You can't listen to your iPod during take off and landing. Why? In the good old days, you never had to turn off your Walkman. And yes, I know, the iPod is a lot more than a cassette player, but if me listening to an MP3 has the potential to knock an airplane out of the sky, then I'm amazed we allow the things on planes at all.

Anyway, the stewardess asked me to turn mine off and I complied. I even took my earphones out when she asked me to, in case…I don't know, the flesh of my ears and the earphones had some kind of chemical reaction that would melt a hole in the side of the plane. Or something.

But I started thinking. Let's assume that there's a ban on all electronic devices simply because there's so many that the flight attendants can't be bothered to check off the good and the bad. That seems reasonable. It's just turn them all off. Fine. But I wonder where they would draw the line?

If I were planning on traveling again anytime soon, I'd consider trying to use these during takeoff and/or landing…just to see what the reaction would be:

Yeah, I know, it's a dickish thing to even consider. But they'd have a lot calmer passenger on their hands if I could listen to something besides the screaming kids and the grind of metal as the damn plane tries to claw its way airborne.

Credit where it's due. Merlin stuff here, Galaxian here, 8-track here, gramophone here and Lite Brite here.