Seize Orlando Bloom's Sword

I happen to know that Mean Mr. Mustard's wife thinks Orlando Bloom is dreamy. I'm pretty sure that means he should Seize A Sword Signed by Orlando! If it's not phallic enough for Orlando to be auctioning off toy swords, there's special attention given to the fact that they've been subjected to his John Hancock.

You can click here to bid, Mr. Mustard. Make sure your bid is the highest of the two, because there's a definite qualitative difference between the swords, and only the high bid gets first pick:

On one sword, he writes: "Peace and Love in the Kingdom of Heaven. Orlando Bloom." Written on the second sword: "Peace in the Kingdom of Heaven."

Orlando 2013 - Part I, Things That Don't Fit

My in-laws were super nice and put us and my sister-in-law's family up in Hilton resort in Orlando using their Hilton points.  I say super nice because they didn't have us share a set of rooms.  It was a nice place and came with a stove, a fold out couch for Eryn, a huge whirlpool in additional to the shower, and a washer and dryer.

Eryn's favorite features: the multiple swimming pools she stayed in until 11:00 p.m. most nights and the ducks she fed bread and Cheerios to each morning, although the ducks were usually chased a way after a few minutes by very large leathery turtles.  My favorite feature: the onsite coffee shop where I could have an Americano, a waffle with bacon if I wanted, and hang out for the 2-3 hours before my family woke up reading my book, doing email, and reading the paper.  I got a lot read.

I don't know what my wife's favorite part was.  Probably the whirlpool and the fact that she got the bed to herself for several hours when I went to the coffee shop.

Unlike last time we went to Orlando, where I optimized for a trip to Universal Studios and some traveling to Blue Springs and Cape Canaveral, making sure we had a shuttle and easy access to a rental car on a day-by-day basis, this time we were between Disney and Universal, so we did both.  Oof.  Five days of parks is a little bit too much parking for me.  And the shuttle service wasn't very good.  One day they were servicing the first guy in line so long everyone else missed the shuttle (a nice driver found as an alternative), one day they overbooked and didn't have space for us on the return shuttle so we had to wait for a replacement vehicle, and another day the guy at the front of the van was plenty cool, so he turned off the a/c.  Maybe a rental car would have been better, but we try to avoid the trouble (and cost) of parking when we can.

The one day we weren't parking we went to Cocoa beach where I learned that "just an hour" isn't really something you can say about the safety of your pale white farmer tan skin in the Atlantic Ocean.  I started peeling last night for the first time in over ten years.  For a while, I was worried my burn was pretty deep.  I can still feel it deeper in my skin after a week.

These are the various pictures that didn't happen in an amusement park.

Hip Hop Ming.  This guy who was on our flight looked a lot like Ming, except he  had tats, long shorts, and that You Only Got Video Game shirt.


There was a woman at the airport who had Japanese Kit Kats.  I remarked on them and at the baggage pick up she gave Jen one of them (two Kit Kat sticks each!).  They were delicious.  Green Tea Kit Kats are better than regular Kit Kats.


The guys who couldn't manage their shuttle service were trying to convince my wife that we should attend a sales pitch to buy a time share so we could go to this fabulous Medieval Times-type show.  Even Eryn was unswayed by the promise of experiencing their magical unicorn.


Where we stayed.  We were way down there on the end.  Where the lightning hit during the storm.  The big pool, coffee shop, and grocery store are towards where I'm standing in this picture.


What it looked like in my dreams when I went all Inception.  I was surprised to see this in my photos.  I think it was a panoramic shot gone wrong.


Speaking of which...panorama.  You can see a lot of clouds in the photo.  It rained every day we were there I think.  Never for long.  But at least three separate days I ended up taking a hair dryer to the inside of my shoes so I wasn't sloshing around the next morning.  The weather in Florida, when you looked at the radar, always showed dozens of little storms traipsing across the state.


The coffee shop, where they knew I was Mr. Americano by the end of the week.  Eryn would hang out with me there after feeding the ducks because she was generally assured some sort of blended iced coffee drink to get her good and ready to face the amusement parks.  That's her Kaiju Hunter shirt from Pacific Rim.  She received many compliments from park staff on her extensive collection of Doctor Who t-shirts.  She definitely has the in-the-know geek girl vibe.

Shingles

So about every three or four minutes, it feels like someone is shoving a knife blade under the ribs on my left side.  On the plane ride back from Orlando, I had this pain in my left shoulder.  I thought I'd done something stupid like pull a muscle while swimming at Blue Springs.  The next morning, a spot on my chest hurt, sort of where the ribs run into the sternum.  Picture an imaginary bullet shot by a little person.  In one side, out the other.  I poked around on line and thought, it's probably just where the muscle in my back attaches in the front.  Then I got a very light rash on my abdomen.  I'd had hives in Orlando due to something I was allergic to in the water at the amusement park, and it seemed like this was just a recurrence.  Then it started to really hurt.  So I was back to see Jennifer at urgent care in Eagan for the second time in two weeks.  Shingles.  Damn it.  They put me on an anti viral.  My mother recommended lysine as well.  And now I can expect 3-5 weeks of tender skin and sharp pains.  It's not keeping me from doing anything, but it sure is a distraction at work.  On a positive note, after taking the lysine, I seem strangely energized and  like my old self.  I'm interested to see if that's consistent and whether the shingles are the result of some sort of imbalance.  Hopefully, between the dog bite, the splinter so deep in my palm it wouldn't come out, the shingles, and the allergy to the water, and...I think there was one other malfunction in there somewhere...I should be done for a while.

Orlando - Jebediah Springfield

I'm still uploading and naming photos and videos.  I thought there would be almost nothing because we were at Orlando two years ago, so I should have photographed everything worth photographing.  And I should have had a reasonable amount of work to catch up on because I was mostly caught up on my laptop and phone.  Never seems to work that way.  We did a day at Universal Islands of Adventure, a day at Universal Studios, a day at Magic Kingdom, a day at Epcot, a day at Disney Animal Kingdom, and a day at Cocoa Beach and in the pool and engaging in karaoke (Eryn, not me).

I'll get some details out here starting in the next day, but in the meantime, something to keep my thread alive.  At Universal Studios, they've expanded the Simpsons area.  Here's my favorite picture of my wife and I at the park hanging out with Jebediah Springfield.

The Wild Dreidel

My friend Klund has some advice for Mean Mr. Mustard about blogging, but I think Elise at After School Snack's posting about a Christian theme park and how to abuse your tax-exempt status should concern him more, as I'm sure they'll target his daughter with free tickets in order to get to him. I'm having a difficult time imagining what sorts of rides would convince you that Christianity was better than being Jewish, or do they just push you through guilt-themed funhouses? And now that I've considered that, I'm picturing a Jewish theme park with maybe a "Wild Dreidel" ride, and klezmer music pumping in the background... Maybe they need such a park in order to draw business away from this one.

"ORLANDO, Fla. -- A Florida judge has ruled in favor of a Christian theme park seeking an exemption from property taxes. The Holy Land Experience in Orlando is operated by a nonprofit, nondenominational Christian ministry called Zion's Hope, which is devoted to converting Jews to Christianity. It had been granted only limited exemptions for administrative and education facilities. The Orange County Property Appraiser's office had denied the group's broader request in 2001, arguing the park was a tourist attraction rather than a church. But Judge Cynthia MacKinnon said all of the park is tax-exempt.In her ruling, the judge said Zion's Hope is using The Holy Land Experience "to spread what it considers to be God's word." The park features scenes from ancient Jerusalem and biblical settings complete with costumed characters. The $16 million, 15-acre park opened in 2001."

Orlando 2013 - Epcot

Let's see, where were we.  Snap?  No.  Hypnotoad? No.  I'll get to those later.  Those are Animal Kingdom stories.  One of our five days of amusement-park driven fun at Orlando was at Epcot.  The last time I was at Epcot was in 1988.  25 years ago.  It was approximately five years old at that point.  Start making those sorts of timeline assessments and you begin to feel very old.  There are starting to be a lot of things I did a quarter of a century ago.

Strangely, we went to Captain EO, which even had it been there 25 years ago, I would have skipped.  And we missed Soarin', primarily because of the lines.  My wife wishes we had missed the Mission to Mars ride.  She came out of it looking like she was going to hurl and then started walking around like a drunk and was uncommunicative.  When she was responsive, it was nonsense.  She wouldn't stop trying to walk out of the area, and I finally had to stop her until she came back to her right mind.  Explains why I'm the designated parent when it comes to most high stress rides like roller coasters.

Eryn and Mom in front of Spaceship Earth.  Eryn loved the ride.  I'm now too old to love sanitized versions.  I wish there was an alternate time to go where they did the dystopic Spaceship Earth and showed wars and the awful futures that are possible.  Makes sense to me to engrain kids with hope.  But the cheerfulness in contrast with reality wears me out.


Eryn liked the video games at the end of Spaceship Earth.


This is a strange picture because it was pouring somewhere around this time.  I was so impressed with myself for staying dry, and then Eryn needed a bathroom and, by the time we were done, I had soggy dogs.  I remember this area from my teenage years.  It was the one that most impressed me.  Probably because as a kid I hadn't seen much of the world to compare it against.  I prefer real bike trails and museums to replicas.  We ate pizza right here.  It wasn't very good pizza for $30.  I didn't do the research I often do before we went on vacation this time, so my ability to render good judgments about dining and touring alternatives was restricted.  So there's no one to blame but myself.


In the Japan area.  I'm not sure why anyone would want to dress like Pedobear.  Creepy.


And almost as creepy.  Although if your girlfriend showed up in the footies (sans feet), you'd know to run.  That robe next to it might be a more complex issue.  Is she crazy, or does she do Midnight Martini style Hello Kitty themed burlesque dances as a hobby that you might learn to appreciate?


Eryn was off perusing the flavored sodas that you can only buy a subset of at our Cub.  I was checking out the tanukis.  Large-testicled racoon dogs with their own song.  I think Epcot should have a tanuki mascot for the Japan area.


This was one of the few things I was tempted to buy during the whole vacation.  Chopstick rests seem like a pretty cool gift, and the variety isn't as good on Amazon.  You can order them at EverythingChopsticks.  So there's a better opportunity to find chopstick rests than the large Lard Lad mug I missed out on at Universal.


It's not blue!!!  Eryn was disappointed it wasn't TARDIS colored.  But happy to get her picture in a booth.  It was still raining when we went past the British area, so it kept her out of the rain.  I looked for a match to her old English soccer jersey and couldn't find one.  Disappointing.  You can find one on line, but they come with corporate logos on them which is crazy for an $80 jersey.  She didn't call anyone, although I believe these are working phones.


My last picture of the day.  I didn't bother to take photos inside the design your own car ride or the Mission to Mars.  I should have snapped a picture of my wife looking ill.  I believe this is Canada.  We walked back into the tour area and the waterfall, coupled with the rain, made it so humid it was difficult to breathe.  But we look cheery here.  Eryn loved the park.  It was all new for her, so lots to enjoy.

Orlando 2013 - Universal Studios (The Islands of Adventures Side)

Aha! Only two days of vacation left, and then I can get around to the State Fair.  If my pace keeps up, soon I will have a blog dedicated to things I did last quarter.  Very timely.

As we were at Islands of Adventure only two years ago, most of my photos are less happy family vacation photos and more how-do-I-amuse-myself photos.  Here's an exception.  The spires of the Harry Potter area.  The Hogwart's ride still made me somewhat ill, but overall I fared much better on the roller coasters than last time.  Which was good, because the lines weren't particularly longer.  A minute or two extra wait, but it was a quick trip to anywhere but the front of the dragon coasters.  And whatever old guy inner ear issue most of us develop at this stage of our lives that I was partially getting last time is gone.  A consistent application of roller coasters seems to be a viable cure, at least in my case.

My wife is in this photo.  I'm not sure it's possible to get a good photo on the bridge given the number of tourists that like to pose there.  I always want to just get off the bridge right away.  I'm not afraid it will fail under the weight.  I just don't like that crush of people.  Maybe it triggers my anti-zombie situation reflexes.  You don't want to be stuck in a group that large if one person goes undead.


We didn't make Eryn ride the Seuss Carousel (Seussousel?) this time because she's so cranky about being made to ride it last time.  But on the way out I did pose with one of the locals.


A second picture where I'm riding sidecar instead of behind him.  I can't keep him dry in the sidecar.


I'll confess, I'm not really spitting water.  It just looks like it.


At the Jurassic Park area.  The bronto is trying to eat what little hair I have left.  He's a hairosaurus, as opposed to a meatosaurus or a plantosaurus.  Eryn liked reliving her memories from last time at the dinosaur center.  There are times it's very obvious she wants to feel like she did during a particular event in her life, and checking out the eggs at the dinosaur center is a good example.  She was also keen to relieve the squirting of riders at the cartoon/water area that was next, but due to rain, many of the rides were closed down or not being ridden, and when we were on Popeye's boat, they shooed us off.  It looked suspiciously like a search for a reported package.  Lots of security.


I find the dichotomy of Spidey being Mommy's Angel amusing.  He's really more of an Aunty's Angel.


And this one is just labeled wrong.  That's not Jesus!


Just a nice picture.  No humor to be seen here.  Move along.


Also not humorous, but my panorama function captured a great picture of Hogwart's and Hagrid's roller coaster.  I wish someone had been going overhead on the tracks as I'd rotated that direction.
[Panoramic view]
 

Mommy's Angel riding his motorcycle.  This isn't exciting unless you're really into superheroes, but it reminds me of the Hulk roller coaster and Doctor Doom's drop nearby that Eryn and I rode while my wife hid from all the rain in the shops.  Doctor Doom's drop was pretty wild.  I think the Valleyfair Tower of Power has more variety, but Doom's Tower certainly threw you way up there.  A big smile on Eryn as we shot to the top of the park.

Florida Beer

Orlando was very confusing because they don't sell beer in the liquor store. At least not beer worth drinking. I tried three different stores and came up empty, which led me to my iPad where I verified that there were breweries in the area, which was my recollection. A search revealed that the Whole Foods, about 2/3 of a mile from the hotel, had beer. I walked over there, figuring I'd get some sort of gluten-free nonsense, but lo and behold...beer! Lots of beer. They even had Oskar Blues, which I didn't think was sold outside Colorado. And Whole Foods sold by the can, so I could sit next to the pool and enjoy a variety of yeasty goodness.  Here's a picture of my Whole Foods purchase.  You can imagine my excitement.

2013 Orlando - Disney's Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom was probably my least favorite area of Disney.  It definitely seemed aimed at younger kids.  And it didn't help that it poured for quite a while in the middle of our visit.  My niece and nephew really enjoyed the Everest roller coaster, and the woman next to me on the ride screamed like a mad woman, so it really was toned down.  Eryn perused the ride list looking for anything marked "over x inches" so she could be assured of non-kid rides.  She did enjoy Everest, however and went through the single rider line several times.

I watched a Netflix video about behind the scenes at the park when I got home in order to see what the attraction was that I didn't understand.  It's an amazingly large park when you watch the video, rather than miss half of it due to rain.

Eryn and Mom posing at the tree of life.  We went to A Bug's Life near the end of the day and didn't even realize it was sort of built into the base of the tree.  I'll admit, that was neat, both as a ride/presentation and realizing it was built into the tree (I learned that from the Netflix video).


From the dinosaur area.  Animal Kingdom did have the best food deals out of any of the parks.  Our food was much more edible than elsewhere and came with an endless supply of soda while we sat in the cafeteria.  Definitely a change from all the other parks and a refreshing perk on a very hot and humid day.  Eryn and I went on the single car roller coaster near here that purports to take you back in time to see the dinosaurs (it's a time machine) in a silly way.  As we rolled up the first hill, there's a spinning disk that indicates you're time traveling. The kid in the car with us yelled Hypnotoad! Hypnotoad!  Which would have been funny if he hadn't been non-stop talk for the prior three minutes.  When no one responded he kept yelling Hypnotoad! until he gave up and said, "I'm sure I'm the only one who understands that reference."  Poor dork.  Denied on the roller coaster.  He's like a modern geek Jesus back from the dead.  Before you feel too bad for him, he talked non-stop the entire ride.  He was even annoying Eryn, and her geek tolerance is amazingly high.


The safari ride was open, thankfully, so we got to see all the animals separated by the hidden barriers so they look like they're co-mingling.  I have a limited selection of pictures because while Eryn was in charge and took many photos, there was a family on the ride with us who kept sticking their fingers in all her pictures while pointing at the animals.  More annoying than the pointing was that every time they saw a new animal the dad would say, "Oh, , snap!"  It was funny.  Then annoying.  Then funny.  Then hilarious when we rode through a puddle near the end and he exclaimed, "Oh, water, snap!"  I told my brother in law the story later and he realized they'd met the exact same people during the downpour.  It was the wife in that family who also announced at the start of the ride, when we saw the Okapi, "Look at the cock-ee, look at the cock-pee!"  Probably close enough.

Eryn's picture of a rhino butt.


A giraffe attempting to hide.


Elephants doing something elephant-y.


At the end of the day, trying to stretch everything out because our shuttle wasn't due until 2 hours after the park closed, we went to the Lion King acrobat, circque-de-soleil (I don't care to look up the spelling; hope I'm close), circus, Heart-of-the-Beast type thing.  It reminded me I hate those things on so many levels, including because it's Lion King.  That may be right up there for me comparable to Ming's dislike of Avatar.  Quite a coincidence given the big tree featured at the park and in the movie (Avatar).  Maybe we have a mutual dislike of anything revolving around enormous trees.  It was impressively choreographed, but I was brutally bored.  Give me Our Town over pageantry when it comes to plays any day.  But as I've ended several of these posts, Eryn loved it, and that made me happy.

Orlando 2013 - Universal Studios (Not the Islands of Adventures Side)

We spent two days at Universal.  One at Islands of Adventure.  One on the studio side.  Grandpa and Grandma went with us and rode the roller coasters, the Simpson's ride, the Men in Black ride, the Transformers ride, the movie-making Disaster ride, the Shrek Ride, and more.

They updated the Simpson's area since the last time we'd been there to make it much more like Springfield.  I wonder if they have tap a computer screen and spend digital donuts to expand the place.  Here's my wife with Lard Lad.  I should have bought her a big donut to complete the picture.  There was an oversized Lard Lad mug I was going to get and then passed on, thinking I'd find it at the exit shop.  But apparently it was the only piece of merchandise not sold and resold and resold at all the various stores.  I talked to a guy on the way out about his giant Lard Lad donut and told him about Kyle's nephew's birthday donuts.



Eryn and my wife with Chief Wiggum.  I saw lots of folks pretending to eat his donut and drink his coffee.  I didnt' see anyone pretending to pee on his hydrant.


My wife was a good sport about posing next to Jebediah.


Mmm....Krusty Burger.  I don't know who that guy is or why he's point to the sky.


From the Simpson's ride.  My wife's favorite.  Grandpa and Grandma seemed very amused.  Enough so that Grandma went on the ride again.


In the line for the Simpson's.  Note, yet another Doctor Who related shirt.  A Disney themed one she didn't wear to Disneyworld.


At Moe's.  Barney is in the bar.  A Flaming Moe looks like Kool Aid with dry ice.  One of the workers tried to boot me from our table.  I told his boss on him.  Entirely appropriate as she put us at the table.


The Jaws ride was shut down while they're redoing that area of the park.  But Jaws himself is still hanging from the hook.  I suppose that would be not-Jaws.  The shark they thought was Jaws until people kept getting et.
Panorama


The other side of the park.
Panorama


You can't see it as well in the panorama, but the new ride was the Transformers ride.  It took forever to get through the line, partially because there was a temporary hold up, and partially because there were two spasmodic children running around for over an hour.  It was pretty cool as far as rides go, transitioning between video and mechanical.  Pretty convincing when things slam on the hood of your car and you bounce around.  The Mummy ride is similar, but not as cool.  Last time that one scared Eryn, but this time she was willing to go twice.

And she finally got to ride the Rocket!  That was the roller coaster she missed last time because we went to the Terminator presentation, which was incredibly lame, and the park closed an hour early for a corporate event.  This time she went three or four times.  I was on two of them.  The loud music does a nice job of distracting you from the fact that you're going straight up at the start.


Hipster shot!  I think it was an accident.  Reminds me it was incredibly hot.  I ate my Minion bar - chocolate and banana bits - very quickly to avoid getting chocolate everywhere.  It was pretty tasty for something named a Minion Bar that was based on Despicable Me.  That was probably the only ride we didn't go on that would have been fun, the Despicable Me ride.  The lines never went below 90 minutes. I suspect it's new enough that it gets an extra share of the locals.  Or maybe it gets more kids because of the older kid nature of many of the other rides.

Favorite Moments of 2011

I have three favorite moments from 2011, and they're in order, despite that my family isn't first.  I suspect they'll understand, given that the first one is a.) bicycling and b.) with Ming.

1.) Bike the Border with Ming.
2.) Ride from Colorado to Montana with Grandma and Eryn
3.) Orlando with Jen and Eryn

This is not to say I like vacations with my wife the least, it simply points out that bicycling trumps all.

Welcome to Tranquility

I read quite a spate of graphic novels lately, having been moved by Blair Butler's Fresh Ink on G4 and the A.V. Club's (The Onion's) Comics of Note to check out a few of them that were considered classic or the best of the year. I find them fascinating because they're so much better than what I read as a kid when I could go to the corner store or the flea market, root around in bunch of plastic buckets, and buy one for ten cents, or three for a quarter. Or the ones that I got in the handy three pack at the supermarket checkout lane, where the center comic, the one you couldn't see although you tried to push the other two out of the way without breaking the plastic, was always the crappy one you didn't want - a copy of Little Lulu or Lotta wedged between two Richie Rich comics, or some sort of strange Wonder Twins moral tale tucked between Superman and the JLA. I know - I'm outing myself as something more of a geek then was probably suspected, but you all had your suspicions.

Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus (I refer to Volume 1, there are four) should kill any geek cred, because I'm going to disparage it, despite Jack Kirby being one of the greats of comic history. It's Kirby's life that you're reading when you tackle Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. And Kirby's life is incredibly interesting as he moved from company to company - Marvel, DC - and comic form to comic form over decades and decades of comic history. And the comics in the omnibus are interesting because they're the basis for the DC universe of villains and heroes that are the bedrock of many of their story lines and new television renditions of comics like the Justice League. But the comics themselves...ouch. Over the decades the DC universe, the stories and the art, have evolved - and Kirby's omnibus shows you exactly how much evolution had to happen to get there. The Fourth World stories originate in horrible Jimmy Olsen (Superman's Pal) and The New Newsboy Legion comics, as well as some vile Mister Miracle and Orion comics, the Orion comics so hokey as to feature an incredibly powerful god-like figure in the form of a black man in a motorcycle helmet on snow skis. It's as stupid looking as it sounds. Much of this early stuff is just so hokey and so poorly written it's almost unbearable, particularly trying to get past characters who take turn reitering their names and trying to talk in hipster as Kirby tries to capture being a youth of the time. But as a context for things to come, the collection is fascinating and explains why I was never as excited about comics as a kid as I was when they started to be more in the vein of graphic novels.

As comics evolved, there came slicker fare like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (vol. 1, vol. 2). The art is just so much better. And the writing is more thought out. But overall, I still wouldn't recommend it, despite someone deciding it was worth a movie. There's an immaturity to the series that just doesn't agree with my tastes. Their cleverness and focus isn't in flushing out the literary characters (Captain Nemo, Allan Quartermain, Mr. Hyde, The Invisible Man, Mina the victim of Dracula) but in making the background details encompass as much turn of the century (19th century) scifi/horror literature as possible. War of the Worlds, Island of Dr. Moreau, and on and on and on. At the end of the second volume is a copious almanac - forget that you're reading a comic book, it's all text at this point - tying the characters in the League to every possible supernatural occurence in the real and literary world, including earlier groups of literary characters forming similar leagues (Orlando, Prospero). It's incredibly dense, breaking supernatural locations down by contintent and referring to thousands of imaginary cities, gods and secret societies. On the other hand, when Mr. Hyde eats the invisible man (who may have deserved his eating) and Nemo realizes that the blood that's starting to appear everywhere on and around Hyde belongs to the dead man, I admit I chuckled.

Which brings me to two graphic novels that were particularly good. Maxwell Strangewell looked like a coloring book when I opened it, no color whatsoever - black and white. And at 379 pages, I was wondering what I'd gotten myself into. Fortunately, it turned out to be a considerable evening of fun. Think Men in Black. Cross it, heavily, with Stranger in a Strange Land. Now add a dozen aliens as major players in the story, not just one or two flushed out with the rest doing cameo. Layer on some irreverant humor and you've got the basics. It's a good story - it's Stranger in a Strange Land - it just happens to be in the format of a graphic novel.

And finally, Welcome to Tranquility. Beautiful art. Great story. Campy humor. I called my local shop, "Mind's Eye Comics" (over by Bonfire) as their website said they a copy in stock and they set it aside. I knew when Blair Butler said it was campy humor about a town of aging super heroes and arch villians confronted with a mysterious murder that it would be my cup of tea, ala The Tick. Gail Simone and Neil Googe take what could have been just a good story, and then intersperse it with the characters' histories from when they were still active in crime or crime prevention, some of it revealed via various snippets and news stories. The characters are flushed out and given motivations for almost every thing they do, creating a network of interaction in the past and present. Then they turn those stories on their head to reveal how much of it is propaganda and lies and how it's all falling apart. It reminded me strongly of Watchmen, but leaning toward the fun side instead of the dark side. And how can you go wrong with a villain named "Emo" whose sole evil power is to wear a visor that displays an emoticon conveying his current mood. All by itself, the detail captures so much of what they're trying to say about the decline of heroes and villains in that comic universe.

Kennedy Space Center

Our first full day in Orlando, it was scheduled to rain.  So we made the decision to rent a car (from the lovely, chesty, Welsh redhead at Enterprise Rent a Car, Jess...think Eve Myles, but much cuter, chestier, an no gap tooth).  The hotel we stayed at was only about a third of a mile from the rent a car location, so I just wandered over in the morning.  It made it very easy to have a car only on days we wanted one.  Anyway...I digress in more ways than one.  We assumed Kennedy Space Center would be more rain amenable and drove to the East shore to check it out.

This is Eryn with a fake astronaut.  He's giving her the thumbs up because she passed inspection at the metal detector.  I'm not sure what they were so worried we'd bring into the area.  Perhaps it's because after that checkpoint it was possible to get on a bus and go to the staging and launch areas.  The guard at the metal detector was very nice and gave Eryn a few photos - not prints, photos - of the last shuttle launch.


Eryn - and family - with a real astronaut.  Robert Springer.  He was incredibly enjoyable to listen to for the 30 minutes he spoke about the two missions he'd been on.  One "public" and one military.  He talked about how they reset the astronauts internal clocks for the military mission as those missions tended to launch at 3:00 a.m.  About how excited he was when he was up there and how much time he spent looking out the window.  Shared some of his own photographs from space.  Showed a picture he took of the oil fields burning during the Gulf War as the military had asked the shuttle crew to provide what pictures they could.  He was a great speaker to boot.  I got a signed photo for Greg, who was on my team before the reorg that happened as I was stepping out the door for two weeks of vacation, not knowing Greg had actually worked on Robert Springer's STS-38 military launch as an engineer.

And yes, yes I did wear my Marvin the Martian shirt to the space center.


One more astronaut.  This one was spying on us.  Creepy.  Maybe it's just a knowing look because he's sure we'll go see the Star Trek Live presentation, which ended up involving two Canadians - one of them Vulcan - doing a play about tribbles, time travel, and the last Star Trek movie.  Most peculiar, although it made Eryn very interested in tribbles.  Until now her old Star Trek experience has been limited to knowing that when someone shouts Pon Farr, you should respond, "dunt dunt dun dun dun dun dunnn dunt dunt da daaaaaa...."


Eryn in a Mercury capsule.  She would have been the right size to be an astronaut.


Eryn in another capsule.  This one had more leg room.


And yet another.  We talked about how creepy it probably was being in space in one of these things, particularly wearing a space suit that took up even more of the available room.


Quick cut scene to Pooteewheet and I getting amorous...and...rockets!!!  Hmm....that just seems perverse with seven rockets.


And isn't the rocket in the scene always blasting off, or blowing up on the launch pad?  Maybe adding a fountain to the scene with only one rocket center stage works more effectively?  Probably not - that's not the movie cutaway to symbolize gettin-it-on, that's the movie cutaway to symbolize I drank too much beer and I have to pee.


One more gratuitous rocket picture.


Eryn and I as astronauts.  I'm having more fun than she is.  She was worn out by this time.  She did frame her face better than I did.


In the faux shuttle with real shuttle wheels.  While walking around we passed an Amish couple.  It seems oxymoronic to see Amish folks getting on a shuttle, even a fake one with real wheels.  I'm reminded of The Chive's meme about presenting something totally crazy and then claiming "your argument is invalid." An Amish couple riding the space shuttle.  Your argument is invalid.

This guy creeped me out.  It seems very 2001 A Space Odyssey.  And don't focus on his crotch zipper too much, because that's really the creepiest part.


Eryn in front of a big, big, big engine.  I think this is the Saturn V they have on display.  Nearby, completely overshadowed, is the astronaut van.  I shit you not.  It's a van, with a few leather seats in it, and a sign that says "astronaut van".


The launching pad.  The tracks in the foreground are where the launch vehicle drives the shuttle (drove, although they had a new mobile launch vehicle there to take the new Mars rover to the launch site - I think Eryn just told me it's called Curiosity).  It was great to get out there and see the staging building, the launch pad, and across the water, the Cape Canaveral unmanned and private-public joint venture launch sites.  I can see why so many people would want to be there for a launch.  It has to be exciting.  We also saw a large alligator in the water from the viewing area.


Finally, the constellation ball that floats on water at the main area.  If you push hard enough, you can make it go in a particular direction.  Eryn thought it was exciting that she could move something so large.


I wasn't sure I'd enjoy the Space Center, but meeting an astronaut and the bus ride out to the viewing areas sealed it for me.  Well worth the drive and giving NASA some cash.