Nerd quotient

I'm such a poseur.
- Daorcey



To be fair, it's more to a technical nerd question than pop culture nerd. But I do have a calculator preference.
- Natalie

Behold! The Tower of Terror

The ghosts of lost tourists from the Hollywood Tower Hotel

After our first experience with the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Natalie prefered to snack on mango and frozen bananas while I rode this cool ride myself. I only did it twice without her, but I enjoyed the ride every time. While the drops give it that extra excitement, the theatrical nature of the ride and the details put into everything from the abandoned lobby where you line up to the dark basement where you get in the "service elevator" make it a great ride.

Even the attention to special effects (doors appearing in the distance, the hotel around you dissappearing into a starry night, you and your co-riders turning to shadows in a mirror) make this a ride as super as the venerable Indiana Jones Adventure (we did that one 15 times). I recently read that the bellhop uniforms are the most expensive Disney cast uniforms to produce at $1,000 a piece.

So, yes, I recommend this cool little ride.

The photos from the vacation to Disneyland are coming. They are now on our computer and ready to be uploaded to Flikr and the blog.

How the TSA Stole Christmas

Coming back to Canada from the USA was an experience in security. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of ensuring no one brings a bomb in their shoe on board my flight home... but high security is cutting down on the amount of shopping I can do abroad, especially if what I buy needs to be confiscated at the airport.

We were good little boys and girls with our packing. We just brought carry-on, so we made sure we only had toiletries that were under 3 ounces and that fit in a clear plastic sandwich bag of the appropriate dimensions. We stopped ourselves from buying fluids and "weapons" while abroad because we knew they wouldn't make it home.

Yup, we played by all the rules. Except, we didn't count on the Transportation Security Agency (brought to you by the fine folks at Homeland Security) making up new rules.

At Disneyland, Natalie found a cool $10 gift for the Wagner family gift exchange: three packaged tins of flavoured and coloured lemonade crystals, each adorned with a recognizable Disney character.

But at Security Point #2 in LAX, Natalie's backpack was flagged. After going through the scanner twice, it was pulled off by a very serious lady who unpacked it all.

(As an aside, I suspect that's not a fun job. Basically, your job is to rifle through people's smelly dirty clothing all day.)

Eventually, she came to the lemonade. She tried to open the box briefly, but it was taped shut so she simply put it to the side and told us it wouldn't be going on the plane.

"Really? Uh, OK."

In retrospect, we should have offered to open it and test the lemonade crystals, but we were too stunned do anything more than accept that the lemonade was the Christmas gift that got away.

More importantly, I'm glad I stopped myself from saying the first thing that came to mind:

"Good point. We wouldn't want to have a taste explosion on our flight."

And that's how Daorcey stopped himself from getting strip-searched in LA.

Hello from Abroad!

Hi all! Photos to follow when we get home. For now, we just have time for updating with text.

So, for those of you who don't know we're spending the week at Disneyland in California. Yup, that's it... just a laid back trip with rides, shows and food. There's also lots of walking... lots of walking.

To date, we've done all major rides at least once. Some we've done more than once:

- Space Mountain: 2
- Splash Mountain: 2
- Star Tours: 3
- Pirates of the Carribean: 4
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye: 10

We still have a couple of days to go, so we expect that number to go up. There are also a few rides I want to do a lot more, but I have to go without Natalie. These include: Malib00mer, California Screaming, Mulholland Madness and the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.

The Tower of Terror has been a ride I've always wanted to go on since we missed doing it in Orlando many years ago. Last time the family was at Disneyland, they were just finishing it at California Adventure. This time, it's been open for a while. There's still a lot of interest in going on it, but it doesn't look like there are so many people that it will be a huge line (it's off season now).

Anyway, on our second day, Natalie and I went into California Adventure as soon as the gates opened. We'd just eaten breafast so we'd both agreed that we wouldn't do any "heavy" rides right away. But, while we're waiting to for the part of the park to open that has the Muppet Show (in 3D!) we ended up becoming a part of a crowd. When the barrier went down the crowd was directed toward the end of that section of the park, so we followed everyone. We soon figured out that they were all going straight to the Tower of Terror. A quick decision later and we were following everyone into the ride.

For anyone who hasn't been, it's a really cool ride with a lot of details put into creating an abandoned hotel. We are finally ushered into our "elevator" and strapped in.

That's when the screaming started.

Only seconds later and our elevator is plunged into darkness and we are rocketing skywards and freefalling (three times). It's pretty tense, but it doesn't take long for Natalie to start screaming with the rest of the group and me to start laughing.

Yeah, that was a good time. Natalie won't be doing it again with me.

We have two more days of this action. It'll continue to be laid back with breaks for the pool, shopping and naps. Yup, this is the life.

Still, we're looking forward to watch Battlestar Galactica on Saturday. Tony, fire up the TV -- we have two episodes to watch. (Plus, I need to catch up on Intelligence.)

Sent home from work

In the past two weeks I've been sent home from work twice. That means that over a 14 day period, for two days management has considered me so unfit for active employment that it would be better for everyone if I wasn't there.

To be fair, the second time was because I was dealing with a bit of flu. I looked like poo after coming in for an hour of work that the boss told me my work could wait until the next day. That was nice of him.

But the first time I was sent home was for a less expected reason. The first time I smelled so bad I couldn't possibly stay at the office.

Yes, you read that correctly. And now the story:

It seems I was endowed with a bit of luck and won a slab of smoked salmon in a raffle. My tastebuds and I were excited, so upon receipt of the salmon slab, I toodled up to Tony's place with crackers and cream cheese to enjoy my spoils.

You might call me a noob, but my experience with smoked salmon this far has been quite, um, dry. So when I opened this package of fish on Tony's counter, I was surpised to have it slurp out like an oiled salmon foetus. Fortunately all the salmon-y juices were contained within the cardboard box it had come in, so cleanup was easy.

I went on to eat. It was tasty.

At the end of the evening, I packed up what was left of the fish to go home. The cardboard box was too big to throw away into Tony's garbage, so I brought it home. Realizing it was too big for our garbage too, I propped it up beside the entrace to our place and left it over night.

Apart from the slight smell of smoked salmon in the apartment the next morning, we woke up to another normal work day. I put on my favourite brown suit, my favourite black all-weather jacket and prepared for a great day. On my way out the door, I grabbed the smoked salmon box (not noticing the small puddle of oil it had left behind on the hardwood) and carried it to the garbage on the way out of the building.

On most days, Natalie and I walk together downtown. It's about 15 minutes to the train station where we part ways. Half-way there, Natalie stops and sniffs the air:

"Something smells like crap."

"Yeah, I can smell it too. Probably just the garbage bins a half a block away."

"No, I don't think that's it... oh, baby, look at your jacket."

She found the source of the smell. Day old smoked salmon oil/juice was dribbled decadently down the length of my jacket. Where my jacket ends at my knee, the oily substance was splattered all over my right pant leg and onto my new brown dress shoes. After walking for 4 blocks, I'd already successfully transfered the oil onto my left leg. And now, as I look closer, I can see it's on my briefcase too.

"Oh, that's not cool."

We finish our walk with Natalie no longer holding onto my arm. I'm suddenly hyper-aware of the smell of decaying fish surrounding my. I note that there's some oil on my hand too and I try to wipe it off but only succeed in smearing a greater surface area of stench.

As I enter my building I pray not to share a full elevator.

Maybe I'll just walk up the stairs today. Yeah, that's it, and mix salmon and sweat for a special combo aroma.

In the office, all I can smell is my putridity. I start to be concerned about keeping an oil on my clothing for too long. Is this something they can get out at the cleaners?

I only had to walk into the bosses office for a few moments before he figured out there was only one solution. Through two hands cupped over his mouth and nose: "You need to go home, change and get your clothing drycleaned."

So I was sent home in shame to smell less awful. Ironically, my drycleaner is called Fishman's.

After wasting at least an hour and a half in the unstink I found myself in the elevator up to work. I looked in the mirrored wall at something on my nose... a smear of fish oil. The insult on the injury.