I don't need to stay at a fancy hotel, but I do have standards. I've stayed at many "brand name" motels in my time, and the quality seems to vary widely from location to location.

The Country Inn in Santa Rosa is a small, independent motel, or motor lodge, that is pretty nice and reasonably priced.

The rooms are older, but kept in good shape. Usually when you stay in old motels, even the non-smoking rooms still have residual smoke odor. I'm happy to say my room did not smell like smoke at all!

The Country Inn also has free Wi-Fi like the big chains, and a nice, clean outdoor pool.

It's also located on a strip of Santa Rosa Avenue with plenty of conveniences nearby like a 24-hour McDonald's and a late, if not 24-hour, liquor/convenience store right across the street called Grog City Liquor & Deli.

If you're ever up in Santa Rosa, and don't need to stay at an expensive B&B, I highly recommend the Country Inn.

p.s., they are on PriceLine.com, so it's easy to make reservations online.

I've eaten at a few high-end steak houses, and I've always found the experience to be too business old-skool, i.e., appealing more to the "Bill Brasky" set than the Ultimate Frisbee crowd. Business Steak Houses have always pushed overpriced steaks, overpriced side dishes, and scotch, scotch, scotchity, scotch. I'm convinced there is no reason to eat at one unless your meal is being expensed to a company credit card.

In other words, I would never spend my own money on a high-end steak dinner, but if a sales guy is trying to schmooze me, let's get some t-bones!

Harris' is the exception, however. It's a steak house where I do spend my own money.

The prices aren't crazy high; we're talking $30-$40 steaks vs. $75 dollar slabs of cow. And the steaks includes vegetables and a baked or mashed potato! So, you actually get a balanced meal with your steak, instead of ordering all of your sides separately.

I had a rib-eye, rare, and it was cooked perfectly and had the perfect "al dente" texture I like. The vegetables included were snap peas and shredded carrots. I could tell the peas were picked very recently and they were very fresh. You could taste the earth they were grown in. I love this about good peas. I believe the vegetable selection changes seasonally, so you might not get peas with your dinner. The baked potato was awesome as well, with butter, sour cream, and fresh chives. Fresh chives rock compared to dry ones!

Now, don't get me wrong, Harris' is still old skool. You do have to dress nice and the lighting is low, but the food is excellent and it feels like I get an excellent value for the price.

Guys, if your girlfriend wants to see this movie: go! You will enjoy it and score brownie points with your lady.

Ricky Gervais is delightfully awkward as a loner dentist who just can't stand the presence of any other human, and has no problem hiding his disdain. Greg Kinnear is okay as the ghost, but I just get the feeling he's just playing himself in this film. A delightful surprise is Téa Leoni as the love interest. For some reason, I've always found her kinda dull, but she is beautiful and radiant in this.

The movie does get sappy toward the end, but what romanic comedy doesn't? It also leaves a few ends untied, like "what happened to the naked guy?" But overall the movie is funny and entertaining.