By SPUD HILTON, San Francisco Chronicle

On most trips, I just call it the "black-and-white spaghetti": the yards of laptop power cables, Apple sync cords, camera and battery chargers, and headphone wires that somehow wrap themselves into a grapefruit-size tangle at the bottom on my carry-on luggage.

Most innovation in the world of carrying tech gadgets, accessories and cables is limited to pouches and pockets, usually of specific sizes to carry specific items.

The most annoying thing about YouTube videos (other than the startling number that feature kittens) is the horrible sound -- static, echo, white noise and completely undecipherable dialogue.

Maybe you see bunny rabbits as adorable pink-nosed puffs of fur, or maybe as the bloodthirsty, leaping lepus from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." Either way, there's no disputing that rabbits rule the roost this time of year, thanks mostly to holiday hoopla and Cadbury Egg commercials.

There's a general understanding that "travel watches" should be clunkified, Kevlar-armored, all-weather hunks of technology that tell altitude, barometric pressure, phases of the moon, your heart rate and whether your laundry could be fresher.

Oh yeah, and the time.

There was a time when the pinnacle of advanced technology in the average traveler's luggage was a portable curling iron or a Norelco shaver with spinning heads.

Now it's the average traveler's head that's spinning.

As Disney Cruise Line fans are daydreaming about Disney Dream, the line's first new ship in more than a decade, the focus on the West Coast is on waiting for Wonder. Starting next year, the latter ship will move here to alternate Mexican Riviera and, for the first time, Alaska voyages.

Feel free to blame Connie Francis.

In 1960, the singer starred in (and crooned the memorable theme song for) MGM's "Where the Boys Are," the sole topic of which was spring break in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

At a time when everyone in travel is releasing end-of-year and end-of-decade lists about Top 10 cheap hotels, romantic sites, waterproof jackets, iPhone apps, burger joints and airfare deals, Jeff Greenwald and his partners at Ethical Traveler, a Berkeley, Calif., nonprofit advocacy group that advises travelers on how to use "economic power to strengthen human rights and protect the environment

Consider two bus trips.

During the first, the chartered coach is on time, has all its wheels, cylinders and seats, the driver is charming and helpful and, aside from passing pleasant roadside attractions, the ride is uneventful.