American Madness

I LOVE this story:

Towards the end of May, a drug dog at Narita Airport (Tokyo) failed to detect 142 grams (about 5 ounces) of pot in the side pocket of a passenger’s luggage. While this must be troubling for the Japanese officials, what is a bit more troubling is how they knew that the pot was in the bag in the first place.

Apparently, a quick-thinking customs official had the bright idea to break a couple of regulations and plant the pot in a unsuspecting passenger’s luggage in order to test the dog and improve its at-work performance. The dog, unfortunately, failed his at-work test and missed the drugs completely, though I have a feeling the dog isn’t going to get in too much trouble for this one, especially since the story continues. (more…)

This week we have announcements of two developments that are bound to help out with airport security, protecting us from all thoe people planning to plant weapons in their shoes and making all of our lives easier by not having to take our shoes off at the airport.

First up we have the MagShoe “a high-speed, shoes-on, portable footwear weapons detection system.” It is currently used in Madrid, Prague and Budapest and may be making its way to the US and the UK. Basically it scans your feet for concealed metal objects that may be missed by your standard metal detector. I have to ask though, how does it respond to things like steel-toed boots or shoes with metal shanks (though apparently shoe manufacturers have been dealing with this issue since 2003).

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Let’s start off with a quote from the article: ‘Kenya, a country … ‘just full of big young boys who like us older girls.’”

That would be a quote from Bethan, 56 and Allie, 64 two women from Southern England planning their first trip to Kenya. Apparently it has become quite the hot spot for older women looking for sex with younger men. The trade off is simple, the women get their fulfillment and the men get gifts bestowed upon them like expensive sunglasses, running shoes and living an expensive lifestyle with someone else footing the bill.

Meanwhile Kenya’s bureau of tourism is having none of this and discourages women from picking up local guys. The tourism bureau, along with many of the hotels are trying to discourage this behavior saying “It’s about trying to make those guests feel as uncomfortable as possible … But it’s a fine line. We are 100 percent against anything illegal, such as prostitution. But it’s different with something like this — it’s just unwholesome.” (more…)

First we have the noodle bar trend that we mentioned the other week, this has been going on for a bit and seems to be hitting its stride, what we have cropping up now is a trend in food on the move:

Of course we have the original Mister Softie, a NYC classic, not much needs to be said about it, but clearly that isn’t up to snuff for the foodies of New York.

Following a similar model we had Treats Truck, serving up really nice cookies, and definitely a step-up from Mister Softee with great desserts. I am a huge fan of them. I have no complaints about the Treats Truck. I even have them on speed dial so I can find out where they are on any given day. They even had set up a little “Customer of the Month” section.

Now, of course, since the model for high-end mobile desserts has proven successful, here come the imitators:

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Vermont and Washington are all set to be the first states to issue RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Chip) enhanced driver’s licenses. The programs and technology are in place in both states and plans are set to start churning them out in 2008.

The idea behind the RFID license would be to make border crossing easier between our neighbors to the North and South. No longer would you need to carry your passport with you to enter Canada or Mexico, but rather all you would need is your license (like it used to be before 2001). Seems like a nice idea to make life just that much easier.

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Yeah, I admit I watch too much MTV that I actually know this show.

But anyway, moving beyond all of that, Tank-A-Lot is a UK company that rents out tanks and other army style vehicles like most companies rent out limos.

The site definitely has a sense of humor, and if you are in the UK actually offers a whole lot more then just renting tanks. They train drivers, have vehicles for movie shoots and other special events (apparently I am not that original, under the “Unusual Events” tab there is a 16 year old who rented a tank to go and hand out his invitations to his party), or you can go to their grounds and drive around learning to use a tank all day long, or if you just have some time to kill go and run over a car with a tank.

The website does need some editing (though who am I to talk?) but the stories of the various uses folks have found for a tank are pretty interesting (like renting one, and having it painted pink for a gay pride march). Definitely worth checking out if you have some time to kill or are in the UK area and want to play with a tank.

In honor of Columbus’s epic sea voyage to the “New World” we are going with a bit of a nautical theme today dealing with under water adventure.

We start today with a trip to Sweden, though it is just the end of the season there now, you may want to consider trying to get reservations now to visit the Hotel Utter Inn in Västerås (or Hotel Otter… or Utter Inn, the website lists the name differently in different places). The hotel is open April to October and sits 1 kilometer out on Lake Malaren.

What makes the hotel so special (besides bing in the center of a lake) is that it is a duplex, with the entrance and first story at sea level and the second story below the water, kind of like an inverted aquarium. You can look out your window into the depth of Lake Malaren and sometimes even see a fish swim by your window.

Accommodations range between 1000 and 1500 SEK or $154 and $231 ($154 for the bare-bones set up where you may have to bring your own bed linens, the website is a little unclear… To the Deluxe accommodations at $231 that include dinner and breakfast), you can even rent a small boat to putter your way to the small uninhabited islands in the lake.

Sounds kind of cool and looks like pretty interesting… if you have upcoming plans to visit Sweden in April-October of next year you might want to consider this one.

Yeah, I am aware that this is like seriously old news, especially with the story life-cycle that goes on in cyberspace, but still I have had it sitting waiting to be written about since the beginning of July (I saw the initial write up on the 11th) and, well, it is only fair that it gets its day in the sun.

This article comes to us all the way from Australia, apparently some of their scientists have figured out a way to possibly teleport atoms from one location to another. The article references the idea of the teleportation machine in Star Trek- highly functional, space aged and futuristic… Unfortunately I drift more towards the fly when Jeff Goldblum gets crossed with a fly while teleporting from one location to another.

The concept (for the actual teleportation, not Star Trek’s or Jeff Goldblum’s) was figured out by physicists Murray Olsen, Ashton Bradley, Simon Haine of the Australian Research Council Centre for Quantum-Atom Optics, and and Joseph Hope of ANU. Working together they figured that if you get some atoms really cold (close to absolute zero) and zapped them with some lasers you could then shoot them, via fiber-optic cable, to another location.

The theory, according to Dr. Haine, is pretty simple (compared to previous theories) and looks like it could be in use within the next four years according to Dr. Olsen. In the meanwhile further experimentation will be conducted to make sure that everything is working all fine-and-dandy to prepare for the possibility of actual teleportation by 2011.

Oh but don’t get your hopes up for beaming yourself home just yet, this won’t be a viable method of teleportation for humans, at least not in its current form, but still, pretty damn impressive if you ask me. If this is all successful, I’d give it about 5 years before they start trying to figure out how to do it on living organisms.

I am a fan of the Discovery Channel and the History Channel, they usually work nicely when there isn’t much on television, always nice to tune in and see what Mike Rowe is up to or to see some one struggling to survive on an crab fishing boat, driving to and from a diamond mind in the Arctic, or lost in the wilderness.

In fact, the lost in the wilderness concept is so popular it has spawned two shows, both on Discovery Survivorman and Man vs. Wild. Survivorman has Les Stroud, an American a Canadian, with his own with a camera or two, stomping around in the wilderness, setting up his shots and then going back, breaking down the camera and moving on to his next shot. The idea is to survive the wilderness and make it back to civilization some how. Man vs. Wild features Bear Grylls a British ex-SAS “adventurer,” stomping through the wild, with a camera crew in tow, also stranded in the wild and trying to make his way back to civilization.

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*Or- Look Kids, Big Ben

So it is summer, for most people this is the time of year to take a vacation. Things at work have slowed down a bit, you have a little extra time on your hands around the office, so maybe it is time to put in for that vacation and get out of town for a bit.

Recently I have come across two sites that have some decent deals- Silver Jet is offering a 2 for 1 deal from New York (Newark) to London. Not bad at all, well if you have the cash for the trip. Silver Jet only offers business accommodations, so prices start around $800 a seat, each way, but still $1600 to London, roundtrip isn’t too bad, especially for business class. SilverJet also participates in carbon offsetting for your flight. Also you can get a free ride from the airport (if I am reading that correctly)

If you are a slightly tighter budget I recommend checking out some of the deals at Zoom Airlines. Zoom has flights from JFK to London for $199 each way and to Bermuda for $69 each way. You can’t get to Boston for those prices (well unless you take the Chinatown Bus). Through Zoom you can also book hotel accommodations, car rental, and if you find a lower advertised price elsewhere they offer to match it.

So, pack your bags, book your tickets (well, maybe not in that order) and get out of town, I know with the weather we have been having, it can only be nicer elsewhere.