According to USA Today, United Airlines is redesigning its economy coach areas on their 777 aircraft for ten-across seating. Can you imagine being squished for hours in the middle of a crowded row of 300 lb. NFL defensive linesmen? Or well-padded  opera sopranos and bassos?

Of course, to accomplish it in an already tight aircraft interior, the already-small seat sizes will need to be narrowed. Not only will your flight be extremely uncomfortable, but imagine what happens when those big guys/gals and you need to get up to go to the bathroom.

An Aussie firm is building a new cruise ship based specifically on the design of RMS Titanic. It will offer all the luxury features of the original ocean liner, and is expected to carry its first passengers in 2018. We can only hope the liner will avoid icebergs in its maiden voyage.

If the plan to duplicate the disaster ship proves successful, what’s next? How about Delightful Dachau, a fun resort extravaganza based on the WW2 concentration camp. A Broadway musical of the attack on the World Trade Center, Manhattan Crashin’?

An all dancing, singing and shaking version of the exciting San Francisco earthquake, Rockin’ and Rollin’ in Frisco? A romantically tuneful offering based on Europe’s Bubonic Plague, The Mucus Man?

Ever since the 1930s, comic strips and movie serials, Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, it has been predicted. There soon may be city transportation where travelers won’t need to drive on crowded streets nor use polluting gasoline.

They’ll go sailing through the air on controlled rails in little capsules. A new monorail idea is that they’ll be powered by passenger legs. No smelly, burning fossil fuels, just throbbing human muscles pumping away like captive critters in cages.

Big and getting bigger internet giant Google has plans to expand its business with this innovation. According to reports, Google is investing a million bucks in a company called Shweeb. They plan to develop such an effective, if a bit crazily radical, overhead transportation system.

We senior roamers are all too familiar with the rip-off practice. The ads tout hotel room rates at $99.99. Then, when you check out, the out-of-pocket price is actually up to $159.99. Of course, says the sneering-at-your-stupidity desk clerk, there’s the resort fee, wi-fi fee, turn-down fee, honor bar fee, state/city tax and several other add-ons you shoulda expected.

Maybe there will be some relief, or at least exposure to the rip-off tactics if Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill succeeds in getting a national bill passed. The proposed law is that all charges are stated up front when customers reserve rooms.

It may not lower the actual out-of-pocket cost, but at least you’ll know exactly what the room price is when booking. Now, if the good Senator can apply the law to airline add-ons and gas station signs, we senior travelers may benefit from something rare in the travel business: truth in advertising.