Fright Fest!

Part of taking advantage of the season passes we have to Six Flags meant going to the big Halloween thing they have: Fright Fest. In theory, I had no problem with this. I mean, it sounded kind of fun. On the other side of that, it meant taking two trips, because, the first weekend we planned to go (Fright Fest takes place during the whole month of October), my daughter got invited to a sleepover, so, although we went, we had to leave early-ish to get her back in time, and none of the scary stuff had started yet. That was kind of annoying.

But we made plans to go back just for the scary stuff the following weekend. I use the term "scary stuff" kind of loosely. Let me explain:

Six Flags had a posted warning that children under 12 should not stay after dark because the park would become too scary for them. I saw the warning the first weekend we went and had some trepidation about taking my daughter who scares relatively easily and is less than 12.

The Fright Fest attractions were divided into free attractions and additional fee attractions. So, yeah, first, you have to pay to get in the gates (unless you have a season pass), which isn't cheap, and, then, you have to pay by "ride" for more than a half-dozen different attractions. I'm assuming the paid attractions weren't cheap, because they didn't have the prices listed on any of the literature, and we chose to only do the free attractions. The paid attractions were almost exclusively listed as "very scary," but there were a couple of the free ones that were also listed as "very scary."

I have to say that if the free haunted places were a good representation of what scary is, then nothing was more scary than having some people dressed up as zombies. I don't know; maybe, I'm just jaded, but nothing struck me as scary and, other than the zombie clowns (whom my daughter thought were freaky (because clowns already start out creepy, according to her)), my daughter was barely fazed.

They did have some good shows in there, though. We saw Jim Mackenzie, a juggler and comedian. He had some sinus issues (note the nail in his nose),

probably caused by running with scissors.

He also juggled fire.

We also saw the zombie pirate and sea lion show.

So the kids had fun, and the costumes the employees wore were pretty incredible. Here are some other pictures:

Oh, and my daughter tried to feed  my son to a giant alligator.

And, for the moment, we managed to avoid

The Weight of Wrong

I may have mentioned a while back that one of my kids, as a birthday present, got season passes for the family for Six Flags. This is somewhat analogous to giving the gift of the "noisy toy" to someone else's kid. Especially when my kids can't even agree upon which rides to ride. Practically speaking, this means I have to take my kids to Six Flags often enough to make the season passes worthwhile. Don't look at me like that; most of this process is not pleasant or fun. I mean, it's not like I get to ride anything, because I'm always on the ground with whatever kid refuses to go one whatever ride we're at. The only ride they all like is the water ride, which I don't like, so I'm still on the ground... except, when they're on that, which always has a long line, is when I write. heh heh

But anyway, that's all beside the point.

Recently, while on the way back from Six Flags, I got flipped off for being in the way of someone's desire to break the law. Let me explain.

We were driving back from Vallejo; it was rush hour, so traffic was slow; but we were in the carpool lane, because, well, we were a carpool. Traffic in the carpool lane was not slow. Where everyone else was going, maybe, 50 mph, we were going 65. I have to say, I love the carpool lane. More people should use it. Legally, that is. Environmental issues aside: if more people carpooled, regular traffic would be less congested. Anyway, we were going 65, which I know, because I had the cruise control set, and we were fairly flying along. At least, we were flying along in comparison to everyone else.

But, in the midst of that, a young guy (early 20s at most) in a red, almost-sports car came speeding up behind me. There are two things wrong with this picture:
1. The obvious. He was speeding. And I don't mean a little.
2. He was in the carpool lane. I don't know about the rest of the country, but CA takes it carpool lanes seriously, and the fine for getting caught driving in one during carpool hours while not being a carpool is pretty steep.
I could see that the guy was getting angry at being stuck behind me, but 1. I was where I was supposed to be; he was not. 2. I wasn't going to try to slow down 15-20 mph to get into the regular traffic flow just so that he could break the law.

Rant:
Yes, it's breaking the law to speed. Traffic-related deaths are still, as far as I know, the #1 cause of non-natural deaths in the United States. Most of these are caused by substance abuse or speeding or both. When you are speeding and a cop pulls you over, he is not the bad guy; you are. He should not be off somewhere stopping a "real crime," because that is what he is doing. Pulling you over for speeding is much more likely to be saving your life and the life of some victim of your stupidity and selfishness than anything else that cop could be doing. I get that you don't like getting caught doing something wrong, but, when you get pissed off about it and blame the cop, you're acting just like a teenager yelling at his/her parents for breaking some household rule. Grow up. When you do, you will understand.

Just by the way, when I'm going the speed limit--and I am never intentionally going over the speed limit (and only very rarely am I doing it by accident)--and you pull up behind me getting all pissy because I won't break the law by speeding up or  won't slow down and thus facilitate you in breaking the law, it makes me want to slow down and match the speed of the traffic in the other lane anyway, just to piss you off even more. [I don't do that, but, my gosh!, it makes me want to!]

Aside: The fast lane is not for speeding. Don't you even think that it is. The fast lane is for people who want to go the speed limit. The slow lane is for people that don't want to go the speed limit. When I am in the fast lane and I am going the speed limit, I am doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. I don't care if you want to go faster. I don't care if there are 20 of you behind me that want to go faster. It is not my job to facilitate the wrong you want to do. When I am going the speed limit, I am not the "slow driver;" you are the "too fast driver."

Anyway, finally, for whatever reason, there was a break in the (much) slower traffic to my right, and the guy behind me dodged into the hole, causing the person he cut off to have to slow down even more, and sped around me, narrowly avoiding me and the car just in front of him. The whole time he was doing this, he had his left arm fully extended from his window, flipping me off. He was going at least 80 as he accelerated away from me. He was not the only one to exhibit this kind of behavior, but he was certainly the worst.

Now, I am not really talking about traffic issues here. They are just the illustration of the problem. We here in the United States have come to think that we are entitled to do whatever we want. All the time. Not only should we be allowed to do whatever we want, other people should enable us in our desires to do whatever we want. All the time. Even when those things we want to do are wrong. Even if those things we want to do have the potential to hurt other people. Or even if they will hurt other people. Or the world. Or whatever.

You want to talk about trickle down effect; well, this is where it really works. The rich, who got even richer during the recent recession while everyone else got poorer, exercise their "entitlement" all the time, and everyone else sees them doing it, getting whatever they want whenever they want it, and we decide we want that, too. And we really don't tend to care whom we may hurt to get the things that we want. So we end up with dead teenage boys on a city street. Or we end up with a four car collision during rush hour. Or any number of other things, all because we want what we want and we want it now.

Tell me, how many of you actually like the character of Veruca Salt? And, yet, that's exactly how Americans tend to act. All the time.

And it's wrong. All the time.

So, when I'm driving down the freeway in the fast lane and going the speed limit, no, I will not move over for you. And, no, I don't care if there are 20 of you backed up behind me. The weight of your numbers and desire to get what you want doesn't make it right. It doesn't. And, no, it doesn't matter how many of you start eating rocks, I'm not going to do that, either. [If you understand that reference, you will earn major points. I may have to develop a system whereby people can actually earn points and trade them in for stuff. Virtual points don't do anyone any good. (No, Briane, you can't have my idea.)] And, no, just because 90% of you (or more) want to think that comma usage is "subjective" and you should get to put them wherever you want, it doesn't make it correct. Nor does calling stuff poetry that doesn't meet the definition of poetry make it poetry. Also, starting in the middle of the action and skipping all the exposition in your story just because it's popular to do it that way, right now, that's not right, either. If you leave out the exposition and most of the rising action, you don't actually have a full story; you have part of one; I don't care how long it is.

What I'm saying here is this:
Lots of people being wrong about something doesn't by sheer numbers make it right. I didn't bow to that kind of peer pressure when I was in high school, and I'm not about to start now, so, go ahead, exercise that finger all you want.

I'd Rather Be Disney

I grew up on Six Flags. So to speak. The original one. The one that was built because Angus Wynne went to Disneyland and thought he would also build an amusement park, one that didn't require you to go all the way to the west coast, and, so, he built Six Flags near Dallas, kind of a halfway point in the U.S.

I only, actually, went to Six Flags a few times as a kid, but I went a lot as a teenager. A few times a year. It was only about two hours away, so, when we wanted a bigger trip, that's where we went. Not my family, my youth group. My family never went. See the "only a few times as a kid" (and that may be stretching it, as I can actually only remember going twice prior to being 15).

At any rate, I loved it. I thought Six Flags was great and the epitome of amusement parks. At this point in my life, I've been to several of the Six Flags parks, and, until last summer, I didn't think it could get better than that. Seriously. See, I'd never been to a Disney park, and, really, the only reason I even wanted to go to one was because of Star Tours. I mean, seriously, Disneyland couldn't really be that much better than Six Flags, right? Right? Well... how wrong I was, and you can read all about the trip to Disneyland starting here, if you're so inclined.

Still, at the point I went to Disneyland, it had been a good 10 years since I'd been to a Six Flags, so, although I knew Disney was better, it was kind of an abstract thing, because it had been so long since I'd been to a Six Flags, the memory wasn't really fresh enough to know why Disney was better.

My younger son received for his birthday, this year, a season pass to Six Flags: Discovery Kingdom. Actually, for his birthday, the entire family received season passes. This is, of course, a mixed blessing, because, on the one hand: yea! season passes!, but, on the other hand: oh, season passes; now, we have to go enough to make them worthwhile. This past weekend was our first trip (because we had to go by the end of the first week of April to activate our parking pass, which would have become void if we didn't (and can I just say, "What the heck?" I mean, it's paid for. It's not quite fair to put a time limit on when it can be activated especially since the park only opened for the season two weeks ago).

So what did I learn about why Disney is better after our first trip of  the season to Six Flags?

1. Everything at Disneyland is designed to make the experience better for the user. For instance, when we went to Disneyland, everything we needed was mailed to us ahead of time, and we had it all when we got there, so getting into Disneyland was smooth and hassle free. However, when we got to Six Flags, we had to go get IDs made for our passes, and that was the longest line we had of the day, nearly two hours just to get IDs, not to mention that the parking pass is specific to me, so, if my wife wanted to take the kids to Six Flags on a day that I couldn't go (which won't happen, but still...), she would have to pay for parking.

2. Disneyland is SO clean. It's clean for two reasons: If you have some piece of trash in your hand (like, you just finished a beverage), and you want to throw it away, there is a trash can right there for you. They make disposing of trash so convenient, it's almost more trouble to drop it on the ground. But, if you do, there are people walking around with brooms constantly cleaning up. It's not only the "happiest place on Earth," I would bet it's the cleanest. On the other hand, Six Flags makes it extremely difficult to get rid of trash. There are no trash cans at all in the ride lines, so, if you get in a line with a beverage and want to throw your trash away before you get on the ride, you CAN'T, because there are NO trash cans. But, yet, they have signs up everywhere saying "Please Keep Our Park Clean." I just want to know how they expect that to happen when the trash cans are hidden. And they have no people walking around on clean up duty.

3. There are ads all over Six Flags for EVERYTHING, the most annoying of which are the ads to upgrade. Upgrade your daily ticket to a season pass, upgrade your season pass to a gold pass, upgrade to a Flash pass so that you can get on the rides more quickly. Upgrade to a season pass for meals. Buy a souvenir cup that you can refill for cheap. Everything aimed and designed to get the customer to spend more and more money. There's none of this stuff at Disneyland. Maybe, Disneyland is enough of an ad in and of itself, I don't know, but there are not banners and ads all over the place trying to get you to spend more and more money. Okay, so they have gift shops everywhere, but so does Six Flags, and those aren't as obtrusive as all the banner ads.

4. Water. We all know that staying hydrated is important. I mean, really important. To help you with this issue, Disneyland does two things: 1. Water is pretty cheap, not more than $2.00 a bottle, and some of the places you can eat let you have free cups of water, rather like a lot of restaurants do. 2. You can bring things in with you, so, if you choose, you can bring in water or snacks or whatever rather than being forced to buy it in the park. Six Flags, however, charges $4.00 for a bottle of water, which is beyond ridiculous. AND they don't allow you to bring in anything from outside the park. Not even water. This just seems wrong to me.

5. Six Flags (all of them) is mostly a park of roller coasters. That's cool. I mean, you know, roller coasters are cool. They are the biggest attractions at Six Flag parks. There's not a lot there beyond the roller coasters, though. Not overall. Discovery Kingdom does have some animal shows and stuff, because it was a Marine World before Six Flags bought it, so there is still a dolphin show (which we missed because an employee WORKING AT THE DOLPHIN SHOW told me the incorrect time for the next show) and a tiger show, and you can (pay more money to) ride elephants (I guess that's the "elephant upgrade"), and stuff like that, but the main things, the big attractions, are the roller coasters (and let me just add that 2/3 of my children do not like roller coasters). I compare this to an action movie where the focus is on the explosions with just enough story to tie them together. Disneyland, on the other hand, has a well developed plot with plenty of action to keep it exciting, but it also has character development and cool settings and all the things you'd expect from a really good book. Although there are roller coasters, it's not about the roller coasters.

6. The lines. Disney knows that waiting in line is a dreary experience, and they do everything they can to make the experience better. There are things to look, environments to experience, all sorts of things to ease the pain of waiting in line, including being able to get "fast passes" to get onto some rides more quickly, and that fast pass thing is just an extra they offer to you. For free. None of that Six Flags. Six Flags is like the Soviet Union of amusement parks. Just drudging through the lines for hours. Nothing to see. Nothing to do. Only ads. And no trash cans. Oh, and their version of the fast pass, the "Flash Pass" (after the The Flash comic book character), costs extra money (see point 3).

And that's why, as a writer, I'd rather be Disney. Sure, roller coasters may be exciting, eye catching and all of that, and they may be fun (they are), but, at the end of the day, I was ready to leave Six Flags. And, you know, we'll have a good time when we go back, but it's really light fair. Surface. I was never ready to leave Disneyland. It was only with reluctance that we left each night because we were too tired to go on, but we were never just ready to leave. And we couldn't wait to get back the next morning. Of course, my kids can't wait to go back to Six Flags, even the ones that don't like roller coasters, and that's okay. They're kids. They're not quite able to differentiate yet. Which is not to say that they don't think Disneyland is better, because they do, but they still approach both experiences with approximately the same level of enthusiasm. Right now, the roller coasters work for them (or the butterfly habitat), mostly because they're young, but there will come a day when just the roller coasters won't be enough.

And that's okay. There are books I read when I was young, books that I enjoyed, that I can't go back to now. They were good for me at the time. However, when you continue to expand and deepen your reading, you find you can't go back to those other books with the same kind of enjoyment, just like I will never again be able to enjoy Six Flags in the way I did before I went to Disneyland. Disneyland is just better. And that's the kind of books I want to write, too.

The Happiest Place on Earth: Part 1

I've never had a huge attraction to things Disney. That's not to say that I don't have my movies: Robin Hood and The Fox and the Hound are still two of my all time favorites. But Disney was never a thing for me. That may have been due to the butchered versions of The Black Cauldron and The Secret of Nimh they released when I was a kid. It's hard to hold any special fondness for the butchers of two of your favorite books.

But that didn't stop me from wanting to go to EPCOT Center when it opened in 1982. I had absolutely no desire to go to Disney World, but I desperately wanted to go to Epcot. That never happened. In 1987, Star Tours opened, and I wanted, even more, to go to that! I mean, it was Star Wars. But, in 2010, they shut Star Tours down to re-design it. I was bummed about that. I'll never get to experience the original Star Tours  attraction. But I still had hope to go to the new Star Tours. That's the only reason I've ever wanted to go to Disneyland. That and the exclusive Star Wars action figures the Star Wars store there has.

Several years ago, the kids' grandmother took them to Disneyland, and they brought me one of these:

It's awesome! But it made me want to go even more (and get all of the figure series).

Earlier this year, my oldest son got to go to Disneyland to perform with his choir (where they received a gold medal ranking), and he got to go on the new Star Tours and brought this back:

I just have to say that I love all the collector's editions of the Potato Heads. I have, well, probably, more than I should. Spuda Fett filled me with a renewed desire to go to Disneyland just so that I could buy the whole Star Tours collection of them. My wife did not find it amusing.

I still had no real interest in Disneyland in general, though. I figured it was overpriced and overrated. Besides, I've been to Six Flags. I mean, I grew up within driving distance of the real Six Flags, which has a lot of attractions and Texas color and isn't all about the rides. Why would I need to "waste" money on a trip to Disneyland? You know, other than Star Tours. And the Indiana Jones ride, but that wasn't as big a deal.

Earlier this year, the grandparents (my father-in-law and his wife) decided to take the kids to Disneyland this summer. During the ensuing conversation, I mentioned that I'd never been to Disneyland. It was an innocent comment, especially so since their grandmother (not the grandmother that took them the previous time (that had been my wife's mom)) had asked me a question that I couldn't answer because I'd never been. It never occurred to me what kind of an uproar it would cause. As it turns out, I was the only one in the family that had never been to Disneyland, a fact my wife knew but neither of us thought particularly important as my wife had not much care for Disneyland, either, a fact that just reinforced my attitude toward the place since she had been there before.

At any rate, a whole new plan was conceived. A plan that involved the entire family going to Disney. People were excited. Well, honestly, 6 of 7 of us were excited. Even my wife got excited. I was looking forward to finally getting to go on Star Tours and going to the Star Wars store, but, really, I didn't have any particular care about the rest of the trip. It was a necessary evil to accomplishing my Star Tours goal.

That trip was last week.

I can't say how wrong I was. Sure, Disneyland is a big commercial enterprise, and they really do a good job of enticing people into spending money. I mean it's a massive money suck, but, oh! it's so much more. But you'll have to wait for Part 2 for the rest...

Oh! And I got this:

I wasn't able to get all of them, but I got the most important one!