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[wombat]

Mr. Toad is still going strong. Last trip Asherbaby did the mandatory Dumbo and Mr. Toad rides.

Oh good!

We did the Dumbo ride too. I remember the ride attendant was surprised that my friend and I each wanted our own Dumbo. I guess once you grow up you're expected to be better at sharing.

[Golfhaus]

Mrs. Haus said the strip was pretty much ruined for her by Roast Beef's use of the word "mongoloid." It's a word she takes particular offense to.

I've said I'd like to go to Disney World twice - one before kids, once after. Disneyland hasn't crossed my mind. It's not high on my list, though.

[jaydub]

Mrs. Haus said the strip was pretty much ruined for her by Roast Beef's use of the word "mongoloid." It's a word she takes particular offense to.

Perhaps "micro cephalic", or "consanguineous".

[smick]

Also: I have lived in Los Angeles for, like, over four years and I still have never visited Disneyland.

I lived in Memphis, TN for a year and never visited Graceland.  Though I did apply to be a tour guide.   I was not given an interview.

[theinevitable]

oh, yeah, definitely. I am not proud of that part of myself. I really would like to think that I can overcome my biases and evaluate each person I meet as an individual... and I am great at that, I think, until I see a fat kid at disneyland and his parents are giving him a bacon double-cheeseburger and he's wearing a WWE shirt and OH GOD.

I am really good at arguing with people when they complain about "ignorance," saying that Ignorance is not a value judgement, it just means you don't know something, and the great thing about Ignorance is, you can fix it by teaching that person... and then I see that kid, and I just assume all kinds of things I have no right to assume, and all my not-ignorance goes right out the window. I am trying to get better about the way I tend to judge people at first glance.

[jaydub]

I lived in Memphis, TN for a year and never visited Graceland.  Though I did apply to be a tour guide.   I was not given an interview.

You didn't include a headshot did you?

Sorry 

[Doc]

My Folks took us on a trip to America when we were kids and we did Land and World and I loved it of course but what suprised me was so did my parents, just totally transforming into ten year olds in front of your eyes. A lot of people see places like disney as something fun and innocent being ruined by corporate culture but if you are willing to meet it half way I think it's still somewhere awesome and magical and it's all the more awesome because it exists despite it's own corporate culture.
I guess I'm just in love with the idea that there are still some places in the world that we have communally decided to say 'Ok, this is a part of the world where you can just be a happy stupid kid and believe all the crap that your cynicism disallows in the real world, also teacups!'

[CortJstr]

I guess I didn't enjoy the magic kingdom when I was 11 was because I had no reference for most of the stuff. I can count the number of Disney movies I've seen on one hand, and the number of animated ones on one finger. So I had no attachment to Dumbo or whoever. But I did enjoy Epcot and Pleasure Island.

[jay-ell]

Hey Mayor! In the Cali-Land they kept Mr. Toad but put the same Pooh ride you mention in place of the Bear Country Jamboree.

*weeps*

[Carlos del Vaca]

We went to Disney World, pre-kids, in September 2000.  September is THE best time to go.  We didn't have to wait in line for anything, and the only time we faced a crowd of any sort was at the big Saturday night parade in the Magic Kingdom.  The lack of lines made the Magic Kingdom itself, the whole thing really, much more palatable.  I was taken aback at the number of things that absolutely hadn't changed since I'd been there as a kid in the early 80's, though.

I keep telling the kids we're going in 2011.  I have to save up enough Hilton hotel points to get us a free room for a week though.

If you marveled at EPCOT back in the day, and are now disappointed that it's becoming all movie tie-ins instead of a positive vision of the future, you should read this blog:
http://epcot82.blogspot.com/

[colmore]

Look at it this way:  when wealth (say a collectively owned sulpher mine or something like that) comes to a tiny little third world island, the inevitable first response is for everyone to get fat, lazy, and happy.  Fat lazy and happy is what people who have had hard lives sincerely and deeply want.  They don't give a shit that it means they aren't going to live to be 95, they were never sold the idea that a perfect long life is something legitimate to expect.

Thinking that fat, lazy, and happy is bad is a sign that you're an educated aristocrat.  If you think people are bad for having non-aristocratic values, well then...

My favorite quote from the 2002(3? I forget) banning of workplace smoking in New York was this quote from one of the pulp newspapers, from some janitor or something similar: "This law is for rich people.  Rich people have happy jobs and want to live forever."

Whenever I start to look down my nose about contemporary country music, fatness, ugly T shirts, whatever, I try to think "My GRANDPARENTS went to college.  I'm the freak here."

[theinevitable]

I am glad that you said this. I came to the same conclusion earlier today, when I had this conversation with a guy I know, and he basically said something like "god, I just... I hate poor people, you know?" (he said this in a "joking" voice, but he was kidding himself if he thought he didn't mean it.)
That basically told me that my impulses are WRONG and I should suppress them rather than doing the "it's just my first impulse, I know maybe it's bad, haha" thing.

at the same time, there are a hell of a lot of things that Most People want to do that are not good at all. obviously a line needs to be drawn somewhere.
I'm pretty liberal and white and whatever, but I can only guilt myself about my lifestyle so much. I can only take so much "how dare you buy used clothes, you can afford new ones!" "how dare you think that you know what's best for other people!" "How dare you feel better about yourself for donating to a charity!" "How dare you think that punk rock is/was authentic, do you know that blah blah" before I am all liberal-guilted out.

I mean, it's one thing to say "it's a rich person's law" or whatever, but dying of lung cancer or emphysema or obesity-related health problems is incredibly unpleasant. I am not at all in favor of public-smoking bans, but, give me a break.
I realize it's a free country, and of course it's people's own choice. But the thread of "who the hell are you to tell me how to live my life!" gets old when the answer is "a motherfuck*ng doctor, I have spent my life studying the way the human body works. the human brain is not equipped to understand long-term consequences in a rational way, you're fuck*ng killing yourself."
Some people are trained or educated to understand certain kinds of things, and the whole anti-intellectual thing where people are snobs/elitists/jerks if they cite their knowledge gets real old.

[Doc]

My favorite quote from the 2002(3? I forget) banning of workplace smoking in New York was this quote from one of the pulp newspapers, from some janitor or something similar: "This law is for rich people.  Rich people have happy jobs and want to live forever."

Whenever I start to look down my nose about contemporary country music, fatness, ugly T shirts, whatever, I try to think "My GRANDPARENTS went to college.  I'm the freak here."

This, especially about the smoking thing, that's an aspect of public-health measures that always kind of nagged at my brain and I couldn't work out why. It even extends all the way out to foreign relations, most of us under 70 have not known a real war (I'm being a bit dismissive of 'Nam here), virtually none of us have known a war in our own land. Starting from that point how do we expect people from countries where war and poverty is a way of life to share our values. We're a culture of ivory towers, or something, it's just we can only see the ones above us and each of us assume we live on the ground floor.

[Arachno-capitalist]

I realize it's a free country, and of course it's people's own choice. But the thread of "who the hell are you to tell me how to live my life!" gets old when the answer is "a motherfuck*ng doctor, I have spent my life studying the way the human body works. the human brain is not equipped to understand long-term consequences in a rational way, you're fuck*ng killing yourself."
Some people are trained or educated to understand certain kinds of things, and the whole anti-intellectual thing where people are snobs/elitists/jerks if they cite their knowledge gets real old.

How does someone being a doctor make them qualified to make decisions for me about my life? And its not doctors who make public policy, its politicians, who are even less qualified to make decisions for me about my life. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they're not educated. People aren't wrong just because they disagree with you, or doctors, or politicians.

Three people close in my life have gotten cancer and all of them live healthy lifestyles. Of all of the smokers I know, none of them have gotten cancer. Continuing to smoke is bad for me and I understand that, thank you doctors for informing me of this information - but I'm old enough to make decisions for myself, so stop trying to legislate my decisions for me.

[Doc]

Yeah, but we have a culture of treating imperical facts as some sort of moral or value based judgement. In a factual debate there is always a right answer and many many wrong ones. Smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for 40 years will give you cancer, a bottle of whiskey a day will give you cirrhosis of the liver, watching Big Brother will reduce your social skills to that of a concussed frat-boy. But when we enter into these discussions in a public context it seems 'respect' for another person's position overrides honesty. If a person is not informed about a particular subject (or has actively kept themselves uninformed) then they are less capable to make a decision than someone who is well informed.

This isn't to say that doctors or politicians or whoever should get to make your lifestyle decisions for you but people approach these debates as if the right to make a decision equates with being the best informed to make a good (read: healthiest or whatever as context appropriate) decision. If you want to make the decision to light up  those camels every morning way to go but don't act like the person telling you it will shorten your lifespan is bringing some kind of moral judgement down on you, you just don't like the facts that they are presenting.