Some NYU students are staying in $300-a-night hotel rooms as their "dorm room."

Many of your larger colleges and universities occasionally run out of dorm rooms, especially during the incoming fall semester. It tends to be a short-term problem, with students who paid thousands for residence on campus put up at local hotel rooms for roughly a month--until hundreds of students drop out, quit, grow homesick, or otherwise create space and a free bed in a dormitory.

Except this year, NYU is having longer-term issues. Over 145 students are still residing in hotels in the Manhattan area, including the Manhattan NYC--an Affinia Hotel (that's the official gasbag of a name), a $300-a-night room, where they'll likely stay for the duration of the school year.

According to the New York Times:


"The hotel room he shares with a roommate is outfitted with two double beds, a desk, a flat-screen TV, a coffee maker, a two-burner Miele gas cooktop, a microwave, and an iPhone docking station. Housekeeping comes twice a week to clean the room, change the sheets and refresh the bathroom, including changing the towels and refilling the shampoo and conditioner, which are dispensed via pump bottles."

That's right--odds are the students at NYU with the smoothest, most silky hair are the ones shacking up at the hotel. The guy with greasy hair? Don't blame him for poor washing habits. Blame NYU for not giving him a suite at the Ritz.

But there is a dark side to living at the Manhattan NYC, as 19-year old sophomore Zach Barela tells the Times:


"I don’t want to sound like a stereotypical N.Y.U. kid saying: ‘Oh, I hate Midtown,’ [...] but it does get so crowded that walking like a few blocks can take forever."


The horror! What else Zach?


“It doesn’t really feel like a community (living at the hotel). I don’t even know if there are any other students on my floor.”

If you listen really closely, that tiny little squeaking noise you hear in the distance is the world's tiniest violin playing.

Stephen King's greatest fear.

On a tour to promote his new book Doctor Sleep--a sequel to his 1977 book The Shining--Stephen King was asked what his greatest fear was. As the creator of deranged serial killers, killer dogs, killer clowns, and killer teenage girls, King's response was much less homicidal.

"I'm afraid of Alzheimer's," he said. "Declining mental ability. That scares the heck out of me."





photo: Getty Images, via The Telegraph

Hotel commissions dinosaur figurines in the style of Dr. Seuss characters.

Yeah, let that one sink in for a minute.

The Best Western Denver Southwest rebranded and remodeled itself in the theme of dinosaurs--because nothing evokes images of a comfy hotel stay like the piercing jagged edges of a stegosaurus.

So the hotel asked custom toy designer Sillof (not his real name, but he's like the Cher or Madonna of plastic figurines) to design plastic toys that combined all relaxing appeal of Jurassic Park with Dr. Seuss characters.

What you get is this:

Now imagine Cindy Lou Who running for her life while the Grinch tries to devour her. Really puts a new spin on the Christmas tidings.




All photos via Sillof's homepage. He also makes a wide array of themed Star Wars characters that the inner dweeb in me can't deny are quite impressive.