Ughh… So damn busy… I’ve been watching the dog all week, and it’s taken quite a toll on my sleep. And it won’t get any better on the weekend, cause I have to go out to the cottage (hence there will be no update) and babysit my cousins while all the adults go to some stupid wedding. I mean why can’t us kids come? Particularly me. It’s not like I care about the ceremony or anything, but it’s a free buffet and cake afterward! Those wedding cakes are great! Ah well. And then to top it off, Monday is Graduation day, and with the partying all night, Tuesday is going to be a pain. The aftermath of all this leaves me with a heavy desire to be alone and sleeping, so I’m hibernating from Wendesday to Friday. And all this to say that there probably won’t be another update until the 3rd, at the earliest.
Other than that, I’m having some reconsiderations about the site, and finding that it’s not really what I wanted it to be. So, I’m thinking that once I learn a bit more HTML and possibly add a little Javascript into the mess, I’m going to have to do a complete rehaul of the site. And not just aesthetically, either. If I do make this huge change, the site is going to work very differently, and no longer be an article-based affair. It might even verge on becoming one of those half-blogs. Wow. Becoming what I detest the most. Oh well. I guess it’s just in the cards. So, uh, that’s what I have to say for today. I’ll see you in July.
As of 2:50 yesterday, I am officially a free man. School is over and done with, and now I have all the time in the world to devote to the site. Unfortunately, much of that time will have to go to finding a job and working, or pursuing a post-secondary education. But whatever, I’m going to enjoy the freedom while it lasts. That’ll be about two weeks or so, then it’s back to the job hunting for ol’ Ryan. So yeah, the weekend will be busy, so I’ll try to get the article done by tonight. Probablility is high, so I’m hoping to be done by Sunday at the very latest. Since the week is empty, I’ll be able to get some other stuff done too. If I’m really feeling into it, I might even get the entire rest of the Disney World crap done during the week. Might. Only four to go, so it’s not an entirely impossible task. We’ll see.
I can explain, really. I was sick all Sunday (and still am), and I have do do the big chemistry exam on Friday, so I have to cram like Hell for that one. It’s not that I’m not confident in my chemistry knowledge, it’s that if I do manage to blow it, I won’t pass school, and then everyone I know will hate me (particularly my mom), so there’s a lot riding on this. So, probably next weekend will be the next update. And there’s even a possibility of that final Chat Radio coming soon too. Speaking of coming soon, check this out, and be revolted. I was.
The first day was long, and we were all ready for a good night’s sleep. Only problem was, nobody seemed to realize that that first day was going to seem like no big deal after the rest of the trip had gotten through with us. I knew in the back of my head that everything had only begun, even though I’d seen and done what seemed like so much already. We were used to below 0 degrees Celsius, and now we were going to bake in the Floridian temperatures of over 80 degrees Fahrenheit (about 27°C). And there was going to be a lot more waiting, too.
But of course, you don’t really tend to complain about waiting and heat when you get to go to Disney freaking World for almost no cost at all. Even with these impediments that usually prove fatal to people like us, we knew that it would all be worth it, because this is one of those “of a lifetime” experiences. After not nearly enough sleep (we were at Wal-Mart until way past midnight, and didn’t hit the hay till much later), I got up and started preparing for the long road ahead.
Of course, nothing starts your day like a good shower, so I hopped in and turned on the faucet. I was instantly repulsed by the terrible odor emanating from the tap. I’m not sure where exactly you’re not supposed to drink the water, but if Florida’s not on the list yet, add it. The stuff smelled like terrible, and tasted as such. So I did a rush job and ended up about as clean as I was when I entered, but at least I was outta there. Oh, and the towels were scratchy too.
To make up for the horrible showering problems, the hotel we stayed at provides a free breakfast buffet every morning. So we headed on down and prepared to stuff ourselves full, as my dad had threatened that he wouldn’t be feeding us at the parks due to sky-high prices. The spread was quite impressive. There were pancakes, waffles, cereal, muffins, fresh fruit, and danishes. I ate a waffle (These were real-sized. None of that Eggo crap), an apple, a muffin and a couple danishes and finished it all off with some OJ. My morning had officially been made.
After breakfast, we went back to the room and geared up for our first day of awesome. I was stuck with the backpack full of water bottles, but later would be grateful for their cooling effect, even if I did get a soaked back. So we left and headed out to the Magic Kingdom. The best part about it all is that the Disney World mini-city was located not three minutes from where we were staying, so we were there in no time. Not only that, but inside there were signs every six feet that pointed out where everything was, so there was no getting lost today!
Not even ten minutes after we’d left did we arrive at the parking gates to the Magic Kingdom. So far everything was going great, and the near future was looking up for us. We paid the hefty parking fee of $8 and moseyed on in. They have the best parking system in the world there, and after we parked, we were stuck with the trouble of figuring out what to do next. As we tried to figure out where we were, I said cleverly “Remember kids, we’re in the Itchy lot.” thinking I was so smart. Everyone laughed and we found out that we were really in the Minnie lot. Then we saw the tram car that would take us to our destination and hoofed it on over.
We hopped on the tram, and I heard the “Itchy lot” line at least 5 times, and felt a little less clever. But despite the terrible overuse of a Simpsons quote, the tram went on its way and took us to the real gates of the Magic Kingdom. There, we picked up our passes and waltzed in. But there was one final trial to overcome, and that was a giant lake. There were two ways over, a ferry or a monorail. We opted for the ferry, which seemed like the better choice at the time, and started our journey across the lake.
It wasn’t a long ride, but everyone was getting very excited by the time we’d even gotten halfway across. We could see so many of the all-important Disney monuments growing closer in the distance, and the family kept asking the same questions about my last trip. It was growing irritating, and then it came into view. The castle. My mom had been longing to see the castle for pretty much all of her life, after seeing it week after week on that “World of Disney” thing on TV. I guess in a roundabout way, this really is the place where dreams come true.
Finally, we were there. The feeling you get when you arrive at the Magic Kingdom for the first time (that you can properly remember) is indescribable. You’d think it would go for any of the parks, but nothing compares to this place. This is bar none (that I’ve ever heard of) the most extravagant place on the face of the earth. Everything stands out, and you can tell that when they built this place, not a single corner was cut, not one spared expense. If Bill Gates did something like this with his money, I’d probably respect the guy. But seriously, best place ever.
Before we got anywhere though, there were small souvenir shops right near the entrance, and since it was the first day, we dove right in. The boys picked up pens and autograph books, and as for me, well I decided that I’d just take the pictures this time around seeing as I left my old autograph book at home. After we’d finished our pre-park shopping, we passed through the train station and walked right into the middle of Main Street U.S.A.
Main Street is basically the long stretch of shops and such which leads up to the park’s hub, which is the castle. From there, the park branches out into six differently themed “lands”. While the Disney and Minnie statue certainly is a nice decoration, it doesn’t exactly maximize seating space. Especially when someone has seated their bag in the empty spot. But there was no time to waste sitting down. After my brothers picked up their first few autographs, we moved on down the street. You know, here’s a map for you, in case you ever want to get a kind of idea what the place I’m talking about looks like on a map.
To our left were shops upon shops. To our left, more of the same. And while they all sported some sort of reason to visit all of them individually, we only entered a single store. Oddly enough, it was the sports-themed store. There were indeed plenty of sports-themed goods inside. If there’s one thing you can say about Disney World, it’s that that there’s no false advertising. And in the “back” of the store, there was even a huge screen playing some old black & white Goofy cartoons. Can you say “sweet”? On a completely different note, there was one place on the street called “Penny Arcade”. It made me think of all the good times I’d had reading the webcomic of the same name. Sadly enough, I never got the chance to check it out.
And right at the end of the street is this rather famous statue of Walt and Mickey. There’s not a whole lot I can say about the statue, except that it seems to be made of an excellent type of bronze, as it has withstood many many years, and is still in tip-top condition. Yup, that’s about it. Can’t move on yet though, cause the next pic has to be seen before I can. And I cant’ have this paragraph be too short, now can I?
There ya go. The most recognizable structure on Disney soil; Cinderella’s Castle. It’s actually not a whole lot, for what it is. Basically, it’s just the castle with a path through the bottom leading to the other side. Sure, there’s a store and a restaurant to either side, but you really don’t get to see much else. Sometimes some of the characters will be running around up on the balconies and putting on shows, but other than that, it’s a pretty boring hub. It’s nice to look at and all, but like many beautiful girls, it lacks the substance necessary to make it truly incredible.
After we gawked at the castle for a while, we stood wondering where exactly we’d be starting today’s adventure. I suggested the most excellent Tomorrowland, and after a few minutes of discussing why it was the most logical way to start, we were back to the chase. Unfortunately, we didn’t get 20 steps further before we were stopped by the need to get the autographs of not only Chip and Dale, but Pluto as well. Now you might come up with some crazy idea that the character lines are unbearably long, but in reality, most of them aren’t too bad. They move fast too, so we got the autographs and kept a-movin’.
This was the best way to start, and I know, because I’ve done it twice now. Tomorrowland is my personal favorite part of the Magic Kingdom, but that’s not to say that everything else isn’t equally as impressive. In this picture, you can see the Astro Orbiter, which is basically one of those round-and-round spaceship rides, only it’s really high up. It’s conveniently perched above a some sort of restaurant that they call the Launching Pad. At least I think it might have been a restaurant, I never actually checked the place out.
Between the two was the something or other, which was more a tour of the Tomorrowland area than a ride. We hopped on that first to waste a little time, and being the first thing we did, it was fun. At first it was nice and slow, but every once in a while it would speed up. Not to a pace much faster than that of a slow car, but my mom was still caught off guard. Oh boy, was she going to dread Space Mountain. So anyway, the ride took us on a tour of the place, and went through a couple of the more thrilling (than this) rides, like Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin and Space Mountain itself.
When we were done with that little tour, we arrived at the Space Ranger Spin. I’m sorry you can’t see Buzz too well, but he was moving, and his face was being projected on so that it didn’t look like another stupid animatronic robot. This was a fun ride. I hopped on, ready for some sort of tame roller coaster, but what I got was much better. On the “cart” was a sort of steering device, and mounted upon it were two guns. The point of this ride was to shoot as many targets as you could. And to make it more fun, you could manipulate the steering device to make your cart turn in circles, which was obviously the feature that put the “Spin” in the ride’s name. Buzz’s ride was a blast, even though I was only able to score a measly 1400+ points. It’s not my fault thought. The guns don’t have any real aiming device, so you can only shoot blindly.
After that, we planned to go on the mighty Space Mountain, but of course I was distracted by this place. You know I have trouble saying no to video arcades, so you shouldn’t be too surprised. There were only two disappointments here: they’d gotten rid of their Donkey Kong machine, and there was no Bust-A-Move. But if you can see past those faults, there are tons of other excellent games to play, such as Soul Calibur and a really cool turret game that spins around. Me, I found my glory in a Star Wars podracing game. While I had always kept a place in my heart for the N64’s Episode 1 Racer, this was the podracing game to beat all others. It was set up like a podracer, and the steering sticks were the same as you’d see in the movie. Not only that, but it was one of those head-to-head games too, so I got to have fun and smoke my brother all at the same time.
We left the arcade far faster than I’d have liked, but there was plenty more to be seen around this vast park of wonders. Space Mountain was calling us, but we needed to waste a little more time, so we got some ice cream. I got me a chocolate-covered ice cream Mickey on a stick, and it was good, as expected. After we were done with that, we went on that tour-type ride again. After we had finished there, we finally headed over to the best part of Tomorrowland: Space Mountain.
The last time I had visited Disney World, I was only nine years of age, and was a very timid fellow. But before I left this time, I vowed to go on everything to make sure I had no regrets. And as far as the theme parks went, I kept my promise. My first challenge was Space Mountain. You hear stories about it, and you just know that it’s going to be crazy, so there’s no way to not be even just a little nervous the first time you get near. It’s a sight to see, that mountain. But I was going to do it. And I did. Due to the great new invention called “FastPass”, we almost literally flew past the regular line, and only had to wait four minutes at the max to get on the ride. And once we were there, I knew it was going to be one helluva ride.
And let me tell you, it sure was. While I haven’t been on a lot of roller coasters, Space Mountain is surely one of the best I’ve seen. At first it seems to be just your regular, run-of-the-mill coaster, but then the theme kicks in. Almost the entire ride is hurtling you through an almost pitch-black expanse of stars and screams. It’s extremely fast, and definitely not for the weak of heart. My mom screamed for the whole ride, which was a good minute long, and when asked if she’d go on again, she replied with a solid “no”. But me, I’d do it again in a second.
Our last stop in Tomorrowland was the Tomorrowland Indy Speedway. This was one of those rides that wasn’t popular enough to earn a Fast Pass machine, so we waited quite some time to get on this one. And while it was alright, it could have been a lot better. The premise is simple, you drive a car which is on something of a track and go around, then the next person gets in and does the same thing. It’s not exactly a thrilling ride, seeing as the maximum speed is probably slower than that of the touring ride.
See, there are these rail things under the cars, and the wheels don’t go over them, so if you drive badly, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride. The craptacular steering response didn’t help matters either. But on the positive side, there are signs all over saying not to bump the car in front of you while you’re waiting to unload, and my dad rammed me several times. It was funny, but there was nothing I could do to retaliate, so I had to put up with the constant jerking. I did get to ride alone though, so nobody was there to criticize my horrible driving.
Before we leave, I’ll wrap up some final notes about Tomorrowland. Firstly, there are a couple boring rides here, like The TimeKeeper and The Carousel of Progress, and I was lucky to know that skipping these would be a great saver of time. Secondly, I really wanted to go on the Alien (as in Alien the movie) ride, but oddly enough, they had it closed down for some sort of remodeling. I was too scared to go on last time, so I was hyped to get on this time, and now I’ve been shot down. With any luck, it’s just to accommodate a Fast Pass line, so it’ll be open if I ever get down here again.
Next in line was Mickey’s Toontown Fair. It was closed for maintenance the last time I’d been here, so this was totally new for me. After doing a little research, I learned that originally it was just Mickey’s Toontown. Turns out they had closed it down to remodel it into a strange sort of town fair dealie. I guess it’s for the better that I never saw it before, as this seems worse than the original, and I wouldn’t want to be disappointed, now would I? Actually, this place was rather boring, so I’ll just post a few pictures and summarize them all in one or two paragraphs.
The first one shows the water tower in front of Goofy’s Barnstormer, a decent roller coaster ride. It wasn’t great, and it jerked more than a pubescent young man, but I’d do it again if there was a short line. Next is Minnie’s house. I didn’t go in because it was far too pink. Mickey’s house was also present. For some reason he had a bike in his living room and a tent in his backyard, but I stopped asking questions long ago. You can see some of the unique plants in his garden and the autograph tent in the next two. That tent is huge, and filled to the brim with people. Mickey’s autograph isn’t worth that. And lastly is something that piqued my interest while going through Mickey’s garage.
Other things that I saw in the Toontown Fair were a playground for small children, some sort of large boat which was apparently owned by Donald Duck, and a giant store disguised as a contest tent. There was indeed a lot of crap in there, and I was going to get me some giant Mickey gloves (because like the Hulk Hands, they’re just irresistible), but opted not to when I saw the price tag. They didn’t even make sounds. We found the Toontown Station, where we found a train that took us on a trip around the perimeter of the Magic Kingdom, and once we got back we left and headed due west for Adventureland.
But to get through to Adventureland, we would have to pass through Fantasyland first. We were going to save it for our next visit to the Magic Kingdom (this place takes 2+ days to see everything), but it was just impossible to say no to the teacups. So we got on, and the only person who enjoyed it fully was myself. Everyone else has this strange problem with spinning very fast, and they say something about “dizzy” or something like that. Me, I get a kick out of it, so I cranked that thing as hard as I could and had a blast.
After that, we moseyed on back down to Main Street, from where we could access Adventureland. Everyone was still a little out of shape from the teacups, so we sat down. The heat and time had gotten to us to, so while we were there, we got drinks, hot dogs and fries. This was the last time that I remembered to take a picture of my food before it was too late, so enjoy your only view of what the food looks like in Disney World. Kinda familiar, I think… Oh, yes, and I had only a drink and fries, because frankly I wasn’t that hungry.
So we were just sitting there regaining our strength when what do you know, a parade comes along. These things happen all the time in the Disney parks, so it wasn’t a big surprise, we just didn’t expect to be there at the right time. I had suggested that we not bother with the parades, but it was coincidence that had brought us to it, so I decided I’d get some snaps in while I was there. Up above you see the top of the Mickey float. It’s quite literally covered in Mickeys. Most were statues, but the one in the dome was like all the other mascots bumbling around the park all day.
As you can se, the floats were varied and all had different character themes. There were also many characters dancing around in the street, and before that day I’d never realized just how hot Alice actually is. Not like that Blue Fairy. Uggh. So yeah, Pinocchio, Aladdin, evil guys, there were others too, like the princesses, and one with all of Mickey’s friends and Peter Pan on it. Now why would they mix Pan with the Mickey crew? None of the other floats had mixed characters. It doesn’t really matter, so onward!
We made it to Adventureland not long after the parade. Once inside, we stopped at a small shop to gawk at toy guns and personal fans. Once the family was done with all the shopping, we moved on and sorted out which rides we were going to go on. Up first was the Jungle Cruise, so we grabbed Fast Passes for that and then let my mom and brothers climb up the Swiss Family Treehouse, which was far too large and stair-covered for me to even consider getting near at this temperature.
When the Jungle cruise was ready for us, we hopped on a boat and the tour guide stated blabbering. Now, it’s really just a boat ride with statues or broken animatronics lined along the shore. Then there was the tour guide. He kept telling these terrible one-liners, and the worst part about it all was that I remembered every single “joke” he made from my last trip. So we got off a little angry, and went to get passes for The Pirates of the Caribbean.
While we wait for that ride, I’ll take some time out to properly explain what the Fast Passes are and how they work. Each popular ride has a couple of these boxes out front of it. What you do, is you put your tickets in, and they come out with passes for the ride they’re by. These passes allow you to go down a completely different queue line and skip all (or at least, most of) that nasty waiting. The passes have a time on them, and at that time, you head on over to the ride and get on. The problem is that you can only hold one type of Fast Pass at once, so you have to wait until your time (which could be anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours from when you get it) , grab your next one, and get back to the pass’ ride. Fortunately, they’ll honour late passes, so even if you manage to miss your variable window of opportunity, you can still get in the quick line.
Also, while we waited, my youngest brother and mom went on this ride. It didn’t seem like anything I wanted to go on, so I skipped it. We just loitered around outside while they were on it, and I practiced taking pictures. And just to give you a little something to think about – the time we were here was about 4:00, so there was still a lot of day left. Fortunately, most of it was spent shopping or watching Big Daddy, so there isn’t too much more to read.
Finally, The Pirates of the Caribbean. It’s a good ride, with a couple thrill drops, but at the simplest level, it’s an indoor Jungle Cruise with proper animatronics. There seems to be some sort of story going on throughout the ride, but I missed it because I was too busy trying to take a good picture. I took a lot, but the one above was the only one not to come out way too blurry. And even that got screwed up by being far larger a size than I intended it to be. Musta pressed the wrong button somewheres along the line. But it’s still the best ride in Adventureland, even if it is hard to get pics of. I recommend it.
That being done, we decided we’d leave the other three lands until the next time we came, so we up and left the Magic Kingdom. It’s not like we had a lot of time left, either. McDonald’s had reserved the entire park for a company party of sorts, and it would be closed off to the public at 6:00. Now, you can really tell when a company is rich when they can reserve freaking Disney World for a staff party. I guess it just goes to show that they aren’t lying about how many burgers they’ve sold.
So because my word count is nearing 4500 at this point, I think I’ll just do a little wrapping up. Basically what happened the rest of the night was: We went to an outlet mall so that my brother could look for shoes. He found them. Then we went back to the hotel, were I proceeded to laze around. We went out to the Olive Garden for dinner. I ate half a personal pizza. It was the most disheartening moment of my life. We also learned that in America, iced tea is quite literally tea with ice in it. We went back to the hotel again. Everyone went swimming but me, who proceeded to watch Crank Yankers and the first half of Big Daddy. The family came back and dragged me away from my movie to go to Wal-Mart again. Then we got back home and I slept.
All in all, I’d say that the first day was one of the best. Mostly because it was the most exciting, but also because the Magic Kingdom is the best park. So I’ll be back eventually with the next installment of this crazy adventure, the day we went to Disney-MGM Studios. It’ll be packed with thrills, cool hats, and overhyped rides, so make sure that you don’t miss out on my account of the second best thing that Walt Disney World has to offer.
My new article is up. Should have been done yesterday, but while I was writing I got distracted by lunch, and then GameCube. I just can’t resist tasty things. Or GameCube. Especially when my alternative is writing. Don’t get me wrong, folks, I love writing, but it gets tiresome and annoying after a while. So I took a day-long break. It’s not exactly the next installment in the Disney World saga, but it’s sort of a spin-off. Anyways, updates will hopefully be a lot more frequent this week, cause I want to finish this Disney World thing in as small a timeframe as possible, just to minimize unneccessary suspense. And that’s all for today.
No, wait. Gotta give a shout out to my buddy Justin, who hits the big 18 today. Happy birthday, man. You know I can’t afford more than this, so don’t expect anything.
You’ve read the first installment of my Disney World log, right? If not, go here to check it out. If you have, you’ll know that while we were touring in Orlando, we came across a big freaking McDonald’s. In fact, the biggest in the world. After seeing it on the Food Network, my mom and brother were determined to find this place while we were there. Not only did we manage to find it, but on the first day to boot. And as they had been raving for about a week at that time, it was really freaking big. So big, that it was advertising it’s greatness on the M signpost outside, and several other signposts in the vicinity.
Just as a little preface, I’d like to point out that a lot of my pictures of this McDonald’s turned out a little blurry. And by “a little”, I mean “terribly”. I’m not sure why, as almost every other picture I took turned out fine, but that’s the way it is, so you’re going to have to deal with it or go and do something else. The blur isn’t so bad that you can’t tell what’s what though, so you should be able to cope rather easily. Now let’s get this party started.
So now we’ll take a wondrous journey into one of the most amazing places that I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen Disney World. Our tour starts outside, where amazingly, there is quite a bit to see. Just standing outside of this place, you can tell that it’s going to be like no other fast-food restaurant you’ve ever seen. You have to witness it first-hand to get the full effect of how spectacular this place is, but I’m going to do my best to give you a good general impression.
Well that one turned out horribly, but I’m sure you get the picture. It’s the big M sign seen in front of every single McDonald’s restaurant, so chances are pretty good that you’ve seen one. Only instead of a sign saying that they’ve sold so many billions of burgers, it’s got a fancy-ass electronic signboard that boasts about it’s hugeness and greatness. It also gives details on current specials, what kinds of food they serve there, and just how popular the place is. I can imagine that it’s running the 3 other McD’s restaurants within 30 feet into the ground.
And the fact that there are other McDonald’s restaurants close by is the really sad part. I thought it was a pancake house that they had on every street corner, not a McDonald’s. But on that note, there were a lot of pancake houses around. Especially IHOP (International House of Pancakes, for those not in the know. I just learned that while I was there.). That seems to be the granddaddy of them all. And while pancakes are good and all (now that I think of it, I wonder what the breakfast menu is like here…), I’m at McDonald’s, and that’s what I’ve got to get back to reviewing. So in conclusion, while in Florida, I ate no pancakes.
You might not be able to tell so well from pictures, but this place, as I may have mentioned before, is frickin’ huge. Just look at it and compare it to things around it. Oh yeah, there’s also the whole two-storey thing going on. That’s a big one. Not only is it huge, it’s exuberantly decorated as well. The huge fry box motif, the art all over the walls, and the lights and decorative crap coming out of every which way, it’s amazing just to look at. If you do ever visit, you’ll probably be stuck standing in awe of this place for a good five minutes or so before you actually get inside. And it only gets more extravagant on the inside. If God eats fast food, this is where he goes.
When you walk in (and through automatic doors, no less) you’ll notice that every bit of wall and possibly even ceiling is covered in something. To your right is the dessert bar, which I’ll get to later, right in front of you are swarms of people trying to get food, and to your left is the happy little scene pictured above. As you can see, we’ve got ocean-painted walls, a huge map, a table for taking charity donations, and that token Ronald McDonald toy display. On the floor are some sort of funny footprints that point you to the exit (which you might miss with all this stuff going on around you), and the occasional shoe scuff, which might be unintentional.
Now this one is the real kicker. Look at all of that food advertisement and display. In the very back is the regular McDonald’s counter area, where you get your food. Right in front of them are more little cash register machines, where you order your stuff. This is all a lot more complex than any McDonald’s I’ve ever seen already. Then in front or that is their gourmet food displays. These contain pizza, real sandwiches, desserts, and seafood, among a bunch of other fancy stuff. You can see various signs posted around, like the black pizza sign above, the sandwich sign in the background, and that bistro gourmet sign to the left. Over on the right side, you can just barely get a glance at that dessert area and chef station. That’s right. This McDonald’s has real chefs. That means food that won’t make you crap 5 minutes later (or block you for several days, as I would soon learn).
So while my parents stand in line to get us our grub, we decide to go explore this huge place. It might be the excess of people, or that fact that it’s crammed to the brim with games, tables, chairs and odds n’ ends, but it feels a lot smaller on the inside. Well, to be more precise, the first floor does anyway. The second floor is less jam packed, because the eating area is exclusive to downstairs, so there’s a lot more room to move around, but we’re still investigating the downstairs, so I’ll get back to that.
As you can see in the picture, there are not nearly as many people as I might have led you to believe, but there were still an ample amount. You can also see that the walls are still painted from top to bottom, and there’s decoration as far as the eye can see. Unless you’re looking out those crooked windows, because even downtown Florida, a place filled with more crap than you can imagine, looks bare compared to this single establishment. And you can also see a couple of the games along the back wall, and I’ll hint at it now, that’s one of, if not the best part of this McDonald’s.
There’s the kid’s/birthday area. It’s just as covered in fancy as the rest of the place, and it’s even got those cool character chairs. Just looking here, can you imagine how exhilarating it must be for a kid to have his birthday party here? Even to attend a party here? Or Hell, if you were going to go to a party here, chances are that you live close enough to go whenever you so desired. And that would be great. A place like this is just one of those places you have to go to more than once if you ever get the chance. Just like Disney World, and I have been there twice. Not to boast or anything, though.
Ack! It’s the attack of the blurry camera invaders! I swear… It’s not that I screwed up. No. I’m good at taking pictures. What’s that? I already admitted to screwing up at the beginning? Damn. Hoisted by my own petard. Now while that phrase makes very little sense according to dicitionary.com, I’ll take the Family Guy quote for what it’s worth. Now back to the stuff and such, this is the opposite wall to the kid’s area, and you can see that it’s covered in games, and the floor is absolutely cluttered with eating place. It’s actually quite hard to move through the tables themselves, even when they’re unoccupied. Going around the perimeter may be a longer trek, but it certainly is easier.
Oh gah! It’s even blurrier than the last. Luckily, this one I can chalk up to wanting to take the picture fast so that girl wouldn’t think I was taking a picture of her. It’s just one of those things you have to watch for when you have a camera. You see the aquarium. It’s cool and blue, but the fishies inside leave something to be desired. They’re tropical aquarium fishies and all, but they’re no eels or mantis shrimp or anything really awesome like that. Just plain old angelfish and other brightly coloured aquatic critters. It is pretty big though, so it’s not a total loss. And even if they aren’t special, fish are always fun to watch, in a bored sort of way.
You know, I think it might actually get better after this one. I’m not sure, but we can hope, right? This little corner is jungle themed for some reason that I can’t explain. It comes complete with tons of leaves and flowers hanging from the ceiling, a little statue thing with some water in it, and a rather dark air altogether. It certainly is different from the rest of the restaurant, and it really shows that they were trying to please as many as possible. This way, plant lovers can bask in their flora, and goths can sit in a dark corner. Fun for everyone!
and now, we get to the best part of the whole entire place, and one of the biggest highlights of my trip. Yes, it’s something that only I would get super-hyped about, and yes, I realize that it qualifies me as a huge loser, but damned if my heart didn’t stop when I saw this beauty…
Mc-freaking-Donald’s has an F-Zero AX machine!!!! Just like it says in the title bar! Ever since GX came out, I’ve been searching the city for one, but up here in Canada we’re lucky to get cool stuff late, and most of the time, we just plain miss out on it. I’ll tell you this, If one of these machines does take up residence in Winnipeg somewhere (please inform me if you know of one!), I haven’t been there, because I know I would have used or at least caressed it once by now.
To make my severe geekness a little more understandable, I love F-Zero. I’m not a huge racing fan, but the Nintendo racers have always had a special place in my heart. Mostly because those are the only ones that you can control without being a racing freak. Damn that Gran Turismo and it’s complexity. Heck, damn all sim racers for being too hard for me to understand. But F-Zero, it’s not like that. The car turns when and where you want it to turn. If you want to make a sharper turn, you hold the sharp turn button. None of this spin-out, drift and slow-down-when-turning funny business. Just me, the track, and 29 other racers. All set to awesome music and beautiful sci-fi scenery.
and the arcade game only capitalizes on everything there is in GX. For one, the seat moves around while playing. And since it’s an extreme racer, it moves a lot. So much it needs a seat belt. And then the speakers are right in behind your head, so those awesome tunes are blaring in your ears all the way to the finish line. It may sound distracting, but anyone who doesn’t like a hardcore mix of the Mute City music needs a serious re-evaluation of their musical tastes. Plus it sets the mood really well. I’ll even throw in this link, which you can follow to download every track from every F-Zero game. The steering was a bit touchy and oversensitive, but was easy to get used to.
Oh, just look at that. A perfect picture after all of that blur. Fitting, isn’t it? Well, there’s yet ANOTHER great thing about this machine that I didn’t yet mention. If you’ve got an F-Zero GX game save, and you bring your memory card, you can slot it in here and unlock a bunch of new machines, tracks and parts to play on GX. Yes, you can unlock them without AX, but it’s freaking hard. Just ask anyone who’s played the game. Finishing the races on the AX machine is a helluva lot easier. And even though it might cost you a couple bucks to do it, the experience is definitely worth it. This is one of the greatest arcade games I’ve ever played, topped only by Pac-Man, Ms Pac-Man(which was also at this particular McDonald’s), and Bust-A-Move.
So now that I’m done with that little rant, it’s about time that we moved upstairs. Like I said earlier, up here there were no tables or chairs, so it was a lot less crowded, and access to games was much more convenient. If you turn around while heading upstairs, or happen to be on your way down, you’ll see the scene pictured above. While the downstairs was built around the premise of eating and playing F-Zero, the upstairs is a much more patriot-friendly place. But of course, only for the American visitors. Foreigners like me feel completely out of place, eh.
Holy crap. Now that one is bad. More patriotism with the flag-bearing Lady Liberty, and behind her is a huge and brightly lit wall. Inside that wall is the prize room. Not only is this place awesome, it also takes the premise of Chuck E. Cheese’s before it and implements a ticket/reward system. All the prize-type games might have been upstairs, but I’m not sure, since I didn’t even give most of them a second glance. I was far too caught up in F-Zero. It’s kinda very sad that I’m obsessing so much about a single arcade machine, but I’ve been looking for one for months, so I technically could have had a orgasm when I saw it and still been in the right. But I didn’t, so I’m not totally screwed for finding a girl yet. (Note: Even I have a limit when it comes to video game hype.)
And the monstrous ball pit/climbing structure is something you just can’t ignore. This thing, like the restaurant, it huge. I couldn’t go in it, of course, but you know I wanted to. All the twists and turns and windows and things inside. It’s a spelunker’s paradise. In the first picture, you can see a Rollercoaster Tycoon sign of some sort; it’s a pinball game. I thought it was pretty cool, but not cool enough to earn a picture. And in the second, you can’t really see anything. I’m almost ashamed at how bad these pictures turned out, but it’s not like it’s something I can just go back and re-shoot any time I want, so they’ll have to do.
I played a mere two games while I was here. That may sound quite odd, but you already know about the F-zero AX situation. “What was the other game?” you ask? Well, in my entire life up to this point, I’ve only spent money on one woman; Ms. Pac-Man (I make things for my mom, or get my dad to buy stuff. I’m not totally heartless). Now seeing as that statement pretty much ensures me to be single for the rest of my life, I might as well keep going, as I’ve nothing left to lose. …Strange. I think I’ve typed out a phrase similar to that in an older article. Maybe it’s just one of those inaccurate feelings of déjà vu. I don’t know, and I don’t care enough to check. Now bring out the next picture!
You’ve all played one type of Cyclone game or another. Unless you’ve never been to Rucker’s or Chuck E. Cheese’s, but that’s impossible, so I’ll assume you all know how it goes down. In any case, they had both this Cyclone machine, and an identical machine called “Titanic” almost side-by-side. Maybe it’s in case of a busy day, maybe they’re just being redundant. I don’t know, I’m not a doctor, but I do know what didn’t kill her. Smoking. Ah, now that’s two Family Guy quotes that don’t quite fit. Oh well, they bring back good and funny memories, so I’ll leave ‘em there. Family Guy rules.
And now that we’ve seen pretty much everything there is to see in this Super McDonald’s, it’s time that I leave. It had to happen, but not after one final race across Mute City. Well, after that, I was done, we had to leave for real, and on good timing, too, because there wasn’t anything else I really wanted to take pictures of. But on the way out, there’s one thing that stares you in the eyes through the whole long walk to the exit.
The ice cream bar. The most magical gift the human race has ever been given, and my last stop in the world’s biggest McDonald’s. There wasn’t a huge selection of flavours to choose from, but all the best ones were there; bubble gum, cookies n’ cream, mint chocolate chip, rainbow, chocolate, chocolate swirl, yellow, and a couple less noticeable ones. I, the ever-hungry pile of human I am, decided that I would delight myself with some of this ice cream even though I’d just eaten 4 double cheeseburgers, a super-sized drink and 3 portions worth of fries. I got the yummy bubbly gum flavour that I haven’t had in the years since the awesome ice cream place we used to go to closed down. That was a sad summer for everyone.
See? Blue. It also matched the sign outside if held up properly. You might also notice that it says “internet” in the window. Yes, they had internet. Yes, I could have made a little post while inside. But it cost money and it was a touch screen, and I had racing and dot-eating to do. So I opted not to and simply went on my way.
And that’s the end of that adventure into the wilds of fast-food land. Actually, if you compared it to the rest of fast-food land, it would be like the throne room where the king sits and get really fat. And now that I’ve typed over 3100 words about a McDonald’s restaurant, I have to go and wonder why I’m not doing this for money. Seriously. I would love to get paid for the site, but it’s not going to happen. So while I flush that pipe dream, I’ll leave you with a couple closing statements.
1. If you’re ever in Orlando or anywhere remotely close to it, make sure you visit this place. Even if you don’t like McD’s food, they’ve got something for every taste. They’ve probably even got caviar if you’re into that kinda stuff.
2. Buy me an F-Zero AX machine for my birthday. It’s still 4 months away, but you’ll need to start saving now. If nothing else, get me GX and a racing wheel so I can pretend.
3. Yes, they have a Bill Cosby standy. If that’s not reason enough to travel down to America’s wang, I don’t know what is.
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.
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.
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.
We all have our favourite things in life, some a little more strange than others. Pretty much everyone has a favourite colour. It’s just a given. Most people have a favourite song or band, even if it’s not a real band, any group that doesn’t play their own instruments. Some people even have a favourite day. Those are the ones who are kind of off their rockers. I mean really. A favourite day? I can see a favourite season, and maybe even a favourite month, but favourite day? Favourite holiday would make more sense, because it’s a given that pretty much everyone is gonna choose a holiday as their favourite day.
But enough of that. Talk of favourite days has very little to nothing to do with this article that you’re reading now. Maybe in one later on, but not this one. No, this one is about something even stranger. Well, maybe not very strange, but it’s a little bit on the odd side. I know people have a tendency to play favourites with many objects, like chairs and pants, and this article is all about my favourite cup. Why a cup? I’m not sure, but I needed to write about something.
You may not realize it now, but there is actually quite a bit you can write about a cup if you choose the right one. I’m not sure exactly how much I’m going to be able to write about this cup, but I’ve taken a lot of pictures, so I’m probably going to be reaching quite a bit with this one. Heck, if you hadn’t noticed, I’m reaching pretty badly just for this intro, but since I do the same with most intros, it’s not such a bad sign as it could be. So enough of this, onto the cuppage!
This is my favourite cup. It is a very cup-like cup, just like a cup should be. It has the ability to hold many types of liquids, and even some small non-liquid things. This cup is from Finland, where my grandpa used to live. He knows how to speak Finnish and has a sauna house. My grandpa immigrated to Canada when he was young, but I don’t know if this cup immigrated. Look at the happy little cottage on the cup. It looks like my grandparent’s cottage, only redder and on an island. It also has less windows and porches.
On the other side of Heir Cuppen, there are some bird-looking squiggles and a Finnish flag. I like the Finnish flag because it’s so simple to draw. Not like that damned Canadian flag with its crazy leaves and crap. Why is there nothing on this little island? I would like to live on an island, but only if it had lots of island things on it. Like mountains and wild pigs and fairies. Then I could have my very own adventure on the high seas. An adventure with pirates! Or maybe I’d be a pirate. It’s really hard to say for sure.
The cup says Aarikka on the side. I don’t’ know what Aarikka means, because I don’t speak Finnish. And neither does the Babel Fish. My grandpa is far away, so he can’t tell me, but an internet query surely can! Internet queries can tell you anything, like how to find Robot Pirate Island and how many web pages have the word “is” on them. Is. Now I’m a statistic!
The Googleing came up with lots of answers, but I’m a lazy crapbag, so I only clicked on the first one. It make us whisk off to the magical site of Aarikka. If you don’t know how to read Finnish too, you can go to an equally magical (though slightly less whimsical) English Aarikka. They like to sell things. Things like finely molded cups from Finland. Now we all know what Aarikka is! Hooray for Google! Hooray for internet! Hooray for sammiches!
But if it’s Finnish and white, why is the cup so great? You can’t notice from the other pictures, but the cup is very small! See the one above? The cup is being stood beside a normal-sized cup. Look how very small he is! What a cute little cup. Some people like to drink from big cups, but big cups aren’t so charming as such a tiny little cup. Those people have penis envy. But not me. I don’t envy penises. They’re always getting beaten up.
The legend of the cup is a very old one. To this day, I have another favorite cup. It’s a cup with a lady on it. She’s a virgin. It says so right on the cup. On the other sides, it has my horoscope. but I won’t take a picture of that side because I’m a very lazy Virgo. I call it my girly cup because if you don’t know what the cup is, it sounds dirty. Nobody else ever drinks from it. They know that if they do they will die. The little cup is still an excellent cup, but there is no way it can compete with a girly cup. Unless…
There are two little cups! For all my life up until yesterweek, I was under the false impression that there was only one little cup! But to my amazement, there was two! And they were both there all along! The cup now has a friend. Sadly, his friend has a chip. But not like my hamster. No, that’s a totally different Chip. How there could have been two cups all along is confusing, since someone like myself would definitely have noticed that there was two of my favorite cup!
The little cups get used a lot. Everyone likes the little cups because they’re so cute. But don’t tell anybody that we know what Aarikka means, okay? I think that nobody else knows. I like to use the cups for drinking things. Sometimes I use it for taking pictures and writing an article with bad grammar and a strange writing style. But mostly for drinking things. Things like juice.
Juice is good and all, but the cups are used mostly for the holding of milk. This milk is white, unlike the chocolate milk. It’s made by Parmalat. Parmalat might have a website like Aarikka, but I’m not going to check because there’s no way a milk website could be any fun. Milk isn’t very fun. It’s all white and tastes like dairy. Chocolate milk is a little bit more fun because it tastes like chocolate, but it’s brown-coloured, and brown is no fun at all. Brown makes me think of wood. And wood certainly isn’t very fun.
As I said, the cup does do a good job of holding the juice that I love to drink so much. This juice here is of the orange variety. By Minute Maid. Mmmm. They makes good juice. But I don’t like the pulp. So I’ll drink Kool-aid instead. It never has any pulp, and comes in many different flavours! I like the green the best. Green Kool-aid is the best! It tastes like green. There aren’t enough drinks that taste like green. Some cream soda is green, but it tastes like cream soda and not green. Green Nintendo gum tastes like hate.
One thing that the cup is not good at holding is parmesan cheese. Yes, the parmesan cheese can go into the cup, but it’s not a very god thing to drink. Parmesan cheese is better off on top of spaghetti noodles. Or any types of noodles, in fact. Parmesan cheese is a very tasty condiment. Just like orange is a very tasty juice. But parmesan cheese is not a very good juice, and orange is not a very good condiment. There’s a GameCube in the background!
Now the GameCube is in the foreground. It’s good at playing games. Not like that X-Box. It freezes all the time because it’s a piece of crap. There is no controller cord in the GameCube because I use a Wavebird! It has no cords. Only fools use controllers with cords. Fools and peoples whose Wavebirds’ batteries are dead. But I have many batteries, so I shall never be labeled the fool. GameCube also has a GameBoy Player on it. GameBoy Player makes GameCube taller, but I’m still taller than it. But now GameCube is taller than the Shredder.
The GameCube isn’t very good at handling parmesan cheese either. Damn Kraft and it’s cheese that thinks it’s better than everyone else. I laugh in the face of your cheese! But I’d never laugh in the face of Bowser. That guy has got some lethal breath. But GameCube is stronger than parmesan cheese, it can fall down many a stair and be fine, while parmesan cheese would break open and it’s insides would end up all over the place. You should E-mail Kraft and tell them that their cheese is weak. I’m not gonna do it, I’m scared of giant corporations.
So now you see why I love the cups. They’re funny little cups that can hold many delicious liquids and not-so-delicious liquids. I like the fact that GameCube made a special guest appearance. As you can see, I am quite happy with my little cups. They bring my taste buds much joy, and are very easy to clean because if their smallness. If I bring one cup with me when I move out, it’ll be my girly cup, but there will always be a small place in my heart for those little cups that I thought were so cool.
To make one last warning, the cup cannot hold pizza pops. It can try, but they are far too big to go into the cup. Also, you should not eat pizza pops cold. Frozen pizza stuffs will hurt teeth muchly if teeth are not uber-teeth. But if you microwave them, they can be a very tasty treat! Except for those ones with green peppers in them. Green peppers are my sworn enemy. I’ll get them one day…
This cup is not a cup in the thirsty sense. It’s the kind of cup that keeps the boys safe. This cup is my friend’s favorite kind of cup. I think it’s a good cup, but I would never want to drink from it, no matter how much Kool-aid there is. My friend wanted to find a picture of it so I could put it in this article, and while looking he found some bad websites. He said it was gross, but we know that he likes that kind of stuff. Man stuff. Ew.
And that’s all we can say about the cup and anything you could possibly link to the cup. It’s true. You try to find anything else I could write about. I don’t know if I’ll ever find a more amazing up in my lifetime, but I’ll be sure to keep an eye out. And if I do find one, you can bet I’ll let youse know. But for now, it will remain the second greatest cup in the cupboard. Sure, it’s cool and all, but how can it possibly beat a cup that has my freaking horoscope on it? I think the only possible way to make a better cup is to make a cup vaguely shaped like Yoshi. Yes. That would be an excellent cup.
Another article done, another week passed by. I think I like this once a week thing, so I’ll stick to it as well as I can. Just expect that sometimes it may be once every two weeks. I guess most updates will be done on Sundays, as I generally do very little on Sundays. Mmmm… sundaes. I’m not exactly sure what will be on the agenda for next week, but another 6-pak article seems to be the only thing I can think of. But I’m done now, partly because my keyboard arm is starting to hurt, partly because it’s way past lunch and I haven’t eaten yet.
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