Snow days have arrived and in full force for certain areas. In this neighborhood-street shot taken in Vancouver B.C. by borderfilms (Doug) I get the impression no one was in any mood to rush out and take the cars on a snowy spin. Or maybe Doug just couldn’t resist saving the memory of this rare snow dumped day with his Nikon D70 before pulling out the scrapper to remove nature’s wintry blanket. (Sings: “The weather outside is frightful…”)
How to Sneak into Hotel Pools
Back in college my friends and I used to visit the luxury hotels in town and sneak in to use their pools. It was usually pretty easy. We’d have our swimsuits on under our jeans and just waltz in through the lobby like we were staying there. Then it was a matter of finding the pool and diving in. We were only caught once, at the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. We were intercepted by alert security wondering why four college students were wandering around the hallways.
Now of course, we here at Gadling would never promote such illegal and nefarious activities as mentioned above, but we would like to point you in the direction of someone else who is glad to do so.
One of our favorite sites, Infiltration, has a whole section on sneaking into hotel pools in the Toronto area. The site offers some general tips such as, “when you enter a hotel, don’t immediately hop on the elevator and head directly to the pool. If anyone happens to be monitoring the lobby and the pool area, they’re bound to wonder why you didn’t stop at your room first. Always take an indirect route.”
The infiltrators who did the intel work for the article break down their findings by individual hotel. They mention the location of the pools, guest access, camera locations, security detail, and a handful of very helpful tips to avoid the old heave-ho reception we received at the Bonaventure. In fact, when a pool infiltration is performed flawlessly you may even be blessed with the kind of greeting received by one of the pool trespassers; “a helpful staff member was even so kind as to offer me a plastic Four Seasons bag in which to carry my wet bathing suit (a wonderful credibility prop to use on my next visit).”
Mission accomplished!
Halloween in Calcata
And you thought Halloween was an American-centric holiday largely foisted upon us by the confectionary industry, quietly hatched behind closed doors by a star chamber of big name candy magnates with names like Mars, Wrigley and, um, Snickers. Or, at least, that’s the conspiracy theory I dreamt up when I was young. Everything originated here in my head back then. Christmas, too, was all American, and as far as I was concerned those snooty Europeans were just borrowing it from us. Well, the fact is that Halloween is celebrated in other countries as well. Which ones? Well, mostly the ones you’d expect. Our brothers in arms, as it were. Countries like Canada, the UK, Ireland, Puerto Rico, Australia and New Zealand.
But as my buddy and eminent travel-writer David Farley explained to me in an email recently, it turns out that they celebrate Halloween even in wee Italian villages, for example the Italian village of Calcata where, among other creepy things, rumor has it that the Holy Foreskin was once kept in secrecy. Yes, THE Holy Foreskin, the very one clipped from baby Jesus all those years ago. I shall not go into great detail here about this grave and serious matter, rather I’ll leave it up to Herr Farley to explain in a podcast right here on Gadling at some later date. But suffice it to say, this is village rich in tradition, history and holy parts. Farley is actually living there right now, gathering facts and putting together what is sure to be a best-seller rivaling in suspense (and sales) the fictional Dan Brown opus, the Da Vinci Code.
But back to Halloween. In a recent email Farley explained to me that the medieval village of Calcata “is a near-360 island, perched high up on cliffs surrounding a dense forest”. Farley believes that the village achieves a kind of Halloweenish perfection based on its layout and geography. Better, anyway, than a cookie-cutter housing development in Fresno. Farley continues: “What also makes it unique is that the village is made up of artists, so they’re going to go all out to deck the village out: there’s going to be a giant spider web draped above the intimate main square, there will be gothic-era passageways that will become a haunted gauntlet, and, of course, there will be plenty of partying going on the entire evening.” If that does not make for lots of wonderful Fall-based fun, I don’t know what does. We expect to receive a post-mortem, as it were, from Mr. Farley after he recovers.
Rock Paper Scissors World Championships
Leave it to the Canadians to host the Rock Paper Scissors World Championships.
The annual Toronto event pits some 700-800 competitors against each other in the ancient art of decision making. Rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper, and paper beats rock. It’s as simple as that. Play your hand right, and you may walk away with $10,000 in prize money.
This year’s competition takes place, as it always does, at The Steam Whistle Brewery on November 11. National champions from Canada, USA, Norway, Australia, and New Zealand will battle for the coveted title and the opportunity to become an official UN Mediator.
Go Scissors!
Human Rights Watch International Film Festival
Last week or so I made a promise to start posting on more film festivals and I will live up to that promise as best as possible starting with today’s find. The Human Rights Watch International Festival is a traveling film festival running from September 2006 to May 2007 which showcases feature films and documentary that stimulates heated and passionate conversation about human rights. In other words, if you’re seeking mind-numbing movies head towards your local AMC. The films being showcased are about hardships faced by Ethiopia’s coffee farmers, conversations with South African people & refugees, touring former German concentration camps and living near them. Spanning from almost every continent there is plenty of food for thought at this fest. See all the film descriptions here.
As of right now the Human Rights Watch International Festival is showing in Fresno, CA and Claremont, CA and will begin showing on Oct. 19th in Portland, OR and Nov. 14th in Troy, NY all until November 2006. Check for exact dates and venue information on their website: http://hrw.org/iff/