Zorac's LiveJournal

Tuesday saw us taking the bus to the Magic Kingdom - twice. Morning and early afternoon were for the "lesser" rides - nothing too serious, and much of it rather twee - but nonetheless enjoyable. Special mentions to The Pirates of the Caribbean (who we’d be seeing more of later in the trip) and the Tigger-bouncing on the Winnie-the-Pooh ride. Mid-afternoon, we headed back to the hotel for a nap and then dinner at the Italian restaurant.

We then returned to the Magic Kingdom to take advantage of the E-ride night - limited capacity opening for another three hours after the park's normal closing (in this case from 11pm to 2am), allowing us to take on the big rides with virtually nothing by the way of queuing. Also, there's the fun of taking on the three mountains in the dark - OK, so Space is always dark, but it certainly added to the fun of Splash and Big Thunder. We also experienced the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter - a nice piece of "less is more" with well placed effects - and darkness. As the rain had delayed it, we also got to see the late night illuminated parade, which was really quite nifty.

Monday was our first day hitting the theme parks, so we made an early start to catch the boat to Disney/MGM studios. Plenty of fun was had, including the Tower of Terror - an excellent plummeting elevator experience, Rock'n'Roller Coaster - indoors, with a standing start and loops, and Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The latter is a highly authentic rendition of the original, albeit with a few twists - the entire audience plays along to decide who gets into the hot seat, and phone-a-friend is replaced by phone-a-complete-stranger. Due to not being first with the fastest finger, neither of us actually made the hot seat, but when the scoreboard came up at the end of the show, I had taken second place and hermorrine tenth - out of an audience of several hundred. Go us!

Later on, we caught the Indiana Jones stunt spectacular - which really was quite impressive (not least for the large moving sets). Dinner was at "Mom's Place" - with the waiters laying down the law: no elbows on the table, no dessert unless you finish your vegetables etc. The kids at the table next to ours were recruited to keep an eye on their elders - and were positively delighting in reporting misplaced elbows and the like to their waiter (goodness knows how long it'll be before their parents can get them to behave at the table again) - poor Grandma was fed some of her unfinished veggies. Oh, and the drinks had electric ice cubes :-)

Another early start so that hermorrine's brother could get us to Midway in time to catch our flight to Orlando. This time, the travel was less problematic and we got to our destination in good time. A friend of hermorrine was picking us up from the airport, along with her husband and two-year-old twin girls. They took us to the Swan and not-a-Dolphin, where we checked in and updated the details on the two other rooms which were on my card (to no avail, it would later transpire - the booking was horribly muddled).

That done, we headed up to the room which would be home for the next eight days - really quite nice, I have to admit - where in due course we got ourselves organised and all headed down to the pool. Hunger being a factor at this point, we went into the Splash Grill to get some lunch - and avoid the rain. By the time we were done eating, the skies had cleared somewhat, but when we went to swim we were told that the pool was closed due to the threat of lightning - something that the two young girls were none too happy about. Ironically, we got the all clear just after it had started to rain again and had decided to call it a day.

hermorrine and I retired to our room to deal with unpacking and the like. Not being in the mood to go out, we got some rather fine room service for our evening meal, before getting a reasonably early night.

Had a joyously early start this morning - although I guess I should be thankful that there is public transport at that hour rather than lamenting the timing of it. All the same, I was in transit more than 5 hours before my 'plane was due to depart. As mentioned earlier, there was a nasty little surprise waiting for me at check-in. After checking that there was no other flight I could take for the second leg, I went upstairs to get some breakfast, and then to an internet café to let hermorrine know about my late arrival.

En route, there was a sad lack of in-flight entertainment, owing to the rather low-tech nature of the 'plane, but I had books (Tithe and Jennifer Government) plus some Percy/Oliver on the iBook (which I read while the chap next to me was ploughing through Order of the Phoenix) to keep me from getting bored. More of the same during my 3 hour stopover at Philadelphia airport and on the connecting flight to Chicago - thankfully without further delay.

hermorrine met me at O'Hare, and happily had been able to re-arrange our plans for later in the evening, so all was well there - then it was time for food and sleep before another day in transit.

OK, so I get to check-in at Gatwick, and find that US Air have changed my connecting flight from Philadelphia to Chicago for one an hour and a half later. And no, there are no other available connecting flights. So nice of them to contact me in advance to warn me that they will be screwing up my plans. It's lucky that the girl at check-in just happened to notice the change, or I could easily have gone on in blissful ignorance :(

Phew! Am mostly packed (apart from the stuff I need to throw in tomorrow morning). It's amazing how much space all this stuff takes up (clothes for 10 days, for starters), but such is life. Nimbus-goers may be pleased to know that I have Fandomopoly and the Pointy Hat. As always, I have that nagging feeling that there's something I've forgotten...

My dual-voltage battery charger arrived today, so will be sorted for excessive digicam usage (provided I remember to take pictures with it). I also have my cunning UK 4-gang with a US plug to power other things, and a plethora of cables for the iBook etc - am ready for any kind of networking ;-)

I intend to get an early night, as the alarm is set for 5am tomorrow morning to begin my trek to Chicago and thence to Orlando. Disney World, here I come!

Gah. I hate SMS spam. Unfortunately, as I have a work-provided mobile, I can't get it added to the Telephone Preference Service's do not call/SMS lists. On the plus side, it was pimping a premium rate telephone line without saying it was such (although it is obvious from the 09... number) - this is in breach of regulations which state that they must tell you what the charge rate is and provide contact details. I therefore duly reported them to ICSTIS (who have a neat online complaint form). I feel a bit like the FBI going after Capone - if I can't get the spammers for sending spam, at least I can get them for doing something else wrong ;-)

I picked up a Magic 8 Ball when I was poking a round the Gadget Shop when I was in London at the weekend (although hermorrine tells me I was egregiously ripped off). It does seem to be eerily psychic, as the following exchange shows:

zorac: Will I manage to get away from work on time today?
Magic 8 Ball: You will have to wait.

( Collapse )

OK, so I cheated. I got a mere 38% the first time around, which was just not good enough, particularly as my girlfriend scored higher. A bit of perusing the source code (using Mozilla, as IE refuses to view source any more) got me up to 97%. Those last few points are obtained on the first page - answer "Yes, please" and then male/female (not boy/girl).
Read more about the quiz.

OK, here are today's much delayed (due to LJ having a wibble-fit) cartoon updates:

1. New Sabrina Online strips - available on my site in a vaguely timely fashion for a change. Don't expect that to become a habit, though.
2. New Weapon of Mass Distraction: The Simpsons Cast Poster, a freebie due to buying many DVDs from Black Star over the years. Now attached to the office wall where it draws the attention of passers-by and traps them forever. Bwahahahaha!