Dreams come true

One out of nine new articles is complete. It’s up on the articles page, and the rest will follow during the rest of the week and next week. Possibly even dipping into the beginning of the week after. In any case, I have a lot of work to do. All for the good cause though, and now that I’m done for today, I can get back to studying for that test that I’m going to fail tomorrow. I hate Henri LeChatelier and his stupid principle.

~Ryan out.

Disney World Day One: Highways From Hell

I guess I can say a lot for myself. I’ve been to Disney World twice before I reached the 18th year of my life. It’s a lot more than most people can say about the same topic, even if there are a few who’ve been there more. Other than that, though, I haven’t really accomplished much. But this isn’t about how I’ve done nothing noteworthy with my life up until now, it’s about my second trip to Disney World. So I guess I’d better start on THAT then.

It all started way back in January, when I caught wind that my aunt and uncle (who had taken me on my first visit to the Disney World) were going to take my brothers there in April, since they hadn’t been on the first trip. My parents were feeling bad for me, so they decided that they’d spring to send me if I saved a couple hundred bucks and pitched in. With an offer like that, there was no way to refuse. Only I had no steady income, so I was lucky to have a nice little nest egg saved away. But that wasn’t enough, and I still owe my parents a little coinage. Nothing big though, I’ll just work it off like one of those cartoon characters who forgets their wallet when they go to a restaurant and has to clean dishes to pay the bill.

So about a month later we went over to their house, where my bros were informed of the good news. Only there was a surprise twist for everyone. Instead of my aunt and uncle taking the four of us, they were just going to let my parents go instead! So now the whole family (except me… how did that happen?) gets a free trip to Orlando, Florida to bask in the sun and experience the wonder that is Disney World. I guess there’s something to be said for having siblings. For my mom having siblings, anyway. Rich siblings.

Fast forward two months. We spend the whole weekend doing a whole bunch of random crap, and completely neglect the fact that we need to prepare to go on vacation for a week. So Monday rolls around and we start toying with the idea of packing. Tuesday comes, and everyone is packing all evening and night. I carefully pack more than enough clothes to last me the week, not adding in the washing machine factor. My suitcase is almost stuffed, and this will become a key factor near the end, so remember that. Nobody really gets any sleep, and before anyone realizes it, it’s three o’ clock Wednesday morning, and we have to be at the airport by 4:30

We’re totally packed, confident that we have everything, and are waiting for our rides. Both sets of my grandparents came to take us to the airport since there are so many of us and so much luggage to go along. Now, it’s about 3:15, and my parents expect that we’re barely going to make it. Problem is, they forgot to factor in the lack of traffic in the middle of the night. So I’m perfectly confident that we’ll be on time. It might have been my keen intuition, it might have been the lack of sleep, but I wasn’t nearly as in a rush as everyone else. So I took a picture of myself just before I stepped out the door. And because I was the main photographer, this is one of the very few pictures with me in it.

Ugh… My neck seems to have rolled horribly. Oh well. It’s not like that’s how it is all the time. Keeping on track, I hopped in the van and popped on my shades. My grandpa remarked that it was too early to be taking flash pictures, and nobody commented on the sunglasses at night thing, because that’s the kind of thing I do. My family knows me well enough to not bother asking questions when I do something strange. So as I so cockily predicted, we made it to the airport with ample time to spare. Enough time, in fact, to enjoy a Tim Horton’s coffee. Well, the coffee drinkers did, that is. Me, I just complained that we had to wait half an hour. And it was only going to get worse from there.

We unpacked all the stuffs and moved them inside. After waiting in line for a good half hour, we waved bye bye to the grandparents and moved onto the customs. Now I’m pretty sure that all those people who claim that customs is really harsh are all exaggerating, if just a little bit. All I had to do was put all my crap in a bucket so they could scan it. Then we sat around and waited for the plane to get ready. This took another half hour at least. Finally, we were aboard the plane. And waiting. Again. Only a short wait this time, and after the captain gave the OK, I busied myself in my GameBoy for the flight.

There were two major problems with this flight. One, was that my brothers had never been on a plane before, so they got dibbs on the window seats. It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but watching out the window of a plane is strangely entrancing. Secondly, due to the stupid part of the population who have allergies (or was it idiots who choked on them? I’m not sure), I received no airplane peanuts. Instead, I was offered a granola bar and orange juice, which I grudgingly accepted, cause I’d had no breakfast. The granola bar was so-so, but whatever kind of orange juice they’re serving, it must be squeezed from the oranges of Eden, cause it was the best freaking OJ I’d ever tasted. After 45 minutes or so of playing Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, the captain said to turn off electronics and we landed.

Our first stop was the Minneapolis airport, where we would transfer onto our flight to Orlando. Since we had 2 whole hours to waste, we stopped in at one of the local McDonald’ses. I’ve gotten tired of hotcakes over the years, so I did something completely out of character and got m’self a McGriddle. Now I’ve read the review on X-E, and I know you can see yourself getting unhealthier as you eat it, but I wanted one, dagnabbit. I tried the eggs and bacon variety, and for someone who doesn’t like eggs, I thought it was pretty damn good. Also noteworthy was a sign for the McRib, which instantly reminded me of the “Ribwich” episode of the Simpsons. And if you think a whole paragraph about an airport McDonald’s is bad, just you wait. There’s a big surprise in the near future.

After that, we wandered the monstrously huge airport in hopes that we’d make it to our gate before takeoff. Yes, the Minneapolis airport is that huge. We did make it, and with a good hour to spare too. Fortunately for us, I have a special ability that lets me figure out where I need to go by reading signs that tell me which way to go. So we sat down, I played more Castlevania while listening to some sweet OC Remix tunes, and the time ticked by. It was getting boring, so we formed two groups; one which would sit and wait due to laziness, and one which would adventure in search of cool stuff to look at and/or buy. Surprisingly, I was in the latter.

So we walked down one hall, and then realized that there was nothing interesting to be seen in an airport other than the excess of “The Daily News” stores and went back to sit down. On the way back, I was distracted by a vending machine that had on display two types of bagged potato product: Potato Skins and Fritos. Now I’ve heard of Fritos, and they might be from the same guys who make Lays, and that was even more mind boggling, because there were Lays in the machine as well. I had no change on me, so I wasn’t able to find out. I guess it’ll be a mystery to me forever. As for the Potato Skins, I don’t know what’s going on there, but the bag says “T.G.I. Friday’s”, so I’ll just assume the worst.

Eventually we got on the plane and started to fly away. This time, I got the window seat, as evidenced by the picture above. If you’ve never seen the top of clouds, there you go. Look remarkably like the bottoms of clouds, don’t they? Anywho, this flight was going to be about three hours long. It was a good thing that I brought a lot of stuff to do. I popped on the ol’ headphones and booted up the GameBoy Advance SP. Things were good until I got to Death (still playing AoS, of course). Now he wasn’t much of a pain in Normal mode, but on Hard, he gives you quite a bit of trouble. So that got annoying and I gave up.

The “flight attendant” came around eventually, and offered not a granola bar, but a bag of pretzels. These were a bit closer to peanuts, but still not the same. It would have been okay had they been good pretzels, but I’ll let you in on a little secret: airline pretzels suck. And that’s all there is to it. The OJ was the same as on the prior flight, and I enjoyed it muchly. Now you may be wondering why exactly I took a picture of my “lunch”. Well, on the first trip to Disney World, I took several pictures of my food, and it had turned into a running in-joke with my family. So of course, before I left, I was reminded on several occasions to take pictures of my food. Sadly, this is one of only two I remembered to snap.

After I had become bored with Castlevania, I moved onto MegaMan Battle Network 2, and did a little bit of NetBattling with my brother. See, there are these secret battle chips hidden in the game, and the only way to get them is to play against a friend. And of course, to make it a bit harder, they show up randomly. That’s the bad part. We played over 100 battles and only managed to get four out of ten of these secret chips. BN3 had the same problem, but there was only one secret chip per version. And I’m delighted to hear that BN4 supposedly has none of these horrible things. On the upside, that did waste about an hour and a half, so it wasted a good amount of time.

Now I’m convinced that we were riding in some sort of Transformer, mostly because it’s a funny thought, but also because the wings kept changing shape. Now I know that they do that for a reason, but it’s a lot funnier if I pretend that I don’t. Just look at this shot compared to that other wing shot and tell me that there is no huge difference. …Ah, this is really a waste. It’s not nearly as funny in writing as it is in person.

After the lengthy GameBoy session, we cleared the bunch of clouds, and I watched the scenery go by as we slowly got closer to our destination. There are a lot of things that you can see from up in the sky, and one of those just happened to be a building shaped like and S! And not just any S at that. Specifically, it is shaped much like the S in the Metroid symbol. I thought this to be odd and worthy of writing about, so I took a picture of it and circled it in red because without the circle it’s kinda hard to see. Take it as you will, but I think that it’s some sort of conspiracy. Conspiracy of what? I don’t know, that’s why it’s a conspiracy.

After a short nap and some more window-watching, the plane finally arrived. We got out and were astounded by what we had to travel to get to our baggage. See, the Orlando Airport is divided into two buildings; one where you board and get off the planes, and one where you enter/leave the place, pick up your rental vehicle, and deposit/claim baggage. These buildings are amply far away from each other, and to travel between them, you get to ride a monorail. And it’s not just any monorail. It looks like it came straight out of some futuristic movie or something. That’s about it. If you failed to be impressed, you need to see it to get the full effect. Really cool monorail.

So we rode that, picked up our luggage, and went to pick up our vehicle. Only problem was, out of all the vehicle rental dealies, we got the one with the longest line. Talk about getting the shaft. So after about another half hour, we were finally on our way to our hotel.

This in itself proved to be an even bigger problem. Something had gone askew and neither my mom nor dad could figure out where we were supposed to go, even though they had two maps, one specifically printed off the internet to tell us where to go. After we’d finally collected our bearings and figured out where we were (this took almost an hour), we scanned the map to find out where our hotel was. Now there were two possibilities; either our hotel was the only one not on the map, or we were headed somewhere that didn’t actually exist. To our relief, we found the place after driving all over town all day. And what a town it was. There was so much crap there that you could be there a month and not see everything. As I was already aware, the same would apply to Disney World itself.

This is where we stayed, the Marriott Residence Inn. It was a nice place, and it seemed to be relatively new as well. Trust me when I say that this picture doesn’t show even half the place. The place had everything I could ask for; free breakfast buffet, an arcade room, full cable TV, and an internet-ready PC. I know I didn’t make any posts during the trip despite having the tools to do so, and I can justify that. Every time I went to try to get on the PC, there were some stupid teenage girls IMing it up, even though there was a framed sign right next to the thing that said, and I quote “For business purposes only. No chatting, please.” As useful as it is, I hate instant messaging. It just causes me to have less access to computers. Scratch that, I hate kids who use computers only for chatting, as they are most likely morons who know little more than how to use their P2P and IM programs, and don’t deserve to be allowed to use computers.

 

Here are the pictures of the room that we stayed in, which is actually five rooms. One main room, with kitchen and lounge areas, two bedrooms, and two bathrooms. This is quite possibly the fanciest place I’ve ever stayed, so I was impressed to say the least. I, of course, stayed on the couch-bed. I always choose the couch-bed over one of the real beds. Why? I can’t explain it, but I prefer the humbleness of it all. Oh, and there were three TVs, one in each main room, so everyone could watch what they wanted all weekend. My brothers’ was seemingly stuck on MTV, because I don’t think it ever changed. My parents did their thing, with the reality crap, and me, well I was captivated by a lot of the fancy American channels.

For most of the week, my tube was set to the Cartoon Network or the WB, and changing only to watch a little hockey and Big Daddy, which, if you haven’t seen it, is a great movie. For the first couple days though, it was set to this one channel which was constantly looping this one promo for Disney World about the seven best attractions there. Now why would I watch this channel endlessly when I have trouble making it through a half-hour sitcom? Simple answer there: hot host. Seriously. It’s not exactly the most dignified reason, but it’s the only reason I watched the thing even once.

Ooh! Here’s a good one. Check that out! It’s a silver and green fire hydrant, and not some kind of prop either. All of the hydrants were these funky colours. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m always amazed by fire hydrants painted colours different than red and black/yellow. The red hydrant is the stereotype, and stuff like that is always constant. Why do places change the world-known colours? It’s just crazy, that’s what it is.

By the time we were ready to get a move on, it was already seven or later, so we didn’t have a whole lot of time to adventure, but there were two must-see stops on our short first-day tour of Orlando. The first we had previously seen on the food channel: the world’s biggest McDonald’s. I told you it was only going to get worse. And it gets even worse than that, too. This place was HUGE. I’m sure everyone’s been to a Chuck-E-Cheese sometime in their life. Well this place was at least twice as big. It had 2 floors, tons of games, play areas, and decorations, and the most shocking part was that along side the regular McD’s fare was real food. Gourmet crap, pizza, real sandwiches, seafood, salads, and even a dessert bar with waffle cones! This place had EVERYTHING.

In fact, it was so big that I’m going to write a full article about it. It was probably the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen, and I was ready to go home afterwards. It was like a whole vacation spot in itself. Let me say this, if you ever go to the States for a trip and you don’t know where to go, head straight to Orlando and check this place out. It will absolutely blow your mind. But enough gabbing on about how great the place was, I was damn hungry by that time. I usually have an equal of four meals a day, and I had had less than one during this whole day, so I needed a big meal. Four double cheeseburgers with super-sized fries and drink hit the spot in a way I didn’t think McDonald’s could. The only repercussions were that the pipes were blocked up for three or four days afterwards.

On the way out, I picked up a cone of the ice cream variety and we started out to our second location: the legendary 24-hour Wal-Mart. And we were lucky that it was open 24 hours, cause it was at least nine by the time we left. Finding it wasn’t too much trouble, since we got some advice from some friendly locals and were on our way in no time.

As you can see, we did get there, even though everyone who we told about it said we’d not have enough time to make it there. Oh we made it there alright, and at least two other times during the week as well. We’re just one of those families who will eat at McDonald’s twice in a day and find time to visit Wal-Mart three times while on a weeklong vacation to Disney World. Now is when you get to feel a lot better about your own family, unless they would do the same.

But this Wal-Mart wasn’t only just open 24 hours a day, it was also a Super Wal-Mart. It was huge in comparaison to any other Wal-Mart I’d ever seen, even that one Bizzarro Wal-Mart (That was on a completely different adventure. I fell asleep while in the van on a trip to hockey one day, and woke up to enter a Wal-Mart that was the exact opposite of the local store.). So of course, it had a hell of a lot more crap in it, but it also had an entire grocery store in it. The only thing wrong with it was that the electronics section was shamefully small and poorly stocked. It was less than half the size or my local Wal-Mart’s electronics section, and just slightly bigger than most Electronics Boutiques (That I’ve seen, anyway).

After stocking up on root beer, juice, foreign cereals, and various other foodstuffs, we left the giant store and headed home for the night. All in all, it had been quite a day, and it was still only the first of eight. We all knew that it was going to be a very busy and fun week, and that we had plenty of walking and a lot more waiting ahead of us. At least the weather down in Florida is a lot better than it is up here in crusty old Winnipeg. And the scenery too, the grass was a brilliant shade of green, the palm trees were everywhere, and most notably, there were eye-catching monuments of buildings everywhere. Among the most notable of those buildings were an upside-down museum thing, a huge inverted metal pyramid (the Hard Rock Vault), and one big freaking shoe on top of a closed-down sporting goods store.

After we got home, I ate some more, watched a little TV, audited my pictures and went to sleep after a rousing round of Ms. Pac-Man. So ends my tale for now, but be sure to tune in for part two of this extraordinary adventure, where we make our first stop at the Magic Kingdom, visit Wal-Mart for the second time, and discover a giant outlet mall where dreams come true.

Monday morning

New month, new news archive page. It’s a very simple thing to do, but I hate doing it. Anyway, that’s done now, and I’ve been toying with the redesign, but it’s far too complicated for someone like myself. I guess I don’t need it anyway. Just look at Maddox’s site. It’s even more scarcely decorated than mine, and it’s great. I’ll keep trying, but don’t expect a whole lot. Or anything really great, either, cause my lack of Photoshop (or moreso the lack of hard drive space on which to install Photoshop) isn’t exactly helping matters. Now that I’m done babbling, here comes the actual news. You can expect at least 6 individual submissions during the next two weeks. They all fit together, but I’m cutting them up to make it look like more. So that’s that. First one should be up tomorrow. Until then.

~Ryan out.

Back in the saddle

I’m baaaaaaaaaaack. Sorry I didn’t post sooner, there’s just so much to be done between catching up on things and napping. So there won’t be a real article this Sunday, but you can expect various smaller things to be popping up all week. I’ve got a lot of crap I can go on and on about, so be prepared to read a lot. That’s all for now, I’ll post something else tomorrow.

~Ryan out.

Always somewhere

The first weekend for a while sans-article. Just consider yourself lucky to get a news post this week. Such is what happens when you belong to a family which is not ready to go on vacation in a couple days. Yeah, it’s been Hell around here, and it’s only going to be worse tomorrow and Tuesday, cause school and work are going to get in the melee as well. So we’re leaving Wednesday, and coming back a week later. I’ll make sure to post something or maybe write a mini-review if there is internet access at our hotel, but I can’t promise anything. Time will be short, you know. So that’s that, and you shouldn’t be expecting to hear anything out of me until May. How I love getting away…

Also, because I do this kind of thing, The Mask just co-launched his own search engine. They call it IceRocket, and it works great. It scours six or so other search engines like Google and Altavista, so pretty much anything will pop up when searched for correctly. I’m thinking of even adding it to the ol’ favorites. That’s all the shameless plugs for now.

~Ryan out.

Crush out

The cam is working great, and that’s that. The mini-review is up late, but it’s up. It’s also very poorly done. I was annoyed with having to do it, so I just threw it together as fast as I could. And that still managed to take 2 hours. Damn it all. Now that that’s done, I can finally get back to studying. Or maybe I’ll defend my castle for a little while. In any case, I’m out.

~Ryan out.

2004’s Easter Egg-stravaganza!

It’s been Easter again. Last year I did that big Egg-stravaganza thing, but this year it’s just a little photo collection. But why have I gone all half-assed? For one, there wasn’t really enough to make a real article out of, and none is really as interesting as that mystery chocolate was. Secondly, it’s more or less that same thing as last year, but with more of the “random stuff” than things that stand out. Finally, I’m just too friggin’ lazy to even try to pump that many words out when it’s not meant to be done. And finally for real this time, I can’t put together a second good intro for an article about the same thing as another. Not that my intros are all that great, but damned if I’m gonna do it.
To make up for the relatively small amount of text, you’ll notice that I make the font a lot bigger. Now it looks like something Maddox wrote! Hooray. But I have to get this ball rolling, so without any further ado, we shall plunge right into the second and last of my Easter-themed articles!

First off we have the Peeps Bunnies. Now I wasn’t a huge Peeps fan before, as you may recall, but this is stupid. Go back to the birds. Sure it’s the same thing, but at least make the damn things white or some other bunny colour. Pink is not a colour that I like to be associated with. When I use Peach in Super Smash Bros Melee, I always switch to the white costume. When using Zelda, I’m always Sheik. I don’t like pink. Peeps were created yellow and should stay yellow. I refused to read a paper we got in math class because it was pink. Boo, Peeps, boo.

Next thing I took a picture of is the marshmallow bunnies. More pink here, but an acceptable level of such. As you can see, there are only four bunnies in the picture. There were more, but they were communists, so I was forced to eat them. I think that these bunnies are much better than the Peeps Bunnies. Peeps just aren’t that good. And don’t you try to tell me different, because you know that I’m right. Why Peeps have so many fans is way beyond my comprehension.

Another Reese egg came around this year. I’m not sure what last year’s Reese egg tasted like, but I’m pretty sure that this one was worse. It tastes pretty bad to tell the truth. Reese should stick to the tried-and-true cups and give up trying to break into the egg market. They’re failing pretty bad there.

A box of Smarties. Gee, there are really interesting. The only thing I can say about ’em is that they’re chocolate flavoured and Easter coloured. They’re Smarties for God’s sake. Shut up.

Aaaah, the Cadbury Creme Eggs. Possibly the greatest delicacy of the Easter time. And that’s the saddest part. I just don’t seem to like these guys as much as I used to. What’s happening to me? Why do I not like junk foods that I once would kill for? Oh well, three Creme Eggs are better than one, so down the hatch they go. Hm. Word is an idiot. It keeps correcting “Creme” to “Crème”. Stupid computers. Wow I’m angry today. Why that is, I don’t know, as nothing has happened to me lately to justify said anger. Oh well.

Mmmm Mini Eggs. Now these things I’ll never not like. That candy coating… and the delicious chocolatey center… Oh wan I wish I could be eating them again right now. But again, there really isn’t much I can say about these. Other than their deliciousness, they’re pretty boring. Even the package is kinda lackluster.

Chocolate eggs. If you want me to say any more about ’em, fark you.

 

And this is the fantastic centerpiece of my chocolate empire. Or it was before it got eaten. You can’t quite tell, but it’s shaped vaguely like Homer. I was quite happy to receive a giant character chocolate, but then I realized why I hadn’t gotten one for so many years; the chocolate is of rather low quality, regardless of what the packaging claims. So it was a bit of a disappointment, but it’s a good box for putting stuff in. It’s even got a cool viewing window.

In an odd, ironic twist, my parents gave me a toothbrush. It makes sense, what with all that chocolate is gonna kill my teeth. Anywho, it’s one of those fancy-ass “spin brushes”, and I have no friggin’ idea how to use the thing. I can’t help it, I was raised on the normal toothbrush. So I’m going to have to get used to this behemoth… or just take out the batteries.

Last time I checked, the holiday was Easter, not Christmas. I’m grateful and all, but I’m as surprised as you are that I got something so expensive for such a low-level holiday. I guess it kind of explains the smaller amount of candy though. In any case, it saves me $60, so I won’t complain. I know you’re all kinda spooked that I’d want a Pokémon game, but that would mean you don’t know me too well. I like the Pokémon games. Or at least Blue anyway. This is the first Pokémon game I’ve been able to truly enjoy since the Yellow version came out.

And it’s a lot different from other Pokémon games too. It’s a lot more evil than all the other games, and that almost makes it okay for someone my age to be playing. I just look at this guy here. He is a total badass. Not only is he buffed up, but he’s got a necklace of Poké Balls. I bet he stole ’em all, killed the creatures inside, ate them, and painted his face and dyed his hair with their blood. Nope, no characters in the other games would even think of pulling shit like that. Plus there are no random battles, so I love it. Random battles are the bane of my existence.
And that’s that. It’s over 1000 words, so it’s long enough to qualify as a proper mini-review, so you can’t complain about nuttin’. This Easter was kinda boring, and rather expensive, but it turned out pretty well. I played Pokémon Colosseum for 5 hours straight yesterday. There really isn’t any appropriate way to end this one. So I’ll just end it here. Happy belated Easter, heathen bastards.

The Good Stuff:
  • Tons of chocolate
  • I got a non-bargain bin console game? Holy shit!
  • Everyone loves Cadbury
  • The Bad Stuff:
  • Chocolate gets annoying after you eat so much
  • Peeps bunnies are less fun to eat than the original Peeps
  • Am I rating a holiday? Materialism on a new level…
  • Photograph

    Two words: CAMERA GET. Yes, I finally got a digital camera, and just in time for my trip too. It’s a present from my uncle for graduation, my birthday and Christmas, but I think it’s better than 3 smaller, less useful things. So now I can take pictures of things further than two metres away from my PC, and I can take it wherever I go and take pics of cool things I see. Such power. It’s a pretty good camera; 3.2MP, 2x zoom, with sound and video taking abilities. There’s a bunch of other stuff too, but I don’t understand most of it. It came with a rather small memory chip, so I have to take lower quality pics until I get a bigger one, but it’s all good. So you can expect that I’ll take and post a ton of pics from my vacation for all to see. Today is a good day.

    In other news, the mini-review should be done tomorrow or Thursday. The pics are taken and I just have to write it. That’s all I have to report then, so it’s back to playing with my new toy for me.

    ~Ryan out.

    A storm in the desert

    It just hit me today that I’ll be terribly busy this weekend. That means no article until Monday… Yes, it’s a shame, but I just won’t have enough time to do it unless I put it ahead of finishing up my comic. And even that won’t get done. I suppose I could sacrifice a little sleep, but I’ve been sleeping badly enough as it is, and if I’m out all weekend, I won’t have time for naps. So indeed, there shall be no article on Sunday. It will be on Monday, and I might even post two to make up for the lateness. Might.

    ~Ryan out.