Could be worse; here in Singapore, theaters serve either salty or sweet popcorn. I will most definitely talk salty popcorn.

The Sea Gull Motel sign in particular looks nice. It may be retro in style, but its maintenance and the artwork make this sign very attractive. Van Buren Blvd, in Phoenix, has (or at least had) a large number of retro signs, but that was more due to the aging nature of the neighborhood and motels and their increasingly seedier clientèle.

"For fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

I would have absolutely no interest in taking a sleeper car again. Did it once, on the KTM (Malaysia) between KL and Singapore. One of my worst nights evah. Taking the train during the day is a different matter. Just don't expect me to sleep in those tiny little beds.

However, according to wikipedia, PAS does intend to impose sharia law in Malaysia. That was more the attitude prior to the 2004 general elections. At that time PAS controlled two state governments, and people could see how exactly PAS put its political ideals into practice. When the 2004 election came, PAS got smoked, losing 20 of 27 parliamentary seats and one of the two state governments (almost losing the other state as well). Those were pretty grim days for PAS, let me tell you. :) (I've been watching Malaysian politics since I moved to Singapore in 2002.) Two sections below your link on the Wikipedia page is a brief description about how PAS has been reaching out to the non-Muslim community. Prior to the 2008 general election PAS toned down the rhetoric considerably and, as a result, won back a lot more seats and popular support. I also suspect that they're going to have to keep the rhetoric down in the future as long as they're a part of Pakatan Rakyat, the opposition coalition group of three parties (Keadilan, DAP, and PAS). Now, when you say that PAS intends to impose shari'ah law in Malaysia, you must remember that 1) shari'ah is a very broad set of laws covering a wide variety of legal matters, and 2) a significant proportion of the Malaysian legal code is already based on shari'ah (as it is here, in secular S'pore). What the non-Muslim Malaysians were more afraid of was the possible implementation of hudud and qisas (which is mentioned in the section you linked to), which are small subsets of shari'ah as a whole. (Hudud and qisas is also not implemented in S'pore either, although both countries have criminal penalties that are close to, if not equal to the penalties prescribed by hudud and qisas; so it's a wash, IMO.) According to Islamic law, shari'ah, including hudud and qisas, isn't supposed to apply to non-Muslims anyway (only to Muslims), so the non-Muslim fears about shari'ah tends to be way overblown IMO.

First, Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) isn't terribly radical, IMO, as far as Muslim political parties go. Second, PAS is a political party, and it controls one state's government and co-controls the governments of two other states. Its members also control about 10% of the Parliament so this is a significant voice in the country's political system. Third, Rihanna doesn't have to perform in Malaysia if she didn't want to; there are plenty of other countries in this part of the world where the restrictions she faces there wouldn't apply to her. So give her the credit for being sensitive to the mores of the local populace. It truly is a "When in Rome..." situation, and when you visit or live in another country you follow their rules and regulations.