Continuing on with my recent trip to Walt Disney World... Let's get on the gaming grid, because Shanghai Disneyland's TRON Lightcycle/Run has come to the USA, y'all! Well, technically in China it's "TRON Lightcycle Power Run," but I think it's the same ride. And, spoiler alert, I love the attraction despite the fact it's really short (I think the ride time is under two minutes!).

The story of the ride is that you are getting digitized to ride for the Blue Users to battle the evil Yellow Programs on the lightcycle grid (which will make sense to you if you've ever seen the film TRON... and if you haven't, why not?).

There's three things about the experience which make this such a good ride...

1) Most of the ride is in a building where there's screens that show you your opponents whizzing along with you as you race to block them with your lightcycle hard light trail. But after launch you exit the building for a nice loop under a canopy that lights up at night... and has hex grids which follows the cycles as they pass. It's wildly cool and you can see the canopy at night from various places in the park. A beautiful addition to Tomorrowland...

2) You're not sitting in a roller coaster car, you're sitting on a roller coaster lightcycle (kinda a futuristic motorcycle). It's not incredibly comfortable, but it's for two minutes and you just don't care because you're on a lightcycle...

3) The track is fast. 60 miles per hour fast. Launch coasters are my favorite and, while this isn't my favorite, it's nice to have another one added to the growing list of Walt Disney World coasters.

And my recap? Glad you asked!

The Bad...

• Length. This ride needed to be longer. Yeah, I know that two minutes is not really that short when it comes to launch coasters (Aerosmith Rock 'n' Roller Coaster is a minute-twenty... and my favorite, The Incredible Hulk Coaster is two minutes-fifteen), but the amount of time (or money) it takes to ride this thing demands that it be a longer experience.
• Cost. Whether you are able to snag a Virtual Queue spot for the privilege of standing in line to wait to ride it... or you spend the cash to skip the line by buying an Individual Lightning Lane (either because you don't like lines or you couldn't get in the Virtual Queue) there's a cost involved. I really hate that.
• Risk. It is entirely possible that you could go to Walt Disney World specifically to ride this coaster only to not be able to. You couldn't get a Virtual Queue. You couldn't afford the Individual Lightning Lane. You couldn't get an Individual Lightning Lane because they sold out. It could happen. The days of going to a park and just standing in line to ride do not apply to TRON: Lightcycle/Run.

The Good...

• Everything Else. But Mostly The Design. Everything about it is cool. The canopy. The lightcycles you sit on. The story. The queue. The way you "race" against your competitors. Even the pass-though lockers to store your stuff. It's all so good. Worth the effort to ride even though it doesn't last that long (THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!).

And now? Time to watch Tron for the hundredth time.

Continuing on with my recent trip to Walt Disney World... I'm just going to put this out there, Tiana's Bayou Adventure was a hugely missed opportunity.

The re-theming of Splash Moutain was a long time coming. There was only so long that Disney could pretend that a ride based on Song of the South didn't have ties to a film filled with racist stereotypes. That they decided to use The Princess and The Frog to do this was pretty exciting. It's a great movie that's filled with awesome things to build a ride around, not the least of which was the city of New Orleans (my favorite American city). Plus the main characters are frogs! You can do some cool stuff with frogs! Plus there were other sweet characters like Louis and Ray and Mama Odie and the incredible Dr. Facilier to put in it! After the announcement, I remember thinking "Holy cow... the Disney imagineers must be going nuts designing everything!"

But Disney inexplicably threw out all of the things I was dying to see.

And I am still trying to understand why.

Instead of telling the story of The Princess and The Frog, the attraction is a sequel to the movie and continues the story. And since Dr. Facilier died in the movie, they didn't put him in the attraction. And that is categorically stupid as fuck. He is a fantastic villain that made the movie so cool. He's got magical abilities that would be visually stunning to experience. But even worse? Tiana and Naveen turned back into humans at the end of the movie, so they don't get to be frogs in the ride.

What the fuck?!?

But anyway...

The exterior of the attraction is mostly nice. I don't think it's as cool as the orange rocky mountain that tied into Frontierland and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad so well, but the greenery is pleasant, and I think that it would be particularly pretty at night (which I didn't get to experience... see yesterday's entry on why). But otherwise? Not what I was hoping to see.

In the concept art that Disney gave us, there was a big tree with a crashed boat in it that made the mountain look incredible...

The story of the ride (if you can call it that) is that Tiana is enlisting Louis's help to find musicians for a big New Orleans party that she's throwing. This is okay, in concept, but not great, in practice.

The ride queue is good. You're walking through Tiana's store, and they packed it to the gills with nifty stuff to look at. If there's a single part of the ride that's improved, this would be it.

Then the story falls apart as you board your log vehicle because you're in the bayou. So... was Tiana's store in the bayou too? I thought her restaurant was in New Orleans, so shouldn't that be where her store is? Who knows? It's sloppy shit like this that is very telling. Splash Mounain had a highly cohesive story that made sense. The new ride really doesn't.

Putting that aside, you leave the bayou and climb up to the main ride building where Tiana explains her plight to find musicians (which, in itself is crazy... YOU LIVE IN NEW ORLEANS, HOME OF SOME OF THE MOST AMAZING MUSICIANS ON THE PLANET, BUT YOU'RE GOING INTO THE SWAMP?!?). This section of the ride is really clunky because the amazing Tiana animatronic is completely frozen until your log approaches it. Very creepy. How hard would it have been to have her make movements in-between logs?

Even though you just climbed up a mountain, you're suddenly back in the bayou where Louis joins you to look for musicians. Just like Tiana, the animatronic for Louis is incredible. The other animal characters are well done as well. But here's the thing... because it's just Tiana and Louis in this story, there are long stretches of nothing in the ride because you can't be seeing two Tianas and two Louises at the same time. There has to be big breaks to keep the illusion working. And this right here is where the idea of a sequel should have been jettisoned. Because if they had followed the movie, you could have had moments with Ray and moments with Dr. Facilier filling in that space. But instead? Swamp. Wheee.

Eventually you get to Mama Odie, who shrinks you down to the size of a frog, though I don't quite understand why. But what's worse? YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT HAPPENED WHEN IT HAPPENS! I didn't understand because while, yes, the props are bigger in scale, that happens all the time in Disney rides to draw your attention to them! The second time I rode it, I heard Mama Odie say something about shrinking you down... but it's still ridiculously and needlessly confusing. You then float through the bayou at a small size for no reason until Mama Odie decides to embiggen you again.

The original Splash Mountain had a lot of fun things going on throughout, but the entire point of the ride... that massive drop... was treated with a sense of danger and foreboding. Splash Mountain didn't set out to scare you, but it did want to play a psychological game as you were climbing up to that drop. There was a frightened Br'er Rabbit and vultures lamenting your fate and harrowing music. And now that's just... gone. All the tension has vanished. And the ride suffers because of it. Mama Odie makes you big again (if you manage to understand that's what's happening), you plunge down the mountain, and there's nothing more to it. What a shame.

But anyway...

You end up back in the bayou yet again as you roll up on Tiana's big party (back in New Orleans?). Whereas Splash Mountain overwhelmed you with tons of moving parts that weren't terribly detailed as you reach the Zipadee Doo Dah riverboat, Tiana's Bayou Adventure does the same with quality animatronics that are incredibly well-done. It's quite a sight to see, and a marked improvement over the original attraction.

The end.

And that's it. That's what it took Disney four years to figure out. It may sound like I'm disappointed with the attraction. That's not really true. It's an enjoyable distraction from life that's fairly well done. What I'm disappointed in is what a huge missed opportunity this was. I expected so much more, and was ultimately let down. Tiana's Bayou Adventure isn't bad... it's just not great.

So let's recap, shall we?

The Bad...

• Story. As I hope I made clear, the story doesn't make sense. Partly because they were re-theming an old ride that had a specific story, but mostly because they made this a sequel to the movie, which was just dumb.
• Video Screens. There's some pretty important parts of the ride where they cheaped out and used big screens instead of animatronics. It's bad. Especially the big screen where Tiana and Louis are looking in at you when you're tiny, because it's so glaringly obvious. No attempt at all was made to integrate the screen into the "world" you're inhabiting. There's a migration of fireflies where they at least tried, and it makes all the difference. As background elements, screens are okay. But as a major section of the ride? No.
• Blank Space. With only two characters carrying the story (three if you toss in Mama Odie, which I do not because her segment is nonsensical and irrelevant), there has to be long stretches of nothing. That's a huge problem. The ride feels empty in spots, even though it really isn't, because you can't see the same character in two places at once.
• Stalls. Having your animatronics freeze up and wait for you to arrive looks incredibly tacky and bad. Maybe they move too little to notice, but Tiana and Mama Odie both have weird pauses where they should be moving more.
• Lip Sync Weirdness Tiana and Louis have really good mouth movements, but the final Mama Odie animatronic must have been broken, because the sync looked terrible.

The Good...

• Animatronics. These are next level animatronics at every turn outside of the Mama Odie problem. Tiana and Louis are stunning. Even minor animatronics are beautifully done. The costumes and theming are all beautiful.
• Ceilings. Some actual effort was made to conceal the ceilings so you're not looking up at big stretches of paint. But heeeeere's the thing... if ever there was a place that I would advocate for the use of video screens, it would be on the ceiling! That's a way to make the height of the space appear far more vast. Show the stars twinkling in the sky. SHOW RAY NOW THAT HE'S A STAR! This is a no brainer, and yet it was completely overlooked. But still... at least some effort was made.
• Queue. As I mentioned, they did a very good job trying to make standing in line be a bit more interesting than it used to be. Always appreciated.

And now? Time for some beignets.

I've been to Walt Disney World many, many times because I used to have work there. Eventually I would only go into the parks to eat or get a haircut because I had rode all the attractions multiple times and don't really like standing in line. But Disney has added a bunch of stuff since I was there in September, 2019, so when I went to Orlando this time, I made a vacation out of it.

And I have some thoughts about what it takes to ride the attractions now-a-days...

Virtual Queue!
There are three rides at Walt Disney World that you can't just walk up and stand in line to ride... Tiana's Bayou Adventure, Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, and TRON: Lightcycle Run. The only way to ride them is to wake up at 7am and join a "Virtual Queue" so you can earn the right to then go stand in line. Can't get a spot? Then you have to wait until 1pm to see if you can grab one then. Can't get one of those spots? Then you're out of luck. At least that's the way it is for Tiana's Bayou Adventure. For the other two rides, there's another way which I'll get to below... all it takes is money, of course. On one level, I get it. Disney really doesn't want lines so long that they don't have space to fit them. But what a bummer to go all the way to Disney World and not be able to ride something you had your heart set on. That's a huge problem, but as long as Disney continues over-sells tickets, it's an unavoidable one.

A NECESSARY ASIDE: Remember FastPass?
Back in 1999, Disney introduced the FastPass. The goal was to reduce the time you spend in line waiting to ride the most popular attractions... which, as you can imagine, is a common complaint of guests. It's essentially a "virtual queue" where you go to the ride, get a ticket with a time on it, then return at that time. In the meanwhile you can go do something else. It was a thoughtful addition. And it was FREE. And if you stayed at certain Disney hotels, they gave you a couple "universal" FastPasses that would allow you to go on any FastPass attraction without having to get a ticket. After that was FastPass+ which allowed advanced reservations. That was eventually replaced with Genie+, where you could PAY to skip the lines. Needless to say, it sucked to have to pay money to have something that used to be free.

Leeloo Dallas Lightning Lane Multi-Pass!
Fast-forward to today, and Walt Disney World has unleashed an all new version of Lightning Lane Multi-Pass, which allow you to pay in advance to reserve attractions and experiences. You pay a daily fee, then get to reserve three Lightning Lanes for attractions that have them. After you use a Lightning Lane, you then immediately get to reserve another one for later in the day. It actually works very well... assuming you're willing to pay minimum $30 a day to use the feature. Not exactly cheap, and the price can go up depending on how busy the resort is and which park you visit. Alas, this means you really have to plan out your vacation in advance, because you want to reserve those Lightning Lanes as soon as you can because popular rides will lose all available windows quickly. You can reserve seven days in advance if you're staying at a Disney resort... three days in advance if you're not. Just another way that Disney can squeeze money out of you and make their parks a perk only rich people can enjoy to the fullest.

Individual Lightning Lane!
The most popular rides in all of Walt Disney World... Seven Dwarf's Mine Train, TRON Lightcycle Run, Avatar Flight of Passage, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind do not qualify for regular Multi-Pass Lightning Lanes. Oh no. You have to pay per ride to jump those lines. And it's ridiculously expensive... currently $12 to $25 per person, per ride. Don't want to spend 90 minutes waiting to ride Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance? Pay to skip the line. All the Virtual Queue slots taken for the day but you want to ride Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind? Pay to ride it. This is abhorrent. Disney is happy to take money from people who might have been saving their pennies for years in order to be able to afford to go... but if they can't chip in even more money to have access to certain rides, then it's entirely possible they are beyond their reach. Given the way this works, why the fuck doesn't Disney just go back to pay-per-ride with A-to-E tickets instead of promoting the pretense that you can pay one price and ride everything? Or, ha ha ha, start capping the number of tickets they sell so their parks aren't overflowing with so many people that you don't have a hope to ride stuff unless you've got additional money to do so.

And so...

I think the way that Disney pretends to be a vacation destination for families everywhere, but is actually a vacation destination that only the wealthy can truly enjoy to the fullest, is incredibly dishonest. Instead of thinking that you can buy a ticket, take your own food, stay at a cheap resort outside of the park, avoid souvenirs, and somehow afford to "do Disney World"... Disney should just be honest and charge higher prices up-front that allow people to realistically budget how much their trip will cost.

Because the nickel-and-diming... excuse me... the hundreds-and-hundreds-of-dollaring... Disney is doing right now is absolutely awful. Rich people will always have a better experience because money doesn't matter to them. I accept that. But people who are not rich shouldn't be made poorer because Disney is misrepresenting how much it costs to have the vacation they sell you in their brochures and ads.

That's anything but magical for the "most magical place on earth."

Strap yourself in, because this is a long one.

Sorry, but I got stories to tell.

It all started when I was on Facebook I saw this map (thanks to Terrible Maps) pointing out the drunkest city in every state...

And so...

I was going through this map trying to check off all the cities in states I've been drunk in: Pullman, Boise, Corvallis, Las Vegas, Park City, Dallas, New Orleans, ALL OF WISCONSIN, Nashville, Lexington, Cincinnati, Savannah, Virginia Beach, Atlantic City, Boston, New York City, and Lewiston.

That's 17.

Out of 50.

So a full one third of them. Which I'd like to chalk up to my having traveled a lot... but is more likely a consequence of my having drank a lot.

And because I am up with a gippy tummy and cant sleep, I present to you all 17 times I was drunk in the drunkest city of these states...

• Pullman, Washington: AKA that time I got drunk up the Wazzu. Pullman is home to Washington State University, AKA WSU, AKA Wazzu. It's a city in the middle of nowhere (an hour-and-a-half south of Spokane, ten minutes from the Idaho border, which tells you everything you need to know). I was there for training on a subject I didn't want, didn't need, and felt was a total waste of my valuable time. Remarkably, I found out that all I had to do was pick up my badge, sign in, and I was marked as having taken the class. You have no idea how quickly I bailed and ended up at The Coug, a nearby bar that absolutely did not believe in over-serving once I had too many. But I ran across a loophole whereas I volunteered to buy a round for the table next to me if one of the beers could be for me. Something I did twice. Now beyond sobriety, I told the table that I was going to walk back to The Hampton Inn and asked if somebody could point me in the right direction. At which point they told me that it would be a 40 minute walk. I had gotten a ride to class, and didn't realize it was so far away. One of the guys from the table said he'd run me there because it would only take a couple minutes by car. I took him up on it because I had bought him two beers. On the way to his car he introduced himself. Turns out I knew his older brother. Small world.
• Boise, Idaho: AKA that time I got drunk because I was in Boise. Come on. What else is there to do in Boise frickin' Idaho? This was a stop on a drive with my girlfriend at the time, who wanted to visit her parents in EASTERN MONTANA But didn't want to fly, so I had to drive. 12-1/2 hours. It was one of the worst things I ever did and our relationship didn't survive it. On the way back we were dumb enough to take an EIGHT HOUR DETOUR so we could pay a quick visit to Yellowstone and "experience" Southern Idaho. It was the only good thing about the trip... until we actually made it to Boise to stay the night. I was so frickin' done at that point that I got just drunk enough not to lose my mind. She ended up having to drive the 3-1/2 hours to Pendleton the next morning so I could sleep off my hangover. I then drove the remaining 3-1/2 hours home. Which was almost entirely in silence. My biggest regret (other than taking the trip in the first place) was that I didn't get drunk when we passed through Butte as well. That would have been another city for this list, and probably would have made the journey a bit less awful.
• Corvallis, Oregon: AKA that time I got drunk with a cats. The title says it all. I went to a house party. There was a cat named Rover. I spent all night drinking and petting Rover. Eventually Rover left and I was very drunk. Apparently you lose track of your alcohol consumption when a cat is around. Fortunately I was a guest of the house so I didn't have far to go to get to my bed. The next morning I stumbled out of the guest room with a hangover to find something for breakfast. That's when I found out from my host that I hadn't been petting a cat, I had been petting cats... plural. As in three of them. In my defense, they did look a lot alike. Rover, Chuck, and Tom. All were girl cats. The situation was just as confusing to me as when I was (mostly) sober as it had apparently been while I was drunk.
• Las Vegas, Nevada: AKA that time I got drunk on power... but mostly alcohol. It would be easier to count the times I went to Vegas and didn't get drunk than it would to find a story that's suitable to tell where I was drunk. Let's go with the time that I got drunk barhopping in The Wynn (a hotel I ended up in often from work). I had just got off work and wasn't flying back until the day after next because it was cheaper to pay for a night at the hotel than it was to fly back home after I was off. When you're there alone, Las Vegas is one of the loneliest places on earth (despite being surrounded by tons of people) so I decided to drink. And drink I did. First I drank for free while playing slots... got tired of watered down drinks... then decided to drink everywhere else you could drink. While exiting the lobby bar, a guy covered in a bunch of electronics asked if I could help him out, as his phone charger had come unplugged. I went to plug it back in and... ended up getting electrocuted. It was so shocking (pun intended) in my inebriated state that I passed out for a second. Next thing I know there's a bunch of people trying to sit me upright while the guy I was helping was asking if he should call an ambulance. Instead of going to the hospital I went back into the bar and had another drink.
• Park City, Utah: AKA that time I got drunk at the wrong hotel. I got stuck in Park City when I missed my ride back to SLC. So I decided to just grab a cheap hotel since I was too tired to figure out a way back. After checking in, I went to a bar down the street and drank. A lot. So much that I didn't remember which way I came and left going the wrong way. Ended up at an entirely different hotel. Not knowing what to do, I explained the situation to the front desk. They called the first hotel in the opposite direction, confirmed that this was the hotel I was at, THEN TOOK ME IN THEIR SHUTTLE BACK TO MY HOTEL BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T TRUST ME TO GET BACK ON MY OWN! Boy do I have a lot of stories like that. Too many.
• Dallas, Texas: AKA that time I got drunk waiting for fries that never came. After having been in L.A., I stopped in Dallas on my way to Atlanta to visit the new Hard Rock Cafe there. The property was a disappointment, so I said good bye to a friend that met me there and ran to Reunion Tower so I could see the city at dusk from the observation deck. Closed for renovation. I went back to my hotel, blogged about my visit, then decided to call it an early night and get some sleep before my early flight. Instead I went downstairs for a nightcap. Or several. Eventually I was told that if I wanted another drink I had to order some food. I wasn't drunk (yet), but food sounded great, so I ordered fries. While I waited for my fries to arrive, the guy who told me to order food left, and I ended up ordering more drinks from the woman who took over because I had food coming. Except my fries never came, so I asked where they were. Turns out the order was never turned in and the kitchen was closing. Now I was absolutely drunk and had no fries to absorb all that alcohol. The woman took pity on me and brought out numerous tiny bags of pretzels. I was still drunk when I got on the plane the next morning... where I was served yet another tiny bag of pretzels.
• New Orleans, Louisiana: AKA that time I got drunk for the first time. Look, I have gotten drunk ever single time I've been lucky enough to visit my favorite American city. And I've blogged many of them. My first time getting drunk was in New Orleans after winning a state DECA competition. My supervisor couldn't make it, so I was in the city alone and unsupervised two weeks before my senior year of high school... at the young age of 17. Drinking age was 18, but absolutely nobody asked for my ID so I ended up drinking way more than I should have. Unaccustomed to being drunk, I was a bit of a mess and left my new Kodak Disc camera in a taxi. But don't feel too bad, I may have lost my camera but I also ended up losing my virginity. Ah New Orleans. I've been to The Big Easy dozens of times, but that first time was pure magic.
• ALL OF WISCONSIN: AKA that time I got drunk on cheese and gave a guy constipation. I've been drunk in cities all over the state, so I guess I just pick one? But which one? Lots of good Milwaukee stories. HA! And that one time in Madison. But let's go for something less obvious, shall we? One of my work sites was 15 minutes south of Fond du Lac. Most of the times I was put into campus housing, but one time I wasn't. So I ended up at a hotel in Fond du Lac (French for "the foot of the lake" or something). It was a real shithole that looked nothing like the pictures, so I decided to celebrate my misfortune after my last day of work by heading to a bar down the street. But before I left the hotel, I cruised by the lobby where they had a big plate of snacks out. I asked if I could take some cheese with me as a snack for when I walked to the bar. The woman said she'd "hook me up" and came back with a massive bag of cheese cubes. She said she had loads of cheese that was expiring, so I might as well have it. And when I say it was a massive bag, I mean massive. Take a gallon Ziploc bag and triple that. And so I walked over to the tavern that was 10 minutes away eating cubes of cheese. When I got to the bar I asked if it was okay to bring my cheese in with me if I left a good tip. I was expecting to get the "NO OUTSIDE FOOD ALLOWED!" drama, but the barkeep said he didn't care what I did. So I sat at the bar and ordered drink after drink while eating tons of cheese out of my big bag on the bar. A guy took the seat next to me and asked "So you're just going to sit there drinking and eating cheese?" I told him this was my life now, and he shouldn't knock it until he tried it. At which point I was sharing my pile of cheese cubes with him. He then informed me that he was going to end up constipated and it was all my fault. The barkeep, however, din't blame me for anything because I did indeed give him a great tip.
• Nashville, Tennessee: AKA that time I got drunk waiting for somebody who never showed up. Because of this blog, I end up "knowing" a great many people wherever I go. One time I was in Nashville for work and had a Blogography reader from the city ask if I wanted to meet up for a drink. I said sure, then went to the restaurant to wait for him. After he was 15 minutes late, I had a drink. Then another. Then another. Then another. Pretty soon an hour had flown by so I went ahead and ordered dinner without him. And more drinks. I finally gave up and took a taxi back to my hotel. Miffed, I emailed the guy telling him that I was at the restaurant for nearly three hours and finally left. Then I passed out. When I woke up I had an email from the guy I was supposed to meet. He apologized profusely and said he had an emergency pop up, then asked if we could meet up that night instead. I said sure again. This time he showed up before I did. That's when he apologized again and said that he had to take his daughter to the hospital. I said "The hospital? Holy cow, what are you doing here then?" Turns out that she works there. He had to drive across the city to take her to work, then get her car fixed. This was pre-mobile-phone days, so he had the valid excuse that he "couldn't contact me." Except he could have called the restaurant and saved me from a hangover, so it wasn't much of an excuse. I was going to mention it, but he paid for dinner... which excuses a great many things.
• Lexington, Kentucky: AKA that time I got drunk with a bunch of bloggers. Hollywood Nights, baby.
• Cincinnati, Ohio: AKA that time I got drunk for Jesus. Like you wouldn't get drunk after visiting The Creation Museum.
• Savannah, Georgia: AKA that time I got drunk from too much Paula Deen. Oh boy. I went to Savannah for a work conference about web sales. One of the activities was a visit to the Paula Deen warehouse where all her cooking stuff is distributed. This was before her controversy involving using racial slurs (in the worst way possible), so she was everywhere in that warehouse. She slapped her face on every product, and there were a lot of products. I was so fucking sick of Paula Deen's face that I headed straight to a bar after the conference was over so I could drink to forget. Four years and two months later, I'm betting it was Paula Deen who was drinking to forget as she lost everything.
• Virginia Beach, Virginia: AKA that time I got drunk in drag. Many years before drag queens were being wrongfully vilified by a bunch of weird assholes trying to deflect from their own bullshit, I attended my first drag show in Virginia Beach. It was such a great time. So great that I can't even remember why I was in the city. I only remember that incredible night where I got incredibly drunk while being fully entertained. And while I didn't end up in drag makeup, a queen did wrap her boa around my neck, put her hat on me, and sing to me during her number after she found out it was my first time at a drag show. It was everything you could hope for. Except RuPaul wasn't in attendance, and she was the only drag queen I knew. It was a couple years before the first episode of RuPaul's Drag Race would air.
• Atlantic City, New Jersey: AKA that time I got drunk because John F. Kennedy Jr. died. I was in New York the day after John F. Kennedy passed and it felt like the whole city was mourning. The vibe was sad and hopeless. So I decided to head to Atlantic City to get away. My seat-mate on the bus was also escaping the city, and we spent nine hours together talking about our lives as we rode the bus, gambled, visited the Hard Rock Cafe, then rode back to NYC (which I wrote about in this blog entry). I was drinking the whole time, of course, and ended up pretty lit. I am not an emotional person, but when I got back to NYC and bid my new friend adieu, I went straight to a restaurant with a full bar so I could continue on drinking and keep from having a mental breakdown. It was either that or join in on the despair that fell over the city and burst into tears.
• Boston, Massachusetts: AKA that time I got drunk because the Red Sox won... or lost... or something. One of life's greatest joys is getting drunk at Fenway while watching a Red Sox game. A veggie dog. A beer. The Green Monster. A blue sky. And the Red Sox. Then more beer and more beer and more beer. You kinda have to get drunk because if the BoSox win, you're already in a party mood. If they lose, you're inebriated and it doesn't hurt as much. The drunkest I ever got at a game was courtesy of the guys seated behind me who had money and kept buying everybody drinks. "Yah wann-ah nuh-dah bee-ah der bud-eh? Well fuck yeah I wanna beer if you're buying! And I had many, many beers on a flawless Summer day. I think we won. Either way, I left happy. It's impossible not to be happy at a Red Sox game. Have no idea who we were playing.
• New York City, New York: AKA that time I got drunk in The Big Apple's then bought an Apple. I was in NYC for work. I closed a massive deal for the charity I worked with. To celebrate, I met up with my colleagues at a pub in Midtown Manhattan. The rest of the night is a blur. And when I woke up the next morning I had upgraded my iPhone to the latest model. I have zero recollection of how, when, or where I bought it. Though I had a bag from The Apple Store, so at least I didn't steal it. Though I wouldn't know for sure until I got my credit card bill a couple weeks later. Drunk shopping is the best shopping, isn't it? Sure. Until you have to pay the price...
• Lewiston, Maine: AKA that time I got drunk across the river in both Mexico and Ireland then went to work. For over a decade I had work that took me to Maine twice a year. And every time I would stay at the Hilton Garden Inn Riverwatch in Auburn. There were not a lot of restaurants within walking distance, and so I asked at the front desk if there was anything I could try instead of the same old places. I was recommended a Mexican-Irish(!) restaurant across the river in the city of Lewiston. Named "Pedro O'Hara's" they had a menu and atmosphere I liked. Plus a full bar. My work was often at odd hours with a schedule that could change on a dime. On one such incident, my work was pushed an entire day, after which I went for dinner at Pedro O'Hara's and drank. A lot. Because there was nothing else to do. I could walk back to my hotel, so no biggie, right? But what can be pushed can also be un-pushed, something I found out the hard way. Not able to drive, I had to take a pricey taxi ride to work (which I had to pay for). Then try to work while under the influence (which came surprisingly easy to me). Fortunately, the people at my worksite drove me back to my hotel so I didn't have to pay for another taxi. Unfortunately, I had to be back at my worksite at 3am. I had sobered up just fine, but was in no mood to work. But who is at 3:00 in the morning?

Interesting to note that I've been to a lot of these cities, I just didn't get drunk in them. Which is to say that the damage could have been so much worse. I could have gotten drunk in Tallahassee instead of Destin, just 2-1/2 hours away. I could have gotten drunk in Iowa City after visiting The Field of Dreams. I SHOULD have gotten drunk in Boulder. And Tempe! Oh well. Maybe when I retire I can make a run though all 50 states and get this figured out.

When I was working in Tokyo, I saw trucks sporting one of my favorite logos of all time... for a company named Yamato Transport.

They're a popular shipping and moving company in Japan, and their logo has a mom black cat (kuro-neko) carrying a baby black cat. Thus implying that they will take care of your goods as a mother takes care of her child...

Total genius, really.

Anyway... in my Facebook feed was an ad for a T-shirt with the logo on it so I jumped at it. Except it's not officially licensed like so many scams that Facebook allows to run as ads (I got scammed by a Marine Layer imitator because Facebook is an asshole company*). And so I wrote to Yamato Transport directly and asked if they sell shirts with their logo.

Probably won't hear back, but I had to try because I want that shirt!

   
*I bought a shirt and sweatshirt from Marine Layer and absolutely loved them. So when Facebook showed me an ad for a Marine Layer summer clearance sale, I hopped on it. But since Facebook doesn't give a shit about anything but money, the ad wasn't vetted and turned out to be a scam. A fake company using a duplicate of the Marine Layer site... even sending out a Marine Layer branded confirmation. When I didn't get a ship notification or my order after two weeks, I found that none of the support links in the email work. Fortunately I was able to dispute the transaction. But WTF Facebook? Why not go after advertisers the way you go after your users? Oh... that's right... BECAUSE MONEY!

The ad is STILL RUNNING.

Mac users like to think that the many viruses and problems which plague Windows users doesn't effect them, but they're wrong. The fact that the world runs on Windows means that existing in the world means that Windows problems can affect you. There couldn't be a better example of this than today's "CrowdStrike" disaster.

CrowdStrike is a cyber security company whose products protect your computers from going down due to external attacks and protect your data from data breaches. Today they sent out a security update to their Windows host customers which, alas, ended up being defective. This caused all the computers which received the update to crash. Hard. A global IT outage occurred. Which means everything from airports and airlines to banking and health care were hopelessly fucked. All you saw anywhere and everywhere was the dreaded Windows Blue Screen of Death™...

So whether you are a Mac user, Linux user, or Windows user... you were hopelessly fucked by consequence. Like these people in what I'm thinking must be Berlin Brandenburg Airport (I've only flown into Berlin a handful of times... so while "Ankunft" is definitely German, I can only be positive that this is not Cologne-Bonn's airport, which I am very familiar with)...

Photo by Liesa Johannssen/Getty Images

Now, given how much travel I've done in my life, I've been in situations just like this. Mostly as a consequence of weather, but sometimes it was technical. I've definitely seen the Windows Blue Screen of Death™ in more than one airport. I do not envy these people trying to deal with the clusterfuck that's become their life. I can't even remember all the places I've been stuck over the years. But it's happened many, many times. In the beginning when I hadn't traveled so much, it was both frustrating and terrifying. But as the number of trips I took went up, my anxiety went down when problems popped up. It'll all work out, no matter what happened, I knew that I'll get to where I'm going eventually. Accommodations to my situation will be made. Which is not to say that sadness didn't occur. I missed a Christmas back when my mom and grandmother were still alive and, given how important that holiday was to them, I was understandably upset about it.

But technology happens.

In other news... after watching Jason Statham in the incredible action flick The Beekeeper, I've made it my mission in life to watch all of his films that I haven't yet seen. There's not a lot because I'm a huge fan of the kinds of films he makes. The best of the films I watched this week was Safe...

Is there anything brilliantly new to be had? No. But there were a number of interesting bits in-between the fighting. Can't ask for more than that!

Back before the charity I worked with shut down, I was traveling quite a lot. My work very generously allowed me to work while on the road, so I was able to volunteer at places all over while still earning a living. This morning as I was digging through my messy desk to find some documents I needed, I ran across the travel schedule I had for 2019. The last trip listed was a quick overnight to Las Vegas in September. And that's what I've always told people was my last travel as a volunteer.

Except it wasn't.

But I'll get to that in a second.

After finding my schedule, I was racking my brain trying to remember what that last trip was about. It couldn't have been as a "handler" (making arrangements for a wealthy donor and being at their beck and call while they were in town) because that would have certainly taken more than one night. I don't think it was a presentation, so my guess is that I had to pick up a check... or get something signed... or meet for recruitment... or any of a dozen things that took me to Vegas 5 to 6 times a year.

I ran to this blog to see if I had left a hint about it or even mentioned where I was in Sin City, but it was apparently so uneventful that I never even mentioned having went.

Then I clicked forward a month to October of 2019.

And there it was... a trip to New Orleans. I flew out on the 6th, worked the 7th, then flew back home on the 8th. An entire trip to my favorite American city that I had completely forgotten about.

Although, like Las Vegas, I've been to New Orleans so many times that I've lost count. And since I wasn't there on vacation or to meet up with friends or anything exciting, it's not surprising that I wouldn't remember having gone. Work is work, even when you travel to do it, and that's usually nothing to write home about. Something that only people who have to travel for work will ever really understand, because most people think that traveling for work is a non-stop vacation. Which it most definitely is not.

And that was the end of that.

Just before my travel was due to start back up again in February, the pandemic happened. Travel kept getting pushed back until international trips were outright canceled. Then domestic trips were canceled. Then all the money we had to operate went towards helping people as waves of deaths hit Europe. The charity would shutter soon after, and I've only been on one plane trip ever since.

It has been very strange indeed to go from being on the road 1/3 of the year to not traveling at all.

And while I do miss it from time to time, I think I'm far happier knowing that those hectic days are behind me.

But not entirely.

Back in 2001, Disneyland finally got a second park. Walt Disney World had gotten a second park in 1982 (Epcot), a third in 1989 (Hollywood Studios), and a fourth in 1998 (Animal Kingdom)... so it was a long time coming. The difference being that Walt Disney World has vast amounts of land to expand, whereas Disneyland doesn't. Sure, there's going to be a planned expansion to the Disneyland Hotel side of the street, but it's just not a lot of land because there's hotels there. Nope... whatever was going to end up across from Disneyland was the only shot they had at doing something truly spectacular.

But instead we got California Adventure...

Filled with a bunch of cheap, boring, off-the-rack rides that were themed to the idea of "California," the park was hardly worth waiting for. It was shit. I mean, seriously, Superstar Limo?!? My God. Disney had so badly lost its way that one can't help but think that Walt Disney himself would be disgusted in what's been attached to his name.

The exception being the fantastic attractions Soarin' Over California and the California Screamin' coaster, which were the only reason to waste your time walking over from Disneyland. An argument could be made that Twilight Zone Tower of Terror was also an exception, but it was a seriously dumbed-down version of the spectacular original from Walt Disney World, so I disagree.

But anyway...

Disney found out immediately by the overwhelmingly negative response to their cheap-ass abomination that they done fucked up (I made a special trip to see it and was livid that it was such a waste of time and money). You can't make a theme park on the cheap and expect people will embrace it just because you slapped the Disney name on it. They were forced to start revising things almost immediately, then announced a major renovation in 2007, just six years after it opened.

Eventually we got "Cars Land" which had the excellent Radiator Springs Racers, and "Pixar Pier" which had the fun Toy Story Midway Mania but that was it. Everything else that they've slapped on this massive failure has been mediocre to awful.

The nerfed Twilight Zone Tower of Terror became Guardians of the Galaxy Mission Breakout, which was okay, I guess. But they slapped it in the middle of "Avengers Campus" which is horrifically bad. This new "land" was ill-conceived and, shocker, cheap.

California Screamin' got re-themed to The Incredibles' Incredicoaster which is so cheap as to be embarrassing. They just plopped a bunch of static characters around the coaster, including the infamous Jack-Jack "babies on sticks" and Violet's disembodied head, and took away many of the things that made California Screamin' such a fun coaster. Which is to say that it was a massive downgrade.

Despite being a cheap-ass park, California Adventure was at least thematically cohesive. They did their best to actually adhere to the concept of "California" and make sure that everything was beautifully-appointed and had good flow. But now? It's a disjointed, incohesive mess that keeps having less and less to do with California. An obvious re-skin done on the cheap with precious few good attractions (and that beautiful World of Color show) to make it worth visiting.

So what to do?

The Pixar Pier section of California Adventure is the place for all things Pixar... but not including the Cars movies or the Monsters, Inc. movies, which both have rides in other sections of the park. Which begs the question... why not just convert the entire park to become Pixarland... the perfect compliment to Disneyland. But stop being so fucking cheap about it.

Build out a cohesive game plan for how the park "lands" should be defined and how they flow into each other [Cars Land, Toy Story Pier, Monsterstropolis (the Monster's, Inc. city), Metroville (the Incredibles city) etc., this is not rocket science]. Then go attraction by attraction to revise or replace the cheap crap and turn it into something Disney-worthy. Start with Incredicoaster... re-track it to not be so rough, then make it worth being associate with Disney by adding animatronics and decent effects instead of babies on sticks and other stupid crap. Then move on to the next. Then the next.

No idea how to integrate Soarin' (which was ruined when they turned it to "Around the World" instead of "California") but Imagineers are clever. Maybe it could be a ride where you're soarin' like the house in Up or something. Avengers Campus can just be scrapped entirely. And if you can slap a Guardians of the Galaxy Band-Aid on Tower of Terror, then how hard is it to do it again with a Pixar property? Doing a Coco-themed drop-ride that takes you through a colorful adventure through the Land of the Dead could be so cool. And can you imagine if the rest of Avengers Campus was turned into the city of Santa Cecilia that's celebrating Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) 365 days a year? Make it colorful and fun... so cool...

I dunno. Maybe Pixarland isn't the answer... but there's gotta be an answer somewhere. Because right now California Adventure has very little to do with California and is a cheap, shitty park that nobody want's to bother with because there's limited E-Ticket experiences and precious little Disney magic to be had.

Disneyland deserves better.

As do Disney parks fans.

I've mentioned more than a few times here, I try really hard to not have regrets in life (okay, I've probably mentioned it several times... give me a break, I've been blogging for over 20 years!). It's just not worth it to pine away over something you did or didn't do, something you said or didn't say, or somewhere you went or didn't go. Just be happy with what you got out of this life and not worry about the rest. It happened. Or didn't. What more can you do without the ability to travel in time?

That being said...

This is not to say that there aren't things I wish could have happened or not happen for one reason or another. Missed opportunities, if you will.

As an example... I really wish I had visited the Aspen Hard Rock Cafe when it was open. It would have been so easy to do. So easy that I kept putting it off so I could hit the more difficult ones in foreign countries. But then the cafe closed with little warning and my plan to visit every US cafe evaporated. That really sucked. It haunted me for years. Now-a-days, when I've pretty much given up on visiting Hard Rock properties, it's like... meh.

As another example... I really wish that I had visited the infamous "Star Wars Hotel" (AKA Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser) at Walt Disney World in Florida. I'm a huge Star Wars nerd, and the immersive properties of the hotel seemed like something I would have enjoyed. But it was ungodly expensive, and I just couldn't afford it. My plan was to wait until the newness wore off and the price would (hopefully) drop a bit when Disney needed to draw in more visitors.

Except rather than lower the price when they weren't getting enough visitors, Disney CLOSED THE HOTEL! I was bummed. Just like the Aspen Hard Rock, I had missed my opportunity forever.

And then I saw this video by one of my favorite YouTubers, Jenny Nicholson, detailing her totally fucked and busted experience at the doomed attraction. It's four hours, but time well-spent...

Holy shit!

Thank God I didn't have thousands of dollars to throw away on this awful experience. Knowing my luck, I'd end up with a worse stay than Jenny, and it's not like Disney is going to give you your money back if they failed to accomplish what they promise. At least I assume that's the case. If you go to one of their theme parks and an attraction you were dying to ride is broken down, you don't get part of your ticket price back. Unless you're an influencer with huge social media reach, apparently.

So, yeah, absolutely no regrets when it comes to Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser.

As it should be.

It always amazes me how people think that the entirety of a country wholeheartedly believes in their government and supports them in everything they do.

And it's like... do YOU wholeheartedly believe in YOUR government and support THEM in everything THEY do?

No?

So why should it be any different in other countries?

I've never found this to be true in any place on this earth I've visited. Yes, some countries have a government that better represents the majority of the people they serve, but even then there will be those who don't agree with what's being done in their name. But here's the thing... no matter where I've been, I've always been able to find a way to relate to my fellow earthlings, at least in general.

I have been warmly invited into the home of a man who hates America. Literally. Would not cry a single tear if the country would implode after the way our government meddled in the affairs of his country. And I'm not imagining things here. He actually said it to me with a smile on his face. But he doesn't hate Americans. At all. Just our government (for which I think he pities us)... and, to be fair, he has justification for it.

But, once invited into his home, the politics of our countries never came up. We talked about our lives, our work, our families, where we live, and a dozen other topics that resulted in smiling faces and laughter. Because, at the bottom of it all, we are both human.

Too many people in too many countries are losing sight of this very basic fact, and it doesn't bode well for humanity. There is history which makes relations between some peoples difficult... very difficult, even... but it's never impossible.

Person to person, anyways.

I drank tea and had a great chat with a guy who despises my country with fervor. I guess miracles can happen. When governments are left at the door.