Fear of Flying

Planning to fly home for the lebaran holiday? Better book your ticket now. Or maybe you are too late already.
But before you do fly, you probably want to know this.

This is from the Economist [1]:

Remember the in-flight announcements you hear when you are about to fly? Apparently, they are not entirely truthful.

Like this one:
'Your life-jacket is under your seat, and you need to wear it in the event of a landing on water'.
Great. Except:
In the history of aviation the number of wide-bodied aircraft that have made successful landings on water is zero.

Hmm. So it's not really a life-jacket. It's just a jacket really. In loud color. Clash with your armani, but hey.

And this one:
'Mobile phones must be switched off because they interfere with the aircraft's navigation systems'.

Not true, because:
the real reason to switch them off is because they interfere with mobile networks on the ground.
On most flights a few mobile phones are left on by mistake, so if they were really dangerous....

Hmm. But of course. If they were really dangerous, the pilots won't risk their own life by letting the plane off the ground...
So the next time a stewardess ask you firmly to switch off your phone on board the plane, you know it's bull.

But not all of them are. Like when the crew points out the emergency exits? You better pay attention. To know in advance where they are may save your life.
And the seatbelts. Turbulance can be ugly, and yes, it can happen even when the 'fasten your seatbelt' light is off.
So buckle up at all times.

Oh, back to the life-jacket. A letter from a reader on the following week's edition of the Economist said [2]:
The bright-yellow life-jackets are not intended to act as flotation devices. They are there to make it easier for the recovery services to spot the bodies strewn accross rough terrain.

Great.

And remember the emergency-landing position that we are told to do? The sitting with your head down low and hands behind your head?

the advice to adopt a head-down fetal position in the event of a crash landing does nothing to preserve life.
...
However, the position does tend to preserve dental data, useful for identifying dilapidated corpses.

Geez. That is one detail we don't mind not knowing...

Have a nice flight home !


(Check out the articles yourself. There is more fun info in there. The source is listed below.)
-----
Source:
[1] The Economist Sept 9th - 15th 2006, page 13
[2] The Economist Sept 23rd - 29th 2006, page 16

Elevator Conversation - Sign of a Boring Day

Two male colleagues, call them A and B, waited for the elevator:

A: Hey. How's things? Still working on project ## ? (naming one of the on-going projects)

B: Yeah. Endless, mate. Endless...

A: Is it really?

B: Yeah. Alas. But you know, there is one thing that really bothers me.

A: What is it?

B: Teletubbies...

A: What?

B: Teletubbies... My daughter loves them so much. We bought all the dvds.. I don't understand why she likes them, really.
They look kind of scary to me...

A: Teletubbies? Scary?

B: You don't think? But my daughter loves them. Whenever she watches them, everytime I turn off the tv for dinner or her bath, she would scream and got really angry...
It's almost like she is addicted or hypnotized or something... Or maybe there is some strange subliminal messages in it... That really concerns me..

A: Teletubbies?

(Elevator arrived. Both went in, A and B pressed the buttons to different floors.)

B: Yes. Why do you think kids like them so much?

A: But aren't they cute?

B: Cute? They are cute? What's so cute about them? And what's up with the severed baby's head that keeps floating around during the show?

A: Severed baby's head? What? Geez man. That's the sun. What's wrong with your imagination?

B: That's the sun? The baby's head is the sun? God, I thought they are promoting mutilation or something....

A: Don't you watch the show with your daughter? You know, so you understand it a bit more?

B: Well, not really... Maybe I should...

(the elevator chimed, B got off. C, another colleague, caught the elevator door just in time before closing and got in.)

C: Hey. What's up?

A: Nothing. But looks like B needs a vacation...

C: Oh? Really? Project ## is that bad, huh? Why? What's the problem? What did B say?

A: Teletubbies....

Thank You

A while back Jakartass sent us something: A badge of honour.
(It took us a while to sort our incoming mail. Yes, we still get hatemails, so the legitimate email is always buried. Sorry Jakartass. Didn't mean to ignore your mail).

Truthfully, we don't know what to do with the badge. Not that we don't appreciate it. We do. We just don't think we deserve it.
Why? Because we are a bunch of lazy bums, that's why.
Here we are, so many of us, suggesting many ideas for one blog. But comes the time to get someone to type it, everybody is pointing finger to everybody else.
Tons of ideas lacking execution.
(D, our secretary, always ends up typing them, and we always think it's not fair, because although she volunteers, it is not her job.)

Too many people talking too much and doing too little.
Yes, we are still talking about ourselves, not about our country. (Although the same can be said. Sadly.)

So to appreciate the effort of the asiablogawards and Jakartass, we display it here.



Thank you folks. For bothering to read our tantrums, and for supporting Indonesian blogs in general.

See? Indonesians do know how to say thank you.

(But just for the record, we did a little poll among ourselves, and the majority of our votes go to Sarapan Ekonomi. The voters' reason being: It's a consistently good blog, and the blogger, Rasyad A. Parinduri, is often seen actively involved in many interesting discussions with other bloggers.)


By the way, on the subject of saying thank you, we have a way of saying thank you to bloggers too. You know, to appreciate the free information and entertainment they provided.

By clicking their ads.

It costs us nothing, and although bloggers only get peanuts per click, accumulated it can be a nice pocket money, especially for bloggers who are students. So why not?
No, no, don't worry: we don't go too crazy on clicking. We only click ads we find interesting.

And interesting it is.
The other day we found this ad on one blog's adsense :
It's an ad of an Indonesian handicraft exporters.

On one of the page, it says something like this:

Who are we?

Well, you already know that our name is P.T. ##### -- that's not really important.
After being in this business since 1995, we're happy to tell you that it's working just fine (we won't talk about the problems involved in doing what we're doing from where we're doing it -- you'll have to use your imagination).

Good to know it's working just fine... But we won't bother with our imagination, really.

We sell wholesale only. If you're a 'qualified wholesale buyer' - we speak your language. We can help you in many, many ways. As anyone who has done business with Asia already knows, there are problems. Always.

Oh dear. That doesn't sound too encouraging.

Our on-line prices are set (see our Request for Prices form on each catalogue page), while we offer further discounts to customers contracting for multiple containers and special bulk purchase customers. And we remain flexible even beyond that. We're in business to sell products, and then sell them again (you get the idea).

Actually, no, we don't get the idea. How do you sell products, and then SELL THEM again?
Surely they meant 'buy the products and re-sell them' ...

No, we are not displaying the link here. We don't think it's a nice thing to do.

But if you are interested in helping them fixing the website, you can send us email, and we will give you the link. You can then contact them directly.
At your own risk, of course...

We ourselves can't really help. Because one, we are not a pro translator, so any help from us would not be of high quality,
and two, as the disclaimer in the beginning of this entry:

We are lazy bums...