The Sillys Journey into the Heart of Dorkness (new 12/15 - p. 23 criminy crackerswog)

[HaleyB]

Be right back! Dont you just hate people like me?

Ha ha, caught you
And that is MY trick.

 

[Mr. Silly]

Be right back! Dont you just hate people like me?

So we'll be seeing you again soon.

 

[TwinkieMama]

Thanks for the smurftastic update to your smurfy trip report. Smurftabulous!

I do have some questions about your scientific methodology....


1. Did you repeat your experiements?
b. Did you find your data to be accurate and/or precise?
III. Will you include a statistical analysis at the end of your report? Did you use LSD?
n-1. Is this publication quality data... in the Journal of Modern Itinerariology, perhaps?

 

[Mr. Silly]

Thanks for the smurftastic update to your smurfy trip report. Smurftabulous!

I do have some questions about your scientific methodology....


1. Did you repeat your experiements?

We pretty much repeat them once a year these days. I also tried to do a double blind where I actually did not know whether I was in the control group going on the ride/attraction or not (though since I had the experimental equipment I always wound up in it). I am working an even more scientific triple blind test where I don't even know what a control group is, let alone that I am always in it.

b. Did you find your data to be accurate and/or precise?

The data seemed to fall into the patterns that our hypothesis assumed. Since we hypothesized that the hypothesis had the most accurate model, the fact that the actual data conformed indicated a high degree of accuracy. As for precision, well, the readout screen was a little blurry, so we couldn't always read every digit, but when that was the case we smurfed the illegible digits were the ones we expected, which actually raised our precision to the hypothetical results.

III. Will you include a statistical analysis at the end of your report? Did you use LSD?

I admit I was a little lazy. I was planning on producing a few graphs for the report, but after not working on it for a few days, I figured it was done, and sent it over to H. This was a family "trip" so no LSD this time, just smurfing some smurf and, of course, some wine.

n-1. Is this publication quality data... in the Journal of Modern Itinerariology, perhaps?

I think we might try to get it published, depending on whether I get to the graphs. So we need to continue with the report, but I think that I might submit it to Awesomia: the Journal of the Californian School of Radology. Despite being a report on Florida, there were some high Rad points, and I smurf their editorial board can be pretty mellow.

 

[celerystalker]

This was the smurfiest smurf I have ever smurfed! I smurfed it, smurfed it, and then I smurfed it again! You deserve a smurfing smurf for your smurfing smurf!

 

[nicolemarie]

Haley and Mr. Silly.

That was just flat funny.

I admit, I'm a little slow on the read. Some of the sentences take me a little while, but I came away with some helpful hints. Which is what the TR is all about, right?

1. I will pass on the FP retrieval move to my DH. He's always looking for ways to streamline the FP collection process.

2. How do you go about requesting the front row for Soarin'? At the Putty line-up? We were on the second row both times we rode it over Thanksgiving and the feet really hampered my enjoyment of the ride. My carp-detector was firing a few little spurts as the feet moved around above my head.

Great report. I feel smarter.

NM

 

[Mr. Silly]

Haley and Mr. Silly.

That was just flat funny.

I admit, I'm a little slow on the read. Some of the sentences take me a little while, but I came away with some helpful hints. Which is what the TR is all about, right?

I think a few of the sentences were also lacking of graceful phrasing in the way they were put.

1. I will pass on the FP retrieval move to my DH. He's always looking for ways to streamline the FP collection process.

I got it moving pretty quickly with no wind. When Sophie was helping I just had her grab the FPs while I swapped the tickets at high speed.

2. How do you go about requesting the front row for Soarin'? At the Putty line-up? We were on the second row both times we rode it over Thanksgiving and the feet really hampered my enjoyment of the ride. My carp-detector was firing a few little spurts as the feet moved around above my head.

When the attendant asks how many are in your group, that's when you spring it on them. There are sometimes other people doing the same thing, so you'll might them lined up in an odd spot different from where the main group is lining up.

 

[Mr. Silly]

This was the smurfiest smurf I have ever smurfed! I smurfed it, smurfed it, and then I smurfed it again! You deserve a smurfing smurf for your smurfing smurf!

Well smurfs.

 

[Minnie_Moo]

Smurftastic segment!

For me, the problem with not riding in the front row of Soarin' is that I have a tendency to look around instead of focusing on the screen. The last time I rode it I was in the last row on the end and scared the carp out of myself when I saw how high up we were.

Mamas, buckle your babies in tight on this ride! And "mind" your shoes!

 

[celerystalker]

I keep thinking maybe I missed an update -
but, alas, no update is here.
I'll check back later.

 

[UtahMama]

A Merry Christmas BUMP!


Ho Ho HO!!!!!

 

[Mr. Silly]

I keep thinking maybe I missed an update -
but, alas, no update is here.
I'll check back later.

I sent H. a copy of Section 10 a few weeks ago, but haven't gotten her notes. I am on to Section 12 at this point, so once they start coming there should be a few soon after.

 

[Backstage_Gal]

YEEHAAA, the Silly's are still breathing............

 

[Mr. Silly]

I am immensely enjoying your trip report. But I have decided what it is lacking, aside from any future interactivity features. You need a poll. Next to any of your clever but somewhat obscure references which may go over the heads of much of your readership. It would be fascinating to see how many people did indeed know what a planarium is. I did not! Or how many people understood your reference: the answer is 42. Which I DID get. I have found it occassionally frustrating in my own ongoing trip report when I write something that is, to me at least, somewhat clever, and people write afterward: "Love your pictures." Sigh. I may crawl into my TARDIS suitcase, inventory my Disney T-shirt collection for an hour or two, while feeling sorry for myself.
Looking forward to your next installment, with or without a poll.

Yes. As H. said, we were thinking about doing a poll, but the fact that polls are always bolted to the first page made that less desirable.

I had actually started work on the poll choices. Here's the poll I was wanting to do:

Poll - Should this trip report be more interactive?
1) No, I fear interaction. Even this poll is too much for me.
2) Yes, but only puzzles. No polls.
3) Yes.
4) Perhaps, it's just so hard to tell, isn't it?
5) Pie would be cooler than interactive features.
6) Change nothing. We fear change.
7) Theoretically one could change everything including any fixed ideas of trip report interactivity. Change is interesting.
8) Yes, but [explain answer in comments].
9) No, but [explain answer in comments].
10) Maybe, but [explain answer in comments].
11) But I like to start sentences with the word "but" [explain answer in comments].
11) All of the above
12) Only those answers above that are odd numbered.
13) Wait the odd answers referred to in #12 include #11, which is odd, which means that #12 includes answers that are even, but requires that no even answers be included. Dang. Please do not select answer #12 or #13.
14) Did you notice that #13 was just going on about rules for selection, but really had nothing substantial to offer as an option and so too with this, answer #14? Wait, if you did notice that and thus selected answer 14, then aren't you saying that there is nothing substantial to the position that caused you to pick this answer. That seems wrong somehow.
15) Please, whatever you do, don't say "only evens," as I fear that choice could potentially cause the universe to implode.

 

[Kay7979]

Perhaps there could merely be a link to the poll, and the poll could be hosted on a separate page altogether, such as a thread on the Community board, which would in turn include a link back to your trip report. In that way you could kill two Vogons with one stone: you could have a poll for your trip report and engage in shameless self-promotion of your trip report on the Community board.

 

[UtahMama]

3). Just Because. I am PRO-interaction. I'm all over the fill in the blanks technique for TR-ing. I think I'll wrap up my TR with stuff like: "Then we went to: a. Epcot b. Magic Kingdom c. Universal, where we: a. smoked cigars in a non-designated area, b. got food poisoning, c. swam with Crush...


Good to see you are alive and well. Must be "Wiiing" a tad much?

Wiiing! (not wee-ing)

 

[Mr. Silly]

Trip Report Section 10, in which we progress

Marketing has been hard at work again. Somehow we have managed to fail to realize any of their primary goals in a dynamic proactive action-oriented fashion. We needed to open a dialogue to update our status in a more proactive way.

But they did like the science stuff.

So I offer two things, first a more immersive experience through a puzzle, and second an account of why this thing took so long to get out.

So by way of the puzzle, somewhere in the trip report below we have secretly (and quite subtly and obscurely) hidden a Disney product/feature/element that does not actually exist. See if you can find it.

Now as for the reasons for delay, they are manifold. But by and large they boil down to a few things. First I am not good at keeping at writing trip reports. I lack a certain smurfiness that is required to keep at the task every day, but prefer to Second I somehow got distracted by compulsively arguing with the occasional remarkably disturbingly unreflective people that populate some corners of the internet on a different board. Third was something else that was a really good reason, but I can't recall it just now. But let me assure you it was a great reason, and one for which you would surely forgive me if I were to present it to you. So you should pretend that I have presented it to you and thus forgive me for the latency in the delivery of this segment.

Here is a hint.* Ho ho ho.

Now that you have forgiven me, dear reader, it seems that we have developed some rapport. So I will be sincere with you, even if I am slightly troubled by what I reveal. There are certain frightening truths about myself that are in themselves so disturbing that I don't even like to even tacitly ignore, since that's still coming too close. Things that are a kind of spiritual sand grinding in the gears of the soul. And so on. Luckily for you, despite a brief moment of existential angst, the Apollonian element decided to blast forth rays of light which rendered whatever that previous thought train was about unknowable.

But then a bit of contemplative brooding set in again. And it was shut down once more. And that happened several hundred times until I finally decided to write another section of the trip report to take my mind off myself. But I am afraid that we al know how well writing trip reports accomplishes that task. Disneyworld is a vacation place of self-discovery, even if it isn't necessarily optimally designed for that kind of thing.

Sorry about those last few paragraphs. I am afraid that I have been reading a lot of modern philosophy lately and that tends to have a bad net effect on my narrative abilities. As well as kind of making the inner crankypants rev up a bit, because the whole of the contemporary western phil. situation in its current form is a serious wasteland. They just don't understand the Good. But to pick up where we left off, I must turn to the notebook. I am afraid that we are actually only about four pages in or so at this point. But luckily I can't read 80% of it so I am sure we will be glossing a few things, especially now that I can't really remember much of the trip.

Dear reader, I (alas) have been reading more about Hegel lately. While the legacy of his thought is disturbing, it's important to understand what Hegel was up to. Hegel applied the idea of evolution to philosophy (which wasn't really thought about in those terms before), where a thesis would later encounter an antithesis, and they would ultimately realize a synthesis that rose above each, but which itself then became a new thesis, and so on. This idea of polarities colliding with each other over and over again seems kind of reminiscent of what is occurring in this trip report. I start to try to write a narrative account (thesis), the narrative gets sidetracked in a digression (antithesis), and then there is a kind of mashup.

Oh. My. God. Did you just see that? Just then? I just compared writing a trip report to Hegelian thought!

I am so sorry. That's so un-Smurfy. I swear it was an accident.

Seriously. I swear I look down on those people who deconstruct fast food menus just as much as you do. Assuming you do. Which you should. Because jeez. Four minutes into pointing out that General Tso's Chicken can be taken in two respects, one of which speaks for and one which challenges his authority so that the whole class struggle within China could be seen reflected in the inherent conflicts of the text. As you can see, that sort of thing can push the envelope of un-Smurfiness.

Anyway, putting all references to Hegel and Deconstructionism behind us (hopefully to be forgotten forever), let us leave the wishy-washiness of the Humanities, and return to Science. One incredibly weird thing that was a result of Einstein's theory of relativity was time dilation. While it would be mentally comforting to live in a world where time acted the same way for everyone regardless of their frame of reference, it turns out that time is not absolute. It is relative to velocity. The faster you are going the slower time travels for you. Thus if you take a pair of watches that are set to an identical time, put one on, and give another to a person, then hop on a plane, shoot up into the sky, and begin to fly very rapidly for a good long time, on landing, when you compare the watches they will not read the identical time anymore, yours will be a few seconds earlier than theirs and the people on the ground will be a few seconds older than you. That absolutely weird phenomenon is called time dilation, and it actually is something that things like the GPS system needs to take into account, otherwise things would get really wonky. It follows from this that the secret to remaining young is to drive really really fast.

Wonky? Did you make that up just now?

I really have nothing to say here.* Nice summary of Einstein's General Theory though.*

As a theoretical triperportolgist, I have discovered a similar theory. Fun dilation. To the degree that you are actually on a ride it is more fun than when you are in line. So when you are in line you need to take this fun dilation into account. Perhaps bring a notebook to write in, or come up with a game. Maybe work at one's skills as a conversationalist. Or if you are lucky enough to be in Disney properties, behold the glory of the theming that leads up to more recent rides. One side note is that switchbacks in lines heighten fun dilation.

So do 'hidden' lines.* That neat trick of hiding the line around the corner, or in the case of Rockin' Roller Coaster, after the pre-show.* That is brilliant.

The other effect is that as you exit the ride the fun begins to taper off, and to the degree that there is gross commercialism to greet you on exit that fun dilation increases. Among the experts in this field, this effect is known as the un-Smurfiness effect.

Except for the dump shop for Star Tours.* I kinda like that one.

Using the awesometer, I was able to gather enough quantitative data to come up with a formula to describe this, but unfortunately I have to save that for future publication.

Just to recap, we are in Epcot, Sophie and I have just finished with the Imagination Station photo fun. But we need to revert a little here. I looked over the notebook and deciphered a previously inscrutable bit of text. On the morning of this day as I was going through the back and forthing to get the various supplies we needed as I was walking from the room I looked out and I saw joggers. Jogging. Apparently this was so overwhelming to me that my hand shook and I can't see what I wrote about them. But the mind boggled that anyone would go running before getting into a park.

I wonder if any of the joggers were Chris!* I remember him telling me that he saw people jogging.* Why not just run around the World Showcase?*

Anyway back to the recapping, Sophia and I are at the little kiosk. Sophie is making a halloween themed picture with herself in it, and insisting that I offer no assistance whatever. We attempted to email it to ourselves, but we made a terrible mistake. We actually entered in Sophie's age. A terrible mistake for I was later to learn from H. that apparently they do not email out the images if one's age is too young.

At that point I pulled out my Pal-Socrates™. This is a very cool Disney item that you might not know about. The Pal Mickey ™ is something that is easier to find, and the Pal-Socrates™ is very similar. But while the Pal Mickey ™ talks about Disney stuff for the average tourist, Pal-Socrates™ talks about philosophical dimensions of the parks. When we left the Imagination ride, Pal-Socrates™ was talking about imagining numbers, and he began to ask whether numbers were just concepts or whether they had some kind of reality independent of the human mind. It's really quite an interesting question.

We then went off to Mission Space. My recollection of this is very weak. But I did write "quantum turbo-dynamic overdrive calibration initiated," which I believe is a phrase I uttered while we waited to board. There was an option for more or less intense rides. We took the more intense option. I wrote "fun. All roles were fulfilled." The awesometer readings were good. Mission Space seating arrangements were to get complicated down the line as different crew members began to insist on fulfilling various roles in our space exploration.

We had a ghost with us on this ride.* We wondered if Mel was somewhere in the parks, and guessed that she was or would be shortly.* I even took a couple of photos of Gary.* Also we made sure to use the phrase "Riding Gary" more than once.

Pal Socrates was telling us the history of the phrase, "All things are in all, but each is appropriately in each," which began among the Pre-Socratics, but which ultimately incorporated by Proclus into his highly structured and systematic philosophical system at the end of Classical Greek thought, shortly before the academy was forced to close by Justinian. We bailed from Mission Space, skipped the bit at the end with the computer games, and took the shuttle boat to Morocco. We had to run to catch the boat. Sadly I didn't measure our velocity either as we ran to the boat, nor the velocity of the boat itself. I wish I had so that I could both have formulated a good math word problem, and so that I could have created a graph, since graphs are very scientific.

In Morocco we consumed mass quantities of nutrients. I reported "good as always," but for some reason did not record my measurements, so I actually can't prove that it was good scientifically, it's just speculation. But I do recall that the baklava was quite good in a wholly subjective way. Pal-Socrates™ popped in and said something about the nature of pleasure, and how pain always seemed to follow pleasure, and vice-versa, and how one could think of the two as a kind of two-headed creature, and how if Aesop were still alive surely he would concoct a fable about it.

Mmm, Tangerine Cafe.* Yum.

At this point Haley took off to change as she was going to go meet some people. Max and Sophie and I hung out. We looked at Morocco briefly, and then went next door to Japan. The awesometer reads very high in Japan, especially since Max and Sophia can hang out in that store and gawk at the Pokemon stuff and other things for hours. Max got pulled into Pokemon stuff quickly. Sophia and I went over to the slash-the-oyster-open and cut the pearl out of its innards table. Sophia watched them extract pearls from slimy entrails over and over. Surprisingly. like every child in Lake Wobegon, every pearl they found was above average. This time we watched them drill into the pearls with great interest and watched them affix the pearls to jewelry. They used precision equipment which appealed to my nature as having converted to a fully scientific orientation. In the past we had beheld the pearl extraction area briefly. Now we beheld it in deeply concentrated focus, the pearl extraction ladies became a kind of Kabuki theater that we watched enrapt over and over. My description in the notebook was "cool." Pal-Socrates™ popped in. He began to fire off a Zen story, about a Zen master, Nan-in, who received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!" "Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

After a while we left to catch the boat. My quantitative analysis of the boat trip was recorded thus, "the boat took *forever*." It was sitting in the dock on the other side the whole time. The laggard-counter was ticking hard and steady. I actually wished that Pal-Socrates™ would say something interesting, but he just kept talking about Hegel, and the perspective of thought through history, and questioned whether the evolution of knowledge meant that wisdom too was something that evolved through the ages. And so on. We saw people getting off the boat far after the time one would have expected people to be getting off. We began to speculate that the boat had some kind of mechanical failure. At that point we decided it was time to walk. As we reached the end of the ramp the boat left the dock. Yes, once again the minutia of waiting in a line dominated my note taking.

On getting to the other side, we went to the New Zealand booth. I ordered a glass of Monkey Paw Cabernet, and two Kiwi rolls. Sorry Max, nothing you can eat here. The woman taking the order was very confused. I wanted a monkey roll? They didn't have any monkey rolls, just Kiwi rolls. No, I just wanted a glass of Monkey Paw wine and two Kiwi rolls. What is Monkey Paw? The other person running the other side is jamming along. Many people have passed us. They seem to be walking past in a smooth steady stream. I tried to clarify again, slowly and carefully. They only had two types of wine. One was a Cabernet. It had the word monkey in the name. There were five things on the menu total. One had the word monkey in it, one had the word roll. She was still puzzled. Pal-Socrates™ cut in mentioning that the most profound truths are also the most obvious. I put him in the pack to quiet him down during my efforts at negotiating my glass of wine and two kiwi rolls. Suddenly her little light bulb turned on. I got my wine and kiwi rolls. The wine was good. The rolls were okay. Sophie liked her roll. We went to the Greece booth. Last year they had a really good sweet wine that I very much enjoyed. I was hopeful that they would have it again. Alas they didn't have it. I used a lot of exclamation points while writing about this.

Then we were off to get the Minute Maid Frozen Lemonade since I knew they had it here in Epcot at a certain ice cream booth. I got one for each child and got a strawberry bar for me. We then proceeded to sit and eat them. Slowly. Very slowly. Very very slowly. According to our laggard-counter we were pushing the envelope of slow. But for some reason I did not take many notes.

Maybe because you had an ice cream bar in your hand?

Once the aeon of eating Minute Maid Frozen Lemonade finally ended it was 4:20. From there we went to Fast Track. Once again the laggard-counter began to fire off. Some form of mechanical failure had occurred. All actual ride details were somehow not recorded, and have been lost to posterity save one data point, which was that we exited the ride at 5:00.

From there we left to go to the Living Seas to meet up with H. and her friends. Unfortunately Pal-Socrates™ drank the hemlock, so we were not to hear from him again.

Up next - I become a luddite.

So.* After I left the family I headed around the World Showcase.* I stopped in France and tried one of the wines and the Chocolate Creme Brule.* Both were good.* I sort of enjoyed my extreamly long walk to the buses.* I imagined what a trip to WDW without kids might feel like.* I almost felt badly for enjoying it so much.*

I took the bus back to the Pop.*

I showered and put on a skirt because tonight was the "ladies" meet.* Only it turned into a sort of general meet.* I should have dragged Steve and the kids along.* He would have liked it.* Oh well, there is always next time.*

Speaking of next time, more on the ladies meet will follow.* Next time.* Maybe.* If we make it past eating.

 

[Backstage_Gal]

Haley, you are a SAINT!

 

[klmall]

Verrrrry, very funny! I missed a TV show because I got caught up in reading this thread.

 

[TwinkieMama]

Oh. My. God. Did you just see that? Just then? I just compared writing a trip report to Hegelian thought!

I did see it. I seriously thinking of comparing my own next trip report to a collection of works by George Lucas... do you think I can pull it off?

Seriously. I swear I look down on those people who deconstruct fast food menus just as much as you do. Assuming you do. Which you should. Because jeez. Four minutes into pointing out that General Tso's Chicken can be taken in two respects, one of which speaks for and one which challenges his authority so that the whole class struggle within China could be seen reflected in the inherent conflicts of the text.

Just who do you eat lunch with??? Cause I know Haley would never be so smurftabulously un-smurfy? We just like to order things that are not actually on the menu and see what they will bring out... or we did before-children. Sigh.

One side note is that switchbacks in lines heighten fun dilation.

True that.

The laggard-counter was ticking hard and steady. I actually wished that Pal-Socrates™ would say something interesting, but he just kept talking about Hegel, and the perspective of thought through history, and questioned whether the evolution of knowledge meant that wisdom too was something that evolved through the ages. And so on.

You really should call tech support about Pal-Socrates.... I don't think he is supposed to be talking about Hegel. (Anyway- mine doesn't..... he does go on and on and on about the origin of good and how this effects the refillable mug debate) I think this is a prank... kind of like those rouge Little Mermaid dolls.

Unfortunately Pal-Socrates™ drank the hemlock, so we were not to hear from him again.

Pal-Hegel is available on ebay however.

Up next - I become a luddite.

so much for the ebay option