Evans Above

Man, I can’t believe how fast construction is these days. As I mentioned in an earlier post, our hotel room is directly across from Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan. The site is under ‘round-the-clock construction as they fix the transportation routes that were destroyed in the attacks and prepare for the construction of new buildings on the site. In just a few days, they’ve done quite a bit of construction. Amazing.

Staying at the Millenium Hilton as we cover the Tribeca Film Festival. The hotel has just reopened after being damaged in the 9/11 attacks. You can’t escape thinking about the attacks in this building — the view fom our window is of the reconstuction work being done on the pit.

Doc Searls mentioned Katz’s Deli the other day. At the opening press conference for the Tribeca Film Festival, Amex mentioned how they’ll be putting up plaques at famous NYC film landmarks. Katz’s Deli will get the first one.

I was at the X-2: X-Men United presser yesterday and security was tight: bag inspections, metal detectors, etc.

The security became very high-tech during the film. Twice during the screening, a security guard wearing night-vision goggles walked up and down the aisle looking for camcorders.

Jeremy Zawodny points to an article on email anxiety. I get that sometimes. During the day, my email’s running all the time and it freaks me out when I learn that some people can actually go days without checking their email.

Russell Smith discusses how the networks have abused Pentagon jargon instead of acting like journalists.

Zoinks…haven’t blogged for a while.

An update to our LA hotel comedy: they’ve removed the term “internet access” from their site gave us a free night.

– Internet access.

In this day and age, when a hotel lists “internet access” as one of the features of their rooms, what do you expect? Like many hotels, you’d expect high-speed internet access.

When we went to the Oscars® in March, we were booked at the Holiday Inn Hollywood Walk of Fame. It’s in a great location for covering the Academy Awards® as it’s just a couple of blocks up the street from the Kodak Theatre’s Hollywood & Highland complex.

The hotel’s web site listed internet access as one of the features of each room. This is a perfect feature to have when you, oh I don’t know, run a website and need to upload photos, etc.

When I entered the room, I looked around for the network jack. Not finding one, I headed down to the front desk.

“Hi. Where’s the network jack for the internet access?”

“We don’t have one.”

“Your website says you have internet access in all the rooms.”

“Yes, dial-up access. There’s a dataport on the phone.”

At that point I tried to explain that “internet access” is not a distinct feature of the room when you also list “dataport on phone” as a feature too. Realizing that I wasn’t getting anywhere with the front desk person, I asked to see the manager.

The manager followed the same ridiculous logic.

“The internet access is dial-up. There’s a dataport on the phone.”

Again I tried to explain that internet access is not a feature of the room if the person is expected to dial-up their own account. Otherwise you may as well list all the other great features of the room’s phone like “ordering pizzas” and “calling friends and relatives.”

I think it’s fairly misleading for Holiday Inn to list this on their web site. If high-speed internet access is a must for your travels, I strongly suggest you call ahead to confirm so that you don’t fall victim to deceptive (and stupid) marketing like this.

I called 411 today to get a number. When I thanked the operator, she seemed surprised and thanked me. Do people really find it so hard to say those two little words?

For the fifth straight year, we’ll be blogging the Oscars®, giving you minute-by-minute commentary and results from the backstage press room.

The press area is a blast. Jumbo shrimp, spring rolls, desserts, etc. Oh and we have to work too.

For the first time, DigitalHit.com has landed credentials to cover the Independent Spirit Awards which take place on the Santa Monica beach the day before the Oscars®.

What a juxtaposition: jeans in the press tent on one day, a tuxedo in the press room the next.