bait, switch, repeat

The Fairfield Inn (a Marriott sub-brand) is nothing special as motel chains go, but it is reasonably cheap and reasonably clean, and good enough if you're just wanting a place to crash overnight en route. Pretty much good enough for me tonight, but what made it a lock for me was the promise of free high speed internet, w00t!

Every day is a great day at Fairfield Inn® by Marriott because each room is always bright, fresh and clean.

So I get to the Fairfield, and it's just okay. Dingy flourescent energy miser bulbs, steel reinforced door to the parking lot, "firm" bed. Non-smoking room that smells like some vile chemical they used to cover up old smoke. (Side note: I've smelled this odor before, it's the exact same one that was in the car we sent back to Corporate Motors! So that's the deal, it was a smoker's car.) Oh well, let's fire up the net and get on with it. It's WiFi, so I'm prepared for it to be a bit slower than full-on LAN, but imagine my surprise to find it's only 256K! Oh, and for a nominal charge of $3.95, they would bump it to 512K. Well maybe I'm just spoiled, at least it's better than dialup, right? Call down to the desk, get the access code, good to go. Erm, but the code doesn't work, and neither does the second code they give me. Then I get locked out for too many unsuccessful login attempts. Now I'm definitely getting what I paid for.

Anyway, this is coming to you over good ole GPRS at dialup speed, thanks to AT&T. Sigh.