk; lean meat, poultry and fish; dry mature beans, peas, and nuts; eggs; flours and cereals; leafy green and yellow vegetables; potatoes and sweet potatoes; other vegetables and fruit; tomatoes and citrus; butter; other fats; and sugars. Imagine the uproar today if you insisted everyone had to eat a certain number of eggs every day, or required both fat and sugar, and the former had to be in addition to butter.
(Back in the early '70s, I decided that the "four food groups" were Bread, Cream, Raspberries and Vanilla Fudge.)
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@da Doctah said:
Imagine the uproar today if you insisted everyone had to eat a certain number of eggs every day,
Especially from thenannybully-statists - they're bad for you now (except for this week, at least until they change their minds. Again.)
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@da Doctah said:
there were seven food groups, not four. "Fruits" were in one group and "Vegetables" in another, which led to long discussions about just how to count tomatoes and avocados. Potatoes were in one "vegetable" group, but there was a separate one for "green and yellow vegetables", an etc etc etc
Man, dietary scienc---AHAHAHA I can't even finish that phrase.
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@Lorne Kates said:
has now become forcing her to go down on a kidnapped nun while he erotically asphyxiates her with rosary beads, all the while anally fisting her while clutching the severed head of her pet poodle-- as foreplay.
I'm really surprised with that level of detail. How long took you to write it? The nuns here have very lame kinks...
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@DOA said:
Worst I had was airport security in the UK stopping me because I had a small swiss army knife on my keychain. My luggage was already checked in and I sure as hell wasn't throwing it away because they were afraid I'd MacGyver my way to hijacking the plane. I ended up mailing to myself.
That reminds me of when I was going back home from Frankfurt... I always have a Swiss army knife with me and I usually remember to put it in the luggage, but that time I forgot, and only realized it when I was emptying my pockets before the metal detector... So I just gave it to the security guy and went through the detector, and as I was putting my stuff back in my pockets the guy gives it back to me, saying it was ok. I was happy to have it back and I didn't complain but... WTF?
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@bb36e Thanks, fbmac-in-disguise…
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@bb36e said in Security #2:
@gordonjcp said in Security #2:
grits
speaking as a Canadian, grits with some cornbread are amazing
I've done many unusual things in my life. Bear in mind in what follows that I am English. (Not British camouflaged behind an attempt to deconfuse Americans(1), but actually English.)
The late Mrs Cynic was born in Texas. Specifically El Paso. She spent most of her youth in various parts of the Southwest of the US - Texas, New Mexico, southern California, that sort of place, at one time straying up to Berkeley (in the late 60s no less).
Along the way she acquired a love of Tex-Mex and related things from New Mexico and California, and a sneering contempt for any and all attempts outside those areas to emulate Tex-Mex. And for the attitudes of those outsiders toward "proper" Tex-Mex. Conversations (mostly before I met her) of this sort, which happened more often than you'd hope after she moved to Massachusetts:
Roommates: Can you make us some proper Tex-Mex the way you'd make it for yourself?
Mrs-to-be Cynic: I dunno, it's pretty hot, are you OK with that?
Roommates: Sure, we can take it!
Mrs-to-be Cynic: Well, if you sure ...
Roommates: For sure we're sure!... Makes something Tex-Mex. Puts about a tenth of the amount of "hot" in it that she'd eat, makes a small batch of "normal" Tex-Mex for herself ...
Mrs-to-be Cynic: Here it is!
Roommates: (pain) (pain) (pain) How can you eat something so hot? Did you put extra chili in it for us?But she also liked grits, Southern-style, to the everlasting bewilderment of her fellow near-Bostoners.
My own attitude to food, combined with the fact that she liked me enough to marry me, preserved me from the bulk of these sort of interactions. I have a healthy indifference to what other people eat, unless they are trying to get me to eat it as well. She knew perfectly well that I'm not a fan of highly-spiced foods, and resisted the urge to get me to eat them. In return, I never tried to make her eat raspberries and never expressed my view that a serving of refried beans tends to look like someone barfed on the plate, so fair's fair.
(1) It was always a bit confusing hearing Americans (they didn't all do it, but enough did) use "England" as a synonym for "Britain".
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@severity_one said in Security #2:
@havokk said:
On the other hand, the airport security staff have never been anything other than friendly, polite and respectful. Completely inflexible on the rules, yes, but respectful.
I don't remember the security at Newark, but what I do remember is US Immigration.They're not very pleasant people. They sit in a little glass cage and 'surly' is probably the best way to describe them.A little further away, in Canada, the immigration officer sits behind a big desk, no glass in sight, and he's not just polite, but very friendly as well.
I was detained by an Immigration Canada officer about 15 years ago. I was going on a canoe trip in Manitoba, so I didn't fill the address field on the form (as we'd be camping out in the middle of nowhere for the duration - no roads at all). Still made the connecting flight.
I haven't had any trouble with US Immigration officers and didn't find them especially surly. The most unfriendly customs personnel I've encountered were in Senegal (on the return trip, even).
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@dargor17 said in Security #2:
I always have a Swiss army knife with me and I usually remember to put it in the luggage, but that time I forgot, and only realized it when I was emptying my pockets before the metal detector... So I just gave it to the security guy and went through the detector, and as I was putting my stuff back in my pockets the guy gives it back to me, saying it was ok. I was happy to have it back and I didn't complain but... WTF?
I have a swiss army knife type thing in credit card format that I keep in my wallet. Of the 6 flights I've taken since getting it, I've remembered to take it out of my wallet twice. So far, nobody's had a problem with it
