Flordia, Walt Disney World, Corporate Branding, ect...

I've been busy for the last three months. Here is what I have been doing:

Florida

I was in Florida with the band from Dec 27 to Jan 2, although on the start/finish dates I was actually on a bus in between locations. In general, I noticed a surprising lack of metal detectors.

Pet Co

On the first day of Florida, I went to Epcot, which is a hidden anagram for Pet Co. When I played the virtual-reality game (sponsored by IBM, the hidden name from HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey) in the future building (also by IBM), I thought about just how corporately branded all of Disney is. From there, the corporate branding only got worse. All the drinks were Coke, but there was not a single Cherry Coke in all of Disney World. I had to suffer with the refreshing bubbles of Sprite and the foul tasting Florida water, which should not taste any different from any other water because it should still be H₂O. This obviously means that the Floridan water has more impurities than my regular Ohio water.

Next, I found the belly dancing Moroccans. They had a drum-tar in their band. Also in Morocco, sBodkin brought a wood staff for about 38.00 USD.

In the Mexican exhibit I went with some friends on the log boat ride. When we were in the restaurant ares, we gave out a massive "O-H," and no one responded. More later, you'll know when you see it.
Finally, I spent US $20 on a pair of orange light up drumsticks. The other colours were purple (a bit dim), green, and blue.

Planet Hollywood/Downtown Disney

After Petco, I went to Planet Hollywood and Downtown Disney for food. After eating at Planet Hollywood and getting a free coupon without any visible expiration date (so I can use it on future trips), I went to the magic mart with Boso. There he brought a deck of cards with a self-contained wizard. The wizard would take any card that you put on the floor and using Wi-Fi technology, would than proceed to transfer it into his hand in a smaller form. After that, I went with Alb, sBrodkin, and Sco to Pleasure Island, igniting a potentially offensive comment about Alb and a car that was displayed for its tires. (But what would happen to your business if all 150 cars were used at the same time?)

Finally, while I was hanging out with the Drumline, we got kicked off the stairs where we were hanging out on because there were about 2x10³ people waiting to use the stairs because a show just ended. We tried to count them, but it was a futile effort. We [the Drumline & CO.] then realized that we didn't have anything to do, and about 30 minutes (1800.00 seconds) left before we could get back on the buses. What we decided to do was play cards outside the park and wait for the buses. Of course, we got bored quickly, so we went over to random people and had Boso do his card trick. {I got videos of a few, but the only worthwhile one was the one that gave me the idea to record, so it is from pure memory.} The best moment was when we went up to a group of Guard girls and one of them (I don't know her name) said, "I don't associate with weird people," to which one of us (I don't remember who) asked, "Then why are you associating with yourself?"

Then I slept from about 1:00 AM to 5:45AM.

The Magic Kingdom

The Magic Kingdom, filled as usual. I arrived at a comfortable early time and rode the monorail. However, there were still lots of people waiting in line... The first thing I did was the City of the Future ride. One of the most uneventful rides possible (although a portion was in the dark - "It's dark, so now we can make out!".) However, I would ride this several times later in the day to fill time.

Next was Space Mountain. The line was deceptively short. It was only about 20 minutes before the line went inside, however, once we were inside the building, there was an additional 1.59-hour wait. I liked the ride, but it was not worth the wait.

From then on, our group mostly wasted time looking at things and making fun of any flaws in spelling/grammer/logic in the park's signs and rides. After lunch I waited with some people for about an hour for the must un-haunted haunted house possible using Euclidean geometry. Finally, it rained and we rode a train and made some conclusions about last night and talked prepared the following story about why the Lemur kid would be late. (The Lemur kid didn't fall of a train this year, but that is a completely separate story.) I hoped that it would cancel the parade that I had to march in, but my hopes fell short. However, the plan fell through, because by the time we got there, we were too late to tell the story with any good humor (tell the "why I'm late story when you are 15 minutes early), nor were we late. The story, as best I can remember is (please leave a comment if I'm wrong):

You see Mr. Band Director, he was in the arcade with some friends when he decided to leave, however, he saw a game of Centipede which he just had to play. He decided to go to the coin changer and got 50 credits, only to discover that Centipede cost 55 credits to play. (What king of stupid video game costs 55 credits to play?) While going to the coin changer to convert his 5 credits, he finds that his wallet was stolen. About 18 minutes and 72 seconds later he found his wallet with 17.52 USD more than he left it with. In a completely expected and not ironic twist, he found that exactly 27.23 USD was counterfeit and π (pi) cents were counterfeit Canadian money. He then decided to go after the Canadian Mafia....

From there, we would make the story up, but we never had to use it.

The parade want on as normal, and nothing too eventful happened there, except that I saw Backstage Disney. I seriously thought that they would erase my memory because of the high security that they put into there (exploding briefcases, locked doors, high cliffs, ect...) However, I saw a genie and concluded that they are building an Aladdin ride (please let me know when it opens). I also saw the plain back to what is commonly known as the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. After the parade, we stayed for the fireworks. Thse were good, with the finale being a round so intense that it was brighter than day and you could feel the radiant heat, but then it all stopped at once. Finally, I rode the monorail back to the buses.

Sleep = 2:00AM-6:30AM

MGM

This morning I woke up, went to breakfast, and packed. Then I realized that my wallet was missing! I did a through search of the hotel premises and concluded that it was for real gone, even though I had it when I was eating breakfast, so I left a lost item report. However, the chaperones and the New Horizons travel staff (I think his name was Dave) were very helpful, and got me into the park and lent me some emergency cash to get me through the day.

When I was in the park the most amazing thing happened. After getting in without my original ticket thanks to the travel plan, I found my friends and went on the Hollywood Tower Hotel. When my group got on the elevator, we discovered that there was one Michigan fan, and that everyone else supported OSU (this was before the fumbled National Championship game). So whenever the elevator was at its climax, we all gave a hefty O-H! and at the bottom the rest of us responded with an enthusiastic I-O! Also, considering the amount that we fell, the amount that we were shot up inside the elevator was suspiciously little, at most four floors, and most of our drops were about six floors. I was smart enough to figure out that while we were in the obligatory introduction chamber and watching a video, the floor was slowly rising (I felt it.) This was similar to the previous day's haunted house where the punch line was "are you going crazy, or is the room growing taller?" (I suspected that that one was a ceiling raise because I did not feel any movement, or it was really smooth.) Finally, after being boosted the first four floors, the elevator moved outwards to the drop zone. At that moment, someone shouted "Elevators aren't supposed to go sideways!!," at which point we got into a brief discussion about the Great Glass Elevator at the end of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Fun times, that ride was.

Next, we went to the Great Movie Ride and smashed 7 people into one row and during lunch the said Lemur guy got yelled at by a chaperone. He was called out because he was alone, even though he is legally an adult, and has extra privileges over the majority of the students on the trip. ("What do you mean that I should set a good example for the other band members!? Should I not vote to discourage them from underage voting?!") Also, there was a skywriter who displayed messages from God. Nothing else too important happened that at the park, baring that some freshman n00b was late getting back, and had to spend the next day with Mr. Maynard.

When I got back at the hotel in T (a Double Tree, much nicer than the Disney hotels), I found out that about 30 minutes after I had first discovered that it was lost, it was found in Planet Hollywood, even though I was staying in the All-Star Music Resort. All the cards were in their correct places, butt [oops, the other but(t)] the money was gone. Luckily, I had already spent most of the money, so I didn't loose too much. I the proceeded to make a 30 minute phone call home, breaking my previous record of longest phone call by about 10 minutes.

Sleep? 12 Midnight - 6ish AM

Sunday

First was a long, and painful band rehersal. Playing the Beach Boys for four hours can suck the fun out of anybody's life. Worst of all, some of the other bands got water bottles, and we didn't.

Next was the Ybor City Parade. It was short and not too painful, and we didn't get into the top three places. Then the fun began...

Bush Gardens (New Year's)

not much to say... another amusment park, another crowd...

sleep: 2:00AM - 5:30AM

The Outback Bowl

We banded real good, then went home. 17 hours goes by quickly when you are sleeping/telling bad puns.

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Finally, I took a Political compass quiz some time ago.

"Governments should penalise businesses that mislead the public." A bit ambiguous. Does it refer to businesses that lie or those who advertise only the "good" aspects of their services or products?
"Are the rich taxed too much?" Taxed too much in reference to everyone else, or are they being forced to pay more than their fair share?
"Multinational companies are unethically exploiting the plant genetic resources of developing countries." I don't understand the issues here. I usually don't read this type of international news, so I don;t know what they event that they are talking about.
And what is with the page on sex?
Anyways, I got Economic Left/Right: -2.75 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.15

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Note: I've been really busy with Winter Drum Band and winning first at all of our shows, so I haven't posted this until now.