New System Makes Hailing A Wheelchair-Accessible Taxi Easy In New York

by Jessica Festa on

When people envision New York, what often comes to mind is the busy streets and the sea of yellow taxis; however, out of the approximately 13,000 cabs in NYC, only 233 are wheelchair accessible. So, in a city where, by law, you must hail a taxi on the street, how is someone who is disabled supposed to get one?

In order to help with the problem, a new system created by Metro Taxi has launched. Called Accessible Dispatch, the company uses a GPS system to tracks each of the 233 wheelchair-accessible taxis. These can be ordered by:

No advance reservation is required, and the taxis will be able to take any passengers from Manhattan to any of the five boroughs, Westchester and Nassau counties and the three regional airports. There are no extra fees, as passengers pay the metered rate starting from when they get in to the vehicle to when they get dropped off. Additionally, all drivers who operate these taxis have been specially trained in wheelchair assistance, boarding and de-boarding conduct, as well as disability awareness and passenger sensitivity.

“This is an entirely new kind of service,” said Taxi and Limousine Commissioner David Yassky, “and it is a real and tangible reflection of our dedication to making quality taxicab service available to all those who want it.”

[Image via Accessible Dispatch]

‘Crap Souvenirs’: New Book Explores Souvenirs So Bad They’re Good

by Kyle Ellison on

Admit it. We’ve all bought terrible souvenirs while traveling. Even worse, occasionally even though we know it’s tacky, inauthentic, cheap, or just plain useless, we end up buying them anyway.

Why?

Because the human mind is a really weird thing. Oftentimes, however, we are so wrapped up in the “magic of the moment” that for some beguiling reason it makes total sense to spend $19.95 on a knockoff vuvuzela, which will probably end up at a garage sale a year later.

Acting upon this strange human tendency to trade hard-earned cash for complete and utter trash, author Doug Lansky has compiled a book appropriately titled “Crap Souvenirs.” The ensuing photo gallery features a snippet of some of the items you’re bound to find in the book (miniature toilet ashtray anyone?), but we also caught up with Doug for a brief Q&A on just how the inspiration for this book originally panned out.

%Gallery-168051%So, Doug. What made you want to write this book?

It was the confluence of a few things: having my collection of funny signs (Signspotting) turned into a website and book series and getting a laugh from the kitsch stuff found in the SkyMall catalog. The SkyMall catalog showed me that photos of this stuff could be just as hilarious as the real thing and the success of the Signspotting series gave my publisher confidence to roll the dice with this project.

Do you buy souvenirs when you travel?

Not usually. I used to buy stuff, but now that I’ve “settled” here in Stockholm (wife, 3 kids, 3 cats and a tiny house), I found nearly all of the souvenirs have ended up in storage. Only one that gets regular use is the Japanese high-tech toilet seat I picked up. But while waiting for the plane, my wife and I would have a playful competition to see who could spot the most comically kitsch souvenir in the gift shop. Then I started taking photos of them and eventually became a compulsive collector. I picked up a few small items, but there’s very limited shelf and wall space at home with three kids putting up their recent art projects.

I can imagine. Is there one word for the research on this project that jumps out above the rest?

One word would have to be “entertaining,” but the feeling is somewhere between a laugh and a cringe.

From your research on this project does the concept of what makes a “good souvenir” seem to vary across nationalities/regions?

I still don’t know what a “good souvenir” is. Even just defining “souvenir” was a challenge – one I spent a page or two in the book explaining. The souvenirs in this book are, you might say, so bad they’re good. Nearly all souvenirs have an element of kitsch. That’s part of their charm. But sometimes it goes delightfully overboard. There are some places (Amsterdam, London, Las Vegas, Egypt, Florida, Australia) that seem to have mastered kitsch more than others. But it may be that these places just have such a vibrant souvenir industry that they have gotten a bit experimental looking for new niches.

Well, any final thoughts on what goes in to a “crap souvenir”?

There’s no exact formula for extreme kitsch, but there are a few basic ingredients. One is the use of animal parts, like a kangaroo back scratcher. Another is the combination of things, like a ceramic Florida alligator with a thermometer built into it. A third is when you take something sacred and make it into mundane, like putting the Pope’s face on a bottle opener or putting King Tut’s face on a toenail clipper. Then you’ve got some classic irony, like when they have a souvenir shot glass. Here you’ve got an item whose basic purpose is to help you drink so much you can’t remember a thing, so you need to own it so you can remember that which you couldn’t remember.

China Cracks Down On Fire Extinguishers Filled With Flour

by Kyle Ellison on

China is notorious for knock-off items. Fake Rolex? Sure. Fake Gucci handbag? Why not? Maybe even a fake degree from UCLA?

While such items have become commonplace in the Chinese economy, the world’s most populous nation may have just one-upped itself in a scandal involving fake fire extinguishers.

Yes, according to a recent post in Weird News Asia, officials in the inland metropolis of Chengdu seized close to 10,000 imitation fire extinguishers last month, which were instead filled with basic cooking flour.

Sure, the white puff of smoke, which emerges from the nozzle looks like flame extinguishing chemicals, but in reality it took two entire bottles of the flour bottles to suffocate a relatively small blaze. Probably better to find this out now than when your commercial oven is on fire during a packed evening rush hour.

To see a video of the fake fire extinguishers in action, head over here for some entertaining knockoff ingenuity, and as a bonus, some classic Chinese television.

[Photo credit: samantha celera on Flickr]

TripAdvisor Review Costs Hotel Employee His Job

by Jessica Festa on

While many travelers enjoy using TripAdvisor to browse reviews of hotels and excursions, employees of tourism organizations have reason to fear the popular website and its unverified critiques. In fact, Fred Keeler, a former bartender at the Four Points by Sheraton Philadelphia Northeast hotel for almost 14 years, was fired after being the target of a TripAdvisor review.

“I’ve never heard of anyone being targeted specifically and actually being fired over a TripAdvisor review,” Fred Keeler told NBC News. “I want to prevent this from happening to anyone in the future.”

The post, written by user “Angelo G” and titled “Bad, Bad, Bad… Did I Say Bad!” gave the Sheraton a rating of 1 out of 5 and complained about everything from a “crappy check-in” to shower drains being clogged. What hurt Keeler, however, was a comment the writer made about the “one good thing” about his stay. Angelo G wrote, “The bartender, I think his name was Fred said for $20 tip he would give me open tap all night, he said ‘they count the good stuff.”

Keeler had had an argument with one of his co-workers the night before, and this is who he believes wrote the post. When the bartender was summoned to the human resources department, denied the allegation when shown the review. He was fired five days later.When NBC called Four Points by Sheraton Philadelphia Northeast for follow-up comments they declined to discuss the case, stating it was against company policy to talk about employee matters.

Although TripAdvisor has a team of content integrity specialists who review claims of suspicious content, Keeler’s options were limited. He tried to write a response post, but the site wouldn’t allow it as he wasn’t a hotel guest. When he asked them to take down the original post, his request was denied. It wasn’t until the former employee contacted KwikChex, who used TripAdvisor’s private message system to contact the review author, that the post was removed – in August, five months after it was originally published.

Despite a partial victory, the loss of his job was humiliating and devastating for Keeler, who lost his health insurance and the house he was in the process of buying. He now makes only a fraction of what he was at the hotel.

While the former employee is still hoping to get his job back, he doesn’t believe it will happen.

[Image via Shutterstock]

Tanzania Planning To Sell 100 Tons Of Ivory

by Kraig Becker on

Tanzania has formally applied to the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species requesting permission to sell off its massive stockpile of ivory. The East African country has more than 100 tons of ivory in storage and wants to conduct a one-time sale to China and Japan. Proceeds from the sale would help fund elephant conservation efforts throughout the country, but the plan has drawn sharp criticism from conservationists.

The sale of ivory is banned in most parts of the world but demand has been on the rise across parts of Asia over the past few years. That has led to a thriving black market, which is supplied by the illegal poaching of elephants throughout Africa. In the past decade, poachers have slaughtered thousands of elephants to harvest their tusks. As a result, the creatures are now endangered across much of the continent.

Tanzania’s stockpile is the result of tusks being collected following the natural deaths of elephants throughout the country, but conservationists say they still shouldn’t sell off all of that ivory. Critics of the plan fear that flooding the market with 100 tons of ivory would only serve to confuse consumers, many of who aren’t even aware that it is illegal to purchase in the first place. They say it sends the wrong message at a time when they are trying to educate people about poaching and the illegal ivory trade. Instead they recommend that Tanzania destroy its hoard of ivory, something that the country Gabon did earlier this year.

As if the sale of ivory wasn’t enough to draw the ire of conservationists, Tanzania has also said that it would like to remove elephants from the list of the most endangered species. That move would effectively reduce the level of protection given to the animals and allow for commercial big game hunting and even the trade of hides and live animals.

For a cash strapped country like Tanzania, the sale of this ivory would bring in millions of dollars in revenue. But if it further fuels the ivory trade and could potentially increases poaching, the price of the sale could ultimately be much higher than anyone wants to pay.