Springfield, Springfield, it’s a hell of a town! The schoolyard’s up and the shopping mall’s down!

December 18, 2013 3 Comments read Attractions, Travel

The world is full of Disney people, but for me, the theme park best-equipped to hoover money out of my wallet is Universal Studios. There are actually two Universal Studios parks in Orlando, and we planned to spend a full day at each, plus a third visit for Halloween Horror Nights…but our first priority was to go to Springfield. Universal just opened the Springfield expansion this summer, and just like John Hammond, they spared no expense, loading the area with large references and small nods alike. You can have a drink at Moe’s Tavern or at the Duff Brewery. You can eat at a number of Springfield eateries, including Krusty Burger and The Frying Dutchman, and wash the whole thing down with a Buzz cola. Even the garbage cans were branded with a Jebediah Springfield logo! In addition to the Krustyland ride they already had, they also opened Kang & Kodos’ Twirl ‘n’ Hurl so you can empty your stomach and try something else…or just wait a few hours until you’re hungry again, whatever. The bathrooms even smelled like cotton candy! It was magical.

As a Simpsons superfan, I’ve got two bones to pick with the area. Just two. One, I didn’t care for how all of the different eateries had storefronts to make them look like standalone structures but actually opened up into a large cafeteria–I would have preferred the experience of dining in what felt like the Frying Dutchman or Cletus’ Chicken Shack to generic tables. Two, their Flaming Moe is a travesty. The Flaming Moe is supposed to be made of multiple kinds of liquor, non-narcotic cough syrup, and set aflame. What they served us was orange soda with dry ice. I understand that setting drinks on fire is probably a difficult or expensive thing to insure, so I would have given that a pass…but at least make it a long island iced tea and not watered-down orange drink! I probably wouldn’t have had a Flaming Moe for breakfast like I did that day, but I still would have purchased one.

^{This is not a Flaming Moe! This is orange drink.}

We spent a ton of time in Springfield, taking pictures with the characters, eating at Krusty Burger, riding the rides, shopping at the Kwik E Mart, and even playing the midway games. I won two out of the three games I played, which is actually pretty decent, though I wish I would have won the sledgehammer game for bragging rights alone, especially after watching a mess of dudebros (Is a “mess” the proper term? Or should it be “a popped collar” of dudebros? Or something else?) try and fail. I came SO CLOSE to winning, but close doesn’t cut it. I still came home with a Krustyland pillow and a Homer plush, so I’m not complaining…much.

^{Hey, Surly only looks out for one guy…Surly.}

There was only one bit of shopping that would make my Springfield experience complete…

…DAMN IT! We did see and experience most of the rest of the park that day. There was a show about makeup SFX that was entertaining (and I was happy to see that the expert was a woman), and I loved the tribute to Lucille Ball, who is absolutely one of my favorite actresses. If I could be even a quarter as funny as she was, I’d be satisfied. The strangest thing I did that day was participate in a survey about paper towels. They offered me park money to tell them what I thought about various paper towels, their attractiveness, their softness, their absorption qualities, their coolness factor, and their overall appeal…but I was explicitly told not to touch the paper towels. At all. The woman who came in to pull out the towels for me to look at actually put on fresh latex gloves each time to handle them. I’m not very good at determining softness or absorption with my eyes, and as it turns out, I really don’t give a shit about paper towels, but when I received that Scooby Doo money, I knew my opinion was both powerful and valuable. I believe I purchased a churro with my earnings. We also had a tough guy posing competition in the licensed Terminator jackets.

The majority of the other rides were fun if not particularly remarkable, with two exceptions: TRANSFORMERS: The Ride, which was horrendous, and Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit, which was awesome and terrifying at the same time. While the ride itself was excellent, it was the boarding/deboarding process that really terrified me. You see, most roller coasters come to a complete stop to allow people to get on and off. This one slowly rolls past on a conveyer belt, giving you limited time to hop on and strap yourself in. As our line crept forward, I kept picturing myself either tripping on my way into the coaster, or not having enough time to get myself properly strapped in and being flung out of the coaster at 65mph, down 17 stories. Thankfully, neither of those things came to pass, but my already-hyped adrenaline from the boarding process definitely helped make the overall ride more intense. One thing that DID fly off on the Rip Ride Rockit were Jason’s fingerprints. Universal has lockers that you can use for the duration of the ride that are keyed with your fingerprint. We locked up our belongings, but when we went to retrieve them, we kept getting errors. Eventually, we were able to flag down an attendant to help us, and before he opened it, he asked us to describe the contents of the locker. “Let’s see…we’ve got an Itchy & Scratchy hat, a pair of sunglasses…and a picture of him making a stupid face.” You see, earlier that day, I’d actually plunked down money for a “photo opportunity” photo of Jason in front of Optimus Prime. When the attendant opened the locker and saw the picture, he burst out laughing, and I knew I’d made the correct decision. Behold, in all its glory:

Totally worth it.

Nom or Vom: Tis the Season

December 17, 2013 Comments Off read Nom or Vom

Oh Babe, you're even sweeter than usual! — Oh Babe, you’re even sweeter than usual!

Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings. Much in the same manner, every time someone says “Bacon is SO over,” another bacon product is introduced. This one combines pork products and sugar to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the pork for the pigs that were in the manger, and the sugar is, I don’t know, the baby Jesus’ sweetness or some shit like that. You know and I know that artificial bacon tastes nothing like bacon, it’s all strange smoky aftertaste and none of the crackling fat flavor that got you to love bacon in the first place. That said, it is bacon CANDY, so it’s not supposed to replicate bacon faithfully, just be vaguely reminiscent of bacon. What say you? Would you eat this? Or would you gag if you found one in your stocking?

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Aw, he can crawl up through my toilet any day.

December 16, 2013 8 Comments read Attractions, Florida, South, Travel, USA

After all of the stress of planning a wedding and dealing with all of the bullshit that goes along with actually HAVING a wedding (expecting someone to check the goddamned schedule we painstakingly made with addresses and directions or even to have a little common sense is like expecting someone to lick used gum: unfathomable.) the last thing we wanted was to deal with international travel, even though there are so many things we want to see and do out in the great wide world. Instead, we decided to pick the most foreign of locations possible within the United States. Someplace where the absurd seems utterly normal. Someplace with a reputation for bizarre behavior. America’s weirdest state.

I’m talking, of course, about Orlando, Florida. Home to both high and low-quality theme parks, the choice seemed obvious. On our first day, we went to Gatorland. Gatorland bills itself not only as the alligator capitol of the world, but also as Orlando’s best half day attraction: not ready to compete with the big guys who offer an ENTIRE day’s worth of entertainment, Gatorland will sell you four hours of entertainment and the ability to zipline over hungry alligators like so much delicious bait. I had hoped that the operators would equip you with a blowdart to shoot at the most delicious-looking gator, which you could then have cooked to your specifications at the restaurant at the end of the series of ziplines, but apparently they don’t have anyone working there with my idea power.

Ultimately, we decided to omit ziplining and make the most of the time we had available. Upon entering the park, there are several pits filled with young alligators, the obligatory pressed penny machine, and a number of snack bars, one of which serves fried gator nuggets. They say they don’t use their own gators, but I’m not entirely certain I believe that. Why go to the store to buy milk when you have entire pits of it at home? Since we arrived midday, we didn’t have much time to spend looking around if we wanted to make the last gator wrestling show of the day, so we headed there first. The gator wrestling show was billed as being done in “Florida cracker style” and to this day, I cannot tell you what exactly that might be. An internet search tells me that it might have something to do with turn of the century homes. You tell me!

After the show, we were given the opportunity to sit on the back of an already-humiliated alligator, and there’s very little I enjoy more than photo opportunities AND teasing apex predators, so this was a dream come true. Someday, I will be savaged by a wild animal, and I will completely and utterly deserve it.

After the gator wrestling show, we had some free time to wander the park before the gator jumparoo show. In addition to american alligators, they also have crocodiles from around the world and a variety of other reptiles, including turtles and snakes, and the occasional non-reptile, like blonde raccoons and owls.

^{Sorry Mr. Cottonmouth, you are not quite as skilled as Waldo.}

^{You know, I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but I couldn’t help but notice that these crocodiles are famed for being able to jump six feet, and yet their enclosure is less than six feet high. Plus, when they look at you, it’s like they’re calculating your body fat percentage to determine how tasty you might be. I didn’t linger by this pen, is what I’m saying.}

Another special interactive feature of Gatorland is the ability to feed these majestic creatures one of their natural staple foods: turkey hot dogs. The woman who sold us our packets told us we could feed any gator in the park that wasn’t behind glass. When I expressed my desire to feed the dog-eating gator, she repeated slowly and loudly, “ANY GATOR THAT IS NOT BEHIND GLASS” and drily added “Besides, all of them would eat dogs if they got half a chance. My neighbor found one in her pool eating her poodle.” I made a mental note to check the hotel pool before leaping in, and claimed my packet of hot dogs. If there’s anything better than throwing a tube of encased meat at a cluster of hungry reptiles and having them swarm to get at it, please tell me about it immediately.

These flocks of jerkass birds hang around, and will not only steal food from your hands, but will also snatch it away from a chomping gator, which is a sort of boldness I don’t understand. Are the gators too lazy to teach these bastards a lesson? Are the birds not tasty? Or would they fight harder over all beef kosher dogs, or perhaps the clearly enticing but also taboo dog dog? To close our half-day at Gatorland, we attended the Gator Jumparoo Show, which isn’t as impressive as a jumping show at say, Seaworld, but is vastly more dangerous, so it does have that going for it. The grand finale is set to Van Halen’s “Jump,” and I’m not certain whether it’s to inspire the gators to do their best or to whip them into a frothing rage as they can’t handle listening to that synth intro even once more. There’s definitely a monstrously large gator at 12:34 who has decided he’s had enough of being teased with chicken.

All in all, it was indeed a solid half day of entertainment: we fed gators, teased them, sat astride them, held one, tickled its tummy, threatened birds, pressed a penny, and wore a number of amusing gift shop hats. And the trip was just beginning!