Disney 2022: Once Upon A Time.

It's our first day of our 2022 return to Disneyland, and we're off to a good start. A change in hotels from our previous trips has put us a quick 13 minute walk from the park entrance, and we join the usual entry lineup at 7:00 AM, well in advance of the 8:00 AM opening. Following the standard entry procedures (sad that it's necessary for the Happiest Place on Earth to have airport-grade security) we line up on Main Street USA and wait for the park itself to open.

Our three-day Parkhopper pass restricts us to the Disneyland Park until 1:00 PM, but that's not too much of a trial, there are lots of things to do: old favourites like Toad's Wild Ride, Snow White and Peter Pan's Flight, Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye, and of course Black Spire Outpost's immersive Star Wars experience, with the Rise of the Resistance and Smugglers Run.

There are some minor disappointments: Toon Town* is closed for "reimagining", as the Disney web site euphemistically describes it, and there are reports that the Indiana Jones ride is suffering from serious reliability issues, with refurbishment down time scheduled for November. However, there have also been some major changes since our last pre-COVID visit, and I'm eager to take a look at the new Avengers Campus, which replaced A Bug's Land in the California Adventure area of the park. 

We use the dwell time on Main Street to our advantage: using the Disneyland app, we pay the $25 USD Genie+ fee, which gives us full access to the Lightning Lane ride reservation system, and includes downloads of any photos taken of us by the Disney photographers scattered around the park.  The app is a necessity for navigating the park: it displays your schedule for the day, lets you purchase Genie+ and Lightning Lane passes along with food and merch, shows you an interactive map of all the park attractions along with wait times, and alerts you to upcoming Lightning Lane reservations and food order readiness - as well as storing your tickets for access to the parks.

Karli has a nostalgic affection for the Haunted Mansion, which has a Nightmare Before Christmas overlay for the course of the extended holiday season, and we're able to get an 8:05 time slot for entry, an excellent start to the day. We also reluctantly pay an additional $25 each for Lightning Lane access to the superb Rise of the Resistance experience in the Star Wars Galaxy's Edge section of the park at 9:25 - normally you can't double up for Lightning Lane reservations, but due to the additional fee, Rise of the Resistance is an exception to the rule.

Regardless of the cost, Genie+ proves its worth instantly: we're in and out of the Haunted Mansion almost immediately after the rope drops, and when our time slot opens up we literally walk into the start of Rise of the Resistance without ever stopping to admire the movie-set environment of Black Spire Outpost. 

Rise of the Resistance is just as much fun as we remember, although I discover that I've been ruined a bit by the interactive Doctor Who Time Fracture experience in London, I have a terrible desire to defiantly confront the Disney cast members who are playing the First Order troops.

We almost immediately roll over into Smugglers Run, where we crew the Millennium Falcon for a supply hijacking mission for the Resistance - and a bit of plunder for Hondo Ohnaka, the cheerfully corrupt owner of Ohnaka Transport. A quick snack, and we’re on to the first of three visits to Star Tours, where C-3PO and R2-D2 offer 54 different mishap-ridden 3-D tour adventures in the Star Wars universe, followed by some hazardous temple exploration with Indiana Jones.

By the end of the day, our feet are sore and we’ve walked over 18 kilometers, but we’ve done 11 different rides and experiences, enjoyed Dole Whip Floats and Mexican food, and generally gotten a great start on our trip. It’s good to be back.

- Sid

* As with the replacement of A Bug's Life with Avengers Campus, it's easy to look at Toon Town, which finds its origins in the 1988 Who Framed Roger Rabbit movie, and think that it may well be time for a different theme.

And we still found love together.

I rarely just post things that I find online, but this is such an unusual example of a thread that crosses over between my interest in the Doctor Who franchise, and my wife's interest in the Bachelor franchise* - my thanks to everyone involved.

- Sid

* This is more significant than you might think. Given that my wife watches The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, The Bachelor in Paradise, Survivor, The Circle, Love Island, Temptation Island, and Too Hot to Handle, and I watch Andor, She-Hulk**, Discovery, Picard, The Rings of Power, Strange New Worlds, and Doctor Who, it's easy to describe our viewing habits as being the extremes of reality TV versus unreality TV (for want of a better term), and as such there's generally not a lot of connection.

** Okay, we both watch She-Hulk, because it's a Marvel superhero show/procedural legal dramedy.

If you can't beat them.

As time goes by and retirement creeps closer, I find myself wondering about downsizing - which, in my case, means editing down my library, a daunting prospect.  I fully admit if I didn't have so many books we could probably get away with a one bedroom apartment, although I'd still need a spot for my iMac.

But what's the most profitable way of going about this?  I realize that I could just donate them all to a charity of some sort, but to be honest, if possible I'd like to get back some of the money I've invested over the years - money also being a useful thing for retirement.

I know that used bookstores have to get their inventory from someplace, but I can't help but feel that they want to pay as little as possible for the privilege. As such, I'm not sure that's the best solution.  Hmmm...I wonder whether it would be feasible to set up a store online?  I know there are options like Abebooks, which I believe would charge me a minimum of $25 USD per month depending on how much stock was listed online, along with 8% of every transaction (minimum 50 cents) and associated service fees.

I finally realized that what I really want to do is set up a little book stall like the ones by the Seine in Paris*, just sit there with a mug of chocolat chaud and a suitable book from the stock to read while I keep an eye on the traffic and hope for some sales - how sad that there's nothing like that in Vancouver!

- Sid

Postscript:  A quick Google™ search revealed that a non-food street vending license in Vancouver costs almost a thousand dollars annually - plus liability insurance.   Suddenly $25 USD a month doesn't seem exorbitant.

* I've seen something similar in New York, come to think of it.

Disney 2022: Changes.

Next week will see Karli and I depart for our first visit to Disneyland since 2020, where our return from the park was just under the wire for the start of the COVID-19 lockdown.

It's a bit of a bold decision, given that COVID is still very much a thing - in fact, some of Karli's friends described the park as a coronavirus hot zone after a recent trip (as well as contracting the virus during their visit).

However, having both suffered through the COVID-19 experience at the start of July, and now buffered by a well-timed second booster shot, we decided that we were in good condition to renew our acquaintanceship with the happiest place on earth. Sadly, we weren't able to make reservations for a repeat visit to Oga's Cantina in Black Spire Outpost, but who knows, we may get lucky with the walk-in option.  Karli is also looking forward to the opportunity to see the park decorated for Hallowe'en - she's been a fan of the Haunted Mansion since her first childhood trip.

There have been some changes over the past couple of years.  The Rise of the Resistance ride is no longer a reservation experience, which may or may not be a good thing, and the Avengers Campus is now open on the California Adventure side of the park - complete, of course, with a Shawarma Palace. 

There have also been some procedural changes.  What used to be a free Fastpass ride reservation service has been renamed as the Lightning Lane, which is now an additional charge, a sad comment on the eternal process of squeezing a little more money out of customers. Lightning Pass reservations can also be purchased as part of the Genie+ service, which bundles a variety of options for park visitors, such as photos by the Disney photography team.

Guests to the park are now completely reliant on the Disney app to make reservations, order food, and purchase Lightning Lane passes, to the point where a portable charger battery is strongly recommended so as to avoid losing the ability to access the necessary services to make your time at the park proceed smoothly - if at all.

There's a small private joke in all of this.  I have the impression that my wife thinks she needs to convince me to go to Disneyland, which, to be fair, was somewhat the case the first time we went in 2017.  Now?  Now there's a large Star Wars area and the new Avengers Campus - if anything, I'm worried that I need to convince her.

- Sid

Gnomic Statement XX: Limbo?

Am I the only person who keeps getting these ads for Foreverspin tops?  Or is everyone I know just waiting for Arthur to start the kick, but can't say anything?

- Sid

A what now?

This morning while I was drinking my tea, I read a review of After Yang, an upcoming science fiction film staring Colin Farrell.  The Dazed review painted an intriguing picture of the film, but I was thrown off by the description of the film as "a sci-fi".  

This is my first encounter with the use of sci-fi as a singular stand-alone noun, rather than an adjective or an abstraction, and I'm not sure that I'm entirely on board with this.  

Karli and I had a lengthy discussion about the abstract versus the singular in entertainment genres, and decided that whereas terms like "drama", "comedy", and "romance" may work as both, "horror", "science fiction" and "action" still need to be adjectives.  If you feel that "sci-fi" has somehow crossed the floor in the recent past, please let us know, and please cite some examples.  (Sorry, the After Yang piece that starts this discussion doesn't count.)

This all begs the question of sci-fi versus science fiction, which has been hotly debated for most of my time as a genre fan/geek. "Science fiction" dates back to the 1920s, although some scholars say it may be in use as early as 1851, whereas the term "sci-fi" as an alternative to science fiction is attributed to uber-fan Forrest J. Ackerman, circa 1954.  

I feel that sci-fi as a synonym for science fiction is a relatively recent development - in my mind, sci-fi traditionally defines a less elevated sub-genre of science fiction: B-movies and so forth.  As an example, Star Trek is science fiction, whereas the Sharknado franchise is sci-fi - and to be honest, I'm open to debate on parts of Star Trek. 

- Sid

For I have sinned.

It's so true...this particular visit to Munro's, I managed to be weak only to a price point of about $30.

- Sid

"Meanwhile, on Planet Birthday..."

A happy birthday is a very personal and relative expression of, well, happiness.  For some people, it involves guests, cake, alcohol, loud music and dancing, and for others (such as myself) something quieter and less demonstrative is the celebration of choice.

For my birthday this year, Karli and I did a modest four day weekend getaway to Vancouver Island - Karli's mother and stepfather generously let us use their condo in downtown Victoria. I've always done my best to at least take the day for my birthday, and in years gone by I've managed to take the entire week for travel abroad, but since we're off to Disneyland on October 10th, I'm content with a long weekend.

Caterpillar Geek Girl, an Etsy maker that Karli follows on Instagram, had posted that she was going to have a booth at Capital City Comic Con over the weekend, and Karli suggested that we could take a look around on Sunday if we had time. Tickets weren't ridiculously expensive, and it sounded like an excellent addition to my birthday weekend.  I had fortuitously packed an obscure t-shirt from the Doctor Who Time Fracture Experience, so we geared up and headed over to the Victoria Convention Center after breakfast.

CapCon was a bit on the small side by convention standards, but I enjoyed it - my only previous convention experience was at Vancouver Fan Expo in 2019, and although it's not a major event, I found it a bit too crowded for my tastes. Capital City wasn't excessively busy and we were able to see everything in an hour or so. For a small con, they did well.  The Canadian branch of the famous 501st Imperial Stormtroopers, a Star Wars cosplay group specializing in stormtrooper armour, had a large footprint, Tim Russ and Garrett Wang of Star Trek: Voyager fame were on site for autographs and photo ops, and legendary Canadian comic artist Ken Steacy was on Artist's Row - with his family, who are apparently also in the business.  (Not to forget Caterpillar Geek Girl, whose booth we visited to the tune of three genre buttons and two magnets for Karli's work collection.)

It's interesting to visit a convention floor with someone who isn't really a fan.  Fortunately, for the most part I can categorize cosplay at a glance*, so I found myself interpreting some of the more notable costumes for Karli.  For example, there was a quite detailed Warhammer 40K Chaos Space Marine, complete with a smoking bolt pistol - it might not have been up to San Diego standards, but it was obviously a labour of love, if that's the right way to describe the construction of a full set of Heretic Astartes armour.

Not all the costumes required an advanced geek degree - at this point in time it's not really rocket science to recognize a Starfleet uniform or a Hogwarts robe, and Karli was amused to see someone in a Stranger Things Scoops Ahoy uniform wandering the booths.

Post-con, I did some shopping at the Cavity Curiosity Shop, which has proven to be a gold mine of replacement books, as well as producing the occasional hidden gem.**  I'd already taken a look at their web site and was fortunate in that they were all still in stock when I arrived.  I was particularly pleased to get a near-mint copy of Volume One of Keep Watching The Skies, Bill Warren's classic tribute to American science fiction films of the 1950s.

While I was waiting to pay for my purchases, I spotted a battered 1947 copy of Planet Stories magazine priced at $60.00. It wasn't in great shape***, but I've always loved Planet Stories as representing a sort of subgenre in science fiction, and I suspect that a mint copy would be a bit out of my price range, so I added it to my stack of purchases.  Sadly, in the process I somehow managed to lose one of the books from my stack, I suspect it remained on the counter with some piles of books that were being sorted for shelving - the price of doing business, I suppose, and I may still be able to get someone in Karli's family to rescue it on their next visit if I'm lucky.

And really, that covered it off in terms of celebration - four days away with my wonderful wife, broken up by a fun little convention visit and some successful book shopping.  Karli also bought me some red hightop Converse and took me out for Irish stew at the Irish Times Pub, and that was all I needed for my personal equation for happiness.

And yes, we had a little cake to celebrate, courtesy of our absent hosts - I may not be interested in having a party, but what's a birthday without some cake?

- Sid

* Admittedly, for a lot of the anime, my mental scoreboard simply says, "SOMETHING FROM ONE OF A HUNDRED DIFFERENT ANIME SERIES THAT I'VE NEVER SEEN."  But at least I know it's anime.

** I can see a day in the future where I'm going to start downsizing my library, but to quote Aragorn from Peter Jackson's The Return of the King****, it is not this day.

*** I don't mean this as a criticism of either price or condition: 75 years is a long run for anything printed on pulp paper.

**** "Sons of Gondor! Of Rohan! My brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me! A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the age of Men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand! Men of the West!" 

It's quite a good speech, although not fully up to the standard set by Henry V at Agincourt.

"A place of nightmares, where reality and illusion merge into a twisted, waking dream."

"I started to suspect that there was something far more sinister and ancient lurking beneath the surface of Innsmouth."

H. P. Lovecraft, The Shadow over Innsmouth

Discovering a Cthulhu sticker on the back of a dusty minivan being driven by a pleasant-looking woman with a small child is like being in one of those movies where everything seems normal, but there are all these little hints that there's a hidden secret that will have terrifying consequences when discovered...

- Sid

"We've all done terrible things."

Some of us - well, most of us - we've all done terrible things on behalf of the Rebellion. Spies, saboteurs, assassins. Everything I did, I did for the Rebellion. And every time I walked away from something I wanted to forget, I told myself it was for a cause that I believed in. A cause that was worth it. Without that, we're lost. Everything we've done would have been for nothing. I couldn't face myself if I gave up now. None of us could.  

Cassian Andor, Rogue One

There's an unspoken assumption in the first Star Wars trilogy that the Rebellion are the good guys, that the Empire can't win because their opposition has the high moral ground, to slightly misquote Obi-Wan Kenobi. 

2016's Rogue One was the first time that we saw that the Rebellion was guilty of its own sins; that there had been times when it was decided that the end would justify the means. We learned about Saw Gerrara's extremist cell, and watched Rebel agent Cassian Andor, capably portrayed by Diego Luna, callously kill an informant to prevent his capture by the Empire - no question here of who shot first.

Based on the previews, Andor, the upcoming Star Wars series on Disney+, will lay out the path by which Cassian Andor became the person that we meet in Rogue One, and presumably show us some of the "terrible things" that he did in the name of the Rebellion.  One of my criticisms of Rogue One was that I wanted to see more depth in the characters, and I'm hoping that the new series will answer the question of exactly how much Andor has sacrificed for the sake of his cause.

The trailers suggest a desperate struggle by an oppressed minority against a brutal foe that has become complacent in their power and invincibility, a more intimate struggle than the one we see played out in the space combat and ground battles of the Rebellion's future.  Generally this sort of resistance relies on deceit and subterfuge rather than valor and courage: the silent knife in the back, the anonymous blaster bolt that comes from nowhere.

To support this, the characters shown in the trailers all seem to be leading double lives: Andor disguised as a member of the Imperial forces; Luthen Rael, dramatically performed by the versatile Stellan Skarsgård, playing the convivial party host then attempting to recruit fighters for the Rebellion; and Genevieve O'Reilly's Senator Mon Mothma attempting to hide in plain sight.

All in all, it looks promising, and it gives the impression of having more depth and maturity than the space opera origins of the franchise - more Game of Thrones than Flash Gordon, if you will. 

There are already two seasons planned: the first season takes place five years before the events of Rogue One and deals with the start of the Rebellion and Andor's transition from cynical thief to idealistic rebel. The second season will be split into four three-episode blocks, each of which will take place in a different year and which will presumably document how Andor's idealism falls prey to expediency.

It's a sobering indication that the road to Hell is still paved with good intentions, even in a galaxy far, far, away.

- Sid 

Sunday morning with Karli and Sid.

Feminist tea...and...science fiction tea.

- Sid

Updates.

"Welcome to Britbox!"

And so, in the fullness of time, I subscribed to Britbox.  It was a bit puzzling, given that the service at the Airbnb in Whistler was more of a TV channel than a streaming service, but I have access to all the content, and all's well that ends well.

Given the vintage status of some of the shows that I've watched (gosh, Blake's 7, remember Blake's 7?) they're quite soft compared to the crisp 4K images that I've gotten used to, but that's a minor criticism given the comprehensive nature of the library.  My more serious complaint is that, unlike most of the other streaming services that we subscribe to, the app doesn't have a filter for science fiction content.  Surely by now the company that produces Doctor Who must realize that those fans might well be interested in similar content.

Missed one (insert Stormtrooper accuracy joke here).

In my post addressing Star Wars "space guns", I neglected to include the Imperial T-21 light repeating blaster  - also known as the Lewis gun, an iconic vintage WWI era machine gun.  

As with most of the repurposed weaponry from A New Hope, they left off the magazine, and in the case of the Lewis, kind of just stopped there.  But the real question is, why in the world is the Stormtrooper on the left side carrying his DL-19 upside down?

"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid."

Speaking of space guns, the rebuilt Han Solo blaster prop from A New Hope brought a winning auction bid of $1,057,500 USD.  Take THAT, Captain Kirk!

They knew the job was dangerous when they signed up.

After discovering a hydrogen leak in a quick disconnect linkage between the launch system and the SLS, NASA has delayed its Artemis I launch again, this time until September 23rd.  We appreciate their commitment to safety, even though the only passengers on the rocket are a mannequin named Commander Moonikin Campos and two dummy torsos named Helga and Zohar.

Can we start calling it the OASIS yet?

It's rumoured that Meta is going to release a new VR headset in 2023 - originally there was going to be an upgraded Quest 3, but apparently now there will be a whole new product line, which is currently being developed under the code name Project Cambria.  The new Quest Pro headset will reportedly have higher resolution, mixed AR/VR features, and include feature tracking to accommodate avatar expressions, all at a significantly higher price point than the Quest 2.  In fact, that may be why the Quest 2 has recently gone up in cost - what a strange strategy for making a new product seem less expensive by comparison!

- Sid

7 of 9.

One of the lesser known geek holidays.

- Sid

"I need a time machine...I need a time machine!"

Today, Karli and I attended the Vancouver matinée show of the RuPaul Drag Race Werq the World 2022 tour, skillfully hosted by Season 13 finalist Rosé, who definintely displayed charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent over the course of the afternoon.

Photo by KT

The time-themed sets piqued our curiousity, but all was explained once Rosé completed her opening number and started the show.

It turned out that she'd inherited a time machine from Asia O'Hara, who had apparently transitioned from drag queen to drag mad scientist at some point since her fourth place finish in Season 10.  Rosé's plan is to use the time machine to travel back in time to the Season 13 finalé and overturn the results so that she is the winner - perhaps not the best use of the opportunity, but not everyone wants to see the Titanic before it sinks.

Sadly, as so often seems to be the case with time travel, it didn't quite work* out like that, and we ended up bouncing across time and visiting Caribbean pirates, the Spanish Empire, the Boston Tea Party**, 1961, the Mesozoic Era, and the year 3000, with performances by Naomi Smalls, Jorgeous, Kim Chi, Jaida Essence Hall, Lady Camden and, of course, Rosé herself, who is very much the star of the entire show.

Ultimately, the moral of the story is that you should live in the present and not dwell on the past, and the show ends on that note with an all-star revue performance.

Photo by KT

Although the majority of the cut sequence time travel animations featured the iconic DeLorean from the Back To the Future franchise, I was surprised and touched to see one sequence where a blue British police box gyrated across the time vortex.  Although, really, it shouldn't be surprising - if you're inclusive of everyone who falls under the LGBTQIA2S+ umbrella, you probably have some love to spare for nerds and geeks.

- Sid

* Or werq.

** You get used to some unusual costumes if you watch Drag Race, but seriously, dressing everyone as tea bags?