8BitKid: Living Bit by Bit

The TSA just announced their new policy for being able to put your laptop through the X-ray without having to remove it from its case. As a frequent traveler, this has been a nuisance for me. However, as the chart above shows, it doesn’t help those of us who use backpacks, so it seems like I’m still going to need that second bucket.

I’ve been spending this morning listening to the new (to me) Mountain Goats albums I recently picked up. Midway through “No, I Can’t. [Alternate Version]” he references a Panasonic DX4500. I didn’t know what it was, so I threw it into Google, and the search engine gave me the crazy error screen above.

I’ve never gotten this weirdness from Google, but I guess my fears that I am slowly becoming an automaton are coming true…

A while back I was traveling for a couple of weeks and didn’t want my mail to pile up. I went to the USPS website to put a temporary hold on my mail, and was surprised to see that I only needed my name and address in order to get this setup. It seems a little weird to me that they wouldn’t require a bit more security. Granted, making someone’s mail not get delivered for a bit is a pretty lame joke, but still…

As I was spending some quality time in a hotel bathroom last weekend, it occurred to me that in all my many stays as a variety of hotels around the world, I have never once had any reason to use the retractable clothesline. For those that haver absolutely no idea what I am talking about, next time your are in a hotel room, check in the shower, and there is a good chance you will find the contraption pictured above hiding in plain sight.

Now, I understand why there is an iron in the closet, even if I don’t choose to use it, but the clothesline makes no sense to me.  How many people are doing laundry in their room?  When I was in Alaska I had this utility powder that could be used as detergent or body wash, and I may have used the clothesline in one of the lodges I was in, but that is pretty much the only time I had all the right ingredients on hand to make a hotel room laundromat. However, does the Westin at Union Square in downtown San Francisco really get that many people that make use of this? Unless Macgyver is staying there, I imagine not.

However, this is coming from a man who owns no pots or pans, so I can’t claim to have much understanding of the ways of being a real adult.  So, dear readers, have you ever been a guest in a hotel and had a reason to use the clothesline?

Last night I was spending some quality viewing time with my “Miami Vice” dvd’s (the tv show, not the movie) and came across this gem of dialogue:

Tubbs: what was Gifford doing to get himself killed?

Crockett: he was a snitch and a thief…and he went to Yale.

So a bit of advice, my ivory tower friends: don’t let word of your degree get into the wrong hands the next time you find yourself mixed up in an 80’s speedboat drug ring.