Return to the World, Part 4

Celebs and Media, Travel
SharkBoy, Stitch and Dead Robot

SharkBoy, Stitch and Dead Robot

Never punch a Disney park character in the face.

I’ll expand on that in a moment.

I am shy when it comes to meeting celebrity. This extends to theatre people in big plastic and foam rubber heads. I don’t know if I was shy or if it was just blind bad luck but SharkBoy and I didn’t pose with any of the park characters until our 4th day at DisneyWorld, and by that time we were at Animal Kingdom. The first Disney character we posed with was Stitch, the blue alien from Lilo And Stitch. I was nervous as hell for some reason, not because there were 30-50 people watching us get our picture with this ‘star’, no pressure to be clever, no, I was honestly star struck and didn’t want to look like an ass. I knew Stitch would not be able to respond to any of my questions or compliments other than an overly dramatic pantomime of “hello”, so my approach towards him was fraught with internal monologue: do I say hello? Do I gush like a common pleb and say how much I loved him in his last couple of movies? Do I ask if he knows Mickey? Do I just say “Lets get this over with…”

My first character encounter went something like this:

Me: “I… loved your movie.” And I thrust my hand towards Stitch in greeting.

Stitch did a panto move of “Aw Shucks.” I guess his big blue furry head hid the cast member’s line of sight to my outstretched hand. I was left hanging with my hand out in front of everyone.

The photo isn’t that bad. I’m genuinely excited as you can see. Somehow Stitch got us to do half of a Cowabunga hand sign thing. I was too excited but embarrassed to know how he got us there.

SharkBoy is well practiced with character greets. Our last trip we got our picture with the Evil Queen from Snow White. As we were finishing up, he leaned in and conspiratorially whispered “You’re my favorite…” to which she responded sternly, loudly, without missing a beat “Of course I am.” He also claims that one of the Tweedledee (or dum…?) touched him inappropriately but I don’t believe that. Regardless, in all our pictures, he looks great and is always doing something different.

So getting back to not punching a Disney character.

Our last trip to Disneyland in California we were around the back end of California Adventure early in the morning. We came upon Goofy and his handler, literally alone since barely anyone was at that end of the park. I asked SharkBoy to take my picture with Goofy (PROTIP: purchasing the photopass CD *before* leaving for Disney saves you a ton of cash) and I ran up beside him. I didn’t see what he was doing but I went into my signature YAY! pose which is me with both arms thrust up in the air, like I just won the Special Olympics. As I shot my hands up, I made contact with the Goof’s big plastic snout. I knew instantly I had disturbed something innocent.

As I looked at Goofy to see if he was ok (he had started to mime being punched in the face) I immediately started to blubber my apologies. Holy crap I punched Goofy… Then the handler was upon me. The handler was going to say something and judging by the look on his face, it wasn’t going to be offering me a discount at the gift shop. More like a FastPass ticket to the front gates. Before he could say anything however, Goofy righted his head, and gently put his hand on the handler’s arm. All was smoothed over within that moment.

The actual picture I got is there on the right. I think his head is still a bit askew in that shot.

Dear Bell Canada…

You Stupid Dick

Dear Bell Canada,

Thank you for your invoice for $4.22 on the final payment on my late father’s telephone bill.

I do apologize for missing your bill due date, automatically generated by your crack billing department, by 72 hours. I guess my only excuse is that I was busy cleaning out my father’s effects to be on top of your deadline. While I did manage to close out his account over the phone (and thank you for trying to keep his account open while I was talking to your rep) and I did pay the outstanding balance in full, albeit a couple days late, I hope that you can forgive me for not promptly paying this huge bill of $4.22. I just figured your 84% profit increase (somewhere over a billion dollars! Bravo!) for 2009 would distract you from this $4.22 I owed you, but apparently you need it much more than I thought.

I do hope you can put the $4.22 to good use. I hope that my contribution to your corporation, in my late father’s name, can enrich your company to new levels of customer service. With this money, may I suggest you hire someone to actually monitor what your utterly heartless billing department computers are doing when faced with estate handling? I’m assuming it was an utterly heartless computer since no human would actually ask for $4.22 from a dead man. Oh sure, I’d understand $50 or something higher, but for a billion dollar company to ask for $4.22 because a bill was 3 days late seems to me like no human with any kind of soul attached to it, would let this be sent out by mail. Twice. If I’m wrong, then I bet if Bell Canada was an actual physical human body, they’d be the guy in the back of the hall, eating from the buffet, muttering how cheap the tuna fish finger sandwiches, crusts removed, are.

With all this being said and speculated on, I will state here, that if an electromagnetic pulse were to go off over all the other Communications companies here in Canada, effectively wiping them off the business map, and for some miracle, yours was the only infrastructure left for internet/telecommunications/cable provisions, I would rather cut my own liver out with the paper edge of your god damned $4.22 bill, and serve it to a room full of starving cats than give you one more dime.

With warmest fuck yous.

Dead Robot

Update: a mystery cheque has arrived!

Return To The World, Part 3

Queer stuff, Travel

For weeks leading up to our Disney trip, 20 years after my disastrous EPCOT trip, I had some reservations going back. I was 42 years old and thought I was too mature, too jaded to enjoy Disney any more. To use the English vernacular I thought it was “naff“. Even though I loved Disney’s animation as a teen, somewhere while I was moving to Bittertown, I lost my love of Disney as a whole. Though secretly, way down inside, I still wanted to go to The World.

My first impression of Magic Kingdom was manipulative. It stripped me and fed me and made me happy like some bizarre Star Trek episode where the crew is fed by parasitic aliens.

When we got to the Transportation and Ticketing Center (where all major monorail lines converge to the different points in The World PROTIP: Ask to sit at the front of the monorail, up with the pilot. They have room for 4 people!* see comments) my excitement was like a lava bubble, pushing up on the crusty exterior of my stodginess. The monorail ride itself was an item off my bucket list, so the rest of the day would be more of the same, right? We came down the ramp from the station, passed the security/ticket gates and walked towards the Magic Kingdom’s gate.

And as we approached… a steam engine pulled in, all bells and steam and hooting whistle. Wow…!

We passed through the archway into Town Square and HOLY CRAP THERE’S A PARADE GOING ON!! A real American parade. Know that if you ever wanted to actually see the difference between a Canadian and an American, watch their parades. The US parades are regimented, all pomp and ceremony. Canadian parades are loosey goosey and may or may not include uniforms, rarely do they have pageant queens on a tractor dressed up as a pig. I digress. The parade we walked into was a full on AMERICAN PARADE. Red white and blue everywhere. Bands playing, dancers, characters, flags, the whole bit.

I realized something quickly – that reality was being folded here. That this wasn’t the outside world. It was another world. And as soon as I realized that, I let go of the outside world like it was a hot rock and immersed myself in this new place. Disney’s reality was so much more vivid. I’m sure this is what the first audience who screened Wizard of Oz experienced when Dorothy left her destroyed house.

And then I saw the castle. An utter anachronism rising out of an old American main street. I had seen it so many times before, electronically. Burned into my consciousness like a plasma TV set to CNN. A balloon managed to free itself and floated up into the blue sky…

I gulped back a sob and felt my heart surge upward – the magma crested the crusty exterior and I cried a bit. Thankfully SharkBoy didn’t make a thing of it. I was happy.

The point of this post has morphed over a couple days. Originally I wanted to say how Disney physically and emotionally manipulates you when you enter a park. Then I wanted to write about how SharkBoy has manipulated me into loving Disney. Now I feel I’m trying to manipulate you, dear reader, into experiencing the “magic”. I sort of feel like I’m trying to put an alien brain slug on your cranium. And in some ways Disney acts like a virus – spreading joy and happiness like mindless zombies, outward into the cultural world. But it’s a good thing. Seriously. Come here. Let me put this on your head.

EPCOT Interlude

Travel

Back in 1989, my boyfriend at the time, Paul, and I decided to fly down Florida to see my Dad. At the time my father was a butler for a woman who would winter in West Palm Beach and he offered a bed for a few days. We decided to hit EPCOT for one of the days we were down there.

It was the worst travel decision I have ever made.

We arrived at Florida without a hitch. The night before we went to the car rental agency whose name I didn’t “nationally” recognize but was dirt cheap. I didn’t care. I was going to EPCOT!

You see, I grew up in a family of 5 kids. The possibility of my parents wrangling us unruly rug rats all together and make the trip to Florida was extremely remote. While I heard stories of how awesome the park rides were from lucky kids in the playground I would have to be satisfied with watching Disney’s Wonderful World of Color on CBC, and remotely marvel at the shots of the parks in the fancy title sequence. I yearned

The morning of our big day we got up real early and jumped into the car. The trip would take us close to 5 hours to get to EPCOT along the interstate. While we weren’t going to make it for rope drop, we’d be there before the mid day rush, no problem.

Somewhere along the way, something dragged itself out of the swamp and decided to lay across the warm highway cement. We never really saw what it was, but we felt it as our front passenger side wheel ran over it and it flew up into the engine compartment, where it dislodged something important. The engine started to run like it had cancerous asthma. We limped into EPCOT’s massive parking lot and Paul called the rental company. After a shouting match ensued, the company said they would replace the car but someone had to be at the front gates of the park to meet the representative, driven in from some suburb of Orlando.

We went into the park but didn’t do anything for fear of missing the agent and be stranded at EPCOT. After the fourth hour went by and we had had our 5th snarkfest at each other (of course after the second hour we resolved ourselves not to leave the spot we were in), the rep showed up with a mechanic and a replacement car. After an hour, keys and car were exchanged. We headed back into the park.

By this time it was early afternoon and the place was packed. Rides and pavilions were experiencing an hour’s wait to get in. We wandered some more and decided that we should choose one ride at least.

We made the obvious choice: the iconic Spaceship Earth it was!

If you know your early EPCOT history, Spaceship Earth was notorious for breaking down, which was part of its charm I guess. We got half way up into the sphere and of course, klunk… we stopped. For 45 minutes. We were stopped in front of a teenage girl who lived in an underwater research facility who was fixing her jet ski while video conferencing her boyfriend somewhere on dry land. In retrospect today, I hope to god she had a good data plan. The last 15 minutes, the audio and animatronics just shut off and we sat in the dark. Then, we moved forward in the dark. I never saw the original ride in its entirety.

After a large argument as we exited the sphere, we confided to each other that the day couldn’t get any worse and we had to battle traffic on the way home. We decided to go home early.

About 2 hours from West Palm, the replacement car started to shudder. And shudder. We stopped by the side of the road and let it cool. After getting home the two of us were barely talking to each other.

You can see how my view of Disney was directly and indirectly turned sour.

However, my first moments inside Magic Kingdom erased all the bad –

But that’s another blog post…

Return to the World, Part 2

Queer stuff, Travel

I’m not going to sugar coat it, much like Disney would. Here’s your bullet to your brain, Bambi’s Mom: Disney World is very expensive. To put it into perspective: a week at one of DW’s value resorts (basic but fun landscaping, basic room, basic pool, cafeteria type restaurant) equals one month of some poor soul’s HIV medication. Yeah. That much.

When I first realized that Disney wasn’t for the unwashed was when SharkBoy handed me a pamphlet of the various types of park entrance tickets, even before we talked about flights or hotels. I remember it well because after seeing the prices I wanted to run screaming into the mall  (ProTip: there are usually park info kiosks in every Disney store). I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe something around $100 per person for the week because it was Disney and Disney = nice! Not expensive or seemingly greedy. Oh how Disney naive I was. I couldn’t believe the prices for just going into a bloody amusement park.

Of course, it’s more than just an amusement park. If you want that, go get overcharged at Universal (bazinga!). At the time I didn’t know how much more the parks actually were than just rides and carnival. I can say that the entrance fees are steep, but worth it. And with careful planning and knowing what you’re going to do while there and how you’re going to get around you can save yourself some dollars.

Here’s another reality you may have to take a .22 to the brain for: Splurge on the park tickets.

When I opened the pamphlet my eyes immediately saw prices starting in the hundreds. Next to the prices that went up in $50/$100 increments for add-ons and extra days. I went apeshit in my head. Take a look at this US$ screen shot from Disney’s own site:

Yark! That's a lot of candy corn...

SharkBoy pulled me off the ceiling and explained that like all good sliding marketing variables, the price of a daily ticket goes down the more days/options you buy.

In my little screen grab you’ll see that I’ve chosen a Seven Day, Park Hopper with Water Park option ticket, for the grand total of $380US. We always choose the Park Hopper with Water Parks for a couple reasons: As we get old, we like to cut the day in bits: morning at one park, back to the hotel for shower (it is hot muggy Florida, you know) or disco nap or both, dinner at Epcot or Hollywood Studios and off to where the best fireworks are that night. You could say we’re A.D.D. old farts.

I can’t imagine not getting the Hopper option. I would expect if you did then you’re the kind of person who knows EXACTLY how you’re going to spend EACH DAY in EACH PARK without any kind of deviation to your plans. That’s fucking hard core, man. And strangely anal.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re freakishly organized ahead of time. There is an EXCEL spread sheet on SharkBoy’s hard drive that has our days at the parks planned out, but when we get there, we have the option of lighting that list on fire and dancing around it like Lost Boys. We like he liberty that the Hopper option affords. We choose it mostly for another factor, dining, which I’ll get to in another post…

The water parks are something I’d be kind of upset if we didn’t go to because Disney’s Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon are the two best themed, most beautiful landscaped parks I’ve ever been in. I don’t think I would go if I was going less than three days though, because that would cut into park time big time. But they are beautiful, a lot of fun and welcome on a hot Florida day.

I digress. These are the options we’ve always chosen and they’ve always been good for us. You can say we like the structure but yet love the option of veering off the plan to something unexpected. I know I would be seriously disappointed if I discovered after entering a park on a non-Hopper ticket that the fireworks for the night were at another park.

Take into consideration that you’ll probably not use a day in the park on the day you’re leaving Orlando so you can drop a day if need be, but the savings isn’t that much if you’ve been there over 5 days (ooo you got yourself the price of a extra fancy Starbucks coffee!). If you’re around for a half day, that’s a good time to visit Downtown Disney and shop for crap. This isn’t much of a tip, so much to make the pricing scheme less daunting.

Next up, I’ll talk a bit about hotels! See you real soon!

Return to the World, Part 1

Queer stuff, Travel

So new only CGI renderings exist

In less than 80 days, SharkBoy and I will be going on a dream vacation.

Okay not a DREAM vacation, like seeing the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields or viewing a radioactive hole in the ground at Chernobyl, no. We’re going back to the World. That is, Disney World. The added plus for this vacation, the added spin, is that we’re spending 4 days on Disney’s newest ship, The Dream (see what I did there?). Go look at the video if only to see the freaking waterslide that hangs over the side of the ship! (singsong)Awwwesome!(/singsong)

The ship will be literally one month old when we board. The carpet will be fresh. The staff will be sparkling. The linen will be bed bug free (I hope). By the time we get on board, Sharkboy estimates that no less than 8 families/couples will have used our room. I have a good feeling that we’ll be the first queer couple to be in that particular cabin. I’ve been fantasizing that we’ll be the first gay couple to travel on the Dream, too.

Which brings me to my first moment of pre-vacation dread. The Disney cruises are super-“family” orientated. When you arrive at the port, you are called onto the gangplank thusly: a cluster of crew gather at the entrance, shipside, and with microphone in hand, announce your arrival on the ship. Thankfully there’s no real big audience other than staff, since everyone is eager to explore and get to their rooms.

If you’re thinking ahead, you’ve seen my dread. Two 45-something bald guys coming on board together, no kids, get microphoned across the ship’s atrium. While I’m dying to know how we’ll be announced (“Announcing Mr and Mr Paquette-Healey!!”), I don’t do well with everyone looking at my big gay entrance. Well we’ve always said we should live a little more “out and proud”. Not that I’m saying gay people should be seen, not heard. Fuck that. If you can’t handle my “family” then fuck off. No, I’m worried that there is a stigma of pedophilia that surrounds the notion of two middle aged men on a ship where at least half the populace are children. I’ve seen the concern in parents’ eyes before when SharkBoy and I travel to Disney: moms culling their children closer when we join a touring group, or ride, or bus. SharkBoy generally diffuses these situations with a kind word or a joke and we all relax – something he does quite well on DisneyWorld busses for some reason. Which will be a future post.

Despite being reassured from every person who’s been onboard and by Disney’s own marketing materials, the ship isn’t just for kids. There are designated areas for adults only and such. But I know that we’re going to get the questioning looks. Thankfully our last cruise (the one where I was surprised that when you sail out of New Jersey you have to suffer with spending two weeks with people from New Jersey) has taught me not to give one flying fuck what other people think of you and you should be having your own fun on vacation.

Actually I’m not that chuffed. From what I’ve read on various cruise web forums, the Disney ships might be devoid of gay passengers, but the gay crew will latch onto you like cultural leeches. Extra desserts for me!

Curiously inversely, our last cruise was our longest at 12 days, while this one will be the shortest at 4 days, at literally the same price. We board on Sunday, Monday is Nassau, then over to their private island, Castaway Cay, then home. I figure that’s the best amount of time for being on a self contained floating city where 2/3rd of the populace adores Dora the Explorer.

When we get back, we’ll be meeting up with Josh and Sean (of the blogs Grove of Blue and the dusty Fortress of Solitude) and spend a week in the World.

In the next couple days I’ll be writing about tips and tricks for visiting the World. I hope you come back soon and check them out!

Have a magical day!

Update: Thanks to W in the comments, this thread over on DIS makes the p-vacation dread disappear

Grab Bag

Celebs and Media

The Daft Punk Tron:Legacy soundtrack sounds like Phillip Glass, if Phillip Glass had originally learned music instead of driving around NYC playing tapes in his cab.

And speaking of Tron, I always loved this shot in the original. I knew it was impossible, a matte painting, but thought it was really good satire.

George Lucas is buying up the rights to dead actors. Read that again, consider Howard The Duck and weep silently into your beer.

Hate filled Christian ranting? There isn’t an app for that. Fake Steve Jobs explains it better than any news outlet.

Denver police kill a robot, dead.

The Ten Most Disturbing Invader Zim episodes (via Topless Robot). I loves me some Pusstulio!

Wait… Michael Jackson is DEAD?