10. For in-flight meals, the main course is whatever birds fly into the engines.
9. Pay toilets and a five-drink minimum.
8. During cold and flu season, all afflicted passengers are entitled to one suck off the communal lozenge.
[Read more →]
America’s strength comes from its adaptability; its ability to remain dynamic and search for innovative ways to solve the problems that face us as a people. Whether it’s finding solutions to the dangers of terrorism on our airplanes, or finding ways to ensure affordable healthcare for all, our country is taking the initiative and making important decisions that will make us all safer and healthier.
Of course, there is still more we can do. That’s another part of our strength — our ability to recognize that we should always do more. There will never come a time when we shouldn’t be doing more.
We’re seeing this in Washington. Even the sweeping healthcare bill that was just passed is being made even more sweeping, because our leaders understand that laws, even existing laws, need to be dynamic, to change with the times. And times are changing. We’re not the same country we were when the health care bill was passed five months ago. We’ve grown. We’ve changed. Our laws need to change with us.
We recently took a summer family vacation to Canada. Did you know it’s a different country? It is! You even need passports. We had a great time in Toronto and Niagara Falls, so I’m giving our readers the full itinerary with brief comments about each item. That should make planning your next summer vacation easier (unless you don’t want to go to Canada, in which case it might make your planning more difficult).
I’m originally from New York and have lived and worked in Manhattan, and now work in Philadelphia, so in my life I’ve encountered some homeless people. In the old days, before my time, they were sometimes called “hobos” (if they liked to ride trains). Another word for “homeless people” — a less polite one — is “bums.” (People don’t use that word much anymore, except to describe professional athletes who aren’t playing well, or politicians, as in, “Throw the bums out.”)
I’m on vacation in Toronto this week. It seems to be a pleasant-enough city, but it is a city, and we’re staying downtown. In our first two days we had four encounters with bums (I can’t vouch for their housing status so will refrain from labeling them “homeless”). The first was outside the Royal Ontario Museum. [Read more →]
10. He insists all rescues be pre-approved
9. He spends the entire day chasing seagulls and shouting to see if he can scare the poop out of them
8. Instead of a whistle, he uses a piano
[Read more →]
I’ve always liked a good adventure, so it seems fitting that when choosing a honeymoon destination, a 2,000-mile drive through the desert would win over a week of sitting by a pool sipping neon-bright, over-garnished cocktails.
Of course, my husband and I didn’t have to take it the extreme, but naturally we did.
When we got the news that his friend was to be married in Scottsdale, AZ, my terrible sense of direction made me blurt, “Isn’t Arizona near Nevada?” Always willing to hear my schemes, my husband Joe answered, “Yes,” with intrigue and curiosity.
10. You’re also supposed to wait half an hour after making love.
9. We could be just like that scene out there: buoy meets gull!
8. Okay if I rub this suntan lotion places the sun doesn’t reach?
7. That white stuff on my nose isn’t sunscreen.
6. How would you like to be Hasselhoffed?
5. I’ll show you a pool toy you can play with.
4. Wow! Your body can be used as a flotation device!
3. Help! I’m drowning!…In your eyes!
2. My high chair or yours?
1. Okay if I practice my mouth-to-mouth?
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
10. The slogan above the entranceway: All Parents Pay Up Front!
9. Every night at midnight, your bunkmate likes to go “pretend berserk” with a steak knife
8. All those late-night lectures about ‘Allah’ and ‘virgins’
7. The only “facility” available is a nearby lake
6. They let you build black snowmen out of tarballs on the local beach
5. All day, all the counselors talk about is how hunky Justin Bieber is
4. The cuisine: possum jerky and RC Cola
3. The Camp’s Indian name translates as ‘Winding Trails and Sheer Cliffs’
2. Each night, two hours of intimately checking each other for ticks
1. The horse they’re dragging you around on isn’t responding
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
Along with my partner Heidi, I recently completed a 14-day, 4,638-mile road trip from New York to Boulder, Colorado and back. (We drove out in separate cars, delivered one, and returned together.) Since writers and bloggers should never use the term ‘indescribable,’ and should avoid superlatives generally, I’ll simply try to summarize what I learned along the way. [Read more →]
I am a die-hard New Yorker and when I travel I rarely think, “I could live here”, with the exception of Seattle and Philadelphia. I just love Philly. It’s a lot like Brooklyn, but (dare I say), better…
Everyone knows when you go to Philly you eat cheesesteaks… but Philly has so much more to offer. My first night there my husband and I had an Amazing meal at Tinto… A pintxos bar and restaurant, meaning small Basque dishes served family style. We had the Chef’s Tasting Menu ($70 per person).
No, this is not a Lost commentary, though I’ve done my fair share of those in the past. This is a post about that other famous “Smokey”, the bringer of mass-transportation Gotterdammerung, Iceland’s Mount Eyjafjallajökull. I flew into London the day after the big ash-cloud flight ban was lifted earlier this month, and escaped a few hours after another shorter ban was instituted earlier yesterday. You could say I narrowly escaped the wrath of Smokey. [Read more →]
10. “My money’s on Wolfman to win the Palme d’Or.”
9. “I wonder if Tim Burton had any influence in creating that new category, Best Weird Johnny Depp Movie.”
8. “Look, it’s Jabba The Hutt!… Nope, just Kevin Smith.”
7. “I’m confused. I thought all these films were supposed to be about cans.”
6. “I hear that new movie, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, is very derivative.”
5. “Our flight was almost cancelled due to the plume of smoke over Woody Harrelson.”
4. “Is Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience being shown out of competition this year?”
3. “Uh-oh, Woody Allen’s headed for the nude beach!”
2. “I was hoping some Na’vi would show up this year.”
1. “All About Steve– c’est magnifique!
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
When Falls the Coliseum’s very own Daniel Kalder is the author of the excellent book Lost Cosmonaut: Observations of an Anti-Tourist, which I recently finished reading. I wrote a positive review on Amazon.com, but the site rejected my contribution (see note below):
Hello,
I read your recent review of “Lost Cosmonaut: Observations of an Anti-Tourist” and found it violated our guidelines. We don’t allow profanity in Customer Reviews.
Your review couldn’t be posted on Amazon.com as written. I would recommend submitting your review again, restricting your comments to what falls within our guidelines.
Please take a look at our Review Guidelines for information about acceptable review content:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=14279631
I work, I travel, I eat. That’s what I do. Last week I spent three days in Boston (my first trip to Beantown) and I believe I may have eaten at the best Steakhouse in the country.
Rolando Negrin assaulted a fellow TSA worker because he had been making fun of the size of Negrin’s penis. How did he know the size of Negrin’s penis? As part of a recent training session, Negrin had to walk through the new high-tech security scanners at Miami International Airport and his colleague could see the size of his penis.
Of course, the public was assured that these scanners, intended to protect us from terrorists smuggling bombs onto planes, would not be used to invade anyone’s privacy. [Read more →]
Today, I honor Bhumibol Adulyadej, born on this day in 1927. It was just two years ago that I returned from a Christian mission trip to Thailand with, among other things, an appreciation for that country’s ruler, the world’s longest-serving current head-of-state, and the longest-serving monarch in Thai history.
[Read more →]
Jean-Philippe Toussaint is coming to America. The Belgian author of Television, Camera, and The Bathroom has had his work translated into more than twenty languages, and he has recently won the prestigious Prix Decembre in France. Known for a spare style often referred to as “infinitesimal,” Christopher Byrd in the The New York Times describes “Toussaint’s truncations [as] an admirable rebellion against a world that’s submerged in too much information and too little beauty.” A more detailed appreciation of Toussaint’s writing recently appeared in The London Review of Books, and his forthcoming Self-Portrait Abroad will be available from Dalkey Archive in May, 2010. And he’s funny. [Read more →]
Driving to Philadelphia isn’t particularly difficult. I’ve done it before with little trouble, receiving only a handful of horns and expletives for my efforts. Why I chose to opt for Greyhound last weekend is still unclear. Maybe I felt lazy. Maybe I thought I’d save gas money. Maybe I just lost my damn mind.
Yeah. The last one. [Read more →]
This week I am digging Starburst jelly beans. We are making a basket for our two year old son Jack, which means we are picking out candy we like since he can’t really have much of it. I was happy to find my favorite Easter candy- the elusive Starburst jelly beans. The Holy Grail of beans made of hardened jelly. Each year is different, sometimes you can’t find them, sometimes they seem to be raining from the sky. (At least in my dreams) The O’Connor house is on bag number three and they may be the reason I have had trouble sleeping lately. [Read more →]
10. Your “exclusive beachside accommodations” have a half moon on the door
9. The only alcohol in your hotel is in the mouthwash
8. The “meal plan” is all you can catch with your bare hands
7. The only ‘girls’ you’ve seen all week have unusually large hands and Adam’s apples
6. You’ve spent most of it sitting on the runway waiting for your pilots to sober up
5. The closest thing you’ve gotten to a tan came from some poison ivy you sat in
4. When the travel agent told you you’d get some action, he never once mentioned the word ‘Afghanistan’
3. The guy running the Bungee jump doesn’t know how to subtract
2. The “ocean view” requires you to tune in to Channel 4
1. What you thought was a mint left on your pillow just crawled away
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
A cat known as Miley Cyrus has been charged with violating Switzerland’s animal abuse and cruelty ordinance. The cat is alleged to have committed acts of aggression against another cat, Ms. Cyrus’s companion, known as Hannah Montana.
As you’re sitting in your office/cubicle right now, I am in Orlando, Florida — traipsing around Disney World trying to find Ariel in her stupid Grotto. What the hell is a Grotto, anyway? I had to google that shit so when I actually arrived on the “Disney Campus,” I sounded like I knew what I was talking about when I asked where to find that red-headed bimbo. I actually Wikipedia’d that shit so a bunch of wanna-be actors in costumes with over-sized craniums wouldn’t think that I was an idiot. So sad.
Flying is now officially more dangerous than playing with killer whales. A child directed traffic at JFK airport on February 17th, because the kid had a day off from school and dad thought it would be fun to have his kid give instructions to planes about when and where they could land and take off. Yeah, dad was right there, telling the kid what to say, so maybe everything was still as safe as usual. Probably the real reason everything was safe as usual is Sully was still in the air, somewhere, maybe thousands of miles away, maybe even on the ground that day, but still a commerical pilot. He kept us safe while that kid directed air traffic, somehow, because he’s Sully. It’s what he does. But today it was announced that hero pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger has retired. We might have survived the kids playing at air-traffic controller with Sully in the skies keeping us safe. But with Sully moving on to knitting classes, or fishing, or whatever he’s going to do in retirement, the flying public doesn’t stand a chance. Why have you forsaken us, oh great Sully? What have we done to displease you?
It is a noble thing to dedicate your life to educating the young, even if our society doesn’t value teachers the way it should. And yet at the same time, teaching can also provide a shelter for all manner of time-servers, frauds, phoneys, creeps and even perverts. [Read more →]
Shocking news from Russia: a man claiming to be a member of the Romanov dynasty recently tracked down and beat to death an 82 year old ex-KGB officer for his part in the murder of Tsar Nikolai II and his family. [Read more →]
As we draw closer to that special time of year — readying ourselves for parades from Peoria to Paris, why don’t we take a closer look at the real scope of influence that emanates from this Celtic island about the size of Maine . . .
5. Ever wonder why so many kids have Irish surnames as their first names? I personally know multiple Logans, Ryans, Shannons, Dylans, Kennedys, Finns, Connors, MacKenzies, Barretts, and even Rowans. They’re everywhere. Why? Why are those names umpteen times better than Hans or Neville or Snur? How come nobody wants to cuddle a little Vlad? Sad little Vlad.
Once you start keeping an eye out for Satan, he seems to pop up everywhere. Thanks to HP Lovecraft I now have a link to an English language report on the Satanists arrested in Yaroslavl in 2008. And here’s even more info on Russia’s cannibal Satanists. Foul stuff, indeed.
Meanwhile I was sent this video of some Black Metal enthusiasts performing a Satanic show and tell for their classmates which has to be seen to be believed. I’m a bit late on this one as it’s had over a hundred thousand hits. But better late than never: [Read more →]
Following yesterday’s entirely speculative post related to the possibility of Black Metal fans burning down churches in Texas, news reaches us from deepest Russia of an actual, full-on Satanic cult engaged in foul deeds:
Investigators say that the Saransk-based Nobilis Ordo Diaboli group recruited young people from across the region between 2003 and 2009. The cult’s founding members, 24-year-old Belarus national Alexander Kazakov and 23-year-old local Denis Danishin, face a number of charges, ranging from the sexual abuse of minors to battery. [Read more →]
This is a joke, right? Some kind of hoax? Did a hacker get into their system and post a fake story? This can’t be real. Oh, wait, it’s France. Never mind.
November 2009 — It is Sunday here in Africa. The sun is pretty strong for it being a “Dark Continent” and all. Regardless, the weather is predictably hot but not near as bad as what I call “The Devil’s Breath” or what others might call Kuwait. Wait… let me back up…
…I flew up to Cleveland, Ohio to meet with the small group of guys that were picked for this unique mission. I wonder what I can say about the mission, as most of what I specifically do is classified. Please don’t mistake that for actually being cool. I just simply can’t talk about it. If I did tell you, you most likely wouldn’t think it was all that cool. Real secrets aren’t like in the movies. They are, in actuality, pretty boring. [Read more →]
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