Issue 4 includes:

**intro 101**

Hello. We are jeff and eleanor and we just got back from the oaks mall. Jeff is going to do an expose on me shopping at wet seal so I will just come out and admit that I sometimes buy stuff there before he says it. Hey, he was buying stuff there, too!

Jeff is walking off to pet our new dog. He always leaves me when we have to write an introduction. I guess It's turning into some sort of tradition. My fingers are really cold right now.

So, this is our documentation of our trip home from college on march 5th to march 9th. It was nothing exciting; nothing special, but we want to share it with you. This issue is filled with all kinds of good stuff that we found amusing on the trip. Maybe it was just the delirium of being stuck in the car together for 6 hours that made it so funny. Hmmmm. . .

Jeff just said that my mom has *manny potential.* I don't think so. When I was home that weekend I went to jiffy lube and one of the mechanic's names was Manny. Do you think he knows what kind of travesty that is?

Jeff, can you write some of this? I'm losing it. I just want to eat puffins.

Remember how he's not helping me.

k. So I drove sparkles. He's named after chris peterson when he played the male model "sparkles" in the best show eva, "get a life." I think it was based on jeff's life. Jeff snatched shot gun and melanie sat in the back on the right hand side. Sparkles died after the trip. He stalled like a bazillion times when katie and i were going to study downtown. i got him fixed, tho, so i’m happy.

Okay so eleanor just went to change. I think she and her mom are going to go to the movies together. How sweet! (and she laughed at me when I said that I may drive cross country with my mom)

For some reason im making a lot of spelling mistakes. Maybe its cuz I don't know how to type. (remeber how i was proof reading this and noticed that eleanor added this later) I think its cuz im not used to eleanor's dad's computer. I need pebbles, the wonder laptop. Is it weird that I named my computer, and eleanor named her car? Maybe, I think its cute though.

She is singing something about not wanting to live her life being a color. Good grief. See what I have to put up with to get these zines out?

Okay, she just came out from changing and she’s dressed all moth like. She’s lookin' pretty stylish, as a matter of fact. Oh la la. Remember how this has nothing to do with an intro. Sorry.

CAUTION: this issue contains manny material that may be too explicit for younger readers.

No Tell Motel

The #1 warning sign for a bad motel is when they have to say that they have air conditioning and colour TV, cuz i mean, don’t they all??

Places that aren't too bad:
Cathedral Oaks Lodge in Santa Barbara (has a free continental breakfast)
Pepper Tree Inn in Santa Barbara (clean, but next to a pet cemetery)
Red Lion is nice and it has the mini snack bar dealies. Yuuuuummmmmm.
San Yisido Inn is a little north of Santa Barbara. Hella expensive, but its like this totally rad little self contained retreat type place.

Don't go the Sky View Motel ever!!!!!!!! It scares me soooooooo much. It's on this hill on the right hand side of the 101 as yr going north. It's about 60 miles south of salinas. There is a sign off of the 1 north of moss landing that says HOTEL 2 MILES. We wanted to do some investigative reporting, but didn't get a chance to. Our only advice on this winner: just don't go! It looks pretty of risky, you know?

These hotels are right off the 101 freeway and they happen to have signs with their rates. The cheapest we saw were:
Motel 6 Santa Maria for $28.99
Motel 6 Templeton for $28.99
E-Z 8 Motel Pismo Beach for $26.88
And the cheapest, scariest place was the Overnighter Lodge Greenfield for $19.95 (it's probably one of the places that makes for a good hotel story, though!)

eleanor's story:
k. Im going to tell you about a really scary ass hotel where you should never stay. Located near the native american reservations of indio, ca., Big America is quite possible the scariest hotel eva! let me just tell you a little story. . .so, i was in indio for a horse show. my dad made reservations for he and i, my riding trainer, and some other of the kids' families that i rode with. he said that it had really good rates and it also had 3 stars. K. fuck the stars. So, my dad, my trainer, and i are all driving to the hotel after a trashy ass meal at some dump. Btw-indio is like the armpit of the desert. So, it's really really dark and there's no street lights. I'm starting to think we're going the wrong way so we ax for directions. Some lady tells us that we're going the right direction so we continue on our way. We finally get there and the hotel has a sign for it's own gas station and it's own restaurant called foxfire home cookin', both of which are closed down and boarded up. We walk into the lobby and it seems fairly nice. The lady who isworking at the front desk is a total moron. We get the keys to our rooms and we start towards them. The stairs we are climbing up are all weak and there are big cracks all over the 2 story building. As my dad puts the key into the lock we notice that there are marks all over the door as if someone had tried to break in with a crow bar. Hmmm.. I'm feeling real safe about now. So, we go into the room and put our stuff down. I sit on one of the beds and it totally sinks. I'm talking the kind of sink that only happens on sitcoms when the kid runs away and stays in a hotel next to a big neon sign. There are no headboards on the bed, but holes in the walls where they used to be. There are no dressers or anything. The tv is on like a tv tray kind of thing all by itself. There are no globes covering the light fixtures on the ceiling. Classy joint, huh? moving onto the bathroom, the tissue paper is on the side of the sink, but there is nothing holding it in so when I pull a tissue the whole box falls out. there are huge ass light bulbs sticking out of the wall all around the sink and mirror. It looks not so good. I go to use the toilet and the toilet paper is sitting on the back of the toilet. Hmmmm.. I go to hang my clothes up in the closet and this dumb rafter door is swinging open and I'm afraid to look and see rats climbing out. That's my story, that is big america. There is another one right off the 101 but I don't remember where. If you wanna go, fine. Just don't say I didn't warn you, k!?

jeff's story:
okay so i guess the trashy hotel i went to wasn't as bad as big america. But anyway.. so i was on this mini trip with mi mom to check out colleges like 2 years ago. we were heading back from berkeley (where im at now) and making a quick two stop in palo alto to check out stanford. Okay so i think this hotel was like a four star joint according to the all mighty aaa california handbook. If i member correctly it was pretty expensive too. So we drive up and park in an underground lot. It was like 7 pm. The place had the look of a really run down sky lodge. The lobby wasn't hideous, it was just kinda odd. Like psycho hotel odd. Mmm, its been awhile but the best way i can think of describing it that it felt like it was somebodys living room. So no big deal right? we signed in and went to our room. The first thing i noticed was that it smelled like wet dog. And im not talking about freshly cleaned wet dog either. Also the room was about a 110 degrees. Yeah, really comfortable. So anyway, the room was pretty thrashed. For some reason i remember that the curtains were somehow really wrecked (don’t ask me how i can really member). The bathroom had a missing ceiling tile, which is always a nice touch. So anyway, we unpack, and go to some shit hole to eat. The next day we got ready to leave (after a night of fighting off bed bugs, boy were we ready to leave). I noticed that there was some fine looking candy and snacks sitting on the dresser. I figured, hell we spent a bundle to stay in this dump might as well get some food for the road. Was i surprised when after flipping through this bible i saw hiding in a drawer this sheet that gave a list of prices for the food i has just anxiously packed in mi bag. Somthing like 2 dollars for a bag of m & ms and maybe like 7 bucks for a teeny thing of train mix. Needless to say i put their shit food back. oh that's mi story. not very traumatic huh? oh well, seemed so at the time.... -Eleanor




take me back to pollyanna!


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