Lobby Bar – October 28: Bird-Assisted Air Travel, Pillows are Not for Sleeping, and Artificial Intelligence Gets Smug

Lobby Bar – An Allegorical Assortment of FBT News and Views

Air Purgatory. It’s time to find out if you’ll be accepted into our spring honors course by taking our fall travel pop quiz. If you don’t get at least three questions right, you’ll be sent to traveler’s purgatory: an Air Koryo flight with unlimited fuel that never seems to receive clearance for landing.

A tale of two strokes. Jonathan Spira is back at the theater to see “Sunday in the Park with George” at City Center. The play follows George, who paints pictures in the park every Sunday, and his love interest Dot, one of his models. The highly anticipated sequel, “Monday in the Cafe with George,” is about George’s love affair with Linda (who goes by “Line”) and will premiere on Broadway next year.

Mile high ducks. Let’s analyze what exactly is making air travel so inexpensive right now. While one answer may be that fuel prices are the lowest in years, we believe it has more to do with a new trend adopted by airlines that involves trained ducks helping push airplanes through the air, therefore reducing fuel consumption.

Pass it on. Join us on a short flight from JFK to Boston in a JetBlue Even More Space seat . Due to the length of the trip, the plane never reached cruising altitude, and drinks and snacks had to be rolled down the aisles or thrown strategically to passengers who wanted some sustenance.

Avocados, airborne. In introducing its new 5 series, BMW released a short film called The Escape to preview the car’s abilities. The car has a number of new features, including its ability to withstand bullet wounds and the “grocery unload” feature, which catapults shopping bags through the sunroof into your kitchen (just make sure the sun roof is open or you will have a mess on your hands).

Know-it-all. General Motors and IBM plan to integrate IBM’s Watson artificial intelligence technology in OnStar telematics systems starting in early 2017. The only problem is that Watson has had extensive training on Jeopardy! and likes to show off his knowledge, so don’t be alarmed if you ask to navigate to the nearest grocery store and Watson responds: “What is the Boston Tea Party?”

Unconscionable unconsciousness. Westin Hotels & Resorts announced a new offering that will help guests get a good night’s sleep. The Sleep Well package entitles hotel guests to be gently smothered by a pillow until unconscious. In its news release, the hotel assured the public that its staff is highly trained and death is extremely unlikely.

Seek and reward. Hyatt is doing away with its Gold Passport Loyalty Program, and replacing it with a new program called World of Hyatt. The new program has three tiers, Discoverist, Explorist, and Globalist, which can be achieved by discovering unwanted visitors in your room, exploring the basement of a Hyatt, and visiting a property on all seven continents respectively (despite the fact that Hyatts don’t exist on all seven continents).

(Photo: Accura Media Group)