Sunday, October 14, 2007
I didn't know that Carla Marinucci, Joe Garofoli, and/or The San Francisco Chronicle think that Al Gore is at a crossroads. And I didn't know that PBS thinks that America is at a crossroads. And I didn't know that Robert O'Harrow Jr., Scott Higham, and/or The Washington Post think that U.S. border security is at a crossroads. Even [baby-making is at a crossroads][link defunct as of 2010.0709: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17937812/], according to Jacqueline Stenson and/or msnbc. So are gay unions at a crossroads, according to John Lewis and/or The Boston Globe. I have not yet fully investigated but I truly believe that the act of writing about coming to crossroads is at a crossroads, for We The People can take only so much tired writing and editing. At the end of the day, a revolution is needed to take newswriting and newsediting (and writing and editing in general) to a whole new level so that each and every writer can finally have a style he or she can call his or her very own. Will you join me? Today was a kind of boys' day out with Chris, Nate, Thom, and Jeff. We had breakfast at Boulevard Cafe (formerly Lyon's) in Daly City. Then we drove to Great America for some amusement park fun. Through UCSF we got tickets for $30 each—the normal web price is $37 per person. After having grown up so close to Disneyland, other amusement parks are general disappointments, and after some whining I realized I had to make a conscious effort to not bring the mood down with my comparisons to Walt's creation. Great America gets an A- for effort, though. I could tell they were really trying. Its strong point is its collection of roller coasters. They have old and new ones, wooden and metal, mostly looping but some non-looping. If you like roller coasters, it's a great place to visit. The park was essentially empty. About 80% of the rides had less than a minute of waiting time to board. We waited longest at The Survivor Ride and Eagle's Flight (aka the rubberband ride as Don Don calls it) and Carn-Evil. The Survivor Ride was extremely cheesy during the pre-ride, but the ride itself was fantastic because it provides rollercoaster-like sensations without steep-drop thrills or fast and rough turns. It's kind of like they crossed the Whip It! ride with a roller coaster. It gave sensations like I imagine Spider-Man feels when he's flying around. Here's the list of what we rode (that I remember): Whitewater Falls, The Demon (fun), Invertigo (very fun), Drop Zone Stunt Tower (only Thom and Nate rode and shortly after we saw one car on the ride got stuck and had to be lowered down very slowly—scary!), Survivor: The Ride (very fun and great for people who don't like roller coasters), Logger's Run (boring). Somewhere in the middle here we decided to ride Rip Roaring Rapids which was somewhat of a mistake because we all got soaked, miserably so, and although it was sunny it wasn't really a hot day at 72—not much warmer than "room temperature." (Indeed, Boomerang Bay, the waterpark-within-the-park was already closed for the season.) It took a long time for us to dry off. I think we rode Top Gun next, which we all liked. As we had no kids with us, it took us only about 90 or 120 minutes to ride everything we wanted to. We had a meal at the Food Festival food court—a teriyaki bowl with grilled chicken and steamed vegetables was the healthiest thing I could find. The employees working a nearby test-your-strength-with-a-mallet game amused us repetitiously. We rode The Grizzly (too rough for me) which had been closed earlier in the day. We took the Eagle's Flight across the park and waited a long time to get into Carn-Evil—a spooky funhouse that was done much better than The Mummy at Universal Studios. I recommend the 3-D glasses—it really provides an interesting experience. Someone handed Nate a couple of pairs because you don't really need them after the ride, so we handed ours back to others waiting in line after we were done—our good deed for the day. The park was decorated for Halloween which made it really strange because of the mixing of themes. For example, the carousel was themed with Americana probably because it was likely built at the park's opening in April 1976, but then it was covered in Halloween garb like spider cobwebs. It was like celebrating Fourth of July and Halloween at the same time. A kids outdoor foam party had haycubes and pumpkins. We encountered a talking pumpkin head. The decorations were beautiful, but they just seemed sort of random—I felt like I was in Safeway because that's what I expect when I go to Safeway approaching Halloween. Some of the children guests were dressed in costume—they have a parade in which the costumed children can participate. We happened to pick the weekend when a cheerleading competition was taking place at the park. The cheerleaders were all very young cheerleaders. We did not watch any of the competition, but I thought of Joel because he likes stuff like that. After we decided we had had enough fun, we picked up groceries at Safeway and went to Bryan's BBQ. We arrived a little early, and Eric graciously greeted us and gave the boys a tour. We watched A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila (awful) on Comcast. At the BBQ (as best I can remember): me, Chris, Nate, Thom, Jeff, Bryan, Eric, Phil, Timmie, Matt W, Carlos, BJ, Sally, Jacob, Matt and Toby, Ashley, housemate Sean. We watched Legally Blonde The Musical on MTV (realtime), which was entertaining but I was not impressed by the music.