Ah, love that joke. Anyway, now that I’ve gotten the 12-year-old-boy sense of humor out of my system for the moment, let’s talk about Ptseats.com, the new poker tourney online ticket broker from pro player Phil Gordon. Instead of heading to the casino early and waiting in line to register, players can buy tickets online. As with any online ticket broker, there’s a service charge (it’s a percentage of the seat cost, but from what I saw today, it was about $20). While the company purports to offer tickets to major tournaments around the country, the only one on sale right now is the daily tournament at the Trump Taj Mahal Atlantic City Casino Resort. Tickets for events at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, Wynn Las Vegas, The Venetian Las Vegas and the Orleans Hotel and Casino are coming soon.

In my never-ending efforts to procrastinate, I just spent a nice chunk of time perusing the Skybus web site looking for $10 fares - just to see if they were, in fact, still possible to book (they are offered through March 2008) and, if so, for which destinations. The airline promises to sell at least 10 $10 tickets on each flight. That’s the fare for a one-way trip and tax is added on. When I checked today at around 5pm PST, $10 fares were available on the following routes on the following dates:

Richmond, Va to Columbus, OH - Oct. 31, Nov. 7, 14, 28, 29, Dec. 1, 4-6, 11-14, Jan. 7-9, 11, 10-19, 22-27, 29-31

Boston to Columbus - Nov. 27-28, Dec. 4-6, 11-13, Jan. 7-11, 15-18, 22-26, 28-31

Columbus to Greensboro, NC - Nov. 13-14, Dec. 4-5, 11-12, Jan. 8-9, 14-16, 19, 22-23, 26, 28-31

Kansas City, MO to Columbus - Oct. 30-31, Nov. 6-7, 13-14, 27-30, Dec. 4-6, 8, 10-13, Jan. 8-17, 19, 22-31

Columbus to Hartford (Chicopee) - Oct. 24, 30-31, Nov. 14, Dec. 11-12, Jan. 7-9, 12, 14-16, 19, 21-24, 26-31

Look at all those places you could go for $10. Not bad.

In March 2008, Hawaiian Airlines is planning to add a direct Honolulu-Manila route to its flight roster. Not only will this make it much easier for travelers to fly between Hawaii and the Philippines, but it will also make an interesting stopover opportunity for West Coast (or really, all U.S.) travelers who want to visit the Philippines (kind of like the popular Fiji-Australia stopover).

Hawaiian Airlines to Launch Manila Flights

Instead of yawn-inducing tours that keep you safely separated from the real people, places and things in Los Angeles, Esotouric Bus Adventures takes tourists on avant guard, often literary-minded trips around the city. On Sept. 8, the 90-minute Hotel Horrors tour trolls passengers by downtown L.A.’s most notorious hotels (like the hotel where serial killer Richard Ramirez once bunked in). That same day, the Main Street Vice tour gleefully ferries passengers to “scenes of unforgettable debaucheries” for an education in L.A.’s history of crime, smut and passion. Nice. Other tours include the Real Black Dahlia, Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles, John Fante: Dreams of Bunker Hill and Haunts of a Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski’s Los Angeles.

In less than a year, the only place you’ll be seeing paper airline tickets is in an aviation museum. Yesterday the International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced that it has placed its final order for paper tickets and will go 100 percent paperless as of June 1, 2008. The move is expected to cut costs by approximately $9/per passenger and - obviously - lower the amount of waste produced globally by airlines (saving an estimated 50,000 trees).

For many travelers, paper tickets are already a thing of the past. The only paper ticket I’ve used in the last eight years was one issued by a travel agent for transport in South Africa. But the IATA’s announcement does provide a finite end to a practice that has been going the way of the dinosaur for years.

Airlines Body Bids Farewell to Paper Tickets

That’s the premise behind the Vatican’s new charter airline service run by Mistral Air. The low-cost service launched today in Rome and plans to fly 150,000 passengers annually on routes connecting destinations of religious import (think Rome, Santiago de Compostela, Lourdes).

The one thing I can’t figure out is how one can book seats on these flights and how much they cost. The Mistral Air web site is only available in Italian none of the info I’ve found thus far online mentions booking or cost.

Vatican Airline Takes to the Sky

Here’s a pretty sweet little device: The Tom Tom GO 720. This handheld GPS device allows users to edit maps from its 4.3″ LCD touchscreen. You can add your favorite locations, enter details about roads under construction or correct any inaccuracies you run across during your travels. Other users can download your map fixes - and you can download theirs. Mount it in your car or pop it in your pocket when you’re on the go.

On Oct. 29, 2007, United Airlines will send its first airplane outfitted with business class flat bed-seats, upgraded entertainment options and renovated premium economy and economy class cabins into the air. The Boeing 767 plane will fly United’s Washington Dulles to Frankfurt and Washington Dulles to Zurich routes. More planes will be outfitted with the new amenities throughout 2008 and 2009. While the big changes are happening in business class, economy class passengers will get new seat cushions, carpeting and an inflight entertainment system with LCD screens.

Last week, actress Kirsten Dunst was robbed during a stay at the Soho Grand Hotel in Manhattan. Well, her room was robbed, I should say. The intruders made off with Dunst’s designer handbags (one reportedly cost $13,000), $2,500 in cash, digital cameras, credit cards, an iPod and other belongings. Lucky for Dunst, the thieves were even less intelligent that the super annoying chick she played in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Caught on video, one of the culprits was arraigned in a Manhattan court last week and is currently being held on $50,000 bond. That’s, like, equal to four of Dunst’s handbags.

Dunst’s Hotel Room Robbed

Today, Southwest Airlines officially begins service to and from San Francisco International Airport with direct flights to Las Vegas, Chicago Midway and San Diego.