Friday, November 07, 2008
Monday, October 06, 2008
October, the haunt month...
Review time. This weekend included the first two themepark haunts for us and The Girls fist themepark haunts ever. We have a new addict! so lets begin.
Day 1:
This weekend the base of operations was the Candy Cane Inn located just in the corner of the DLR adjacent to the Timon parking lot, beside the convenience to access the park the hotel is just wonderful with its breakfast, which in a premium room is delivered to you, to the quality of the rooms themselves. Day 1 started with Halloween Time at Disneyland. Again parts of the park are covered in orange and yellow bunting and banners with pumpkins everywhere. The highlight still being the return of Haunted Mansion Holiday featuring Jack Skeleton and his Nightmare before Christmas pals. To me it did not seem that Disney did much in the way of additions to this years decorations, but to us it was just still good fun to fill the time till Mickey's Halloween Treat. Speaking of which... The DCA special ticketed event was again a lot of fun with festive music and lighting abound. I have 2 complaints though. The fist is that there was, like Disneyland, very little in the way of anything new, mainly the same as the last few years sans what seamed like more photo ops with disney characters, but even a removal of some of what had been a great addition to the event. what was misssing? The additional TOT thememing such as the large bat arch over the entrance to the classic (vintage) halloween decorations in the tower lobby itself. I do have to say that we got a whole lot more candy than ever before and it was even making my arm ache by the end of the night. (that part is not a complaint, seriously a lot of candy).
The Girl and I getting some ERT on A Flick's Fun Fair ride
Day 2:
Knott's Scary Farm Halloween Haunt 2008
Like I had said this was The Girls first year to ever go to a theme park haunt and oh what a year. This years haunt featured 13 haunted mazes and of the 13 there were 6 brand new mazes. The event itself was great, not too crowed and the weather was just perfect maybe a bit windy at times but nothing to complain about.
Now for the reviews, I will rate using a scale of 1 is bad to 10 is what I really like :-P this list is not in any order at all.
Labyrinth: This maze is a new for 2008 and replaced Lore of the Vampire. For the two of us it was our favorite. The maze is not scary and does not offer much in the shape of thrills, it is just beautiful. If you grew up watching movies like Labyrinth, the dark crystal, the last unicorn, etc. this maze is for you with its Gothic fantasy feel. The maze even featured fauns, one of which is rather short and makes the scene. As a side, I so really wanted to just spend some time in the last room waltzing to the music all night. We did after going through the maze a couple of times waltz just outside the exit and for some reason really creeped out some of the park guests who thought that we were a couple of the talent that escaped the maze.
Scariness: 5
Visual Theme: 10
Sound: 10
Talent: 9
Overall: 10 (it just had style) :-)
Slaughterhouse: Again another new house. I had expected the worse from this one, a gore fest i was expecting. It was actually good. The talent at this years haunt was at its top and made what could of just been gross and boring rather entertaining. When you first enter the queue there are guys holding signs protesting the slaughter and eating of people much like PETA protesters (i mean no offense to animal rights). This automatically put a novel spin on the mood of the maze and it continued throughout. The sets were mainly narrow halls with mainly gore type details but there were hidden gems such as one room where bones were glued all over the walls in what appeared to be random locations there was some arranged in pretty pictures of fish and stuff. The talent here was so good that they even creeped out The Girl.
Scariness: 7 (the layout makes it hard to get a good scare on, the halls are just too narrow)
Visual Theme: 5
Sound: 8 (what does metal have to do with a human slaughterhouse?)
Talent: 9
Overall: 8
Cornstalkers: This was a gem of a maze. There are people out there who said that it was killed by the fact that you could see out side the park cars driving by and the rides inside the park over the low walls. Yea, this did knock the total imersion but the layout of the maze and the talent were tops. The maze, new for 2008, is in a location where past mazes and scare zones suffered this one rocked! The fact that you were wandering through a corn feild that had more twists and turns, nooks and cranies, etc. than any maze I have ever been throught made me hesitant on every steep i took.
Scariness: 10
Visual Theme: 8 (the outside interferance did hurt what was otherwise gorgous American Gothic)
Sound: 10
Talent: 10 (this maze had some of the best skilled tallent ever, the setups even got me, alot...)
Overall: 9
Alien Annihilation: This was not up to Knott's past alien themed mazes ie. Alien Encounter. But it was in 3D. The first time through this new for 2008 maze left something to be desired but the second time, with 3D glasses, WOW. The talent did a great job whith what they had and with the glasses on it made a lot more sence as to what they were doing and made there
Scariness: 5 with out glasses 8.5 with glasses
Visual Theme: 3 with out glasses 9 with glasses
Sound: 8
Talent: 9
Overall: 8.75
Quarantine: The 2008 movie maze was stunningly beautiful but it came down to this. The maze felt like a Universal HHN maze. This is not a bad thing per say. The entire maze looked gorgous and felt authintic, the talent played there roles perfectly. But there was just the feeling that you were walking through a horror movie and you knew how it would end.
Scariness: 6 (maybe a bit creepy but seemed campy horror to me)
Visual Theme: 10.5
Sound: 9
Talent: 8
Overall: 8
Lost Vegas: Well, it has its humor but I never have cared for it too much, I think The Girl liked it more than I. It just seemes to meh. That and I get the "Viva Las Vegas" song stuck in my head.
Scariness: 6
Visual Theme: 5 with out glasses 6 with glasses
Sound: 7 (now i have the song stuck in my head just thinking about the maze)
Talent: 7
Overall: 6
Killer Clown College: With glasses, with out glasses, it is just total fun. The sound track is just twisted fun. The art design is just twisted fun. The talent is just twisted.
Scariness: Scary...? I think so, if I was not having so much twisted fun.
Visual Theme: 9.9 (there is some blah spots)
Sound: 10 (such a great sound track)
Talent: 10
Overall: (2 x pi) + 3
Club Blood: First time through was ok second time with less people, wow. This maze is new and is located in the second warehouse behind the Asylum. To get to it you have to go through the Asylum. The fist 1/3 involves waking through the back steets of some city (the props were from the old Kingdom of the Dinosaurs intro) from there you enter Club Blood with its standard Vampire rave. Some how you end up in a hospital setting where they are harvsting blood from humans, much like in the last Blade move. Finaly you end up in the materity ward where little deamons are born. Confusing yes, fun yes, modern vampires yes.
Scariness: 7.75 (it has moments)
Visual Theme: 10 (detailed and all but felt random)
Sound: 8
Talent: 9
Overall: 8.75
Asylum: The last year for this maze and the tallent went full bore! Creepy and disorentating. This maze can not be comfortably done after Labyrinth. :-P the maze has so much chaos (the good kind) that puts you into a panic state nervous at every movement.
Scariness: 9
Visual Theme: 9
Sound: 8
Talent: 9
Overall: 9
The Doll Factory: Still creepy in every way. The sets are unnerving and so is the tallent.
Scariness: 9.5
Visual Theme: 9.5
Sound: 9.75
Talent: 10
Overall: 9.75
Black Widows Cavern: The mine ride is a hard one to scare people on, but this years talent got it right.
Scariness: 7
Visual Theme: 7 (it's a hard one to do right)
Sound: 8
Talent: 9
Overall: 8.75
Pyromanics: Everyone sing along "...were pyromainiacs, we are crazy to the max..." Oh wait that Animaniacs... oops. The themeing is minimal but at least the talent has got it down.
Scariness: 8 (they get so good scares in as you go zooming by)
Visual Theme: 3
Sound: 6 (metal for this one too?)
Talent: 9.5
Overall: 8.75
13 Axe Murder Mannor: Last year for this one too. The mannor is getting old and is starting to show its age (is that a bad thing). Well it is time for something new but the tallent was not giving up with out a fight! Way to go at making the maze still creepy and cookie. if only the second half was ever any good.
Scariness: 7.75
Visual Theme: first half 10 second half 3
Sound: 8
Talent: 9
Overall: 8.75
Well that was Knott's in a nutshell.
Sunday was a quick trip over to Disneyland and DCA to get a ride in on Midway Maina and the House of the Future before Hanna Montana turned 16 and took over the park.
Today is monday and I am beat.
Review time. This weekend included the first two themepark haunts for us and The Girls fist themepark haunts ever. We have a new addict! so lets begin.
Day 1:
This weekend the base of operations was the Candy Cane Inn located just in the corner of the DLR adjacent to the Timon parking lot, beside the convenience to access the park the hotel is just wonderful with its breakfast, which in a premium room is delivered to you, to the quality of the rooms themselves. Day 1 started with Halloween Time at Disneyland. Again parts of the park are covered in orange and yellow bunting and banners with pumpkins everywhere. The highlight still being the return of Haunted Mansion Holiday featuring Jack Skeleton and his Nightmare before Christmas pals. To me it did not seem that Disney did much in the way of additions to this years decorations, but to us it was just still good fun to fill the time till Mickey's Halloween Treat. Speaking of which... The DCA special ticketed event was again a lot of fun with festive music and lighting abound. I have 2 complaints though. The fist is that there was, like Disneyland, very little in the way of anything new, mainly the same as the last few years sans what seamed like more photo ops with disney characters, but even a removal of some of what had been a great addition to the event. what was misssing? The additional TOT thememing such as the large bat arch over the entrance to the classic (vintage) halloween decorations in the tower lobby itself. I do have to say that we got a whole lot more candy than ever before and it was even making my arm ache by the end of the night. (that part is not a complaint, seriously a lot of candy).
The Girl and I getting some ERT on A Flick's Fun Fair ride
Day 2:
Knott's Scary Farm Halloween Haunt 2008
Like I had said this was The Girls first year to ever go to a theme park haunt and oh what a year. This years haunt featured 13 haunted mazes and of the 13 there were 6 brand new mazes. The event itself was great, not too crowed and the weather was just perfect maybe a bit windy at times but nothing to complain about.
Now for the reviews, I will rate using a scale of 1 is bad to 10 is what I really like :-P this list is not in any order at all.
Labyrinth: This maze is a new for 2008 and replaced Lore of the Vampire. For the two of us it was our favorite. The maze is not scary and does not offer much in the shape of thrills, it is just beautiful. If you grew up watching movies like Labyrinth, the dark crystal, the last unicorn, etc. this maze is for you with its Gothic fantasy feel. The maze even featured fauns, one of which is rather short and makes the scene. As a side, I so really wanted to just spend some time in the last room waltzing to the music all night. We did after going through the maze a couple of times waltz just outside the exit and for some reason really creeped out some of the park guests who thought that we were a couple of the talent that escaped the maze.
Scariness: 5
Visual Theme: 10
Sound: 10
Talent: 9
Overall: 10 (it just had style) :-)
Slaughterhouse: Again another new house. I had expected the worse from this one, a gore fest i was expecting. It was actually good. The talent at this years haunt was at its top and made what could of just been gross and boring rather entertaining. When you first enter the queue there are guys holding signs protesting the slaughter and eating of people much like PETA protesters (i mean no offense to animal rights). This automatically put a novel spin on the mood of the maze and it continued throughout. The sets were mainly narrow halls with mainly gore type details but there were hidden gems such as one room where bones were glued all over the walls in what appeared to be random locations there was some arranged in pretty pictures of fish and stuff. The talent here was so good that they even creeped out The Girl.
Scariness: 7 (the layout makes it hard to get a good scare on, the halls are just too narrow)
Visual Theme: 5
Sound: 8 (what does metal have to do with a human slaughterhouse?)
Talent: 9
Overall: 8
Cornstalkers: This was a gem of a maze. There are people out there who said that it was killed by the fact that you could see out side the park cars driving by and the rides inside the park over the low walls. Yea, this did knock the total imersion but the layout of the maze and the talent were tops. The maze, new for 2008, is in a location where past mazes and scare zones suffered this one rocked! The fact that you were wandering through a corn feild that had more twists and turns, nooks and cranies, etc. than any maze I have ever been throught made me hesitant on every steep i took.
Scariness: 10
Visual Theme: 8 (the outside interferance did hurt what was otherwise gorgous American Gothic)
Sound: 10
Talent: 10 (this maze had some of the best skilled tallent ever, the setups even got me, alot...)
Overall: 9
Alien Annihilation: This was not up to Knott's past alien themed mazes ie. Alien Encounter. But it was in 3D. The first time through this new for 2008 maze left something to be desired but the second time, with 3D glasses, WOW. The talent did a great job whith what they had and with the glasses on it made a lot more sence as to what they were doing and made there
Scariness: 5 with out glasses 8.5 with glasses
Visual Theme: 3 with out glasses 9 with glasses
Sound: 8
Talent: 9
Overall: 8.75
Quarantine: The 2008 movie maze was stunningly beautiful but it came down to this. The maze felt like a Universal HHN maze. This is not a bad thing per say. The entire maze looked gorgous and felt authintic, the talent played there roles perfectly. But there was just the feeling that you were walking through a horror movie and you knew how it would end.
Scariness: 6 (maybe a bit creepy but seemed campy horror to me)
Visual Theme: 10.5
Sound: 9
Talent: 8
Overall: 8
Lost Vegas: Well, it has its humor but I never have cared for it too much, I think The Girl liked it more than I. It just seemes to meh. That and I get the "Viva Las Vegas" song stuck in my head.
Scariness: 6
Visual Theme: 5 with out glasses 6 with glasses
Sound: 7 (now i have the song stuck in my head just thinking about the maze)
Talent: 7
Overall: 6
Killer Clown College: With glasses, with out glasses, it is just total fun. The sound track is just twisted fun. The art design is just twisted fun. The talent is just twisted.
Scariness: Scary...? I think so, if I was not having so much twisted fun.
Visual Theme: 9.9 (there is some blah spots)
Sound: 10 (such a great sound track)
Talent: 10
Overall: (2 x pi) + 3
Club Blood: First time through was ok second time with less people, wow. This maze is new and is located in the second warehouse behind the Asylum. To get to it you have to go through the Asylum. The fist 1/3 involves waking through the back steets of some city (the props were from the old Kingdom of the Dinosaurs intro) from there you enter Club Blood with its standard Vampire rave. Some how you end up in a hospital setting where they are harvsting blood from humans, much like in the last Blade move. Finaly you end up in the materity ward where little deamons are born. Confusing yes, fun yes, modern vampires yes.
Scariness: 7.75 (it has moments)
Visual Theme: 10 (detailed and all but felt random)
Sound: 8
Talent: 9
Overall: 8.75
Asylum: The last year for this maze and the tallent went full bore! Creepy and disorentating. This maze can not be comfortably done after Labyrinth. :-P the maze has so much chaos (the good kind) that puts you into a panic state nervous at every movement.
Scariness: 9
Visual Theme: 9
Sound: 8
Talent: 9
Overall: 9
The Doll Factory: Still creepy in every way. The sets are unnerving and so is the tallent.
Scariness: 9.5
Visual Theme: 9.5
Sound: 9.75
Talent: 10
Overall: 9.75
Black Widows Cavern: The mine ride is a hard one to scare people on, but this years talent got it right.
Scariness: 7
Visual Theme: 7 (it's a hard one to do right)
Sound: 8
Talent: 9
Overall: 8.75
Pyromanics: Everyone sing along "...were pyromainiacs, we are crazy to the max..." Oh wait that Animaniacs... oops. The themeing is minimal but at least the talent has got it down.
Scariness: 8 (they get so good scares in as you go zooming by)
Visual Theme: 3
Sound: 6 (metal for this one too?)
Talent: 9.5
Overall: 8.75
13 Axe Murder Mannor: Last year for this one too. The mannor is getting old and is starting to show its age (is that a bad thing). Well it is time for something new but the tallent was not giving up with out a fight! Way to go at making the maze still creepy and cookie. if only the second half was ever any good.
Scariness: 7.75
Visual Theme: first half 10 second half 3
Sound: 8
Talent: 9
Overall: 8.75
Well that was Knott's in a nutshell.
Sunday was a quick trip over to Disneyland and DCA to get a ride in on Midway Maina and the House of the Future before Hanna Montana turned 16 and took over the park.
Today is monday and I am beat.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Last week I purchased an EeePC 900Xp. This is a sub-notebook (maybe, though I would not call it, a Ultra Mobile PC, UMPC for short) made by Asus. The 900Xp features a 900MHz intel centrino processor (I know, AMD rocks but I did not get an AMD system!) 1Gb of ram and a 12Gb SSD (Solid State Drive, think hard drive) and shipped with Windows Xp. Though these are not the greatest specs but for the price, just over $500 USD, in a package no larger than a hard bound book who is going to complain. My concerns, which are the reason for this entry, was the ability to use MasterCam on the Eee. Would these lower specs be able to run such a complex program? How about Vegas, the video editor?
Yes and Yes!
First I installed Vegas, one thing to note the Eee does not have a CD or DVD drive, these drives have to be plugged in via the USB ports. Not having an external drive at the time avaiable I took the following approach.
1. On another system, a desktop in my case, I made an ISO image of the Sony Vegas install CD and copied it onto my USB thumb drive. Once copied I plugged the USB drive into the Eee
2. A program I really like is called Daemon Tools It allows you to "mount" an ISO image as a local drive.f
3. Using Daemon tools (dowloaded and installed on the Eee) to mount the ISO of the Vegas Install CD, as soon as I said OK the auto run on the "Virtual CD" kicked in and the install went smoothly.
Note. Due to the limited SSD space of the Eee you may find it advantages to install to an external hard drive or SD card. In the situation of Vegas I installed it onto the same portable external hard drive that I keep the raw video that I will be editing in Vegas. The concern about this process slowing down the entire system or just Vegas is nominal.
For MasterCam Version 9.1 I did the exact same process as above with the exception of, just for novilty sake, I installed it to an SDHC card. Honestly I can say that the Eee runs MasterCam better than many "low end" Desk Top PC's and even many "Mid range" PC's that cost twice as much.
Side note. The Eee has a native screen resoultion of 1024 X 600, it's a wide screen. The standard for most users of MasterCam or Vegas are 1024 X 768 or higher. The Eee has VGA output that does support the 1024 X 768 resoluton. Inside MasterCam there is little to no adjusting needed to see everything, vegas on the other hand does feel a bit cramped and the video preview is just a little postage stamp unless you pull it off. Oh well, that is the sacrifice that you make for extreme portability.
Now about MasterCam X2 MR2...
This was a true bugger to install and in the process I learned a lot about the Windows operating system.
Note! you will need a lot of free space on the C:\ drive. I acutally had to remove some of the larger programs on the C drive just to install MCamX, I did put them back after I was done. It was because of this need to have some space that I learned about windows internals. One is that the Fonts folder, more so after installing Vegas, is huge.
Side Note 1. Did you know that you do not have to have a font for installed for windows to use it? That's right. To use a fontv(not installed, consider you just downloaded it) in an applicaton, preview the font by doubble clicking on it. While the preview window is open you can use that font in your application.
So I grabbed a big bunch of the fonts I knew I would not use every day and placed them in a folder on the D:\ drive where I had space. Another space killer is the folder C:\windows\Downloaded Instalations. This folder is where Windows keeps the entire instalation files for incomplete installations. The other is the folder where all the windows updates are kept, EVEN AFTER they were installed! Why? the folder is c:\windows\installer. Oy!
Side Note 2. When a program is installed usualy it is extracted to the system temp directory which is usualy in the root hard drive ie. C:\. In the case of MasterCam X there was not enough room to complete the installation once it had completed the extraction. Easy fix, right click on the My Computer Icon on the desktop and select properties. the system properties dialog will open up and you will want to select the tab that labled "advanced". At the bottom of the window there is a button labled "enviroment Variables" click it. At the top there is the display of where the TMP and TEMP variables point to, for the install just change them to somewhere with a Whole lot of room, like an external drive of a 4Gb SD card.
Once you have everything with plenty of space the install should go as normal, I used the .EXE for MCamX off the Mastercam website and just copied it over to my external hard drive. To note though is that I made serveral attempts to install MCamX to either SSD partition and to the SD card and all failed. The only place I was able to install to was my external HD, go figure.
BTW the system is now a dual boot of Ubuntu for the Eee. This install was way too easy and did not involve any partitioning or the not. This time around I decided to install Ubuntu from inside of windows. Honestly I used the tequniques above to accomplish this goal. First I dowloaded Ubuntu for the Eee ISO image. Mounted it using daemon tools. When the auto run pops up it asks if you would like to do a Windows Install. By selecting this option Ubuntu will install into a folder of your choice, in my case onto an SDHC card, and will use the MS boot loader to load into grub/Ubuntu. If you decide that you do not want Ubuntu on you PC any more then it is uninstallable via the Add/Remove programs inside the widows control panel.
The nice thing about using Daemon Tools to install software (or in this case also Ubuntu) is that it is "Green" because you are not using a CD-R or DVD-R once and then disposing of it like an old AOL disk.
Yes and Yes!
First I installed Vegas, one thing to note the Eee does not have a CD or DVD drive, these drives have to be plugged in via the USB ports. Not having an external drive at the time avaiable I took the following approach.
1. On another system, a desktop in my case, I made an ISO image of the Sony Vegas install CD and copied it onto my USB thumb drive. Once copied I plugged the USB drive into the Eee
2. A program I really like is called Daemon Tools It allows you to "mount" an ISO image as a local drive.f
3. Using Daemon tools (dowloaded and installed on the Eee) to mount the ISO of the Vegas Install CD, as soon as I said OK the auto run on the "Virtual CD" kicked in and the install went smoothly.
Note. Due to the limited SSD space of the Eee you may find it advantages to install to an external hard drive or SD card. In the situation of Vegas I installed it onto the same portable external hard drive that I keep the raw video that I will be editing in Vegas. The concern about this process slowing down the entire system or just Vegas is nominal.
For MasterCam Version 9.1 I did the exact same process as above with the exception of, just for novilty sake, I installed it to an SDHC card. Honestly I can say that the Eee runs MasterCam better than many "low end" Desk Top PC's and even many "Mid range" PC's that cost twice as much.
Side note. The Eee has a native screen resoultion of 1024 X 600, it's a wide screen. The standard for most users of MasterCam or Vegas are 1024 X 768 or higher. The Eee has VGA output that does support the 1024 X 768 resoluton. Inside MasterCam there is little to no adjusting needed to see everything, vegas on the other hand does feel a bit cramped and the video preview is just a little postage stamp unless you pull it off. Oh well, that is the sacrifice that you make for extreme portability.
Now about MasterCam X2 MR2...
This was a true bugger to install and in the process I learned a lot about the Windows operating system.
Note! you will need a lot of free space on the C:\ drive. I acutally had to remove some of the larger programs on the C drive just to install MCamX, I did put them back after I was done. It was because of this need to have some space that I learned about windows internals. One is that the Fonts folder, more so after installing Vegas, is huge.
Side Note 1. Did you know that you do not have to have a font for installed for windows to use it? That's right. To use a fontv(not installed, consider you just downloaded it) in an applicaton, preview the font by doubble clicking on it. While the preview window is open you can use that font in your application.
So I grabbed a big bunch of the fonts I knew I would not use every day and placed them in a folder on the D:\ drive where I had space. Another space killer is the folder C:\windows\Downloaded Instalations. This folder is where Windows keeps the entire instalation files for incomplete installations. The other is the folder where all the windows updates are kept, EVEN AFTER they were installed! Why? the folder is c:\windows\installer. Oy!
Side Note 2. When a program is installed usualy it is extracted to the system temp directory which is usualy in the root hard drive ie. C:\. In the case of MasterCam X there was not enough room to complete the installation once it had completed the extraction. Easy fix, right click on the My Computer Icon on the desktop and select properties. the system properties dialog will open up and you will want to select the tab that labled "advanced". At the bottom of the window there is a button labled "enviroment Variables" click it. At the top there is the display of where the TMP and TEMP variables point to, for the install just change them to somewhere with a Whole lot of room, like an external drive of a 4Gb SD card.
Once you have everything with plenty of space the install should go as normal, I used the .EXE for MCamX off the Mastercam website and just copied it over to my external hard drive. To note though is that I made serveral attempts to install MCamX to either SSD partition and to the SD card and all failed. The only place I was able to install to was my external HD, go figure.
BTW the system is now a dual boot of Ubuntu for the Eee. This install was way too easy and did not involve any partitioning or the not. This time around I decided to install Ubuntu from inside of windows. Honestly I used the tequniques above to accomplish this goal. First I dowloaded Ubuntu for the Eee ISO image. Mounted it using daemon tools. When the auto run pops up it asks if you would like to do a Windows Install. By selecting this option Ubuntu will install into a folder of your choice, in my case onto an SDHC card, and will use the MS boot loader to load into grub/Ubuntu. If you decide that you do not want Ubuntu on you PC any more then it is uninstallable via the Add/Remove programs inside the widows control panel.
The nice thing about using Daemon Tools to install software (or in this case also Ubuntu) is that it is "Green" because you are not using a CD-R or DVD-R once and then disposing of it like an old AOL disk.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
Summer fun!
Saturday the girl and I decided to take a jaunt over to Disneyland for the sole purpose of Dancing. For those who do not know, every Saturday night in Disneyland at the Carnation Gardens they have a live swing band playing all the classic big band swing hits. We will come back to this later.
The reason for the photo is, when we got to the resort, the girl had not seen Aladin and hearing that it's days were nearing an end and we had some time to kill before the band started playing I would take her to the show. While queing for the show this very nicely kimono attired cupple passed by in the next section of the queue at which point I snaped this picture. The girl and I were determined that after the show we would go up to them and ask if we could get a picture of/with them. Wouldn't you know it when the show let out they were long gone. Oh well... Sill having some time we went to my favorite Disneyland Resort restraunt Tortillia Jo's, ate our food, went to the car to get our dance shoes and night attire and headed to Disneyland park. As we approached the turnstiles to our suprise was the same Japanese couple that we had seen earlier just entering the gate. We rushed right in and got our pictures with them, had a nice little chat and had a warm international feeling afterward. I just wish to say a thank you to them for just being so cool!
Back to the dancing. The saturday night swing dancing has been a staple of Disneyland since 1955. All sorts come to dance here, everything from turists that know how to dance (or not) to regulars that come every Saturday. Some of the regulars even come in full attire of the time. Zuit Suited and all. If at Disneyland on a Saturday night take 30 minuets and watch a set, it is great fun. The girl and I had a great time dancing, even though we were the only two east coat swingers there, everybody else was west coast swing we did pick up some good moves but nothing beats a good series of arch turns into sneeky peet and a skin or to back in to a closed posisition or a cuddle. :-) As a side we also felt that a waltz was needed just for fun measure, even though we were dancing it after the music had ended and everyone was leaving. Cinderelia and Prince Charming had nothing on the two of us!
Saturday the girl and I decided to take a jaunt over to Disneyland for the sole purpose of Dancing. For those who do not know, every Saturday night in Disneyland at the Carnation Gardens they have a live swing band playing all the classic big band swing hits. We will come back to this later.
The reason for the photo is, when we got to the resort, the girl had not seen Aladin and hearing that it's days were nearing an end and we had some time to kill before the band started playing I would take her to the show. While queing for the show this very nicely kimono attired cupple passed by in the next section of the queue at which point I snaped this picture. The girl and I were determined that after the show we would go up to them and ask if we could get a picture of/with them. Wouldn't you know it when the show let out they were long gone. Oh well... Sill having some time we went to my favorite Disneyland Resort restraunt Tortillia Jo's, ate our food, went to the car to get our dance shoes and night attire and headed to Disneyland park. As we approached the turnstiles to our suprise was the same Japanese couple that we had seen earlier just entering the gate. We rushed right in and got our pictures with them, had a nice little chat and had a warm international feeling afterward. I just wish to say a thank you to them for just being so cool!
Back to the dancing. The saturday night swing dancing has been a staple of Disneyland since 1955. All sorts come to dance here, everything from turists that know how to dance (or not) to regulars that come every Saturday. Some of the regulars even come in full attire of the time. Zuit Suited and all. If at Disneyland on a Saturday night take 30 minuets and watch a set, it is great fun. The girl and I had a great time dancing, even though we were the only two east coat swingers there, everybody else was west coast swing we did pick up some good moves but nothing beats a good series of arch turns into sneeky peet and a skin or to back in to a closed posisition or a cuddle. :-) As a side we also felt that a waltz was needed just for fun measure, even though we were dancing it after the music had ended and everyone was leaving. Cinderelia and Prince Charming had nothing on the two of us!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
For those who do not know there is a great website for watching TV shows and movies call Hulu. I have been visiting this site since it was in it's private earily beta mode. The reason I am mentioning it now is because they have just added the first season of Jackie Chan Adventures to their very large libary of shows. The JCA shows can be found here http://www.hulu.com/jackie-chan-adventures Hulu has other great series such as Firefly, American Dad, American Gothic and many more. What seperates Hulu from other video sites is the ability to offer many of their TV shows and Movies in 480p (high res) quality.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Eek, that summer weather is... well... HOT!
Ride Review Time:
Recently the Disneyland Resort added an all new attraction to the Disney's California Adventure park, Toy Story Midway Mania (not to be confused with Florida's Toy Story Mania, only difference is queue, a bit longer track, and the name). This last weekend the girl and I took a trek to the park to experience the ride. One word, addictive! Seriously this ride is highly addictive. I honestly think that this is got to be the future of all solid "D" ticket rides. The 3D effects were very well done and thankfully lacking the "Cheesy 3D Ticks" that many 3D movies resort to. One aspect of the ride that I have seen lacking in other peoples reviews is the fact that the Spinning of the ride vehicles is rather thrilling (not extreme) in a family fun way.
As many people have pointed out the facade is brilliant, the Victorian theme so loved on Main Street USA caries over wonderfully over on the Pier and will offer a great backdrop to the Wonderful World of Color show that will be seen in 18 months. <- it has been reported that we can expect to see new (major) additions coming to DCA in a schedule of aprox 18 month gaps.
I have to say that this is the first new thing to come to the DLR since TOT that I feel is in the quality of themeing of Tokyo DisneySEAs' attractions and full family fun factor of well... 20,000 leagues at DisneySEA.
Ride Review Time:
Recently the Disneyland Resort added an all new attraction to the Disney's California Adventure park, Toy Story Midway Mania (not to be confused with Florida's Toy Story Mania, only difference is queue, a bit longer track, and the name). This last weekend the girl and I took a trek to the park to experience the ride. One word, addictive! Seriously this ride is highly addictive. I honestly think that this is got to be the future of all solid "D" ticket rides. The 3D effects were very well done and thankfully lacking the "Cheesy 3D Ticks" that many 3D movies resort to. One aspect of the ride that I have seen lacking in other peoples reviews is the fact that the Spinning of the ride vehicles is rather thrilling (not extreme) in a family fun way.
As many people have pointed out the facade is brilliant, the Victorian theme so loved on Main Street USA caries over wonderfully over on the Pier and will offer a great backdrop to the Wonderful World of Color show that will be seen in 18 months. <- it has been reported that we can expect to see new (major) additions coming to DCA in a schedule of aprox 18 month gaps.
I have to say that this is the first new thing to come to the DLR since TOT that I feel is in the quality of themeing of Tokyo DisneySEAs' attractions and full family fun factor of well... 20,000 leagues at DisneySEA.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Back in November I purchased an additional external USB hard drive, over the weekend it decided to start just randomly dropping off line. Silly me, it was not backed up and fearing that I was going to loose many (very many) files (and memories) I tried to back it up... too late, the hard drive would not stay on line for more than 5 seconds before dropping off for a minute or two. Solution! I had heard the forum rumors of putting a hard drive in the freezer and then it would work for awhile. I tried this and it worked for a little while but not long enough to collect my files off of it. The next step was only logical. put the hard drive in the freezer... plugged in! That is correct, after letting the drive chill for a few minuets, I plugged it in closed the door and copied 360GB of data flawlessly.
On a side note, two weekends back the girl and I went up to Las Vegas to watch the Cirque do Soleil show "O". This is by far the most beautiful theater and show known to the modern man. If ever in Las Vegas and can afford, a better use of money than a slot machine or card game, go see "O" and as always I also highly recommend Mystere.
On a side note, two weekends back the girl and I went up to Las Vegas to watch the Cirque do Soleil show "O". This is by far the most beautiful theater and show known to the modern man. If ever in Las Vegas and can afford, a better use of money than a slot machine or card game, go see "O" and as always I also highly recommend Mystere.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
I know I already have a compact desktop CNC mill but I want this one
For most of us machinist at this size it is not the most practical machine, low horse power and light weight for machining stuff of that size, but either smaller (ability to crawl into for example electronic cases and machine out silicon or plastics) or larger (offering the capability to move to a remote location where the item can not be brought to a machine shop).
for people that are interested the company that made this is Micro Magic Systems. They also make many of the animatronic characters seen in big budget films such as Harry Potter.
Thanks Dave for sending me this.
For most of us machinist at this size it is not the most practical machine, low horse power and light weight for machining stuff of that size, but either smaller (ability to crawl into for example electronic cases and machine out silicon or plastics) or larger (offering the capability to move to a remote location where the item can not be brought to a machine shop).
for people that are interested the company that made this is Micro Magic Systems. They also make many of the animatronic characters seen in big budget films such as Harry Potter.
Thanks Dave for sending me this.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Yea, I know it has been a while... well we have been rather busy.
Even though the girl and I have been out and very about I have neglected to post any themepark reviews, trip reports or tech tips. Sorry :-P
As a side note, Ubuntu seriously rocks. I knew that they had the philosophy that it should "just work"... well a lot of things say that and it is not always true. Ubuntu really does! Even on the odd hardware that I have been using it works flawlessly. On one of my systems I have a very odd USB based WiFi receiver that is barely supported by windows (no 95, 98, 2000 or vista support only XP?!?) this system I could never run Linux on because of the lack of network connectivity, Ubuntu saw the hardware and asked if I would like to connect to the network through it!
The other thing I wanted to do is mention how this article http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/odd_lighthouse_located got me remembering how much I love this song/movie. Pete's Dragon is just such a wonderful piece of Disney heritage that should be enjoyed for all generations.
Even though the girl and I have been out and very about I have neglected to post any themepark reviews, trip reports or tech tips. Sorry :-P
As a side note, Ubuntu seriously rocks. I knew that they had the philosophy that it should "just work"... well a lot of things say that and it is not always true. Ubuntu really does! Even on the odd hardware that I have been using it works flawlessly. On one of my systems I have a very odd USB based WiFi receiver that is barely supported by windows (no 95, 98, 2000 or vista support only XP?!?) this system I could never run Linux on because of the lack of network connectivity, Ubuntu saw the hardware and asked if I would like to connect to the network through it!
The other thing I wanted to do is mention how this article http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/odd
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Superman: Doomsday
If you are a fan of both the classic 1940's and the 1990's Superman Cartoons this is a must see. An added bonus is the addition of little nods to both series throughout the movie including one of the Mechanical Monsters all the way up to Brainiac 1.0 skull and other "memoribillia". My only complaint is that at times Superman looks like he has a Mullet.
If you are a fan of both the classic 1940's and the 1990's Superman Cartoons this is a must see. An added bonus is the addition of little nods to both series throughout the movie including one of the Mechanical Monsters all the way up to Brainiac 1.0 skull and other "memoribillia". My only complaint is that at times Superman looks like he has a Mullet.
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