News - BobCarriesOn

June 16, 2015June 25, 2015

Unsettling speculation about giant rubber ducks

The appearance of an increasing number of giant yellow rubber ducks at seaports around the world is raising concern that the seemingly harmless inflatable creations may in fact be aquatic Trojan Horses.

“If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, but is six stories high, then it is probably up to no good,” said university researcher Bob Payne, who has been pursuing quack theories since the early 1990’s, when a ship dumped 28,000 rubber ducks and other bathtub toys into the North Pacific.

At the time, the massive release of so many rubber ducks was labeled an accident. (For details, read Moby-Duck, by Donovan Hohn.) But Payne says he began to suspect otherwise when giant versions of the yellow bath toys started to appear at ports worldwide, from Hong Kong to Los Angeles to Sao Palo to Sydney.

“It’s clear somebody or something is using the ducks to get past security in the same way the Greeks once used a wooden horse and now employ salads,” said Payne.

Although the Chinese, who lead the world in the development of quack technology, would seem the likely culprits, Payne said he believes the invasive tactics might represent something much more sinister.

“My guess is giant space aliens, bright-yellow, with orange-beaks, looking for a water planet where no one seems to be in charge,” Payne said.

What they are smuggling in, he said, are tens of thousands of tiny clones of themselves.

“And if you need proof of how successful they have been, just check out the rubber duck 12-pack on sale at Walmart.”

Big Stock Photo

April 2, 2015April 9, 2015

10 buildings most likely to baffle future archeologists

Some day, when archeologists and other scientists are pulling away the vines and trying to figure out the significance of some of the world’s most mysterious ancient buildings, here are the ten most likely to baffle them.

Luxor Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada

Future generations, perhaps informed by the alien race that first created the Egyptian pyramids and later returned to take credit for them, will think they understand what the Luxor Hotel building is: a sanctuary for people who are happy to go without sunlight for a thousand years. But they’ll be as mystified as the aliens as to how it ended up in Las Vegas.

Longaberger Headquarters Building, Newark, Ohio

Scientists will spend untold centuries looking in the wrong place, in what was once known as the U.S. state of New Jersey, in search of evidence of a rumored race of human giants — giants grown so large from protein shakes and energy bars that the earth could no longer sustain them. The scientists will believe they have discovered proof of the elusive beings’ existence, though, in a place once known as Ohio, when they find the almost fully intact remains of a seven-story high picnic basket.

Dog Bark Park Inn, Cottonwood, Idaho

Created as a bed and breakfast accommodation, and described by its chainsaw wielding builder as the World’s Biggest Beagle, the Dog Bark Park Inn may someday be pointed to as a dire warning from the past about the risks of genetically modified pet food.

The Dancing House, Prague, Czech Republic

Originally nicknamed the Fred and Ginger House, this current Prague landmark building will look to the uninformed of future generations like a cross between an episode of the ancient classic “Dancing with the Stars” and the melted aftermath of a thermo-nuclear blast. Scholars will shake their heads knowingly, however, in recognition that all has been explained, when they discover that one of the designers was architect Frank Gehry.

Selfridges Department Store, Birmingham, England

This building will be a tough one for future explorers of the past, because not even contemporary observers can find a reasonable explanation for why the scale-covered urban British structure known as Selfridges looks like it does. However, immunologists working only from old photographs may someday suggest that it could have been a giant mutant virus, capable of luring an earlier, more primitive race with the questionable promise of reasonably priced consumer goods.

Agbar Tower, Barcelona, Spain

For most delvers into the mysteries of humankind’s past, what is now known as the Agbar Tower, or Torre Agbar, will be easily recognized, just as statues on Easter Island are today, as a boastfully oversize phallic symbol. Strengthening that assumption will be the discovery of ancient texts describing one of the 473-foot tower’s most striking features, its nocturnal illumination, unfortunately mistranslated as nocturnal emission.

Upside-Down House, Trassenheide, Germany

As all records may soon be archived on electronic databases, followed by several millennia of no electricity, future generations will be unclear as to how the previous epoch of human history ended. Upside-down houses similar to this one, located in a small German seaside resort town, should suggest, though, that it ended badly.

Fish-shaped building, Hyderabad, India

Everyone in times-to-come will easily recognize this four-story piscatorial contrivance as one of many failed attempts to escape earth aboard a spacecraft. Who its specific passengers were meant to be, however, will remain a mystery until someone, probably part of an Indian National Monuments cleaning crew, notices a barely legible inscription at the base of the craft, just behind the anal fin, reading, “So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish Food.”

Aldar headquarters, Abu Dhabi

Archeologists of the 31^st Century will certainly find themselves trying to unravel the mystery of what we know today as the Aldar Headquarters Building, in Abu Dhabi. And while they may be perplexed as to why an earlier society would have felt the need to mint a coin that measured 361-feet in diameter, some as yet unborn historian will easily make a name for him or herself by hypothesizing the oversize piece of change to be representative of the moment in history when pickpocketing ceased to be a viable career path.

The Gate of the Orient, Suzhou, China

Unless procreation, perhaps adjusting to a post-apocalyptic world, goes in a radical new direction over the coming millennia, people will no doubt still understand the meaning of “to get into someone’s pants.” What they won’t understand, as they contemplate the ruins of The Gate of the Orient building, in Suzhou, China, is why the pants had to be 990 feet tall.

May 16, 2014April 9, 2015

When everybody is a comedian, security slows at Las Vegas Airport

Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport has announced it may have to review the effectiveness of the eight new security videos it introduced this week.

The airport security videos, featuring Las Vegas entertainers, some of whom people may have heard of, are meant to show the airport’s many inexperienced travelers how to get through security checkpoints in the shortest time possible.

“Unfortunately, the videos seem to be projecting the wrong message,” said Bob Payne, McCarran’s Assistant Director of Terminal Entertainment.

Payne said the airport security videos were released on Tuesday, highlighting tips by comedians Louie Anderson, Carrot Top, Murray SawChuck, the Blue Man Group, Terry Fator, the cast from “Raiding the Rock Vault,” and a father and son Mafia act, only one of which was carrying a machine gun in his violin case.

“Ever since then,” Payne said, “the airport security lines have slowed dramatically, as passengers insist on talking to TSA agents using hand-puppets, trying to make 5 oz. bottles magically shrink, and attempting to throw their voice so it sounds like people are crying for help from inside the x-ray machine.”

Payne said that just one among many security issues stemming from the videos has been that so many passengers are arriving at the checkpoints dressed from head to toe in blue body paint that the TSA agents, who do have loved ones to go home to, are hesitant to do anywhere near the number of pat-downs they normally would.

“Worst of all,” Payne said, “is that everybody thinks they are a comedian, which wouldn’t be so bad, except that far too many people, as they go through the x-ray machines, are starting their routine with, ‘This one will kill you.’ And when we hear the word kill we have procedures we have to follow, which just slows everything down that much more.”

April 22, 2014May 25, 2015

Should CNN apologize for story on travel agents?

Female travel agent in front of plane, suitcase, globe

CNN may be considering an apology today after airing a report on the future of travel, complied by the travel-booking site Skyscanner, predicting that by 2024 travel agents will be replaced by virtual devices.

The apology could become necessary after it was revealed, in the course of fact-checking the story, that travel agents had already long ago been replaced by such devices.

“It happened back in 2008, but since people were already doing most of their own booking online, no one noticed the travel agents were gone,” said Bob Payne, Director of the Institute of Overlooked Public Phenomena.

Another reason little was heard about the changeover, Payne said, is that most of the travel agents quickly got better-paying jobs. “With their industry expertise and their special ability for telling people where to go, they were immediately snapped up by the airlines, to answer the complaint lines.”

Payne said a technology that virtual travel agents are already using – one the report mentioned as something still in the future – is facial recognition. “By knowing when someone is telling the truth, it allows agents to book travel based not on where people say they want to go, but where they’d really rather be.”

It’s one of the reasons, Payne said, that we are seeing such an increase in bookings to Disney World by CNN personnel.

When not working on behalf of the Institute of Overlooked Public Phenomena, travel humor writer Bob Payne is the editor in chief of BobCarriesOn.com, which has been sharing accurate travel news and advice since before Columbus landed at Plymouth Rock.

October 21, 2013April 22, 2014

Report finds animals in national parks prone to nervous eating during government shutdown

A study just released by the U.S. National Park Service has found that while most aspects of life in our national parks are back to normal following the recent government shutdown one exception has been the effect on park wildlife, as many animals are now overweight as a result of nervous eating during the days the parks were closed.

“The uncertainty brought about by the shutdown caused general stress, relationship conflicts, and fears of unemployment among virtually all park animals, many of whom reacted, as we all often do in such situations, by overeating,” said Bob Payne, a quality of life activist for national park wildlife (except mosquitos).

Payne said that unhealthy calorie intake had been especially pronounced among the parks’ larger carnivores who, more as a distraction than because they were really hungry, routinely preyed on tourists who had entered the parks illegally.

“The French and the Germans were a particular problem,” said Payne. “It got so bad we had to run ads in the European press, warning visitors to our parks of the harm that an unnatural diet could cause the animals.”

Payne said the situation was slowly returning to normal, with many of the large carnivores now back to exercising portion control and eating only healthy snacks, primarily consisting of West Coast and Asian visitors.

“Thank goodness the government shutdown lasted only as long as it did,” Payne said. “Otherwise we would have had to start getting the park animals signed up so that they could take advantage of the Affordable Care Act. And the stress of that would have had its own health repercussions.”

When not working on behalf of national park animals travel humor writer Bob Payne is the editor in chief of BobCarriesOn.com, which has been sharing accurate travel news and advice since before Columbus landed at Plymouth Rock.

September 3, 2013May 15, 2014

Airlines face sombrero crisis

A recent study confirms what the airlines and the flying public has long suspected. More than 70 percent of sombreros brought aboard aircraft are left behind by people pretending to forget them.

“The explanation is simple,” says Bob Payne, spokesman for the National Association of Airlines Against the Abusive Use of Overhead Bin Space. “Owning a souvenir sombrero, especially if its purchase in some way involved margaritas, always seems like a much better idea when you are actually in Mexico than it does on the flight home.”

The result, says Payne, is not only that aircraft cleaning crews are having to spend considerable time removing the hats but the storage problem created for airline lost and found departments is reaching crisis proportions.

“They haven’t seen anything like it since 2008 when they were inundated with Obama bobble head dolls,” Payne said.

One possible solution to the sombrero crisis, Payne said, would be to have TSA agents wear the cast-off headgear, thus making airport security screening a more welcoming, festive experience, especially if it were possible to get drug-sniffing dogs involved in wearing the hats, too.

Another solution, more popular with the airlines, would be to charge a fee of $25 for the first sombrero brought onboard, and $350 for the second. “The beauty of the latter plan,” Payne said, “Is that it would sober up most of the offending passengers long before they got to their seats.”

Bob Payne is the editor in chief and occasionally fact checker for BobCarriesOn.com.