Dwindling Readership

Ok, so I think people have pretty much stopped reading this blog. Or at least I don't hear about it too much anymore. I was getting so many requests for autographed 8x10 glossy black and white pictures of myself and custom-written birthday cards and stuff that I just couldn't keep up with it. People just got mad and stopped reading I guess.

What this affords me is much more freedom for literary insanity. I could go on for pages about the stupid lampshade on my hotel desk that rattles at every keystroke I am typing... or the fact that my rental car only averages about 13 mpg. I could talk about the fact that I followed the recommendation of a brochure on a restaurant tonight, but when I get there they're only open a couple nights a week - and it was not one of those nights. I could talk about the 4,000 screaming, crying children at the Spaghetti Warehouse tonight and how my waiter proved to me that it was not the fresh-baked bread that tasted good, but the butter I was putting on the bread. I could also talk about the 4,000 WET and screaming children running around my hotel right now, all blurry and red-eyed from the chlorine which I'm sure was at bacterial-shocking levels. I could talk about the annoying rich parents shepherding them around the hotel. Or I might mention that when I was on business last week I had to drive 6.5 hours home from St. Louis, MO to Madison, WI because my coworker caught the last seat on the only plane left going home. I could talk about my front right tire, radiator, and starter on my real car all going out at the same time...and how it sat in the WalMart parkinglot all weekend... and how it's going to cost me a lot of money to fix. I could write about my roommate moving out and driving home (as I write this), forcing me to pay an extra $350/month in rent, which does not help my car situation. I could tell you that I am the guy who bakes frozen pizzas when it is 95+ degrees outside and my little air conditioner was having hard enough time keeping up with just the air outside. I could admit that when I first began eating my spaghetti tonight I dropped a forkful and sauce splattered all over my face. (Children are now screaming for their father's attention in the hallway behind me. I am quite sure they are leaving behind them meandering trails of chlorinic slime, like gigantic vacationing pool slugs, and the hallway now smells just like the pool 3 floors under me. Yes, you remember well the hotel pools where you are sure the chlorine content is so high it is dissolving your flesh; your eyes burn, you choke... but you keep swimming...you're not really sure why... -according to the conspiracy theorists, that's the fluorine in the water)

As I sit here now my AC unit in the room randomly turns on and off. Voices waft from below the window where employees stand outside an emergency exit on the back of the hotel to smoke. The clock strikes 11:00PM CST. I begin to ponder the euphoric state of rest I shall attempt to experience on this really cushy looking hotel bed... and why I have one really short and fat lamp shade and one really tall and skinny lampshade. And what's with that little lap pillow/tablet thing? Do people really use that? That's just weird.

Ok. Here's my quasi-annual poll. Do you use the tablet thing you find on the bed, or would you if you could? Would you? Could you? In the rain? Would you, could you, on a train? Would you, could you, in a box? Would you, could you, with a fox? Please limit responses to 1,000 words or less.

Garbage Laundering

This Post Rated "G" for Garbage. Not for the faint of heart...

I'm in St. Louis right now. It's a lovely downtown... for the most part. Neat buildings. Especially my hotel. Now this will be a requested feature on a hotel for years to come... so make sure your travel agency knows this is a hotel feature you want before you arrive on vacation or whatever. Please, read on. I shall call it the PutriWave.

It's simple, actually. Say there is a parking garage connected to your hotel, ok? Make sure there is only one way to get from the parking garage into your hotel. Simple enough, right? Then, out of the goodness of your heart, set all of the food waste bins behind a little chain link screen along the channeled walkway into the hotel. Wait until it's a nice, hot summer and bake the garbage all day long in 90+ degree heat. Let it rot and steam and leak so there is a nice brownish black film on the ground in the area by the bins that all driving hotel guests will cross. Then what you need to do is channel all of the exhaust from your hotel's dryer systems into a series of vents placed immediately behind the bins. This way, if the summer heat doesn't get the garbage rotting, then the continuous hot laundry blast will. An added bonus of the laundry venting is that it will actually transport a constant hot blast of super-nauseating garbage heat wave through the channel connecting the parking garage and the hotel. Oh, and make the parking garage underground so people parking have to walk up a small tunnel and over a long enough distance they can't feasibly hold their breath near the bins. Can't you just feel that warm wind blowing in your hair now? Those liquifying bananas, bad chicken, dirty diapers, snotty kleenexes... mmm boy. The smells of summer! That's what I call an idea! Yes, yes indeed. This is my hotel.