October 2009 Archives

We had to catch a 2pm bus back to Orlando International, so any Friday adventures needed to be cautious. So we launched ourselves out of bed in time to go to Animal Kingdom.

I love it when somebody behind the scenes shows off their knowledge of Disney history. Because there's the Junior Woodchucks! Carl Barks for the win.

We dashed to get Fastpasses for the Kilimanjaro Safari, then circled back for the Lion King show.

He's smiling here, but we could tell Clark was at the end of his vacation rope.

This second trip through the safari was much better than our first, as we actually saw some animals. Here's a stork and a croc squaring off. Jambo!

And by the way, here's something for the Brawny people to note:

THIS is but one way you can integrate your brand sponsorship into the park, without looking like a tool. You theme it.

After the safari we made our exit, only slightly concerned about Bus One making us late for Bus Two. But we had plenty of time; we were back at Caribbean Beach well before the airport shuttle. Which got us to the airport with over two hours to go before our flight.

From our experience, anybody worried about the luggage service of Disney's Magical Express should probably give in and trust the mouse. After checking them in at BWI, we did not see our suitcases again until late afternoon when they were delivered directly to our hotel room. No dragging them across the airport, no loading them into a bus. On the way back, we checked them in at the resort lobby in the morning and did not see them again until we landed at Baltimore in the late evening. And in the middle, Disney pre-arranged our boarding passes for the flight home and hung them on our doorknob on our last night, so there was no waiting in the airport line whatsoever.

Across three devices we took over 640 pictures over the ten days. That's not including the 30+ that Clark snapped with his disposable cameras, nor the couple dozen "pro" photos via Disney's PhotoPass.

I still have a couple Disney-themed weblog updates in me, with some additional photos and my collected Twitter updates, but I'm pretty zonked right now so I think I'll take my time. Also, I have a ton of new video games to play: Henry Hatsworth, Uncharted 2, Wii Fit Plus, Kingdom Hearts DS and A Boy and his Blob. Not to mention a two week backlog of comics, some missed TV premieres (Venture Bros and Batman: Brave and the Bold)... and we have to figure out what Clark is going to do for Halloween. Besides gorge on the ten pounds of trick-or-treat candy we got at Mickey's Halloween Party and somehow humped all the way home.

So for now, kwaherini!

We headed out to Blizzard Beach this morning, where Clark braved water slides and the wave pool. He really liked the innertube river.

I'm sure Clark would have spent all day at Blizzard Beach.

We hopped a lunchtime bus to Hollywood Studios. Did the Little Mermaid show, dinner at Mama Melrose, the car stunt show, and the Beauty and the Beast show.

Then we has to decide how to end the day... either hang out at Hollywood or jump to another park. So we opted for a finale sendoff at Epcot.

Since World Showcase stays open later than Future World (why?), we did the Mexico and Norway rides again. Then we shopped around the lagoon without buying anything as we waited for the big Illuminations extravaganza.

This ridiculous "hand washing tips" placard from somewhere in World Showcase (Germany, I think) reminded me of work. Someone somewhere deep within the Brawny Empire had the bright idea to position the brand as a people-focused health-first initiative by leveraging the corporate Disney sponsorship with hand washing instructions, and nobody had the stones to tell them this was complete useless bullshit. Thanks Brawny, for this utter nonsense about teaching me to wash my hands. It makes so much sense when you put it that way. I sure do think your brand entity is friendly and family smart. Probably even eco-conscious!

As if there was no way to do something clever in the Parks and attach the Brawny name to it. Corporate thinkodroids kill the creative yet again!

Our Dining Plan had some leftover credits from days where we did not use everything, so we cashed it all in on a feast to save for tomorrow morning: cold pizza, drinks and snacks. We may just loaf around tomorrow until the Magical Express arrives to take us back to reality.

And now, the Disney hotel tradition: filling the window with the trip's souvenirs!

To explain... We have some great superhero figures that were gifts from MJ and Henri. The red and blue balls are from the Block Party parade. There's three LEGO minifigs and six Pirates. Our towel swans are still hanging out. On the far right is a Pirates lightup spinner thing. There's a stuffed Lightning McQueen, and one of our armbands from Mickey's Halloween Party.

Today we picked up two t-shirts and a magnet photo frame. We also have some gifts for others and three candy bags, all somehow to fit into our luggage.

This is a typical counter service lunch. Two adults, one kid, and this picture doesn't even include the fountain drinks. Look at the size of that black bean burger! And again, thanks to the dining plan, this is all free.

Today was Magic Kingdom all day. Here's our bluest of skies entry point.

We began the day over at Frontierland, where Clark did Tom Sawyer Island, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, then Splash Mountain again. That picture is from a small kids area that is tucked away near the massive Splash Mountain waiting area.

We had an early dinner at Crystal Palace, a buffet that is endlessly patrolled by Pooh characters.

Then we wandered back into Fantasyland for the Carousel, followed by a long stop at Liberty Square for Haunted Mansion again (third time), and the Spectromagic parade.

After the parade, we did Pirates again (fourth?) and then caught the fireworks show from the Adventureland gate.

We sidestepped the mass of park escapees by hiding in the photo center for a few minutes.

There's never anybody in this exhibit, and certainly none within a half hour of closing time.

Tomorrow is our last full day. We have a very late lunch set for Hollywood Studios, and we may try to get up early enough to get to Blizzard Beach for a few hours.

We had a packed day today. Unlike yesterday where I stayed out late, tonight we ALL stayed out late.

We started with shopping at Downtown Disney. They are celebrating Ten Years of Pin Trading, and naturally there is pin for that.

Any angry Donald statue is a photo opp for me.

We found a Goofy sphinx at the World of Disney shop.

At the LEGO store, we popped for the make-your-own-minifig purchase. Clark made a space guy, a guy with an axe, and I made an anime guy.

We also bought a pack of chibi Pirates figures, which are actually at a good price (6 for $12) when compared to the retail two packs for Marvel Super Hero Squad and Batman Action League (2 for $7).

Another big meal with big desserts. Today our table service dining plan was at the Prime Time Cafe at Hollywood Studios. We also caught the Indiana Jones show and the backlot tour. You have to wonder what DHS is going to show off once all movies go to CG effects.

We had to get to Magic Kingdom for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. On the way we stopped at the Ticket and Transportation Center to find our brick. And there it is!

It's by the tram station and ticket booths, with a monorail overhead. These bricks are all showing some serious wear. I wonder if there's any maintenance plan to spruce them up, or if this walk will just be trampled into a blur.

The bricks have two ID numbers on them, a section identifier and a number. The section works well enough, but the numbers are not in much of an order. So good luck finding H21 413. I had to get my sister and mom to look up the number back home, because all this time I had memorized an old license plate number.

Ah, the Halloween Party! It was busier than I expected, seeing as you have to pay extra for admission. Most of the park is open with little to no wait, there is a special parade, lots of special character greetings, and a special fireworks show that surrounds Fantasyland with fireworks. I usually could not care less about fireworks, but having them go off all around you was pretty flippin' spectacular.

They also had trick-or-treat stations set up all around the park, and we each walked out with a packed bag of candy!

Today we're not doing any park hopping. Magic Kingdom, all day!

This is a special entry because I'm posting it live from Fantasyland. Magic Kingdom is open until 1:00am tonight, so after Rhonda and Clark crashed for the night, I came back. Fantasyland is still hopping, I just walked through the west side of the park and that zone was pretty sparsely attended. Up until now, I've been hitting the late night weblog from the center court of our hotel block. Being here is heaps noisier; I may have to move to someplace quieter, like outside the Carousel of Progress.

Here's our cumulative hotel towel art, by the way. I'm a little worried that we'll end up with all our towels turned into a growing duck family by the end of the week.

OK, now I'm in the queue for Monsters Inc Laugh Floor. You know, it's sort of creepy to be here alone. Probably creepier for the people around me.

We spent the morning at Epcot, in anticipation of a late lunch at Chefs de France. We did Universe of Energy (which is creaky as all hell... 45 minutes of outdated stats and a dull dull ride), then we jumped Clark into the postshow of Mission: Space. There's a big playground thing in there that he crawled through over and over again.

Then Test Track, then the jaunt to France.

Aside from the absurdly good gratin de macaroni, we were here in hopes of seeing Chef Remy. And we did!

It's not like the robot rat played volleyball or told us what color shirts we were wearing, but it was still cool to be visited by a squeaking, moving true-to-scale audioanimatronic.

I'm at the castle forecourt now, right by the famous Walt and Mickey statue.

We jumped a monorail to Magic Kingdom to meet some friends, and Clark had a wild time running around Mickey's Toontown with a pal his own age. A little too much of a blast.

I let Clark drive at Tomorrowland Speedway, which was exactly like how he drives in Mario Kart. Were it not for seatbelt, he would have bounced us out of the car.

We did Pooh, Snow White, and Mickey's PhilharMagic, which was the best 3D I've seen at the park.

Plus, it's a Donald-centric attraction, and the world needs more of that.

The PhilharMagic end-of-ramp gift shop sells Mr. Toad's Wild Ride tees. Which is just cruel since Orlando lost the Ride circa 1999.

It's about a quarter to midnight... I'm going to mosey around the park some more.

Our fifth day began in solitude.

As we were the only people on-board the bus to Epcot. I thought maybe that was a sign the park would be sparsely attended, but I was wrong. Apparently today was a weekend. If we didn't have dining reservations to track, I wouldn't even know what month this is.

The important thing is that Kim Possible was up. It is adorable from top to bottom. To begin, you must collect a pre-reg ticket and report to a briefing station elsewhere in the park. We had to head to Norway.

From there, you get your Kimmunicator and you're on your own. The story unfolds on the phone screen, you get instructions and picture clues, and you have to explore a given World Showcase pavilion. This is the slickest way to have kids not be bored stiff by World Showcase.

I know Clark looks miffed, but trust me, he was way into the Secret Mission angle. He bought in. When we would receive our orders, he demanded we all hide behind a bush or something so the bad guys would not find us.

The KP clue spots have been built in to be as inconspicuous as possible. Although when a dozen other Team Possible kids are dashing across Germany, it's not hard to find the secret areas. On busy days like today, it is fairly disconcerting to hear tinny Kim Possible sound effects eminating from a dozen families all around you. I imagine some World Showcase purists hate this attraction.

In China, we had to find a statue, which then played a secret audio message and video clue. That took us to a door in the rear of the land that unlocked a door and played audio as if we were eavesdropping on a villain's conversation. Then we had to find a Chinese Zodiac artwork display (above) which lit up the representative year of Clark's birth. From there we had to find the proper rock over in the zen garden and trigger the finale event.

It is so clever. And locating the little Imagineered props is great fun. We did six of the seven missions. Took about 20 minutes each. By the middle, I was skipping the storyline cutscenes because Clark was mainly interested in finding the secret spots and running.

This segment of the UK adventure was a treat. We were instructed to go to a specific red phone booth, where a plastic golf ball suddenly appeared. Then we had to carry it - secretly - across the street to one of the gift shops and drop the ball in a prop washer, which caused an LCD screen to play a scanning animation.

In France, we had to stand in a corner and look up at the Eiffel Tower... and then a hidden camera took our picture and uploaded it to our Kimmunicator! Brilliant.

Beyond Kim Possible, we did Soarin' again, Spaceship Earth for the third time (a Clark favorite), and hightailed it out of Epcot to make dinner reservations at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Turns out, I really like carrot ginger soup.

We were pretty well zonked by 7, but a consult of the Times Guide revealed that tonight was Extra Magic Hours night at Hollywood Studios and they had a second Fantasmic performance scheduled. So we buzzed right over there, enjoyed the show, and did a second lap of Great Movie Ride (another Clark choice) in a nearly deserted park. I love being in the parks late at night when there's nobody around.

On the way to Fantasmic, Clark suddenly came to a dead stop and yanked me into one of the stores...

Because he saw this original Power Ranger movie costume from the street. He is having such a wonderful time.

We found a lot of costumed characters today at Hollywood Studios. Sorceror Mickey, the Power Rangers, the Incredibles, and Toy Story background dudes.

Not to mention Lightning McQueen, nearly abandoned in a part of the park that seems headed for a rehab.

We picked up a Fastpass for Toy Story Midway Mania as soon as we got to the Studios (at 10:30; we slept in) and they were already up to 5:30pm! For a park that closes at 7!  Crazy. Even by 5, the ride was still showing a 70 minute wait. I'll wreck the suspense and reveal that Rhonda won the Midway match with a score in the 150,000s. My high was 121,000.

But back to the itinerary.

Do you think when these idiots were making awful movies like The Amazing Colossal Man, that they ever imagined the edited fruits of their labors would eventually be seen millions of times a month at DisneyWorld? Good on ya, Glenn Manning.

You too, The Cat That Hated People. Between that and a truly awful Tom & Jerry cartoon, the Sci Fi Diner is probably the only place on campus showing animation that is not Disney's.

The shrunken playground was a big favorite of Clark's. Particularly the spider web. Animal Kingdom's Boneyard playground was closed, so Clark was raring for some runtime. AK loses again!

The new backstage animation tour has a much cooler opening. There's no more 1988 Robin Williams Gushes Over Peter Pan movie. Instead we received a highly entertaining conversation with Mushu about how characters are created. (As Keith Giffen once explained Ambush Bug's secret origin: We thought him up!) I do miss the weepy Disney animation highlight reel though.

After the intro, you're dumped among more fursuits and touchscreen games. Clark colored Baloo... as Rhonda pointed out, he's one of the worst coloring subjects ever designed.

There was also an Art of Snow White exhibit, where we learned how Walt originally planned the movie to be more like Japanese horror film The Ring.

Clark really liked Star Tours. I think the very presence of Star Wars stuff surprised him. He also liked the Great Movie Ride, which has a huge Egyptian bit in the middle thanks to Indiana Jones.

There's quite a bit of Hollywood Studios to go, actually. We have additional dinner reservations booked to two more nights. I imagine we'll be on Star Tours again. Clark also wants in on the Jedi Training stage show, which we watched today and thought to be awesomely funny.

This pirate is outside World of Disney over at Downtown. We met up with some local pals here for some late night shopping! We have another meetup planned with another friend on Monday, and on the first day here Rhonda saw two people she knows from home. Small World and all that.

Not sure what we'll do tomorrow. Maybe back to Magic Kingdom?

Ah Animal Kingdom. You're so beautiful but after ten years you still can't fill a day. You're a lot like Beatles Rock Band.

Our day began with, appropriately, animals. We were getting our shoes on when Rhonda asked "what just went flying across the room?" Clark and I had done nothing, so I followed Rhon's pointing finger and found a frog hopping up the corner of the room. Maybe a toad? I'll have to consult the lyrics to the "Kipper" theme song to be sure.

Clark and I scooped him up and shuffled him outside to join the hundred other frogs and geckos and anoles that live outside our hotel room. But not before we found two frog corpses inside the room. Those we ate.

That's what I get when I try to get Clark to pose for photos these days.

AK just doesn't have enough to do. If you're lucky, you'll see wild animals doing something interesting. But most of the time your basic zoo rules apply: sleeping and hiding. There's a reason that Unca Walt's Jungle Cruise is populated by an all-Fiberglas cast.

Rafiki's Planet Watch amounts to an hour-long u-turn to go pet some goats.

It's a great park for theming though. The village of Harambe looks just like all the racist parts of Resident Evil 5!

The buffet at Tusker House is great. Great for vegetarians too. In fact, the entire World is much more veg-friendly now than it was during our 2001 visit. Even the park guidemaps include little icons indicating vegetarian menu options.

We did It's Tough to be a Bug twice. The Hopper audioanimatronic is off, so Flik spends an awkward moment talking to the disembodied offstage voice of a Kevin Spacey soundalike. Weak. Also, remember when Dave Foley wasn't gross? It was a nice time.

We also did Dinosaur twice, once Fastpass, once not. I tell you, Clark is not afraid of anything. He'll get on any ride and enjoy it. Dinosaur is all jostley and offensively loud, but Clark was there for action.

All in all, Animal Kingdom had too much walking for Clark and not enough payoff. We headed back to Epcot to catch the nightly fireworks finale.

Hey, it's the Egyptians inventing writing, in Spaceship Earth!

By 8:00, I noticed that the ballyhooed Mission: Space had a no-wait line. So I took that one alone. Clark isn't tall enough to ride it.

And I can't imagine why. It was pretty unimpressive. I know M:S generated some static for being too intense... enough that the ride now has Less Intense and More Intense varieties. (I did More.) But I thought it little more than yet another motion ride, this time with a personal viewscreen and better faux g-forces. And what a windup! Every minute they warn you that you really should not be on this ride. There's a barf bag warning and they arent even being sarcastic about it! I was actually getting nervous about the ride taking a turn to More Extreme until I realized it was over. I imagine the new Ratchet & Clank game will have more intense space action sequences.

To top it off, host Gary Senise is a cue-card-reading choad.

Did I miss something? Does Mission: Space have multiple experiences and I just caught a slowball?

I've seen the Epcot Illuminations show about half a dozen times by now, but this was the best viewing yet. We found a nice hideaway right against the fence, nestled between two Food and Wine stands, with a reasonable view of the center of the lagoon. There was a fireworks cannon directly in front of us, which was a loud surprise. Clark was very weary by this time, so I spent the show on my heels in chair mode for him. He thought that was hilarious.

Tomorrow we go to Hollywood Studios.

Dinner reservations at Teppan Edo in Epcot Japan, so day two was all about Epcot.

We grabbed a Fastpass for Soarin' first thing. Then we walked onto Listen to the Land to see the freakishly large lemons.

The Nemofied Living Seas was fun. The big hit here was Turtle Talk with Crush. Kids can sit up from for the turtle visitation, with the adults in the seating behind... which, although Clark was eager to sit up front, made him plainly nervous as it was a packed house. It was worth it when Crush selected Clark as a participant!

The CG turtle asked his name, and who was with him today... which led the mic in my direction. After the show, Clark was beaming.

Once we told Clark there was a pyramid in Mexico, he wanted to get there right away. And he had to have a picture of the pyramid/volcano decor inside. This attraction was always a favorite of mine thanks to the cool nighttime market interior and the River de Tiempo ride. Which has now become a Three Cabarellos ride, making it immeasurably better. Although it's another ride where Group A is looking for lost Character B, I'll take anything with Donald Duck.

Epcot still does the Kidcot kids activity stations, which is the only way you're going to get a four year old around the circuit. We did not do any of the movies, not even the Norway post-show. We just didn't see Clark sitting for it.

The America pavilion had some surprise Obama gear.

The Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure was down today, which sucked because now we'll have to come back and walk around World Showcase again.

On the way we lounged in Morocco, met Mulan and Marie, and the defendants in the recent Milne copyright lawsuit.

The Epcot guidebook we picked up had a lame religious tract stuffed inside! How gauche do you have to be to go to DisneyWorld and purposefully hid propaganda in the map carrel. Once again this highlights everything that is wrong about fringe religionists, when your idealogy is best served by ambush tactics. Perhaps this is a calculated response to Epcot's ultra-science vibe. The tract had a poorly-reproduced Crash Test Dummy image, so you'd think it was associated with Test Track! Nice work, fundies.

A monsoon blew through town, sending everyone running for about half an hour. We hid in the former Communicore, enjoying the free soda samples from Coke's exhibit. Clark preferred the drink from Mexico, Rhonda liked China's watermelon-flavored juice, and my choice was Vegetabeta from Japan.

Speaking of Japan, the sudden storm almost made us late for our dinner reservations. We had half a park to traverse in a downpour. We choked down the cost of Disney ponchos and as soon as we got them on it stopped raining.

Teppan Edo cooks the food right in front of you on a 500 degree hotplate. We ordered vegetarian so the chef cooked ours before he tackled the meat of the guests next door.

The Imagination pavilion showcases the dangers of hinging your ride on a property that is somewhat less than timeless. Rick Moranis pretty much retired from Hollywood fifteen years ago, and yet there's a giant twenty foot poster of him, eight beside Robin Williams from Flubber. Flubber!

The blurry snap of Eric Idle (or what Eric Idle looked like in 1998) is riding atop a projection light bulb error.

From there it was Spaceship Earth (newly renovated by our reckoning) and back to Caribbean Beach. Today it shall be Animal Kingdom. Back at the Magic Kingdom's Jungle Cruise, Clark had to ask me if the animals were real on every single turn of the boat, so I expect a similar problem today.

Clark really had no idea what he was in for. From 6am to 4pm, it was more or less one interminable trip after another. Car to grandparents'. Van to airport. Airplane to another airport. Shuttle to hub. Bus to resort. Bus to park. Bus to park again because Daddy forgot all three guest passes.

You never know how a kid is going to react to being on a plane until you're 30,000 feet in the air. I remember hiding on the floor during my first plane flight. Clark, however, was not scared at all.

Once we got above the clouds, he just found it boring.

We were in our Caribbean Beach hotel room by 2pm. Our luggage, traveling separately, made it at 3:45pm.

I wanted Clark's first park to be Magic Kingdom, for cliche reasons. He passed out on the bus. His first Disney experience and he was already wiped! Since we've been prepping him for weeks about the rides, we let him decide where we would go first. He chose the Haunted Mansion.

And again, he was eager and brave. For a time we were stalled in the graveyard scene with a popping banshee on regular timer, and he just ate it up.

From there we angled back through Adventureland, with Pirates as our next stop. We recently re-watched the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie (during a week of Disney film home festivals), so this adventure was fresh in Clark's mind. Although Orlando's version still doesn't make much narrative sense, Clark liked it and was very surprised by the brief boat drop.

Then we did Tiki Room (the revised show is hard to follow thanks to Iago's screaming), Flying Carpets and Jungle Cruise.

The one Cruise speil line that always gets me is "I'd like to point out some of my favorite plants."

Then we headed through Cinderella Castle to Fantasyland, where every line was a nightmare. But this part of the park is always packed. We went to small world.

Orlando's small world is still untouched Mary Blair, no Disney character insertions and no uber-American section. I would have liked to see the cartoon characters but I'm glad Orlando is still 99% other cultures. You're already in America. One lone cowboy is enough reminder.

By this time it was cresting 7:00, so we needed to wrangle that Disney Dining Plan to our benefit. The current incentive plan gets you DDP for free, entailing one free snack, one free lunch and one free dinner per day. The meals both include desserts, which we would normally rarely go for. Our dinner price tag was over $40, but thanks to the Plan it was all zeroes. Except the tip. And we get this deal every day, twice a day.

Of course, for us the fun is in locating vegetarian meals, but these days the World is much more veg-friendly. The Caribbean Beach black bean burger (my lunch) was very good, and our dinner locale (The Plaza) had a veggie burger. Clark's PB&J was appropriately themed.

Clark's first souvenir was this lightup Pirates spinner. We figured if we're buying a lightup toy, we might as well buy it right off so he can wave it around for every nighttime parade and fireworks show.

Today, we're probably heading to Epcot. I'm still not used to that being a word, and lacking the "Center."

But I'll take it.

Home's camera arrived as a late addition to the recent 1.3 update. It shoots 1280x780 jpgs, which automatically save to your XMB. You can shoot first-person or third-person. Activating the camera is clunky; you have to step through a couple menus to get to it. It should be assigned a hotkey.

Anything more depressing than this? Aside from me essentially recycling a gag from the last time I posted pictures from Home?

How about this horrid close-up?

I had to snap that as the camera was zooming between third- and first-person. You don't normally get so close on your face.

I hit some kind of content load error... so for a while I walked around the Central Plaza as a floating head. With a shadow. I don't know what other players saw. Nobody mobbed me with questions, so I doubt they saw this. Generally, as soon as I spawn in with full Katamari Prince regalia, I instigate several laughing/pointing animations and a few clumsy "where did u get that!!!" questions.

Let's go to PixelJunk land. It's a big small, but it looks like a department store, which is sort of unusual in Home.

You want to make pals in Home? Go into the "ready to go" pose, which makes you look like you're a Street Fighter competitor. Guaran-damn-teed someone else will set themselves up as your opposite number.

See?

As soon as this guy went into Fight! mode, half a dozen nearby players started snapping pictures. The camera should make an audible paparazzi flash sound. That would be hip.

One night when I did The Pose, some guy switched to his dorky robot costume for the faceoff. And then some THIRD guy started flipping coins to see which of us won the battle round. Crazy.

I won. Tied after two flips, then I took the rubber match.

Another h-i-larious pose: the strongman. I'm flexing beside a statue of one of the enemies from PixelJunk Monsters.

Here's a POV from the PixelJunk Eden display area. Pretty slick, although you couldn't pay me to play Eden.

And here's one of my usual Home jaunts: the Namco Arcade room. Right now it's stuffed with uncountable coin-ops for Pac-Man, Dig-Dug and a few others. Because that's all that can be launched via the first wave of the PS3's downloadable Namco Arcade app. I imagine once they add more classics - MAPPY MAPPY MAPPY - that more beautifully rendered arcade machines will appear in this zone.

I can kill time in Home like nuts.

...was in November 2001. That awful Mickey hand was still copulating with Spaceship Earth. (It was removed in 2007.)

November 2001.

We did not have cell phones. My first phone, the original T-Mobile Sidekick, wasn't out for another year.

We had a PS2 and an N64 hooked up to the TV. The PS2 was a year old. The day after we returned from our 2001 Disney trip, I spent the next morning in the Toys R Us parking lot for launch day of the GameCube.

The GameBoy Advance was only a few months old. It had no internal light, no clamshell design, no touchscreen, no WiFi. The last major portable game I had played was Advance Wars.

Rhonda had either just finished Ico, or was very close to doing so. I was deep into GTAIII and probably barely started MGS2. The most recent core Pokemon game I had was Pokemon Crystal, the third wheel to Gold and Silver. There were only three Mario Parties.

My Disney-inspired TaleSpin: the Card Game was still nothing but black and white beta cards. I brought a set on the trip and did some playtesting in the Disney hotel room.

Adult Swim was two months old. Smallville, 24, Yu-Gi-Oh, Samurai Jack and Justice League were all brand new shows.

The first Harry Potter movie was released while we were there, and we saw it at the big AMC theater at Downtown Disney.

The Platinum Edition (two disc DVD set) of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs had just come out. Just a few weeks ago they released the Diamond blu-ray edition.

People liked President George W. Bush.

Dave Thomas, Dudley Moore, George Harrison and Chuck Jones were all still alive. But not for long.

We had one cat.

I had a working Windows 98 PC in the house. My main computer was a PowerMac 7600. The lamp iMac wouldn't arrive for another year.

And of course, 2001 was four years before Clark was born, but it was right about the time we decided to start a family.

Now we're heading back to DisneyWorld! I wonder what life will be like on the trip after this one?

Nothing speaks more to American Otaku than the idea that every street corner in Japan has an old coin-op arcade on it. Right beside the pay phone.

And that's what life is like in Japan. Also, there are elephants.

Here's a huge lineup of folks waiting to get into the rainbow crab store. They have no interest in the free dumbbells.

This town appears to be on fire. Unfortunately, this is not the water-sprinkling-katamari level.

They're doomed, any way you look at it.

I can't decide if the dog needs to be saved, or if it is just resting after a good swim.

It's cool to get that kind of graphical detail hidden deep inside a Katamari game.

Big-haired punks crouching on hooved mammal backs pay no mind to katamari-based chaos over by the town fountain.

One of the PS3 Trophies asks that you break your katamari 50 times before completing the level. I'm not sure what they mean by that. Getting shot at by a lady cop does not help.

Como arrumar seu filho pra escola em 5min! (YouTube)
This is another one of those bits where you watch somebody wake up and get ready in under five minutes, but this includes a cute kid!

First Epic Mickey details spilled (Eurogamer)
You're kidding. Wii-exclusive Epic Mickey features Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and the Phantom Blot!?! That is some high-grade Disney geek fan-service, believe it.

Italian scientist reproduces Shroud of Turin (Yahoo News)
WTF? Didn't we all realize that was a fake, like, twenty years ago? Jesus!

ODST and what might have been (Brainy Gamer)
Here's one thing I wholeheartedly agree with: too many people think too many games have incredible stories, but only when measured against the embarrassingly puerile yardstick that generally encompasses "video game storylines." We can do better.

CARTOON NETWORK SETS "BATMAN," "OTHERSIDERS" RETURN DATES (Futon Critic)
Finally, new episodes of Brave and the Bold! Friday, October 16, at 7:30pm EST.

Drop The Knife, The Tauntaun Sleeping Bag Is Now Real (Gizmodo)
Before you bail out because you think this might be cheesy, note that the interior lining has an intestine pattern and the zipper pull is shaped like a lightsaber.

So leading rumors say that Toys R Us will open up their multi-annual video game Buy Two Get One Free sale from the 11th to the 17th.

There's some serious releases up that week, most notably Uncharted 2 and Brutal Legend. I already have Uncharted 2 preordered through GameStop (no, my local store is NOT doing a midnight release!), so I need to consider what else I could wrangle out of this short-term deal.

After playing the demo, I'm kinda interested in Brutal Legend. As I have made plainly clear, I hold a massive distaste for that kind of music. I also have no horse in the I Hope Tim Schafer Finally Gets a Hit race. But the demo was funny and more or less smooth, almost as if somebody gave the God of War franchise a personality. The driving bit was garbage, but the game has the most seriously amazing menu screen I've ever seen.

So, maybe, Brutal Legend (PS3, $60).

Do you think TRU will have Afrika (PS3, $50)? 'Cause I definitely still want that, despite IGN's sourpuss 3.5 review.

Mini Ninjas (PS3, $50) is a possibility. The game reminded me a lot of I-Ninja, and I don't mean just because they both have ninjas in them.

A Boy and His Blob (Wii, $50) is a definite player in this trio. I'm more interested in it than I initially suspected.

I know I'll get Wii Fit Plus eventually, but at only $20 it would TOTALLY DESTROY THIS DEAL'S MATH. So, no.

I do sort of want Ju-on: The Grudge (Wii, $30), but it's another cheapie that I'd need to pair up with DS games to make it work. Perhaps Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story?

I missed InFamous (PS3, $60), Cursed Mountain (Wii, $50) and Dead Space Extraction (Wii, $50). Although I think I'd rather have Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles (Wii, $50) over Dead Space, but RE:DC isn't out until next month.

Hey, how did Marvel Super-Hero Squad (Wii, $40) not get a PS3 port? Not that it matters for the BTGO, as it's not out yet. And, dammit, EyePet (PS3, $40?) was delayed FOREVER, perhaps to tie it more closely to Sony's weirdass motion controller.

Incidentally, has everybody noticed that LEGO Rock Band is only $50, even on the PS3 and 360? WTF! That makes it even more of a bargain... it will be total song export buy, plus the occasional kid-friendly jam session. It's coming out early November, so I can't cram it into the TRU deal, unfortunately.

I feel like I'm overlooking something. But as this writing, it looks like I should center on a $50 price point and get Afrika, Blob, and crap I don't know what. Either Cursed Mountain because I still miss Fatal Frame, or Mini Ninjas for PS3 Trophies.

Accessories are included, so if TRU has some of the old pre-packaged Wii Points cards in stock, that would be $60 worth of points for $40. But after that whole Pepsi Rock Band thing, I really don't need any more of those.

The current storyline in Justice Society has the team headed to a big breakup. The aggressively craptastic Magog (formerly Lance) is going to form a splinter group and venture off into a title that I won't read. It's yet another run at the boring old "hero team suddenly decides to round up c-list villains for the Greater Good" storyline. It sounds like Extreme Justice 2010. Quite frankly, JSA has too many characters anyway. So good riddance.

One of the linchpin events of the rift was a disastrous battle that began with the team locked out of their house and ended with this:

Oh no no no.

Black Lantern Mr. Terrific confirmed?

Actually, I doubt he's dead. And it's not just because I've seen the solicit for Blackest Night: JSA that features a very living Mr. T on the cover (I suppose the current JSA arc could be taking place AFTER Blackest Night, but that would be weird.)

Here's how it happened. Michael (Mr. Terrific) was alone inside the brownstone trying to fix the security system or whatever, and he was surprised by an unknown assailant and stabbed into hamburger. Dr. Mid-Nite, Green Lantern and the new Dr. Fate spent a book and a half trying to put him back together, but the cliffhanger image above suggests they failed.

The perpetrator has been IDed as the new All-American Kid, a teen who just joined the JSA and was supposedly locked in his newbie dorm room while the big villain fight went down. The Kid claims he was in the room the whole time, but his roommate - the impressively arrogant King Chimera - does not vouch for him and instead agrees that Kid left the room despite strict orders not to do so.

Flash re-assembles the security tape and this is levied as proof that the Kid did do it, so the Kid is either lying or he's under some kind of villainous control. There's a panel with Flash shocked at the video screen he is viewing off-panel. He tells the Kid that "we have you on tape." The new Mr. America calls it "incontrovertible recorded evidence."

But this has got to be some kind of complicated wind-up, because Mr. Terrific is invisible to technology. If they did have a tape, it would show nothing but the Kid stabbing empty air. Which, in this situation, is circumstantial at best. My guess is that they're trying to flush out the real attacker, probably King Chimera although that seems too obvious since King is a total asshat. I can't believe that Flash would forget that Michael can't be seen by cameras, but I would believe that he worked with GL and Doc Mid-Nite (and maybe even a patched up Mr. T) to trap the real Stabby Stabberson.

What I hope does NOT happen is that this turns into another attempt to shift Michael away from his atheist views (say, Dr. Fate puts Michael's "soul" on a vision quest.) A couple years ago there was a dopey storyline that ended with Michael seeing the ghosts of his deceased wife and child, and that miraculously challenged his beliefs. Yeah, right. As if ghosts in the DCU are proof-positive of a creator-based worldview, or something spiritually extranormal that should be worshipped.

Looking forward to see how Mr. T gets out of this one, and hoping he doesn't follow that Magog clown into the new book. (Although "you jackholes let me get stabbed" might be inspiration enough to join the new team.) Somehow I doubt Mr. Terrific and Magog would get on.

Last year we had kind of a lame first-party Wii holiday. We had Nintendo outright demanding our love for Wii Music, and we had a disappointing Animal Crossing rehash. I let them slide, because, after all, 2008 was a huge Wii year with Smash Brawl and Kart inexplicably landing in the first half. For whatever reason, Nintendo front-loaded their A games in '08. And that was only a few months after Mario Galaxy bulletbilled all over Christmas 2007!

When Nintendo spent the first half of 2009 fielding GameCube re-releases, this gave us an unfounded hope for the holidays. Perhaps something big was coming. But then E3 09 comes along and we find out the biggest game of the year is New Super Mario Bros Wii (and all the really cool stuff isn't likely until late 2010.) So we really haven't had a major first-party Nintendo release since Mario Kart Wii in April 2008.

I don't count the new Punch-Out as a major release, although Nintendo did a great job marketing it as such. Punch-Out is, at best, a third rate Nintendo franchise. It landed the same slot in the 2009 release calendar that was given to Warioland: Shake It in 2008: middle of the year.

Wii Sports Resort? Also problematic, because it's naught but more damn mini-games. Only about a third of the disk is compelling, and it still kills your arms after twenty minutes. Not that a mini-game collection couldn't be elevated to AAA status. What if WSR published your achievement stamps to your Facebook wall? What if it included a triathlon-style competition mode that combined multiple events? What if the Smash Bros cast was included as unlockable characters? What if it saved out screenshots to send to other gamers as vacation postcards? That are flashes of next-gen brilliance in WSR (like the ability to invisibly pull in Miis created by other users and uploaded to the Check Mii Out Channel), but most of it is a by-the-numbers affair and about half of it isn't much fun to begin with. And as proof of the Wii MotionPlus technology, it is a complete cipher.

Did I forget anything? I have nothing against the New Play Control series (and, in fact, I loved NPC Pikmin), but it's not anything to bank a year on. And the Metroid Prime Collection has done nothing but continue to prove that gamers could give a shit about the Metroid franchise.

One bonus in 2009 is Nintendo's bargain pricing (a lesson learned from $50 Wii Music, you think?) Wii Fit Plus is an easy bone to throw, and at $20 is priced to move. The NPC games are $30, which is a little iffy but still an attractive option. Not everything arrived with prorated pricing, however; Punch-Out should have been $40.

Which brings us to Holiday 2009 and New Super Mario Bros Wii. The game's first problem is that it doesn't look very impressive. It already looks old. I suppose that's part of the point: it's a retro side-scroller re-tooled for multiplayer. But when you stack those visuals against other modernized classics, NSMBWii still looks weak. It needs a cool style and it is instead sort of generic. I mean jesus, have you seen the screens for the new Rocket Knight revival? And who cares about Rocket Knight?

I know I do not have a nostalgia-fueled fondness for side-scrolling platformers, so this game has a tough ride with me. I loathe the emphasis on perfection over exploration and experimentation. To that end, I'm very intrigued by Nintendo's Super Guide, which will let you skip past difficult sections of the level. I could see myself buying NSMBWii, turning on the Super Guide, and then watching the entire game play out.

But I just can't escape the feeling that I played this already and didn't much enjoy it. I've been through the first three Super Mario Bros (never finished 2, and never cared much about 3), I gritted my teeth during the retro bits of Mario Sunshine, most of Mario Galaxy was a linear chore, and I did just about all of New Super Mario Bros on DS.

Although I do love the co-op multiplayer angle (except for the bizarre decision to include TWO Toads on P3 and P4; there's dozens of characters in the Mario Universe, and we're stuck with identical Toads? There better be unlockable characters hiding from pre-release sight.) Between 4P co-op and Super Guide, that's all I have going for this title. But is that enough for $50.

There is no way I would have slotted NSMBWii as the single big first-party holiday release. There just isn't enough pomp there. I don't think we're as bad off as last year, but this still amounts to another lackluster season from Nintendo's own development divisions. Thankfully, there's some big third-party content queued up... A Boy and His Blob, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Resident Evil Darkside Chronicles, Rabbids Go Home, TMNT Smash Up, Spyborgs, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and Dead Space Extraction. Not to mention multiplat releases like Beatles Rock Band, LEGO Rock Band, Mini Ninjas, and the various Guitar Hero games. This all strikes me as a stronger fall/winter lineup from the third parties.

It reminds me of the first years of the Wii, when Nintendo almost entirely abandoned development on the DS. The handheld was left to the third-parties to manage, with big first-party games a rare thing. I gather it is all a timing issue. Nintendo doesn't truly abandon any platform, they just often have trouble massaging a continuously impressive release schedule.

One thing that there is not an app for, is a video game release calendar. I don't know how one goes about making something like that and keeping information streaming into it, but I would really buy that. I'm surprised GameStop or somebody hasn't already come up with this.

But now I have a second request. I think this one is more doable, and may even already exist as a feature hidden inside some other bloated $4 holiday gift app: I want a kids Christmas gift app that lets you take pictures of the toys while shopping, note the price and location, and then email the photos out to family members.

I have been browsing various Christmas gift apps, and it seems like there are a few that perform similar tasks, but then they get all jacked up with budget calculators and organizational options and Amazon.com links. I just want to snap pics of toys for Clark, have them all in one place, then email them to grandparents. Maybe even check them off after items are purchased.

I could do most of that in the stock Camera/Photos apps, but it would be great to have everything inside a cute, simplified UI.

One of the Christmas gift apps says it will send the list to Santa (looks like in text only.) WTF good does that do?

Which, by the way, is a totally included word in Scribblenauts.

We stopped by a Five Below yesterday. If your town doesn't have one of these, it is best described as an upscale Dollar Store. Maybe a Dollar Store mixed with any Tuesday Morning-style surplus shop and decorated like a Claire's. And everything is $5 or less.

And on this trip, we found one of those dig-yourself-an-Egyptian-treasure kits for $3. And unlike the overpriced museum gift shop kits we picked up back in June, this one was the size of a brick.

I was not particularly looking forward to digging this one. Those smaller kits took forever to smack apart, and with this one being so huge, I figured this would be a multi-week project. But Clark was so excited to get excavatin', we could not palm it off for a less busy day, like perhaps sometime next February.

Clark was working at it for while by himself until I joined in. I picked a spot at random and ended up finding the head of the sarcophagus on the first try. Creepy!

Having learned from the last time we did this, we moved this operation outside to the front porch.

The big selling point for this kit is that the sarcophagus comes with a removable mummy. What they don't tell you is that the mummy is also encased in plaster, even inside the sarcophagus. Ugh.

That's a lot of mess for only $3.

They Might Be Giants - Hollywood (YouTube)
Aw geez, I love this song.

There Was a Young Lady Who Swallowed a Fly (GameSetWatch)
Spot-on analysis of the trouble with Scribblenauts. The par mechanic is the second big issue holding the game down, after the ridiculous control scheme.

A Model Day At Disney Parks - Exclusive Tilt-Shift Video Featuring Magic Kingdom (DisneyParks Blog)
More cool tilt-shift video, this time at various Magic Kingdom locales.

When Words Collide 9/28/09 (CBR)
I love hearing writers and artists discuss their forgotten, overlooked, or otherwise altered ideas. This column discusses the many parents of Nightcrawler and the creation of Apocalypse.

Sandwich Cost Calculator (Cockeyed.com)
Select your bread, ingredients and condiments, and this form will tell you how much your sandwich should cost (even gluten-free rice bread!) This should be an iPhone app.

Video Game Characters For Minimalists (GameSetWatch)
Some neat pared-down artwork of video game icons.

A lot of the fun in Katamari comes from discovering something even more bizarre than usual. This is why the Eternal mode is so important. Thankfully, unlocking Eternal is, in most cases, way easier in Katamari Forever than in the first Katamari.

Otherwise, how would you ever slow down enough to notice where they got the inspiration for Cloverleaf?

Or this giraffe crossing. It never fails! Whenever you're in a hurry, traffic along the totem pole freeway is backed up due to giraffes!

That cute penguin scene is hidden on top of the big glacier in the build-a-snowman level.

The incredibly difficult cowbear level makes a triumphant return in Forever.

Most of the screenshots are from the default "new" visual style. This one of two guys chatting up a snow bunny is in "classic" mode, which is meant to evoke the no-frills original PS2 look.

Ah, the King in repose. You're welcome for the full size desktop background version, by the way.

Gentle young Sadako (from The Ring) is still a Katamari fan.

Although she's had to take a delivery job to make ends meet.

But she's updating her online resume and hoping the economy breaks soon!

Now that October is here, I have updated my cubicle dry-erase calendar with ten little sets of mouse ears.

Because we're going to DisneyWorld in two weeks. Ten days at the Caribbean Beach resort. Full ParkHopper, the free dining plan, and we ponied up for admittance to one of the special Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party events.

Clark is very excited, although he doesn't really know what he's in for. We've been through various DisneyWorld picture books, although most of my collection seems to be History Of The Park-type stuff that includes lots of deprecated and extinct attractions. "No, son. America Sings is long gone. But those duck robots do look pretty cool." The only dark ride he's ever been on is the fake chocolate tour at Hersheypark, and it's been a while since he was on that... so the whole concept of sit-and-be-amazed is almost totally new to him.

He is looking forward to Haunted Mansion, so I do not anticipate a preschooler flakeout at the 11th hour. The most unsettling part of the experience is the wind-up; once you get past the cast members in Lugosi-mode and are settled into your Doombuggy, it's more silly than scary. Along those same lines, he would probably really like the pre-show to Tower of Terror, but I doubt he's old enough (or tall enough) for that one.

He hasn't seen most of the classic Disney movies, but neither had I at age four on my first Disney visits. I have plenty of pleasant indelible memories of those trips, so I hope to give that gift to Clark. Perhaps true-to-character, I think my first genuine Disney memory is shopping at what was then Disney Village.

Rhonda and I have not been to the World since 2001, so there is plenty of brand-new for us... I think I'm most excited about the dopey Kim Possible thing, where you take a special prop cell phone around Epcot on a scavenger hunt.

I wonder if they're still field-testing the interactive GPS game that requires a DS? Maybe they've moved on to an iPhone app by now. I need to look into that.

I'm sure I'll be mega-blogging the entire trip via iPhone, through Twitter, Facebook and here on fourhman.com, so be ready for that.