June 3, 2007 to June 9, 2007
Wherein the World of Disney is a fine place, but I'm beholden to the place with all the naked mermaid statues. In a world of artificiality, would you prefer giant chipmunks or pert breasts wth erect nipples? Though, to be fair, the braless British mother at Typhoon Lagoon who didn't understand what would happen, and was quite oblivious, when frolicking in a pool of water whilst wearing nought but a thin white t-shirt was entertaining. Sorry, didn't have a camera with me. Then, at breakfast at Cinderella's castle, the Jasmine was obviously a belly button ring wearer when off-duty. Hey, when in the World, you takes your repressed sexuality wherever you can find it.
Weeki Wachee Mermaids: 60th anniversary will be July 27-29, 2007
Adventures Under The Spring Mermaid Camp: where we'll be in another 2-3 years
Save the mermaids
The Little Merman: a video diary of one man's attempt to wear a tail
Weeki Wachee Mermaids: 60th anniversary will be July 27-29, 2007
Adventures Under The Spring Mermaid Camp: where we'll be in another 2-3 years
Save the mermaids
The Little Merman: a video diary of one man's attempt to wear a tail
posted by bill at 11:21 AM
43 Comments:
I'm kind of surprised about the mermaids, but .... Disney was always good at giving something to the parents as well as the kids, something above their heads.
????
the mermaids aren't Disney.
Just in case it was unclear, the pert and erect referred to the statues.
Poppy Z. Brite stops writing:
I've written nothing to speak of since mid-November of 2006. To go so long without writing is unusual for me, and what's even more unusual is the fact that I don't miss it. I miss spending time with my characters, but I don't feel the writing urge itself. I don't know if I am taking stock of my life or getting my house in order or retiring or what. I do know that I'm not sure I can continue working with big publishing houses. The business is filthy and cannibalistic. They build careers for a few fortunate (and frequently talented) writers and shove the rest of us through the grinder like cheap hamburger. Editors and authors alike jump from house to house. There's no continuity. Our editors are as overworked and underpaid and frequently unmotivated as we are.
Prints a letter from her editor and responds:
I thought of trying to explain how offensive it is to suggest writing "the definitive Katrina novel" (since every writer affected by the failure of the federal levee system will have his or her own definitive Katrina novel, and I already knew what mine had to be), or to believe I'd want to "work through ideas" with someone who hasn't visited New Orleans in years, who didn't bother to contact me for months after the storm, who knows nothing about life here now. I decided it wasn't worth it, because she wouldn't get it and she wouldn't care; it isn't her job to care; she's forced to be about the bottom line and nothing but, and it doesn't matter that Three Rivers buried the books: their perceived failure is still my fault. Maybe you're beginning to see why this is a business I'm thinking I want out of. Instead, I bought my way out of my Random House contract; if and when Dead Shrimp Blues is published, it won't be by Three Rivers. I had completed about a third of the novel, but the rejection -- and especially that awful letter -- on top of the fifteen months I'd just been through took the last of the heart out of me.
Other bloggy news: all caught up with the Lileks bucket saga. Awaiting next installment.
installment XLVIII
1. Nope
2. First answer - what's myspace? Second answer - 16?
3. Jane?
4. Geek? Though in many of the circles I pass through it isn't so much an insult as a congratulatory badge.
5. The Deep Thoughts guy from Saturday Night Live? No, that's Jack Handey. For the longest time I thought that was just a made up name and didn't know Handey was a real person. Back to the question..."standard" probably refers to a song. St. Louis Blues?
6. Interesting question. First thought was Manhattan. Second thought was England/Scotland/Wales. Don't think that's called the UK, since Northern Ireland isn't included. I'll go with #2.
7. They all slept with either Frank Sinatra or Joe Dimaggio. Can't decide which way to go. Maybe both.
Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor:
1. The rumors of its death have barely been exaggerated.
2. It isn't sincerely dead, but it is almost completely dead.
According to this soul test I have no soul.
Charis herself gave up Christianity a long time ago. For one thing, the Bible is full of meat: animals being sacrificed, lambs, bullocks, doves. Cain was right to offer up the vegetables, God was wrong to refuse them. And then there's too much blood: people in the Bible are always having their blood spilled, blood on their hands, their blood licked up by dogs. There are too many slaughters, too much suffering, too many tears.
She used to think some of the Eastern religions would be more serene; she was a Buddhist for a while, before she discovered how many Hells they had. Most religions are so intent on punishment.
The Robber Bride,
Margaret Atwood
Role Models:
OK, so you probably knew someone as perennially curious about altered states as old Doc "Benway" Brite was lying about throwing away that crack I found yesterday, didn't you? My method of deciding whether to smoke it was to ask myself, "What would Hunter have done?" Chris says Hunter S. Thompson is not necessarily a good role model when seeking drug advice. I say OK, point taken, but if you're going to do drugs anyway, HST is a pretty goddamn good role model...
I believe that ahistorically is referring to the mermaids in the Peter Pan ride. They used to be topless, but eventually some clam shells were strategically placed.
Perhaps...But moviewise, I'd argue that the very shapely Tinkerbell in her Tina Turner outfit was much sexier than the mermaids.
Tueday Trivia XLIX. That typo is his, not mine.
1. I was thinking of the correct answer, I just couldn't remember the name.
2. Shot JR? Pretty sure I never watched more than about 10 minutes of Dallas.
3. answer
4. Donkey Kong? Or Candi Mendut? Nope, it's this piece of government art. According to them , I should be eating a daily diet of max 2400 calories consisting of the following: 8 oz grains, 3 cups veggies, 2 cups fruit, 3 cups milk, 6.5 oz meat and beans. So far I've had a cup of raspberry yogurt, a banana, and two large cups of darjeeling tea. For lunch, it's an apple, a small salad, and some microwaveable taquitos that shouldn't technically qualify as food so I'm not sure what to do with them other than mentally subtract 3 months from my projected lifespan.
5. Interesting. Also at the same link: sex change surgery had been performed by "German doctors in the late 1920s and early 1930s."
6. Shrek II
7. First thought: the only states not to have held an NBA all-star game? Wasn't it held this year in Vegas?
Perhaps...But moviewise, I'd argue that the very shapely Tinkerbell in her Tina Turner outfit was much sexier than the mermaids.
Very true. Did you notice all the super-sexy Tinkerbell stuff on sale while you were at WDW? Some of it is borderline anime fan-serice.
And yes, the NBA All Star game was held in Vegas this year. The guests were so ill-behaved that Vegas apparently doesn't want the game back. (!!)
No, I missed the tinkerbell stuff. I'm sure it's related to the Disney Fairy push and the related books. While I enjoyed the artwork, Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg was one of the most horrifyingly bad books I've ever read. Really wasn't expecting that amount of death, destruction, and disaster. It was more traumatic than the opening holocaust that opened Finding Nemo and we skipped whole chapters. It's in a box of crap to be donated, so I'll pull it out and copy some quotes of stuff that's supposed to be entertaining for little girls.
And it's not just the death, destruction, and disaster. It's poorly written. Before the
story turned into an Irwin Allen movie of the week, it was slow and turgid, and just a pain to read. After the first chapter I was ready to throw it away.
Here's a photo from Peter Pan's Flight that clearly shows a topless mermaid.
What would be great would be a book that discussed and demonstrated how the Disney parks have changed and grown. Walking around with someone who visited WDW as a teenager, he was able to point out where the Captain Nemo submarine ride used to be--concrete is different from. It would be fun to see aerial shots throughout the years.
Scott Adams on global warming:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Is buzz.mn where Lileks is going?
Favorite sentence of the day:
Back when ESPN was getting moist over covering his high-school games, you could almost feel the network's teeth grinding when James would dish the ball to the wing on the break, thereby depriving the network of a thunderous dunk and Stuart Scott of a full-body orgasm.
Guess I'll wait:
WARNING: THIS SOFTWARE MAY CRASH AND MAY DESTROY YOUR DATA DO NOT USE THIS SOFTWARE FOR REAL WORK IN A PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENT
Ernie Pyle, three columns on D-Day:
A Pure Miracle
The Horrible Waste of War
A Long Thin Line of Personal Anguish
From Deadspin, the fact of the day:
As we learned in college -- sometimes we fear it's all we learned in college -- when you give blood before you go drinking, you can get blasted, man, and for cheap! So the combination of free beer, lowered blood count and soccer can only brew up a combination of goodness for our fellow man. It should go smoothly, with no potential trouble at all.
To which I add, don't forget plasma donations! A friend attending the University of Wisconsin in the early 80s said she and her friends would always donate plasma on Friday afternoon. Same benefits of a lowered blood count and they'd use the money earned for beer and cigarettes. Benefits of an advanced education: they don't teach thought processes like that in high school.
Okay, I could have done without that Stuart Scott imagery, but it was a good sentence. And here's to Lebron reversing the high-light reelization of the NBA. Just pass it, baby, pass it!
Re: the fairy book: Was there as much death and destruction in that as there is in the Pressed Fairy books?
Pressed Fairy books: no knowledge, will look into it.
those sound entertaining, I'll have to take a closer look.
I think the bigger problem with "Fairy Dust..." as written by Gail Carson Levine, is an attitude discussed in my review of Welcome to the Lizard Motel. That being the market of "'problem novels' that seem to serve no purpose but to make the children feel bad."
What makes the Stuart Scott imagery so uncomfortable is that it's true.
answer to Lileks question: yes.
What makes the Stuart Scott imagery so uncomfortable is that it's true.
Exactly. What's worse is that he didn't just start doing that after ESPN hired him - that style is what got him the job in the first place. (He had been the back-up sports anchor on one of the local channels before the ESPN gig, which is how I know that bit of trivia.)
Completely forgot I'd read Wong's The 10 Best Sci-Fi Films That Never Existed.
C. George Lucas got older. Ask yourself: how did the same people who gathered in naked, stoned crowds for this... *********
...grow up to make this show a hit: *********
It's almost like they lost something along the way, isn't it? Well, so did George Lucas.
Hi IcePick, We saw 'Nancy Kerrigan' again, 2nd time in 'THE LAND'. Totally had to be her.
Nice to meet you. Take care - Mrs. Soquoted
Hey, The Wife made an appearance! There goes the neighborhood.
I'll have to add this to the masthead:
isaac_spaceman: Bill -- you have just won yourself a WGA-arbitrated credit.
see comments under LIKE A MADCAP MANOS
You know what would make Disney's Animal Kingdom more entertaining?
This.
The betting money says Harry Potter dies.
geekpress >> Marginal Revolution >> Bloomberg
I agree and it's been my theory for at least the last two books. I think it was with the last book that I settled on the theory that Harry's scar contains a horcrux that was accidently created when Voldemort killed Harry's parents. To fully defeat Voldemort, Harry must die.
Over in a Bainbridge post about George RR Martin's use of antique computer technology is this comment:
Do you realize that Word has a feature to see what your document looks like upside down? A programmer got paid to write that. If I wondered what it looked like, I probably would simply print the page and turn it over.
Anyone know how to do this? I can't find this and I'm assuming the guy is talking about being able to temporarily view a document upside down and not just do a page rotation or or rotate a text box. I'm not one of those who edits with the page upside down, but I do know a few who might find this useful.
It's pretty easy to do this with a pdf in Reader, but it sounds like he's talking about a pure MS Word command.
**Still using Word 2003, so maybe it's new.**
A benefit of not spell checking a blog post. Google glass menagarie quotes, or just click that link.
For "glass menagarie" I'm still third.
You know what would make Disney's Animal Kingdom more entertaining?
This.
Excellent stuff! But somehow I doubt that would please most of the tourists.
Now for me, stocking the local swimming pools with Crocs would make for true hilarity.... (Crocs are generally much more aggressive than Gators. Thus the use of non-native crocs instead of native gators. Most non-swimming pool bodies of water down here do have gators in them.)
Hi, Mrs. soquoted! It was a pleasure meeting the whole family. (Although the parrot really does seem gratuitous. I know you've got a peg leg, bill, but the parrot and eyepatch are just plain silly.)
Next time you're down I can show you where some more of the defunct rides and attractions used to be. 20,000 Leagues is a bit different than most, because usually a space gets recycled into something new. (E.g., Horizons at Epcot became Mission: Space.) But there are a few like 20KLutS that have just simply disappeared.
And if you're really lucky, I'll drive you guys around town and rant about how everything used to be orange groves....
So you're saying this old story would have been different with a croc instead of a gator?
No, that story would have likely ended the same way. Crocs aren't necessarily tougher than gators, just more aggressive. Crocs also tend to congregate in large numbers, while gators are more typically solitary.
Of course, if the python had come upon a GROUP of crocs, it would be no contest in favor of the crocs....
From Boingboing.net, another great american has passed away.
Over in that sidebar thingy of links, I don't link to every place I go or every one I read. I'll use other links at other sites and sometimes certain blogs have established themselves as a gateway of sorts.
So it is with great displeasure that I uncovered 3 Kat Dennings videos that someone didn't link to. It is clear that responsibilities have been ignored and a level of trust that has been broken.
If I have to keep track of Kat Dennings myself, so be it. But I would have liked a memo stating a change in policy.
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