Businesses with employees who travel will oppose this. Hotel room rates will have to go up $10 to $20 per night to offset the loss in revenues.

Damn! Busted...

There was an article on the net a few days ago about the rather high percentage of people identifying themselves as Christians who were addicted to porn sites.

It reminded me of a time in my youth when my mother used to make wonderful fruit cakes at Christmas time.  She wrapped them in cheesecloth and poured home-made wine over them for added flavor.

She gave her recipe to the wife of a deacon in the local Baptist church and told her she could substitute apple juice for the wine.

About a month later another friend of Mom’s told her the deacon had asked him to bring him a bottle of brandy the next time he went to the liquor store.  He assured him that it was for the cakes and that he could not afford to be seen in such places.

* 

A large white onion, if eaten slowly, will remove the scent of vanilla ice cream from your breath. - Archie Campbell

I've long made it a point, upon checking into any hotel room, to survey the available adult entertainment options.  Some of my colleagues know this and ask for reports when I return from business trips.  I've recently observed that where there used to be a lot of available softcore entertainment and only rarely any hardcore XXX action, the scene is now essentially binary: it's hardcore or none at all.  (The trend also appears to be toward offering "all-day" packages where you pay one price and the channel stays active for 24 hours rotating three or four movies, instead of paying for one at a time.)  Just like politics, entertainment is now polarized.

But whatever adult offerings I've found, I have never once encountered a system that could not be locked out with a phone call or a push of a button on the remote control.  So the whole "what about the children?" jive is even weaker here than it usually is when someone rolls it out.  Only the laziest or most ignorant parents cannot address this immediately on arrival.

Besides, this has to be a huge low-overhead revenue stream for hoteliers, one they won't part with readily.  Don't look for this idea to gain a lot of traction.

Finally, I'll share the most amusing setup I've encountered, which was in an extremely stylish hotel in Beverly Hills.  The rooms had 42-inch flat screen TVs and DVD players connected to nice stereos.  The menu of non-adult DVDs you could borrow was already in the room, and if you called the front desk they'd bring up your requests with popcorn or candies.  But you had to specifically request delivery of their menu of adult DVDs, and presumably after getting the menu you'd then have to request your choice and have it brought up, too, which means at least two phone calls and two bellman encouters for a viewing.

That was an effective deterrent, and I didn't even feel infantilized.

"I thought I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, but it turned out to be a bastard with a torch, bringing me more work." - The Office