Archive for the 'Travel' category

Hotel Finds Dead Girl in Water Tank Because of Low Shower Pressure

Feb 21 2013 Published by under Travel, Yuck!!!

Ok, if you are easily grossed out, this may not be the post for you.  You might want to skip right past it and move on about your day.  If you’re a sick, twisted puppy like me, keep reading.

As I am skimming the news this morning, I happened upon what might otherwise just be a routine report of police finding a missing person who was unfortunately dead.  But then you get to the detail that really makes the story cringeworthy.

The corpse was found on Tuesday after hotel guests complained of low water pressure.

You read that right. The body, it seems, was found in a water tank on top of the hotel. A water tank, that by implication, seems to have been feeding the showers.

Let that sink in for a few minutes…. I’ll wait…

Now here’s the really foul part…  The girl had been missing for three weeks.

So what does that tell you?  It tells me that every guest who stayed in that hotel – for twenty-one days – had been showering in dead girl.

If that doesn’t gross you out and make you want to carry your own one gallon jugs of stream water to bathe in, I just don’t know what would.  From now on when I check in at hotels, the first question I will ask is whether their showers are certified to be dead body free.

Now my challenge will be figuring out what categories to post this under…

UPDATE: A friend on Twitter shared this additional link to the story including the best passage ever in a news article.

Guests at the Cecil Hotel, famous for having hosted serial killers Richard Ramirez – nicknamed the Night Stalker – and Jack Unterweger, are likely to have bathed, drank and brushed their teeth using water from the rooftop tank where Canadian tourist Eliza Lam’s body was found floating. …

Disgusted guests have expressed their horror at the discovery of the body, with one British tourist telling CNN: ‘The water did have a funny taste’.

Sabrina Baugh, a British tourist told journalists: ‘We never thought anything of it. We thought it was just the way it was here.’

That is so disgustingly awesome.

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Wasteful, Inefficient Government Ideas That Refuse To Die

Feb 08 2011 Published by under Craziness, Government, Travel, Waste

A new piece in Fast Company today highlights the Administration’s renewed push for high speed rail.

For those keeping score of wasteful, inefficient government ideas that refuse to die, back in April of 2009, Team Obama announced an $8 billion push for high speed rail.  I noted at the time the almost complete inability to go north by train.  I also noted the old adage that trains offer all the discomfort and cost of air travel, but in six times the time.

All of that still holds true.  The new plan still foresees a US population only concerned with lateral movement, and one that wants to pay top dollar for low value.

The one thing that changed is the price tag.  Now the government wants to spend $53 billion taxpayer dollars (a 6.5 fold increase in the cost) to subsidize a mode of travel that has never been profitable in the US.

That’s change we can believe in, and what counts as a commitment to responsible spending by the administration these days.

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High Speed Rail: The New Crappy Way to Get Nowhere

Apr 17 2009 Published by under Craziness, Government, Stuck On Stupid, Travel, Waste

So the administration has rolled out its high speed rail plan. Perhaps not suprisingly, it look very similar to the old crappy rail system.

The old and new rail system

The old and new rail system

The old joke is that trains give you all the discomfort of airline travel, but in six times the time. The rail plan calls for trains to travel 100 miles per hour, so the joke should be revised to four times.

The fact is, trains are a great idea in a country the size of Japan, France or Britain, that you can backpack across in a day. They suck, just a little bit, for travel across a country 3000 miles wide. Why take a high-speed train that gets you from LA to NY in two days when you can fly and be there in 5 hours?

High-speed trains would be a better idea for high traffic commuter corridors. As an example, look closely at the map and you’ll notice you still can’t travel North. There is no connector between Oklahoma and Kansas City, or anywhere in Georgia up through Kentucky, Tennessee and into Indiana.

You can’t get from Albuquerque to Denver, Denver to Phoenix, Phoenix or Albuquerque to Salt Lake City, or any of those cities to anywhere in Texas.

If you are a salesman in the southwest, you can get to Chicago faster than you could run there, that’s true. Chances are most of your travel will still be by air, and flying short distances within your region, though.

It looks to me like someone went to Amtrak and said, “If you could go to all the same places using the same shitty routes, but do it marginally faster, what would that look like?”

Congrats, guys. You batted their answer out of the park.

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Vegas, Celebs, Tech Toys, and the Porn Awards

Jan 12 2009 Published by under Gadgets, Technology, The Internet, Travel

To be clear, I still hate Vegas. However, the city of alcholics and broken dreams did get a bit of a boost in my eyes this past week. Maybe it was hanging with Star Trek: TNG’s Geordi LaForge (LeVar Burton – @levarburton on Twitter – to you and me) on the Lovesac bus. Maybe it was also meeting James D. Kirk – his real name – on the same bus. Maybe it was dinner next to Alice Cooper at Osetria del Circo, but the very surreal mix of celebs on Firday night made me think a bit better of Sin City.

CES was also better this year.

Flash drives in a hundred flavors at ONE CES booth

Don’t get me wrong. The number of booths pimping flash drives still outweighed the number of decent tech offerings about 3 to 1. That ratio is, however, significantly better than the 10 to 1 of last year.

And just in case you think I was joking about the wide variety of shapes and sizes of flash drives on display, the pic to the left is just one booth’s offering. This particular company has a 47 page catalog of options (my favorite is the goofy little sheik on page 13).

If you don’t see what you want (say a banana shaped flash drive to promote a fruit company), just call them, and they’ll crank one out for you. Personally, I think they should do more work with the porn awards that were also going on in Vegas. They could give away little donger shaped drives pre-loaded with clips of the nominees for best threesome and best oral.

As for the rest of the technology, I did find some cool stuff. I’ve shared a couple of the items related to broadband networks and TV via CableTechTalk.com. I really dig the PC Ride (video below). It’s a car shaped CPU that retails at $2,495. I’m not a big fan of the desktop case, so I was pleased to see someone making a different shape. I guess it’s only a matter of time before someone has a 47 page catalog of PC designs, though.

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

I also really dug the ultra-thin TVs that most of the manufacturers unveiled. Just in case you haven’t heard “Oh my god! It’s so small!” enough in your life, bring one of these home.

A dive mask with digital <br/> camera built in

Some of the really cool finds I didn’t put up on the cable blog because they aren’t really broadband/connected home specific. For instance, I love little more than the ocean. Any time Mrs. Quip and I vacation, we generally head for a tropic island. While there, I like to snorkel, and often wish I had an underwater camera.

The dive mask to the right has a 5.0 MP digital camera built into the mask (I know, it’s a grainy picture). Push a red button on the top right (your left) to snap a picture.

I’d love to take this with me on my next trip to the Caribbean.

Crayola's new video cam for tots

Another cool find (especially for parents with aspiring social media monsters for kids) is Crayola’s kid friendly video camera.

Now your toddlers can film themselves dropping mentos in diet coke and destroying your living room. When they’re done, you can use it to film them washing Diet Coke off the walls.

When the little critters grow up, and tire of tedious housecleaning, they’ll no doubt move on to killing copious amounts of brain cells by vegging out in front of the TV playing video games. By the staggering amount of controllers and promos for it, there’s a good chance Guitar Hero 12 or Rock Band 9 will be the game of the day.

If, however, they decide they’d like to learn to play an actual guitar, you should check out JamVox. JamVox is a software application and a mini-amp. Connect the amp to your PC and an actual guitar, and the software will strip out the guitar track of any song – allowing you to play along with your favorite music. Think of it as Guitar Hero on the extra, extra hard setting. The difference, however, is after your done some chicks will actually be impressed because you can play a real instrument.

JamVox allows you to play along with your favorite music

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Random Thoughts On Merry Old England As I Wait For My Plane

Apr 19 2008 Published by under Travel

I’m sitting at Heathrow waiting for my flight. It’s been an interesting few days in England and I’ve had a really good time. The conference was really interesting for the odd dichotomy that it was – an exploartion of web 2.0 by people firmly entrenched in a 1.0 world.

I find London to be quite nice. The city itself is amazing and the countryside near Windsor (where we were staying for the conference) was beautiful. The campus at Royal Holloway and specifically Founder’s Hall was spectacular. It actually made me think about how much incredible architecture must have been lost in the war.

I found Londoners to be a very warm people, very friendly and engaging. Last night we were invited to attend a live webcast by the Liberal Democratic candidate for Mayor of London. The webcast was unremarkable other than being the first use of UStream by a politician in the UK.

However, Brian Paddick, a former beat cop who rose through the ranks, left the force, then wrote a book exposing corruption in its ranks, was a very inviting guy. I hope he does well in the election. I’ve not met the Tory candidate, but based on my experience with candidates I can say Paddick seems like a genuinely nice guy – something rare in those who want to get elected.

I had a chance to stroll through London on Wednesday and will share lots of pictures when I get home this evening.

I’m disappointed that I did not get a chance to see Windsor castle – especially since we were only two miles away. I’m sure I’ll be back, though and will have to see it then.

We did get a chance to visit The Monkey’s Forehead, a pub in Egham Hill. While it was more sports bar and less pub, it was a good time.

I’ve actually been surprised at how much American culture has extended to the UK. I turned on the TV and looked through the guide. BBC was showing The Office and I was excited thinking I would get to see the original UK version.

When it began, and Steve Carrell appeared on screen, I was surprised that I had come all the way to the UK, and found myself watching the American version of a show that we stole from the UK to begin with.

Anyway…. My flight’s about to board. I’ll post more later. Until then, ta-ta from London.

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