I wish someone could explain to me how Marriott determines what qualifies as “full service”.

My family is deeply entrenched with the Marriott chain of hotels. We have enough points that we rank in the top two percent of their points club, and there are still things I don’t get about the chain as a whole: the actual Marriott locations, which is also known as their “full service” chain.

I just spent a week at a Residence Inn in Las Vegas, with a nearly full kitchen, good-sized coffee pot, free Internet access and so on. Tonight I’m in a “full service” Marriott in Kansas City and I don’t have a kitchen, I have this measly one cup coffee maker and Internet costs $12.95 a day unless you are at my level of points or the step below us. The prices for the two chains are nearly identical, and I just don’t get it.

I don’t get nearly the “service” at the Marriott locations as I do at the Residence Inn locations I usually stay in.  The staff is usually more uptight here while Residence Inn folks couldn’t be friendlier if they tried.  Residence Inn gives me a full hot breakfast, Marriott’s only do that if you are in the upper levels of the point club.

How is he Marriott considered ”full service”?  I just don’t get it.

Yay us having lots of points, but for everyone else?  I guess the Marriott chain figures they might as well hose you.

Okay, so it isn’t just teachers that go off the rails, but also mothers who play Xbox.

Rachel Ann Hicks, a 36-year-old mother of three from Lake Forest, CA, was arrested last Friday suspicion of having sex with a 13-year-old Maryland boy. Apparently the two met on Xbox where Ms. Hicks said she was 23-years-old. The two becae friendly and eventually moved to phone calls, texts and her sending him pornographic materials.

During a visit to see family in Florida during the Thanksgiving holidays, she drove up to Maryland where she met up with the boy. While his parents were asleep it is alleged that two engaged in sexual intercourse.

The boy’s parents eventually discovered text messages on the boys phone and looked into the situation.  Due to Hicks having used a false name it took authorities some time to track her down, but they have now found her and taken her into custody according to NBC Los Angeles.

During the investigation it was discovered she may have molested at least one other boy.

Again … parents, keep any device that your children can use to communicate with people in a supervised area of the home.  While we don’t know if that was done in this case or not, for things to have progressed to this stage you have to assume it wasn’t.

One has to really wonder what this world is coming to when not even Xbox Live is sacred.

It’s sad that it has come to this, but I guess it’s a sign of the times.

According to ReadWriteWeb, the Virginia Board of Education will vote this weke on establishing guidelines for teacher contact with students outside of the classroom.  The policy, if adopted, will cover text messaging, social networking and online game contact between teachers and students, and essentially ban all of this.  This is in response to the 120 actions the state has taken against education employees since 2000 for sexual misconduct.

The rules will include:

• Under most circumstances, Teachers and other school board employees must restrict one-on-one electronic communications with individual students to accounts, systems and platforms provided by or accessible to the school division.
• Teachers and other employees may not use personal wireless communications devices to “text” students and are prohibited from interacting one-on-one with students through personal online social-networking sites. Teachers and other school board employees must decline or disregard invitations from students to interact privately through texting and personal social-networking sites.
• If, because of an urgent or emergency circumstance, a teacher or other school board employee uses a personal communications device or account to contact an individual student, the date, time, and nature of the contact must be reported in writing to his or her supervisor on the next school day.
• Teachers and other school board employees may not knowingly engage in online gaming unrelated to instruction with students.
• School board policy on electronic communications with students also applies to teachers and other employees of virtual school programs and other vendors providing instructional services to students.

Apparently some teachers are arguing against it, saying that electronic communication shouldn’t be singled out, and that teachers should conduct themselves professionally at all times.

Well, yes, they should, but the unfortunate truth of the matter is, they don’t.  Electronic communication is being singled out because it is what comes up time and time again in cases such as this, and that is just the sad truth of the matter.

Unfortunately this is where we are in this day and age.  As you have seen me write time and time again about teacher sex scandals, the problem seems to be on the rise, so it’s about time someone took a preemptive strike against these sorts of activities from teachers.  Yes, it is unfortunate that contact between faculty and students has to be treated this way, but it is what it is.

If teachers topped getting involved with their students, than we wouldn’t need these rules, now would we?

A total of 54 published this week.  CES kicked my ass.

FunJug.com

• Crazy Free Throw
• The Brothers Mario
• Belly Dancer Fail
• Avengers Assemble! Episode 5: Office Romance
• Diving Madness
• Kitty Wants To Be A Bunny
• Saturday Shorts: Better Use for Leisure Time

RememberingChristmas.com

• Christmas Really Needs To Be More Than One Day

SeanPAune.com

• Las Vegas Bound
• Allergies Are No Fun
• Who Needs To Get There Today?
• 2010 Was The Second-Worst Year For Movies Since 1996
• Starbucks Changes Its Logo; Internet Freaks Out
• CES – The Blogger Killer
• The Worst Moment Of CES?  That Damned Magician

TechnoBuffalo.com

• HTC Thunderbolt & Samsung SCH-i520 LTE Phones Show Up In Verizon System
• TechnoBuffalo At CES
• Borders Book Stores May Be First Casualty Of E-Readers
• Google Chrome Ends The Year On A High Note
• NVIDIA To Provide Processors For New Tesla Sedan
• HP To Hold webOS Event Feb. 9th
• Netflix Strikes Deal For Branded Buttons On Remote Controls
• Using The TechnoBuffalo Mobile Edition
• CES 2011: LG Wants To Make Our TVs More Interactive
• CES 2011: AT&T Announces A Slew Of New Smartphones
• CES 2011: LG Brightens Up The Smartphone Market
• CES 2011: LG Makes Its Appliances A Whole Lot Smarter
• CES 2011: Is This The Verizon Motorola Tablet?
• CES 2011: NVIDIA Tegra Chip Powers Pair Of New Phones
• CES 2011: Samsung Puts Its TVs On A Diet
• CES 2011: Sony Unveils The Xperia Arc
• CES 2011: Sprint Announces The BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet
• CES 2011: Microsoft Keynote
• CES 2011: Verizon Keynote
• CES 2011: Skype Press Conference
• CES 2011: T-Mobile Plans To Double The Speed Of Its 4G Network
• CES 2011: Droid Bionic Hands-On
• CES 2011: Samsung 4G LTE Phone for Verizon Wireless Demo
• CES 2011: Motorola XOOM Hands On
• CES 2011: Dell Streak 7 Hands On
• CES 2011: Samsung Wants To Be All Over Your Home
• Verizon Announces A Press Event For Tuesday; iPhone?
• CES 2011: Verizon Was Everywhere, But Yet No iPhone
• Will The Verizon iPhone Be LTE?
• CES 2011: RIM BlackBerry PlayBook Hands On (video)
• CES 2011: Motorola ATRIX Hands On (video)
• CES 2011: Motorola ATRIX Keyboard Dock Hands On (video)
• Confirmed: Verizon Announcing iPhone On Tuesday
• Rumor: iPad 2 To Be Announced By Feb. 1st
• Be Careful When Choosing A Wi-Fi Connection
• CES 2011: HP Slate 500 Hands On (Video)
• CES 2011: A Tour Of CES (video)
• CES 2011: Flix On Stix Fails To Impress
• How To Make Your PC Faster For Just $50

I have spent the majority of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in the blogger’s workroom in the south hall.  (Meeting room S228 REPRESENT!)  However, there has been one major drawback … Johnny Ace Palmer.

Verizon has been kind enough to sponsor the blogger workroom, outfitting us with Internet, printers, power sources (even if stupidly placed under tableclothed tables), coffee, a lounge area and so on.  However, there has been a price to pay.  A price that doesn’t come from your wallet, but instead from your sanity.

Verizon is running demos for 3D TV services (hence the glasses you see in the picture) and its new umi Telepresnece product that allows 1080p video calls.  To demo this service they have been making calls to a sleight of hand magician named Johnny Ace Palmer out in Los Angeles.

About every 10 or 15 minutes someone asks for a demo of the service, and I am treated to another slew of Mr. Palmer’s dime store bantar and feats of “magic”.  At first it was ignorable, but after three days of this … I have pondered taking my own life.

I have nothing against, low-end magic tricks, more power to them, but imagine being trapped with one for days on end.

The thing is, I don’t blame Mr. Palmer, I blame Verizon.  This is a work environment, a place where people come to meet deadlines, write and think, we don’t need to be constantly distracted by the chatter of someone doing “tricks”.

The response in the room has been pretty much universal disdain, with myself and two others contemplating asking for a demo just so we could flip off Mr. Palmer, or maybe go so far as mooning him.

The show is over tomorrow, but somehow I think Mr. Palmer will come home with me in my nightmares.

Damn you, Verizon.

I … hurt in so many places.

CES (Consumer Electronics Show) is in full effect here in Las Vegas, and I can’t even begin to describe what a wonderful, challenging and fulfilling event this has been thus far.  We have three days left, and I can already easily declare this as the highlight of my professional writing career.

It isn’t just the nifty new gadgets I’m seeing, but the fact that the team at TechnoBuffalo has been, hands down, the best team I have ever worked with on a project.  The energy flowing between us is amazing, and we are so incredibly pumped that content we are turning out that I’m sure other people are getting fed up with seeing us grinning from ear to ear.

The nights are long, the legs are in pain, sleep is next to none … and we love it.  Every evening we head back to our rooms, promising one another that tonight is the night we get a little extra sleep, but yet here it is 2 AM and I just had the following exchange via e-mail with company president Jonathan Rettinger:

Jon – “Why aren’t we sleeping?”

Me – “Because we’re morons.”

Jon – “Fact.”

Okay, perhaps we aren’t exactly pithy, but come on, we’re punch drunk tired.

Even though we are in the midst of what is probably the most demanding week I have ever had in my writing career, we love it, and we can’t stop talking about our concepts for CES 2012.  We have learned so much this year on how we can better accomplish our goals here, and we are anxious to implement them, but we sadly will have to wait for the show to roll around again.

Darn it.

The entire team has been amazing and is turning in some of the bes coverage possible.  Please, if you are looking for any coverage of the show, stop by and check out our CES 2011 news, you won’t be disappointed.

Now, just one more article before bed …

When you’re a popular company like Starbucks, you get so tightly associated with your logo that people grow attached to it. This past sumer The Gap attempted to change its logo, and from the reaction online, you would have thought someone had killed a baby.

Apparently Starbucks somehow missed this?

Starbucks announced yesterday that it was updating its logo.

Personally I love the logo they are getting rid of, but I understand the change.  First off, it fits more with modern design principles, but can you guess the second one?

They just saved a bunch of money.

They eliminated a second color which save them costs in ink, and potentially even labor.  With a solid green logo, the company is only going to need one printing pass, and huzzah, instant money savings that will add up.  No, per cup it wouldn’t be that much, but you add them up and it does.

Now, lets just watch the Internet once again go insane over a logo change.

Hollywood had a lot to celebrate about 2010 … and a lot to worry about.

For only the second time ever, movie revenue surpassed $10 billion. Pretty impressive, huh? But it was only off the back of 1.35 billion tickets, the second lowest tickets sales since 1.33 billion sold in 1996. Attendance dropped by 5.4%, second only to the 8.4% drop in 2005.

So, how did they make that much money on fewer tickets? Well, as USA Today pointed out, it’s the higher ticket prices for 3D movies.  Is it any wonder why so many of those are coming out now?  The average price of a ticket jumped from $7.48 in 2009 o $7.85 in 2010, the single largest jump in history.

Perhaps if Hollywood actually tried to make good movies they would get further?  3D is a gimmick, and when people tire of it you have to wonder what will Hollywood do then?  Find another trick?  What’s left?  Yeah, exactly right … nothing.

The movie industry is in trouble, but instead of looking at itself, it always seems to run off and blame “pirates”, or Netflix, or Redbox, it couldn’t possibly be because they are just turning out one bad movie after another.

Hopefully someone, anyone, in Hollywood might be sobered by these numbers and go, “Hey, wait a tic …”

Yesterday it was a tale of allergies, and today it is a story of airport delays.

Can I just take a moment to say that traveling sucks?

I am a rather meticulous planner when it comes to planning my flights.  My first choice is always to take a direct flight as I loathe connections.  Back in 1996 I was on assignment to Huntsville, AL to cover the 30th anniversary convention for Star Trek with only a week’s notice.  Playmates Toys was footing the bill and had booked my flights for me.  I arrived in Cincinnati for a connection after it was scheduled to depart, but the plane had been held for me.  Nothing is quite as much fun as literally running through an airport with your carry-ons, knowing full well your checked bag isn’t going to make it.  (and it didn’t until the next day.)

Beyond always trying to fly direct, I am a strict adherent to the “arrive two hours before your flight” policy.  Yes, it means a lot of sitting around, but as I don’t plan to break my record of never missing a flight, I live with it.

However, when you do arrive two hours early, get through security 15 minutes before boarding is to begin, and get trapped in a tiny secured area and then learn your flight is delayed more than an hour … life just sucks.

So, even though this will be published on Tuesday, I’m writing this on Monday, trapped inside the secured area at Terminal C, Gate 85 of the Kansas City airport in this very situation.  And the fun bit?  My flight in Denver to get to Las Vegas is also delayed.  So, I’m going to get to spend some quality time in Denver.

I will say that I did this to myself just a tiny bit on principal.  There was a direct flight out of KCI to Vegas, but it was on Southwest.  As a “large” man, I was disgusted by that airline’s treatment of film director Kevin Smith in Feb. of last year when he was removed from a flight due to his size.  Not wanting to support that airline, nor face a possible similar situation myself, I opted to take a connecting flight on another airline.

So, here I sit.  A victim of my own principals.  And in Denver I will again sit, a victim of some bizarre statement of moral outrage against an airline that I have flown on exactly once, and have not had done anything against me personally.

Am I insane?  Apparently so, but at least I didn’t give Southwest any money … I guess.  Were there delays, waiting and frustration worth the “moral” victory to be able to say that?  I guess so, at least I will go to sleep tonight knowing a snooty airline didn’t get a couple of my pieces of silver.

Now … if I could just get to Vegas.

Something I have had to live with my entire life is my sensitivity to my environment. Whether it be pressure systems from fronts passing through, or certain foods, the oddest things can set off allergy attacks for me. One of my worst problems is worth cleaning products, and yesterday I was nearly knocked on my ass by this one.

I made my way to Kansas City yesterday for my early morning flight to Las Vegas today.  I had a reservation at the Courtyard Kansas City Airport, a part of the Marriott chain, the hotels favored by family.  While I had read that this particular location had recently been renovated, but I didn’t see any reason why that should be a problem.

A land speed record may have been set by how fast I checked out.

When I got into the lobby I could smell a bit of an odor, but nothing overpowering.  I got my key and went around to park my car and get into my room.  As soon as I entered the hallway the ammonia smell was pretty powerful, but once in my room it was overpowering.  The picture with this post?  That’s pretty much how I looked as hives immediately broke out on the backs of both my hands.

I called the front desk, told them I was leaving and I needed to find another Marriott property immediately.  They told me which one would suit me, and I was out of there.

While I realize that not many people have my allergy problem, the general unpleasantness of the smell couldn’t have been pleasing to any one.  Certainly something could have been done to air out the building before guests stayed there?  When I say the smell was overpowering, I mean … it was overpowering, knock you on your ass strength.

Again, I don’t expect places to cater to my allergies, there’s no way anyone could predict this, but really?  Absolutely no one thought to air it out?  Seriously?  Oh well, I’m in a location not messing with me now … but man this chair is uncomfortable.

As you read this, I’m on my way to Las Vegas … well, via a stay over tonight in KC, and then flying out to Vegas in the morning.

As I mentioned the other day, I’m off to CES to look at loads and loads of new consumer electronics.  As opposed to my last bring trips to Boston and Philadelphia, this one is all about work.  To the point that while reviewing our schedule the other day, Jonathan Rettinger, my boss at TechnoBuffalo, asked me, “… when are we going to have time to eat?”  Yes, it’s that packed.

I’ve noticed that most people I know are still wishing me “fun on [my] trip”, and I have to wonder what part of this equation they are not getting.  Yes, I will be in Vegas, and it’s always nice to get away from home, but I’m going to be in meetings, writing, editing stories, editing photos, converting video footage and on and on and on.  Sure I’m going to be in a couple casinos – I pretty much live in meeting rooms at The Venetian for two days – but I’m not big on gambling, and I wouldn’t have the time for it any way.

I do get to kick off my trip by having dinner with some old friends in KC tonight, but beyond that it is going to be work, work and more work.

But, hey, shiny new gadgets for me to drool on, so I guess it will be fun in at least one way … until I lament how many things I want and can’t afford.

A total of 31 published this week.  Yay holidays!

FunJug.com

• A Social Network Christmas
• Nail Gaiman And Amanda Palmer Parody Labyrinth
• Shining Twins Christmas
• Avengers Assemble! Episode 4: The Middle East
• All The Pregnant Ladies
• Dancing with the Stars in Argentina
• Saturday Shorts: Day In The Life Of A 1950′s Small Town

RememberingChristmas.com

• Start Getting Your Supplies For Next Year Now

SeanPAune.com

• Christmas Really Needs To Be More Than One Day
• How Bloggers Prep For A Trip
• National Film Registry Additions For 2010
• Forget New Year’s Resolutions, Just Do It
• What Is CES?
• Scattercast Episode #128: “All we are saying …”
• A Look Back At 2010 On SeanPAune.com

TechnoBuffalo.com

• Skype Video Calls Look To Be Coming To Mobile Devices
• IBM Predicts Holographic Calls And Kinetic Batteries By 2015
• Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Gets A Second Trailer
• Christmas 2010 Could Cause E-Books To Soar
• Apple Secures Patent For Hologram Technology
• The One Ronnie – My Blackberry Is Not Working!
• Amazon Has A Stellar Holiday Season
• Rumor: Apple To Release Three Versions Of The iPad 2
• Sears And Kmart Launch Alphaline Video Service
• Skype Landing Page Hints At Mobile Video
• An Infographic: A Year Of Twitter
• Skype Updates Its iPhone App To Support 3G Video Calls
• Netflix Planning More International Expansion In 2011
• Magazine Sales On The iPad Fall; Absolutely No One Surprised
• An Infographic: How Much TV Is Being Watched Online?
• Verizon iPhone 4 Accessories Make An Appearance