Straight On Till Morning: Every Day In May!

Friday June 3, 2005

Whew, lots to catch up on! Let's see. On Tuesday Springfield, and while I was there, I stopped by Computer Renassance, who built my computer, to see about getting a new graphics card so that I could play Matrix Online without the screwy graphics issues. Of course, a nerdgirl can't just walk into a computer place and only do one computer upgrade, so I ended up getting a firewire card like I've been wanting, and throwing in 512mb RAM just for the hell of it. This was around 11:30am, and I didn't have my computer with me, so I asked if they could fit it in if I brought it back up today, and they said they could. So, I drove home, grabbed the computer, drove back up (about an hour each way), and when I got there, the lady said it would be done tomorrow. I must have looked like I was about to cry as I explained that I'd just driven an hour and back to get it (I actually WAS about to cry, because I only had 4 hours of sleep, and I was soooooo exhausted between lack of sleep lately and working 12 hours on Monday, and today had supposed to have been my day to sleep and rest, and that just hadn't worked out.) Anyway, she talked to the manager, and agreed to do it now. Hooray!

While I was waiting for my computer to be ready, I picked up Jesse, my nephew, since he was coming down for a couple of days so we could go out to Silver Dollar City. He gave me a cd he had made me, complete with an awesome label he'd made using pictures from my website. We popped it in the CD player and... nothing. The CD got stuck, and not only was it not playing or coming out, but the CD player wouldn't switch to other cd's either! A call to the Ford place told us that this happened a lot, and was actually covered under my warranty (something I totally didn't expect!)

Pizza for dinner Some of you may remember our last trip there. This time, I went in with three missions: 1) find out the name of the female mascot (It's Mari Nara, who is Pete Za's female counterpart) 2) not get sick (I brought my own plastic silverware, since I seriously distrust buffet dishwashing now) and 3) Get a photo of the ugly salad sign:

Now, I'm not a salad eater myself, but that sure doesn't look like any salad I've ever seen!

The food here is actually pretty good, except the banana pudding on my plate attacked everything else, and so I got to experience "macaroni and banana pudding" and "banana pudding pizza". Experiences I can live without repeating, thanks.

These are called the "boob lamps" or "nipple lamps" for obvious resasons.

Note the artsy composition of this shot, with my own ice cream in the foreground. Oooooh.

On Wednesday, the plan was to go out to Silver Dollar City in the afternoon, and then Celebration City at night. Well, after driving out to SDC, the lady in guest relations said that my hotel's paperwork wasn't up to date, so they couldn't give me a comp pass for El Nephew. They used to just let you show your check stub and go in, but apparently now they've gotten all complicated and evil. I asked how much a 1-day ticket was, thinking we could just do that, and it's freaking $41! It's only $50 to get into Magic Kingdom at Disney World for a day, and Silver Dollar City wants $41? What kind of crackheads are they?

We decided to go to the tower at Shepherd of the Hills, since Jesse had never been, and it's a fun spot to take pictures from, and I knew we could get in for free.

Tower from the outside- the top level is glassed in, but the one below it is open-air.

One of eight zillion photos I took from up in the tower. Everything looks so green!

The orange lighting in the stairway between the decks amused us.

As did how our reflection showed up in every picture we tried to take of the elevator shaft.

After the tower, we went back to the pizza place from last night for round 2. More disgusting combinations (although no banana pudding this time. And now that I'm thinking about it, I really want some banana pudding!) and more boob lamp jokes. Our next stop was the Wax Museum, where neither of us had ever been, and we were able to get into for $5. Here are fifty gazillion photos from the museum. Jesse has half a kajillion more on his camera, but hasn't e-mailed them to me yet.

The first room was the Wizard of Oz. We skipped boring Dorothy photos for the awesome talking tree.

And of course, the flying monkey. I am supposed to be looking scared here. That's high quality acting you see!

I am totally hitting on the bartender. I have no idea what movie he is from.

From my short stint on Baywatch. Unfortunately, the camera cut out that I'm mimicking Pamela's pose.

What, you don't remember when I was on the Tonight show with Johnny Carson? Ah, those were the days.

I like to call this photo "Indiana Jones is about to hack my head off with a big knife, and I'm really happy about it!"

Capitan Jack! I was seriously sad about the lack of Orlando Bloom.

"Go stand by Michael Jackson and look afraid" I instructed.

Is it just me, or does this not look that much like Angelina?

Oh come on, you would totally try to kiss Angelina Jolie too, if you got the chance! (I would love to go to Madame Tussand's in London, where you can get right up with the statues. Also, they have Buffy.)

This is my "Holy crap, they have Darth Maul! I'm in love!" photo.

WHOA! Matrix! Matrix! (Just for the record, I totally did NOT jump up and down excitedly when I saw this. No, really. Nor did I exclaim "Look, Morpheous is ALIVE!" (He was just "assassinated" on Matrix Online, but I don't really believe he's dead.)

"Look! I'm with Morpheous and Trinity!!!"

"No, seriously! Matrix people!" (I really like how it looks like Trinity is about to shoot me here. Also, I somehow look freakishly tan.)

Most of the statues here were pretty good, a few so good it was scary, but what happened here? And what's that weird splotch on Kate Winslet's chest? And what HAPPENED to their FACES?

The Horror movie room was pretty cool. I was ecstatic that they had Bella Lugosi (But why does Boris Karloff get TWO statues?)

I'm with Bogie! I will remember this moment. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of my life. (--end Casablanca nerdyness--)

We found it hilarious that you could see the Scream guy over the top of Bonanza.

This mirror was in the sports room. I ignored the sports guys, and took pictures of myself.

Going through the museum, I complained that there was no Marilyn. I later found her in the gift shop! (Now I just have to complain about the lack of Audrey Hepburn!)

After the wax museum, we thought we'd go see if we could get in Celebration City. My season pass covered it, but since it's under the same company as SDC, we weren't sure if Jesse could get in or not. He ended up being able to for $8- woohoo! We rode a few rollercoasters, and one of those rides that shoots you straight up in the air and back down, and took surprisingly few photos!

I took this photo in the gift shop/restaurant/arcade combo building, because it makes absolutely no sense.

There was a cool garden with trees they had trained to grow in funky shapes. Pretty cool!

Celebration City closes the night with a laser/fireworks show that you can watch seated in a big open grassy place. I decided that more things need to take place in a grassy field under the stars with cool music playing.

When we got home, I couldn't find my cell phone! I had Jesse call it from the house to see if it was in the car, but no luck. Thursday morning, I called the pizza place, wax museum, and Celebration City, but nobody had it. I started freaking out, because a) I can't afford a new phone! and b) What if whoever found it used it and ran up my bill, or started randomly calling the people whose numbers are on it? Well, after freaking out for a while, my mom, who can find anything, called it again, and found it in the car. Why didn't I hear it the night before? Crisis averted!

So, that brings us up to date. Worked yesterday and today- nothing exciting to report at all. Still waiting on Star Wars Galaxies to come- after being backordered for freaking ever, and now taking a zillion years to ship. Give me my wookies, dammit!

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