Despite paying some $7000 for a business class airfare or 25+ flights to qualify for status, the Admiral’s Club (at least at JFK) now started to charge their ‘most valued’ customers for drinks & food… except the self-serve dispenser of stale cracker & pretzel mix, but I don’t really call that food! (To be fair, if you’re really valuable, you might get a voucher for one drink, but after that you’re on your own!)

They’ve also started to charge for wifi, and the furniture is often old and shabby, or high on ‘design’ & low on comfort… less comfortable than on the concourse, in some cases. And despite all this cost-cutting, your airline still just entered Chapter 11?

In some international ACs (like Buenos Aires) you can still serve yourself a beer or scotch (thank goodness for Latin hospitality!!) but you still have to stare down other passengers eyeing off that last slice on the rarely-replenished cheese plate. You can’t get a sandwich, let alone a burger… even if you wanted to pay for it!! You know where they DO have great food to buy, though… out on the concourse.

So if you’re not giving any real ‘privileges’ and passengers would arguably be more comfortable, and certainly better fed, at the “Chilis Too” on the concourse… then what’s the point of an airline lounge? All that is left is some thinly-veiled form of class segregation: there used to be privileges that justified visiting the lounge, but now you’ve made ‘Admirals’ just look like ‘Assholes’ that don’t want to sit with everybody else.

Actually, worse than that… like cheap assholes fighting over the last piece of Gouda.

— Irish

PS… if you happen to fix things up, I’ll be sitting in comfort in Gate Lounge B6, with my Auntie Anne’s pretzel dog and a Cinnabon.

As China, India and Brazil continue to grow their economic power, America continues to make economic decisions that defy any logic.  Despite record unemployment and hunger – and with financial protests clogging Wall Street – America continues to find frivolous garbage to throw it’s money into.  But now, it has gone too far… someone has to call “shenanigans” on the egregious wastefulness.  So I want to call out the most offensive waste of money I have seen in many years.

Who the hell decided that it would be a good idea to spend a few million dollars financing the film “Jack & Jill”?  What type of hallucinogenic drug were they force-fed for weeks before deciding that was a good investment?  No-one in their right mind would ever want to see Adam Sandler play his own female twin – let alone give him money to do it.  Even Rob Schneider must have been questioning the sanity of this one.

This catastrophe highlights what is wrong with the American economy: no-one seems willing to tell anyone else that maybe they should NOT waste their money on dumb shit.  Where are the ‘level-headed voices of reason’ saying, “hey, Mr Sandler, perhaps instead you should invest that money in some local small businesses”?  Or “hey, Mariah, maybe your baby doesn’t need the diamond crusted iPods”? Or “hey, why don’t we go without the $34,000 dessert?“. And “hey, President Bush, maybe we should spend that war money on saving American industry”?

But worst of all, Mr Sandler is going to ask the cash-strapped middle-class to go out to the cinema so he can take their money to bail him out from his own stupidity.  Hell, why not?  It worked for Detroit and Wall St!

So I officially call “Shenanigans!”, and ask everyone in America who even thinks about going to watch this movie at cinemas, to instead donate your $12.50 ticket price to The Jack & Jill Foundation, who will use the money to groom today’s children into the leaders of tomorrow. Hell, donate the $15 you would spend on a small Coke and popcorn too, and make a real difference.

Hopefully  they’ll encourage the type of leader that would say, “sorry, Mr Sandler, I’m going to have to take that wig from you!”

— Irish

Now there are lots of proposals that might curb population growth by controlling the birth rate, but it occurred to me this week that maybe we’ve been working against nature on ‘the other end’ of the equation.

You see, Mother Nature used to use this neat trick called “survival of the fittest” to weed out the shallower end of the gene pool – but thanks to a litigious society and laws that allow the dumb to sue others for their own stupidity, we’ve started helping the unfit survive.

My ‘aha’ moment was a foil package in my FreshDirect box, which keeps my ice-cream sandwiches from melting while they are delivered.  Printed on the  outside, there’s only one small phrase: “not for microwave use”.  So I have two issues with this:

1. Who microwaves their ice-cream?
2. Even if they do for some reason… who DOESN’T know by now that you can’t microwave foil products? It’s just one of those things you should know, like ‘don’t put your hand in the blender’.

But this warning is just a symptom of a bigger disease. On Queens Boulevard in New York – a 12-lane thoroughfare in places, they post signs like

Attention clueless: 12-lanes of traffic might just be dangerous!

the one on the right, saying “a pedestrian died here” so people will cross with care. Now I know that this road has been called the “Boulevard of Death”, but if a person is not smart enough to see the 12 lanes of high speed traffic, and follow the regular pedestrian “don’t walk” lights, then I think they’re probably not contributing a lot to the gene pool – except perhaps a ‘sneaky leak’ when they think no-one is looking.

But by comparison to some product warnings, this road warning seems ostensibly reasonable.  Fark.com made a list of the best, of which I am particularly surprised that we are saving the lives of the idiots who might “hold the wrong end of a chainsaw”.

All I can say is that perhaps it’s time that we recanted a few laws and gave Mother Nature back the power to eliminate the weakest links, to restore balance to the universe – before I have to split my social security pension with someone who only made it to 65 thanks to the warning label that told them not to use their hair dryer while sleeping.

— Irish

In our lives we’ve all known that guy (or girl) that just can’t quite let go of an ex.  You know, they have a massive break-up but then keep crawling back, or start re-singing the praises of someone they were – only months ago – saying was the seed of Satan.  Well, America, for the past month you have sounded just like that weak-willed sap.

Ever since a bunch of Bean-town ‘revolutionaries’ tossed some crates of tea into Boston Harbor in 1773, you made it clear that you were done with England and her selfish attitude.  With all of her unfair ‘taxes without representation’ she was an expensive date, and with her ‘Coercive Acts’ totally cramping your style, that hoity-toity bitch had it coming.

Remember, you were all like, “I’m done with your crap!”, and held a couple of Continental Congresses, and had a war, and she sent in her troops to shut you down, but Paul Revere got on his horse and rode through the night and you prevailed and were so much better off for so long.

But, oh, how things have changed. And not for the better.  If Paul Revere were riding around shouting that the “English are coming” now, I can only imagine him saying it in a campy, excited schoolgirl kind of shriek.  Instead of bearing arms and lighting torches and readying their horses, I can only imagine America blushing and squealing with a hand on each cheek, and going into a tizzy about what to wear.

She tried to get you back in the sixties by sending those mop-haired lads from Liverpool to woo you, and you looked like you would buckle, but you came through it and showed her you didn’t need her by sending some of your posse to the moon.

But as America’s role as a world power has faded of late, and all those other sexy, youthful power countries have started paying less attention, ol’ England rolled out her master move: waiting until you were totally desperate and then showing up wearing the one outfit you could never resist: a Royal Wedding.

And you bought it hook, line & sinker!  You were showing TV specials about William and Kate on every channel possible, going back well into March.  You sent more “correspondents” to let you know every time Kate changed her undies, than you sent to cover the truly world changing events in North Africa and the Middle East. And you oh-so-desperately watched your mail for the invitation to her big party.

I really felt like your floundering hit rock bottom though when NYC taxis started sporting giant Union Jacks with the message “Congratulations William & Catherine”.  At the top of your capitalist strength, you never would have let that advertising space be wasted on such a frivolous and weak display of unrequited love.  China must have sent a hilarious text message to India when he saw this final act of capitulation.  You might as well have hired an Icelandic volcano to write “Take Me Back” in the sky over the whole country.

And even now that it’s the “morning after the night before”, you still seem giddy over the whole shindig.  CNN ran a very long segment just about the hats worn by the wedding guests.

Really dude, it’s like that song by The Streets says: “I know you want to vibe with this girl, but don’t mug yourself”.  I am sure you must have heard the song I’m talking about… it is by an English artist, after all.

— Irish

The fact that these videos obviously take a lot of work and deliver nothing more than the possibility of entertaining a few people that are bored enough to be searching YouTube at 3am… makes them exactly the type of pointless endeavour that Clight’n'Irish is all about.

But the musical choices of all the offices, universities and random other groups’ lip dubs out there show a severe lack of musical taste… Panic at the Disco, OutKast, BlackEyedPeas… are all not bad (on the other hand, Hempfield High School: Miley Cyrus? Bad!) but where are the songs that are really made for “lyp-syncing”. Like Bon Jovi’s Living on a Prayer? Or Huey Lewis & the News, “Hip to Be Square”?

And that’s when it struck me… the one song that would turn Lip Dub from “kitschy Internet fad” into true viral sensation (and not the kind that Paris Hilton is used to).

So I’m setting a C’n'I fan challenge: to assemble an international lip dub of Clight’n'Irish fans syncing to the distinctly Antipodean – and, let’s be honest, ‘MADE for lip syncing’ – tune, “Slice of Heaven” by kiwi legend Dave Dobbyn. You know the one: “baaaa da dum, boo-do baaaa da dum” (Got it yet? ….think Footrot Flats).

Bonus points for any reader who can strike bigger expressions or wear a louder shirt than Dave's original film clip effort.

As best as I can tell from watching a few lip dubs, there’s only a few rules:

• the camera tracks people walking backwards through various scenes and lip synching a line or two before someone else takes over;
• it should be one continuous camera take (okay ours is not gonna work that way – there’s the whole global co-ordination problem to work with!);
• some people are in outfits or doing actions that mimic the lyrics, but other people are just in random and unconnected outfits or situations;
• some people  have written signs of some lyrics, or the word on a t-shirt etc, rather than actually saying it.

So what we’re looking for is a about 6 to 10 C’n'I readers – from different parts of the world – to record about a 20-30 second segment of the song in your own style, within the lip dub rules above. You can make a whole production of it with your friends, or just be getting your karaoke on on your webcam wherever you normally read C’n'I!

We’re gonna add one extra rule to make this a uniquely Clight’n'Irish lip dub: you need to work in a light bulb and a shamrock (or a leprechaun, or something else uniquely Irish) into the visuals in your segment of the song. Whether it’s the real things, a picture of them, a tattoo of them, people dressed as them… Anyway you can think to include the two!

And for extra credit, we’ll send a C’n'I shirt or hoodie to anyone that manages to get a celebrity (at least an E class celeb!?!) to participate in your segment. The best celebrity wins!

Email us (clightnirish@gmail.com) by October 1 to let us know if you’re in… then I’ll slice (pun fully intended) up the song and allocate everyone a segment so you only have to make a short snippet and it won’t take you too much time. We’ll want video submissions by October 15, so I can edit and launch the video on the site in time for Halloween!

Let’s get Dave Dobbin the lip-dubbin’ respect he so greatly deserves!!

— Irish

In fact, we should encourage her to wear it more often, hoping that a bear catches up with her and saves us all from an even worse calamity: another Lady Gaga album.

— Irish

With the West Atlantic hurricane season in full swing, weathermen are wreaking havoc with the usual inaccurate forecasts. You’d think that even if they merely guessed at the weather, the law of averages would see them right 50% of the time. Alas, no; their predictions are correct less than 30% of the time (statistics provided by PFA Research Ltd.)   I wish mere incompetence were to blame. Many people assume this, thanks to the clever smokescreen that presents weathermen as loveable, bumbling idiots, to whom the station gives a job out of charity – like an incontinent great-uncle that everyone tolerates because he’s family.

Unfortunately,  there’s a far more sinister reason. Many have heard of the Weather Underground, a radical communist organization from the 1960s, dedicated to the overthrow of the capitalist system, etc., or as they were otherwise known: “Hippies for Che Guevarra.” Establishment historians assert that the movement disappeared in the early 1970’s.

However, current research points to a disturbingly different version of events. What if they simply went further “underground,” as their name implies? That’s what many have now come to believe: that the “Weather Underground” simply changed their name and became “Weathermen.”  After a series of unexplained disappearances and the quiet resignation of scores of leading weathermen for “personal reasons” in the 1970s, their takeover was complete. Was the disappearance of the traditional weatherman mustache in recent years just a fashion trend, or a secret assault on the freedom of constitutionally-protected facial hair? Circumstantial evidence abounds, but exploring the evolution of their symbolism gives the first concrete proof of this conspiracy.

Consider the Weather Underground’s original logo:

Sticking it to "The Man" since the 1960s

There are two competing explanations for this symbol: One, that lightning would strike the “Peave and Love” hippies for their failure to overthrow “The Man,” and the second that lightning would strike gay people unless they wore black and red Che Guevarra T-Shirts on specific days (to which gay people, known for their sense of fashion, naturally objected.)

To anyone looking at the symbol now, it’s apparent what this is: the original weather forecast icon.

While we cannot claim to understand the full depth of this diabolical scheme, or all of its current effects, we have managed to decipher pieces of the modern code that they are using:

Accelerate Global Warming hoax

“Next airstrike at 3PM”, or alternatively, “Who cut the cheese?”

“New battle order to be revealed during next episode of 'Dancing with the Stars.'"

“Patty Hearst needs her leaky roof fixed - volunteers contact ‘Control’”

“Summer vacation - lull the oppressors into a false sense of security while enjoying punch and pie at George Soros’ secret ‘People’s Relaxation Compound' in Martha’s Vinyard.”

Call it crazy, or a shameless slur on accurate weathermen (an oxymoron); whatever you call it, you have been warned.

- Clight

It seems the once-chic nose candy is up-in-arms at the recent arrest of Paris Hilton for possession of itself. “That trampy slag is the last nose I’d ever want to go up,” he told us in an interview. “God only knows what types of STDs linger in those nostrils.”

Cocaine believes that Hilton staged the arrest simply to ride his coat-tails back into the pages of the Hollywood tabloids.  ”This skanky, rich-bitch whore has been out of the news for so long, and now she tries to use MY fame to get back on the front page,” Cocaine continued. “She wouldn’t have even made the news on E! network if it was just booze again… drunk Paris stories are a dime a dozen… so she goes and gets herself arrested with a little bit of me in her handbag.”

Cocaine says this violates an agreement made with Hilton to keep away from him, because of the negative impact she was preciously having on other lucrative clientele.  When Hilton was first linked to the drug, Cocaine says sales dropped dramatically, with high profile athletes considering snorting blow to then be only one step removed from carrying a chihuahua dressed in a tutu.

“It’s not bad enough that I have the previously-constantly-wired financial industry collapse, and NFL players abandoning me for cough syrup,” he said, referring to the ‘Purple Drank’ craze. “Now I am once again slighted with a connection to this heinously diseased and broken excuse for a celebrity. I might as well let Nick Nolte back on the gear again.”

The case has sparked a legal turmoil in the State of California, with lawyers debating whether an inanimate narcotic drug can, in fact, file a restraining order against a person.  Experts expect this case to go to the Supreme Court before it is decided, but cite that Cocaine should be well represented, thanks to a “strong supporter base” amongst the legal fraternity.

— Irish

When you want to go up, you push the little “up arrow”. Or at worst, the “U” button. And down is just as straightforward. “D” or “down arrow”.

Once inside, you then just find the number of the floor you need, hit one more button and you’re on your way. The elevator even opens the doors for you.

If only it was so simple to order a coffee at Starbucks. Yes, elevators are one of the simplest things you can ever encounter.

So imagine my surprise at the sign in Swissotel Chicago when I stayed recently, saying something like: “We are proud to have introduced a new elevator system to enhance your elevator experience at Swissotel. Please follow these instructions to use our new system”. Followed by five or six steps each illustrated in an accompanying diagram.

I am sorry, my Swiss friends, but if you have to use the phrase “please follow these instructions”, then you have not at all enhanced my elevator experience. I was fine when I did NOT need instructions.

Let’s take a closer look at how the Swissotel system worked. Instead of an up or down button, I have a touch screen display and keypad like a giant cell phone. The only thing missing is a place to insert my card, else it would practically be an ATM. Apparently I use the touchscreen for “word” floors (gymnasium, garage, business center) or I dial my room’s floor number on the keypad for “numbered” floors.

Then it tells me to watch th display to tell me which car to take. So I stare intently at the little screen. But then other people need to type… What if my car is displayed while they are typing and obstructing my view? Shit!

Then an elevator arrives. Inside the doors it has a little grid showing which floors it will stop. But none are my floor, floor 30. Even though it’s doing 16 then 34. But if I get in I have no buttons inside to make it stop at 30 on the way.

I must stop and await my orders to join the assigned car. So I wait. When it comes, and the elevator roulette board finally shows 30, it’s already full from the garage. Double shit!!

Back to step one, the keypad. Now I am at the back of the virtual queue, and because the system is SO efficient, it’s getting longer by the second.

At one stage, when about 40 peeps left our meeting to go up for the night, despite having 6 cars to work with, most were still in the lobby 10 minutes in. A bellhop tool some of us in a service elevator because it was just bloody easier.

So well done Swissotel… your yodeling countrymen may have optimized milk chocolate, the analog watch and the eponymous army knife, but – despite the contrary argument of your instructional sign – you just royally screwed my elevator experience.

— Irish

You see, typically the annual re-release of each EA game is barely different to the one before it, although it might update new team logos, player trades, or the new season’s uniforms.  But THIS YEAR’s edition of Tiger Woods promises so much more.

With Woods’s traumatic past 12 months, even non-golfers will enjoy this game – opening up a whole new target audience for EA, a wise business move.

The new features include:

• “Tiger on the Prowl” – a “first-person rooter” (sorry to the non-Antipodeans who won’t get that) that is loosely based on the early-90s-PC series, “Leisure Suit Larry”.  After dressing your Tiger avatar in your choice of “after hours” Nike apparel  -choose from “Pimped Out”, “Lots of Leather” or the very brazen “Tiger Skin” (naked apart from a swoosh-emblazoned man-thong) – you can cruise the Country Club between rounds, looking to, ahhh… get in a few extra holes (if you know what I mean*).

Finally an EA game where you really do want to "get in the game".

• There’s also some fun for those of you that like a good driving game: plug your Wii controller  into your Mario Kart steering wheel and race against time – and your 7-iron-wielding-soon-to-be-ex-wife – as you try to successfully reverse your Buick out of the garage and drive down the street without running off the road or sustaining any damage from a flying Titleist. It’s much harder than it seems, with even Tiger himself unable to make it off his own block at first attempt. Plug in a second controller and your lady-friend can even do the club-flinging (just make sure she fastens the wrist strap!)
• And finally, for those that like the “puzzle game” genre, there is the “Press Challenge” feature, which, in the style of Taboo, requires you to answer a series of thinly-veiled questions about your romance troubles and focus on only talking about your round of golf today, without saying potentially double-entendre words and phrases, like “play a round”, “couldn’t find the hole today”, “I hit a good strong wood on 14″, or any use of the word “swinging”.

And if you just love golf, you will love the new features during game play, like the scantily-clad models trying to distract you behind each putt, the “flashback” mode, which will momentarily flash up a shot of your fire-eyed bride wielding a flaming club just as you try to execute a bunker shot, and the clever commentary that manages to relate every mishit back to your no-good filandering ways.

All in all… 5 stars, EA.

— Irish

(* And you do!)