There's only so much you can do when you have a big air scoop, basically. The engines are pretty damn tough, and they do simulated bird strikes (with frozen chickens!) to see how well they do and what can be done better.

I'm amused to see that the pilot's name is Chesley Burnett Sullenberger III.

I thought the only thing that would make my day worse was if I were wearing light pants, but I guess a plane crash would do it.

USPS returned my cafepress order because of insufficient address. What the fuck did cafepress do to the address? It was fine when UPS picked it up. Why is UPS contracting out the the fucking USPS, damnit.

I'm just tired.

Oh hey, happy birthday for reals this time, msbelle!

plane has crashed

Not a crash. By all accounts, it was a well-executed emergency landing.

I would have thought the machine design now would guard against that....

Well, yeah. Nowadays the designs are pretty good at limiting the damage to the engine, and not letting it rip off the wing or shred the rest of the aircraft.

Canadian geese can do a lot of damage

Canada geese, not Canadian geese.

I heard that a passenger reported that, given that they ended up in the water, the landing was remarkably soft.

I just ordered pizza. YAY

I didn't like the way the anchor on the Boston Channel I was watching kept emphasizing the Canada in Canada Geese. Dude, if we are going to start taking down Americans, it won't be with geese. They're totally rogue and can't be trusted.

I am stuffed with Ethiopian foodm. Yum, but now so sleepy.

Happy Birthday msbelle!

A (Canadian) friend of mine had an old beater of a car in high school, a chevy nova, I think. It was held together by her father's engineering prayers. Anyway, she used to say that hitting one Canada goose would be all it took to total it & kill her. But she figured the goose would survive.

I had a weirdly anthropomorphic response when looking at the NY photos. "Aw. The plane looks so sad stuck there in the water. It must be embarrassed."

I swear to you, I have not been drinking.

Although, now that I mention it. I might make some cocoa with Kaluha.