Greetings From the Tides Motel

In the first ever "from the road" segment for roomofzen, I come to you from a little motel in Locust Valley, Long Island, New York, known as the Tides. I have been calling a cozy little one bed number on the second floor home for the past 48 hours. In the rest of this post I will attempt to enlighten you to the peculiarties of this place as best I can. Also, as you will see, being holed up in this place, which is obviously a summer hot-spot, in the middle of January is not very exciting. The plus side is that it has given me plenty of time to think, and to continue to totally dominate my franchise in Madden 08.

The Tides is a strange place indeed. It strikes me as the kind of place that people come either directly before or after they commit a violent crime. It is the kind of place that teenagers rent out to drink handles of 5 O'clock vodka and take whippets. The kind of place that 16 year old girls lose their virginity to much older guys who drive suped up hondas with giant "honda" stickers on the windshield. I consider myself lucky that I have not seen the movie "Vacancy" and that I am not staying here with my girlfriend because I would not be surprised if there is some kind of wierd webcam filming right now as I write this and is being broadcast to wierd old guys in dark basements all over the country. Oh well. I did however, just see the movie No Country for Old Men which features several shootouts in motels that look EXACTLY like this one. So I do lie in bed worrying that some hitman working for some mexican drug dealers will blow the lock off of my door with an airgun and liquify my face with a 12 gauge. So far I have been sleeping ok.

This picture is from a hotel review website. This is the parking lot. Apparently this picture was helpful to someone trying to narrow down their choices for motels in Locust Valley. There are just as many cars parked outside right now as there are in this photo, and I am 99% sure that that exact truck is parked in that exact spot right now. I think it belongs to the guy at the desk, who is a friendly Indian gentleman who has been great at giving me directions and helping me to fax important documents. If it was a creepy white dude at the desk I am sure I would have allready been in some kind of snuff film, so I have been pleased thus far with the hospitality.

Anyway, in between bestowing Madden 08 beatings and working (the reason why I am here) I have had a lot of time to search for things on the internet and to come up with rediculous things to do, mainly, writing a post about staying at the Tides. I found this gem on youtube, it comes from Peter Jackson's Braindead, hailed at its time of release as the goriest horror film ever. I can still remember the night that my buddies and I rented this movie in 8th grade. We couldn't stop laughing, I don't know what that says about us. Here is the plot outline: A young man's mother is bitten by a Sumatran rat-monkey. She gets sick and dies, at which time she comes back to life, killing and eating dogs, nurses, friends, and neighbors. Pretty deep, but we were very bright 8th graders.

The opening lines are some of my favorite. "I kick ass for the lord" is one of my favorite lines ever. I think I literally almost shit when I heard that line the first time...and by "almost shit" I mean I kind of did I just didn't tell anyone. Also, notice the leg sweep that the priest uses to "relieve" one zombie of both of his legs, after he has allready ripped off both of his arms. That is the definition of awesome.

I know what you are thinking...where is this post going? Is there a point? Honestly I don't know, lets just keep it moving.

Also on Youtube I found that Bill Simmons, who we all really love here, has a video archive on youtube, someday perhaps we too will have an archive of our favorite videos, but since we just got around to udating our Links of Interest (or not) section this week it might be a while...if only I was going to be at the Tides longer. Check it out here. I will say this, I just can't get into Bill Simmons' 90210 references, that show has really played no role in my life whatsoever. They are lost on me.

This is a picture of my bathroom at the Tides, actual size.

Among other things that have occurred to me while staying here in Locust Valley is that I really reall hate the Chargers. Especially Phillip Rivers. I just angry when I see him. Does anyone else feel this way? I know I shit on the Manning brothers a great deal, and we can all stand to have some fun with whoever gets behind center for the Dolphins, but at the end of the day the sad truth of it is that the Manning's are both talented and more importantly, don't strike me as total douchebags. Peyton Manning makes me laugh sometimes when I see his commercials, and I admit that I laughed hard too when I saw the "Unstoppable" add for Citizen Eco-Drive watches featuring...Eli. I couldn't find the actual commercial but this paroday will do:

When I saw Rivers taunting players from the Broncos from across the field I really hoped for a Thiesman like moment the next time he got under center. I would bet a million dollars that Jay Cutler will be a better NFL quarterback in the long run than Rivers. Man he bothers me.

Just in case anyone else comes to Locust Valley and stays at the Tides just let me warn you that the food here sucks. I have eaten at the local chinese food place and the local pizza place and they both surprised me at how bad they are. I guess it must be the off season. I am glad to be leaving here tomorrow.

In case you were wondering, this is the Sumatran rat-monkey: