I keep notes on reasons to avoid going to Florida that might convince a kindergarten student to give Disney World a pass.
The giant snakes seem to be limited to the southernmost part of the state so far, so this one may not make the list.
1: Where do you find a kindergartener who listens to reason???
Finding one afraid of giant snakes is easy.
4: Right. Once you tell them about the kindergarter snakes, the seed is planted.
My friend is on this paper! I saw a presentation of this data last year and got super depressed. Then I drove through the Everglades this winter and bored people with my half-remebered summary. It's weird to be sad for racoons and possums. But you know Florida - it's all going to be underwater sooner or later
Then it will be populated with giant monster water snakes!
Romney wins, as if anyone cares at this point.
1: I tell my son that I want to wait until he's old enough to enjoy and remember it properly, and that I didn't go until I was 10. I'm trusting that by the time he's 10, he'll think he's too old for it. Alternatively, I'll have to make my ex-wife take him.
Anyone know if free range pythons taste good?
Is it weird for childless adults to vacation at Disney World? I have an otherwise sane good friend who loved it there, and spent a week or so there on vacation every year. It always struck me as weird. But I haven't been since I was a kid, so I thought, "maybe it's better for adults that I remember."
That was me above with the unsigned comment. If python is anything like alligator (living in swamps, eating a lot of swamp stuff) then wild python probably tastes like mud.
12: There seems to be a subculture of adults who are super into Disney stuff, including vacationing at Disney World. Seems pretty weird to me too, but it's definitely a thing.
8 is surprisingly on topic.
Deliberately so, even.
12: I think it's weird, but I know it's not uncommon.
I went with the kids when they were six and four because Buck had a conference in Orlando and it seemed like a thing to do. It is very impressive on its own terms -- everywhere you look, there's something that was intentionally put there to make an effect, or herd you in a direction, or something. I do feel as if I should have hated it more than I did: I'm reasonably impervious to being offended by kitsch, and it's a fairly non-painful place to chase small kids around.
12: I don't know about overnight vacations, but plenty of people I know in L.A. go to Disneyworld whenever they can, and only a few have children to bring. I went with a big group for a friend's 40th--it's not my bag, but people love it, either straight up or with hallucinogens. Mrs. K-sky has noted that the best part of the trip for her was hanging out with a friend whose daughter was meeting Tinkerbell at the Fairy Princess Tea Party or wevs--they really do know how to make children's faces explode in joybombs you never want to forget, the diabolical fuckers.
8: I'm sure Newt will graciously withdraw now.
12: When I went as a teen during a family vacation, there were several Buddhist monks there. I hoped they hated it as much as I did, but they were probably less hateful and judgmental than little teen Thorn.
We know both non-parent adults and whole families who do Disney cruises, Disney visits, the whole shebang. There are a lot of lesbians around here who seem way too into the Disney Winnie the Pooh though without being furry-ish about it, but I don't know that they travel for Disney events, just get tattoos and sweatshirts and so on.
I went as a childless adult to Disneyland but on extasy. It's a Small World was great! and then there were fireworks! All the waiting in line was a bummer, but the psychologists in charge of line-design did an excellent job. I cannot imagine staying a week or returning soon.
17: one would hope you mean "Disneyland". Which is much cooler, by all accounts.
I loved the shit out of Disney World as a kid. (But really I mostly loved Epcot. GM's Pavilion of Mocking Non-Gasoline Fuels!) I would probably like it pretty well now.
The thing about the snakes is beyond depressing, though. The everglades are a truly amazing place, at least in the short term.
Okay, so Romney is a python and Newt is an alligator. Is Paul the raccoon and Santorum the possum, or vice versa?
22: Close, but Paul is actually the Possum Comitatus.
15: I need my comedy announced with awooga horns and slide whistles.
I went as a childless adult to Disneyland but on ecstasy.
I did this, except it was EPCOT, I was on LSD, and I was fighting the whole time with my then girlfriend. I saw the place as a Huxlean, Brave New World, nightmare, and she saw me as No Fun. I do not recommend the experience.
Disneyland is great. I do like being able to go home in the evening, though; Disneyworld might get a little oppressive and frankly the Disney cruise sounds totally terrifying. Anyhow, the Submarine Ride! Pirates of the Carribean! The Jungle Ride! So much fun.
ms bill, a native Californian, took our kids to Disneyland when they were in the 8-10 range and that was it (I was backpacking with her brother at the time). A few half-hearted requests over the years to go to Disneyworld, but ms bill has staved them off with "You've been to the real thing...a lot of snakes in Florida" and similar mildly specious arguments.
I spend the turn of the millennium at Epcot, but only because the Phish concert in South Florida turned out to be too fucking far to drive.
I know people who spent Y2k parked in cars along the highway, stuck in a highway parking lot of Fishheads who could not make it in to that concert.
26: I was fighting the whole time with my then girlfriend. I saw the place as a Huxlean, Brave New World, nightmare, and she saw me as No Fun. I do not recommend the experience.
The only time I went to Disneyworld (pre-Epcot!) it was a last sad hurrah with my then-girlfriend (and her 6-year son). My inner dialogue the whole time was writing an article, "Why Humankind Will Not Contribute to the Long-Term Evolution of the Universe: A Visit to Disneyworld" (I guess since David Foster Wallace actually wrote his I can't say he ripped me off). The highlight was the Kennedy Space Center, the lowlight was while waiting for the fucking rat parade to start one day I noticed a number of kids who were so far gone in sensory overload/deprivation that they watched in abject fascination as house sparrows squabbled over bread crumbs.
16: Buck had a conference in Orlando
Wait I forgot, I went to a conference there as well. Was his a Presidential Anagram +'er' one as well? Turned out I was the only dumb-ass there who did not bring my family; I had hardly thought much about how it was at Disneyworld until I arrived.
Part of the problem was that we ran out of weed, just south of Daytona.
I always found it challenging enough to go out in public on hallucinogens. I'm amazed people can go to Disney* on LSD and not end up in custody.
33: Yeah, it would have been really hard to find weed at a Phish concert. Hoo boy.
32: I couldn't tell you a thing about the conference, except that it was focused on the line of IBM products he specializes in. August or September 05.
32: I couldn't tell you a thing about the conference, except that it was focused on the line of IBM products he specializes in. August or September 05.
Although, come to think of it, I'm not that big on going out in public sober.
As soon as my sister and I were old enough, and our parents agreed, we replaced Disneyland with Magic Mountain on trips to visit family in southern California.
Elsewhere in the animal kingdom: Kristen Bell and the sloth.
"Disneyworld" is not a thing. In my 17 it should be "Disneyland," as noted in 21.1. In everywhere else it should be "Walt Disney World." This has been a message from Sir Harold Nicolson.
41: I love Kristen Bell no less for it, but people really hire out sloths for parties?
Well, if you had a sloth, wouldn't you?
I mean, what else are you going to do with it?
Sell it to Halford for lunch? Take it to Disneyland? Run it in the GOP primary? The options are nearly endless!
The Ex and I took the kids to Disneyworld circa 1974. From the entrance onwards I was flashing on the notion of eventually and efficiently being herded into the ovens to "Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's off to Work We Go".
47.1 I'm horrified you would even joke about that.
I bet will could get you a sloth for a party, no?
Party sloths are a well-studied disease vector.
49: I'm surprised he didn't mention "have sex with it," but maybe 51 provides a reason for the omission.
36/37: Ah, that's a more specific focus than the one I was thinking of--I thought of the one I went to because his articles often incorporate data or research from that organization. It appears that multiple organizations have conferences there, shockingly.
Unfogged-approved accompaniments to hallucinogenic drugs: theme parks, piano bars.
I was listening to a podcast the other week where one of the crew talked about doing a round-the-world pub crawl at Epcot. Apparently it's a thing, which suggests adults without children do go to Disneyworld/land regularly.
Actually despite my uncharitable remarks about my visits to Disneyland, Walt Disney and the continuing Disney vision are somewhat interesting. Now, if actually unleashed on a large scale I think Walt's ideas would likely engender the kind of well-meaning but misguided utopianism that turns out to be worst than Hitler, but still interesting.
47: there's a bit in "The Great Escape" describing a minor bit of sabotage. A German volunteer labour corps detachment used to march past Sagan every morning on their way to work, singing cheerful Nazi songs. The PWs organised a 200-strong choir to stand by the wire every morning singing "Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off To Work We Go" in squeaky voices, and after a couple of days the labour corps guys changed their route to work and went the long way round.
48: My assumption was that it would be done to "It's a Small World After All". Or that's what SkyNet plays as it launches the first missiles.
Plus there's this version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUokR-lXmlc&feature=related
Heigh-Ho.The video well-edited, too, when it kicks in.
||
Do I have to burn my seven "Race for the Cure" t-shirts now?
Digby, LGM, Jezebel are all over Susan Komen Fnd, but hey put a forced-birther wingnut up in the hierarchy and watch the millions come in for breast-cancer, saving women's lives
The logic of surrender, the corruption of Obamacare, the servitude of incrementalism, the slavery of refusing to burn it all down. What we need is more multi-millionaire women, especially in the Senate.
Planned Parenthood is going down. Way to go feminists.
Fuck it all.
|>
54 - ooh, I went to a piano bar whilst tripping. A lovely gold sparkly bar in a hotel in Antalya. The thought of smuggling acid into Turkey makes my blood run rather cold these days, but it must be the easiest drug to cross borders with.
I've been to Orlando 4 times now without going to Disney World. I now feel that I shouldn't go on principle.
Yeah, it's better to go with interest.
On pythons -- this issue has now become part of the Republican war on job-killing Federal regulations that are destroying the economy. DOWN WITH OBAMA! FREE THE SNAKES!
65: I am sick of these monkeyfarmin' regs on my monkeyfarmin' books!
62 is asilon's bid to be considered for the post of Emergency Backup Alameida.
It was awesome going to Disney World plus Sea World plus Universal Studios for ten days with my 13 year old daughter. It was incredibly active and tiring. Some of Disney World is for the wee ones, some is not.
If I lived closer I'd go to the water parks without bringing kids.
I blacked out every time on the Hulk roller coaster. It was awesome.
How bad are the queues (sorry, lines) at Disneyland/world in the off-season. I've been to UK theme parks a few times in the off-season as an adult (technically, anyway) and it's quite fun not having to queue, so you can just go round and round again on the best rides. But I can't say I'd do it regularly unless I lived right nearby. And I thought the Disney parks were pretty expensive.
29: I was at Islands of Adventure--we probably saw the same sets of fireworks.
41 made my day. Even better than the story yesterday about urple ordering tomato soup and, to follow, tomato soup.
There must be a way to use this sloth-mania to somehow entice Kristen Bell to become a regular commenter here.
Everytime I see a clip of her I'm struck by how incredibly likeable Ellen Degeneres is. Kristen Bell seems nice too.
71.2 My fantasies: surprisingly tame.
I know, right? I want to hang out with these people.
Maybe Halford can slip something into their contracts.
Roofie Claus put some crazy shit in my stocking last year, yo.