Gadling

I pretend to cure jet lag by staying up late the night before I go on a trip. I can't help it. I'm still packing and cleaning the house. I call it my hamster-on-a-wheel routine. There are more effective ways to combat feeling like your head might roll off --or that feeling like you're listing sideways as you walk through sludge.

Here are some tips that I don't follow because--well, I just don't. But if you do, you'll feel better than I tend to feel after a long, international flight.

1. Find out what time it is where you are going a week before your trip. Gradually, stay up a half-an-hour each day to get closer to the time that it is at the place where you are going. That sounds like it involves math and planning. Lot's of luck.
2. Sleep on the plane.And miss the movies? I do about half and half, depending on how tired I am after staying up packing and cleaning.
3. Bring a pillow. Okay, but I thought there were pillows you can use on the plane.
4. Don't eat the pasta. It will make you bloat. I tend to eat what is put in front of me. I like the surprise when I take off the tinfoil.
5. Take jet lag medication. Blech! I'm not too fond of medicine.
6. Take a nap when you reach your destination, but not too long. If I went to sleep, there's no way, I'd wake up easily. I'd rather pretend my body doesn't feel strange.

For the full advice and the reasons why, click here. I am a lousy study, but perhaps, you'll do better.

If you could choose one person to sit next to on a flight, who would it be?

Synovate Travel and Leisure recently asked over 1000 business-travelers and below are the top results in order of preference. The survey doesn't mention why these were chosen though -- but here are my snippets.

1. Oprah Winfrey (as sad as that sounds, I think she'd be fun to sit next to)
2. Bill Gates (I would like to talk to him about the work he does in India)
3. Angelina Jolie (hmmm. nah, she's this mixture of wild and noble. I'm not sure I'd be able to break into her)
4. Hillary Clinton (nah...)
5. George Bush (no thank you)

Another similar survey listed :

• The Pope (no comment)
• The Dalai Lama (I'd like to sit next to him and meditate. No, seriously.)
• Barak Obama (nah...as you can see, American politics is not on my preference list).

I would have said Richard Branson, he is a box of surprises and his life fascinates me. Or perhaps David Copperfield, I've always had the illusion to meet him.

Who is your "dream" flight seat neighbor? And why?

Chris McCandless, the famous vagabond and subject of Sean Penn's new film, Into the Wild, is perhaps best known for living out of an abandoned bus in the Alaskan Wilderness in the early 90s. He hiked to the middle of nowhere of his own accord, despite warnings from concerned locals, and lived off the land for a number of months. On September 6, 1992, two hikers found the bus, and on the outside, a note that read:

Halloween weekend has come and gone, and with the parties being over, now is the time for the real spirit of the season to reveal itself; Instead of costume parties, now we're talking about good, old-fashioned frights.

Got plans for the real Halloween this year? If not, why not consider going to a to one of these events, where they're sure to put on a good show. According to Reuters, here are some creepy amusements going on this year:

• Six Flags: Visitors to Six Flags have option of participating in the Secret Coffin of Fear, in which you lie in a coffin with meal worms for one minute -- ick!
• Universal Studios, Californian: Visitors to the House of Horrors will be haunted by some scary villains from the movies, including Freddy Kruger and Jason Voorhees.
• New York's Halloween Parade: More than 2 million people are expected to attend this parade, happening October 31st at 7pm.
• Camp Blood, Carrollton, Georgia: Crazies with chainsaws and swamp-dwellers will greet visitors after a walk through the scary forest. Sounds really frightening!
• Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia: Looking like a medieval castle, this abandoned prison is a natural place for a haunted house.
  

Dubai is all about being the best, biggest, richest, poshest, greatest, hottest and having the longest, widest, highest, gaudiest, craziest...the list is endless.

When I lived there, when we read the news on these new and upcoming 'superlative' projects, we would joke about how Dubai really is an architectural representation of the male ego -- constantly trying to prove who has got the biggest you know what. No offense intended.

Anyway, home to the worlds first and only 7-star hotel, man-made islands in the shape of a palm and the world -- that can be seen from the moon (that's how they marketed the new year's eve bash year before last "be at the party that can be seen from the moon!" what a disaster it was) -- is also battling to be home to the worlds tallest building with the construction of the Burj Dubai.

It started being constructed in 2004, and today stands at 585.7 meters. They haven't confirmed how high it's going to be because they want to win the race. If they declare the height, they are afraid someone else may beat them to it.

I have a friend who works on the architectural team of the Burj. He would tell me how scared he was about the construction of this monstrosity. See, the structure works on paper, but since it's aiming to be the tallest, its infrastructure has never been tested before.

What does that mean? They cannot foresee all consequences, so anything could happen; I see a danger flag. My friend said he would make sure he's on the first flight out once he finishes his job; he's not thrilled to be part of something so potentially dangerous.

Some of Dubai's kicks are just beyond me. I enjoyed living there, but I'm glad to be out.

Look out, the next security threat at John F Kennedy airport in New York isn't terrorists, no, its cats. Reuters reports that authorities at JFK have started rounding up the feral cats that have been calling the airport home (seventy of them!). Animal rights activists were naturally up in arms, and have been protesting the Port Authority headquarters.

Seems that the airport workers (and the rats) have been feeding the animals, who have in turn been running around baggage claim and attracting more animals, such as birds. And when you mix birds and flying jets, well, then you have a safety issue.

Don't believe me? Check out this video on YouTube. Make sure you have the audio on so you can hear the pilot saying "MAYDAY".

I have an idea. Let's the put the activists on a flight with a compressor stall we'll and see how bad they want to keep the kitties afterwards.

Wow. An old rusted hunk of car metal and the crisp mountain air of the San Juan range in the state of Colorado make for a pretty powerful wallop of a photograph. I love little treats like this when you're backpacking in the middle of nowhere. But, I suppose I wouldn't like it half as much it if were an abandoned 2006 Ford Taurus instead.

Congrats go out to Hoot1 for this fantastic shot. If you'd like similar praise, be sure to visit our Gadling Flickr pool and upload your very favorite shots--just spare us the Ford Taurus ones, please.

The intrusive nature of the web to photograph, document, digitize and file away every square inch of the real world hasn't yet becoming annoying, but I'm sure it will soon. In the meantime, yet another website is rushing to photo-log their little corner of the world. StreetSensation.co.uk has put together a rather cool site chronicling more than "3500 shops, bars and restaurants in the liveliest areas of London."

The result is a series of panorama photographs detailing every single storefront along certain streets. The photos are disappointingly small, but they do include a section underneath each storefront that describes the name of the store and contact information.

There are some improvements, however, the site could make--such as stitching all the photos together throughout all of London--but in the meantime, StreetSensation is a great resource for travelers searching London for just the right place to go exploring.

(via Budget Travel)

When I was poking around to find a haunted house tour on You Tube--I don't have the time to actually go to one--I found this one of a house that is spooky enough to give anyone the willies. The music is perfect. That droning organ music that is mixed with rattles and wind whooshes made me a bit antsy by the end. And, the setting really put me on edge. My dog just shook herself and I jumped. Seriously, I'm not lying. The filming is a perfect creep out.

Monte Cristo Homestead in Junee, Australia is said to be Australia's most haunted house. Throughout the video, Mrs. Aussie Bear, who created it, includes heading titles that highlight the details of just what awful thing happened in each spot of the house. It's said to be haunted by the ghost of Mrs. Crawley, one of the owners who only left the house twice in the 23 years after her husband died. Here's a link from the homestead's website that highlights some of the mysterious happenings.

The house is open for tours every day but Christmas.

Australian Peter Allison is a safari guide who has spent much of the last twelve years leading eco-tourism trips in Africa. This past summer, The Lyons Press published his memoir, a collection of hilarious True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide: Whatever You Do, Don't Run recounts Allison's stories of "...face-to-face encounters with big cats, angry elephants and the world's most unpredictable animals -- herds of untamed tourists and foolhardy guides."

Allison set off for Africa at the age of nineteen and had originally planned to stay for only a year. After six months he was broke, but found work tending bar at a game reserve. He eventually became a guide and taught others how to do the same. More than a dozen years later he's still leading tours and educating folks about life in the bush. Allison's book shares insight about the difficulties of keeping tours minimally invasive for the animals, as well as humorous tales of tourists gone wild. Read with caution and remember -- only food runs!