Like it’s not bad enough all the exit signs say “sortie”… but the faucet handles in the hotel are labeled “C” and “F” (with C on the left). Took me a minute to realize that the C was for hot water and the F for cold.

Oh, and Lou Dobbs in Canada is just as annoying and one-sided as he is in the United States. The Scare of the Day today was regarding evacuating a large city in the event of a terrorist threat. Yes, when we’re under attack I want to be a sitting duck in the middle of an open area like a highway.

I flew to Montreal this afternoon for a business conference. When I entered the airport terminal, I quickly found that none of the ATMs accepted my ATM card. Figured. I started to worry that US $8 wasn’t going to get me too far.

Thankfully, the cab companies take plastic, so I was able to make it to my hotel. When the cab driver pulled up to the hotel, I handed him my credit card. He turned to me and said “no cash?”. I told him that was all I had so he proceeded to take an imprint of the card and write up what I thought would be a receipt. When he asked for my signature, the receipt was blank. No dollar amounts, just an imprint of my card and lots of empty fields. Naturally, I asked how much the fare was. He claimed it was normally CDN $31 (which is true) for cash only (which is not true). Then came the sob story of having to pay a 7% surcharge on credit card transactions. Waaahhhh. He got his fare and a mediocre tip and I was on my way.

Later, while I was up in my room (28th floor!) working, my room service arrived. A delicious bacon burger, fries, and a beer. There were even two tiny jars of really thick ketchup. Yummy. But wait!! No napkin? No silverware? Crap. Now I’ve got greasy burger fingers, no napkin, and no way to get the ketchup out of the damn jar.

Now I just have to remember people talk different because of their accent and not because they are being snobby.

Why can’t companies simply re-release old television shows in their complete, original format? Do these media companies think us consumers won’t notice the changes? Do they think we don’t care?

Today I was very excited to finally get my copy of The Muppet Show – Season 1 on DVD! I was super-excited because I got my hands on the version with the fuzzy green cover. After watching the first DVD in this box set, I began scratching my head. A couple things seemed odd. I quickly broke out my old Time Life Muppet DVDs, looking for a first season episode I could use as a comparison.

I used the classic Vincent Price episode as the basis for my comparison. The Brian Henson introductions were gone – nowhere to be found on the new DVD set. Not a huge deal, but a nice extra I would have liked to have. Another interesting difference was the closing credits. At the very end, a generic shot of Zoot playing the Sax has been inserted, replacing the original footage which varied from episode to episode – the gags with the Sax have been lost in favor of an updated copyright message. I was also surprised to see the original season 1 opening, which was not present on the Time Life set. Why the differences? Time to do some homework online…

I stumbled upon a great review with many more observations about this DVD set at Muppet Central, and I must say I agree with everything said about this DVD set. It’s a great Muppet set, but has some typical Di$ney muck-ups like cutting some songs and removing the DVD chapters so you can’t skip through parts of an episode (which the Time Life versions did have). The one thing this set has going for it is picture quality – clear, crisp, and vibrant.

Ok, that’s my rant. Now back to watching more classic Season 1 Muppet episodes.

Two things this weekend depressed me.

1) Going to Costco and finding an entire aisle dedicated to Christmas stuff. It’s barely September!

2) Looking at my calendar and realizing after Labor Day, my next day off is Thanksgiving. Ugh.