You’ve seen them. It may have been at Ruby Tuesday’s or even Ponderosa, but you have seen them. I’m talking about people who mentally become “Chief of Surgery” when they have a pair of salad tongs in their hand. They don’t pick up a pile of lettuce and move along. Hell no! They’ll stand in front of the lettuce bowl and depending how full it is, take up to five minutes to select “just the right leaves” for their nourishing salad.

I hate those bastards! What I hate even more is that usually it’s some skinny-assed woman who lives in a house with no bathrooms because she has no need for one, and even if she does have one she doesn’t have to spend money on Glade Air Fresheners. Except for 90-degree days this person will usually have some designer woolen pant suit and wear a pair of Crocs.

Meantime the buffet line is backing up like a Burmese sewer. I’m not being sexist, people. Guys just grab a wad of anything and put it on their plates and let the good Lord sort it out back at the table. But not Muffy. By the time she gets done with her first – and generally only sortie to the salad line – she has room on her plate for a complete prime rib dinner because this bitch “has to watch her weight.” People like that should be served after the help has had their dinner break. I don’t know how long my lifespan is but to waste some of it waiting for some beanpole to find the Hope Lettuce Leaf is not my idea of leading a fruitful life.

Speaking of fruit, damn near the same scenario holds true for breakfast buffets. Are fat people the only ones who know how to work a buffet line? I attend a lot of business events and most involve eating breakfast at a fancy-schmantsy hotel that has a buffet line that contains everything from cream cheese to sausages the size of elephant turds. Every food group is represented there – the entire line of carbohydrates. Those of us who are anorexia-survivors go from hot plate to hot plate and pile the food on our plates like we’re exhuming a body for Catherine Willows on CSI. We may not eat everything that’s there but if I’m ever stranded on my way back to the table at least I’ll have some food to hold me over until I’m rescued.

The breakfast buffet has its own version of the lettuce selector but it’s someone who looks for the clearest color fruit to go along with their yogurt. They’ll stand in front of a food tray and spend the customary five minutes to find the most orange slice (you’ll notice I didn’t say “slices”) of cantaloupe or the greenest piece of honeydew. I give these health droids the same advice I’m giving to the salad bulimic…just grab a fork full and get your skinny ass back to the table. You aren’t going to have your testicles wired up to electrodes if you don’t eat everything on your plate.

I’m forgetting something about the Breakfast Bastard; he or she is usually covered in sweat because they’ve just come back from their daily 80-mile run and spent four hours in the hotel fitness room. My buddies and I have to sit there and watch them emit pools of liquid while we’re trying to leisurely eat a few pounds of bacon that will keep up our energy until the first food break of the morning. I would suspect that’s why cruise ships have so many buffet lines…because if they didn’t, by the time the entire passenger contingent was served the cruise would be over.

Truth be told, these people will probably live a lot longer than those like me. However, to what end? Let’s say that Gertrude and Morris have watched their food intake, eating the right foods and exercising their entire lives. They probably have never tasted the hidden treasures at a Dairy Queen. One day Morris wakes up with tremendous pains in his arms and chest. Then he experiences the worst headache he’s ever had in his life…and his life has been rife with migraines. Morris is having a stroke. Well guess what? Morris survives the stroke…and is the most buff guy sitting in a wheelchair for the next 30 years in what doctors call the “Q Position.” That’s when your tongue is hanging at an angle at the corner of your mouth like the letter “Q.” While taking care of Morris, Sally becomes so exhausted that her heart gives out and she’s lying dead in her bed for weeks before anyone comes by to check on them. She couldn’t depend on Morris no matter how great he looked. He’s sitting in his own goo, fully aware of what’s happened around him and unable to do anything except watch the television channel – which for him is unfortunately set on the food channel.

See what I’m getting at? You don’t have to do it every day but when you’re away from home on vacation or even business, let loose a little and eat like there’s no tomorrow. And for Christ’s sake move your ass in the buffet line. If cruise lines and hotels are smart they’ll put up a large yellow warning sign that says “Do not stop in line…fat people coming through.” And finally, the next time your doctor has the nerve and the arrogance to ask why you don’t eat healthier, tell him what I often tell Dr. Doyle when he asks me the same question, “If you can convince me there’s an iHOP on the “other side” I’ll behave myself. Meantime, I know where they’re all at here.”

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Playboy’s nudity-free website will “provide guys with smart and sexy distractions throughout the day,” or corporate speak’s translation for “I love porn but need my job.”

Featured articles include the handy yet informative “How to get laid at work,” “7 signs that you’ve given up on getting laid,” and “Americans totally dig STD-like sensations.” There’s also a welcome vid clip from Father Hefner; other notable material includes blog posts about stripper cage fighting and info on the 2010 Hooters Bikini Contest in Pelham, Alabama. Keepin’ it classy.

Playboy hopes the new website will help boost sagging breasts and profits.

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Virgin America has announced changes to its in-flight menu — after all, you should always serve what’s in season.

Virgin has released its new menu to get people who fly on other airlines mouths to water. (There’s a reason Virgin won the Best Domestic Airline for Food in Travel + Liesure 2009 Worlds’ Best Awards.)

So what’s cooking? We could go into fancy prose at this point, but instead, we’ll just show you the menu, that speaks volumes and then think about what you had to eat on your last flight.

First Class Breakfast

• Fresh baked sweet cranberry walnut bread served with sweet creamy butter.

• Fresh summer fruit with candied kumquats, pomegranate and vanilla yogurt.

• Chorizo sausage, potato and egg omelet.

• Fresh herb omelet: Farm fresh egg omelet filled with goat cheese and ratatouille of zucchini, yellow squash, fresh herbs, garlic and vine ripened tomatoes served with a tangy tomato wine sauce.

• Baked eggplant, zucchini and egg frittata.

First Class Lunch and Dinner

• Andalusian gazpacho with crostini.

• Baby beet salad with oranges and arugula.

• Pork tenderloin with a guava smear, port wine figs & saffron spaetzle, horseradish oil.

• Roasted vegetable lasagna with garlic cheese toas.

• Grilled pork charmoula with crisp eggplant with ricotta, pomegranate molasses and papaya relish.

• Roasted eggplant, tomato and artichoke tart with polenta and wild mushroom mac-n-cheese.

• Wellington of home-style meatloaf with prosciutto, wild mushrooms, panache of fresh vegetables and sauce cabernet.

• Vegetable eggplant moussaka.

• Fresh Fruit & berries with passion fruit sabayon.

• Butterscotch pudding with vanilla bourbon mascarpone.

• Redeye fruit and half sandwich: Selection of Hand cut artisan cheeses of Brie, aged white cheddar, and smoked Gouda, garnished with baby frisée  lettuce, quince, raspberries, blackberries and a delicate macaroon pastry, served with a half sandwich.

Now the main cabin (aka coach on other airlines) may not have all quite the menu, but there are still some tasty choices.

• Granola with fresh fruit and yogurt: Build your own yogurt parfait with 18 Rabbits pecan, almond, maple granola, fresh pineapple, kiwi, oranges, red seedless grapes, and strawberry and fresh fruit yogurt.

• Vegetables and Cheese.

• Pastrami sandwich with swiss on russian rye.

• Turkey, cranberry and brie.

• Grilled veggie sandwich with goat cheese and basil.

Virgin America has also added a few new cocktails.

• Tequila Tea: Hornitos Reposado 100% Blue Agave Tequila + Honest Tea
• Sweet Tree: VeeV Acai Spirit + Cranapple Juice
• Grandma’s Coffee: illy issimo Iced Cappuccino + Whiskey
• Rouge Sunset: Karma Sparkling Wine + Cranapple Juice
• Mile High-Tini: illy issimo Iced Cappuccino + Vodka

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That appears to be the motto for some tour guides in Hong Kong, according to the China’s National Tourism Adminstration.

An undated video of Chinese tourists being forced to buy things in Hong Kong shops has ignited outrage on the mainland, according to media reports. Now the NTA in China has issued a very stern letter of disapproval to Hong Kong, warning it to stop such bad behavior or, or, or it might issue another letter.

Actually, the NTA issued a travel advisory after hearing of the video and following up on the rumor that a 65 year old Chinese man died of a heart attack in Hong Kong after being forced to shop, according to Xinhu News.

Shopping could be the price some tourists pay for such good deals to Hong Kong, Xinhu points out. The trips are subsidized by the travel agency, which then collects a percentage of sales dollars from shops that it takes the tourists to. It’s an ancient scam first done by Egyptians when Phoenician tourists would sale in to Alexandria for papyrus.

Since then, it’s been modernized.

We’re unsure if some Chinese tourists are asking: How much for that freedom in the window? Which, since Hong Kong now belongs to China again, has gotten quite expensive.

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What in the Hell is so appealing about going on Spring break to some place like Mexico, the Caribbean or even South Florida, drinking to excess…and projectile vomiting while searching for a Pantone color wheel to identify the shade of green you’ve become? Every time I watch a news clip of college-, and even high-school-age kids frolicking at a 100◦ beach while developing Stage 3 skin cancer, circling the Planet Mars on the Jägermeister Shuttle and throwing up chunks from last year’s Nathan’s Hot Dog eating contest and yet they’re laughing and having the time of their lives I wonder if this is the apocalypse that John Connor tried to warn us of.

What is the attraction of loading up on so much booze that you’re using your new Tommy Bahama shirt as a canvas that will serve as a new addition to the Museum of Natural Vomiting? And there are those who happily do this on camera for the entire world to see – or at least for those who still may watch the nightly news on a network station. Oh how proud their parents would be if only they could see little Cyrus or Beautiful Cissy with a necklace of half-digested chili that begins in their offspring’s tonsils.

Except for the obvious wealthy parent just where are these kids getting the money to blow on these drinkathons? I thought the economy was so bad that families were forced to pull in the reins and there was no money for discretionary drinking trips. Every time I see ads for those Girls Gone Wild videos I keep thinking of that movie from the Mesozoic Era, Where the Boys Are. The closest the young people in that movie go to over-indulging was to chug some fermented apple cider. The only sex they had was with themselves.

If people in the videos are any indication of what the future leaders of this country will be then I suggest we all start learning Farsi.  Given enough Stoli, English as a language is on the way out. When Nikita Kruschev was premier of the former Soviet Union he once boasted that he would take over America without ever firing a shot. What he failed to say is that the assumed takeover would involve pouring a lot of shots.

I’m sure not advocating temperance. Sitting around with a bunch of your compatriots knocking back shots of tequila is just as satisfying, fun and bonding as the circle jerks that were so prevalent in my era. It’s just that with the sole emphasis on how many brain cells that can be destroyed by a battery of 101-proof ammunition, trying to relate what a good time you had in Mexico may be harder to recall than how sick you were the entire time you were where you were.

If you want to get drink to such an extent that you erase your memory then for Christ’s sake don’t spend the money to do it in a foreign country. If nothing else, go see Midnight Express and I guarantee you you’ll call your travel agent and cancel your trip. Stay in your room, post some cardboard cutouts of your best friends around a table and drink yourself blind. You can do a lot more traveling with your head in a familiar porcelain bus than you can flying for five hours and being someplace where the only language spoken is barf.

On a similar subject, since when did bars become “clubs?” One doesn’t go out anymore and hit some bars…they “go clubbing.” It wasn’t that long ago that being in a club meant wearing a funny hat, volunteering to stand on street corners and sell peanuts or candy to raise money for charitable causes and singing religious and patriotic songs. When I was old enough to drink legally in my beloved home town of Valparaiso, Indiana, I never considered I was a member of any prestigious “club” whenever I’d walk in to Shoey’s Bar, or The Ten Pin Tap. Even Norm and Cliffy never considered Cheers to be their “club room.”

Stop trying to make things what they aren’t. If you’re that ashamed of them don’t try to spruce up the image with some fru fru name. Garbage men are not “sanitation engineers;” janitors are not “custodians;” and taverns are not “clubs.” What’s the old Groucho Marx line about “I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member?” Just remember…a bar will take anybody…a club won’t.

Al also doesn’t like kids standing in his yard and will often beat them with a stick if they do. You can read his column here every Monday.

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According to media reports, the ship was placed there hundreds of years ago as people worked to extend Manhattan, which was smaller back in the day. Apparently, lots of things are buried under New York City, as the edges of the island were extended by burying everyone’s junk there.

The boat was preserved because it was not exposed to air and other wood-eating elements, one of the scientists told CNN. But now that it’s been unearthed, it will slowly deteriorate — making Manhattan just a little bit smaller.

Photo credit: Associated Press

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(Congress has thought about this for a long time, in part, because they don’t actually pay for their own flights, tax payers do, so it thinks airlines should provide an up front list of what fees people are paying, though the down side to this is passengers would quickly learn how much the federal/state/local governments are also charging people to fly. You can see the dilemma.)

Here’s what Kate Hanni, a woman who has parlayed a delayed flight into a career and director of FlyersRights.org told Congress:

Kate Hanni wants airline tickets to have higher taxes.

“Congress, not just DOT, should act now to protect consumers from the ever increasing number and variety of fees imposed on them by the airlines. These fees, many of which the airlines do not have to pay taxes on, are simply an effort by the airlines to shift their financial burdens onto American consumers at a time when they can least afford them.”

What Kati doesn’t say is that if airlines eliminate all of these silly fees — tickets will cost a even more.

Hey, we think silly fees are just dumb — we’re not boycotting Evil Spirit Airlines because of taxation issues, it’s the fact it wants to charge passengers to use the overhead bin. But as consumers, we have the right to vote with our dollars.

And we think Kati did (get it?) a good job with the passenger bill of rights to limit the amount of time passengers are allowed to be stuck on a runway. But like so many other activists that actually get their agenda looked at and passed — it’s never enough. Now, Kati the Menace looks more like a media whore than someone who is actually helping travelers.

Here’s the stupidest thing Kati Come Lately told Congress: “Airlines like imposing fees rather than increasing fares because in most cases they can avoid paying taxes which support the safety and efficiency of our airport system–so consumers are being ripped off and shortchanged at the same time–enough is enough.”

Consumers are not being ripped off by not paying taxes on some of the ticket. It costs a lot already, why would we want to pay more?

Please, Kati, shut up.

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They are those little cities outside of big ones where most of middle America lives. The nights are filled with soccer practice and school plays and the days are filled with hair appointments and all you can eat bread sticks.

Strip clubs are replaced with strip malls and the next generation of working folk are beginning to fill the streets at night — looking for a bar to wash away the nightmare that has become their nine to five lifestyle.

It doesn’t really matter what state you’re in, that suburb is near you. It’s outside of Miami or San Diego. It’s 20 miles away from Seattle or 15 miles outside of Pittsburgh.

In this case, it’s right outside of Detroit in a small little city/town known as Royal Oak.

And here’s a twist on the Pure Michigan campaign — which was created to attract a few more tourists to the Great Lakes state.

Think Michigan has problems? Check out what’s happening in Arizona.

And then there’s Cleveland’s

Or Detroit

Or Oakland

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Organized by the Isla Mujeres Department of Tourism and ecotourismtravel agency Ceviche Tours, this year’s Shark Fest willcelebrate the beauty and culture of Isla Mujeres and support the need to preserve the fragile marine ecosystem. A portion of the festival’s proceeds will be donated to several environmental not-for-profit organizations.

Guests can participate in a variety of activities, including the highly anticipated whale shark bloom, where hundreds of the familia de Jaws will come together to swim in a group near the coast of Isla Mujeres (approximately 1,400 whale sharks make their way through the waters of Isla Mujeres every summer); swimming with whale sharks, where Junior can get his photo taken with Sharkey and post the pic not only on Facebook for bragging rights but to a virtual database used by Project Domino, a conservation program implemented by the Mexican government, to track the toothed terrorists; and academic seminars and film showcases, where scientists from around the world will present a series of talks on marine biology, sustainable ecotourism, recycling education, and Mayan architecture.

“Sustainable eco-tourism engages guests in the effort to preserve the indigenous culture of Isla Mujeres, their way of life and the marine environment,” said John Vater, who co-founded Ceviche Tours with his wife, Adriana, and longtime friend and Isla Mujeres native, Luis “Cuco” Refugio.  “Environmental preservation and sustainable eco-tourism will help sustain Isla Mujeres for generations to come.”

The Festival will be held July 16-18, 2010 in Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Travel arrangements and bookings for whale shark tours can be made through Ceviche Tours.

For a more complete listing of 2010 Whale Shark Festival activities and additional information, visit www.whalesharkfest.com or www.cevichetours.com.

Photos courtesy of Call Communications/Ceviche Tours.

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Reporter Sarah Pascarella took a stab at all of those pay for a discount cards and found out — most of them are not nearly as good of a deal as you might think.

The City Passes Pascarella looked into — in New York, Chicago and San Francisco may have had a big face value savings of up to $58 but does it really do that much for you? Well, first of all — and we could have told you this — you only save that much if you get all of those discounts at every place it offers a discount.

Pascarella was too polite to say “no one wants to spend a long weekend just going to tourist spots in a new city” but the truth is, nobody does.

A trip to Chicago that spends too much time at the Field Museum, the John Hancock Observatory and the Museum of Science and Industry is not a trip worth taking. A little culture is nice, but exhibit after exhibit is pretty boring. You’ll probably save more money during happy hour on Rush Street.

The investigation didn’t end there, though — as she dug into AAA hotel discounts and AARP travel discounts. Both didn’t offer much of a discount over what you can find by other discounts that don’t require you fork out some cash and collect a little plastic car. Then again, if you have a beater of a vehicle, the AAA card might come in handy if it stops running and the AARP includes that nifty monthly publication.

Pascarella looked into a few more discount programs, mostly surmising that, if it sounds too good to be true, well, you know how that goes and while there is some savings, you should always figure out how much you’re going to actually use the program before spending your money to join it.

No one should go broke saving money.

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