Date Set for Thieves Who Stole a Beach in Jamaica

Although it sounds like a case from Carmen Sandiego, thieves actually stole a beach in Jamaica.

In July of 2008, 500 truckloads of white sand were stolen from a resort development in Coral Spring, along Jamaica's northwest coast.

The crime initially puzzled police, but after a few months and a laboratory analysis of the sand at competing resorts, investigators charged the two principals of Bedrock Building and Aggregates, operator of a Kingston-based mining business. Three other men were charged as accomplices.

On August 18th, the men will stand trial at a Jamaican court in Falmouth.

In the meantime, Felicitas, the resort developer from whom the sand was stolen, has filed an 8.1 million dollar lawsuit against Bedrock Building and Aggregates. The suit also names the owners of several major resorts in Jamaica thought to be recipients of the stolen sand: Grand Palladium Hotel & Resorts in Lucea, Riu Tropical Bay in Montego Bay, and Palmyra Resort & Spa at Rose Hall in Montego Bay.

Although this case seems to be closed authorities can't rest for long, there's trouble brewing in Central America. It seems the terrible trio of Ruth Less, Joy Rider, and Rob M. Blind have struck again. They've stolen all the coffee from Costa Rica...

Air New Zealand's 'Bare Essentials' Campaign Is Just Awkward

Everyone wants to be viral these days. So you can imagine a bunch of Air New Zealand PR folks sitting around a conference room, tapping their pencils, pounding Bud Light Foster's and thinking, "How can we go viral?" Naturally, the answer is the "Bare Essentials" campaign, which involves the basic tenants of air safety ... only it's made HILARIOUS by the fact that these attendants have their uniforms painted on. One problem: this is only sexy when it happens in the SI Swimsuit issue. The idea of having my knee jacked by the drink cart, wincing and then looking as an attendant walks past me only this time there's NO uniform involved, well, color me shuddered.

Rapping Flight Attendant Opens Southwest LaGuardia Terminal

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack. (Of course he is, right?) The "Rapping Flight Attendant," David Holmes, made famous by such national websites as CNN and PTG, was on hand to open up Southwest's new terminal in LaGuardia Sunday. Naturally, what ensued was good ole' fashioned hilarity and confused-looking, elderly CEO-types clapping to a beat they don't really understand. Good times! Seriously, shouldn't this guy have a record deal at this point? Or is Southwest just paying him so much money that he can't leave? I'm going with the latter.

Greasy Pole Competition in Gloucester Is This Weekend

Warm up those, um, greasy poles, folks, because it's that time of the year again. That's right -- GREASY POLE COMPETITION TIME. WOO. YEAH. Because nothing says "uber-excitement" and "super awesome" quite like "people trying to walk -- drunkenly -- across a greased 45-foot telephone pole." Actually, I kid sarcastically (of course). As the good folks at Oh Concierge pointed out, the greasy pole event is probably a ton of fun to compete in, and definitely way more fun to watch. If you're in the General Mass area this weekend, hit it up. Bonus: Video from 2007.

Kevin Coster's Doing Turkish Airlines Ads, Career Officially Over

I'm sure the folks at Turkish Airlines are fantastic people. And I loved Kevin Costner in Bull Durham. And Tin Cup. But let's just say that if Costner were to find himself doing an advertisement for said Turkish Airlines where someone keeps whispering "I feel like a sta-ah" in a gravely voice as Costner travels across the globe, well, both parties have hit a new low. Fortunately, that's exactly what happened! VROOM-VROOM, PARTY STATER!

Alternately, this could simply be Costner doing charity work to make up for producing Waterworld and The Postman, although surely donations to help the children of a third world country would be more productive.

Airlines Set to Charge You for Not Checking Bags Online

Checked bag fees are, quite arguably, the devil. There's nothing more irritating in my mind: how can you rationally travel somewhere without taking bags? Exactly. And so, airlines, in my humble opinion, are taking advantage of folks by charging for checked bags.

A few of the airlines have decided to actually increase that too, according to Budget Travel, tacking on $5 fees for folks that don't check their bags before they get to the airport.

That's right. More baggage fees! United and US Airways are the big culprits here, too, because they already charge $15 for the first bag and $25 for the second ... now, if you pay those fees at the airport, they will charge you an additional $5. (Yes, it's very much like rebooking at the terminal -- for whatever reason, they want to charge you and additional $15.)

But are there other airlines instituting similar policies? Of course there are! Delta and Northwest will begin charging an additional $50 for a second checked bag on international flights (which I wouldn't really have a problem with, save the fact that you almost always need two bags when traveling to another frigging country). And Alaska Air will charge $15 for the first checked bag. I have no problem with this, since I don't go to Alaska. Although I'm sure Alaskan travelers may have some beef, since you dont' exactly take day trips up there.

The long and short here is that you're always, always, always smarter to just carry-on two bags when possible (and to pack accordingly, obviously) but the reality is that a lot of people simply can't manage to get all their stuff in that amount of space.

And while it's nice to see the airlines "stimulating the economy" by "trying not to go bankrupt," I'll be honest -- at some point, these baggage fees are going to send enough people far enough over the top where we score a giant boycott and dump all the tea in the ocean. Or something.

PETA Asks Phish to Change Name to 'Sea Kittens'

Quickly, for relevance purposes: people who listen to a lot of Phish travel frequently, and Phish's new green travel blog is known as "Traveling Light" (lawsuit forthcoming, natch.) With that out of the way, let's get down to the nitty gritty (and get this show on the road): PETA spokespeople have asked Phish to change their name ... to the "Sea Kittens."

Is this the stupidest thing ever and a blatant publicity stunt by an increasingly irritating organization hell-bent on punching everyone in America squarely in the eye? Most likely. Hence, a letter issued to media outlets!

The letter, addressed to Trey Anastasio, Jon Fishman, Mike Gordon and Page McConnell, says the request is an attempt to gain empathy for fish, "because few people are aware that fish are actually smart animals with personalities."

"For example, they communicate and develop relationships with one another, feel pain when injured (their lips are particularly sensitive, and they use them like we use our fingers), show affection by gently rubbing against other fish, and even grieve when other fish they like die," the letter continues.

OhmysweetGod. COME ON. I mean, really. REALLY? This is what it's come to now that Michael Vick has served his prison sentence and Phil Spector is no longer allowed to wear dead squirrels on his head? Harrassing a hippie-trust-funded jam band that doesn't seek in any shape or form to take empathy away from actual fish?

It's not even annoying anymore, it's just freaking sad.

CEO Gets Fed Up With iPhone Battery, Dissects Apple's Popular Product [Pics]

Apple’s iPhone has been a raving success, completely reshaping the smart-phone market overnight. With the recent release of the iPhone 3G S and the iPhone 3.0 software update, Apple hopes to address a few issues that have been irking their normally entrenched customer base.

Which problems you ask? Well, there was the lack of a cut, copy and paste function; the lack of MMS capability; no system-wide search, and a few other issues that have been successfully addressed with the iPhone 3.0 software update.

As for hardware, the iPhone’s notoriously poor battery life has been improved on the new iPhone 3G S and the change is a welcome one. Unfortunately for one user, that change came a few weeks to late.

ProfessionalTravelGuide.com CEO Peter Nicas recently became frustrated after the battery on his iPhone 3G failed during an important call. It wasn’t the first time the phone had died at an inopportune time, but it would be the last.

Peter decided to treat the phone to a little TLC (body-slammed it on his coffee table) and then take it to dinner (went to Taverna Fiorentina in Atlanta, Georgia and dissected the phone on the table) and, like any true gentleman, he even tried to call the next day. Unfortunately, AT&T didn’t provide service in his area. On the bright side, at least we all know what the inside of an iPhone looks like now.

Continental Pilot Dies Mid-Flight, Jet Still Lands Safely

"Human error" is typically a strong reason for plane crashes. "Death" doesn't necessarily qualify as "error" of course, but when an airline pilot dies mid-flight, you can reasonably expect that a non-positive fate will become those on the plane. Not so for Continental Airlines passenger Flight 61, which landed successfully even though its pilot, a 61-year-old employee with 32 years of service for the airline, died tragically mid-flight.

The 777 Boeing, which landed in Newark at approximately noon -- while carrying a very terrifying 247 passengers -- had an emergency declared onboard and received special treatment in terms of landing at the airport.

It's a tragic and awful story, of course, because someone died. Death is never, ever cool (with maybe some mild exceptions). But, in a weird way, don't you kind-of/sort-of have to think that if a pilot is going to go out, this is how they want to go?

He died of natural causes according to Continental spokeswoman Kelly Cripe, who stated that, "The flight continued safely with two pilots at the controls," after an onboard relief pilot took over his seat, and that, "No one [onboard] knew ..."

I mean that seriously, too -- he died at like 30,000 feet in the air, doing what he presumably loves, and, yet, the plane still managed to land safely. I'm not saying there's a feel-good story here, people, just that there's the posibility of a silver lining somewhere in this very grey cloud.

Optimus Prime Is Prepared to Eat Tokyo

I don't particularly care for the Transformers movie -- I felt like it was a little bit overrated (Megan Fox excepted, natch) and perhaps a little too intense. And that's coming from a guy who, as a younger child, was a freaking Transformers junkie. But whatever, this video of a giant robot built in a Tokyo park (via Weird Asia News) is awesome. It's there to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Gundam (giant robots) in the movies.

Mark Malkoff Spends Month on AirTran to Overcome Fear of Flying

The fear of flying is a perfectly acceptable one (and there's nothing wrong with being afraid of rollercoasters, OKAY?). But life, often, is about overcoming fears. Which is exactly why Mark Malkoff, a 33-year-old comedian and filmmaker, is living on AirTran planes for the next thirty days: he wants out of the dark shadow of fear.

This isn't some publicity stunt either (as far as I can tell): Malkoff seems to legitimately want to get over this fear of flying ... how else can you reasonably explain him taking a shower in an airplane.

In fact, he's avoiding the airport, changing planes via the tarmac (the first hint that AirTran is obviously involved here) and doing push-ups and sprints in the aisles of the airplane for exercise.

Of course, my theory that he's not doing it as a publicity stunt could be shot down by the fact that he's Twittering/Facebooking the whole thing and has a website up about his experience: MarkonAirTran.com.

However, in this day and age, if you do anything remotely resembling a 30-day excursion on a slew of various airplanes, you should probably consider creating a blog about the experience; it's the modern-day, electronic version of a journal, and there's always the chance that some PR firm (say, hypothetically, um, AirTran's???) could pick up on the experience and offer to cop you for the flights -- which, I would presume, is what the airline is doing in this case.

Mark's obviously no stranger to that experience either; he's done previous "projects" like "Mark Lives in IKEA" where he lived in an IKEA store for 30 days and "171 Starbucks" where he visited 171 Manhattan Starbucks in one day. So, yeah, he gets this viral stuff.

Plus, this is the type of story that everyone loves (hence this posting) and in a world where people get famous for doing stupid things on YouTube, there's always a free 15 minutes to be had out there -- it's pretty obvious that Malkoff figured out exactly how to get his.

(Picture via Mark's fantastic Flickr stream. If that's not cool, email me and I'll swap, sir.)

Traffic Barrel Monster Man Arrested in Raleigh, NC

Artists are oftentimes quite bizarre people -- they tend to flirt with the mores of society in order to push the limits. Or something. Whatever, Joseph Carnevale is apparently one of those people and he was arrested recently.

What for? Creating the uber-awesome traffic barrel art located to the right. You see, Carnevale apparently caused an utterly devastating $360 worth of damage when he took some of these barrels, chopped them up a bit, painted them and turned them into Traffic Barrel Monster Man. (My name.) So sayeth the Smoking Gun (where they have larger photos.)

According to an arrest warrant, Carnevale "destroyed threeroad blocking barrels by cutting and screwing them together to form a statue." Police estimated that Carnevale's artwork caused $360 in damages to Hamlett Associates, the North Carolina construction company that owned the barrels. Carnevale is scheduled for a July 21 court appearance in Wake County.

I suppose that the authorities in Wake County (who, I'm sure are lovely people, although I've never met any of them, insofar as you know) kind of had to arrest him, right? I mean, the guy did steal some stuff and then take said stuff and make it unusable ever again. Even if "stuff" is "five traffic barrels," which is probably lower than the number that get accidentally run over each night on I-40.

It's just a little annoying that in a time when we all need a little comic relief, we've got the good city of Raleigh plowing through hundreds of dollars in taxpayer money just to make sure that this guy -- this LAWBREAKER -- somehow ends up paying for his heinous crimes of nature. Sigh.

Soccer Still More Important Than Everything Else in Argentina

Aerolineas Argentinas made headlines this week after a controversial decision to bump 90 passengers from a flight.

Flight 1302, providing service from Buenos Aires to Miami, had been scheduled to depart Ezeiza International Airport at 11:25pm on Tuesday night.

The flight was pushed back to 10:48am Wednesday morning after the Argentinian government decided to use the Airbus 340 as a charter flight to transport the national soccer team to Quito, Ecuador, for a World Cup Qualifying match.

Unfortunately the Argentinian National Team didn't enjoy themselves any more than the stranded passengers. The Argentines lost the game 2-0, ironically citing altitude as their downfall. Quito's stadium is perched at a staggering 2800m (9,186 ft) above sea level and visitors often struggle in the thin air.

South Korea Offers to Pay Tourists Who Contract Swine Flu

South Korea has a new twist on swine flu: if you get, you also get paid! I know, it seems ridiculous, but it's their big "tourism promotion" for 2009.

See, the H1N1 New Strain Influenza Cash Relief Program is designed to keep tourism alive in South Korea and remind people that even if you contract a possibly deadly (who knows, right?) or possibly harmless version of the flu, you can still get straight paid.

Well, kind of -- they're offering NT $100,000 to any tourist who contracts the swine flu while traveling in South Korea. The good news? It's money! The bad news? It's only $3,000 American.

But as we discussed in the PTG corporate headquarters, it's not like getting the swine flu is going to kill you or anything*. Or, at least, it probably won't. And if you contract it in South Korea, you're getting three grand for your troubles.

Additionally, after July 1, if you fly on Korean Air, Asiana Airlines, China Airlines, Eva Airways or TransAsia Airways and contract H1N1, you're getting three Grrr as well.

This is, of course, the first ever program of its kind: no tourism board as ever offered money for contracting a virus. And it probably would have made our list of "viral" marketing schemes for 2009 if it had been announced this week, because even as big of a pessimistic gamble as the whole thing seems, it's still pretty fascinating and at least worth getting some love by the media.

Also, the economy's down and money is nice, no?

*Please note we may not be considered licensed physicians in the United States.

Top Trends in Travel Advertising of 2009 [Viral, Baby, Viral!]

Is there a sexier word in advertising right now than "viral"? Of course not -- it's like the Gisele of the advertising industry. (And yes, sadly, "strategic partnerships" are the Paris Hilton. Go 'way, strategery.) And while the PTG editorial team was racking it's collective brain about virality and whatnot, we thought we'd toss together a list of the best meme-type things that have worked for folks looking to push their product. MEME FTW!

9. America's Best Bathroom

This hasn't even fully blown roof (yes, pun intended) in terms of being viral yet -- the finalists were just recently announced. But the folks at Cinta do extensive research on these bathrooms, and as the contest draws closer, they beef up the PR effort to really promote the contest. Plus, it's just freaking quirky to discuss bathrooms and cleanliness in terms of offering up a prize for "Best Bathroom."

8. Digg.com

Yes, this is a heavily oversimplified "meme" and probably one that doesn't even count unless you're totally down with thinking about memes in a very meta way; Digg, most of the time, is the site that creates the memes. (Rumor has it, in fact, that Digg runs the interwebz.) But the truth of it is that newspapers have simply done an outstanding job of promoting their product and driving traffic on Digg: the Los Angeles Times travel section is consistently located on Digg's Front Page, and as a result, they've seen their traffic skyrocket amidst a shoddy economy and a failing newspaper industry. No comment on how they're able to succeed so much.

7. Fantasy Football Aruba

If fantasy football were universally popular, this little offering from the Renaissance Aruba might top the list: essentially, they are providing a "Draft Day Package" whereby a group of eight guys get together, pay basically $100/night and get multiple night stay in Aruba to draft their fantasy football team, complete with drink and casino packages. Yes, it is the most awesome thing ever.

6. RyanAir

This probably classifies as a "failure" because we've got a multiple-use tag here at TL whereby we rip on RyanAir for their various decisions in advertising: using stewardess for a pinup calendar, attacking bloggers, or charging for bathroom trips on plane flights. But hey, we're talking about it right? And you know what they say about bad word > no word.

5. 67 Days of Smiles

Orlando is chock full of amusement parks and crazy rides. At a lot of those, you get your picture taken in mid free-fall while smiling. So, Orlando, in order to get all "strategically viral" and whatnot, decided to bust out a YouTube-style contest where people submit themselves as the potential face of Orlando tourism. The prize? 67 days of riding amusement park rides and (basically) blogging about it. It's not as popular as some other ideas, but still, clever.

4. Cleveland Tourism Videos




I'm not even sure how this fits into "real advertising" because the Cleveland Tourism Vids -- which are absolutely hilarious -- are also blatantly fake. But, here's the thing: they went "viral" because even the Inside the NBA crew on TNT spoofed them. And at this point, someone needs to grow up, say "Yes! Our city is bland and boring and tiny and not normally worth visiting, but if we can replicate that, maybe, just maybe we can drive some tourism when it's not Furniture Market." (Yes, I'm looking at you High Point.)

3. Rapping Flight Attendant

Southwest, in my humble opinion, is the best airline around. Primarily because they don't tack on silly bag charges, they're really, really helpful about letting consumers switch scheduled flights, and the people who work for them are generally just more friendly than other airlines. A perfect example? David Holmes, the rapping flight attendant who got so large even CNN covered him. Actually, he's bigger than that -- he went viral twice after explaining GAAP to Southwest's investors at their annual shareholder meeting.

2. Twitter

Twitter is by far and away the most love/hate filled meme-trend on the internet right now; I know people involved in advertising that simply can't stand the 140 character micro-blogging tool (you know who you are) but then others, myself included, are straight up addicted. It's a fantastic method for communicating your deals, plans, and corporate insight to consumers without seeming intrusive ... or without paying any money! Just ask Marriott International, whose Twitter account ranks up there with the finest in terms of corporate synergy PR work. (PS: Follow PTG on Twitter, obvs.) And if you think Twitter is going away, you should definitely remember what they said about blogz a few years ago, and look where they are.

1. Best Job in the World

Queensland, Australia: an awesome place but not necessarily a tourism mecca, no? Well, when they announced that they were hiring for the "Best Job in the World" recently, they received such a flood of applications, website traffic and wannabe viral videos that the whole internet shut down! Well, their internet anyway. But the folks in Queensland did everything related to their campaign perfectly: they offered a substantial sum of money for someone to hang out on an island and blog about it, and it put more eyes on their natural product than any amount of advertising budget possibly could.

Disneyland and Disneyworld Square Off in Dumbest. Bet. Ever.

Wow. Two straight NBA posts here on the old travel blog! Just gets me all excited thinking about the overlap. Or something. What doesn't get me excited is the idea of having to watch the presidents of the two Disney properties (one's in "California" so he gets to root for the Lakers and one's in Orlando so, duh, Magic) squaring off in an NBA Finals bet. If the Lakers win, Meg Crofton will wear purple and gold Mickey Mouse ears that say "Go Lakers!" while walking down Mainstreet USA. If the Magic win, well, you guessed it! Ed Grier will rock blue and silver Mickey ears. Obviously, Grier's feeling pretty good right now.

Mickael Pietrus Uses Shoes to Honor Air France Flight 447

Mickael Pietrus has a few nicknames -- "Air France," "The Michael Jordan of France" -- that are very indicative of his country of origin. Obviously, then, the recent crash of Air France flight 447 moved him.

So much, in fact, that he decided to honor those that lost their lives in the plane crash by wearing shoes that read "AF 447" last night during the first game of the NBA Finals.

"I have a nickname: Air France," Pietrus said. "I wanted to send my prayers to all those people who lost their lives on that plane. You realize how life can be. I know that families are having hard times right now and hopefully they'll have better days in the future."

"It could be any family that it happened to," Pietrus said. "Life is short and sometimes people suffer. And you've got to try to do the right thing."

The Orlando Magic didn't win, obviously, but that's no reflection on the classy action by Pietrus in this case: I'm not sure if what he did is "legal" or not (the NBA generally is pretty stringent, like most pro sports leagues) about allowing players to honor others in an individual fashion on their uniforms, but for Pietrus to give a shoutout on a national stage to his fallen countrymen and the others that passed in the tragic accident is an impressive statement nonetheless.

Six Flags Over Texas Has a Ridiculous Deal Running

Six Flags Over Texas was recently featured (kind of) in our Top Ten Amusement Parks list for good reason: Six Flags dominates rollercoasters.

Of course, that domination usually comes at a price to your wallet. But not in Texas, baby -- starting tomorrow, Six Flags Over Texas customers can purchase SIX admissions for the low, low price of $49.99. No joke.

"While it’s tough and everyone has to watch their discretionary spending, value’s going to win out. Tried and true is going to win out. Those that are investing in the product are going to win out," said [Mark] Shapiro [Six Flags CEO], who walked the grounds with Steven Martindale, Six Flags Over Texas president. They stopped to inspect the Texas Giant wooden roller coaster, slated for $10 million in new track, trains and controls in the fall.

Hey, what can I say? That's a freaking steal. It's a bit of a nightmare that they're not pushing it to all their parks -- I have zero chance of going to Six Flags Over Texas six times this summer, and, again, I don't care for rollercoasters, but the fact of the matter is that the park is fun enough on its own and if this was an option at Carowinds (just an hour from my house) you can bank on me being there six times over the course of the summer, just out of sheer principle.

Yamaguchi: One Dead, 20 Sick After Hotel Gas Leak

A young photographer died and 20 others fell ill after a gas leak in a Yamaguchi Prefecture hotel in Japan.

The Yamaguchi Shuhou Plaza Hotel was occupied by around 80 people at the time, most of them part of an elementary school group from Takatsuki visiting the famous Akiyoshi Cave.

A photographer in his 20s died after being taken to a hospital and a teacher briefly lost consciousness, according to the police. There were no students who felt seriously ill, they said.

The police said three nurses accompanying the students and teachers first collapsed soon after entering a top-floor room in the three-story hotel, while most of the students were eating dinner on the first floor. Teachers and others who tried to rescue them also collapsed.

The Yamaguchi prefectural police said the poisoning appeared to be from carbon monoxide. The students will visit the mine Wednesday as planned, before returning to their home town of Takatsuki in the Osaka Prefecture.

Twitter Robbery of Arizona Man Could Freak Some Folks Out

Twitter -- you know what it is, obviously, please, in addition to following PTG and myself? -- doesn't have many downsides, provided you're not some cranky old person that hates "those dang kids and their blog machines!" Or if you're Twitter user "@IzzyVideo" who recently tweeted that he and his family were going on vacation. Good times, right? Um, no. He got robbed, likely as a result of the social media site's ability to reach hundreds of thousands of people.

On May 24th, Izzy dropped this:

We made it to Kansas City in one piece. We're visiting @noellhyman's family. Can't wait to get some good video while we're here. :-)

And then four days later ...

Well, it's confirmed. Someone stole my Mac Pro and two displays while I'm visiting relatives here in Kansas City.

But, fortunately (I guess) the robbers left his Xbox. Now, before everyone decides to freak out and blame the Twittermachinez for this horrible travesty, let's go ahead and point out the same thing that Izzy did: his Twitter account automatically updates his Facebook status. That means Izzy could have accidentally sent this message out to thousands of people (I'm not his friend, so I have no clue how many he has) in addition to the over 2,000 folks that follow him on Twitter.

And the other thing, as I tell my parents often, is that we live in a very transparent world when it comes to internet personalities -- most of the "interwebz people" aren't hidden behind some odd name or false front anymore, particularly if they earn their living online. Which means that if you see Person X tweet that they're somewhere on vacation, and that person has a website where they make a living, you can probably find out where they live (or at the very least, check the WhoIs.net registration for the site) or at the very least get your Google/White Pages on.

Izzy actually has his full name, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and mobile phone number on his website. That's not particularly shocking, because it's his business site, but the thing is with a mobile number and a first and last name, you can track anyone in the world down to their home address pretty quickly. Which is what someone, obviously, decided to do.

Either that or one of Izzy's friends is a real jerk. The lesson? Well, it's not that "Twitter is evil" or the "Internet will kill us all" as many people will probably shout once they see his story all over the news (it's been picked up by ABC, NBC, CBS and then tweeted by IJustine, who's actually bigger than all of those, somehow).

The lesson is that you have to be careful when you broadcast something on the interwebz. Yes, it's that simple: just think before you tweet, folks.

67 Days of Smiles: Orlando Presents Free Money to Do Nothing

Queensland, Australia already made international news with the "Best Job in the World" promotion. Now, Orlando, Florida is trying to follow suit with their "67 Days of Smiles" promotion, which is going to pay two lucky people $25,000 to hang out for three months and ride amusement park rides.

No, it's not as long or as tropical as the BJITW, but it's still pretty sweet.

Work and play are one-and-the-same! The selected pair will experience everything from roller coaster riding to hang gliding, swimming with dolphins, golfing, shopping, spa-ing, gator wrestling, museum exploring, theatre-going and more.

The catch? There isn't one! No, there's not really. All that's required is that you "pick a partner," (bf, gf, brother, random homeless person, whatever) and create a 1-minute video which somehow explains why you're qualified to run around Orlando and have fun. Then you take pictures of your smiles (which might make the random homeless dude a bad choice) and apply online.

Orlando's Tourism board asks about a "blog, Facebook, Friendfeed, Flickr, Linkedin, Myspace, Twitter and YouTube" so it's pretty obvious that they want someone with tons of social media experience and an ability to spread the word VIRALLY (it's so buzzy and hip!) about Orlando's fantastic attractions.

Of course, that doesn't make it less awesome that you get to smile for a camera over the next 67 days, or generally hang out and ride rollercoasters while getting paid 25k for it, but it does mean that if you can figure out what Orlando's trying to do here -- and I believe I just told you, right?? -- that you stand a much better chance of making yourself an attractive candidate for the gig.

Via Walletpop: