Quote:
Originally Posted by Centropolis
super 8s are wildly inconsistent in the central US, comfort inn is usually better.
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I used to count on Super 8 for reasonably priced, clean, comfortable, no-frills lodging, and in areas where I travel frequently I knew where to find good ones. I wonder, though if there isn't some sort of Indian cartel that has set about to acquire all of them and milk them for cash flow. Even the ones I could always count on for a good night's sleep now are tired and dirty, with thin, limp sheets and towels and sometimes a musty smell about them. The employees I got to know over the years in some places are all gone, replaced by front-desk people who look like they sleep in their clothes in the office, and the staff all appear to be members of the manager's family and living on the premises.
A couple of times I've had severe encounters with bedbugs, not just a couple of bites, but dozens of bites all over my legs. I sleep soundly and don't wake up for things like that, and at one place in northern Indiana I got so many bites that I got sick from them and had to go to my doctor and get a prescription antihistamine to knock down the reaction.
Almost every Super 8 I've stayed in in the past two or three years has been awful. The one on US 30 on the east side of Lancaster, Pennsylvania was the filthiest place I've ever been in; the carpet in the breakfast room was matted with food that had been spilled and ground in probably for months or perhaps years. The deadbolt on my room didn't work and the manager didn't care, and I was given a first-floor room that was slightly sub-grade, with the un-screened window opening directly onto the sidewalk at grade level. The maids would turn off the AC and open the window during the day, and anyone could have simply crawled through it into my room without being observed. I had reserved a room for a week, and after one night I checked out. The welts from the bedbug bites didn't show up until a day or two later.
Days Inns are another chain where I've hit some really bad ones. After a miserable stay in a beat-up dump near Bellefonte, PA, with a dining room that smelled like a sewer overflow (because they had had one and only tried to clean the carpet themselves, instead of replacing it), I wrote a letter to the company asking if they weren't concerned about properties like that one dragging down the value of their brand, I got a form letter explaining that franchises were completely under the control of local management and the company had no oversight powers. To try to make me feel better, they offered me an extra free night with my next stay at a Days Inn. Make a bad experience better by giving me more of it. Sure. Thanks a bunch.
Quote:
Originally Posted by vid
I just read an article about the negative aspects of male circumcision and now I'm angry at the world.  |
Look around and you'll find articles about the positive aspects, too, like lower risk for acquiring AIDS and penile cancer. Some of those are medically well-researched.
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"Just stay optimistic" is really shitty advice but it's about the best anyone seems to be able to do.
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