A photoblog and other things

I went to Disneyworld on the weekend with a few friends, and “this is insane!” was pretty much the only comment that was ever coming out of my mouth. I have to say, we absolutely fluked the whole weekend. I don’t think we could have planned it better. There were the hugest thunderstorms I’ve ever seen each afternoon, but if you waited through them you pretty much could go on any ride with little waiting time. Awesome.

If you know me reasonably well you’ll know I’m freaked out by heights. I also don’t normally do things one would consider risky, even if it is a theme park attraction. I pretty much threw all those attributes out the door on the weekend.

We started off on Saturday with a view to seeing Blizzard Beach. However, a massive, massive storm brewed up and we were stuck in a bus for an hour. After this cleared, we decided to go to the Magical Kingdom. That place was insane! We went on a few rides there, but there was nothing that really scared the absolute crap out of me. Ok, there was a bit of a drop on one of the water rides that freaked me out a bit, but that was about it. We got to watch the parade with all the Disney characters at night (this only happens on a Saturday – we completely fluked this) plus a huge fireworks display and that was all a real bonus.

I was blabbering on about how I couldn’t wait to see Pleasure Island that night. We didn’t get there until very late and it was only open till 2am. Soft!!! Anyway, we headed back to the hotel room and found that our keycards to get in the room were not working. One of the people with me said that they heard at the front desk they were having problems with the system, so we were there for a few good minutes kicking the door, cursing the keycard system, and nearly forcing our way into the room (we were all pretty damn tired at that point). Then all of a sudden the door opened and a guy said “I think you’ve got the wrong room”. Silence. Comprehension. I realised we’d walked up two flights of stairs instead of just one and that our room was directly below us. I think the guy took it pretty well.

The next day I’d have to say was one of the most insane days in my whole life. This is the day I broke a few personal records. Our first destination was Blizzard Beach, which we never got to go to the day before. We went on most of the rides there, but one that I was initially too scared to go on was Summit Plummet. Did I end up going on it? Hell yes! I was freaked out by having to wait in line on some stairs that were way up high, and I was even more freaked out of taking the actual plunge. But hell, it was so worth it. It was so good I actually forgot to scream on the way down.

The next park we went to was .Typhoon Lagoon. This had an insane wave machine that generated huge 6-foot waves. The only problem was there were soooo many people there you kept on hitting them. That fun was short lived though as a cranking storm came along and we had to take shelter. It lasted for over an hour and then the theme park got shut. Bugger! I still had an excellent time there though.

The last park we went to was Disney-MGM studios. I went on the Rock and Rollercoaster which was just insane. 0->100kph in 2.8 seconds. 5G turns. Wicked. That ride was heaps of fun. I think my favourite ride though was Tower of Terror. This thing took you up 13 floors, opened up the elevator doors so you could see how high you were, then took you back down again at 1.3Gs. Then it did some crazy random stuff – up, down, up, up, down you didn’t know what to expect next because the ride is supposed to be different each time. It’s pretty funny watching the ride from the outside because each time the outside elevator doors open everyone is screaming their heads off.

So, now I have to calm myself down and try and get some work done today. How the hell am I supposed to do that?!? I should be putting some pictures up tonight so stay tuned!

Ooh yes, I mentioned to some people that I was originally supposed to go to the Kennedy Space Centre on the weekend as well, but we just ran out of time.

I went to a Jamaican diner today for lunch. The whole place probably wouldn’t have been more than say 7×10 metres in size. It was very, very simple but I liked it. The thing I found appealing about it initially were the speakers they had that made up some sort of divider. No kidding, there were 2 massive speaker cabinets with *at least* an 18-inch driver in each of them, plus another 4 speaker cabinets that had a couple of 12-inch drivers per cabinet. They must have some bloody massive Rastafarian parties there! The place doubled as a small (very small) convenience store, and I saw that up on a shelf next to the ovaltine and other crappy substitutes for milo was, in fact, a few tins of milo itself. The heavens opened, choirs sang, so I bought some. I’m the happiest Aussie alive I reckon. *tear.

and none of my music, and no computer, and 1/2 of my clothes. It was actually a blind, dumb-arse mistake of mine to put my music CDs in the wrong suitcase, but oh well. Originally though my air shipment was supposed to arrive a few days after I did (it is an air shipment after all) so I wasn’t really that worried. However, that isn’t the case as I’ve been here for nearly 2 1/2 weeks and I ain’t seen anything yet. Yeah, whinge whinge whinge, I know 🙂 Supposedly it’s in customs at Miami airport still… those buggers are playing my guitar (good luck it’s left-handed), wearing my clothes (good luck that’s mostly my winter stuff) and listening to my CDs (yeah, um, good luck).

There are some album releases I am waiting on that may tide me over if my stuff never arrives. One of them is Way out West’s “Don’t look now”. There is a little article here. I’ve been listening to some of their songs using Distinctive Records’ streamer. I’m also waiting on some more CDs I ordered through Amazon, namely an earlier CD of Way out West’s and the new album by Brit group Keane.

I was waiting on some pictures from somebody else’s camera before writing this update, but due to technical difficulties, that’ll have to wait!

Friday night I didn’t have anything planned. I was sitting home, absolutely buggered from the week and I nearly went to bed. Note that I said nearly. There is a switch in my brain that comes into effect on the start of the weekend. It says “Don’t stay home on a Friday or Saturday night by yourself you friggin loser or I’ll give you nightmares and make your sleep general hell”. I payed heed to that switch, so I called up some friends and met them at Delray Beach. It’s half-way to Palm Beach and I found it was a pretty nice place to go to. Beers were a flowing everywhere when I arrived at the pub, so I joined in. A couple of hours later we moved on to somewhere else and I had a couple of Jagermeisters. That’s because they didn’t have any Absinthe (it’s prohibited) or Chartreuse. So after all that I couldn’t drive anywhere and I had to get a lift back to my apartment, which was ok since the people I was out with were staying in a hotel not far from me. The problem is I had parked my car next to the beach in a pay-zone, and I was worried I would get a fine the next day…

Anyhow, I got a lift to Delray Beach and arrived early afternoon – thank God I didn’t get a ticket! We then drove to Ft Lauderdale and continued on to South Beach in Miami. In a few words, I had a friggen awesome time there! We went for a bit of a swim and then went to the Clevelander. Uh, that place was out of this world. You can look around their website and, uh, see what I mean. I got some good pictures too! I’ll update my webshots account with those asap. The pork rib meal there is excellent. It was commented that I had a smile on my face the whole time – actually, I’ve got that smile cranking again as I think back on it 🙂 We headed home at about 8pm or so.

That switch was on in my head again so I met up with some other friends for line dancing at Roundup. I don’t know any line dancing moves but when the more conventional nightclub music starts I’m out on the dancefloor in a flash. Roundup is where I met the guy who wanted me to try out for the reality show. His girlfriend also gave me her business card – she’s a massage therapist and offered me a discount. Sweeeeet!