OK So I’m sitting at the airport and it’s boring as hell. I’ve been here since 2:00pm, trying to burn up time until the plane departs at 3:46. There are mandatory shoe checks at the security checkpoints, which I find unbelievable — it takes a LONG time to take your shoes off and put them on, compared to putting your jacket in the bin. They also require that you pull your laptop out, run it through the xray shebang, and then turn it on to show them it’s real. Takes for fucking ever. One other thing. So I’m riding the escalator to Concourse B and I overhear this lady complaining that she flies all the time and she always gets the extenda-search. She was wondering if it is because she flies standby, because she knows someone who works for the airline, whatever, or maybe it’s just because she buys her tickets early. And that the terrorists buy their tickets close to the departure time so that they can avoid detection. I overheard this and turned around and asked “they do? Why would they do that instead of buying a ticket just like you and me?” She looked at me, stunned, and couldn’t answer. It’s a good question though … why draw extra attention by buying late, sneaking on, blah blah blah, when they can look just like every other traveler. John Gilmore brings up this point, and many other super great points, at his freedom oriented website, [L=http://www.papersplease.org/gilmore/]PapersPlease.org[/L]. Luckily, the plane just arrived and is deboarding. Another half hour and maybe I’ll be able to get on it, settle down with a book and try not to dance through the aisle like a monkey hopped up on meth. I forgot my camera, so no pictures, sorry. And I’m so freaking stoked it’s unbelievable.