Aggravating/Enjoyable Travel Note of the Week by Peter King at Sports Illustrated. Lots of sportswriters covering the Patriots stay in Providence -- it's cheaper than Boston, and there's less traffic to fight to get to Gillette Stadium, which is about equidistant from both cities. So it's not too surprising to hear a hotel rant:

Those gouging fools at the Providence Westin have really gone and done it now. They are doing everything in their power to steer me to the Biltmore across the street, which I'd have already done if not for the Starwood points. Remember last month when I told you about the $6 health club charge at the Westin? It's one of the very few places on my hotel list that charges for using the health club. In fact, I haven't had a single health club charge from another hotel all season.

The new year has rung in a new tune on the Providence Westin cash registers. It's now $10 to use the health club.

I hope 10 people read this and say: I'm not paying that absurd fee to run on a treadmill for a half hour. And I hope they book their stay elsewhere in downtown Providence. Which, by the way, is one of the underrated cities in America....

Thanks, Peter. We like it, too. Next time, you might walk around Waterplace Park and save the sawbuck.

Meanwhile, the Westin might wonder whether the fee is worth this bad press.

(If you've never been here, these photos by former Journal photographer Richard Benjamin will give you an overview of this often-beautiful Colonial-era city.)

News to use: When buying organic pays (and doesn't): Consumer Reports finds that it's worth buying organic versions of these vegetables, since pesticide levels in them remain high even after washing:.

Apples, bell peppers, celery, cherries, imported grapes, nectarines, peaches, pears, potatoes, red raspberries, spinach, and strawberries.

(If you're in Providence, East Side Marketplace on Pitman Street -- one block from Whole Foods -- sells organic produce for the same price as conventionally grown produce.)

The Bureaucrat in Your Shower: This is right up there with folding, stapling, mutilating and removing the tag on your mattress:

Many people now hack their showers — or customize them, if you prefer. You can take your shower head down, pull the washer out with a screwdriver, and remove the offending intrusion that is restricting water flow. It can be a tiny second washer or it can be a hard plastic piece. Just pop it out and replace the washer. Sometimes it is necessary to trim it out using a pen knife....

Why would anyone want to do this? According to the head of Zoe Industries, people somehow have the sense that I described above. "Generally, they don't like the water savers," he says, "the flow of water is too weak and they feel as though they haven't gotten a shower."

New Firefox Extension: X-Ray:: This is a way to peek at the html tags of a webpage without having to "view source." You won't see urls, just raw tags.

After you install it and restart Firefox, X-Ray will be on your context menu Turn it on with a right click on any page. Refresh the Web page to see it normally again.