As is customary before any break, we’ve re-posted our peregrination pointers list in hopes that you will have the quickest, safest, cheapest, most comfortable ride home. And if you have a travel secret that doesn’t appear on the list, email bwog@columbia.edu. Sharing is caring.

How to decide upon the lesser of the three evils: train, bus or car?

* “I’m going to Western Massachusetts, and booked a train two weeks ago to get there (already most days were filled up) and am booking a Greyhound bus today to get back. I figure the roads will be worse on Thursday�making Amtrak convenient�but not so bad in the middle of the day on Sunday, making the bus more flexible and economical.”

* “If you live in Philly or its environs, any Chinatown bus during holiday season will be packed with everyone you went to high school with. NJ Transit, though a foul, foul beast, is a less awkward experience. I plan to take a very early (7:14) train on Thurs. morning, which will get me into 30th Street at 9:30 am. I hear Thurs. morning NJ Transit trains are pretty empty.”

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The Samuel Jackson flick Snakes on a Plane will hit theaters everywhere tomorrow with perhaps more internet hype and a longer Wikipedia article than any new release in history. It’s also most likely the only film to inspire spinoffs before even reaching the viewing public, including–but not limited to–SoaP Sudoku, the prequel Snakes on a Biplane, two TV sitcoms, and the straight-to-video Snakes on a Train. Unable to contain his curiosity, Bwog correspondent John Shekitka picked up the book version, and has this review. Warning: spoilers abound!

Are you afraid of snakes? Afraid of planes? How about Snakes On a Plane? Want to hear the only thing more terrifying than this deadly combination? Its novelization!

Christina Faust, who also committed to paper Final Destination 3, has managed to craft this 400-page one-trick pony into an engaging read. Fortunately, Ms. Faust seems to understand that the plot just serves as one long prologue for the main event: snakes killing people on a plane. Character sketches will serve as the appetizer. Fanged carnage will be the entrée.

The plot is classically B-movie: a surfer dude in Hawaii finds himself sole witness to a cadre of Korean Mafioso types beating the crap out of a District Attorney with a bat. Enter FBI Agent Neville Flynn, Samuel L. Jackson’s character in the film version. In a pitfall of the medium, the paperback fails to fully convey Flynn’s ass-kicking aspect, leaving me to envision a huge bald-headed black guy with a Jedi cloak and purple lightsaber.
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