When I was waiting to get on plane for my flight back to San Francisco from Chicago last month I decided to pick out all of the guys I wouldn’t mind to have sit next to me. Now that I’m older I’m a lot less shy than I was when I was a teenager. I feel like I’ve grown into myself and know more about who I am in general. And to that end when I’m on a plane I feel like meeting new people and talking. For my Chicago trip I wasn’t have much luck finding willing row-mates up for conversation.

On my flight to the windy city, I was situated in between a blind guy and a Russian dude whose nose was stuck in a Russian novel for the entire trip. On the 4 hours back to San Francisco I was between two women. One was a teenage girl from China who spoke little English and the other was a woman around my age who was intent on sleeping with her head down the entire time, and when she did talk she was kind of a ho.

So needless to say my pool of conversation buddies was, uhm, non-existent. This all got me thinking. Wouldn’t it be awesome if airlines had special seating for single people? It’d be great! You could totally pick who you wanted to sit next to for any given flight and make sure that you had someone who’d be open to conversation. Or at the very least have the option during the reservation process to say that you’d like to sit next to someone who’s willing to chat with you about this and that.

I hope to have to travel often in the coming year and it would be really cool if I could be guaranteed a seat next to an available hottie. Wouldn’t that be nice?

The Rio All-Suite Hotel in Las Vegas has a rating of four stars. I am officially taking away one of those stars.

Why am I taking away the star you ask? Well, let’s see.  When I arrived and checked-in to my room I noticed on the hotel map, and the services/attractions binder in my room, that there was a Coffee Bean and Teaf Leaf shop on the premises. I was excited and happy. I haven’t had a White Chocolate Dream Latte since I left my job at Military.com back in October. So the next morning I decided to bypass the TWO Starbucks that were on my way to the parking garage in favor of the Coffee Bean.

Much to my dismay and superior irritation the location that used to house the Coffee Bean was now just a shell. An empty storefront, are you serious?? So I had to walk all the way across the casino again, with my laptop bag and purse over my shoulder, to the Starbucks.

They couldn’t take the damn name off their maps?? Or at least add a note inside that says “Oh by the way, we don’t actually have a Coffee Bean anymore.” Ya know when you go to a Broadway show and they put a little note in the playbill when the understudy is performing? Yea, they need to uh, implement that practice here.

Okay, here’s another reason why I’m snatching that fourth star out of the Rio’s grip. My room is nice in general terms. It’s a lot better than something you’d get at a Comfort Inn. There’s a living room area, a big bathroom area with two sinks, mirrors on the closet doors so you can get a full-length view of yourself. The problem I have is that there are tiles missing from the baseboards under the sink. And no shower cap!

The four pillows on my bed are miniature pillows. Miniature, if you laid them out side by side they wouldn’t reach both ends of the bed.

The Lights. Ya know how when you walk into a room you expect there to be a switch that you can flip to illuminate the entire room? Yea, they don’t have one of those. Oh they have them for the bathroom area, but not for the main living/sleeping area. So I walked into a dark room, and then had to go around and turn on four lamps.

Now, I am willing to admit there are some good things about this place. Like I said before there are two Starbucks. The one I’m in right now is like the granddaddy of all Starbucks. It’s big and has like 6 big comfy chairs, a couch, tons of regular tables and two of those big study tables with the lamps on ‘em. The other great thing is that it’s totally empty. It must fill up after the Penn & Teller show next door, at least that’s the only reason why I can imagine they put it all the way over here in such an out of the way location.

The other good thing is that the room service charges aren’t that steep. They don’t add in an automatic gratuity like some hotels do these days, and the price of the food alone isn’t insane. I had a BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger last night (French fries were included) for 12 bucks.

So with all of this my criteria for hotels has just be upped a notch. I shall not stay at a hotel that was built before 2000. The Rio was built in 1990. I found that out after I booked the room, and it gave me pause, but there was nothing I could do at that point. I rationalized the whole thing by saying that I just needed a place to sleep. I’d be spending all day at the race track so it’s not like it had to be amazing. But I know now that it MUST be amazing.

So I booked a hotel for my trip to Las Vegas this weekend to go to the NASCAR race. I’m leaving on Friday coming back on Monday. This time around I booked my reservation using Hotels.com. On Hotels.com they put the “Guest Reviews” feature right up front on each hotels profile page, so it’s very tempting to read what people who have stayed at a particular hotel have to say about their stay. Whatever you do, don’t read these things!

Because people are crazy and they complain about stupid stuff. They complain about not having a coffee pot in their room or the fact that when they came out of the elevator and onto their floor it smelled like urine. Crap like that will seriously freak you out. I’m staying at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and it’s a 4 star hotel. Now, if you read the reviews that some people have left you’d think they were talking about the HoJo near the airport. It’s crazy… Although I will say that you can get a good sense of what a hotel is like based on the reviews.

I stayed at the Stratosphere back in 2001 when I went to see Fingertight perform on tour with 30 Seconds to Mars. I read the reviews after I booked the room and I was so freaked out that I decided to book a room at The Palms just in case it lived up to all of the crappy reviews I’d read. I had a “Casino Suite” and it was big, with a separate shower and tub, plus a living room area, but you could tell it was shabby. The bed was old and flat. So it turned out to be not that incredibly bad, but it wasn’t good enough to make me not want to check out The Palms. My room at there was awesome. The decor was modern and the bed was so incredibly soft and fluffy and wonderful. Room service was great and when I left they tried to tempt me to stay with the offer of a free massage but I had to get back home because of work. ech.

Anywho, I hope the Rio doesn’t disappoint. I keep telling myself that I’m not going to be in the room that much while I’m there, but still it matters to me that the room is comfortable and nice. When I went to Vegas back in November for the Blog World & New Media Expo, I stayed at the Renaissance Las Vegas which was literally right next door to the convention center where the event was being held. The room was great, although the walls were a bit thin. I could totally hear the woman in the room next me and her entire telephone conversation. All in all I wasn’t in the room very much but when I was it was super relaxing. I’m definitely staying there again for this year’s Blog Expo in September.