OK, we are now mired into the last full week of classes. Almost no time to blog--balancing end-of-semester grading and prep with prep for the Spring 2010 semester which is suddenly looming very near and large in the headlights--so here's a last-month archival note from the road: a good argument for avoiding domestic flights and selecting international flights carefully:
OK, I'm sold. I've ranted in the past about the toxic abuse and premptory conduct of the airline monopolies, and the degree to which we might need a trust-busting Teddy Roosevelt (and ain't gonna get one). But I'm sitting on this here refitted Continental Airlines Boeing 777, en route to a conference and colloquium at which I'm an invited guest and for which the uni is paying the freight, watching all three of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy (on demand, one of over 300 films available individually to each seat), with the hotshot Altec-Lansing noise-cancelling earbuds I got for a song via the Lifehacker.com bargains announcements plugged into the free supplied adaptor (why do airlines still make headphone jacks that split the stereo signal into a two-pronged, completely eccentric input plug?), in the last-row aisle seat that Continental's website let me select last night (and thus preserve my bad knees), with the laptop open on the tray-table in front of me, and the power-supply PLUGGED INTO THE SUPPLIED 110-VOLT OUTLET (Holy shit! is that a nice retrofit!) and hence no worries about running out of power, and able to thus work, and watch the idiot-box with half an eye, just as if I were at home in the Papa Bear chair.
If only Dharmonia were here, it would be perfect.
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