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Last night, we had a Shabbabaque at Temple (“Shabbat” + “Barbeque”). There was a bunch of food leftover, and so I brought some home — the sliced tomatoes and roasted zucchini — and threw it into a crockpot. That’s a great thing to do with leftovers: make a stew (and I intend to suggest formalizing that next year*). Just like at the Shabbabaque, I’ve got loads of leftovers — onsies and twosies of news articles — that don’t make a coherent dish. Perhaps they’ll make a good stew. What do you think?

Jewish Summer Camp

• LGBTQ and Jewish Summer Camp. Two articles related to this subject. The first looks at how one camp is trying to rework the Hebrew language, so transgendered kids fit in. The second explores the ways that Jewish summer camp helps LGBTQ fit in, and the ways that they don’t.
• Ga-Ga. One more camp related article: If you’ve been to a Jewish summer camp, you’ve likely seeing that an octagonal court and an odd game of dodgeball called ga-ga. Ever wonder where it came from? Hint: It wasn’t Israel.

Food and Eating

• Turmeric. My wife has recently been turning to turmeric for its anti-inflammatory properties.  Users of the herb should note that a number of formulations have been recalled due to possible lead contamination.
• Rotisserie Chicken. We’ve all heard that rotisserie chicken is cheaper than uncooked chicken, because markets are trying to get rid of the chickens before they spoil, and some profit is better than none. Someone actually investigated. In most cases (i.e., Costco), it is still cheaper to cook it yourself.

Local Returns and Departures

• Returning: Labels Table. According to this article, Labels Table has returned to Tarzana. The problem is: I don’t remember it being here in the first place (although my wife says that it was, and that it was pffffft).
• Ports O’Call. It appears that the demolition order has been issued for the old Ports O’Call in San Pedro. Replacing it: A hipsters revisioning called “San Pedro Public Market”.
• The Music Center. Supposedly being reinvented is the plaza at the Music Center.  Spend 30 million, and let’s see if you can make this hulk of concrete friendly. I’ll believe it when I see it. The structure is massive and above ground due to the parking, and that may just be an incurable.

The Body

• Smell. The sense of smell may be found all over — outside and inside — the body.  It turns out there may be a good reason. Think of smell and taste not as an odor detector, but a general purpose chemical sensor.
• Vocal Fry. We’re supposedly in an epidemic of vocal fry and uptalking.  But the real complaint may not be the vocal characteristic, but the fact that it is women doing the talking.

History

• Right Hand Over Your Heart. Did you ever wonder why we put our hands over our heart for the national anthem and the pledge? Or why we have the pledge in the first place? Wonder no more. Hint: The former is so that we don’t look like Nazis, and the latter is to unify a nation of immigrants.
• Grinning Ghosts. Here’s the true history of the Haunted Mansion, and why it couldn’t be built until Disney died.
• Pinball. I bet you thought the only Pinball Museum was in Las Vegas. Think again.

What’s Left

• TV Musicals. The Flash and Supergirl are doing a musical crossover episode.
• Passings of Note: Fyvush Finkel, a major force in Yiddish Theatre and a builder of Picket Fences. Jack Riley, the voice of Stu Pickles and Elliot Carlin on Bob Newhart.
• Theatre Briefs. Fun Home tour casting announced, including Kate Shindle, the Prez. of AEA. One wonders if she really wants to come to LA (#pro99). CSULB is doing two lesser known musicals: Stop the World, and Bubbly Black Girl. Dear World is coming to VPAC, and Parade to Thousand Oaks. Oh, and Allan Sherman is coming to Temple Ahavat Shalom — get your tickets now.

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As we continue the process of cleaning out the links, today’s three-theme brings together articles related to current and former theme parks, although the term is used loosely:

• Ensuring the Votes.  If you want politics to go way, the easiest way to do it is stack the votes. Disney did this with how they engineered the governance of the land that makes up the Walt Disney World resort. They designed the city and improvement district structures specifically to speed what they wanted to do, and provide the hand-picked residents with special perks to keep them voting Disney’s way. Sometimes, of course, such attempt backfires …. such as in Columbia MO, where they thought they had engineered an improvement district to have no residents… but it turns out they forgot one. Lastly, sometimes these attempts just lead to rampant corruption (as in the City of Industry).  You’re probably thinking Disney could never get away with this in California; however, just look at how they got out of paying gate taxes in exchange for a promise to expand the park.
• For The Birds. Those of us who are old enough and live in the San Fernando Valley remember the days of Busch Gardens. There was recently an article exploring a relic of the Gardens that exists to this day: the bridge over the railroad tracks connected to nothing. It turns out that it once was a pedestrian walkway to a log ride known as the Ya-Hoo Flume, which entered a giant misty aviary with waterfalls and squawking parrots that flew freely.  Yes, the parrots still exist as well.
• An Adult Theme Park. Back in May, the adult theme park that is Las Vegas lost an attraction when the Riviera closed down. But it turns out that the Riviera is living on in many ways.  … from the people to the neon to the Crazy Girls to all the stuff that once existed in the hotel.

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link below; you can sign in with your LJ, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. There are currently comments on the Wordpress blog. PS: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

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Today’s lunchtime collection of news chum brings together three stories about product designs from the past:

• The Saturn V. Sometimes old designs are better, but we lose the ability to make them. Such is the case with the Saturn V, one of the most powerful launch systems made by man. Amy Teitel has a really neat article on the lost art of the Saturn V. The article explores how the rocket was designed, and why decisions made during that process led to our inability to reconstruct it today.
• Voyager. Sometimes old designs just keep plugging away, doing the job they were designed to do like an Energizer bunny. Such is the case with Voyager, which is still doing its space mission with incredibly archaic technology, including 8-track tapes. 1970s computer technology… doing the job today.
• Roller Coaster Seats. Lastly, sometimes old designs don’t keep up with the time. Such is the case with roller coasters, where the problem is the seats. They were designed for smaller visitors and able-bodied visitors. They have become out of date – and dangerous – when faced with our larger (read “obese”) population, and increasing numbers with missing limbs.  Theme parks are still trying to figure out how to address this issue.

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link below; you can sign in with your LJ, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. There are currently comments on the Wordpress blog. PS: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

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“One Mouse, One World”. Sounds like a slogan for world domination by a particular corporation, doesn’t it. Sometimes it feels that way when you are in certain parts of Orlando Florida. It is also the slogan of one of that organization’s theme parks, Epcot, which we visited today.

First of all, why Epcot? The answer is simple. Most of the rest of the other Orlando parks can be found somewhere in the Anaheim parks. So it didn’t make sense to spend boku-bucks to go to them. Epcot, on the other hand, is mostly unique (except for Soaring, Captain Eo, and Nemo’s Adventures).

Epcot is a odd mix of multiple parks. The first park, when you go into it, is the “park of the future“. This is the park of the big Epcot globe, the voyage into space, and the hydroponic gardens. This is also the park that (mostly) felt dated — it felt like the Tomorrowland of the 1970s, down to the architecture and layout. It had that rounded-curve sense of the old People-Mover structure. We did ride a few rides in this area — in particular, Spaceship Earth, Mission:Space (Green) and Living with the Land. Spaceship Earth seemed a bit dated — all the audio-animatronics looked like characters from Pirates, although I did appreciate the 9-track tapes. Living with the Land, on the other hand, was neat — especially the portion where they went through the actual Epcot gardens and science areas. Mission:Space was good, but short and predictable (almost like “Star Tours”)… and you can tell where the “Orange” version would have added stuff. We didn’t get to see everything here we wanted to see — there evidently is an Energy movie with Ellen DeGeneris, but it was 45 minutes long, and we wanted to see other stuff. The line for Test Track was just too long, and the FastPast was too late. I also note that quite a few attractions allowed you to email stuff to yourself, such as the picture from this post.

The second part of Epcot is the World Showcase. This was mostly shopping, as opposed to rides (although we did see one Circlevision movie with Martin Short). The lands are Canada, UK, France, Morocco, Japan, America, Italy, Germany, “Africa” (Outpost), China, Norway,and Mexico. Each land has lots and lots of themed shopping (although at points I felt the shopping was a little culturally insensitive and stereotypical). Some of it is great (I particularly liked Canada, UK, Paris, Japan, and Germany), some of it wasn’t. Each land also has lots and lots of local food, much of it relatively expensive. Few rides, but fun to walk through and shop. There was also good music — in particular, a really good rock Celtic-Canadian band (including bagpipes) called Off-Kilter.

The third part of Epcot is a graft — Disney attempted to “graft” characters and marketing into the park. Thus you see Nemo in the Sea section, the Three Cabillaros in the Mexican lands, and various Disney face characters in the appropriate lands (i.e., Aladdin and Jasmine in Morocco, Belle in France, Snow White and Rapunzel in Germany (but no Heimlich), Mulan in China, etc.). You also see Duffy the Disney Bear everywhere, and Pin Trading and Vinylmation everywhere, and Disney marketing everywhere. You can find everything Disney in Epcot … except any books describing the original purpose of Epcot and its history and development. Evidently, remembering the history is something solely reserved for Anaheim; Orlando is for entertainment, resorts, and separating the tourists from their money. But I didn’t say that in my outloud voice, did I?

Overall, what did we think of the park? It was fun, although not the constant attraction type of fun of Disneyland and DCA. I don’t think it was worth the standard Orlando gate, given that it was mostly shopping. But it is hard to say what any Disney park is worth. I am glad I saw it.

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link below; you can sign in with your LJ, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. There are currently comments on the Wordpress blog. PS: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

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