Category Archives: Disney

Ten Dollar Balloon

Comix, Disney 2 Replies

I’ve tried to put into words the invisible guilt I feel sometimes when I go to Walt Disney World. The feeling that all this constructed reality does more harm than good, yet I still love the place…

Least I Could Do, One of my fave comics, is doing a series set at WDW where the sometimes morally bankrupt lead character, Rayne, is experiencing Disneyworld for the first time. They’re mirroring my exact feelings I had when I first went and so far it’s pretty awesome: Least I Could Do. (The series starts here.)

Newzy Grab Bag

Celebs and Media, Disney, Distractions 2 Replies

Darth Vader tries to shoo an Angry Bird with his lightsabre, gets sued when he hits a bystander. Oh and said bystander is suing the Orange County AIDS Walk too. Just because. Dick.

Robert Sherman died last night. Sadly, the co-creator of such childhood tunes like Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and the theme from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (which in turn spawned countless childish poo songs – at least at the school where I grew up) passed away last night in London.

I could talk about how our Mayor took another body blow in his loss of control over the TTC board yesterday but I think I’ll just mention he gained another pound (2 weeks running!) in his “Cut the Waist!” campaign. I think it’s reflective as to how he’s running this city, really.

What do you think tomorrow’s Apple/iPad 3 event will bring? A landscape aspect iPad, you say??

Here are some unearthed (ha!) behind-the-scenes pictures from the set of Star Trek. I detect 94% Awesome, 3% WTF and trace elements of clicking.

Weird Days at Disney

Disney 1 Reply

SharkBoy is a bit more stylish when he visits Disney – his tees reflected the parks we visited: Animal Kingdom? He wore a shark shirt. Magic Kingdom? “I (heart) (Mikey Mouse ears)”. Me? All I wore this trip was Star Wars tees (and one Alien referenced shirt for Hollywood Studios).

This is where I adjust my tin foil hat: Every 3rd ride, a Cast Member would see whatever Star Wars shirt I had on and would say “Are you excited about Star Wars Episode 1 coming out?” or “Are you going to see ST:Ep1 in 3D?”

After the third comment, I suspected that the Cast Members were instructed to mention this to “fanboys” to generate buzz for the movie.

Which, by the way, is still hovering around 50% on Rotten Tomatoes and only made $7M this weekend. So they recovered the cost of the 3D conversion (which I’m told is not very good). But this is another post entirely.

I started to wonder if Disney is trying to plant the suggestion to go see Star Wars. Not that they have a lot of stock in it (other than Star Wars Weekends and the Star Tours ride). Or it was just a bunch of nerdy Cast Members in a gigantic coincidence.

Weird bit #2: I’m pooping in EPCOT. That’s not weird. Nor is the father/son combo in the stall beside me having a father/son conversation about pooping, either. No. Regular stuff. I hear from the stall next to me that the son has finished and Dad asks him to wait outside the stall while he does his business. I see two tiny sneakers under my stall door face one way, then the next… then face away from me and tilt on an angle that suggests he’s leaning on my door…

Suddenly my stall door swings wide and the kid stumbles backward, right towards my naked lap.

My hand shoots out for the door stopping it from opening fully and managing to upright the kid. “Whoa buddy!” I say as he leaves my stall, fast.

Okay. Several factors in play here. I’m a gay male, nearly 47 years old, wandering wide-eyed like a child through manufactured fantasy lands of plastic and make believe – Bald, old and acting child-like is not “normal” but I do it anyway. I’m also painfully aware that some people do mistakenly confuse “homosexuality” with “pedophilia” and will govern themselves around strangers such. On top of that, parents seem more overprotective of kids these days – evident when you hear parents call to them to “stay close” when you wander by.

So when a kid is launched at me while my pants are down in a place where parents are rabidly defensive of their young, I managed to freak out a bit. I had visions of being hauled off to some Disney detention area in a Kafkaesque nightmare where I had to explain why I was in a bathroom stall with a 5 yr old kid that I didn’t know.

“What’s going on out there?” the father asks.

“Just a door accident!” I shrill, finishing my business and hauling my pants up. As I exit the stall, the kid is gone and I leave quickly. Whew.

Weird Thing #3: I always said the “bubble” around Disneyland is much thinner than Disney World. By that I mean, Disneyland’s manufactured reality is much more fragile and can be easily popped, making real world rush in and ruining the fantasy, than it can be while at Disney World – purely because the real world is so very close to the gates of Disneyland. During our last stay at Disneyland, as we walked from the park to our hotel across the street, we were exposed to panhandling and drunk teens. Over in Florida, you’d have to travel very far out of the World to see that (or at least go to Downtown Disney for the drunk people).

So when this video of a “drunk” (?) man getting pepper sprayed a couple times by Disney Security (and subsequent frat boy admiration from the guy video-ing the whole incident), I’m not entirely surprised this happened. Our last night at Disneyland, we saw groups of drunk people in the park, yelling like idiots while on Splash Mountain, holding each other up as they staggered down Frontierland, acting like assholes. Seeing this video, I wonder if Disney is having a bit of an alcohol problem?

Disney Day 5 and 6

Disney, Travel Leave a reply

On our last two days at Disney, fellow Instagrammer @RhinoBear joined us as we visited EPCOT and Magic Kingdom for serious riding and wandering.

John works for Disney and it was like having a personal databank at our beck and call. We asked him a ton of questions about what it was like to work at Disney. He offered to take us to another park and get us in with his staff pass (we didn’t have Park Hopper tickets) we declined his generous offer because we felt that would be too much like taking advantage – we had already drained his brain with our constant questions. He really made the days interesting and fun.

Since these were repeat days, I didn’t take many pictures (more video than anything else). We rode all that we needed to ride, we saw all that we needed to see and we ate junk food as much as we could.

It was a nice vacation – but it felt too brief. Like we were only there for a couple days, not nearly a week. Every time we were stuck waiting for something or just had a few moments of thought I kept on thinking about having to go home. I didn’t get a good Disney buzz on, sort of like never achieving REM sleep – waking up unsatisfied.

Not to say the trip was unsatisfactory, far from it. We laughed, we ate, we took great shots, we met new friends… I just felt that with the trip being last minute and without the build up of anticipation, there was no equalizing payoff when we had the fun.

As well, the weather was ok – cloudy only one day, and only pleasant, not summery warm, during the day. Also the onset of a cold/flu/bronchitis didn’t help with my energy level. Again, I can’t complain, but my description of the weather sort of summed up the trip: “pleasant”.

In terms of WDW experience points, I think we now know to take the dining plan when we go back – eating in the World or driving to a local restaurant is pretty much the same cost: expensive. Might as well resign to the fact that you can get big portions with WDW dining, at least. Also we’ll stick with the rental car, despite the busses being so readily available. At the end of a long day of rides and walking, waiting on a bus is the suck.

Anywhoo… it was a pleasant trip. I’m already counting the days until December’s Cruise and Parks combo with Sylvie and Shawn!