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.

7. Standing room only.

6. In-flight entertainment consists of three gay flight attendants doing their version of Streetcar.

5. Salted peanuts: Free. Bottled water: $10 a bottle.

4. Oxygen mask compartments replaced with overpriced vending machine snacks.

3. All meals: BYOB.

2. Copilots considered “optional.”

1. Seatbelt rentals.
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

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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.

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Tags: politics & government, travel & foreign lands by Ricky Sprague
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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

7. Every day he comes to work in full Shrek makeup

6. He’s mad as hell ’cause the CPR dummy keeps refusing his advances

5. He got a life-size tattoo portrait of David Hasselhoff all over his body — and he’s five-two

4. He keeps trying to give himself the kiss of life

3. He enjoys wearing a plasticine fin on his back and panicking tourists

2. He has a steering wheel mounted on his big lifeguard’s chair, and he loves to steer his way through the universe

1. Instead of rubbing sunblock on his nose, he uses vanilla pudding
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

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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.

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Tags: photography, travel & foreign lands by Nicole Ball
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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.

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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.

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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 →]

Tags: travel & foreign lands by Jeff Scheuer
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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).

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Tags: recipes & food, travel & foreign lands by Jessica Alfreds
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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 →]

Tags: television, travel & foreign lands by John Capone
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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.

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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.

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Tags: recipes & food, travel & foreign lands by Jessica Alfreds
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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.
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Tags: travel & foreign lands by Jeff McDonald
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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 →]

Tags: books & writing, travel & foreign lands by Alex Kudera
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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 →]

Tags: diatribes, travel & foreign lands by Sarah Ameigh
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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 →]

Tags: Marty digs, movies, travel & foreign lands by Marty O'Connor
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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.

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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.

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Tags: animals, travel & foreign lands by Ricky Sprague
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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.

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Tags: family & parenting, going parental, travel & foreign lands by Jaclyn Roth
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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 →]

Tags: travel & foreign lands, trusted media & news by Daniel Kalder
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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 →]

Tags: travel & foreign lands, trusted media & news by Daniel Kalder
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