Starting this month Nippon Airship Corporation will begin offering airship cruises over Tokyo, at roughly US $1,100 to $1,500 a pop, no pun intended. Rides will be aboard a Zeppelin NT and will last 90 minutes (enough time to listen to "Houses of the Holy" and the first half of "Physical Grafitti.")

NAC's German-made Zeppelin NT, by the way is a "semi-rigid airship," not a traditional blimp. The difference? First, the NT has an internal truss, whereas old-school blimps were basically a balloon inside a skeleton. Second, it's not filled with hydrogen but with helium, which the pilots take turns inhaling to amuse each other with high-pitched squeals of "Kawaii!"

It's nice to see the Zeppelin finally making a comeback; they were much better-known last century. It's been a long time, been a long time, been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time.