I’m sat in Chicago O’Hare airport, catching a second flight to catch a third flight to catch a coach to get back to my house in Oxford after a very busy two weeks, most of it spent at ICANN’s offices in Los Angeles.
As ever, I have picked up a cold while flying transatlantic, I have to get up earlier than I wanted (7.30am) and I have a slight hangover from a few relaxing beers after a hectic work week. Here’s what I don’t understand – why don’t airplanes have electricity sockets for laptops and iPods? My flight is boarding but I am holding off getting on because I have found two sockets and am charging my laptop and iPod – laptop to do some work; iPod so I can get some peace while sit in a chair for eight hours.
United does have a power point in some seats but they use a socket in which none of my many appliances fit. An air hostess told me the last flight I was on that they “used to sell the adapters for that”. I asked to buy one – nope. They don’t sell them no more. Surely someone in United’s management must use a laptop on one of their planes occasionally? Maybe they all get given the special adapters and so revel in their exclusivity.
And why hasn’t someone developed a better way for people to queue to get on planes – what’s with the standing up for 25 minutes in a line? Why not do what they do in US prisons and have you sat in the order in which you go through. Basically I’m having a grouch because flying is such a tedious experience. It could be so much better.
An announcement keeps telling me that the Department of Homeland Security has decided that the United States of America is now in an Amber alert mode. I can figure out whether that means the situation has just got worse, just got better, or if they just feel the need to tell people this information every five minutes. I’m tempted to ask people what they think Amber alert designates, see what they come up with. Right, plane boarding…
Amber is an uncomfortable, slow moving medium that traps anything that falls into it, right?
If you want to find out about which airlines have in-seat power adapters, where and what socket type they use then you could take a look here:
http://www.seatguru.com/articles/in-seat_laptop_power.php
Bugger. And I thought ICANN would at least stump up for Business class travel for you. Biz class, at leat in my hyperlimited experience, does come with an adaptor for every seat.
This is a way to catch child abductors. This is not the DHS terror alert system. Its nice to see you insult the amber alert system, you must like seeing kids abducted.
http://www.amberalert.gov/
I can’t decide whether your comment is satirical genius Mike, or if you’re a madman. That’s the problem with this Internet thing – no good at subtlety in humour.
Kieren