Jaunted - best-minor-league-ballparks

How To Protect Your Stuff at The Baggage Claim

juliana — 2009-11-23T17:49:38-05:00

Tween stickers may protect your luggage at the baggage claim but we suggest reading our tips below too.

While living amongst "towers and towers" of stolen luggage taken from the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport must have been (insert sarcasm font) without a doubt a truly glamorous life (end sarcasm font), luggage thieves Keith and Stacy King will now have to answer to 45 different counts theft, burglary and trafficking in stolen property.

The good news is that Sky Harbor has begun doing random luggage checks as well as increase video surveillance and patrols in the baggage claim area. Still, here are some quick common sense tips to help you protect your luggage from airport thieves. You may think this is a bit of overkill but then again, you probably paid at least $15 to check your bag, so why not see that it gets to you safely?

1. Try not to check a bag. Tim Gunn would say, "Make it work." We say, "Make it work in an approved carry-on bag."

2. Go directly to the baggage claim. Don't dillydally after getting off the plane, no matter how badly you want a taste of Pinkberry. Go downstairs and wait for your bag to arrive.

3. Sew a piece of identification inside your bag. Thieves will rip the ID tags off the handle of your suitcase right away but if you can somehow mark the inside of your bag as your property, then you will have an easier time identifying it if it does get stolen.

New York: Will New York Finally Get A Tour Of Its Famous Subway Performers?

JetSetCD — 2009-11-23T17:34:32-05:00

In New York City, you can take a tour of everything from the city's luxury chocolate shops to Bob Dylan-relates sites, so why hasn't anyone thought of developing a tour of the city's best subway and street performers? Well, actually someone has: The Huffington Post, and they're looking for help locating your favorite roving mariachi band.

The HuffPost is looking for video submissions of the best acts from around NYC, whether above or below ground. After a few weeks, which will hopefully include our favorite performers—the man who wheels an entire piano down to the subway platform and the Xylophone-playing furries—HuffPost will highlight them on their site, hopefully with a guide as to their usual location. Bingo: instant, crowd-sourced subway music tour guide. Now if only it could be organized so that groups could visit them all during a day on the subway lines...but that's asking too much of such free spirits.

Submit your NYC street performer video here via YouTube, and be sure to add location data so we can find 'em!

Related Stories:
· New York Subway Performers Project: Help Capture and Map The City's Street Talent [HuffPost]
· Music Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: pabo76]

Virtual Portholes To Make Disney Cruise Ship's Inside Cabins Less Sucky

Omri — 2009-11-23T17:06:06-05:00

Cruise lines and cruise goers long ago figured out two things about inside cabins. One, they suck. Two, installing web cams to stream outside views into the room TV makes them suck only very slightly less. But trust Disney to figure out a way to take the idea of outside web cams, create something unique, and then add a flair of animation magic for good measure.

Disney engineers started by creating rounded digital "virtual portals" on their new Disney Dream cruise ship, which bring high-def images of the horizon into people's cabins. Of course those will still looks kitschy and a little artificial, and there's really no way around that even with current technology.

Los Angeles: Los Angeles' MOCA Celebrates 30 Years With a Behemoth of a Retrospective

Heidi Atwal — 2009-11-23T15:59:32-05:00

MOCA's First Thirty Years is a retrospective that covers 30 years of the Los Angeles museum's artistic contributions to the public. Since opening its doors in 1979, MOCA has prided itself on making the best of contemporary art available to the masses, and this behemoth of a collection—featuring more than 500 pieces by over 200 artists from 1940 to today—is a reflection of this cultural richness.

Novice art connoisseurs, or even those who don't know Mondrian from Michelangelo, will inarguably be impressed by this compendium of some of the 20th Century's most impressive pieces. Diane Arbus? Check. Jackson Pollock? Check. Mark Rothko? You get the idea. The list goes on and on, and the exhibition will enjoy a long run at the downtown location—through May 3rd of next year, to be exact.

Recession Or Not, Airlines Still Serve Top Wines To Elite Passengers

Omri — 2009-11-23T15:10:37-05:00

We poked fun at Qantas earlier this month for banning beer on their flights, so it's only fair we pass along this story about their in-flight drink leadership in the wine department. The Australian national airline leads the industry in serving fine vino to their first class and business class passengers, impressing even the palates of professional wine tasters. And taking the #1 slot isn't exactly easy, since the airline industry as a whole is stacked with corporations serving quality wines not just to elite customers but even in coach.

None of this will be news to Jaunted readers, who know that LAN Airlines sought out South America's solitary master wine sommelier to pick out their wine list. But the degree to which airlines are willing to go is still impressive, especially in an age of across-the-board cost cutting. Keep in mind that they're not getting directly reimbursed for any wine served in non-coach cabins, and now read this description of how far they're going to maintain customer loyalty:

Three Airlines Become True Grinches By Raising Holiday Surcharges

JetSetCD — 2009-11-23T13:59:00-05:00

That's right lady, go ahead and type in our checked baggage fees and holiday surcharges; we now know to avoid your airline in future travels. You see, three airlines have become the grinches of the holiday travel season. Not only are they throwing down the baggage fees, but they're already upping recently-announced peak travel surcharges, some of which continue through to 2010.

The offending airlines are: United, Delta and US Airways. Might as well just throw all your spare change and travel coffee money at them now, with all the little additional nicks they're taking at your wallet...

Seoul: No Soju And Karaoke For Obama In South Korea

JetSetCD — 2009-11-23T13:21:23-05:00

After some tense days in China, President Obama puddle-jumped up to South Korea, opening the flood gates to jokes about how Obama's got Seoul.

But, like in China and Tokyo, Obama wasn't about to hit the karaoke bars or down soju (rice wine); no, he had business to do and soldiers to visit. After meeting with the South Korean president at the historical "Blue House," Obama headed to Osan Air Base to addressed 1,500 US and Korean men in uniform. There would be no trips to the border with North Korea with Barack, since tensions run so high this year. Too bad though; we enjoyed looking at the little barbed wire souvenirs you can buy at the border base at Panmunjom.

Although Obama's first trip to Asia as president was focused on China, he had to give some attention to South Korea. It's a good thing he didn't bring the family though, since we doubt Malia and Sasha would have liked eating living, wriggling octopus tentacles.

Related Stories:
· Commander-in-Chief Obama shares stories with U.S. troops in Korea [LA Times]
· Obama's S. Korea visit free of major protests [Washington Times]
· Obama Around The World [Jaunted]

[Photo: AP/WashingtonTimes]