Hurricane Sandy Travelers Might Get Little Relief From Airlines

by Chris Owen on

Hurricane Sandy brought travel by air, land and sea to a halt in the Northeast Monday, grounding thousands of flights, diverting cruise ships and shutting down public transportation. The cascading effect of airline flight cancellations alone has disrupted travel plans around the world. But once the storm has passed, air travelers may have more problems than canceled flights to deal with.

Airlines canceled more than 8,900 flights Sunday and Monday, with 4,800 more set to cancel for Tuesday. Heavy cancellations were at some of the nation’s busiest airports with Philadelphia International Airport, LaGuardia Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport hit especially hard.

That’s bad news for travelers. Worse news is that airlines may choose to not increase capacity to handle the surge of travelers once airport operations are back to normal.
“Empty seats are a rare commodity since the nation’s airlines began more than a year ago to cut many short-haul routes and eliminate less-profitable flights to increase revenue,” says a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Compounding the problem, some airlines have cut the amount of time passengers have to rebook canceled flights and still have change fees waived. While details vary by airline, most waive change fees and any difference in fares for a period of time after a major disruptive event. Previously giving up to a year to rebook, airlines have cut that time to as little as 14 days.

The combination of airline moves to cut capacity, flying full and profitable flights along with a shortened rebook period has travelers worried.

Call it “Frankenstorm,” the “storm of the century” or the “Superstorm,” in areas that received a direct hit, 60 million people could be affected. Stranded airline passengers are not likely to see relief for a number of days as airport operations are set back to normal.

[Photo Credit: Flickr user tanithk]

Is Eddie Huang The Next Anthony Bourdain? Watch And Find Out

by Laurel Miller on

If the name Eddie Huang isn’t familiar, it may soon be, if the folks at VICE.tv have their way. The Washington, D.C., native is a chef, former lawyer and, according to his website, a former “hustler and street wear designer” born to Taiwanese immigrants – a background that led him to become the force behind Manhattan’s popular Baohaus restaurant.

Huang’s new VICE video series, “Fresh Off the Boat,” premiered online on October 15. According to VICE’s website, the show is “Eddie Huang’s genre-bending venture into subculture through the lens of food.” That’s one way to describe it.

Huang has been positioning himself as a chef-turned-media-personality in the vein of Anthony Bourdain or David Chang for a while now. As in, he’s street smart, opinionated, and doesn’t appear to give a rat’s ass what people think of his renegade ways. Ostensibly, it’s a great fit for VICE, which is known for its edgy exposés and other content.

Here we hit the first divergence among FOTB and the canon of travel series. Regardless of how you feel about them, Bourdain and Chang are still, respectively, articulate, intelligent commentators of what’s been called “food anthropology.” Huang is obviously a savvy businessman, and thus, one must assume, not lacking in brain cells. But he isn’t as likable. Unlike Chang, a mad genius, he’s not so outrageously batshit that he’s funny. He’s not particularly charming, witty, or aesthetically appealing, and he comes off more wannabe-Bourdain and imposter street thug than informative host and armchair travel guide.

In the premiere, Huang takes viewers on a backwoods tour of the Bay Area, starting with a visit to Oakland’s East Bay Rats Motorcycle Club.

We’re briefly introduced to Rats president Trevor Latham, and next thing we know Huang and Latham are armed with rifles and wandering Latham’s Livermore ranch in search of rabbits. Says, Latham, an avid hunter, “People that eat meat and aren’t willing to kill an animal are fucking pussies, and fuck them.”

Of note, the below video is fairly graphic.


For his part, Huang appears suitably humbled, although I have to wonder why a chef of his standing and ethnic and familial background (his father is also a restaurateur) doesn’t appear to have been exposed to animal slaughter before. Still, he gets bonus points for trying to disseminate what should have been the primary message.

Says Huang in the final scene, “Every time I eat meat now, I have to be conscious that…I am choosing to enable someone to kill an animal and create a market demand for slaughter. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Just be conscious of the choices you make.”

Well done. I just wish the rest of the episode carried that levity.

“Fresh Off the Boat airs Mondays; future episodes will include San Francisco, Miami, Los Angeles, and Taiwan.

[Photo credit: Eddie Huang, Youtube ; rabbits, Flickr user Robobobobo]

Video Of The Day: Amazing Kuala Lumpur Time Lapse

by Libby Zay on

Once a small Chinese tin-mining village, Kuala Lumpur has grown to be the largest city in Malaysia, a metropolis of around 6.5 million people. The transformation took only about 150 years, and today visitors will find an ultra-modern city with dazzling lights, cloud-reaching skyscrapers, a state-of-the-art monorail, bustling shopping centers and more.

Architectural photographer Rob Whitworth set out to capture the essence of this lively city. It wasn’t easy: the video above was filmed over 5 months, in which he put in 400 hours of solid work. It took four cameras, 40 shoots, 640 gigabytes of data and 19,997 photographs.

“My time lapse explores how the city changes from day to night highlighting how spaces dramatically alter during the course of a few hours,” Whitworth said. Watch the transformation he captured above.

London Bartender Makes World’s Oldest And Most Expensive Cocktail

by Jessica Festa on




World-renowned mixologist Salvatore Calabrese has recently broken the Guinness World Record for making the world’s most expensive cocktail, “Salvatore’s Legacy.”

The video above shows Calabrese creating the concoction in London at Salvatore at Playboy, using the world’s most expensive and oldest spirits. The total price of the drink is $8,830. Supposedly, the “world’s leading cocktail expert” had to get creative and modify his recipe after a customer dropped and smashed a $77,480 bottle of cognac.

Curious as to exactly what’s in it? According to The Atlantic Cities, the recipe calls for “40 mL of 1788 Clos de Griffier Champagne Cognac, 20 mL of 1770 Kümmel herbal liqueur, 20 mL of 1860 Dubb orange curacao and two dashes of Angostura Bitters, a combination that involves a collective 730 years.”

Check out the video above to see the lavish libation being made by Calabrese.

Video: Norwegian Man Survives Crazy Cliff Fall … Or Was It A Jump?

by McLean Robbins on




A Norwegian man is alive and well after suffering what many might have thought to be a foolishly life-ending accident, the Telegraph reports.

Richard Henriksen, a surgeon, has become somewhat famous for performing daredevil gymnastic acts before BASE jumping from cliffs. While taping a segment for a TV show aptly called “Normal Madness,” Henriksen planned to swing from a high bar before catapulting himself off the cliff.

As you might imagine, things took a wrong turn when the high bar fell apart, sending him flying off the 4,000-foot cliff.

There’s a happy ending to this story – Henriksen is just fine. He managed to open his parachute before landing.

What does this tell us? We’re fairly certain that it means common sense and book smarts don’t go hand-in-hand. We hope this dumbass daredevil takes it easy for a little while.