You can’t be too careful with laser lights, coffee pods

Today’s question:

I’m sure you’ve seen neighborhood homes with outdoor Christmas light displays, now with the ubiquitous laser projectors. Many are misdirected onto a neighbor’s house or the driveway or up in the air. We know it is imprudent to point a laser at an aircraft. Are the many lasers during the holiday season

an issue for pilots?

Those things are hideous, aren’t they? The laser light displays, not the pilots. They’re tacky.

On the bright side, they haven’t brought down any airplanes yet.

The Federal Aviation Administration put out a warning in November that said if such laser light displays are improperly installed and allowed to point into the sky they could pose a risk to pilots, just like those laser pointers some idiots persist on shining into the sky.

Although I do have to say my cats are wildly entertained by the laser toy I got

for them. They just can’t for the life of them figure out that sucker. Are those single-use coffee pods recyclable?

You can check, but I bet you won’t find a recycling symbol on your coffee pod.

There are a few brands of pods that can be recycled and supposedly more are coming.

But the majority of coffee pods are 95 percent made of a composite plastic that is not recyclable.

And one thing I read said about 10 billion of them are dumped in North American

landfills every year. That sounds like a lot, and if it’s true it surely isn’t a good thing.

After hosting my North Dakota inlaws for Christmas I need to know why the bathroom is sometimes referred to as the “biffy.”

It is a term native to the upper Midwest and parts of Canada. It is believed to be a form of “privy” or possibly “bivouac,” a temporary encampment.