X-Entertainment's Christmas Season & Advent Calendar, 2008.

03/04/2006: San Francisco Treat.

Yeah yeah, I’m back. Got in from a biz trip to San Francisco this morning. Shoot for a new spot we’re doing. The shoot went from 8 AM - 6:30 PM Cali time, and from there, it was straight to the airport for the redeye flight back home, so if you count air travel as work (and I do), I worked for something like 350 hours straight and am now very much excited to be back at my computer desk full of Kool-Aid packets and empty boxes of Wheat Thins.

My hotel was chosen more on proximity to where I needed to be than anything resembling personal want, and as such, it was absolutely disgusting in many hilarious ways. Kind of reminded me of the really low-end Wildwood hotels, only without a game room converted from a washing machine area. The room featured a television capable of delivering two channels, and most of the lights made electrocution sounds instead of actually lighting up. It wasn’t the greatest area either, so when I wanted something to drink, it was a bit alarming to realize that the closest establishment to buy beverages at was a solid twenty minute walk away. Got to the point where I was pretending to patronize other local shitty hotels just to see if they had vending machines. Best of all was being charged 2.00 from the front desk for an extra two-inch coffee pod for the seventy year old coffee machine in my room, only to be asked for an additional 2.00 for two packets of sugar.

On the plane ride in I saw the fourth Harry Potter flick for the first time. Is it just me or did Ron get like 20 seconds of face-time, total? Poor Ron.

Staying in bad hotels gives you character. My in-laws, on the other hand, have been known to walk out of Best Westerns.

No game room?! Still no challenger for the worst game room ever, eh? Glad you’re back, I’ve been suffering from XE withdrawal :-).

Yeah, I was tempted to do a "WORST HOTEL ROOM EVER" article, but the pictures wouldn’t have proven my points too well.

Sure, but did anyone die in your hotel while you were there? That’s an experience that can’t be duplicated.

Yeah, hotel rooms are gross, even in nice hotels, I was a housekeeper all through my school days, I worked at a Ramada that so nasty, mold on the tiles, cigarette stains on the carpets blankets and sheets! And Im so very glad I dont have to clean the room that had a 300 pound man with a bowel movement problem anymore!

Seems we have a pretty good start to a saturday night thread, perhaps us fellow x-e’ers should regail eachother with worst hotel stories.

We showed up in Corpus Christi at about midnight so we could do the Beach to Bay marathon the next morning. Since there were 3000 people running the thing, and it was set to start very early in the morning, and we’re a bunch of procrastinating college students with no money, our choices of hotel reservations were limited.

So when we arrived at the Motel Six we’d booked rooms at, the first thing we saw was sirens everywhere. "Oh, hell," we thought. "Our hotel is burning down."

The good news is that they weren’t fire trucks. The bad news is that the first thing we saw when we pulled into the parking lot was a couple of cops handcuffing a shirtless man with a skullet. The worse news is that the second thing we saw was them carting away a dead body on a gurney. The clerk had to come out of his little armored box to give us our room keys on account of the pool of blood on the asphalt in front of it.

Then of course there was all the normal Corpus Christi bad hotel room features, like the stink of a thousand cigarettes, the various bodily fluids, and the massive mildew stains on the ceiling. Fortunately, the air conditioner was broke, so it was way too hot to be tempted into using any of the horrible bedding. Ah, good times.

Dude, I thought they shafted Ron in #3 in terms of face time, but it was nothing compared to the fourth. Poor Ron indeed.

Worst hotel I ever stayed in had carpet on the walls and a disturbing smell coming from the sinks. And occasional enormous flying roaches. The beach was not worth this.

Good to hear you’re back safe and sound…Now get to work on a Kool Aid review!!! My weekend thus far has been filled with far too many things non-trivial.

Worst Hotel Ever- My sister had her appendix burst while at camp and I had to go with my mom to the little town closest to the camp where the nearest hospital was. This was "up north" Minnesota. The hotel room looked excatly like the one in Fargo where Steve Bucemi and the other guy, whose name I forgot, got those hookers. It wasn’t just the general ugliness and worn out qualities of the hotel. It had a crazy ant problem. Seriously, ants everywhere.

Oh yeah, so anyway, worst hotel experience for me was in L.A…We got into the room and scrawled on the door was a note all bathroom stall style.."For a good time, call Slutsy…" then it had the number underneath which I don’t recall. Never did get the nerve to call. We knew after that, we were in for a hilarious week. Nasty, nasty hotel though.

I currently live in San Francisco and was wondering roughly where it was you stayed at? Because I’ve seen quite a few hotels here in the city that could easily fall into the description you gave. Did you get to experience the strange weather we had here yesterday?

Can’t say I’ve ever stayed in any particularly seedy hotels. One Otakon I my then bf and I had to get a Motel6 a few miles away and take cabs back and forth. That was the year I made the fucker cosplay with me, too. Had to drive back and forth to Inner Harbor dressed up as Chirico and Fyana from Armored Trooper Votoms (the master of all mech series).

Oh dude, some years ago when my ex and I were havin our 5-year anniversary we decided to go away to a nearby hotel for the weekend just to screw and whatnot. Well we get there and the hotel is catering to some sort of like, Northeastern Black Christian gathering at the same time. Funniest shit ever. My boyfriend was really uptight about it, I just found the whole situation hilarious. The guy I cheated on him with a year later would have found it funny, too.

The Internet is a wacky thing. You can tell a large group of people you stayed at a crummy hotel, and they ask you for pictures of it.

I guess it’s also a tad wacky that people don’t bother to read what you write about pictures not being of much value.

A dead hooker was hidden under the bed. Worst hotel room ever. Though solving the crime was fun. It turned out that the man with three buttocks had done it.

I worked in a hotel for while, holiday inn, nice enough, over $70 a night to stay there. couple stories, one clerk sold herself as an option with a room. a woman working out of one of the rooms was kicked out because she was smoking in a non-smoking room. they hate that. working out of the room didn’t bother them as much. rented a room to a guy that broke the headboard, that was funny. if you plan on staying at a hotel and getting smashed, rent the room first, hard to take money from drunks.

I’m more accustomed to seeing the outside of hotels than the inside. The last one I stayed at was a large hotel in Queens in June 2001, and it wasn’t bad. Worst thing that happened was I left my pajamas there and didn’t realize it until the bus was half-way to Atlantic City.

I don’t have any atrocious hotel stories, but during the last big family vacation we stayed in a rather lackluster place. I can’t say we didn’t ask for it though, because Dad thought it would be more economical to not make any reservations ahead of time, pick up a coupon book at the nearest Denny’s when we got into town and get a good deal. There were a couple of nasty-looking places that we flat out nixed, but there was a Days Inn that didn’t look so bad. The lobby was pretty nice, so we took the room. It turns out, they had only renovated the lobby and the rest of the hotel looked like it was on its last legs. The elevator made the most awful sound - like it was trying to make it up to the third floor just one…more…time. Even then, it never stopped in the right place, so you usually had to take a step up when you got off. I thought for sure the cable was going to snap and it was going to end up being my last family vacation for totally different reasons.

I was working at a Ramada Inn and this one man that was staying there was as I said HUGE.

Before I ever set foot in his room I could smell the nastiest smell right by his door, it was bad enough to make you want ralph. As I knocked this man opened the door and this huge hot smelly breeze came flying through my nostrils I tried my best to hold back my gag. I asked the man if he wanted room service and he let me in to clean, as I came in he shut the door behind me so I was without fresh air, I walked in I could feel the heat on full boar, he sat on a chair and started to watch me clean his room. As I moved about he says "I need to have my sheets changed" but he didn’t tell me why, as I roll down the covers I see dark runny shit ALL OVER THE COVERS! He was watching my every move so I had to acted like nothing was wrong, after I made the bed I moved on to the bathroom thinking the worse was over WRONG!

I come into the washroom and the floor was covered and I mean covered in crap. After I finnished with the floor I moved onto the toilet, which was pretty much brown and smelly. As I left the room I was so closed to puking I had to sit down for 20 minutes.

Sadly this went on for 3 months, the man stayed at the hotel for 3 fucking months! I told my boss but she said the manager didn’t care and I had to clean it. The problem was this man liked me the best out of all the housekeepers so I was the only one that had to do it.

I stayed at one of the worst hotels ever last week on my way to a business trip. I live about 2 hours away from the airport, and since my flight left at 6 am I thought it would be a good idea to stay overnight at a hotel near the airport. I thought I would get a decent night’s sleep and show up to my meetings well rested and prepared to kick ass. Once I saw the room, though, I knew I was wasting my money. In the bathroom, the wall was crumbling, the plumbing was being held together with duct tape, and there was a smell. The TV only got a hazy, snowy approximation of a picture on three channels (did I mention the smell?), and the bed was so old and nasty that I literally skinned my knee on a spring. I didn’t get any sleep, I blew a wad of cash, and I showed up to my meetings and had to pretend not to be a zombie. Moral of the story? Be very skeptical of any hotel near the Detroit airport.

Stayed in a hotel room in ocean shores wa on a drunken trip with my sister, we checked in late, they gave us a key and as we were scanning it, the hugest meanest guy in the world flinges the door open. they had given us, two cute 20 somethings the worlds most angry sex offenders room- this guy said things the Marquis de Sade would be ashamed of, so we went down and the motel people didn’t believe us but after me invoking lawyers and everyone from the 12 disciples to BBB, they had to give us the honeymoon suite (only room left) - no shit it had a SHELL shaped bed which vibrated and a fake fire that was COLORED bits of muslin and a fan behind it - also there was a starving cat in it. we fed it popcorn and adopted it. Scary scary place

I have not stayed in many hotels or motels, and the ones I HAVE been to have been fine. Reading these stories is scaring me, as I’ve never been to a BIG-CITY motel (as most of these bad ones appear to be located in them). Is this more the exception than the norm, or should I just avoid ever traveling for the rest of my life?

Hopefully they beef up Ron’s role in the next flick–although, I didn’t read the books, so I don’t know how much sense that’d make offhand. Either way, Ron rules…

And for the record, although the fourth one was cool and dark and everything else critics rejoiced over–it wasn’t as good as the second film. How can you compete with Dobby?

the worst hotel I’ve ever been to was in China… oh my goodness, I’ll never forget it! my friend and I decided to take a weekend trip to Qingdao (a generally nice city that will host some of the Olympic events for the 2008 Olympics) and we stayed at a communist hotel (the business cards had the communist party symbol on it) for convenience sake. it was near the train station and beach. I don’t think the room we stayed in had been cleaned in months. the bed sheets and covers were nasty. we had a SPITOON in our room. the room was just really nasty. the fan was on 24/7 even though there was an air conditioner and the fan always looked as if it was going to fall on top of us. oh yeah, and we didn’t have our own bathroom. if we decided to take a shower (which we never did) we would have had to gone into a small, unlit room the size of a very, very small bathroom stall that was out in the hall. ok, for the toilet we had to go downstairs into a dark, scary hallway that stank like nothing we’d ever smelled before. the bathroom consisted of two "squatty potties" (imagine holes in the floor) with stalls that we believe were made for miniature people… the stalls did not have doors… and the door to the bathroom was always open with a beautiful view of one of the stalls clearly visible from down the hall. needless to say, we didn’t want to use the bathroom there. we ended up being frequent customers at the nearby McDonald’s and KFC just so we could use CLEAN bathrooms. I just gave myself the heebie jeebies thinking about that place. there was one plus about the place… the tv worked. too bad they didn’t have any English channels and we didn’t actually want to stay in the hotel. otherwise that would’ve been a really nice plus. instead we ended up spending 95% of our time out in the city doing ANYTHING just so we wouldn’t have to go back to that place….

I always liked those little coffee makers that some hotels have in the room. Coffee always seemed to taste better when made from a cute, little personal coffee pot.

I remember staying at one place where you only get one coffee pod per stay, so if you stayed a week you only got one, how stingy is that? Another place I stayed at gave you all the pods you wanted, and even though the room was ridiculously expensive, at that moment I was a loyal customer and knew I’d return again.

By the way, anyone ever stay at the Philadelphia Airport Hilton, the one right across from the airport? I was supposed to stay there with a few friends next month and have heard mixed things about it.

Matt, they actually had the nerve to charge you $2 for a couple of sugar packets???

Review the World, I totally agree. The last two movies have been bigger and more, I dunno, melodramatic? But none of them has been as good as Chamber. I don’t know if you’ve read Goblet of Fire, but there’s this huge Dobby/House Elf storyline that they completely eliminated from the fourth movie. That was my big issue with it, along with what I guess is a trivial nitpick about how Harry kills the dragon that he fights in the tournament. He outsmarts but doesn’t kill it in the book and I thought it was gratuitous and mean to kill it in the movie, not to mention out of character. The Myrtle scene was great, though.

I haven’t seen the Goblet of Fire yet, but count me among the people who was sad when the new director got rid of the robes. I mean, seriously, why do people feel the need to do that sort of thing? I’ve long since given up on being one of those people who want movie adaptations to be exactly the same as the book, they’re different mediums with different priorities, but when every chapter of every book mentions that the kids are wearing robes, it won’t break your artistic bloody vision to stick them in some robes, you git.

Robes aside, the big beef I had with 3 was all the geography changes. You cannot establish an environment in 1 and 2 and then change it for the other sequels.

Worst hotel room-Church trip to Miami to rebuild after Hurricane Andrew. Hotel was in Ft. Lauderdale. Rough neighborhood, THICK doors with potential blood stains on them, and hookers in the lobby. How do I know it was bad? The youth minister basically told us not to tell our parents about how bad it was

I’ve always been exactly the opposite. I feel that, in order to make a successful movie, changes need to be made. It’s a matter of the medium, and there are certain things you can pull off in a book but not in a movie (and vice versa). While I’m an ardent Harry Potter book reader, I think as the Potter movies have improved as they have become more different from their source material (and critics seem to agree with me).

I did leave a little confused after Azkaban (the whole Padfoot/Prongs/Wormtail exclusion), but as of book six it doesn’t play any huge plot-changing role, so I guess it was a reasonable cut.

The Hogwarts robe thing seems kind of inconsequential. While it didn’t bother me, the change doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

As far as worst hotel room…I guess the place I stayed at Wildwood was pretty crappy, although no real complaints. I stayed at the Hotel Edison in New York a few times, and one summer it was hot as hell. At that point there were no drink machines in the hotel, and we had to run to a corner deli to pick up sodas, lest we be hit with a hefty room service charge.

I have always been pretty good with hotels. No real horror stories. I stayed at a Best Western in Lima, Peru and it was very oppulent for a foreign country. Had everything you could need, but was a bit smaller in size then a Best Western you might find in the U.S.A.
When I was a kid, I went to Disneyworld with my folks on 2 seperate occasions, One time I stayed at the Polynesian Resort and a few years later we stayed at the Contemporary Resort (the one with the Train running through the middle). Because it’s Disney they have renovated these fine places often and keep them up. I remember clearly and prob have some photos of it but back in the day the Polynessian had this really groovy 70’s carpet, like an old Atlantic City Casino.

Oh, and what of the Contemporary, well aside from that awesome character breakfast right under the monorail station, they had a kick ass arcade. I remember back in the day, I used to play the SIT DOWN version of the Arcade game "SPY HUNTER" with a Kitt-like joystick. huh huh huh that was cool.

mtrox, you have an interesting point. I’m about to finish rereading The Godfather and it’s cool but the movie is a great film for completely different reasons. If they had tried to adapt it directly it would have been a totaI failure. I also agree that the Harry Potter movies have gotten "better" in some ways as they go on, but as a fan I find them less satisfying.
The best adaptations, IMO, either use the book as a departure point, excising what they need while keeping consistent to the characterization (Gone with the Wind, for example) or use the book as inspiration but create their own world that’s just as or more interesting than the book (Godfather).

While not a personal Hotel story one of the worst I’ve heard came from my cousin in the Airforce. He was on leave for a week to Tokyo and living on military pay he only had around $40 a day for a hotel (and $100 for drinking, gota kep your priorities straight

) Due to this he was forced to sleep in a Capsul hotel near the train station.

Picture 200+ tubes roughly the size of coffins stacked four high along a long hallway. Each tube houses one person with a foam matress, a small 5 inch tv in the celing, a few electric plugs and if your lucky a small fan to keep the air going. Each section of about 20 tubes share one small bathroom with only a large japanese style tub that is only emptied and filled once a day.

Don’t have much to say about bad hotel stays, but I am totally winning a TMNT Wilton Cake pan on ebay right now. (Michelangelo).
I’ll definetely post a pic of the finished product after I get it.

SNL last night was awesome. I even watched the musical act which I rarely do. Natalie Portman rapping is up definately up their with the Lazy Sunday rap.

I’ve liked all of the Potter flicks so far (haven’t read any of the books though). Goblet just came onto the local IMAX here and I want to see it again on that.

Matt, here are those cell phone pics you requested. I would have emailed them earlier but I was afraid an email with attachments would bounce.

I just got done watching "Requiem for a Dream" for the umpteenth time. It’s an utterly brilliant movie, but I always feel like I need a 30-minute hug from my mom after watching it.

I always was amused by Requim I think part of it has to do with the fact that the chick from Labyrinth is having double anal dildo sex….

Tougi- I was too pumped over the prospect of seeing a ratty hotel to read the first comments. Sue me!

In the last blog, I neglected to mention that on wednesday, I tried the Wendys Hawaiian Sauce. Didn’t like it.

My worst hotel experience? Well, at the end of August in 2004, I went to Dowell Virginia to go to Paramount’s Kings Dominion (which kicked ass, btw), and I stayed for 2 nights at a Quality Inn that definately did not live up to its name. Freaky-ass stains…n the chair that was there, the scuzziest looking pool ever (which was closed), a bar that was literally closed, and an incredibly lame excercise room, which the only exercise one would get would be running as far away from that room as possible.

Then again, I got spoiled earlier in the week in Williamsburg at what was probably my best Hotel experience ever at a Days Inn, with the only problem being the AC that came through the vents rather from an exterior AC, so the room was an icebox. Also, I got to witness Tropical Storm Gaston hit us from the porch of the place, so that was fun.

And SNL is going pretty good this week, with a hilarious Weekend Update, and the first Wake Up Wakefield sketch in literally 2 years.

Is anyone watching SNL Right NOW with Natalie Portman rapping and telling people to suck her dick? HAHA!!! Oh my God am I entertained right now.

IHAQ- why did you stay so long?
and natalie portman’s rap thingy was hilarious

Damn! I don’t get HBO. Maybe I’ll pop in the DVD tonight, although it won’t be the same. There’s just something about catching flicks like that on tv. =(

Also, I forgot to mention that yesterday I spotted some pumpkin seeds at the store and it made me long for Halloween. Maybe I’ll check the Halloween archives on here in a bit.

kb: I couldnt quit because I was pregnant and I knew I couldnt find another job b/c I would end up leaving in 2 months on maternity leave anyway.So I stuck with it, now I will never have to work another day in my life!

My girlfriend and I were 16 year-old runaways heading through CA in a stolen Cadillac. We pulled up late at night in the crap town of Los Banos, CA. ("Los Banos" = the bathroom in Spanish).

We were tired, cramped, and in need of a room. It was past 2:00 a.m. Through my bleary vision I could make out the flickering red neon vacancy light of the only hotel within miles. We paid the $27.95 + tax and with key in hand, opened the door to the shit hole loosely disguised as a hotel room.

Roaches scurried across the floor as the flourescent lighting flickered on and off before reluctantly deciding to settle in the on positon.

I stepped onto the carpet and was surprised at the spongy, squishing sound of my footsteps. It turns out the room was saturated with what we like to think was water.

The room reaked of cigarettes, mold, and urine (I still hope that was water on the floor). Sections of wall were peeling and exposed.

In dismay, yet totally exhausted, I pulled the ratty, cigarette burned bedspread off. (I’ve seen the shows where they use a blacklight to reveal cum stains on hotel bedding. The bedspread was always the worst because it is not washed everyday like the sheets.) The springs groaned, creaked and snapped under my weight. Suddenly half the bed collapsed, causing me to roll off onto the soggy floor (I still hope that was water).

We uprighted the bed and decided as fucked up as the room was, the bed was still more appealing than sleeping in the car again. Everytime one of us got up to use the bathroom you could hear the squish-squash-squish of footsteps across the carpet.

Perhaps the worst part of the night was when we attempted to go at it before nodding off to sleep, and I couldn’t even get it up. Sixteen years old and couldn’t fucking get it up because the room was so incredibly disgusting! Fortunately, that was the only time that happened.

This horrendous night took place about 16 years ago. We eventually got caught and did a few days time in a San Francisco juvenile detention center before being sent back home. Part of our probation was no contact with each other for a year.

We stayed together through it all and we are now happily married with two children!

Crash won the Best Picture Oscar! I wasn’t really that into the show this year, really just watched it as a holdover till next week when Sopranos comes back. Can’t wait!

Wow… Slow day for the blog. Just another lazy Sunday I guess. I don’t really have any lousy hotel room stories. Although I did stay in a cabin at a ski lodge for my cousin’s wedding somewhere in left-of center-of- the-middle-of-nowhere, Pennsylvania. There was no hot water. And the pullout couch was pretty uncomfortable. I slept on the floor.

Worst Hotel room in Korea: NO TV, NO hot water, the "balcony" was a rusty metal death trap with a broken screen door, the floor and walls were stained with various things…long story short-we grabbed the pillows and the cleanest blanket, ran passed the front desk with them, and slept on the beach that night instead! So, basically we paid $50 for blanket rental.

Nice to see that you’re back, Matt. You sound like a producer! (’Flying to San Fran for a spot we’re doing’ etc.) Cool.

Ron WAS underplayed, which was a shame. I was mad they cut out the house elf story as well. Still, GREAT movie overall.

Since its slow I will stop lurking through the hallowed halls of X-entertainment and post.

I enjoy chinese food, emo music(as in music with emotion cause that covers just about everything)and living in Idaho(Ski the great potato)

The only bad hotel story I have is when my drama went to Twin Falls for a drama competion in 1999. The hotel was nice but somebody pulled the firealarm in the middle of the night. Luckly we kept sleeping. Kind of alarming that our chaparone didn’t check on us.

If that was the SPID Motel Six, that’s where they whacked Selina! When I was in the Navy I used to live down by the base in Corpus and Selina’s fans have the room where she died perpetually rented out (or did back in 99-2000)

BTW Mystie, your site rules too! My family is from Wilkes-Barre though I grew up in NY, so I feel you! Shout out to rural PA!

The year after high school, I was still living in my hometown, and my then-g/f was going to a strict Lutheran college in Milwaukee. So strict that boys could not even be in the girls dorm after like 9 p.m.

So a couple friends plus me were down there visiting, and we wanted to get a motel room, but you have to be 21 to get a room, for some odd reason, and none of us was that old yet. So we decided to drive around Milwaukee and find a really seedy motel that wouldnt ask for ID’s and wouldn’t call the cops on us if we got drunk and loud.

We found one called the "Western Motel"…not "Best Western"…Just Western.
We didn’t have any probs getting a room. The lady didn’t ask us for ID’s or how many people were staying in the room, which was good, because there was a bunch of us!

We had a roaring party, yadda yadda, fast forward to the next morning. We were all rushing around trying to get our shit together to leave, when my friend Jesse yelled out.

He was looking under the bed for something, and he pulled out this big fucking knife in a metal scabbard!! It was just laying underneath the bed. We were all really freaked out. I mean, what if it was some kind of gang knife, used to murder people, like a missing weapon.

It was easily a foot long, and it actually reminded me of when Manson’s Family used a big gang knife to kill a Black Panther!

Another time, I was in Japan, and we were in a hotel that had steam baths and saunas and stuff, and I had to be naked in front of two of the teachers that were on the trip. Pretty awkward for a 10th grader.

I liked all the cuts in HP4. Don’t get me wrong, I love the subplots in the book and I would have loved to see Dobby again but so much goes on in the books that trying to translate it all into the movie just makes for a really rushed and cluttered feeling movie. I felt they were better off to take the main plot and do a really great job, as they did, instead of trying to do justice to the subplots and failing horribly. But they should have kept the freaking robes.

This has nothing to do with bad hotels, or Harry Potter, or SNL, but I just saw Queen + Paul Rodgers tonight and it was FANTASTIC. I mention this because a couple blogs ago, someone (I forget who) mentioned they were disappointed with it. Which I’m now confused by because a) It rocked, and more importantly, b) The tour just kicked off two nights ago in Miami, definitely after said post was written.

Wilton cake pans rule. Later this year I am turning 30 (I don’t want to grow up and be old!) Matt’s ALF cake article inspired to me to do something similar for my birthday, maybe bake a He-Man cake, or a Transformers cake for myself. You just can’t feel old and grown up when eating a novelty cake baked in a Wilton pan.

Kidneyboy - That story is INSANE. As a graduate of the large, Catholic university with a good basketball team located down the street from the strict, Lutheran college you speak of, I have to know, where is this motel!?!? And what year was this?!

They made a pregnant woman do that. A PREGNANT WOMAN. That motel had no shame. Disgusting.
If your baby had ended up deformed due to overexposure to poo, couldn’t you have sued them?

If there was such a thing as overexposure to poo, P. Diddy’s music would have killed him a long time ago.

OOh, Wildwood hotels, there is nothing like em’. We (my friends and I) stayed at a wildwool hotel/motel after our senior some 6 years ago. I forget the name but we called it the Sea Sludge Hotel. We almost got kicked out for having to many people in the room, which actually wouldn’t have been bad since my girlfriend (at the time and till this day) has a shore house in cape may - which is only 15-20 mins away.

Let’s see, worst hotel experience…There was the time I went to Greece with my uncle. We were on the island of Santorini, and you’d think they’d have cute little provincial rooms for rent run by a family, right? No. Our door did not close (we barricaded it and just never left anything in the room when we were gone since there was nothing to keep it from being taken), and the bathroom was designed so the shower was not enclosed. Not that it didn’t have a curtain, there was just a drain in the middle of the floor and you had to spray the entire room to get clean. Actually not that uncommon in some areas of Europe.

Oh, and with the same uncle I got stuck in a seedy motel after a concert in Denver. There was the big concert and a convention of some sort that night, and we hadn’t booked a room, so this was literally the only place left. It’s about like what other have described - filthy, didn’t even go into the bathroom so don’t know about that, beds from about 1930 that probably hadn’t been cleaned since then, etc. etc. etc. Those two trips taught me to be the planner when I go somewhere with that uncle, he’s not so good at finding hotels.

Another Matt - Is Wilkes-Barre pronounced Bare, Bar, or Berry? I sometimes have to take operator calls at work (Boscov’s call center) and everyone seems to say it differently! I’m toward Reading so I usually have to listen to people screw that pronounciation up. I bet a lot of kids think they’re taking a ride on the reeding railroad, but it’s actually redding.

On the topic of Wilton Cake Pans, I have an aunt that used to decorate cakes on the side. Her basement wall was like a pegboard for cake pans. She always made cakes for my brothers and I on our birthdays. Hugga Bunch, Ninja Turtles, Super Mario, etc etc. Good deal.

My grandparents lived in Hawley, and we always had to drive by Wilkes-Barre to get there. My grandparents always said it "Bahreh," but they’re from Maryland, so I don’t think they count as locals.

Heeeyyy, you got something to say about middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania, cuz that’s where I happen to call HOME, bub!

Yeah, it has been a slow blog day. *shrug* I’ve been on the comp all day, though. I’m switching domains so I’ve been getting all bug-eyed doing redesigns and tidying up code and what have you.

When Army Sister was in the hospital after her car accident, the rest of us were going back and forth from here in Anadarko to OKC practically every day. Now, I was 16 at the time, Little Brother was 14, and Oldest Sister was 20. At one point, us three kids were going to stay the night at a motel, and our temp digs were chosen. Well, the desk guy started giving Big Sis a hassle about three young people getting a room. Pop had even gotten the room for us, but as soon as he headed back to Children’s Hospital, the problems started. Big Sister was always the type to take charge of a situation, and soon, after some argument, and a phone call, Pop was back and we went to another place down the road. That night, we were watching the news and there was a story about how the police had just raided the other motel in a big prostitution/drug sting. ha-ha!

That was the weirdest post I ever did by accident! I have heard of double posts, But that is the first half-and-a-one post I ever seen. Sorry about that.

My Aunts and Uncles who grew up there pronounced it "Barry". There probably aren’t any rules, though

Mystie, I grew up in Montgomery County PA, just north of Phila. and we always said "Wilkes Bear", though an ex-bf from the area assured me it’s "Wilkes Barry", so go figure.

I learned some important lessons on this one. First, always check for other events going on in an area before deciding to travel without reservations. Two, bathrooms need full walls, not half walls. Especially when others are trying to watch TV while you are showering. Three, smelling stains to ascertain what they are is usually a really bad idea.

I don’t normally stay in the city for anything, but we’d spent all day on our feet for this NFL kick off thing, so we decided to stay over. So we got a suite. Except it’s a European Suite, with European Double beds. Those equate roughly to a bed somewhere between a double and a queen, thus ensuring I spent all night with someone’s knee in my back. I didn’t think it possible, but they had someone managed to stick a shower stall in a airplane bathroom.

Nothing like a room that comes with a complimentary wasp nest right outside the door. Well appointed room containted a TV with only half the screen working, a clicker bolted to the bedside table, hairy sheets, a particularly interesting series of iron burns on the carpet, and a blind schnauzer that roamed the halls and randomly pissed on the floor.

My mother once has a brilliant idea to go to Daytona Beach. Normally, that wouldn’t be a sarcastic statement, except for the fact it wasn’t our initial destination, and it was Race Week. The odds of us finding a place to stay were pretty good, because the goods were very, very odd. My brother got lice from the sheets, we were afraid to put anything down on the table for fear of it being taken by the palmetto bugs (huge-@ss roaches), and both rooms on other sides of us got visited by the cops. My dad went out and bought a baseball bat and spent all night sitting by the door. Ah, family vacation …

Anytime they run your credit card and then ask you to sign a form stating you will not use the motel as your perminent address and you will not reside there for any longer than three weeks, take you card, leave the premises, and fight it out with your credit card company later. There is a reason why it’s that cheap despite it’s proximity to Busch Gardens — it’s Satan’s own flophouse. We were given "the best room", which was right behind the 24 hour Taco Bell Drive Thru. The AC unit was replaced 5 times in 6 days. The toilet (yes, the whole toilet, not just the plunger or anything) was replaced twice. The mini-fridge flamed out at 2AM one night. The ceiling leaked when they actually put someone in the room over us. The vending machines leaked what looked like anti-freeze. And for some bizarre reason, there were always ten thousand take out flyers being thrown under the door.

Worst hotel I stayed at was a cheap-ass youth hostel in london, with a group of Freshmen from my college.

The room I was in had 6 girls living barracks-stylee. It had, unlike most of the other rooms, an in-room shower.

With a transparent door. When I say "in room shower", I mean in the hotel room itself, not in a separate bathroom. So we had to hang a towel over the door so that the other people couldn’t see us naked.

The worst part is when it backed up with stink and floaters on our second day there, so they moved us down to a different room which had worrying ceiling fungus, and didn’t have an in-room bathroom. Walking down the hall to go to the tar-paper covered shower room was… interesting.

wow dude, that’s a shit room and a half! What company do you work for that they’d put you up there?

The worst hotel I stayed at has to be this hotel in north carolina. it looked like the motel from Identity.

i dont know if anybody already said this but, the toy show is on vh1 tonight at 9. kinda like the i love the 80’s show but about old toys. hopefully its cool

sorry to double post, but the worst hotel i ever stayed in was the sandpiper in wildwood.it was cool cause me and all my friends were 18 and nobody cared that we were drinkin there but it was a real dump. another bad one is the knights inn on the blvd in philly. they did have free porn but nothing anybody would ever want to see.

I was probably 5 years old or so, Pacific Grove, CA. My mom dad and I took a vacation and we went to nearby Monterey. We stopped at this place, and I can’t remember the name of it for the life of me, but it was closed within a year and gone within two after this.

No. Bed. My dad calls the office "Umm…there’s no bed."
The office says "Use the hide a bed in the couch"
"Umm…no, we paid for a room with a bed, move us or bring us a goddamned bed. Our son is using the hide-a-bed."

"We don’t have any beds and we dont have any rooms. Come to the office and we’ll give you an air mattress, otherwise, deal with it."

My dad flew out the door and came back with a little middle-eastern guy by the back of his shirt. I don’t know to this day wht my dad did to tht little man, but we got another room, with a bed. The sheets were dirty on the bed there and my dad made the guy come up and change them himself.

I don’t really know why we stayed there…I think the other motels in the city were full or something. Anyway the next day we wandered the premises. We’d gotten in at nite and hadn’t seen things like the empty pool or the broken staircase that just dropped 25 feet.

Big J- Your mom dad? Must be a complicated relationship! Wokka Wokka! I’m such a bitch!

Mars: No, I married 50 cent! Nah, I just always wanted to be a stay at home Mom, and now I am

I once stayed at a place that claimed the room had a kitchen. The kitchen was a hot plate and a coffee maker.

I agree on Ron’s pitiful amounts of screen time (especially since ickly Hermione gets more), but more importantly: WHAT IS ON HIS HEAD?

I don’t remember anything offensive about Ron’s ‘do, but I did hate Harry’s moptop. I hated the street clothes thing too (I think it makes them seem older than they’re supposed to be) but neither issue bugged me to the point that it ruined the movie.
Did anyone see the bit on The Soup where they edited the trailer footage together and made it about Harry and Ron and the love that daren’t speak it’s name? Not the freshest gag in the world, but they pulled it off great.

This is a little off subject, but does anybody know if the Special Edition St. Patty’s Day Lucky Charms cereal is out this year? I haven’t seen it yet. Was the Halloween Edition released this year? I couldn’t find it.

With all the Wilkes-Barre postings, I forgot my worst hotel story: staying at the Sea Horse Motor Lodge in Galveston, TX. My friend and I were on a spring break pilgrimage to find the Balinese Room (hint:listen to ZZTop), which had burned down/been ruined by a hurricane some years before as it turned out. It used to be a cool bar out on stilts over the Gulf, but I digress.
The Sea Horse was SO FOUL that we slept outside in MARCH in sleeping bags on the balcony because the room smelled so bad. Even in South TX, it was rainy and cold. I got a tattoo and was allergic to the ink, and it was a fun trip all around!

One more post…they have since rebuilt the Balinese Room. Damn! I’ll have to make the stupid trip all over again

Check it out: a den of ill repute if ever one there was.

Hey, you guys see that VH1 is doing I love toys this week. The first one is just going off now. It is awesome, and I figure this crowd would get a kick out of it.

Matt,

I think this would be up your alley. Rare sodas shipped right to your house.

Pepsi Clear/ Coca Cola Light Sango
Posted: 12:30 Tue 07-Mar-2006. Price: Pepsi Clear - Mex$8 for 600ml (about 50p). Location: Polanco, Mexico City
"charl" reports: I got quite excited to find this in a strange little shop in the fancy part of Mexico City. It’s in a strange translucent silver bottle, with the keen taglines "Descubrela antes de que desaparezca" and "El mas claro refresco de cola" on the blue label ("Discover it before it disappears" and "The clearest cola soft drink" according to my ten-year-old Spanish GCSE). It smells like Pepsi on pouring and, whilst there’s a slight echo of Tab Clear, it’s not as peppery and a lot more like regular Pepsi. All in all pretty good and slightly less heavy than regular pepsi. There’s a link to the website on the label, but there’s no mention of the drink on there…

Sorry, it wasn’t on BevNet, it was on SnackSpot. Still, Clear Pepsi. I’m moving to May-hee-ko.

Rare, my ass! I can go in pretty much any store around here and get a twelver for less than $5.

Ron has this fluffy monstrosity on his head, that’s about the best I can describe it in mere words. Don’t even get me started on Harry…I thought that actor was a bad choice from the beginning, and they just make him creepier looking with every film.

Well, the hotel is, or was, on Hwy 100, towards the east, not all the way to Hales Corners, but past the interstate. It was a few years ago, maybe ‘00 or ‘01, I’m not sure.

I think the amazing thing about that cream soda is that it’s caffeine free. As I’ve mentioned before, A&W Cream Soda is my husband’s favorite drink, and I’ve never even heard of a caffenine free version. In fact, the effect of the caffeine on him is pretty much his only complaint about it. Unfortunately, even regular 12 packs are non-existent here. It must be really unpopular in this area. Pretty much all we can find are 2-liters these days, and if you happen to find a 6-pk. of bottles, be prepared to pay through the nose. It’s sad, really.

mtrox: It’ll be easier just to move to New Mexico. That way, as soon as we go bankrupt and the U.S. gives us back to Mexico, you can get automatic dual citizenship without all the hassle of emigration and naturalization.

Of course, Public Relations won’t let us report it that way. "After a tentative 96-year run plagued with low consumer confidence and one marketing flop after another, we have decided to roll back the New Mexico brand and replace it with Mexico Classic. Enjoy the smooth ethnic flavor you remember in a hot new package! Now with 5% less corrupt welfare legislation! Note: pregnant women should not interact with Mexico Classic as the product contains active amounts of trinitite, uranium oxide, and Las Cruces, all of which have been linked to specific birth defects."

oh, BTW, the room was like $70, so I count the knife as kind of an included bonus. Athough my friend Jesse kept it, since he was the one that found it.

You know what? I think you’re right. The root beer is caffeine free, but the cream soda is not.

awesome sode link.
XE hotel hmmmm, The bed sheets would mos def have MOTU on them.

The X-E hotel has theme rooms decorated in the style of your favorite Saturday morning cartoons. Would you like the Smurfs room or would you prefer to upgrade to the Transformers Suite? Kid Cuisine in the mini-bar fridge and Peeps on your pillow instead of mints.

I’m celebrating my earlier A&W Cream Soda error by drinking one now. Also, I am devouring a delicious Cadbury’s Creme Egg.

I’m gettin in that spirit of St. Patty’s day. I just finished reading
this article. Got to love Cookie O’Puss - but that affection for Cookie O’ Puss had a link in it to an older article about Cookie Puss - I love it, GREAT ARTICLES. Will some nerd please post a link to it. Now I’m off to Blockbuster to rent LEPRECHAUN #1 before the rest of you HA!

Peeps on the pillow? How about Peeps in the pillow!
And for all you lady-types out there, the fluffiest My Little Pony suite you ever saw! All resulting squeals will be recorded for use in jamming enemy radar systems.

And in the basket with the coffee, tea, and hot chocolate will be a complete selection of Kool-Ade packets. Sugar, of course, will be two dollars.

Actually, while I’m here, I have a question - does anyone know how to get to the Shine Sprite that’s up near the sun in Mario Sunshine? The one that you get for cleaning off the big bell tower smiley-face star? We’ve been working on this all weekend (strange, since Mr. Traj and the girls have already beaten this game once, so they must have figured it out at some point). Huh. Wonders never cease, and ceasers never wond.

Wish I had a good shitty hotel story but I don’t. How about someone post a bad bed & breakfast experience?

Wow! Hi trajeal, welcome back!
(Zizak and others: I came across a great recent ask metafilter thread about intelligent anime that’s definitely worth checking out)
What’s everyone’s favorite X-E hotel adventure? It’s not technically a hotel but the recent one about the haunted cabin is one of my favs, because it’s creepy as shit even in digital. Worst game room ever would have to be my next, but I know it’s an absolute fav for many.

holy shit, does Mr T(rajeal) know you’re posting on here, the XXX-Entertainment? Just kidding, it is just good to see your name back up here! We all missed you…well, at least most of us did…and the ones that didn’t…well, fuck ‘em.

Well, def. Worst Game Room Ever…actually, anything that involves Atlantic City or Wildwood…it makes a midwestern boy drool with jealousy.

OK, I don’t understand…Matt works for this one company. Is that company not owned by Viacom, which also owns MTV and VH1? So, technically, he should have an "in" on any "I Love" shows he damn well wants too.

And how the HELL does this crack-addled, bad metal teeth wearing, crazy fucker named Flavor Flav keep getting MORE shows? I mean shit, this damn dating show is like his fucking third show already? Who the hell likes this guy?

Public Enemy was dead by 1995, how is this dude not homeless and/or dead by now? Why do people keep paying him money to wear a goddamned clock on his neck? Can he even rap? Can he even talk? Can he even THINK???

One "rare" soda that isn’t on that page is Nectar Soda. I don’t know if it exists outside New Orleans, I certainly hadn’t seen it before coming here. Does anyone else even know what I’m talking about?

*Faints from the shock of Trajeal’s sudden reappearance, and tumbles into the next thread*

KIDNEYBOY- I definately agree with you on the whole Flavor Flav issue. How does a crackhead like that get so many TV shows?

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