If you can tweet every minute for 3-days straight – you could win a round-the-world ticket from V Australia.

Bad news: you kind of have to be based in Australia to enter (which explains the delightful kangaroo at left) – or, you could just play along for the sheer fun of it!

Anyway, you go to the V website, and they’ll explain how you tweet about why you want to enter – and then you are sent to Los Angeles, where you vie against other Twittering teams (not sure why you have to go there to do it – sort of blows the whole point of a trip to LaLaLand). Anyway, the winning team gets the round-the-world trip.

Of course, by this time, you’ve probably used up all your available vacation, and will no doubt have to pass the trip along to some deserving person (she said, humbly and earnestly). Get going, it all starts this month.

If you are Richard Branson, you pretty much have fun all day long.

Or so it seems.

But this is one really hard-working entrepreneur – after all, he has an empire to tend to, one that he built up from nothing.

Did you know Sir Richard was a high school drop-out? Do not tell the kids.

But see what he’s up to lately – and why he’s wearing those red, red shorts.

I’ll bet you’ve heard about the complaint letter of the year by now – if not, read all about it here on brother-blog RickSeaney.com.

It was written by some guy who thought the food on a recent Virgin flight was really, really bad.

Well sometimes, it pays to complain: Virgin now says they want him to help select the food on future Virgin flights! But, as of this writing, it’s unclear if he’ll accept Richard Branson’s kind offer.

Among the things this guy hated about the food was the way it looked – which was a nasty surprise, he said, since it looked like…well, let’s let him tell it:

“Imagine being a 12-year-old boy Richard,” our complainer wrote. “Now imagine it’s Christmas morning and you’re sat there with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that [stereo set] you picked out of the catalogue and wrote to Santa about. Only you open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster, Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil.”

Hope the new food doesn’t taste like rodent.

If you were a martini-sipping British super-spy, which airline would you fly?

Well, if you’re James Bond, you’re a Virgin Atlantic man.

The airline will aid Bond in his latest adventure, Quantum of Solace, just as they did in Casino Royale. You can check out pics of Bond spending time onboard a Virgin flight online. OK, so 007 wasn’t technically “onboard.” According to the Virgin Atlantic site, “The scene itself was filmed in January 2008 at The Base, Virgin Atlantic’s amazing new facility near Gatwick Airport, the largest cabin crew training facility in Europe.”

Visit Virgin Atlantic Promotions to see Bond in action.

Those crazy kids over at Virgin had another big week. They’re launching Virgin Charter, which could give us a regular folks a shot at flying on a private jet.

In other Virgin luxury news, the doors of the SFO Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse are now open to those flying first class on Virgin America. Keep reading to see what a first class airline ticket on Virgin America and $40 can get you at the Clubhouse…

All my childhood dreams of space travel are rushing to the surface. Virgin Galactic has released its designs for what should be the first viable commercial space craft, and if I can get the $200,000 needed to get onbaord, I could be going suborbital by 2010.

BBC News reports that Virgin’s design for SpaceShipTwo builds on that of the X-Prize winning SpaceShipOne. That means the craft will initially be lifted by a carrier plane (White Knight Two) before blasting off.

Visit Virgin Galactic for more on Richard Branson’s space plans, and if anyone could spot me the $200,000, I swear I’m good for it.

Liked this story? Check out “The Virgin Empire”

Virgin Atlantic is going to make a very special test flight next month: the tanks of one of their 747s will be filled with biofuel.

Supposedly, this is the first commercial airline to ever do this. According to the shy and retiring Richard Branson, this demonstration “will give us crucial knowledge that we can use to dramatically reduce our carbon footprint.”

Fine. But I notice that this “test flight” will have no passengers on board. Hmmm.

[Liked this story? Then check out "The Virgin Empire"]