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As asteroid nears, Mayans now claim they meant world would end today

 

Preceded by a booming celestial fireball that injured hundreds of people in Russia earlier today, the approach of an asteroid scheduled to be at its closest point to earth this afternoon was really the event they had in mind when they claimed the end of the world was near, the Mayans now claim.

“That December 21st thing was just a Beta test to see what kind of numbers we could get,” said Bob Payne, spokesman for Mayans for Monetization Through Social Media.

Payne said the tests went well enough that the Mayan descendants organization is ready to take full responsibility for the havoc about to be wreaked on the planet unless a sufficiently large deposit is made immmediately to a special bank account they have set up — and new calendars can be printed in time.

Scientists have said the Mayan prediction is once again entirely false, to which Payne responded, “Did you see the video of the fireball this morning?”

This afternoon’s asteroid, 2012DA14, is predicted to pass closer to earth than any other sizable body every recorded.

“But there is no connection between this morning’s event and this afternoon’s; it is a cosmic coincidence,” a spokesman for the European Space Agency said.

To which much of the world has responded, “How do you make a deposit to that special account?”

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UNESCO names Wi-Fi hot spot as World Heritage Site

In a move many have said was long overdue, UNESCO named its first Wi-Fi hotspot as a World Heritage Site.

The honor goes to the Terminal 3 Food Court at San Francisco International Airport, which began offering wireless service in 2003, and a breakfast burrito/Wi-Fi combo special in 2004.

“Even in those long-ago days, there were other, earlier, Wi-Fi adapters, but the San Francisco Airport Food Court, because of its California location, is considered to be the most at risk from physical and fiscal hazards,” said UNESCO spokesperson and travel humor writer Bob Payne.

“Besides, our field researchers have found that the food court burrito is really something to Tweet home about,” Payne said.

The addition of the Terminal 3 Food Court to UNESCO’s list of 962 sites of physical or cultural significance around the world is an acknowledgement by the U.N. organization that the sites, in the words of some critics, consisted of “too many piles of old rocks.”

In light of that criticism, current candidates for the list, Payne said, include the original Starbucks, the set for Downton Abbby, and Donald Trump’s hairpiece.

Travel humor writer Bob Payne recently finished evaluating 1,786 Wi-Fi Hotspot locations for UNESCO.

BigStock photo.

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Boeing considers renting out grounded Dreamliners for birthday parties

To help recoup losses resulting from the grounding of its fleet of 787 Dreamliners, Boeing is considering renting out the stricken aircraft for birthday parties.

“Talk about a birthday wish come true; imagine being able to experience the world’s most sophisticated aircraft without having to worry about some new problem cropping up at 30,000 feet,” said travel humor writer Bob Payne, Boeing’s newly-appointed Vice President for On-Ground Events.

Payne said the great appeal of the “Birthday Boeing’s,” as the company’s marketing department is now calling them, is that because they can’t leave the ground they are technically not aircraft, meaning none of the usual restrictions apply.

“If you want to sit in the cockpit or spend the entire party in the lavatory, go right ahead; it’s your birthday,” Payne said.

Likewise, there are no limitations on what passengers may carry on, so it’s no problem if presents include liquids, knives, garden tools, or incendiary devices.

The only thing Boeing asks, Payne said, is that for all electronics gifts, batteries not be included.

The parties are suitable for up to 290 guests. A birthday cake is included, but pizza is extra for all guests sitting in coach.  The pizza is served by the aircraft’s real cabin crew, who are happy to have the work, or, optionally, a team of Boeing executives dressed in clown suits.

Travel humor writer Bob Payne recently got a good deal on his own 787, which he plans to convert to a single-lane bowling alley.

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If it had been you with the shotgun, would travel humor writer Bob Payne have survived this Philippines shopping excursion?

Never in his life had travel humor writer Bob Payne been so frightened by someone trying to please him as he was by the saleswoman in the men’s clothing department of a crowded store in Cebu City, on the island of Cebu, in the Philippines.

Payne was trying on a pair of blue jeans, which he needed because he’d somehow neglected to bring any from home for a journey that virtually required them.

The Philippines is a nation of some 7,100 islands, of which the two largest, Luzon, where Manila is located, in the north, and Mindanao, the Muslim stronghold, in the south, account for 65 percent of the land mass and 60 percent of the population. But Payne was planning to ignore these two and instead focus his visit on the Visayas, the centrally-located myriad of palm fringed, mountainous islands and islets connected by a network of passenger vessels that promised, as one guidebook put it, to “suit only those prepared to rough it.”

To help in Payne’s preparations for roughing it, the smiling saleswoman had suggested a locally made brand of jeans called Canadian Club. Payne was trying them on in one of the store’s curtained cubicles, and they fit fine, except for one small problem.

The hole for the button that allowed one to button one’s fly was sewn shut. Payne tried to explain this to the saleswoman, who had followed him to the cubicle and was standing outside repeating “You like? You like? You buy? OK?” But Payne’s explanation didn’t seem to be getting through. So, perhaps sensing from his tone of voice that a sale was possibly slipping away, the woman ripped open the curtain to see for herself what the matter was.

“Oh, OK. No problem. I fix,” she said, her smile becoming even broader. And with that she whipped a razor blade out of a side pocket of her blouse, went down on her knees, and grabbed hold of Payne’s pants just above the missing fly hole. Payne, it is important to note, was still wearing the pants.

“No, no,”  Payne yelled, and was immediately sorry he had. Among the people who came running toward the agitated foreigner with a Filipina woman down on her knees in front of him was a store guard fumbling with a pump-action shotgun.

Luckily, the guard, perhaps sensitive to the criticism leveled against one of his counterparts for annihilating a shoplifter a few days previously, did not shoot. In fact, once the situation had been explained, he was in the forefront of people rummaging through the stack of Canadian Club jeans looking for a pair in Payne’s size that didn’t have the fly sewn shut. And he was pleased mightily when it was he who discovered one.

This first appeared, in a slightly altered form, as the introduction to “Where the smiles are magic,” in the November/December 1996 issue of Islands magazine. Although he has always kept an eye out, travel humor writer Bob Payne has never again seen a pair of Canadian Club jeans.

BigStock photo.

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Startling revelation from Australia. What designer really meant Sydney Opera House to look like.

In news that has rocked Australia, it was revealed today that the architect of the famed Sydney Opera House designed the iconic structure to look like a school of great white sharks about to chomp down on their victims, and that only by carefully controlling the angle of all photos released have government officials, for 40 years, been able to fool the public into thinking it was meant to represent a fleet of sails on Sydney Harbour.

“The designer, Jorn Utzon, was Danish, he was irritated by critics who wanted the structure to be the work of an Australian, and he saw a way to exact revenge that no one would notice until it was too late,” said Bob Payne, Arts and Architecture Correspondent for the travel humor website bobcarrieson.com.

Utzon’s plan was that the image of sharks would make tourists think twice about visiting Australia, and consider a vacation to Denmark instead.

“The government coverup thwarted the plan, but it probably would not have worked anyway, because the kind of person an Australian vacation often appeals to – athletic, beach-loving, maybe-try-a-little surfing types – would typically rather face a great white shark than the prospect of vacationing in Northern Europe,” Payne said.

With the secret out, teams of public relations professionals have been working on campaigns to mitigate the damage. So far, the campaign showing the most promise is to turn the great white shark image into a friendly mascot by painting it with a toothy smile and naming it Sydney.

In other tourism news from Australia, officials there, in an effort to reposition the image of another tourism icon, are considering changing the name of the Great Barrier Reef to the Great Welcoming Reef.

“It should help with the visitor numbers, at least until we get past this Sydney Opera House thing,” one tourism official said.

Travel humor writer Bob Payne has been offered a great white shark mascot of his own by the Tourism Australia marketing team.

BigStock photo.

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Airlines mull adding duct tape to amenities kits

A recent incident involving an unruly man who was duct taped to his seat by fellow air passengers has rekindled the ongoing argument over whether airlines should include duct tape in business and first class amenities kits.

“Considering the many other uses passengers already find for duct tape on board, offering it in the kits is clearly a cost-efficient means of getting our most valuable customers to stick with us,” said Bob Payne, chairman of the Airline Industry Duct Tape Advisory Panel.

Payne said duct tape has long been known for its usefulness in substituting for belts and other accessories passengers may have forgotten at security, taping infants to the bulkheads during takeoff and landing, and repairing cracks in wings and tail sections.

“When a wing comes loose, we all know from experience that there’s nothing you’d rather have in your hand, with the possible exception of a parachute rip cord, than a fresh roll of duct tape,” Payne said.

Security officials note that this latest application is especially welcome because the opportunity for group response has allowed passengers to go from fearing there might be someone on board who needs to be subdued to looking forward to it.

Critics argue, though, that having quantities of duct tape freely available can lead to the kind of abuse that happens all too often when, for instance, a passenger tapes shut the mouth of an adult or child  seat mate simply because of differing political views. It’s the kind of thing, they say, that can make the dispensing of the amenities kits a constitutional issue.

There is also the question of offering a safety enhancement that is not equally accessible to all on board. Industry observers, however,  see that as a relatively minor issue, and one readily addressed by making the tape available to coach passengers for $25 for the first roll and $35 for each additional roll.

Travel humor writer Bob Payne recently used duct tape to re-attach the tail to his neighbor’s cat.

 

Bigstock photo.

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