Daorceyland

While I appreciate good theatre, ballet, opera, classics in literature and film, independent music and local television, I have a few cultural guilty pleasures. Next time you visit, take notice of the DVD collections: Three editions of the Indiana Jones Trilogy, two editions of the original Star Wars trilogy plus at least one of each of the new films and both volumes of Clone Wars, The Best of the Muppets DVD series, Lord of the Rings extended edition, Futurama: The Complete Series, etc, etc.

I guess the point is that I'm all over some of the most accessible artifacts of pop culture. I can't help it, but I get a huge kick out of Star Wars and Indy (the archeologist, not the style of car or under funded art). If only they could make a theme park for me; one that lets me interact with the characters I've come to think are so cool.

Oh, wait, they did.

Disneyland is more than Sleeping Beauty's Castle, Dumbo and It's a Small World. Since the park teamed up with Lucasfilm in 1988 to produce Star Tours, Disneyland has become a homing beacon for experiencing the films I enjoy. Add to the mix Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye, and we have two great rides for Daorcey. Not to mention Muppets 3D with a real live Sweetums!

Lego Vader - Just outside of Disneyland

Holy crap! Now I can fly through the Death Star and race past snakes, rats, bugs and a rolling boulder.

To make it even more geek-tastic, Disney is embracing Star Wars even more with a Jedi Training Academy and plans to do an updated Star Tours. Plus, there are tons of cool Star Wars toys in Tomorrow Land from lightsabres to Imperial Blasters to collectible Jedi Mickeys.

Who knew the little girls loved Stormtroopers?

So on our last day there, we made sure we enjoyed the Star Wars experience fully. I put on my Darth Vader shirt, and we got to Jedi Training early. Sadly, we were too old to participate, but not too old to push kids out of our way for a front row seat. I was excited.

Elbows up! Make way for the "adult" geeks, kids.

And then out comes the Jedi Master with his rad light sabre moves and they get 20 "younglings" to learn the light sabre basics. On one hand, so cute. On the other hand, so cool.

Admit it: cool and cute.

And then, in the middle of learning how to thrust and parry (or whatever), who should show up but Darth Vader, Darth Maul and two Stormtroopers.

Darth Maul is hard core.
Unfortunately, Vader's crippling arthritis got the best of him.

Next thing you know, kids are living the dream and dueling with the Dark Lord, himself. One kid was even so good that he broke through Vader's defenses and was accosted by the Stormtroopers. But before anything bad could happen, the Jedi Master yelled out "Use the Force!" and the kid threw up his hand to Force Push the Stormtroopers back against the wall.

I may have freaked out.

Some days I wish I was actually 12 years old... not just acting like it.

Point being, in the absence of a Daorceyland in which I can live the movies I love, Disneyland will have to do.

He liked my t-shirt. Gave me a thumbs up.

The Happiest Place on Earth - Sunday

I was too excited to sleep... which made me restless and very awake when the fireworks went off ("we're under attack!!").

Natalie slept... soundly.

So, when the wake-up call came at 6:30am, I was ready to giv'r and jumped out of bed to shower and get dressed. Natalie made fun of my eagerness. How cruel.

Fortunately, we were staying at a hotel that was close enough to the park that we could easily walk to Disneyland inside 20 minutes. We arrived at 7:30am for a 8am opening. I think Natalie may have been getting at least a bit excited now. Disneyland helps to heighten the excitement and anxiety by ensuring we stand in long lines waiting to get in the park and then they did a countdown until the gates opened.



Relevant aside: I remember one of my previous trips to Disneyland with the family. We in a similar situation: waiting in line until the park officials release the hoards. Once the barriers come down, they are very specific that there must be no running and that you must walk calmly to your first distination. The next thing I remember? Dad sprinting like a middle-aged gazelle toward Indiana Jones Adventure. As I recall, mom started sprinting after him and Arone and I were left to exchange glances and wonder if we'd all heard the same walk-don't-run warning.

Yeah, that pretty much describes how Natalie approached the morning. Elbows up!

While I was speed-walking to keep up with her as she passed through a gate into Adventure Land, a stern security guard reminded us loudly "There's no running in the magic kingdom."

"Yes," I called back over my shoulder. "I'll be sure to explain that to her."

Indiana Jones was the first ride we did. It would be riden 15 times over the next five days. Good times indeed.

So we did rides. That's more exciting for us than you, so I'll spare the details.

I've always been under the impression that it's cheaper to eat outside of the park then inside, so at lunch we were walking down Harbor Bvld when we were randomly accosted by a lady who said "Where are you from?"

"Um... Canada." I've learned that you start big and narrow down depending on your audience. Sometimes Canada is really enough.

"That's great. And how old are you?"

"Uh... 25." We're a bit worried now.

"Hey, would you like to have a free lunch and $100 to spend at Disneyland."

"Um... yes."

And so a free lunch and money roped us into a time-share presentation. You may cringe, but you may not know that a communication degree adds +10 to Rhetoric Shield.

We'd agreed well ahead of time that this wasn't for us, so we both were looking forward to hearing an argument and poking holes in it. Yeah, we're nobody's friends.

Since we're not inviting you to our condo in faboulous Wikiki, you can guess the outcome. It was supposed to take 90 minutes and we extended it to at least two hours with our questions. In retrospect, our salesman didn't adjust his argument to suit his audience (us). For two people who would rather do a tour of military battlefields while staying at a 2-star hostel than lounge in a luxury condo with marble countertops and singing angels and dolphins in the bathtub and micro-brew beer coming out of the taps... um he didn't seem to get us. He might have been thrown off by Natalie's first comment that her dream trip would be to Antarctica and my final comment that our next trip might be to Old Montreal.

It was a bit sad because when we finally said no, it was easy to identify the exact moment when his heart broke in two. We simply did not choo-choo-choose his time-share.

After rejecting him, we had to reject two others to get to our prize of $100 Disney dollars.

Then we got their limo to drive us back to our hotel where we had a nap and prepared for the rest of the evening doing Disneyland. We skipped dinner so we could spend our new-found bounty on clam chowder in the park. With an extra $100 in our pockets, we had no fear of eating in Disneyland, which would mean churros, Dole whip, pineapple, frozen bananas and a number of soups/chilies in a bread bowl.

I use to fear time-share presentations. I fear them no more.

The evening ended with three more hours of rides, the brilliant spectacle of Fantasmic and fireworks. Oooooo...

The Happiest Place on Earth - Saturday

Photos are at Flickr.

We wake up early on Saturday (4:00 a.m.) to get final packings in order and await Ryan and Karissa to pick us up. The Boleys awesomely offered to drive us to the airport at an ungodly hour when those with sense are still sleeping. They saw a bright side to being up so early: catching a McDonald's breakfast. I hope Ryan's agony on the couch was worth it.

Arrive at the airport, breeze through the check-in line as we're going to just take our backpacks on the plane. And then we arrive at American security. Picture a vast room with a high ceiling. Around the walls near the ceiling are massive pictures that represent the United States of America. An astronaut, black children wearing Statue of Liberty hats, mountains, desert, New York skyline. The security officers sit in booths with glass that covers only their faces so I can't imagine what the glass does. We notice a guy ahead of us who looks slightly Middle Eastern and he gets fingerprinted. Luckily, we breeze through with no fingerprinting.

I thought of my co-worker Khaled who was in the States for business. Khaled is a Muslim and he hates going to the States. And he was proven right. He was taken aside into an office for questioning and they told next time he goes on business to have the company provide a letter stating his intentions.

Then we arrive at the actual screening point. People are agitated as they're late for their flight and the line is hardly moving. When we get to the front, we dutifully pull out our pitiful 3 oz. bottles of toothpaste, conditioner, etc so we aren't accused of being bombers. I notice everyone take off their shoes and I do the same because no one wants to visit the office.

Fast forward to LAX. We get off the plane and it is warm. The bus which will take us to our hotel is standing-room only but we grabbed seats. An hour later we're in Anaheim. Our hotel room isn't ready but we got to Disneyland to confirm our passes purchased in Canada do not require extra lining up.

Anaheim has a nifty bus service which takes the tourists hordes to different hotels, malls, restaurants for only $3 a day. We take the bus to the closest mall. We pass the Crystal Cathedral which is considered a tourist attraction but is a giant glass church. I think it's hideous but Daorcey replies it's just an update on stone cathedral. At least the stone cathedrals look beautiful. This glass monstrosity looks like it's waiting for a movie crew.

We eat at the mall at some faux Chinese place because we are ravenous. We walk around the open air mall and buy nothing. The most interesting place is the indoor skate park. We probably see the skinnest kids there.

Then to Vons, the USA Safeway, to pick up food. We walk there since we just missed the bus because we were snacking on a Krispy Kreme donut. Supplies are picked up and we start walking for an unknown transit stop. We figured being south of Calgary the sun would still be up at 7. Nope, it goes down at 5.

Back at our hotel we fall asleep watching TV.

Ads I can watch twice

We went to see James Bond last night. If your first response to that is dissapproval, I recommend seeing. This is the Bond "reboot." More serious, darker, more aware and mostly rid of the spy fantasy world the franchise had created for itself. While it may be a tad long, it was worth the money for the ticket.

Anyway, since I don't have TV nor do I get out much, I was excited to see a few of the ads yesterday played prior to the movie. I love advertising that feels fresh--that feels like it's earned my attention and the emotional response it got out of me. For me, that makes an ad worthy of recognition and a brand worthy of the time people are giving it.

Two ads were shown that are particularly noteworthy.

This was produced by Toronto-based company for the World Wildlife Federation. The mix of music and discordant images really make you think about the message at the end.

The next one is for a first-person shooter video game... but it's noteworthy because it destroys the conventions of FPS advertising. Have a look.



It's hard to believe this is the official ad for Gears of War. Unlike any other advertising for this genre, there is no sound of gunfire, no embedding you in the fight, no shouts from the command post, no screams of the enemy. I love watching this ad.

Ironically, Natalie and I will be renting Call of Duty 3 this weekend. This WWII FPS also had an ad last night that was everything I just described in the above paragraph. It's important to remember that a Globe and Mail review that says the game brought tears to the reviewer's eyes will always trump advertising.

Yeah, yeah, the photos of the vacation will be up this weekend. Hold your horses.

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